This blog is designed to create community for believers and provide support for seekers. I encourage all readers to share their faith in an effort to lift and encourage one another.
And this verse so aptly states what we celebrate. The whole world changed with the birth of baby Jesus. God came to earth humbly, as the child of a carpenter. Not the son of a king, born in a palace, but the son of God, born in a stable. From those humble beginnings, he did indeed give us victory over sin and death. Hallelujah and merry Christmas!
Thank you Lord Jesus, for your willingness to come to earth and live with us. Thank you for suffering on the cross as a sacrifice to cleanse us from our sins. During this season, keep our thoughts on you and let us thank and praise you.
How wonderful for believers to know that God’s spirit lives within us. I think of this often, and regret those times that I decide to take control rather than God’s spirit being in control. Thankfully, though, God forgives and give me another chance. He is so good.
Because He lives in us, we become a sanctuary for Him. How should we treat God’s sanctuary? Certainly, filling it with good food and good thoughts. Since God lives within us, we should provide Him a holy place, a holy sanctuary.
What do you think? What ways are you working on to provide that holy sanctuary for God?
Thank you, Father, for coming to live with us, to guide and teach us your ways. Show us how to provide you with a holy sanctuary.
Light streaming through my window awakened me. Like a child, I jumped out of bed and hurried to the window. Sparkling in my back porch light, snow blanketed the yard. Winter’s drab landscape changed to a fairyland. The dead, brown grass disappeared under the snowy blanket, and the barren trees wore sparkling white accessories.
Winter’s blanket insulates the plants and muffles extraneous noises. The world quiets and stills. If the snowy blanket is deep enough, activities and work cease. Then I curl up under a warm blanket, drink a cup of tea, and read a good book. After a heavy snowfall, people rejoice in the lull from routine activities and time to rest. They cocoon at home instead of scurrying here and there.
When I allow God’s spirit to blanket my soul, similar changes occur. What was drab and colorless becomes white and sparkling as God’s spirit reflects light and love. Even though the world around me may spin out of control, His spirit stills and calms my soul. Just as the blanket of snow insulates the earth, God insulates me against the clamor and coldness of the world and keeps my focus on Him.
Father God, wrap the blanket of your Spirit around me that my soul may be still and reflect your love.
Galatians 5:22 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”
“In our concern to do it right, we have forgotten how to respond spontaneously to an encounter with the Divine. We remain children, depending on someone else’s approval, in that most important core of our life, the spiritual. We don’t learn how to pray, only to say approved prayers. We sit at the dark edges of a richly laden banquet hall, hoping for a few crumbs that might fall our way.”
~Henri Nouwen
Sometimes I feel as if I am sitting at the edge of that banquet hall, near the table laden with so much goodness and spiritual nutrition. The bread of life is freely available, and cups are kept full of the living water.
I am at the edges of this banquet by choice, for I have been invited to feast at the table by the master himself. Why do I sometimes choose to chase after the shiny things of this world instead of feasting at the table with my creator?
Alas, I am human, and I am imperfect. Thankfully, our savior is always willing to extend the invitation and to invite us to sit at his banquet table for all eternity.
Are you sitting in the corner, waiting for some of that bread of life and longing for the living water? Then call on the one who provides both.
“Then Jesus declared, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.'” John 6: 35
“Jesus answered, ‘everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water living up to eternal life.'” John 4: 13-14
Lord Jesus, thank you for providing the bread of life and the living water that leads to eternal life. Forgive me for those times that I choose to eat from the crumbs of your table. Remind me to sit at the table as an invited guest, enjoying the fruits of your spiritual feast.
Have a wonderful Monday, my friends, and remember to treat others with gentleness and respect.
It’s easy to read a scripture and nod our heads and agree with it, right? With all the arguments and disagreeing happening, I’m thinking perhaps we all need to work on treating others with gentleness and respect.
It’s a totally different thing to read that scripture and live it. With all the arguments and disagreeing happening now, I’m thinking perhaps we all need to work on treating others with gentleness and respect.
Lord, I want to live my life so that others will ask why I live in hope. And I want to be able to gently and respectfully tell them that my hope is not in the world but it is in Jesus Christ, my Savior and my Lord. Thank you Lord, for giving me the attitude and the words to share with others.
“If you want peace, it starts with prayer and petition.”
Dave Mitchell
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your mind in Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 4: 6-7
Lord, thank you for hearing our prayers and petitions. Thank you for providing your amazing peace for all who trust in you.
“…the deepest spiritual lessons are not learned by his letting us have our way in the end, but by his making us wait, bearing with us in love and patience until we are able to honestly pray what he taught his disciples to pray: Thy will be done.”
Elisabeth Elliot
Have you ever noticed this to be true? I have learned not to expect God to give me what I want as if He were a genie in a bottle. He is so much more than that. He created us. He knows what we need and when we need it.
It’s in the waiting that we learn. It’s in the being told “no” that we begin to grow spiritually. We learn to trust in His will and know it will be best for us. Only then can we pray that His will be done.
This morning I cleaned my stove. You know, took out the burners and the drip pans and cleaned all the accumulated gunk. Most of it wiped up easily, but a few spots took a little elbow grease and some steel wool pads. Before long, the stove looked shiny and (nearly) new.
As I worked, my mind meandered, as it tends to do. I thought about all those meals I’d cooked on this stove. Would you believe it? Thirty-one years’ worth of meals. That’s a lot of years and a lot of meals. Any botched meals were the fault of the cook, not the stove. It endured boil-overs, splatters, occasionally burned food, and spills on the burners.
As my mind wandered, I couldn’t help but compare myself to that stove. Thirty-one is pretty ancient for a stove. Now I don’t consider myself ancient, but I am retired, and I am on Medicare. Even though I don’t like the title, I am officially classified as elderly.
In all my years, I’ve botched many things, said or done the wrong thing to the wrong person. I have boiled over in anger, regretting words that came out of my mouth. Over the years, there have been countless occasions where I’ve just made a mess of things. I haven’t always followed God’s recipe for my life. I’ve been spiritually careless and taken things and people for granted.
I am so grateful that God is always willing to clean up my messes. No matter what I have said or done, or how often I have ignored his suggestions, He is willing to forgive. Even when I make a huge mess, He helps me clean it up, He forgives and offers me grace. He opens my eyes to truth and wisdom in His word, and He shows me a better way. Are you ready to ask Him to help you clean up your messes and offer you grace?
Father, thank you for cleaning up my messes. Thank you for sending your son to offer grace to all of us that we may be sparkling clean in your sight.
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” I John 1:9
Psalm 28:7 “The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and helps me. My heart leaps for joy, and with my song I praise him.”
How wonderful to know that our God gives us the strength we need to accomplish his will. Definitely a reason to leap for joy and praise our Redeemer.
Thank you, Lord, for your abiding strength and your protection. Thank you for your guidance and protection as we strive to do your will. All praise and glory to you!
Growing Our Faith Together 