What does it mean to worship?
What does it mean to follow God?
Ten thousand knees bow to God
And 100 million ignore Him
When we think over the course of our lives
How many times do we surrender to God?
How often do our actions prove this?
The devil blasts his ideas non-stop
While our God just whispers our names
We think we can avoid service
To one leader or another
But ultimately the absence of choice is a choice
If you do not choose God
You are rejecting God
There are 2 categories in philosophy
Concerning belief and religion
Theism and Atheism
Everything else is a subset
If you do not follow God
You follow the alternative
In this case this is a bad option
In this case you are rebelling against God and not people
Being Christian mean being a rebel too
It just means that we reject someone different
There are often direct parallels
Between our worship of God
And our worship of people
We think as Christians
That since we have never practiced another religion
That we have never served another god
But there are many more idols
Than just the gods of other religions
At least with paganism
The gods are mean and scary
This gives us hints to avoid them
Pagans are also easier to a convert historically
As knowledge of the spiritual world
Makes many things much more obvious
So if you think of holidays like Christmas
There are some clear examples of
Behavior that is godly
And behavior that is worldly
Why do you buy gifts for others?
It should be to celebrate God’s gift of Himself
Or is it our of obligation?
Or that you are trying to compete?
Or you want more for yourself?
Do you parade this before others?
Do you totally reject giving gifts?
Or do you just give cash?
It is understandable when unbelievers act this way
It is harder to understand why Christians would do this
The whole idea of Christmas as we know it today
Is a tradition that reflects
More about modern America than the Bible
The Christmas tree itself is a pagan symbol
Just like easter egg hunts
Maybe if we saw Christmas as more like Halloween
We would notice how society has co-opted Christmas
To many Christmas is a time of high stress
As many have broken or no family at all to celebrate Christmas with
This is the biggest season for psychologists too
It is also a busy time for those who work in retail
Many businesses find the end of the year the key
To making money for the entire year
This is what Black Friday means
It is the day that business gets out of the red
And starts making money
Black is always good in accounting
Christmas has become bigger than most holidays combined
Because you buy more stuff for it
How much can they sell you for Easter or Thanksgiving?
It also has as many psychological and economic factors
As it does social or family related
Christmas is full of many symbols and rituals
It seems many have gotten lost in those
And forgot that Christmas has a message and a reason
It is not a time to compete
Or get drunk or do drugs
It is not just a big party like New Years
It is when show our gratefulness for our Savior
Rituals are not all bad
And traditions have their place
But be careful not to fall into
The subtle trap of forgetting God
In all our hustle to make a perfect Christmas
Even done for great reasons
We have to remember the Gospel passage
About Mary and Martha
We need to focus on the worship of God
Not just doing things
Even for genuine reasons
What God wants from us
Is our attention and focus
God simple wants to spend time with us
This usually requires patience and isolation
This is easy to lose in any celebration
Think at Christmas how you can spend time with God
Singing is good but there should be silence as well
Maybe Christians should consider the early monastics
And the prayers of the hours
Where our modern clocks come from
Islam actually got the idea of praying 5 times a day
From the early Christians
Which were mostly in the Middle East
For the first half of Christian history
In fact Iraq was the center
Of one of the biggest churches
In this time period
Remember Islam is 500 years younger than Christianity
And the Protestant Reformation was only 500 years ago
What does it mean to follow God?
Ten thousand knees bow to God
And 100 million ignore Him
When we think over the course of our lives
How many times do we surrender to God?
How often do our actions prove this?
The devil blasts his ideas non-stop
While our God just whispers our names
We think we can avoid service
To one leader or another
But ultimately the absence of choice is a choice
If you do not choose God
You are rejecting God
There are 2 categories in philosophy
Concerning belief and religion
Theism and Atheism
Everything else is a subset
If you do not follow God
You follow the alternative
In this case this is a bad option
In this case you are rebelling against God and not people
Being Christian mean being a rebel too
It just means that we reject someone different
There are often direct parallels
Between our worship of God
And our worship of people
We think as Christians
That since we have never practiced another religion
That we have never served another god
But there are many more idols
Than just the gods of other religions
At least with paganism
The gods are mean and scary
This gives us hints to avoid them
Pagans are also easier to a convert historically
As knowledge of the spiritual world
Makes many things much more obvious
So if you think of holidays like Christmas
There are some clear examples of
Behavior that is godly
And behavior that is worldly
Why do you buy gifts for others?
It should be to celebrate God’s gift of Himself
Or is it our of obligation?
Or that you are trying to compete?
Or you want more for yourself?
Do you parade this before others?
Do you totally reject giving gifts?
Or do you just give cash?
It is understandable when unbelievers act this way
It is harder to understand why Christians would do this
The whole idea of Christmas as we know it today
Is a tradition that reflects
More about modern America than the Bible
The Christmas tree itself is a pagan symbol
Just like easter egg hunts
Maybe if we saw Christmas as more like Halloween
We would notice how society has co-opted Christmas
To many Christmas is a time of high stress
As many have broken or no family at all to celebrate Christmas with
This is the biggest season for psychologists too
It is also a busy time for those who work in retail
Many businesses find the end of the year the key
To making money for the entire year
This is what Black Friday means
It is the day that business gets out of the red
And starts making money
Black is always good in accounting
Christmas has become bigger than most holidays combined
Because you buy more stuff for it
How much can they sell you for Easter or Thanksgiving?
It also has as many psychological and economic factors
As it does social or family related
Christmas is full of many symbols and rituals
It seems many have gotten lost in those
And forgot that Christmas has a message and a reason
It is not a time to compete
Or get drunk or do drugs
It is not just a big party like New Years
It is when show our gratefulness for our Savior
Rituals are not all bad
And traditions have their place
But be careful not to fall into
The subtle trap of forgetting God
In all our hustle to make a perfect Christmas
Even done for great reasons
We have to remember the Gospel passage
About Mary and Martha
We need to focus on the worship of God
Not just doing things
Even for genuine reasons
What God wants from us
Is our attention and focus
God simple wants to spend time with us
This usually requires patience and isolation
This is easy to lose in any celebration
Think at Christmas how you can spend time with God
Singing is good but there should be silence as well
Maybe Christians should consider the early monastics
And the prayers of the hours
Where our modern clocks come from
Islam actually got the idea of praying 5 times a day
From the early Christians
Which were mostly in the Middle East
For the first half of Christian history
In fact Iraq was the center
Of one of the biggest churches
In this time period
Remember Islam is 500 years younger than Christianity
And the Protestant Reformation was only 500 years ago