Do you need direction, light, and the truth? He is the Wonderful Counselor. Do you need a mighty champion to defeat the enemies of sin and death? He is Mighty God. Do you need permanent fatherly affection and protection? He is Everlasting Father. Do you need to be reconciled to God and your neighbor to enjoy peace and prosperity? He is Prince of Peace. Jesus the Mighty Savior will defeat all of our enemies: the world, the flesh, the devil, and death itself—enemies that we ourselves are helpless to defeat. He wins our salvation and safeguards our salvation. 

Cut flowers. I have mixed feelings about this.
Yes, I love it when the fairer sex in our home carry in bunches of bulbs, roses, lavender, and hydrangeas from the garden. They brighten and cheer us all, but I think we all feel a bit sad when we cut flowers. We know that we have cut them off from their life source. We stand them in vases of water, but this can only slow the process of death and corruption. The flowers droop, the petals fall, the vibrant colors fade to brown, and then the whole bunch is crammed into the curbside bin with the other rubbish.
Christmas. Exchanging lavish gifts. Putting up a pine in the living room and decorating it to the tunes of Bing Crosby. Drawing together the family. Eating festive foods like ham on the bone, fruitcake, and rum balls. Why do people do this? “Because we have always done it, going back generations.” Yes, but what made our forebears do all this in the first place? What made them celebrate? It was of course the birth of Christ. Christmas was a general celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem some two thousand years ago.
Like cut flowers, Christmas is drooping because we have cut it off from the source.
But Christmas is drooping. We still do the good old things, but the petals are falling and the colors are fading. We can see a future when it will be tossed out altogether. Why? Because we have cut Christmas off from the source.
Let’s get back to the source. Let’s go back to the things that made us celebrate in the first place. We can’t reconnect cut flowers to the plant, but we can all reconnect to the Christmas history. It’s important to do this. Not to save Christmas—although that may come to be a delightful side effect—but ourselves. To be saved from meaninglessness, our sins, death, fear, and estrangement from God.
Isaiah 9:2-6: God Will Send a Child
In 740 BC the nation of Judah was frightened. To the north, the brutal Assyrian Empire was growing rapidly in power, and it seemed only a matter of time before they would descend to ravage Judah’s villages and homes. Then God told them not to fear because he was going to send them a child:

The people walking in darknesshave seen a great light;on those living in the land of deep darknessa light has dawned.You have enlarged the nationand increased their joy;they rejoice before youas people rejoice at the harvest….For to us a child is born,to us a son is given,and the government will be on his shoulders.And he will be calledWonderful Counselor, Mighty God,Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. (Isa. 9:2-3, 6;all Scripture quotes from NIV)

“The government will be upon his shoulders.” And this great prophecy was fulfilled with the birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem (Luke 1:31-33). He will carry the world in the direction he wants to carry it. He will rule—the future is on his shoulders. God’s people don’t have to live with fear and uncertainty.
The character of a ruler is of the greatest importance.
But what is the character of this Savior? God said through Isaiah to not be afraid because he will rule; but, what kind of ruler would he be?
The fact is, the kings of the day were never good men. Israel’s first king, Saul, was fearful and impatient; he disregarded God’s laws and turned to necromancy. David was Israel’s archetypal “good king,” yet even he succumbed to adultery and a murderous cover-up. Solomon succumbed to the idols of his gargantuan harem. Rehoboam was a hot-headed fool. And so on. There were very few useful kings in Judah, and all of them were flawed.
So we can understand if Judah heard Isaiah’s words cynically: A great king? Universal rule on his shoulders? Yes, but will he be good?
We too know all about bad leaders. Kaiser Wilhelm led the world into the sickening First World War. Mussolini led Italy into fascism and inspired Spain’s Franco and Germany’s Hitler to do the same. The Japanese warlords ravaged Southeast Asia. Lenin, Stalin, and Mao butchered their people. Petty leaders like Pol Pot, Idi Amin, and Ratko Mladic were genocidal maniacs. Then there are arch-terrorists like Osama bin Laden and nuclear gangsters like Kim Jong-un.
Even the “good” leaders are fatally flawed.
The British and French general staffs of World War I were homicidally reckless with the millions of young lives under their command. The British Parliament’s appeasement of Hitler in the 1930s paved the way to the great slaughter of World War II. Roosevelt was manipulated by Stalin.
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I am still learning about Law and Gospel through the scriptures, and Luther helps me take hold of them, because the flesh always abides and the Gospel is always counterintuitive. Thus, the good Doctor wisely teaches me that I will never fully learn these lessons until I am finally purged of my sinful, self-justifying flesh in glory. In summary, Luther teaches me that I am still a sinner (by nature) and righteous (only by faith), and so I will need to hear and believe the Gospel every single day until I die and see my Savior face-to-face.

“What is a nice OPC minister like you doing constantly quoting Martin Luther on Twitter?” is the familiar refrain after people take a gander at my feed. Normally, I admit when I am guilty as charged, but there is no great guilt in learning from the good Doctor Luther. I would describe myself as an old-school, confessional Presbyterian. When I say I am “Reformed,” I mean that I sincerely subscribe to the Westminster Standards as a minister of the Gospel in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. In my prior calling as a minister in the URCNA, I also gladly subscribed to the Three Forms of Unity because I am persuaded they fully agree with the Word of God.
In 2015, I left the PCA after 12 years of ministry there, in part, over the matter of confessional subscription. I was no longer comfortable with how the practice of “good faith subscription” seemed to be working out there, especially with the exoneration of ministers who publicly taught contrary to the Westminster Standards by espousing the Federal Vision error. I am sympathetic with my confessional brothers in the PCA, as they continue to deal with the inevitable if unintended consequences of good faith as it plays out now in the Revoice controversary.
In other words, I mean it when I say that I am confessionally Reformed. I am decidedly not confessionally Lutheran. So, what accounts for my love of Martin Luther? Luther taught me things that I believe are entirely compatible with my Reformed commitments. In fact, what I have learned from him clarifies and strengthens those commitments.
First, I learned from Luther that “Christ-centered” is not merely a slogan; it truly shapes the way I read Scripture, how I preach, and how I pastor. Luther said, “It is beyond a doubt that the entire Scripture points to Christ alone.”1 For some years, “Christ-centered and Gospel-driven,” and “preaching the Gospel to yourself” were popular slogans among the Young, Restless, and Reformed-ish crowd. Some, it seems, have moved on to other things, like mercy ministry or variations on the theme of social justice, but Christ as the center of Scripture is not a fad. The Gospel as the animating force of Christian life is not a gimmick. Luther understood the necessity of pounding this truth into the human heart: “The article of justification must be sounded in our ears incessantly because the frailty of our flesh will not permit us to take hold of it perfectly and to believe it with all our heart.” 2
I highly recommend Luther: Letters of Spiritual Counsel (originally published in The Library of Christian Classics but now republished via Muriwai Books for Kindle). There you can see Luther comforting the doubting and despondent by applying the healing balm of Christ and Him crucified to their wounds. There is certainly some good advice in his letters, but the main thrust of his pastoral counsel is to remind sinners and sufferers of the sufficiency of Christ. In his efforts to encourage, Luther frequently cites Jesus’ words in John 16:33: “In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”
Luther also taught me the importance of rightly distinguishing the Law and the Gospel, both for my own sake and for the sake of my flock. Luther’s Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians is a must-read for this purpose alone. As he explains, “It seems a small matter to mingle the Law and Gospel, faith and works, but it creates more mischief than man’s brain can conceive. To mix Law and Gospel not only clouds the knowledge of grace, but it also cuts out Christ altogether.”3 Is this yet another example of Luther’s gift of hyperbole in action?
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We’re to follow the example of Christ, guarding our minds against the allure of victimhood mentality and reminding ourselves of the absolute truths Scripture holds. Having the victim mindset is one of the empty deceptions that can overtake Christians– it aligns with our fleshly desire toward selfishness and justifying our own sin. Don’t be taken captive by this way of thinking. Instead, trust the Lord and maintain your focus on Christ and the good news of the gospel. Rejoice that you have been saved, you are being sanctified, you serve the Judge of the universe who will make all things right in the end, and pray with compassion for those who sin against you.

In his letter to the Colossian believers, Paul recognized the danger that false teaching presented to the church. After normal greetings and summaries, Paul launches a new section in Colossians 2:8 where he gives them a strong warning.
See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. (Colossians 2:8)
In this passage, Paul warns them, saying that certain ways of thinking are hollow and will deceive you, warning them against being held captive in these worldly ways and cheap tricks. This warning to the Colossian church is just as relevant to us today as it was then. There are numerous empty and deceptive ideas today that can capture our thinking. One of these dangerous lies that we hear today is this: “You are a victim.”
As with most of the lies that we hear, it is a perversion of something that is true. There are real victims in this world, and there are abusers who harm others physically, emotionally, or financially. That is a reality in this fallen world and a sin that God hates.
The Lord speaks out against oppression in Zachariah 7:9-10, “Dispense true justice and practice kindness and compassion each to his brother and do not oppress the widow or the orphan, the stranger or the poor, and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.” God commands all people not to oppress, harm, or abuse others. Nowhere in Scripture are these kinds of actions justified. If you are a victim and need to get out of a situation of abuse, seek counsel from an elder or pastor in your church.
On the other hand, there is a sinful and harmful thinking regarding victimhood that does not correspond to biblical truth. This is often known as the victim mentality.
The Victim Mentality Defined
What is the victim mentality? A victim mindset usually includes three types of thinking:
First, the bad things in your life are not your fault, but exclusively because of what other people have done to you. This mindset maintains that you are not responsible for your own actions and attitudes.
Second, a victim mentality also includes getting stuck in negative thought patterns. If you play the victim, you may be characterized by a “woe is me” kind of self-pity.
Third, the victim mentality sees the world through the lens of your own struggles. All the events of your life are orchestrated against you. Whatever happens in the world or in your circumstances, the victim mentality sees those circumstances as directed against yourself.
Victim mentality is a type of thinking that you must avoid, believing you can blame others for every problem, insisting you deserve better, and seeing the world only in relation to yourself.
What you must recognize is that you can be true victim and not have a victim mentality. You are not required to have this destructive thinking, even if you have been mistreated.
It is also true that you can have a victim mentality even if you are not a victim. Many claim victimhood because they “feel” like a victim, yet how one feels is not the measure of truth. We live in a postmodern psychologized age where “truth” is completely based upon individual definition and feeling. “Well, I feel like I’m a victim, therefore I must be a victim. My feelings mean that I am a victim.” Feelings today are elevated to truth. It’s the truth because I feel that way.
We must remember what scripture says about our feelings and whether we should trust them or not. Jeremiah 17:9-10 reminds us, “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick, who can understand it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind. Even to give each man according to his ways, according to the results of his deeds.”
We see here the idea that if our feelings are not to be ultimately trusted, victimhood is not something that we can claim just because we might feel that way. The issue then is not even whether you’re a victim or not, but if you have a victim mentality. It’s a matter of mindset.
This is the earthly thinking, the philosophy, the empty deception that the world is promoting: blame others, have a perpetually negative attitude, and think everything is about you. This victim mentality doesn’t sound very appealing at all, but it’s surprisingly attractive in many ways.
The Allure of the Victim Mentality
Why is the victim mentality so alluring?
First, if you believe you are a victim, you are not responsible. If there is something wrong in your marriage, it’s not your fault, it’s your spouse’s fault. If there’s something wrong with your kids, it wasn’t your parenting, it’s the kids’ fault. A victim mentality is attractive in this way: you can feel better about yourself because you’re not the one to blame. You aren’t responsible.
Secondly, those in pain and suffering receive pity from others. It is natural for people to take pity on those who have been victimized. People want to come alongside and help those who have suffered unjustly. There is real suffering in this world, and especially as those who follow Christ, we should show compassion for those who are in pain. That’s why this mindset is so deceptive. When you play the victim, when you indulge in the victim mentality, your motivation may be to receive compassion and attention from others.
Third, victims have a perceived right to complain. The mindset that the world is against you makes it justifiable to air your grievances, to shout from the rooftops all that has happened to you. It makes the victimhood mentality attractive because you feel you have not just an excuse, but a right to complain.
Fourth, victimhood can come with a sense of belonging. You can bond with others who have a common “foe.” If there’s someone else out there that is horrible or evil and all the victims are in the same boat, that brings a sense of community. That feeling of belonging is seductive, but entirely false and deceptive.
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