The why of Christmas Words:Joy, Peace, Hope, Love

Christmas is almost upon us which makes it time for my yearly note on Christmas. The last couple of years I have talked about why Christmas and the fact of a relationship with Jesus. This year I decided to talk about some of the words associated with Christmas. In most Christmas displays and books on Christmas you see some certain words: Joy, Peace, Hope, Love. 

    Love comes from the fact that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten-or born-son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. And that God showed His great love toward us while we were yet enemies of God Christ died for us. The Just for the Unjust. God is Love and even though we-each one of us-blew it and became separated from God, He still wants us back and decided to do whatever it took to allow us the choice of forgiveness and a right relationship with Him.

   Hope comes from the fact that God loves each one of us. It matters not what we have done, how many times we have done it, or what was done to us. God is good at wiping away tears and healing our inner hurts and emotional issues. Again it doesn’t matter who we are, what we have done-or not done. God, The Creator, Loves You. He proved it in a simple way everyone can see and understand. And God gives us second chances in our lives. There is a judgement coming for He is the perfect Judge, but He has given us a way to be declared innocent and to skip the judgement. God is Love and will heal and forgive you. 

   Peace. Jesus said that He will gives us a peace that goes beyond understanding. It is there at all times and in all situations. God is there with you and is able to help in any situation. He is powerful, caring, all knowing and able to heal and help. He knows what we need, He knows our hearts and He is with us. That last is part of the Christmas message. God with us. As a people-as humankind, but also He is with us individually. Once we have the forgiveness for our sins He offers, we can know His peace and Know He Is With Us.

   Joy. This comes from a personal relationship with God. Jesus was born on the day we celebrate as Christmas, a very important event worthy of celebration. But He came to live as a perfect Human-He put aside His God powers and walked as a man. He then not only taught us about God and did wonderful things, but He died as an innocent man in our place. Each of our places. This wonderful gift brings Joy unspeakable. I have experienced this Joy and know how much above happiness it is. It is good to be happy, but this is above that. You can have this Joy in any circumstances, even in hurt, and trouble. It comes from Hope which I mentioned already, from knowing God is with us and from Jesus Himself. He promised to give us Joy and He keeps His promises.    

    The promise of Christmas is great and wonderful. Love for the whole world-love for each of us individually makes it fantastic. The promise that God is with us makes live worth living even if we feel the opposite. The promise, that came later, that Jesus would die for us thereby showing His great Love and allowing us forgiveness of sin and right standing with God gives us Hope. For salvation but for a changed live and healing also. Joy and Peace follow those like puppy dogs can follow their master. 

It is easy to believe this even if we think it isn’t. You really are one step away from this forgiveness and right standing with God and a healing relationship with Jesus. Tell God what you want, tell Him of your doubts, of your pain, of your sin. Even of your anger. He is a big God and knows how to deal with that too. 

There are churches, web sites, and individual people who can tell you more. The Bible is good for that too. 

Below are two places online where you can talk to people but there are a huge number of other places. 

Valley Christian Center 

A prayer for salvation

A Christmas message from Billy Graham    

A new podcast dealing with why Salvation through Jesus

This new podcast is from my pastor Bill Cheney. In it he discusses the reasons we need Jesus and he  shows Christians how to tell others about Jesus and the Hope that brings. Jesus is healing, hope, joy, peace and more importantly salvation or being right with God the Creator, He is not bad or just one of many. He is unique. This is a relationship with God the Creator not rituals or religious observances. He did the hard part. So anyone, no matter what  you have done, how many times you have done it or what was done to you, can know God, can know His love.

This podcast has good stuff, done with humor, logic and good explanations


In one spot toward the end a women comes out onto the platform wearing a long white smock over her clothes. It's strained all over with what looks like grey paint. Bill leads her over to a man height cross in one corner. As he explains what is happening he takes off the smock, nails it to the cross, then places a purple robe with gold trim around her shoulders. All to show what Jesus did for us, including the fact that someone did it for her, she didn't have to do anything except allow it.

If you are a Christian the final bit with the envelope is a good, simple way to show the Good News of Jesus.

Podcast

A four part series taught at my Church on "Science, The Stars and The son of God"

This is a four part series of podcasts recorded at my church- Valley Christian Center by one of our pastors, a Rene M. Charest
They were designed to help christians have the confidence to share Jesus in this modern world.
“To equip Christians with confidence to regain their voice in presenting the Good News to a lost world”

“To show the connection of man’s increasing knowledge of the natural world with the Word of God to reveal the unmistakable conclusion that everything from the Magnificently Large to the Infinitesimally Small points toward a God of Purpose and a Plan of redemption”

Pastor Rene uses humor, transparency, logic and facts to get his points across.

The first message subtitled "How Science Points Toward God" started with a mini video. The video showed various pics of scientific discoveries-including a launch of a shuttle-intermixed with a young man building a violin from scratch. Among other things a voice over explained how knowing how God created everything did not distract from Him doing it. The violin maker was a great illustration of that. You can study how each part worked and the process it took to make each part but yet still be amazed at watching a master craftsman put one together and than listening to how the various parts worked together.


The second message has a unique and light hearted yet serious method of explaining the difference of Astrology and Astronomy.

The third message was good 
as was the personal tale he begins number four with isn’t just humorous but it has an important point.

Number one

Number two 

Number three 

Number four

They are all worth listening to and the last one can give you ideas of how to tell others the Good News of Jesus or if you don't know Jesus, it gives you ideas of why you should get to know Jesus and to be saved. Good Stuff in either case

Fear of the Future a message by Bill Chaney

Free Podcasts 

Two weeks ago my pastor, Bill Chaney, finished a series of seven messages about Facing Fears. This is the first one: Fear of the Future.

Even though part of a series each one can be listened to on their own and each one has down home humor and points, transparency and solid advice. And of course vermiform the Bible and how God-and a relationship with Jesus-helps us with fear. There is a lot in the Bible dealing with fear-part of the every day advice it contains.

You can find this podcast here

A favor for a friend-a great Devotional book for everyone.

Something different from me today. Something I have meant to do for a few months but today I did it.

I want to share two books with you-both are devotionals which is what is different about this. Both were written by the same man, Larry Briney, who just today, July 31, celebrated 60 years as a Foursquare minister.

During one segment of those 60 years he worked for Valley Christian Center where he wrote a column for the bulletin for over 20 years. Both of these books are made up of many those messages. I read them for many of those years and I always looked forward to what Larry had to say. He's great, has good insight, good sense of humor, great illustrations.

In each of these two books are enough messages for every day of the year. They are worth the price and make good gifts.

Check them out at the link below and while you are there heck out his blog. He has some messages on it too. Great stuff there.


Right here 

For a break, a short, interesting mind picture

I was just discussing the Creation with someone about the need for light and heat before the sun etc. were made. 

An interesting mind picture formed as I finished my comments:

 God stood there, he wore a short white beard, large mustache that dropped over his upper lip. A half smile on his mouth. A railroad cap sat on his head and a delightful intense look in his eyes. He wore coveralls, like wood curves or mechanics wear sometimes. One hand was stretched out with the solar system, at least ours but maybe more, in the cup of that hand. Planets spun, and I could make out tiny blue and red planets and one covered with clouds. The planets spun around their sun(s). Blackness surrounded Him, but His spot could be clearly seen. 
  Spotlights shot out from his eyes lighting up the planets. His hand under the planets glowed with warmth. In his other hand he held a pair of tweezers much like those used by model ship makers. He inserted the point of the tweezers into the system to make last minute adjustments. His smile grew. 

More than likely that wasn't even close to what happened during creation except in the basic idea but still fun to think of. 

That's it for this post-said it was short. :) 

Reasoning behind the events of what we call Easter

I had one post explaining Good Friday and Easter-Resurrection Day-and this one is a message from my pastor on why of Good Friday and what we now call Easter,

 

An Easter message, but it is worth a listen to any day. It breaks down each phrase in John 3:16 to explain the Reasoning behind the events of the day most now call Easter.

Bill Chaney uses humor, down to earth illustrations and logic to show what it all means. He is clear in his explanations and examples which is why I say it's worth listening to.

And you can download a sermon outline PDF that you can fill out and keep. 

The link to the podcast is here.

Happy listening 

Time for my Christmas post for '15 Why Christmas: He is with us. He is love, the first step for grace

 Time for my yearly post about what Christmas is all about. To new readers: I have done this for something like five years. I usually deal with the fact that Jesus being born was a sign that God is with Us. Not only Us as in all of humanity but Us as in individually. God the Creator of the universe is with us. That idea can create Hope in every situation. God can deal with and heal your situations, issues, hurts and actions. He is also there to hold you through it all too. Or to help you become an even better person.  

      Christmas is also a sign and is evidence of God’s love. That is Jesus’ birth was and still is a definite sign of the fact that God is love. Again not only humanity as a whole but you individually. No matter what hurts, hangups, habits you have. No matter what you have done or not done God the Creator loves you. All peoples groups, all races, all nationalities, all of us-yes, that last was redundant but there was a purpose to the redundancy. A solid point I wanted to make. 

     So Christmas-Jesus being born in a stable to a simple girl, placed in a manger, the shepherds, the angel announcement, the whole thing. There have been plenty of pictures, real displays, movie scenes that show this moment. It doesn’t matter if there was snow outside the stable or if, as some think, it was a cave or a very simple structure, the important thing is that He was born. And that not only is that moment being a show of God’s love and that it is God with us, as I stated already, but it was also the first step in God’s plan of Grace. He had to be born, had to grow up, had to teach and show miracles, had to have temptations and had to die and had to be resurrected so that we-as in you and me-can be forgiven and thereby can know God. Sin was a big problem and it had to be dealt with as in completely done away with in our lives. He showed we could not live up to a series of rituals and commandments, that our own efforts got us no closer to God. Yet He still loved us and to prove that love He sent His only Begotten Son so that whoever believes in Him should not perish-should not die separated from God. He also showed His great love toward us in that while we were yet sinners God sent Jesus to die for us. That is the part of the Christmas story that is Love. God Sent us His Son, born of a woman. That is Love! That is why we rejoice over Christmas; not only is God with us in a way He hadn’t been before, not only does it show His Love for all of us but it is His gift to us. Grace is unmerited favor-we don’t earn it or deserve it. We are saved by grace so that no one can boost. That is why Joy and Peace are a part of Christmas as well as love-hope should be too for Jesus is the hope creator. Noel is another word for Christmas and could come from a word that meant birth. It has become a short way to say celebrate Jesus was born. 

As with any gift we have to receive it. God still allows the free will He made us with, so it is your choice to receive it or not. Good things come with receiving it: most important total forgiveness of your sins-they are done away with-but also healing of hurts, hangups and habits, plus Joy so good it is unspeakable and peace that passes understanding and a love that is terrific. Yes, there are changes which can be rough but over all it is definitely worth it.

If you choose it, tell God, tell someone else, read the Bible. Just talk to God as you would anyone you know. He knows you need it and He knows your pains and hurts and your sins so agree with Him-say it. He understands pain, plain talk and if you are not totally sure about this. 

If you need or want more info you can contact me or my church even at VCC or their contact page 

To explain more about Christmas here is a link to what was Billy Graham’s Advent Devotional week one. This was back from Nov 29, there are now two more weeks of devotionals.

right here

And these steps to salvation, Here  with two buttons at the bottom for more information.