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.”
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.
We Are Great Commission Media 