As Christ’s birthday draws near I’m always reminded of the struggle between good and evil. The Bible teaches us that Satan has a specific agenda: “…to steal and kill and destroy.” John 10:10.
In the enemy’s efforts to blind people to the truth he employs very subtle means. One of them is to delete Christ from the events that are meant to celebrate Him.
Think about it, just look at the major holidays we have in America: Easter, the 4th of July, Thanksgiving, Halloween, and Christmas. Now look at which of those holidays have been slowly changed over the years. We have celebrated the 4th of July, Thanksgiving, and Halloween the same way since they were created. The only ones that have changed are the ones in which we celebrate the Christian faith.
In his efforts to delete Christ, Satan has introduced ways for refocus people’s attention from the true meaning of these holidays to something else… our kids.
Satan knows that most parents will do just about anything to make their kids happy, so he started with Easter and introduced the Easter Bunny. A friendly, cute little creature that brings kids candy. Parents fill a basket with sweets and hide eggs in the yard each year and watch the “fun” their kids have, all the while neglecting to teach their kids about the true significance of Easter, the death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior.
Christmas is an even bigger threat to Satan, so he has concentrated hard on removing Christ from this holiday. He began once again by refocusing the holiday on to our children by creating Santa Claus. A jolly fat dude who brings toys to all of the good girls and boys. It’s a nice touch and on the outside it looks like a good way to give our children incentive to be good. But in the end kids will get toys whether they have been good or bad, right?
The next thing was to remove Christ by changing the name of the holiday, so he introduced a new word: Xmas. It seems pretty blatant to simply delete the word Christ and replace it with an “X”, but you’d be surprised how many Christians do this. It's amazing how many Christmas cards and letters I receive from faith-filled people who title their prose as “Xmas letter” or sign it “Merry Xmas.” Where did Christ go?!?!
There is also the argument raised in our society that Christmas should be more generic for people who don’t follow Christ. My answer to that is why don’t you go pick on someone else’s religious holiday? Seriously, no other religion’s holy events have been more battered than Christmas. I don’t see anyone trying to change Kwanzaa, or Ramadan? That’s because Christ is the true salvation of the world, and the devil knows it, so he’s bent on destroying it.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying to remove Santa or the Easter Bunny from your family’s celebrations. I’m just saying to keep your main focus on Christ, not your kids during these holy holidays. Give them gifts, that’s fine. I do it too, but I also ensure that my focus remains on Christ, not some imaginary red suited do-gooder who brings gifts. Teach your children the real reason for the season.
Christ is born, and reigns forever and ever.
“God, thank you for sending your son to be our savior. And happy birthday, Jesus!”
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