Tag: Christmas

Correct Currency

12/09/2014Gospel, Holidays, Sharing the Gospel, , , 10 Comments

blog104pic12_09_2014There are only 15 shopping days left till Christmas! Some of you have finished and all your gifts are wrapped and under the tree while some of us are still trying to find our way to the mall.

Imagine if you had completed all your shopping in one day at one store, had all your perfect selections rung up, and when you handed your money to the cashier you heard, “I’m sorry, we don’t take money.” Next, you pull out your credit card and then your debit card, and you still hear, continue here

Are You Hungry?

01/10/2014Holidays, Sharing the Gospel, , 16 Comments

2013 Christmas

Do you have photos from Christmas that are similar to these? Oh, how yummy all that food was two weeks ago! But, now it’s January, and just about everyone I know is dieting, myself included!

You can relax, this is not about dieting — I wouldn’t touch that topic with a 10-foot chocolate-covered pretzel rod.  But it is about food… and promises.

I will suggest, though, that food issues are not new to humanity. Remember Adam and Eve? Talk about a food issue! Just one bite and we’re still working that one off.

And, then there’s Esau who, in Genesis 25:27-34, bought a bowl of soup in exchange for his birthright. Esau looked at his immediate circumstances and decided a bowl of soup was more valuable than God’s promises. Because Esau’s focus was on his immediate hunger, he didn’t see any value in God’s Word. For Esau, inheriting the promises was like inheriting the wind.

It’s interesting that God created humans to need food. I wonder if God intended for us to experience physical hunger so that we might understand spiritual hunger and recognize our need for spiritual food.

Jesus says: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” Matthew 5:6 – NIV

Have you ever experienced such a strong desire for righteousness? I think most of us have because we have no righteousness of our own. That bowl is empty. We can try with every ounce of our being to “be good”, but we know we can’t be “good enough” to fill the empty bowl within us.  We know there’s always more that we could and should be doing.

In our heart of hearts, we know we can’t ever measure up to God’s standard of perfection. We know that we are far from perfect and we can’t get right with God. On our own, we are doomed; starving and parched for a righteousness that is beyond our reach.

But what about the promise that if we hunger and thirst for righteousness, we will be filled?

Jesus says: “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” – John 6:35 NLT

“Coming to Jesus” means admitting that you are empty, that you can’t satisfy God’s demand for holiness and that only Jesus can. Jesus is the Food that satisfies our deepest craving: our spiritual hunger and thirst for righteousness.

This is a promise God has given us, just like the promises He gave to Abraham that were handed down to Esau. Like Esau, we have a choice, do we believe God or not?

Are there promises of God that you undervalue, and fail to claim as your own, because your focus is on the physical things you hunger for today? Nothing can satisfy the desire to be right with God except Christ’s righteousness. Only the God who gave you the desire can provide the Bread of Life that will satisfy it.

I Thank My God For You!

12/20/2013Holidays, , , 14 Comments

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. –James 1:17

As Christmas draws near, I want to pause and thank God for the gift of friends and family. So, please indulge me as I thank God for you!

Almighty God, thank you for the Winnetka, Illinois Bible Study Fellowship leaders and class, for using them to encourage me and for all the times they carried me before the throne of Grace in prayer that I might receive grace and mercy in my times of need!

Father, thank you for Becky, for her willingness to walk with me almost as many miles as I drove last spring when dad was sick, for her listening ear, her strong shoulder, her prayers, her encouragement and her sympathetic hugs.

And, thank you for Donna, who picked up the phone, on her birthday, on vacation with family and friends at the beach, to listen and pray with me as I cried and wrote dad’s obituary.

Father, thank you for Carolyn, who is helping me transition from BSF to this blog; I thank you for her patience with me, her dependability and creativity.

Gracious God, I thank you for every one of my friends, both near and far, would you please bless each one abundantly in 2014! They are such sweet gifts to me; you are so generous.

Sovereign Lord, thank you for my sweet children: Dan, Nikki, Bob and Jen! You are so gracious to allow me the privilege of being their mom/mother-in-love. Thank you for supplying them with forgiveness, patience, grace, mercy, love and compassion toward me. They encourage me, challenge me, support me, and pray for me. I am most blessed!

Father, thank you for my siblings, Betty, Donna, and JR. I am so blessed to have a brother and sisters who love deeply and care for one another as these do. Lord, your abundance overwhelms me.

God, thank you for Mom, and for the pleasure of being her daughter. Thank you for her willingness to pick up the phone every time I call, and for indulging me in conversation whether it is about the weather, missing dad, or what to plan for Christmas dinner. Almighty God, you are so loving to knit us together as you have.

And, Father, thank you for Genelle and Ernie Furrow, you were so kind to give me such gracious parents-in-law; please continue to sustain them this year as they trust in you.

Glorious God, I thank you for my husband, Brian, and for the ways that you use him to show your love to me. Thank you for enabling him to meet the challenge of having me for a wife!

Father, thank you for Jacob and Matthew, and for the way they keep me on my toes, exhaust me, open my eyes to the wonders of life from a preschooler’s perspective and shower me with love. Your blessings are uncountable.

For my extended family (both spiritual and physical), I thank You. Each person holds a special place in my heart, and I pray that every one of them will allow You into their heart, that we might enjoy You together, forever. Amen!

Merry Christmas to each and every one of you! Thank you for spending a few minutes with me on Tuesday and Friday mornings and I’ll see you in the New Year!

♥ Marcia

Decorating the Whole Tree

12/17/2013Gospel, Holidays, Sharing the Gospel, Spiritual Walk, , , , , 5 Comments

Dec_17_2013a

 When our grandsons, Jacob and Matthew, decorated their Christmas tree all the ornaments were hung on the bottom. When they decorated our tree, with help from their taller cousins, Abby and Emmy, they reached a bit higher, but the top third was still bare.

After everyone went home, Brian and I moved the ornaments over the entire tree so that it was balanced and perhaps more pleasant to look at.

Christians don’t just decorate trees; we have ornaments with which to decorate our personalities. God calls us to put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness and love.

Colossians 3:12-14 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you And over all these virtues, put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

We enjoy putting these virtues on, and like ornaments they are nice to observe; but are they balanced? Do they cover every bit of our lives?

Sometimes, like Matty’s ornaments (all on one branch in the back of the tree), we reserve kindness and compassion only for those who are the closest to us.

And, like Jake’s ornaments: Our gentleness and patience abound, but we only interact with people directly in front of and close to us and we don’t consider those who are out of sight.

Occasionally, we’re like Abby and Emmy’s ornaments, we are humble, loving and forgiving for the most part, but there are some situations and people just beyond our reach and we don’t really want to go out of our way to touch them.

In the grocery store, at church, at the mall, on the phone with customer service, in the morning before coffee, at the end of a very long day, in the hospital room, in the office, in the classroom, or on the road, would you say you reveal these virtues all the time? Are they spread throughout your life evenly and consistently?

Acting Godly in every situation is difficult and exhausting. And some might even say it’s hypocritical or fake. It surely isn’t natural.

And that’s true, it isn’t natural; but when we trust God for salvation, by believing that God came down at Christmas, died on Good Friday, and rose on Easter morning to save us from our sins, he begins the process of changing us from the inside out. He changes us from who we were to who He created us to be.

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

Is this Christmas season the time to believe, to be born again, and let God change you from top to bottom and enable you to live a life that displays his Godly virtues throughout your entire life? You can’t do it on your own, but with God, all things are possible.

Christmas Lights

12/13/2013Death Grief and Mourning, Holidays, Sharing the Gospel, , , , , , , 15 Comments

 MarciaTree2013

Dad was an early riser, and every year during the Christmas Season, he’d get up early and turn on all the Christmas lights so that Mom would walk into a brightly lit and festive living room first thing in the morning.

Last week, mom decorated the tree by herself, and at the end of the day, she turned the lights off and went to bed. The next morning when mom got up, she walked into a dark living room. The tree was there, the lights were in place, but everything was still dark when she got up.

We don’t like the dark. Children are afraid of the dark. Bugs come out in the dark. Wickedness happens in the dark. And darkness signals the end of the day. For Mom, the darkness is a reminder that Dad is not there. It is empty in the dark.

When we were little, Dad would bundle us kids up and drive around for what seemed like hours just to look at Christmas lights. Mom didn’t usually go with us, I don’t know why, maybe it was too cold, but when we got home there would be lots of newly wrapped presents under the tree! How did that happen!?

However, throughout the years when it was just mom and dad, mom went on those drives with dad. They had their favorite neighborhoods and houses that they’d drive by and enjoy. One of mom kids will take her out this year.

Christmas lights are a great tradition, yet I wonder, why do we put lights up at Christmas? So I Googled: “Why do we put lights on Christmas Trees?” and an article said, “As Christians, we believe that God is the light of the world.”

By putting lights on our houses and trees, we are testifying to the world: I believe God is the light of the world, and I believe that God came down and lived among us. We are not simply decorating; we are proclaiming truth in a dark world.

John 1:1; 8:12 – In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Matthew 1:23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”)

At Christmas we celebrate the incarnation of the eternal God in the Person of Jesus, who is the Light of the World.

Our Christmas lights shine forth for God because God calls each of His children to be light in the world; we are to let His light shine through us in our words and our deeds. Everything we do as Christians should be done to make God famous.

Matthew 5:16 – In the same way, let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

During Dad’s final days in his body, he said to me, “If I survive this, my house is going to be a beacon for Jesus!” His body didn’t survive, but his soul did, he is brightly priaising Jesus in heaven today! And his house is shining also! The Christmas lights are on again this year, inside and out of Mom and Dad’s house as they always have been.

This year Dad is celebrating with Jesus in eternal light. We know this because Dad believed that God, in the Person of the Lord Jesus, left the glory of heaven, and being made in human likeness, lived a sinless life, humbled himself and died on a cross as Dad’s substitute — paying the penalty for Dad’s sins —  and then he rose from the dead three days later, and now he is exalted in heaven as Lord over all!

Merry Christmas, Dad!

mom, dad and Dan2