The Heartsong celebration is at 10am followed by a potluck and the Spinners at 1145am
I have about a 5 minute devotion to give tomorrow; Doyle Combs asked me if that was a Baptist Preacher 5 minutes which we all know means it could go on and on and on ....... but you all know that already, don't you?
My thanks to Johnie, Darrel, Ron, and our inimitable and intrepid Lisa for handling the service for me tomorrow; all in all I would rather be at home with you but these kind of celebrations are important because it gets me and therefore you out there in the community so they know who we are and I get to do what I do best, show off!
No, seriously this is a great opportunity to release the faith and grace that we have experienced as a church and give it to others; there is nothing wrong with others seeing what the Lord has done for us. We have tasted and seen that the Lord is good and we want others to taste also
Everyone is welcome to come up at 11 for the potluck and watch the Spinners at 1145am, but keep in mind the Spinners will be performing next Sunday night 12-13 at our church at 6pm with a potluck preceding at 5pm
The Lord bless; pray for one another there are more prayer requests out there than you know so as you pray seek out the Lord to heal and help those that so desperately need Him at this time and always; you may not know who they are but the Lord does and we pray to Him
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Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus (Phil 2:5)
Christ did not regard the outward expressions of Deity to be something to be held onto as tightly as a thief holds his ill-gotten treasure. He emptied Himself of those outward expressions (keeping fully intact His personhood as God) and became just like us – a servant, made in the likeness of men. He came down to earth as God incarnate and born of the Virgin Mary in humility. He humbly yielded Himself (just as He became a man) to death, the death of the cross.
For this reason (His humble incarnation - God becoming a human) the Father has lifted Him up to an exalted place and given Him a name above all other names. In the exact opposite of His coming to earth, He will be honored and worshiped by all mankind whether they believed in Him or not. The living and the dead will bow the knee before Him and declare that He is God, agreeing with God the Father that He was justified in sending Him to earth and bringing glory to God the Father.
C. S. Lewis put it like this: The Eternal Being, who knew everything and who created the whole universe, became not only a man but before that a baby, and before that a fetus inside a woman’s body. If you want to get the hang of it, think how you would like to become a slug or a crab.
The right response to the story of Christ coming down to earth is humility. We are most like Christ when we humble ourselves and act the way He acted in being “Emmanuel – God with us.”
Humility is one of the most elusive virtues for us. We either have it or we don’t; if we think we have it we don’t; and if we try to have it, huh-uh, we don’t. If we have to tell people we’re humble, we ain’t humble. Humility needs no advertising or hype.
True humility is not when we think less of ourselves but when we think of ourselves less; when we spend more time looking up to God and Christ and less time looking inward at how we feel or looking outward to see what other people think of us. We find humility and therefore find Christ when we go ahead and do what the passage in Philippians 2 says we will ultimately do, bow the knee before Jesus Christ and declare that He is Lord.
This same Jesus came and died for us, extending mercy and grace. Funny thing about mercy and grace: we’ve got nothing to do with getting it. The very nature of mercy and grace is that one party extends it to another party that in no way earns or deserves it.
Christ came to us as an expression of God’s character of mercy and grace. That is all: we don’t deserve it and we cannot demand it. All we can do is beg for it and then take what He gives. And He gave us mercy and grace in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore Christmas gives us the blessing of declaring Jesus is Lord before He assumes the throne. When we bow before Him in that manger, humble, meek and maybe even crying, we find the mind of Christ and find peace. We truly find humility when we learn to worship the baby Jesus, to honor Him as God when He was at His most humble.
Bow the knee before Christ; worship Him as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords even as all we see is a baby in a stable and in a feeding trough surrounded by a mom and dad and farm animals. Lift Him up as the God of the universe, singing praises to His name, honoring and glorifying Him as Lord, declaring “what a light He is, what a King He is, what a Lord He is, what a Baby He is.” We declare in humility and glory and in an exclamation of praise that is so selfless and so pure and so wholesome that the demons tremble and the angels weep with joy. Our praise is this: “O my Jesus, what a wonderful Child!”
