I think of you this busy Monday. I think of the final things that fill an educator’s calendar (and the other vocations God has called you to). I recognize that your minutes are precious right now, and so many good and godly things that are desirous of and demanding of your attention. So may I give you a gift, a gift that requires nothing from you?

Today’s gift is bought by the Christ and carried to you through the Holy Spirit.

• It’s a gift of peace, when peace seems so fleeting. (A peaceful ECM classroom the week before Christmas?!?) It’s a gift of peace. Jesus Christ is his name, yours through the powerful working of the Holy Spirit. Peace! That’s God’s gift to you this very day!
• It’s a gift of being found blameless, now and at the day of the Lord’s coming. While your conscience accuses you. (Yes Lord, forgive me, I’m all too aware of the evil I have done and the good I have failed to do.) The Spirit testifies: you are blameless. Wrapped in Christ Jesus, who was and is blameless for you, you are all blameless. All of you, “your whole spirit, soul and body.” You are blameless! That’s God’s gift to you this very day!
• It’s a gift of joy. Not a joy that is fleeting, mind you, a joy that the comes from sins forgiven; a joy that can’t be robbed this hectic December day. Joy! That’s God’s gift to you this very day!
• It’s a gift of our God who is faithful, the one who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. A God who continues to call after you in his precious word of forgiveness, a God who leaves no question as to whether he will do for you what he says he will do for you. God is faithful! That’s God’s gift to you this very day!

I think of all you have to do this day, this week. This Word of promise is for you, dearly loved child of God, not as something for you to perform but as something that comes from him freely, signed, sealed and delivered by the Holy Spirit who is pleased to call you his! May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.