We're Not Putting X-Mas Trees Up!

[Esther]

Originally Posted by Digging4Truth

This is the way I see it. Pagan influences are found in our everyday life. This is for sure.

What I seek to monitor is any mixture of what is from the worship of other gods with what I use in worship to my God.

God doesn't like the mixture and that is what I seek to shun.

Mars hill was named after a pagan deity of war. But we still hear that name reiterated in the Word. There was no attempt on Paul's part to try to get them to change the name of the hill. He simply preached Christ to them without condemnation.

Nor did Paul attempt to adapt any of their methods by which they worshiped their false deities into his own worship of the true and living God.

The third month of the year is named after that same god. I have no Biblical mandate to get this world to change its secular ways and rename all of their months & days... I just preach Christ without condemnation during all of those months & days.

It seems to me to be a wise and prudent balance that I not attempt to have this world change it's names to suit me while I attempt, at the same time, to ensure that none of their ways find their way into my worship either.

Thursday is not something I offer to God as worship. It is a day in which I live and move and have my being in Him.

If the name of the day becomes part of my worship then I have begun to cross a line.

We are in the world but not of the world. We are in this world and have to consist therein. But none of these pagan influences that we meet day by day need find their way in the way I form my worship to the true and living God.

Though i live my life daily in a world full of spiritual impurities... I can still work with all that is within me to keep that offering of worship that I give to Him free of those influences.

And here is the key to all of this, what are you worshipping? I doubt any of us are worshipping our trees. Good grief!