Christmas in the UN-Real World
It is easy to forget how the world dominates our thoughts. Every day our eyes are flooded with what seems like endless images of products and possibilities, things to covet and crave.
“Sheol (Death) and Abaddon (Destruction) are never satisfied, So the eyes of man are never satisfied.” – Proverbs 27:20
This tendency to consume with the eyes, to covet and crave, is amplified during the Christmas season. But, most of what we see is an illusion. Historian Daniel Boorstin wrote,
“We risk being the first people in history to have been able to make their illusions so vivid, so persuasive, so ‘realistic’ that they can live in them…our illusions are the very house in which we live; they are our news, our heroes, our adventure, our forms of art, our very experience.”
Entertainment, marketing, and news media have the power to contrive an alternate reality, a pseudo-world that enters through our eyes filled with pseudo-events that mold and shape our minds. We are conditioned to adore and abhor images that have been divorced from substance.
Most of what people accept as reality today is false. American culture has grown disenchanted, ant-intellectual, and carnal because we have lost our standard for truth, beauty, and goodness.
God created us to worship and glorify Him (Isaiah 43:21). He gave us many senses like sight and hearing to experience His creation, to feed on His Word, to commune personally with Him, and to magnify the name of Jesus Christ in the world (1 Peter 2:9).
To magnify Christ in a world constantly drawing our attention elsewhere we must measure everything we see, hear, support, love, and even our habits by the ultimate standard of truth, beauty, and goodness: The Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 12:2, 2 Corinthians 10:5).
“Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.” – Colossians 3:1
Practical Christian living is built on the foundation of theological truth, not an illusion. Because we know that Jesus was really born, really lived, and really rose from the dead, our relationship with Him becomes real.
Being “raised with Christ” is a spiritual reality that makes it possible for us to seek the things above because salvation, sanctification, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit gives us new eyes to see what is true, beautiful, and good.
“Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
– John 3:3
As the Christmas season ramps up, the hustle and bustle of our great illusion demands our attention. Let us daily bring our thoughts, and actions to Christ. Let us kill our sinful passions and wash at the Cross.
Jesus Christ is the author, summation, and object of our faith. To seek the things above is to set your eyes, and heart upon Christ, always. This Christmas (and everyday) let us seek to be like Christ, to be with Christ, to please Christ.
May the Lord bless you richly this season with the gift of everlasting faith in Christ!
– Armor of Truth
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Very well said, I needed this to put in perspective my thoughts and attention on the one who broke the chains of my 25 year herion and alcohol addiction. I have been delivered, THANK YOU JESUS!
Thank you AOT, stay blessed 🙌
Timely reminder. We need to be reminded of this message again and again.