In America we have watched recent news stories that bring attention to controversy over the season of Christmas. Controversies abound over greetings like "Merry Christmas", public decorations that celebrate Jesus’ birth, and office parties that must be called "holiday parties" or celebrations of the "winter solstice." Each Christmas season brings to our attention the cultural current of America. We see a current flowing downward, energized by political correctness, post-modern philosophy, and econo-centric thinking.
Christmas trees are too "Christian" to be allowed in public places, so either you don’t find them, or they are dubbed "holiday trees" instead. Generic greetings (e.g. ‘happy holidays’), generic décor, and generic marketing reflect a culture overly concerned with offending the easily-offended while keeping retail sales moving upward.
One only has to look to Europe to see the results of the church of Jesus Christ flowing with the culture. It is a continent that avoids a fight, embraces the enemy, denigrates Christianity, and offends no one. It is a continent where Tony Blair kept his faith secret in fear of political ridicule. The result is a cultural marshmallow being overtaken by a stronger current, in this case Islam, which is very willing to fight, to assume control and become the new cultural current of Europe. The church of Christ became irrelevant in Europe because it chose to float with the cultural current. This is bad news for Europe.
This phenomenon is bad news for our country and our culture. However, it presents exciting challenges and offers opportunity for Christians who choose to swim against the current. For too long, believers in the baby Jesus and the risen Christ have floated down- stream with the cultural flow. We have the opportunity in 2007 to be like Paul the Apostle. We can fight the good fight of faith, resist the devil, and flow with a different stream, the stream of the Holy Spirit.
A dead fish will always float downstream but it takes a living fish to swim upstream. Christmas is an opportunity to self-assess. Are we floating or fighting; drifting or swimming. Are we alive or dead? The power of God only resides in the living!!!
The good news for the living is found in Acts 1:8 when Jesus said "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you…." There is power for those who are alive and filled with the Spirit of God. It is in Him that we live and move and have our being (Acts 17: 28). We do not have our being in our culture, our markets, or our economy. There is power to swim against the cultural current and in- fluence the world around us.
This power not only gives us power to swim, but it can actually carry us on its own supernatural current against the forces of the culture. It is a supernatural stream of surrender, revival, prophecy, dec- laration, and love that releases its power through us as we come into agreement with it and actively coop- erate with the direction of the Holy Spirit.
It is the refusal to confine Christmas to a generic greeting, an exchange of gifts, and a musical inside a church building. It is the declaration of the coming King. It is the prophetic power of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. It is the surrender to God’s plan for our lives, our church, our nation. It is the revival of the warrior attitude motivated by love. This is the counter current of Christmas; the opportunity to step into a stream that is more powerful than the culture, more satisfying than the moment, more prophetic than an economic forecast. It is the stream of the living God defying any force opposed to His purposes and His Word.
We must seize the opportunity this Christmas to get into God’s current and get on board with His plan for life, our church, our nation. Merry Christmas to each of you and may you ride His current this season and into 2008!!!