All of
God’s grace abounds toward you, all of Christ’s riches are made available to
you, and all spiritual blessings are provided for you. In Christ, you have received the treasures
that can never be taken away, the hope that can never fade away, and the life
that will never pass away.
God
wants us, as His children, to cultivate thankfulness. Why does He desire this?
Thankfulness
is not something God gives us. It is not
a spiritual gift and it is not a spiritual fruit. We can receive God’s peace, joy, and love,
but thankfulness is something that we give to God and to others. It is a choice that we make. Let us thank Him today with songs of
celebration, hearts of strong devotion, and acts of admiration.
·
Give Christian books and
literature as gifts for birthdays, Christmas, and even for no occasion at all.
·
Use Christian desktop wallpapers and screen savers
at home and at work.
·
Lend your own Christian books and literature to
others.
·
Keep an unchurched friend or coworker in your daily
prayers. Ask God to give you
opportunities to witness to him or her.
Look for these opportunities and make use of them.
·
When you hear a sermon or read a
devotion that you find meaningful, tell others about it. This can be a very natural way to start a
discussion with both Christians and non-Christians.
·
After church, ask a person whom you do not know,
"I don't believe we've met. My name
is..." This works well with both visitors and other members.
Important
parts of witnessing are listening and caring.
Around
the corner I have a friend,
In this
great city that has no end,
Yet the
days go by and weeks rush on,
And
before I know it, a year is gone.
And I
never see my old friend’s face,
For life
is a swift and terrible race,
He knows I like him just as well,
As in the days when I rang his bell.
And he
rang mine but we were younger then,
And now
we are busy, tired men.
Tired of
playing a foolish game,
Tired of trying to make a name.
"Tomorrow"
I say! "I will call on Jim
Just to show that I'm thinking of him."
But
tomorrow comes and tomorrow goes,
And
distance between us grows and grows.
Around
the corner, yet miles away,
"Here's
an e-mail sir," "Jim died today."
And
that's what we get and deserve in the end.
Around the corner, a vanished friend.
Some
years ago St. Paul School of Theology in
Then
somebody came up with a brilliant idea: let's send a person to the institutions
where each of the five finalists is currently employed, and let's interview the
janitor at each place, asking him what he thinks of the man seeking to be our
president.
This was
done and a janitor gave such a glowing appraisal of William MacElvaney
that he was selected President of St. Paul's
Somebody
on that search committee understood, in a flash of
genius, that those who live close to Christ become so secure in His love that
they no longer relate to other people according to rank or power or money or
prestige. They treat janitors and governors with equal dignity. They regard
everybody as a VIP. Children seem to do this intuitively; adult Christians have
to relearn it.
Experience comes from
what we have done. Wisdom comes from what we have done badly.
·
To the weary -
WONDERFUL
·
To the confused –
COUNSELOR
·
To the weak - MIGHTY GOD
·
To the orphaned -
EVERLASTING FATHER
·
To the troubled - PRINCE OF PEACE.
May all that He is fill your hearts with joy this
Christmas - and always!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was filled with sorrow at
the tragic death of his wife in a fire in 1861.
The Civil War broke out that same year.
Two years later, Longfellow was again saddened to hear that his own son
had been seriously wounded as a lieutenant in the Army of the
Sitting down to his desk one Christmas Day, he
heard the church bells ringing and ringing.
It was in this setting he wrote:
I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
And in despair I bowed my head
There is no peace on earth I said
For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep,
God is not dead, nor doth He sleep,
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men!
Nice people, aren't they, these shepherds? After
all, David was a shepherd boy! Couldn't get much better than that! And so it
seems, in our Christmas pageants. The
shepherds are the cute ones, the ones dressed up in their Dads' bathrobes,
Grandpas' canes in their hands. Shepherds are the good guys, the simple folk
who are genuine and down-to-earth.
But get this! In the world of that time, faithful
Jews were warned by their rabbis against entering six professions. One of those
forbidden occupations was shepherding!
Conscientious
Pharisees would never consider doing business with a shepherd! They would buy
wool and milk, but never from a shepherd himself. Shepherds weren't allowed to
give testimony in a court. In fact, shepherds weren't permitted to enter places
of worship! They couldn't go to the
temple or the synagogue. Why not?! Well, there were some pretty good reasons.
For one thing, shepherds were constantly walking
among the droppings of the sheep, and this made them religiously unclean.
Secondly, shepherds ranged their sheep throughout the countryside, without
paying attention to property lines. In other words, they were constantly
trespassing. And what's more, they were in the right position to pick up things
along the way! Shepherds were considered to be thieves. They ran the local
black market!
Nobody loved a shepherd! Shepherds were liars--you
couldn't trust their word in court. Shepherds were thieves--they'd steal you
blind. Shepherds were dirty and disgusting. Shepherds were despised. Shepherds
had one foot in hell. And the Willie Nelsons of that day used to sing:
"Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be shepherds!"
And then God - Silly God! Doesn't He know what's
right and what's wrong? Can't He see
things the way we do? But God sends His
best choir out into the skies that night, to sing the HALLELUJAH! CHORUS to
people who can't even read music!
This Christmas
Mary had a little Lamb.
He came on Christmas night.
She laid Him in a manger bed,
This King of life and light.
He ate with poor and sinful folk;
He claimed He was God's Son.
It made the leaders plot His death,
This holy, sinless One.
He came to give us joy and
peace;
To take away our sin.
He heals the sick and calms the storm
And ushers justice in.
What makes the Lamb love Mary
so
And all the world beside?
By grace alone He chose His own;
For all He lived and died.
And we, too, love the Lamb you
know.
His blood has washed us clean.
Our words will show that we are His;
Our lives by all are seen.
One day this Lamb will come
again
More Lion than a Lamb;
Defeat His foes, reward His own
Oh, praise the day He came!
More
than a Merry Christmas
I wish you this year.
More than a Happy
Christmas
With your loved ones dear,
More than the precious
hours
With friends who are true,
More than the gifts you
treasure
That others give you -
I wish for you the
blessing
Of that Christmas day
When angles sang the
story
And stars marked the way
I wish you joy unending
With much love and cheer -
I wish you peace on
Christmas
And through all the year.
The problem began when Barrier went to Old National
Bank to cash a $100 check. When he tried to get his parking slip validated to
save 60 cents, a receptionist refused, saying he hadn't conducted a transaction. "You have to make a deposit," she
told him. When told he was a substantial
depositor, she looked at him as if . . .
well.
He asked to see the manager, who also refused to
stamp the ticket. Barrier went to the
bank headquarters vowing to withdraw his $2 million-plus unless the manager
apologized. No one called. So the next day, he withdrew over $1 million.
You can't always judge from appearances, can
you? What if you were a resident of
Judea two thousand years ago and someone told you that the King of Kings had
been born in a stable in
If our greatest need had been information,
God would have sent us an educator.
If our greatest need had been
technology,
God would have sent us a scientist.
If our greatest need had been
money,
God would have sent us an economist.
If our greatest need had been
pleasure,
He would have sent us an entertainer.
But our greatest need was
for forgiveness,
So God sent us a Savior.
This Christmas may you see
and know anew
how His great love
is toward you.
But When
and How?
Differing Christian Responses to Christmas
To Christians, the incarnation, the Son of God
becoming man, is the most central event in all of history. All previous ages looked forward to the
coming of Christ, and all subsequent history gains meaning from Christ's
coming. The Gospel writers Matthew and
Luke carefully give us the historical setting to Jesus' birth - under the reign
of Caesar Augustus when Quirinius was governor of
Yet the exact date of Jesus' birth is unknown, and
the early Christians did not even celebrate Christ's birth. Birthdays and their
celebrations had always been roman
feast days. The resurrection was the big event for Christian celebration.
By the fourth century, however, many Christian
groups had begun to observe Christ's birthday, though the day chosen for the
celebration differed from place to place.
Christians in the East generally celebrated on January 6; those in the
West on December 25. Others set dates in
March, April, or May.
About
350 A.D., Pope Julius set December 25 as the date of Jesus' birth. This corresponded with the Roman feast of
Saturnalia, the festival of the Unconquered Sun. since
ancient day, people throughout the northern hemisphere had celebrated at this
time when the daylight hours had reached their shortest and again began to
increase.
As Christianity spread throughout
The English Puritans and Reformed Protestants
across
In
The
heart of Christmas is LOVE -
·
The love Jesus gives us
to share with others...
·
The love that makes each
of us special to Him.
The heart of Christmas is JOY -
·
The joy we receive
through His grace...
·
The expectant joy that
carries us into a new year.
The heart of Christmas is PEACE -
·
The peace that comes from
knowing Jesus...
·
The assurance that comes
from placing our lives in His hands.
May the heart of Christmas -- the love of Jesus, the
joy of grace, and the peace of God be yours today and always!
It can be as disappointing as a child's discovery
there really is no Santa Claus--finding out the
Ever wonder how Jesus looks at all the present
Christmas fanfare? Is he flattered,
embarrassed, angry, saddened?
Our secularized society frantically chases the
celebration but isn't too keen on preserving the source. In polite company it is no longer proper to
greet with "Merry Christmas."
Better to say, "Happy Holidays." And the centuries old marking of time with
BC--Before Christ, and AD--Anno Domine--In
the year of our Lord, is no longer politically correct. The acceptable terms now are BCE--Before the Common Era and CE--Common Era, an astonishing disguise that
pretends that there was no landmark event and definitive reference point for
marking time established and accepted for ages by Western civilization.
Perhaps Jesus does not lament the loss any more
than the early church would have. It's
hard to imagine Jesus claiming title to the commercial orgy that Christmas so
often becomes.
Yet even
a secularized Christmas still awakens something wondrous and out of the
ordinary. Despite deliberate efforts to
beat out any religious connotations to Christmas, when else do we see that
glimmer of openness to the transcendent in the hearts of so many, the wistful
lingering hope that we might live together in a better way, and joyful release
of generosity of spirit and concern for others in need.
Where does all this come from? That sweetest fruit of generalized "good
feelings" comes from specific seed and soil--the "good news"
that "unto you a Savior is born."
After 14 years of studying the Bible,
William Miller became convinced that Christ would return in 1843. When Miller
announced April 3 as the day, some disciples went to mountaintops, hoping for a
head start to heaven. Others were in graveyards, planning to ascend in reunion
with their departed loved ones.
When April 4 dawned as usual the Millerites were disillusioned, but they took heart. Their
leader had predicted a range of dates for Christ's return. They still had until
March 21, 1844. The devout continued to make ready, but again they were
disappointed. A third date--October 22, 1844--was set, but it also, obviously,
passed.
In its history the church has done some
pretty silly things in trying to dissect and discern the meaning of Christ's
return. Our emphasis is misplaced. We are not to be watching the sky; we are to
be watching our lives.
Thousands of Christians are being recalled because
they are experiencing performance problems.
Symptoms include frequent missing, sluggishness, and poor adaptation to
rough roads. While it is suspected that
perhaps small problems were already present at confirmation, regular
maintenance should have corrected most difficulties. Sadly, many only come for maintenance when a
major breakdown has occurred, making it more difficult for service personnel to
correct the basic problem. So the recall
is now underway. Church leaders say
their service managers are trained and prepared to handle a variety of
problems.
One member who started coming in for routine
maintenance a few months ago is pleased with the results. "It's amazing," she said, "I'm
getting much better mileage now. I don't
notice the rough spots so much, and I find I have enough power to give others a
helping push now and then.
Reports indicate the manufacturer Himself is taking
calls, and has a complete service manual available to everyone. Surveys suggest that most people already have
the service manual, but simply don't use it.
Service personnel say they are not only available for routine and
emergency maintenance, but are committed to helping people use their service
manuals.
Spokespersons believe that those who take advantage
of the recall will notice a marked difference and note that the manufacturer
has many lifetime guarantees that ensure customer satisfaction.
A little boy is telling his grandma how
"everything" is going wrong. School, family
problems, severe health problems, etc.
Meanwhile, Grandma is baking a cake.
She asks her grandson if he would like a snack, which of course he does.
"Here, have some cooking
oil."
"Yuck" says the boy.
"How about a couple raw
eggs?"
"Gross, Grandma!"
"Would you like some flour
then? Or maybe baking soda?"
"Grandma, those are all
yucky!"
To which Grandma replies: "Yes,
all those things seem bad all by themselves. But when they are put together in the right
way, they make a wonderfully delicious cake!
God works the same way. Many times we
wonder why He would let us go through such bad and difficult times. But God knows that when He puts these things
all in His order, they always work for good!
We just have to trust Him and, eventually, they will all make something
wonderful!"
You have perhaps heard the story that
comes out of the Pacific Theater of Operations during World War II. There was a
battleship whose forward watch spotted a light that appeared to be heading
straight for the battleship.
A radio message was sent saying,
"Unidentified ship: you are on a collision course. Change direction 10
degrees starboard."
The reply came back: "No. You need
to change direction."
The battleship again sent a message
saying, "This is a
And once again the reply came back,
"No."
The admiral was awakened and notified,
and the battleship sent yet another message again repeating, "This is a
warship on official maneuvers. You are ordered to change direction. Signed, Admiral Peacock."
A moment passed and the reply came
back, "No. Signed Seaman Smith, Tender of the Light
House."
Often it is WE who are the ones who
need to change course. The clear light of God's Word for us doesn't change.
Though I have never seen the Sequoia
trees of
Strangely, these towering trees have
unusually shallow root systems that spider out just under the surface of the
ground to catch as much of the surface moisture as they can. And this is their
vulnerability. Storms with heavy winds would almost always bring these giants
crashing to the ground but this rarely happens because they grow in clusters
and their intertwining roots provide support for one another against the
storms.
When we are together, either as a
family or a church, we provide this same support. Pain and suffering come to
all of us. But, just like those giant Sequoia
trees, we can be supported in those difficult times by the touch of one
another's lives. The knowledge that we have someone; that we are not alone;
that there is someone who is willing to touch us, hold us, keeps us from being
destroyed.
A group
of European theologians once visited Mother Teresa in
She took
them to one of her childcare centers and picked up a child who was playing in
the mud and gave the child a kiss. She waited for her guests to do the same.
None of
them did.
A
persistent judgment leveled against parents today is this: they gladly provide
their children with every resource: Leaders, coaches, teachers, tutors, and
youth workers. Certainly children should be happy and well-adjusted. They have
everything money can buy. But they do not have the listening ear of Mom and
Dad. "Too busy, later, not now, I'm working hard for your good."
Recall the old saying:
"For the want of a nail the shoe was
lost;
for the want of a shoe the horse was lost;
for the want of a horse the rider was lost;
for the want of the rider the battle was lost."
It is
still true. For want of a quiet, caring intimacy, a child's primary sense of
self-worth is lost. And for want of security and self-worth, the child is lost.
In most
churches I've known, members find it quite easy to pass a youth by; they are
more timid to engage a child than a stranger in conversation. Frequently, when
youth are on committees, little sensitivity is expressed toward making them
comfortable and enabling them to contribute.
A Father
and his small son were out walking one day when the lad asked how electricity
could go through the wires stretched between the telephone poles. "I don't
know," said his father. "I never knew much about electricity."
A few
blocks farther on, the boy asked what caused lightning and thunder. "That
too has puzzled me," came the reply.
The
youngster continued to inquire about many things, none of which the father
could explain.
Finally,
as they were nearing home, the boy said, "Pop, I hope you didn't mind all
those questions." "Not at all," replied his father. "How
else are you going to learn!"
An elderly man went to
his doctor about his loss of hearing. The doctor prescribed a tiny hearing aid
that essentially cured the man's deafness. He came back to the doctor some
weeks later, and the doctor asked him if his family was thrilled by his
newfound hearing.
"Well,
I didn't tell them," The man answered. "I just sit around and listen.
And so far I have changed my legal will three times."
A story is told of a
father and his young daughter who had had a very strained relationship for some
time.
Returning
from a trip, the father did something that was very unusual for him. As he
entered into the room he presented his daughter with a necklace that he had
bought her.
Completely
overcome with joy by this unexpected act of giving, the young girl
inadvertently dropped the necklace and went running from the room with tears in
her eyes. She returned shortly only to find as she walked into the room that
her new necklace was now around the neck of her infant baby sister.
"Oh," said the father. "I went on and gave it to her. You didn't
like it anyway."
Oh
my friends, he wasn't listening. He wasn't listening.
A story is told of a
family that went into a restaurant. The waitress walked up and, looking at the
young boy, said: What will it be? The boy eagerly shouted back: “I'll take a
hamburger, French fries, and a chocolate shake.”
The
mother immediately interrupted: “Oh, that's not what he wants. He'll take the
roast beef, a baked potato, and a glass of milk.”
Much
to the surprise of both the mother and the boy, the
waitress completely ignored her and again asked the boy: “And what do you want
on that hamburger?” The boy shouted back, “ketchup, lots of ketchup.” “And what kind of shake?” “Make it chocolate.”
The
boy then turned to his parents with a big smile on his face and said: “Say, ain't she something. She
thinks that I'm real!”
Well,
let me give you fair warning. If you once, just once, start really hearing
people they are suddenly going to become real to you.
There are two birds that
fly over our nation’s deserts: One is the hummingbird and the other is the
vulture. The vultures find the rotting meat of the desert, because that is what
they look for. They thrive on that diet.
But
hummingbirds ignore the smelly flesh of dead animals. Instead, they look for
the colorful blossoms of desert plants.
The
vultures live on what was. They live on the past. They fill themselves with
what is dead and gone. But hummingbirds live on what is. They seek new life.
They fill themselves with freshness and life. Each bird finds what it is
looking for.
We
all do.
The other day I was looking for a certain hymn.
Turning to the hymnal's index, I noticed that many hymns begin with the word:
"Come." "Come We That Love the Lord," "Come Thou
Long-Expected Jesus," "Come Ye Thankful People, Come," and
dozens more.
That
makes sense, when you think about it. Throughout the Bible, God invites us to
come to Him. During Sunday worship and private prayer, we in turn ask God to
come to us.
“Coming”
means leaving where we were. It means getting out of bed Sunday mornings to go
to church. It means leaving the dinner table to go to choir practice. It means
walking away from the recliner to rake leaves for shut-ins. It means moving
three pews up to welcome a visitor. It means driving bags of groceries to a
food pantry in the next town. For some, it could mean driving hundreds of miles
from home to help rebuild after a natural disaster.
"A
body at rest tends to remain at rest, unless some force acts to move it."
That is Sir Isaac Newton's first law of motion. For Christians, that force is
God's command to us to love our neighbor. Come!
Barbara Brokhoff says in her book, Faith Alive, "The Happy
Hour for the Christian should be the hour of worship on Sunday morning, but how
do you honestly feel when you are awakened by the alarm on the Lord's Day and
you realize it is another "Church Day"?
Can
you hardly wait for the service time to roll around or do you roll over in bed,
moan and groan and cover your head, and wish that once, once again maybe once
more like last Sunday the one before, you would, or could sleep in and forget
the whole boring, time consuming thing??
Is the thought of worship agony or
ecstasy? I think we are coming to meet God--not just any body, but God!!
Shouldn't the delightful suspense of worship make our breath short and our
hearts beat faster?"
There is a story about a
minister walking along the ocean with his small son. The boy questioned his
father about Sunday's sermon. The boy said, "Dad, I cannot understand how
Christ can live in us and we live in Him at the same time."
Further
down the beach, the father noticed an empty bottle with a cork in it. Taking
the bottle, he half filled it with water, recorked it
and flung it out into the ocean.
As
they watched the bottle bob up and down he said, "Son, the sea is in the
bottle and the bottle is in the sea. It is a picture of life in Christ. You
live under the Lordship of Christ and He lives in you."
·
·
If you attempted to count all the stars in a galaxy
at a rate of one every second it would take around 3,000 years to count them
all.
·
Driving at 75 miles per hour, it would take 258 days
to drive around one of Saturn's rings.
·
If we had the same mortality rate now as in 1900,
more than half the people in the world today would not be alive.
·
If you gave each human on earth an equal portion of
dry land, including the uninhabitable areas, everyone would get roughly 100
square feet.
·
More people speak English in
·
It has been calculated that in the last 3,500 years,
there have only been 230 years of peace throughout the civilized world.
·
In a century's time, Islam had converted 1/3 of the
world.
·
The most common name in the world is Mohammed.
·
Astronaut Neil Armstrong first stepped on the moon
with his left foot.
·
Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually
than all of the Nike factory workers in
·
All U.S Presidents have worn glasses. Some just
didn't like being seen wearing them in public.
·
Paul McCartney and Ringo
Starr were the two left-handed Beatles.
·
Gary Burgoff (Radar on
MASH) always kept his left hand out of the view of the camera, either in his
pocket or under a clipboard, because his left had is deformed.
·
Ernest Vincent Wright wrote a novel, "Gadsby", which contains over 50,000 words none of them
with the letter "E."
·
Sugar was first added to chewing gum in 1869 by a
dentist, William Semple.
·