Christmas/Birthdays

[tah]

I love the Thanksgiving and Christmas season..

How can you not have thanks and praise on your mind daily during this time of the year..

I have no problem with Holidays..

We need more times of Praise in our lives not less...

I wish I could remember a cute saying about the Jewish folks and how often the have celebrations..but it is often..

If we we supposed to not celebrate then why didn't the Lord tell everyone ..no more celebrations?

I believe He had a good time at feasts and weddings along with everyone else..

My two cents...

[irishcowboy]

you know,

we could all become just like the J.W.

and allow our lives to become so controled by the pagan issues that we give up all celebrations.....

shoot, we might as well give up the Wedding stuff, being that marriage has become so pagan like.....

personally, I feel like David, ready to rejoice to the Lord for everything, rejoice at the birth of my grandson, rejoice at the going home of my mother in law (yes, we miss her, but happy she is with the Lord and no longer in constant pain), rejoice at bed time, rejoice for my work, rejoice for my time to play, rejoice that the Lord has allowed me to be on this earth another day, rejoice at the birth of our Savior, for that brought us hope, Rejoice at His Resurrection.... or even just the day set aside for these events.

the Lord did not make us so that we would be humdrum people, he made us so that we can rejoice...

Christ even went to wedding feasts, and there is alot of rejoicing there......

why not celebrate the birth of Christ

why not celebrate His Resurrection

as has been stated many times, we can always look and find a reason not to do something, we can find something about every day of the year to call it a pagan holiday.....

who Created the Sabbath? who created the other days of the week????

who is Lord over the Sabbath? and who is Lord over all the other days????

did not God sanctify all the days? all 7 days???

should i not acknowledge my aunts birthday being it is April 1st????

what about my step sisters? it is December 25th.....

how about a friend who has been a life long friend who has celebrated only about 11 birthdays and is only one year younger then me(47).....

we can become so superstitious that we actually allow our JOY to be stolen....

I Took Back the Joy that was stolen, and will not allow anyone, for any reason, to steal it again... i like JOY.

mike

[sweetycakes]

you know,

we could all become just like the J.W.

and allow our lives to become so controled by the pagan issues that we give up all celebrations.....

shoot, we might as well give up the Wedding stuff, being that marriage has become so pagan like.....

personally, I feel like David, ready to rejoice to the Lord for everything, rejoice at the birth of my grandson, rejoice at the going home of my mother in law (yes, we miss her, but happy she is with the Lord and no longer in constant pain), rejoice at bed time, rejoice for my work, rejoice for my time to play, rejoice that the Lord has allowed me to be on this earth another day, rejoice at the birth of our Savior, for that brought us hope, Rejoice at His Resurrection.... or even just the day set aside for these events.

the Lord did not make us so that we would be humdrum people, he made us so that we can rejoice...

Christ even went to wedding feasts, and there is alot of rejoicing there......

why not celebrate the birth of Christ

why not celebrate His Resurrection

as has been stated many times, we can always look and find a reason not to do something, we can find something about every day of the year to call it a pagan holiday.....

who Created the Sabbath? who created the other days of the week????

who is Lord over the Sabbath? and who is Lord over all the other days????

did not God sanctify all the days? all 7 days???

should i not acknowledge my aunts birthday being it is April 1st????

what about my step sisters? it is December 25th.....

how about a friend who has been a life long friend who has celebrated only about 11 birthdays and is only one year younger then me(47).....

we can become so superstitious that we actually allow our JOY to be stolen....

I Took Back the Joy that was stolen, and will not allow anyone, for any reason, to steal it again... i like JOY.

mike

Fantastic! And I agree with every word, Mike

Have we not got something to be thankful for everyday?

God says that His Will is for us to be thankful in all circumstances.

The Joy of the Lord is our strength.

[BFP]

Okay, to be honest, I do celebrate Christmas even though I DO NOT believe it to be right by any means. If it was so important to God that we celebrate Christ's birth, he would have given us an exact date to celebrate it on so that we didn't have to try and steal the date of a pagan holiday and make it ours.

Not only that, but it is clearly stated in Ecclesiastes 7:1 that "A good name is better than precious ointment, and the day of death than the day of one's birth."

Years ago I was in a bookstore and out of curiosity picked up a satanic bible. The very first page spoke louder than words. It said that the most important holiday in a satanists life is his own birthday. That kind of told me something. Our own 'birthdays' are huge events in the pagan way of life. Why is it that astrology is BASED on the day of one's birth? The sun. moon and stars line up for you on your birthday...very pagan. It is nothing but self worship. No kidding.

I think a more appropriate way to 'celebrate' ones birthday would be to give a gift to our parents as a thank you for bringing us into the world and caring for us while we were here:>)

Now I myself fall into both or these celebrations simply because I am too afraid to be ridiculed if I do not. I hope the Lord forgives me for doing something that I know is totally against His will.

BFP

Edited November 10, 2006 by BFP

[LadyRaven]

Okay, to be honest, I do celebrate Christmas even though I DO NOT believe it to be right by any means. If it was so important to God that we celebrate Christ's birth, he would have given us an exact date to celebrate it on so that we didn't have to try and steal the date of a pagan holiday and make it ours.

Not only that, but it is clearly stated in Ecclesiastes 7:1 that "A good name is better than precious ointment, and the day of death than the day of one's birth."

Years ago I was in a bookstore and out of curiosity picked up a satanic bible. The very first page spoke louder than words. It said that the most important holiday in a satanists life is his own birthday. That kind of told me something. Our own 'birthdays' are huge events in the pagan way of life. Why is it that astrology is BASED on the day of one's birth? The sun. moon and stars line up for you on your birthday...very pagan. It is nothing but self worship. No kidding.

I think a more appropriate way to 'celebrate' ones birthday would be to give a gift to our parents as a thank you for bringing us into the world and caring for us while we were here:>)

Now I myself fall into both or these celebrations simply because I am too afraid to be ridiculed if I do not. I hope the Lord forgives me for doing something that I know is totally against His will.

BFP

If you are convinced in your mind that these are wrong, then don't celebrate them. There are alternate ways of seeing it, however...

First off Christmas. We justify the giving of gifts and whatnot by saying it's Jesus' birthday many times, and if that is not something you are comfy with, then ditch the gifts, or give things which are representative of the gifts given to Christ...or have the family give to the homeless... You can also get rid of anything you are not comfy with and create your own way of celebrating.

At home my family calls it Incarnation Day, which is what we are truly celebrating. We do exchange gifts when we have the money but don't have to, to us it's a way of honouring the "spirit of Christ" in the other person and the gift He gave us...but we do concentrate on the fact that we have taken the time to give thanks for the fact that Jesus allowed himself to be incarnate...to live for our sake. There is alot of discussion during this season on the fulillment of OT feasts and the fulfillment of the law and what that means. Our family has it's own symbolism for the various things we use, many of which the rest of the world uses for other reasons. We see nothing wrong with this, it's something WE do and it's not about a birthday, its about something else that happened and it's impact on our lives as believers.

I also have no problem hijacking a pagan holiday date to do this since we don't know when it was exactly and...it's symbolic of what He did for us....he took a spiritual pagan (we may not all have actually been nature worshippers, but spiritually we were not believers, and there are only two conditions in scripture, believers and heathen) and created a believer.

Birthdays: In our household, a birthday isn't a self centered thing. It's the same as a small thanksgiving type thing, we're thanking God for his person and having a celebration of the gift of that person's life. Ergo it has nothing in common with the satanic understanding of the meaning of the date of one's birth. For example, my birthday, is not about ME, it's about the affect the fact that I live has had on my friends and family. *I* do not keep it or celebrate it, my family and friends do. THEY are rejoicing that I have lived. When it is the birthday of one of my children it isn't to call attention to them in one manner of speaking, but thanking God that this child has blessed my life and blessed the lives of others in the family/circle of friends. We still mark the dates of the births of many relatives who have since died (like the son I had that died of sids, my mother, my grandfather) and tell the stories of how they affected the lives of those who live today. For us, it's it's sort of a form of all saints after a fashion in minature. I've even played themovie "Its a wonderful life" on the birthdays of relatives who have since died...and discussed how we all affect each other...

Honestly it's all a matter of perspective. That verse that says not to force or condemn a man for celebrating one day over another does specify that we do whatever it is to the glory of God and do it or don't do it unto the Lord. If you keep a day which focuses on the self and keep doing it as a way of self worship then you obviously do contradict this verse. And if you teach your children to do that, then you are guilty of leading your children astray. However, if you can focus on something outside of yourself and do so honestly then there is not a thing wrong with it.

[Arthur Durnan]

Rejection of celebrating the (essential Virgin) Birth of Christ on December 25 and spurning one's joyous birthday celebrations are offshoots of a pagan cult's philosophy, specifically that of Pittsburgh haberdasher Charles Taze Russell's 19th-century Jehovah's False Witnesses. They quack like ducks against our Savior's wondrous entry into our world - but don't possess a clue as to Christ's important I.D., that is, Jehovah God "enfleshed" (John 1:1,14) to pay the entire price of our sins on Mt. Calvary! They strain at gnats and swallow a very large camel! Jesus Christ didn't come to confuse us or to make us grouchy; He came to instill joy via God's marvellous eternal salvation (John 3:16; 5:24). Spend more time on His saving & keeping power and you won't be offended by any query re His exact birth date, whether in December or as much more likely, the month of October.

MERRY CHRISTMAS ONE AND ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD MORNING!

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