Holidays and Traditions

I’m back! Sorry I was away so long… I got caught up in the traditions of the Thanksgiving holiday. However, it was very worth it to have good times and good food with family and friends. I hope you all found something to be thankful for during this Thanksgiving season. If you saw my post on 11-09-2017, you saw an image that highlighted 30 days of thanks. It has been a challenge, but I have been posting my daily thanks on Facebook and Twitter. When the 30 days are up, I am hoping to continue my daily thanks, maybe not on social media, but definitely in my daily walk with God. I hope you all will join me in giving thanks every day.

I truly love the next holiday that is coming up! Christmas is my all-time favorite holiday for so many reasons, the main one being the birth of Jesus Christ my Savior. Of course, I know that was not the actual day Jesus was born. As a matter of fact, no one alive today knows the exact date Jesus was born. However, December 25 is the day we all choose to celebrate it. We always need to take the time to celebrate the important things in life. We celebrate birthdays all the time, so we should celebrate the most important birth in the history of mankind. By the same token, we also celebrate the lives of loved ones who have gone on to be with the Lord. As such, we need to celebrate Easter, or Resurrection Sunday, which glorifies the sacrificial death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

To me, Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving are the most important holidays for us to celebrate! Like the first 4 of the 10 Commandments, these holidays focus on our relationship with God, which should always be our main focus. Like the remaining 6 of the 10 Commandments, the remaining holidays that we celebrate focus on our relationships with each other.

The thing we need to be careful of are the traditions that are held in a higher regard than the commandments of God. Matthew 15 reminds us not to forsake the commandments of God by placing more importance on our traditions. Too many times, we judge and convict other people for not following the same traditions as us, while we ourselves are not following the commandments of God, the ONE who can condemn us to eternal death. What is more important here? One example is the Sabbath day. The commandment from God in Exodus 20:8 says “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.” It does NOT say remember the sabbath SATURday or remember the sabbath SUNday. It says remember the sabbath DAY. So, why are there arguments on which day should be remembered for the sabbath? This is a prime example of forsaking the commandment of God by holding a tradition in a higher regard. It does not matter to God which day you remember the sabbath. What matters to God is that you pick a day to remember the sabbath. Some people work on the weekends and have days off in the middle of the week. If a person chooses one of those days to remember the sabbath, God is pleased because that person has kept His commandment, so who are we to condemn that same person for not keeping it on Saturday or Sunday?

Bottom line, we need to understand what is important when celebrating our holidays and keeping with our traditions. With the Christmas holiday fast approaching, please do not put Santa Clause and your receiving of gifts above the importance of the birth of Jesus. Gifts were given to Jesus, but the important thing to note is that God GAVE us a Savior. Mary GAVE birth to Jesus. Joseph GAVE Mary support as she honored God. The importance is the GIVING, not the receiving. As for Santa Clause, you can portray him as being an important part of your Christmas, but please just do not make him more important that Jesus. That’s all I am going to say about that.

I hope this message was helpful to you, and I hope you come back next time. Until we meet again, I pray blessings for your life! Merry Christmas!