Intentional Encouragement

            I'm always concerned about how long the experience of Christmas will affect us as we move into another year.  Next week this time, I suspect our Christmas decorations will be put away and we'll be back into our groove, anticipating 2014.  I don't want it to be the same this year.  How about you?  For one last post this year, let me re-post something from a couple of years ago.               It seems each year, as my mind is drawn back to those days so long ago when our Savior was born, that I find myself immersed once again in some “sanctified speculation.” I wonder just how the individuals that we read about in the Biblical account must have felt during the experience that we now call history.             The shepherds are on my mind today, and one particular point keeps resurfacing in my thinking.  The text states this: “And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.”  That seems simple enough.  Here is t

     Here's another repeat post from an earlier Christmas.  I hope you enjoy it...actually I hope it brings you encouragement; especially if "life" has thrown you a curveball or two this year.                  There was a lot about Mary's situation that would have been hard to take in.   She was pregnant but unmarried.   Further, she hadn’t done anything wrong to get into that situation.   Even more, who would believe that?             While every young Jewish girl held the faint hope in her heart that she might be privileged to become the mother of the Messiah, they didn’t plan their lives around it.   Mary wouldn’t have either.   She had plans, but they likely didn’t include this.   Not this way; n ot now; not before she and Joseph were married.             It came unexpectedly and put her in very unfamiliar circumstances.   Whatever you might imagine the birthing process to be in the first century, it would not likely include a dirty cave that was carved out

     I wrote this a couple of years ago during the Christmas season, but the challenge of it is still with me, so I thought I'd share it again this year.  In fact, the next couple of weeks I'll probably do that.  Hope you don't mind re-reading.       Here's how the ESV translates Paul’s description in Philippians 2:5-8 of what happened at Christmas:   “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”   We call this the incarnation. Jesus took on humanity; he became flesh; became one of us.      I am astonished at the extent to which Christ went to bring the message of God’s truth into the world. Jesus is eternally God and the essence of

     Those crazy birds with the mean look on their face were all the rage a couple of years back.  You could get nearly addicted using the slingshot to tear down structures.  It was fun to hear them scream and utilize their strengths and uniqueness to accomplish as much demolition as possible.  Their reason for existence, it seems, was to tear down.      I've already started to see the Christmas version of these creatures.  The difference is that they are not animated birds.  And they aren't fun.  They are people; specifically Christians.  "Don't shop here; they hate Christmas."  "Boycott those people; they won't acknowledge Christ in Christmas."  "Those jerks won't allow us to celebrate the true meaning of Christmas because they say Happy Holidays."   OK; that last one isn't something I've actually heard, but it seems to be the gist of the argument.      People who don't love God or Jesus don't have any reason to ke