My yearly-2017-why we celebrate Christmas message: Joy and God with us.

              

Christmas: why we celebrate it and why it is important.

   The word Joy is a part of Christmas decorations: Joy, Peace, Hope and Love. And there is a reason for that. Jesus, later in his life on the Earth, promised us Joy unspeakable. Joy is a large and good emotion. It is to happiness as an old fashion search light is to a 100 watt bulb. And we are promised it because of what Jesus did after being born here. 

    Some want to argue about what time of the year He was born, but the important thing is that He was. For He was not born to make another religion, but to make a way so we can have a relationship with God. On other words to show us how to be forgiven, and have right standing with the Creator. Joy comes from that relationship-in actually knowing God the Creator. No matter the circumstances we are in, no matter what was done to us, Joy is from God and knowing Him. That brings healing and hope and forgiveness. Joy is a bright light and it comes from God. It is something He wants to give to us individually. Yes, God wants to give you Joy. No matter what you have done, how many times you have done it or what was done to you. God Loves You and wants Joy in your life.

    Another reason we celebrate Christmas is that it shows us that God is with us. He was suppose to be called Emmanuel or God with us. Later in His life on the earth said, “Lo, I am with you even to the uttermost parts of the earth,” or whatever we are going through, or have gone through. God the Creator was born as a wholly God and wholly Man to make a way, as I said, to have right standing with Him, so we can have an eternal relationship with Him. That starts now, which means He is with us every day, all the time. He has your back, as the saying goes. 

So we celebrate Christmas because He is with us, because it is a sign for His Great love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us, because He gives us Joy unspeakable. So good we cannot describe it. 

It doesn’t take much to start a relationship with God. Believing and saying to Him what we want. Believing is just accepting what He said, it is simple. You are closer to it than you may think. In this case that we would be forgiven, that He would be with us and that He would give us Joy-among other things. 

So yes Christmas is a good thing and it is a good thing to celebrate-however we do. 

Merry Christmas

An important Post- Why is Easter a day of celebration

Hello everyone and Happy Easter. Hope you all have a good one, or had one depending on when you read this. It is a little late. 

Some of you may remember that I post a Christmas and Easter greeting every year. This is this year's Easter post. It gets kinda of serious but explains why Easter is so important to Christians-in case any here on G+, Facebook and my blog doesn't know, or forgets in the excitement or bummer of a day. 

 It is Easter or The Resurrection Day. We, in our society, have added eggs, rabbits, baby ducks and such to the celebration, for good reasons and bad but they are a side party. The main point is Forgiveness and Hope and that God the Creator Loves us when He didn’t have to. 

We celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus because it was what we needed. The whole Easter event-Good Friday happenings and the Sunday Happening we needed.  

The day we celebrate the most important day for Christians and for mankind. It is the resurrection-the full raising of Jesus physically from the dead for it that shows we are forgiven.     

      Christmas is a good day. It shows that God is with us and that God Loves Each of us. Jesus did a lot of good things while he lived: healings, deliverances and teachings. But His main purpose was what happened on Good Friday. His Death as a sinless man. A man who knew perfection from the moment of his birth until His last breath. Yet He chose to die as a sinner-as a man who had disobeyed God in every way possible. And this was not an ordinary death, but a horrible execution with torture and ridicule as part of it. Yet He did it on purpose, He did this to prove of God’s Love for us, and so we could be forgiven-have right standing with God. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son so that none might perish or by judged. God showed His great love toward us while we were yet sinners Christ died for us, in our place. For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.

    And then He rose Jesus from the dead, as I said, to show His Forgiveness and to show His power over death and sin. We are now totally forgiven-one hundred percent-there is nothing left to forgive. I have said this before and I will say it more. It matters not what you have done, how many times you done it, what you have not done or what has been done to you. God will forgive you because God Loves You. All sin is pretty much the same to Him, even though to us some are a whole lot worse than others. But God has to forgive it all or none because we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. God is perfect and each sin is more than treason toward Him and we would be destroyed in His presence because of one sin. Yet as I said God Showed His great love toward us in that while we were yet sinners-disobedient-treasonous  Jesus died for us. And for the same reason Jesus rose from the dead on Easter. Because of His great love toward us. Because that is what we needed.  

Now, we can have Hope, Joy, right standing with God, Peace of heart and mind and a Relationship with God. That is what Christianity really is about. It’s not a religion but a relationship with God made possible by Jesus’ death and Resurrection. 

That is a great thing-a life changing thing-a hope thing.

One that isn’t that hard either:

Romans 10: 9,10    “That if you will confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in your heart that God hath raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

10For with the heart man believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”  That’s it. Jesus did the hard part, you can do the easy. 

Everyone “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

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

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.

Developing a Winning World View parts Five and Six-a audio series by my Pastor Bill Chaney

A while back I posted a link to a podcast on iTunes for worldview message by my pastor Bill Chaney. The correct title is “Developing a Winning Worldview”. I also posted a second message in that series directly on Google+. I decided to finish off the series back here on my blog.  Here is a link that Post 

For those on Google+ here is the link to my post there  

Here are links to Parts Five and six of "Developing a Winning Worldview"

Part Five 

Part Six

If you are interested in the whole six part series these links take you to where you can download the one message but if you click on the Valley Christian Center above the line it will take you to the whole podcast page. On it you will be able to find all parts, one through six, and any previous messages you may want to listen to. Depending on how long into the future you read this you of course have to scroll down, but you should be able to find the “Developing A Winning Worldview” series. 

If you click on the light blue note that says,  “Sermon Outline Download (.pdf)”  you can download a PDF file of the sermon outline. The church hands these out each week, so anyone who wants to can fill in the blanks and add any additional notes they want to.

The sub title to number five is “What Will Make Our World Better” and has a lot of info on that subject. Bill deals with various approaches to World problems with a short description of how each method works.

The second section of Number five deals with “The Hope of The World is to Recognize The Significance of Jesus’ Sacrifice”. It contains a lot of good stuff that I would like more people to hear: “He Took My Punishment”, “He Bought My Freedom”, “He Restored My Relationship”, “He Gave Me a New Identity”, finally “He Defeated Death And the Devil”.

These two messages have important info on how Jesus works, how to live a good life. They are well done with humor and clear ideas. 

In closing I would like to say that Jesus is Lord and He Loves us each one of us individually as much as He can. He promised us not only a forgiveness of sin and a right-good-relationship with God the Creator, but He also promised us Peace that goes beyond understanding, a Joy so good that you can’t explain it  and Love so great that it is beyond even human love as good as that can be. 

If you want to talk to someone here is a link to the contact page of Valley’s web site. Right Here

And if you like facebook here’s their facebook page 

Happy New Year All And......

Happy New Year

May you have a really good Year, including one with hope and Joy and Peace.  Whether you had a great '14, a bad one, one with both good and bad, or even a mediocre one without any Great joys nor Bad pains remember ’15 can be a year of change or an even better life.  Jesus Christ said that He would leave us Peace that goes beyond understanding and He would not leave us alone in this world. The Holy Spirit can be with us while we face The Good, The Bad or the In-between. Hope is there for us too because God is with us--as we learned with Christmas-and He knows what He is doing. Nothing takes Him by surprise or by hook or crook. He can’t be conned either. 

I am talking about a relationship with that Jesus of the Bible, not just going to church, or not just reading the Bible. And the person of Jesus in our lives: with us as we live our lives. He loves you enough to make a difference in your live now and Heaven later on. 

He is more on Hope; a Billy Graham video. 

And a second one dealing with the Cross. Why it is important to us now. 

And a link how to contact my church if you would like more info on Jesus-hope-salvation, Juts put what info you need in the header,  or leave a comment here. 

My Easter-Resurrection Day Message 2014

           This is my yearly post on Easter or as a lot of Christians call it Resurrection day. I’ve done three of these I believe, all dealing with the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ. This one will be a bit different, so read on please:

      First a quick lesson on Jewish temple practices. As many of you but not all,  probably know in the Old Testament temple there was a special room called the Holy of Holies. Inside was the ark of the covenant-when they still had it. It was maybe three to four feet long and wide enough for someone to sit on it. It had poles stuck into each side so it could be carried. Angels sat on either side of the center. Once a year the high Priest would go in with a bowl of blood from a sacrificed lamb. He would sprinkle it on what was known as the mercy seat of God. This way the people’s sins would be covered for a year. The priest would wear clothes God designed and he had a rope tired around his middle that trailed behind him. The rope was in case he died--either by a natural cause or if God killed him for judgement--and he would be pulled out of the Holy of Holies with the rope because no one else could go in there and live. 

Today thanks to Jesus’s death we can go in there, without a rope. God’s judgement has been satisfied and those of us who believe it and have received his Mercy and Grace have been cleansed of our sins therefore have nothing to worry about in heaven or in any building here on Earth. Here is a link to a song video that acts out the Priest’s trip into the Holy of Holies and how later on in it the singers are in the Holy of Holies symbolizing that we are free of God’s Judgement. We can step to God the Father and not be rejected or turned away for any reason.

Here the video:

Right here

And here are a some verse dealing with the importance of the Resurrection of Jesus after His death for our sins-in our place.

And I will add that not only do we have right standing with God and complete forgiveness of sins but Joy unspeakable and a Peace that passes understanding and a Love that goes beyond humn knowledge. The inner peace comes from knowing someone as big as God and that our eternity is with Him not the place of judgement. 

All of this is what makes Easter--The Resurrection Day where celebrate Jesus coming back alive wonderful. We see He is the Son of God, that He is our Kinsman redeemer--buying us back from where we sold ourselves, The Joy and Peace Giver, that our sins--rebellion against God-has been totally forgiven, It is a great event to celebrate.

__Romans 1:1-4 

Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, 2(Which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures,) 3Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; 4And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:__

__1st Corinthians 15: 17-21

And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. 18Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. 19If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. 20But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. 21For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. ___

___Rom 10: 9 King James V.

That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.___

____John 14:26 and 27

26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. 27 Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. ____

___1 Peter 1:8

Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory:___ 

Too more Videos that talk about this Greeat event.

A Good one

One more

Short Message on what Christmas is all about.

I'm a bit late with this but at least it's not the 25th yet.  :)

 Christmas is a time to celebrate the Love of God. 

He sent Jesus to be born and to live as a man for us because we needed it. His love transforms us. Parephrasing a certain song we are special in the arms of Jesus. No matter who are, have done, have not done or what people have done to us.

I believe the main reason Jesus went through all this: living and dying as a man, the teachings and miracles, physically raising from the dead, was so we can be right with God and go to heaven. We can’t be good enough we have to do it His Way. On top of that there are good things that come along with His Forgiveness. Like His Love and acceptance of us no matter what, as I referenced a moment ago. There’s also Peace that passes all understanding and Joy so great you can’t explain it. And Hope that is great because it’s based on what the Creator promised and is able to fulfill. All that is embodied in Christmas. 

All of us need His love and Forgiveness.

Even if you one of the few who really have it all together with very little if any emotional baggage and everything you do succeeds, you still need his forgiveness--at some time or another you will need his Peace even if it’s only when you die. 

The rest of us need His Love, acceptance, Mercy-Grace. 

So that is a short synopses of what Christmas is all about. A day to show God’s special unconditional Love for us all. And to show That God IS With US. He doesn’t hate us or turn his back on us. He sent Jesus as a baby to show us what He thinks of us.