INTRODUCTION
I
love Christmas. You would struggle to find someone as enthu- siastic as Paul Tripp about all the festivities that fill a typical December calendar. I love baking Christmas cookies, decorating Christmas trees (we have three!), attending Christmas concerts, and shopping for Christmas gifts for loved ones. Yet simultaneously this season makes me sad. The chaotic cul- tural emphasis on Christmas has flipped the true meaning of Ad- vent upside down. What should be a celebratory and reflective season, in which we rejoice in the incarnation of the Creator and surrender worshipfully to his lordship, has become a frenzied pur- suit of manufactured delights. We have “exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator” (Rom. 1:25). Particularly for our children, the lie being actively promoted is how their lives will be made infinitely better by possessing a particular manufactured item. For families seeking to focus the wonder of their kids away from the next trinket or toy and toward the wonder of the coming of our great Lord and Savior, Christmas has become a parent’s nightmare and a retailer’s dream. So I humbly present to you this resource that may help in the battle for your family’s attention. The Everyday Gospel Christmas Devotional is a twenty-five-day Bible reading plan with my com- mentary that will take you from December 1 through Christmas morning. My prayer is that the glory of the incarnation of the Creator would become far more attractive than the manufactured delights of Christmas so that we truly come and adore Christ the Lord, as the classic hymn we sing declares. Why don’t you and your family and your church journey with me for the first twenty-five days of December, walking through the garden of wisdom, truth, and grace that God prepared for us when
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