Christians Together : When was Jesus born?

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	Scrooge (Guest)	02/12/2013 19:00
Editor, What can I say to your suggestion ? Don't you think that I've read Romans 14 ? Many times - just as Ive read Colossians 3/16: Let the word [spoken by] Christ (the Messiah) have its home [in your hearts and minds] and dwell in you in [all its] richness, as you teach and admonish and train one another in all insight and intelligence and wisdom [in spiritual things, and as you sing] psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, making melody to God with [His] grace in your hearts. AMP I suppose, as I sign off - and out, that I've made the mistake of assuming........... too much
	Colin Ford (Guest)	02/12/2013 20:50
I was saved under the Name above ALL names; Jesus Christ. A couple of years later, I was troubled by 'friends' in the Hebrew roots movement, and shortly afterwards went around telling everyone Jesus was a pagan name, and that we should NOT use it, and call Him Yahshua, Yahashua, Yeshua or whatever. That we shouldn't call Him 'Baal'; use 'Elohim' for God, or G-d, and 'Adonai' for Lord, etc. Now I am not laying this particular charge to Scrooge. We started celebrating all the Jewish feasts, and rejected the so-called 'unbiblical pagan' Christian ones. Rejected Sun-Day, started a Kosher diet, couldn't bring myself to use the pagan names for days of the week anymore etc (I know some who still don't). I made so, so many mistakes, hurt some people, no doubt, with my 'new revelation' until I realised that I was a GENTILE saved only by the grace of God. The influence of Paganism is, well, nigh, everywhere? We cannot avoid it, can we? But also we cannot become self-styled legislators can we, Matthew 22.21 KJV? Some may accuse me of using this verse out of context, I am not so sure, as the same principle applies? Although many believe this to be/was a Christian land, certainly Great Britain was blessed enormously by God, the Protestant Reformation, KJV Bible etc, but the Roman influence never departed. Some in the Hebrew/roots Messianic movement would have us reject much of what Paul teaches as well. Judaism most especially, being a Pharisee??? As Ed says Romans 14 is a good chapter to read, especially Romans 14.5 KJV. What many forget is that God gave His PERFECT law to CORPORATE Israel, NOT to the Gentiles. The ceremonial, civic law was abolished when the temple was destroyed. It is ONLY the 10 commandments that were left binding on believers. The Law is the way of life for the NT believer, the way of life is the cross. I DON'T want to digress too much here... Again, there is truth in some of what Scrooge asserts. This stuff ALWAYS comes out at this time of year. If Scrooge is still around, I wonder if he or his wife will buy food in a supermarket where Santa is displayed in GREAT prominence? Please tell me where THAT place is?? Penny, don't chuck your turkey out!
	Colin Ford (Guest)	02/12/2013 20:55
After a quick read, I meant; "the way TO life is the cross".
	Scrooge (Guest)	02/12/2013 21:51
If Scrooge is still around .......... Only just Colin, curiousity brought me back before I turned my computer off for the evening...... My wife and I have no problem frequenting supermarkets displaying Santa....he is afterall being kept in his place I'll leave you with this article which I wrote many years ago now: Slay Bells. During the approach to Christmas Day 1995, while quickly flicking through the pages of an abandoned tabloid which I had stumbled across in some now long forgotten place, I had a strange experience - one which I'd never encountered before, or met since Who knows what processes the human mind uses as it attempts to assimilate data which the eyes have gleaned from an over hasty scan of any information presented to them. All I know is that on the occasion to which I refer, my brain must have been working about two or three pages behind its intake of visual information, because my quick browse through the paper was brought to an abrupt halt when the headline from a previously viewed page registered late in my consciousness. The particular caption which stopped me dead in my tracks was: SATAN RULES - OK. 'Surely not', I reprimanded myself as I quickly backtracked to re-read the heading. And the self-censorship was justified, for the actual wording read: SANTA RULES - OK Faced with the evidence of the first word on its second and more deliberate reading, I had no alternative but to dismiss my first interpretation as some form of dyslexic aberration borne from an over-stretched mind. But on hindsight, and as I began to reflect on how the true Spirit of Christ has always been eclipsed to varying degrees by that wretched and unwholesome spirit of Christmas, I started to wonder whether or not my mind had misinterpreted the captions message. There but for the camouflage of one misplaced letter: Could SATAN be the spiritual reality behind SANTA - that mythical character with the red suit and white beard who lives at the North Pole? Could Santa, that 'larger than life' benefactor who ‘contributes’ to the erroneous celebration of Christ's birth around the time of the winter solstice each year, really be satanic in his inspiration? Is Santa, Satan's son - a diabolical lie born into this world, via the fecund womb of mankind's naturally godless imagination, to provide yet another diversion from God's true expression - Jesus Christ? Could it be said that SANTA is the friendly guise and that SATAN is the underlying spiritual malignancy - the instigating spirit behind his progeny's omnipotent, jovial, generous, and totally Christ detracting performances in the three months leading up to mid-winter each year? Is Santa pro-Christ, or is he anti-Christ? Has the myth of Santa Claus been sired in the minds of men in union with the Spirit of Truth - the Spirit of Christ, or has it been spawned by the imaginations of men in collusion with the father of lies - the spirit of Satan? Would the Spirit of Truth give its seed to the conception and birth of a mythical character who, when fully developed by acquisitive humanity, would then stand against absolutely everything that Jesus Christ lived and died for? Is God almighty a fool? Would God sire and give birth to the only human expression of His Eternal Truth - to His only begotten Son here on Earth, only to encourage the divine light from that truth to be eclipsed in the hearts and minds of adults and children by a lie - by an absurd caricature which has no mortal reality, far less any eternal integrity? No, God is not a fool, and neither does He give Himself to the fathering of lies in the minds of men. Santa is a lie, therefore Santa is Satan's son - and not his only son, but one of a multitude of offspring who have been sired, incubated in, and born from the minds of men to compete with, and supplant the truth and reality of Jesus Christ. Santa is Satan's brain child - as are all of the pagan myths and traditions, including Christmas, which so encrust the true Spirit of Christ - as indeed are all of the false god's, counterfeit religions and phoney Christian doctrines, traditions and ceremonies which have so occluded the true light of Christ from dawning in the hearts and minds of nations and generations of men, women and children for the last two millennium. Late one autumn (not December 25) about two thousand years ago in the town of Bethlehem, Jesus Christ was born in a shepherds' bothy - the latter being a natural cave set in a hillside, the walls and ceiling of which would have been heavily soot stained from generations of shepherds' fires. Soon after the birth, Joseph, Mary and the infant Jesus moved from that cave into a nearby house where they were visited (up to two years later) by an unstated number of wise men. Learned men who had been led to the infant Christ by a star in the sky - that Star of Bethlehem being the only one which God has ever encouraged mankind to follow. And in light of what the birth of Christ represents to almost everyone who wrongly 'celebrates' it around the winter solstice, the perplexing thing is that those wise men did not go there to worship their own imperfect humanity - they didn't go to there to focus on, magnify and deify Mary. And neither did they travel to Bethlehem armed with their own 'carry outs' - with their own spiritual brews and concoctions intent on ignoring Christ and organising their own religious pomp and ceremony. And having arrived, they didn't then proceed to exchange their gifts among themselves for their own self gratification. No, they went there out of a real recognition of who the infant Jesus was, to pay homage to Him as God incarnate, and present their gifts to Him. Gifts which, in their giving, symbolised their recognition of Christ and His divine ministry - and the offering of their beliefs to Him. And Satan, that murderer of reality, truth and life, knows the redeeming value of that simple gift of faith in Christ. And he knows it well. Which is why, even now in the bleak mid-winter of mankind's presence here on earth, he, together with his army of hellish, elfish emissaries, are still working tirelessly away in some infernal grotto to inspire the production of all sorts of gaily coloured spiritual toys - alluring distractions - man-made facsimiles and virtual realities - religious amphetamines and barbiturates - spiritual hallucinogens and carcinogens - synthetic gods, counterfeit religions, spurious Christian doctrines, pagan myths, occult beliefs and secular philosophies - all to compete with, and if possible substitute themselves in the minds of mortals for the simple belief in the eternally redeeming truth of Christ's birth, His life, His sacrifice at Calvary and His resurrection. And in considering all of the manifesting, murderous aspects of Satan's hellish inspiration which now permeate and enslave our society - and which suppress the true Spirit of Christ at any time of the year, it has to be admitted that as far as 'new age' Britain (let’s remove Bibles from all hotel bedrooms) is concerned: SATAN aka SANTA RULES - OK A week or so after my experience with the abandoned tabloid and while browsing the newspapers displayed on a supermarket stand, I caught sight of the front page of a tabloid which comprised a child's letter. The child was the eight year old son of Philip Lawrence - a schoolmaster who had been murdered several days previously in the grounds of his own school - St George's Roman Catholic School, Westminster. The letter was addressed to Santa/Father Christmas, and in it the youngster was asking Santa to give him his father back as a Christmas present. If that child eventually succeeds in penetrating the dense curtain of myth and spiritual deception which was so occluding his spiritual perception at that time - if that child eventually communicates directly with Christ, and not Santa or any of his spiritual siblings, then he will come to recognise the cruel and tragic irony which was conveyed in his letter - that irony being that it was Santa's two-faced, malignant and murderous influence working within our occult disposed, religiously godless and spiritually blinded society which took his father's life in the first place.
	Penny Lee	02/12/2013 23:43
I am not offended by any of the comments directed at me, or in my defence. I am completely at peace with my involvement in Christmas and Easter. I also respect others right not to observe them, as already referred to in Romans 14. I know only too well what areas I fall down in and they don't involve seasonal festivities! If we have any real relationship with God, we rarely need to have others point them out to us. That doesn't mean we deal with them but God alone will convict us of that, and when necessary, discipline us until we do deal with them.
	innocent bystander (Guest)	03/12/2013 09:10
Penny Lee, I think you're being short-sighted in your understanding of how God's Holy Spirit ministers His blessings to us. Yes, He ministers directly to us, but we are not isolated individuals and we certainly have no eternal reality outwith the ocntext of the body of Christ. So it is reasonable to assume that God can and will minister to us using other members of the body, rather than directly. It will keep us from being selfishly independent So when you profess that you, as an individual, are completely at peace with your attitude to Easter and Xmas, that peace is no guarantee of God's favour. Given everything which has been written in this thread I think you owe it to yourself and the other contributors to seek God's impartial and selfless view on the matter.
	Derek (Guest)	03/12/2013 09:23
At the weekend I was reading a very interesting article about a sermon an American Pastor preached regarding the issue of sin. During sermon he explained that the book of James says that the Bible is like a mirror, and we are supposed to open it and see what is going on in our own lives, judge our own lives and reflect. But he went on to say that what the Christian community has done, is they have taken the Bible and turned it into a window to look through and see what everyone else is doing. He said, “we (the church) spend so much time looking through the window that we don't have time to look in the mirror." The Pastor added and underlined that what God has given us is "standards to live by, not stones to throw at other people. That’s when we turn the Bible from a mirror to window, we minimize our sins and maximize the sins of other people, and nothing could be more unChrist-like."
	John Miller	03/12/2013 09:41
Derek I like your analogy. We are called to have a judgement of evil, that is clear. I know that as I look into my own heart I see there the propensity to try and shine God's truth on others instead of starting with myself. Thanks for sharing that article with us.
	Penny Lee	03/12/2013 13:12
Innocent Bystander, I have been on the receiving end of wonderful, and very recent, blessings from God and have spent time on my knees many times a day in the last 10 days, pleading for the life of my dear husband. These times on my knees have now become times of thanksgiving so I can assure you I know God's richest blessings in my life, and that of my family. I also prefer to look on people as Jesus sees them, with compassion, and it is not my place to decide or judge whether those who profess to know the Saviour are living in direct obedience to His will. People are not in grave danger of a lost eternity from having a Christmas tree in their home - it is solely whether or not they have accepted Chriist into their lives and are trying to live as sinful a life as they can. Salvation was never as complicated as having to have a complete understanding of historical relevance to today's cultural practices. God wants a repentant and obedient heart and I'd rather spend the opportunities I get to profess God's love for someone by gently informing them of how to receive Christ into their lives rather than worrying about whether they have a Christmas tree or buy themselves a chocolate egg at Easter time!
	Colin Ford (Guest)	03/12/2013 14:06
Pennny, I think you mean sinless?

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When was Jesus born?

In spite of the carol which sings of 'in the bleak mid-Winter' and in spite of any hard evidence regarding the time of Jesus birth it is highly unlikely that He was born in December.