How to give yourself Christ as a gift

by Fr. Emmanuel Hatzidakis | December 27, 2017

Did you leave a very special person off your Christmas shopping list this year? That very special person, neglected and forgotten by most of us is... you! It’s never too late to treat ourselves with the greatest gift of all—Christ! No one else can give Him to us! Here’s how.

• By following His commandments, especially the commandment to love God...
• By quickly rising and asking for God’s forgiveness...
• By forgiving and forgetting...
• By turning the other side...
• By walking away, when we have to walk away; and by making a stand, when we have to make a stand...
• By saying, when we are about to do something—anything: Lord, help me. Bless me. Guide me to do Your will, to never offend You. Thank You, Lord.
• By saying often (as often as we breathe, if we can): “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
• By saying: I believe in You, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, One God; and by learning the Creed by heart, if you don’t already know it.
• By cutting out the noise! By resting our tongue and mind. By being quiet, and by letting God speak to us, so we can hear Him.
• By helping a person in need, feeding him, providing shelter for him, caring for him, visiting him, telling him a kind word.
• Especially, by preparing ourselves through prayer, fasting, penitence, “fear of God, faith and love”, to receive the divine Eucharist.

Fr. Emmanuel Hatzidakis is an Orthodox priest and is the author of The Heavenly Banquet: Understanding the Divine Liturgy and Jesus: Fallen? The Human Nature of Christ Examined from an Eastern Orthodox Perspective.