Stick, dead horse, you know the drill.

Things have been busy, and activities like blogging which are on the fringe of my priorities end up demonstrating just how incompetent I can be. Being reminded of faults is never a bad thing if one uses it to highlight new areas to grow or develop.

One thing I want to ask for, if anyone is actually reading this, is to let me know how I can pray for you. I have an email listed up and to the right, and I think the comment section still works, but if there's something you need prayer for, please let me know and I'll pray for you.

Now, a few months ago, we joined a newer local church that was struggling, and due to my particular set of skills and abilities, and the natural desperation that can come from a church struggling to get its footing, both myself and my wife have been quickly accepted into the family and tasked with serious responsibilities. For example, I'll be preaching a sermon on the 15th, I am working with the head pastor to develop our membership classes, and I lead a small group out of my home. My wife is helping administrate and develop the childcare offered on Sunday morning.

My wife is also pregnant, so should God bless us with this child, we'll be well into the "you have how many?" territory, given the fertility rate for our state. We've never had to struggle with the loss of miscarriage, but we're praying that God's plan for our lives is that the struggles we face are oriented towards raising this new child, and not in learning to live with having lost one. A selfish desire, certainly, but this isn't a new boat or a bigger house or a fancier smart phone, we're praying that God would trust us with the burden of raising this child that has been conceived.

Thanksgiving was a mess. The event itself went well enough, I created a new green bean casserole dish on a whim and it turned out good enough that folks didn't like it as part of the overall meal because it didn't mesh well with other traditional dishes that were prepared. I made a good dish, but it didn't fit with thanksgiving, and so that's why people didn't like it as much as my more traditional green bean casserole.

These same folks then pressed my wife and I later on in the evening to explain why we don't celebrate Christmas anymore. I explained that we don't celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ on December 25th, or participate in the various rituals and symbols that have become common with Christmas, in large part because none of it is actually "Christian" in nature, and so little good can come of participating in it. At best, it's a vain and frivolous celebration at face value, and Christians are supposed to be worshiping God with everything.

Somehow, for some folks, there's something left over from "everything" where fruitless tasks can still dictate their behavior and somehow this still makes sense.

Mind you, it's not that we don't celebrate anything at all. God never commanded us to never gather with family, to never feast, to never give gifts, etc.

What God did request is that we show some creativity and stop doing exactly what we did for other gods "in Jesus name" and instead worship God has he requested: in spirit and in truth.

Jesus Christ wasn't born on December 25th, year 0 AD. To act as if we need to put the "Christ back in Christmas" when people are participating in lies and deceit is not honoring to God.

December 21st, or 22nd, are the shortest days of the year in the northern hemisphere, the least amount of light and the most amount of darkness.

So what I decided was that on the 21st of December we would celebrate "the light" of the world who came and saved us from darkness. There are many different passages in the Bible which already address this symbolism and explicitly use that metaphor, so what we're remembering and honoring and celebrating is true. And, like the feasts that God declared for Israel, we are gathering family together, eating and drinking to the glory of the Lord, and sharing gifts and so forth, just like how Jesus Christ, the light of the world, has brought us the greatest gift we could ever receive.

Here's the thing: Jesus' birth was nowhere near as significant as his death. This is explained by Jesus Christ's prayer in the garden, prior to his crucifixion.

Up until that point in his life, Jesus' work on earth hadn't been completed. In the garden, beset with stress and anxiety, Jesus Christ prayed to God to "let this cup pass from my lips, but not my will, your will be done." You see, even if Jesus Christ had been born, but did not die for our sins on the cross, his birth would be entirely irrelevant. Yes he had to be born as part of the prophesies, but do we worship the fulfillment of prophecy or the God who provided such prophetic revelations in the first place?

So on the 21st of December we will gather for a meal, I will read passages relevant to how Jesus Christ is our light in darkness, and the children can be given gifts as an echo of what God did for us.

And then we can do the same thing in June during the summer solstice, because while we have much light physically, Jesus Christ is the greater light, and now folks who are in different hemispheres can be united in celebrating the same thing at different parts of the year, the thing being celebrated is true, and it's grounded in the existing symbolism that God provided without fixating on the symbols instead of the God that those symbols intended to describe something about.

The discussion didn't ever get that far on Thanksgiving.

Instead it ended up being a pathetic game of "well that's fine for you and your convictions", as if somehow the truths I was sharing were "mine" in any way.

I got an earful of subjective morality, where folks can do whatever they want, so long as they can justify it to themselves sufficiently.

I was told that because passages like Jeremiah 10 aren't specifically about Christmas tress, but idols made from wood and then decorated with silver and gold, that the fact Celtic druids used to worship trees as idols is irrelevant somehow. That going from a specific example to a broader category that the specific example still fell under somehow meant the "Christmas tree" tradition was fine, despite having roots in pagan practices.

I was told sarcastically that "I am apparently just not smart enough" on topics that are painfully simple to explain in a few sentences.

I was told that over a decade of research into the topic negated that simple truths had been missed that entire time because folks were more interested in justifying their existing behavior than in trying to align themselves with what God would desire from them.

I have never lost respect for someone so fast as I did during that conversation.

I had never seen someone trying so hard to avoid accepting that they'd been doing something inappropriate, swallowing their pride and then moving on.

Then again, these folks attend a church with a morbidly obese pastor. Gluttony is just as sinful as fornication, but hey, let's pick on the LGBTQA+P folks who want something we think is clearly icky and gross, so we're clearly more righteous than them, right?

People don't understand that judgment is applied inwardly to the church, not outwardly.

I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person.

For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? But those who are outside God judges. Therefore “put away from yourselves the evil person.” - 1 Corinthians 5:9-12 (NKJV)

Of note, I won't be preaching on this on the 15th. That one will be about how "Desires forge division."

I'll try and get a copy of it and post it in various places online, and see if I can embed it here.

Till next time, take care!

God redeems people, not practices

My wife recently asked me what I thought about gift-giving, and while the backdrop of the season came into play, her question was more general because we've had some heated discussions on the topic over the past few months. In short, the nature and circumstances of my upbringing and family dynamics were very different from hers, and there is a comfort in familiarity which is hard to get past, and determining which traditions and such to carry on in our own family can be contentious.

Either way, I had provided an answer but felt it incomplete, lacking objective grounding, and so I needed to do some digging on the nature of some of the various traditions, and subsequently holidays, that are celebrated in the United States, and by our two families in different ways.

To start, I have already long been resentful of "Christmas", in that while many complain about the obvious commercialization, I don't think many realize just how little of the holiday is really "Christian" at all. I had assumed lazily that there may have been some elements added, changed, or adapted to align with Christian teaching, but the degree to which every aspect of the different holidays was wholesale copied from pagan practices, and then merely given a coat of "Christian" paint, genuinely surprised me when I really started to examine the history honestly.

To start, while God knows our heart, our intent doesn't change whether an action is sinful or not. If we're trying to do something "in Jesus' name", but Jesus did not ask us to do said things, then we don't get any credit for trying. For the same reason that not everyone should get a trophy, not all behaviors are sanctifying or useful.

All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful; all things are lawful for me, but not all things edify. - 1 Corinthians 10:23 (NKJV)

Here, Paul was talking about food, but some of the sentiment gets carried over into other areas of "Christian life" by folks who want to believe that, because they now "have Jesus", they can continue on in sinful behaviors, but "in Jesus' name", and that somehow makes sin no longer sinful.

I cannot be in an adulterous affair and claim that, despite the actions being sinful, I am really doing what is best for my marriage "in Jesus' name", and so I have not sinned.

I cannot be gluttonous with food and claim that, despite the actions being sinful, I am really eating to the glory of God "in Jesus' name", and so I have not sinned.

I cannot partake in activities which denounce God's glory, despite the actions being sinful, I am really seeking to bring honor to God "in Jesus' name", and so I have not sinned.

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. - 1 John 1:8 (NKJV)

Simplest put, if we were not really sinning in our behavior without God, then what need did we have of God to save us from our sins? If everything we were doing, all the traditions and practices were acceptable, the only issue was who we supposedly did them in honor of, then "salvation" is merely in ensuring that the correct deity is called upon when we seek to manifest our own desires. That we have the right ingredients and astral alignment when we cast our spells.

It shifts the focus back on us to do the right thing, yet another manifestation of works-based salvation, and that takes away from what Jesus Christ did, and from what God commands.

And these desires, to declare past actions less sinful, are entirely selfish and self-serving, not driven by a passionate pursuit of truth, but instead by false piety. In the same manner that the Pharisees and scribes that Jesus thoroughly excoriated, as recorded in Matthew 23, the efforts are to place an emphasis on the outward expressions of righteousness whilst retaining a heart of stone which has  ultimately rejected God and is plotting constant rebellion against God.

Like a blog post I had made many years ago about some fictional characters in the video game World of Warcraft, the deceit is that so long as the object of your worship is correct, the manner in which you worship or seek to serve doesn't matter, but that is wrong. What we do does also matter, because God did not tell Israel to worship in any manner they saw fit, so long as they "gave God the credit" in the end.

God wanted Israel's worship to be distinct, to be different in nature and form from the pagan nations that surrounded them, or that they were to have purged from the "promised land".

You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are all around you (for the Lord your God is a jealous God among you), lest the anger of the Lord your God be aroused against you and destroy you from the face of the earth. - Deuteronomy 6:14-15 (NKJV)

take heed to yourself that you are not ensnared to follow them, after they are destroyed from before you, and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods? I also will do likewise.^' You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way; for every abomination to the Lord which He hates they have done to their gods; for they burn even their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods. - Deuteronomy 12:30-31 (NKJV)

This meant God did not want for Israel to take on any existing practices or rituals and "redeem them" in their worship of God, but to avoid them altogether and to have no part in practicing them. Paul would later echo this sentiment as well.

What am I saying then? That an idol is anything, or what is offered to idols is anything? Rather, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God, and I do not want you to have fellowship with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the Lord’s table and of the table of demons. Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He? - 1 Corinthians 10:19-22 (NKJV)

God does not want to be worshiped the same way that "Gentiles...sacrifice to demons", because if two people are performing the exact same ritual, who determines what ritual really honors? Does the heart of the individual, their intent, really have the power to change sinful disobedience into righteous worship?

Even further, would the ignorance of the Christian, unknowingly recreating pagan traditions, excuse their behavior?

If a person sins, and commits any of these things which are forbidden to be done by the commandments of the Lord, though he does not know it, yet he is guilty and shall bear his iniquity. - Leviticus 5:17 (NKJV)

No, ignorance is not an excuse, and really this shouldn't be a surprise.

If we do anything at all, we should understand what it is we are doing. We tell our children "think before you act" for this reason. Before we celebrate, and before we choose a particular manner to celebrate, we should take special caution to examine whether what we are doing aligns with what God has actually, explicitly, commanded. We should look to what God has declared about worship to understand how we are to celebrate and bring glory to God.

The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.”

Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When He comes, He will tell us all things.”

Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.” - John 4:19-26 (NKJV)

Do we worship God "in spirit and truth" when we ignore what God commands and make up our own methods of worship, hoping that God sees that we're trying and gives us credit even when we get it wrong? Do we worship God "in spirit and truth" when we ignore the historical significance of rituals and traditions and pretend that we can redeem them by slapping "in Jesus' name" somewhere? Do we worship God "in spirit and truth" when we discourage discernment and the calling out of sin in order to promote peace and harmony?

Jesus also had words about how God's chosen people had fallen astray from what God really desired.

Then the Pharisees and scribes asked Him, "Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands?"

He answered and said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written:

‘This people honors Me with their lips,
But their heart is far from Me.

And in vain they worship Me,
Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ 

For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men - the washing of pitchers and cups, and many other such things you do."

He said to them, "All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition. - Mark 7:5-9 (NKJV)

Even with Israel keeping the motions and rituals commanded by God, because they held onto their own hearts and did not give them to God, their worship was in hypocritical vain. What they did was made irrelevant, because those actions were supposed to be an outpouring of their hearts, not just a mechanical repetition, and since their hearts did not belong to God, even in keeping "the Law", they were still sinful and rebellious and disobedient to God.

If, even in keeping God's commands, Israel was in sin because their hearts were not submitted to God, how can anyone claim that doing even less of what God commanded would have made God any more pleased with Israel?

Further, when God has asked us to wait, humans have terrible instincts, and when left to our own devices, the actions we take are always reprehensible, and God's silence is not approval at all.

Now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make us gods that shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” - Exodus 32:1 (NKJV)

Then He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “What! Could you not watch with Me one hour? Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” - Matthew 26:40-41 (NKJV)

Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. - Romans 1:24-25 (NKJV)

 And, as I keep stating, trying to do things "in Jesus' name" doesn't count for anything.

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ - Matthew 7:21-23 (NKJV)

What this means is that, for the current American holidays, the majority of them at the minimum need to be abandoned entirely, if we are to be a "Christian nation". These practices which came from occult worship need to be eliminated entirely. We should not desire to retain the chains of sinful behavior once we have been freed from them.

God is not interested in being worshiped in any fashion that we please, but is instead honored when we do what God has asked, and only what God has asked, not adding to it, puffing ourselves up in arrogance, or in removing from it, becoming hypocrites.

I do not find scriptural support for celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ on December 25th with lights, a tree, and giving one another gifts.

I also do not find scriptural support for celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ based on astrological signs, with rabbits and eggs.

How do we determine what to do with these traditions?

One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it. He who eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives God thanks; and he who does not eat, to the Lord he does not eat, and gives God thanks. For none of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. - Romans 14:5-8 (NKJV)

The focus needs to be on the Lord we serve, first and foremost. Especially if we try to play holidays off as spiritually neutral, if we are going out of our way to put up decorations and have special meals and generally make a big deal of something other than God, what does that say about our hearts and our priorities? If we would celebrate things which we then claim don't really matter with our time and energy, and then only give God a pittance in comparison, what does that say about how much we value God?

Add on top of this that our nation has been denying God more and more as time has gone on, in both thought and deed, which was itself brought on by the refusal of believers to wholeheartedly fight for truth in both the public and private spheres, and folks who then want to pursue truth are left with nothing to salvage. What we practiced in sin is never redeemed, only we are.

As it is written:

“There is none righteous, no, not one;
There is none who understands;
There is none who seeks after God.
They have all turned aside;
They have together become unprofitable;
There is none who does good, no, not one.”
“Their throat is an open tomb;
With their tongues they have practiced deceit”;
“The poison of asps is under their lips”;
“Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.”
“Their feet are swift to shed blood;
Destruction and misery are in their ways;
And the way of peace they have not known.”
“There is no fear of God before their eyes.” - Romans 3:10-18 (NKJV)

Worse still, Satan has a bent on creating human unity against God. In adopting rituals which bring glory and honor to Satan and his allies, but just changing "who we do it for", the distinction between the unrepentant sinner and the saint is entirely eliminated. No longer does how one live become a means by which God's work in our lives is seen, and that's a problem, because the world hates God and those who stand with God.

If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. - John 15:19 (NKJV)

What benefit is gained by taking on the rituals, traditions, and practices of the world which hates the God that we are supposed to serve, to honor, to glorify in all that we do? What message do we send to those around us, let alone to God, when we adapt the living out of our faith to the world, instead of to what God has commanded?

Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. - Matthew 22:37-38 (NKJV)

Well, for those who worship Satan and his allies, it means they get to enjoy the fellowship of those who sit at God's table, while being in open rebellion with God. It means that unrepentant sinners and those who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ can live nearly identical lives with little to tell them apart. It means that all the things the world hates about God are eliminated by subverting what God has said through getting the children of God to pretend that sin is ever redeemed, and not just the sinner.

The Gospel does not benefit from dilution. Jesus Christ is Lord, period, and his sacrifice for our sins on the cross is where we should place our faith, and our works should come out of gratitude for what God has afforded us even though we didn't deserve it. God is not worshiped by accident, or by human strength alone, as we lack the ability to even recognize Jesus as Lord by our own strength.

Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”? - James 4:4-5 (NKJV)

I will no longer partake in pagan celebrations that have been "Christianized", and will instead use these opportunities to devote time and energy to the praise and worship of God, as God would desire it, in aligning my spirit with God's, in pursuing and sharing truth, and in the care of my body, the temple of the Holy Spirit and a living sacrifice to God.

I hope you consider these verses, and the detailed information shared by the late Doc Marquis, and search your heart to understand your priorities, determine for yourself what corrections are still required in your continued process of sanctification.

Alternatively, if you find that you care more for the pomp and circumstance of this world, the lights and the decorations and the songs and celebrations and so forth, I would encourage you to pursue Jesus Christ instead, as the pleasures of this life will never fully satisfy in the way that reconciliation with your creator does. The path you are on leads to death and destruction and suffering without end, that you haven't reached that destination does not mean it is not there.

Confess that you have sinned!
Call on Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior!
Repent of your evil ways through His power!
Live in relationship with God, who created you and desires your salvation!
Give all glory to the God who loved those who didn't deserve it!