I am so sick and tired of hearing some Christians try to tell other Christians that we can’t or shouldn’t celebrate Christmas. I’ve heard all the arguments. It’s a pagan holiday. It’s based on Saturnalia. It’s not really the birthday of Jesus. Blah blah blah! And yes, I’ve even done the research, so I know where all these arguments come from. While there is a grain of truth to what they’re saying, it’s not the whole truth, nor is it the end-all be-all of Christmas.
I’m fully aware of the pagan worship of the false god Saturn. I’m familiar with the rituals that involves. Yes, some of those practices were co-opted and changed to fit with what we know as Christmas today. But that doesn’t automatically make celebrating Christmas evil. In point of fact, taking what was meant for evil and turning it for good is one of the most wholesome traits of God Himself. If a few pagan practices were taken and CHANGED to be used in celebrating something Holy, what of it? Besides, those pagan rituals weren’t original anyway. Everything evil is a perversion of something good. Evil has absolutely ZERO ORIGINALITY.
Are you forgetting that God also looks at the heart? Do you think that people will reach the afterlife and be turned away from heaven because they dared to celebrate Christmas? Like, Saint Peter is gonna say, “Nope, sorry. I know you thought you were celebrating the first arrival of the Savior, but you were actually unknowingly worshiping a demon. So, off to hell with you!” Are you seriously that closed minded? Do you claim to know the attitude of my heart? I don’t think you truly comprehend the freedom we have in Jesus.
Now I understand the commercialization of Christmas tends to take a lot away from what most of us intend. But consider this: When I observe Christmas, I do so in gratefulness for Christ’s advent. When I give gifts, I do so out of a spirit of love. The entire experience for me is holy and done in reverence to God. Can you really tell me that’s somehow wrong or evil? I don’t believe that for a second.
As far as when the actual birth of Jesus is, give me a break. I know he wasn’t born on December 25th. I’m not certain when His literal birth took place, but that is the day we’ve set aside to celebrate it. If anyone wants to nitpick about that, whatever. I’m not gonna waste my time with such nonsense.
While I will grant that many people celebrate Christmas without giving any thought to Jesus or Christianity, that’s not true of me nor of many other Christians like me. Often times, we come across information that makes us re-examine things. I get that. I understand wanting to make sure others are informed about the origins of certain practices, especially if they are tied to anything evil. But don’t get so caught up in “explaining” things to people that you end up completely missing the point. Even unclean things can be made clean by God, and who are we to visit the intentions of others?
None of the arguments against Christians observing Christmas matter to someone who loves the Lord and wants to celebrate every aspect of His gift of salvation to us. The angels proclaimed His birth, so I will celebrate it. The blood of Jesus paid for all my sins, so I will celebrate that with a grateful heart. His death and subsequent resurrection to life again paved the way for me to have eternal life with Him, so I will celebrate that as well. An argument that tells me to refrain from observing these immeasurably important and HOLY events – well, the argument itself sounds like a trick of satan to me.
I said what I said. Be blessed. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
From the founding to present day, this great American experiment has lasted 250 years. If we are at all interested in being wise and preserving the treasures of freedom, we should be examining to learn all the reasons for its longevity. What was in that secret sauce the founders generously sprinkled into our Constitution? Upon reading the Declaration of Independence, it quickly becomes clear that a chief influencer in our country’s beginnings was the Bible. Godly principles regarding moral living were tapped straight from scripture and included within several of our founding documents. The Bill of Rights, those first 10 amendments to the US Constitution, seem to echo biblical concepts.
Infusing such things into the mixture proved to be a very well thought out decision and became a recipe for success. Why did it work so well? Consider that when the founders set out to break free from the tyranny of Great Britain’s King George, they did so having learned some hard lessons and determined to create a nation of self-governed citizens who could live in freedom. By declaring themselves independent from that tyrannical rule, they wisely knew they would need to place their trust and dependence in a higher and more righteous authority. Their independence was born in their dependence upon the Creator.
That was the key. And it worked. For a quarter of a millennium now, the USA has thrived. But there were bumps along the way. When this experiment began, there was still a terrible practice going on which was prevalent throughout the world – slavery. For thousands of years, in fact, slavery had been around. There were slaves back in biblical days, even. But the founders wisely knew that if they were going to get rid of this stain, it would need to be done in stages or many of the populous accustomed to it would revolt. Starting a new nation was the first priority, but they knew they’d have to address the slavery issue eventually.
What did they do? They created a pathway to citizenship and embedded it within the founding documents. Even before framing the Constitution itself, the founders placed that pathway within the context of the Declaration of Independence. The notion that “all men are created equal” was a theme that would gradually draw people’s hearts to a place where the idea of owning slaves would no longer seem proper. It was still a struggle, and indeed a so-called civil war broke out. Many people didn’t like the idea of the federal government imposing itself upon individual states, and “States’ Rights” became a battle cry of many southern states. Slavery was an issue of the war, but not the central reason for it like many tend to believe.
After a lot of unfortunate bloodshed, the northern states prevailed. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation eventually spread through the entirety of the union, and the blight of slavery was placed in our nation’s rearview mirror. We can at least be proud that our country was among the first to put an end to legal slavery within its borders. Even while human trafficking and other forms of slavery still exist in the world, it was the righteous notion of “equality” that steered us in the right direction.
Over the years, many other such wrongs have been righted due to the founding principles of freedom and justice. Those principles having come from the Bible means that, like our founding fathers, we have allowed our morals to be mostly guided by God and His Word. But not everyone chooses to adhere to these concepts. The teachings in scripture that have served to benefit this nation and make her last so long have been largely swept aside in favor of a more humanistic view of morality. Whether you’re on the left or the right politically, this removal of God from the driver seat is easy to see.
Those of us who are among the Christian American Right, conservatives by nature, feel that we can guide our nation back to her foundations and repair the damage that’s been done through misguided, worldly, humanistic thinking. But we ourselves are not the saviors. We can’t accomplish a thing without first making certain that Godliness is again our guiding light. Even as we make strides toward restoring the greatness of America, we have to guard our hearts and minds from traps of the enemy. To succeed, just as the founders succeeded, we must have God behind the wheel. Through prayer and thoughtful execution of biblical principles, reimplementing those beneficial precepts of morality, we have turned the tide somewhat. But all the glory belongs to God.
As always tends to be the case, certain people become the faces of any movement or revolution. To a large extent, Donald Trump has become the face of ours. But that itself is a double-edged sword. When a man becomes the face of such a major undertaking, there are forces at work that will do everything in their power to malign and demonize that man in order to delegitimize the whole effort. Lies have been told, sure. About Trump, about us. But we who sincerely want to get America back to the successful God-fearing country she once was know that Trump’s face is temporary.
He was just the guy who came out and put words to what the rest of us were feeling. It seems at least that God chose to use him, but Trump is not our savior. While he and his administration are indeed a driving force to help achieve our goals, we can’t allow them to be in the actual driver seat. Our ultimate goal is not just to Make America Great Again – it’s to Make America Godly Again. We want to be in right-standing with our Creator, and we want His blessings to be on our country again. We believe that America’s former greatness was tied directly to its adherence to Godliness and morality.
The illegal immigration crisis was at the top of the list of things that needed to be fixed. Legal immigrants have always been welcomed here, but allowing the free flow of millions of illegal aliens into the country was a threat in multiple ways. Letting so many pour into our borders completely unvetted allowed terrorists and criminals to come in. That has proven deadly to many innocent people. Others who came in illegally, even if it was just to find work and support family, ended up working at terribly low wages – that creates a new lower class of slave laborers. Have we not learned our lesson on slavery yet?
That all happened under the poor leadership of people who were not putting the nation’s interests first, let alone the interests of US citizens. And they definitely weren’t allowing those beneficial biblical principles to guide them. Under the current administration, yeah, things are much better, but we have a long road ahead. And as I said, we can’t afford to just sit back and say, “Well, we voted ’em in, now it’s up to them to get it done.” No, we must be active participants. We have to hold our elected leaders accountable. Call or write our representatives when we see them missing the mark. And most importantly, we need to always be in prayer for them to be guided by God.
This Christian American Right will only succeed if the right person is driving the CAR. That’s not Donald Trump. It’s not J.D. Vance or Marco Rubio. It’s not anyone with an “R” or a “D” next to his/her name. It’s God Himself. He’s the only One that can keep us pointed in the right direction. While we’re holding our leaders accountable, it’s important what standard we use. As Christians, our standard is found in the teachings of Jesus Christ. True freedom is found only in Him. Even our founders knew a free nation could only be achieved through the adherence to biblical concepts. That’s why they included them within those founding docs. It’s also why they endeavored to instill those concepts into the citizenry. Such laws as those against stealing and murdering are taken directly from the Ten Commandments. So from the halls of the US Capitol to those within our very homes, we must all keep Jesus at the wheel – lest we AND our country wind up in the ditch.
For more on this topic, I invite you to read Religious Liberty and the Genius of the American Founding. Written by Glenn Ellmers, it is an informative and thought-provoking adaptation of a talk given during a 2024 Hillsdale College conference on “Christianity in America.”
Today’s program is the final episode of this podcast, The Kingdom Light – as we prepare to launch the new show next weekend on October 4th. Appropriately, we’re gonna talk about leveling up our game as Christians. Stay. Right. Here.
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Top of the stack this week… I have to say this first and foremost, y’all. That Charlie Kirk Memorial service last Sunday was ah-mazing! Best thing I’ve seen on TV in a very long time. Yes, it was touching to hear all the different stories from Charlie’s friends and colleagues. But more than that, it was a bona fide revival service.
There was wonderful praise and worship, led by Phil Wickham, Brandon Lake, Kari Jobe, Cody Carnes, and others. It was like going to a genuine worship service, and the Holy Spirit showed up for it. You almost forgot it was a memorial service. You didn’t feel like you were saying goodbye to Charlie Kirk. It was a true celebration.
Then, one after another, members of our country’s leadership stepped up – not just to honor Charlie, but to proclaim the Gospel! Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth, JD Vance, and more. They sounded more like preachers than politicians. I absolutely LOVED THAT!
FORGIVENESS
But the best part of all, God bless her, was when Erika Kirk fought back the tears to say and do something incredible. Only with the help of the Holy Spirit can anyone do what she did. She forgave her husband’s killer, saying “it’s what Christ did and it’s what Charlie would do.” Wow. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house.
Now I hear the naysayers. There’s no way she could’ve meant that. No one could possibly forgive the anyone who did something like that. Well folks, I believe she meant it. Charlie chose her to be his wife because of her faith, beauty, and intelligence. She has Jesus in her heart. The same Jesus who forgave all of us from the cross lives in Erika Kirk’s heart. Yeah, she meant it.
As Christians, we know that forgiveness is divine. And it’s also necessary to forgive others so that we can move past how we were wronged. The other option is to hold onto the heaviness of a grudge. Unforgiveness will destroy you. And walking with Christ requires us to forgive. Even still, that moment was certainly unmatched by anything else that happened on Sunday.
Of course, some on the left had their own take on Erika’s statement. Eager to malign her, they claimed she only forgave the man who murdered her husband – get this – because he was white. Seriously?! The notion is sick and demented. But it’s not surprising. These people who love to call everything racism know nothing about the concept of forgiveness. Evil has twisted their minds.
JIMMY KIMMEL
Following up on the Jimmy Kimmel debacle, he went back on the air this week, albeit on about 25% less stations. ABC affiliates owned by Nexstar and Sinclair have so far said they will be pre-empting his show. Nonetheless, Kimmel returned to TV and tearfully tried to walk back the offensive comments that got him suspended.
Some say Kimmel apologized, but others say it fell short of an actual apology because he never really said, “Hey, I’m sorry for what I said.” What he did say this week was that he never meant to make fun of a young man being murdered. Well, I don’t know anyone who thought he did that anyway. So, that really wasn’t the issue.
Kimmel then seemed to sorta retcon the actual offensive thing he had said. He claimed that it was never his intention to point a finger at a particular group of people and blame them for the murder of Charlie Kirk. His words last week, however, DID seem to point a finger directly at MAGA.
Though I will grant him this: Kimmel did mention Erika Kirk’s forgiveness of the killer as being a great example of someone who follows the teachings of Jesus, as Jimmy claims he does as well. To that, let me just say this: Jimmy, I sincerely hope that you do try to follow teachings of Christ.
I’m not gonna take the hard line some others have taken and assume he was being disingenuous. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t. I’m not his judge. As a Christian, I am charged to LOVE Jimmy Kimmel. Erika Kirk made the point last Sunday very well that our response must always be one of love, not hate. So I’ll give Jimmy the benefit of the doubt, forgive him, and let it go.
That’s what we have to do, folks. Sometimes it’s hard to do that, I understand. But come on, think about it. If Erika can bring herself to forgive the man who murdered her husband, can we honestly not find it within our hearts to forgive Jimmy for something he said? Let’s be bigger than that. Let’s forgive. And the whole world will know us by our love. That’s a great way to level up our Christian walk!
WHAT WAS MEANT FOR EVIL
I’m gonna say this, and then I’m gonna move on. The death of Charlie Kirk did not at all accomplish what hell intended. As a man who was successfully reaching college age youth with conservativatism and Christianity, he became a target.
Hear me. For those who wish to continue brainwashing our youth, Charlie Kirk had to be stopped. He had to be silenced. But the end result was something else entirely. People who’ve never been to church are going to church now. Folks who never knew who Charlie Kirk was before have learned what he really died for, and it’s changing people’s lives for the better.
This is God doing something that I like to call changing the polarity. He took a negative and turned it into a positive. And that brings me back to my main point…
As Christians, we must be ready to act at a moment’s notice and change the polarity around us. Turning negative situations into something positive is another way we can step up our game as followers of Christ. How else do we do that? How else can we level up? We’ll talk more about that in just a minute.
Real quick though, I wanna give a free plug to the folks at Patriot Mobile. They aren’t a sponsor, they’re not paying me to say this, okay? This is a true and sincere testimonial from ME.
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NEXT LEVEL CHRISTIANITY
So how do we take our Christian walk to the next level?
1. Forgive Every Offense
One big way, as mentioned a moment ago, is by practicing forgiveness. The Bible says we should be slow to anger and quick to forgive. Forgiveness is a central character trait of God, and it’s one we should live out at every opportunity.
2. Change the Polarity
Another way to level up, as already stated, is to be prepared at all times to change the polarity of a situation. Turn negatives into positives. See someone with a need, fill it. Smile. Be the brightest part of someone’s day. Be the catalyst that inspires a revolution of kindness. Make that your default position.
3. Be Bold in the Faith
Still another way is to be bold in the faith. Don’t shy away from opportunities to share with others what God has done for you. The light of your testimony can illuminate the path to Christ for others. Never underestimate the power of conversation and the weight of your personal experience with Jesus. Talk about it!
4. Learn to Share and Defend Truth
You can also level up your game by learning to share truth in love. Understand that speaking the truth of the Gospel to people is not hateful – it’s loving, and it’s our calling. If you see someone is headed down a bad road, warn them!
There’s so much garbage out there today that we have to counter with truth. People who have rejected truth open themselves up to believing all sorts of lies. Remember the following about truth, and learn to defend it.
It is the height of human arrogance – what we call hubris – to believe in such a way as to say, “Well, perhaps that’s your truth, but it’s not my truth.” There is no “your truth” and “my truth.” There is only THE TRUTH. And if it’s not THE TRUTH, then – by process of elimination – it has to be A LIE.
You can have your own beliefs and opinions, but that doesn’t mean those things are true. They might be true, or they might not. Truth has to pass certain tests to be proven true.
One test is this: If it’s true for one, it’s true for all. Truth is absolute. It is not relative or conditional. Truth is no respector of persons. If it isn’t true for all, it isn’t true at all. Truth is an essential standard of reality. In other words, truth is what grounds us to reality.
The moment you decide to take your opinions and beliefs and elevate them in status as to call them your truth, you become detached from reality. The term for this is delusional. This means you have chosen to reject what is true in favor of your own preferred lie. This is unfortunately a very common trap of humanism.
5. Study the Scriptures
Paul talks about it in Romans 1:18-32. I challenge you to read this passage over and over until it gets into your spirit. Studying the Word of God is one of the best ways to keep on leveling up your Christian walk.
6. Pray Continually
And, as I often emphasize, pray continually. Constant communication with God is the most essential thing in a Christian’s life. Without it, there is no relationship with the Father. Without that, we’re lost.
I pray that you will continue to grow in Christ, maturing in the faith, and always putting on the full armor of God. Stand strong in HIS power and might. Know that, yeah, the world will indeed hate you because of Jesus, but there is still no higher calling than to introduce people to Jesus. Are you ready to put all these things into practice and level up your walk with God?
Thank you so much for joining me for this podcast. The Kingdom Light never ends, but next week it will give way to something new. I hope you’ll join me for it as I begin the next chapter of GCM. Until then, God bless!
Change is inevitable. Yes, I know. We get used to items being in a certain place at the store, and then someone goes and rearranges everything. It can be annoying sometimes, but I promise I’m trying to make the upcoming changes as painless and worry-free as possible!
First, you may have already noticed a difference to the website. Let me explain. In the past, most changes to the site and its URL were because of other aspects of the ministry changing. The Kingdom Hero Blogcast became The Kingdom Hero Show, then later became The Kingdom Light podcast. As that happened, the site URL had to change to match. But I think I have a fix for that…
The thing that has never changed over the years is GCM. That was the original name for the ministry God helped me launch in 2011. Great Commission Ministries did recently merge with CaveMedia, becoming Great Commission Media, but it remained GCM. Since GCMedia is the “parent company” of every aspect of this ministry, I’ve finally realized that THAT’s what should be reflected in the website name as well.
So, as of today, our official site URL has changed from TheKingdomLight.com to TheGCMedia.com. If you need to re-bookmark us, you have plenty of time. The old site address will continue to work until August of 2026. Still, why wait, right? And hopefully, there will be no need to change the URL again. Maybe.
Secondly, God has been stirring something in me lately. Got me to thinking about some things differently. And got me to feeling like making another change in the current podcast’s name. This one took me a while to get my head around. I have always resisted naming a show after myself. I never wanted to give anyone the notion that it’s all about me! No!
The show, for me, has long been the main extension of this ministry. No matter what the show was named before, it always had to reflect the mission of the ministry because THAT’s what’s important! Right? Why, God, why would I ever need to name it after myself? It’s about Him, not me. This makes me feel really uncomfortable to even consider it.
Then I realized… Naming the show after me doesn’t mean it’s about me. By doing so, I’m taking responsibility for it – I’m owning it. Who’s responsible for how I make this ministry look? Me. Who’s responsible for the words I speak? Me. Who’s to blame when I get it wrong? Me. Wait, huh? Oh yeah, I am indeed fallible. I am capable of messing up. If that happens, who should get the black mark? This ministry? Christianity in general? NO! Me! I should own my own mistakes. For sure.
I said all that to say this: The current name and format of the podcast will be changing again in the coming weeks. The Kingdom Light will be replaced with – simply – STACE.
That’s right. This STACE show will – quite simply – be MY own opinions based on MY morals and MY beliefs and how I understand the Bible. I think God’s telling me to OWN my beliefs and then OWN how I treat the ministry HE gave me. I’m imperfect and I should own those imperfections.
Somehow, that makes sense to me. Give God the glory, give Stace the responsibility so he has to own everything he says about God. Ya see what I’m saying, right? Little bit?
Anyhow, that’s the scoop on current and soon-coming updates for GCM. Thanks for following me on this journey! God bless, and hold me accountable for whatever happens here next. Ya dig? A’ight den.
Being at peace with God is a wonderful, restful and refreshing thing. Knowing you are forgiven, accepted and in right standing with your Maker is a powerful place that you never want to leave. The closer we get to Jesus returning, the more important it is to know you are right with God. On today’s program, I wanna deal with how we can have assurance that we’re ready to be called home.
First, let’s talk about discipline. I know, it’s not a fun topic. None of us likes having to admit we did something wrong. And being corrected is usually very uncomfortable. Hebrews 12:11 says this about the subject…
For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
I remember knowing that my dad was going to discipline me as a child. We’d be away from home, and I’d done something wrong, and he let me know that once we got back home I’d be punished. That was the worst part – the waiting time before getting disciplined. But there was nothing like being on the OTHER side of the punishment – once everything was good again between my dad and I.
So how can we remain in that place where everything is good between ourselves and our Heavenly Father? Psalm 32 shows us the key to remaining in the place of God’s love and grace. It has to do with having a transparent attitude with God regarding our sin, admitting and confessing it openly with Him, rather than trying to defend our actions through rationalization. God sees through all that anyway, so our best course is to just be real and honest with Him.
Some believe this psalm was meant to be sung on the day of atonement. As it says in Leviticus 16:30, “For on this day He will forgive you, to purify you, that you be cleansed from all your sins before God.” Among the Jews, this is the holiest day of the year – Yom Kippur – when God is closest to his people. It is a display of tender mercies and fresh showers of God’s goodness and grace towards his own. It reflects the Creator’s passionate desire to reconcile creation to himself, to show the humble and the obedient his favor, and make a plea to the proud and disobedient for repentance and acceptance.
Psalm32:1-5
Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. (Selah) I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. (Selah)
Here the psalmist recognizes the need for remaining transparent before God. When he tried to hide it, it ate away at him and would have eventually devoured him. But once he finally came clean and acknowledged his sin, God pardoned him. To be reconciled to God is to be reborn, refreshed, renewed – restored to right-standing with God. Entrusting your soul to God’s care, acknowledging your need of him, and emerging JUSTIFIED: just-as-if-I’d never sinned. This is a place of blessing that awaits all who choose to remain transparent before their Creator.
Psalm32:6-7
Therefore let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found; surely in the rush of great waters, they shall not reach him. You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with shouts of deliverance. (Selah)
This is the joy each of us have in Christ when we REMAIN HUMBLE before God. His Spirit is able to counsel, correct and instruct us. His word is made alive in us. And we are able to see his impact and blessing on our lives, and then rejoice in his faithfulness and love. For in this place, this place of ‘at-one-ment’ and right-standing, God’s Spirit says…
Psalm32:8-11
“I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you. Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle, or it will not stay near you. Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord. Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!”
As we navigate these last days in which we find ourselves living, we need the joy and peace of knowing everything is good between us and God. These scriptures have shown us the following key points…
To remain blameless before the Lord is to remain transparent before Him.
To remain transparent before God means we must humble our hearts and avoid vanity – that is, being defensive.
When we humble ourselves before the Lord, we fully acknowledge our sin and ask forgiveness.
When we confess to Him our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us.
Because of the completed work of Christ, once He has forgiven us we are AT-ONE-MENT with the Lord, righteous before God and at Peace with our Maker.
No matter what happens in the presidential election, the state of our nation or the world, peace is always ours when Jesus Christ is King of our lives.
We Are Great Commission Media 