Happy Holiday or Merry Christmas?

Which of the above greetings is correct? To be quite honest, I really don't care what your choice is, but then again, I don't care much about being politically correct either. I realize that as a Christian I can call it whatever I want. Is December 25^th the actual birthday of Christ Jesus? Most likely not! Does it matter? No!

There are many that want to celebrate December 25^th as the birth of Christ, yet some who just enjoy the "holiday season" with all of the sights and sounds of Christmas, feasts with the family and exchanging presents, with no thought of Christ. That's OK by me; I really don't care what you do with the day.

Now before you get on your religious high horse, let me again say; that first, December 25^th is most likely not the time of Christ's birth. Second, no where in the scripture are we given instruction to or example of celebrating Jesus' birthday. Third, like most of the world, I really don't care what you do; I have the freedom to choose to celebrate the birth of Christ or just to have a "happy holiday".

You might think, "How can you as a mister say such a thing?" It's really rather simple. Again, there is no command or example in the bible to do so, but there is a scripture that deals with our freedom to choose to do so if we wish. In Romans 14:5-6 Paul writes, “One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each should be fully convinced in his own mind.” Should Christmas then be an official church holiday? In my way of thinking, no. It is not in the Bible and all of us don’t even have the same opinion about it. Do we have the right to celebrate it if we want to? Yes!

Yet Paul cautions us in Romans 14:22, “Blessed is the man that does not condemn himself by what he approves (or says is good)”.  You see Romans the 14th chapter deals with problems between brethren who are having faith problems. The brother with the weak faith had not yet grown to the point where he understood that everything we do is to the glory of God, therefore doing certain things, such as "keeping holy days", would cause him to stumble in his faith.

So, even though I don't care what you do or say about this holiday, because it will not affect my faith, yet for some it may. So, be careful of what you "approve," so you "do not condemn yourself". Do I have a problem with our world, our schools, our town counsels, and our federal government telling us that we cannot remember Christ in any way or even mention his name in certain places? You bet I do!

I've made my choice, but you are responsible for your own choices. For me, I'll just close this by saying that I wish each of you a Merry Christmas!

The Fall

Well, I had a “rude awakening” this past week, literally! I fell out of bed… There I was sound asleep, dreaming I was climbing a ladder and my feet slipped and … well, I fell out of bed and landed on my chest, cracking a rib. It has been rather painful this week. There is nothing they can do for it a doctor friend told me, just take it easy. However in my present job, that is easier said than done. This too shall pass however and life will continue.

I was reminded of a story I heard years ago about a little boy who fell out of bed. His parents rushed in to quiet the crying boy and said, “What happened to you?” to which the boy replied, “I guess I just was sleeping too close to where I got in.” Of course my mind jumps to the spiritual application for you and me.

In my years of ministry I have seen so many people start a new relationship with God and not long after they “fall” away or forget all of the promises they made to God. The problem is that they never moved from the edge of the relationship to a better and deeper understanding and relationship to our God. They might start their relationship with great enthusiasm and then they begin to feel that it just isn’t working for them or they really don’t feel any different. They think, when you become a Christian, aren’t you suppose to feel more holy, more spiritual, isn’t this suppose to help you overcome the problems in your life?

The problem as I have seen it is that far too often these folks have stayed right on the edge of the relationship and never delved deeper and grown in the spirit themselves.

These are much like the folks spoken of in the book of Hebrews, “We have much to say about this, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil”.  (Hebrews 5:11-14) NLT

Humm… training yourself by a constant use of the word of God… What an idea! You see that’s what it means to go deeper, to no longer stay on the edge so that you might “fall” out of the relationship.

Be careful about staying too close to the edge… you might end up with more than a cracked rib; you might loose your soul.

THE CHURCH AND KARAOKE

We were visiting with some good friends this past week after a long separation. We sat up for hours catching up on every imaginable topic. Of course we discussed our churches and some of the many happenings there.

They shared a recent incident that had happened when a non-Christian friend visited their congregation. Later in the day he was trying to tell someone about his "Church Experience". He described how friendly everyone was with him and how much he loved that. Then he told them about the preaching and how he enjoyed the message and the presentation by the preacher who was not stuffy at all. He then tried to describe the singing, during which the words to the songs were projected on a screen above the pulpit. In describing this he said excitedly, "And they sing Karaoke"!

I found the description humorous to say the least, but it made me wonder about what folks think when they visit our church. Years ago I heard a man discuss the "secret language" used in churches. We use words like, "deacon" and "elder" or even "minister" and just assume folks understand what we are talking about. We write abbreviations such as "Mt", "Mk", "Lk" and "Jn" and assume that people will know that stands for the bible books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. We may even sing acapella and assume that folks know that means we don't use musical instruments in our worship.

So, stop and think about what you are doing in your worship sometime. Maybe even make sure our church visitors have a little understanding about what is happening. Not everyone was "raised going to church," and just don't have the same background as you might. They may be like the little girl who innocently said of Communion, "I love going to church, they serve juice and crackers every week, just like my preschool".

We may not actually "sing Karaoke," the way the world perceives it, but hopefully we are those described by Jesus in John 4:23 where he says, "Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks." Spirit and Truth is a must, Karaoke… not so much!