Walking With Christ

From my family to yours:

May your Christmas be filled with joy that isn’t shallow, peace that isn’t temporary, and hope rooted in the One whose birth changed everything.  May you remember that the manger was not the end of the story, but the beginning of salvation’s fulfillment.  Today is not merely tradition or sentiment—it is the celebration of a gift beyond measure, a Savior who stepped into our world to rescue us from the war we could never win.

Merry Christmas.  May His peace guard your heart, and His joy fill your home.

⚓ Floatie:  The Strength of Surrender

Philippians 2:6–7  (6)who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, (7)but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.(ESV)

Christmas is not just the arrival of a King—it is the shock of a King who refuses to rule like the world.

We expect power to dominate.  God chose to disarm.

And when you’ve lived your whole life in a warzone, surrender looks like weakness—even when it’s the path to victory.

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✒️ Forge:  Peace Arrives in Disguise

1. The Paradox of Power

The incarnation is a strategic contradiction:

• omnipotence wrapped in infancy,
• sovereignty confined to swaddling clothes,
• eternal glory laid in a feeding trough.

Isaiah 53:2–3  (2)For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.  (3)He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.(ESV)

Nothing about His arrival matched human expectations of strength.

2. The Brain Interprets Vulnerability as Risk

Psychologically:
The human brain reads vulnerability as danger—especially after prolonged exposure to threat.

• The amygdala interprets surrender as potential harm.
• The prefrontal cortex—responsible for rational evaluation—can be overridden during fear responses.
• Trauma conditioning (a widely researched phenomenon) reinforces resistance to vulnerability, because past threats trained the brain to equate openness with risk.

In short:  we crave peace, but our nervous system is wired to brace for impact.

3. The World Expected a Warrior — Not a Child

John 1:11  He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.(ESV)

Because the Messiah they wanted was a conqueror.  The Messiah they needed was a sacrifice.

Power without pride.  Strength without spectacle.  Victory without violence.

4. The Manger Is a Threat — To Our Autonomy

Matthew 2:3  When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him;(ESV)

Herod didn’t fear a sword.  He feared a rival allegiance.

Likewise, humanity fears:

• loss of control,
• exposure of sin,
• accountability to a righteous King.

Psychologically and spiritually, surrender threatens the ego.  And the ego fights back.

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⚒️ Anvil: The Real Reason Peace Feels Uncomfortable

Peace demands trust.  Trust demands vulnerability.

And vulnerability requires us to lay down:

• our defenses,
• our justifications,
• our illusion of self-rule.

The psychological term for this resistance is cognitive dissonance—the discomfort felt when truth confronts deeply held patterns or identities.  We say we want peace.  But we reject the terms of peace—because they require surrender.

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🔥 Ember: The Scandal of the Manger

The manger was not merely humble.  It was subversive.

It declared:

• the old order is broken,
• the war of dominion is ending,
• and the path to victory is not force, but self-emptying love.

Christmas was the day the world discovered that God conquers not by domination, but by incarnation.  And for many—that was more terrifying than war.

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🌿 Covenant Triumph: The Peace We Couldn’t Imagine

John 14:27  Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.  Not as the world gives do I give to you.  Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.(ESV)

The world’s peace is the silence between explosions.  Christ’s peace is the end of them.

Christmas is the invasion that offered freedom.  Calvary is the battle where the victory was won.  Resurrection is the proof that surrender was strength.

And the invitation remains:  To leave the warzone.  To embrace the peace.  To trust the King who fights with sacrifice instead of violence.

Because the greatest power the world has ever seen was a newborn who cried and an empty tomb that answered.

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[⚓ Floatie] [✒️ Forge] [⚒️ Anvil] [🔥 Ember] [🌿 Covenant Triumph]
This post follows the Forge Baseline Rule—layered truth for the discerning remnant.