Ready
or Not
(Here
come the Holidays)
“Afterward you may go and celebrate
because of all the good things the LORD
your God has given to you and your
household.”
Deuteronomy
26:11 (NLT)
Myself, along with many others, are saying, “I can’t
believe it’s already the middle of November and less than 2 weeks until
Thanksgiving!” I’m sure you’ll realize
it when you go into stores and everything is decorated for Christmas. It makes you want to shout, “Hey – I still
have a wreath on my front door of autumn leaves. My turkey banner isn’t even out yet and you
want to remind me of Christmas?”
Not wanting to make a fool of myself, I scoot right
past Christmas and head for the greeting cards that say, Happy
Thanksgiving. Then I gather up the
things to make my pumpkin pies and find out there is a shortage of pumpkin pie
filling this year. Many stores already
raised their prices on cans of pumpkin because they know people will buy it
anyway. What’s Thanksgiving without
pumpkin pie? I am so thankful that I don’t have to put on a big dinner; we have
2 chefs and many great cooks in our family, so that leaves me with just the
pies.
Some Christians put too much thought in thinking they
shouldn’t enjoy all these holidays because we should keep our minds on our Lord
and Savior. Then think about this; it
makes God happy to see families gather together and celebrate the fruit of
their labor. In fact I want you to
concentrate on this scripture in Deut. 26:11: “Go celebrate because of all the
good things the Lord God has given to you and your household.”
There are many feast days celebrated in the Bible and
ours may be different than they were in Bible times, but as long as we honor
God in what we do – enjoy!
Then here comes Christmas right on the heels of
Thanksgiving. There are two ways to look
at the Christmas season and the first one is this. It is called Happy Holidays and is considered
a time of parties, drinking and lavish gift-giving. According to our government this is the
correct way to celebrate; no Christmas carols, no manger scenes, or anything
that uses the name of Jesus. The reason
is that we might offend people who are not Christians – mainly Muslims.
The second way of celebrating is to sing Christmas
carols; put up manger scenes and angels on our front lawn so people will know that
we celebrate the Birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. We celebrate with pageants depicting the
night that Jesus was born with shepherds, wise men and the Christmas Star. We greet one another with, “Merry Christmas”
and give gifts to each other in remembrance of the Wise men bringing gifts to
Baby Jesus on that Holy Night.
Christians all over the world celebrate the Birth of
Jesus and it is a blessed time. Yes, we
decorate houses and trees and ourselves for Christmas. Some of it is because of traditions, but
there would be nothing to celebrate if Jesus had not been born.
I wonder what the ‘Happy Holidayers’ celebrate? Without Christ, it would just another few
days off work, an excuse for more drinking and partying. When it’s all over and
the year has ended, there’s nothing left for them but a big letdown. For Christians we are reminded that Jesus was
born and came to this earth to forgive us and pay for all our sins. It prepares
our hearts and minds with thankfulness and joy because our Savior has come. It also prepares us to Worship and Adore Him
and when the year has ended, we still have Jesus! And the blessed hope is that He is Coming Again!
Happy
Thanksgiving and a Merry Christmas!
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