Putting God Back in the Holidays | Dr. Bill Thrasher

Today on Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman. I entered the holidays with some very unconscious expectations. I sort of resented some of the demands of the holiday. I'd like to put God back in the holidays, but others have a different agenda or whatever. Being content with your role, being light in a dark place, even sometimes being around ones that maybe can't fully appreciate you or fully understand you, there is a battle in regard to this time of year.

Welcome to Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" . Today, as we head toward Christmas and New Years, we have a program that will help you keep God at the center of your celebrations. And on today's program, we're going to have a practical, spiritual discussion that's going to help you not just get through the holidays, but enhance your relationships as you navigate once ahead.

Dr. Bill Thrasher is going to join us today. He's the author, co-author, of Putting God Back in the Holidays. Now, the book deals with the whole year, with holidays throughout the year, but for the purpose of this conversation, we're going to focus on Christmas and New Years. And Gary, I know this is one of your favorite times of the year, but it can also be stressful on relationships. Well, it can be, Chris. Thinking about all the food we've got to cook and all the places we've got to find for relatives to stay when they come in.

Those logistic things can really be kind of overpowering sometimes. And then, of course, many families have an Uncle Claude who you've got to put up with and you know he's going to be here and you've got to figure out, well, how are we going to treat him? Let's be nice to him. We'll listen to his stories. All kind of things. All kind of things related to the holidays. So, I'm glad that today we're going to discuss how to make the holidays Christian. I mean, you know, this would be a good discussion.

I'm excited about it. And I'm still trying not to be Uncle Claude, but I think I've become... Let's meet our guest. Dr. Bill Thrasher is a beloved professor at Moody Bible Institute. He's been teaching for 45 years. He is a graduate professor of Bible and theology at Moody Theological Seminary, frequent speaker for churches and retreats around the country. He's the author of a number of books, including Believing God for His Best, A Journey to Victorious Praying, and Living the Life God Has Planned, that our featured resource today is written by Dr. Thrasher and his wife Penny. It's titled Putting God Back in the Holidays.

You can find out more at buildingrelationships.us. Well, Dr. Thrasher, welcome back to Building Relationships. Well, I'm honored to be back with you. I love you, too, and so very grateful for all you've done for the Lord's work and for Moody. It's an honor to know you. Well, you have had a long career of teaching, both undergraduate and graduate students at Moody.

It must be rewarding, if this happens, that students actually come back from time to time and return and reach out to you and let you know what your teaching has meant to them. Have you had those kind of experiences? You know, that has been one of the greatest gifts that God has given me, yes. Just thinking, this past summer, my wife and I, we traveled to Manila, a student that I had over 40 years ago, and he's been a missionary for 40 years.

I did a mission conference there for 100 Christar missionaries all over East Asia, and that was one of the highlights of my life. That was dear Tom. Tom was a very skilled carpenter when he came and doing high-end work, and he began to work in his church and be involved in evangelism and since God's driving him to the missions field, so he was headed there, and someone says, well, you know, he probably ought to get some training, and he says, where should I go? He said, Moody Bible Institute. So I went to Moody Bible Institute, and he said, I guess I'm supposed to apply. I said, have you ever taken the SAT?

He said, I don't know what the SAT is. But anyhow, he came in, and even when he was an undergraduate student, he began to enroll with, then it was called a different name, now it's called Christar, but he began connecting with students there in the churches in the 80s. He said, do you have people that are friends of the mission? Yeah, we do. And so he began just doing Muslim awareness seminars in the 80s.

We weren't quite as aware of that. He's been a faithful, so that's just one. I'm privileged to have students and even now have the sons and daughters of former students, and it is a great blessing. Sometimes they give me credit for more than I deserve, but truth or matter, they were pretty amazing people when they came, and God did a work in their life, and maybe I didn't mess them up. But it's a great joy to have been a part of that, and I'm grateful now in these years. My wife comes with me to school, and she sits in the class, and that's a huge help to my students as she shows interest and love and encouragement and prayers. So anyhow, it's a good area we're in right now.

Yeah. Well, I'm sitting here thinking about some of my professors at Moody when I was there back in the Dark Ages, and I'm asking myself, did I ever express appreciation to them? Dr. Kenneth Wiest, I had for Greek, and Dr. Harold Gardner, Christian Education. And I think there's a lot of students that really don't reach back to say to professors along the way how much they appreciate them, but it's nice when they do. But as you said, what's really rewarding is when you see how God is using those students around the world. Amen.

Amen. And I'm sure that's a reward to see how God is using you. Maybe this is a well-known fact, but I didn't know it till you spoke in chapel a number of years ago, that no one would publish your first book. You had to self-publish it. That's right. And that was before self-publishing existed.

I literally self-published it. Well, for you, our topic today, what does it mean to put God back into the holidays? And how do you keep Christ central during this time of year?

Well, there's some degree that goes back to why I wrote the book, and my dear wife helped, but it's this. Way back when I was a student, years ago, I noticed that the holiday time, and like I said, if you charted my spiritual life, the holidays would have been a valley, not a peak. A forest time of really being vibrantly alert to the Lord. And so I just sense a special battle around the holidays. Part of it was because I would be going from being very busy to then sort of having a break. And so I remember when I sensed God calling me into teaching and ministry, and I remember keeping a list of what I wanted to do if God ever opened that door. And one of the things was prepare my students for the holidays. For the last 45 years, this will be 45, the last class in the fall semester, I do talk about preparing yourself spiritually for the holidays. So I do that out of sensing my own need, and I've not only shared that with students, but also many, many other people and whatever. People come to the holidays from many different backgrounds, you know, from a strong Christian heritage to a heritage that's hostile or indifferent, or from a strong marriage to a difficult marriage to never married to a new marriage and divorce, all those things.

And maybe a parent and a single parent. But whatever the situation is, you know, our faith is attacked. And I came to find out about your faith I read today in Thessalonians, he says, lest the tempter having tempted you, 1 Thessalonians 3.5. So, you see, he attacks our faith. But God wants to strengthen our faith. That word be strong in the Lord and the strength of his might, that same Greek word is used in Romans 4, that Abraham was strengthened to believe. So I want individuals just to be strengthened to believe God.

Christ left heaven to come to earth in this broken world that was fallen and rebellious against him to enter into the world. And he wants to enter into your holidays. They may be the most joyous days of your life, you may have a great community of faith, or you may be the only person there that's crying out to God. But he wants to enter in and to communicate his comfort, his love, his encouragement, his hope, and to know that you're not alone. And so that's what I desire. I desire that for whoever, whatever your situation is, we want to believe God for that.

I've charted this. Why is there such a battle? I've noted five reasons there is such a battle.

And I'm sure you could maybe alert to others as well. But part of it is you look at all the holidays, there is a spiritual significance of them, even though we've greatly secularized them in our culture. But even when everybody doesn't want to say Merry Christmas, want to say Happy Holidays, there is a focus on Christ during this particular time. And Satan hates Christ.

And certainly you would expect him to attack people who truly represent him, even people whom, all people whom Christ has created. And so it's no, statistically there are more suicides and more depression and all that stuff. That's part of the battle. But also, now maybe not everybody, because you know, Gary says it's the most joyous time for him, and I want it to be and it's become that for me. But you know, I usually enter this time of year very tired and very depleted.

I've finished up a semester, I'm preparing for a new one. And I think you're always more vulnerable when you're tired and depleted. And I don't think my situation is that unusual. I think others have told me that this time of year seems to just exalt an unattainable ideal. I remember we were doing some caregiving for my precious mother-in-law who is with the Lord now. And it was, I think it was right around Christmas Eve or close to it. And she required 24-hour care. We covered those things with some help from brother-in-law, sister-in-law, and a few other people. And sometimes we hired a service called More Than Family, and this dear lady had done one shift. And I was talking to that lady before she was going to leave, and I said, you know, I told her what I was, you know, I said, boy, there's my last day of my class for the semester, and I've talked about preparing spiritually for the holidays.

I said, holidays can be hard. She says, oh, can it be hard? She says, I was preparing supper years ago for my extended family.

And I saw my husband's phone go off, and so I went in there and wanted to get his call, and that's when I discovered an affair he had been in for many years that ultimately ended our marriage. And she says, oh, it's a very hard time. Before she left, she says, you're not leaving. You're having supper with us.

And she spent the evening with us. Now, even sometimes the painful memories, sometimes just unfulfilled dreams, any kind of brokenness in our life. You know, for me, I think part of my struggle was, this took me a while to realize this, that I entered the holidays with some very unconscious expectations. You know, my unconscious expectation was, I deserve a break. I sort of resented some of the demands of the holiday. I think other people have told me, you say, boy, I like this idea of putting God back in the holidays, but he or she said, I'm not in control of my holidays. I'd like to put God back in the holidays, but others have a different agenda or whatever. So, you know, being content with your role, being light in a dark place, even sometimes being around ones that maybe can't fully appreciate you or fully understand you, that's a challenge. So those are some of the reasons that there is a battle in regard to this time of year.

Dr. Thrasher, we've just come through a contentious election season, and all the divisions that we've heard about in our country, just a real political divide. Do you think the message of Christmas can help bring people together? Well, I think if the true message is digested, it certainly can. It's unifying. It's a message of hope.

It's a message of love, God putting his love upon us when we were his enemies, and helpless and indifferent. And unquestionably, you know, it's a time of great time where God wants to restore us. It's a time of joy. Joy is a slippery concept in Scripture, but the key to joy is when you and God are in harmony. You can be joyful. That's why Jesus was said to be the most joyous person who ever lived, Hebrews 1.

That was love, righteousness, and hated lawlessness. Therefore, God is anointed you with the oil of joy above all your companions. So he came to restore us and unite us to him. Anytime we're focused on something outside of ourselves, together, that brings real unity.

Let us exalt his name together. So I'm praying it will be. I pray that, God, we will see an unprecedented harvest of souls. I mean, I'm here because of the incredible revival that was happening in the 70s. I'm not sure we really fully realized it, but that was when I was in college, and there was just a stream of people going into the Lord's work, campus ministries that were not that God has not worked since, but it was a very incredible time that God worked there. And so I'm praying for a great harvest of souls in this time. It's dark.

It's challenging. You are right. We've gone through a difficult season, but we just cry to God for him to pour out his Spirit upon us and do an unprecedented work here in our land.

Well, that's my hope, too. God loved us while we were sinners. Amen. And so we must love people.

That's right. Even though we disagree with them on a whole lot of stuff. Absolutely. But we're the ones that will be reaching out to love them. Love your enemies, Jesus said. Right.

Wow. Well, you were single for many years before you married and had children. How did you approach the holidays as a single person, and what advice would you give for singles today who are listening to us? Well, I was married at age 36, and so I will say God gave great graces. I threw myself in the ministry God called me to, and I felt his calling on me on that time was to be single.

There was a great contentment. But holidays were a harder time. I think there in the holiday time, I think your singleness is sort of accentuated. I think you have to be prayed up not to be vulnerable to some lies. I mean, the lie they can say, hey, if you're not paired off on a particular day of the year, maybe there's something wrong with you. Are you as special as God really says you are?

I think you can even be vulnerable to start a wrong relationship. I would keep a list of things that God esteemed in a woman scripturally just to keep my eyes on what God esteemed as I waited on God for his timing. Spending time with him and letting him affirm, listening to him, they say the greatest influence about what we think about ourselves is our perception of what the most important person in our life thinks about us. So when God, you let him erect himself as the most important input and listen to him. The devil is cruel.

I think also as a single Christmas he came not to be served, but to serve and give his life ransom to many. Just the principle of sowing and reaping was a big help to me. When I saw that, I would just say, okay, when you feel like you need encouragement, you need, sow it, give it.

I would keep a list of people that I could just give a call to that I think would appreciate a call or whatever. And it'll come back. I mean, it's just like plant a crop of kindness and it'll come back, not in the way you think it will, but it'll come back.

Maybe not in the timing you think it will, but it'll come back. So it is a challenge. Sometimes in the church things are very family oriented and we praise God for that. I thank God for some key families that were a tremendous help to me during my single years.

I taught here almost nine years, eight and a half years single, and those were very, very precious time. And my wife and I, we esteem singles. There was a time that we ran a family class at our church and we did all our socials with the singles groups. So they can be a great help to us and we can to them.

In fact, we still have some very, very close friends that are single that have never married. You mentioned that whole concept of serving as following the example of Christ. The holidays often give us more opportunities for singles to be involved in serving, right? In various situations.

Absolutely. I think that's one of the ways I think we can be prayed up in regard to making the use of this season. What are some practical ways that families can center their Christmas celebrations around Christ rather than just festive activities?

This is maybe my longest answer and it relates to a particular passage of Scripture. The familiar Mary Martha story has become one of my favorite Christmas texts. I know there's really nothing about Christmas there, but it sure sounds like Christmas when it says Martha was distracted with all her preparations. To me, that's Luke 10. That sounds like Christmas. But the thing Martha did right, we usually don't talk about what she did right, but what she did right, she welcomed Christ into her home.

That's a strong word just used three other times. It's used of Zacchaeus welcoming Christ into his home and Jason welcoming the Christians in his home in Acts 17 and even Rahab welcoming the messengers in her home. That passage was the origin of a tradition that God gave me the idea for and we've instituted in our home to have a special meal, the beginning of the holidays.

Usually the beginning of December, now we because our boys are grown now so getting scheduled is not as easy as it once was. But we have a special meal, have our finest china there and we have an empty place setting for Jesus. And we welcome him to the holidays and even my boys were very small, but we would just talk to Jesus as if he was at the table because he is at the table and he's at every table. But in a special way just talk to him about our plans and say, Lord, we want you to be in the midst of this.

Is there anything you want us to change? And maybe are there ideas that we haven't thought about? But we talk to him and we dedicate those holidays to the Lord. I remember the time that it was going to be the first Christmas that we didn't have my wife's father, my son's grandfather, my father-in-law with us and I felt like at that table God gave us an idea.

Let's address the elephant in the room. He's not going to be there, but let's talk about give our favorite grandfather memories or whatever. And that was a special time. So welcoming Christ. See, Martha is rebuked not because she's serving.

Somebody needs to serve. She talked about all the things that need to be done during a Christmas holiday. But there in verse 40 it says she was distracted with all her preparations. She was worried and she was troubled and bothered about so many things.

And I think that's the way the devil works. He says in 2 Corinthians 11, 3 it says, he leads us astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. So that's for what she's rebuked.

Now why is she rebuked? I would want a person to realize, hey, God loves you in your most distracted moment, your most worried moment, or there be hope for none of us, or your most troubled moment. Why he does, he loves us so much he hasn't sent us to live that way. You see in that verse 40 what it leads to, it leads to doubting his care. Lord, don't you care that my sister, she begins to criticize Mary.

She's left me to do all the serving alone. It makes you doubt and be critical and also feel alone and abandoned. And the worst thing in verse 40, you begin to have a demanding spirit toward Christ. Notice how she talks to Jesus.

Tell her to help me. Martha did right. She invited Jesus to her home, but she did not enjoy the visit. And I think a lot of people don't enjoy Jesus' birthday. Earlier years when we would have our little Christmas and go over to my in-laws house and the other relatives were there, whatever, we had to so rush to get there, we said, hey, this is not right. We want to enjoy both. So we put a different day on the calendar earlier. We're not going to answer calls, we're not just going to be off and just really relax and enjoy. And so that was a help. Even when we knew we were going to have to host or whatever, let's be relaxed as we host.

But we needed to have our Christmas at a different day. That's part of whatever you have to do to take that hurry in the rush. Mary is commended not because she's lazy and not because she's not helping, it seemed to imply in the scripture that she had helped earlier, but she's a picture of abiding in the Lord. And she's attentive to him, devoted to him, sit at his feet, willing to do anything he would ask her to do. But it says she chose the good part that will not be taken away from her. It leads to eternal fruit. You know, the thematic placement of this particular passage, it's not chronologically related to what's before and afterwards, but I think it's thematically related. Before it is the story of the Good Samaritan. That story of spontaneous compassion that one of them, and the other is the teaching on prayer. I think that hurried spirit, we can't see anything.

We're just in survival mode. You can't see the spontaneous compassion, and it certainly destroys the spirit of prayer. So I think there's great fruit in listening to the Lord's rebuke.

He loves us, he cares about us, and it's a work of God to be able to enjoy this holiday, and especially, quite frankly, the one who is the host or the hostess. It's a greater challenge to have that relaxed attitude. I like the diligent, diligent Christian worker of the past, John Wesley, he said, although I'm always in haste, I'm never in a hurry. I never do more than I can do except with perfect calmness of spirit. I said, Lord, that's a diligence that I didn't grow up with. I grew up with diligence because I had a diligent mother, but not that kind of diligence.

Well, those are good words, I think. I like the idea of starting earlier in December, and do some things leading up to it. Christmas, of course, is the time of gift giving, but how can Christians approach the giving of gifts in a way that reflects the love of Christ and not just materialism? Well, when we realized, okay, whose birthday we're celebrating that dawned on me, well, should we be giving a gift to Jesus? Now, I'm not a great gift giver either. My wife is, I'm not, and I'm too practical. Even as a boy, I didn't like to get a gift that I feel like I really didn't need.

It was just a waste. The idea, this has been a tradition we've done, is the idea of everybody announces what gift they're giving to Jesus that year, and we'll write it down and I'll rehearse and tell them about what they've done the last year. You know, that meant so much when my boys were growing up and one member one year said, I want to give the gift to Jesus.

I want to make a greater investment in my younger brother. Remember my wife saying, I want to put more music in our home. Well, that's been the highlight. Now, I've expanded it to not only talk about the gift you're giving Jesus, but also what gift, as you look back on this past year, that Jesus has given you, are you especially grateful for. Even also expanded, what gift has Jesus given you that you see in the family members that are with you today, and that you'd just like to verbalize, thanking them for the gift of God you see in their life.

And then also, fourthly, they don't have to answer all of these, but the idea of what gift are you trusting God for for this next year. So, you know, putting that in there, I have the story there in the book about the white envelope that you've probably heard. It's a well-known story, but it was a family that, she knew her husband hated Christmas, not the true meaning of Christmas, but he hated the hurry, the rush, the running around to maybe get a gift just to get it, but it didn't really need it. And so what she did, her son had gone to a, had a wrestling match with an inner-city school, and they didn't have enough money to even have the headgear, the wrestling headgear. And what she did, she went out to a sporting goods store, and she bought that headgear, made a donation to that school, and she put a white envelope on the Christmas tree, and he opened it, and she informed him what she had done, and that was his bright smile was a highlight of that year, and every year she would do that. And the kids, even though they would have toys, they couldn't wait for the white envelope. And one year when, you know, he was no longer with him, she said it was so hard to get ready for Christmas, oh my goodness, I've missed him so much. But there, when they got to the, how I cry when I say it, when they got to the Christmas day, there weren't one white envelope, there were several white envelopes. Everybody had put a white envelope in honor of their father. So that, that, that is the origin of our little thing.

We don't have the white envelope, but just what gift we're giving Jesus. Oh yeah, that's great. This is The Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman Podcast. Thanks for listening and for telling others about our conversations. When you go to FiveLoveLanguages.com, you can find more ways to strengthen your relationships. Just click the resources tab and you'll find the podcast there and today's featured resource.

Again, go to FiveLoveLanguages.com. Dr. Thrasher, before we took our break, we were talking about gift giving and how to honor Christ in that. You know, I remember several years ago, I said to our church, and I don't know, this just kind of came to me. It was our missions offering. We're taking a missions offering in December. What if we give our largest gift to the missions offering? Give it to God for missions. And that year, we went from the previous year, our church gave 250,000. That year we gave 500,000. And our pastors kind of picked up on that and followed that through the years. You know, we're up to a million now. So, that's another thought for putting Christ at the heart of Christmas. Amen. Now, in what ways can the church community serve those who are in need during the Christmas season?

And we know that that's a real segment of our society today. And how does that embody the love of Jesus? You know, sometimes even when we think about what gift we're giving to Jesus, sometimes God may give us an idea that we need other people to help. We've done this a few times during Christmas season as an expanded family, you know, an extended family. We visited a nursing home on Christmas day.

People that are in a nursing home on Christmas day are really alone or else somebody would have taken them somewhere. You know, what are the good works that God has caused us to walk in during these holiday times? You know, I believe if God gives an idea and God's in it, God will give people a want-to motivation to do it. And thank God for that idea about that mission project or whatever. That's extremely and it seems like that's continued to go on, so we praise God for that.

Yeah. What do you think is the most important goal for Christmas? Well, I think the first thing to trust God for is, Lord, during these holidays, Lord, I'm asking you for this. I ask you to enhance my relationship with Christ.

If that happens, you've had a successful holiday. You know, what God said of the ancient king, as long as he sought the Lord, God prospered him. God, send things into your life that encourage you to seek him. You don't seek him in a vacuum. I sought the Lord and he delivered me from my fears. There's fear that causes us to seek him.

You don't cast all your cares upon him. God entrust us with cares. So, trusting God to enhance your relationship with him and sometimes difficulty will be involved because some of his good gifts come in strange packages. I said it's not often in a prayer meeting that a person will pray, Oh God, would you give me the good gift of loneliness tonight?

But if loneliness causes you to seek the companionship of Christ, it's a good gift. Yeah. You know, there is positive results from the hand of God when we use Christmas to celebrate the coming of Christ, right? Amen.

Amen. Now, you have five key prayers for us as we enter the Christmas season. Can you share those with us? I'd be glad to. I need them and I pray them and I share them with my students. I share them with groups.

And the first one is what I've said. Go into it actively asking God to enhance your relationship with Christ. That's your goal. If that happens, you've had a wonderful holiday. I'd say, secondly, ask God to rest you and refresh you. That is a work of God. In Psalm 23, which so many people know, but it says it's a causative stem. He causes us to lie down in green pastures.

Makes us lie down beside the still waters. In other words, I'm a sheep. And I used to think, well, boy, give me some time off. That's the way I looked at it and I can take care of that.

Truth of the matter is you can't. You could sleep to noon every day and not necessarily be rested and refreshed if you have some unresolved things in your heart. It's God who knows how to rest and refresh you. And I think you see that in our precious Lord's life. He got up a great while before day, went to a heavenly place and was praying there. And praying is not used primarily for intercessions for others, but for the outpouring of his own soul to find refreshment from his heavenly Father. So even Jesus as the God-man did have emotional limitations and had to get refueled. So trust him to rest you and refresh you.

And sometimes he can do that in strange ways. There are times that I'd say, boy, I just need to get away and I'm not able to get away because I have responsibilities. But God sometimes right in the midst of it, he can do it. And think about a single parent.

Sometimes they never can get away. But somehow God knows how to rest him and refresh him. Also, I'd say ask God to show you how he wants you to be a vessel of love. Let God fill in the blank to family, to friends, or ones in need. To include that would be the gift that he wants you to give to Jesus that year. Another is to trust God to keep a measure of discipline in your life.

All of these things have come out of times that I didn't have that, you know. Now, there's nothing wrong with having leisure times. But even asking God to somehow, in the words of Philippians, that prayer, approve the things that are excellent even in your leisure times. Asking him for that spirit of self-control and eating.

Sometimes there's nothing wrong with feasting, nothing wrong with celebrations, but sometimes a walk around the block is better than the third dessert. So just keeping, you know, a measure of discipline in your life. Things that maybe you would not trip people up, but maybe sometimes they expose themselves and waste much time on media at best and defile themselves at worst. Keep a measure of discipline.

And also, I would say, maybe you know things that have tripped you up. Trust God to prepare you for any temptation that you know has tripped you up in the past. Make no provision for the flesh. Having people praying with you about that. Those are the five things that I trust God for myself and I trust God for others as well. Those are powerful. I think folks who are reading the book will work their way through those five. It's great for Christmas prayer times.

Absolutely. Dr. Isaac, what about the family who has members of the family who are not believers in Christ? And at Christmas they're thrown together. How can we be true to our own beliefs and yet respectful of those who do not know Christ? I think getting before God, I like one of my favorite verses that I cling to. It says, When my enemies turn back, they stumble in pairs before you. For you have maintained my just cause. You sit upon your throne, judging righteously. I think the just cause we have is God, I want to be blameless in love toward my loved ones. Philippians 1, 9-11, I pray that your love will bound more and more in knowledge and discernment. That's the scripture we have engraved in our wedding rings. And a part of the pain of that is it's a suffering to be not be understood.

When you're around people who just at this point don't have the capacity to fully understand and appreciate what drives you, you've got to give that right up and that's very painful. But say, Lord, I just want you, would you give me your insight and be prayerful about it? I had people pray in my class before we recorded this in regard to the situation they would be like. But God, just help us to be free and be loved and to do everything I can. And so I think prayerfully asking God for that.

Sometimes you can think of activities that could make everybody feel comfortable and can be bonding, but it's a prayerful thing and it's a painful thing and it's a suffering when you want them to understand you but they don't fully understand you. Dr. Thrasher, we've been talking a lot about Christmas celebration, but let's focus in our last segment here about New Years and celebrating the New Year. It's more than just a ball dropping on Times Square. You believe that the principle of first fruits gives us guidance for approaching a new year. Explain that. Well, I remember as a Christian leader one time talked about had you taken the principle of first fruit and applied that to his time and he says, you know, as I've given the first few moments of a day to God, as I've given the first day of the week to the Lord and as I've given the first part of the year, that was the part that was the most foreign to me, the first part of the year.

I had no idea what that meant. I was trying to give the first part of a day in honor of the Lord, the Lord's day, but I remember when January came around, it was in April I heard that so I put on my day timer, okay, when January comes around I think I have a few days and I can be a little more available to the Lord so this was over 40 years ago and so one thing I did, I decluttered some things and gave away things I wasn't using, that helped a little bit. Then as I was looking through some past journals, three things sort of began to surface and so the idea came to my mind, why don't you go into the year trusting God with these three things and being attentive to those as you look to the Lord for that. That was a, nothing in scripture says you have to do that, but that was a very special year and so when the next year came around and nothing magic about three but that's about as many as I can handle so I said, Lord, what three things do you want me to trust you for for this year?

In the book on page 24 to 26, I list some of those first of year requests that I've seen God be very faithful in. I remember the very first year this obvious thing's hit me in 1 Corinthians 13 1-3 talks about how if I speak with the tongue of men and angels don't have love I'm just making, those first three verses says that love is what absolutely essential to give meaning to anything. I said, Lord, and then I'm not sure I know what love is but then I remember in 1 John 4, we love because he first loved us.

I said, okay, I'm putting those two things together. If love is the most essential thing that gives meaning to everything and we love because he first loved us, I'm going to ask you, Lord, to overwhelm me with your love, that I can better love you and love others. You know, as I laid that before the Lord, number one, I understood that only God can love me the way I really yearn to be loved and need to be loved.

Only God can what? Think about me day and night. How precious are your thoughts to me, O God?

Avast is the sum of them. If I were to count them, they would outnumber the sands of the sea and when I wake them, still with you. It would be foolish to put that demand upon any other, your most precious human relationship that you've got to think about me day and night. No, they're going to have a bad day sometimes.

They've got to sleep too. So, just that God loves you in a way no one else ever can or will. Even the depth of his love. Familiar passages that I had even memorized, you know, Romans 5, you know, he set his love upon me when I was ungodly.

One summer day, I felt particularly ungodly, but my spirit was able to just drink up his love for an ungodly man, which I never had before. And then every time I would see an exhortation that I was to love, I'd back away and say, okay, God, I know I'm supposed to do that, like Proverbs 7, 17, a friend loves at all times. Lord, I know you want me to be that kind of friend, but most of all, I'm just, how do you love?

Lord, I think you're that to me. You love me at all times. Or, he who repeats a matter separates in him at friends, but he who covers a tradition seeks love. Proverbs 17, in other words, when you have a close relationship with somebody, you'll know things about them. If you could keep bringing up their failures, you could destroy that relationship. That's not loving. God doesn't do me that way.

When I woke up, if he put every failure in my face, I couldn't get, he doesn't do that because he's seeking to build a relationship with me, a love relationship. So, anyhow, he'll never ask me to do something to others that he doesn't abundantly do that to me. So, I'm just saying that's one thing, but just believing God, he's a living God, what does he want you to trust you for for that year, is a tremendous help in regard to starting the New Year.

Yeah, it's a great idea. Well, you know, during the New Year, if you come to it, people are making New Year's resolutions. Christians, non-Christians, New Year's resolutions. But for those of us who are Christians, how do we approach New Year's resolutions with a Christ-centered perspective?

I remember reading one time in Andrew Murie's book, The Three Stages of the Christian Life. Quite frankly, I think you go through these stages multiple times, but the first stage is, I can do it, and that's going to lead to failure. The second stage is, I can't do it. Now, when we're in that stage, nobody said, nobody's going to psych me up to make any kind of goals or any kind of resolutions.

I've already been through that kind of failure. But then there's the third stage. First, I can do it. Second, I can't do it. Third stage, I can't do it, but I must do it, and I'm going to trust God to do it.

That's how you do resolutions. I can't do it, but I must do it, and I'm going to trust God to do it. A professor, I had a well-known professor in seminary, he said when he became a Christian, he was told to write these words in the front of his Bible. When I try, I fail. When I trust, he succeeds. And here he's talking to me 40 years later, and he says, you know, it's taken me all this time to understand what those words mean.

When I try, I fail. When I trust, he succeeds. So trusting doesn't necessarily mean without effort. But it's in that spirit that we discern what is it God wants us to trust him for, and we believe him for it.

Yeah, yeah. So what role does faith play in setting life goals and New Year's goals? Well, I think the posture of faith is we come before God and say, God, what do you want me to believe you for?

You're the master, and I'm the servant. What do you want me to believe you for? I was just talking to a class earlier saying, you know, if you take out a sheet of paper and you're right on the top of that sheet of paper, God, what do you want me to trust you for for my life? If that's all you did, that's a good start to a life goal.

Okay, Lord, this is a blank sheet. Would you help me discern what is it you want me to trust you for for my life? See, it's not a matter of coming up with my dreams. It's laying hold of God's dreams for me. I like Philippians 3, that I may lay hold of that for which I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. When God laid hold of us as believers, he had a plan, a purpose, things that he wanted to do in and for us and through us.

And so it's a matter of trusting God for that. He says, you know, don't give you very long to live down here, you know. That's Psalm 90. I took literally, you know, teach me the number of my days and I may acquire a heart of wisdom. Seventy, maybe eighty, he says.

I remember in my twenties I started doing that. I multiplied seventy times three hundred and sixty-five and a fourth. I subtracted the years I lived at that time. And every year since then, now I'm seventy-two now, every day since then I put one number less on a paper day timer. I'm probably one of the five people in the world still use a paper day timer. Now I'm numbering up, you know, because I'm past seventy or whatever. But, you know, in that deadline God has something he wants to do. And I take a couple of days a year at least to just say, Lord, I'm listening to you today.

Would you just say, any adjustment you want me to make in my life, any adjustment, I'm just listening to you today. And I'll write those down. I have a sheet of paper where I've written those down. And there's a page thirty-two in the holiday book, some of those things, insights from those days or whatever.

But God's a living God. Now that's in regard to a life goal. And, court, year by year I have just some categories there on page twenty-three and twenty-four about spiritual goals or relational goals or physical goals. Nothing says you have to make goals in all these years, but you can lay them before the Lord.

Intellectual goals, financial, recreational, vocational, academic, outreach, whatever it may be. But it's a matter of, God, what do you want me to trust you for? And believe Him for that. And being attentive to that. Now sometimes when you say, okay, maybe I misread you, I need to adjust that.

That's okay. It's you and God. And I think when you quit dreaming or whatever, something is wrong. We die inside.

We're not listeners. In fact, there's a lot of people who have regrets over past mistakes. How can we let go of our past failures so that we can step into the new year with faith and hope? Well, I love Proverb twenty-four sixteen, the righteous man falls seven times and rises again. Remember there was an individual that lived on my dorm floor in seminary. He said, our greatest joy is not in every falling but in rising every time we fall. And the church father says, the danger is not that we fall but that we remain on the ground. And so I think that was Christendom. But God is ready to forgive. Psalm eighty-six five.

I had a person who became like a second father to me. He had that Greek word tetelestai, it is finished. He had it engraved and it was behind his desk that every client had to come in and see that funny Greek word.

It is finished, paid in full, paid in full. Sometimes you need a verse with the word all in it. Colossians two thirteen and fourteen is one of those verses.

In Martin Lloyd Jones' book on spiritual depression, one cause is what this one thing I did, a regret they couldn't get over. I like Hebrews ten seventeen, I'll remember your sins no more. Micah seven nineteen says he takes our sins and he puts them into the depth of the sea.

Corey ten Boom as you well know, used to put up a sign saying no fishing. He takes our sins and puts them in the depth of the sea. So sometimes we may need somebody telling us what God says to us. We don't need another mediator between because we just need one mediator and that's Jesus.

But sometimes we need somebody telling us what Jesus would say to us. I'll sprinkle clean water on you and you'll be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness, from all your idolatry. God can restore. He can restore. Now to a repentant heart, an unrepentant heart can abuse what I'm about to say, but to a repentant heart a person needs to know God can work together for good that which was not good. My sin is not good. But God is so big and so great and so wonderful.

He can overrule that and work it for good. Sometimes he doesn't wipe it out of your memory and you sort of have to attach a new meaning to it. The dear lady that anointed Jesus and the Pharisees rebuked him so if you being a prophet you don't know what kind of woman that was. And he said she who has forgiven much loves much. And so as a reminder to that thing, okay Lord would you just use that to well up in me Lord a greater love for you and a greater forgiveness and even use me as an instrument that other people would be spared from this mistake.

You know sometimes what grieves me is when I know my sin has hurt somebody I love. When the father of faith, Abraham, when fear struck him and he lied to Abimelech there in Genesis 20. I love there in verse 17 and 18, well God did exactly what he said I'll do.

I'll bless those who bless you, curse those who curse you. So he closed the wombs of Abimelech and all of their household and they weren't able to bear children. And when Abimelech said, he rebuked the prophet saying you've lied to me. And then it says Abraham prayed and God healed Abimelech.

And that's what I want a person to say. God is so big and so wonderful he can even heal the hurts that we have caused. So I worship him for that.

You can't give God a perfect record because none of us have but the eyes of the Lord look to and fro throughout the whole earth to find a heart that's completely his saying God give you everything dear God I want to look to you and you alone. So God can restore, God can work and I praise God for that. As we near the end of our time together today Dr. Thrasher what are some practical steps that we can take in the new year to strengthen our walk with Christ?

You know one thing recently this has been a tremendous help to my wife and I owe it to a mentor that I had in college that I've just reconnected with and 50 years later. We start the day with what we call a fourfold praise and it's not mechanical it's relational. First before I try to do it before I get out of bed I praise God for some attribute.

I have a bookmark I know exactly what attribute today it was faithful and I go through those attributes each month each one of them twice. So I praise God for it. Also I praise God for what he's done for me.

I have a list of all the blessings of God but I summarize it in a succinct way. God I praise you that I'm accepted by you, I'm secure in you, I'm significant in you. And I pray God somehow my life ministry could overflow and that countless others would be able to rest in those blessings too. Third I ask him just for a fresh filling of the Spirit. Lord I thank you, you know I'm not adequate but Lord would you take my life and would you use it today to walk in the good works you have for me.

And then fourthly I take my position in Christ above all principalities and powers just claiming the spiritual authority and the spiritual battle over my life and my family each of my sons and their families and my ministries and so those four things praising God for who he is for what he's done for me the gifts he's given for the filling of the Spirit and for the spiritual authority that he's given me and the warfare I have. Those things are tremendous help to me and my wife would say that too and so we thank God for that and we thank God for you and Chris there Gary very very much. Well thank you Dr. Thrasher these are wonderful ideas I do hope that many of our listeners will get the book because as we said earlier it's not just Christmas and New Year's you also deal with some of the other holidays and as Christians we want to use the normal holidays that are designed to celebrate Christ so thanks for being with us today thanks for investing time you and Penny investing time in writing this book. Thank you very very much it's a pleasure to be with you. We hope something you've heard today has encouraged you helped you as we move closer to the Christmas and New Year's celebrations. Find more practical help in the book that's our featured resource Putting God Back in the Holidays. You can find out more at buildingrelationships.us. Again buildingrelationships.us And coming up next week David and Barbara Lehman take us on a guided tour of the Christmas hymns and carols that we all love. Don't miss the conversation and music in one week. A big thank you to our production team Steve Wick and Janice Backing. Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman is a production of Moody Radio in Chicago in association with Moody Publishers a ministry of Moody Vibe Institute. Thanks for listening.