"I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before ME" ~ Exodus 20:2-3 When asked which of all the laws of scripture is the greatest, Christ responded with t

he command emphasizing the supreme importance of our personal relationship with God: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind" 

~Matt 22:35-38

Danger zone

Here in the United States we live like kings compared to millions in other lands. Our greatest danger is not even moral, bad as that is, but spiritual. Prophets, as I have said and written so often, are God's emergency men for crisis hours.

They thrive on perplexity, override adversity, defeat calamity, bring the new wine of the Kingdom to burst the withered wine skins of orthodoxy, and birth REVIVAL. Let no Christian's heart fail him because it seems like the enemy has come in like a flood, that the voice of the prophet is not heard in the land. God has His men hidden. They will come forth WITHOUT PRICE TAGS; with nothing to sell, nothing to propagate but "holiness unto the Lord." 

 

~ Leonard Ravenhill (1907-1994)

Table

"I don't understand how a young couple can begin life by buying a sofa or a television," [British chef Fergus Henderson] said indignantly to me.  "Don't they know the table comes first?"  The table comes first.  The table comes first, before the meal and even before the kitchen where it's made.  It precedes everything in remaining the one plausible hearth of family life, the raft to ride down the river of our existence even in the hardest times.  The table also comes first in the sense that its drama - the people who gather at it, the conversation that flows across it, and the pain and romance that happen around it - is more essential to our real lives..."
~ Adam Gopnik in The Table Comes First

12 days of Christmas

Some of you have been asking me about our families 12 days of Christmas tradition. So here you go!
First off...select a special family with children. Our family selects a family together and we all help out with gifts and drop offs.
Next, purchase all of your special gifts, get them all lined up and ready to go. I am telling you right now, don't put any of this off, time is very limited in the month of December and it is best to have this all done up in advance and ready to go. I line them all up in order in my spare room so each day we can just grab one and go.
Type up all of the the poems on your gift tags.
On December 13th the fun begins! Every day/night up until December 24th you and your family will sneak over to the front porch of your special family's home and drop off a gift a day!
The reason I start this on the 13th and end it on the 24th is that I am so busy Christmas morning with our big family Christmas breakfast, and it is hard to break away and make that last delivery. So the start up date and ending date is kind of up to you. We started this when my children were very small and it has been such a blessing. We have so many funny stories over the years of sneaking up to friends homes and doing this with out being caught. I will tell you right now, this is easy in the beginning, but as time goes on, the kids are on to you and will even set traps to try and catch you in the act of leaving their gifts. Here are all the daily poems you will need to attach to each gift. ~enjoy!

Day 1.) The gift is a pretty bag with pears in it.
The note attached to gift is:

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me....
a Partridge in a pear tree.

This gift is not the partridge,
But rather the pears from the tree,
Given with LOVE from all of us
To all of ye!



Day 2.) The gift is a bag of Dove candy bars. I bought the mini bag
and put it into a pretty little gift bag.

The note attached to gift is:

On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me...
two turtle doves....

Turtle doves we do not know,
So chocolate Dove bars are the way to go,
Enjoy the PEACE that doves of all kinds bring,
Amidst the rush of the Christmas swing!


Day 3.) The gift is home made cookies. I put these in a really pretty
Christmas tin.

The note attached to gift is:

On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me...
Three french hens....

Since chickens three we couldn't send,
We wrote our own disjointed end,
And used their eggs for a surprise in store,
For those who open their front door!



Day 4.) A bag of bird seed. I found these really cute Christmas felt bags filled them up with bird seed! I thought they were really cute!

The note attached to gift is:

On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me....
Four calling birds....

For birds that are a bit in need,
We offer them a bit of seed.


Day 5.) On this day we buy each one of the children
a special gift wrapped and marked with their
names on them along with the poem.

The note attached to gift is:

On the fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me....
Five golden rings....

Gold is scarce and rings make us dizzy,
And we know you are excited and busy,
While Andrew,Alison, and Elliot are happily hopin'
Here's early presents for them to open!




Day 6.) Children's silly joke book

The note attached to gift is:

On the sixth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
Six geese a-laying.....

The singular of geese is goose,
But we know find them of little use,
We know them to be awfully silly,
So we hope these jokes don't make you dilly?
(See it is silly)







Day 7.) Mulling spice and apple cider.


The note attached to gift is:

On the seventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
Seven swans a swimming...

In other words, seven superb swans swiftly swimming
Silently in sweetly spiced cider. Sounds silly so sip some soon!





Day 8.) The gift is crackers and cheese. I had a picture but hit the
wrong button and poof ugh! I had it in a cute gift bag.


The note attached to gift is:

On the eighth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me....
Eight maids a-milking...


Milk you know is quite nutritious,
But it can make other items quite delicious,
So enjoy these treats of crackers with cheese,
While gazing at your Christmas tree!





Day 9.) We dressed up a tin can to look like a drum filled with
Special Christmas cookies


The note attached to gift is:


On the ninth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me....
Nine drummers drumming.....

Bright red drums for you from me,
Filled with special cookies!





Day 10.) Hot cocoa, wrapped up in a pretty Christmas bag or box.

The note attached to gift is:

On the tenth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me....
Ten pipers piping....

A "piping" hot drink is just right
On this a cold winters night!


Day 11.) The gift is a Children's Christmas story of our Lords birth.

The note attached to gift is:

On the eleventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
Eleven ladies dancing...

Celebrating the Savior's birth,
And His coming to the earth,
Here's stories from long ago,
Read them, read them nice and slow!


Day 12.) We buy them a pretty ornament to hang on their tree with the
nativity scene on it.


The note attached to gift is:

Here's a reminder of our Lords birth,
One that brought joy to all the earth!

And then I attach a note thanking them for the love shared
between our families and theirs! We each sign our names to the final note.
Just don't let them catch you before this point! It is a fun and exciting
time for our whole family to do this!



~enjoy!

Be still

When Moses tarried in the mount, Israel became bored with the faith that sees the invisible and clamored for a god they could see and touch. And they displayed a great deal more enthusiasm for the golden calf than they did over the Lord God of Abraham. Later they tired of manna and complained against the monotony of their diet. On their petulant insistence they finally got flesh to eat, and that to their own undoing.

Those Christians who belong to the evangelical wing of the church (which I firmly believe is the only one that even approximates New Testament Christianity) have over the last half-century shown an increasing impatience with things invisible and eternal and have demanded and got a host of things visible and temporal to satisfy their fleshly appetites. Without Biblical authority, or any other right under the sun, carnal religious leaders have introduced a host of attractions that serve no purpose except to provide entertainment for the bored saints.

It is now common practice in most evangelical churches to offer the people, especially the young people, a maximum of entertainment and a minimum of serious instruction. It is scarcely possible in most places to get anyone to attend a meeting where the only attraction is God. One can only conclude that God's professed children are bored with Him, for they must be wooed to meeting with a stick of striped candy in the form of religious movies, games and refreshments.

This has influenced the whole pattern of church life, and even brought into being a new type of church architecture, designed to house the golden calf. 

~A.W.Tozer