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All I Want For Christmas... Is Fewer Ornaments
Brian Mashburn
December 13, 2009
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Remove The Ornaments
Before you think I'm against Christmas decorations or think I'm giving some super-spiritual thrashing against spending your money on ornaments for the tree, please read on.
In Exodus 33:6, a situation was present where it was appropriate and God-honoring for "the Israelites [to] strip off their ornaments at Mount Horeb."
What had happened? Why was this necessary? What was going on with God? What was going on with God's people? What were these "ornaments" that they needed to remove?
God had delivered these people from slavery. He had allowed them to strip from their Egyptian captors riches and wealth (ornaments), and with those riches, instead of honoring God, they constructed a new god (the famous Golden Calf).
God was angry.
So angry, in fact, that even though He intended to fulfill his promise to Abraham and let these people go into the Promised Land, He decided He wouldn't go with them, because He might kill them because of their stubbornness.
When the people heard these distressing words, they stripped themselves of the "ornaments" in hopes that He would be impressed if they rid themselves of the possessions they used in their sin.
It is as if the ornaments were a seduction and, therefore, a threat to true worship of God.
This is powerfully present in our world, too. The "stuff" that we own can threaten our worship of God. I heard a speaker say that "materialism isn't about the stuff you own as much as it is about what stuff owns you."
Is there anything that you own that "owns" you? Is there anything you own that you can't give away?
If so, I think God is angry. Maybe we should identify our own ornaments, and our own Mount Horeb, and do what the Israelites did.
Let's remove the ornaments.