DECEMBER 4, 2025

  “Sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whisky bottle in the hand of (another)... There are just some kind of men who - who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results.”

― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

DANIEL 3-4

34At the end of that time, I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven, and my sanity was restored. Then I praised the Most High; I honored and glorified him who lives forever.

His dominion is an eternal dominion;

his kingdom endures from generation to generation.

35All the peoples of the earth

are regarded as nothing.

He does as he pleases

with the powers of heaven

and the peoples of the earth.

No one can hold back his hand

or say to him: “What have you done?”

36At the same time that my sanity was restored, my honor and splendor were returned to me for the glory of my kingdom. My advisers and nobles sought me out, and I was restored to my throne and became even greater than before. 37Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven, because everything he does is right and all his ways are just. And those who walk in pride he is able to humble.(4:34-37) 

1 JOHN 3

11This is the message you have heard from the beginning: We should love one another. 12Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did Cain slay him? Because his own deeds were evil, while those of his brother were righteous. 13So do not be surprised, brothers, if the world hates you.

14We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. The one who does not love remains in death. 15Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that eternal life does not reside in a murderer.

16By this we know what love is: Jesus laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. 17If anyone with earthly possessions sees his brother in need, but withholds his compassion from him, how can the love of God abide in him?

18Little children, let us love not in word and speech, but in action and truth. 

JOURNAL 

People need to know that things do not have to be perfect to be good. That might be the most subversive and beautiful truth of Christmas. We live in a culture that treats anything less than excellence as failure and anything average as something to avoid at all costs. Yet Christmas refuses to cooperate with that mindset. It walks straight into our deepest despair or our highest triumph and quietly says that God shows up in both. The message of Christmas is not dependent on perfect weather, flawless circumstances, or a guaranteed happy ending. It is the radical announcement that God’s presence is often most visible in the ordinary and even in what looks like failure.

Harper Lee warns that it is possible to be so focused on the next world that we forget how to live in this one. Christmas corrects that by reminding us that God entered this world at its most broken. A young couple with no status. A barn. A feeding trough. A child who would grow to carry the full weight of human hatred and still love us all the way to the end. Christmas is God saying that holiness is not allergic to imperfection. Holiness chooses it.

Daniel tells the story of Nebuchadnezzar, a man reduced to madness by his own pride. When he finally lifted his eyes toward heaven, his sanity returned. His honor returned. His dignity returned. Yet the most profound part of his story is the humility that emerges from his restored heart. He realizes that everything God does is right and that God is able to humble those who walk in pride. Even that restoration came after a season of complete collapse. It was not perfection that saved him. It was surrender.

John echoes the same truth from another angle. The evidence of God is love. Not the easy kind that floats on emotion, but the gritty kind that lays down its life. He invokes Cain and Abel and tells the uncomfortable truth that hatred and murder grow from the same spiritual root. That is sobering. I never want to believe I am capable of that level of darkness, yet if I am honest I know the seeds live in me. They live in everyone. That is why trying to live life on my own strength is not just foolish but dangerous. My creativity and intellect are gifts from God but they become weapons without His spirit.

Christmas invites me to stop pretending that I have to get everything right. It invites me to choose love over judgment. As a parent and an adult I have to make decisions, enforce consequences, and navigate conflict. That is unavoidable. Yet the spirit behind those actions must be rooted in love rather than resentment or pride. Christmas teaches me that love is not weakness. Love is alignment with the deepest truth of God’s heart.

Jesus summarized it with clarity. Love God with all that you are. Love your neighbor as yourself. Everything else hangs on that. Christmas proves that God practices what He preaches. He loved us enough to step into our imperfection and call it holy ground.

Maybe that is the invitation today. Let the ordinary be beautiful. Let the imperfect be enough. Let the small moments we often overlook become reminders that God still shows up. Because Christmas is not the celebration of what we manage to fix. It is the celebration of the God who comes anyway.

29“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.^e 30Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’^f 31The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’^g There is no commandment greater than these.”

MARK 12:29-31