By: Mike Kelly
Retired Pastor
It feels like Christmas was just yesterday. Oh, it was!! And now here we are talking about 2025. We spent 8 weeks or more getting ready for Christmas Day and for most of us we’re now onto getting our returns finished and using those gift cards that we received.
Life goes on. It’s just a fact. But we need to be careful it doesn’t go on without Christ. Christmas wasn’t about all the gifts we got and gave. It wasn’t all about the Christmas pageants and carols.
It wasn’t about the decorated trees or even the manger scenes we visited. And it certainly wasn’t about Santa Claus and his reindeer. Christmas is about Jesus, the Son of God. It’s about Immanuel “God with us”.
It’s about our planet being visited by its Creator. It’s about The Christ, The Messiah, The Redeemer coming to live among us in order to restore our relationship with The God, The Almighty.
Now that the hoopla is over, the gift wrap is in the trash, the turkey and ham are just leftovers, we can focus again on the true meaning of Christmas.
It is easy to lose that in the frenetic activities of the last few days. So, as we prepare for 2025, instead of making our usual and never-lasting resolutions, let’s take this time to think about what 2025 could look like if we put Jesus in his place in our lives.
First, it would mean that we’d ensure our everlasting life by allowing Christ to become our savior. After all, His primary reason for coming was to restore our relationship with God.
His whole time on earth was geared to save our souls by paying the penalty for our sins when he died on that cross. 1 Peter 2:24: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree (cross) so that we may be delivered from sin and live in righteousness (right standing with God); by his stripes we were healed.”
Second, it would reshape our priorities. Instead of life being about us and ours and what makes us comfortable. It would be about Him and those he desires for our lives to touch.
That doesn’t mean that we’d have to give up everything we have and give it to the poor or sell it all and move to Africa. In fact, I am convinced that the more God asks of us, the more He blesses us.
What it would mean is that we’d have to look around us with His eyes to see those children of his who need his touch. Maybe that widow just needs a hug or that child just needs a smile and a high-five.
Maybe that car in the drive-thru behind you needs someone to think of them and paying for their meal will do it. Maybe your boss just needs to see an employee happily doing his job. Maybe that neighbor needs you to hold his hand and pray for him.
Maybe it means becoming active in a church. Maybe it means taking time every day for Him. A little devotional time, a little prayer time, a little praise time and a little conversation time with him.
Maybe it means beginning to tithe; to get your spending under control so you can bless others when they need it. Scary? Maybe but Luke 6:38 promises: “Give, and it will be given to you—a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, overflowing, will be given into your lap.
For whatever measure you measure out will be measured back to you.” And that’s not just about finances, it’s about everything we give and do for His cause.
Maybe it means that your spirit will rest easier. Your anxiety will be reduced. The things you fear will be taken out of the darkness and revealed like the Wizard of Oz was.
Maybe it means your joy will be restored. What Satan stole from you over the years can be restored with a faithful walk with God. Maybe those relationships that were so uncomfortable at Christmas dinner can be made whole again with his intervention.
Maybe you can rest at ease with people rather than feel like you’re always walking on eggshells. Maybe your self-esteem can be raised to healthy levels.
Maybe you’ll learn to see who you really are in God’s eyes. C.S. Lewis once wrote that if we could see ourselves in the spirit realm as the Devil sees us, we’d want to bow down and worship a creature as great as we are.
Maybe, just maybe, you would find the very purpose for your life. Maybe God is calling you to some sort of ministry you’ve never dreamed of. Maybe God is preparing you to take up his burden for a group of people, to be his arms to them.
Maybe he’s calling you to be a better spouse or parent and he’s leading you into the equipping for that calling.
The only way we’ll ever know is to start 2025 wholly committed to Him, the God who came to earth to save us and to set us apart for his good works.
“For the eyes of the LORD roam throughout the earth to show himself strong for those who are wholeheartedly devoted to him.”
(2 Cor 16:9) Maybe we’ll see those great and mighty things God wants to do and give us if we start 2025 wholly committed to him.
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Mike Kelly is the founding pastor of Bryan’s Grace Community Church (retired) and Board Chairman of Bryan’s Sanctuary Homeless Shelter and Williams County’s Compassion (free) Medical Clinic.