A Message in the Dark – Contagious Joy – Purity 1846
Purity 1846 12/22/2025 Purity 1846 Audio Podcast
Purity 1846 on YouTube:
Good morning,
Today’s photo of a pillar of cloud, the silhouette of trees, and the horizon against the back drop of dawn’s early light comes to us from yours truly as I captured this magic moment while walking along Waite Road early yesterday morning.
Well, it’s the Monday before Christmas and all through my space, I can hear the sound of silence and bask in God’s amazing grace, because as of this morning my gift shopping is done, and I can sit back, relax, and enjoy the Christmas time fun. All the presents are wrapped, the gift cards addressed, and somehow by the Lord’s provision, my finances aren’t a mess!
Praise the Lord! Anyway, enough with the rhyming! I don’t know how Dr. Suess does it. Although, I have the secular/materialistic part of the Christmas tradition taken care of I am still addressing the matter of how to worship the Lord properly, at a Christmas church service this year.
My schedule is busier than usual this year because of my suspension from work. Due to my own negligence, I have had to scramble to attempt to meet my financial needs until the end of next month, so somewhere in the figuring, I failed to realize that the Christmas Eve Eve (December 23rd) service that my wife selected to go to is in conflict with a prior ministry commitment. While my wife and her children will be singing Silent Night at Starpoint Church, I will be hosting the last installment of the online Grace Course that I started 7 weeks ago.
I have to honor my commitments, and I can’t be in two places at once, so as much as it pains me I won’t be with my wife in Christmas worship this year. To honor our parents, we do Christmas Eve apart as it is and so I am currently deciding between two options for an actual Christmas Eve service that I could attend in Hudson. I’ll be adjusting my work hours to make sure I get to church, for sure, but am still waiting for a word from my son to determine when and where I will go to worship the Lord. Looks like it will be Rock Solid Church at 6:00 pm.
I wish I could go to Starpoint Church with my wife. Yesterday, Pastor Chad Clem did a great job at the 10am service despite a sudden power outage. Chad handled the sudden plunge into darkness expertly as he first assured the congregation of their, and their children’s, safety, led us in prayer, and resumed and completed his message on “waiting on God”.
Despite the lack of electrical lights or the use of microphones or visual aides, Pastor Chad, directed us through the examination of Simeon and Anna’s delayed part in the Christmas story. Preaching from Luke 2, Chad explained how both had waited most of the their lives for the coming of the Messiah and how the Lord blessed them with the revelation of Jesus Christ. Simeon and Anna were led by the joy of the revelation to prophesy and to give thanks to God for their waiting on God was not in vain. Chad these first century saints as an example to follow. Acknowledging that we will often go through hard times and long periods of waiting God, Pastor Chad encouraged us all to “wait through the dark” and to trust in the Lord to bring us into the light of His love, mercy, and grace and to rejoice because we as Christians have the hope that Christ gives us.
Speaking of rejoicing in the Lord, the In Touch with Dr, Charles devotion from December 18th, spoke about the topic of contagious joy and I am sharing it on the blog today to encourage us all to reflect on the joy of our relationship with God, Dr. Charles Stanley writes:
“Contagious Joy
Joy naturally flows from knowing Christ, and it draws others to Him.
1 John 1:1-4
Jesus calls us to be His witnesses (Acts 1:8). On hearing this, some Christians worry that they need special skills or charisma in order to explain the good news to someone else. Yet to bear witness is not merely to share the plan of salvation. The phrase literally means “to know by personal experience” or “testify to.” In today’s passage, John wrote that he was sharing things he’d experienced firsthand. What he was saying is this: “I’m full of joy because of the experience of knowing Jesus, and I want you to share in that joy.”
When you’re in love with someone, you are excited about the relationship and enjoy spending time together. Likewise, when you’re in love with Jesus, you can’t keep to yourself the joy that comes from knowing Him—it just spills over, bearing witness and strengthening other believers. People around you will pick up on the deep, genuine gladness in your heart that goes beyond natural happiness. And some who don’t yet know the Lord will find themselves hungering for the joy you have.
Witnessing is not a matter of eloquence or talent; it’s an overflow of a relationship with Jesus. As you allow the Holy Spirit to increasingly express His life and power through you, contagious joy will be the fruit of His indwelling presence.” – Charles Stanley
Amen. At Christmas time, we sing Joy to the World! Although we celebrate Jesus coming as a baby at Christmas, that song actually is looking forward to the joy that we will have at His second coming, when Jesus returns to rule and reign.
Although He will come in judgement, the Christian is not afraid of punishment because we have been redeemed and joined with Christ in His life ever since we first believed.
The old fears of an angry and wrathful God have been taken away because Jesus came to save us and to give us peace with God.
When our guilt and shame have been taken away by faith in Jesus, we can not only rest easy, we can rejoice because we have received the love that the Lord has for us.
When we understand who God is and who He makes us to be, in Christ, we experientially know that we are accepted, secure, and significant and the joy of the Lord becomes are strength.
Christmas is only a few days away. So don’t forget about how the Lord has chosen you, saved you, and wants to help you through the periods of waiting that you will have to endure. Celebrate your relationship with God and let the joy you have in the Lord flow through you and pour out of you for all to see.
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For those who want more evidence for Christianity than my simple encouragements provide, I offer apologist, Frank Turek’s website, https://crossexamined.org/.
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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. (The Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling By John G. Kruis on Amazon )
This morning’s meditation verse comes from the section on Prayer – Waiting On the Lord.
Nehemiah 4:9 (NASB) But we prayed to our God, and because of them we set up a guard against them day and night.
Today’s verse falls under the fourteenth point of our counseling reference guide resource section on Prayer.
14. Pray and work, using the means available to you.
Today’s Bible verses highlight a time when believers were challenged to pray in hostile circumstances. Nehemiah was leading the nation of Israel in the construction project of rebuilding the walls around Jerusalem after being in exile for 70 years, and if the project of rebuilding a city walls wasn’t challenging enough, Nehemiah and his crew were threatened with their enemy’s attacking them while they worked.
So they prayed for God’s help and prepared a watch to look out for the enemy. God answered their prayers and Nehemiah and his crew were able to rebuild the city walls despite intense enemy opposition.
So, let this encourage us to pray for God’s help in difficult times. The Lord can’t answer prayers we don’t make and our relationship with Him can’t thrive unless we spend time in His presence in prayer.
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As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.com where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk.
Today we continue sharing from “Day by Day Along the Way” By Jay E. Adams.
As always, I share this information for educational purposes and encourage you all to purchase Adams’ books for your own private study and to support the late author’s work. This resource is available online for less than $20 at many sites.
Day 345
Go! I am going to send you far away to the Gentiles. – Acts 22:21
We read in the next verse that “up until that word they listened to him,” then they shouted for his death. They so hated Gentiles that they couldn’t even stand hearing the word spoken! Such bitter hatred has seldom been seen in the world’s history. Yet, through the years, the Jews developed such a superior attitude that they despised all of those who differed from them. Such hatred should never characterize God’s own—either in those days, or today. Of course, as a whole, that generation of Jews was about to be destroyed for their sin, of which bitterness was a large part. We, who look back on this attitude with amazement, must remember that all are capable of all sin. So guard against it. You, too, may have a strong antipathy toward someone or some group. Bitterness can become hatred that is so strong it would, as in Saul’s case, lead to murder![1]
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[1] Jay E. Adams, Day by Day along the Way (Cordova, TN: Institute for Nouthetic Studies, 2020), 353.
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