The Magi saw the star and interpreted the signs and prophecies that led them on a journey to find the Messiah. When they found Him, they had come prepared with appropriate gifts. Gold represents Jesus’s place as king. Frankincense represents His divinity and myrrh represents His humanity and foreshadows His ultimate death. We are all on a mission to find Jesus and we should make it our highest priority to discover Him.
While most of us can say that we’ve already found Jesus, how well do we actually know Him and how close of a relationship do we have with Him? We all know the difference in being Facebook friends with someone and friends with someone in real life. We know a lot of people and like to keep up with what they are doing, but how many of those people do we actually spend time with? We need to make sure we aren’t treating Jesus as just a Facebook friend who we only check in with periodically instead of spending quality time with.
Just as the magi brought Jesus gifts, we should present Jesus with gifts as well. God gave each of us gifts and we should not only use those gifts for our own benefit, but also use them to show Jesus how much we love Him. True friendship isn’t selfish and so we should give without the expectation of being repaid. When I was a child, I got more joy receiving gifts, but now that I’m older, I get more joy giving gifts to others. Children don’t have as much capacity to give monetarily, but often give us joy by watching their faces when they receive gifts.
What star are we following in life? Are we following Jesus or someone or something else? We may follow Jesus for awhile, but then often get distracted by something else in life. It’s normal to get distracted, but we just need to make a course correction as soon as we notice that we are drifting away from our target. Jesus, please always guide us to thy perfect light.
