Listen to this devotional:
Do you remember me
Amy Grant, “Grown-Up Christmas List”
I sat upon your knee
I wrote to you with childhood fantasies
Well I’m all grown up now
And still need help somehow
I’m not a child but my heart still can dream
So here’s my lifelong wish
My grown up Christmas list
Not for myself but for a world in need …
Amy Grant’s “Grown-Up Christmas List” captures what many of us desire during the holidays: a return to childlike faith, when the inexplicable and supernatural power of Christmas was as real to us as the presents under our tree.
Luckily, the spirit of Christmas is real, and it’s more than a childhood fantasy. It exists in the power of God to make the impossible possible. Christmas is the perfect time to access this power, which allows us to conquer the challenges that often arrive uninvited in our lives.
Christmas is more than a day—it is a spirit proven over centuries to be unbreakable. This spirit showed itself in the birth of Jesus and inspires us in countless stories, songs, and movies to this day.
One of my early memories of witnessing the unbreakable spirit of Christmas was in the movie The Little Drummer Boy.
From age six onward, I was drawn to any telling of the Little Drummer Boy’s tale. In a beautiful interpretation of the classic song, the 1968 TV special tells us the story of a Little Drummer Boy named Aaron whose parents have passed away. Originally, I thought I only enjoyed the song’s melodic rhythm, but I now realize that I was drawn to Aaron’s transformation, which was made possible by his experience of Jesus.
In the movie, the birth of Jesus transforms Aaron’s bitterness and grief over the loss of his parents into faith and hope. Like Aaron, experiencing the divine presence of Jesus can give us the resilience to find faith in frustrations and purpose in pain. Embracing this transformative power enables us to pursue the beautiful life God has planned for us, and this is truly what it means to have the unbreakable spirit of Christmas. This is at the top of my grown-up Christmas list for all readers of this devotional series.
The unbreakable spirit of Christmas is biblical
The Christmas spirit of the Little Drummer Boy is not only a nice sentiment but also a biblical principle. This spirit is exemplified in the Bible through Mary, the mother of Jesus. When asked by an angel to become the mother of the coming Messiah, her response is one of faith:
“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God.” “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it be to me as you have said.” Then the angel left her.
Luke 1:34-38 NIV84
Mary faced uncertainty and social challenges with unwavering trust. In response to God’s call, she didn’t cower in fear or react in anger. Instead, she was perhaps the first to embody the spirit of Christmas by embracing the transformative power of God’s presence and allowing him to build an unbreakable spirit within her.
This unbreakable spirit comes from God’s love, as powerfully expressed in Scripture:
So who can separate us? What can come between us and the love of God’s Anointed? Can troubles, hardships, persecution, hunger, poverty, danger, or even death? The answer is, absolutely nothing. As the psalm says, On Your behalf, our lives are endangered constantly; we are like sheep awaiting slaughter. But no matter what comes, we will always taste victory through Him who loved us. For I have every confidence that nothing-not death, life, heavenly messengers, dark spirits, the present, the future, spiritual powers, height, depth, nor any created thing-can come between us and the love of God revealed in the Anointed, Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:35-39 Voice
Through God’s loving presence in our lives, we can taste victories no matter what comes and no matter how weak or ordinary we might feel.
The unbreakable spirit of Christmas is powerful
The transformative power of Christmas lies in how God’s Spirit uses ordinary people for extraordinary purposes.
If you only look at us, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives. That’s to prevent anyone from confusing God’s incomparable power with us. As it is, there’s not much chance of that. You know for yourselves that we’re not much to look at. We’ve been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we’re not demoralized; we’re not sure what to do, but we know that God knows what to do; we’ve been spiritually terrorized, but God hasn’t left our side; we’ve been thrown down, but we haven’t broken. What they did to Jesus, they do to us—trial and torture, mockery and murder; what Jesus did among them, he does in us—he lives! Our lives are at constant risk for Jesus’ sake, which makes Jesus’ life all the more evident in us. While we’re going through the worst, you’re getting in on the best!
2 Corinthians 4:7-12 MSG
This Christmas season, we can embrace the unbreakable spirit of Christmas by allowing God’s Spirit to transform the ordinary moments and challenges of daily life into an extraordinary spiritual journey. Just as the Little Drummer Boy and Mary found their purpose in God’s plan, we too can discover how our ordinary lives, filled with his Spirit, can reflect extraordinary power.
Now Christ lives his life in you! And even though your body may be dead because of the effects of sin, his life-giving Spirit imparts life to you because you are fully accepted by God.
Romans 8:10 TPT
The impossible can also become possible in our lives as we embrace the dimensions of the unbreakable spirit of Christmas, each one fitting into and developing the others:
So don’t lose a minute in building on what you’ve been given, complementing your basic faith with good character, spiritual understanding, alert discipline, passionate patience, reverent wonder, warm friendliness, and generous love, each dimension fitting into and developing the others.
2 Peter 1:5-7 MSG
Though there are many, I have found that these nine dimensions can guide us toward developing this spirit:
- The spirit of idealism
- The spirit of gratitude
- The spirit of joy
- The spirit of resilience
- The spirit of belief
- The spirit of redemption
- The spirit of creativity
- The spirit of love and family
- The spirit of wonder
As we embrace these nine dimensions of the unbreakable Christmas spirit, we develop the spiritual power and tenacity to weather any storm, navigate any spiritual adventure, and live up to our calling and destiny from God. We become living proof of God’s transformative power. Through his Spirit, our struggles become stepping stones to hope, our challenges become breakthroughs in faith, and our ordinary moments become opportunities to trust God’s guidance to fulfill our destiny and purpose. This Christmas, God’s light can shine through our lives, making the joy, peace, and purpose of the season unmistakable to all.
What to expect in this series
The unbreakable spirit of Christmas appeared through the birth of Jesus, and it flowed into people’s lives as they interacted with him. To develop this unbreakable spirit ourselves, we will read about ordinary people who interacted with Jesus in the Bible and had their lives transformed—through their conversations with him or spiritual truths he taught them. Through these passages of the Bible, we will learn how to let Jesus transform our lives as well.
As we delve into these nine dimensions, we have included a movie that matches them along with spiritual reflections and decisions that will strengthen us from the inside out.
Just as The Little Drummer Boy had a profound impact on my perspective about the spirit of Christmas, movies can give us great insight into both our hearts and spiritual realities.
Take time to explore each dimension at your own pace, and talk with God and your friends about how you can grow to develop the unbreakable spirit of Christmas together.
Explore more:
As the editor in chief for Deep Spirituality, Russ Ewell writes, teaches, and innovates with his eyes on the future. His teaching is rooted in providing hope for those turned off by tradition and infused with vision for building a transformative church. His passion to inspire even the most skeptical to view God through fresh eyes can be found in his book, He's Not Who You Think He Is: Dropping Your Assumptions and Discovering God for Yourself.
As the editor in chief for Deep Spirituality, Russ Ewell writes, teaches, and innovates with his eyes on the future. His teaching is rooted in providing hope for those turned off by tradition and infused with vision for building a transformative church. His passion to inspire even the most skeptical to view God through fresh eyes can be found in his book, He's Not Who You Think He Is: Dropping Your Assumptions and Discovering God for Yourself.
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