9 And he continued, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe[c] your own traditions!
This smacked me a little this morning. What a wonderful time of year, I love the up coming Christmas break we get at work and the kids from school. I love all the time we get to spend together. Yet its ironic that in the US we have a tendency to make this time of year about the gifts we get not the gift He is. Now as I have gotten older its definitely not about the gifts for me, but finding the right gift for the kids or Gina which isn't bad in and of itself. But in the US where we have so much wealth we all have the risk of worshiping the god of have great stuff. What is worse, we instill this in our kids starting at a very young age. So here one of our most important holiday's, the celebration of the birth of the world' Savior has been set to the side not completely eliminated certainly diminished as we observe our tradition of opening lots of great stuff!
no harm intended, but certainly a potential for harm created.
So as we approach Christmas day, here is to trying to keep Jesus at the focal point!
knut
This one has been on my mind a lot this season. I've been having the same thoughts. I even went as far as trying to convince my family that we shouldn't put up a tree next year, and that we should have some sort of representation of the birth of Christ.....just to show where our allegience is. It didn't go over so well. So that forced me to research where the idea of the Christmas tree comes from. Its not as bad as I thought. But, I definitely am feeling the same thing you are. One thing that I did say to the family that they liked was to think about the gift giving in a different way. What would Jesus give as a gift to Kim or the kids. That made them think a little bit. Might be something to think about for next year. You wouldn't buy something temporary for each other...it would have to be something of greater meaning.
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more later
i like the gift idea...help me remember next year!
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