Prayer
– Lord. I trust and love You with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. You
are awesome. The Advent season prepared me for forever with You. Protect those
in Israel—may they come to know You, Jesus, as their Messiah. May that truth
set them free to trust You. Give them Your peace.
This
is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and
there is no darkness in him at all. So we are lying if we say we have
fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not
practicing the truth. But if we are living in the light, as God is in the
light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his
Son, cleanses us from all sin. If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling
ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.
If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his
word has no place in our hearts. 1 John 1:5-10
Meditate.
Consider light and darkness.
Sin...knowing
what to do and NOT doing it. Do we need to face sin right after Christmas? Some
of Jesus' first words were "Repent" after He spent time fasting in
the desert--facing temptation.
From then on Jesus began to preach,
"Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near. Matthew 4:17
Repent—turn
from sin. That is important every day of the year. After repenting, it is a
good time to begin serving God with the work of Christmas.
 |
When the star...and fireworks...are gone.
The work of Christmas begins.
What are you doing for Jesus today?
|
Now
the Work of Christmas Begins (by
Howard Thurman)
When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flocks,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among the people,
To make music in the heart.
Howard
Thurman’s poem is copyright by Friends United Press. Thurman was an
African-American theologian, educator, and Civil Rights Leader who wrote this
as a liturgy to mark the end of the Christmas Season.
These
actions are all things that Jesus did. Think about what you need to do on a
daily basis to keep Christmas alive, not only in your own life, but in the
lives of those around you, all year long. Keeping Christmas alive allows God to
work in our hearts—filling us with His love—so that we can love others for Him.
From that list above do you see something that you can make for a goal for next
year, next month, this week…today? Is this new objective reverberating within
your heart? Having a goal motivates us to put our heart's desires into
action. Now the choice is up to each of us.
Verse
of Salvation ~ Because I love Zion, I will not keep still. Because my heart
yearns for Jerusalem, I cannot remain silent. I will not stop praying for her
until her righteousness shines like the dawn, and her salvation blazes like a
burning torch. Isaiah
62:1
Friday’s
Feast at the King’s Table
What are
you hungry for? What has been your best taste bud tingler for 2024? That could
give you clues for what to serve, snack on, or just eat as you to go into the
next year!
My
favorite meal this year was at Anthony’s Spokane along the River where I was
served the tastiest scallops I’ve ever eaten. Grilled scallops may be on my
menu for New Year’s Eve. What would you choose to serve to celebrate the tastiest
meal of 2024?
Appetizer
or snack? Lots of people just go for snacks on New Year’s Eve. But can you keep
it healthy? No extra sweets or overly salty things? For me, I have to limit my
oxalic acid foods, due to kidney stone formation and that means, for example,
no spinach, almonds, chocolate, or beets (but who eats beets for New Year’s
Eve!) So that means, no spinach dip, spinach
or chocolate cheese ball. OK. There are plenty of other options. It’s good to
use what you have on hand…rather than go out and buy lots of food and create
more leftover—unless that is your goal.
Personally,
we’ve celery, lots of fresh apples, and a spicy cranberry dip from Costco. Throw
in a few whole grain crackers and that is a tasty beginning.
If you
Google best New Year’s Eve snacks you’ll find, like I did, that hot spinach and
hot crab dips are high on the list. Another was deviled eggs, which are good
any time of the year. Also receiving high raves were crab stuffed mushrooms; bacon
wrapped stuffed dates with blue cheese; sweet and spicy roasted mixed nuts; jalapeno
poppers; ham and cheese sliders with mustard sauce; and tomato and mozzarella
bites. Those all sound very tasty to me and would be well received by family
and friends at our holiday celebration. The choice is yours—although I’m sure
if you ask, you’ll have lots of people giving you input as to what they’d like
to eat beyond the usual corn chips and salsa. Whatever you serve, enjoy, or
choose to consume, give thanks to the Lord. Remembering…
Our Father in heaven, may your name
be kept holy. May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it
is in heaven. Give us today the food we need, and forgive us our sins,
as we have forgiven those who sin against us. And don't let us yield to
temptation, but rescue us from the evil one. Matthew 6:9-13 (Underlined for emphasis.)
Give thanks
to the Lord who provides everything we need.
© 2024 Text, photos, and illustrations by Mickey M. Hunacek. All
rights reserved.
All scripture quoted from the New Living Translation (NLT) unless
otherwise noted.
New Living Translation copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale
House Foundation.
Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream,
Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Biblical search from Blue Letter Bible - http://v3.blueletterbible.org/search.cfm.
Books by Mickey M.
Hunacek
Available as e-books or paperbacks at Amazon.com
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