It has always intrigues me, though, how we will go to any extremes in order to find the ultimate gift, won’t we. Especially for our children, we will shop and shop and shop. I believe this desire we have to shop during the Christmas holidays, is a microcosm of a greater shopping need that most of us are engaged in 365 days a year. Some of the men are saying this. “Wait a minute, Ed. I don’t like to shop. I am allergic to malls. I am not shopping 365 days a year. Come on. I don’t shop ‘til I drop.”
Just hold on to that line of thinking because I am going to challenge you and show you that you do. We all like to shop. And beneath this shopping desire is a desire to shop for a Savior. You see, our loving, transcendent God wants us to open our lives to Him. We matter so much to God that He sent Jesus Christ to be born of a virgin, to live a sinless life and to die on the cross for all of our sins. God did that because we matter so much to Him. And instead of saying, “God, I want to live life your way. I want to come into a relationship with You.” Instead of responding to God’s love, what do you think autonomous men and women do? We white knuckle our carts. We thumb our noses at God. We say, “God, I don’t need a personal shopper. I can determine my own destiny and we begin to shop down the aisles of life for meaning, purpose, happiness, a clear conscience and we think we can find that.
The first aisle that we shop down is an aisle called position. Have you ever shopped down that aisle? I have. We have got to get the corner office. We have got to get the promotions and the parties and the perks. We have got to get a number of degrees. And we pile them into this cart and amazingly we look at the cart and still see a crater in the cart. The cart is empty. There is something missing. And we go up and down the aisle of position searching for something.
Church Ed Young - Just write your name above Daniel and where it says in his conduct of government affairs, put your occupation whether it be a pastor, an attorney, a doctor, a salesperson, a teacher, a homemaker, and then read the verse this way.
