We have a Dollar Tree store about 3 blocks from our home. One of the clerks Annie operates a goat farm and works at the store to buy goat feed. Yes it is cowboy country out here on the front range of Colorado. They have a Christmas display on the front check out counter with motion activated holiday bulbs you could hang on your tree. When you get near the display they go off and you get the song, “We wish you a Merry Christmas, We wish you a Merry Christmas.” The song repeats over and over again for about 10 seconds! As each customer walks by it the song is repeated over and over again! I felt sorry for Annie because this song would play over and over for hours on end! When I suggested to her to take the battery out of the device she told me it was solar powered! I told her to turn off the lights! The lady behind me told me she liked the music! I guess she thought I was the anti-Christmas scrooge! Annie told us her husband got mad at her last night because she was whistling this tune in her sleep and woke him up! She told us she is planning to buy the whole display to turn off the sound! It was the night before Christmas and the motion detector was set off by a mouse! Merry Christmas! James and Hamsa Sasse. GodWhoisGod.com
Tag: tree
Treeless Worship Deuteronomy 16:21-22
“Thou shalt not plant a grove of any trees near unto the altar of the Lord thy God, which thou shalt make thee. Neither shall thy set up any image, which the Lord thy God hateth.” We first need to look at the Hebrew root word for the English word “groves.” The Hebrew root word translates to the word “Asherah.” Astarte is a Phoenician goddess of fertility. She was the Canaan fertility goddess believed to be the consort of Baal. The noun is most often used for the carved wooden images of the goddess. The image was associated with high places and fresh green trees. The Israelites were commanded to cut them down and burn them! False worship was a problem even to the extent that Asherah’s image was erected in God’s Temple itself! There were no trees around the temple in Jerusalem! I witnessed idol worship during the three years we spent in India. These idol’s were everywhere! Often these huge wooden images were parked along tree lines. In the Hindu Temples prostitution was a regular business! I was offered a teenage girl in one of these temples! If you are going to worship the goddess of sex then prostitutes come with the package! To look deeper into the root of idol worship we need to go back to the Book of Genesis. If God took a rib from the man and created a woman then when they are united in marriage there is a completeness. However if you are going to make an image of a woman and worship her through sex then this is self-worship because the woman was taken from the man! Let us look at Genesis 2:9. “And out of the ground made the Lord to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food; the tree of life was also in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” God warned them that if they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they would die! Why? God understood that they could not handle it! God knew that created beings with the knowledge of evil would sin! Let us look at Genesis 3:22. “And the Lord said, Behold the man is become one of us, to know good and evil, now lest he put his hand and take also the Tree of Life, and eat and live forever.” God had to block them from the Garden of Eden because to enter Heaven with the knowledge of evil for eternity would doom them forever! This was an act of Mercy by God! So what about the Tree of Life? This Tree represents Christ, redemption for man and eternity with God! So what did man do with Christ? They cut down a tree and crucified Him on it! This is what happens to all that eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil! You commit evil and then try to do good? However God’s plan was engaged by the evil of men and brought redemption to the world! Without Christ whatever God has given to man as a gift turns to evil! All the religions of the world whether Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, ect, try to find God through their own efforts! Eating from the wrong tree! We all have access to the Tree of Life through Christ and our knowledge of evil is atoned for by His blood sacrifice on Calvary and we can live forever not separated from God but joined with Him in peace and love forever! We cannot save ourselves even though the world religions since creation have and still try! Thankyou. James and Hamsa Sasse. GodWhoisGod.com
Created? Genesis 1:1
What does the word created mean? If we go back to the Hebrew root word we discover some interesting things! The word means to cut down, select, dispatch and to choose. Wait a minute I thought God was building something when he creates? Yes, however to build an ark you have to cut down a tree. To build a Cross you have to cut down another tree. David used this same word in the Psalm when he asked God to create in me a clean heart! Cut away or cut down the evil within me! Inherent within this word is the meaning to choose. God had to choose to create! Someone or something had to die to bring us gain! The tree for the fire to bring heat! A tree had to die to bring life through judgment! The Tree of Life in the midst of the Garden to us through His death! Christ was not created but pre-existed with the Father and the Holy Spirit. So the Trinity has always existed outside of creation! Yet God chose to enter creation through His Son Jesus Christ to redeem us! God had to cut down Himself so we could comprehend Him through observation of the heavens and the earth! With an observation of ourselves and our world we all recognize we need redemption! Through creation God is exalted above the Heavens! If someone gives you a lemon just cut it down and make lemon juice! Back in the 1960’s my wife Hamsa did baby sitting for a Jewish family while she was in college. Morty told Hamsa that I was fired from my previous job because I was Jewish! So I started my own meat company and now we are millionaires! The world is going to try to cut you down but do not retaliate just let God build you up in His Image! If God had to cut Himself down to build you up why do you not do the same for others? Thankyou. James and Hamsa Sasse. GodWhoisGod.com
Unusual Package Under Christmas Tree?
This package was not from the North Pole but from North Korea? Lois Lerner was perplexed but the package contained her lost E-mail’s! There was another package under her tree but Santa messed up! It was addressed to Sony Corporation and also came from North Korea? Christmas is full of surprises this year! Merry Christmas! James and Hamsa Sasse. GodWhoisGod.com
Is It All About Food?
Adam and Eve were given all the food in the garden except one tree! They had a vegetarian dish of everything except for one dish! Could they follow instructions? No! Israel ate the Passover mean with unleavened bread before leaving Egypt. No time to ferment the bread they had to get out of Dodge(town). Moses got complaints about the food in the wilderness. The Jews told him they wish they could go back to Egypt and eat the garlic and onions! God wanted to kill them all but Moses pleaded with God and they got frosted flakes in the wilderness. Just a note here I have a bowl of Luckey Charms every morning for breakfast. Then the most significant event in all of history happened! In an obscure village named Bethlehem God prepared another Table for us! The name Bethlehem means house of bread. Then we have the last supper. We have the Lord’s table or Thanksgiving meal. This meal is also called the Communion Table where we receive Christ’s Body(Broken Bread), and His Blood(Wine) as atonement for our sin. On the resurrection day we will all be at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb! The point here is God has prepared a Table for us simply by His Grace over us! We did not earn this but a gift to us! God has prepared a table for us both past, present and future! As we sit around a table this Holiday season think on these things and The Table He by His great sacrifice has provided to you! Source; Sermon notes taken from Pastor Brady Boyd at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Message given on December 8, 2013. Thankyou. James Sasse. GodWhoisGod.com