Blending on 25 Dec

Do not learn the way of the nations ...for the customs of the people are vanity. Jeremiah 10:2-3 
So then let us keep the feast, not with old leaven ...but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truths. 1 Corinthians 5:8 
Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.1 Corinthians 10:14

When the Christian world is following the custom of the nations and celebrating so called "Christmas", as a church we chose to come together for blending, perfecting and pursuing the Lord, for the fact that it was a holiday time. We had truth education for the saints and new ones who are not clear about what the word of God says.

For two hour we pursued some messages on the leaven of Christmas as truth education, clarifying why as Christians we cannot partake of the abomination of the denominations. The Lord has charged us to remember His death and look forward for His coming again, but not His birthday. And more so, the Bible is completely silent about the date of the Lord's birth and there is no record of the disciple nor the believers ever celebrating Jesus' birthday. History only tells that such leavens were introduced by the Roman Catholic Church and carried forward by the Protestants. And today, many Christians have been deceived in religious blindness into the soulish, if not fleshly, celebration of an extra biblical abomination. Some genuine believers must have silently thanked the Lord for His incarnation and saving grace, but the majority are on a wanton festive celebration mood of man's making giving more rooms to the birth of the devil in their lives than Christ. God forbid.

We utilized the day for blending with the saints, giving testimonies and preaching the gospel to new gospel friends. It was a day well spent. The saints were happy; being cherished and nourished. Besides condemning the many leavens brought into Christianiy and educating and inoculating the saints, we enjoyed the ministry of God's word on the significance of the Lord's birth:

The true significance of Christ's birth is God became man (through His incarnation - John 1:1, 14) that man may become God (through our regeneration to become His sons - John 1:12-13) in life (1 Pet. 1:3) and in nature (2 Pet. 1:4) but not in the Godhead (1 Cor. 8:6). 

As God's children, we are in the world, but we are not of the world (John 17:11,14). If we make a clear-cut separation from the world, we will live a sanctified life (1 Thes. 5:23) and a holy life for the church life. Jesting and revelry in paganistic Christmas celebration will put our holy life under siege. Idolatry is a serious sin. To participate in Christmas celebration is an abomination that the Lord hates. Christ is the reality of all feasts; we do not need the shadow because we have Christ as the reality (Col. 2:16-17; John 1:14b). As the world celebrates the day of the unconquered sun god, we have Christ as the true Sun of righteousness (Mal. 4:2) who has conquered Satan, world, sin, and death. We want Christ, but not the 'mas', the mixture. Christmas is a leaven added to the meal by Christendom (Matt. 13:33). In 1 Corinthians 5:6-8 Paul admonished us to purge out the leaven and instead keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the continuation of the Passover (Exo. 12:15-20). It lasted for seven days, a period of completion, signifying the entire period of our Christian life. It is a life-long feast that we must keep with unleavened bread, which is Christ as our nourishment and enjoyment. Only He is the life supply of sincerity and truth, absolutely pure, without mixture, and full of reality. We are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people acquired for a possession (1 Pet. 2:9). In this age of apostasy the Lord is calling us, the overcomers, to come out and be separated from the world and from the degraded Christianity that is full of mixtures (2 Cor. 6:17), and not to participate in her sins that we might not receive her plagues (Rev. 18:4). The Lord's promise to the overcomers is to give them to eat of the hidden manna (Rev. 2:17). If we love the Lord and forsake the world and its enjoyment, we shall surely enjoy the Lord in a subjective and transcendent way.