Christmas and Freedom

 Freedom is a multi-defined word in the secular world. It usually means you can think and do anything you want. But no one is perfect intellectually or emotionally which means there is no guarantee they will be right. If you are a disciple of Jesus, freedom is spiritual and means choosing between what God wants and what we want.…

Christmas and Spiritual Rebirth

 That Jesus was born of a virgin, counters everything a world-conditioned mind thought when He was born. It still counters the same mindset today. It is simply impossible for a physical conception to take place without the implantation of a physical seed in a physical womb. After all, how did you and I get here? It is this very reality that…

Christmas in the Biblical Context 

The event of Christmas, the Nativity, the birth of our Lord, signifies something that is cataclysmic to say the least. It marks the end of an era and the beginning of an era. It is end of the beginning and the beginning of the end. It is the start and finish of a program God had in mind before Creation. How we understand it all is beyond us but…

Spiritual Recovery and Christmas

 Christmas is the beginning of recapturing, reshaping and reorienting the mind, heart and spirit as a lifetime project. The appearance of Jesus on the world scene is the unfolding of God’s plan of recovery. In Him we see this project unfold. Jesus was conceived and born by the Holy Spirit, lived and acted by the Spirit and, when He died, was…

Christmas, Recovering the Spirit

 Of course, I’m talking about our spirits, the reshaping of the soul within us, allowing God to fill us with His Holy Spirit and restoring us to the full image of Him He intended in Creation. Jesus came to restore our wandering anxious spirit. With the mind centered in Scripture, the heart trusting in the presence of the Lord Jesus, the Lord…

Christmas and Recovering the Heart

To recover the heart, we have to recognize it starts with the mind. As Paul said, “…be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” The mind is where we believe, where we analyze on the basis of what we believe. What we believe determines how we arrange our thoughts about life, God, people and existence. The mind is a reservoir of ideas, concepts and principles we choose to…

Christmas and Recovering the Mind

“Are you out of your mind? - Where is your mind? - Keep your mind on what you’re doing. - My mind can’t handle it. - He’s playing mind games. - They’re trying to get into my head. - I can’t get my mind around that. - He’s got a screw loose somewhere. - He’s not playing with a full deck. - His elevator doesn’t go to the top…

Christmas Begins the Process 

If forgiveness is the starting point of salvation then what we do is accept the One who forgives, the Lord Jesus, and see what we do after that. When Peter preached to the crowd in Jerusalem about why Jesus was crucified they asked what they should do in response. Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit…

The Importance of Mary 

When we approach Scripture, it is important that we view it from its intended spiritual context. What is it saying to us spiritually? Then, how is to be applied to where we are as individuals physically and emotionally? So, when we look at the passages involving Mary the mother of Jesus for instance, what is the spiritual meaning of her life and her words?

 There is an obviously deep spiritual impact when Elizabeth, pregnant with John, hears Mary…

How Christmas Continues 

Jesus came “…to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins…(Lk.1:77)”

 We’ve already stated that salvation was being personally restored to God by God through the One who restores us and that is Jesus, the Son of God. People had to know that this salvation was available; that they had access to it and that there was someone who would provide it. That was the task of John the Baptist, announce it, make it…

The most important part of organic gardening is to nourish the potting soil. Your plants will take their nourishment from the soil, and will basically be as healthy as being the soil is. The healthier your plants, the fewer specialists will fall victim to garden unwanted pests. The soil, therefore, is the most important part of organic farming or…

Christmas Day is Just the Beginning

 Christmas is not a season that begins with commercials at the end of summer and builds toward Dec.25 only to end on Christmas Day. Christmas morning with presents and the afternoon with its heavy meal are not climactic events. The Christmas season begins on Christmas Eve with worship. The older European experience of the Christmas celebration starts on Christmas Eve with worship and gift giving, then continues for two weeks until Epiphany,…

The Real Christmas Question 2017 AD 

Consider this: all the medical advancments, economic achievements, educational progress, political development, spiritual involvement, amazing technologies, the building of hospitals and social services, missions to the poor and disabled, advancments of theater, fine arts, architecture and the vast discoveries and inventions having occurred in these last centuries; what initiated them? You might quote that ‘necessity is the mother of…

Christmas, Looking the Lord Jesus in the Eye

 As we approach the celebration of the birth of Jesus, there are several things we need to keep in mind, His origin, His reality, His mission and where we are.

 His origin---Jesus existed before Creation and He was always One with the Father. He…

This is a quote from John Stott,

Jesus and politics

The words 'politics' and 'political' may be given either a broad or a narrow definition. Broadly speaking, 'politics' denotes the life of the city (*polis*) and the responsibilities of the citizen (*polites*). It is concerned therefore with the whole of our life in human society. Politics is the art of living together in a community. According to its narrow…