Away in a Manger

A Long time ago in a land far, far away was a virgin named Mary who was engaged to be married to a man by the name of Joseph. Joseph, being of the line of David, packed his belongings and headed to Bethlehem, (his ancestral home), in order to be counted for a census, which was decreed by the Roman government.  While they were there, it came time for Mary to give birth.... 

 Wait a minute! Is this a fairy tale?  Who ever heard of a virgin giving birth? This part is very real, 

however there are many things about the Christmas story, which are incorrect.

  For starters, no where in scripture does it say that Mary rode on a donkey.  See for yourself.  Read Mathew Chapter 1-2 & Luke chapter 2...  Sorry, no donkey.  Another incorrect thing is the three wise men.  Again, no where in scripture does it say there were only three wise men,

 but people just assume because three gifts are mention. 

"Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem,  saying, “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.” ~ Mathew 2:1-2 

Also. the wise men were NOT there during the time of the time of the Messiah's birth: 

 Mathew 2:9-11   
 ^"When they heard the king, they departed; and behold, the star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came and stood over where the young Child was.  When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy.  And when they had come into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary His mother, and fell down and worshiped Him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to Him: gold, frankincense, and myrrh" 

The scripture clearly says He was a young child, and that they had come to a house, so they no longer were in the manger.  Of course the manger brings up another can of worms, since it was must likely in a cave and not in your traditional looking manger that you see out at Christmas.

  Now that I got the ball rolling, I will throw in another big tid bit... are you ready?  Jesus was not born on Christmas morning.  What?  Are you out of your mind? No,  I'm not.  Once again, if you look into scripture you can see evidence that points to this event not happening in winter.  For one thing the shepherds would not have been out in the fields living in the winter (Luke 2:8). 

Two: the census taken required everyone to go back to his own city to be registered (Luke 2:3) Not everyone was born in Bethlehem, yet it was very crowded, this indicates that the registration happened near a Jewish holiday that required every male to come to Jerusalem: Passover, Pentecost, and The Feast of Tabernacles.  Keep in mind Jerusalem is only 30 min. away, so Bethlehem would have made a nice place to stay during these holidays.  Passover takes place in early spring; Pentecost in late spring and Tabernacles takes place in the fall.  So, why do they say December 25th?  Well, that actually comes from the Jewish celebration of Hanukkah.  Hanukkah is celebrated on the 25th of Kislev.  Ring a bell?  Kislev falls in the winter months, and although it falls on a different day each year on our solar calender, it is always the same 25th day on the Jewish lunar calendar.   The church later adopted this date as the birth of Christ to help keep people from celebrating the heathen celebration of winter solace on Dec. 21st.  thus, was born the date of His birth.

Please understand that I am not saying we shouldn't celebrate the birth of Jesus on December 25th.

So, why bring it up, you ask?

Because...

I think Jesus was born during the feast of Tabernacles

You see...

During the feast of Tabernacles the Jewish people would build little house made of sticks, tree limbs and leaves and hang fruit from the roof

then they would live in them for 7 days

So why is this important?

Just think about it...

  And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. ~ John 1:14

The Hebrew says: and made his sukkah, his Mishkan among us 

Mishkan = flesh, sukkah = Tabernacle

In others words he became flesh 

and tabernacled with us!

To me it makes perfect sense that He would have been born during The Feast of Tabernacles.

God never picks random days; there is always significance behind everything He does!

Take a look at these verses:

 

^{Philippians 2:5-7}

 ^"Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God,  but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant,

 and coming in the likeness of men.

 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross."

To think He left the glories of heaven,

 just to tabernacle with us... 

only to die for us!

NOW that is the real Christmas story! 

So, although it may not be His actual birth date,

we can still celebrate the day with the understanding of it's real significance to all mankind.

***

Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!

1 Cor 9:15

 

 

 

 

A Thankful heart

    

 Every Thanksgiving people gather around a turkey to give thanks for family, food, friends and God.  Then when the day is done we go to bed, so we can rise up early to get the best deals of the year. Unfortunately, as we shop, all the thanks that were said the day before are soon forgotten, as we're loaded down with packages, fighting the crowds for that last purse. 

 How soon we can forget the one we need to thank the most.
 
     There was another time when nine men had forgotten all about someone who did something for them that changed their lives forever! 

     In Luke 17:11-19 (TLB)

 "As they continued onward toward Jerusalem, they reached the border between Galilee and Samaria,  and as they entered a village there, ten lepers stood at a distance,  crying out, “Jesus, sir, have mercy on us!”
 He looked at them and said, “Go to the Jewish priest and show him that you are healed!” And as they were going, their leprosy disappeared.
 One of them came back to Jesus, shouting, “Glory to God, I’m healed!” He fell flat on the ground in front of Jesus, face downward in the dust, thanking him for what he had done. This man was a despised Samaritan.
 Jesus asked, “Didn’t I heal ten men? Where are the nine?  Does only this foreigner return to give glory to God?”
  And Jesus said to the man, “Stand up and go; your faith has made you well.”"
 
        This just seems unbelievable to me.  That out of ten men who were healed,  only one came back to say  "Thank you"  Just think about what they had!  Leprosy is a chronic, progressive bacterial infection. It primarily affects the nerves of the extremities, the lining of the nose, and the upper respiratory tract. It also produces skin sores, nerve damage, and muscle weakness.  If left untreated it can cause severe disfigurement and significant disability.

 Not only this but, you were a social outcast, forced to live outside the city in a valley with other lepers, since in Bible days there were no known cure for this horrid disease, it meant certain death.  So, it was ten men who were social outcast, decaying, disabled and no hope.  Some how they heard about the Miracle Maker and decided to leave their leper valley together and find Him.

  I could only imagine all the "get out of here, you're not wanted!"  they must of received.  Yet, despite rejection they knew they had to find the only glimpse of hope they ever heard of. 

 When the finally found Him, they cried out to Him and Jesus tells them to go

 to the Jewish priest, (In the those days only the priest could say you were clean of leprosy), however, as they were on their way, 

they discovered they were healed.  WOW!  Can you imagine?!
 
No more disability. No more skin sores. No more living in the village of lepers. No more being the outcast. Totally healed!
 
    So, with that in mind.... why does only one man come back to thank the Lord?  Even Jesus Himself asks that same question... "Does only this foreigner return to give glory to God?"  He was a despised Samaritan.
 
      Samaritans were the few Jewish people who had been left behind when the Babylonians carried everyone else away.  They intermarried with non-Jewish people...time passed... the Jewish blood line was lost ...then they stopped worshiping in Jerusalem, thus they were despised.

     So, I presume the other 9 were Jewish. These 9  should have been thrilled that the Messiah was here. He was foretold, promised, expected...

 yet...  these 9 missed out. 

 Healed, but not seeing who it was that healed them.  

Only the foreigner knew, only he saw, only he came back...

 

 And Jesus said to the man, “Stand up and go; your faith has made you well.”

The foreigner was blessed!

 

What have we miss out on?

Have we become so used to God's blessings that we forget to see who He is?

Have we forgotten what He has done, or is doing, or will do for Us... 

His children?

 

Let us forget in this land of plenty what He has done!

Let us not just Thank Him once a year or once a week....

let us thank Him every day for as long as we live!

For we have so much to be thankful for!

 

 Psalm 7:17

Oh, how grateful and thankful I am to the Lord because he is so good.

 I will sing praise to the name of the Lord who is above all lords.

 

***

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

 

 

Learning the Art of Forgiveness

                                My Marriage Advice

  Marriage is an adventure in learning about each other.

I think of my own like an amusement park ride: Bumper Cars.

It always has one of the longest lines, yet people are willing to stand in line for it.  While your waiting, it's always exciting. I think about who will out run everybody else, or how many people we can bump into, and the ones who get stuck in some corner.  Then the ride starts and everybody is screaming- in fun and laughing that is till somebody bumps you really hard and your head whacks the bar or your neck does this whiplash thing, then the fun ends for you.

It's a lot like marriage.  Your so excited to be getting into to it, and the first year is full of laughter and life seems fine till one day "BUMP" you get hit with something, (finances, screaming children- not in fun, or sickness), and marriage isn't so much fun anymore.  That's when you need to remember this very important advice:

   let it go!  

 Yes, because when things in life give you a good o'l bump, 

you'll end out doing or saying things that you shouldn't.

Solomon 2:15 says “Catch us the foxes, The little foxes that spoil the vines, For our vines have tender grapes.”

It's all those little things, that if you do not allow them to go, they will pill up and cause the vineyard of your love to spoil, and eventually die.

Not only do we need to let it go; we also need to forgive.

Matthew 18: 21,22  “Then Peter came to Him and said, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?”  Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.”

Do not wait for the your other half to say they are sorry, forgive them even when they don't. This will not be easy especially if your other half doesn't realized what they have done. Whatever you do, do not make the mistake of the o'l “eye for eye” because that will only lead to bitterness. Instead we need to extend mercy, even when they do not deserve it. Since that is what the Lord did for us.

 

Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

We need to follow the Lord's example in forgiveness which He extended to those who did not deserve it. An example of this

can be found in Luke 7  when Jesus was invited to one of the Pharisees home, a prostitute came and anointed His feet with oil and washed His feet with her tears.

   Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.”

Then He said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” 

 

When Jesus says, “Your sins are forgiven” He did not wait

for another day to bring them up to her. He let it go and so must we. How far do we let them go? As far as the East is from the West, that's how far. 

 

Did you catch this verse: “for she loved much” Why?

Because much was forgiven. When you forgive one another

seventy times seven, (in other words; always), then I believe you will end out loving each other very much. 

 

Also the opposite is true when you forgive little;You love little.

So, How can you forgive? You can do all things through the messiah who strengthens us.

Through Jesus we can let go and forgive and have our

"Happily Ever After”.

Behold the Lamb!

   ^{BEHOLD THE LAMB!}

^{Exodus 12: 12-13} 

 “On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt. 

Only those who had placed  the blood of the Lamb were saved from the destructive plague.  This lamb that was chosen was not just any lamb,

 it had to be perfect without any blemish.

^{V 5} The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect.

Also, this lamb was not slaughtered at any random time:

back in verse 1 and 2
"The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, “This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year."

then verse 6

  ^"Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the members of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight."

According to God's calender * that would be in about the month of April!

Do you see a pattern yet?

There was another perfect Lamb who was slaughtered

and not just any random day of the year.

Before we go there; let's look at some testimony. 

John Testified About Jesus in John 1:29

^" The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

 

 Now you've seen the testimony

Jesus is the Lamb

 

Now for the time of year:

Mathew 26:17 

 "Now on the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying to Him, “Where do You want us to prepare for You to eat the Passover?”"

 

I can hear the bleating in my ears now...

  all the little lambs were taken and slaughtered;

  their blood was placed on the door posts of their home .  

People were getting ready to celebrate the passover meal.

 

MEANWHILE...  another Lamb was

getting ready to lay down His life!

 

Mathew 27:35

  ^"When they had crucified him, they divided up his clothes by casting lots."

 

 The perfect Lamb, on the same day as the passover lambs, died for us, so we could escape destructive!

How? 

 Not by applying the blood of lambs on our doors 

but by applying the blood of The Lamb- Jesus on the door posts of our hearts!  

***

I will leave you with this last verses to medtitate upon:

 

Isaiah 53:4-6

"Surely he took up our pain
    and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
    stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions,
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
    and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
    each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
    the iniquity of us all."

 

 ****

 

 

*Note: the Jewish calender is a lunar calender, so when transferred unto our solar the dates 

will be different every year, but always remains the same on their calender.   

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

What is a Resolution?

~Every year people talk about New Years Resolutions.  However I ask you what is a resolution?  I decided to look that word up and  I found several definitions; however I liked these two the best:

-a resolve or determination: to make a firm resolution to do something.

 

-the act of resolving or determining upon an action or course of action, method, procedure, etc.

~The word that stands out the most to me is the word "determination or determining upon"  As followers of the LORD we most be determined to live for Him in the face of growing opposition. I find that Noah is a fine example of someone who had made a resolution to not be like others of his time.

     Genesis 6:5 ^" The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. ^{V9b "}Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God"

~Because Noah found favor in the eyes of Lord, the Lord choose him to build an ark so that a remnant would be saved from the punishment God was going to bring upon the earth.

     ^{V17-18 "} I am going to bring flood waters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you."

     V ²² Noah did everything just as God commanded him. 

~Noticed I underlined the word everything because this shows Noah's resolution (or determination) to follow God although everyone around him was wicked. Can you imagine that?  Do you have neighbors that fight in their front yard and nothing but curse words can be heard?  Or that grouchy old man who yells at your kids the minute they step even one toe in his yard?  Well, that's nothing!  Look back at verse 8, it says that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was evil all the time.  Noah did not get any breaks.  He was surrounded.  Talk about "Sin City"- this was "Sin World"  and quite frankly God was fed up with it!  Everything was going to washed out- literally! 

      ^{Gen 7 V11-12} In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.  And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights... ^V17 For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth.    
V 21-23 Every living thing that moved on land perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind.  Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died.  Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; people and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.

~Only Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives and two of every kind of animal, (7 pairs of the clean animals).  Everything else had been washed away.  Only those who were in the ark had been saved. Why?  It all goes back to Genesis 6:9b "...he walked faithfully with God"

         ^{Hebrews 11:7 says "}By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith."

  Noah obeyed God even though everyone around Him was wicked.  He had made a resolution to follow God.  He was determined to be faithful no matter what! How do you find yourself today?

            What will your resolution be this year, the next and for the rest of your life?  

                                      May you always be found faithful!

 

 

Time for spring cleaning!

     Have you done your spring cleaning yet?  Opened the windows, wash the walls, clean out the closets, get rid of unnecessary things that you no longer use... like that bridesmaids dress from ten years.  The concept of spring cleaning is nothing new, just take a look at at 

Exodus 12: 17-20

        “Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread, because it was on this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt. Celebrate this day as a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. In the first month you are to eat bread made without yeast, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day.  For seven days no yeast is to be found in your houses. And anyone, whether foreigner or native-born, who eats anything with yeast in it must be cut off from the community of Israel.  Eat nothing made with yeast. Wherever you live, you must eat unleavened bread.  

        Every year around the world Jewish women would clean out all their cupboards of everything that had leaven in it, (yeast), all the breads, cakes, donuts, and Twinkies.  They would bag it up and give it to their Gentile neighbor.  Then they would scrub down everything.  They did this so that their homes would be ready for the Passover and the feast of unleavened bread. Why all this fuss about leaven?  Well according to the Bible leaven (or yeast) was quite often refereed to as sin. 

1 Corinthians 5:8
Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

     In order for Lord to come and dwell within, we need to get rid of all the leaven (sin) within our hearts.

This can only come when we first accept Him as our Savior, but then step two is to continue to make sure we keep our house (our bodies) clean by confessing any sins that may enter in. 

 1 John 1:9
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

      Step three is to be in the Word of God.  With all the propaganda out their, we need to have God's truth wash our minds and scrub us clean.

Ephesians 5:26
... to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word.

         So this spring...clean out the closet of your soul and allow the Lord to wash you with His word.  You may find a few thing you need to get rid of through confession, but in the end you will feel squeaky clean!