Our enemy is at work…even at Christmastime.  If he can’t keep us from celebrating the coming of Jesus, he’ll settle for our keeping it all to ourselves. But Jesus wants us to give Christmas away.

The vast majority of people in our community are celebrating Christmas in one form or another. The apostle Paul told us to make the most of every opportunity—Christmas is definitely an opportunity to reach out in love to people in our oikos (Greek for “sphere of influence).

So, who’s in your oikos? Who can you show the love of Jesus to? Here are some ideas that our family has used…maybe some of them will work for you…

• Make a list of people to pray for every day in December. Pray for opportunities to show you care for them.
• Take a Christmas treat to your immediate neighbors and when you give it to them, ask if you could pray a blessing over their family. Pray a short, positive prayer right then, if you can.
• Invite people to an open house at your home. Once I offered hot chocolate and cookies in my garage. (I got in trouble with Debbie, but my neighbors loved it.)
• Invite people in your oikos to our Sunday Christmas series: God with Us. It’s going to be super encouraging!
• Invite people to our Christmas Eve Services. We’ll have three of them! Invitations will be handed out in a couple of weeks. Begin praying now for whom you might invite.

There’s a million ways to give Christmas away, but every time you do, you’re going to feel closer to Jesus and have a cool story.