My intention is not to beat a dead horse, but I came to realize that the horse is not dead, yet. Let’s have time to study the Truth about this event celebrated by Christians called “Easter”. Read Acts 12:1-7. Jesus Christ never intended to turn anything that He does into tradition. On that calendar day - Easter Sunday - how many people are preaching on the same subject? We must say what the Spirit wants to say and not to be led by a day on a pagan calendar, but by His Spirit. “Easter” was mentioned during the passage in Acts 12:1-7. That Easter event was a pagan day, celebrated back then, until now! God told me this: “I don’t want My resurrection to become a one-day event! It is an everyday event!”. Christians in the book of Acts were being led by the Spirit, not by a worldly calendar. Truth is what the Spirit says - not what the world or tradition says. It is all about relationship and not rituals! So, let’s look at some facts; not at opinions or at what man wants, but at the Word of God to see what God thinks about it!
A man named Constantine started changing the calendar to accommodate his pagan lifestyle. The Easter celebration was brought to Christianity 300 years later, after the resurrection of Christ Jesus. So, the Easter celebration was not brought by the Spirit of God, but by a pagan person, serving a pagan man. Should we be a follower of that man or God? The last days church will have nothing to do with any paganism. Easter was originally the celebration of Ishtar, the Assyrian and Babylonian goddess of fertility and sex. ... After Constantine decided to Christianize the Empire, Easter was changed to represent Jesus. But at its roots, Easter (which is how you pronounce Ishtar) is all about celebrating fertility and sex. I have seen man-size Easter bunny’s greeting people in church parking lots. Things are getting better, but some will not even drop the name “Easter” and call it, at least, “Resurrection Day”. During Acts, they were killing Christians, but they wanted to wait for Easter, the holiday that Herod celebrated, to pass (Acts 12:4). Do you think that Christians were celebrating it? The book of Acts was written a span of 30 years after the resurrection and paganism was not mixed in until centuries later.
How many worldly people celebrate the Passover? Not many, just real bound-up Christians (thinking that they can keep traditions of men) and the Jews. Christianity is hated so much. Why would the world so easily adopt a tradition? Because it has no Spirit of God, but the spirit of this age! Religion will always say, “Well, a lot of people came to church at Easter “or “This person got saved” and on and on and on. All these denominations bring division and say their interpretation of the Bible is the right way to celebrate paganism! Why would we listen to someone claiming to have the correct interpretation of the Bible, such as the Holy Spirit's gifts, if these same denominations still hold something of the Devil and not of Christ?
Holidays or holy days? Transformed or conformed? Truth or lies? Carnal or spiritual? Mixture or set apart? Relationship or ritual? Rebellion or submission? Truth or tradition? We must choose. Should we adopt tradition just because everybody is? Should we reject Truth just because everybody is? Many ignore the works of Nicolaitans in the church.
Who were they? Nicolaism (also Nicholaism, Nicolaitism, Nicolationism, or Nicolaitanism) was an early Christian sect mentioned twice in the Book of Revelation of the New Testament. They were considered heretical by the Church of Christ Jesus. What did they do? Immersed in pagan Roman culture in that city, the sect of the Nicolaitans may have attempted to woo the Christians away from their religion, just as they had been wooed before. Nicolaitans also appeared to eat food offered to idols, which Acts appears to decree against in Acts 15:29. Although this doesn’t seem like a major offense, in their context, they had committed a serious spiritual crime. In a nutshell: Nicolas and his followers brought heresy, mixture and paganism. We know that the book of Revelation chapters 2 and 3 are timeless. Jesus was exposing these things. He was rebuking them and also encouraging them about the good things they were doing. The Seven churches are the one church, the Bride! So, He was talking to all of us!
When God speaks of spirits like Balaam and Jezebel, He is not speaking of a dead man or woman, but the type of spiritual fornication and rebellion in them. Spirits do not die when men and women do. Spirits have no gender. Just as John came with the spirit of Elijah and we know that is the spirit of all-mighty God! These unclean spirits take control of willing and rebellious vessels.
“Yet this is to your credit [the church of Ephesus]: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I [Jesus] also hate.”Revelation 2:6
“But I have a few things against you [the church of Pergamos]: you have some there who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the people of Israel, so that they would eat food sacrificed to idols and practice fornication. So you also have some who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans. Repent then. If not, I will come to you soon and make war against them with the sword of my mouth.”Revelation 2:14-16
For so many, it is easy to conform to what has been mixed than to change it! But God told His people to not conform, to not compromise, to not touch any unclean rituals. We must stop trying to make holidays into holy days! It is not holy, and it never will be! Many, right now, are stopping what the Spirit is doing to join others with their worldly celebration. Candles and cakes! Why do we need to celebrate somebody's life by a calendar? Do it! But do it, by the Spirit! The same ritualistic way they have been dealing with the resurrection! But Jesus said this to me: “Don’t worship Me, by your calendar! Don’t worship My resurrection, by your calendar! Worship me, in the Spirit and in Truth!” This is real freedom! This is real celebration! “ Do not worship something that I did, but live in Me and obey Me. This is the worship I desire.”
What is ok is what Jesus says is ok! Repent of every deed of the Nicolaitans! How do you defeat a lie? Speaking the Truth. How many generations were lied to after the resurrection of Christ Jesus? Wonder why the power of God has been diminished in the churches? Mixture! Compromise! Lies from the pulpit!
Resurrection is named 40 times all throughout the New Testament, Easter is only once. The problem is that debate is no longer about finding what is Truth and what is lie. It is all about being right. That is pride. It’s the heart of rebellion to Jesus, to the Holy Spirit, and to the word. These types of hearts make those that want to be set apart to look religious zealots, instead lovers of freedom. Do I want a man, that cannot even tell me the Truth for sake of man-pleasing popularity and culture, leading me? No! If we do not hate what He hates, then we cannot love what He loves.
Every day we should celebrate whatever the Holy Spirit is celebrating. That is called Freedom in Christ! A full basket filled with chocolate and candy? The Devil knows how to attract even the kids, the innocent ones! Selling of Easter Eggs? Hiding Easter Eggs? This is not what we are supposed to be doing! We must give up our tradition and rituals! Why don’t they do it? Because they want to give an excuse for their sins! We cannot be bound for the popularity of men! Jesus emptied crusades, because of the Truth! To be carnal, worldly, ritualistic, pagan-minded is to be an enemy of God!
We must have our heart connected to a daily “YES”! Man makes the Gospel of no effect by their tradition according to Jesus Christ (Mark 7:13)! We don’t want to be “Easter Party Poopers”. We just want to see people free! Colossians 2 warns us not to let any man guile you with their traditions. We must be after Christ and not after the tradition of men! God is cutting our soul ties with the world. Rudiments of the world, these rebellious houses will be exposed by what they do. Jesus sets us free from these, and from any other holidays that Christians have adopted or claimed to be of God, but made by man.
Have you noticed that there is always a “saint” involved with many pagan calendar dates, such as Valentine’s Day or St Patrick’s Day. But all the saints should come out of the system of religion and of the world. What sect and denomination did hierarchy and man worship come from? We can’t mix both: Clean and unclean! Holy and unholy! Traditions, in general, for example: birthdays and anniversaries just bring someone into bondage! Why not to honor one another by being led by the Spirit? If you have a relationship with someone, you will be honoring that person every day of the week, by the Spirit of God!
Every man that follows the traditions of men will die by it! Read 2 Timothy 2. Don’t entangle yourself with the traditions and rudiments of this world. Stand against the lie! This is what a soldier does. Study to show yourself approved, rightly dividing the word of Truth! Study, so you can’t be deceived! Easter was brought by man! Do you see it now? Why do we have to preach about resurrection just because everybody is preaching about it? What if the Spirit is saying something totally different? Let’s drink from the well that is pure, living water. We should not preach by tradition, but by the Spirit of God. I tell you this: God is not the author of religion, tradition or the ways of man!
Read John 4:19-25. Just as He said to the woman at the well, He is saying now: Church, believe on the scriptures! Don’t worship Him out of tradition! Worship Him knowing who you are worshipping! When the Messiah comes, and He is here, and He is telling us all things! Read Romans 12:1-3. Don’t be led by traditions of men, and learn to walk in freedom. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom! Even the heathen knows all about our tradition, and they celebrate them. What does that tell you? They crave anything ungodly! That is the only way to have the world and the church in one place without a battle. We are supposed to come out of it, like in the book of Acts! They burned all the pagan books! They did not join the world to celebrate anything with the world! That is a real move of God! What a conviction! We have a bunch of religious cowards called pastors, not leading the sheep to the living water but to drink of things that divide and don't unify! How about a real messenger of God telling something else that nobody has heard? You say, “Elijah spirit is here” then you want chop his head off. It is so nice to talk about the Bible like you want to follow it, but Elijah is here to make the crooked places straight. This is God’s desire.
Read 2 Corinthians 6:11-18. Let your heart be enlarged. Be not equally yoked with any that is of tradition or is pagan! Do not be in agreement with anything that is of idolatry! Don’t be linked with anything that is a stumbling block! This is the new LIFE! This is something that we live out! This is not something that we celebrate. It is something that we live in, and are proof of! Paul was a man led by Him. He knew exactly what to bring to the table and set the feast before God’s people, besides the temptations, he overcame the man-pleasing spirit! Father, we want to be moved by You, God and not by anything else! We want to keep ourselves unspotted from the world and from anything that was added to the Gospel of Christ Jesus, from any impurity. The Cross and the Resurrection are not yearly events. They are our daily bread!
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