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celebrations

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Farlsborough:
I think Extol's reply is excellent. How much are you spiritually invested in these things? My answer would be: not very.

There is a big debate on a professional forum I use about certain exercise classes of eastern origin; whether or not a Christian can do them. And again, my answer would be, "it depends". If it is a class that focuses on a spiritual element, and requires that you take its spiritual elements on board, probably not. But if it is simply a class that uses certain body positions and stretches for health and relaxation, why not? Do certain body positions secretly make you vulnerable to being possessed by snake demons? Come on.

As Extol says, you can read into the "pagan origins" of almost everything. Is the cake I eat on my birthday somehow sub-consciously an act of pagan worship? Of course not! Do you want to celebrate the birth of your wife, entirely devoid of any weird pagan deities? Of course you do. So go ahead.

In the same way that we mark the passage of time with days, seasons, harvests and so on, we mark time with festivals. "The Christmas before last..." "Remember that Easter when..." - these are times you are going to want to remember because you will have been with friends and family. How ridiculous to say "remember that... er... 25th of December when Alfie ate too much... er... "fruit" pudding, and the dog got scared when we pulled those... er... "celebration" crackers. Yup, nothing else to distinguish that day from the next..."

When Christianity came to pagan people, the saints deliberately built their chapels in fields that had previously contained druidic standing stones. And they deliberately placed their festivals on the days of the pagan festivals. People will hold festivals, no doubt about that - but you can choose what to celebrate on these events.

Kat:

Hi Derek,

Good advice already. Let me just say that we should always be aware of that "still small voice" (1 Kings 19:12) that does speak to us. With the Spirit indwelling we are guided by our conscience in knowing right from wrong.

Heb 13:18  Pray for us; for we are confident that we have a good conscience, in all things desiring to live honorably.

We should not ignore those little nudges to do a certain thing or to not do something. This is the process of change that helps us learn and understand what we should do, our conscience will let us know. We cannot judge what to do by the world... maybe one way is to look beyond all this and thinking of how Christ will rule in the next age. If we are to be raised to rule with Christ then we need to already be living according to His godliness.

2Co 1:12  For our boasting is this: the testimony of our conscience that we conducted ourselves in the world in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom but by the grace of God, and more abundantly toward you.

We should always have a clean conscience before God.

Heb 10:22  let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
v. 23  Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.

mercy, peace and love
Kat

DerekSSands:
 :) Thank you all for the replies, they have been very helpful  :D
God Bless

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