Celebrate Christmas-die in your sin? NOT!

tree

I have been getting email messages telling me that if celebrate Christmas then I am going to be condemned by Christ and I guess that means I will go to hell...

Then there is the crowd that says that Christmas Trees were part of a pagan holiday and therefore we are bowing down to pagan gods when we put up our trees. I actually used to be part of that camp but since I don't know what pagan God the tree was supposed to be representing then I figure that it's just a pine tree that I decorate for the sole purpose of celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ.

But Christmas isn't even on the actual day Christ was born... Yeah maybe, but I think I will still celebrate the birth of Christ and since no one knows what day He was actually born then I think I will choose December 25th, and sing carols and go to Church and celebrate the good news. This weekend a friend came to our church for the first time (it has a tree at the front. I asked her why she wasn't at her usual church and she told me that she was being criticized for celebrating Christmas and she was being rejected. Doggone doctrine! He we go again, people setting up doctrines that EXCLUDE.

Jesus gave us the Good News not the bad news. The good news is that humans are so screwed up and damaged that we cannot be good...cannot as in not able...to be good. So Christ came along and died on the cross so that we could have relationship merely by accepting him into our hearts-believing in Christ. There were no conditions except to "blaspheme the Holy spirit" which I take to mean calling the Holy Spirit satanic.

Nowhere in the Gospel does it tell us that we have to celebrate the high Holy days of the Jewish calendar, nor offer animal sacrifice, or freak out about whether I have a Christmas tree. Come on Christians, get over yourselves. What makes "judge not lest ye be judged by the same measure": so hard to understand. If you are judging, or excluding or worse yet-rejecting others because of the way they worship then get ready to have your worship judged by the JUDGE!

Jesus said, "today I give you a new commandment: love one an other" Have a tree or not have a tree as you desire but LOVE ONE ANOTHER. It seems to be another commandment that we can't keep.... Merry Christmas to all in Jesus name!!!

Let's get over ourselves...

I just heard about a young couple (people I know) who were deeply in love and all set to get married, have kids raise a home. Christians...seriously Christians, the kind of folks you would love to have in your town or your church.....uh-oh! Which church do you mean? Here comes Doctrine.

Its seem that one of the couple was raised in a church that believed there was free will in the matter of how we come to salvation...the other was raised believing that there was no choice that one has to be elected or pre-chosen by God. Both love Jesus (and Jesus loves them), both resist sin in their lives both are born again but they called off their marriage because of Doctrine! Let's look at the doctrines of free will versus election.

This has been a burning argument dividing the Church for hundreds of years. Believers have actually been burned at the stake because of their take on one side of this question or the other. Who knows the Truth of the matter? NO ONE! Say it again. Yet it won't be long before I will be receiving rancorous remarks from by Christian brothers and sisters relating long treatises on their pet doctrine. Get over yourselves. This is God's business and his alone.

A wise (non denominational) pastor friend of mine recently stated that doctrine was a way that men can draw circles around themselves with which they can exclude others. Yet Christ desires that "all men (mankind) be saved". So while he is INCLUDING, we are excluding.

Remember that this doctrinal mess is fighting between believers! Examine your hearts. Are you camping out on foundational truth such as, "you must be born again..." or are we fighting amongst each other over such mysteries as predestination? Let's just try and get back to the basics, Christ and Christ alone...