Tell Them The Truth About Santa Claus

Christmas! The word stirs up feelings of excitement and invokes anticipation! It is rightly so.
However, you can direct your children to the real reason for the excitement and cheer by helping them to understand what the holiday is about. As an adult, you understand the basis for the celebration for Christmas, the Birth of the Savior. But your children may not understand this holiday the way you do.

How can parents help their children understand the facts of Christmas? How can we plant the seeds of love and adoration of Jesus in them? How can we explain Christmas to them in terms that they will not only understand but hold on to and hold dear their whole lives?

Here are some guidelines to teach and talk to your children about Christmas.

Repeat the story of Christmas over and over in terms that they will understand.

Never weary of
re-telling the wonderful story and of explaining what each section of the story means.
Consider renting or purchasing videos of The Birth of Jesus. Read to them from children’s books
about the birth of Jesus. Coloring books can be a big help in explaining about Christmas to younger children. Children in a home where the parents are Christians should never be able to remember when they first heard the story of Jesus birth and the Gospel story! Start early and don’t let up!

Help your child realize that Jesus is God’s gift of love to us.

This is done mainly day to day in your life as a Christian. The love, kindness and patience that the child sees at home will be reflected in his response to the story of Jesus and to the Gospel. Nurture the feelings of thankfulness and love that will spring up in him as a result of hearing the story. Avoid the usual bustle and hectic-ness of the holiday that so easily makes the children feel left out. Plan to do things together as a family for Christmas. Things like Advent, fasting, singing hymns, praying together, serving others and reading God’s word will help the children feel like a part of the holiday with the whole family.

Your children will want to express the feelings of excitement and joy of the season, so help them to do this.
Making decorations, gifts and cards will help the children to learn joy and gladness for the season.
When you sing songs of the season, show gladness and joy in your expressions. Limit the singing of secular songs and concentrate on songs of Jesus Birth, and of God’s great love for us. Learn songs that your children may be learning at church and sing them together with them. Be sensitive to the Holy Spirit and talk to the Lord openly with the children through out the season, and throughout the year, thanking Him for His gift of Jesus. Allow them to hear you thank God for Jesus.

Talk about and demonstrate the Nativity.

Set up a Creche in your home. Use creativity in setting up the figures. Perhaps leaving out the baby Jesus until Christmas morning. Have the children search for Him every day or so until Christmas, when they will find Him lying in a manger in the creche. Leave it up until after Christmas and add the Wise men later. Talk about the story in God’s Word, how the Wise men did not visit Jesus until He was an older baby and lived in a house with his mother and father. Discuss the meaning of the gifts they brought to Jesus.

Children understand birthdays. Make a birthday cake for Jesus and celebrate His birthday.
Discuss gifts you can give to Him. Give Him gifts of self-sacrifice. Examples could include, money donated to a worthy cause, time given to a cause or organization, a visit to a shut-in, a gift of food, etc. Give gifts of love and time to those who are needy in some way. Include your children in this, don’t merely talk about it, actually go out and do it! Find some traditions for your family to share. Ask each of you children to choose one gift that they have received and re-wrap it to give away to a needy person.

Tell them the Truth about Santa Claus.

Contrary to what you may have been told, telling your children the truth about Santa won’t harm them or deprive them of a childhood necessity.
It may however cause your friends to look askance at you when your own children begin to tell other children what they have learned about Santa Claus, so take this into consideration.
Explain to your children that Santa Claus is a legend based on a real man named Bishop Nicholas who loved the Lord Jesus and gave to the poor. You can learn more about this man and help your children put him in his proper place at Christmas……a man who no longer lives on earth but in the presence of Jesus.

Avoid asking “What do you want Santa to bring you for Christmas?” and “You’d better be good or Santa won’t bring you any presents!”. When your child talks about Santa, listen to him very
attentively. Then bring the discussion around to the real Nicholas and how he loved Jesus. Explain that we too should love Jesus with all out hearts as people like Nicholas did and as godly people we know today do. Help your child point out individuals in his own experience who show the love of God to others by giving and serving, pray for these people and thank God for them with your child.

Finally, show your children every day of the year that we are to be thankful for the birth of Jesus and show them the Joy that you have in your own life as a result of forgiveness of sins through Him.

Are you wondering why Christmas often seems so hollow and so meaningless? Its because we have filled it with many things other than the One whom we celebrate on that day. Help your children see the reason for Christmas, you will be so glad you did!

Click here for a site to start learning about St. Nicholas

Unmet Expectations ~ Thanksgiving

For years I have written about bringing traditional values and practices back to our US Thanksgiving holidays. This year, I want to write to you out of my own experiences with preparing for Thanksgiving and other holidays through the years. Hopefully I can encourage you to take a new look at how you go about getting your home and mind ready for Thanksgiving.

Americans seem to have lost so much through the years and people yearn for those simple, peaceful occasions. Many of us go looking for what we call old fashioned ways of celebrating Thanksgiving so that we can recapture something we hope will fulfill us and our family. We often go to great lengths to find this fulfillment and very often our efforts end up in arguments or stressful confrontations in the family, overspending and profound sadness.

Holidays aren’t peaceful or simple if you find yourself strung out, worn out and tensed up over making a the occasion into something that meets unrealistic expectations. I want to encourage you to let go of your expectations for a perfect Thanksgiving get-together this year and to redefine your ideas of Old Fashioned.

What does an Old Fashioned Thanksgiving look like anyway? To most of us it means food, family…. and beyond that, what? Perfectly decorated tables? An immaculate house? New furniture? Lots of going and doing? Shopping with family and friends? A quiet evening or two before the fireplace with family? I think it can, in part, mean any of those things but conspicuously missing from those descriptions is the Lord Jesus Christ and the particular peace and fullness He brings to our lives. It seems so easy for most of us to get busy and involved with making the perfect Thanksgiving celebration that we forget about the reason for all our blessings.

When we set up a picture in our minds and make plans for a perfect Thanksgiving we set up expectations. Expectations can be dangerous things to family harmony and peace.

Unmet expectations = Discouragement

Thanksgiving and other holidays often leave us discouraged and frustrated with the people and preparations of the seasons. We somehow believe that because we spend money, time, thought and energy on preparations for these holidays that they must turn out a certain way. And then they don’t and we are discouraged and frustrated and we show that by the way we treat our family members.

Food for thought ~ We have no rights to expect anything in this life except the promises of God. Yet our sinful nature tells us that we have rights to our expectations. We have the Gospel and we have forgiveness in Jesus. Is that Good News enough for you? Or do you insist on having your holiday expectations met?

Everyone has their own ideas of what constitutes an Old Fashioned Thanksgiving, but I think the main things that people think of when they think of a holiday being old fashioned are peace and simplicity. I believe we can have those beautiful attributes in our present day celebration of Thanksgiving, if we focus our minds on what we are grateful for and on enjoying the people God sends into our lives.

Certainly, go shopping, lay around the fireplace with family, play games, go for a walk…. do all those things but do them with an attitude of thankfulness and with an eye on the fact that these luxuries are gifts from God; we don’t have a right to any of them. When I think in those terms I become even more thankful for what I have.

This next week as you prepare for the Thanksgiving meal, open your heart to the Holy Spirit and allow Him to prepare it for giving thanks. Focus your mind on Jesus and serving others as He has done. Focus on people and being thankful for what God has given you. Then your Thanksgiving will be simple, sweet and truly old fashioned. No matter what happens, no matter if things don’t go perfectly and according to plan, you will have thankfulness and peace in your heart….and I think that is the very best kind of old fashioned Thanks-giving there is!

Allah Or God?

Is the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob and of Christians, the same God as Allah?

This is a common misconception. The god Allah is not the God of Abraham and Issac. Historically speaking, they are often confused as one in the same. In the Q’uran, they are identified as the same. Theologically speaking however, they are completely different entities.

Allah is the moon god, one of thousands, which supposedly resided at Mecca before Muhammed brought about Islam. That’s why many of the middle eastern countries have crescent moon on their flags, it represents Allah, the moon god.

God is Elohim, the Creator of the universe. He is also known as Yahweh and Jehovah. The differences between Allah and God are numerous and sharply contrast the two.
Islam (which is supposedly the creation of Allah) denies the basic tenets of the Christian faith; that Jesus is God, the atonement, the incarnation, the Trinity. Allah, in the Q’uran, offers conditional, temporal love. God offers uncondtional, self-sacrificing love.
Allah, as descirbed in the Q’uran is impersonal and capricious. God as described in the Bible is a personal God whose requirements of His people are based on His holiness.

Allah is derived from a root word in Arabic that means “to be perplexed”. Some Muslims claim though that it is a personal name for God. However, the Allah of the Q’uran has no Son. Therefore Allah and Yahweh cannot be one and the same.

There are differences in opinions about the names Allah and Yahweh and whether or not they both indicate the same God, but the things they each teach their followers and their characters are totally different. I don’t believe its a matter of having the right God and the wrong method of worship. Muslims have their holy book supposedly inerrant and inspired by Allah which tells us all about Allah. He couldn’t be more different from Yahweh.

Dreams and Visions

The question is, Does God speak today to His people in dreams and visions? The short answer is yes. The more correct answer is, “Yes, God can do anything, but He most often chooses to speak through His Word and other means than dreams.”

The difference between a dream and a vision is not clearly marked in the Bible but we do get the idea that a dream is a lower communication than a vision. Dreams require more interpretation than visions and its usually difficult to interpret dreams. I have heard Christians I admire comment that visions usually happen when they are not asleep and that dreams of course happen when they are asleep.

If you feel that God is communicating with you more through dreams than any other way, there may be a problem with that. A relationship with God through Jesus consists of more than dreams and visions. It consists of daily walking and talking, prayer and obedience.

I don’t say that God does not and will not communicate to you through dreams, but I I would give these warnings:

1) If your dream does not line up with the personality and Word of God, its not from God and you must dismiss it.
2) Learn to distinguish your own thoughts from those of God.
3) Pray that God will protect your dreams, for even there we are subject to temptation and torment from the devil.
4) God does not give new revelation today about Himself so if your dream seems to give you something “New” about God that is not in His Word, it is not from God and you must dismiss it.
5) When you dream something that you do not understand, make every effort to ask God to help you understand and compare it to His Word.
6) If the content of the dream does not somehow bring glory to Jesus Christ, it is not from God, so you must dismiss it.

Finally, remember that dreams are an unusual way for God to communicate. They cannot compare to The Word of God. Jeremiah 23:25-32. When you have a dream that seems to be God speaking to you and you have compared it to Scripture and are still convinced that it is from God, then thank Him and ask Him how to use it to His glory.

What Does the Bible Say About Ghosts?

This question was posed on the T2CHK message board recently. It is my hope that this article will be helpful if you are searching for answers to this question.

We live in an area where superstition, belief in ghosts and spirits abound and it has always been important for us to teach our children what God’s Word says about these topics. We’ve done a lot of studying and prayed for long hours about how to teach them, and now I am just so pleased that our efforts might help you, too.

Many Christians will say that they have ’seen a ghost’ or ‘felt a presence’ but they have a hard time fitting those experiences in with their Christianity. So its not an unusual thing for Christians to wonder about this topic.

God lets us know in His Word that there certainly are spirits in this world. You are probably aware of all the many references to spirits in the Bible that aren’t talking about the spirit of men. Here are just a few:
“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Eph. 6:12).

“That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick.” (Matthew 8:16)

“Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons…” (1 Tim. 4:1)

What this whole topic boils down to is this…. What happens to people after they die?

Without getting into a lengthy discussion, lets say for the moment that people who have rejected Jesus Christ go to hell and people who have accepted the atoning sacrifice of Jesus and been forgiven go to heaven.

Scripture teaches that when we leave this life…… life continues either with Jesus or not with Jesus. Once we are in the place we have chosen by our acceptance or rejection of Jesus, we are there. We don’t go in and out of heaven or hell. There is no scripture that suggests that we do.

You can see that one’s concept of what happens after death has direct bearing on what happens to one’s spirit. We believe that the Bible teaches this concept:
“Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.”
2 Cor 5:8

The Bible explicitly forbids that we attempt contact with spirits that pretend to be spirits of the dead :

“There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord.” (Deuteronomy 18:11).

The Bible states that the dead do not have contact with the living (Luke 16:19-31). Therefore, if one has contact with or ’sees’ or experiences a paranormal being, you can be sure its not great aunt Mary. Rather, it is a spirit pretending to be great aunt Mary. And this is why we are warned NOT to have contact with people who claim to contact the dead. We are actually contacting fallen angels, unclean spirits or demons. These are deceitful spirits under the control of the father of lies, satan.
Even though it is tempting to think that a slpirit or ghosts is harmless, remember what they really are and remember that:

“…even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.” (2 Cor 11:14)

The book of Isaiah calls these spirits ‘familiar spirits’. They are familiar with facts about deceased people and use those facts to draw other living people deep into paranormal activity and away from their relationship with God. They use signs and wonders, miracles, to draw people into experimenting with other forms of the occult like ouija boards, tarot cards, fortune telling, astrology and seances. Many times people are seeking contact with a deceased loved one and will use all these tools to find that loved one. And when they do, they are opening themselves up to influence by satan and his demons.

“In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” (2 Corinthians 4:4)

From experience, I can assure you that even Christians can sometimes become blinded and deceived if they are not walking in the Light as they should be.

In conjunction with the first question about ghosts, there was another question about Saul and the witch of Endor:

The scripture in question is in 1 Samuel 28.

King Saul goes to consult a medium. The problem though is that God’s law forbids contact with mediums (under penalty of death) and King Saul’s own laws have condemned it and had made all mediums leave his land. So obviously, he knew he was doing something wrong and he could be killed for it.

How does this apply to us?

What we know for sure:
If it were possible to contact the dead, it would be wrong to do so according to God’s Word. It is a radical offense to God to do so.

There are two ways of looking at this scripture:

#1 - Certainly God had the power to raise Samuel’s spirit from the place of the OT dead, but it would be against everything His Word teaches.
It is evident that satan made both the witch and King Saul believe that it was actually Samuel speaking.

#2 - God allowed the actual spirit of Samuel to appear and speak to Saul. This was a one -time occurrence used by God to carry out His will.