Christmas Is a Decision, Not a Date

The Line John Draws

Received or Did Not

And verse 11 says He came to His own and His own received Him not. Verse 12 says but as many as received Him.

Two groups, one event, one difference. Not heredity, not geography, not the calendar.

Elabon

And the verb is lambanō — to take, to receive, to grasp for oneself. It is an active word, the word you would use for taking a gift out of someone's hand.

Nobody accidentally receives a gift.

Power to Become

And the result is exousia — the right, the authority, the legal standing to be called a child of God. Not a feeling of closeness; a status conferred.

Receiving is not a mood. It is a transaction with a Person. And who exactly did you receive the last time you said you had?

Why the Date Does Not Decide It

The Early Church Did Not Know

And nobody in the New Testament records the date of the birth, and the December date came centuries later as a matter of calendar and mission strategy.

If the date were the point, the Holy Spirit would have preserved it. He did not.

The Feast Was Never the Point

And God has always been unimpressed with the right day and the wrong heart. He said through Amos, "I hate, I despise your feast days" (Amos 5:21), when the feasts were being kept by a people who had abandoned justice.

A calendar cannot substitute for a covenant. You cannot keep the feast and skip the faithfulness and call it worship — God said so in the plainest terms He could find.

But the Incarnation Is Not Optional

And this is where the dismissal goes wrong. Because the date does not matter, some conclude the event does not either.

The same John who gives no date opens his letter by saying every spirit that does not confess Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God (1 John 4:2–3). The fact is load-bearing.

What a Decision Looks Like

The Shepherds Decided

And Luke says they said one to another, "Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass" (Luke 2:15).

Then they went, and then they told. The decision preceded the sight.

Joshua Made It Public

And Joshua put the question to a whole nation: choose you this day whom ye will serve, but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD (Joshua 24:15).

Note the pronoun. He could not make the decision for Israel, and he could not leave it unmade for himself.

Paul Made It Simple

And Romans 10 reduces it to a mouth and a heart: if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved (Romans 10:9).

The most important decision of your life has the simplest instructions.

Deciding Again, Every Day

The First Decision

And if you have never received Him, this is the moment. Not because a page told you to, but because the One who made you came near enough to be received.

Say it. Mean it. He is not distant.

The Daily Decision

And for those who have received Him long ago, the decision is not a memory; it is a practice. Paul says we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, looking for that blessed hope (Titus 2:12–13).

Each morning is a small re-enlistment.

The Corporate Decision

And a family or a church makes this decision together. What you celebrate and how you speak about it forms the children watching you.

You are always teaching somebody what Christmas is. So what have the people who watch you learned to expect from it?

The Boundary

Two guardrails.

First, a decision is not a feeling. You may not feel moved; the decision still stands on the promise, not on the emotion.

Second, a decision is not a substitute for obedience. Faith and wisdom say yes with the mouth and then prove it with the week — the accounts, the apology, the ordinary faithfulness.

What This Means for You

1. Read John 1:1–18 and mark the two groups in verses 11–12.

2. Answer honestly: have you received Him, or only admired Him?

3. Say it out loud today, in your own words, in your own room.

4. Tell one person what you decided and why.

5. Decide, and keep faith and wisdom together. A decision made in a moment is kept by a thousand ordinary choices — so plan the reading, the fellowship, and the obedience that will hold it up.

Putting It to Work This Week

• Read Romans 10:5–13. Note how close the word is.
• Read Luke 2:15–20. Note how fast the decision became a journey.
• Write your decision down and date it.
• Do one thing this week that only makes sense if He is Lord.
• Notice whether you have been celebrating an event you have not received.