I don't understand why people need legends of anything to feel good about their lives. We have the Bible, the truth, there is no need for passed down unproven legends.
One of the most insidious and dangerous legends has been that of the supposed Bishop St. Nicholas. There is no evidence that such a man ever existed. There are many legends but no proof.
Jesus Christ is the only person down through history we need. And, He is more than a person, He is God. He is not a legend, He is real and interacts in the lives of His children, the born-again believers every day.
When we cannot have joy without myths and legends about people we are placing more emphasis on this life and its fantasies than we are on Jesus Christ.
There is no man who ever lived on this planet that we should venerate as special above any other man. If a man was a follower of Christ then we follow Christ, not the man.
No one can know the life of another human being down through history. Stories and legends morph over time, they are not true reflections of the person themselves.
Should we elevate someone who does good deeds? If a man does good deeds we ought to praise God for His work in the man, not the man himself.
We love people as believers but we must love them in truth. If we cannot love someone unless they have been proven to do good deeds then we have conditional love, not the love of Christ.
No one can say their good deeds without Christ are worth anything.
Matthew 15:7-9 "…7 You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied correctly about you: 8‘ These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. 9 They worship Me in vain; they teach as doctrine the precepts of men.’ ”…"
When we elevate men as we teach our children about doing good we are assigning the good to the men instead of Christ. Rather we ought to elevate Christ showing the children that good deeds are only good if Christ does them in His children, then Christ gets the glory and not man.
Romans 3:23
"23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,"
The practice of idolatry in our culture can be very subtle. Whenever we elevate men to "special" status we have "venerated" them, making them equal to Christ.
Psalm 14:2–3
2 The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man,
to see if there are any who understand,
who seek after God.
3 They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt;
there is none who does good,
not even one."
The good deeds of man are corrupted by self worship. No one who is not born-again can do good deeds with a pure heart. The good deeds of unsaved people is always tainted with a desire to be seen as worthy of praise.
1 Chronicles 16:34
"34 Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
for his steadfast love endures forever!"
Only those deeds done in the power of the Holy Spirit in us can be said to be acceptable, only Christ in us is acceptable.
Matthew 6:1-4
“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you."
Galatians 6:9
And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.
Why would anyone grow weary in doing good? The only reason I can see for a person to grow weary of doing good is when they work hard at it and receive no recognition for it. They grow weary because they are expecting to be recognized by others.
When our good deeds are done in the Spirit of Christ in us we do not expect praise nor do we care if it comes, we merely obey God and He gets the glory.
Colossians 3:17
"And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him."
James 4:17
"So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin."
Philippians 2:13
"For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure."
Let Christ work in us, nothing of ourselves and then we will be satisfied with Him and not ourselves.
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