As children we liked to get as close to the edge of pretty much everything. Some of us, like me, were just plan hard-headed. Really. How long could it hurt? How far will I fall? Just how bad could the consequences be, anyway? As far as getting a spanking was concerned, it always ended and was never as bad as expected. It was soon a distant memory.
Had my first plane trip when I was 6. I jumped off ledges. At 9 I walked a ledge around the second story of our apartment building. Ran away from home at 12 on a passenger train. That was not as adventurous as it sounds. My aunt bought the ticket for me and my father was waiting for me at the destination. I would rather have a beating than get a lecture. A spanking was over when they tired, but that voice seemed to go on and on and on.
But that was then; 50 years and a lifetime ago.
Today is different. Today, I watch as Christians, those who have become reborn, a child of GOD, try to walk as far from GOD as possible. Of one thing I am certain, my Salvation was a totally free gift from GOD; I did nothing to gain Salvation and therefore can do nothing to lose Salvation. I can, however, grieve the HOLY SPIRIT.
But knowing that GOD will never leave me nor abandon me, should I really want to see how far away from HIM I can stray without severing that sweet communion we have? While liberty has been bestowed upon me by GOD'S Grace and I am free to choose holiness, the HOLY SPIRIT has also come to live within me, give me comfort, support the Will of GOD, and encourage me to do HIS Will and not my own. Each time that I choose my own way, I grieve the HOLY SPIRIT and the HOLY SPIRIT'S voice of reason is heard less and less until it is ignored altogether. If I truly am a child of GOD, it should grieve my own spirit and cause my heart to weep unconsolably to know that I, in my own stupidity and pridefulness, have quenched the ONE thing that wants above all else to Comfort me and bring me back into sweet communion.
And that brings me to celebrating pagan holidays disguised as having innocent fun or even worse yet, mocking evil. Evil and sin (which to me are one in the same) are nothing more than disobedience to the WILL OF GOD. Are we truly authorized to mock sin? Or are we to spread the Gospel and lead lost souls to CHRIST? The answer is clear. Flaunting our Salvation and dressing up in innocent costumes to taunt the Devil and his emmisaries is found nowhere in Scripture. The Old Testament shows the Prophet of GOD mocking the priests of Baal and asking them if their god was on the toilet and unable to respond to their requests, but he did not dress up in an angel costume when he did so. At no time in the New Testament does it show anyone of GOD'S people dressing in costume, flaunting their Christianity, and/or tempting Satan.
In the New Testament, Gentiles who became Christians were not commanded to participate in Jewish rituals, such as circumcision. Nor were Christian Jews told to cease celebrating their rituals, such as circumcision. When Gentiles (which is anyone who is not Jewish) were saved, they repented of their sin, just as the Jews did and became a new creature in THE LORD JESUS CHRIST.
Is our participation in questionable holy days (holidays) simply a form of walking to close to the edge of the precipice? Are we taunting the dark side (evil), daring it to try to win? Or are we, Christians, being just plain stiff-necked and pride-filled in trying to go our own way?
Paul said that he did not do the things he should do and did the things that he should not and did not want to do because of the battle that rages within. We all suffer from that battle. The HOLY SPIRIT is at war with the flesh that we reside in for the simple reason that our flesh has not been reborn, only our soul.
As you go through each day, ask yourself if what you are about to do is a matter of your own pride or is it what GOD has chosen for you to do?
Shalom! Pray for the PEACE of Jerusalem!
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