In John chapter 4:24, Jesus said God is a Spirit and they that worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Notice the verse say "must". I looked up the definition of the word "must": be obliged to ; should (expressing necessity). Something that should not be overlooked or missed. So Jesus said it is of utmost necessity that we worship God not only in spirit but in truth. Christmas meet the first test because many people are deceived into thinking it's really about Jesus and they worship in spirit but it fails the test of truth because it is not Jesus' birthday.
Christmas as it's widely known was the celebration of the birth of the sun god 🌞, called Mithra by the Persian, Nimrod (Tammuz ) by the Babylonians, Helios of the Greeks. December 25 was the date the pagans used to celebrate the birth of their gods. As part of the celebration there were drunken, raucous parties. Christmas was a period of decadence and moral corruption. So how did Christians come to accept this pagan practice and Christianized it ? Christians came to accept this pagan practice as corruption started to slowly creep into the church. The nominal conversion of the Roman Emperor Constantine accelarated the work of corruption in the Christian church.
When the Roman Emperor became "a Christian", "the world cloaked with a form of righteousness entered into the church. Now the work of corruption rapidly progressed. Paganism while appearing to be vanquished became the conqueror. Her spirit controlled the church. Her doctrines, ceremonies, and superstitions were incorporated into the faith and worship of the professed followers of Christ ". (Great controversy 49.2) . Basically the Devil became a "Christian" and he struck a compromise with the Christians. "I will stop persecuting you if you accept my practices into your faith", and the Christian world agreed. Took on many of the pagan practices and gave them Christian names .
Some of the customs adopted from paganism were Christmas ( the birthday of the sun god 🌞). Pope Julius I chose December 25. Sunday 🌞, the day of the Sun, Sol invictus, the day the pagans used to worship the sun god replaced the sabbath day given by God in the 10 commandments, Exodus 20. Many other pagan customs such as Mary worship, idol worship came into the Christian church and adopted Christian names, as the world came into the church unconverted. Satan had gained a major victory over the people of God and corruption rapidly progressed leading to the period called the dark ages when the Papacy ( antichrist) had almost absolute rule in christendom.The problem with Christmas is that not only it is based on falsehoods but it is vain worship to God. In Matthew 15: 7- 9.Jesus said, You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied correctly about you: These people honor honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship Me in vain; they teach as doctrine the commandments of men. Christmas is major example of vain worship, it is not a commandment of God but a human tradition. The Roman catholic Papacy rejected the sabbath commandment of God and put in its place numerous commandments of men such as Christmas, sunday sacredness, idol worship, Easter, the mass etc.. All false and vain worship.
The secret things belong to the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law. Deuteronomy 29:29. The birthday of Jesus is one of the secret things God chose not to reveal. If God wanted us to celebrate the birth of Christ, He would have revealed the date in the Bible, but He chose not to. To come up with things that God did not reveal is to add to His Word and adding to God's Word will only lead to deception and corruption. Christmas is a deception on a global scale. But God did reveal how we should celebrate Jesus, by giving our lives to Him.
Jesus did come into the world to save sinners like me and you, we can celebrate that every day by going into prayer and say Lord I bring you the best gift that I have, my heart 🎁, take my heart for I cannot give it. Take this little gift of mine because you have given me the greatest gift of all, eternal life, union with you. We don't need a holiday based on falsehoods to honor Jesus, we can honor Jesus by living a pure life in spirit and in truth. So friends, let us never give in to error and falsehoods just because some good can come out of it, for God is able to bring good out of an unclean thing. Just like God is able to purify me and you from our sins. But it doesn't mean we should go on sinning just so God can purify us. Likewise God is able to use the " Christmas holiday" , to bring awareness to His gospel but it doesn't mean we should celebrate something we know to be false .
The problem with Christmas 🎄 is that it is falsehood ,but we can use the time to evangelize to others that Jesus did come into the world to save sinners like me and you. We can give people literatures about Christ during that time, we can do wonderful work for God during that time but we don't have to wait for December 25 to do all that, we can do that all year around. Friends, let us opposed all falsehoods, let us worship God in spirit and in truth. And if you want a holiday to celebrate Jesus, God has given us the sabbath day , the 7th day , a weekly holiday of rest to come celebrate Him. No need for pagan falsehoods. Let our prayers be Lord ,help me to worship you in spirit and in truth
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