Extend the Gracious Holiday Spirit in 2023

Happy New Year!

I love the Christmas season! There are lights and decorations everywhere! In our house, Nelson puts up the lights outside the weekend before Thanksgiving so that as our family leaves Thanksgiving night they go on and we enjoy them right up until the 1st of January.

Can I tell you a secret? I would leave them up at least until Valentine's Day. I hate how things look when it all gets taken down. It is so plain and ordinary. We go from tens of thousands of lights (literally) to none in a heartbeat. There is just no comparison. Just sad.

But Going Back to ‘Normal’ Life?”

I think sometimes I am tempted to have this same mentality spiritually as well.

We put such an emphasis on spending time with friends and family during this time of year and we have a gathering of some sort almost every night for weeks.

Then January 2 comes and we are all getting ready to go back to work, back to life as it was before. There is so much joy during this season and then ... Tuesday. What a letdown! But what if it didn't have to be that way? What if we kept the party going?

The lights may have to go away physically, but not spiritually and relationally.

Keep Your Lights Bright in Peoples’ Lives

What if we made it a point to pick a day of the week, every week, to invite a neighbor for dinner, or called up a friend that we typically see only during the holidays and get together for coffee? Our decorative lights may be temporary, but our spiritual lights are not. Right after the sermon on the mount, what is arguably Jesus' most well-known sermon in Matthew 5, Jesus says,:

14 “You are the light of the world — like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. 15 No one lights a lamp and then upts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.”

Our family, friends, and neighbors still need Jesus. We are still called to be light to them. These lights don't get put in boxes; they don't get put away. Get out there and interact with your coworkers or friends, even in January! Volunteer at the soup kitchen in February! Host a dinner for a few people whom you suspect or know are not saved. Invite friends whom are saved and pray before they get there, maybe even fast, that God would use you to bring light into their darkness. 

Let your Light shine brightly in 2023!

Solus Christus,
~Michelle Negron