The Season of Emotions

Happy Season to you all.

What makes me different from animals is the image of God given to man by God at the time of creation. That 'image' in my view of life and life's setting, consists in the 'intellect' and in the emotions. I am a "true Jew", that is I subscribe to the faith of Abraham our Father on the human side. My Messiah was, is, and always will be a Jew in the same sense. Like Saul of Tarsus wrote, Jesus of Nazareth was the son of David according to the 'flesh' and a son of God 'by the resurrection from the dead'. I have accepted Moses and his writings and all the prophets, I have accepted Jesus, the Jew, as the Messiah, and consequently also the so called New Testament. I accept any thing and anyone that agrees with Moses. This is the intellectual part of my life and an intellectual decision. Now the question comes concerning the 'emotions' of life. Broadly speaking the emotions bring out the 'inner soul'. When the emotions are engaged in any relationship, we speak of 'being in love'. Certain people evoke in us a response of emotions and then we 'love them'. Some people engage our intellect and they appear interesting, charming, mysterious, challenging....but what is needed to complete the relationship is the emotion of 'love'. The awakening of love emotions can be accomplished by words, actions, appearance etc... and then we 'love' the scenes of nature, the sounds of nature, the appearance of nature. To 'love' means to decide on a relationship with another person, in which relationship we live for that other person. The Bible tells us that we should do all things 'for God's sake' out of love for Him. Then comes the question how do we maintain the emotional charge of love day by day, year by year? First of all by 'hearing'. We hear stories about God from our parents and then teachers and then preachers and then...others. Then, by seeing! We read for ourselves the messages from God in the book called the Bible. This is the place where God speaks directly to us, reveals Himself to us and enters into a 'relationship'. The statement: 'we love Him, because He first loved us' is a true picture of God's relationship to us. Then comes the 'need' to respond. Love is a two way street. It is a reciprocal relationship. Binding two people for ever. How do I reveal my emotions to God? We 'recount' back to God all the things we learned (the characteristics of God), by our words and actions. When king David wanted to express his love for God he sang 'psalms'. The ancient way to memorize events and ideas was to put them in a form of a poem and then sing it. I too express my emotions by singing...all sorts of songs...but to remember their tunes they must be melodious and not like the modern excuse for songs. That is why I can take the SDA church hymnal and go through it page by page and 'sing my heart out'. Those that have a melodious tune...I memorized, those that are 'the work of art', I skip. This brings me to the so called X-mas Season. Sure it is pagan in origin, no question there. Sure Jesus was not born in...December...but that is not the point . The point and value of Xmas Season is that it is the occasion to sing 'love songs' about Jesus, God and their work for our salvation. We are so busy all through the year that we have little time to 'really sing' about God and Jesus. Now we have 'an excuse' to do so, and I love to do it. The cheap, third rate 'entertainment' that is practiced in some of our churches, in the form of modern so called songs and dramatic presentations, and dancing, clapping and other things, miss my soul and make me feel that I have wasted at least an hour of my life in there. But songs, by the whole congregation, like the "We have this Hope", The Old rugged Cross, Lift up the Trumpet, etc...make me feel that I have been worshiping my God in the congregation of the saints. I was blessed with a mother that used to sing everyday all day long. The evening before her death, she played piano in a nursing home till 10 pm, she was 94 years of age! When I need to revive my emotional ties to God...I sing. I sing my heart out to God. It does not matter that my voice is not what it used to be and my hearing needs...a hearing aid. So what, I sing to my God, and He understand the intentions of my mind ( heart). So my friends, readers, sing, sing, sing...even if it is during the paganized Xmas Season.

To quote the Preacher: Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days come of which you will say 'I have no pleasure in them'.

I still enjoy my days...when I sing.