Welcome to our live-streamed Sunday Combined Worship Service for December31, 2023. Today we prepare for a fresh start with hope.
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God bless you all for your generosity which is vital to our mission and ministry.
Welcome to our live-streamed Sunday Worship Services for December 24, 2023. Today we discover that God invites us to face the unknown with courage, like Mary did, and that as we go, Emmanuel! God, is with us.
Please support us by giving online: https://tithe.ly/give?c=1377216 or https://paypal.me/newtonumc Or you can make and mail a check out to First UMC of Newton, 111 Ryerson Ave., Newton, NJ O7860
God bless you all for your generosity which is vital to our mission and ministry.
Read Luke 2:1-16
ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“[The Wise Men] entered the house and saw the child with His mother, Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped Him. Then they opened their treasure chests and gave Him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.” (Matthew 2:11 NLT)
We all know the Nativity Story, right? The angel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary and told her that she will be with child, who is to be named Jesus, and that her barren cousin is already 6 months pregnant. She humbly accepted it and went on a road trip to visit her cousin. When Mary arrived, the baby in Elizabeth’s baby jumped for joy at the sound of Mary’s voice. Mary praised God and texted a psalm to Elizabeth as a keepsake. okay, she didn’t do that, but she did sing a new psalm to God. Have you ever wondered how that got recorded if no one was there to witness it or write it down?
Anyway, Mary returned home and Joseph noticed that she was pregnant, which was obviously pretty big surprise to him. He thought about quietly dumping her, but an angel came to him in a dream to tell him that the Holy Spirit got Mary pregnant and that her child was actually the SON OF GOD. Joseph took Mary as his wife and then set off to Bethlehem to comply with a census that Caesar Augustus made the Jews participate in. There in Bethlehem, Mary’s water broke and the poor couple ended up searching house to house, inn to inn, in order to find a place for her to deliver baby Jesus. With there being no room for her at the inn, let alone anywhere else, Mary and Joseph found a stable and laid Jesus in a manger wrapped in strips of cloth. Following that, she was visited by Shepherds who were told by a choir of angels that the child was being born. She was also visited by three wise men who bore gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Herod, fearing that a new king was born, ordered that all male children 2 years old and younger be slaughtered, but the Holy Family escaped into Egypt. Following the death of Herod Mary, Jesus and Joseph returned to Israel and settled the Galilean town of Nazareth.
While this is the story we all know, the truth is that it IS NOT the nativity story that is found in the Bible. Don’t get me wrong, all of the elements listed above (minus Mary texting Elizabeth) are found in the Gospels…but not altogether. In Matthew, Joseph finds out Mary is pregnant and chooses to marry her after a dream. It is in this Gospel that we find Herod and the wise men visiting Jesus in a house, as well as the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt. In Luke, we find the story of Gabriel telling Mary she and Elizabeth are pregnant, of the angels singing to the shepherds who also visit the holy family, of the trip to Bethlehem, and of Jesus being born in stable, wrapped in strips of cloth and laid in a manger.
The two stories are actually remarkably different from one another. If this is a surprise to you, if you didn’t realize that Matthew and Luke both had different stories to tell when it came to Jesus’ birth, then it is time for you to read each of the Nativity stories for yourself. Many have looked at the differences and called them contradictions; however, they are not contradictions as if Luke and Matthew were written to be factual histories; rather, the two Gospels were written as theologies and both give a unique insight into the birth of Jesus and the significance that the advent of the Christ-Child has for the world. Neither story is definitive or complete, but are meant to be glimpses into the activity of a God who refuses to give up on humanity even when humanity has given up on God. Today’s challenge is for you to search the Gospels, read them closely and make note of their commonalities and differences. In doing so, you will have a much deeper and dynamic view of the Christ who came as a Savior for the world.
THOUGHT OF THE DAY
“How many observe Christ’s birthday! How few, His precepts!” – Benjamin FranklinPRAYER
Lord, stir in me a desire to study Scripture; however, also spark in me the desire to go beyond just studying Scripture into the realm of living by it. Amen.
Read Isaiah 11:1-9
ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among His people! He will live with them, and they will be His people. God Himself will be with them.” (Revelation 21:3 NLT)
Advent is one of my favorite times of year. It is true that I am not a big fan of winter or its weather, I really love the season of Advent and of the great hope that it stands for. Throughout the majority of Christian history, the church has in one way or another celebrated the coming Christ. With that said, Christmas (aka the coming of the Christ-child) was not always celebrated by the church. In fact, it was quite a controversy early on and, in some Christian circles, it is still a controversy.
The church didn’t officially recognize the “feast day” of Christ’s birth (what became known as Christ’s Mass or Christmas) until the fourth century, and when we look at the Gospels themselves, only two of the four canonical Gospels (Matthew and Luke) actually account for the birth of the Christ-child. The other two canonical Gospels (Mark and John) do not mention the birth of Christ at all. Mark starts off with Jesus’ baptism and John merely makes mention that the WORD of God manifested itself in the flesh as Jesus (John 1:14). They clearly did not feel that there was any significant reason to include the story of the Nativity in their Gospels.
So, then, why Advent? Regardless of the fact that only two of the four Gospels include the Nativity story, each of the four Gospels have the Advent story! In fact, the entire Bible is an Advent story. Advent, of course, means “the arrival of a notable person, thing, or event”. All of Scripture is pointing to Advent, when you really think about it. All of Scripture is pointing to the advent or arrival of Immanuel, of “God with us.” From the first humans through the Exodus, from the age of the kings through the prophets, from the exile through Roman occupation, from the birth of Jesus through his resurrection, from the apostles through our the age in which we find ourselves, this world is SCREAMING for the advent of God’s Kingdom, the advent of hope, healing, wholeness, justice, mercy, compassion and grace!
Why Advent? Because we live in a broken world filled with broken people such as ourselves. Why Advent? Because we live in a world filled with social injustice. Why Advent? Because we live in a world where people pour lighter fluid down the throats of teenagers and light them on fire. Why Advent? Because we live in a world where a few have everything, and a majority people have nothing. Why Advent? Because we all play our part in the reality of sin. Why Advent? Because we desire justice, we long for mercy, strive to live humbly.
Unfortunately, in the longing for Advent, we often miss a hugely important point. Immanuel has already come. GOD IS WITH US! GOD IS WITHIN US! While we certainly await the coming of God’s Kingdom in all of its fullness, and while the Bible is all about advent, it also points us to the reality of God’s presence with us, God’s love for us, and God’s holy spirit within us. The question really isn’t why Advent? Rather, the question should be why wait?
What are we waiting for? God desires that we see God’s presence with us now. We no longer have to lie in wait. We no longer have to sit and hope for some savior to come and rescue us. That savior has already come, that savior has never left, and that savior has no intention of leaving. So long as there are people who open themselves up to God, the Savior will always be present in the world. Jesus didn’t call us to wait, but to BE AWAKE. Jesus didn’t call us into waiting…but he sent his disciples and he sends us into action. Instead of waiting, actively take part in showing the world that GOD is already here…that GOD IS ALREADY WITH US…THAT LOVE WINS.
THOUGHT OF THE DAY
How are you bringing the reality of Immanuel into the world around you?PRAYER
Lord, I am your vessel of hope, healing and wholeness. Use me as a witness to your presence among all people. Amen.
Read Matthew 1:18-23
ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“Then Isaiah said: ‘Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary mortals, that you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.’” (Isaiah 7:13-14)
It is hard to put into words the fear, anxiety, sadness, depression and confusion that ran through most people’s minds at the close of this past Friday, December 14. By the end of the day we had learned, following spending the day watching the drama unfold on live TV, that 28 people had been shot and killed at an elementary school in Connecticut. Out of the 28, twenty of them were children between the ages of six and seven years old.
Often times, in tragedies such as this, people ask the question, “Where is God in all of this?” After all, what kind of God would allow children to be born and grow up in a world that is seemingly as evil as this one is? What kind of God would create “monsters” who go out and destroy those who are innocent? What kind of God would be so cold as to not intervene when the lives of the innocent are at stake?
These are all valid and good questions to ask ourselves. It is also safe to say that there really aren’t any answers that fully satisfy our need to understand how evil and God co-exist? I could offer a ton of Christianese clichés that sound good off the cuff, but that would only be to simplify something that is very complex; so, rather than offering easy answers to really tough questions, I will provide one of many possible ways in which we can reflect on what happened and what our response will be.
It is very easy for us to look at where we don’t see God only to miss out on where we are seeing God. For instance, we look at Adam Lanza and see his actions as a prime example of God failing to be with us. Yet, we also fail to see that God was with the principal who lunged at Adam and was the first to be shot and killed. God was with the teachers as they did everything they could, including cover children with their own bodies, to save their students. God was with the first responders. God is also with those who are looking at ways to address the societal issues that end up allowing people like Adam to fall through the cracks unnoticed until it is too late. When Jesus called his disciples to care for “the least of these”, that included those who suffer from mental illness. Yet, in our society, mental illness is stigmatized and our health care system often doesn’t provide affordable ways for people suffering from mental illness to get the kind of care (not just drugs and a locked asylum door) that they need.
The fact of the matter is that bad things do happen. People have free will and choose to do all sorts of things that God would not wish for anyone to choose. But aside from that fact, we still have a God who loves us, a God who is with us, a God who provides hope even in the darkest of circumstances. The Nativity story is a reminder of the hope of Emmanuel, or rather, the hope of God being with us. This God came to earth and became one of us; this God put others first and sought to be present with all people, regardless of their status or condition. This God was crucified by God’s own creation and resurrected back to life despite being put to death. This God is the same God who was present with the teachers, administrators and first responders who worked desperately hard to save as many as possible, risking their own lives in the process. This God is the same God who is turning the media’s attention from labeling Adam as “the face of evil”, to looking at how people like Adam haven’t received the care they need.
While we cannot definitively answer the question of why bad things like this happen, aside from the obvious answers, we certainly can still have the hope of Emmanuel. Let us not forget that God never leaves us, nor forsakes us. We can know that God is with us, and we can let God guide us to be instrumental in sparking the changes that are needed in the communities around us, the very changes that could protect other children and people from such acts of evil. Let us welcome Emmanuel in this world, by seeing God’s revelation in us. We have been equipped to be the presence of God in the lives of those in need, whether they are children in distress or Adam Lanza’s slipping through the cracks. Let us be like the writer of Hebrews who with confidence proclaims, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid” (Hebrews 13:6).
THOUGHT OF THE DAY
We need not look any further than our own hearts, and the hearts of those around us, to find God.PRAYER
Lord, I thank you for always being present with me, and thank you for revealing your presence in me. Let me witness to that Good News! Amen.
Originally written on December 19, 2012
Read Luke 2:1-5; Matthew 2:13-15
ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“For the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding; he stores up sound wisdom for the upright; he is a shield to those who walk blamelessly, guarding the paths of justice and preserving the way of his faithful ones.” (Proverbs 2:6-8)
A few years back a movie was released that got me thinking in a new direction regarding the birth of Jesus. The movie is called “The Nativity Story” and it follows Mary from the point of accepting Gabriel’s message of divine conception to her giving birth to Jesus in Bethlehem. While this film certainly displays the faith of Mary, and shows just how brave she would have to have been in order to accept such a path as God had laid out for her; however, it did not only show the courage and faith of Mary. This story also showed the immense faith, and faithfulness, of her husband Joseph.
Of course, initially Joseph did not know what to make of Mary’s claim that God’s Holy Spirit had impregnated her. Can you seriously imagine what such a claim would sound like if you were on the receiving end of it? Who can blame Joseph for having his doubts. Yet, following a dream Joseph wakes up and decides that he is going to believe Mary. Now, he could have woken up and said, “Man if only that wasn’t a dream!” He could of woke up and carried on in his disbelief. But he believes the voice in his dream telling him to fear not.
Yet, the story does not end there. There is a census that the Romans have ordered and Joseph must travel with his pregnant wife to the city of Bethlehem. From Nazareth, that is 80 miles that he had to travel on foot. Mary rode on a donkey while Joseph traversed on foot the dry, dangerous wilderness that lay between Nazareth and his final destination.
In the movie, there is a scene where Joseph and Mary are resting on the side of the road and Joseph is sound asleep. Mary begins to take off Joseph’s sandals, and upon seeing his broken, cracked and bloodied feet, she begins to wash them. As she does she speaks softly to the child in her womb, “My Child, you will have a good and decent man to raise you, a man who gives of himself before anyone else.”
Those words have stuck with me ever since. It is true that Jesus is the Son of God; however, it was Mary and Joseph who had raised him. It is true that God guided them, as God guides us all; however, it was through Mary and Joseph that Jesus learns who he is, whose he is, and what it means to be truly faithful. What a blessing Mary and Joseph must have been to Jesus, a blessing that God knew would multiply ten-fold in the boy that they were raising.
The beauty of this revelation is that it doesn’t end with Jesus. God has called each of us to the kind of faithfulness that Mary and Joseph were called to. Each of us are called to be blessings in the lives of others, whether it be in the lives of our own children or in the lives of someone else’s child. In fact, regardless of age, we are all God’s children. God is calling us to “be a good and decent people, people who give of themselves before anyone else.”
The Word did not become flesh so that we sit back and admire it. Rather Jesus came to show us the way, the truth and the life; Jesus came to show us that we can be faithful and positively impact the lives of those around us. We can be like Joseph: though he wasn’t perfect and though he made his mistakes, he never gave up on his faithfulness to God, to his family and to those around him. Let us not just remember Joseph, but let us live like him.
THOUGHT OF THE DAY
“Success certainly isn’t achievement of popularity. Success in God’s kingdom is loving God, loving one another, and being faithful to what [God’s] called us to do.” – Gabriel WilsonPRAYER
Lord, you are my guide. Lead me down the path of faithfulness just as you did with Mary and Joseph. Amen.
Read Matthew 1:18-25
ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:6)
I would like to tell you as story of a teenage girl who lived in a very tight-knit community. She was, like the rest of her peers, expected to attend to the daily chores that were given to her each day. She was expected to carry herself in a way that brought dignity and honor to her family. Like all families, her family expected that she was always on her best behavior and that she didn’t do anything to hurt her family’s name or image.
Her father was blue-collar, working class man. The girl’s family was pretty impoverished and what little they had came at the cost of much blood, sweat and tears. The family never knew what tomorrow might bring and they could not afford to take anything for granted. In fact, an offer had come to the teenage girl’s parents, one that her family could not afford to pass up. A man had asked the girl’s father for her hand in marriage and, with such an offer, a dowry was sure to follow. The girl was expected to comply with her parents and to marry the man they had arranged for her to marry.
But then one day, in the midst of their engagement, the girl is seen to be with child. The groom-to-be is astonished. He swears to the parents that he has never known her the way a husband knows his wife; he swears that the child growing in her belly cannot be his. The parents, horrified, could not believe what their daughter had done; the community she lived in shunned her as a sinner, everyone looked down at her with contempt.
This is the story of Mary, a young teenager from Nazareth, who was suddenly found to be with child even though she had not yet been married. Can you imagine the panic and terror that must have filled her when she first realized she was pregnant. Though, the author of Matthew tells us that Mary was with child “by the Holy Spirit,” one has to wonder whether she knew it or not. The author of Matthew doesn’t exactly say. What he does point out is Joseph’s initial reaction to the situation. He could not believe she was pregnant and he knew the child was not his; one thing was for sure, he was not going to marry her.
When we read this story, we often pass Joseph’s reaction off because we know how the story ends. We know that Jesus is the Son of God and, therefore, Joseph just seems like a guy who has little faith, until God wakes him up in a dream. Yet, in reality, we all need to be woken up in such a dream. After all, how many times have we passed judgment on the actions of others without truly seeing what God has in store for them? How many times have we seen a pregnant teen, an unruly child, or some other person who doesn’t fit our understanding of pure and wholesome? How many times have we passed judgment on those people?
Often times, we are much more like Joseph, quick to let our thoughts and our judgments run wild before really pausing to listen to what God is saying to us. We often need to be woken up in a dream that shows us that the very things we are laying judgment on are filled with God’s potential if we just show love, acceptance and support rather than scorn, contempt and judgment.
Thankfully, Joseph woke up from that dream with a changed heart and chose to embrace Mary and the Christ child she was bearing! Thankfully, Joseph laid his judgments down and, as a result, unto us a hope, healing and wholeness was born into the world. The question is, will we be woken up in a dream like Joseph? This Christmas, may the advent of that awakening be within you; indeed, may it be within us all!
THOUGHT OF THE DAY
“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” – Mother TeresaPRAYER
Lord, help me to avoid falling into the trap of judgment. Instruct me in your ways of unconditional love, O Lord. Amen.
Read Mark 1:1-12; Mark 3
ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.” (Romans 8:14)
What I love about the Gospels is that each one of them has a unique understanding of who Jesus is. Each Gospel uses the same key phrases to identify Jesus; however, each Gospel author has a subtly different understanding of what those key phrases mean. What is awesome about this is that by the time we are done reading the four Gospels we have a rich and diverse understanding of what it meant for Jesus to be the Christ, to be the Son of God, to be Son of Man and to be in the line of David.
For this devotional, let us look at the Gospel of Mark. Jesus shows up at the Jordan river looking to be baptized. Mark doesn’t bother telling us a birth story or anything prior to Jesus’ baptism; rather, he points to Jesus’ baptism as being the ADVENT of the Christ. Prior to that experience in the Jordan, Jesus was just a peasant Jew from Nazareth. He was the son of Joseph and Mary, he was a laborer by trade and he had certainly known what it meant to work with his hands.
But when Jesus comes out of the water, upon being baptized, he sees a vision of the sky opening up and light descending upon him like a dove. If we read Mark carefully, we will notice that Jesus is the one seeing this. In Matthew, everyone sees and witnesses this, but in Mark (if we are not reading anything in between the lines) it is only Jesus who sees this happen. And then Jesus hear’s the voice of God telling him, “You are my Son, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” It is at that moment that Jesus’ former identity that he had been born and raised to believe about himself falls away. It is at that moment that Jesus understands his TRUE identity, and it is at that moment that the Holy Spirit drives him into the wilderness to be prepared for the work God is calling him to do.
For me, this is significant! We can relate with this Jesus because we too grow up not really knowing who we are. At first we identify ourselves by who are parents are. Then we grow up believing that we are what our society tells us we are. But at some point, if we open our hearts and allow the Holy Spirit of God to speak to us, we begin to understand that our identity does not rest on what the world thinks we are and it does not rest on who our parents are; rather, our identity rests on who God says we are!
And when we find our identity in God, there is nothing that is going to stop the transformation that will occur. Some will not like that change. Some will fear that we’ve lost our marbles. In Mark, Jesus’ own family (including Mary) think Jesus has gone completely insane and they try to take him back home. They don’t like this NEW identity that Jesus has taken on! Yet Jesus persists in his ministry and in serving God and identifies those who do the same as being a part of his TRUE family.
What is encouraging about Mark’s take Jesus is that it mirrors our very own experience as human beings (after all Jesus was not only truly divine, but also truly human). We often find ourselves soul-searching; we often find ourselves seeking our identity and looking for a deeper meaning and purpose in our lives. If we would only wash our self-identification away and emerge from the waters with an open heart, we too would hear God calling out to us, “You are my child, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” This is the identity Jesus called people toward, this is the Good News that Jesus preached throughout Galilee and Jerusalem. This is the Good News that Jesus calls us to bring to those who need to hear it, not only in our words, but by our actions. Let us bear that Good News in all that we do!
THOUGHT OF THE DAY
“Who are we? We are children of God. Our potential is unlimited. Our inheritance is sacred.” – Russell M. NelsonPRAYER
Lord, thank you for reminding me that I, too, am your child. Let me, in my actions, be a reminder to all with whom I cross paths. Amen.
Read 1 Corinthians 13
ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.” (Matthew 19:30, NRSV).
Have you ever played the game Super Mario Brothers, or any of the subsequent Super Mario Brothers games? I sat down with my daughters tonight for a little R&R, along with some Super Mario gaming. We were playing New Super Mario Brothers on the Wii, and as soon as the game started any chance of “R&R” when right out of the window.
If you have never played the game, let me explain what it is like playing it with three people. If you remember the original Super Mario Brothers on the NES system, you could only play that with two people and only one player could play at a time. My brother-in-law aptly said that Super Mario Brothers came from a time when people were accustomed to “taking turns”.
In the New Super Mario Brothers game, taking turns no longer exists! Three people all fighting for the same prizes, trying to jump at the same time, and warring with each other to get to be the first to reach the flag adds a new stress-inducing dynamic to the already stressful game. As, we went further and further…rather, as we repeated the same round over and over again, the more the laughs turned to frustration. The girls started yelling at each other, I could feel my heart rate rising and, before I knew it, I was calling it quits for their benefit and for my sanity.
As I let the blood pressure drop and the heart rate slowed down, I began to think about how much stress we put ourselves through by trying to be the first, the best, the one who has the most stuff, and other types of things. In a society that promotes “healthy competition”, we find ourselves more and more succumbing to the hazards that come along with such competition. People are stressed out, burned out and on the verge of snapping all because they are seeking to be the best.
In a world that urges its inhabitants to fight for their “right” to be number one, in a world that teaches us that only the strong survive, in a world that teaches us to accept the “dog-eat-dog” mentality, Jesus calls us to see things in a whole new light. Rather than the first being the winner, Jesus insists that the last are the ones who are truly first. Instead of survival of the fittest, Jesus insists that the fittest are the ones who realize how unfit they are.
Keeping this in mind, Paul also addressed the people within the church of Corinth. To paraphrase, Paul told them that its not about how much you have, or how loud you talk or any other sort of thing. It comes down to if you have LOVE or not. Without love, and the ability to love (which comes to us from God), we are only shadows of what we were meant to be. We are noisy gongs and clanging cymbals without love, nothing more.
Instead of competing with each other over who is the best, the quickest, the cutest, or whatever other things we compete over, Christ is calling us to LOVE. Rather than filling the void in our lives with the stress that this world offers us, Christ is calling us to have peace through LOVE. You may be thinking that this sounds nice, but what does that mean? That means that if you live as Christ lived, and love as Christ loved, you are bound to be filled with the love and peace of God…you are bound to be filled with, and to fill others with God’s hope, healing and wholeness.
THOUGHT OF THE DAY
What’s love got to do with it? EVERYTHING.PRAYER
Lord, teach me to lay down my desire to be first and to pick up the desire to be love in the lives of those who cross my path. Amen.
Read Luke 6
ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“If you are sued in court and your shirt is taken from you, give your coat, too. If a soldier demands that you carry his gear for a mile, carry it two miles. Give to those who ask, and don’t turn away from those who want to borrow.” (Matthew 5:40-42)
It’s the day after Thanksgiving, and if you are reading this there are a few possibilities. 1) You are reading it in a long line waiting to check out at your local department store and have nothing better to do at the moment. 2) You just got home from an all-night shopping and were just checking your email before hitting the sack for an all day recovery nap. 3) You just woke up from a nice sleep after eating tons of Turkey and stuffing yesterday; you are not the type to rush to the store for anything and so you are reading this with fresh and rested eyes. 4) You are reading this from outside of the United States and, perhaps, none of the top 3 really applies.
Yes, today is the day Americans like to call “Black Friday,” meaning that it’s the days that sales go through the roof as people go shopping for Christmas toys and goodies for their families. Traditionally, black Friday was the day that stores went from being “in the red” to being “in the black”, meaning that they were no longer negative in the bank account after “Black Friday,” hence its name.
Now, people head out on Black Friday with the best of intentions. They want to buy as much for their kiddies and family members as possible, for the least amount of money. After all, Christmas is about giving, isn’t it? The problem is that, en masse, people tend to get out of control. What starts off as a nice idea to buy people things that we can give them, turns into a stampede as people literally push through and over people in order to be the first to get their pick! People have literally died on “Black Friday” as a result of the herd, and I do mean herd, of people trampling over them.
On the flip side, there are billions of people around the world that are going without food, water, shelter, clothing, etc. There are community outreach organizations that will not be able to reach all of the people in need in their communities as a result of a lack of funding. So many people in this world, and in our own communities, are deprived of the major necessities and yet where do we spend our money and resources?
In the end, we like to think that we are teaching our children and our families about giving; in reality, we are teaching our children and families about receiving. Christmas is very much centered around our families and close friends, making sure that the wealth is shared our own. Sure, we’ll drop a coin in a bucket on the way into Wal-mart, for good measure; however, what is important is that OUR kids get the presents they want, that OUR family gets the presents we feel they need or would like, and that OUR friends get gifts too.
Jesus had a much more radical view of what it meant to give. For Jesus giving was to be unconditional, which means that we shouldn’t give just based on relation or friendship or any other kind of condition. And, for Jesus, there was no limit as to how much one should give. Jesus gave his entire life, literally, so that others could have the life he gave up. This devotional is written, not to discourage you from shopping for gifts for your little ones, family and friends but, rather, to encourage you to view the world as your children, family and friends. Wouldn’t it be a wonderful world indeed if the poor, the sick, the naked, the destitute, the blind, and all of those in need got to experience “Black Friday”? If you answered yes to that last question, the challenge for you is to do something about it. God bless you as you answer that challenge!
THOUGHT OF THE DAY
It is true that to give is to truly receive; however, you receive so that you may give even more.
PRAYER
Lord, let me be a blessing in the lives of those who need it. Thank you for those who have been a blessing in my life. Amen.
