Christmas teaches many lessons. One of my favorite lessons is the lesson of radical generosity. Every Christmas we celebrate the “Child born to us and the Son given to us” (Isaiah 9:6), an amazing act of generosity. That act of generosity becomes even more radical when we recognize it was prophesied generations ago as a gift that “would bless all nations” and give joy to “all people” even “to the end of the earth.”

The radical generosity of the Christmas story involves sacrifice as well. The Baby we celebrate in the manger gave up the splendor and majesty of heaven, He “emptied Himself,” to become a lowly “servant” serving the very ones He had created. Yes, His generosity, a radical generosity, involved great sacrifice.

As I contemplate how I have benefitted from the radical generosity of that first Christmas, I am compelled to practice a similar generosity in my own life, a radical generosity that flows out of awe and gratitude. I’m not just talking about material generosity. Although material generosity is good and kind, it doesn’t fully imitate the radical generosity we see on that first Christmas. The first Christmas displayed the radical generosity of God giving Himself. He came down. He gave His time, His energy, His presence. He personally attended to people, touching them in their need and serving them in love. Yes, in an act of radical generosity, God gave Himself. To practice the radical generosity modeled on that first Christmas, I too must give myself. But how can we do it? Here are four ways.

• Give our attention to others. Pay attention to the interests and strengths of your family, your friends, and your neighbors. Recognize their needs. Celebrate when they celebrate. Rejoice when they rejoice. Mourn when they mourn. Doing so requires that we give ourselves by giving our attention to others.
• Give of our time to engage in relationships with others. Engage other people in activities together. As we recognize other people’s interests (see the bullet above), we can engage in activities that interest them. As we take the time to recognize their needs, we can give of ourselves to meet those needs. We give ourselves to others by spending time learning about the other person in our lives and our world.
• Give our energy to serve others. Serving one another does take energy. Use your energy wisely in sharing love and serving one another. It may prove tiring at times, but it’s a “good tired,” a “reinvigorating tired, when we give ourselves to others.
• Give our presence. Be available to one another. Don’t let the busy-ness of life rob your family and friends of your presence. Don’t let screentime—games, reels, scrolling—suck up your presence. Don’t let hobbies, like hunting or sports, take your presence from those you love. Instead, make sure you give your presence to your family and those you love.

The best place to begin sharing the radical generosity of Christmas is with the family, just like God did on the first Christmas as Mary, Joseph, God, and the angels gathered around the newborn Baby Jesus. But the true radical generosity of Christmas did not end in the manger. In fact, the radical generosity modeled on the first Christmas goes beyond our family and into our communities. It will reach beyond our communities to those outside our immediate communities and even extend to those we don’t even really like…and, as we practice radical generosity toward those we don’t like, we might develop a caring relationship with them. After all, the Baby we celebrate on Christmas eventually gave Himself for us even when we were enemies (Romans 5:6-11, especially vs. 10) and turned us into family. That’s the radical generosity of Christmas!