Devotional Song: Go to this link … Please take the time to take in the poignant song, sung an anonymous group, a contemporary version of the old Christmas classic ... Joy To the World. … expressing a sentiment which should be in our hearts 365 days a year.
Highlight Passage - NKJV Galatians 4: 4-5 … God sent forth His Son …
4 But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.
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Highlight Context #1 - Galatians 4: 1-7 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK … God’s greatest gift!!
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Reference Passage #1 … 2nd Corinthians 9: 15 [NKJV] … God’s greatest gift could be - should be - celebrated 365 days per year. ...
15 Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!
Reference Passage #2 … Philippians 2: 5-11 [NKJV] … GO TO THIS LINK … God’s greatest gift came in a strange package
My Journal for Today: Today’s Our Daily Bread devotional entry, authored by Bill Crowder, expressed a commonly held belief … that the public promotion of Christmas is coming earlier and earlier each year. BAH HUMBUG!!! As Crowder wrote, in line with my childhood, Christmas promotions used to be off limit until after Thanksgiving; but now we begin to see Christmas tinged ads and store promotions as early as September.
But then the Our Daily Bread logic took a turn for me.
Is it really so bad that the celebration of God’s greatest gift - His Son and our Redeemer - is promoted by the world earlier and earlier, putting the concept of Christmas out there in the public arena longer and longer to announce the coming of the Christ child? … Is it a bad thing that the public hears music like that linked above in the stores for longer periods of time? Sure, most of the images we see in stores and online during the pre-Christmas hullabaloo is to market worldly stuff; but it’s still connected with the greatest gift of all - that of God bringing His Son to mankind as His gift of grace; and if that can at least be out there for us to use as a witness of our faith, when we hear someone complain of the worldly early Christmas, it gives us the opportunity to tell them … “Isn’t it so great that we can celebrate Christ earlier and earlier each year!”
I hope we’ll take advantage to witness our joy this year as we’re coming up on Thanksgiving; and aren’t we all so very thankful for God’s wondrous gift of a Savior? !!! Yes, He is JOY TO THE WORLD, isn’t He?
So, let’s join in and say, "MERRY CHRISTMAS !!!"
My Prayer for Today … Lord, tis the season to bring nothing but joy to the world!! Amen
Blogger Note: Everyday during this year, my daily devotional blogs are influenced by the reading and study of the online devotional blog entitled Our Daily Bread, distributed online via email by RBC Ministries. If you GO TO THIS LINK on the date of my blog, you can read/study the ODB blogs; or you can subscribe to the blog via email at that site.
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