My hubby and I received a fruitcake for Christmas. We were delighted! We love eating the rich blend of fruit, nuts, spices, and molasses.
Apparently not everyone appreciates this traditional holiday food as much as we do. Someone has suggested that slices of fruitcake are best used to balance wobbly kitchen tables or as railroad ties. And Tonight Show comedian Johnny Carson once said this. “The worst gift is a fruitcake. There is only one fruitcake in the entire world, and people keep sending it to each other.” (By the way—the one we received had previously been gifted to someone else.)
Did you know that January 3 is National Fruitcake Toss Day? Originating in 1995, the event is held annually in Manitou Springs, Colorado. One can compete in events based on distance, accuracy, speed, and balance.
Needless to say, Ron and I have no intentions of ever entering that competition.
However, there are things each of us who is a follower of Christ is commanded to get rid of.
“Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us LAY ASIDE every weight, and the SIN which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:1-2, King James Version)
“Wherefore LAYING ASIDE all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings …” (1 Peter 2:1-2, King James Version)
Bible commentator Albert Barnes explains the above verses in this way.
“As applied to Christians it means that they should remove all which would obstruct their progress in the Christian course … It is not the same thing in all persons. In one it may be pride; in another vanity; in another worldliness; in another a violent and almost ungovernable temper; in another a corrupt imagination; in another a heavy, leaden, insensible heart; in another some improper and unholy attachment.”
Canadian blogger Tim Challies writes this.
“In the great march that is the Christian life, the passing of the years ought to be marked by what has been laid aside, by what has been taken off and tossed away. As we progress toward our destination, our pathway ought to be strewn with the sins, weights, transgressions, and burdens that slowed our steps, that thwarted our advance … the fear of man that tempted us to honor man instead of God … the lust that tempted us to forsake purity in favor of adultery … the love of money that almost swayed our hearts to store up treasures on earth rather than in heaven.”
Challies concludes his blog with these words of encouragement. “May we walk and jog and run and sprint to our triumph, to our home, to our rest. May we do it all for the great joy that is set before us.”
Giving credit where credit is due:
biblegateway.com/challies.com/articles/a-heart
challies.com/articles/a-heart-that-is-free-a-step-that-is-light
happydays365.org/international-days/national-fruitcake-toss-day-january-3/
www.jokes4us.com/holidayjokes/nationalfruitcakedayjokes.html
mentalfloss.com/article/60595/15-fun-factsabout-fruitcake
