Now that Halloween has passed, we are now running full steam ahead into the Thanksgiving season. We do still have a Thanksgiving season, don’t we? Or has the Christmas season gobbled it up?

I love every single one of these seasons and gladly celebrate them all. The cultural ones, the patriotic ones, and especially the Christian-fcoused ones. And maybe there are some holidays that you observe that I’ve left out.

But have you found not everybody agrees on whether or not we should observe a particular holiday? Some refuse to observe Halloween. In fact, I know a guy who used to turn out his lights and sit in the dark on Halloween night so that trick-or-treaters would pass by thinking he wasn’t home. Maybe he still does that. He wanted no part of Halloween.

And I knew another guy who refused to celebrate the Christmas holiday as the birth of Christ. He was a Christian and would exchange gifts, but he had no Christmas tree, and you definitely didn’t read Luke 2 when you got together. He wanted no part of celebrating Christ at Christmas.

And we could go into a host of others. But whatever the case may be, we tend to judge each other over which holidays we observe and which ones we don’t. Paul, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, has a word for us in Romans 14. He says “One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. …the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God.”

And so, either way you go concerning a holiday, it’s fine as long as three things can happen:  1. you are convinced in your own mind, 2. you can observe that day as unto the Lord, giving thanks to the Lord, and 3. you don’t pass judgment on those who differ from you. These holidays are almost always Christian liberty issues. So, be free, especially from judgment.

Change begins in you!