Star of Bethlehem shine in our hearts today.

   
Matthew 2: 2 ...  Where is he that is born King of the Jews?  For we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.

The wise men saw his star and came.  Whose star have you seen?  If you are the star of your life, you will see lack of some kind.  If only I had this or that, or if this one or that one hadn't left me or died, I could celebrate Christmas.  The spirit of Christmas is lacking.  If hollywood is your star, you'll look to the glitter of fame and see what they have to offer.  Soon your happiness will vanish like a vapour.

To see His star is to see the miracle God sent down on Christmas Day.  This wonderful gift of love wrapped up and lying in a manger.  Heaven's bundle forever changed Christmas Day for Christ is in the word Christmas and He makes all the difference in the world.  His life forever changed history.  Let Him change your history.  Right now ask Jesus to come into your mess called life and change your heart and forgive your sins.  If you keep Christ in Christmas your life will ever be filled with joy.

They saw His star and responded to Heavens message.  Let's do the same and put Christ back in Christmas.

Jeremiah 33:3 Call upon me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things thou knoweth not.

 
 If the wonder of Christmas has left your home.  Ask
Jesus to come and restore that which was lost.  Lord help
the joy of Christmas stay in our heart all year long.





Jesus did not come to
make God's love possible,
but to make God's love
visible.
                  unknown

The birth of the baby Jesus stands
as the most significant event in all

history, because it has meant the pouring into a sick world of the healing medicine of love which has transformed all manner of hearts for almost two thousand years.
                                                 George Matthew Adams

Behold the Lamb

Luke 1:77  Jesus was sent to give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of sins.

Luke 1:78  Through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us.

Luke 1:79  To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.

Luke 2: 24  Mary and Joseph came to offer a sacrifice according to that which is said in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons.  This was a poor man's offering .  A more prosperous man would have sacrificed a lamb. 

Jesus came poor that through Him we could become rich.   He suffered poverty for us all for in one way or another we are all poor.  Mary and Joseph held the lamb.  They couldn't have brought another lamb.  He was the lamb of God given for the sins of the world. 

The first Christmas present was brought by the magi to the manger.  They started the art of giving.

On Christmas Day two thousand years ago, the birth of a tiny baby in an obscure village in the Middle East was God's supreme triumph of good over evil.                       Charles Colson

Thanksgiving

 
    As the people came to the Tabernacle or Temple, they sang songs of remembering.  How God had delivered them from Pharaoh, and killed their enemies in the Red Sea.  God had made a way, when there was no way.  He provided a cloud by day and a fire by night.  He gave them water out of the rock.
 He would not let their enemies attack them, slaves didn't know how to fight.  He brought them out with wealth.  Egypt had profited greatly from their work. Now, they would have to give money, garments, jewelry and other articles to the Jews to pay them back for their labor.  Everyone of them left Egypt well.  God had done great things for them and they were to remember Him.  They had songs about God's mighty acts accomplished for them.

  This is a season to be still and reflect on God's goodness to us.  God gave us truly a land flowing with milk and honey.  We have forgotten Him just like the children of Israel did.  We go to ball games instead of the house of the Lord.  Our prayer life is far from what God would have it to be.  Let's go back to remember how wonderful our God is.  He has done great things for us, wherein we are glad.

  What a friend we have in Jesus.  Have we taken time to be thankful?
   Connect with love ones or a friend.  It's always time to be grateful.

   Sometime problems gets so heavy and our way gets cloudy.  We can't see and our focus is distorted like being in a whiteout.  We shake up a Christmas globe with all the snow and the house disappears. When things gets so out of whack go back to God.  Be still and know He is still God.  He can see everything clearly.  He has a higher view than we do.

 Trust in Him with all your heart and lean not to your own understanding.  Proverbs 3-6.

Tabernacle and Temple Gates

     The Wilderness Tabernacle had only one gate.   Solomon's Temple was much larger and had five gates.  Our bodies have five ways that outside influences can enter into our bodies to defile.  The eyes are an avenue that Satan can use to get us to sin.  Job said he had made a covenant with his eyes that he not look on a maiden.  He was not going to look twice at a woman, so temptation wouldn't get the best of him.   Our nose can cause us to smell something that will take us back to an incident that happened many years ago.  Perfume is a powerful scent that attracts us.  Be careful that we be led astray by our senses.  The mouth is a powerful tool for good or bad.  We can build up or destroy.  A woman can lure a man through her deceitful speech.   A tongue can be as powerful as a weapon used in the wrong way.  Ears can hear good or evil.  What you hear can keep you awake at night, bring terror, or bring lovely music to your soul.   Satan uses music to persuade our youth to betray  their parents.  Our feet are gates to our soul.  We can use them to the house of worship or to the bars to drink.  Let's use our senses to inspire us to draw near to God.

    The Priest in the Old Testament opened the gates and kept watch over them that no enemy be allowed to enter.  God has made us as body of Christ to be priest.  We are to keep a diligent watch over these bodies that God has loaned us for awhile.  If evil came into the gates of the Temple there were severe consequences.  The Priest was dishonored.  He was stripped naked and beaten.  There are severe consequences for us letting sin into our bodies.  Every negative thought brings death to some part of us.  Positive thoughts brings life, light, and peace.  Sin reigning in our bodies brings spiritual death. 

     Let's possess our bodies with God's honor in mind.   Close the gates of your body to keep the enemy of our souls out.

     Keep ourselves unspotted from the world.  When, He comes we won't shrink back and be ashamed.

Door

        The door provided sinners to approach and enter into fellowship with God.
John 10:9 Jesus said "I am the door; if any man enter in, he shall be saved.
     
        John 14:6 I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes unto the Father, but by me.
       
         Acts 4:12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

         The gate was made of fine white linen with patterns of purple, scarlet, and blue worked into it.  There were four colors in the pattern of the Tabernacle.  They picture the nature and character of the person of our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ.  The pictures of color tell us a story of what Jesus was like.  Purple is the sign of royalty.  The color of the King.  Scarlet is the color of blood.  Jesus blood would be shed for us on the cross.  White the color of perfection that we all fall short of.  Also, a picture of the righteousness of Jesus that He gives us at salvation.  Blue is a picture of Heaven. These colors are shown in the four gospels.  Matthew pictures Jesus as King of the Jews shows the color purple.  Mark shows scarlet, Jesus as the suffering Servant.  Luke shows Him as the perfect human representing the white linen.  John shows us Immanuel-God with us.  Babe born in a manager and tabernacled among us.  The creator of all the earth pictured in the blue.  He was sent from Heaven to walk among men.  The four gospels to the four corners of the earth.

The fence surrounding the Tabernacle

     There were other tents carried by other religions at the time, Moses and the Israelites were building the Tabernacle.  But, none were anything compared to the Tabernacle Moses was commanded by God to build.  It has been said its the most costly building for its size ever to be build.  It was forty-five feet long and fifteen feet wide, and only consisted of two rooms.  It has been estimated the cost of two million dollars.  All its furniture and framework was overlaid with pure gold.

     The fence was to keep man out.  It was seven and one half feet tall.  Too tall for man to climb over and too low for them to crawl under.  The fence was suspended on sixty pillars or posts of solid brass.  It rested on sockets of brass.  Brass was a picture of judgment.  The white fence was a picture of the perfect righteousness of Christ.  He was spotless without spot or blemish. God had given Moses a picture of what it was to be perfect in the Ten Commandments.  No one, but Christ could keep it perfectly.  The law demanded perfect obedience.  The fence says God is perfect and you can't enter.

     The linen fence separated the camp of Israel from the presence of the Lord.  It represented the law that said keep out, stay away, you are not good enough to go in.

Titus 3:5 says Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy He saved us...  There is no other name given among men,;whereby, we must be saved.  The name above every name the name of Jesus.

                          

    The Tabernacle God had given Moses the types, pictures, and patterns to use to construct  it in the wilderness. Today, we are God's Temple.  Our bodies are the Temple of God.  He lives inside us. We are His high priest.  We are to be holy, separated, and detached from the evil that surrounds us.  Jesus walked and touch the unclean, but the uncleanness never got inside Him.  He above all did His Father's will.  Everything was a picture of Jesus and His work on the cross.  What He is to us and what we are to be to Him.

Tabernacle

     The cloud by day that covered the Israelites was a picture of His presence being with them.  It would later reside in the Holy of Holies above the mercy seat.  Other nations carried their gods with them, but none had their presence manifested among them as the Jews.  The smoke of God's presence
would later fill the Temple as Solomon dedicated the Temple to God.
    The cloud turned into a  fire by night to close the Israelites in and everyone else out.  Heaven will be a closed place to all unbelievers. Only those whose name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life will be permitted in.  The fire protected them from all other presence entering, and kept the animals that prowled around at night from bothering them.  They could lay down in peace and sleep.  We have angels around us and with us at all times to protect us.  We can lay down and sleep. 
     He wanted to lead them straight to the Promise Land, a eleven day journey.  But like us they began to complain.  When, they had no water to drink, instead of asking God for water. They began to doubt God's goodness and said Moses had brought them out to die in the wilderness.  They forgot all about the miracles God had done.  They had food from Heaven given each day.  No one had to work for it.  It arrived while they were sleeping.  All they had to do was walk out side their tent and pick it up.  Yet, soon they didn't ask nicely if they could have meat along with their manna.  They questioned the goodness of God and wanted to go back to Egypt for the leeks and the garlic's.  These things would have never given them the vitamins that manna contained.  God wanted them to trust in Him to supply their needs. Water gushed out from the under ground springs more than they would ever need.
     The Bible gives us everything that we need that pertains to godliness.  It is also, a History book that has stories of how God worked in the lives of his people.  It is a treasure book that has hidden treasure within, but we have to dig for it.  It has answers to every need, you will ever have.  Let's dig deeper.  We will be blessed.

      Believe and receive, doubt and do without.

Tabernacle

     Tabernacle - dwell among the Israelites.  Ex 25:8  Make me a Sanctuary, and I will dwell among them.  Because of disobedience the children of Israel were made slaves in Egypt for over four hundred years.  He was known to them as Almighty God.  During the time of captivity  they didn't have a place of worship.  God worked to keep them through all the years of slavery.  Now, they were the size of a nation, a million and a half.  The young men able to fight were the size of an army that could fight for their nation. 

     God has saved his people alive through all the famine, pestilence, and destruction He had brought on the Egyptians.  He showed that He was stronger than all their other gods.  God had demanded to let his people go.  The Pharoah agreed, but changed his mind.  God prepared a way through the sea for His people, but rolled the waters back to cover the Egyptian Army. 

     All the nations had heard how God had preserved His people and were afraid to fight the Jews.  Israel feared the giants, but God had put fear into all their hearts.  This fear kept nations from attacking them as they passed through or around them.  They had been slaves, they didn't know how to fight so God had fought their battles for them.

      He protected them as they walked through the dessert by a cloud by day that covered them that acted like a barrier from the sun.  They were quite comfortable  during the day.  He gave them a wall of fire by night to keep them safe from their  enemies, animals that prowl at night, and to keep them warm. 

     To keep them healthy, He gave them manna from Heaven with every vitamin they would ever need.  Their feet did not swell and their shoes and clothes grew as they did.  Neither, wore out for God continually provided for them.  When, they needed water Moses struck a rock and water gushed forth.  God knew before He made the heavens and the earth that Moses and the children of Israel would be passing that way, so He made underground deep springs that would burst open if pressure was put on them.  Moses need strike the rock once.  The rock was a picture of Jesus our rock.  He was to be struck once.  He would die one time for the sins of the world. He has promised to supply all of our needs as we travel through this world of sin.

   

To Mother's

There's so much about you

that lets others see

God's goodness and love

shining through,

And that's why

this thank-you

is really a prayer

That His blessings 

will shine upon you

by Helen Steiner Rice

A Thank-You Blessing

     

    The kingdom of God

   is not far away

      It's as close as the things

       we do and we say,

     And people like you

      bring heaven nearer

     and help to make

    God's image clearer

words by Helen Steiner Rice

to godly Mother's

PRAYER

  
    We know so little about prayer today compared to Saints of other centuries.  Many talk about communion with God continually.  Practicing His presence was like breathing.  They went through their day's activities in joyful awareness of God's presence.  Some whispered simple sentence prayers of praise and worship all during the day.

    Like Brother Lawrence, who called himself the "the lord of all pots and pans," crystalized  this idea in his now-famous comment " the time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquillity as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament."

    Do we really pray? So much foolishness would be left undone, if prayer were our main focus. Souls are dying while we play foolish games to the devil's delight.  Some have compassion-making a difference.

      The question should not be whether Jesus arose from the dead, but have we ever died to our sins and ourselves?  Have we ever died to the desires of the flesh, took up our cross, and followed Jesus?  Set your face like Jesus.  He set His face like a flint to do His Father's will.  Put your life in order!  

      You are as holy as you want to be.  You have to make hard choices, if you want to know Him and the power of His resurrection.  Faith is like a muscle.  The more you exercise it, the larger it grows.  It takes time to practice the presence of God.  It takes more than five minutes to pray, to read the Bible, to give up my will for His.  

     If we can't deny ourselves enough to witness for God, to give a tract, or live for Him- are we really saved?

       Do we know what true faith in Christ involves? " The faith of Paul and Luther was a revolutionizing thing.  It upset the whole life of the individual and made him into another person  altogether.  It laid hold on the life and brought them into accord with the will of God.  

      Faith now means no more than passive moral acquiescence in the Word of God and the cross of Jesus.  To exercise it we have only to rest on one knee and nod our heads in agreement with the instructions of a personal worker intent upon saving our soul.  Such a faith as this does not perturb people.  It comforts them.  The face of their ego is washed and their self-confidence is rescued from discouragement. 
     
     ...Bible faith is the one who has put himself in a position where he cannot go back. "

 " A whole new generation of Christians has come up believing that it is possible to " accept " Christ without forsaking the world. Exhalation is as necessary to life as inhalation.  To accept Christ it is necessary that we reject whatever is contrary to Him.  Are we born again?    Gems From Tozer

How do we know we have Salvation

      How do we know Salvation or a change has come to us?   A cleaning lady says it best.  While cleaning before she was saved, she swept the dirt under the rug.  After Jesus came into her heart, she swept all the floor clean.   Are our transactions done as unto the Lord knowing He sees everything we do?  It makes a huge difference, who we do it for.  The birds sing praises to God all day long.  We should follow their example and sing songs to our great King. 

     Children of Israel because of sin, doubt, and discouragement hung their harps upon the willow branches.   Hardship has caused them to lose their song.  What has caused us to lose our song and trust in God.  What has made us lose our song God said to Israel return to me and I will return to you.  If we have gone back in our praise we have gone backward.  Draw near to me and I will draw near to you.  Whatever has caused us to leave our first love?  Let's get our song back.  Let's lift our voices O' church and sing hallelujah  to our great King.

     Heaven is full of praise and singing.  We are to make people yearn for Heaven.  We will either worship or live to please our selves.   To not have praise to be void of gratitude.   Lord Jesus turn our hearts of stone to flesh again that, we may rejoice in whatever situation we find ourselves in.

     Bless the Lord O my soul and all that is within me praise the Lord.  May we enter Heaven with a song on our lips. Ps.103:1, Ps.105 1-4.   Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.     

Happy Valentines Day

                             


                How do we say I love you or I care.  We are made in the creative image of God.  We are 
          all creative beings.  We have to find out how we can bring this across to others.  Is it a smile, 
          some special jesture, a tap on the shoulder, a hug, a poem, or just being there with them.  What           ever your gift is it was put inside you to bless others.  It is just as important as the greatest gift
          others may have.  Your spin may be very unique, but you undermine it and say inothing.  What
          ever you have inside release it.  You will be blessed and others will be too.

         We are each inspired treasures, with creative gifts to             share.  The world needs you gift!  -Lark      

              Whether you get a gift or not remember we are God's craftmanship made to produce
          good in the world.  Just in your corner, wherever you are.

               We are daily loaded with His benefits.

God's gift

     Whatever comes our way is a gift from God.  The trials that we hate so much, but not the sin that we have decided to engage in.  God will use it someway to bring glory to Him.  Struggles strengthen
our faith and make us stronger to carry on.
   
     Who ever comes across our path is to help us or we are to help them.  Eyes fixed on Jesus sees things through His eyes.  Give us the grace to see through your eyes.  Fix our eyes on the eternal for soon our lives will pass.   May we do all for your glory.  The flesh can masquerade as doing good.  It can be puffed up and flaunt itself as righteous, at the same time be in control of selfish, self-centered, and doing everything to please the flesh.  It hinders God and His work.  Are we a blessing to God or a curse?

     Dear God give us your motives for doing things.  May we seek you in all we say or do.  Keep us pure for your glory and not our own.

Helpless

                                                     Helpless

Helplessness is the real secret and the impelling power of prayer...

for it is only when we are helpless that we open our hearts to Jesus

and let Him help us n our distress, according to His grace and mercy.

                      ---O. H. Hallesby

David found comfort in God and his faithfulness to him.  Being a lonely shepherd

must have been a fearful occupation to a young shepherd.  But God was with him to bring

comfort and cheer.  He knew his Father's right hand could be trusted to keep him safe.  Our

Heavenly Father said "He would never leave us or forsake us. Trouble, pain, and sorrow cast long shadows before us, but God went before the children of Israel, and He will go before us.  People may betray, false accuse, and make our lives a nightmare,  but our Father knows the way to safety.  We have another year to trust our Heavenly Father. 

Heavenly Father trouble looms before us on every side, be our very present help in the time of trouble.

Deut. 27:10-15

      Joshua brought the children of Israel to the two Mountains near Samaria.  Mount Gerizim was on one side of them and Mount Ebal on the other.  There was a green strip of land in the valley between.  Joshua told them to decide who are you going to serve.  Mount Gerizim represented God and his way.  Mount Ebal meant they had chosen to serve idols and had decided to go their own way.  They had decided to make themselves gods.

      Everyday, we decide which one of these mountains are we going to? The Mount of self or the Mount of God?  This year let's go every hour, of every day to the Mount of God. 

     Satan is the power of the air.  He wants to rule this nation.  Let's put on our weapons of war and go to the Mount of Prayer, to do battle for our families and to save our NATION.

    This year decide to serve God and go His way.

When at wit's end

"Ira Sankey's words still ring true."

   The Lord Our Rock, in Him we bide,

Secure whatever ill betide

A shelter in the time of storm

   The raging storms may round us beat

We'll never leave our safe retreat,

A shelter in the time of storm.

          Sometime, when you think you have endured more than you can stand and desperately wish for a break. The worst storm ever hits with great fury.  God got you through the others, He will be faithful to you in this. We are pilgrims passing through.  Remember, this too shall pass.   Your Shepherd has never lost a sheep.  He is faithful to the end.  When, the darkness gets so dark, you can't see, trust His love and His Word. " I will never leave you nor forsake you." Hebrews 13:5.  If you are going through a crisis, never trust your feelings.  They will betray you.  Hold fast to His Word and do not let it go. He will take care of you.

      Trust His Will-The Lord is faithful and He only wants our best... Trust His Word-Within its promises-His goodness is expressed...   Trust His Power-He is Almighty, the Creator of all things...Trust His Love- We are His family, children of the King of Kings,     B.J. Hope