The Glittering “gods” Of December
The First Commandment is God’s thunderous insistence that nothing—absolutely nothing—may trespass into the territory of His glory. “You shall have no gods before me” is the divine eviction notice served to every rival deity squatting in the human heart. And, ironically, few seasons expose our trespass more embarrassingly than the American season of Christmas. For a holiday that began in Bethlehem’s stable, we have created a carnival of sanctified distraction, spiritual counterfeits, and glittering little gods masquerading as wonder.
Our problem is not that we bow to pagan statues or perverted fertility poles; we now bow to ideas dressed up in sacramental glitter. We build our December rhythms around things we can touch and swipe and buy. We are more eager for the sales calendar than the church calendar. We wait with worshipful expectation for the Amazon package instead of waiting on the Lord. We load up our schedules with parties, shopping trips, school concerts, and office events until we are burnt out and exhausted—joyless and prayerless. We stand in checkout lines chasing a feeling that never survives the receipt. We turn scented candles into coping mechanisms. We act as if the right décor, the right playlist, the right aesthetic—rustic, minimalist, farmhouse, Scandinavian—will quiet the unrest in our bones.
And in this way, December becomes the month when our domesticated idols come out of hiding. They twinkle on the mantle. They pile up under the tree. They stream endlessly across our screens. We crave “holiday spirit” as if it were a functional messiah. We ask nostalgia to do the work of Scripture. We enthrone sentiment as the high priest of our affections. And we behave as though the cheap plastic lights of this holiday season will heal our wounds, depressions, and anxieties, giving us the peace we refuse to seek in the presence of the living God.
This is why the first commandment cuts with such deliberate severity, especially this time of year. Because every violation of it happens before the very face of God. The Hebrew phrase ʿal-panay’ does not speak of a distant deity mildly annoyed by our misplaced affections; it means “in front of My face,” as in every trespass is committed directly under His omniscient and omnipresent gaze. Every idol we nurse—every competing loyalty, every counterfeit comfort, every shiny December distraction—plants itself on real estate in our hearts that belongs to God alone.
And during this season, the list of squatters multiplies. They show up in our budgets, our wish lists, our frantic calendars, our anxiously curated Christmas experiences. They squat in our stress, in our spending, in our desperate attempts to manufacture a feeling. These are not idols content to lurk in shadows; they drag their gaudy furniture into the living room of our hearts and settle in as if they belong.
And these glittering heart-idols come in all shapes and sizes. Some idealize family harmony, hoping that one flawless dinner or one well-timed gift will cover decades of relational scars. Others bow to the gods of performance, clinging to the delusion that six-inch ribbon curls, the perfect Instagram story, or the annual Christmas tradition will mask the emptiness inside. Others enthrone the old gods of comfort, pursuing warm ambience with more zeal than a heart warmed by the living Christ. All of it amounts to Jeremiah’s broken cisterns—leaky vessels that cannot hold water, yet we keep clamoring for them.
Each of these comforts sets itself up as a counterfeit Christ. They whisper promises they cannot keep, offering peace they cannot secure and joy they cannot sustain. They ask for the loyalty, attention, and heart-space that belongs to Christ alone. And because they are built of tinsel and wishful thinking, they eventually collapse beneath the weight of our expectations. The lights dim, the music stops, the thrill flattens, and in their wake they leave fatigue, irritability, frayed nerves, and a soul strangely underfed. For some, the tapeworm-idol of holiday feasting even leaves physical evidence—tightened waistbands and the quiet shame of knowing we sought comfort in the pantry instead of the Prince of Peace.
In the end, the pattern never changes. Anything that is not Christ decays. Anything that is not Christ betrays. Anything that is not Christ leaves you emptier than before, because idols can distract the heart for a moment, but they cannot heal it.
And this is because, as the first commandment warns us, all of this is diverted worship. We have shifted our trust. We have relocated our hope. And the uncomfortable truth is that our idols often receive a level of obedience we withhold from our Savior. We are more punctual for parties than for prayer. More animated about matching pajamas than about holiness. More regimented in our holiday schedules than in the ordinary means of grace. More alert to online deals than to the living Word of God. More reverent toward family traditions than toward the God who gave the family. More eager for peppermint comforts than for the presence of Christ.
The first commandment exposes that none of this is neutral. These misplaced affections assemble a liturgy of their own—a functional worship that quietly retrains our souls to give the best of ourselves to what cannot save. And no wonder our hearts stagger back hollowed and frayed. No wonder our peace slips through our fingers as quickly as the season ends. Idols only know how to devour their worshipers. This is a lesson we have learned a thousand times, yet somehow keep needing to learn again.
But Christ does not devour. Christ comes to reclaim.
The very One whose voice shook Sinai stepped into Bethlehem’s dust to rescue idolaters from their own inventions. He did not arrive simply to expose the false gods we cradle; He came to overthrow them. He lived with one heart—whole, undivided, burning with pure delight in His Father. He kept this commandment without crack, drift, or compromise. He was never dazzled by spectacle, never manipulated by sentiment, never governed by cultural pressure, never bent by the fear of man. Where we splinter into a thousand loyalties, He remains whole. Where we grasp at a thousand comforts, He remains steadfast. Where we fracture, He stands perfect—our obedient Israel, our faithful Adam, our undefiled Redeemer.
And the miracle of the gospel is that He gives His whole-hearted obedience to fractured-hearted sinners. The perfect loyalty He rendered to the Father becomes the covering for our divided affections. His purity answers our pollution. His constancy answers our compromise. His fidelity becomes our refuge.
And now comes the summons to real repentance. The idols must be expelled. The counterfeit saviors must be named and renounced. December must be reordered around devotion, not distraction; holiness, not ambiance; worship, not whim. The Christ who once cleansed the Temple now cleanses His people. He storms the courts of our hearts. He dismantles our emotional shrines. He topples the inner pantheon we have so meticulously arranged. He reclaims the territory that has always been His by right.
Under His hand, the heart becomes a sanctuary again—purified, reoriented, and opened wide to the only King who can fill it with light.
So… this Christmas, let every glittering god lose its luster in the radiance of the One who comes to claim the world. Let the law do its holy cutting. Let it slice through the glitter, the noise, the sentimental spellcasting, the manufactured awe. Let it unmask every counterfeit savior you have trusted, every glossy idol you have excused, every emotional shrine you have built with your own hands. And when the rubble of your false devotions finally lies scattered in the dust, lift your eyes to the Child who came to cleanse your worship, reclaim your loyalty, reorder your loves, and fill your soul with a joy no idol can imitate and no culture can package.
No other gods before His face—because no other god has ever stepped into your darkness, borne your guilt, shattered your idols, or begun the work of remaking the world. Only Christ has. Only Christ does. Only Christ will.
