Thinking and Acting Like a Christian

At our church we have a Sunday School class for adults and young people titled "Thinking LIke a Christian." It's a pretty well attended class. We also have had several sermon series lately on the general topic of not having a dichotomy between the sacred and the secular. In other words, we don't have to check our Christianity at the door on the way out of the church - or check our minds at the door on the way in. So, although I know I shouldn't have been, I was taken aback by the fact that at least half of the families in our church took part in Halloween festivities this October.

Not only that, but I drove by churches with signs for Halloween parties and heard and read many essays on "redeeming the holiday." I cannot see this as anything other than the Devil's holiday. I honestly don't see how any thinking Christian can see it otherwise. Witches and other pagans certainly celebrate it that way. I know that some churches try to "Christianize" it or "redeem" it, but all they are doing is joining forces with the evil one. Just because they aren't dressing up in ghoulish costumes doesn't change the fact that they are out there with the ones who celebrate the unGodly ideas of the day.

Especially in today's spiritual climate, it is important to think through what we do as Christians. We need to "think Christianly," not just go along to get along. I hear some Christians rationalizing that they just don't want their children to miss out on the fun the other kids have. Does that also apply to the fun the others are having with promiscuous sex and illicit drugs? Even members of churches who are separtist and don't have anything to do with other churches somehow manage to go right out and have fellowship with the Wiccans and others on this night of darkness.

The Apostle Paul had some thoughts on this topic. He wrote:

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people." "Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you." "I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.

Is joining with the dark side in its "holiday" coming out from them? We are to minister to pagans. In order to do that we need to be among them and have some relationship with them. We are not, however, supposed to live like them.

BTW, we also had an awesome Reformation Party at our church.