Who are you trying to please?

Things in this town never cease to amaze me. Now there is a flap over what the Bush Family has in this year's White House Christmas card. Or is it a "holiday" card?

An article in the Washington Post that Christian conservatives are angry that the White House card does not mention Christ, but wishes its recipients a happy "holiday season."

The article quotes Joseph Farah, editor of the conservative Web site WorldNetDaily.com, who said he threw his card out as soon as he got it. Wait a minute. You got a card from the President and you just tossed it? Now granted, these things are not as precious as they used to be. The Bushistas will send out more than one million of them this year. Compare that to the 2,000 cards sent out by John and Jackie Kennedy. Or the handwritten notes from FDR and Eleanor! Now getting one of those would be pretty special!

But the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights says this is symptomatic of an effort to expunge Christ from Christmas in favor of being politically correct. The Alliance Defense Fund has a packet of information about becoming politically active in order to preserve Christmas - even to the point of making sure we can still say "Merry Christmas."

The Family Research Council, here in Washington, has an article about "the attack on Christmas." So I have a question: "Why do the heathen rage and the peoples imagine a vain thing?" (Ps 2:1). Can we really say that we are surprised that people who do not acknowledge God in their lives would try to eliminate references to Jesus from the public square? Are we really that naive? But read the rest of that Psalm:

The One enthroned in heaven laughs:
The Lord scoffs at them.
When he rebukes them in His anger
and terrifies them in His wrath, saying
"I have installed my King on Zion,
my holy hill."

You see God is still God and Jesus is still King of Kings whether people acknowledge Him or not. He is the Ruler of all and all that we think we have belongs to Him.

The White House says that it is trying to wish a happy holiday season to people of all faiths Christians, Jews, Muslims, etc. (I think it is kind of ironic that Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanza all fall in the same 36-hour period this year).

But instead of trying to use politics to force our theology on the heathen, how about if we started acting like our Master? What if we started loving God with our whole heart, and people could see the Holy Spirit's reality in our lives. They would know something is different about us, about those of us who call ourselves Christians. They would look at us and see Him.

Does that mean that everyone would love us? NO! The Bible says as much, that the world would hate those who know Jesus. But they could not deny Him. They would be without excuse, but they could not say that they had never seen Him.