The gift He gave didn’t come under a tree,
but hung on a tree.
He gives good gifts.
Both images are from the church where we had Tredessa and Ryan’s wedding. I couldn’t decide which way to share the verse. So we went with both.
Category Archives: 1 Christ is All
The BEST way to Spread Christmas Cheer
As Buddy-the-Elf loves to tell us~
The {BEST} way to spread Christmas cheer is {SINGING loud} for all to hear.
Read this blog this morning on nine lessons you can learn watching the Will Ferrell movie, Elf (2003), already a Christmas classic for sure. {CLICK HERE} I most love the scene where Buddy hears that “Santa” will arrive at the store the next day. He jumps up and down screaming
“S a a a a a a a n n n t a a a a a a a a a !!!!”
Everyone thinks he is weird, but hardly able to contain his exuberance he explains,
“I know him!”
I want to be like that about Jesus, my Savior! I want to be almost unable to contain my excitement because I KNOW HIM!!
~
Gemma showed up for pre-school this morning, and upon seeing the family-tree lit up waiting to be decorated, exclaimed, “Well I didn’t see that tree coming!”
Later while doing some school-work, she exclaimed, “Aw, nutcrackers! I forgot my bookbag!” **hahahahahhaha!! THAT is some Christmas cheer, too!
This is ME singing Really loud-can you hear me?? HARK, the herald angels sing….**
Greetings you who are highly favored
FAVOR @ Christmas :: The LORD is with you.
From Luke 1, NIV
God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. 36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. 37 For no word from God will ever fail.”
38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.”
Rhoades family Christmas card 2008, front
Three things catch my eye, no, four…
1.
Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.
Though Gabriel does not show up at our doors daily, or probably even ever, today my prayer is, for those of you who read (yes, YOU!): Psalm 90.17 AMP “And let the beauty and delightfulness and favor of the Lord our God be upon us; confirm and establish the work of our hands–yes, the work of our hands, confirm and establish it.”
2.
The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
What I notice is that Gabriel came with the plan. But when she asked, most certainly, I would imagine, with trepidation, “How will this be?…” He explained how it would happen – meaning the Lord was giving Mary a chance to receive the promise. God doesn’t just bull-doze us. He waits for us to receive and obey. Makes me wonder what the next few days were like for her as she anticipated such an incredible work of God within her?
3.
No word from God will ever fail.
This was really about Elizabeth as an example. Regardless of the time we have waited or how absolutely impossible something seems in light of our circumstances, these 7 words – wow! No word from God will ever fail. Besides the ones he has spoken to my heart personally over the years, He has given us His amazing life-giving words in the scriptures. And not one will ever fail.
4.
May your word to me be fulfilled.
What a great example Mary was. I think I’d have kept the angel arguing for awhile. I probably would have been zooming through endless what-if scenarios. Pretty sure I’d have been more troublesome. The old King James Version quotes Mary, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.” I think God is hoping to hear that a lot more from me this next year. I may have to make myself a graphic to hang on my cubicle wall. Haha.
Rhoades family Christmas card 2008, back
Pondering a Mary Christmas…
…Oh – AND: the wedding photographer posted on their blog http://www.chronosimages.com/blog/?p=250
Delight @ Christmas
I am attending this tonight. Speaking, actually.
Isn’t it cute? Very happy graphic.
To save myself from approximately $37.82 in candle cost, I had each of the grandbebes fashion a poster-card Christmas tree for me.
First, I traced around by biggest party serving platter to get a large circle. One circle provides 4 trees, just cut across once both ways. You get sort of a triangle with a curved bottom edge. Each grandchild could color with markers or crayons in any way they wished. We rolled them into cones and stapled, taped or glued the seam. Then they each chose one color of glitter to add pizzaz and topped the trees with stars on a toothpick. They decided on which candlestick they wanted for display and voila! I have 6 of the cutest little Christmas trees I have ever seen on my table, sparkling and making merry for all they are worth (and they are worth soooooo much to me!).
When I went to snap a photo I realized – hey these remind me of the Women’s Christmas Dessert graphic! How delightful!
That is correct. I did not iron my tablecloth before snapping this shot. Nor did I iron it after. It may or may not get ironed sometime during the Christmas season of 2011.
Left-to-right: Amelie Belle (1 1/2) chose pretty light pink glitter and a very “open” design with not much clutter, because there was running about to do. In the foreground, however, with the hot pink star and the highly colorful tree by her big sister, Averi-J, silver glitter and shiny baubles were painstakingly applied and Averi (almost 4) was absolutely set on a candlestick with “jewelry.”
That great big tree with the purple star belongs to Gavin (8) and his was 100% covered in Mod Podge and clear glitter so his designs show through. Very crystal-y and tall! The purple tree just in front of his came from the heart-and-soul of his sister Guini (6), who covered what little white of the poster-board may have been exposed with Martha Stewart gold glitter. It is interesting to note that various colors were made available, but also sizes of glitter and the kids all wanted the finer stuff – not the big chunky glitter I grew up with and seems to be making a fashion comeback?
You’ll barely see peeking out (bad Nonna photography), Gemma’s (4) red star and bright, happy white and colorful adorned tree on a white candlestick. And the one all the way on the right belongs to Hunter (7). He was probably, next to Amelie, the most conservative with his use of glitter. He chose my lime-green-obsession, but just for small touches here and there.
Zephaniah 3.17
For the Lord your God is living among you. He is WITH you!
He is a mighty savior. Jesus saves – mightily!
He delights big-time in you with gladness and uproarious affection.
With his love, he will calm all your fears.
He will rejoice (not just joy, but RE-joy, again and again) over you with joyful songs.
(paraphrased)
Refuse the Scrooge Spirit by Jack Hayford
This is the link to an article by one of my all-time favorites in the Kingdom, Pastor Jack Hayford. I love his {always} gracious message. I especially embrace Jack Hayford’s teachings on Christmas and every year he imparts new understanding to me. So I wanted to share it. Please click on the link below and read it!
Refusing the Scrooge Spirit {click here}, www.jackhayford.com
In his usual gracious and wise way, Jack Hayford looks at some of the reasons we are tempted to withdraw from the celebration of Christmas in these days and times and presents some awesome reasons to “let the fresh joy of the season infuse” our spirits, renewing us in our worship and welcome of the Lord during our happy, holy days! You just cannot help being inspired by Jack Hayford when he encourages you to not only be joyful in the season but to be like the Wise Men, who, having travelled many miles over lots of months, found Jesus and “rejoiced with exceedingly great joy!” That is the kind of joy I am after in my worship during Christmas!
He ends the short article with this prayer that yes, I am praying!
“Lord, I’m not only here to worship You, but I want to depart from this season different from the way I entered it.”
I am all the way over-my-head in, because my friends and familia – Jesus is not only the reason for the season, Jesus is the reason for celebrating the season with great gusto, gratitude and wholehearted devotion! So thankful for a Savior, so happy to share Him this Christmas!
“Well he is just so prophetic”
Please, never-ever-ever {EVER} again say that to try to convince me that because a person was just straight-up rude and absolutely uncaring, demeaning, spirituallly-superior and haughty and high-horse and used scriptures to smack the ever-loving life out of me that they are “just so prophetic.”
If you think you are “prophetic” because people run for cover or bristle at your “insight,” if you think you are the man (or woman)-with-God’s-plan because you thunder loud and leave a ravaged land in your wake or because you spewed forth and then felt better having unloaded it, or having wowed-the-crowd with your holiness, well, you might wanna re-think your spiritual gift. You might not actually be prophetic.
1 Corinthians 14 NIV
2 For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people but to God. Indeed, no one understands them; they utter mysteries by the Spirit.
3 But the one who prophesies speaks to people for their strengthening, encouraging and comfort.
4 Anyone who speaks in a tongue edifies themselves,
but the one who prophesies edifies the church.
A prophetic word can be daunting, thrilling and even a little scary, but it will always be calling you up (edifying) and maybe even calling you out in correction, but it will be to something so much higher and more amazing in God. If you feel like a bomb has been dropped, you just got gut-kicked and are wholly condemned and you are now worse than Kingdom slime, I would consider whether it is Holy Spirit conviction from an authorized Holy-Spirit-filled prophet, which by the sheer loving-kindness* of it draws us to repentance, or the accuser of the brethern, taunting and condemning?
Super-spiritual-superiority (often delivered in the form of mis-used/abusive authority) sucks. I know ‘cuz I have done it. God have mercy on me. Really. Please forgive me.
File under: It takes one to know one.
* Romans 2.4
Your rod and your staff, they comfort me // Comfort @ Christmas
Sometimes the heart needs comfort.
“Tidings of comfort and joy.”
“God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen,” was never on my top-10 list of most loved Christmas Carols when I was a kid. Or even as an adult. It seemed stuffy, quite formal. Certainly old-fashioned. In fact, there echos in my memory of the song a rather foreboding, dirge-like pipe-organ rendition.
But I do so love a hymn and enjoy contemplating what the writers of those old words, meanings changing over time as they do, were feeling and communicating. And my thanks to Jack Hayford for pointing out the absolute power of the blessing of encouragement of this old “Merry Gentlemen” hymn. I was rather surprised to learn that it dates to the 1700s and was rather shocking, as old English Christmas carols go, as it was danced to and sung in a very upbeat manner. Obviously not the death-dirge I imagined as a kid.
Regardless, I embrace the good news of it now. For the heart of the song is: God rest you (no striving, no panic and fear). Don’t let anything cause you anxiety or alarm. Remember? Jesus came and and has redeemed and rescued you. You have been saved from Satan’s power over you. This is good news, my friends. Jesus came and this should fill our hearts with comfort and joy, comfort and joy. Oh yes! This is the good news filled with comfort and joy!
Verses 1 and 7 (of 7)
God rest ye merry, gentlemen
Let nothing you dismay
Remember, Christ, our Saviour
Was born on Christmas day
To save us all from Satan’s power
When we were gone astray
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy
O tidings of comfort and joy
Now to the Lord sing praises,
All you within this place,
And with true love and brotherhood
Each other now embrace;
This holy tide of Christmas
All other doth deface.
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy
O tidings of comfort and joy
Sometimes the heart needs comfort.
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me
I am thinking about comfort. One part of God I am just beginning to see, after all these years, is that He comforts. Sadly, when screwing up royally many-many-many-many times in my life, I have the Adam and Eve tendency to run away from Him trying to hide instead of running to Him, where, as this www.biblegateway.com search of His own Word shows us: HE COMFORTS (click here). In spite of us and even in the face of our ridiculous unfaithfulness, He keeps pursuing and comforts us.
His rod (the Word, the beautiful scriptures outlining His great love) and His staff (the leading of Holy Spirit – right there, never leaving me), well, they comfort me. They are there to comfort me, anyway, even though I often resist or run from them.
2 Corinthians 1 NLT
3 All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. 4 He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us. 5 For the more we suffer for Christ, the more God will shower us with his comfort through Christ. 6 Even when we are weighed down with troubles, it is for your comfort and salvation! For when we ourselves are comforted, we will certainly comfort you. Then you can patiently endure the same things we suffer. 7 We are confident that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in the comfort God gives us.
Tidings. Good news. Here’s-the-latest-grace-report: Jesus, our Good Shepherd, our God of ALL comfort, by His birth and life (Is. 61 foretells Jesus’ coming and His purpose being “to comfort all who mourn”) and death and resurrection has made way for great comfort and joy! Oh, tidings of comfort and joy!
Sometimes a heart needs comfort. And comfort is what Father gives, still.
““I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.” John 10:14-15 NIV
Merry Christmas. Tidings of comfort and joy! And I mean that!
Peace @ Christmas
“Peace is so much more than the absence of conflict. Maybe you can lay your
head on your pillow tonight and thank God that you experienced no conflict, but
that is not the same thing as experiencing peace. If a husband and wife get
tired of shouting at each other and both slip into an icy indifference, that is
not peace.In Hebrew, the word for “peace” is shalom,
a well wishing that says it all: may you be healthy, whole and complete. May you
know where you fit in the universe, and may you find tranquility there.
Augustine said that peace is “the tranquility of order.” When you know where you
fit into God’s world-that you are higher than the animals, but less than
God-that is the sense of order that brings tranquility. ” Mel Lawrenz
I cannot even imagine how Christmas would be different if Jesus had not been foretold as the Prince of Peace, and if the angels had not confirmed that from on high with great a loud, sure declaration of ~
PEACE ON EARTH!
I am not unaware that at Christmas the battle among individuals and families to find that Peace and live and walk in it rages, maybe even more than at any other time. And isn’t that just like the enemy of our souls? But I meditate on the booming loud and heart-stopping words of the the very Angel-of-the-Lord and the warring hosts sent by the heavenly Father . Settled in heaven and declared to man, I also am in awe and tremble at the power of the message (Luke 2):
13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying:
14“ Glory to God in the highest,
And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”
Mary Jean has shared this translation interpretation for peace: nothing missing, nothing broken.
So, Father, for the one on my heart who so desperately needs to know Your peace today, to finally be healthy, whole and complete after years of the ravages of the enemy against his heart, I pray peace-shalom and all it means. And for the places in my soul that long to be complete and ordered aright, Your peace is my heart’s cry. Prince of Peace, I welcome You here.
Every time a bell rings
Everytime a bell rings, you hear Zuzu say at the end of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” an angel gets its’ wings. That is sweet, but o-so-much-less powerful than from the words of the old Christmas carol by Bing Crosby, I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” and I tell you I love that KOSI 101 plays this and it is declared with authority over the radio waves annually (both by Bing and now the newer version by Casting Crowns:
“Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth he sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With peace on earth, good will to men.”
Every time a bell rings during these blessed Christmas days, I shall recall His promise. He is not unaware of the enemy’s battle against our peace. He sees and He is at work. What He sent the angels and army-hosts of heaven to declare the night Jesus was born is ever more true and is not dissipated by the age or times or depths of our despair. His Word will accomplish what it was sent forth to do. There is for us a remaining promise of peace. on. earth. and good will from Father to us all.
NOTE ABOUT DAVE: It is hard to blog about peace when he is making so much noise. Hahahaha. Getting used to having him around in the mornings before office time.
May you be healthy, whole and complete. May you
know where you fit in the universe, and may you find tranquility there.
The Line to see Jesus
I am not going to re-post the video here, but if you hang in Christendom like me, you probably get an email with this very heartfelt song each year in recent history. Maybe you have been tagged on Facebook or Youtube may have actually suggested this song/video to you. I am not re-posting it because the singer is lovely and has a nice voice the part where she sings out about every knee one day bowing and every tongue confessing, with a children’s choir behind her, that Jesus Christ is Lord is kind of a chill-bump moment (and you know how we love those). And she so very obviously feels the message of a “little boy at the mall” who, while all the other children are clamouring to see Santa Claus, wonders “Where’s the line to see Jesus? It’s HIS birthday, after all” Then disappears.
I am not re-posting it because I truly do not mean to disparage it. It is obviously presented with an intent of provoking thought (which it has done for me, for sure), but after recieving it along with 80,000 other people on a FW:FW:FW:Fw:Fw:Subject: the Line to See Jesus list where a little hint of condemnation mixed with a little dose of shame-and-tsk-tsk over Christians merry-making or that we ever even go to a mall (which I truly do avoid at all costs), and then the ever-present dare to re-send to everyone in the ol’ addy book, I cringed a little.
You may or may not know that I CONSTANTLY pray that the Lord will not let my life cause stumbling to some one else, that my actions will not turn people off to Jesus, because nobody knows better than me how little I truly am {like Jesus}, how little I probably do deserve to be called a Christian (whatever that really means, anymore). I am so trying to follow Him close enough that I can just reflect HIS glory. Anything less is detrimental to His love and plan for the people in my life. I need to pray this more, actually…
Oh we Christians are funny, aren’t we?
I just want us to be careful not to watch a video like this and just shake our heads and start condemning the world (and our peeps in the household of faith) for celebrating the Birth of Jesus in the only ways they know how. For yes-they are celebrating His birth even when they don’t understand it. Every twinkling light they hang, for instance, represents Jesus-the Light of the world. He came and the darkness can never be the same! They may not consciously realize it, but it is so. Their hearts cry out for wholeness, too, my brothers and sisters!
Where is the line to see Jesus?
Check it out. It is the bumper-to-bumper traffic you are forced to deal with on your daily commute. It is the crowded bus full of anxiety-ridden, depressed and joyless people who invade your newspaper-reading territory and climb over you unceremoniously to get the window seat. It is formed in the 15-items-or-less line at WalMart anytime this month, where every cart has at least 30 things or more and you better not say. one. word. It is sitting next to you in class. It is the challenging relative who attacks your faith and witness every year because they are really hoping you will prove them wrong about a God they feel somehow doesn’t see them. It is your toddler tugging your shirt when you have no time. It is your spouse and who has been to hell and back with you. Oh the line is there. It’s everywhere.
Look over your shoulder, baby. The line to see Jesus is long and it is growing. It forms right behind you.
Do they see Him?
Meet up
When I can’t seem to find you and you can’t seem to find me,
when unity is threatened
and the oneness Jesus prayed we would have is broken and the
pieces to rebuild seem to be missing,
when the bond of peace has been compromised and
I can’t see past my own issues
or you can’t see past yours, let’s agree to meet back at the stronghold,
{a place safe for both of us}.
That way you won’t have to venture too far,
nor will I.
Let’s meet back here, at the foot of the cross, where it all began anyway…
The scripture I circled and signed in Tredessa and Ryan’s wedding Bible, from Ephesians 4:
“1 As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”
INFJ that I am, I am drawn to scriptures about “guarding” things (“make everey effort”)…