A Wise Holiday Ambition
The annual, year-end holiday season from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Eve provides a wonderful opportunity for Christians to shine as lights in a dark and bungling world. During this time, as the bitter cold and darkness increases, the behavior of nonbelievers increasingly reveals their spiritual darkness and blindness towards God.
Lampposts in the Snow
A blizzard of drunken parties, wasteful spending, and hectic, chaotic schedules envelopes their lives — against this backdrop, believers should take a different approach. We should shine as lampposts in a frigid wasteland of snow.
To do this, we should “walk circumspectly [carefully], not as fools [ignorant and unwise] but as wise [skillful and divinely instructed], redeeming [making the most of] the time [every opportunity], because the days are evil [bad and morally corrupt]” (Eph 5:15-16).
At a time when we’re tempted to diminish our Bible study and church participation, we should increase our knowledge of God’s will by either maintaining or intensifying our exposure to his Word (Eph 5:17).
Be Filled with the Spirit
What’s more, we should abstain from mind-altering experiences, like getting drunk with alcoholic beverages or getting high on drugs. Instead, we should yield to the Holy Spirit who is both within us and among us who believe on Christ.
In the first century, some nonbelievers, associated with the Dionysian cult, believed that drunkenness would increase their fellowship with God. Many others simply drank to the point of intoxication (inebriation) at mealtimes and celebrations as a means of socialization.
Yet such behavior strengthens neither your relationship with God nor your relationships with other people. Instead, it leads to all sorts of reckless, senseless, and thoughtless behavior, like gluttony, wastefulness, and more (i.e., “debauchery,” Eph 5:18). That’s what happens when you fill yourself with too much alcohol (or drugs). You do more than you expected. Rather than help yourself and your relationships, you ruin them instead.
Christians should follow a different path. We should yield ourselves to God by allowing the Holy Spirit (who is God) to fill us. Though the Spirit indwells every Christian from the moment of conversion onward, he does not automatically enjoy a full measure of control over our lives. His divine, transforming influence does not permeate your mind, will, and emotions as completely as it should.
It’s a Group Thing
To allow him greater influence in your life, you need to increase your understanding and application of his Word. While this increase is your personal responsibility, it also happens in tandem with the other members of your church (Eph 4:11-16). It is not an independent, individualistic endeavor. You can’t do it alone.
You should also increase his transformative, life-changing influence in your life by other means, as given in Ephesians 5:19-21. Making music to one another and to God (Eph 5:19), expressing thanks to God (Eph 5:20), and submitting to one another (Eph 5:21).
“Speaking to one another” corresponds with “singing and making melody to God.” When you engage in such musical expression through words, you communicate both to your fellow believers and to the Lord. As you do this from your heart, you invite the Holy Spirit to expand his influence in your life, yielding yourself to his control more completely.
“Giving thanks” also invites the Holy Spirit to expand his influence in your life. As you express your gratitude to God with the authority of Christ, you yield yourself to God more completely in “all things.”
“Submitting to one another” also invites the Holy Spirit to expand his influence in your life. This happens when you behave towards one another as God himself would do, recognizing that every brother and sister in Christ bears the image of God both by creation and regeneration (“in the fear of God”). It means that you value other believers more highly than yourself and place their interests ahead of your own.
Doing these things requires a commitment to corporate worship and ministry. You cannot “speak to one another in psalms” or “submit to one another” when you’re apart from one another. To be sure, you should “give thanks” to God “always,” not just at church, but there is special significance to expressing your gratitude to God in the presence of other believers.
What About You?
As you head into the holiday season, from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Eve, will you embrace this wise holiday ambition? Will you avoid the mad rush 
into darkness, refraining from drinking parties, drunkenness, and everything else that goes with such behavior? That’s what the world does, but we should do differently.
Will you be careful and wise instead? Will you commit yourself to gathering with your church family even more, not less? Will you do what you can to maintain or increase your knowledge of God’s will through his Word? Will you invite the Holy Spirit of God to enjoy an expanded influence in your life by singing to God and one another, giving thanks to God for everything, and serving one another whenever you can?
Don’t let the holiday season take you away from your church. Let it drive you there instead. This, Christian friend, is a wise and godly holiday ambition.
Thomas Overmiller serves as pastor for Faith Baptist Church in Corona, NY and blogs at Shepherd Thoughts. This article first appeared at Shepherd Thoughts, used here with permission.