Christ or Santa

Many holidays today have two different celebrations or connotations - one worldly, and the other Christian.

The world celebrates Easter with Easter bunnies and Easter eggs, new clothes and spring breaks - heralding the coming of spring. But Easter is a holy day for Christians. A time when we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, His victory over sin and death, and our hope for eternal life. It is a very special day for us.

Christmas is another such holiday. For the world it is Xmas, Happy Holidays, Santa Claus coming down the chimney, and toys. But for Christians, Christmas celebrates the miracle of the virgin birth and the coming of our Saviour. We realize that God loves us so much that He came into our world to live and die among us, and teach us how to live both now and for all eternity.

2 Timothy 4:3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; 4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.

Paul is warning Timothy that in his day there would come a time when people would just as soon believe a fable over the truth. Sounds like today's world, doesn't it? Nothing shows up quicker than when we come to celebrate Easter & Christmas. Even Christians teach their children the worldly fables as if they are truth to their young, vulnerable children.

Santa is NOT real and should have no part of the Christmas story in a believer's home. Our children believe what we tell them. If we "pretend" which is really LIE to our children about Santa Claus when we we come clean and tell them that we were lying to them? Who will be the first to say to them, "Santa is NOT true!" Your child will be needlessly hurt.

If Santa has to be brought up around your home because the children are taught this story at every level of their schooling, couldn't you just tell them the truth? "Santa is a made up fairy tale. He is like a clown. He is just a man dressed up like a common clown to teach children to be friendly. There is NO REAL Santa Claus, it is just make believe."

Your child will probably go, "Oh, okay mom! Thanks!" Then they can see and understand the Santa Claus story WITHOUT the confusion of a parent saying "He's real!" That's a LIE!

I encourage us to tell the story of Jesus, Mary and Joesph. Keep this story alive. It's TRUE! It is the story of the ages! It's over 2000 years old and is the foundation to your children's faith later on.

We choose what and who we worship during this season of celebration. Chose to celebrate and worship ONLY the Christ. The world is going to do it's best, (now says, "Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas") to take this season as their own, let's take it back to a focus of Christ and His coming or do like the early church and not even celebrate this season at all.

By definition, we worship what we choose to give the supreme devotion of our feelings, time and energies to. God must command us to worship Him because we can choose to give our feelings, time and energies to things other than God. Therefore, acceptable worship of God involves consciously choosing to worship and serve only Him even in the face of the temptation to give these things to others.

You can't be in love with anything without letting your mouth, knees, hands, body know about it. God's loves to see His children teaching their children the proper ways of God. Remember how the Lord first instructed the children of Israel to be careful to teach the true ways of God to their children:

Deuteronomy 6:4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one! 5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. 6 “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.