The World Abuzz

It needs to be considered why we do not see the gospel of scripture in a positive way on the cover of every newspaper across the globe. And yet, we see the signs of "Christmas" already taking over just a few weeks ago. Local newspapers and magazines, and in every store you go into, the whole world is abuzz about this big, big time of year.
So where in scripture does it say the whole world would be abuzz about doing the will of God , especially in these wicked days?
Remember the reference about deception and the broad and narrow paths.
Remember false teachings that lead people astray and after the things of the world instead of the pure things of our Savior.
Remember how our enemy draws us away with things that are appealing to the flesh; The eyes, the ears, all of our senses, and even our hearts. Yep. That is why YHWH has given us instructions to live by. It's like a blueprint for living the life He desires for us as His people, with the blood of Y'shua making us perfect in His sight. Without which, we would not be complete.

When we steer off and start doing our own things in our own ways, even things we say are unto Him, or for Him, regardless of how we feel "in our hearts", we risk making our own golden calf, and offering YHWH strange fire. So unless we believe Y'shua did away with Father's instructions, and made it fine for someone to sacrifice a baby unto Him, or some other strange thing that passed people have done unto their strange gods, we need to see none of us can do whatever we want unto Him and we need to get back to following what HE says to do. And that includes annual celebrations no matter how long they've been going on. The safest things to do are the ones He instructed in the first place. They are still very much shadow pictures and/or memorials of truth.

Christmas, why?

     There is nothing about consumerism that promotes godliness. So why do people hold it so dear as a way to worship our Savior?
Pre-Christmas is one of the most consumeristic times of the year that is touted as being about our Savior.
No one is trying to ruin your "fun" or your childrens "fairytales". And certainly no one is trying to get you to turn from worshipping and acknowledging our Savior. BUT Did you know that celebrating our Messiah's birthday, as done in the popular way today, originated as a mixture with how pagans celebrated their god "Mithra" and other miscellaneous gods throughout history prior to Y'shua/Jesus' birth?
      And maybe many will say, "so what! What's wrong with that as long as we know we are just celebrating Jesus?" OK well, let me tell you.
YHWH gave us instructions on how to live a set apart life from the rest of the world as a called out people unto Him. I promise you, these instructions were not just for a select few way back when that no longer matter now. He also instructed us on how to worship Him as HE desires. He never once implied that we could worship Him any ole' way as long as our hearts were in it right. As a matter of fact He says our hearts are wicked and deceitful and only He can know a heart's motives. So while we might think it's for all the good reasons, we could clearly be deceiving our own self and HE clearly sees that. The golden calf incident is a great testament to that.
He tells us explicitly NOT to worship Him as the people of the world worship their gods. Even if it's something long passed. He never says we can redeem any of it unto Him. Not even through our Beloved Messiah.
      YHWH has not left us without anything to celebrate. He is not about us not having a good time. As a matter of fact He has quite a few times He desires we celebrate and enjoy special times.
He has appointed feasts and celebrations that are memorials and/or shadow pictures of our Messiah especially.
      One is even during his birth time which is clearly defined with simple research in scripture. It's mind numbing that scholars and theologians seem to miss this. But maybe they don't. I have actually heard that many know this but just don't want to "rock the boat" so to speak. So they continue to perpetuate the traditions of man for the sake of, well... tradition, and, of course, they don't want to be the bearer of offence to their folds. But even prophesy says we have been taught lies and vain things.
But again, even besides that, Have you ever wondered why modern beleivers blatantly disregard YHWH's appointed times?; IF they know about them at all? I mean, even if it were so that we didn't HAVE to celebrate these things to be considered set apart unto YHWH through Messiah Y'shua/Jesus, why wouldn't we still want to engage in them and at least do them as an honor to Him and what HE actually did instead of making up something that is clearly rooted in things He said He hates?
      There are lots of people who love to do re-enactments of civil war or the renaissance period. But here we are in the 21st century with all sorts of freedom and still cannot stand the thought of doing anything remotely connected to what our Savior actually did when it comes to feast days. Not to mention, the Apostle Paul encouraged us not to let anyone judge us in keeping the appointed times of YHWH. But most are sucked into believing he was saying we can do whatever. I know I too believed that at one time.
      When you begin to see these things outside of the realm of tradtional thinking you begin also to realize just how deceived the average modern believer really is. Did you know Chirstmas was originally banned in the early years of this country? Yes. Early believers KNEW that it was not something to be done as people of the most high. Think back on the beginning of the Protestant movement, if you've even heard about that at all; And how believers were beginning to move away from the wrongful things taught within the Roman Catholic church. You might wonder, then, how in the heck did what we protest ever get to be so main stream, again. Well, that's pretty easy. Just think about how mainstream other things YHWH destests have gone. Things such as being gay or lesbian. Not to mention gay and lesbian marriage and how it's regarded as being equal by our rulers. And what about immodest apparel in the general public? Sex being taught to children in schools? All of these things were once highly shunned by the average believer, even the general public. But time and persistence of evil slowly erodes a society. And now, only a very few still stand for true purity and modesty along with true holiness that is according to scripture.
      So you have to wonder, at this point, maybe it is true that this Christmas thing has been more like a goldern calf. And while the average believer thinks it's a wonderful way to acknowledge and worship our Savior, and put the argumentative interest on the fact that so many charities are blessed this time of year, the heart is still deceived and it's really something that YHWH doesn't care for much at all. Not the part about giving to the less fortunate, but He does not need a man-made tradition to bless the less fortunate. THAT is what man conjures up. He has already admonished us, and Y'shua/Jesus reiterated it, to give to the needy, the poor, the widow.
Our salvation is too major of a matter to not take serious consideration into the history and why we do anything that we do when we do it unto Our Beloved.

Walking As Our Beloved Walked

So I jumped upon this path where everyone on it said they are following our Beloved Messiah. I was so excited to be amongst those who wanted to live like He lived. And then one day, at the end of the week, our Beloved Messiah said that he was gonna' stop for a day and take a break. He wanted to rest and recoup from the past week and start the new week all a fresh and renewed. But that's when I noticed that all of the ones on the path I had joined kept on going. They didn't even notice that our Beloved had stopped to rest. They just pressed on through with a zeal for all they had engaged into for the week. I was puzzled as I looked at my colleagues carrying on, and my Beloved who, I suddenly realized was not really on the same path as I was with all of these others. I got to looking really close and began to see that the path was quite similar in many ways but it was still not the same path. There were actually two paths. One that was very narrow and straight. Not confusing at all. And one that was very broad. But this path also had many little side tracks that led off to other destinations. Some that came back around and some that just kept right on going further away. I could not believe I had not noticed all of this before. And then when I tried to point it out to some of those I thought I knew pretty well they seemed to be very offended that I would even bring up such a matter. It was as if having even the slightest thought of that broad path maybe not being the exact path we should be on was the epitome of blasphemy against our Beloved. And no matter that it was obvious that He was not even amongst us while He had taken a step away to rest. No one wanted to hear anything remotely contrary to what they had already adjusted to.
I was on my own. Not really, because I was jumping over onto the path that I knew for sure my Beloved was on. I was not exactly caught up to Him yet, but I knew that I must press on regardless of what all of the others had chosen. I wanted nothing more but to walk in the footsteps of my Beloved. And there I saw plainly where He was stepping. Just as Father had said He would.