PROVERBS 4:23 – “Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life.”

THEME OF THE DAY: THE DAY AFTER.  Well, it is the day after.  The path of excitement on the festive sights, sounds, and smells of Christmas reached its destination yesterday.  The summit was achieved, and now it is the day after; the day after Christmas.

As Christmas 2025 slowly fades, we face the challenge of not allowing the message of Christ, Immanuel, God with us, to be treated like Christmas decorations – packed away and not remembered until Christmas 2026 starts to come into view in the calendar. To prevent this spiritual condition of losing first love, Solomon gives us the prevention necessary in today’s scripture – “Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life”.

This prevention consists of three applications. First, the need to be on watch against the forces seeking to get us to forget the message of Christmas. These forces?  Satan, the world, and our flesh. Their objectives?  Forget Immanuel, God with us and forget “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us…full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

The whole of the Christian life rests in the discipline of our hearts and minds to obey the exhortation in the opening verses of chapter twelve in the New Testament letter to the Hebrews –  “Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:1-2). The exhortation is to fix, not a passing glance, upon Jesus. To fix our eyes on Him means to have a mind saturated with His Word and a heart attached to His Person.  And when the mind is captured by the Word, and the heart affectionately looking to Jesus, every day will be Christmas.  Immanuel will be a daily reality in our lives.

The second application to keep Christmas rolling in our lives and not stored away after January 1, 2026, is to develop the discipline of meditating on the meaning of Christmas.  We are not to just mindlessly acknowledge it, or hastily read it, but give time to ponder the truth that God became a man to grow as the Godman to die for sinners, and to be raised from the dead. Don’t rush this.  Think long. Think hard. Think deep of what this truly means that God became flesh.  Always link Christ’s cradle to His cross and empty tomb.

A third and final application if we want to keep Christmas alive in our hearts each passing day is to realize that we are one breath away from being face to face with Christ, the Person of Christmas.  This face-to-face encounter ushers in eternity and literally seeing Jesus forever.  Faith will come to an end. The Lord will ever be before our eyes, and we will rejoice in the land made possible for us to inhabit because of Christmas.

PRAYER: Father, help me not to allow the wonder of Christmas to lose its wonder in my life.

REFLECTION:  Be diligent not to let our walk with Christ become routine for it is anything but routine.