I believe we can whittle down our contemporary celebration of Halloween to two essentials: #1: free candy; lots of it and more calories than our kids could ever count. And #2: fantasy-to-freaky costumes; kids getting the opportunity to present themselves in a wannabe identity – though hopefully not in some subliminal alter-ego outfit.<\/p>\n
I get it why Wonder Woman and Belle from Beauty and the Beast are two of this year\u2019s most popular costumes. But I\u2019m speechless (mighty rare event) that Pennywise, the deranged Stephen King clown, is 2017\u2019s most popular costume. Not that\u2019s scary!<\/p>\n
Costumes are designed to conceal one’s true identity. But I submit to you, most people don’t need a costume because they\u2019re already wearing one – or more. Most look the picture of normal, of sophistication, of success on the outside, but it\u2019s a disguise that hides the true person.<\/p>\n
God\u2019s not fooled by our “costumes.” He sees right through them; which moves me to ask, \u201cWho do we think we\u2019re fooling?\u201d For Christians especially, it makes no sense to don some fake exterior.<\/p>\n
Martin Luther understood this better than most, which explains why he implored his audiences to concentrate on their \u2013 our \u2013 inner selves. Why not come out this Sunday to hear the first part of a two-part sermon entitled, \u201cBest Dressed Christians?\u201d We\u2019ll all be encouraged to don our \u201cunder\u201d\u2013wear, stripping off our false facades, while allowing God to dress us in His Holy Spirit garb.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I believe we can whittle down our contemporary celebration of Halloween to two essentials: #1: free candy; lots of it and more calories than our kids could ever count. And #2: fantasy-to-freaky costumes; kids getting the opportunity to present themselves in a wannabe identity – though hopefully not in some subliminal alter-ego outfit. I get … [Read more…]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2869,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"entry","1":"post","2":"publish","3":"author-christy_alohayahoo-com","4":"post-2868","6":"format-standard","7":"has-post-thumbnail","8":"category-pastors-desk","9":"category-sermon-preview"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/faithfamilyfellowship.church\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/woman-2060857_960_720.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/faithfamilyfellowship.church\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/faithfamilyfellowship.church\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/faithfamilyfellowship.church\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faithfamilyfellowship.church\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faithfamilyfellowship.church\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2868"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/faithfamilyfellowship.church\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2870,"href":"https:\/\/faithfamilyfellowship.church\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2868\/revisions\/2870"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faithfamilyfellowship.church\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faithfamilyfellowship.church\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faithfamilyfellowship.church\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faithfamilyfellowship.church\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}