GUEST: GRANT CASTLEBERRY, pastor, The King’s Chapel (Raleigh, NC)
As we approach Christmas, a date that has been traditionally set aside to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, it’s remarkable to observe just how little all the hubbub around the “holidays” reflects this historic reason for the season.
Blow-up Santas adorn yards, endless ads in print and on television entice purchasing endless things, and background music in stores croon about snowflakes, Frosty, and jingle bells.
The obvious truth is this: the god of this world has successfully distracted and deceived society from focusing on the Christ of Christmas.
At the same time, national and world events draw our attention—heated debates over politicians and policies, the cost of living, taxation, normalization of sexual sin, abortion, Islamic immigration, deportation of illegal immigrants, support of Israel, and the list goes on.
While God designed us with the capacity to consider many different issues each day, one needs to be our priority, that “God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:9-10).
Grant Castleberry, pastor of The King’s Chapel in Raleigh, NC, joins us this weekend on The Christian Worldview to help us avoid the distractions and keep Christ at the center of this Christmas season. A former captain in the US Marine Corps, Grant, along with his wife, Grace Anna, are the authors of Manger in Danger, an excellent, gospel-centered 25-day devotional for families with children.
Grant will also explain how nations with Christian heritage, like England and the United States, have diverted from Christmas and the faith, become secularized and even welcomed Islamic immigration in the name of the false god of multiculturalism.
