Vision Navigator

Who’s on your Christmas gift list? For me, it’s mostly family, friends, neighbors, colleagues, plus some ministries and other charitable organizations. Generally then, my list includes people I relate to, value, or think are deserving of a gift.

Was feeling pretty pleased with this arrangement until I reflected on this:

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Romans 5:6-10

Catch that? Christ came and died as a gift for powerless, ungodly sinners who were enemies of God. Which pretty much covers all of humanity from his perspective, by the way.

So why doesn’t my list look like God’s? Maybe it’s because the real Spirit of Christmas involves a radical act of extravagant grace.

To make room on my list for this, I’m thinking I need to include at least one person who fits into one or more of these categories:

• Enemies
• Backstabbers
• Undeserving Jerks
• Blowhards
• Hags
• Betrayers
• People who really annoy me
• Haters
• Lying thieves
• Or worse…

Do you have someone like this on your list? If not, why not?

What could you do to rock some enemy’s world this Christmas? How can you make room on your list to unleash a whirlwind of extravagant grace into some poor, undeserving, unsuspecting schmuck’s life?

What’s stopping you? Who thinks you’re a schmuck?

I showed her this picture…

His name is Temesgen Lema — he lives in Ethiopia, and he’ll be five on New Year’s Eve. His father died a few years back, and now his mother struggles to raise him and his five siblings on 36 cents a day. Temesgen is one of many unsponsored children who could be helped by a one-time gift to Compassion.

As sad as his story is, what really choked up my bride was the sight of his bare feet. Why? Because we had just been talking about supporting another group, Soles4Souls, whose simple mission is to impact lives with the gift of shoes.

While this may seem trival, it’s not. Shoes are vitally important to helping keep kids free from scrapes, cuts, worms, and harmful contaminants that pose a serious risk to their health.

So as you’re mulling over what gifts to give this Christmas, consider giving a gift that reflects the true meaning of Christmas. Namely, giving to a child in need, as a way of honoring the Christ child, who was given to meet our deepest need…

For more info, please visit:

http://www.compassion.com/ or
http://www.50000shoes.com/

Or why not visit both?

How are you conspiring to bless others this Christmas?

David Hayward (nakedpastor) had a post yesterday on Marketing Compassion that got me thinking. The subject of his post is a film called “The Story of a Sign” — which I blogged about a month or so ago, using it as an example of the power of words.

David had a different take, however, and raises some interesting questions about what motivates us to give:

Is charity stimulated by compassion or good marketing? I wonder if it could be both….

What inspires us to be generous? What are the underlying issues we have with money that we aren’t free to give it away without some kind of poignant provocation?

One answer for me can be found in my earlier post on giving as a tax or investment. I hate paying taxes, but I love making investments. So I find myself more willing to give to a person or a ministry when I have a sense that my gift will:

• bring benefit, rather than harm
• dignify, rather than humiliate
• alleviate suffering, rather than perpetuate it
• be received thankfully, rather than begrudgingly
• be valued, rather than discounted
• be used responsibly, rather than wasted
• promote freedom, rather than slavery
• connect and unite, rather than disconnect and divide

What about you? What motivates or demotivates you to give?

When you ask people to give money to your church or ministry, do they see it as a tax or an investment?

One of our favorite sayings at Auxano is “words create worlds.”

Ran across this short film today that illustrates this more powerfully than I can describe…

The winner of the NFB Online Competition Cannes 2008, the film is entitled Historia de un Letrero (The Story of a Sign), by Alonso Barreda:

Have you seen this?

How important are the words we choose? What words have had an impact on your world?