Can you think of something you were afraid would happen this year but didn’t? Or that you were afraid would not happen but did?

The sixteenth-century French “seer” Nostradamus was thought to predict for 2025 that “a great pestilence from the past returns, no enemy more deadly under the skies,” leading some to claim that a pandemic worse than COVID-19 would arise during the year. Others found in his writings a prediction of an asteroid impact with apocalyptic consequences.

He’s been wrong so far.

A hundred years ago, other “experts” predicted that by 2025:

• People would live to be 150 years old.
• There would be only three nations: the United States, the “United States of Europe,” and China.
• The Earth would utilize one common language.
• New York City would build triple- and quadruple-decked streets to accommodate its traffic.
• There would be world peace, a common world currency, and universal free trade.

And a seminary professor in Pennsylvania had the audacity to claim that people would use a pocket-sized apparatus for communications to see and hear each other without being in the same room. What a crazy idea.

“The end of the world as we know it?”

Speaking of communication devices, twenty-five years ago today, much of the world was focused on what seemed to be a calamitous threat. I remember well the “Y2K” (short for “year 2000”) scare: the claim that global computer and banking systems, power grids, transportation networks, and other critical infrastructure would fail when the year changed to 2000.

The reason: To save memory space, early computers used two-digit years (such as “97” for 1997), which could cause them to misread “00” as the year 1900 rather than 2000. No one was sure what might then happen, but there was no shortage of fearmongering. Time magazine ran a cover story titled “The End of the World As We Know It?” Survival guides proliferated. A movie imagined cascading Y2K catastrophes, from blackouts to nuclear meltdowns.

However, the day passed in relative calm, largely because governments and businesses spent an estimated $300 billion to $600 billion mitigating the glitch.

Now we have another computer cataclysm to worry about: Many older systems store time using a counter that maxes out on January 19, 2038. This could send clocks back to 1901, potentially crashing older software that depends on accurate dates.

If you’re like me, you’re thinking that this threat is thirteen years in the future, while you have enough fears to worry about today.

However, it’s understanding the true nature of the future that enables us to face our fears in the present.

The “uncertainty principle” of life

Everyone knows that the future is unknowable. What we sometimes fail to understand is that the present is unknowable as well. I could have terminal pancreatic cancer (such as former Sen. Ben Sasse has been diagnosed with) and not know it. Conversely, researchers could right now be perfecting treatments for my various physical challenges that will render them gone in the new year.

You may think your current job is secure, or you may think you’ll never find employment again. Right now, forces unknown to you could be at work that will render you right . . . or wrong.

Heisenberg’s “uncertainty principle” demonstrates that physicists cannot measure both the position and the speed of a particle at the same time. Something like this is at work in my present circumstances: as I sit in my home study writing this article this morning, I am ignoring the upstairs furnace that may in this moment be catching fire. If I were monitoring it, I could not be writing these words.

And there’s the matter of attitude. Henry Ford is often credited with saying, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t—you’re right.” What you decide about your circumstances today will go a long way toward shaping them tomorrow.

“Courage is a choice”

I say all of that to say this: The omniscient God who created and transcends time is our best source for facing our fears of the future.

He sees tomorrow better than we can see today. Our Father can therefore prepare us now for what comes next while shaping our unseen circumstances for his greatest glory and our greatest good. All the while, he transfuses us with “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding” when we trust our fears to him (Philippians 4:7).

The Christ who came at Christmas promised he would be with us “always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). His indwelling Spirit will never leave us (1 Corinthians 3:16). His all-conquering love will never abandon us (Romans 8:35–39). He will wade with us through every river and walk with us through every fire (Isaiah 43:2–3). He will open and close doors in accordance with his perfect will (cf. Acts 16:6–10) and lead us through each day until the day he leads us home (John 14:3).

Homer was therefore right: “All men have need of the gods.”

So name your greatest fear for the coming year and place it in his hands. Then claim his promise: “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (Isaiah 41:10).

David testified, “I sought the Lᴏʀᴅ, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears” (Psalm 34:4). When we do the former, we can say the latter.

According to Winston Churchill,

“Fear is a reaction. Courage is a choice.”

What steps will you take to choose courage in Christ today?

Quote for the day:

“Christ liveth in me. And how great the difference—instead of bondage, liberty; instead of failure, quiet victories within; instead of fear and weakness, a restful sense of sufficiency in Another.” —Hudson Taylor

Our latest website resources:

• What are God’s New Year’s resolutions?
• 2025 recap: Most influential people, biggest stories, biggest flops, & spiritual highlights
• Do miracles still happen? A podcast interview with Lee Strobel
• A review of Lee Strobel’s “The Case for Miracles”
• What does Christmas have to do with bioethics?

Denison Forum

My amazing editor gets up every morning at 5:30 a.m. to proofread the Daily Article, post it on our website, and distribute it via email. To give her today’s holiday off, we finished this article yesterday. As a result, I’m predicting what you now know to be true (or not):

• Roughly one million people packed into New York City’s Times Square last night to watch a crystal ball drop from One Times Square as midnight approached.
• The ball was new this year, adorned with 5,280 crystals and weighing about 12,350 pounds.
• For the first time ever, it was relit and dropped again at approximately 12:04 am E.T. in anticipation of America’s 250^th anniversary on July 4, 2026. The ball will drop a third time on the eve of the Fourth of July for the same reason.

Door County in Wisconsin dropped a giant cherry into a crowd of people, while Amelia Island, Florida, dropped a giant shrimp and Boise, Idaho, dropped a giant glowing potato at the state’s capitol. But I think beginning the new year with a lighted ball descending to a waiting crowd is especially appropriate. Consider these facts:

• It’s dark at midnight, which makes the light more necessary, obvious, and powerful.
• The light descends from the heavens above to the earth below.
• Its light is available to all but experienced only by those who seek to do so.
• It was anticipated when I wrote about it, but it became a reality at the proper moment—not a minute too soon or too late.

If you were reading about such light on Christmas rather than New Year’s Day, would any of this seem familiar?

“It is you who light my lamp”

Simeon called the baby Jesus “a light for revelation to the Gentiles” (Luke 2:32). John’s Gospel says of God’s Son, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:4–5).

When we trusted him as our Lord, our Father “delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Colossians 1:13). In this kingdom, “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5).

Accordingly, we are called to “walk in the light, as he is in the light” (v. 7).

Martin Luther warned: “The sin underneath all our sins is to trust the lie of the serpent that we cannot trust the love and grace of Christ and must take matters into our own hands.” Conversely, David prayed, “It is you who light my lamp; the Lᴏʀᴅ my God lightens my darkness” (Psalm 18:28).

When we choose the former, we experience the latter.

Six practical resolutions

To walk in the transforming light of Christ this year, we must determine to do so. This is the New Year’s Resolution of all resolutions.

Jesus honors the free will with which we are made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27), so he will not force us to walk in his light. To experience his transforming grace, let’s make six practical resolutions within the Resolution:

1: Start each day in the light of Christ. We cannot walk in the light unless we are in the light. Begin every day with Jesus in worship, prayer, and Bible study as you connect your heart with his and submit your life and day to his Spirit (Ephesians 5:18).

2: Stay in the light through the day. When the enemy tempts you with darkness, leverage his evil for good by turning instantly to the Spirit for his guidance and power. If you step out of the light, confess your sin immediately, claim your Father’s forgiveness, and return to the light.

3: Focus on the present. We cannot walk the next mile while walking this mile. All of God there is, is in this moment.

4: Give thanks to God for all that is good. After her horrific captivity, a freed Israeli hostage named Emily Damari wrote:

I have … learned to value everything I do in my life. I open the fridge: I say thank you. I drink cold water: I say thank you. I am thankful for everything—big things and little things. Gratitude is very important. I am grateful that I have the privilege of being thankful.

5: Trust God to redeem all that is hard. Matthew Henry noted: “Extraordinary afflictions are not always the punishment of extraordinary sins, but sometimes the trial of extraordinary graces.” As the Roman philosopher Seneca observed, “You learn to know a pilot in a storm.”

6: Make Christlikeness your goal. Jane Goodall wrote: “What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” You can make no greater difference in the world than manifesting the light of Christ in our dark culture.

“You can do all that God has called you to”

If we make these daily resolutions, we will fulfill our life Resolution. We will “walk in the light, as he is in the light” (1 John 1:7). His Spirit will transfuse our minds and hearts with the light of Christ. His light will shine through our words and works and defeat the darkness wherever we go.

And neither our lives nor our world will ever be the same.

As you begin your year, I want to highly recommend First15, our ministry’s daily devotional resource. A recent article reminded us:

You can do all that God has called you to. Whether it be victory over sin, engaging in difficult confession, walking biblically rather than according to the world, seeking unity and fellowship with those that bother you, or simply seeking God with all your heart, the Holy Spirit will strengthen you today if you are willing to receive.

What next step into his light has God “called you to” today?

Quote for the day:

“Legalism says God will love us if we change. The gospel says God will change us because he loves us.” —Tullian Tchividjian

Our latest website resources:

• What are God’s New Year’s resolutions?
• 2025 recap: Most influential people, biggest stories, biggest flops, & spiritual highlights
• Do miracles still happen? A podcast interview with Lee Strobel
• A review of Lee Strobel’s “The Case for Miracles”
• What does Christmas have to do with bioethics?

Denison Forum

Do you sometimes find yourself feeling anxious without an apparent explanation? Are there days when things are good in your personal world, but that world is somehow not enough?

I know the feeling.

Let’s consider a juxtaposition. An article on “favorite good news from this year” includes these headlines:

• “Heart attack deaths dropped by nearly 90 percent since 1970.”
• “US crime dropped across multiple categories in 2024 and 2025.”
• “The fight against colon cancer made progress.”
• “A groundbreaking therapy slowed Huntington’s disease for the first time.”

The Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker similarly cites data showing that “global life expectancy, affluence, and literacy are at all-time highs, while extreme poverty and violent crime are at all-time lows.”

And yet . . .

According to Gallup, US mental health ratings have also fallen to an all-time low. “Rage rooms” are cropping up, offering a “cathartic release” for those coping with anger, frustration, and anxiety. The philosopher and cultural theorist Byung-Chul Han writes that “every age has its signature afflictions” and identifies ours as “depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, borderline personality disorder, and burnout syndrome.”

Why are so many people so unhappy amid such prosperity?

“The remedy for our broken world”

Dr. Han notes that our culture very rarely challenges our sense of identity, tolerating and even applauding whatever we choose to believe, think, and do. We are so free to be ourselves that nothing distinct from us draws us out of ourselves.

I would add that this tolerance-centered ethos ignores the simple fact that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Left to ourselves, with no external referent to guide us or empower us to be better, we have no hope but ourselves. But we long to be more than we are. So we escape into screens or AI chatbots or immerse ourselves in work or hobbies or relationships we hope will provide meaning we cannot find in ourselves.

But excessive screen time damages us physically, mentally, and emotionally. AI chatbots are increasingly linked to psychosis and implicated in promoting self-harm, supporting delusions, and spreading misinformation. And the people we encounter in work and hobbies and relationships are as finite and flawed as we are.

What are we to do?

The cultural scholar Ian Tuttle reports that Dr. Han “suggests the possibility of an Other who is, also, not other; something outside ourselves that also restores us to ourselves; something that transcends us and yet embraces us.” Dr. Tuttle concludes:

We might consider the possibility that the extraordinary confusions of our time will not—cannot be solved from within our time. We might consider the possibility that the remedy for our broken world will require a different kind of physician (his emphases).

“He the source, the ending he”

The second-century apologist Irenaeus wrote that Christ “became what we are so that we might become what he is.”

Jesus was as fully human as you and me: he entered our race, experienced our humanity, faced our temptations, felt our pain, and suffered our separation from God (Mark 15:34). In so doing, he was able to take our sin on himself and die the death that sin produces (Romans 5:12; 6:23).

And yet Jesus was and is as fully God as his Father. His omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence shocked many who experienced his divinity firsthand. He stated bluntly, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30).

By virtue of his divine capacity, he is “able to save to the uttermost” those who trust in him (Hebrews 7:25). Accordingly, “to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12).

Or as Irenaeus put it, to “become what he is.”

The living Lord Jesus is thus “outside ourselves,” yet he “also restores us to ourselves.” He “transcends us and yet embraces us.” He is the “different kind of physician” for which our hearts and our world long.

The Roman Christian poet Marcus Aurelius Clemens Prudentius (AD 348–413) proclaimed:

Of the Father’s love begotten,
Ere the worlds began to be,
He is Alpha and Omega,
He the source, the ending he,
Of the things that are, that have been,
And that future years shall see,
Evermore and evermore!

“Christian, remember your dignity”

Now we can trust him to do in us what he did for us.

Pope St. Leo the Great (c. 391–461) encouraged us:

Christian, remember your dignity, and now that you share in God’s own nature, do not return by sin to your former base condition. Bear in mind who is your head and of whose body you are a member. Do not forget that you have been rescued from the power of darkness and brought into the light of God’s kingdom.

St. Leo was right: Our Father has “delivered us from the domain of darkness” (Colossians 1:13). Our part is to “walk in the light, as he is in the light” (1 John 1:7), to practice his presence in a lifestyle of prayer and praise (1 Thessalonians 5:16–18), and then to measure our success by our Christlikeness as “Christ is formed in you” (Galatians 4:19).

In short, we are to love our Lord and our neighbor (Matthew 22:37–39). When we do, we become more like our Lord and draw our neighbor to our Father. In this sense, Francis Chan was wise to ask,

“Do you know that nothing you do in this life will ever matter, unless it is about loving God and loving the people he has made?”

Do you?

Quote for the day:

“Jesus did not come into the world to make bad men good. He came into the world to make dead men live.” —Leonard Ravenhill

Our latest website resources:

• What are God’s New Year’s resolutions?
• 2025 recap: Most influential people, biggest stories, biggest flops, & spiritual highlights
• Do miracles still happen? A podcast interview with Lee Strobel
• A review of Lee Strobel’s “The Case for Miracles”
• What does Christmas have to do with bioethics?

Denison Forum

New Year’s Day brings with it some interesting traditions.

People in Romania wear bear costumes and dance around. In Scotland, they make balls from wire and paper, light them on fire, and swing them while walking through the streets. In Italy, people throw pots, pans, and old furniture from their windows as the clock strikes midnight.

In Turkey, they wear red underwear to bring luck to their loved ones. In Latin America, people wear red underwear if they’re looking for love, and green underwear if they’re seeking wealth. I wonder what you wear if you’re looking for both.

One of the most ancient New Year’s customs has to do with resolutions. Babylonians apparently began this tradition four thousand years ago; they vowed to return borrowed farm equipment. If I have borrowed your tractor, I promise to return it this year.

Statistic Brain Research Institute has compiled some interesting facts regarding New Year’s Resolutions:

•  45 percent of Americans usually make New Year’s resolutions
  •    Only 8 percent are successful in achieving them
  •    However, 49 percent have at least infrequent success
  •    Only 24 percent never succeed in fulfilling their resolution each year.

Here’s a fact I found particularly interesting: People who explicitly make resolutions are ten times more likely to attain their goals than people who don’t explicitly make resolutions.

So it’s clearly a good idea to have goals, whether they take the form of New Year’s resolutions or not. What should ours be?

According to a 2016 survey by Money magazine, the most popular New Year’s Resolutions were:

•  “Enjoy life to the fullest”
  •    “Live a healthier lifestyle”
  •    “Lose weight”
  •    “Save more, spend less”
  •    “Spend more time with family and friends”
  •    “Pay down debt.”

How many of them focus on us? How many on others? How many on God?

What New Year’s resolution does our Father want us to make?

As I prayed about that question, a passage came immediately to mind. Let’s explore it together, and see how it can guide us into God’s best plan and purpose for us in the new year.

Know God’s resolutions

On Tuesday of Holy Week, Jesus was teaching in the Temple area, where his enemies lined up to debate him. In two days Jesus will be betrayed; in three he will be crucified.

So it is that the Pharisees “gathered together” (v. 34) to plot against our Lord. Then “one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. ‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?’” (vv. 35-36).

Let’s understand his trick question. The Jewish authorities counted 248 positive commandments, as many as the members of the body; and 365 negative commands, one for every day of the year; for a total of 613, as many as the Hebrew letters of the Ten Commandments. Which is most important? If Jesus chooses one, he’ll be accused of denigrating the others.

Jesus turns the debate into a proclamation for the ages. Here we find God’s two resolutions for our lives. The first: “And he said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment’” (vs. 37-38).

“Love” translates agape, the unconditional commitment to place the other person first. It is not a feeling, but a decision, a lifestyle. In this case, it is choosing to honor God in all you do, to put him first in every dimension of your life.

In Jewish theology, your “heart” is the will, your practical dimension. Your “soul” is your intuitive dimension. Your “mind” is your rational dimension. These are the three ways we know everything we know: practical, intuitive, and rational. We use a cell phone practically, since most of us don’t understand the technology rationally. We like people intuitively; we do math rationally.

Jesus tells us to love God with “all” your heart, soul, and mind. Put him first with your decisions, your attitudes, and your thoughts. There is to be no part of your life that is not his, no part where you do not value him first, seek relationship with him first, please him first.

Imagine a world where everyone sought to please God with every thought, decision, and attitude. That’s God intention for our culture today.

The second resolution: “And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commands depend all the Law and the Prophets” (vs. 39-40). We are to agape our neighbor, the next person we meet, as much as we do ourselves. What does this mean?

We have an instinct for self-preservation; we must seek the preservation and good of that person as we do for ourselves. We tend to excuse our own mistakes—after all, we know what we meant to say, or do. We must do the same for others. We think first about how this will affect us—we must think first how this will affect our neighbor. This is not a suggestion, but a command.

It is human nature to judge ourselves by our intentions, but others by our actions. When we love our neighbor as ourselves, we give them the same benefit of the doubt that we give ourselves. We extend to them the same forgiveness, the same understanding, the same compassion we extend to ourselves.

Imagine a world where everyone loved their neighbor as themselves. That’s God’s intention for our culture today.

When we put God first, we position ourselves to receive all that his grace intends to give. He can lead us in his “good, pleasing and perfect will” (Romans 12:2). He can bless us, use us, redeem our lives, and make our present obedience count for all eternity.

When we put neighbor first, we position ourselves to bless others as God has blessed us. We become conduits of the Holy Spirit in the world. We lead others to Christ, because they see Christ in us. We become change agents in a fallen culture desperate to see God’s love in ours. We become salt and light, and our lives change the lives we touch.

Live by God’s resolutions

Here’s the problem: You and I are fallen people. The only person who has ever lived perfectly by God’s life resolutions is the one who taught them to us. So what do we do?

Four simple steps are vital.

One: Resolve to put God and neighbor first in all you do.

To love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength is to put him first in every area of your life. Ask before every word or action, will this honor Jesus? Will it help my neighbor? Make this your New Year’s Resolution, your lifestyle commitment.

Two: Begin the day in God’s word.

You need God’s word to fulfill God’s will. J. I. Packer was right: the Bible is “God preaching.” Hebrews 4: “The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (v. 12).

God will speak to you through his word, if you will listen. So set aside time at the beginning of every day to meet him in his word. Get a good study Bible: I recommend the ESV Study Bible or the NIV Study Bible. Get a notebook so you can record what you hear from Scripture. Make a plan for Bible reading, whether you read through the Bible in a year, or a chapter a day, or whatever seems best to you.

As you read, ask the Spirit who inspired Scripture to speak from it to you. Define your challenges or questions for the day, and ask God to answer them from his word. Make time for God’s word, and God’s word will change your life.

Three: Walk through the day in his presence.

When you face challenges, pray about them. When you have decisions to make, pray about them. When God blesses you, thank him.

Then make specific times through the day to be with him. The psalmist prayed “evening and morning and at noon” (Psalm 55:17). From then to today, the Jews have typically set aside three times a day for prayer and worship. We should do the same.

Four: End the day with him.

Take a moment to look back over your day. Thank God for all that was good. Ask his forgiveness for any sins you recognize. Commit yourself to him for the evening and the day to come. Begin and end the day with your Father, and he will bless all you surrender to him.

Conclusion

It’s often said that today is the first day of the rest of your life. That’s obviously true. But this day could be formative for the rest of our lives, if we choose today to live by God’s New Year resolutions. If we choose to put God and neighbor first in all we do. We could be catalysts for a spiritual awakening in our lives and through the lives we touch, where we live and around the world.

Jonathan Edwards began every day with these two commitments: “Resolution One: I will live for God. Resolution Two: If no one else does, I will.” And God made him the greatest theologian in American history and used him to spark the First Great Awakening.

William Barclay once wrote, “A man will never become outstandingly good at anything unless that thing is his ruling passion. There must be something of which he can say, ‘For me to live is this.’” And God made his biblical commentaries the most popular in the English language.

I was once speaking at a university in Kentucky and made time to visit Abraham Lincoln’s birthplace near Hodgenville. There’s a plaque at that location that records the following conversation:

“Any news down t’ the village, Ezry?”

“Well, Squire McLains’s gone t’ Washington t’ see Madison swore in, and ol’ Spellman tells me this Bonaparte fella has captured most o’ Spain. What’s new out here, neighbor?”

“Nuthin’, nuthin’ a’tall, ‘cept fer a new baby born t’ Tom Lincoln’s. Nothin’ ever happens out here.”

How will God view the importance of this moment in eternity?

Denison Forum

President Donald Trump said Sunday that he and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky were “getting a lot closer, maybe very close” to an agreement to end the war in Ukraine. Both leaders reported progress on security guarantees for Ukraine and the division of eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region that Russia has tried to capture. Mr. Trump said it will be clear “in a few weeks” whether negotiations to end the war will succeed.

The president meets today with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss next steps in Gaza. Mr. Netanyahu is also expected to focus on Israeli allegations that Iran is rapidly working to rebuild its ballistic missile arsenal.

On Saturday, Iran’s president claimed that his country is in an all-out war with the West. On Sunday, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un oversaw the launch of long-range strategic cruise missiles. Earlier today, China launched its most extensive war games around Taiwan as the country expands its nuclear warhead manufacturing capacity.

If you’re like many people, however, you’d rather not have to think about global war and peace this morning.

Today begins what some are calling “Twixmas,” “Dead Week,” or “Feral Week”—the stretch between Christmas and New Year’s Eve when, as one journalist reports, “We get the urge to take off and tune out, and our outstanding projects, deadlines, and other responsibilities become 2026 You’s problem.”

An Atlantic article calls this the “best week of the year,” explaining that “for many of us, this is the only time of year when it feels possible, and even encouraged, to do nothing.” Others are not so positive. One person said of this week, “What day it is doesn’t matter. Existence is confusion. Time is a flat circle.” Another wrote, “It’s just debris and crumbs and wishing the relatives would vaporize.”

Still another posted that this week “feels like one long Sunday.” I agree wholeheartedly, but not for the reasons they mean.

Losing the “melody” of life

When we lose the meaning of Christmas, we misplace the meaning of life. When the entry of Christ into the world becomes just another holiday rather than the day that changed human history, we lose what Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan calls the “melody” of life.

When Christmas is over, Christmas trees go to the curb or back in the attic. However, their original purpose was more transcendent than decorative: beginning in the seventh century, their triangular shape was used to describe the Holy Trinity and employed at Christmas as the “Tree of Christ.”

Christmas wreaths also go back into storage. However, the first modern Advent wreath also possessed abiding significance: it was used to symbolize the eternal nature of God and eternal life in Christ. Its prickly leaves and red berries represented Jesus’ crown of thorns and the drops of blood at his crucifixion.

Nativity sets go back into their boxes as well. However, when St. Francis of Assisi created the first crèche in 1223, he employed a living nativity scene, demonstrating the living reality and significance of Jesus’ birth.

“All for love’s sake became poor”

What if that birth had never happened? According to St. Augustine,

You would have suffered eternal death, had he not been born in time. Never would you have been freed from sinful flesh, had he not taken on himself the likeness of sinful flesh. You would have suffered everlasting unhappiness, had it not been for this mercy. You would never have returned to life, had he not shared your death. You would have been lost if he had not hastened to your aid. You would have perished, had he not come.

The greatest theologian since Paul was right. Paul said of Jesus, “He himself is our peace” (Ephesians 2:14), because “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19). He did this when “he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (v. 21; cf. Colossians 2:13–14).

Now when we confess our sins to him, “he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9, my emphasis). Our Father then “blots out your transgressions” (Isaiah 43:25), removes them “as far as the east is from the west” (Psalm 103:12), casts them “into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19), and “will remember [your] sin no more” (Jeremiah 31:34).

Our sins barred us from the “tree of life” (Genesis 3:22–24) and consigned us to spiritual and eternal death (Romans 3:23). But because Jesus “bore our sins in his body on the tree” of Calvary, we can “die to sin and live to righteousness,” knowing that “by his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24). And one day we will dwell amidst the “tree of life” whose leaves are “for the healing of the nations” (Revelation 22:2).

All of this was made possible by Christmas. Billy Graham was therefore right to identify “the most important event in human history” as “the coming of God’s Son into the world.”

And all of this was our Savior’s gift of love, as the Anglican missionary Frank Houghton noted:

Thou who wast rich beyond all splendor,
All for love’s sake became poor;
Thrones for a manger didst surrender,
Sapphire-paved courts for stable floor.
Thou who wast rich beyond all splendor,
All for love’s sake became poor.

“Ask if this were merited”

How should we respond? St. Augustine urged us:

Let us then joyfully celebrate the coming of our salvation and redemption. Let us celebrate the festive day on which he who is the great and eternal day came from the great and endless day of eternity into our own short day of time. . . .

For what greater grace could God have made to dawn on us than to make his only Son become the son of man, so that a son of man might in his turn become a son of God?

Ask if this were merited; ask for its reason, for its justification, and see whether you will find any other answer but sheer grace.

When we embrace such grace, when we “joyfully celebrate the coming of our salvation and redemption,” every day is Sunday.

And every day is Christmas.

Quote for the day:

“Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. This is the true self. Every other identity is illusion.” —Brennan Manning

Our latest website resources:

• What are God’s New Year’s resolutions?
• 2025 recap: Most influential people, biggest stories, biggest flops, & spiritual highlights
• Do miracles still happen? A podcast interview with Lee Strobel
• A review of Lee Strobel’s “The Case for Miracles”
• What does Christmas have to do with bioethics?

Denison Forum

One of the many reasons I love the Christmas season is the buoyant spirit of kindness and cheer it always seems to inspire. Strangers wish each other “Merry Christmas” (or at least “Happy Holidays”). Children count the days and then the hours until Santa visits them. Families gather to exchange gifts and make memories. I’m always a little sad on the day after Christmas when the world seems to return to “normal” so quickly.

But return it does.

• We woke up this morning to news that the US carried out a strike against Islamic State militants in Nigeria yesterday. President Trump said the military action was in response to the terrorist group’s attacks on Christians in the region, a reminder that Christianity remains the most persecuted religion in the world.
• Heavy rains led to a “nightmare before Christmas” in Southern California with flooding and mudslides that threaten the region still today. A powerful post-Christmas storm will impact at least fifteen million people in the Northeast beginning today as well.
• A new form of flu is sweeping across the US as the highly contagious variant produces more severe symptoms than other strains, disrupting Christmas plans for many.

By now, you’re hoping I’ll pivot to reasons for hope on this day after the holiday. Let’s do just that, though not in a way most people would expect.

From Plainview to university president

Former Sen. Ben Sasse announced this week that he has been “diagnosed with metastasized, stage-four pancreatic cancer, and am gonna die.” His statement hit me hard. Not just because he is only fifty-three years old and otherwise in the prime of his life, but also because I have followed his career for years with deep gratitude.

His story is the American story writ large.

He was born in Plainview, Nebraska (population 1,275), the son of a high school teacher and football coach. He went on to graduate from Harvard, attend Oxford, then earn a master of arts at St. John’s College and at Yale a master of Arts, master of philosophy, and doctor of philosophy.

He worked for the Justice Department while teaching history at the University of Texas at Austin. In the years following, he worked for Homeland Security and HHS before he became a college president at the age of thirty-seven, won election to the US Senate four years later, and won reelection in 2020.

In 2023, he assumed the presidency of the University of Florida, stepping down last year due to his wife’s health.

“Such is the calling of the pilgrim”

I first heard Dr. Sasse speak at a healthcare event a number of years ago and was deeply impressed by the sincerity of his personal commitment to Christ and the rigor of his intellectual passion. I have read much of what he has written in the years since and consider him one of the most significant public intellectuals in America today.

News of his terminal cancer is a shocking reminder that none of us is promised another Christmas. But as Dr. Sasse wrote, Christians have a hope that transcends all else:

Not an abstract hope in fanciful human goodness; not hope in vague hallmark-sappy spirituality; not a bootstrapped hope in our own strength (what foolishness is the evaporating muscle I once prided myself in). Nope—often we lazily say “hope” when what we mean is “optimism.”

To be clear, optimism is great, and it’s absolutely necessary, but it’s insufficient. It’s not the kinda thing that holds up when you tell your daughters you’re not going to walk them down the aisle. Nor telling your mom and pops they’re gonna bury their son.

A well-lived life demands more reality—stiffer stuff. That’s why, during Advent, even while still walking in darkness, we shout our hope—often properly with a gravelly voice soldiering through tears.

Such is the calling of the pilgrim.

The first pilgrims of Christmas

There are three ways we know all that we know: practically, rationally, and intuitively. We start a car practically, do math rationally, and like people intuitively.

God reveals his wisdom and will to us in all three ways, as we’ll see today.

This week we have been discussing Christmas in the order it was revealed: to Mary, then Joseph, then the shepherds, then the Magi. We’re connecting their experiences with the promised Son who is “Prince of Peace, Everlasting Father, Mighty God, and Wonderful Counselor” (Isaiah 9:6 in reverse).

The first pilgrims to meet the Christ of Christmas were the “wise men” who came “from the east” to Jerusalem to worship him (Matthew 2:1–2). They experienced the wisdom of the Wonderful Counselor practically when a star alerted them to his birth (v. 2) and later guided them to “the place where the child was” (v. 9). They experienced his wisdom rationally in the biblical guidance shared by the chief priests and scribes (vv. 3–6). And they experienced his wisdom intuitively in a dream that warned them not to return to Herod, leading them to depart to their home country “by another way” (v. 12).

All of this culminated some two years after Jesus’ birth (cf. Matthew 2:16), showing that the Wonderful Counselor transcends Christmas. For us to experience his counsel, we need to do what the wise men did: seek and follow his guidance in all the ways he gives it, placing our hope not in our wisdom but in his.

And then, when we kneel before the Christ of Christmas one day, our pilgrimage will be over.

“We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise”

Dr. Sasse noted: “Advanced pancreatic cancer is nasty stuff; it’s a death sentence. But I already had a death sentence before last week too—we all do.”

This year’s Christmas memories will soon fade as the culture shifts to post-Christmas sales, New Year’s celebrations, and all that will follow. But our choice each day to make Christ our Wonderful Counselor, to seek and follow his will above all else, will outlive every memory of this fallen world and God’s “well done” will echo in paradise forever (Matthew 25:23).

As I often say, we cannot measure the eternal significance of present faithfulness.

In his post, Dr. Sasse quoted part of the last stanza of Amazing Grace. Here it is in full:

When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we first begun.

And every day will be Christmas.

Quote for the day:

“If I obey Jesus Christ in the seemingly random circumstances of life, they become pinholes through which I see the face of God.” —Oswald Chambers

Our latest website resources:

• What does Christmas say about God?
• Australia attack, Rob Reiner, Christmas movies, Candace Owens & football updates
• Do miracles still happen? A podcast interview with Lee Strobel
• A review of Lee Strobel’s “The Case for Miracles”
• What does Christmas have to do with bioethics?

Denison Forum

For many reasons, Christmas is a holiday unlike any other. There are holiday sales, expected to top $1 trillion for the first time. There’s travel, as more than 122 million people are expected to hit the roads and skies between December 20 and January 1. And there’s Santa Claus: to reach an estimated 238 million homes worldwide last night, he had to visit seven million per hour—116,667 per minute or 1,944 per second.

But sales, travel, and Santa are part of Christmas every year. This is not: For the first time since 1925, today’s date is the same as the last two digits of the year. Today is also unusual for those who use the day/month/year format in that it is nearly palindromic: 25/12/25.

I could not have written the first paragraph without help from researchers who knew facts I did not. However, nothing in the second paragraph required specialized skill or scholarship. I could have figured out the rarity of today’s date without the USA Today article explaining it, but I didn’t. This knowledge was available to everyone, but it took someone who knew what I didn’t to help me know what I now know.

The same holds true with the “reason for the season.” According to Gallup, 96 percent of those who celebrate today will do so by exchanging gifts. However, only 54 percent will display decorations with a religious meaning, such as a Nativity scene. And as I noted yesterday, only 47 percent attend religious services on Christmas Eve or today.

Imagine going to a birthday party where the guests gave each other presents while ignoring the person whose birthday prompted the gathering. So it is for Jesus with millions of Americans. Once I point out the fact that today’s celebration is supposed to be about the Christ of Christmas, the truth becomes obvious.

But knowing this and experiencing it are not the same thing.

The most surprising Christmas guests

This week we’re taking Christmas in the order it was revealed: to Mary, then Joseph, then the shepherds, then the Magi. We’re aligning their experiences with the promised Son as “Prince of Peace, Everlasting Father, Mighty God, and Wonderful Counselor” (Isaiah 9:6 in reverse).

So today we come to the shepherds and the promised “Mighty God.” Of Isaiah’s four descriptions of the coming Messiah, this would have been the most troubling and even fearful for them.

Shepherds in first-century Israel lived on the lowest rung of the social ladder. Because they had to tend their flocks for months in the Judean wilderness, they were unable to keep kosher dietary laws and other religious rituals and thus were barred from synagogues and the temple. Because they worked without supervision, they were thought to be thieves as well.

Of all the people Jesus could have arranged to attend his first birthday, they would be the most surprising—to polite society and to themselves as well.

“The Truth that can never be told”

Here’s the good news: The Mighty God—literally the “God who is a champion in might”—is so omnipotent that he can use anyone who is willing to be used. And the shepherds were willing to be used, becoming the first evangelists in Christian history:

They went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child (Luke 2:16–17).

Note the order:

1. They heard the message (vv. 8–14)
2. They came to worship Jesus (vv. 15–16)
3. They told the world (vv. 17–20).

Here’s my ministerial problem: I too often jump from the first to the third. I hear the Christmas story and work to share it with others without stopping at the manger to bow before the Child waiting for my worship.

So I am resolved to make today about Jesus; to take time for silence before his Spirit and reverence before his throne; to focus my mind and heart on my Savior; and to speak my unspeakable gratitude for his wondrous grace. I invite you to join me.

Frederick Buechner spoke of “the Truth that can never be told but only come upon, that can never be proved but only lived for and loved.”

How will you “come upon” this untellable Truth today?

Quote for the day:

“Isn’t it a comfort to worship a God we cannot exaggerate?” —Francis Chan

Our latest website resources:

• What does Christmas say about God?
• Australia attack, Rob Reiner, Christmas movies, Candace Owens & football updates
• Do miracles still happen? A podcast interview with Lee Strobel
• A review of Lee Strobel’s “The Case for Miracles”
• What does Christmas have to do with bioethics?

Denison Forum

Will you observe Christmas tomorrow? If so, according to a new Gallup survey, you’re in the majority: 88 percent of Americans will join you.

Will you attend church services today or tomorrow? If so, you’re in the minority: only 47 percent of Americans will join you, down from 64 percent in 2010.

Now consider two other recent Gallup headlines: “US Mental Health Ratings Continue to Worsen” and “Americans End Year in Gloomy Mood.”

I believe declining church attendance is related to declining well-being in a way that might surprise you, but will—I hope—greatly encourage you as well.

 “To run where the brave dare not go”

A recent article by clinical psychology professor Ross White advises, “Your purpose isn’t something to find, it’s something you form.” He reports that online searches for the phrase “find your purpose” have risen by more than 3,000 percent in the past three decades. However, he encourages his clients to take a different path.

In his view, our life purpose works with what and who we already are and evolves over time while serving its own ends. The goal is to form a direction that “brings meaning and vitality to our lives.”

I’m reminded of the testimony of Albert Camus, who called himself an “absurdist” and viewed the universe as meaningless: “In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”

His words stir something in me. The idea that I can form my own purpose and thus bring “meaning and vitality” to my life is viscerally attractive. I’m reminded of “The Quest,” a song I first heard as a young boy and has been performed or recorded dozens of times since:

To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go

To right the unrightable wrong
To love, pure and chaste, from afar
To try, when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest, to follow that star
No matter how hopeless, no matter how far
To fight for the right without question or pause
To be willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause

And I know if I’ll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I’m laid to my rest

And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove, with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star!

After all these years, I can still recite these aspirational lyrics in my mind today.

But are they true?

A nativity set missing a figure

Joseph is often called the “silent man of Christmas.” In all the biblical narratives, he speaks not a single recorded word. I remember a nativity set I once found in a store which included figurines for Jesus, Mary, shepherds, Wise Men, and even animals, but none for Joseph. If you set it out, I’m not sure how many people would notice the omission.

And yet, without someone doing what Joseph did, there would have been no Christmas.

He agreed to make his pregnant fiancée his wife, ignoring the societal scorn that would likely come as a consequence. He risked his life by embarking on a journey to Bethlehem for the birth of a baby who was not his. He risked his life again by taking the child and his mother to Egypt to escape the murderous clutches of King Herod.

He risked his future and prosperity once more when, “being warned in a dream,” he “went and lived in a city called Nazareth” (Matthew 2:22, 23), a town so insignificant that it is mentioned not once in the entire Old Testament.

While his words are nowhere recorded, he changed the course of human history—not just by protecting Jesus, but by modeling obedience for him. So it was that when his adopted son came to teach his disciples to pray, he began with the Aramaic word he first used for Joseph: Abba, “Father” (Matthew 6:9). Scholars tell us that Jesus was the first rabbi in Jewish history to address the Lord of heaven in such a personal way.

Now Joseph’s example is God’s invitation to us today.

“More than conquerors through him who loved us”

Isaiah foretold the coming of One who would be “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). Yesterday, we considered Mary’s commitment to our Prince of Peace. Today, let’s emulate Joseph’s commitment to him as our Everlasting Father.

Here’s my point: we will seek and trust our Father’s purpose rather than our own to the degree that we believe he loves us more than we love ourselves.

You might think that you always want whatever is best for yourself, but I doubt it. If you’re like me, you too often succumb to temptation to make choices you know will cost more than they pay, then punish yourself with guilt for your failures. And you see yourself in the mirror of the opinion of others, valuing yourself only when and as they do. Since popularity is always fleeting, so is your esteem of yourself.

By contrast, the Christ of Christmas knows every failure of your past and future but loves you unconditionally (1 John 4:8). What’s more, he likes you. Our Lord “takes pleasure in his people” (Psalm 149:4), “delights in the welfare of his servant” (Psalm 35:27), and “richly provides us with everything to enjoy” (1 Timothy 6:17).

He is on our side so fully that “we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37). Paul adds:

Neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (vv. 38–39).

Experiencing this all-conquering love is the key to the well-being our souls long to embrace.

The choice that changes everything

Now we have a choice. We can form our own self-reliant purpose for our own ends, or we can seek and follow the purpose of an Everlasting Father who loves us more than we could ever love ourselves. We can strive to “reach the unreachable star,” or, like Joseph, we can take the hand of the Creator of the stars as he reaches down to us.

Famed missionary Jim Elliot prayed,

“Your will, Lord. Nothing more. Nothing less. Nothing else.”

Will you make his prayer yours today?

Quote for the day:

“He who obeys sincerely endeavors to obey thoroughly.” —Thomas Brooks (1608–80)

Our latest website resources:

• What does Christmas say about God?
• Australia attack, Rob Reiner, Christmas movies, Candace Owens & football updates
• Do miracles still happen? A podcast interview with Lee Strobel
• A review of Lee Strobel’s “The Case for Miracles”
• What does Christmas have to do with bioethics?

Denison Forum

President Trump announced plans yesterday afternoon for a new fleet of warships, to be known as the “Golden Fleet.” In an address from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, he said the new battleships would be “one hundred times more powerful than any battleship ever built.” Renderings behind the president displayed the new “Trump class,” including a ship named the USS Defiant.

In other news, the US military says it struck a vessel allegedly carrying drugs in the eastern Pacific last night, killing one person. The US Coast Guard is in “active pursuit” of a third oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, part of an accelerating effort to block ships from moving the country’s crude oil. From a knife attack in Taiwan and a mass shooting in South Africa to possible new Iran strikes and US and Chinese satellites “dogfighting” in orbit, today’s news is filled with conflict, as always.

Prior to the First World War, the writer Hamilton Wright Mabie said of Christmas, “Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love!” Over the century that followed, however, not everyone has been in on the “conspiracy.” Since his pronouncement, we have seen two world wars, conflicts in Korea and Vietnam, the Cold War, the Gulf War, the War on Terror in Afghanistan and Iraq, and ongoing conflicts in Syria and Ukraine.

Peace is often defined as the absence of conflict. However, there’s a pathway to peace that transcends our conflicts and transforms our days. It is indeed a “conspiracy of love” that begins at Christmas but is not complete until it includes every human heart. Including yours.

 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace”

When Jesus was born, the angels announced, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” (Luke 2:14). Seven centuries earlier, the prophet had promised: “Unto us a child is born, to us a son is given . . . and his name shall be called . . . Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). Isaiah added, “Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end” (v. 7).

If Jesus is indeed the “Prince of Peace,” why didn’t his coming at Christmas bring the absence of conflict for which we yearn today?

You might say that his birth occurred two millennia ago and thus holds no relevance to the conflicts of our day, but Jesus assured us that he is “with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). As we have noted in recent days, he now lives in us by his Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16) and thus is as present in our world as when he inhabited his physical body.

Even more, by inhabiting Christians, he has multiplied his presence around the world through the billions of people who follow him. In this sense, he told us that we will do “greater works” than he did (John 14:12) by virtue of our globe-spanning presence as his “body” (1 Corinthians 12:27).

“Appointed for the fall and rising of many”

And yet, following Jesus does not guarantee the absence of conflict. The opposite is actually often true.

Simeon warned Mary shortly after Jesus’ birth, “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed” (Luke 2:34–35). I cannot imagine that this brought an absence of conflict to her heart that day. Or on the day she saw the prophecy fulfilled as she stood helplessly while her beloved firstborn was nailed to a cross (John 19:25–27).

Jesus warned us, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you” (John 15:18). His word therefore advises, “Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you” (1 John 3:13) and adds, “All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12). As imprisoned believers in Iran and China can attest today, “all” means all.

And conflicts such as “divisions” and “quarreling” in the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 1:10–11) have plagued the church across its history as well.

So I’ll ask again, how did Mary’s Son bring peace at his birth and today?

“Behold, I am the servant of the Lord”

The Old Testament word translated “peace” is shalom, which means to be right with God, others, and ourselves. The New Testament word is eirene, which similarly means harmony and order.

Here’s the catch: to be in true and lasting harmony with ourselves and others, we must be in harmony with God. Peace is a “fruit” of his Spirit (Galatians 5:22), a gift he alone can give.

This is what Jesus was born at Christmas to bring: a path by which our sins can be forgiven and where we can be restored to intimacy with our Father. If we reject this pathway, the conflicts that result are not his fault but ours. We can blame the Prince of Peace for all the wars that have come after he came, but this is like blaming our disease on the doctor whose prescription we ignored.

The key is to respond to the Christ of Christmas as did his mother: “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). When we do—and only then—his transforming peace will be ours.

“God Emmanuel is with you”

Br. Curtis Almquist of the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Boston suggests (his emphases):

As we anticipate Christmas this year, if you are asking, maybe desperately, whether God is with you, I suggest you rephrase the question. The question is not whether God is with you, but how God is with you. Because God Emmanuel is with you, and with the rest of us, whether we here, or those near, or those far away, all around the world. Whether the landscape of your soul is brightly illuminated just now, or whether you are temporarily blinded by more light than you can bear, or whether the darkness simply seems to loom large, God is with you. . . .

In Advent, are we waiting on God? Or is God waiting on us? The answer is “yes.”

How are both true for you today?

Quote for the day:

“God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.” —C. S. Lewis

Our latest website resources:

• What does Christmas say about God?
• Australia attack, Rob Reiner, Christmas movies, Candace Owens & football updates
• Do miracles still happen? A podcast interview with Lee Strobel
• A review of Lee Strobel’s “The Case for Miracles”
• What does Christmas have to do with bioethics?

Denison Forum

There are times when sinners seem to get away with their sins. For example, the Wall Street Journal tells us about the scourge of airline passengers claiming disabilities so they can board in wheelchairs and skip the lines. If no wheelchairs are available when they arrive, they are miraculously “healed” and disembark under their own power.

Skeptical observers call this the work of “Jetway Jesus.”

Then there are times when “private” sin becomes public overnight. For example, the New York Times is profiling the woman who was “shamed” at a Coldplay concert last July when she was caught on camera in the arms of her boss. When news broke that both were married to other people, the story caused an international furor. Both resigned from their positions; she has received death threats.

There are mistakes and failures in my past that I am glad were not broadcast to the world; I’m sure you can say the same. Here’s the practical question: What shortcomings in your life would you most like to improve today?

Do you struggle with what the Puritans called “besetting sins,” perennial temptations and failures? Are there things you wish you could do or stop doing if you only had the strength? Defeats you wish you could repair? Victories you wish you could claim?

The answer to all of the above is found in Christmas.

What was your favorite Christmas gift?

What was your favorite Christmas gift as a child? For me, it was the Mattel Stallion Bicycle (like this one) I received in elementary school.

Someone at my school had one and parked it where I passed by it each day. I thought it was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen. My parents, however, gave me no assurance that I would receive one. I was a “challenging” child (to put it mildly), constantly bringing home conduct slips generated by boredom at school and my belief that I should be able to amuse myself however I wished.

I did nothing to deserve that Stallion bike and had no reason to expect it, which made (and makes) the Christmas morning I found it beside our Christmas tree near-miraculous to my mind.

Of course, of all the gifts we did not deserve, the one for which Christmas exists stands above them all.

Jesus was not “born” when he was born at Christmas: before time began, he was “the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world” (Revelation 13:8 NIV). It is therefore unsurprising that three chapters in Matthew, three in Mark, three in Luke, and six in John focus on the last twenty-four hours of his earthly life.

The reason is simple: he was born to die for us.

A second- or third-century work called The Letter to Diognetus notes that in response to our sins,

[Our Father] gave his own Son as the price of our redemption, the holy one to redeem the wicked, the sinless one to redeem sinners, the just one to redeem the unjust, the incorruptible one to redeem the corruptible, the immortal one to redeem mortals. For what else could have covered our sins but his sinlessness?

Across this Christmas week, I invite you to remember each day the greatest gift you have ever received.

The truest measure of our sincerity

How should we respond?

We often hear the question, What can you give the person who has everything? In Jesus’ case, it is literally true (Colossians 1:15–17). Ministers typically respond by encouraging us to give Jesus ourselves. This is good theology: our omnipotent Lord has chosen to honor the free will with which he made us in his image, so he stands at the door of our heart and knocks to gain admittance through our free choice (cf. Revelation 3:20).

The harder it is to open this door of obedience to him, the deeper the love we demonstrate when we do.

When God’s will obviously benefits us, we can respond as an employee who chooses to do what their employer asks in the transactional expectation of reward as a result. The price that obedience costs us is the degree to which we demonstrate the sincerity of our love for him.

I don’t know about you, but this is not entirely good news for me.

I’m as obedient as I want to be

I once heard the president of a once-Christian university say, “At our school, you can be as religious as you choose to be.” I’ll confess that the same often applies to me: I am as obedient to Jesus as I want to be. If my next step into serving him were easy or obviously beneficial to me, I would have already taken it. What remains in my journey to surrender and sanctification seems to cost more than it pays.

Perhaps you know what I mean. Perhaps you are also being called to do something you’re not doing or stop doing something you are doing. In fact, I would imagine that every Christian on the path to holiness faces such a step today.

As Oswald Chambers noted in today’s My Utmost for His Highest reading, “Every man is made to reach out beyond his grasp.”

Here’s the good news: the Christ who lives within us will empower us to fulfill the purpose of Christ for us.

In recent days, we have focused on the incarnational miracle that “Christ in you” is our “hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). The One who came to live in our world at Christmas now lives in believers by his Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16). Paul’s testimony is therefore true of every Christian: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).

Now the living Lord Jesus stands ready to help us step into the holistic obedience that is our best response to his holistic sacrifice for us.

If we ask, we will receive (Matthew 7:7).

“Majesty in the midst of mundane”

If you doubt that Jesus can work such a transforming miracle in your life today, think back to the transforming miracle by which he was born into our fallen world. Max Lucado describes the first Christmas:

Majesty in the midst of mundane. Holiness in the filth of sheep manure and sweat. Divinity entering the world on the floor of a stable, through the womb of a teenager and in the presence of a carpenter. God came near. And as Luke 1:33 says, “His kingdom will never end.”

In what new way will you make him your king today?

Quote for the day:

“People don’t resist change—they resist being changed.” —Peter Senge

Our latest website resources:

• What does Christmas say about God?
• Australia attack, Rob Reiner, Christmas movies, Candace Owens & football updates
• Do miracles still happen? A podcast interview with Lee Strobel
• A review of Lee Strobel’s “The Case for Miracles”
• What does Christmas have to do with bioethics?

Denison Forum

Last Saturday afternoon, a gunman entered the School of Engineering at Brown University and killed two students, wounding nine others. Two days later, a physics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology named Nuno Gomes Loureiro was shot multiple times outside his home in Brookline, Massachusetts, and later died from his injuries.

Late last night, police announced that the suspect in both shootings had been found dead in a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire.

They identified the suspect as Claudio Neves Valente, 48, a Portuguese national. According to Brown University President Christina Paxson, Valente was enrolled at the Ivy League school from the autumn of 2000 to the following spring, studying for a PhD in physics. He had “no current active affiliation” with the university, she said.

Officials said they also believe Valente killed Prof. Loureiro. Both he and the suspect had studied at the same university in Portugal in the late 1990s, police said.

Initial findings indicated that Valente died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Police were unable to comment on how long he might have been inside the storage unit. No motive in the shootings has been revealed at this writing.

“His answer was faith in faith”

Frederick Buechner taught at Harvard Divinity School one semester, where he met a student who “said once that what he believed in was faith, and when I asked him faith in what, his answer was faith in faith.”

Buechner responded:

I don’t mean to disparage him—he was doing the best he could—but it struck me that having faith in faith was as barren as being in love with love or having money that you spend only on the accumulation of more money.

At the same time, I think I understand the student’s perspective.

Having “faith in faith” brings significant benefits to those who embrace it. They are able to connect in a way with transcendence beyond themselves. They are likely to engage in religious activities proven to enhance mental health, economic well-being, self-esteem, and empathy. They may be part of a community of like-minded individuals with whom they can share the challenges and joys of life.

And yet, when tragedies such as the shootings we’re discussing occur, they are untroubled by the painful questions such suffering inevitably poses for those who hold faith in Jesus.

A suffering child anywhere in the universe

Christians say their God is all-knowing, all-loving, and all-powerful—claims which pain and grief threaten every time they strike. If you knew these shootings would happen before they did and had the power to stop them, of course you would. Any moral person would do the same.

And yet the God of Christianity did not.

Atheism is a typical response to innocent suffering. As Sam Harris stated, a suffering child anywhere in the universe calls into question the existence of God.

But if you don’t want to go so far as to claim rather audaciously that God cannot exist, you can focus your faith on faith itself. You can believe in belief and practice religion to the degree that such practices meet your needs without needing to understand how the object of your faith could allow or cause the suffering and grief of our daily lives.

In fact, this is precisely what you might be doing right now.

An article I didn’t want to write

I intended to write a very different article this morning before news regarding the Brown shooting broke overnight. I didn’t want to have to think about this tragedy and did not want to talk about it with you so close to Christmas. I wanted to focus on something more uplifting and encouraging. And the compassion fatigue resulting from so much bad news in the news made it hard to want to focus yet again on the connection and collision of tragedy and biblical faith.

If you’re like me, you would rather not try to understand how to hold onto belief in an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent God in the face of innocent suffering. It’s not that you reject such faith. You would not go as far as Buechner’s student in claiming a mere “faith in faith.”

But you would like to leave the difficult questions regarding your faith to others and focus on the positives. You would rather I talk about the joys and traditions of Christmas, the inspirational and encouraging aspects of our shared religion. So would I.

However, this is only because I happen not to be facing such questions at the moment. The next time suffering and grief find me, I will once again echo the visceral cry of our Savior, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46, quoting Psalm 22:1).

“The suffering and the love are one”

So, today is not a day to ignore the hard question of innocent suffering. It is not a day to subconsciously embrace a “faith in faith” that leaves the heartbreaking perplexities of life to the side.

It is rather a day to admit that our finite minds cannot by definition understand the mind of an infinite Supreme Being (Isaiah 55:9). It is a day to be honest about our questions and struggles but then take them to the God who urges us to “argue together” with him (a literal translation of Isaiah 1:18).

It is a day to recognize that the greater our pain, the greater our need for a Great Physician. And it is a day to remember that faith in God, like all relationships, requires a commitment that transcends the evidence and becomes self-validating. In other words, the more we trust God when we do not understand him, the more we will eventually (and eternally) come to understand the God we trust (1 Corinthians 13:12).

Above all, it is a day to do the things faith in the God of Scripture calls us to do: Pray for the victims of these horrific shootings and all affected by them (cf. 1 Timothy 2:1). Trust tragedy when it strikes to the God who walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death (Psalm 23:4). And believe that he redeems all he allows and look for ways to be the hands and feet of Jesus in serving the suffering with practical compassion (cf. Romans 8:28; 1 Corinthians 12:27).

Such responses do not explain the unexplainable. But they offer something far better: the personal help and transcendent hope of a Savior who was born into our suffering at Christmas and has never left us.

To close with another reflection from Frederick Buechner:

“When someone we love suffers, we suffer with that person, and we would not have it otherwise, because the suffering and the love are one, just as it is with God’s love for us.”

Why do you need this reminder today?

Quote for the day:

“Because of Christ, our suffering is not useless. It is part of the total plan of God, who has chosen to redeem the world through the pathway of suffering.” —R. C. Sproul

Our latest website resources:

• Australia attack, Rob Reiner, Christmas movies, Candace Owens & football updates
• Do miracles still happen? A podcast interview with Lee Strobel
• A review of Lee Strobel’s “The Case for Miracles”
• Are you SAD? How to fight against the winter blues
• The real story of Christmas: The baby who was “from the beginning”

Denison Forum

Jason Bradley DeFord is known professionally as Jelly Roll. His song “Son of a Sinner” won three Country Music Television awards in 2023. The same year, he won the award for New Artist at the Country Music Association Awards. He has also made news for his weight loss of nearly three hundred pounds and was recently inducted into the Grand Ole Opry.

But his life story is even more striking than his musical talent.

He was baptized at the age of fourteen, but says around that time he began “dabbling” in drugs and stopped attending church. From his teenage years into his twenties, he was arrested numerous times and spent time in jail for felonies. He returned to his faith when he was thirty-nine and his fourteen-year-old daughter expressed an interest in being baptized.

During his recent conversation on Joe Rogan’s podcast, Rogan said to him, “You’re a totally new human being.” He replied, “You know what’s crazy? I don’t want to get super spiritual out of the gate, but I will because I think God wants me to right now because [of] you saying that.”

The singer explained: “There’s a Scripture in the Bible that says in Christ all things are a new creation, which I thought was interesting because it didn’t talk about restoring the old. It says that in God we are a completely new creation. You know what I mean? I was looking at it at first like I’m restoring my heart. But then, when you’re saying that, I’m like, ‘No, I didn’t restore my heart. I got a whole new heart,’” he said. “This is a brand new heart, Joe. You know what I mean? It might be cloaked as the old one, but God touched it. It’s a whole new heart, baby. It’s a different heart.”

Our greatest challenge and greatest hope

When I began teaching apologetics forty years ago, the question was, “Is Christianity true?” I taught my seminary students to defend the faith using evidence for God’s existence, the veracity of Scripture, the deity of Jesus, and so on.

In today’s postmodern, post-truth culture, the question is, “Why should I make your truth my truth?” In a day when user reviews are the currency of commerce, where people want to know if a particular technology or truth worked for those who tried it, the evidence most needed today is changed lives.

Here is where Christianity faces its greatest challenge and offers its greatest hope.

Our challenge is that Christians are supposed to live like Christ. We are intended to manifest his character in our world (Galatians 5:22–23) and his light in our darkness (Matthew 5:14–16), to be holy as he is holy (1 Peter 1:16). When we fail to live up to our truth claims, secular people understandably reject the relevance of our beliefs for their lives.

But this fact also leads to our greatest hope.

As Jelly Roll said, Jesus doesn’t restore your old heart—he gives you a new heart. He takes up residence in your life by his Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16). As Paul said, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). It is “Christ in you” that is our “hope of glory” (Colossians 1:16).

Other religions try to help us do better—Jesus empowers us to be better.

“Take every thought captive to obey Christ”

Today begins the “seven antiphons of Advent.”

From December 17^th to December 23^rd, Christians around the world will focus on seven proclamations about Jesus as the Messiah. This practice goes back at least to the eighth century and perhaps even earlier than the sixth. These antiphons (short responses sung or recited in church services) are also the basis for the beloved hymn, “O Come, O Come, Emanuel.”

The first, being recited today in worship services, prays in English:

O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from one end to the other, mightily and sweetly ordering all things: Come and teach us the way of prudence.

We are right to seek such Wisdom. Apart from Christ, our finite, fallen minds are “darkened in their understanding” (Ephesians 4:18). We can be taken “captive” by “empty deceit” (Colossians 2:8) and “led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:3).

However, the good news is that you and I have “divine power to destroy strongholds” so that we can “destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). But this “divine power” is not within our human capacity: “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lᴏʀᴅ of hosts” (Zechariah 4:6).

Jesus promised that the Spirit “will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (John 14:26). This is just one way he gives us a “new heart” as we are “transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Romans 12:2).

Four steps to transforming wisdom

How does this work in practical terms?

One: Trust in Christ as your personal Savior and Lord (John 1:12). I never want to assume that people who do religious things such as reading (or writing) articles like this one are therefore “born again” as God’s children. If you’re not sure about your salvation experience, I encourage you to read my article, “Why Jesus?” and speak to a pastor or Christian friend about your relationship with Christ.

Two: Submit your mind and life every day to the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 5:18). This is a conscious decision to surrender your thoughts, motives, and plans to him. Then stay connected with the Spirit as you pray through your day, seeking his wisdom and direction as you walk in his presence.

Three: Name your decision or challenge and seek the Spirit’s guidance. Partner with him by consulting Scripture, speaking with Christian friends, and reading trusted literature. Know that God wants you to know his will even more than you do: “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him” (James 1:5).

Four: Share God’s word with your world (Romans 1:16). One of the best ways to learn is to teach. When we seek and speak biblical truth to the issues of our day, we grow in wisdom as instruments of wisdom.

The Scottish scientist and evangelist Henry Drummond observed:

“Willpower does not change men. Time does not change men. Christ does.”

How will Christ change your heart today?

Quote for the day:

“No mind, no wisdom; temporary mind, temporary wisdom; eternal mind, eternal wisdom.” —Adoniram Judson

Our latest website resources:

• Do miracles still happen? A podcast interview with Lee Strobel
• A review of Lee Strobel’s “The Case for Miracles”
• Are you SAD? How to fight against the winter blues
• The real story of Christmas: The baby who was “from the beginning”
• Netflix vs. Paramount fight for Warner Bros., Hollywood’s future, Spotify wrapped and college football playoffs

Denison Forum

“Ahmed was driven by his sentiment, conscience, and humanity.” This is how the father of a “hero” who responded to the Hanukkah massacre in Australia explained his son’s actions.

Ahmed al Ahmed’s father told the BBC that his son “saw the victims, the blood, women and children lying on the street, and then acted.” Video shows Ahmed running at the gunman, seizing his weapon, turning the gun around on him, and forcing his retreat. Ahmed was then shot multiple times and has undergone surgery for his wounds.

New South Wales Premiere Chris Minns said of Ahmed, “His incredible bravery no doubt saved countless lives when he disarmed a terrorist at enormous personal risk.” He added, “There is no doubt that more lives would have been lost if not for Ahmed’s selfless courage.” President Trump agreed, calling Ahmed “a very, very brave person” who “saved a lot of lives.”

Ironically, the people saved by Ahmed’s courage will likely go the rest of their lives without knowing it. Unless they could somehow know what the shooter would have done apart from Ahmed’s intervention, they cannot know that they would have been injured or killed if he had not acted with such selfless courage.

By contrast, Larisa Kleytman will go the rest of her life knowing that she was spared by the selfless courage of her husband. Alex Kleytman was a Holocaust survivor. He and his wife of five decades were visiting Sydney’s Bondi Beach to celebrate Hanukkah when the shooting erupted, and he was shot to death as he shielded his wife. “I think he was shot because he raised himself up to protect me,” Larisa said.

A threat that threatens us all

If you’re not Jewish, you may be thinking that such heroism, while obviously commendable, is less than relevant to you personally. The rise of antisemitism in Australia, while horrific and tragic, can feel remote to non-Jews in America.

But know this: to an Islamist, every person who lives in a nation perceived to support Israel is a potential victim of Islamist terrorism.

As I explained in my book Radical Islam: What You Need to Know and on our website, jihadists believe that the West has been attacking Islam since the Crusades and especially by supporting Israel, a nation seen as “stealing” its land from its rightful Palestinian owners. They also believe that because the West is comprised of democracies where the people elect their leaders and support their military, we are all complicit in this “attack” on Islam.

Since the Qur’an requires Muslims to defend Islam (cf. Surah 2:190), jihadists believe they are required to attack those in the West in order to defend the Muslim faith and people. As a result, what happened in Israel on October 7 and in Australia on December 14 could happen where you and I live today.

The year began with jihadist terrorism when an attacker displaying an Islamic State flag rammed his vehicle into a crowd in New Orleans last New Year’s Day, killing at least fifteen people. It is ending on the same tragic theme:

• Three Moroccans, an Egyptian, and a Syrian were detained last Friday over a plan to drive a vehicle into people at a Christmas market in Germany. Authorities suspect an “Islamist motive” behind the plot.
• The shooter who ambushed US and Syrian troops last Saturday, killing two American soldiers and one civilian working as an interpreter, is believed to have been an Islamic State infiltrator working as part of a local security force.
• Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said this morning that the gunmen who perpetrated the Hanukkah massacre were “motivated by “Islamic State ideology.”

This is a threat that threatens us all.

What Christians can do that no one else can

Responding to this burgeoning danger will require courage.

You and I may not be required to attack an attacker to wrest their rifle from them or shield a loved one and die in their place. But we have platforms of influence we can use to condemn the scourge of antisemitism rising in our time. We can support our Jewish friends with our personal encouragement and engagement. We can befriend local Jewish leaders and congregations and encourage our churches and other networks to do the same.

These are all steps anyone can take who has the character and courage to do so.

In addition, however, Christians can respond to this threat as no one else can.

The Apostle Paul described his former life: “I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it” (Galatians 1:13; cf. 1 Corinthians 15:9). Specifically, he was “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord” when he sought the authority to arrest Christians in Damascus and “bring them bound to Jerusalem” (Acts 9:1–2). In this way, being “exceedingly enraged against them” (Acts 26:11 NKJV), he said, “I persecuted this Way to the death” (Acts 22:4).

But you know what happened to him on the road to Damascus. Now we can pray for our Lord to do the same in the hearts of jihadists around the world. Such intercession is a response no one else can or will make.

The next time we hear about a jihadist attack

What Jesus did to transform Saul of Tarsus, he can do to transform any jihadist terrorist anywhere in the world.

He is already appearing to Muslims around the globe in visions and dreams, sparking a remarkable spiritual awakening in the Islamic world. As the noted author and Middle East expert Joel Rosenberg reports, more Muslims have come to faith in Christ in the last half-century than in the last fourteen centuries combined. My dear friends Tom and JoAnn Doyle have documented this movement and experience it regularly in their miraculous ministry.

So, the next time we hear about an Islamist attack, let’s intercede for the victims, of course. But let’s also stop to pray for the attacker to come to Christ. Let’s pray for Jesus to reveal himself to this person in dreams and through believers. Let’s pray for Christians in the Muslim world to use their influence to demonstrate the “fruit of the Spirit” and otherwise manifest the presence of Christ.

And let’s pray for God to redeem the global crisis of antisemitism and jihadist terrorism by bringing millions to faith in his Son.

If Jesus could come at Christmas, I believe he can come again into any heart and life.

Do you agree?

Quote for the day:

“To have courage for whatever comes in life, everything lies in that.” —St. Teresa of Avila

Our latest website resources:

• Are you SAD? How to fight against the winter blues
• The real story of Christmas: The baby who was “from the beginning”
• Netflix vs. Paramount fight for Warner Bros., Hollywood’s future, Spotify wrapped and college football playoffs
• How can Christians face anxiety without losing faith?
• A review of “2 Chairs: The Secret that Changes Everything”

Denison Forum

Iconic actor and director Rob Reiner first came to fame for his role as Archie Bunker’s liberal son-in-law “Meathead” in All In the Family. Beginning in the 1980s, he established himself as a director of numerous successful Hollywood films, including This Is Spinal Tap, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, A Few Good Men, and The American President.

This morning, news began breaking that he and his wife, Michele, had been found dead in their Los Angeles home. The couple was found stabbed to death Sunday in an apparent homicide, according to police.

Now we are learning that their son, Nick Reiner, was arrested Sunday night in connection with the deaths of his parents. He is being held in a jail in Los Angeles County on $4 million bail. At this writing, no information about criminal charges has been made available. However, People magazine is reporting that the Reiners were killed by their son, though police have not confirmed this account.

Nick Reiner, age thirty-two, has spoken openly over the years about his struggles with drug abuse and bouts of homelessness. He and his father worked together on a movie, Being Charlie, which was loosely inspired by his early life. Rob Reiner directed, while his son wrote the screenplay alongside a person he met in rehab.

Why I disagreed with Rob Reiner

My wife and I happened to watch When Harry Met Sally again the other night. Afterwards, we discussed how effectively the movie normalizes sex outside of marriage.

The two characters, played so winsomely by Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan, sleep with any number of people while never marrying any of them (except each other at the end of the movie, of course). Rob Reiner’s film is so humorous and likable that you find yourself glad for the couple when they find happiness in their unbiblical relationship.

I disagreed with Mr. Reiner on numerous cultural and moral issues. He was a well-known advocate for same-sex marriage, for example, among other liberal causes. And many of his movies portrayed sexual immorality in ways that normalized and popularized it.

In addition, he made clear that he didn’t “believe in organized religion,” though he appreciated “a lot of the concepts of Buddhism.” He explained:

I’m not practicing anything, but those things make sense because it’s all about how you find spirituality inside you and how you treat others. It’s all about finding meaning. That’s what life is all about.

At the same time, I am of course horrified by the news of his death and that of his wife. If their son does turn out to be involved in their murder, this will be an even more tragic story.

And I’ve been thinking about my reaction to the news of his death. Upon reflection, I believe there is a factor here that transcends Mr. Reiner and the news of the day, whatever it is.

“Jesus shows his love for us”

Jesus loved the “rich young ruler,” even knowing that the man would reject his invitation to discipleship (Mark 10:17–22). He grieved for Jerusalem, even though (and because) it would reject him as the Messiah (Luke 19:41–44). He loved his disciples “to the end” (John 13:1), even though they would abandon him in the Garden of Gethsemane and (except for John) forsake him at the cross. He loved those who crucified him as he prayed for their forgiveness (Luke 23:34).

Jesus described John and his brother James as “Sons of Thunder” (Mark 3:17), perhaps presaging the time the two were angered by the Samaritan rejection of Jesus and asked, “Do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” (Luke 9:54). On the way to Jerusalem, the brothers’ mother asked Jesus to seat them in places of honor in his kingdom (Matthew 20:20–23). And yet John was his “beloved” disciple (John 21:20).

The Bible teaches, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Jesus’ love for us is so unconditional and absolute that nothing can “separate us” from it (Romans 8:35). The more we reject him, the more we need him. The sicker the patient, the more urgent and necessary the physician.

Here’s my point: Jesus’ followers can experience and manifest this same unconditional love for those who do not agree with our biblical faith. In fact, we should. And we must.

“Christ in you, the hope of glory”

It is not unusual in religious history for gods to appear as human. It was standard in Roman mythology, for example, for various deities to take on human form to interact with us. It was also typical for humans to be deified after their death, as with ancient Egyptian beliefs regarding the pharaohs.

But here is what Christianity surprisingly claims: our God can live in us. Just as Jesus came to live in Mary prior to Christmas, so his Spirit comes to live in every person who makes Christ their Lord (1 Corinthians 3:16). Paul testified, “God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27, my emphasis).

Now add this amazing fact: Not only does Jesus live in Christians, but he also works to make Christians more like Christ. His Spirit manifests his character, including his “love” for all people (Galatians 5:22). Thus, we see Peter and John ministering to a crippled beggar (Acts 3), Philip caring about the hated Samaritans (Acts 8:4–8), and Paul, the former Pharisee, devoting his life to reaching Gentiles (cf. Acts 9:15).

Jesus’ compassion changed the world. Through us, it still can.

“See how they love one another”

One of the best ways we can measure the degree to which we are following Jesus and are submitted to his Spirit is by measuring the degree to which we love people who do not love us. How we treat those we don’t have to treat well is a basic measure of character. But how we love those who reject our love and our Lord is a measure of Christlikeness.

Jesus was clear on this: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:44–45). The more we love those who do not love us, the more we display the family traits of our Father.

And the more we draw others to him.

The early apologist Tertullian (AD 160–240) said of his fellow believers:

We don’t take the gifts and spend them on feasts, drinking-bouts, or fancy restaurants. Instead we use them to support and bury poor people, to supply the needs of boys and girls who have no means and no parents. We support the elderly confined now to their homes. We also help those who have suffered shipwreck. And if there happen to be any in the mines, or banished to the islands, or shut up in the prisons—for nothing but their fidelity to the cause of God’s Church—they then become the nurselings of the confession we hold [as we take them in to help them].

Primarily it is the acts of love that are so noble that lead many to put a brand upon us. “See,” they say, “how they love one another” (Apology, chapter 39).

Who will say the same of you today?

Denison Forum

“America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests.” For better or worse, that principle—typically attributed to Henry Kissinger—epitomizes President Trump’s latest National Security Strategy (NSS): a document outlining his administration’s approach to allies, enemies, and everyone in between.

Every president since Reagan has released at least one NSS to Congress during each term in office. But while the details change, the basic priorities of expanding America’s influence, guarding against foreign threats, and supporting our allies tend to be relatively similar from administration to administration. Trump’s latest policy contains much of the same information, though with one pivotal shift in perspective.

Whereas previous strategies—including Trump’s from 2017—focused mainly on a post-Cold War approach to building security through strength and influence worldwide, the latest NSS is clear that domestic stability is to be the focal point for the current administration. And that starts with redefining what America should expect from our allies and, just as importantly, what our allies can expect from us.

A new approach to Europe

In the introduction of the NSS, the administration states, “The purpose of foreign policy is the protection of core national interests; that is the sole focus of this strategy.” The document goes on to add that previous approaches “allowed allies and partners to offload the cost of their defense onto the American people, and sometimes to suck us into conflicts and controversies central to their interests but peripheral or irrelevant to our own.”

In short, they’ve decided that America’s allies have too often been more of a hindrance to the nation’s prosperity than a help.

The accuracy of that conclusion is certainly debatable, and the NSS’s detractors tend to point to this shift in approach—particularly as it pertains to Europe—as one of their most pressing critiques. At the same time, the Trump administration is not wrong when it points out that “We count among our many allies and partners dozens of wealthy, sophisticated nations that must assume primary responsibility for their regions and contribute far more to our collective defense.”

To their credit, many countries in Europe have endeavored to do just that in recent years. However, the NSS also points to the administration’s belief that changes in Europe’s approach to free speech, immigration, and a host of other societal factors make it “far from obvious whether certain European countries will have economies and militaries strong enough to remain reliable allies.”

This emphasis on the cultural shifts is perhaps the most critical indicator of how Trump sees Europe. They are allies insofar as it benefits America to consider them allies. That said, the NSS also points to an important distinction between countries that are trying to be useful and those that assume they are without actually offering much evidence to support that conclusion.

The Trump administration clearly believes that many European nations have chosen a path that makes them less valuable allies while still expecting to be accorded that status due to a shared history or the claim of shared ideals.

However, the move to minimize our obligations to Europe is not the only significant shift from previous approaches to foreign policy.

A new Monroe Doctrine?

Perhaps the most important element of the NSS is what the administration calls a “‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine.” While the title may sound strange, it’s essentially a way of finding historical precedent for claiming dominion over the Western Hemisphere.

The Monroe Doctrine was initially issued in 1823, when President James Monroe told Congress—and, by extension, the rest of the world—that the Americas were off-limits for any further colonization by Europe. In return, he promised that the United States would essentially leave Europe alone as well.

Roughly eighty years later, President Theodore Roosevelt expanded upon the policy with the “Roosevelt Corollary,” essentially declaring that America would function as the regional policeman for Latin America and the Caribbean. The policy has served as justification for US intervention throughout the region ever since. Given the military buildup outside of Venezuela, it’s not hard to see why Trump would appeal to this precedent today.

However, regardless of the policy’s current usage, the administration’s concerns with maintaining dominance in the region are understandable. China and, to a lesser extent, Russia have been making inroads in Latin America and the Caribbean for decades. As such, turning our attention to the countries closer to home is, in many ways, a necessary step in combating China, Russia, and the other adversaries that many were surprised to see get less attention in the NSS.

That said, there is a degree of hypocrisy in telling the rest of the world that the Americas are off limits while, at the same time, outlining all the ways in which the US plans to continue intervening in their parts of the globe. After all, the NSS clearly outlines plans to prevent China from intruding on Taiwan and to pressure European governments to run their countries in accordance with Trump’s view of what’s best.

Neither plan is necessarily wrong, but the contradictory nature of expecting the rest of the world to leave us alone without us leaving them alone highlights a key problem underlying many of our nation’s difficulties over recent decades. Far too often, we struggle to find the balance between who we aspire to be and who we’re actually capable of being.

The new NSS is, in many ways, a step in the right direction, but that war between our aspirations and our capacities remains. And, unfortunately, it’s a struggle most of us know all too well.

Who will you aspire to be?

Throughout the Bible, the Lord is quite clear about what he expects of his people. And while there’s a lot to those expectations, the essence of it can be summed up in Christ’s command to “be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).

As Christians, most of us understand that’s how we should aspire to live. However, I suspect most of us also understand that we’re not really capable of doing so as consistently as we might like. So, how can we bridge that gap?

I think Eugene Peterson’s translation of this verse in The Message may be of some help:

In a word, what I’m saying is, Grow up. You’re kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.

You see, one of the most common reasons we fail to live out our God-created identity is that we often aspire to be something other than who God has called us to be. When that happens, we lose out on the blessing and power of the Holy Spirit in our lives to help bridge the gap between our fallen, sinful selves and the version we’re capable of growing into when we’re guided by his presence.

So, who are you aspiring to be today? If you were to take an honest assessment of what you hope to accomplish and the person you wish to become, how much say did you give God in coming up with those goals?

Or, on the other hand, are there any ways in which you’ve given up on your aspirations? Have you stopped asking the Lord who he wants you to be because you’ve allowed the sins and failures of your past to convince you that you’re unworthy or incapable of becoming anything other than who you are right now?

Neither end of that spectrum will allow us to fulfill Christ’s words from Matthew 5:48. Yet, he wouldn’t set us up to fail by commanding the impossible of us.

The simple truth is that the only way we can be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect is by allowing our heavenly Father to help us do just that.

Let’s start today.

Quote of the day:

“Don’t judge a man by where he is, because you don’t know how far he has come.” —C. S. Lewis

Our latest website resources:

• Netflix vs. Paramount fight for Warner Bros., Hollywood’s future, Spotify Wrapped & College Football Playoffs | Ep. 48
• How can Christians face anxiety without losing faith?
• A review of “2 Chairs: The Secret that Changes Everything”
• When are kids old enough to have a smartphone?
• President Trump, affordability, and the power of empathy

Denison Forum

Yesterday, the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates for the third time this year. The decision was made in response to slowing job growth and elevated inflation.

The day before, President Trump spoke at a rally in Pennsylvania, telling supporters he has “no higher priority than making America affordable again.” The rally was one of the first salvos in the run-up to the 2026 midterm elections, which are widely expected to be about the economy.

In recent polling, 74 percent of Americans say economic conditions are fair or poor. The partisan divide is striking: 44 percent of Republicans say the economy is excellent or good, while only 20 percent of Democrats agree.

According to White House spokesperson Kush Desai, Mr. Trump inherited the Biden administration’s “inflation and affordability crisis,” but the president’s policies to cut regulations and lower drug prices “have cooled inflation and raised real wages.”

However, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the center-right American Action Forum think tank, suggested that blaming a president’s predecessor only works for “about a year,” after which “you own it, you’re in the White House, good or bad, it happens on your watch. You own it, and they need to recognize that’s how the American people behave, no matter what they say.”

How radio changed everything

There was a time when few Americans saw their president. Unless you made the trek to the White House and secured an appointment with him, you were unlikely to encounter him in person. Presidential candidates seldom campaigned on their own behalf, and the chief way the larger public knew of them was through newspaper coverage.

Then came the advent of radio. While Warren G. Harding was the first president to give a radio address (1922) and Calvin Coolidge also used the medium, Franklin Roosevelt transformed it into his personal platform. His famous “Fireside Chats” connected him directly and conversationally with the American public during the Great Depression, bypassing the press and making his voice and personality known to millions.

From then to today, the candidate most believed to empathize with the public is often the candidate who wins. We elect our leaders in the hope that they will make our lives better. But how can they do this if they don’t understand our challenges or care about our problems?

In this sense, our leaders are our servants. We employ them by voting for them. But if our lives do not improve as a result, we’ll elect others we hope will do better.

Why did Jesus come at Christmas?

Why did Jesus come into the world at Christmas? The obvious answer is so he could die for our sins on Good Friday and be resurrected on Easter Sunday. But if that is all his incarnation needed to accomplish, he could have entered our race as an adult and then been arrested and crucified by the Romans.

Pontius Pilate did not crucify Jesus because of the way he entered the world or what he did in the years prior to his arrest. It is true that the popularity generated by his public ministry threatened the Jewish authorities, leading them to seek his execution by the Romans (cf. John 11:45–53). But the omnipotent God of the universe could have arranged another way for his Son to die for the sins of humanity, one that did not require his birth or earthly life before his death.

Instead, our Savior chose to enter our race in the most humble manner imaginable. He chose to grow up in obscurity and then live in relative poverty, as we noted yesterday. He was tempted by Satan himself (Matthew 4:1–10). He experienced fatigue (John 4:6), thirst (John 19:28), grief (John 11:35), and anguish (Matthew 26:36–37). He suffered horrific torture on the cross, where his friends forsook him and he felt abandoned even by his Father (Matthew 27:46).

As Scripture says, “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15).

And Jesus continues to feel our pain even today. We are in his hand (John 10:28), his Spirit dwells in us (1 Corinthians 3:16), and he is “interceding for us” right now (Romans 8:34; cf. Hebrews 7:25). As a result, he knows all we know and feels all we feel.

The night I shook my fist at God

So, in a very real sense, Jesus is the most empathetic leader in human history. You might therefore expect me to use this fact to appeal for you to “elect” him as your Lord. His omniscience knows the future better than we know the present. His omnipotence can do all his perfect love requires.

Who better to lead our lives and be the “president” of our souls?

Here’s the problem: When we relate to Jesus as to another leader we elect, we feel the liberty to “unelect” him when he disappoints us. We feel justified in blaming him for our problems and then refusing to trust or serve him.

I have known scores of people over the years who were once faithful followers of Jesus but who turned from him when they experienced trials and travails for which they held him responsible. You may be in their number today. If not, you will likely face such a trial in the future.

If God is the supreme being and we are finite, fallen creatures, there will inevitably be times when we do not understand his ways and are disappointed by them (cf. Isaiah 55:9–10). We can then decide to reject him, but this only isolates us from his protection and provision. If a doctor disappoints me and I reject all physicians, I do not harm the medical community so much as I harm myself when I next need medical care.

Instead, we can express our frustration and pain directly to our Father, as Jesus did in Gethsemane and on Calvary. We can ask him for the faith to have faith (Mark 9:24). We can know that he is with us even in “the valley of the shadow of death” (Psalm 23:4) and claim his promise that “when you pass through the waters, I will be with you” (Isaiah 43:2).

And the deeper the darkness, the more we will experience his light.

I was in college when my father died at the age of fifty-five. That night, I went into our backyard, looked up into the sky, and shook my fist at God.

But he did not shake his fist at me.

He never will.

Quote for the day:

“The great mystery is not the cures, but the infinite compassion which is their source.” —Henry J. M. Nouwen

Our latest website resources:

• How can Christians face anxiety without losing faith?
• A review of “2 Chairs: The Secret that Changes Everything”
• What does the Bible say about Santa Claus? How to turn holidays into holy days
• When are kids old enough to have a smartphone?
• Why do we have Christmas trees? How a “pagan symbol” became an integral part of our Christmas traditions

Denison Forum

I need to begin with a warning: If you read the rest of this paragraph, you are likely to ingest a musical “earworm” that will not stop playing in your brain all day. According to a survey conducted by FinanceBuzz, the “most annoying” Christmas song in America is Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” Paradoxically, it is also the most popular Christmas song in America.

If you now can’t get the song out of your mind, don’t blame me—you were warned.

But seen in a theological light, there’s a surprising message here, one that turns the Christmas holidays into holy days that transform our lives all year.

What does Jesus want for Christmas?

Jesus owned only the absolute minimum necessary for life in this world. This was true from the moment of his birth, when he came into the world in a borrowed stable and was laid in a borrowed feed trough. This was true to the moment of his death, when he was crucified on a Roman cross, prepared for burial through the generosity of others, and laid in a borrowed tomb.

During his earthly ministry, he lived in Capernaum at the home of his friend Peter. When he visited Jerusalem, he stayed in Bethany at the home of his friends Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. Regarding home ownership, he said, “the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20).

And yet, not once did he ask anyone for anything except for their good. He asked a Samaritan woman for water so he could lead her to “living water” (John 4:7–14). He invited himself to the home of Zacchaeus so he could bring salvation to his “house” (Luke 19:1–10).

Everything Jesus did, from the moment he entered our world, was intended to bring us to himself:

• If he could be conceived in the womb of a virgin, he can come into any heart and life (cf. John 3:16).
• If impoverished residents of a town so small it’s not mentioned even once in the Old Testament could be Jesus’ family, anyone can be part of his family (cf. 1 Peter 2:9).
• If field hands so ritually unclean that they could not enter a synagogue could join the celebration of his birth, anyone can praise him today (cf. Revelation 7:9–10).
• If Samaritans, Gentiles, demoniacs, tax collectors, and lepers could join his movement, anyone can follow him today.
• If those who forsook him, denied him, and persecuted his followers could be forgiven, anyone can be forgiven.
• If a worshiper exiled on a prison island could experience him personally (Revelation 1:9–20), anyone can experience him in worship today.

I say all of that to ask this: If you were to give Jesus what he wants most for Christmas, what would it be?

“A chamber in the heart of God”

Speaking of Jesus’ mother, Br. Curtis Almquist of the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Boston notes:

We, like Mary, have God’s attention and God’s love. We, like Mary, have something utterly unique about the life God has given us. There is no one like us; never has been; never will be. We are known by God. We are favored by God in an even more unique way than we are to our most precious relationships. There is a chamber in our heart which only God can enter; and there is a chamber in the heart of God into which only we can enter.

How shall we respond to such love?

When Gabriel invited Mary to become the mother of God’s Son, she replied: “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). Br. Almquist similarly advises us: “Keep the verb surrender in the vocabulary of your heart.”

This verb is God’s consistent demand of his followers:

• “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23).
• “Submit yourselves therefore to God” (James 4:7).
• “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God” (1 Peter 5:6).

Why is this? Why does Jesus want us for Christmas? All of us, surrendered fully and unconditionally to him?

Is this because he is a despot bent on the submission of humanity as his subjects?

Or could it be that our Lord’s response to our surrender is his greatest gift to us?

“I will give you a new self instead”

Br. Almquist quotes the nineteenth-century Quaker author Thomas Kelly:

The paradox is that as we surrender and are willing to do God’s bidding, our lives unfold in a way that is much more magnificent than we could ever have humanly orchestrated. Life becomes extremely simple, and oh, so good.

This only makes sense. If we trust our lives to an all-knowing Father who sees the future better than we can see the present, an all-loving and all-powerful Lord who can do all that is best and nothing else, how could the outcome be anything but his best for us?

And even more, as we give our lives to the One who gave his life for us, we experience Jesus himself. His Spirit manifests his personality and character in ours (Romans 8:29). Jesus continues his ministry in the world in and through our lives (1 Corinthians 12:27).

1. S. Lewis gives voice to our Savior’s invitation today:

I don’t want so much of your time, so much of your money, so much of your work: I want you. . . . Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked—the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. I will give you myself.

Could there be a greater gift than this?

Quote for the day:

“Let God have your life; he can do more with it than you can.” —Dwight Moody

Our latest website resources:

• How can Christians face anxiety without losing faith?
• A review of “2 Chairs: The Secret that Changes Everything”
• What does the Bible say about Santa Claus? How to turn holidays into holy days
• When are kids old enough to have a smartphone?
• Why do we have Christmas trees? How a “pagan symbol” became an integral part of our Christmas traditions

Denison Forum

Pantone, a company that calls itself “the global authority for color communication and inspiration,” has announced that Cloud Dancer is its “color of the year” for 2026. I would call its selection “white,” but I’m in no sense a color authority.

However, I was interested in the stated reason for the choice: according to Time, “This year’s pick is meant to represent serenity and tranquility, which Pantone says is ever in need ‘in a frenetic society.’”

“Frenetic” is something I know something about. I suspect you do as well. Glance at these headlines:

• “For Gen Z-ers, work is now more depressing than unemployment”
• “Thailand–Cambodia fighting spreads along border as death toll rises”
• “Drone-damaged Chernobyl facility’s shield can’t confine radiation, nuclear body warns”
• “Japan rattled by 7.5-magnitude earthquake, authorities warn of aftershocks”

Even in our fallen world, however, there is a path to “serenity and tranquility.” The paradox is that recognizing the former is essential to the latter.

How my parents helped me clean my bedroom

A wise mentor once told me, “People don’t do what you expect—they do what you inspect.” I already knew this to be true, however.

Growing up, I was responsible for the cleanliness of my bedroom. My parents scheduled weekly inspections to this end, but they soon discovered that I could (and did) wait until an hour before their examination to do a week’s worth of cleaning. So they began drop-ins as well. These unannounced visits were most unwelcome, but they did have their desired effect with regard to the state of my room.

The fourth-century theologian St. Ephrem the Syrian similarly explained why Jesus said, “You do not know on what day your Lord is coming” (Matthew 24:42):

He has kept those things hidden so that we may keep watch, each of us thinking that he will come in our own day. . . . He promised that he would come but did not say when he would come, and so all generations and ages await him eagerly.

Then Ephrem added this observation I had not considered:

Keep watch; when the body is asleep nature takes control of us, and what is done is not done by our will but by force, by the impulse of nature. When deep listlessness takes possession of the soul, for example, faint-heartedness or melancholy, the enemy overpowers it and makes it do what it does not will. The force of nature, the enemy of the soul, is in control.

When the Lord commanded us to be vigilant, he meant vigilance in both parts of man: in the body, against the tendency to sleep; in the soul, against lethargy and timidity.

“A shadow of what is to come”

The Bible consistently calls us to prepare for eternity today (cf. Titus 2:13; 1 John 2:28; 1 Peter 4:7; Hebrews 10:24–25) As Jesus exhorted us, “You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect” (Matthew 24:44).

Why is such readiness for the final Advent so imperative?

One obvious reason is that we are one day closer to eternity than ever before and have only today to be ready. Jesus could return to the world today (Acts 1:10–11), or we could step through death into eternity today (John 14:3).

But there’s another reason: living in the light of eternity today transforms today.

If you knew Jesus would return next week, what would you change this week? What would you do or stop doing? Whom would you forgive? From whom would you seek forgiveness?

Here’s the point: Living this way is the best way to live every day, even if we have many years before we see Jesus again. There is a “serenity and tranquility” to living in God’s perfect will that is found nowhere else. First15, Denison Ministries’ devotional resource, explains:

Without a real revelation of eternity, this life will be marked by hopelessness and a sense of aimless wandering. Only when our destination comes into view can we rightly see the circumstances strewn along the journey of this life. . . .

When we live seeking satisfaction from the things of the world, we live as if heaven didn’t exist and God didn’t usher in his kingdom through Jesus. The things of this world only have value in the Giver of all good gifts. So our possessions, relationships, and work only have value here because they are a shadow of what is to come when all things are made new.

Five biblical reminders

Being in God’s will every day is the vital commitment that leads to his “abundant” life and our best (John 10:10). So, how can we live in his perfect will every day?

Let’s close with five biblical reminders:

One: Remember the brevity of life every day (Psalm 39:4–5; 90:12). Thomas Ken advised, “Let those who thoughtfully consider the brevity of life remember the length of eternity.”

Two: Submit to the Holy Spirit every day (Ephesians 5:18; Romans 12:1–2). Scripture teaches, “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16). In today’s My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers warned: “Beware of refusing to go to the funeral of your independence.”

Three: Think and live biblically every day (John 8:31–32). John Calvin noted: “Scripture is like a pair of spectacles which dispels the darkness and gives us a clear view of God.”

Four: Seek intimacy with Jesus every day (John 15:5). In the Proslogion, St. Anselm (1033–1109) prayed:

Teach me to seek you, and reveal yourself to me when I seek you, for I cannot seek you unless you teach me, nor find you unless you reveal yourself. Let me seek you in longing, let me long for you in seeking; let me find you by loving you and love you in the act of finding you.

If one of the greatest theological geniuses in Christian history needed to pray this, how much more do we?

Five: Share Christ with the world every day (Acts 1:8). A mentor once asked me, “When you see Jesus again, if he asks you, ‘Whom did you bring me?’, what will you say?”

How would you respond today?

Quote for the day:

“There comes a moment when we all must realize that life is short, and in the end the only thing that really counts is not how others see us, but how God sees us.” —Billy Graham

Our latest website resources:

• What does the Bible say about Santa Claus? How to turn holidays into holy days
• When are kids old enough to have a smartphone?
• Why do we have Christmas trees? How a “pagan symbol” became an integral part of our Christmas traditions
• Ukraine, Hegseth, American work, box office booms & college-football chaos
• Managing holiday loneliness, controversial cloning, and the spiritual revival of Millennials and Gen Z

Denison Forum

Earlier this week, Dr. Jim Denison discussed the ongoing controversy surrounding Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and the accusations that he was responsible for war crimes. But while people continue to debate that question, other questions persist about what President Trump and his administration are preparing to do next about America’s intensifying conflict with Venezuela.

As is often the case, the president has not been shy with his plans.

In addition to parking the largest buildup of America’s naval forces since the Cuban Missile Crisis, with fifteen thousand troops parked just outside of Venezuela’s borders, Trump has also signed off on the CIA’s plans for covert measures inside the country. Moreover, he’s hinted at sending in ground forces, saying, “I don’t rule out anything. We just have to take care of Venezuela.”

And while the situation appears to be escalating quickly, recent reports indicate that the administration began preparing for these attacks as early as January. Emil Bove, who was the acting deputy attorney general at the time, recommended attacking drug boats leaving Venezuela in February, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio has advocated for a more forceful approach to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro since Trump’s first term.

So while the attacks in the Caribbean have sunk twenty-seven suspected drug boats and killed at least eighty-seven people as of this writing, it would appear that the administration’s plans for the region likely extend beyond slowing down the flow of drugs into America.

Is the real goal regime change? 

The Trump administration’s public justification for the conflict in the Caribbean is a war on deadly drugs, often citing fentanyl as the primary target. Fentanyl is indeed a massive problem and directly led to an estimated forty-eight thousand deaths last year (which was actually an improvement over the seventy-six thousand in 2023). As John Yoo points out, those deaths far outpace the number of Americans killed in any war since Vietnam.

However, the primary drug from Venezuela is cocaine, and most of that goes to Europe rather than the US. Consequently, it’s difficult to see how these attacks are truly aimed at halting the flow of drugs across our borders. Trump even stated back in October that “we’re not happy with Venezuela for a lot of reasons, drugs being one of them.”

The more likely scenario is that the attacks on drug boats are a prelude to regime change, and the recent escalation indicates that Maduro’s time in power may be running short. If his recent actions are any indication, the Venezuelan leader knows it too.

Maduro has recently taken to changing where he sleeps and showing up unannounced whenever he appears in public. Moreover, fearing that the people around him may eventually find the $50 million bounty that the United States has placed on his head too tempting to pass up, he has expanded the use of Cuban bodyguards in his personal security and among his counterintelligence officers as well.

Back in October, Maduro attempted to buy Trump’s favor by offering the United States a significant stake in Venezuela’s oil fields, along with other economic opportunities, in exchange for allowing him to remain in power. However, US officials refused, and the prevailing thought is that any resolution that does not include a change in leadership is a nonstarter.

Should the US eventually push for regime change, it doesn’t seem like most of the world would mind. More than a quarter of Venezuela’s population has left since he took office—a driving force in the rise of illegal immigration in America across recent years—and his approval rating among those who stayed is around 20 percent. And María Corina Machado—the leader of the resistance movement within Venezuela—won the Nobel Prize this year for her efforts to oppose him.

As such, there’s little doubt that the world would be a safer place without Maduro in power. However, the question remains whether the steps Trump is taking to ostensibly accomplish that end are legal.

Are Trump’s actions legal?

Earlier this year, President Trump designated Latin American drug cartels as terrorist organizations. He has since used that designation to justify deportations and military intervention, both inside and outside of America’s borders. Now, Trump has made claims that link Maduro to at least two of these cartels—Tren de Aragua and Cartel de los Soles—foundational to the increased pressure his administration has applied in Venezuela.

Still, bombing drug boats is a massive departure from the manner in which America has traditionally dealt with these groups. But even if you think the former approach of using the Coast Guard and DEA to intercept these shipments was not good enough (I tend to agree), that doesn’t mean Trump has the legal authority to go to war with them, much less to go to war with Venezuela.

Any such aggression—including when used against terrorist organizations—should require congressional approval. Even those who find Trump’s legal arguments persuasive tend to agree that the established legal precedent requires him to bring the matter before Congress. Unfortunately, the administration appears to have little interest in taking that step.

Trump would hardly be the first president to bypass Congress and launch attacks without the legal backing to do so. American leaders have been abusing the statutes put in place in the wake of 9/11 for the better part of two decades now. However, just because previous presidents did it—including Trump during his first term—doesn’t make these actions any more legal today.

It’s understandable if you look at the influx of drugs across our borders, the plague that both Maduro and the cartels have been on the people of Venezuela, and the precedent established by other recent presidents and conclude that Trump’s actions in the Caribbean are justified. In many ways, they are. However, justified doesn’t mean legal, and we don’t get to ignore the means simply because we like the end results they bring about.

And that truth is relevant to far more than the situation in Venezuela.

Two crucial questions

As Christians, we’re not permitted to take an “ends justify the means” approach to anything in life because God cares about both the ends and the means. Sin is still sin, even when done for noble or righteous reasons.

Throughout his ministry, Jesus emphasized the importance of paying attention to our motivations and to the state of our hearts because he understood how every word, thought, and action impacts our walk with the Lord. After all, he’d seen the failure to do so drive a wedge between God and his people for generations.

By the first century, religious leaders had instituted hundreds of additional laws intended to prevent the Jews from transgressing the really important ones in the Torah. And their reasoning for doing so was both sound and justified. They were intent on making sure that Israel never fell into the kind of sins and idolatry that had caused the Lord to exile their ancestors.

Yet, along the way, they became so focused on the end goal of not angering the Lord that they lost sight of the true purpose of those laws: to help God’s people spend each day walking in close communion with him.

So, how can we make sure we avoid that mistake today?

George MacDonald—a nineteenth-century Scottish author, poet, and minister—once noted that “God never gave a man a thing to do, concerning which it were irreverent to ponder how the Son of God would have done it.”

And if you ever find yourself wondering how Jesus would accomplish something, just take a moment to ask him. Then, once you get your answer, do what he says.

A great deal of the sin in our lives could be avoided if we simply took the time to ask God for his help in knowing not only what he wants us to do, but how he wants us to do it.

Will you ask both questions today?

Quote of the day:

“Let no man turn aside, even so slightly, from the broad path of honor, on the plausible pretense that he is justified by the goodness of his end. All good ends can be worked out by good means. Those that cannot, are bad; and may be counted so at once, and left alone.” —Charles Dickens

Our latest website resources:

• When are kids old enough to have a smartphone?
• What is the second-most “sinful city” in America?
• Ukraine, Hegseth, American work, box office booms & College-football chaos | Ep. 47
• Managing holiday loneliness, controversial cloning, and the spiritual revival of Millennials and Gen Z
• Why did Cloudflare and Amazon Web Services fail?

Denison Forum

New study finds smartphones linked with depression, obesity, and poor sleep in kids under 12 years of age

I’m deeply grateful for my smartphone-free childhood. I remember when a middle school friend received their first iPhone. My friends and I were in awe at the responsive touchscreen, app games, and agile texting. How could you not be jealous of this technological miracle in his pocket?

My parents gave me a simple phone when I was around 15, but I didn’t get a smartphone until I was 17. I wouldn’t change that experience. With no neighborhood kids to play with in our isolated suburb, I still thrived in church, playing in the woods, getting lost in books, and hanging out with my siblings.

This is why I’m so passionate about this topic. I wonder how different, and worse, my teen years would have been without this independence, freedom, and real-world socializing.

Social media, Smartphones, and teens

I’ve written extensively about social media and teen mental health. According to Pew Research, 95 percent of teens report having, or having access to, a smartphone. Nearly half of teens say they are online “almost constantly.” Only a quarter of teens said this a decade ago. Most of this time is spent on social media like TikTok, SnapChat, YouTube, and Instagram.

Last year, the US Surgeon General wanted to put warning labels, like the ones on alcohol and cigarettes, on social media, specifically cautioning children and teens. Australia announced it would ban social media for users under 16 this week. Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation is a great place to start for parents and educators.

As I wrote, even kids wish they didn’t have social media: “It seems that around half of teens would prefer a world without social media but feel trapped because they would be socially outcast without it.”

What about even younger than teens? By the age of eleven, over half (53%) of kids have a smartphone. Twelve is the average time when kids receive a phone, but some have reported getting one as early as 4 years old.

There’s a high bar to establish definitive causality between social media and mental health issues, but study after study tends toward this direction.

Some studies focus on the effects of smartphones in classrooms. Even college students did better when their phones were physically removed during class: “Results indicated that students whose smartphones were physically removed during class had higher levels of course comprehension, lower levels of anxiety, and higher levels of mindfulness than the control group.” If this is the effect for college-age kids, how much greater is the impact for younger kids?

Younger than twelve: Depression, obesity, and bad sleep

A new study shows a connection between smartphone ownership in kids under twelve and health risks. With data from more than 10,000 children, the study’s findings were robust, though not surprising.

They conclude, “Smartphone ownership was associated with depression, obesity, and insufficient sleep in early adolescence. Findings provide critical and timely insights that should inform caregivers regarding adolescent smartphone use and, ideally, the development of public policy that protects youth.”

Dr. Barzilay, lead author on the study, talked to the NY Times: “The takeaway, [Dr. Barzilay] said, is that age matters. ‘A kid at age 12 is very, very different than a kid at age 16,’ he said. ‘It’s not like an adult at age 42 versus 46.’”

The years from 10 to 25 are crucial for psychological development, particularly in establishing a sense of self, developing social skills, and achieving independence. This study isn’t saying that twelve is a good time to get a smartphone, but rather pointing to how the risks associated with that decision only increase the younger a child is.

Another expert, Dr. Jacqueline Nesi, cautioned, it is difficult to prove that phones are causing these risks. However, she says this study should “nudge” parents to wait for longer than they would’ve first thought, and to make sure the deciding factor isn’t just what everyone else is doing.

As the article goes on to decsribe, parents should “feel empowered to trust their gut . . . and to hold off on giving their child a smartphone until everyone is ready—including parents, who have to do the very hard work of putting protections and limits in place.”

If you’re interested in ways to get involved, as well as what some of those protections and limits might look like, check out the Anxious Generation website. Here are the four core tenets Dr. Haidt argues for:

1. No smartphones before high school
2. No social media before 16
3. Phone-free schools, from bell to bell
4. More independence, free play, and responsibility in the real world

The site offers other resources to get parents, schools, kids, and policymakers engaged.

What does the Bible say about parenting smartphones? 

God does not control us like a puppeteer, but as a good father, he disciplines his people. He is compassionate, loving, caring, and lays down clear guidance. We are good parents insofar as we emulate God’s character in these ways.

Proverbs says we should discipline children so they aren’t spoiled—and that this is done from love (Proverbs 13:24). Several passages talk about respecting and obeying parents. “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right” (Ephesians 6:1).

But it’s a two-way street. “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). Or, as it says in Colossians, “Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged” (3:21).

How can we emulate God’s parental love?

• Give clear guidance.
• Keep firm to boundaries.
• Give independence when they earn trust.
• Set them up to handle screens when they leave your house.

As God says to Isaiah, “come now, let us reason together.” (Isaiah 1:18) Give reasons, when possible, for your decision. Listen to your children as God listens to us.

Earthly parents are flawed. We can never be 100 percent certain about tricky issues like phone use, where studies are sometimes confusing or contradictory. We can only do our best.

But we can pray for wisdom, grow in character, and take our responsibility as parents seriously—don’t be passive. The voices on social media will almost always draw them away from Christ. Silicon Valley does not have your children’s best interests at heart.

Examine your own heart. Do you idolize your phone and the quasi-social connections on social media? What does your screentime say about your heart? How can you model better habits for your children?

If you’ve never asked God these questions—or if it’s been a while since you last did—let’s start there. After all, your heavenly Father loves your kids and wants what’s best for them just as much as you do. Be sure to include him in the conversation.

Denison Forum