This Christmas try to take a few minutes out of your hectic schedule to enjoy the scent and beauty of a freshly-cut and decorated Christmas tree—perhaps your own tree at home, and as you gaze upon it, ponder to yourself how “Life Is Like a Christmas Tree.”

The Christmas tree is one of the most familiar symbols of every Christmas season. A decorated tree adds beauty to the holiday and brings hope of great treasures beneath its branches for the little ones on Christmas Day.

But have you ever thought of the Christmas tree as being symbolic of real life? The next time you look upon a Christmas tree to admire its beauty—see if you can gain a fresh perspective on living a Christian life at the same time.

From just a few feet away, take a good long look at a beautifully decorated Christmas tree, and at the same time imagine the tree as being our world.The former roots of that tree represented the very beginning of civilization.The trunk of the tree represents the growth of civilization over time, until it spread to all corners of the earth, just like the branches of the tree spreading out in every direction.

Imagine then the large circumference of branches at the bottom of the tree as representing the broad societal base of poor people in the world. The center, slightly smaller portion of the tree, represents the lower and upper middle classes. Occupying the top rungs of society, as represented by the smaller branches at the top of the tree, are the relatively small number of rich people in our world.

Imagine next that the ornaments on the tree are the various cities and countries of the world. They come in various sizes, and some of them are very beautiful places and some not as much. Then imagine the abundant needles on the branches and also the lights on the tree as being the people in our Christmas tree world. The needles of the tree represent the large non-Christian population of the world.

Try as you might to decorate and “brighten” those sometimes soft, but often times prickly and irritating needles, just take a look behind the branches into the inner depths of the tree and you will find only darkness and emptiness. The beautifully decorated needles and branches put out no glowing light, because their beauty is merely a surface beauty attempting to hide the emptiness within. It requires “lights” to really illuminate the decorated tree and make our Christmas tree world a thing of beauty.

The lights on the tree are the Christians in our Christmas tree world. Compared to the non-Christian population of the world they are rather few in number. But as you closely examine the tree you will not find the Christians all bunched together, separating themselves from the rest of society. Instead you find them scattered throughout the world doing God’s work in the places He has chosen for them to serve and witness for Him.You can easily distinguish the Christians in our Christmas tree world by their inward as well as outward glow, for the light in them has removed the original darkness in their lives, which was caused by the sin nature found in each one of us. The ability of Christians to spread light and enlighten the world is only provided by the Holy Spirit within them, placed there from the moment they accepted Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as their Savior and Lord of their lives.

Christians are God’s lights in this world for making our world a better place to live joyful lives. The more Christians in our Christmas tree world, the more beautiful the lighted tree. Now you may be asking yourself exactly where God and Jesus are located in our Christmas tree world. Well, God is there at the very top of our Christmas tree world.

There at the top of the tree is where you find the most beautiful decoration of all. It is there—above all else, where all eyes turn toward sooner or later as we view a beautiful Christmas tree. Yes, God is there, up above, looking down on His creation, able to see absolutely everything going on in His world, and seeing to it that all things work together in accordance with His divine will and eternal plan.

God watches over the rich and the poor alike, the Christians and the non-Christians alike, the small to large cities and countries alike, and over His entire world. And Jesus is represented by the power plug in our Christmas tree world, for He indeed is the Light of the world.

Jesus Christ makes the difference between light and darkness, between lights and all the other decorations in our tree world, and only through Jesus can your own personal light be lit—and that only happens when you accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior.

In conclusion, simply remember that it matters “not” what your physical location or personal wealth is anywhere in God’s world, because God loves you regardless and is watching out for you no matter what your situation is in life. What does matter is that you have received the light of Jesus Christ within you, which blots out the darkness of all your sins through your belief in Him.

God’s pathway to salvation and eternal life in heaven is found only through His Son, Jesus Christ, and Jesus is our Heavenly Father’s special Christmas and Resurrection “gift” offered equally to all of us. All we need to do individually is “accept” His free gift.

So, seek and find the power plug for your life in our Christmas tree world. Plug it in and then begin letting your light shine brightly in your life—and then share that light with others. Now, hopefully you can see how “Life is Like a Christmas Tree.”

Wishing you ALL a very blessed and MERRY CHRISTMAS this year!

It should not come as a big surprise to any American citizen that the United States of America is in a current state of rapid societal decline, due primarily to the fact we are no longer a nation grounded in Christian faith and biblical truths. It’s hard to believe, but it is true.

Satan has been using every subtle strategy imaginable at his disposal to chink away at our Christian foundation as a nation with increasing frequency ever since the 1960s when the Bible and prayer began to be removed from public schools. TToday, our society is trying to remove anything Christian from government, the public schools and many public places as fast as the liberals, atheists and any other anti-Christian organizations can make it happen.

Give the devil an inch and he will take a mile in every situation he can use to his advantage in his ongoing spiritual warfare against anything Christian.If we do not stay well-grounded in our faith in God and our belief in Jesus Christ as our Savior, it subsequently allows us all to be sitting ducks for Satan’s evil plans, because we will no longer be grounded in Christianity as a nation.

Satan is the original lethal stealth fighter, because he is a sneaky deceiver and distorter of the truth as found in the Bible, which is the Word of God.

When an electrical system is not grounded properly it leaves open the possibility of many bad things happening to people, homes, and institutions, such as shock, fire or death. The same can be said of a nation without proper grounding, such as is happening in America today.

There are multitudes of shocking developments taking place in greater frequency every day, and there seems to be a burning fire in the hearts of many non-Christians for doing more and more evil things. The potential for a moral, cultural, and societal death of the United States and its traditional values is becoming a more distinct possibility with each passing month and year.

Add to all of that the concerns every American citizen should have about our untrustworthy governmental leaders, along with all the other national maladies currently befalling us. It is easy to see what our future holds as a nation if we don’t collectively wake up and once again properly ground ourselves as a nation in Christianity.

Our secular society continually talks about and tries to treat the symptoms of our national problems, but without ever actually addressing or admitting to the root cause of all our problems, which is a lack of grounding in Christianity as it used to be. This allows Satan to have a free hand for implementing his evil plans in every facet of our current American life.

It has been said that all it takes for evil to thrive is the silence of good people. The apostasy of ungrateful American citizens and the apathy among God’s people in America, coupled with the arrogance of our ungodly leaders is a surefire recipe for allowing evil to pervade the United Statesand leave us with only vanishing American values as we move forward in time.

There are so many things going haywire in America these days it makes a person’s head spin. I won’t even try to begin to list the thousands of things going wrong in our nation, because all you have to do is open your eyes and look around in any direction to see the signs of trouble on our national landscape.

God seems to be gradually removing His protection of us as a nation, therefore allowing non-Christian Americans within our borders and certain immigrants from around the world to increase their evil acts and ways within our nation.

We can’t say we weren’t explicitly warned by God through the apostle Paul in the biblical book of Romans about what would happen to us in this current age if we would reject God’s truth provided for us in the Bible.Divine abandonment by God will be the ultimate consequence of our vanishing Godly values in America. Biblical scripture says:

“For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God, or give thanks; but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man, and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.

Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, that their bodies might be dishonored among them, for they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator…

For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.

And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind to do things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, , deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; and, although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.” (Romans 1:20-32)

Does ALL of this sound way too familiar in America today? Sadly, yes it certainly does!

“And because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to every man according to his deeds” (Romans 2:5).

Perhaps a couple verses of a pop song in the 1960s express the sentiment of some people today as Christians patiently watch for the return of Jesus Christ at the time of the Rapture:

“I swear just ain’t fair, trouble, trouble everywhere, oh Lord come on down, got to spread some love around.”

Well, God never promised us that our earthly life would be fair, nor easy, but take heart dear Christians, because God is still in ultimate control of all things. He’s doing all that is best for His eternal plan and everything will work out for the best in the end if we just continue to trust in Him and stay grounded in His son, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.

But, until the time of Christ’s return in all His glory, what can we do as Christians to stay grounded in the Christian faith in this evil world today? The biblical book of Hebrews, and the apostle Paul, instruct us on how to do it.

“Do not throw away your confidence; it holds a great reward. You need to persevere, so that after you have done God’s will, you will receive what He has promised. For in just a very little while, He who is coming will come and will not delay.

But my righteous ones will live by faith; and if they shrink back, I will take no pleasure in them. However, we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved. Faith is the assurance of what we hope for and the certainty of what we do not see” (Hebrews 10:35-39; 11:1).

“Once you were alienated from God and were hostile in your minds because of your evil deeds. But now God has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy, unblemished, and blameless in His presence—if you continue in your faith, grounded and steadfast, not moved from the hope of the gospel you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven” (Colossians 1:21-23) .

“Let God strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith…that you being rooted and grounded in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to comprehend the length and width and height and depth of His love, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:16-19).

In conclusion, if church pastors in America today do not preach the gospel and if American citizens don’t cast their vote for the better candidate in this year’s presidential election then good people are being silent and our nation is doomed to collapse like a house of cards under the weight of unleashed evil within the next few years … presided over by the God-rejecting liberal Democratic political party of today and their presidential nominee this year.

Is this the uncertain future you want to hand down to your children and grandchildren? If so, the future they face will be filled with terrible, terrible trials and tribulations. Jesus Christ is our only true ground rod of protection in this life and our ONLY conduit to eternal life in God’s heaven.