The Scrooge in Me- What Bugs Me about Christmas

I love Christmas! Don’t get me wrong. The family time, the joy of receiving gifts and giving them, all the lights on people’s houses, the music that plays in every grocery store and fast food restaurant, the possibility of snow, the excitement of children are all reasons why I love Christmas. However, what bugs me about Christmas is:

1) The focus/purpose is confused and blurry as Santa Clause can often get so much attention that Jesus Christ is only left as an eternally infantized baby in diapers.

2) No clear explanation of the significance of the birth of Jesus Christ is ever given.

3) The mentality that “Everyone goes to church on Christmas” (Why gather with a bunch of people who worship Christ as God once a year just because it is the day to commemorate His birth and neglect such gatherings the rest of the year?)

4) The virgin birth often goes untaught or altogether neglected as unimportant

5) People assume Jesus’ birth is the beginning of His existence and fail to see He had no beginning and will have no end.

6)The whole mission of Christ is neglected as all attention (or some) is given to His first few hours in a human body.

7) 364 days of the year (possibly excluding Easter) are spent neglecting the commands and teachings of Christ by most, while 1 day (or less) is spent focusing on His birth.

I hope and pray you will not follow in the tide of the majority of American culture, but will dig deeper into the significance of Jesus Christ’s coming to the earth. Spent some time in the Bible this year reading about what Jesus said of Himself, what others said about Jesus, and for the mission Jesus set out to accomplish (and did) for the world. Think about what this knowledge means for you, how you can apply it and honor the One who was born of a virgin that night. Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Santa Christ? or Santa Claus?

Santa Christ?

or

Santa Claus?

Hmmm…definitely something to think about, yeah I need to think about this.

I Never Cheated on My Taxes…

I heard a pastor open with this story at a funeral service I attended yesterday, it went something like this:

“A man dies and finds himself at the ‘Pearly Gates’ before St. Peter. As the man approaches the entrance to heaven, St. Peter stops him and says, “It takes 100 points to get into heaven, how many points do you have, sir?” The man thought long and hard and then said, “I don’t know how many points I have, I’ve lived a good life, I was a husband to one woman, a father to three children, a grandfather to six grandchildren, and I never cheated on my taxes…how many points is that?” St. Peter replied, “Oh, that’s only gonna get you 3 points. You still got 97 points left, what else you got?” The man thought even longer and harder, and said, “Well I went to church my whole life, and I always paid tithe every Sunday, that’s gotta count for something?” St. Peter said, “Yeah, it sure does, a total of 2 more points, gotta anything else?” The man was distraught and finally threw his hands up and said, “I guess all I have left to rely on is a little grace…” St. Peter inturputed and explained, “Oh, so you’ve got grace, well that equals 100 points, come on in.”"

      I don’t mean to criticize a person’s intention to wanting to share the Gospel, but I must admit I wanted to vomit when I heard this man cheapen and prostitute the Grace of my Savior Jesus Christ into a cliche, make-believe, point system!!! I could spend an entire month writingabout how theologically he was in error, but the larger issue I have with this type of “Modern Christianity” is that this style of preaching and teaching is a huge tumor in the church today. This tumor is most personified in ’Prosperity Gospel’ preaching. These people have, along with a slew of spiritually immature, scriptural ignorant, man-centered followers, prostituted the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ. They have taken the word of God and twisted it into a business scheme to embezzlebillions of dollars from weak minded people yearly. PEOPLE WAKE UP! You followers of this demonic theology/gospel, flee now! You people who lead or encourage this ungodly message your day of judgement is coming, STOP PREACHING, REPENT and Call upon the name of Jesus Christ, the savior of sinners. May God have mercy on your souls!