Tag: Christian

Advent · Christian. · Christmas · Christmas Traditions · Uncategorized

The Colors of Christmas

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Slide1

European Christians in the years around 1500 AD, developed plays to tell the bible stories to the illiterate population.  Actors traveled across the different regions of Germany and France preforming the plays.

In regions of Europe where they commemorated Adam and Eve Day on December 24, the Paradise Play was preformed on the  eve of Christmas to celebrated  the creation of the world and recalled the fall of Adam and Eve.

The actors went and cut an evergreen tree–the only green trees in December.  They tied apples ( one of the few ripe fruits in the area) on the limbs. This was the major prop for the show.

The evergreen represented the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life.  The apple represented the fruit Adam and Eve were forbidden to eat. One last decoration was placed on the tree.  Pieces of wafer, unblessed eucharist, were attached to the branches to show the coming promise of a savior to take away the sin of the world.

They preformed the play in a circle of candles.  Adam and Eve, in defiance of God’s rules, toke a bite of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  This act cause the couple to run and hide because they saw their sin.  Their sin separated them from God.  They were removed from Paradise, and humankind cursed to face hard lives and death.   But God gave them  a promise of one who would come to save mankind.

The tree remained up for December 25th as they celebrated the birth of that promised savior.  And the tree became known as a Christmas tree and with it the Christmas colors of red, green and white which tell the Gospel Story.

Thanksgiving

And then there was one

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One of the lepers realizes his skin healed.  This man turns on his heals and heads back to Jesus.

15 And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God,

16 And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan.

Can’t you see this guy?  I doubt he stopped when the first sore healed.  Not even the second.  But when he realized the ulcerated sores were gone, he knew it was real.

This guy didn’t set there trying to decide why he once was sick but now was well.  He knew.  He didn’t second-guess the source of his healing.  He knew an answered prayer when he saw one.

So let’s look at how he reacted to answered prayer as compared to David’s guide on Thanksgiving.

So the ten lepers came to Jesus crying out for Him to heal them.  So I think we can agree they meet two of David’s points.  We might call this level 1.  The starting point.

2)   Call upon his name

7)   Seek the Lord and his strength

Let’s go to level 2.  Here are some of the points David mentions that I think are part of level 2.

1)   Give thanks to the Lord

3)   Make known his deeds

4)   Sing unto him

5)   Talk about his wondrous work

6)   Glory in his holy name

 (we will get to level 3 and 4  in a little bit)

Only one leper returns.  All were healed as far as we can tell from the scripture.  But only one stops and heads back to Jesus.

Can’t you see him?  This man runs back down the road yelling out loud and praising God.  The heads of people passing by must have been turning.  I doubt there was one person who passed who didn’t know this man had been heal.

I can think of so many times God answered my cries. Those moments when I had hit bottom and had no idea what I would do.  God acted and I knew it was Him.  I thanked him and my heart sang.  But to be honest, I don’t think I told others, I don’t think I called up praises or documented what God had done.

Those moments fade into my history and don’t become a building block for greater faith.  In fact, as time passes, I think I sometimes start second guessing did God act.  At the time, I know only God could have acted, but later I think maybe just coincidence or something I didn’t know about happened.   Those doubts actually bring down faith rather than building it.

Exercise

Earlier we made a list of times when we cried out to God and He answered.  Look at those moments.  How did you react to God’s answer to your prayer?  Did you run through town praising God and telling people what God had done?  Did you sing songs to God glorifying Him for what he had down?

I would like to spend our Thanksgiving working on treating one of those answered prayers as David would have treated it.  Or as this leper naturally treated it.

Thanksgiving

Quick Recap

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Let’s recap for a moment before we move forward on how to live a life of Gratitude

Who

 

Thanksgiving belongs to those who cry out to God in the day of their need.

Thanksgiving is meant to be a major component a Christian’s life because we are people who call on the name of Jesus.

 What

We strive not for prayers or quick whispers of thanks, but for a way of life based on relying on God, recognizing the work of God and praising God for those victories.

 Why

Living a life of gratitude requires a speck of faith and results in a mustard seed of faith.  Jesus told us faith the size of a mustard seed can move a mountain.  A life of Thanksgiving grows mighty faith warriors

Christian. · Thanksgiving · Uncategorized

Living a Life of Thanksgiving

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Slide1

Let’s study Thanksgiving in the School of David– the man had a PHD in the Art of Thanking God. King David is one of my favorite people in the bible. He managed to get himself into trouble several times, yet God loved him. Note, I probably view this wrong.  I see a man who failed and God still loved because I fail so often.   But in reality David was a man after God’s own heart because it was David’s desire to do what God commanded. He stumbles and falls, but he always turns back to God crying for forgiveness. He longed to please God. Evidence would indicate David longed to please God because David deliberately recalled when he was down all the things God had accomplished for him.

When you look at David’s psalms and his life, you find a man who lived a life of gratitude—a life continually recognizing God’s actions in his life. Based on this, it makes sense to allow David to teach us about Thanksgiving. And it just so happens, David wrote a psalm outlining a life of Thanksgiving in 1 Chronicles 16. It will be our primary text for learning how to go on a great adventure with God through thanksgiving.

But a quick overview of the process can be found in Psalm 50:15 and call on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me.

Exercise 1
Find a place to jot down your thoughts: journal,  computer document, notepad.
Write down the times when you cried out to God in a time of trouble.

Write down how God responded.

Do you remember honoring God if he delivered you?

How did you honor him?

They Will Know You by Your Love
Advent · Uncategorized

They Will Know You by Your Love

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I Love You; You Love Me; We are a great big family.  My daughter loved Barney when she was young.  Horror of horrors if she ever reads this and finds I let out her secret.  But the second advent candle represents Love.  And the Christian love is much like that song.  God loved me; I love Him; He wants me to love all his children so we will be a great big family.
God gave us the ultimate present one night two thousand years ago and He gave it out of love.

John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Jesus guides us in three areas of love:

1) Love the Lord with all our heart, mind and soul

2) Love our neighbor as our self

3) Love our Christian brothers and sisters as Christ loved us.

1 John 4 verses regarding love.

7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

God is love.  Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

Christ instructed us to love our neighbor, but my understanding of the verses above and the verse in John 13:34-35 is that we are being given a higher command than to love everyone as we love ourselves.  We are being commanded to love as Christ loves and we are not capable of this with our human selfishness.

34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

This love as Christ loves is not for everyone but for our brothers and sisters in Christ.  We are not capable of this level of love on our own.  Only through the Holy Spirit living and working in us can we live out this kind of love.  This love sacrifices self for others.  This love humbles itself to wash the feet of the lowliest member of the family.  This love says I will do without so you can have.  This love does not enable but also does not make excuses for not helping.  This love always has the other’s best interest at heart.

“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another”
Can people tell I am a Christian by my love?

Prayer:  Jesus please fill me with your spirit and help me to love.  I must pray sincere prayers for those who I have trouble loving.

Meditation:  Does my life show love or does it show selfishness?

Action:  Find the people who I know are disciples by their love.  How do I know they love?  Journal what tells me they love.

Advent · Christmas

Advent Challenge

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DSC00623Advent represents a time of preparation.

Not just preparation for the Celebration of Jesus birth,

but preparation of the heart for his return.

I intend to challenge myself this year with a commitment to prayer, focused meditation and action each day of this advent season.  It is a fast of sorts.  A fast from the commercialism of the season by changing my focus (as cliche as it sounds) to the reason for the Season.

I will post my daily challenge in case anyone wants to join me in this fast.

 

 

What’s Your Excuse?
Christian. · Ireland · March · March 17 · St. Patrick · St. Patrick's Confession · St. Patty's Day

What’s Your Excuse?

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Over 1500 years after he lived, Patrick’s name is famous for bringing Christianity to Ireland.  But if you listen to him, he doesn’t believe he has any skills.  He wishes he were better educated. The others have skills he never obtained.

A young man, almost a beardless boy, I was taken captive before I knew what I should desire and what I should shun. So, consequently, today I feel ashamed and I am mightily afraid to expose my ignorance, because, [I am not] eloquent, with a small vocabulary, I am unable to explain as the spirit is eager to do and as the soul and the mind indicate. 

But had it been given to me as to others, in gratitude I should not have kept silent, and if it should appear that I put myself before others, with my ignorance and my slower speech, in truth, it is written: “The tongue of the stammerers shall speak rapidly and distinctly [Isaiah 32:4].”

How much harder must we try to attain it, we of whom it is said: “You are an epistle of Christ in greeting to the ends of the earth… written on your hearts, not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God [2 Corinthians 3:3].”

And again, the Spirit witnessed that the rustic life was created by the Most High. 

I am, then, first of all, countrified, an exile, evidently unlearned, one who is not able to see into the future, but I know for certain, that before I was humbled I was like a stone lying in deep mire, and he that is mighty came and in his mercy raised me up and, indeed, lifted me high up and placed me on top of the wall. And from there I ought to shout out in gratitude to the Lord for his great favours in this world and for ever, that the mind of man cannot measure.

Therefore be amazed, you great and small who fear God, and you men of God, eloquent speakers, listen and contemplate. Who was it summoned me, a fool, from the midst of those who appear wise and learned in the law and powerful in rhetoric and in all things? Me, truly wretched in this world, he inspired before others that I could be– if I would– such a one who, with fear and reverence, and faithfully, without complaint, would come to the people to whom the love of Christ brought me and gave me in my lifetime, if I should be worthy, to serve them truly and with humility.

According, therefore, to the measure of one’s faith in the Trinity, one should proceed without holding back from danger to make known the gift of God and everlasting consolation, to spread God’s name everywhere with confidence and without fear, in order to leave behind, after my death, foundations for my brethren and sons whom I baptized in the Lord in so many thousands.

God calls us.  He uses our weaknesses and our past pains to touch others.  We think we have to be great orators in order to preach, great writers to document our experiences or the ultimate charmer to share the gospel with others.  It only takes someone willing to do what God asks them to do.  We may never know how he uses what we do.  The impact maybe years later.  Maybe only one person accepts Christ and learns to follow the teaching.  

What is your excuse for not spreading Christ’s message and love to others?

Christianity Is Not in Our Genetic Code
Christian. · Ireland · March · March 17 · St. Patrick · St. Patrick's Confession · St. Patty's Day

Christianity Is Not in Our Genetic Code

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I, Patrick, a sinner, a most simple countryman, the least of all the faithful and most contemptible to many, had for father the deacon Calpurnius, son of the late Potitus, a presbyter, of the settlement of Bannaven Taburniae; he had a small villa nearby where I was taken captive. I was at that time about sixteen years of age. I did not, indeed, know the true God; and I was taken into captivity in Ireland with many thousands of people, according to our deserts, for quite drawn away from God, we did not keep his precepts, nor were we obedient to our presbyters who used to remind us of our salvation. And the Lord brought down on us the fury of his being and scattered us among many nations, even to the ends of the earth, where I, in my smallness, am now to be found among foreigners.

Patrick’s story opens with a teen of sixteen.  He lived in a land where Christianity existed.  Look at his family and you would assume Patrick lived a nice Christian life.  His father was a deacon; and his grandfather appears to have been a priest.

But reading his words, I believe Patrick lived in a society where Christianity had slid from faith to just words and acts.  Patrick admits he knew of the true God, but he did not personally know this God. I gather, in the area where he lived, this was true of the majority of people.

Patrick gets swept up in some type of raid.  Thousands of his country men and women are also captured.  The people of the land had abandoned faith in Christ, not for a new god or some new wave faith, they left God out of neglect.

Patrick believes the disaster which fell upon his people and their being taken as slaves is a result of their turning their back on God.  He sees a comparison between his people being scattered and their not living for Christ.

Made me think of the prophecies associated with Israel.

Amos 9:8 Behold, the eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth; saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith the Lord.

9 For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth.

Today, I think Christians of America often sound like the Christians of Patrick’s villages.

“for quite drawn away from God, we did not keep his precepts, nor were we obedient to our presbyters who used to remind us of our salvation.”

I know from my own experience of slipping away that you do not have to make active decisions.  Sometimes it results from wanting something you know is outside God’s will.  In a past decade, I

I look forward to studying what Patrick discovered.  I think the first thing is that we are not Christian because our ancestors believed.  Christianity is not genetic.

Day 19: Agape Trusts, Believes, Has Confidence In
28 Day Love Challenge · Christian. · February · Love

Day 19: Agape Trusts, Believes, Has Confidence In

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Let’s parse this one.  Agape trusts all.

I understand my love for Christ is a love which trusts Jesus in all things in all ways.  Why?  Because He has proven himself trust worthy to me.  I know that even when things seem strange and out of sorts that Jesus has it all under control and eventually it will work out for good.

Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

Love requiring trust makes sense to me when it is us loving Jesus.  Why?  Because Jesus is trust worthy.

But turn it slightly, I know Jesus Agape me.  But I am not a trustworthy person at all.  I mean to be.  I really do.  I am like the disciples who kept falling asleep while Jesus prayed.  My spirit is willing but my flesh weak.

Matthew 28:40 And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with me one hour?

41 Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.

Why would Jesus have any trust in me?  I know He knows I will fail Him.  Yet Jesus loves me with agape love.  Jesus believes in me.  Jesus believes in you.  Jesus spoke about you and about me in his prayer.  He believed in us.  See His words.  He trusted us.

John 17:18 As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.

19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.

20 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;

21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:

23 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.

24 Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.

25 O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me.

26 And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.

We trust Jesus, that is the foundation of our relationship with Him.  We trust him for salvation and we are to trust Him through every stage of our lives.  We see He actually has faith in us that through our walk with Him we will grow towards the perfection of being one with Him and the Father.

But we are also called to have faith in our brothers and sisters in Christ.  We need to show them we have confidence in them.  We know if they hold on tight to Jesus he can do a great work in them.  When they are weak, we may have to help them hold on.  But Agape love trusts.  We are to believe in our fellow Christians just as Jesus believes in us.  They may fail us on occasion, but we are all in this growing process together.  Jesus believes in me even when the flesh is weak.