Christians celebrate birthdays?

[lanie_0913]

So is mine! Amen to that!

 

[yeshuasavedme]

i'm thankful mines iz

Me too!
BTW, Thank you

We can only get our names blotted out of the Book of Life, where all Adam souls were written down to come into their being at their pre-appointed times and to be born on their pre-appointed days, which are numbered there. There is "a time to be born and a time to die" [with exceptions].
It's mighty hard to get our names blotted out, because the Light lightens us from birth, and only when that Light is totally rejected, with understanding, or neglected a lifetime, or denied, with understanding, can a name be blotted out. It is not easy to get blotted out, for God is patient, longsuffering, and compassionate, not willing that any should perish.
His Light is that "Hound of Heaven", who pursues us down the arches of the years"...

The Hound of Heaven

by



Francis Thompson (1859-1907)


I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated, Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.

But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat--
and a Voice beat More instant than the Feet--
"All things betray thee, who betrayest Me."
I pleaded, outlaw-wise,
By many a hearted casement, curtained red,
Trellised with intertwining charities
(For, though I knew His love Who followed,
Yet was I sore adread
Lest having Him, I must have naught beside);
But if one little casement parted wide, The gust of His approach would clash it to.
Fear wist not to evade, as Love wist to pursue.
Across the margent of the world I fled,
And troubled the gold gateways of the stars,
Smiting for shelter on their clanged bars;
Fretted to dulcet jars
And silvern chatter the pale ports o' the moon.

I said to dawn,
Be sudden; to eve,
Be soon; With thy young skyey blossoms heap me over
From this tremendous Lover!
Float thy vague veil about me, lest He see!
I tempted all His servitors, but to find
My own betrayal in their constancy,
In faith to Him their fickleness to me,
Their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit.

To all swift things for swiftness did I sue;
Clung to the whistling mane of every wind.

But whether they swept, smoothly fleet,
The long savannahs of the blue; Or whether, Thunder-driven,
They clanged his chariot 'thwart a heaven
Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn o' their feet--

Still with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
Came on the following Feet, And a Voice above their beat--

"Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me."
I sought no more that after which I strayed In face of man or maid;
But still within the little children's eyes
Seems something, something that replies;
They at least are for me, surely for me!
I turned me to them very wistfully;
But, just as their young eyes grew sudden fair With dawning answers there,
Their angel plucked them from me by the hair.
"Come then, ye other children,
Nature's--share With me," said I, "your delicate fellowship;
Let me greet you lip to lip, Let me twine with you caresses,
Wantoning With our Lady-Mother's vagrant tresses'
Banqueting With her in her wind-walled palace,
Underneath her azured daïs,
Quaffing, as your taintless way is,
From a chalice Lucent-weeping out of the dayspring."
So it was done; I in their delicate fellowship was one--
Drew the bolt of Nature's secrecies.
I knew all the swift importings
On the wilful face of skies;
I knew how the clouds arise
Spumèd of the wild sea-snortings;
All that's born or dies Rose and drooped with--made them shapers
Of mine own moods, or wailful or divine-- With them joyed and was bereaven.
I was heavy with the even,
When she lit her glimmering tapers Round the day's dead sanctities.
I laughed in the morning's eyes. I triumphed and I saddened with all weather,
Heaven and I wept together,
And its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine;
Against the red throb of its sunset-heart I laid my own to beat,
And share commingling heat; But not by that, by that, was eased my human smart.
In vain my tears were wet on Heaven's gray cheek.

For ah! we know not what each other says,
These things and I; in sound I speak--
Their sound is but their stir, they speak by silences.
Nature, poor stepdame, cannot slake my drouth;
Let her, if she would owe me,
Drop yon blue bosom-veil of sky, and show me
The breasts of her tenderness;
Never did any milk of hers once bless
My thirsting mouth. Nigh and nigh draws the chase,
With unperturbèd pace, Deliberate speed, majestic instancy;
And past those noisèd Feet A voice comes yet more fleet--
"Lo naught contents thee, who content'st not Me."

Naked I wait Thy love's uplifted stroke!
My harness piece by piece
Thou hast hewn from me,
And smitten me to my knee; I am defenseless utterly.

I slept, methinks, and woke, A
nd, slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep.
In the rash lustihead of my young powers,
I shook the pillaring hours
And pulled my life upon me; grimed with smears,
I stand amid the dust o' the mounded years--

My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap.
My days have crackled and gone up in smoke, Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream.
Yea, faileth now even dream
The dreamer, and the lute the lutanist;
Even the linked fantasies, in whose blossomy twist I swung the earth a trinket at my wrist,
Are yielding; cords of all too weak account
For earth with heavy griefs so overplussed.

Ah! is Thy love indeed A weed, albeit amaranthine weed,
Suffering no flowers except its own to mount? Ah! must--
Designer infinite!-- Ah! must Thou char the wood ere Thou canst limn with it?

My freshness spent its wavering shower i' the dust;
And now my heart is a broken fount,
Wherein tear-drippings stagnate, spilt down ever
From the dank thoughts that shiver
Upon the sighful branches of my mind.
Such is; what is to be?
The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind?
I dimly guess what Time in mist confounds;
Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds
From the hid battlements of Eternity;
Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then

Round the half-glimpsed turrets slowly wash again.
But not ere him who summoneth I first have seen, enwound
With blooming robes, purpureal, cypress-crowned;
His name I know, and what his trumpet saith.
Whether man's heart or life it be which yields
Thee harvest, must Thy harvest fields
Be dunged with rotten death?
Now of that long pursuit
Comes on at hand the bruit;
That Voice is round me like a bursting sea:
"And is thy earth so marred,
Shattered in shard on shard? Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me!
Strange, piteous, futile thing,
Wherefore should any set thee love apart?
Seeing none but I makes much of naught," He said,
"And human love needs human meriting,
How hast thou merited--
Of all man's clotted clay rhe dingiest clot?
Alack, thou knowest not How little worthy of any love thou art!
Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee
Save Me, save only Me?
All which I took from thee I did but take,
Not for thy harms. But just that thou might'st seek it in my arms.
All which thy child's mistake Fancies as lost, I have stored for the at home;

Rise, clasp My hand, and come!"
Halts by me that footfall;
Is my gloom, after all,
Shade of His hand, outstreched caressingly?
"Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,
I am He Whom thou seekest!
Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me."

[Nephillim, however, were never written in the Book of Life, and are the wicked ones who "go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies", and they are "the dead/rapha who will not rise", cause the Adam flesh bodies They wore were got illegitimately for their evil spirits to wear, by unlawful deeds]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gToj6SLWz8Q

 

[Rick Otto]

qu

ote=yeshuasavedme;God ordained the celebration of birthdays, and He ordained the celebration of Jesus' incarnation and His birth.

In the Book of Life, where our days are bounded by the beginning of them -conception, and birth- to the end of them, in this world.

Show me where in the Book of Life birthday parties are even mentioned.
I will give you credit for creative stretch, tho.

The angels in heaven rejoice when we are conceived, and mark that day, and our own guardian angels are there when we are born and when we die -but its a sad day for them if we die without seeking the Light that lights every man who comes into the world, in the hopes that we may seek Him, and seeking, find Christ the Light.

Great. Now how about those birthday parties?

Job 3:3 Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night [in which] it was said, There is a man child conceived.

http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Job&c=3&t=KJV#comm/3
Where's the cake & ice cream? Oh yeah, first birthday party starts a Year After Birth

God sent a whole host of of angels out to celebrate the birth of Christ come in human being flesh of second creation, and they rejoiced in song at His birth

[/QUOTE]But not at a birthday party.
\People it is obvious you have strong emotional attachment to birthday parties. Fine. Now let's discuss the OP, shall we?

 

[yeshuasavedme]

qu
Show me where in the Book of Life birthday parties are even mentioned.
I will give you credit for creative stretch, tho.

Psalm 139:16Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them.

Psalm 37:23 The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD, And He delights in his way.

Jews celebrate the 13th birthday as the coming of age party, held on the first Sabbath after the birthday.
Bar Mitzvah

From the beginning of creation, the exact days of a persons years were marked on the anniversaries of their births, and parties of celebrations are as old as creation.

I remember hearing a woman speak on Focus on the Family, years ago, about a convicted murderer who was brought to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ by her, after he kidnapped her when he had escaped from prison.
The woman was ordained by God that day to be kidnapped, and to be His witness to that murderer. She was anointed by God to give him the Gospel. He repented of his sins and called on the name of the LORD to be saved. He called authorities and turned himself in, and she was released.
In prison, awaiting his execution, he began to have doubts assail him of his salvation, and on his birthday he asked God for the present of having that woman visit him in prison as a sign that he indeed was forgiven.
The woman had seen nothing of him since the day she was kidnapped, and had no contact with him, but just as the LORD had led her to take her prayer journal with her the day she was kidnapped [to use in her witnessing to that man whom she had no idea would kidnap her], so the LORD spoke to her that day of his birthday anniversary [and she had no idea it was his birthday], to go to the prison and see him.
She went. He cried because of the grace God showed him by answering that prayer for a birthday gift.

Did you know that God ordains birthday gifts for his sons, at times, to encourage them and to show them His care and concern for all their concerns?

Once I was thinking of a friend I had not seen for years and decided to go see her. We had not been in touch for many years, as they had moved away from our local area. When I showed up at her door [to which I had never been before since she had moved away] she was deeply touched, for it was her birthday, and she was saddened because her only daughter was walking in sin and out of fellowship with the family, but there I was, to see her, not even knowing it was her birthday.
She was moved by the love of God for her that day, to show her He was thinking of her. I saw her this past year, again, when I took some donations to her for a tea party for women that she was in charge of at the Women's Shelter which she manages for the Union Gospel Mission, and I asked about that once wayward daughter. She said she serves the LORD now for some time.


When my elder sister had her 31st birthday 41 years ago Oct 18, I called her on the phone [which was a big deal back then, and she lived 2500 miles away] to tell her "Happy Birthday", "I just had a niece for you, for your birthday". My sis was a bit sad that day because no one who should have remembered had remembered it was her birthday, and she was so happy that God did remember, and give her a gift of a niece. Over the years that sis put her soul into praying for that niece, for after she grew up, she walked away from the LORD -for twelve years! But with the love and concern and prayers of sis, with us, that daughter returned to the LORD over 11 years ago, and is a beautiful Christian who blesses many people -esp sis, who considers her as an own daughter.

Our own family tradition of a celebration for our children on their birthdays was to cook their favorite foods, and to honor them with many good wishes of happy returns of the day, and to sing "Happy Birthday" to them, and to have a special festive dessert. Sometimes there were other guests invited in to honor them and "feast with us", and sometimes there were special gifts, always small, and meaningful. There was never a set thing to do other than to honor the member of the family who completed another year of their lives in our midst.

 

[yeshuasavedme]

Job 3:3 Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night [in which] it was said, There is a man child conceived. ...

Job asked for his day-His own birthday- and his own conception day, to be blotted out of existence -a futile plea from a depressed man in a seemingly hopeless condition -and we've all been there!
You are not dividing the Word of God in truth.

 

[yeshuasavedme]

God sent a whole host of of angels out to celebrate the birth of Christ come in human being flesh of second creation, and they rejoiced in song at His birth

But not at a birthday party.[/quote]
Yes it was. I wrote you before on this thread about the birthday party ordained for Jesus every year in Israel, since coming out of Egypt.

Every year before, since the Feast of Tabernacles was established in Israel, and every year since, as Tabernacles is His birthdate, according to the Word of God.
His conception as the Stone laid in Zion of the New Man temple not made with hands is the 24th day of the ninth month, which is dated exactly in Haggai, 2. That is the eve of Channukah [which was an added feast to celebrate the miracle of the lights, in the days of the Maccabees [how appropriate and significant!]. That makes his birthdate fall at the beginning of Tabernacles and his circumcision on the eighth day, that "Great Day" which signs the end of this present creation and the beginning of the New.
So in God's Feasts/memorials/rehearsals, Tabernacles is the birth date of Jesus the Christ come in "New Man flesh". That's a pretty significant birthday celebration!

 

[brinny]

Birthday parties rock!!!

 

[eachallberg]

So your problem is the human being body, then, in general?
You fear that the pleasures God made for the race of Adam, whom He made male and female, are evil to enjoy?
I think you are very much mistaught by somebody, and I think the spirit behind the ideas you are espousing hates the human being body -period.

"The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life."
Not in general, but I do have a problem with the flesh. Its weak, and desires to pleasure itself. The Spirit is willing and loves to love all others. I won't fear.

If I am wrong, correct me I'll love you for it. You say i'm mistaught, I say your misinformed.

Do you know how many times the word rejoice is used by the Creator in Scripture?

259.
Truth and spirit occur more, whats your point?

Did you know that Adam is made in the very bodily image of God the Word?...

For a person to speak a word they need breath, or air/wind. In greek, wind is the same word for spirit. What physical properties does the wind have?

Yes. Christians celebrate the gift of life each soul born into the world has, among their friends and relations, and they celebrate the birth of Christ come in flesh -even though some of them have the date wrong [it's at this time of year/Tabernacles]; they know its a really big event, and they celebrate it.

Early Christians didn't celebrate birthdays. Thats what kings, emperors, pharaohs, ect did.

"most fortunate of all are those who are not yet born. For they have not seen all the evil that is done under the sun."
(Ecclesiastes 4:3)

Your so kind thanks again for responding I appreciate your thoughts.
Peace to you.

 

[Incariol]

Early Christians didn't celebrate birthdays. Thats what kings, emperors, pharaohs, ect did.

Those aren't mutually exclusive.

 

[eachallberg]

How so, then? If the people celebrating the birthdays care nothing at all for astrology (as most do not) then what does it signify if someone else somewhere else may once have done so?

It signifies the root cause.

Nothing at all. It's a ridiculous superstition.

Don't be scared to expose evil.

 

[eachallberg]

I don't know who started the tradition of celebrating birthdays, and I don't see nothing wrong with it my self...

Thanks Dean,

I deeply respect your honesty.
Maybe one day you might see something wrong with exalting someone other than Christ.

I'm interested in why you see nothing wrong.

Peace be to all of you.

 

[eachallberg]

I just don't get it! What's the big deal? What's wrong with celebrating birthdays? Am I a pagan because I celebrate birthdays? Am I a pagan because I'm happy I and my loved ones have made another year? Surely there are more important things to debate!?[/COLOR]

I hear you, I think none of us get it.
Not even me because I know to 2 Timothy 2:14 but don't. For that i'm a hypocrite. Deeds are more important than discussions.
You out of all people should know if your pagan or not, but I trust that your Christian.

Peace.

 

[eachallberg]

A religious spirit is opposed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and wants to hold dominion over and gate the entrance into salvation of other human beings with burdens that Jesus never lays on any of His sons.

"His Yoke is easy and His burden is light", but religious spirits add burdens that cannot be borne, and make rebels against God who do not want anything to do with such a monster who takes all Joy of living away, by their "taste not touch not" unbiblical doctrines.
Tomorrow, my husband and I celebrate -with joy and gratefulness to God our Savior- the completion of 48 years of marriage.
We have seven children and thank God for each of them and tell them so, esp on their birthday anniversaries.

Thank God we have freedom of thought and religion and that we can freely celebrate with our loved ones the anniversaries of happy events in our lives, for which we events we praise God.

How many people walked away from Christ because they couldn't handle his teaching? Your idea of freedom sounds like anarchy. If there was no law of Christ then that verse would have read more like, "I have no yoke and no burden".

So what kind of spirit is for the Gospel? The lackadaisical type?
Peace.

 

[DeaconDean]

Maybe one day you might seem something wrong with exalting someone other than Christ.

Tell me something, where did I say I exalted my wife, or a birthday above God?

Did I not give all the credit to God in Him allowing my mother-in-law to have daughter just for me?

Did I not exalt God for Him sending her to me?

So where did I exalt her, or her birthday above God?

You make it seem like I'm placing her on a pedestal and worshippinh her one day a year.

If you have a problem with birthdays, fine. But as for me, I see children as a gift from God, and the day they are born, exalting God for the good things He gives us.

And my wife was a gift from God to my mother-in-law.

God Bless

Till all are one.

 

[eachallberg]

...But I do know today, October 20, 2011, 46 years ago, God gave a woman in my state the gift of a little girl.

21 years later I married her.

Today is her 46th birthday.

And I thank God he sent her into my life.

I love you from the bottm of my heart Mrs. DeaconDean, Happy 46th Birthday!

And thank God He sent you into my life!..

You just did right here. To me it seems like your putting this woman over Christ. Your interests are divided my friend.

Peace be to you.

 

[Incariol]

There's something surreal about birthdays being talked about this seriously.

Jesus' first miracle was to create more wine for a wedding party. I mean, really. I don't think Jesus is going to smite you for commemorating the anniversary of someone's birth.

You just did right here. To me it seems like your putting this woman over Christ. Your interests are divided my friend.

That is one of the most absurd things I have heard on this forum.

 

[eachallberg]

I really appreciate your response, and agree with you on many other things besides this.

Did I not give all the credit to God in Him allowing my mother-in-law to have daughter just for me?

Yes, but notice the last three words here.

You make it seem like I'm placing her on a pedestal and worshippinh her one day a year.

You made it seem that way.

If you have a problem with birthdays, fine. But as for me, I see children as a gift from God, and the day they are born, exalting God for the good things He gives us.

And my wife was a gift from God to my mother-in-law.

God Bless

Till all are one.

Every good and perfect gift is from above. I know what i'm defending, do you know what your fighting for?

Yes till all are one in peace.

 

[DeaconDean]

Yes, but notice the last three words here.

But you forget words 9,10, and 11 that preceed the last three.

You made it seem that way.

I never did.

Every good and perfect gift is from above. I know what i'm defending, do you know what your fighting for?

All I know is your giving me grief over praising God for giving my mother-in-law a daughter, that I am thankful for. And that God did this on a special day.

Yes till all are one in peace.

It seems to me that your twist on my signature means all are one in your terms of peace.

God Bless

Till all are one.

 

[Rhamiel]

so birthday parties were not celibrated by early christians, but it is now celibrated

well I do not think anyone in this thread has shown where Christians first started celibrating birthdays

the assumption seems to be that because it was done by pagans that when Christians celibrate brthdays that they were influenced by paganism, could it not have came from some other origen? A thing that developed in Christianity independant of the pagan birthday parties?
it is like when people see pyramids in egypt and in south america, people try to link the two cultures together but it is possible that they both just invented the pyramid independant of eachother
same with birthdays, because it was done by pagans does not mean that the celibration of birthdays in christian cultures evolved from the pagan celibration

 

[yeshuasavedme]

so birthday parties were not celibrated by early christians, but it is now celibrated

Birthdays were always marked by whatever means the family and friends wished to mark them by, from the beginning of time.
The OP is not into reading ancient histories and records but wants to bring the bondage of gnostic dualism doctrines to Christians, which doctrines deny that God made the human being body of flesh. This is rooted in ancient pagan doctrines, and has no place in the Gospel of Christ.

The ascetic doctrines of the Gnostics were utterly condemned by Paul and by many of the early Church leaders.

Col 2:16 Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath [days]:
Col 2:18 Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,
Col 2:20 Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances,
Col 2:21 (Touch not; taste not; handle not;
Col 2:22 Which all are to perish with the using, after the commandments and doctrines of men?
Col 2:23 Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh.