Give the Gift

I know that I haven’t had the chance to post in a while but I have been really busy. There have been a lot of changes and life has been happening really fast. A lot of times we get so caught up in life that we don’t take the time to just sit back and rest. I am very guilty of overworking by doing church, singing in groups, Bible study, going to concerts, running a website, and the list goes on. With doing all these things it is very easy to loose sight of the real reason that you do them. One of the many things that I have done while being so busy is singing in church. Me Mike and another guy that I have known for a long time sing as a trio at our local church. In a church that is not a strong southern gospel church, we make it a point to do everything southern gospel. We do everything from Gaither Vocal Band to Poet Voices to Greater Vision.

With the Christmas season starting out it was time to pull out the Christmas music. For whatever reason, I have not really listened to a lot of Christmas Music this year. I’ll flip through the radio stations and all of them are playing their versions of Jingle Bells and The Christmas Song. I did pick up 3 new Christmas CDs: Diamond Rio, David Phelps One Wintry Night, and Jason Crabb Because It’s Christmas. Of course David Phelps was the best one out of the bunch. It was mostly an original in the fact that he had a hand in writing the songs. The ones he didn’t write he arranged. His first Christmas CD was more traditional with the brass and big orchestras. This Christmas CD was done as if David were writing the music so he was allowed to put his own touches. The other two were got but not quite as good.

Back to my point of singing. We always like to pick music that is southern gospel first of all and second of all we pick music that says something. This year we picked a song called Give the Gift by Tribute Quartet. This wasn’t on a typical Christmas CD but was a bonus cut on their first CD, My Tribute. The guys are friends of mine and you won’t find a better group of guys out there. They have the right heart for what they are doing and it shows. We had the opportunity to interview them for our first podcast, so if you want to know a little more about their ministry head on over to http://www.southerngospelva.com and listen to the podcast. (Now that I have put in my plug we can move on)

A lot of times we get so busy with Christmas that we forget the real reason for the season. I know that phrase has become cliché now but there is a lot of truth there. I was in Walmart for a couple things well before Thanksgiving and they already had up Christmas décor. The real meaning of Christmas is being forgotten and things like black Friday or the fact that a certain store says “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” has taken over. The more these kinds of things take over I think the more applicable the words to this song become. Take a look at the lyrics.

Give the Gift

Verse 1:
Seems Christmas starts earlier each season
The stores light up for all the wrong reasons
Displaying all the latest things to spend your money on
That only lasts a moment then their gone

Chorus:
Give the gift that keeps on giving
The one that makes this life worth living
The one that won’t wear out or ever fall apart
Give the reason for the season
Give them something to believe in
Give the gift that keeps on giving
Share the Jesus in your heart

Verse 2:
There’s lots of things we could buy each other
But to really show our love for one another
This year why not share the gift God sent to you and me
The One He left hanging on a tree Chorus

Chorus 2:
Give the gift that keeps on giving
The one that makes this life worth living
The one that won’t wear out or ever fall apart
Give the reason for the season
Give them something to believe in
Give the gift that keeps on giving
Share the Jesus in your heart

Give the reason for the season
Give them something to believe in
Give the gift that keeps on giving
Share the Jesus in your heart

So this season and throughout the rest of the year remember that the most important thing you can do is give someone the gift of Jesus.

Jeremy