Salt and Light

Matthew 5:13-16 talks about being the light of the world and salt of the earth.  It gives the analagy that salt is useful for alot of things; but if it no longer has saltiness then it is not even fit for the manure pile!  We are the light of the world and if we have Him in us we should be so bright that everyone can see that we are Christians and desire to be them as well.  When we do this we bring glory to God.  We need to make sure we are making ourselves useful to God, so that we can stay salty.  We also need to shine so bright that it is as impossible as not to see a bright light in a dark room as impossible as it is for others to not see our love for Christ. 

Halloween

I find this fascinating.  Our preacher preached the same message at our church Sunday and I really liked it.  I have always carved a jack-o-lantern, dressed up and gone trick-or-treating.  I love the spooky things and the candy.  I never stopped to think that this holiday might have a past.  I think it's great that the church tried to make an influence on the old Celtic holiday.  They took "festival of the dead" and turned it into a festival celebrating and remembering the Saints that have died.  I think if kids use this holiday to go around as a fun night of gathering candy, it is perfectly fine.  Of course there is going to be some devil worship going on, but isn't there every night and we just don't think about it.  What surprised me the most about this article was how Christmas has been manipulated.  I did not know that it came from the ancient German holiday of Yule.  I always just thought it was in celebration of Jesus' birth.  If even Christmas has a pagan holiday as it's background,  I think it is ridiculous to not be able to celebrate Halloween.