December 27, 2022 by Greg

This Day’s Thought-Tuesday

Did any of you, parents, ever hear your child wake from sleep with some panic fear and shriek the mother’s name through the darkness? Was not that a more powerful appeal than all words? And, depend upon it, that the soul which cries aloud on God, “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” though it have “no language but a cry.” will never call in vain.

Alexander MacLaren

The silver-haired head is a crown of glory, If it is found in the way of righteousness.

Proverbs 16:31
The New King James Version

God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but on trees, and flowers, and clouds, and stars.

Martin Luther

December 26, 2022 by Greg

This Day’s Thought-Monday

Integrity is the glue that holds our way of life together. What our young people want to see in their elders is integrity, honesty, truthfulness, and faith. What they hate most of all is hypocrisy and phoniness. That is why it is important for us to go to church, to read the Bible, and to say grace at the table. Let them see us doing what we would like to see them do.

Billy Graham

And the Lord said to Moses, “This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.”

Exodus 33:17
The English Standard Version

Morning prayer: Good morning, God, I love You! What are You up to today? I want to be a part of it.

Norman Grubb

December 23, 2022 by Greg

This Day’s Thought-Friday

Wishing you a most joyous and meaningful Christmas celebration!

This Day’s Thought

We thank Thee, O God, for the return of the wondrous spell of this Christmas season that brings its own sweet joy into our jaded and troubled hearts. Forbid it, Lord, that we should celebrate without understanding what we celebrate, or, like our counterparts so long ago, fail to see the star or to hear the song of glorious promise. As our hearts yield to the spirit of Christmas, may we discover that it is Thy Holy Spirit who comes—not a sentiment, but a power—to remind us of the only way by which there may be peace on the earth and good will among men. May we not spend Christmas, but keep it, that we may be kept in its hope, through Him who emptied Himself in coming to us that we might be filled with peace and joy in returning to God.

Peter Marshall

“Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”

Luke 2:14
The New King James Version

May Peace be your gift at Christmas
and your blessing all year through!

Unknown

December 22, 2022 by Greg

This Day’s Thought-Thursday

The simple shepherds heard the voice of an angel and found their Lamb; the wise men saw the light of a star and found their Wisdom.

Fulton Sheen

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.

Luke 2:4-5
The New International Version

This old Christmas greeting from a letter written between 1387-1455

I salute you. I am your friend, and my love for you goes deep. There is nothing I can give you which you have not already; but there is much, very much, which though I cannot give it, you can take. No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in today. Take heaven. No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this precious little instant. Take peace. The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. There is radiance and courage in the darkness could we but see it; and to see, we have only to look. Life is so generous a giver, but we, judging its gifts by their coverings, cast them away as ugly or heavy or hard. Remove the covering, and you will find beneath it a living splendor, woven of love, and wisdom, and power. Welcome it, greet it, and you touch the angel’s hand that brings it.

Everything we call a trial, a sorrow, a duty, believe me, that angel’s hand is there, the gift is there, and the wonder of an overshadowing Presence. Our joys, too, be not content with them as joys. They, too, conceal diviner gifts. Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty beneath its covering, that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven. Courage, then, to claim it, that is all! But courage you have, and the knowledge that we are pilgrims winding through unknown country our way home.

And so, at this Christmas time, I greet you, not quite as the world sends greeting, but with profound esteem now and forever.

The day breaks and the shadows flee away.

Giovanni da Fiesole

December 21, 2022 by Greg

This Day’s Thought-Wednesday

How fortunate we are that before we enter the New Year we first pass through Bethlehem, hear the Christmas angels “their great glad tidings tell,” and lose our old fears in renewed faith.

Gates of Beauty

In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register.

Luke 2:1-3
The New International Version

There was a lady in the state hospital. She carried the card that a friend of ours sent her in a little draw-string bag and during the entire Christmas season she would stop people and say, “Look at my Christmas card. The lady I worked for sent it to me. “I’m not forgotten.” We heard later that card, the only one she received, was the beginning of her recovery.

Reamer Kline

December 20, 2022 by Greg

This Day’s Thought-Tuesday

God has no birthday. Every human being has a day he can look back to as the time of his beginning. With God there is no beginning and no ending, so we cannot think of His birthday. Yet, in a beautiful way, He has made it possible for us to celebrate the day when His love showed itself in human form—the birthday of Jesus. This is the deepest meaning of Christmas. Everything else stems from this central fact that it is the birthday of the Son of God. “Love came down at Christmas,” wrote Christina Rossetti. God’s love was shown in Jesus, who was born of a human mother and wrapped, like any tiny baby, in swaddling cloths and laid in a manger, because there was no room in the inn.

Pathways of Prayer

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world.

John 1:6-9
The New King James Version

Christmas is the day that holds all time together.

Alexander Smith

December 19, 2022 by Greg

This Day’s Thought-Monday

Christmas is based on an exchange of gifts: the gift of God to man—his Son; and the gift of man to God—when we first give ourselves to God.

Vance Havner

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanu-el.

Isaiah 7:14
The Revised Standard Version

The story is told of a little boy whose family was very poor. He received no gifts at Christmastime, but he spent what time he could looking in the store windows at the pretty things other little boys could have, but he couldn’t. One day he was run over by a car and taken to a hospital. One of the nurses bought him a toy, a troop of soldiers. As he touched them, what do you think he said? “There isn’t any glass between!” Some day we shall see Christ face to face, with no “glass” in between.

Unknown

December 16, 2022 by Greg

This Day’s Thought-Friday

The function of prayer is to set God at the center of attention.

Albert Edward Day

And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:

Philippians 3:9
The King James Version

If there’s a job to be done, I always ask the busiest men in my parish to take it on and it gets done.

Henry Ward Beecher

December 15, 2022 by Greg

This Day’s Thought-Thursday

How completely satisfying to turn from our limitations to a God who has none. Eternal years lie in His heart. For Him time does not pass, it remains; and those who are in Christ share with Him all the riches of limitless time and endless years. God never hurries. There are no deadlines against which He must work. Only to know this is to quiet our spirits and relax our nerves. For those out of Christ, time is a devouring beast.

A. W. Tozer

How my spirit rejoices in God my Savior!

Luke 1:47
The New Living Translation

You aren’t an accident. You weren’t mass-produced. You aren’t an assembly-line product. You were deliberately planned, specifically gifted, and lovingly positioned on this earth by the Master Craftsman.

Max Lucado

December 14, 2022 by Greg

This Day’s Thought-Wednesday

This is a sane, wholesome, practical, working faith: first, that it is a man’s business to do the will of God; second, that God takes on himself the special care of that man; and third, that therefore that man ought never to be afraid of anything.

George MacDonald

For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

2 Corinthians 5:21
The New King James Version

If you would master temptation, you must first let Christ master you.

Unknown

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