January 2, 2025

How does the saying go? “Peace on Earth and Good Will Toward Men.” I don’t want to get too “christmasy” with this post, what with knowing the pagan origins of the customs associated with the winter time holidays, but honestly all of that stuff doesn’t bother me too much anymore. I used to really loathe the trees with their trinkets, satan santa, nativity idols, and pretty much everything that goes with them. Admittedly, it’s safe to say at this point I’m sure, that many of us Torah observant followers of Yeshua HaMoshiach are glad that it’s passed at least for another year.

The reality is that I was once there too, celebrating christmas that is. There are many Christians celebrating christmas who are very good people, so how can we who have had the scales removed really judge them? In many ways, I’ve seen more genuine kindness and integrity from your every day run-of-the-mill Christians than so-called Torah observant believers. This isn’t to condone christmas with it’s pagan customs in any way. We are not to mix the customs of the nations with the worship of the One True Elohim. We also should not be “Torah Terrorists.”

The last christmas that I observed, before coming to an understanding of the truth, was in 2001. I remember being very upset at the time, in the days leading up to the holiday, when someone told me that christmas was evil with all the pagan origins of the customs associated with that holiday. Surely, not my christmas! It’s not evil. How dare you! Christmas was somewhat of a special time for my family – as it is for many other families, I’m sure. There is an emotional attachment.

I was supposed to be born on December 5, but I decided to wait a bit in the comfort of my mother’s womb, and came about twenty-three days late, on December 28. My parents – who were by no means wealthy – and in preparation for their new born son had bought many christmas gifts; he wasn’t born until three days after christmas, however. My father would pass away the following April, and with that turn of events, I would never get to spend that christmas with him. So, every year, my mother tried to make christmas a very special time.

It’s not your everyday run-of-the-mill Christians, from my experience, that seem to have a negative response when I tell them that we don’t do christmas, and instead our household celebrates the Biblical festivals (“mo’edim”) that are described in Leviticus 23, as well as other places throughout scriptures. No, most of the backlash received during the holiday season comes from those family members and friends who are closest. The ones we love most, or have known the longest. The ones who feel familiar enough to ridicule and criticize, and who know which buttons to push. I dread the christmas season because I know that it brings with it arguments, resentment, guilt trips… all the above, and then some.

After twenty-three years of not observing the pagan holidays, and instead seeking out the mo’edim of Elohim and keeping the Shabbat, you would think that it would get easier. In some ways it has. I am convicted in my soul about the set-apart mo’edim. Yet the adversary is very good at finding ways to accuse, tear down, and attack – and most of the time the attacks come from those who are closest to us.

As I turn forty-six, I reflect on how I’ve spent half my life seeking to know how to walk in the ways of our Father in Heaven as given to us through His instruction manual – the set-apart Scriptures. Yeshua said, “If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me. And where I am, there My servant also shall be. If anyone serves Me, the Father shall value him.” (John 12:26) Now we know that Yeshua was without sin, and if sin is lawlessness – Torahlessness – like 1 John 3:4 says, then I think that I need to follow Yeshua as best as I can, and that means walking in the Torah instructions given to me by my Father in Heaven and revealed in the Holy Scriptures of the Bible. I’d like to spend the next half of my life truly walking them out in shalom – perfect peace. (That would get me to at least 92 years old, for anyone paying attention.)

My little children, I write this to you, so that you do not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Intercessor with the Father, יהושע Messiah, a righteous One. And He Himself is an atoning offering for our sins, and not for ours only but also for all the world. And by this we know that we know Him, if we guard His commands. The one who says, “I know Him,” and does not guard His commands, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever guards His Word, truly the love of Elohim has been perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. The one who says he stays in Him ought himself also to walk, even as He walked. – 1 John 2:1-6

Luke 2:14 actually says, “Esteem to Elohim in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased!” My we all walk pleasing before our Father in Heaven, continuing to pray for our loved ones and display the fruits of the Spirit that we may be a light in their lives. May we count it all joy when we fall into various trials, as difficult as that may be at times. May the Ruach HaKodesh open their hearts and minds to the truth of the ways of our Father in Heaven that they may seek to walk like the Son – my King, HaMoshiach Yehoshua the Nazarene.

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword, for I have come to bring division, a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law – and a man’s enemies are those of his own household.” – Matthew 10: 34-36

“And you, speak to the children of Yisra’ěl, saying, ‘My Sabbaths you are to guard, by all means, for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, to know that I, יהוה, am setting you apart.” – Exodus 31:13

“And יהוה spoke to Mosheh, saying, “Speak to the children of Yisra’ěl, and say to them, ‘The appointed times of יהוה, which you are to proclaim as set-apart gatherings, My appointed times, are these.” – Leviticus 23:1-2

“Guard, and obey all these words which I command you, that it might be well with you and your children after you forever, when you do what is good and right in the eyes of יהוה your Elohim. When יהוה your Elohim does cut off from before you the nations which you go to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, guard yourself that you are not ensnared to follow them, after they are destroyed from before you, and that you do not inquire about their mighty ones, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their mighty ones? And let me do so too.’ Do not do so to יהוה your Elohim, for every abomination which יהוה hates they have done to their mighty ones, for they even burn their sons and daughters in the fire to their mighty ones. All the words I am commanding you, guard to do it – do not add to it nor take away from it.” – Deuteronomy 12:28-32