Wednesday, October 6, 2010

No trick but you can have a treat!

Luke 21:22 – 38

The end of October is always a quandary for Christian parents. What do we do about Halloween? It is the second biggest spending holiday next to Christmas. The celebration is everywhere. If you want my opinion, e-mail me at tim@christiancenter.us or tburgan@ctvn.org I’ll send you my opinion about Halloween and what I believe we should do about this holiday. The purpose of the holiday is to celebrate what exactly? Death? Destruction? Evil? To be honest I’m not quite sure. I am especially not sure that the three-year-old dressed in the “Woody” costume from Toy Story has any clue either nor do most parents. There is a side of Halloween that is focused on fear and control or the lack of control.

In many ways, our world is out of control, increases in crime, legislation is made that calls black white and white black. Confusion seems at times to rule the day. The United States is the most medicated country in the world. More anti-depression prescriptions are fulfilled for Americans than any other people. Life seems to be out of control for many with fear increasing everyday. I hate to say it but according to the Bible this is nothing compared to what is coming.

Jesus was warning us that a day is coming when things will become so fearful, so scary, that people will literally have heart attacks from fear. The world will be so out of control, anxiety will increase in such overwhelming ways that one of the biggest killers will be fear. Now that is scary!

This wasn’t the first time that Jesus warned us that things would get bad. In a very casual way He said, “In the world you are going to have great difficulties, scary, hard times are coming, but understand I have overcome all of these things and the world.”

Without a real glimpse of eternity, many things will feel overwhelming. It can seem as if everything is out of control. Someone promises peace and security but can’t deliver and things get worse. No matter how people may dress up in political costumes, business costumes, even religious costumes, apart from a real relationship with Jesus there is no hope, love, joy, or peace that will last.

Our natural tendency as human beings is selfishness. We want, what we want, when we want it! Left to our own tendencies the world will end in destruction. We live lives that are hopeless and loveless. God knew that so he made a way for us to know real love and peace. This is no trick but the treat part of the story. God is love, He is peace, He is joy! We can have it all when we say, “Yes” to Him. No one’s heart needs to give out because of fear. We do not need to be afraid of the future. For those of us who have faith in God, horrible things will happen all around us but the Lord will get us through them all.

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