TODAY'S QUOTE

“Doctors and druggists would not have

prospered on our family.  We never spent

so much as 50 [cents] for medical care or

medicine.  Our one and only Physician,

who was in us and around us, always 

cured us.  He was out of the world!”

- A.C. Valdez

In “Fire on Azusa Street

p.112

TODAY'S PROMISE

"As for me, I look to the LORD for help.

I wait confidently for God to save me,

and my God will certainly hear me."

(Micah 7:7 NLT)

TODAY'S QUOTE

"And when we give each other Christmas gifts in His name,

let us remember that He has given us the sun and the moon

and the stars, and the earth with its forests and mountains

and oceans - and all that lives and move upon them. He has

given us all green things and everything that blossoms and

bears fruit and all that we quarrel about and all that we have

misused - and to save us from our foolishness, from all our 

sins, He came down to earth and gave us Himself."

-Sigrid Undset

A FATHER'S LOVE

I just want to share an emotion, an insight that
I experienced again today.  That is the love of
a father for his kids.

Many, many years ago I was involved in a failed
marriage and the resulting breakup from it.  There was
the initial shock of coming home from work to find
an empty house and then "existing" in a daze for
about a week.  But the emotion that still stands out
in my mind the most - wether it was the same day or
the next I do not remember - was the realization that
the kids were not there needing my help.  My kids were
gone.  What was I going to do without my kids.  How
was I going to love them and provide for them.  It hurt
me deeply.

Yes, they had a good mother.  That was not the problem.
It was that need for a father to be able to share his love
with his children.

Thank God,
as the children grew up in another state and
began to get out on their own that relationship
has been reestablished.  We share a love for
each other even if they are grandparents now.

Down to the present.
Believe it or not, I am a lot older now than I
was then.  I even have "great grandchildren"
who have grown too big to want grandpa to
hold them and love them.

I have noticed the last few days that this old
man just aches sometimes to hold a loving little
child in my arms and love them.

Today as I was walking down to get the mail
God brought something to my mind.  That is
the way God is.  God truly wants to love us,
hold us, cuddle with us, just like an earthly
father would want to do.  The Scriptures point
that out many times.  But I will only share one
of them with you.

"See how very much out Father loves us,
for he calls us his children, and that is what
we are!  But the people who belong to this 
world don't recognize that we are God's
children because they don't know him."
(1 John 3:1 NLT)

Here the Apostle is writing to the Christians.
No, everybody is not God's child.  But He
wants them to be if we will just turn to Him.

REMEMBER.
God wants to be a Father to you and love you,
if you will let Him.

THAT IS WHAT CHRISTMAS
IS ALL ABOUT.

TODAY'S PROMISE

"And the one sitting on the throne said,

Look, I am making everything new!'  And

then he said to me, 'Write this down, for what

I tell you is trustworthy and true.' And he also

said, 'It is finished!  I am the Alpha and the 

Omega - the Beginning and the End.  To all who

are thirsty I will give freely from the springs of 

the water of life.  All who are victorious will

inherit all these blessings, and I will be their

God, and they will be my children."

(Revelation 21:5 - 7 NLT)

TODAY'S QUOTE

"It was standard procedure to call on the creator

of all things to help solve pressing problems -

no matter how trivial or tremendous."

-A.C. Valdez in

Fire on Azusa Street.

p.93

LET YOUR LIGHT SHINE

I know.  Those are icicles.  But icicles do not 

shine or spark by themselves.  Their light has

to come from somewhere else.

I was looking out a window of my "hide a way"

in the woods right after a heavy rain.  The trees

had water hanging all over them.  Then I noticed

the cedar tree closest to the window and it had

two beautiful small blue lights in it.  You know

what they were.  Two of the drops of water just

happened to be aligned correctly to act as a 

prism with the sun shinning on them. 

The beauty I was seeing was the sun shinning

through the drops of water.  But only, if in the

correct alignment with the sun.

Jesus Christ said:

"You are the light of the world -"  

(Matthew 5:14 NLT)

But how am I to shine when there is no light

in me?  I am like the icicle or the drop of water

or prism.  I have no light in myself.

"Jesus spoke to the people once more and said,

'I am the light of the world. ... "  

(John 8:12 NLT)

There is our clue.

When we submit ourselves to Jesus Christ 

and invite Him to come into our lives taking

over not only as Saviour, Lord and master -

then we have the light in us that the world 

needs to see.