Any student of salvation history knows fully well the consequences of a people, a church, or a nation that turns away from God and embraces idols. Christmas is about knowing God, who became flesh to restore, reconcile, and renew our relationship with Him, so we can receive the abundance of His love and mercy and be saved from lost mankind, mired in sin. Christmas celebration beyond fiction is the greatest and most apt opportunity and invitation to “Put off the old man and put on the new man, renewed in the spirit of your mind, and renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him” ( Eph 4:23-24, Col 3:9-10).

The true meaning of Christmas is to know God who, through the incarnation, renewed and regenerated mankind.  God became man and walked this earth in contrast to some who would assert that it is all fiction. To know God is to know that Christ is “the way, the truth, and life” (Jn 14:6). With our knowledge of God who became man and not man who became God, the Christmas celebration beyond fiction invites us to put Christ first, especially in the New Year. Graham Kendrick, in one of his hymns, put this better, ‘Knowing you, Jesus,’ with a call to put Christ first in our commitments. Let us prayerfully reflect on this hymn as we prepare to cross over into the New Year 2026

All I once held dear, built my life upon

All this world reveres, and wars to own

All I once thought gain I have counted loss.

Spent and worthless now, compared to this

Chorus:

Knowing you, Jesus

Knowing you, there is no greater thing.

You’re my all,you ‘re the best.

You’re my joy, my righteousness.

And I love you, Lord.

Now my heart’s desire is to know you more.

To be found in you and known as yours

To possess by faith what I could not earn.

All-surpassing gift of righteousness

Chorus

Oh, to know the power of your risen life

And to know You in Your sufferings.

To become like you in your death, my Lord

So with you to live and never die.

Chorus