Christmas Reflections
Advent Celebration
the Hope of Christmas
Ah, ’tis here, and our Advent Celebration has begun.
Today, the candle of Hope lights this cold, frazzled earth and reminds us of God’s special gift to us and to a broken, crushed and fearful world! A world so desperate for stability and, thing is, it’s our hope in our Saviour that is our stability! His hope keeps on giving as we keep on growing in trust, with hopeful hearts in our Lord and Saviour. Finding soul hope in our Lord at this Advent season helps to build precious hope in the hearts and minds of others. This sweet and sustainable gift is contagious and powerful, and we dare not ever let it go
So, In these crazy days of ‘What’s next’ mingling with our Advent celebration, let’s share that precious hope that we’ve found in our Saviour, and reach out to touch lives everywhere because all lives matter this Advent season and always 
Isaiah 40: 31 …
“But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”
Always Make Time for the Fun Stuff
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
Our world, countries, nations, and social economy have no room for Jesus in these hectic, crazy days! Yeah, not even at this special time of celebration of His birth. So beautiful one ~ make sure to make room in your heart and home for Him as we enter into the precious Advent season.
Jesus? Ah yes, His name is above every other name on your list , and His presence in your day is warmed and graced with delight, even through your pain! All He wants for Christmas is your heart! You’re messed up one! Your broken one! Your ruined one! So give Him Your ‘broken’ and a little “Time Out!” Reach out to the Hope He brings, the peace and gives and joy He can fill us with, as we face head-on these days of celebration and yet certainly, days of apprehension and uncertainty.
Beautiful you, maybe tainted with sadness, fear, maybe bitterness. Ahh, let it go and let Him into your moments of hectic and busy and fearful and sad and overwhelming. Let Him into your chaos and into your nooks and crannies of confusion, fear, worry, and panic and really just heaps of all-out weariness! He makes the difference ~
He truly does.
Hope in our Saviour
The hope we have in our Saviour, the hope of abundant life here, and the hope of Glory is truly a blessing that our Saviour’s birth brought forth into a cold, dark, and dreary world! Ponder His birth today, and the amazing gift of Hope He lavishes on us. How truly favored we are to know Him and exist in His presence.
Serendipity
Luke 2:11-14
“Today in the town of David, a Saviour has been born to you; He is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” Suddenly, a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth peace to those on whom His favour rests.”
Isn’t it amazing how the prophecy of the Messiah fell into place through the seemingly normal order of things? God had a plan for our redemption, and He worked that plan, through the divine supernatural as well as the “normal” events. Even though Mary’s pregnancy and the birth of Christ certainly didn’t follow human protocol, the payment of taxes was mandatory, calling this couple on a journey to Bethlehem at a crucial time. At “Just the right time!”
God still has a plan for the world and for all of His children, as He graces us with His divine intervention, leading us along our normal, daily routines to ultimately bring us to the place where He desires us to be. He brought a sweet kind of serendipity into the lives of Mary and Joseph and into the Shepherd’s night that lonely night on the hillside when He dipped into the normal and the mundane and brought something beautiful into the world. He brought life eternal through the birth of His Son so that we could have a part in His beautiful plan of salvation.
Mary and Joseph were faithful to follow His leading and direction through the supernatural, the normal, the tough spots and the rough roads. The shepherds abiding in their normal fields on a normal night were blown away with the glorious surprise that broke through the heavens and filled them with an awe, a joy and a passion that drove them to find the Messiah that had come!
Are you still searching for Him or have you found Him? Let’s be obedient on our journey, even in the mundane and in the ho-hum of our lives. Let’s be found faithful in the excitement of the supernatural as well as in the difficulties and mundane of “a new normal.” Friends, if you truly know Him, be on the lookout, as God may very well be planning some sweet and inspiring serendipity in your life. He can break through the normal, leaving you in awe with an element of beautiful surprise! Please don’t mistake it for a mere coincidence! His surprises have been well planned to break through at just the right time in your life!
If you don’t know Him, He’s in the business of changing lives, and my friend, your transformed life is that beautiful break you search for, maybe unknowingly. Go with the shepherds, in your heart, and seek Him. When you find Him, embrace Him and find forgiveness for your sin that will set you free.
John 8: 36
“ If the Son, therefore, shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”
John 8: 12
“Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
Romans 8: 12
“Because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.
The Hope of the Saviour
Christ’s coming as a baby was God’s gift of humility to humanity. God, the creator of the universe, left the highest of heavenly heights and the sweet and majestic glories of heaven to enter into our world! He came as a fragile, helpless baby in need of love, care, nurturing and the tender hearts of a mom and dad. His name was Jesus, and He grew into a child, a teen and on to a young adult! He walked among us experiencing life as we know it, yet because of His divine genealogy and inheritance, He was without sin. Even so, and even still today, He knows your pain, and He feels it! He knows the battle that rages in your temptations! He walked there! He knows your fears, your failures and your despair! His humility took Him to the cross and His death took Him to the grave. His resurrection took Him to the heights of Heaven, to be seated at the right hand of His divine Father God! His life, death and resurrection provide a solution for our sin problem, our despair and our hopelessness.
This Christmas Advent season, savour that sweet and powerful hope that His birth begins to bring into a world of need, for such a time as this! Yeah, His death and resurrection came, and because of His gift of sacrifice, there is now a totally awesome new life in Christ available for us today. Seek Him, as the wise men did, Find Him as the shepherds did, right where you are, in your less-than-perfect surroundings and situations, and be in awe of a Savior and a mediator, sent by God, who came to serve, to seek and to save.
Isaiah’s prophecy of so many years ago did come true with the promise of a Heavenly Royal King to be born with a promise of hope for a needy people. Let that same Hope fill you and your beautiful soul at this Advent season, and let it rise up in your heart and fill you with wonder.
Isaiah 9:6
“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
Unwrap His Gift of Hope
What do we do when the future looks bleak and unsettled and in so much need of something positive? When the days are long and unending and the sleepless nights make the pillow a stone rather than a comfort? What do we do then? We hope in the dark! That’s what we do!
We let hope rise up in our souls even in the gray corners of our world. We hope because the Hope that our Saviour brings into our needy lives is our real reason for living. When our hope in Him rises to the top, that medical diagnosis, that financial crisis, that relational snag, that prodigal or maybe all of the above, will pale in comparison! Issues won’t dissipate, but the heart can still sing! There’s no striving, no fear, no worry, or anxiety. Just a plain, simple hope that the best is yet to come because our Saviour of the world is the hope of all our issues, in all of our frazzled world. When our soul’s hope is concrete before our Lord, we can then shine His light and unwrap it for others in need of His precious gift!
Unwrap it this Advent day and let our Saviour’s hope rock your world!
Keeping Hope Alive
Peace Candle
Shalom
Shalom and PEACE to you today!
Not only does our Saviour’s birth bring Hope, but His birth and very presence usher in a peace that passes all understanding! Let’s light that peace candle today
The peace he gives is a peace that transcends the dreadful fear of “What’s next?”, or ‘What’s going on?” It’s a perfect peace that the world can’t give or take away, no matter what this crazy world brings to our table. So yeah, really, as serious as this old world stands in its political balance and as controversial as issues may seem and as frightening as the world news is, it all pales in comparison to the sweet, gentle Peace that our Saviour offers to the very soul of us in our deepest distress, because it’s all ok anyway. If we know this one born to deliver the world from its sin, we know we’re in good hands in His safekeeping, and as His divine prophetic plan unfolds before our eyes, it surpasses any crazy plan the world and its top leaders have in store for us.
,
It’s a generous gift from our Lord to us. Yeah, Jesus, Our Prince of Peace, came to share Peace with us, and His sweet peace is not as the world gives but rather a sense of well-being welling up within ourselves. A peace that comes from our willingness to change and repent and do a turnabout of direction. A peace that accompanies our choice to walk with Him in His way of salvation and in His ways of abundance. It comes from simple trust in our Prince of Peace, the sweet Saviour of the broken and hurting and those beaten and scarred and torn up by sin’s choices.
So today, “Shalom”, my friends, and may His favour rest on you today as you seek Him during your Christmas festivities and find healing in Him for such a time as this.
Numbers 6:23-26
“The LORD bless you, and keep you; The LORD make His face shine on you, And be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance on you, And give you peace ”
And
His Name will be
The Angels Proclaimed His Peace at His Birth
Have you experienced it?
Just Breathe
the hard Christmas
So, it’s possible that things aren’t so jolly this year for you, but despite all the hard things brought to your Christmas table, know that we can still find joy! A joy that began in a hard beginning. In a crude stable! A feeding trough; a manger of straw! A joy that came wrapped in swaddling cloth!
Yeah, it was a tough time when the Saviour of our world began His life. No easy beginnings there! Born in the shadow of the cross, He lived His life and rose to the challenge of His existence; “Born to die.”
From the manger to the cross, no easy journey there, but the empty grave was a wow; a beautiful ending, to begin a new beginning! A new beginning for us, too, as His death and resurrection usher in a gift of salvation and a reason to rejoice in the hope that is ours!
A Hope in a Saviour that can bring us joy even in the difficult.
A Whispes from Heaven
Sometimes a whisper from Heaven to our souls is all we need to get us through. I love this verse and this promise from Isaiah don’t you?”
Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain:”
Isaiah 40:4
Such a glorious word of prophecy of our Saviour’s coming to earth. A glorious story ~ A story with far-reaching impact. A story that reaches farther than just a fable on this old earth because its truth reaches into the hearts of men to seek and to save the lost and to bring salvation into this wretched, sin-sick world of just bad and all gone wrong! To bring healing into hearts shattered with pain, and hope into the broken and anguished stories of our lives. Oh, beautiful soul, how lovely it is to celebrate His unconditional love for us even in our most darkest of night’s moments. Our Savior’s divine and royal birth, whispers from the heavens to our souls and reminds us clearly,
“I came to help you through all the hard times and to uphold you through all the horrific moments that each one must bear over the course of a lifetime. I didn’t send the pain but came to ease it and carry the burden of it. Give it to me and let me bear it, for its weight is heavy, and it’s anguish is too great for one as beautiful as you.”
The glory of the Lord was revealed on that night, long ago when His light illuminated the dark, to announce His birth to shepherds who kept watch over their flocks by night. It still shines brightly in our nights today. Our nights of anguish, sadness, loneliness, fear, hurt, rejection, unfairness, brokenness, and pain. Its hope shines brightly to bring us peace through it all and to lead us through to level ground!
Do you know Him through your sorrow? Can He share your burden at this Christmas time? Can He give you Hope for even this? Can He grant you a peace that goes beyond all understanding, for such a time as this? That’s what He does! I love how He does it!
“Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain:” Isaiah 40:4
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”
unconditional Love
Today is another day in our Advent celebration where we get to light the Love candle. Aren’t you excited? It’s an amazing love! It’s a perfect love story, isn’t it? The kind of love that reaches to where we are, and loves us lavishly in spite of ourselves. A love that accompanies an incomprehensible grace, that doesn’t leave us where it finds us. Oh, how sweet it is, this Agape love; so kind, so compassionate! So unconditional, so amazing, so extensive, so inclusive! So across the board, so accepting, so embracing, and beautiful one, we sit so unworthy and yet so worthy in the name of Jesus, because God loved us while we were yet sinner
It’s a heavenly love story! For the believer, one of those kinds of stories with a happily-ever-after ending because of our hope of glory and life eternal! Its measure is vast, and its value is priceless!
What a gift it is to us today! Open it for yourself and see.
So, in all you have to do in these last days of our Advent journey, through all the preparation, through all the hurt, or sadness or disappointment, He whispers, “I’ll love you through it all, and together we can do this!”
1 John 4:9
“This is how God’s love was revealed among us: God sent His one and only Son into the world so that we might live through Him.”
Romans 5: 8
“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”