This post is for those of you who, like me, tend to compare yourself with others, and get to feeling glum about yourself or your homeschool.  I see a trend in the blog world that is much akin to digital photography and airbrushing.  Shall we call it “digital blogtography”? You’ve seen the Dove Campaign For Real Beauty video, haven’t you?  A woman walks into a set and sits down. She is not unattractive.  She does look rather plain, but if she had combed out her hair and put a nice natural smile on her face, she would have been transformed. For the next several minutes, the video shows in fast motion her skin tone evened out, make-up applied, eyebrows drawn on, eyes and lips painted, and hair styled. A fan blows her hair to give her that model look. She now looks beautiful, but artificial.  Next comes the real magic.  Digital technicians use computer software to lengthen her neck a bit, raise the centers of her eyebrows, widen her eyes, lengthen her nose, raise her cheekbones, fill in her lips, highlight her hair, and augment the various colors of her face.  The new image is then plastered to a billboard.  The final image looks nothing like the woman whose face it is. The video illustrates the evolution of what we perceive as beauty, but the end is fictional.  Oh, sure, there is a real woman, but the woman on the billboard does not exist. The point of the video is to show women that that by which we measure outward beauty is a false standard. Real beauty comes from within us. We compare ourselves to an impossible goal!

As I have clicked from blog to blog, visiting various friends and random posts, I can’t help feeling that what I see is similar to this video.  I see an end product that is fictional.  Oh, I am not accusing anyone of anything false – I myself am guilty of it.  On my blog, I only want to share with you the positive things about my family, my spiritual life, and our homeschooling experience. Yesterday I posted about my wonderful husband, the finisher. I didn’t tell you about any of his faults, or the things about him that absolutely frustrate me.  I have never mentioned the fact that the top of my fridge hasn’t been wiped off for a year. I don’t want anyone to know how I really reacted when one of my kids disobeyed me, or when the toilet overflowed, or when the neighbor’s loud music drove me to distraction. (I am making all these things up, of course, lol!)  I don’t post those things! So then, what you see on my blog is a distortion of what my life and my home are really like.  Have you ever found yourself feeling like you don’t measure up somehow, when you read my blog? Maybe not, but if you do, you are comparing yourself to a false standard.

The temptation is strong for me to envy your orderly schedule or the fact that your family gets to travel all over, or that your house is clean and beautifully decorated, or that you have it all together spiritually. But a particular verse often comes to my mind when, like Dinah of the Bible, I am out seeing the “daughters of the land” from my computer.  It is 2 Corinthians 10:12, “For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.” I don’t want to be fretful about all the things I see in you, that I have not been endowed with or worked for, such as diligence, industry, consistency, etc.  I want to be wise and compare myself not to others, but to Jesus Christ.  God is equipping me with what I need to teach my children and to be a good mom to them. I must to be grateful to him for the place where I am, and to be content with the circumstances in which I am teaching my kids.  And so must you.

With the spring festivities coming up, I just have to say this.  I am sure many of you have heard someone say that the word “Easter” in Acts 12:4 in the King James Bible was an “unfortunate rendering” of the original Greek word for “Passover”, and that the word “Easter” really doesn’t belong in the Bible.  Any time someone corrects the Bible, beware.  It means one of two things.  Either they don’t believe it, or they don’t read it.

Many Bible critics say the word “Easter” should have been translated “Passover”.  The word “Easter” is correct, and I will show you why. The key is Acts 12:3, “(Then were the days of unleavened bread.)”  That seems like a trivial point, but if you regularly read the whole Bible from cover to cover you can’t miss this. Leviticus 23:4-8 gives instructions concerning the Passover celebration and the days of unleavened bread. Read it. The fourteenth day of the first month of the Jewish calendar is the Passover.  That day is immediately followed by seven “days of unleavened bread”. Acts 12:3 said, “Then were the days of unleavened bread.”  That means the first day, the Passover, had already taken place!

Acts 12:1-4 tells us that at this time Herod the king had already killed James, and that he intended to have Peter killed also. What was Herod waiting for?  He was waiting for the Easter festival, not the Passover, to take place! The Passover was gone. Easter had been a tradition for him and his religion for many centuries. Easter is and always has been a pagan fertility festival and comes from the word “Ishtar”.  Ishtar comes from the worship of Ashtoreth (1 Kings 11:5 and others), a female deity who was also called Diana in some cultures, ie. Ephesus (Acts 19:28). Easter was (and is) a big celebration and a big deal.  Herod was waiting for Easter to pass, because HE was going to observe it as a heathen GENTILE.  So does Easter belong in the Bible? Yes.  Is it Christian? No.

Easter is not about the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  It never has been.  It is about rabbits and chicks and eggs, all symbols of fertility. As a pagan festival, it has been mixed with the resurrection. God desires us to worship him in truth. As Christians, we observe the joy of the resurrection of Jesus Christ daily, for without his resurrection we are lost. The next time someone tells you “Easter” doesn’t belong in the Bible, you will be armed with the truth and ready to correct their lazy scholarship.

 “For if the dead rise not, then is Christ not raised: and if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. (…) If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.  But now is Christ risen from the dead…” 1 Corinthians 15:16-20 . Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift!

Did you ever wonder why Jesus is called the “Lamb of God”?  John the Baptist, in speaking of Jesus, said, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” What did he mean, the Lamb of God?  Where did he get that name for the Lord Jesus?

Blow the dust off your old King James Bible and look at Genesis 22.  In obedience to his God, Abraham is on his way to Mount Moriah to sacrifice his only son Isaac (the son of promise). Abraham tells his two servants, “Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you.” Somehow Abraham knew in his heart (that is, he believed) that even if he followed through in sacrificing his son, God would resurrect Isaac in time to return to the servants when they were expected. “I and the lad will (…) come again to you.”

As the two make their way up the mountain, Isaac wonders where the lamb is. He knows they need a lamb, a pure, innocent lamb, in order to approach the living God in the prescribed manner, for, “without shedding of blood, there is no remission.” Abraham replies, “My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering.”  Did you see that? God will provide HIMSELF a lamb!  You are familiar with the rest of the story, how that Abraham lays his son on the altar and is just about to kill him, when God calls out to him to stop. Isaac gets down, and they find a ram caught in a thicket. Here God provided a lamb FOR himself. That sacrificial lamb took Isaac’s place. But some 2000 years later, God provided HIMSELF, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb, to die in MY place.  “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” Isn’t that awesome?!?!