December marks the time of the year when there are a lot of festivities and celebrations.  Traditionally, Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus and denote December 25 as the celebrated birth date. 

As I pondered about the season, I looked at the various ways that stores advertise their merchandise and how decorations are set up before Thanksgiving in many stores to influence shoppers.  To many, this is a time to increase their revenue.

Then, I thought about gift giving and I immediately wanted to pray for people who can become stressed or depressed about gifts.  Some people may not have money to buy gifts or the types of gifts they would like to purchase.  Others wonder what to give "the person who has everything."  Some families have elected to have name drawings because the family is so large that it would be quite costly to buy for every member.  Many people expect to get gifts and go to great extremes to get them.

Finally, I thought about the reason for this season - Jesus!    We have already been given the best gift, the most costly gift, and the unmatchable gift.  God, our Father, gave it to us.  He loved us so much that He gave us all we needed and could ever want.

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

Webster's New World dictionary defines life as something essential to the continued existence of something else; the source of vigor or liveliness.  So, this means that God gave us whatever was essential to live - the source of our liveliness.  Jesus confirmed this when He said in John 10:10, " ...I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly."

Healing and health are essential to life.  Without them, your quality of life is diminished and you eventually die.  Although God gave health and healing to us, many people either don't know it, haven't received it or don't know how to receive it.  If they did, the statistics for people who are sick, diseased and dying prematurely would be lower. 

My wife's grandmother used to get many lovely gifts at Christmas from friends and family.  She would pack them away in drawers to use on special occasions.  Many of the household items and clothes did not get used because she never found the special occasion to use them.  She did not understand that people gave the gifts for her to benefit from them and to use them to the utmost. 

I talk with a lot of Christians and I hear them sing and talk about how good it will be in heaven.  Their attitudes are that they will just suffer here on earth with their disease.  Instead of receiving the gift of life, they have received the world's attitude of sickness and disease being normal.  They are not using the gift of abundant life that Jesus came to give. 

How do you use that gift?  First, believe that God gave you the gift of life that includes health and healing and that He wants you to live here on this earth free from sickness and disease.  Why would He give us this gift of life and then expect us to not use it?  When you give a gift do you want the person to use the gift?  Of course!  To believe is to have faith. Faith comes to each of us by hearing the Word of God (Romans 10:17).  When you read this article you are hearing the Word of God; then go read it for yourself in the Bible and speak it aloud as you read.  Hear the Word.

Next, receive the gift of life - your health and healing.  When someone gives you a gift, you do something to either receive it or to reject it.  Think about some of the ways that you receive gifts from people.  Perhaps you reaching for gifts with your hands or you may go to place where the gift is located.  Usually, "thank you" acknowledges that you received the gift and often you tell someone about it.  The same is true for receiving your gift from God.  Thank God for it and acknowledge that He gave you life that includes health and healing (Romans 10:10).  Sounds too simple doesn't it?  God is not a complicated God.   

If you really believe you have something, you will talk about it and you will use it.  This means that when you are challenged with an attack of some type of disease, you will talk about your gift of life that includes healing.  I hear recipients of God's gift going around saying things like, "I refuse to accept this arthritis because Jesus bore my sicknesses and all of my diseases and by his stripes, I am healed."  It is impossible to say that you are healed and sick at the same time. 

I decided that no one could ever top the gift of life that God gave to me.  I want to use that gift completely.  I refuse to receive anything that is in opposition to that gift.  I will not let the gift of life that God gave me freely lay unused.  I thank God that He gave me health and healing and I intend to walk in it every day of my long life. 

What about you?  If you have not received God's gift, today is your day.  If you have received the gift, but are not using all of it, today is your day.  Start now.  God wants you healthy and healed because He gave you the gift of life.