Thanks For Your Understanding

God has blessed us with the opportunity to spend time with family. So, we will be away from the office until after the first of the year. Please check back on Jan 1 as we kick of the new year together.

From The Mouth Of Babes

I received the following story the other day and had to finish out the Christmas season with a winner. You just never know what kids are going to say or how they will react. But, leave it to them to do us proud when we least expect it.

In a Sunday School Christmas play, a young man with a very tender heart was asked to play the part of the innkeeper. Each rehearsal he found it difficult to play his role because he had to turn Joseph and Mary away from the inn. On the night of the performance, he was overcome by the sadness of making Jesus be born in a stable. As Joseph turned away from the inn, he yelled, “Wait! Come back here! You can have my room!” The teacher thought he had ruined the Christmas story but the pastor got up and stopped the play. With tears in his eyes, he said, “Don’t turn Jesus away tonight!” Many people accepted Jesus as their Savior that night.

I hope you have made room for Jesus in all of your holiday festivities. After all, it is His birth that we celebrate.

This Is A Day The Lord Hath Made

The Psalmist records for us, as words of encouragement that "This is the day that the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it" Psa 118:24. We often misquote and misapply that verse when we say that it is "a" day, rather than "the" day that God made. We know that every day is a day made by God and He is still Sovereign and in control of all of the details of the day. But, when you think of all of the days that have come down through the corridors of time, there was never a day to compare to the day Christ was born. We acknowledge that it is probably not December 25th, so we are not talking about the day on the calendar, but rather what actually took place on that day. Just like all others, God caused this day to occur and He was there when the sun began to dawn on that special day. As Joseph began to gather what provisions that he and Mary may have had, and started off on the final day of their journey, just maybe, the Holy Spirit reminded Joseph of what David had recorded hundreds of years prior. No doubt, Joseph knew that the Christ child must be born in Bethlehem and that Mary was near the end of her nine months. Then, as they arrived and could find no suitable lodging, he might well have thought, no God, not today. Wait until I can find a room. But, God replied, with the birth of Jesus, and stating that the time had come. It was "THE DAY" that God had promised. It was "THE DAY" that God became in the likeness of man. It was "THE DAY" that God brought good tiding of great joy to a nation and a world that needed a reason to rejoice. And today, we celebrate "that day". That very special day that God hath made. That day that gives us so much reason to rejoice. That day is today. I hope you have a very Merry Christmas.

What Does Tomorrow Hold For You?

Tomorrow is Christmas. For some, it is the most wonderful time of the year. There are always great expectation in the minds of kids as they anxiously await the dawning of a new day. I remember as a small child how much I looked forward to Christmas. I knew that we were by no means rich and I knew that my dad worked 2 jobs for a while, but it never really occurred to me why he did so. Even with that I was confident, that come Christmas, we were going to get something under the tree. I never doubted my parents and never knew of their struggles, if there were any. I am quite sure that nothing has changed down through time and that even today, in this uncertain economy, kids everywhere have grand expectation for tomorrow morning. They may not have high hopes for a lot, but hopes are still high for something. Now, isn't that the way our Heavenly Father wants us to be all year round? After all, we come to Him as a little child and accept His wonderful gift of Salvation. Now, He want us to trust Him for tomorrow as well, with the same high hopes and great expectations that we have always had. Tomorrow may be Christmas, but Christmas has a tomorrow as well. So, the same question arises, "What does tomorrow hold for you?"

A Wonderful Christmas Story

I just received the following in an email and wanted to share it with you. I remembering reading it some time ago, but it is always good to get those special story back again. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

THE SIMPLE WHITE ENVELOPE

It's just a small white envelope stuck among the branches of our Christmas tree. No name, no identification, no inscription. It has peeked through the branches of our tree for the past 10 years or so. It all began because my husband Mike hated Christmas --oh, not the true meaning of Christmas, but the commercial aspects of it -- the overspending, the frantic running around at the last minute to get a tie for Uncle Harry and the dusting powder for Grandma --the gifts given in desperation because you couldn't think of anything else.
Knowing he felt this way, I decided one year to bypass the usual shirts, sweaters, ties, and so forth. I reached for something special just for Mike. The inspiration came in an unusual way. Our son Kevin, who was 12 that year, was wrestling at the junior level at the school he attended. Shortly before Christmas, there was a non-league match against another team sponsored by an inner-city church. These youngsters, dressed in sneakers so ragged that shoestrings seemed to be the only thing holding them together, presented a sharp contrast to our boys in their spiffy blue and gold uniforms and sparkling new wrestling shoes. As the match began, I was alarmed to see that the other team was wrestling without headgear, a kind of light helmet designed to protect a wrestler's ears. It was a luxury the ragtag team obviously could not afford. Well, we ended up walloping them. We took every weight class. And as each of their boys got up from the mat, he swaggered around in his tatters with false bravado, a kind of street pride that couldn't acknowledge defeat. Mike, seated beside me, shook his head sadly, "I wish just one of them could have won," he said. "They have a lot of potential, but losing like this could take the heart right out of them." Mike loved kids -- all kids -- and he knew them, having coached little league football, baseball, and lacrosse. That's when the idea for his present came. That afternoon, I went to a local sporting goods store and bought an assortment of wrestling headgear and shoes and sent them anonymously to the inner-city church. On Christmas Eve, I placed the envelope on the tree,the note inside telling Mike what I had done and that this was his gift from me. His smile was the brightest thing about Christmas that year and in succeeding years. For each Christmas, I followed the tradition --one year sending a group of mentally handicapped youngsters to a hockey game, another year a check to a pair of elderly brothers whose home had burned to the ground the week before Christmas, and on and on. The envelope became the highlight of our Christmas . It was always the last thing opened on Christmas morning, and our children, ignoring their new toys, would stand with wide-eyed anticipation as their dad lifted the envelope from the tree to reveal its contents.
As the children grew, the toys gave way to more practical presents, but the envelope never lost its allure. The story doesn't end there. You see, we lost Mike last year due to cancer. When Christmas rolled around, I was still so wrapped in grief that I barely got the tree up. But Christmas Eve found me placing an envelope on the tree, and in the morning it was joined by three more. Each of our children, unbeknownst to the others, had placed an envelope on the tree for their dad. The tradition has grown and someday will expand even further with our grandchildren standing around the tree with wide-eyed anticipation watching as their fathers take down the envelope. Mike's spirit, like the Christmas spirit, will always be with us. May we all remember Christ, who is the reason for the season, and the true Christmas spirit this year and always.

Christmas Is Coming Soon

Well, we are just a few days away from celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. As we mentioned before, we don't celebrate His birthday, since we don't know for sure when it was, but we celebrate His Birth. Approximately 4000 years before Jesus was born, when Adam sinned in the garden of Eden, God promised to send a Messiah who would be victorious of Satan, crushing his head. As I was thinking about this there were two thoughts that came to mind. One is that when Jesus came to this earth He fulfilled God's promise. As the years went by, after God's initial promise, He began to add some specifics about the coming Messiah and as we look back, we see that Jesus' coming fulfilled all of those specifics as well, proving without doubt that He was the Messiah. By looking at that, we have great confidence that because God did what He said He would do then, we know that He will do what He says He will do now and in the future. When Jesus left this earth, He did so in a rather unusual manner. As He met with His disciples outside of Jerusalem, He ascended up into Heaven right before their very eyes. There was an angel of God there that told them that just as He left, so would He come again. Another promise from God, that we know He will fulfill. Just as we don't know the date of His first coming, we have no idea when He will come again. What we do know is that the Jews were looking for His coming when He was born and you and I should be looking for His coming again even now. It is only a few days until we celebrate His first coming and it may very well be only a few days until we celebrate His coming again. Another great gift from our Father.