I just want to say to all of those who are starting this time of Prayer and Fasting with us, May God bless you and give you the desire of all of our hearts, which is Jesus. We are anticipating the transformation that will take place in our lives as we Turn Aside and allow God to Transform us and to direct us.  Each day of the fast on this blog we will be sharing together encouragementand looking at the scripture verse that we are going through together as a church body, We trust that it will be another resource of your fast that we can keep focus on the goal.

The scripture verse for today is found in Philippians 3:13,14, I really like how the message Bible says it:

"Friends, don't get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I've got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward-to Jesus.
 I'm off and running, and I'm not turning back."

The Message

 Like the Apostle Paul who wrote the book of Philippians we do not count ourselves as experts at this Christian life, In fact one of the reasons why we are fasting is to say to the Lord have complete access into every facet of my being, have your way in me.  Primarily because we can see and feel that we have not "arrived" and that we do not have it all together.  It really is a freeing thing to confess to God our need of Him and our need to allow Him to take over right at the start of the Fast.  Notice like the Apostle says that our goal is Jesus who is beaconing us  onward.  I get the view here of a friend who is compelling us to come closer to Him.  To know Him and to understand that there is more transformation to come. You can almost see Jesus who with a great big smile is saying, You can do it!  Remember that our Goal is Jesus and nothing else.  Not religious piety or to be seen by others, by to allow the Lord to be our all in all.  The Word of God also says that we should, "fix our eyes on Jesus" that is what we are doing in this fast and asking Him to transform us and to give us the life we've always wanted.

One last thing about this passage.  In order to receive more of His life it is often important to give up things from our past that have held us hostage.  All of us have failed, like Paul we can say we are the chief of sinners, but we have been forgiven and part of the life that He gives is one of forgiveness and grace to walk in freedom from our past.  Don't look  back to our failures, look forward to our future with Jesus.  The upward call of God, our life with Him now, and all that it will contain.  I am looking forward to this journey with you as each day we look at scriptures that will speak to our hearts from the Word of God, so please check in on a regular basis.  I am praying for each one of you as you read this blog that it will be a source of encouragement on the path.  May God bless you with new hope and determination as we together go after our goal, Jesus!

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That is why we as a church body chose the first part of the year to set aside time to fast and pray. Now for some who have not yet been active in fasting it may seem like a strange and even foreign concept, yet it is something that Jesus taught His disciples to do and was used by the New Testament church for direction and spiritual refreshing. 

As we prepare for this time of fasting we are asking each person to get with God to decide what their fast will look like.  Some will give up food and spend that time they would normally be eating and pray and seek the face of God for His will and direction and more than that just for a deeper relationship with our creator.  Others will commit to a time of adjusting their life as a fast by giving up television or changing their eating habits in order to focus on God.  There are other ways as well, I heard of one man who last year fasted football on TV and spent the time with the Lord instead.  Whatever it may be that God is telling you to do, now is the time to decide before the fast begins.  For Me I ask the Lord how I should fast what He would have me do, and to the best of my ability I surrender my own desires for food and other things over to Him and say "Lord I want to know you more than anything else."  I have found that if I determine prior to fasting what He would have me to do, it is much easier for me to stick to it.  Whatever it is that God is saying to have you give up to go after Him, it should not be guilt driven.  God is not so much impressed with an outward show of devotion as much as He is an inward devotion and response.

During this corporate time of fasting, we will use this blog as a tool of encouragement.  Each day we will be writing about the scripture emphasis of each day and just general feelings and experiences that may help you during the fast. 

Please take time in the next few days to spend time with God and say Lord what would you have me do and what are you asking of me.  Whatever it is let's do it willing and with great expectation of a deeper relationship with the one who made us to have The Life You've Always Wanted.

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This reading from Oswald Chambers is a great reminder of how we should think about our lives on the brink of a New Year

Security from Yesterday. ". . . God requires an account of what is past" ( Ecclesiastes 3:15  ). At the end of the year we turnwith eagerness to all that God has for the future, and yet anxiety is apt to arise when we remember our yesterdays. Our present enjoyment of God's grace tends to be lessened by the memory of yesterday's sins and blunders. But God is the God of our yesterdays, and He allows the memory of them to turn the past into a ministry of spiritual growth for our future. God reminds us of the past to protect us from a very shallow security in the present.

Security for Tomorrow. ". . . the Lord will go before you . . . ." This is a gracious revelation- that God will send His forces out where we have failed to do so. He will keep watch so that we will not be tripped up again by the same failures, as would undoubtedly happen if He were not our "rear guard." And God's hand reaches back to the past, settling all the claims against our conscience.

Security for Today. "You shall not go out with haste . . . ." As we go forth into the coming year, let it not be in the haste of impetuous, forgetful delight, nor with the quickness of impulsive thoughtlessness. But let us go out with the patient power of knowing that the God of Israel will go before us. Our yesterdays hold broken and irreversible things for us. It is true that we have lost opportunities that will never return, but God can transform this destructive anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future. Let the past rest, but let it rest in the sweet embrace of Christ.

Leave the broken, irreversible past in His hands, and step out into the invincible future with Him.

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     The Word of God says that God knows all of our days before one comes to be.  In other words God is better than any DNA test He knows us and loves us no matter what we might be facing God is still the one who knows our days and our ways.  We can trust Him with our fears our worries our physical health.  Yet it seems when we are face to face with the unknown, what have we have determined and put in place in our lives before hand really comes out.  That is why the God who knows us tells us to fear not, that He is the first and the last the beginning and the end.  All of our days are in His hands, when we put our trust in the Lord it is not merely for good times and lazy days, but also for confusing experiences and moments that we have no answers.  There is an old hymn that speaks to the issue of trusting God it says, "Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus, just to take Him at His Word, just to rest upon His promise just to know thus saith the Lord.  The chorus of the song really is something that all of us can make a prayer.  "Jesus, Jesus how I trust Him, how I've proved Him o'er and o'er, Jesus, Jesus precious Jesus, o for grace to trust you more. 

     That is my prayer for my sister in law, for my wife and for you.  God, we trust you give us grace to trust you more.

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Christ the Savior is Born!

It's Christmas Eve 2007 and on this morning let's you and I take a trip of remembering what it was like the first Christmas eve.  On the day before the Savior of the World would be born to a teen age mother a concerned and worried fiancée looked on.  He tries to make Mary as comfortable as possible only to find that every where he turned seemed to make thingsonly more difficult.  The Bible tells us in Luke's gospel that the roman emperor gave a decree that the entire world should be taxed. Really this was a way for the government to register those adults in each nation under their control in order to better allocate their resources.  So at the worst time possible Joseph who is still reeling from how his life has been turned upside-down now is forced to take his fiancée Mary to Bethlehem to register.  Joseph has already seen a vision of an angel who said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son and you are to give him the name Jesus. Because He will save His people from their sins."  Matthew 1:20, 21.  But now Joseph and Mary were living out the life that God had designed for them. It must have been wonderful to hear an angel speaking, but now it was up to both of them to live out God's plan and trust that He would do what He said.  On that first Christmas Eve there had to be some doubt in their minds about what the future would hold for this little baby.  They had to wonder at some point or another "Why us?"  Yet God had chosen these two lives on purpose there was something about them both that was exactly what was required to serve as the earthly parents of Jesus.  What was it; I think the answer was trust and sacrifice.  These two people who had to feel all alone in their own world put their trust in God completely and were willing to sacrifice their own understanding and their own lives in order to serve God.  They offered themselves as a gift to God. They offered their future and their fears as a sacrifice to the Son Mary carried.  Incredible devotion and amazing love for a God who was asking them to do something that no human had ever done.  It wasn't just on Christmas eve, but on everyday following that until the very end of their lives that these two would be called on by God to trust Him and to sacrifice their own understanding about how life was to work in order for God to accomplish His Plan.   When Jesus turns twelve yours old Mary and Joseph and Jesus go to a festival in Jerusalem when it was time to leave, they could not find Jesus anywhere, thinking that He may have left with a family member or friend they began to search and they found Him in the temple courts speaking with the learned men and discussing deep truth.  When Mary and Joseph asked Jesus what He was doing, Jesus calmly responds don't you know I must be about my father's work.  How would you feel knowing that God had given you the responsibility of raising His Son?  How would you feel about being misunderstood all your lives.  How would you feel about the rumors that persisted about Mary and Joseph even though they had been chosen by God for a special purpose?  They offered their lives as a gift.

"I have no gift to bring, that's fit to give a King."  These are words from the chorus of the little drummer boy.  These words describe our feelings so often when it comes to offering our lives to Jesus as a gift.  What the Lord wants most is us.  Our hearts our thoughts our lives.  Time after time the Lord has told us that we are to seek Him first, that we are to love Him with all our hearts, that we are to put our trust in Him. On this Christmas Eve, let us offer our lives as the gift that we give to God.  Let's trust Him and allow Him to lead us in the path and the plan that best glorifies Him.

Merry Christmas

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Little Baby in a manger, Son of God above

Born to die for all our sins, yes I believe in love

Yet my soul will never cease to offer gifts of praise

I kneel in spirit at His feet a sinner saved by grace

Born to die to rise again to crush the power of satan's sin

I lift my voice I'll shout and sing Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna to the King

What can this poor wounded soul give to a mighty King

Can He who holds the worlds in place have need of anything

But my soul will never cease to offer gifts of praise

I kneel in spirit at His feet a sinner saved by grace

Born to die to rise again

To crush the power of satan's sin

I lift my voice I'll shout and sing

Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna to the King!

We offer the gift of praise and join with the angels singing Glory to God in the Highest! Give the Lord Jesus, the gift of our praise.

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Then you have the faith of Simeon and Anna who were there eight days later after the birth, when Jesus was presented by his earthly parents in the temple. These two incredible saints of God had been told that they would see the Messiah before they died. They had faith to believe day after day and year after year as they waited for the redemption of Israel and in turn all mankind.   These four people had faith to believe that God would answer even though they did not know how.  There faith was rewarded and because they believed our lives are also so much different.  They set an example for living out faith in a way that is fully committed to God and fully devoted to His words and His way.  I am not saying that these did not have times that they wondered, surely they did, yet they kept persevering in their faith in God.  What about you and I? There are times that God asks us to believe even when we don't see how it will all work. There are times that God says have faith in God and HE will bring to pass things in us and through us that are too wonderful for words.  This Christmas let us offer God a gift that He has given us, Faith! Through that others will see that the Lord is real and our lives will become a pointer to Jesus.  Now faith is being sure of what we hope for, it is the evidence of things not yet seen.

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There is something about the simplicity of this story that speaks into my life every year.  Maybe it's because of Wally's innocence and sincerity or maybe it is the surprise ending that .  More thank anything else it reminds me of the Gift of a Childlike Heart.  I pray that as we countdown to Christmas now just 5 days away we can ask God to give each of us the heart of a child at Christmas. Jesus said unless we become like little children we will not see all that God has for us.  Hope you enjoy this as much as I do.

Trouble at the Inn

By:
Dina Donohue

* This article by Dina Donohue is reprinted from the Baptist Herald (Dec. 15, 1968).

For years now whenever Christmas pageants are talked about in a certain little town in the Midwest, someone is sure to mention the name of Wallace Purling. Wally's performance in one annual production of the Nativity play has slipped into the realm of legend. But the old timers who were in the audience that night never tire of recalling exactly what happened.

Wally was nine that year and in the second grade, though he should have been in the fourth. Most people in town knew that he had difficulty in keeping up. He was big and clumsy, slow in movement and mind. Still, Wally was well liked by the other children in his class, all of whom were smaller than he, though the boys had trouble hiding their irritation if the uncoordinated Wally asked to play ball with them.

Most often they'd find a way to keep him off the field, but Wally would hang around anyway-not sulking, just hoping. He was always a helpful boy, a willing and smiling one, and the natural protector, paradoxically, of the underdog. Sometimes if the older boys chased the younger ones away, it would always be Wally who'd say, "Can't they stay? They're no bother."

Wally fancied the idea of being a shepherd with a flute in the Christmas pageant that year, but the play's director, Miss Lumbard, assigned him to a more important role. After all, she reasoned, the Innkeeper did not have too many lines, and Wally's size would make his refusal of lodging to Joseph more forceful.

And so it happened that the usual large, partisan audience gathered for the town's Yuletide extravaganza of the staffs and creches, of beards, crowns, halos and a whole stageful of squeaky voices. No one on stage or off was more caught up in the magic of the night than Wallace Purling. They said later that he stood in the wings and watched the performance with such fascination that from time to time Miss Lumbard had to make sure he didn't wander onstage before his cue.

Then the time came when Joseph appeared, slowly, tenderly guiding Mary to the door of the inn. Joseph knocked hard on the wooden door set into the painted backdrop. Wally the Innkeeper was there, waiting. "What do you want?" Wally said, swinging the door open with a brusque gesture.

"We seek lodging."

"Seek it elsewhere." Wally looked straight ahead but spoke vigorously. "The inn is filled."

"Sir, we have asked everywhere in vain. We have traveled far and are very weary."

"There is no room in this inn for you." Wally looked properly stern.

"Please, good innkeeper, this is my wife, Mary. She is heavy with child and needs a place to rest. Surely you must have some small corner for her. She is so tired."

Now, for the first time, the Innkeeper relaxed his stiff stance and looked down at Mary. With that, there was a long pause, long enough to make the audience a bit tense with embarrassment.

"No! Begone!" the prompter whispered from the wings.

"No!" Wally repeated automatically. "Begone!"

Joseph sadly placed his arm around Mary, and Mary laid her head upon his shoulder, and the two of them started to move away. The Innkeeper did not return inside his inn, however. Wally stood there in the doorway, watching the forlorn couple. His mouth was open, his brow creased with concern, his eyes filling unmistakably with tears.

"Don't go, Joseph," Wally called out. "Bring Mary back." And Wallace Purling's face grew into a bright smile. "You can have my room."

Some people in town thought that the pageant had been ruined. Yet there were others-many others-who considered it the most Christmas of all Christmas pageants they had ever seen.

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I received an email on Monday that speaks clearly of the gift that God has given us as ambassadors of the good news.  Bill Schmitt describes an encounter he had with God and the Gospel right after Sunday services. I hope it will speak to all of us about allowing the Gift of God's leading to direct our lives.     

                       " I just wanted to encourage you about today's message. On the way home from church Beth and I passed a vehicle that was obviously having car trouble. It was in the middle of 197 and Kenhill Drive on an angel with no lights on. Not a good situation in the rain on a cloudy day. I knew right away that this was an opportunity to act on what God spoke through you this morning. I thought in my head "speak Lord for your servant is listening" and I felt God say "Go and help him and tell him the good news". I wanted to drop Beth off first because you never know what to expect in this type of situation. So I dropped Beth off and went back wondering if anyone else would have stopped to help in the mean time. When I got back he was still there. I told him to put the car in neutral and when the light turned red I would push him to the side of the road. The young man (I'd guess about 17) looked shocked! When I pushed the car to the side of the road I was kind of shocked too how easy it was by myself. He told me his name was Antwan and that he needed  a jump start. I told him I would go home and get some jumper cables and be right back. He was surprised and said he was stuck there for quite awhile and no one else had stopped to help. I went home, got the cables and went back. I told him we should let the battery in my car charge his battery for a little bit. While we were waiting I told him that God told me to go help him and tell him the good news. I asked him if he went to church and he said yes in a way that you knew meant not really. The jump start did not work and he called his step Dad to come and help. Before I left I told him that God loved him and that He sent me for him today and He sent His son for him many years ago. That Jesus was the only way to know the love of the Father and that he needed to have a personal relationship with Jesus. I shared with him a little of my testimony and gave him tickets to Scrooge for him and his family. On the way home I wondered why my prayer for the car to start did not work. I felt God say "If the car would have started he would have just went back to his hurried life and forgotten all you said, I am just going to let him sit there and think for awhile. Don't worry, your done for now, I'll do the rest". Glory to God in the highest!  " 

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