Take a Big Pause and Appreciate Christmas – Purity 1227

Take a Big Pause and Appreciate Christmas – Purity 1227

Purity 1227 12/21/2023 Purity 1227 Podcasr

Purity 1227 on YouTube: 

Good morning,

Today’s photo of three beautifully decorated Christmas
trees comes to us from yours truly as I stopped for a moment to take in the
silence and beauty of the moment as I was completely alone in the lobby of
Starpoint Church as I prepared for the Celebrate Freedom Growth Group meeting
last night.  

Well, It’s Thursday and after a long day of work
yesterday, it was an amazing comfort to go to the church last night and
appreciate my church and the journey of faith that God has taken me on. I joke
that “Wednesdays are a long day for me” but honestly, I am honored to serve in
the house of God in whatever capacity I can and really enjoyed the access I had
to be in the church after hours. After taking in the beauty of this church and
its Christmas decoration, I prepared for the meeting and walked the halls
praying and worshipping the Lord in song. There is nothing quite like the joy and
peace that we can have when we are in solitude and approach the Lord with
prayer and praise. Last night’s silent and not so silent preparations for the
meeting was one big pause to appreciate the fact that its Christmas time and that
God is good. 

I know that things are going to ramp up in terms of
getting ready or completing our preparations for the big days of Christmas Eve
and Christmas, but I would recommend that you take a big pause to sit and
reflect on the gift of Christmas and appreciate the blessings you have in life.

Brain science says that when we sit in appreciation
or gratitude for five minute increments it builds our emotional resilience and
capacity for joy. The Bible tells us to rejoice always and to always give
thanks, so it looks like some scientists figured out, although they would never
admit it, that God gave us good advice on how to live. He made us after all,
and His word is true so if we reflect on its wisdom and put it into practice we
will experience joy.  If you don’t
believe me, listen to Jesus who said in:

John
15:10-11 (NLT2)
¹⁰  When
you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s
commandments and remain in his love.
¹¹  I
have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your
joy will overflow!  

It’s the season of joy, but if you don’t stop and appreciate
it, you might miss it. So take a big pause, or several big pauses, over the
next few days and nights and appreciate this most wonderful time of the year. 

 I am here to
encourage your faith, but I also wanted to share our friend in the UK, Mindful
of Christ.net’s Lauren Roskilly’s word from Wednesday from this week who
reminds us that “Jesus is With You.”  Lauren shares:

John 3:16 (ESV)
¹⁶  “For God so loved the
world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not
perish but have eternal life.

And Lauren writes:

 

“Jesus is With You.

God made Himself vulnerable by coming
into the world as a baby. God experienced the world as we know it so we can
relate to Him.

God came through a miracle birth through
the Virgin Mary and was named Jesus, Immanuel, which means God with us.

God was literally with us, died, and
overcame death to be with us today. He did that for you.

If you believe this in your heart you
will be saved. You have Jesus in you today and your destination is eternity in
Heaven.

The seal of that promise is the Holy
Spirit.

Pray this prayer today:

“Thank you, God, for coming into
the world for me. I am sorry for I have sinned. Thank you for saving me from
that old life. Save me, renew me, transform me. Help me to keep my mind full
and focused on you. Amen”

If that was the first time you prayed
this prayer with sincerity, let us know & reply to this email. I have some
free resources and guidance for your new journey with Christ.

Have a wonderful CHRISTmas!

Blessings

Lauren x”

Thank You, Lauren. Yes if you prayed
that prayer for the first time, welcome to the kingdom, You could contact
Lauren and receive here free resources by going to https://mindfulofchrist.net/ .   Or you can contact me at mt4christ247@gmail.com and I will send
you some Word documents that you can meditate upon which tell you who you are
in Christ and the Statements of Truth of our faith.  

Its great to take a big pause and
appreciate the good things in our lives and the best thing is our new life in
Christ, so keep walking and talking with God and don’t be surprised if your holidays
are filled with joy!

——————————————————————————————–

Today’s
Bible verse comes to us from “The Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling” By
John G. Kruis.

(
While Bible verses on various topics of Counseling can be found with a quick Google
search, we encourage you to purchase this resource to support the late author’s
work. (https://www.amazon.com/Quick-Scripture-Reference-Counseling-Kruis-ebook/dp/B00CIUJZT2?ref_=ast_author_dp )

This
morning’s meditation verse comes from the section on Church Discipline.

Revelation 2:2 (NLT2)
²  “I
know all the things you do. I have seen your hard work and your patient
endurance. I know you don’t tolerate evil people. You have examined the claims
of those who say they are apostles but are not. You have discovered they are
liars.

Today’s
verse falls under the tenth point of our counseling reference guide resource’s
section on Church
Discipline

10. Jesus commends the church
for faithful discipline.

Today’s verse tell us that
God is watching us and he knows what we have been doing.  God is better than Santa Claus with his magic
snowball. God knows all things and beyond determining whether or not we have
been naughty or nice, He gives us the opportunity to be forgiven because we are
all “naughty” – desperately wicked actually, and we need someone to rescue us
from sin and the death we so richly deserve. God provides us with a Savior in
Jesus Christ and offers us eternal life in His kingdom.  

But God also expects us to
trust Him and to follow Him in today’s verse Jesus commends the church in Ephesus
for being hardworking, righteous, and not tolerating evil people. He also
commends them for knowing the truth and exposing those who would seek to deceive
us. 

Verses like Revelation 2:2
demonstrate to us that we have an obligation as Christians to be holy, to stand
up for the truth of God’s word, and to make people accountable for the things
that say and do.   We don’t tolerate evil
people – we call sin for what it is: sin, and we reject anything that is said
that its true or contradicts God’s word. 

God is watching and we
should show Him that we understand His truth and love and demonstrate it with
the way we live.

——————————————————————–

As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org where I
always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to
assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk.

Today we are sharing from “God is in the Manger-
Reflections on Advent and Christmas” – By Dietrich Bonhoeffer.   

As always, I share this information for educational
purposes and encourage you all to purchase Bonhoeffer’s books for your own
private study and to support his work.  This resource is available online
for less than $10 at many sites.

God is in the Manger – Dietrich Bonhoeffer

ADVENT WEEK FOUR – INCARNATION

DAY
TWO

Human
Beings Become Human Because God Became Human

The figure of Jesus Christ takes shape in human
beings. Human beings do not take on an independent form of their own. Rather,
what gives them form and maintains them in their new form is always and only
the figure of Jesus Christ himself. It is therefore not an imitation, not a
repetition of his form, but their own form that takes shape in human beings.
Human beings are not transformed into a form that is foreign to them, not into
the form of God, but into their own form, a form that belongs to them and is
essential to them. Human beings become human because God became human, but
human beings do not become God. They could not and cannot bring about that
change in their form, but God himself changes his form into human form, so that
human beings—though not becoming God—can become human.

In Christ the form of human beings before God was created anew. It was
not a matter of place, of time, of climate, of race, of the individual, of
society, of religion, or of taste, but rather a question of the life of
humanity itself that it recognized in Christ its image and its hope. What
happened to Christ happened to humanity.

The whole Christian story is strange. Frederick
Buechner describes the Incarnation as “a kind of vast joke whereby the creator
of the ends of the earth comes among us in diapers.” He concludes, “Until we
too have taken the idea of the God-man seriously enough to be scandalized by it,
we have not taken it as seriously as it demands to be taken.”

But we have taken the idea as seriously as a child can. America is far
from spiritually monolithic, but the vast backdrop of our culture is Christian,
and for most of us it is the earliest faith we know. The “idea of the God-man”
is not strange or scandalous, because it first swam in milk and butter on the
top of our oatmeal decades ago. At that age, many things were strange, though
most were more immediately palpable. A God-filled baby in a pile of straw was a
pleasant image, but somewhat theoretical compared with the heart-stopping
exhilaration of a visit from Santa Claus. The way a thunderstorm ripped the
night sky, the hurtling power of the automobile Daddy drove so bravely, the
rapture of ice cream—how could the distant Incarnation compete with those?

We grew up with the Jesus story, until we outgrew it. The last day we
walked out of Sunday School may be the last day we seriously engaged this
faith.

Frederica Mathewes-Green,

At the Corner of East and Now

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I
thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an
end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see
face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have
been fully known.

1 Corinthians 13:11–12^[1]

—————————more
tomorrow————————

Join our “Victory over the Darkness”, “The Bondage
Breaker”, “Freedom in Christ” series of Discipleship Classes via the
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Encouragement
for the Path of Christian Discipleship