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Christmas Tradition
December 2011
 

Traditions and holidays allow us to honor the past and bring the family together in celebration on certain days.  However, not all holidays or traditions are good, beneficial or Godly.  For example, some traditions encourage us to splurge and overspend beyond our means [Black Friday], others require us to prepare a feast of food where we overeat [Thanksgiving], and yet others encourage drowning oneself in alcohol [New Years Eve].

The followers of Christ must use Scripture and wisdom to filter through all our holiday traditions.  A tradition or holiday should not be kept merely because it’s always been kept, or because it is a national holiday or because it has sentimental memories.  Christ followers don’t bow to the status quo or commit to things blindly without asking if it is right, Godly, or good for the family and society.  We must carefully consider which traditions and holidays honor God and which ones will only tempt us into sinful, wasteful habits.

When a tradition or holiday does not align with God’s principles, standards or values we must have the courage to chart a different course and lead our families in honoring God by creating new traditions or even holidays.  Followers of Christ will create new traditions to replace the old ones and seek to establish new holidays [like Passover, Feast of Trumpets, Feast of Tabernacles, Yom Kippur, etc] to counter act ungodly holidays [Halloween].

1 Peter 1:14-16 says, “obey God because you are his children. Don't slip back into your old ways of doing evil; you didn't know any better then. But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God—who chose you to be his children—is holy. For he himself has said, "You must be holy because I am holy."

To be holy means to be totally devoted and dedicated to God, to be set aside for His special use, set apart from the ways of the world.  God has made us holy by choosing us and calling us to be different- but not different for the sake of being different.   We are to be different in that our focus and priorities come from our Savior, different in that His qualities are seen in our lives - that is how we live counter-cultural holy lives in a highly influential society such ours.     

We live in a country where there is such a constant torrent of negative messages that we don’t even notice them anymore.  So how do we remain set apart?  We behold Christ!  We tend to become what we behold - what we admire, what we are in awe of, what we are impressed by, what impacts us.  When we continually keep God and His ways before us we will be able to see the imperceptible but misleading influences our culture.  Take Santa Claus for example.

We are a nation that claims to be Christian and our currency proclaims that “in God we trust”.  Yet in our country men are sued for putting up nativity scenes and placing the 10 Commandments in public places while it is ok to set up an idol [Santa Claus] in the same place.  We live in a country where media and even parents encourage children to “believe” in Santa Claus, a trust that is to be given to Christ alone [John 3:16].  Children are taught to write letters to Santa Claus for the things their little heart’s desire, yet the living God invites us to cast all of our cares upon Him because He cares [1 Peter 5:7].  We live in a society where we learn and teach our children songs about Santa’s many attributes : “He sees you when you're sleeping, He knows when you're awake, He knows if you've been bad or good so be good for goodness sake!”  In other words, Santa is omniscient!  Are you kidding me?  In singing songs about Santa’s attributes we are singing his praises, we are worshiping him, a being that doesn’t live. The Bible declares that God alone is omniscient [Hebrews 4:13; 1 John 3:19,20; Job 28:24] and He alone is worthy of worship [Exodus 34:14; Isaiah 2:8].  

Traditions and holidays allow us to honor the past and bring the family together in celebration but we should never allow these times to bring dishonor to our Maker.  "I am the LORD; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols [Isaiah 42:8].

May you, Christ follower, have the courage to establish traditions that are Christ centered.  

 

2009 June - WEEK OF PRAYER

The purpose of the Week of Prayer is to strengthen our walk with our Master by way of spiritual disciplines. These are tools that God’s people use to set themselves up to stay connected to Jesus. These tools include such things as fasting, prayer, journaling, meditation, solitude and many others.  Read Pastor Soto's notes for this week long series:

AN ADVENT MOMENT
 

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