Wait, how is it Christmastime already? you ask the calendar in front of you.

While you’re looking forward to the Christmas celebrations, you’re also overwhelmed with anxiety. Christmas is expensive. With all the gifts and décor and parties, your bank account quickly drains down to zero.

You’re worried you won’t be able to cover it all. And you don’t want to start charging more to your credit card than you can handle. You want to feel the joy and love of this season, but instead you’re overrun with worry.

Finding God’s Riches When Christmas Drains Your Bank Account

Are you fretting over Christmas spending? Remind yourself: Christmas isn’t about giving and receiving gifts. It’s about giving and receiving God’s love. Maybe you don’t have to spend what you used to. Maybe it’s okay to tell your family you can’t offer as much this year. Perhaps homemade gifts are the solution!

You don’t have to let money get in the way of celebrating Jesus coming into the world. And you can still find joy this season when you don’t have much money. To focus on the reason for the season, let’s read through these verses together:

Remember that the best gifts come from above.

Every good gift and every perfect present comes from heaven; it comes down from God, the Creator of the heavenly lights, who does not change or cause darkness by turning. — James 1:17 (GNTD)

This Christmas, share God’s gift of eternal life with those who don’t know him.

But now you have been set free from sin and are the slaves of God. Your gain is a life fully dedicated to him, and the result is eternal life. For sin pays its wage—death; but God's free gift is eternal life in union with Christ Jesus our Lord. — Romans 6:22-23 (GNTD)

God can use the gifts he gave you to help others! If you have the gift of encouragement, write someone a card. If you have the gift of teaching, maybe you can offer your skills to your Sunday school.

Each one, as a good manager of God's different gifts, must use for the good of others the special gift he has received from God. Those who preach must preach God's messages; those who serve must serve with the strength that God gives them, so that in all things praise may be given to God through Jesus Christ, to whom belong glory and power forever and ever. Amen. — 1 Peter 4:10-11 (GNTD)

Above all, remember the best gift was already given when God gave us his only son to die for our sins.

For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not die but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to be its judge, but to be its savior. — John 3:16-17 (GNTD)