"Christmas Thoughts"

A week from today is Christmas Eve, many of us will be travelling to the homes of loved ones to celebrate with food, music, laughter, and story-telling. I am looking forward to spending time with my daughter who will be spending a few days with us. I always find it curious that at this time of the year so many hate groups surface to cast aspersions on the reason for the Christmas Holiday, Jesus of Nazareth. Even if one is a non-believer why would you be so verbose in your criticism of this person who gave a message of love and forgiveness to the world? When joy should be the order of the day many people use this time to call those who believe as judgemental and intolerant. Isn't it odd that those who preach tolerance for every cause from saving a tree frog to "climate change"(sorry it is turning out to be a fraud) will not give the same consideration to the largest segment of believing Americans, our Christian population. The world over is filled with people who vigorously oppose the teaching of the Gospel of Jesus, many forfeit their lives in the cause of teaching His words to an un-informed populous. How has this "carpenters son" become such a threat to so many people? Some retail stores don't even say "Merry Christmas" for fear of offending customers who don't believe, schools have problems with calling this the Christmas Season. Our society likes the idea of toys and gifts, food and drink, back-slapping and joke telling; yet mention what this holiday is really all about and the room will suddenly become quiet followed by murmurs of criticism and disdain. We in the United States are most fortunate to have a constitution designed by Christians, with Christian values; this is not a very popular statement in today's world, yet without those values America would not be the country that it is today. "Season's Greetings","Happy Holidays",and "Best Wishes" now express this season at the greeting card section of the store, "Merry Christmas" is segregated from the other cards, perhaps so they won't "infect" the other cards. As your family gathers together please take the time to talk about what Christmas is all about, find a Bible, find a passage, tell the story of Jesus's birth. For those few minutes that you spend talking about Jesus you will gain a new perspective on Christmas, perhaps some of you who are a bit older will remember when Christmas wasn't a dirty word. Enjoy your festivities, have a good time, I'm sure Jesus wants it that way; just remember it's His birthday!