While there are stories of families and friends coming
together for Christmas in the best times of fun, food, and fellowship, there
are far too many testimonies of people living with fear, disappointment, and
depression, throughout the Christmas season.
The thing that really stands out today is
that Christmas, for many people, is based totally on law. This is why it is so
much about the flesh![1] By “law” I do not mean biblical law. Rather, I mean the law of
expectations, both ours and others. You know, the laws, or rules, that govern
whatever each group of family and friends wants Christmas to look like.
Separating Spirit from Flesh
If the Christian life should look like our minds
set on the Spirit, rather than our minds set on the flesh,[2] which of these best describes how we make it through the Christmas
season? How much of what we think about Christmas is setting our minds on the
flesh, and how much is about setting our minds on the Spirit?
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Things
we think about in the Spirit
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Things
we think about in the flesh
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The Feelings of the Spirit; the Feelings of
the Flesh
Setting our minds on the flesh is death,
and setting our minds on the Spirit is life and peace,[3] so, wherever we set our minds determines the things we feel. For
each thought as listed above, describe the corresponding feeling. What kinds of
feelings belong to the issues that come from setting our minds on the Spirit,
contrasted with the kinds of feelings that follow setting our minds on the
flesh?
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Thoughts
we think about at Christmas
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Feelings
that follow these thoughts
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If you take the time to identify these
things, you will notice that positive feelings follow positive thoughts, while
negative feelings follow negative thoughts and beliefs. Feelings do whatever
our thoughts and beliefs tell them to. If we want to change our feelings about
whatever takes place at Christmas, we need to change our beliefs, something
Paul calls being “transformed by the
renewal of your mind.”[4]
Handling Disappointments in the Spirit
Many
Christians would have to admit that the majority of our thinking about
Christmas is about our minds set on the flesh, and the majority of our feelings
are fleshly, negative, depressing.
What the negative things of Christmas seem
to come down to are these two things: who are the people who are disappointing
me because they are not measuring up to my expectations about Christmas? Who
are the people I am disappointing because I am not meeting their expectations
about Christmas?
Of course, even when relationships have a
fleshly focus, as long as everyone is doing their part to meet everyone’s
expectations, there can be the appearance of happiness, at least on the
outside. For the moment, I’m only addressing the all too common experience of
disappointment that accompanies this season.
For each of the issues of disappointment
you identified, what would it look like to set your mind on the Spirit about
that disappointment? I don’t mean to avoid the disappointment, but to bring the
disappointment to God’s Holy Spirit, setting our minds on him about our
problems or issues or hurts, and watching where he leads us to fill us up with
himself.
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Who
is
disappointing
me?
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How
do I set my mind on the Spirit?
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Who
am I disappointing?
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How
do I set my mind on the Spirit?
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I do not expect that everyone has time to fill in these
charts. I just wanted each of us to see that we could do ourselves some good in
what we expect, and how we feel, by deliberately considering how to set our
minds on the Spirit no matter what expectations are met or denied during this
season.
In some cases, we may find that the moment we set our minds
on the Spirit, we discover we have nothing to be disappointed about, and our
fear of disappointing others is in his hands as well.[5]
In other cases, hurts may run so deep, regrets may haunt us
from the shadows, and implicit memories spring up at every turn, that we may
need to consciously set our minds on the Spirit about those very things. However,
even these can be part of our growth in Christ this Christmas season as we set
our minds on the Spirit and how he is ready to help us for our healing and
growth in our Savior.
Earlier in Romans 7, Paul said this about our
ex-relationship with the law of Moses. He wrote, “But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held
us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old
way of the written code.”[6]
I do not in any way suggest that Paul was speaking about the
family laws, rules, and expectations that surround the Christmas season. However,
I do love the thought that the same God who released his children from that
greater law, could do so with any others, leading us to walk in the new way of
the Spirit, and not in any kind of old way whatsoever.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness, self-control;
against such things there is no law.[7]
© 2015 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517,
Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted,
Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English
Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good
News Publishers.)
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