Month: December 2021

Christmas but no Halloween

Lisa

This topic has been on my mind for some time now. And I feel free/released to talk about it openly now. So let’s begin …

People will use  Colossians 2:16 to justify their celebration of halloween. And some will claim that “hey, if you celebrate Christmas, you cannot judge me for celebrating halloween, as both have pagan origins. If you can celebrate Christmas for Jesus, I can celebrate halloween for Jesus.“ Really?

Yes, much commercialism surrounds the season of Christmas. Santa Claus can be distracting, for some, plain old of the devil. I won’t expound on this, as it is not the point of this post.

“But Jesus wasn’t born on the 25th. The decoration is paganism…” Probably true I say, yet I think even if we chose another day, the enemy would still follow the time around with clutter and distractions, and yes, paganism. I believe it is up to us to sift through all of that, abandon some even and stick to remembering the actual story behind it all.

Personally for me, I don’t need the tree 🌲, or much of the decor that comes with Christmas. Though not against them. I will admit, I do quite like the lights. As a Christian, of course I like lights! 🙂 Yes, yes, I know the enemy does transform as an “angel of light” in order to deceive. Anyhow, taking away all of that and reading the Bible, we would still have a point where we celebrate CHRISTmas, that is, the sending of Jesus, every time we read the first chapters of Matthew. And we who are Blood bought certainly give thanks for His coming.

With halloween, what remains when we take away all the “spooky”? Even if someone says they are doing it onto the Lord and dressing as something good, the Bible says we are to put on the armor of God, we are to take on the identity of Christ. So putting on the identity of anything else but that of Christ I think is stepping into muddy waters. There are consequences of putting on things even in innocence. (Hosea 4:6) Some have been left baffled by personality changes not knowing that they took on the identity of something sinister during “times of festivity, tricks and treats”. That should be enough reason. But if that’s not enough, there’s always the testimonies of ex-witches and ex-warlocks who make it well known that satanists delight in the fact that there are Christians participating in halloween.

In conclusion, both holidays are surrounded with things that are not of God. For halloween, people go missing. There is a celebration of darkness and death, the movies released in cinemas are dark and horrific. For Christmas, people over eat, focus on materialism, Santa Claus, jingle bells and end up in unnecessary debt. But when we clear the clutter of both, what do we find? Well we find that Christmas still stands with a tiding that brings great joy. A Savior who loves mankind so much that He left His throne, was born of a virgin, died on a Cross and 3 days later rose again. He conquered death! The same death which is glorified in halloween. The Christmas story climbs up to Life overcoming death.

My thoughts are similar for Easter but I hope we’d stop calling it that and say Passover or Passion Week or something. The root of the word Easter is in fact pagan. (Story for another day.) Not true for the word Christmas though, obviously. As we can see, some are so not in favor of Christ, they deduce it to “X-mas”. Others I reckon probably think it’s a cool short code. Again Hosea 4:6.

Let’s not feel guilty for enjoying the season of Christmas, for indeed when we strip away all the clutter that tries to stifle the true meaning of the season, we are still left with the account of His coming in the Holy Scriptures. And that’s enough reason to rejoice, certainly all year round, and appreciate the ultimate Gift, that is the Lord Jesus.

Seek Jesus Who is Wisdom

Lisa

That message from the White House is one of pure witchcraft. The prophets of Baal have forecasted their intent.
Lots of people often use 2 Chronicles 7:13 to claim God directly sent COVID. I don’t think He did. Obviously, He allowed it because what the enemy means for evil He can turn around for good. So He is is not freaked out by any of it. The data and circumstances surrounding COVID is only of confusion. God is not the author of confusion (1 Corinthians 14:33). God expects us to come to Him in this time. We learned from Solomon that in times of conflicting stories what we need is wisdom. We read that “The LORD by wisdom founded the earth; By understanding He established the heavens;” (Proverbs 3:19) and we also read “All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.” (John 1:3) We know that John 1 speaks of the Lord Jesus, it is then therefore clear that if it is wisdom we need in confusion and Jesus Himself is wisdom, we can conclude that we need to seek the LORD more fervently in times of confusion.

If you liked this message you may be interested in reading: “Why did God not tell us about Covid?”

Why did God “not tell us” about Covid?

Lisa

Disclaimer: This article contains some speculation for thinking purposes and in order to help us rightly divide the Scripture if a certain case were true. Ultimately, Deuteronomy 29:29 and Proverbs 3:5-6.

I once heard a pastor while preaching ask something like if there are all these prophets, why didn’t any of them forecast the onslaught of COVID?

I guess he was having some trouble with all the YouTube prophets etc prophesying this and that, blessings and riches and easily spoken prophesies and none of tidings of hardship. And to an extent he is absolutely correct. Because we see in the Bible the prophets of God didn’t always come with “all is well” tidings. Some were of impending judgement.

So this brings us back to the question, why didn’t God tell us about COVID? We cannot say that He didn’t. As we have not heard from every single prophet across the globe. Yet, even if He didn’t, so what, I don’t think He was obligated to.

But certainly He would say something one might say according to Amos 3:7. “Surely the Lord GOD does nothing, Unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets.”

Let’s suppose that no prophet across the globe knew about COVID. Since God cannot lie, it would then mean that He God did not send COVID. Because if He truly did, then He’d tell His prophets. It would then mean that if it is not of God then it is of the enemy. And the enemy when he presents the Word of God to us, he twists it to deceive us. But he himself must actually abide by the Word (Job 1). As he is ruled by his pride, has no creativity and counterfeits all that God does in order to appear as God, he copies. The devil does forecast his intentions with his prophets. Today, these are in the entertainment industry, the news organizations and the world of much finance, health and politics. Forecasts of COVID came through the mouth of Bill Gates, 2012 London Olympics Opening and many more. Just search the internet.

I for one am more inclined to believe that a prophet of God did actually know; the prophecy maybe just didn’t hit some of our ears and to the ears it did hit, it was perhaps ignored. Lord knows. Yet even if this is all a surprise to every believer across the face of the earth, it certainly doesn’t mean that prophecy no longer is alive and well, and it definitely doesn’t mean that God is not faithful to His Word and finally, it absolutely doesn’t mean He abandoned us in these times. God is FAITHFUL and He will never leave us or forsake us.

If you are struggling to know the truth in the midst of all the confusion, just seek Jesus. Leave what you don’t understand alone or at least set aside for a bit, and enjoy the company of Jesus, through praise and prayer. We relax with Him just like we’d relax with a loved one whom we enjoy their company. You know like when you don’t feel like stressing over the things of the world but just want to hang out with someone you enjoy and talk about pleasant memories and future plans? Sort of like that with God, but more, because He’s God and He doesn’t get tired of our wanting to be with Him. By the way, not to say that we aren’t supposed to talk to God about what’s bothering us, we absolutely can, yet we can rest assured that this is not the only conversation we can have with Him, and sometimes we can just “cool out” or relax with Him, worship Him, adore Him, be silent with Him and in turn just have Him love on us. He will always strengthen those who diligently seek Him.

You may be interested in: https://jesus-themessiah.com/seek-jesus-who-is-wisdom/