By:Curtis Morton
The way I see it, if we could only expend the same energy in preparing for eternity, the way we prepare for one significant day of the year, we would be in good spiritual and physical standing.
Trust me, every year we get caught up preparing for the Christmas day -25th of December.
The world celebrates it as the significant date of the birth of Jesus, who eventually died ‘to save the world from their sins.’
Now some of us recognize the fact that based on the fact that shepherds were tending their flock in the fields, suggest that it could not have been in the midst of winter and a quick search with our good friend GOOGLE, would confirm and I quote:
“It wasn’t until 350 AD, when the then Bishop of Rome, Pope Julius I, fixed the official Christmas day on December 25. Unfortunately Julius I didn’t show his working out on how he reached this date; some scholars later suggested that it was calculated as nine months after the Annunciation (March 25), when the angel Gabriel is said to have appeared to Mary and told her she would bear the son of God. Whatever the reasoning, it is clear that, just as key pagan sites were being chosen for new churches, so too the date was chosen with the intention to catapult Christmas into becoming a major festival by placing it over the pre-existing pagan festivals.”
So, it is indeed a pagan holiday but that is not really important. What we need to remember is that Jesus Christ was indeed BORN and that even more importantly, he lived a sinless life and DIED to save us-MANKIND from our sins and offer us a chance to eternal life in heaven.
So in reality, whether we celebrate the day or not, our focus should be on showing the love and care exhibited by Christ, towards our fellowmen—and not just for a few days at the end of December, but all year round.
God allows us to receive so that we in turn can share with others who are less fortunate than ourselves.
How can God bless us more if we refuse to share from our filled cups? He can’t pour in more in the cup, if we selfishly keep it filled and HOGGING it to ourselves.
Then we focus more on the fictitious Santa Claus than our dear Lord and Saviour.
I think I told you that up to when I was about ten years old, my parents had convinced me that the gifts we got every Christmas, limited as they were, came from Santa Claus. Now, don’t get me wrong, my parents obviously meant well but they were setting a wrong precedence.
I remember having a heated argument with a sarcastic Phillip Huggins, a former neighbour, as he made the startling revelation that there was really no Santa Claus and when I confronted my parents, they eventually came clean.
I hurt me so much to admit that Phillip was right.
Well I newa!
Then again, I may be a little controversial here, but parents and guardians must be mighty selective in the choice of gifts they purchase for their children.
I mean, isn’t logical that the more I play with a toy gun, that when the opportunity of a real one presents itself, I would also be happy to experiment with it?
One fellow told me that I have a point but it is blunt, because our generation grew up on toy guns and we did not graduate to the real ones.
I asked him one sobering question that effectively shut him up: Have you ever seen or held a real gun? His answer was ‘No.’
What I am saying is that if I had been presented with a real gun in my youthful days, the amount of Sheriff and robbers we played in those early years, I cannot tell you honestly that I would not have wanted to test it.
Thank God I know better now and vow to stay far from those things.
Then the mothers present their little girls with dolls. Now there was a time that there were regular old dolls but nowadays, they have dolls that CRY; dolls that TALK and dolls that actually get wet and need pampers changed.
Well I newa!
So, here is a young girl, using feeding bottle, changing pampers and the whole works, with a doll. Isn’t it logical, that they would soon want to graduate to the real thing?
Think about it my brothers and sisters and so I highly recommend educational tools, as Christmas gifts. You can’t lose with those.
Finally, I would just like to take time out to wish all of my many readers a blessed seasons and a spirit -filled and happy 2017.
May we allow the great God of the universe to take center stage in our lives.
That’s the way I see it. How do you see it?