James 1:16-17

NIV: Don't be deceived, my dear brothers. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

The Message: So, my very dear friends, don't get thrown off course. Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light. There is nothing deceitful in God, nothing two-faced, nothing fickle.

We need to get real with ourselves and stop pretending that every time something bad happens to us, or when we give in to temptation, that it is God's fault. The truth of the matter is, God does not tempt us, and the bad things that happen are either the consequences of our own actions (or inactions) or of sin, either our own or someone else's.

This world is not a good place to be at times. There are bad things that happen, there are places where it is not safe to be. In addition to all the bad things that can happen because of men, we also have the devil prowling around like a roaring lion (1 Peter 5:8). It’s a dangerous world out there and we as Christians should stop putting the blame on God (as non believers do - kind of makes you wonder how they can really blame God when they don't believe in Him though!) and realise that every good and perfect gift from above comes down from our heavenly Father. God does not give us stone when we ask for bread, does not give us a snake when we ask for water.

We are in the season of Advent, a word which derives from the Latin word "adventus" and means coming. At this time of the year we celebrate the coming of Jesus, and yes, I know all about Christmas Day originally being the winter solstice feast of the Romans. Many people say that Christianity basically hijacked a pagan festival and so Christmas is really nothing other than a pagan celebration and is nothing to do with Jesus at all.

But what they fail to take into account is that Jesus really existed, he really did live on this earth and there is more evidence of his life, death and resurrection than there is of Julius Caesar, Plato, even the works of Shakespeare. We are not celebrating a pagan festival when we celebrate Christmas, we are remembering the greatest gift of all, God himself coming down to earth to save each and every single one of us, because of his great love for us.

And the great thing is, God does not change, ever. He will not be forever changing the rules, so we can do one thing one day, and have it forbidden the next. He will not love us on a Monday and hate us the rest of the week, or only offer eternal life to some people and not to others.

The gift we have in Jesus is offered to each and every single one of us, no matter who we are, what we have done, where we live, whatever the colour of our skin, whether we are rich or poor, good or bad, in good health or seriously ill, whatever age we may be, in work or unemployed, old and frail or young and vigorous. No matter who we are, God loves each and every single one of us and this season of Advent, don't let the enemy throw you off course, get you so involved with the tinsel and glitter, the buying of presents, the stress of getting everything ready for Christmas so that you are blinded to the reality of what we are celebrating.

This is the birth of the Saviour, the one who gave up heaven for our sakes, who came to earth to be born as a man and to die for us, to take on his shoulders all our sins, each and every single one of them. This is the best and most perfect gift of all, a gift freely offered to all men from the Father of the heavenly lights, the one who does not change like shifting sand.

I love the way the Message translates verse 17 here as "the gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light". Isn't that just awesome? Rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light.

To me, that translation has the very feel and essence of Christmas within it, with all the tinsel and glitter that is around at the moment. But the tinsel and glitter we have from God is not something that will ever lose its shine or lustre, it will not tarnish or fade away.

So stop blaming God when things don't go your way, my way. Set your eyes and your hearts on heaven, on the one who came down to save us, the one who gave up his own life so we could spend eternity with Him. The things we go through on this earth are fleeting things, here today and gone tomorrow and when compared with eternity in heaven, they really do not matter at all.