🎄⛓️‍💥Joy and Feasting as an Act of War⛓️‍💥🎄

The Helm

Merry Christmas, dear reader.

This is an off-schedule post but I know holidays can be tough. With Christmas being this week, I wanted to send out some life to you and those around you.

Clash of Tides

This week we celebrate the day that the Son of God put on flesh (incarnation, in carne literally “in flesh”) to finally put an end to the powers of darkness. We tell others about how Christ died for our sins, and that’s 100% true.

He also came as an act of war.

The first portent of this clash is all the way back in the garden of Eden, when God addresses the accuser for his temptation and deception in Genesis 3:15.

This is the promise of a crushed enemy. It’s also the first prophetic glimpse of the good news of Jesus’ coming. In Bible study words, it’s known as the protoevangelion.

Christmas can be dulled and lost and fogged over by the vague sentiment of “Christmas spirit” which leaves many feeling humbug. Without the vision for the work Christ came to accomplish, any of us could be swept away by just wanting to get this trite and saccharine season over with.

When we celebrate Christmas, we celebrate the day God took responsibility for the one he loved. We join in the chorus of Hark! The Herald Angels Sing because love Himself has come. We cry and weep with the ache in our hearts, our weary and broken spirits begging O Come, O Come Emmanuel, and break the tyranny of sin that destroys us and the world we live in and the families we’ve been made a part of. We sing Joy to the World because the head of the serpent has been crushed when Christ lived the life we could not and died on the cross for our sins and was resurrected because death could not extract its wages from Him and then he ascended to rule and reign to this very day. Simply having a wonderful Christmastime in a winter wonderland and that horrible Mariah Carey song just can’t hold a candle to the blazing sun of the glory of Christ.

Christmas isn’t about niceties and pleasantries and veneer fakery. Christmas is like the beachhead of Normandy when God became a man to live with us and make us his people. He came to deal the death blow to the power of sin and Satan and all the forces of darkness. Oh, their husks are still haunting this world and tempting men and women and rattling their chains in their final gasp, but on the cross the dominion of death was broken and the sand timer will only last so long.

So, how do we apply this…?

The Armory

Like I said at the beginning, this can be a hard season. Sin has rocked worlds, maybe yours, and you’ve been left devastated. Maybe even feeling defeated.

Maybe you’re actually bitter and resentful for who hurt you or said something you didn’t like. If you give into that resentment and feed it and nurture it like a cancerous pet, stroking it and feeding it with the ruminations of someone’s words on repeat, you give power to the devil.

Let it go, not because Elsa has cast off all accountability of anyone tell her what to do, but because the victory has already been won. At the crossroads of forgiveness or bitterness, make the choice. Will you eat from the tree of life or from the tree of knowledge of good and evil?

On the cross, Jesus paid the wages of sin you and I deserve. In so doing, He ransomed us and now all the powers of hell have no claim to us. Forgiven and washed in the cleansing blood of the Lamb.

Don’t walk in the divisive and bitter ways of the serpent whose head has been crushed. The Son of God came to deliver you from the powers of darkness, not so you could embrace the very hands that would strangle you to death.

Dropping Anchor

In Christmas, God became a man. He became the shepherd who sought out his lost sheep. We have no claim to Christ because we are good; we have claim to Christ because he has made a claim on us. Be forgiven. He has made the way. Walk in newness of life.

When you do whatever you do to celebrate Christmas this week, whether in silence and solitude or feasting and friends, do it with all the joyous rebellion you can muster against the devil and his angels. Laugh loud and be light in your conversations. Dare to be buoyant because the burden of Christ is light. Live forgiven, and believe it. Live this week in defiance of the accusations and temptations the devil would whisper and tempt you with because that old scoundrel has already lost. Now he’s just trying to take as many down with him as he can.

Do not give the devil a foothold.

Rather, laugh at his demise and live in the power of the resurrection that you will give no quarter to bitterness, resentment, division, lust, covetousness, and offense.

Because He lives, we can face tomorrow.

Live lightly, friends.

And, if you don’t know these promises of God and do not know the Father love of God who loved you and gave himself for you so you could be free from the destructive power of sin and the devil and his minions, then today is the day of your salvation. Hit reply or send me a text or something and you and I can explore how His perfect love casts out fear so you can sail in the life giving waters that would enable you to lay your burdens down and laugh at tomorrow.

Guilt has no power over those in Christ.

Stay Anchored and keep fighting the good fight,

~ J.P. Simons ⚓️

Below Deck: A Deep Dive

Read the short book of 1 John this week. It’s toward the back of the Bible, before Revelation.

If you don’t have a Bible, tap here and you’ll go right there.