PARASKEVIDEKATRIAPHOBIA

"But refuse profane and old wives' fables, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness" (1 Timothy 4.7)

Super-cala-fragilistic-espeali-dotious?

No I wasn't typing with my eyes closed. Its a real word...The fear of Friday the 13th. PARASKEVIDEKATRIAPHOBIA...
Jesus told the Pharisees,"You make the word of God of no effect through your tradition" (Mark 7.13) Traditions can morph into superstition. They can make life seem like work and rob us of freedom and cage us in fear.Whats the big deal about Friday the Thirteenth? Ooooh…are you shaking yet? Cue music from the Twilight Zone. Paul said of the Athenians, “ye are too superstitious” (Acts 17:22). How about you? Given the choice, would you rather sit in seat-13 or seat-7 on an airplane? And you say you aren’t at all superstitious? Some baseball players refuse to wear the number 13.“This is the day the Lord has made!” rejoice said the psalmist, but some don’t believe him. They stay clear of ladders, cracks in the sidewalk, black cats,their mother in law. Some people will even look for an excuse to avoid Bible study on Friday the 13th...or is that just on any Friday? Cub fans are still dragging Billy goats into Wrigley Field every year in an effort to "reverse the curse" ... Superstitious? Nah.........
 It is estimated that 17 million to 21 million Americans will suffer symptoms of paraskevidekatriaphobia ranging from nervous giggles to pull-the-covers-over-your-head terror.Its also estimated US businesses will lose $ 750 million today because some people refuse to shop, travel or take risks on Friday the 13th.C'mon People!
What if Good Friday fell on Friday the 13th,would it still be Good Friday or Good Friday the 13th? I wonder if anyone ever found a hair in their soup at Ruby Tuesday’s on a Wednesday? I wonder if anyone ever got depressed during a Monday rainstorm while listening to Karen Carpenter sing “rainy days and Mondays always get me down? I wonder if anyone every had bad luck on Saturday the 14th singing the Bay City Rollers S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y night? Did the Mama's and Papa's ever had a bad Monday,Monday.Ever had a Manic Monday? You don't have to walk like an Egyptian to avoid Friday the 13th. Instead, let’s see EVERY DAY,win or lose as a gift of God, With Jesus everyday is sweeter than the day before which should make every Friday the 13th a gift from God. Then we can go to TGIF’s and order the Tortilla-Crusted Tilapia, It’s really good! But don't forget Friday the 13th Bible Study first ......

FAITH FILLED FRIDAY! Wallow or Follow?

“And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate…” Luke 15.15
Viva LOST Vegas
Yeah,forbidden fruit can cause many jams.That's what happened to the prodigal.Ungrateful,selfish.Here is a picture of a guy that has given up.Settling for the temporary.Excuse me, but I would rather have the corn on the cob,than the cob.This guy is in serious need of a faith lift.
Mr.P took his inheritance and headed for Lost Vegas. A few days of the swallowing and wallowing will change a guy’s tune. Jonah got “swallowed” whole and it brought him back to his senses and then he followed God's will. The same happened to the prodigal after a few days feeding porky. Soon the enemy convinced him that he could do no better. Wallowing becomes disastrous to self-image and identity. The boy squandered the inheritance.Big city life costs more than green acres, you know. Sin pays out a demeaning paycheck. Soon he had lost all respect for himself. The smell of the pig lot got in his beard, his clothes, his nasal passages. He probably tried to wash and maintain former hygiene at first but the relentless condemnation of the evil one battered his self-esteem. Tide could not take it out.Finally, I believe the barrage took its toll and the guy gave up. That’s what happens to an unshaven, unclean, unkempt wino, for instance. The passerby sees him wallowing in it. Wallowing in the self-pity, the grief, the bitterness and unforgiveness,depression.Its my pity party and I'll wallow if I want to.

Pity Party Pig Pen
We are too blessed to remain depressed! Diana and I just arrived back in the state from our mission trip to Chemax Mexico.A remote place on this planet where the people have everything to complain about but happily live their lives without.No self pit,no pity party.The pity party is the loneliest party we can attend. No fun,no games,and it really stinks.There’s a wide chasm between following and wallowing but wallowing can happen even to Bible-toter's. The sore festers. The old pain of he said/ she said rises up again and next you’re laying awake counting offenses instead of counting sheep. The prodigal wallowed in the hog pen begging for husks “and no one gave him anything”. That makes it clear, there is no profit in sulking, not so much as a hog’s husk. Some wallow in regret. They rehearse the past instead of letting God reverse the past. You can’t unscramble an egg and it takes a few broken ones to make an omelet.The judge said the divorce was “final”. What part of “final” don’t you understand? Get over it and get on with it. "That's easy for you to say",you might retort,But I have been there done that and I would much rather be at Fathers House than wallow with the pigs or for that matter live with one.Understand and get it in your brain that God stands in your future and waits there for you with open arms. When you’re wallowing you’re not following. See Peter warming himself by a fire? See Elijah sulking under a juniper tree? Some wallow in grief. Sure it hurts and everyone needs recovery time. But something is not right about a wound that oozes and never heals. Let the cut breathe.Arise and follow and say "ba-de ba-de-ba-de that's all folks" to the pity party pig pen..........

A Royal makeover
Our current culture is wallowing in filth and indulgence. Paul predicted that “perilous times shall come, for men shall be lover of their own selves…” (2 Timothy 3:1) It is one thing to makeover the body, quite another to make over the heart and let me say a change of mind doesn't necessarily alter the heart's condition,but its a start. From MTV to the covers of magazines at the grocery check-out, it is clear that America has been baptized in moral debauchery. The prodigal could only bear so much wallowing. He made a decision, “I will arise and go to my father…” The backslider and cold christian have tasted just how un-nourishing the husks are, and they want to come home. Well, the Father’s door is ALWAYS open. The key is still there on the ledge, son.daughter,friend. The prodigals’ problem was that he was still wallowing in regret. “How can Dad ever let me come back after all that I’ve messed up?”He changed his mind to come back to Father,but the heart hadn't changed....yet.As when he neared the home gate his father ran to him, embraced him and kissed his son. He traded husks for hugs. There was a restoration, a picture of justification. No mention was made of the past. Dad never mentioned the squandered inheritance or the nauseating odor.He gave the kid a royal makeover. He suited his son with a new set of clothes and a restored family identity.The son traded his self pity for peace.A pity party for a cookout feast.Wow! Speaking of feasts,among a hard week of labor God did give us a levity break every now and then.Came across a family where a couple was celebrating their wedding anniversary and the mans gift to his wife? A fat pig! God wants to throw us a party too if we can pick ourselves up and get back to Dad's house. Its time to wake up, rise up and come back to Father...Get motivated!


Nuff Said,

"Sensational Sunday" Leaving Smallville

We didn’t fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren’t small but you’re living them in a small way…Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!” (2 Corinthians 6:12,13 The Message Bible)

“The smallness you feel comes from within you”. Ooh, what an indictment. So we have no one else to blame. Before we blamed it on what side of the tracks we were born on or whether anyone in our family tree ever went to college, Mommy or Daddy, alcoholism or drugs,a broken heart. Our pain and disappointment fenced us in. Here, Paul, paraphrased by Eugene Peterson, says the constriction is internal, not external. “Your lives aren’t small but you’re living them in a small way” What a waste of good potential. God who is big enough to fill the universe is also small enough to live within our hearts. So faith capacity shouldn’t be at issue. No need to stay in "Smallville" forever.

Here we are living in Smallville, the town "Plano" Illinois. Not living within the limits we sometimes place on the Living God, You've done it, I've done it. We limit God at times based on our own personal inventory of disappointment, When plan "A" failed and plan "B" fell short we went to Plan "o" Plano. Disappointment may be divine re-appointment. Where is God is calling out to you to trust him? To live expansively and open? Believe me, Life has become anything but plain in Plano.

You have to SEE it to BE it. Maybe you can't fit a new house into your faith because of a bankruptcy, divorce or your not making enough money but if you can see it,visualize the impossible, call something out of nothing,it can happen. Can you fit whatever you desire into your inner man? Once your spirit-man has caught the vision the rest will be history,Then God and you can make history.

What can you fit into your inner man? Will a new house fit in there? Is it wide enough to accommodate opening up a business, taking that vacation to Europe, or drawing up blueprints for a ten-thousand seat sanctuary instead of five-hundred seat? I’m stretching the elastic to accommodate my life for a few faith "things" like a new lawn mower. Well, you have to start somewhere. Seldom does a man sit in the cockpit of the plane until he has first visualized it. That is called a flight simulator. No red cape under the suit? The Bible is a faith simulator (and stimulator). When you see what Paul could do, what Peter could do, what Jesus did, your own faith is stirred with that motivation that voices, “I can do that!” Capacity stretches and moves you on to the Big "Metropolis" of "I can do "...

Time to leave "Smallville"
What you couldn’t do at sixteen doesn’t determine what you can or cannot do at thirty-five, forty five even seventy five. Paul said, “We didn’t fence you in”. We are our own worst enemies. We dig our own post holes, pour in the sack of Quick-crete to secure the base then string the wires of our own defeat. We build our own walls of doubt, fear and insecurity. Blame it on a lack of collateral, lack of mother’s affection when we were small, lack of education or lack of whatever, but usually it is more a lack of spine, lack of vision or lack of temper.“Winners are just ex-losers that got mad”. Our spiritual “insides” will stretch or shrink just like the spare tire under the ribcage, according to what we feed it. Faith has to be fed a strong diet of God's Word, the promises of God. Once you can see yourself at the wheel of that new car or holding the keys to your new house, then you can free yourself to believe enough to SOAR…or whatever else you think God desires for you.
Leave"Smallville" the smallville of your doubt and God may lead you where you never could have imagined he would.

Nuff Said,

TURN AROUND THURSDAY A Turn of Events

“...for the turn of events was from God, that the Lord might fulfill his word, which he had spoken…” (2 Chronicles 10:15 NKJV)

The old King James says “the cause was from God”. James Moffatt translated, “This was a turn of things brought about by God”. New Revised Standard Version called it a “turn of affairs”, NASB and NKJV, “turn of events”. There is not room here to discuss all that happened to cause the people to shift allegiance from Rehoboam to Jeroboam. Suffice to say that things happen. The ball bounces the other way,realities shift,perceptions change,worlds collide, circumstances converge. The pivotal moment comes and a fork in the road appears.The tide turns.What God doesn't prevent,he step's in and stages intervention.He can turn events in our favour within minutes. Some call it coincidence, some mere incidents or accidents, but we know it’s divine providence.

In the faith-life there are lots of turns of events. God never leaves a calling card but the circumstance is often so remarkable that no thinking man would question who was behind it. He knows how to work all things together for good. The reason for the intervention is “that the Lord might fulfill his word, which he had spoken…” God cannot lie (Titus 1:2). If He has to split the Red Sea for Moses or make the sun stand still for Joshua to validate His promise He’ll take whatever measures are necessary. Whatever it takes.How does a turn of events occur? Eternity intersects. You cross paths with someone who can help you, the right person at the right place at the right time. In Rehoboam’s case the turn of events was negative. Contrariwise, by faith we look for the positive, the serendipitous. We expect favor. We expect miracles.

God is up to something. I don’t know how but He can make the sundial turn backwards like He did for Hezekiah, if He has to. He can still make an ax head swim like He did for Elisha. Joseph would never have taken Mary to Bethlehem for Jesus’ birth had Caesar Augustus not required everyone under his reign to return to their hometown to be taxed. Think that through. Micah 5:2 said the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. God turned the wheels of the whole Roman Empire to move Mary to Bethlehem in order to execute prophetic fulfillment. Talk about a turn of events! There are a lot of “but God” verses in the Bible – “Ye thought evil against me; but God meant it for good…” (Genesis 50:20) The other Joseph was sold into slavery “but God was with him” (Acts 7:9). Jesus was nailed to a cross “but God raised him from the dead” (Acts 13:30). Blessed turn of events! This text revives hope. No situation is beyond His control. God is the chess champ. He sees the whole board where we only see limited moves. Leave strategy with Him. Relax. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. Your disappointment is not a mis-appointment. The bend in the road is not the end of the road. Your steps and your stops are in the divine design. One guy would have been in the Trade Tower on 9/11 but he misplaced his car keys, another had a flat, another got caught in traffic. Each had a turn of events and each had a miracle though it made no sense while changing the flat tire or sitting in the traffic jam. “The turn of events was from God and it can happen even on a Tuesday…”

Nuff Said,

Weird Al's Song of Love

 "Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice" Ephesians 4.13

Soon it it'll be time to  "celebrate" Valentine's Day again and I decided to go through a rigorous analysis of the metaphors in Weird Al's unique ode to love, "One More Minute" Please consider this is a love song parody, and should be taken lightheartedly. If you are familiar with Weird Al's work, you'll know what I mean.If you have recently been dumped,or re-re-dumped,I would suggest prayer and fasting and connecting with someone who truly cares about your feelings...............In other words DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. If you've ever had a bad breakup you will be able to relate.

The song begins with a straightforward accounting of the recent events in Weird Al's life

Well, I heard that you're leavin' Gonna leave me far behind 'Cause you found a brand new love,You decided that I'm not your kind.
So I pulled your name out of my Rolodex and I tore all your pictures in two and I burned down the malt shop where we used to go.Just because it reminds me of you. Poor Al seems to be willing to suffer for this relationship. As a resident of California, his act of arson is subject to between three and eight years in jail. But there's no metaphor at issue yet.

That's right, you ain't gonna see me cryin' I'm glad that you found somebody new 'Cause I'd rather spend eternity eating shards of broken glass. Than spend one more minute with you

Now things get more interesting. Obviously, Al isn't going to live forever,(unless he is born again,which seems unlikely at the time of his writing this song) but we can reasonably interpret "eternity" to mean "the rest of his life". So how much glass would Al eat in his lifetime?

The average American lifespan is around 77 years, and the song came out when Al was 26, so we're looking at 51 years of eating glass. Typical human stomachs range in capacity from 1.5 to 4 liters. If we assume that Al eats three square meals of broken glass each day, and that each meal comes in at the low end of capacity, that's 4.5 liters per day, or 256,230 liters of glass in his lifetime. How many bottles would Al have to smash to get that glass? Let's figure that a 16-oz. bottle (roughly 0.57 liters) can be shattered into glass representing about half as much volume, or 0.285 liters, meaning that Al will need 899,052 typical soda bottles to meet his commitment. Let's hope he can buy them wholesale! or not.

I guess I might seem kinda bitter You got me feelin' down in the dumps'cause I'm stranded all alone in the Gas Station of Love and I have to use the self-service pumps

If Al is stranded at the self-service pumps, assuming he drives a car with about 20 mpg fuel economy, and

does about 15,000 miles per year, with an 18 gallon gas tank (assuming he fills up every time he hits 16 gallons), he'll fill up 46.9 (call it 47) times. Assuming he saves about $0.30/gallon by not using the full-service pumps, he'll pocket $281.Lets just pray his his sake and ours that the gas prices level out. So this doesn't work out badly for him -- actually, it's just about perfect.

Oh, so honey, let me help you with that suitcase.You ain't gonna break my heart in two' cause I'd rather get a hundred thousand paper cuts on my face,Than spend one more minute with you

Talk about getting rid of baggage.The paper cuts sound painful, but it's not much of a sacrifice on Al's part. How much blood do we get out of a paper cut? This proved hard to estimate, Since it draws about 0.3 micro liters, we'll guess a paper cut comes in at about 0.5 micro liters. If Al gets 100,000 paper cuts on his face, and each one bleeds out .5 micro liters, he'll bleed about .05 liters. A standard unit of blood for transfusion is 495 mL, so since Al has only lost about 1/10 the amount of blood needed for a transfusion, the odds are good he'll live through this one and just need a ton of batman band-aids.

I'd rather rip out my intestines with a fork,Than watch you going out with other men.I'd rather slam my fingers in a door,Again and again and again and again and again

As for ripping out his intestines with a fork, the procedure is called seppuku.It involves a sword called a wakizasi which has a blade about 20 inches long, roughly three times the length of typical forks so if Al tries to commit seppuku with a fork --- he's in a lot of trouble. This may be his intent -- since Al doesn't mention having a second, he's probably trying to commit jumonji-giri which is an enhanced version that's even more painful than the standard version.Slamming fingers is not that big a deal...it hurts less than a broken heart....Lets continue.......

I'd rather have my blood sucked out by leeches.Shove an ice pick under a toenail or two...

The leech issue is complicated, because it can depend on two fairly divergent measurements of how much blood a leech can suck out. An article from the Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development indicates that a leech can suck about 4.7 mL over 3 hours, or roughly 1.6 mL/hour. But another article, admittedly a more popular-science treatment of leeches in medicine, suggests that the correct figure is more like 15-30 mL over a period ranging from 20 minutes to an hour. At an average of 14-18 pints of blood per human adult, it would take one leech (working on 16 pints, or 7.5 liters), about 4687 hours to completely drain Al. Assuming Al doesn't eat or drink anything, since loss of 30% of blood volume can lead to

irreversible shock, it will take the leech about 1406 hours, or 58 days, to finish Al off. He'd die of thirst in just 15 days, though, so 4 leeches would be needed for the job. To do it in one day, he'd need 60 leeches, and at $4.75 a pop, that would mean Al would need to add just $4 to the money he saved from using the self-service pumps at the Gas Station of Love. So he shouldn't act on this for at least a year.

Actually, once the leech gorges itself (according to the pop-science article), it's done eating for up to 18 months while it digests, slowly. Assuming reasonably that 30% of blood volume works out to 2,250 mL, or 150 leeches. Which means he'll really need to spend about 2 1/2 years at the gas station to save up the money for his continued act of love,during which time he might reconsider.As far as the icepick is concerned,that could really hurt depending on which little piggy Weird Al decides to assault.

I'd rather clean all the bathrooms in Grand Central Station with my tongue,Than spend one more minute with you 
This always sounded to me like the second-most impressive claim in the song (trailing only the grand finale), but the truth appears to be far more depressing -- it's actually not nearly that much of a sacrifice. According to an article on toilets at Grand Central Terminal ,there are only 32 ladies' stalls, and 6 men's stalls, in the public area, plus 4 more of each in private areas which can be hired out for receptions according to a FAQ a the GCT website. Having said that, the only bathroom listings shown in the GCT web site's directory are on the lower dining concourse, just like the article said was the case prior to the remodeling job it discusses, so it's entirely possible that these figures are accurate. Admittedly, 46 toilets is 46 more than Al is willing to clean with his own tongue, but the lyrics make it sound like we're talking about several hundred.It would be far more impressive if he tried this at Wrigley Field during April or Soldier field during mid December.

Yes, I'd rather jump naked on a huge pile of thumbtacks Or stick my nostrils together with Krazy Glue,I'd rather dive into a swimming pool filled with double-edged razor blades Than spend one more minute with you

How many thumbtacks could get stuck in Al if he jumped into said pile? Well, Al is 6' 0" (from his website), and 170 pounds, so we'll figure that he's got a waist size of about 32", Treating Al as a cylinder, which has a surface area of 2*pi*r*^2 + 2*pi*r*h, and dropping the first term since he doesn't really end in neat circles, we get a rough surface area of 7234 square inches. We'll take off about 20% to deal with deviations from non-cylindricality, for about 5780 square inches. Thumbtacks come in a range of sizes, from 5/16" to 1/2" heads. We'll go with the 5/16" size, assume no overlap, and also assume that he gets completely covered with tacks from rolling around after the initial impact, which means that at 0.31 square inches per thumbtack, Al will be on the receiving end of 18,645 thumbtacks, which works out to $658 worth using the nice nickel-plated ones .That's at $3.53 per box.Sticking the nostrils together with Krazy glue just means Al would not be able to blow his nose for a while so its the less of his sacrifice for love.

So how many razors it would take to fill Al's hypothetical swimming pool? A standard Olympic-sized swimming pool runs 50 meters by 25 meters by 2 meters, or 2500 cubic meters. Browsing the web for straight razor dimensions yields mostly dimensions specified in terms of cases, not blades, but reasonable figures seem to be about six inches long, two inches wide, and a half-inch thick, which means that at .0034 cubic feet per blade, or .00009 cubic meters, it would take 25.4 million blades to fill the pool.

And finally, the ultimate act of self-destruction, Al's concludes:

I'd rather rip my heart right out of my rib cage with my bare hands,And then throw it on the floor and stomp on it 'til I die

We can't really speculate on how many stomps Al would get, but we know that you can rip a man's heart out of their rib cage and have it continue to beat, as documented in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, where the act was performed by Mola Ram.

Weird Al has helped us to see that being miserable for love can be quite expensive, and fairly painful to boot. So make sure you keep Christ at the center of your relationship and give your significant other a hug today, (if you have one) and you will thank them for saving you several thousand dollars in leeches, thumbtacks, and razor blades....not to mention attorney's fees and jail time. Then take them to your nearest El station to thank them for saving you from having to clean the place. The moral to this song is to get Better not bitter.... Practice Forgiveness because Bitterness will leave you in pain and cost you plenty.Trust God's healing Love to make you better.....So will it be a Happy Valentine's Day????

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres"

PB-

MOTIVATIONAL MONDAY! Merry Merry,Quite Contrary

“It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again…” (Luke 15:32)

There is a segment of the people that are threatened by good news. They are jealous of others’ blessings. You get a raise in pay, they get a raise in blood pressure. If you’re merry they’re contrary. Scrooge was like that in the Dickens classic.The elder brother was like that when his little brother returned from the pig pen. When he heard about the ring, the robe, the roast and the rejoicing, “he was angry, and would not go in…” (vs 28) He gave the news-bearer a piece of his mind, then his father. Afterwards, his head was a little emptier! Dad tried to reason with him, that it was fitting to make merry because “thy brother was dead, and is alive again; was lost, and is found”. Forget reasoning, It has been said "hurting people hurt people". His feelings were hurt. He didn’t want a party, he wanted pity party. I’m not offering him any, not from this Pastor.

 AreWhy “merry”? Christmas time is upon us! We have cause to be merry, not contrary. Solomon made several positive statements – “A merry heart makes a cheerful countenance…” (Proverbs 15:13) “…he that is of a merry heart has a continual feast” (15:15) So keep flying your flags of discontent and go hungry. “A merry heart does good like a medicine…” (17:22) James asked, “Is any merry? Let him sing psalms” (James 5:13). you merry? Vance Havner said, “Pity the Christian that claims to be living in the land of Canaan, with figs and pomegranates, when all he has to show for it are crab apples!” Merry or contrary? The decision is yours, like the old Sixties song shares – “It’s my party I can…laugh if I want to!” (Yea, I changed the wording.) Elder brother thought the prodigal needed to grovel a little. He recommended probation; let the little waster prove himself for a few months. Instead the father was all hugs and kisses when he met him. I know a few stiff shirts like that. To them affection never makes sense and you'll never make merry if you remain contrary.While the younger was turning up the praise, the elder was turning up his nose. You can still find hard heads like that and contrary attitudes in churches today.Their life stinks and they need to find a pew.

Merry is very. It is an attitude with altitude. True, it can be misused. Two signs of Noah’s day, they were “eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage…” (Matthew 24:38) That’s marrying and merrymaking. The rich fool said to his inner man, “Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry” and that moral looseness cost him his soul (Luke 12:19,20). But just because some carry merry or marry too far doesn’t infer that God places a premium on the person that looks like he was baptized in pickle juice. Happy people glorify God much sooner than do sorry sour sickly sad-sacks. (Now say that 100 times!) Someone said a grouch spreads cheer wherever he doesn’t go. I don’t want the single adjective that best describes me to be contrary. Hugh Downs said, “A happy person is not a person with a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes”. The merry-heart goes farther in business, relationships, church, home and even living with one’s own self. I truly do wish you a merry Christmas…the kind that makes you roll on the floor doing a belly laugh. It’s all right, the bible said it is good for the cardio-vascular......


Nuff Said!

WONDERFUL WEDNESDAY!!!!!!!! "Christmas Cookies"

…great joy…“Fear not…good tidings all people…unto you…this day…a Savior…the Lord” (Luke 2:10,11)

What I like about these verses is how the words come in cute little cookies…Christmas cookies. The angel appears saying, “Fear not”. Phobia ends where the Christ-life begins. His birth invaded darkness with light chasing the shadows away. Fear of man, fear of death, fear of cataclysm or criticism, all fear is vanquished by the incarnation. Some are afraid to fly, afraid to buy, afraid to die, afraid to try. But Christmas is the powerful statement that He will now and forever be “God with us” (Matthew 1:23). The next "cookie" says “good tidings”, Euangellizo, in the Greek, “evangelism” or the preaching of Good News. We’ve heard enough bad news on the six o’clock report, haven’t we? Enough bad chidings. It’s time for some good tidings! The message for this Messy Age is that God is a good God and He offers good news.

Then note that “good” leads to “great”, for the next cookie says, “great joy”. Isaac Watts echoed Gabriel’s annunciation with “Joy to the world, the Lord is come!” Note, the Lord “is” come. Our text declares, “…unto you is born this day a Savior”, just as a later a verse says that He “is” risen. Jesus “is”, not “was”. Christmas isn’t as much historical as it is experiential. B.C. and A.D. are not just dating methods from the distant past. They are experiences in the present. Everyone who receives the Christ of Christmas has a before and after testimony. Christmas is the pivot point of all history but also of the individual heart. no one is so good that they don’t need saved nor so bad that they can’t be saved. "This joy is “to all people”, all laos in Greek, the laity. It is a “whosoever will” equal opportunity.(Acts 2.39) we  rejoice that “the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him” (Romans 10:12). Luke, the only Gentile writer in the Bible, makes special note that salvation was not only for the lost sheep of the house of Israel but for “all” people.

The next cookie, “unto you” is born a Savior. Yes you! Be exceeding glad. The net thrown out to catch “all” has long enough ropes to reach even you. You haven’t sinned so grossly that God has given up on you. Christmas is proof. By saying “unto you” he implies that what is universalized must now be personalized. Each individual must receive Jesus. He must be born in the foul smelly stable of our heart. And when? The next says “this day”. “This is the day the Lord hath made”, said the Psalmist. “Today I must abide at your house”, said Christ to Zaccheus. Today is the day of salvation. Tomorrow is a date on a fool’s calendar. Next He is called “a Savior” and finally “the Lord”. It is a package deal; He is a Lord that saves and is to be the Savior that lords. In the new birth, which Christmas typifies, we do accept Him as Savior, but this verse implies that God expects us, at the same time, to also receive Him as Lord. He is “born” Lord. In the new birth, the “born again” experience, He becomes Lord from the beginning. There is no plan or option for receiving Jesus on an installment plan, today Savior, tomorrow Christ, next month Lord. It ultimately must be all or nothing, Lord of all or else not Lord at all. Is Jesus Lord in your life? Don’t leave Him as a plastic doll in a manger at the church Christmas play. Instead, seat Him on the throne...................And have some cookies.............

Nuff Said,