I continue to be surprised at some of the things believers will defend, while not realizing those things are not Biblical or productive to a closer walk with Jesus Christ. These unBiblical things are detrimental to spiritual growth and oriented toward the emotional senses. When we focus on the emotion, more than truth we tend to error, missing God's blessing of intimacy with Him.
When we seek God, asking Him to show us truth, there should be many things that we abandon as we discover the heart of God.
Years ago I began praying that the Lord would remove from my thinking anything that is not Biblical truth, things that are merely human tradition that we have been led to believe were essential to our Christianity, but in fact deter us from a close relationship with Him.
The more I read the word of God and the more I seek His face, the more things I find that have been human tradition, having little to do with a born again believer and how we should be living our lives.
Our Christian culture has been burdened down with many traditions of men that were not only, not endorsed by God, but take us away from Him.
Mark 7:8 ""Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men."
Colossians 2:8 "See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ."
Mark 7:1-13
"7 The Pharisees and some of the scribes gathered around Him when they had come from Jerusalem,
2 and had seen that some of His disciples were eating their bread with impure hands, that is, unwashed.
3 (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they carefully wash their hands, thus observing the traditions of the elders;
4 and when they come from the market place, they do not eat unless they cleanse themselves; and there are many other things which they have received in order to observe, such as the washing of cups and pitchers and copper pots.)
5 The Pharisees and the scribes *asked Him, “Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with impure hands?”
6 And He said to them, “Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written:
‘This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far away from Me.
7 ‘But in vain do they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.’
8 Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men.”
9 He was also saying to them, “You are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition.
10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, is to be put to death’;
11 but you say, ‘If a man says to his father or his mother, whatever I have that would help you is Corban (that is to say, given to God),’
12 you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or his mother;
13 thus invalidating the word of God by your tradition which you have handed down; and you do many things such as that."
The dishonoring of father and mother is only one way we dishonor God through our traditions. The most devastating way we have dishonored God is in the matter of the holidays, adding man made traditions and pagan worship practices, to the worship of our God, is an abomination to Him.
Christ gave us the model for worship in the Lord's Supper and in the way He taught us to pray. There is no need for anything to be added to what He told us. We add, because we like our own way better, it tickles the senses and brings about good feelings for us, but is a stench in the nostrils of God.
When we honor the ways of the pagans by adopting some of their traditions as our own, we have nullified the worship of God, relegating it to the level of the pagans. Bringing down His worship, rather than lifting it up, by obedience to what He told us to do.
Amos 5:18-24: "Alas, you who are longing for the day of the Lord,
For what purpose will the day of the Lord be to you?
It will be darkness and not light;
19 As when a man flees from a lion
And a bear meets him,
Or goes home, leans his hand against the wall
And a snake bites him.
20 Will not the day of the Lord be darkness instead of light,
Even gloom with no brightness in it?
21 “I hate, I reject your festivals,
Nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies.
22 “Even though you offer up to Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
And I will not even look at the peace offerings of your fatlings.
23 “Take away from Me the noise of your songs;
I will not even listen to the sound of your harps.
24 “But let justice roll down like waters
And righteousness like an ever-flowing stream."
God told us how to pray:
Matthew 6:9-13 "9 “Pray, then, in this way:
‘Our Father who is in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.
10 ‘Your kingdom come. Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.
11 ‘Give us this day our daily bread.
12 ‘And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 ‘And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.’"
When we are grateful to God alone, when we desire to be delivered from evil and when we desire His will in our lives, we will grow in holiness. We will not grow and we will regress when we mix paganism with the principles of God. Always this ends up negating God's message and our witness.
God told us what to celebrate:
Luke 22:19 "And when He had taken some bread and given thanks, He broke it and gave it to them, saying, "This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me."
The Lord instructed us to hate the way of the pagans through the description of His mind toward their practices. No where in the Word do we see the Lord instructing us to celebrate anything other than His Feast day, the Lord's Supper and it was to be done whenever we come together, not once a year or once a month. His feast day was a demonstration of the fulfilled prophecy of His death, burial and resurrection. Man added "Christmas" with all it's pagan trappings, honoring the Catholic mass with it's veneration of a false god "santa." Man added "Easter" with all of it's pagan practices, honoring the goddess of fertility.
Even those who say they only focus on Christ on that day, cannot deny that they are participating in the celebration of the pagans by celebrating their holidays with them while even using their paganistic titles "Christmas and Easter. The Christian witness is destroyed when we participate in these abominations.
1 Corinthians 11:23-32
"23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread;
24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”
25 In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”
26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.
27 Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord.
28 But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
29 For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly.
30 For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep.
31 But if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged.
32 But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord so that we will not be condemned along with the world."
Please pray and ask God: "Does it honor Him to "Christianize" pagan holidays"?
Deuteronomy 12:1-5
"12 “These are the statutes and the judgments which you shall carefully observe in the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess as long as you live on the earth.
2 You shall utterly destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess serve their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree.
3 You shall tear down their altars and smash their sacred pillars and burn their Asherim with fire, and you shall cut down the engraved images of their gods and obliterate their name from that place.
4 You shall not act like this toward the Lord your God.
5 But you shall seek the Lord at the place which the Lord your God will choose from all your tribes, to establish His name there for His dwelling, and there you shall come."
You may say, "we are under grace now we are not bound to the old testament commandments." OH, do we not see the heart of God in these commandments. Why would we want to practice something God hates. He has not removed His hatred for the ways of the pagans. He has not endorsed an attitude of believers to do anything they want any way they choose. Do we care about the heart of God?
When our focus is on our "freedom" then we have an attitude problem. Our focus ought to be, "what shall I do that pleases God." We sin when we focus on what we think we can get away with, yes it is called sin. We honor God when we seek His Will His Way.
1 Corinthians 10:23
"All things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful, but not all things edify."
1 Peter 2:16
"Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God."
I remember chastising my children when I had given them a task to do, taught them how I wanted it done and they did it their own way. It is not helpful or kind to our parent or even employers if we get a job done but neglect to please the one who is the authority.
God cares "How" we do things, we forget this because our culture has taught us that if we did it, we were good for just the doing of it, no matter whether we did it the right way or not. This is lazy to say the least. God cares about the details and the excellence. He knows we will not be perfect, but also knows whether we care about His heart or whether we are just doing enough to get by without concern over pleasing Him. A parent knows this too!
As the Hebrew teacher said: "love is an action word, without the action, there is no love." The Hebrew word for "love", has two facets, one that we love by doing and the other that we love by withholding help. Both involve making a choice to do what is best for others and what honors God.
Perhaps we should be asking God what honors Him, rather than using phrases like "I am free in Christ to do what "I" want.
