'Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.' (2 Cor. 6:14-18)
To put it in plain English: what are you doing hanging out with nonChristians and acting like they do? Why are you celebrating their holidays and walking in harmony with them?
One of the problems with today's (false) 'just as you are' gospel, is that people are not understanding that God isn't so desperate to have a family that He's bending over backwards and saying 'PLEASE get saved. I need you. You don't need to change. Just accept me.'
On the contrary, God has a very specific desire: that we become His children, and once again be conformed to His likeness (as Adam and Eve were, before they sinned). He wants children that pursue righteousness and holiness--not children that happily wallow in the filth of sin, perversion, uncleanness, and idolatry, like the heathen do.
YOU may like Christmas plenty. You may love this or that about it. It pleases your flesh. But it's not about YOU! As Christians, we are supposed to live our lives in such a way that we bring glory to GOD. Christmas does NOT glorify God.
If you are holding onto your 'right' to celebrate it, then you are acting like a petulant, spoiled child who is more concerned about what YOU want, than about pleasing your loving, gracious, and HOLY Father!
As with earthly fathers who bear with their children when they are acting spoiled and selfish, I believe God will bear with you. But that surely doesn't mean He's PLEASED with you. He expects you to one day mature to the point where you change your attitude, and He will discipline and chastise you throughout your life until you do.
Any advice on how to do this with children (ages 2 - 9) and a husband who would not be on board? Right now I am just under emphasizing it - very minimal decorations, a few gifts, mostly clothing they need that are not put out until Christmas day, and lots of discussion with the kids about the roots of all sorts of things - holidays, names of days of the week, etc. And we are spending a lot of time reading the gospels - starting with the birth story but not stopping there.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like a wise way to handle it. Each year I would DO less and less. I would just act very apathetic, lethargic, and even somewhat oblivious towards the holiday. I would continue to emphasize TRUTH and not promote any sort of deception.
DeleteLeft to do all the decorating and passion rousing himself, your husband might lose his excitement for it too. I would keep praying for him, and share info LITTLE BITS at a time, AS HE SHOWS openness. I would resist the urge to dump a lot on him all at once just because he seems open. People have a way of looking ahead and realizing that the end result of accepting the truth is that they'll be in a position of either rebelling or complying--that's when they suddenly dig in their heels and don't want to hear ANYTHING you have to say. Share a LITTLE truth at appropriate times. If he is OPEN to truth (a heart matter), he can surely do some investigating on his own.
You might be surprised about kids. You see, we teach kids to tell the truth and to obey. So when you tell them why Christmas is wrong and that we shouldn't celebrate it, they are usually like: 'Ok', leaving you bewildered because you expected them to put up a fight. For them it's simple: it's wrong, we're not supposed to do it, so we won't. For adults it's far more difficult because they have plenty of years of doing whatever they want (and don't relinquish that 'freedom' easily), and because they have learned to justify what they do so that they can still believe themselves to be right while they do it. Susan