We Are Commanded To Honor Our Parents.

Ephesians 6:2 “Honour thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;)”

This subject was discussed at my mother’s house over the holidays with some of my family. I was asked what it truly means “to honor our parents” and when I answered the question I may have walked into a hornets nest, but the truth is the truth. God never made an exception to when not to honor our parents. We must quickly understand that the bible is law and therefore it must be treated as such. If God says to do something and gives no exceptions then there are no exceptions. Let’s liken it to the law of the road; if the speed limit on the interstate is 70mph maximum then is there any exception to drive 80mph; no there is not, just as there are no exceptions not to honor our parents. I know some parents are awful, godless people and do not deserve any honor in our opinions but we must keep in mind that honor is a commandment; in fact it is in the Ten Commandments. In Exodus 20:12 “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.” In fact Jesus Christ took it much farther when he said; “For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death.” Matthew 15:4. I would say this is pretty final and a commandment we should all obey. Now please believe me when I say “I understand that there are many parents that do not deserve any honor” but we must all understand that God never said “if they deserve it”. My own father was a drunk, wife abuser, child abuser (not sexually), and sometimes a horrible person but I always honored him as my father and still do even though he has been dead many years. Beloved it is not what I say that counts but it is what God says that counts and He must be obeyed. Please let us remember on thing; we are not to render evil for evil God said; “Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing.” 1 Peter 3:9 Do your part and God will bless you for your honor to them and for you’re obeying him. Now to them; if they are bad people and you find it hard to honor them then look to Jesus Christ who also said; "Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. (20.) Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. (21.) Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good." Romans 12:19 – 21. Beloved obey God and give them the honor that He commanded and God will take care of the “not deserving part”. Honoring our parents is not a choice but rather a command and if we treat it as a choice and not do it then it becomes sin on our part.

In conclusion I think it is proper to let everyone understand what God means by the word “honor”. The Greek word honor means – to prize or to revere – Now as a child we have this command: “for they are not only to be loved, and to be feared, and reverenced, their corrections to be submitted to, offences against them to be acknowledged, their tempers to be bore with, and their infirmities covered; but they are to be honoured in thought, word, and gesture; they are to be highly thought of and esteemed; they are to be spoken to, and of, very honourably, and with great veneration and to be behaved to in a very respectful manner; and they are to be relieved, assisted, and maintained in comfortable way when aged.” As John Gill so wisely points out. God told all children to “Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.” Ephesians 6:1 however as we mature in age we are no longer commanded to “obey” them but rather just to honor them for who they are and that is our parents. Matthew 19:5 - 6 "And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? (6.) Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." The word honor and obey are not the same word and while we love and honor our parents we must live our own lives and make our own decisions.

People chasing wealth looses with God.

Psalms 49:6 - 9 "They that trust in their wealth, and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches; (7.) None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him: (8.) (For the redemption of their soul is precious, and it ceaseth for ever:) (9.) That he should still live for ever, and not see corruption."

We can go on and on about wealth and God but there is one single point I want to make in this article and that is chasing wealth will make you a looser with God. Money; as some mythically people conclude “money makes the world go around” but this is as big of lie as believing in Santa Claus. God makes the world go around and money has nothing at all to do with it. In fact this is the truth God will give you more than you will ever get with money. Money tends to turn hearts away from God. God gives riches to those “Christians” who can handle it. We that do not have often wonder what good we could do if we were rich, but the question is would we do it. God said “the love of money is the root of all evil” 1 Timothy 6:10 “For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” God goes on to say “they have erred from the faith” because they have coveted after the money. Before you take a new fancy job that requires you to work on Sunday maybe you need to ask God about it, don’t just assume that it is a blessing from God it could be a temptation from Satan. Before we let money enter into our Christian decisions, we need to first ask God what is His will. It very well could be He wants you to give up the money for Him. Christians sometimes get confused about what God wants for them; and therefore make foolish decisions in life. Let us never forget God always gets His ordained will accomplished and if He must remove something personal to you that stand in the way then He will. I must admit I also love money and would also love to have more of it, but not if it separates me from God. I love God more than money but there are some Christians I wonder about. Beloved the rainbow we are to chase is the rainbow of God and not that of this world. The rewards of God are trillions times more valuable than the riches of this world. God said in our text scripture “They that trust in their wealth, and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches;” they depend solely in their money and believe they can accomplish anything through their money; in other words they replace God supplying their needs to their money supplying them. And while there is so much they can do with worldly riches they cannot redeem a lost soul; “None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him:” Money also cannot change their appointment to death; “That he should still live for ever, and not see corruption." Nor can their money buy them from eternal hell. God controls both and He cannot be bought. The Christian chasing the money rainbow is sad, it is sad when a singer in church turns professional, it is sad when a Pastor retires the ministry for a professional job. Now I have my own opinion of all these people and their call to work for God but these are real examples. Beloved if God has elected you to do something to His glory then do it; let nothing stand in your way, not even money. A good Christian never lets money come between them and God. Ezekiel 22:12 "In thee have they taken gifts to shed blood; thou hast taken usury and increase, and thou hast greedily gained of thy neighbours by extortion, and hast forgotten me, saith the Lord GOD." Sometimes taking the money is forgetting God. Don’t make excuses to justify your love for money over God; God knows the truth and me or your Pastor is not the one you will have to explain things too. God always comes before money or material things. His rewards will be trillions times greater than the earthly rewards. But if you do not believe me then you will find out in glory when you are judged by Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 3:13 “Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.”

Christmas; Is It A Christian Holiday Or Not?

“And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.” Matthew 1:21

I believe to find out if “Christmas” is a Christian holiday or not we must explore from where is originated. I found this from wikipedia.org which are normally pretty correct on things, “The word Christmas originated as a compound meaning "Christ's Mass". It is derived from the Middle English Christemasse and Old English Cristes mæsse, a phrase first recorded in 1038. "Cristes" is from Greek Χριστός Christos and "mæsse" is from Latin missa (the holy mass).” The two words “Christ’s” “Mass” will certainly put it into Catholicism and some say it dates all the way back to 354A.D. Most Christian’s call Christmas a “Pagan” holiday which means it is a secular holiday and not an actual Christian holiday. So now that we understand a little about Christians let us now try to answer the question; is it a holiday that Christians and churches ought to be celebrating. The correct answer is “no” because that the Paganism is involved. Christmas is a worldly holiday and not a Christian holiday therefore for churches to involve themselves would be to link themselves to what the holidays represent. Now if there were any Christian holidays they would not include myths and lies and Christmas is full of myths and lies. The lies start’s with the date of the Lord Jesus birthday; is December 25th the Lord’s actual birthday no one could know this date. The myths start with Santa Clause and proceed on through the fairytale holiday. As for Christians and churches being involved it would involve churches being liars and celebrating mythical people such as Santa Clause. Nothing as sinful as Christmas should involve churches or even her membership. Both Christmas and Easter are pagan holidays involving myths and lies. These are not Christian holidays even if the Catholics created both of them. There is absolutely nothing in the scriptures about celebrating holy days of any sort. There is no example in the scriptures about any church or group of Christians celebrating holy days.

Now I will conclude with this thought. Christmas affects us all in one way or another and like it or not we take part in it one way or another. Our church will not alter our services nor will we recognize the Christmas day this year or any other year. There will be no “Christmas message” it will be a normal day of worship to God, just as we do every other Sunday. As I said the holy day while it is not a Christian day but is a secular day or “secular holy day” and celebrated world wide. As for me this is how it affects me, we are going to have a Christmas lunch at work and I will attend because the food is good and we will receive a Christmas bonus, not too many folks will turn down a good meal and money. We will also have some paid days off of work for Christmas. I will be using the time off to visit my family and mostly my mother during the holiday on Saturday the 24th. Now some will call me a hypocrite because I disagree with the holiday and take benefits from it; but they could not be more wrong. Christmas unlike any other day of the year affects the entire world. I did not say not to celebrate the holiday I said it was not a Christian day and churches should not observe it. It is a worldly holiday and however a person or a Christian chooses to observe it, then so be it. Some will say to have any part in the celebration is anti God while they accept their Christmas bonus and enjoy a paid day off for it. We must accept it for what it is and that is a secular holiday and not a Christian holiday. God cannot be connected with any holiday full of lies and myths as both Christmas and Easter are.

Marriage is no game.

“Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery.” Luke 16:18

Marriage is not a game in life and people should not ever take it that way. We live in a nation with more than a fifty percent divorce rate and the reason we do is because people treat marriage like a game. Some of my brethren and I are disagree on this subject but I learned many years ago that I will never agree one hundred percent of the time with any other person, therefore I must simply understand that I am not infallible and neither is any other human. With this being said divorce is (1.) biblical and (2.) not good. God gave certain laws in the scripture for divorce but God never meant for marriage to be treated as some sort of game. God said that if a man puts away his wife for unscriptural reasons and takes another wife it is adultery and by that he also causes the woman whom he has taken as his new wife to live in adultery. Therefore today’s preachers simply overlooking this or man simply ignoring this is not a solution. I am one who believes that once a sin is done then undoing it is impossible. I am one who also believes that the blood of Jesus Christ covers every single sin man can sin and therefore something done out of ignorance or something done in error is also forgiven by the Lords blood. We are all sinners and therefore we must be forgiven daily for our sins and this includes every Christian. 1 John 1:8 “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” However with this being said it is not an excuse to sin at will; we must understand our Christian standing in Jesus Christ. Sin is not permitted nor is it just excused, Jesus Christ gave His life and blood for our sins and therefore this pardon came with a high price. Therefore it is without reason that Christians sin at will. Marriage was created to be a life long commitment and should be treated as such and any church member that fails to do so is subject for expulsion from the church. While it is understood that divorce happens it is not just, too just put away a wife or a husband at will and for just any reason. It is God who said that one commits adultery when they re-marry and therefore that makes it law. Christians must be very carful as to what they do and never purposely disobey nor ignore Gods Holy Law.

God said in 1 John 1:6 “If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth:” If we say that we have fellowship with God and walk in darkness we are liars and do not know the truth. How can one know the truth and walk in darkness. If we knew the truth we would be to fearful to walk disorderly therefore the conclusion is that for one to walk in a disorderly way proves they do not fear God. This brings us back to our main point and that is Christians that treat marriage like a game walk fearless of God and do not understand His laws. Because one that fears God understands that God is not going to simply overlook our sins in life. In John 3:20 – 21 God said; “For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. (21.) But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.” Sin pulls us from the light and righteousness pulls us to the light therefore sin pulls us from fellowship with God. How can one fellowship with God and simply ignore Gods laws. Beloved what is done is done and sin cannot be reversed therefore we must live with the consequences of our sins but faithful Christians neither ignores Gods laws or sins for convenience. God gave us many laws on marriage and we must respect those laws and to violate them for any reason is sinning against God.