Whilst I’m onto my annual blog traditions, I thought I would re-share this post. It goes as a pair with the one I shared yesterday. If yesterday’s message was you are free to do what you want at Christmas, this one focuses more on the legitimacy of actually enjoying yourself. It extends well beyond applications to Christmas festivities, but there doesn’t seem to be a better time to think about this as we head into the Christmas period.
Christians have an unfortunate habit of managing to suck the joy out of almost anything. Christmas is a particularly favourite time to do so. Certainly anyone having a bit too much fun is a cause of some suspicion. But this kind of attitude can owe more to Gnostic or Catholic modes of thinking than God-honouring Christian thought. Jesus is all for joy and the reformation was all about the recovery of joy in God, which had been stolen by gospel deviation.
Check out the post below and see how you can have a truly very merry Christmas all to the glory of God. Let it help you not only enjoy Christmas, but to enjoy God and glorify him all the more in the rest of your life too.
In my early years as a Christian, I happened to mention to someone that, as a birthday treat, we’d taken our children to the cinema to see ‘101 Dalmatians.’ I was swiftly scolded and told with authority that ‘Christians don’t go to the cinema!’
To be considered a Christian back then, you had to follow a list of man made taboos….
Much easier to do that than to exercise a wise discernment…. Distinguishing between what’s good and what’s bad, what’s helpful and what’s harmful…..
Alas, that attitude never goes away!