Don’t Let the Grinch Steal Christmas

Christmas time is here. This is a favorite time of year.

There are so many reasons to celebrate from being with family, giving more than we get, and taking advantage of the time off from work or school.

In the midst of our celebration, we want to make certain we don’t forget God. Ironically, I have discovered during the brisk pace of the holiday season it can be easy to lose our heart for God.

The purpose of this post is to help us avoid becoming a spiritual Grinch, where we allow our heart to grow small. Remember, the Grinch only changed when his heart grew, so to keep our inner Grinch from rising, we need to keep our heart alive, thriving, and growing.

Acknowledge and overcome spiritual laziness

Above all else, watch over your heart; diligently guard it because from a sincere and pure heart come the good and noble things of life.

Proverbs 4:23 Voice

We become spiritually lazy when we choose to ignore our spiritual condition. Ignoring our spiritual condition is the choice to ignore the condition of our heart.

The easiest way to identify this state of ignorance is by examining our willingness to be emotionally aware, honest, or available.

We are emotionally aware when we pay attention to our thoughts, actions, and responses. Emotional honesty has to do with telling ourselves the truth about these thoughts, actions, and responses. Being emotionally available means we are willing to take the time with God to share our thoughts, examine our actions, and understand our responses.

Doing this allows us to know how our heart is doing—whether it is happy or sad, encouraged or discouraged, grateful or dissatisfied. Once we know our true heart condition, we can rely on God to overcome the negatives and keep the positives positive.

Let Scripture penetrate your heart

My child, pay attention to what I say. Listen carefully to my words. Don’t lose sight of them. Let them penetrate deep into your heart, for they bring life to those who find them, and healing to their whole body.

Proverbs 4:20-22 NLT

Daily reading of Scripture is essential for anyone who wants to know and grow close to God. Unfortunately, reading the Bible can become a heartless habit, especially during a busy holiday season.

How do we know if our Scripture reading is becoming a heartless habit, where we are counting the number of verses read, watching the clock for how long we have read, or in some other way verifying the quality of our reading mathematically rather than spiritually?

There are four key questions we can ask based on Proverbs 4:20-22, which will help us turn our Bible reading into a time that penetrates the heart.

1. Does God have my attention? If we are thinking about what we need to do, where we are going to go, or what someone other than God might be thinking of us, then God doesn’t have our attention.
2. Am I listening carefully? When we listen carefully, our heart is engaged—meaning we slow down, experience emotion, understand what we are reading, and let it change us.
3. Am I allowing God to go deep? God wants to reach deep into our heart and soul. He wants to know us in our most vulnerable, honest, and authentic places, but this can’t happen if we resist his Word. We need to let God’s Word reveal truth, expose sin, lead us toward forgiveness, and give us a vision of who God wants us to be. Each of these things will cause us to feel a range of emotions, and allowing God to go deep means embracing those emotions rather than fighting them.
4. Am I experiencing life and healing? Once we have truly experienced God through reading Scripture, we will also experience life and healing. The burdens of anxiety, fear, guilt, and the accompanying discouragement will disappear as we experience his mercy, grace, and forgiveness. This happens when we read Scripture aware that God is a God of promises more than punishment. He wants to bless us and communicates this in every page of Scripture if we are willing to look closely enough and apply faith to what we read.

Replace envy with gratitude

Truly God is good to His people, Israel, to those with pure hearts. Though I know this is true, I almost lost my footing; yes, my steps were on slippery ground. You see, there was a time when I envied arrogant men and thought, “The wicked look pretty happy to me.”

Psalm 73:1-3 Voice

One of the ways our hearts can grow small like the Grinch is allowing envy to become a dominant emotion. This is particularly difficult when somewhere someone just received the gift you were hoping to receive: the compliment your parents just gave a sibling instead of you, the trip your friends are taking that you had been dreaming about, or the job you wanted that just went to someone else.

In every case, envy can shrink our hearts, making us small, petty, and even critical of others, turning our holiday spirit into a harmful one.

There are two simple things we can do to overcome envy and replace it with gratitude. The first is found in Psalm 73:21-22, which helps us identify what is happening to us when we experience envy.

When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you.

Psalm 73:21-22 NIV

When we experience envy, our heart is letting us know that we are hurt and disappointed. This is what Psalm 73:21 means when it says we are “grieved.” If we don’t deal with that sense of loss, our next step will be to become bitter, which leads us to act like a “brute beast” according to these verses.

This is important, because when we experience envy we focus on what we don’t have or haven’t received, instead of dealing with how this makes us feel—which is grieved.

The psalmist in chapter 73 deals with the emotions of envy in an incredibly spiritual manner. He turns his attention away from things and people to God. That’s right: he becomes grateful for God instead of greedy for things or angry at people.

Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Psalm 73:23-26 NIV

One continual lesson of Scripture is that envy misses the point that God loves us, is holding us by the hand, and guiding us into a life that is good and beautiful (Romans 8:26-30 Voice). When we are grateful for this, looking at all he has done for us, then it is easy to let go of what he has done for others, and even be encouraged that they have been blessed.

This holiday season let’s make certain our inner Grinch doesn’t steal Christmas. Let’s be aware of our heart condition, allow God’s Word to penetrate our hearts, and replace a heart of envy with one that is grateful for God.

Further study

For those who want to do further Bible study, consider reading the following books of the Bible. Your focus should be to examine your heart in each specific area, then rely on God to free you from these things which allow the Grinch to steal Christmas.

1. Read 1 John, focusing on letting go of bitterness and deciding to love people.
2. Read Hebrews, focusing on accepting forgiveness and letting go of guilt.
3. Read Psalm 60-69, focusing on putting your hope in God and rejecting discouragement.