Title: Right Faith 1
Contents
Right Faith (Luke 2:41-51)
After finishing the missionary to the Sanji with grace, I stopped by Bangkok. I visited a church that is quite large in Thailand, and I witnessed a strange sight there. There is a picture of the queen in front of the pulpit, and there is an altar in front of it. I was looking for something to do with it, and people were going to bow in front of it. It's because it's the queen's birthday on that day. After the worship service, they performed again praising the queen in front of the picture. ??Thanks to God, Buddha, and our queen for protecting this country!?? It is said that he was so shocked that he was speechless when he saw the horrific sight.
What do you guys think about their faith while listening to this story? It is syncretism.
Will God really accept the worship of these people?
Syncretism is, in a word, idolatry.
It is idolatry to worship other gods without believing in God at all, but it is idolatry to serve other gods and serve the world because your heart is divided saying that you are serving God.
1. How did the Lord's family keep the Passover feast?
- When Jesus was 12 years old, he went up to Jerusalem to observe the feast according to the custom of the feast.
First, we worshiped God and kept it through fellowship through the Word.
- A holiday should not be a holiday without the Lord.
(48) Behold, your father and I have searched for you in sorrow.
The Lord called the temple My Father's house. We must keep the holidays centered on God.
(49) Jesus said to him, "Why did you seek me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?"
Was the Lord a disloyalty? no.
(51) And Jesus went down with him and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to him. His mother took all these words to heart.
(1 Corinthians 10:31) So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
2. Do not fall into syncretism or idolatry during the holidays.
- Ancestor worship and sacrificial practices
“Why is it a sin to bow down to your ancestors? I am bowing down to my parents who gave birth to me and raised me, not to some god, so it cannot be idolatry.” Where in the Bible is it that it is forbidden to bow down to other gods, and it is forbidden to sacrifice to the dead?” do. That sounds like it. But sacrifice is clearly idolatry.
(1 Corinthians 10:20) “Whatever a Gentile sacrifices to a demon, and not to God, I do not want you to have fellowship with demons.”
Offering sacrifices to the dead is serving as a demon.
According to the ancestral rites, when enshrining the deceased as a deity for the deceased or attaching fat to them, the word 'Shinwi' is used for those who did not hold a post during their lifetime. The word “shinwi” means “becoming a ghost”. Incense cultivation is a ritual that believes that the souls of the dead will come.
Among the sins committed before God, the greatest sin is idolatry rather than murder or adultery.
Therefore, believers must reject idolatry, which is the most wrathful of God.
- Blessings are from God.
(Lamentations 3:38) Do not evil and blessing come from the mouth of the Most High?
Because sacrificial offerings bring woes, not blessings.
- The God who loves us is a jealous God and does not glorify idols.
(Exodus 20:4-6) “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth below, or that is in the water under the earth; 5 you shall not bow down to them or serve them. I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing fathers to sons to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, 6 but showing kindness to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.”
“I am jealous” (El Qana) means that bowing down to an idol is never tolerated. It was also said to be an act of hating God. God loves his people.
The term jealousy was used in the sense that God's people, the people of Israel, the bride of Christ, would never be surrendered to Satan.
God loves us humans so intensely that He sacrificed His only begotten Son.
But when he rejects that love and gives his heart to another god, he is furiously angry.
In fact, if you say you have love and you don't have feelings of jealousy, that's proof that you don't have love.
Those who honor God are honored.
(1 Samuel 2:30) ?? ... Those who honor me I will honor and those who despise me will I despise?? Therefore, we must cherish God.
Idolatry is destined to perish. descendants perish.
If God hates God, who rules all things in the universe and insists on good luck and good fortune, how can it be?
On the contrary, he said, “I show mercy to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.”
3. Knowing that true filial piety and love for children is believing in Jesus, we must evangelize and practice filial piety.
True filial piety has to help parents to believe in Jesus while they are still alive so that they can go to heaven.
The Lunar New Year is a great opportunity for family and relatives to love and bond with each other. We should feast and rejoice with our neighbors.
Therefore, it should be a New Year's holiday to rejoice with neighbors, remembering God's grace for allowing a feast during the festival.