The Second Idolatry

Dear Carol, I do not know what group is saying what you wrote: however, a short testimony of my life to let you know some of my background. I am 77 years old, my husband nearly 82, 58 years of marriage, many children, grands, and now three little greats! We have been in God’s Word all of our lives; serious Bible students, degrees from Christian college or Universitues, also we bought had professions in Christian schools, or U., about 39 years ago, after “seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness desperately, being immersed, inundated, filled with His Holy Spirit, according to God’s Word. We both minsiter regularly one on one ,with many people in all areas of need, as the Lord shows us whom and how. Another new military man this week, placed directly in our path, actually he surprised us, when he jumped up from working on his motorcycle, and desperatly asked for prayer ; just arrived here out of training to fly U.S. Black Guard Helicopter, going to Afghan in May, been to Iraq once & third trip to Afghan. His wife chose the house near us on line, then refused to move here with him, and took their two very young children and went home to her mother. He came that night and ate with us, and we counciled him with the Lord’s Word, and prayed with him, and will continue; he is a committed Christian.— And then we have been reading Skip since 2002.

So with that background; In my opinion , it seems to me that you may be in a group that is very legalistic about certain things, and the OT is full of verses against that—- But I want to say all true seeking Bible Christians, say repeatedly that all verses should be in CONTEXT–the entire chapter or portion that it goes with. Skip regularly writes, remember context, context!

Now how many verses are there in context on having or not having birthday celebrations?

I use regularly Psalm 127:3 when a new baby is born, I hand write it in on a nice card; three different versions. The verse states, ” Behold children are a gift of the Lord…. a reward– or a real blessing”. Then I write beneath it and state, please keep this on your refrigerator to remind you, when it does not seem that way!” and put it on a magnet, with a a gift–usually something I have made, such as a blanket, qulit, stroller or highchair liner– everyone I know loves to give baby gifts, so why not a birthday card to anyone of any age?

Encouragement is needed at any age! And there are many scriptures on “encouraging, or variations of the word: Look in your Bible concordance & find some to suit you. I chose these on encourage: Acts 4:36-… “Barnabas ..(which interpreted means Son Of Encouragement..; Romans 15:5- and Who supplies encouragement grant you to live in — and plenty of other references on encouragement.
Carol, I also want to remind you about the Jewish celebrations: many of the Old Testament Feast celebrated were times of great joyous occasions, dancing, eating, drinking, praising the Lord, etc.; such as Feast of Tabernacles, Sukkoth, booths. Look some of these HEBREW FESTIVALS up, even a good dictionary, or on line. GOD COMMANDED THESE TO BE CELEBRATED! SO SEEMS SOME PEOPLE ARE MIS-INTERPRETATING CELEBRATIONS!

There should be more than one reference in context, in the written Word, to any important lesson the Lord ( Yahew– G_D–the Great I AM–or any other of His Holy Names ) wants us to learn.
I ALSO WANT TO SAY THAT YOU HAVE THE HOLY SPIRIT LIVING IN YOU, ( IF INDEED YOU KNOW HIM, AND IF HE HAS CONVICTED YOU OF SOME OF THESE TEACHINGS, PAY ATTENTION; BUT IF YOU ARE LIVING AND WALKING AND HAVE YOUR BEING IN THE LORD, AND HE HAS NOT SHOWN YOU WHAT THE OTHERS ARE SAYING WITHOUT BIBLE TEXT THAT SHOW IT VERY CLEARLY IN CONTEXT, THEN DO NOT FOLLOW THE OTHER’S TEACHINGS. MANY PEOPLE ARE IN ERROR OVER BIBLE TEACHINGS, EVEN THOSE THAT ARE IN THE CHURCH EACH TIME THE DOORS ARE OPENED, AND ALSO LEADERSHIP CAN EASILY BE, TOO!!!!! BUT, ( as Carl Roberts states,”he loves those Bible buts”)
Yes, there are many Holidays that are right out of Satan’s territory; meaning they may have first been celebrated by worshiping idols. Satanic– Example, Halloween–certainly the Druids ( in the older encyclopedic Britannia it tells of these people offeriring up their children to idols at that time of the year. Skip recently mentioned how much money in the U.S. is spent on Halloween, seems like over a billion dollars. ( hope that is correct–but it is outrageous amount anyway! and he stated how much will be spent at Christmas—ten times more–) Now that is straight from sinful behavior, to say the least!
For years, I have battled the Christmas thing, even when I was a young mother of our first two, and I had never heard one person , not even dedicated Christians complain about Church treatment of the Lord’s birth, with Santa, all the tinsel, elaborate gifts, excessive food– I wrestled with it. ( Even though , as a four year old child in 1937, in our country Baptist Church, we had a tree, Santa came, and gave ever child a small brown paper sack of about four pieces of fruit and nuts, and one piece of candy and one stick of gum.) — But as a grown up mother, and the anguished I had over large excessive Christmas celebrations, the Lord showed me how at that time to handle it; it worked for us: No Santa Clause, just stated each time he was mentioned, that it was make believe, like fairies, ghosts,and then reminded them of the Luke 2 story, and santa had nothing to do with the real Christmas. In fact they all memoraized it, and said it for our low key family celebration. We kept the gifts minimun as we chose to give to a Lottie Moon Mission offering of the same amount as we spent on gifts. Plus here were never any gifts charged ( no credit cards in those years 1953— 1960’s, at least for us. Then later when we had a credit card, we charged only what could be paid in thirty days–PERIOD! ——– I just recalled that our first Christmas tree was a large tumble weed sprayed, and gumdrops put on it, and we hung it from the ceiling with a pretty string. ———

One more thing; since many people in this group celebrate the Sabbath, starting Fri.evening until Sat. evening, and then some of them also go to Churches on Sunday, for various good reasons; I have noticed that week-ends often have small numbers commenting. So hope you are not disappointed in that. I will pray for you to have peace over this bothersome issue to you, and also perhaps I wrote some things that will help you. May you go in His Love wrapped around you. Yes, remember to :” Speak the truth with love!” LaVaye Billings–