Faith's view of this world is strangely skeptical. No, more than that. It is a posture of unequivocal distrust leading to rejection! When the world recites its mantras — you matter only if you are beautiful, the most important thing is money, winning is everything, Look Out for Number One — faith protests them all. It adopts a posture of doubt and incredulity. It rejects them.

I refuse to believe that selfishness is acceptable or that it is permissible to resent another's good fortune. I will not swallow the world's way of thinking in order to justify prejudice, aggression, and hatred. No believer can be anything but incredulous about this world's claim that she is entitled to anything she can get her hands on or that he should not feel guilty about exploiting and using people.

So distrust the alleged certainties of sense that cancel the mysteries of faith. Fight the tendency of the masses to look forward only for the sake of declaring the impossibility of living with hope. Deny the inevitability of such greed, hatred, and violence in the world that we cannot prove the reality of love.

The Bible warns against being blinded by this world and speaks of the danger of the blind leading the blind. That warning puts us on notice that things, people, and ways of thinking totally rooted in the finite world of time, space, and matter will keep us from discovering, experiencing, and delighting in the greater realities of God, spirit, and eternity that can only be known by faith.

Faith isn't self-talk or self-deception. It is neither wish projection nor wishful thinking. It is our willingness to hear and stand with the things God has shown us through events and people as awe-inspiring as a trembling, smoking mountain in the desert and as modest as a baby's first cry in the village of Bethlehem.

See Immanuel!

So let Christmas deny the hold of this world on your heart. Let it open your eyes to what the willfully blind will never see, your ears to things the incorrigibly deaf can never hear.

See Immanuel — and know God is with us.

Hear the song of angels — and receive God's peace offered to anxious hearts.

Hold the confusion, cynicism, and antagonisms of this troubled world suspect — and choose God's rule as your way of affirming the true realities.

It's still Christmas, if you will let Jesus open your heart!

 

Print this Article Send it to a Friend Heartlight encourages you to share this material with others in church bulletins, personal emails and other non-commercial uses. Please see our Usage Guidelines for more information.	Keeping Christ in Christmas What Is It You See in Christmas? Too Busy with Christmas for Church RubelShelly.com
	ALL of Heartlight        --- ARTICLES   A Taste of Home   Caring Touch   Diary of God   Hope for Life   Hope from the Hill Country   Just for Men   Just for Women   Leading in Hope   Love, Sex & Marriage   Making Life Work   Prayer for the Nation   Single...Not Alone   Special Features   Timely Truths   Together in His Grace   Two Minute Meditations        --- DEVOTIONALS   Charles Spurgeon   Daily Wisdom   My Utmost for His Highest   Praying with Paul   Quotemeal   Today's Verse   What Jesus Did

© 2007 Used by permission. From Rubel Shelly's "FAX of Life" printed each Tuesday. See Faith Matters for previous issues of the "FAX of Life."

Title: "It's Still Christmas"
Author: Rubel Shelly
Publication Date: December 27, 2007

3-2-1-Penguins! by Big Idea A brand new video from the creators of VeggieTales! Penguins never looked so cool!

Rubel Shelly preached for the Woodmont Hills Churchin Nashville for thirty years. He is the author of more than 20 books. He has accepted the position of President of Rochester College. For more details, click here or here to email.

More Heartlight Feeds

Get Heartlight articles and devotionals by email FREE every day! Daily Heartlight Today's Verse What Jesus Did! Quotemeal

More Information