Today we celebrate the birth of the Christ. His birth was foretold by the ancient prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 9:6 “For unto us a child is born…” The place was foretold in Micah 5:3 “But you Bethlehem…”. He came to earth that day born as a human child, yet one who would lead a sinless life and die to save us from our sins. We believe that only God’s Son, Jesus, could satisfy Holy God and bring us back into relationship with God. Isaiah foretold in Isaiah 53:5 “But He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him.” So where does that leave us? If we believe He was born miraculously as a man who was both fully human and fully God, and He was able to die to save us from our sins, what more is there for us to believe? 
He is coming again. 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 “For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words.”
As we celebrate Jesus’ birth, we need to remember the story does not end in the manger or at the cross. The story of the redemption of mankind will end with us living with God for eternity. Just as His first coming was heralded by angels so will His second coming. Just as His first coming was miraculous, awesome and breathtaking so will His second coming be worthy of King Jesus when we meet Him in the air.
What do these events say about God? God is eternal. God exists outside of time. He is not measured by anything. We measure time by the movement of the planets and stars, which God created. God has always been and always will be. No one is like Him. We are not eternal because we have a beginning and an end. Because God is eternal, He can give us eternal life. David described God in Psalm 90:2 “Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, form everlasting to everlasting you are God.” John wrote in Revelation 4:8 “Holy, holy, holy is he Lord God Almighty, who was, and is and is to come.”
With our finite minds, the eternality of God is difficult to grasp. However, we can be assured that God is who He says He is and will do as He has planned for eternity. Jesus is the one who holds the key to our eternal life. 
John 4:13-14 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” Come to Him this Christmas and be filled with His eternal blessing. Look past the manger, past the cross and look forward to His return!
Linda
How have you seen this to be true this season of thanksgiving? Is your mindset towards thanks contagious? “How we thank God for you! Because of you we have great joy as we enter God’s presence.” 1 Thessalonians 1:9 Paul felt that the thanks he had for his fellow believers, for their faith and love for God, caused him to rejoice. He saw God working in their lives and this brought joy and thankfulness to his own worship. I would call that contagious thanks. Have you ever been thankful for someone or something and it caused you to give thanks to God? As we live our lives, we need to look for those things that God gives us that create ‘contagious thanks’ within our hearts. As we give thanks to Him in these situations, God will faithfully create in us a thanks that will be contagious and will result in our being in a constant state of thankfulness and joy. Paul left the Thessalonians with these words in 5:16-18 “
Develop that attitude of gratitude and watch it grow in your own life and then watch it rub off into the lives of those around you.
I pray the joy of the Lord will be yours as you worship our creator, caretaker, good, loving, faithful, eternal and Almighty God.
Isaiah 12 has 2 short songs of praise that lead us towards thanksgiving. Let these songs of praise create joy and thanks over your salvation.
This psalm gives us a picture of our salvation. God hates our sin but through the well of salvation in Jesus we are forgiven. Being cleansed by the waters of salvation through faith in Jesus’ work on the cross, God brings us into His comforting arms and His anger over sin is turned away. Having drunk deeply from the well of salvation we are compelled to shout and sing His praises with great joy! Thank you Jesus.
As we enter the month of November that has our National Day of Thanksgiving, let us give thanks this whole month long for the things, people, places, hopes and dreams we have within our lives. God is good and worthy of all our praises! Isaiah gives us a song of praise in Isaiah chapter 12. As I look at various verses of thanksgiving this month, this chapter is the key of what our hearts’ attitude must be before Almighty God.
“Give thanks to the 
let us utter songs of joy and praise to Him all month long. Let the spirit of thanksgiving towards God permeate your very being, dip into that well of salvation, and live out praise and thanksgiving towards God and all the people you meet.
John 20:24-25. 
again. John 20:26-29 continues the story, “
Faith is a gift from God and we who believe in Jesus are blessed with the knowledge of Him as our Savior. However, each one of us who believes encountered the living Christ and came to know Him in a personal, vibrant and living way. Even though we do not physically see Him, we can and do know within our being that Jesus is Alive! The Holy Spirit indwells us when we believe in Jesus and testifies to us about Him. Jesus had promised this in John 15:26 ““But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.” Later Paul, explains in Ephesians 1:13-14 how the Holy Spirit works within us, “
Because Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead,
Have a blessed Resurrection Sunday! As the early Christians would greet one another to show they believed saying, “He has Risen.” With the response being, “He has risen indeed!”
Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem the week before Passover and His death on the cross is a wild an joyous event. I have walked the Palm Sunday Road and it is a very steep hill leading down from the Mt. of Olives that leads to the eastern gate. As I walked that road, I could see this scene in my mind that is included in all four gospels.
6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them.
body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? 
Fearless Living 