A very merry Christmas to you, with every blessing we can pray over you and yours!

This tends to be a mad time of year, and my letter is reaching you as things accelerate, so in kindness, I will keep it shorter than most. I want to give you three words to hold on to.

The Incarnation continues.

This is one of Dallas Willard’s most memorable lines for me. (From a man who gave us many memorable lines.) He was trying to remind us that the story of the Incarnation—God made flesh in Jesus Christ––is meant to carry on in unbroken succession in our lives.

Christianity is not about “pull yourself together”—in this season or any other. It is the remarkable, breathtaking reality of Jesus himself now resident in our being, permeating our humanity as his life is carried out in us. This is why Paul would write things like this: 

My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you… (Galatians 4:19 NIV)

Mary was in childbirth, and now the Spirit labors until Christ is formed in us. The Incarnation continues. 

And so, this year, as you open Christmas cards with various depictions of Bethlehem, the star, and the Nativity; as you listen to carols with lines like, “O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray; cast out our sin and enter in; be born in us today”; as you drive by the somewhat tacky but delightful manger scenes your neighbors have put on their lawns (next to Santa and the Grinch), I’m encouraging you to make the most important association of all…

The Incarnation continues. We celebrate not only an event but an unfolding reality!

O Jesus, I need this to be true for me.

I need your very life to be formed in me, in all of me.

I surrender my humanity to be the new vessel of your Incarnate Glory.

Saturate me with your brilliant life. Restore me, renew me, empower me.

I invoke the Incarnation to carry on in me.

In your mighty, beautiful name, Lord Jesus.

Amen, and Merry Christmas from Stasi and me and our entire team. We love you and are so grateful for you!

Download the Wild at Heart December 2024 Newsletter here.