Christmas spirit
It is our shame and disgrace today that so many of the soundest and most orthodox Christians see human needs all around them, but avert their eyes, and pass by on the other side. That is not the Christmas spirit. Nor is it the spirit of those Christians, whose ambition in life seems limited to building a nice middle-class Christian home, and making nice middle-class Christian friends, and bringing up their children in nice middle-class Christian ways, and who leave the sub-middle-class sections of the community, Christian and non-Christian to get on by themselves.
The Christian spirit does not shine out in the Christmas snob. For the Christmas spirit is the spirit of those who, like their Master, live their whole lives on the principle of making themselves poor - spending, and being spent - to enrich their fellow humans, giving time, trouble, care and concern, to do good to others - and not just their own friends - in whatever way there seems need.
- “Knowing God” by J. I. Packer
