A Church with a Heart for our Community

December 6th Tuesday

Greetings to you in the name of the One we are travelling to Bethlehem to encounter afresh…Jesus Christ – THE Risen Savior! Well, here we have another gray day…and yet “this is the day that the Lord has made, so we will rejoice and be glad in it!” I trust that your week is off to a good start…health is improving, tasks are getting done, and you are interacting with family and friends. Today I will be praying for, asking Father to release His joy to you so that you may experience strength…may you be used by God to encourage someone who needs it…and on this second week of Advent may you know “peace beyond understanding.”

I want to thank God for my friends who I have not met but have touched my life. They are the friends who have spoken into my life through the words that they have written…Paul David Tripp, Brian Simmons, Gretchen Rodriguez, Ann Graham Lotz, Greg Laurie, David Jeremiah, Larry Sparks, and the writing staff at Reframe Ministries. Today, I am particularly thankful for a paragraph that Ann Graham Lotz  wrote in “Just Give Me Jesus”: Again and again, I have been amazed to discover that the verse of Scripture or insight that God seems to give me in my early-morning quiet time with Him is the very same verse or insight I am called upon to give someone else during the day. Jesus offers us ample resources, but we have to receive them from Him in order to impart them to others.

It is a meaningful word to me because it happens to me quite often…and I believe it happens to you as well. In fact, one of my devotions gave me two verses to carry around in my thoughts today and I want to impart them to you. First – a favorite Christmas verse…All right then, the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God with us’). Isaiah 7:14 (NLT).

And because that verse, which is a prophecy, a divine prediction, a second verse becomes activated in our lives. We can read these words… Then Jesus (Immanuel) said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.” Matthew 11:28-30 (NLT).

Today, I want to encounter “Immanuel” and receive the rest that He can give in the midst of all that life is challenging me with…and I pray that you would want to have a similar encounter.

Have a great day…and be blessed.