Reflection....
questioning do I or don't I...Do I post some of my favorite Christmas pictures? Do I participate in (GASP) Pagan traditions? I really care. God has been pulling at my heart about being completely devoted to Him. How serious am I about my walk with Jesus...
I spent most of today looking up Bible verses and trying to do a word study on: Feast Days, Festivals, Commanded, Command, Altar, Groves, Tammuz, leading on to pagan 'holy' days, pagan calendar, yada yada yada. Yep, it led me right back to where I was - No, I cannot in good conscious celebrate Christmas. Not if I want to be in right relationship (friendship) with God.
Hear me out. I'm not judging you or saying you cannot celebrate Christmas, but I am saying you might want to decide how serious it might be for you to celebrate Christmas and all of the days that somehow have crept in to the Church - and are not Christian at all in their roots.
If people only knew the pain this causes and the strength it takes to stand firm in it, they would support rather than tell someone "you're just taking this too seriously." Too seriously, eh??? You mean, like you might not get in to Heaven because you didn't take a look at it, seriously?? Ummmm....No! Talk to the hand. And don't judge me for what God has placed on me and asked me to do. I can hear the words ringing now from my Pastor friend, "It'll cost you your life to be a Christian."
Did anybody notice how there was like no reference to Thanksgiving this year? One Holiday that the Church should celebrate although we really should have 'thanks giving" every day. Thank you, Jesus, that you died for a sinner like me. Thank you for saving me. And now we're on to Christmas. I had already made the transition to celebrating Hannukah (Festival of Lights) and after all, Jesus is the Light of the world. But even that, I wanted to know more about the feasts and could I just put up Christmas lights?
As I researched, again, resource after resource seemed to verify - No. No you cannot separate paganism out of Christmas. The analogy is very much like the story we learned when I was home schooling my children. You know, the one about baking cookies and putting just the teeniest, tiniest dog poo, yea you heard that right, putting the smallest amount of dog doo doo in your chocolate chip cookies. It doesn't matter does it? I mean it's just only the smallest amount. You won't taste it or smell it. You should have seen my children' faces on that one....ummmm, NO!!!! EWWWW!!! NO WAY! It seems that it does matter. And before someone accuses me of putting dog poo in their cookies, No, I haven't and No I don't. An analogy is just a story to hit home the point you are trying to make in your narrative. You know 'unpack' that sucker and let it sit there and think on it. Selah!
So you gotta ask yourself a question? "Self, do you think God really doesn't care that you call a holiday after his son's title "Christ" and say it's His birthday, (It's not!) and it's really the celebration of his arch enemy ??? " Do you really think God is okay with that? Deep in my heart I'm feeling no, I don't think He is okay with that at all. And of all years, I feel resonating somewhere deep in me that this year, this year just might be the one that you want to have everything absolutely right with God. I want to be like Abraham. I want God to say of me, I'm His friend.
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