Month: December 2010

Christmas, a “pagan” holiday with Holy aspirations

/ Tracy Eldridge / Leave a comment

When the winter solstice festival was chosen as the accepted date of celebration for our Lord’s birthday it didn’t really cause a stir. Now, in the twenty-first century, it is starting to ruffle some feathers. Some think that we shouldn’t celebrate it as Christmas but as a holiday season. Some consider it to be an affront to the pagan celebration which came before. However it affects you and your sensibilities, the facts are that God, the Creator, shed His divinity and came to live among us as a frail, human being for a time. He did this not to see how His creation was doing, but to provide a sacrifice which would allow all of us to be forgiven.

Our humanity and the Law that we had put in place which told us when and how to “pay” for our sins separated us from Him for many hundreds of years. In the act of sacrificing Himself, through the act of giving His Son, Jesus, as the sacrifice which would cover all of humanity’s sins, God did away with the requirements of the Law. He enabled us to come directly to Him and ask for our forgiveness through Jesus.

The Bible has been proven by archaeology and by history as being accurate in its writings. There is no possible way that the number of authors involved in writing such a book over many thousand years could have all been making up the prophecies about Jesus, which almost all the books of the Bible point to a “Seed of the woman” from Genesis through Chronicles and all of the minor prophets and other writings in the Tanakh. The Spirit guided their writings and prophecies, regardless of whether you may believe this or not there can be no other explanation.

God loves us all and did what had to be done in order to give us, all of us, a chance at redemption. To come out from under the curse of sin which entered into us by Adam and Eve’s disobedience. God knew that they would do this before they did, He could and does see what we do daily before we even do it. Our lives do not happen according to our will. We cannot control one part of our lives, even if you can slow your heart or your breathing, you can’t stop either and then start them again after three days time!

Acts 8 and Romans 8 both give enough evangelical and persuasive argument for anyone to come to Jesus and know Him. Please read them if you don’t know Him! If you do know Jesus, bring someone who doesn’t know Him to this site and read through those chapters with them. My life is forfeit because of my love for Christ and all I am doing this for is to help to bring at least one more person into the family of Christ. If I can at least do that, it will all have been worth it. Give Christ, my Lord and your Savior a chance in your life. You won’t be sorry that you did.

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The real reason for the season

/ Tracy Eldridge / Leave a comment

Although it is true that a pagan holiday was co-opted for the time of Christmas, it is not the reason that we celebrate. In our society today it is because of the gifts and presents that we want to give and that we want to get from our families and relatives. This is not the reason for our celebration either. Regardless of the actual date of Christ‘s birth, whether it was in or around September or October really doesn’t matter. Celebrating the birth of the Christ, the Messiah is the reason for the celebrations which occur every year at this time. The giving of gifts to one another is a repeat of the gifts given to Christ at His birth and the gift of Jesus to us by God the Father.

In our own way we attempt to emulate exactly the giving to someone that we care for, regardless of the value of the gift itself. The gift and its value should not be the only reason that we do this nor should the cost of the gift be considered. The thought and the feeling of appreciation between each person is what is being expressed by the gift and the giving, not the value of the gift. It has much more value if the gift is one that you make yourself as a gift and not one that you buy, especially if it is an enduring gift which will last for years.

Our lives are fleeting moments in time and we should not waste them worrying about trivial things which don’t matter and won’t be recalled a decade or more from now. The relationships which we have between friends and family and most importantly with our Lord are the most valuable possessions that we will ever have. These are priceless and should be treated that way.

God loves us so much that He, in the form of Christ, gave up His position as God to become a man. To be as we are. Frail, lonely, afraid, depressed, and to suffer through human existence so that He could know us better. To truly know someone and their problems you have to live as they live, daily, and that is what He did while He was here. He never stopped being God, but yet chose to live as a man willingly and to give His life to ransom those of us who will accept Him, even though He paid the penalty for all. He even paid the penalty for those who won’t accept Him as Lord simply out of love. No mere human could or would do that!

Give your life to Christ and ask Him to come into your life and truly make you whole. Your life will never be the same after that, but it will mean more than you can ever know.