The root of all of our problems is separation from God.

I don't mean that whatever problem you're going through now is the punishment that God is giving you for some specific sin that you committed.

I'm simply saying that if God were to take away all our problems without fixing the real problem, our separation from God,

then ultimately we just create a bunch of new problems.

Welcome to the Summit Life podcast with J.D. Greer.

Wanted to remind you about a daily email devotional from Summit Life that you can sign up for today.

I know the busyness of life can quickly choke out any joy that we feel in our walk with God. So why not cut those weeds away

each morning with a word from the Lord? What better way to not only remember, but to act on all we're

learning here on the podcast? Sign up for this free resource at jd.gere.com slash resources. That's J-D-G-R-E-A-R-E-A-R-com

slash resources. While you're there, you can also view transcripts and join our mailing list.

These are all great ways to stay connected with Summit Life. Today, Pastor J-D is showing us how we should approach the wonderful counselor who brings

light to our darkness and gives us the gift of himself.

We are headed to the Old Testament for this most important Christmas teaching.

So grab your Bible and let's join Pastor J.D.

So let me begin this Christmas message series with a little Christmas survey at all campuses.

You can just respond to the survey by raising your hand.

How many of you, at all of our campuses, how many of you are 100% completely finished already with your Christmas shopping? Why don't you put your hand up real high? Okay, how many of you hate the people with their hands up right now? You can

put your hands up. Okay, yes, I'm in that group. How many of you, here's another one, how many

of you have ever re-gifted a gift at Christmas time? Let's all be honest here with each other.

Okay, how many of you, it was within the same season? You just came in one right out the other. Anybody? Okay, how many of you the person that you re-gifted it to is sitting in this room, the veroon that you're in with there? I had a friend here on our staff who told me that he did this one year and he did it with a book.

Somebody gave it to whom and he gave it to somebody else and the person he gave it to called him back a couple days later and said, hey, this book was personalized to you.

That was in the front cover. How many of you, how many of you are nervous about seeing

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