How to Keep Christ in Christmas

It seems that just about every car you see these days has some message for the world. They run the gamut from benign stick figure families, sports logos, or school shout-outs to incendiary religious or political statements. Just yesterday, I saw one that preached “Keep Christ in Christmas”. Though I truly love that sentiment, it was on a car whose driver sped up to block me from merging into their lane.

When I saw the decal my mental fussing began.  How could a self-professing Christian act that way? Feeling slightly superior, I reflected on my own driving. I might get frustrated with traffic but I wouldn’t cut anyone off intentionally.

But then a still, small voice spoke to my heart. “Are you certain?” Well… I might block someone trying to cut ahead of a long line of cars…but nothing that wasn’t justified. “Is it right because it’s justified?” Ouch.

It’s easy to spot when others are being hypocritical but harder to look at it in ourselves. Even more than our words, how we live our lives is our best witness to the world. So whether we advertise our faith with our clothes, our jewelry, our cars or our voices, we are called to behave like Christ all the time, not just when it is easy or justified. Even the unsaved are kind to those they like.

As humans, we will fail short occasionally but our desire should be to emulate Christ. Only God can see our hearts; the world can see only our actions. He knows we are His but—when our behavior differs from our profession—the world doesn’t buy it. All they see is phony.

It’s true that we become like those we spend most of our time with, so our best hope to grow more Christ-like is more time spent in His presence.

Message for the Journey:

As believers we are ambassadors for Christ, living witnesses to the gospel. When we fail to align our actions with His words we misrepresent His message.   Instead of sharing hope, we share hypocrisy. If we keep Christ in every day, in every moment—it won’t matter what our bumper sticker says—Christmas will more than take care of itself.

"For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light!"

Ephesians 5:8

©Ann Wilds