What Does God Think

The celebration of "Christ-mass" began in the Catholic church melding paganism with a false form of Christianity to produce "Christmas." For many years Christians did not question where this began because they thought adding Christ's name to the pagan holiday would legitimize it for the born-again believer.

The sacrifice of the mass in Catholicism is the re-sacrificing of Christ over and over again in every mass. The idea that Christ's sacrifice on the cross was not enough, the priests had to do it every mass was developed by this paganistic religion. It violates much of scripture and is a form of cannibalism. The church teaches transubstantiation in which the emblems are no longer emblems but turn into the actual body and blood of Christ during the mass.

Since most Christians didn't know their Bibles and they knew very little about the Catholic church they accepted this pagan holiday as long as the name of Christ was attached to it. Unfortunately, it was a different Jesus than the Jesus Christ of the Bible.

Christmas began pagan, the ungodly added Christ to it and it is now returning to its pagan roots. We should not be surprised that this is happening. Holidays and festivals that were not commanded or endorsed by God, merely human ideas to worship God their own way, would eventually return to their origins.

God never blessed this holiday it was a concoction of an ungodly "religion" attempting to entice the Christians to indulge by adding a name they revered, that is the name of God.

When we know our Bibles and walk with the Holy Spirit we have no need to fit into the culture or a Christianized paganism. There is much of this going on in our society today, even those who will become angry when we say "I do not celebrate it because I am a Christian."

The choice is up to each one to determine in their own hearts if they are obeying God. My desire is for everyone to ask God about everything they do to know what pleases Him.

Amos 5:20-22 "…20 Will not the Day of the LORD be darkness and not light, even gloom with no brightness in it? 21“I hate, I despise your feasts! I cannot stand the stench of your solemn assemblies. 22 Even though you offer Me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; for your peace offerings of fattened cattle I will have no regard.…"

Refusing to Repent Destroys Relationships

Forgiveness is dependent on repentance. If someone does not repent they must not be forgiven. Forgiving without repentance is enabling.

Forgiveness is not just letting it go as so many say. Forgiveness when extended after repentance if for the purpose of reconciling a relationship. Just saying "I forgive them" is nothing it falls to the ground. It is psychology based on humanism not God's word.

God will not forgive those who are not repentant. 1 John 1:9.

One must confess to be forgiven. We do not automatically become bitter when someone is not sorry, we pray for them and do good to them when we encounter them but we do not have a relationship with an unrepentant person.

God tells us to go and tell them their fault against us, if they repent great, we have won our brother. However, if they do not repent then we treat them as an enemy, that is stay away from them.

God never commands us anywhere in the scripture to forgive someone who is not repentant. God told us to forgive as He has forgiven, that is when we repent He forgives.

He will not save the unrepentant heart from hell. He only forgives those who confess to be cleansed.

Our culture has this subject wrong and in so doing they are coddling the one who sins and pressuring the victim to forgive those who are not sorry for their harm. This is backward from what God teaches.

When we do things God's way we save ourselves a lot of grief and others see their need to repent from their sins.

The story of the wicked servant who was forgiven when he asked, the master to forgive his debt, then that wicked servant went out and demanded repayment of debts by those under him.

The master who forgave him brought him back and threw him in jail. This is a picture of a pretender, someone who wasn't truly sorry, and the master recognizing this threw him in hell. This story has more to do with a pretender who claims to be saved than it does with forgiveness toward others.

When Christ said on the cross; "Father forgive them", He was asking His Father to extend forgiveness to the world. The forgiveness was extended but the requirement to receive it was to repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. No one will be forgiven who is not repentant.

1 John 1:9, Matthew 18, Acts 3:19, 2 Peter 3:9, Acts 2:38, Acts 17:30, Matthew 3:8, Luke 13:3, Revelation 3:19

No one will be forgiven to enter heaven without confession of their sin and trust in Christ. They are two sides of the same coin. God will not save anyone who will not confess to be reconciled to Him.

Just as our relationships are not reconciled without confession of wrongdoing and forgiveness extended, these are two sides of the same coin, there cannot be one without the other.

Our culture gets this wrong because they just want to ignore the hard work of reconciling by confronting the offender and the possible consequence of being ignored or retaliated against for our desire to reconcile the right way.

One cannot be trusted again if there is no sorrow over sin against us. And, if we are not sorry others should not trust us. We are talking about legitimate accusations of wrongdoing, not false ones just because someone didn't like that we told the truth.

Do not allow anyone to pressure you to forgive an offender who continues to offend and never shows remorse. This is not anyone else's business and we do not become bitter when the offender will not be forgiven. We pray for them and remove ourselves until they demonstrate sorrow over their offense.

God will not hear the prayers of His own children when they have sinned and do not confess, so we should follow His example. God knows best and can work in people without our compromising His ways to feel better about ourselves.

How about we tell people refusing to repent destroys relationships instead of the popular pressure to forgive when someone will not repent.

The pressure today in our culture is to coddle the perpetrator while beating up the victim as though the victim is responsible to make the perp feel better. This is insanity.

Study forgiveness in the Bible and look at all the words in a verse, not just the first two.