Category Archives: Christmas

1 Peter, 2018, Christmas, Guests, Philippians

Go To

Gallery Leave a comment

Have you ever worried over what another thinks of you? Me too!

I think I’ve heard it before, but I heard it again with freshness this morning!

“What another thinks of you is none of your business – but it is GOD’s – what they think and you think. So stop messing around in His business and mind your own mind with His.”

Philippians 4: (CSB) 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. source 

1 Peter 1: (NASB) 13 Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.   source

And You Version was messing with me too with this from Carol McLeod: “Every single one of us has spoken words “under the influence” of warped feelings and slurred thinking. And we soon wish we had the magical power to take those words back. It’s our thoughts and emotions that determine what words come out of our mouths.”

So at the prompting of the devotional, I have this mission: What Bible verse can I use to help me declutter my mind and keep it in sync with the mind of The Father?”

What verses do you go to when your mind rebels? 

2018, Advent, Christmas, Uncommonly Used Words

Well, Now!

Gallery Leave a comment

A new word for me.

Eucatastrophe: A eucatastrophe is a sudden turn of events at the end of a story which ensures that the protagonist does not meet some terrible, impending, and very plausible and probable doom. The writer J. R. R. Tolkien coined the word by affixing the Greek prefix eu, meaning good, to catastrophe, the word traditionally used in classically inspired literary criticism to refer to the “unraveling” or conclusion of a drama’s plot. For Tolkien, the term appears to have had a thematic meaning that went beyond its literal etymological meaning in terms of form. In his definition as outlined in his 1947 essay “On Fairy-Stories”, eucatastrophe is a fundamental part of his conception of mythopoeia. Though Tolkien’s interest is in myth, it is also connected to the gospel; Tolkien calls the Incarnation of Christ the eucatastrophe of “human history” and the Resurrection the eucatastrophe of the Incarnation.    source – Wikipedia 

May our what we see as pending catastrophes be transformed into eucatastrophes by The Living Christ! 

2018, Advent, Christmas, Gospel of Luke

But . . . I Will

Gallery Leave a comment

I got my doubts, I don’t see any way this will work and I have already tried to make it work, BUT at Your Word I will . . .  verse 5.

This is Simeon.  Luke 5.  I’m not faulting Simeon. He was honest. And he followed through. JESUS can work with that! JESUS does work with that!

Yet He would often slip away into the wilderness and pray.  source

That helps me!

2018, Advent, Christmas, Gospel of Luke

Name Your Town

Gallery Leave a comment

Luke 4

Read and see what you shall see. 

There’s the temptation in the Wilderness. 
JESUS passes! The devil leaves until another time.

Verse 16
And He came to Natzeret, where He had been raised. As was His custom, He went into the synagogue on Shabbat, and He got up to read.

Do you see it? The place He had been raised.
As was His custom it says.
In the Synagogue on Shabbat!
This is JESUS!

He had been preaching in other places and He was well received. The people were delighted to have Him in their villages and towns. 

But not so at ‘home’. 

Here He reads from Isaiah and He tells them the truth. They are furious. They break out into a rage. They intend to kill Him! 

Let’s think back to the Wilderness. Satan takes Him to the highest point of the Temple and strongly suggests that He jump off. Satan even quotes Scripture to bolster his case. As we said JESUS passes!

Back to Natzeret. A high cliff. Hmm. Wonder where they got this idea?

28 Now all in the synagogue were filled with rage upon hearing these things. 29 Rising up, they drove Him out of the town and brought Him as far as the edge of the mountain on which their city had been built, in order to throw Him off the cliff. 30 But passing through the middle of them, He went on His way. source 

And His Way takes Him to Capernaum; He speaks, and He heals. They LOVE Him. They want Him to never leave!

Two Towns. We choose too.