Is The Word Christmas Found In The Bible?
Question : Is the word Christmas found in the Bible? Why? So should we celebrate it?
Answer : Greetings in Jesus wonderful name! First of all I should remind you that Christianity is not a religion of keeping the rules of the Book of the Bible, which the Lord God has given to us. Rather the Bible is like a love letter that God our Heavenly Father has written to us, so that we can know though he is far away in person, yet by His Presence He is very near to us (Matt 6:9; Rom 8:15). In this love letter, He reveals we in ourselves without Him are hopeless sinners who are the enemy of God, but because of His love towards us through His Son Jesus Christ who came in to this world for us, now we can be saved to have eternal friendship and continue to live with Him after we die (1 Tim 1:15; John 3:16; Rom 5:8; John 1:12; 11:26; 17:3).
So God wants all of us to live with gratitude by rejoicing, praying and thanking Him for all things that His friendship have given to us in a guaranteed way and for the eternal life that He has given after we are saved freely without our effort, but by God's grace through faith which were given to us as gift for us to enjoy for eternity ahead (1 Thess 5:16-18; Eph 2:8-9).
What we must do to show the gratitude towards God for His innumerable gifts (James 1:17)? Paul the apostle says that the only least thing we can do to God is to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is our reasonable service (Rom 12:1).
Coming to Christmas, Is the Word in the Bible? No it is not in the Bible as festive celebration. Then why should we celebrate it? Do we have a rule that says in the Bible, 'Do not smoke.' Yet why we do not smoke, because we know that our body is the temple of God and that smoking is injurious to good health and life, God has told that if we destroy the temple of our body unnecessarily He will destroy us because we were brought with the price of His very own Son Jesus and so we avoid it at all cost so that we can glorify God in our lives (1 Cor 6:19-20; 3:17).
Likewise, the word Christmas may not be there in the Bible, but God has given a clear picture to personally decide whether to avoid it or celebrate it according to each one's conviction that comes through knowing Jesus, here we see God saying, "16 So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, 17 which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ." (Col 2:16-17). In other words, whether you keep the Christmas or not is as important as with what spirit you have decided to celebrate or not celebrate it. If you keep it legalistically seeing the tradition of our times, we lose our eternal spiritual reward. At the same time, if we avoid to keep Christmas because again we see line by line to see Bible as a rule Book, we again will miss the spiritual reward of God that He has for us in this regard because we do not do it out of love but rather because of the law (John 14:15, 23). The law puffs up our fleshly mind, and will cheat us out of our eternal reward (Col 2:18; Rev 3:11). But love deeply edifies and gives us eternal reward and satisfaction for whatever we have done in our lives for the Lord (1 Cor 8:1; 13:1-4).
So what have we learned from all of this, if we want to celebrate Christmas, we should do it as a living sacrifice to love God and others in remembering the sacrifice of Jesus from our heart through His Divine Love to celebrate it for the Glory of God (Rom 8:32; John 17:23, 25-26; 1 Cor 10:31), so we must use those times and seasons of our lives to love God specially by spending time in His Presence and love our family members and our brethren in the Lord (Psa 16:11; John 17:21; 1 John 4:19, 21), love our neighbors (Rom 13:8, 9-10), help poor people and widows to know about Jesus' special love for them (Jam 1:27; Psa 68:5), work with the Church to spread the message of the love of God through Jesus to create an opportunity to share the good news of Jesus to the whole world (Mark 16:15), etc....If some doesn't want to celebrate it, let them not celebrate according to the conviction they hold (Rom 14:22-23). According to me personally, we should not in any way be legalistic to again get entangled in to condemnation ourselves in what we approve, because Christ has come to set us free from legalism and keeping of the law to follow him in love relationship with Him that will only glorify Him truly (Gal 5:1). The only law that we must abide in our lives is the law of liberty and continue in it so that we will be blessed in what we do (James 1:25), the law of liberty is the voice of the Spirit of God that speaks within us and controls us in our day to day walk of life (Rom 8:2).
Celebrate Christmas in the Spirit of Christ! Glorify God in the season of joy, peace and love with your whole heart!
Much Blessings....
Answer : Greetings in Jesus wonderful name! First of all I should remind you that Christianity is not a religion of keeping the rules of the Book of the Bible, which the Lord God has given to us. Rather the Bible is like a love letter that God our Heavenly Father has written to us, so that we can know though he is far away in person, yet by His Presence He is very near to us (Matt 6:9; Rom 8:15). In this love letter, He reveals we in ourselves without Him are hopeless sinners who are the enemy of God, but because of His love towards us through His Son Jesus Christ who came in to this world for us, now we can be saved to have eternal friendship and continue to live with Him after we die (1 Tim 1:15; John 3:16; Rom 5:8; John 1:12; 11:26; 17:3).
So God wants all of us to live with gratitude by rejoicing, praying and thanking Him for all things that His friendship have given to us in a guaranteed way and for the eternal life that He has given after we are saved freely without our effort, but by God's grace through faith which were given to us as gift for us to enjoy for eternity ahead (1 Thess 5:16-18; Eph 2:8-9).
What we must do to show the gratitude towards God for His innumerable gifts (James 1:17)? Paul the apostle says that the only least thing we can do to God is to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is our reasonable service (Rom 12:1).
Coming to Christmas, Is the Word in the Bible? No it is not in the Bible as festive celebration. Then why should we celebrate it? Do we have a rule that says in the Bible, 'Do not smoke.' Yet why we do not smoke, because we know that our body is the temple of God and that smoking is injurious to good health and life, God has told that if we destroy the temple of our body unnecessarily He will destroy us because we were brought with the price of His very own Son Jesus and so we avoid it at all cost so that we can glorify God in our lives (1 Cor 6:19-20; 3:17).
Likewise, the word Christmas may not be there in the Bible, but God has given a clear picture to personally decide whether to avoid it or celebrate it according to each one's conviction that comes through knowing Jesus, here we see God saying, "16 So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, 17 which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ." (Col 2:16-17). In other words, whether you keep the Christmas or not is as important as with what spirit you have decided to celebrate or not celebrate it. If you keep it legalistically seeing the tradition of our times, we lose our eternal spiritual reward. At the same time, if we avoid to keep Christmas because again we see line by line to see Bible as a rule Book, we again will miss the spiritual reward of God that He has for us in this regard because we do not do it out of love but rather because of the law (John 14:15, 23). The law puffs up our fleshly mind, and will cheat us out of our eternal reward (Col 2:18; Rev 3:11). But love deeply edifies and gives us eternal reward and satisfaction for whatever we have done in our lives for the Lord (1 Cor 8:1; 13:1-4).
So what have we learned from all of this, if we want to celebrate Christmas, we should do it as a living sacrifice to love God and others in remembering the sacrifice of Jesus from our heart through His Divine Love to celebrate it for the Glory of God (Rom 8:32; John 17:23, 25-26; 1 Cor 10:31), so we must use those times and seasons of our lives to love God specially by spending time in His Presence and love our family members and our brethren in the Lord (Psa 16:11; John 17:21; 1 John 4:19, 21), love our neighbors (Rom 13:8, 9-10), help poor people and widows to know about Jesus' special love for them (Jam 1:27; Psa 68:5), work with the Church to spread the message of the love of God through Jesus to create an opportunity to share the good news of Jesus to the whole world (Mark 16:15), etc....If some doesn't want to celebrate it, let them not celebrate according to the conviction they hold (Rom 14:22-23). According to me personally, we should not in any way be legalistic to again get entangled in to condemnation ourselves in what we approve, because Christ has come to set us free from legalism and keeping of the law to follow him in love relationship with Him that will only glorify Him truly (Gal 5:1). The only law that we must abide in our lives is the law of liberty and continue in it so that we will be blessed in what we do (James 1:25), the law of liberty is the voice of the Spirit of God that speaks within us and controls us in our day to day walk of life (Rom 8:2).
Celebrate Christmas in the Spirit of Christ! Glorify God in the season of joy, peace and love with your whole heart!
Much Blessings....
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