Faith

A couple of years ago I was reading Luke chapter two in the summer. I usually only read that passage during the Christmas season. As I read through it the words “to you” jumped off the page.

To really drive home the point, in by Bible the words “to all people” are directly above “to you”.

He is the saviour of the world, He came for all people,

It is all true and it is also true that He came “for you”. Wow,

don’t miss this as you enter into the final days of Christmas. Enjoy all of it. The gifts, being with family, the wonder in the childrens eyes, but don’t miss the fact that He was born,

to you.

Mona Charen at Townhall.com titled here article because of the Pajama Gram ads on Fox. It really is getting ridiculous.

We all know how far the pornification has gotten. A mainstream movie apparently treats the subject as cute and fun (“Zack and Miri Make a Porno”) and it runs at the multiplex next to “Four Christmases” and “Madagascar.” Hotels offer pornographic movies and omit the titles from the final bill. Victoria’s Secret graces every mall — and its windows resemble the red light district of Amsterdam. Viagra and its imitators are hawked ceaselessly. Television, music videos, and supermarket checkout magazines contain the kinds of suggestive words and images that would once have been labeled soft porn.

The Witherspoon Institute has published some statistics that will break your heart. Click through and read the whole story.

Mona Charen : Tis the Season for Porn? – Townhall.com

Dr Dobsons family minute this morning was talking about taking a decade to corrupt our children. Just walk onto a college campus. The foul, suggestive, and disrespectful language is everywhere. Not just from the rough crowd but by everyone. I go to a public events and I can’t believe what I hear. It is increasingly difficult to tell my boys why it’s important to be honorable.

The church has become nearly, if not completely, irrelevant. When we turn our backs and allow this kind of thing to happen because we want to be “set apart” or to “walk in holiness” we have completely missed the point. We must engage the culture, speak the truth in love, and stand up for whatever is true, noble, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtue, and praiseworthy.

You want something to fight for here’s a good start.

What an amazing creative God we serve.

Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar 2008 – The Big Picture – Boston.com

Tozer Devotional The money quote:

When all is said, it may easily be that the great difference between professing Christians (the important difference in this day) is not between modernists and evangelicals but between those who have reduced Christianity to an intellectual formula and those who believe that the true essence of our faith lies in the supernatural workings of the Spirit in a region of the soul not accessible to mere reason.

Tozer Devotional :: The Alliance

Kenneth Copeland has recently talked more and more about love. His insight today is strong. I have posted the entire thought but what made me pause was a comment near the end “Compassion doesn’t strike at the surface of things. It goes to the root of the problem. That’s why it always succeeds.” compassion doesn’t always look like compassion.

“Love never fails.”
(1 Corinthians 13:8)

The cross must always be at the center of our faith without it we are lost.

We trample the blood of the Son of God underfoot if we think we are forgiven because we are sorry for our sins.

The only reason for the forgiveness of our sins by God, and the infinite depth of His promise to forget them, is the death of Jesus Christ.

My Utmost For His Highest – The Impartial Power of God

And this one; Oswald Chambers also comments:

Life without war is impossible in the natural or the supernatural realm. It is a fact that there is a continuing struggle in the physical, mental, moral, and spiritual areas of life.

Though he is not talking about nations at war the principle remains the same.

My Utmost For His Highest – The Law of Opposition

A.W. Tozer’s devotional today is titled “The Unchanging Need of the Human Heart”

It starts like this:

We of the twentieth century have exactly the same basic needs as the people of the first century. We feel the weight of sin and mortality just as they did. We long for peace and life eternal exactly as they did. We are tortured by fears, stunned by losses, grieved by betrayals, hurt by enmities, made heartsick by failures, scared by threatening death, chased by the devil and frightened cold by the thought of coming judgment.

And ends like this:

Click through and read the middle it’s good.
Tozer Devotional :: The Alliance

People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives’;
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and
some true enemies; Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it man never be enough;
Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway.

By Mother Teresa