I was talking with a group of folks the other day about the present state of our economy and all that goes with it.  For the most part people were pretty negative about our collective state of affairs.  I’m sure you have been in those kinds of conversations.  It can really bring you down and at times that is not what I need to hear.  So it is always refreshing to run into another friend of mine who when asked, “How’s it going?” he always replies, “Things couldn’t be better.  I am blessed in so many wonderful ways.  And the point is, he REALLY means it.

It is such an encouragement to bump into someone every now and then who is content with his or her lot in life.  As we keep plowing ahead in this economy, many are being challenged to think deeply about what  brings real contentment. Many as well work continuously to acquire more and more, thinking that the secret to a happy, contented life is having more toys.  Then when adversity strikes and they suffer loss, the level of discontentment soars.

The problem is that the covetous can never be content. Their desire is insatiable.  Some people are satisfied with little while others are dissatisfied with much.  And no wave of the wand of wealth will bring contentment.

Many have learned like Paul to be content whatever the circumstances.   He knew sorrow and joy; distress and comfort.  Yet he learned to be independent of all external circumstances.    Centuries before, David had made the same wonderful discovery.  He said, ” The Lord….makes my lot secure.”  And with this knowledge, he was happy and content in life.

As we find ourselves tossed about from all kinds of external circumstances, make it a part of your daily devotion to rehearse all the things that you are thankful for and this will usually silence the demon of discontent.

The room was packed with close to 100 people participating in the event.  Lots of people came who had never been to a Joseph Project meeting before who hopefully have now found a welcoming environment that will provide helpful job search skills, networking opportunities, as well as hope and encouragement.

The program was very powerful. So much content was packed into these few hours that my head was about to explode by the end of all the sessions.  It was clear that the presenters came fully loaded with their best stuff in an all out effort to help in any way they could.  It is such an encouragement to see the heart of these people who only want to help and are willing to give so much.  Thank you to all the speakers and panelists who went all out to make our sessions rich with practical comments and real world advice.

Friends, we are really counting on you to help us get the word out about the Joseph Project. No doubt you know someone who would benefit from attending.  Please invite them and if at all possible, tell them you will come with them.  YOU are the most powerful marketing tool we possess.  Tell your church, community groups and any other organizations you are involved with about this opportunity to help so many that are traveling this difficult path of job loss. Please help us to get the word out that this is not a path you have to travel alone.  Do it today!

We have all probably experienced things that thought to be miraculous. They don’t always have to be huge, blow you away types of miracles either.  We tend to only think about the really big stuff that happens and classify them as a miracle.  Many times, God uses the small seemingly insignificant things of life in which to work his miracles. I know that I have experienced some things in my life that seem to be miraculous.  I’m sure if you thought about it enough, you would feel that as well.

On occasion, we hear about a miracle happening in someones life that we just have to sit back and be amazed.  I wanted to share with you something I heard today that would definitely fall into this category.  It is simply to incredible to not hear and I would hope this would be blessing to you today.

James Dobson played an interview on his show this morning that I want you to hear.  If you don’t have time to listen to it right now, please come back to this at some point soon. You won’t want to miss this.  Please click on link below to hear this amazing testimony.

Breaking the Silence

May God bless you today and hopefully you will be inspired like those spoken of in Luke 19:37.

When he reached the place where the road started down to the Mount of Olives, all of his followers began to shout and sing as they walked along praising God for all the wonderful miracles they had seen.

The parade begins and a thousand different things start their march before your wakeful eyes.

What can be done?  I recently heard about one guy who said, “When I can’t sleep, I just get up and sit in a chair until I bore myself to death.”  Another  reaches for an Ambien or some other kind of sleeping pill.  Yet another tries to fill the wakefulness with some kind of late night TV or surfing the internet.

Having experienced a multitude of these kinds of nights over the years, I have learned a few things about how these wakeful hours can be more productively spent.  Free from distractions of the day, it can be a perfect time for some reflective God-centered  thought.

God is awake in the still of the night and is ready to hear from us.  The time that I have spent during those wakeful times has proven to be so valuable.  Think on God!  Use this time to pray or maybe praise him with a favorite song or hymn.  It has always been an amazing opportunity to get close to the Father.  The quiet stillness seems to allow for a deeper focus and more penetrating praise.

David seemed to understand this when he said, “I remember you and meditate on you during the night watches.”   And of Jesus we read, “he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God (Luke 6:12).

When I can’t sleep, it is amazing how giving this time to the Lord in prayer and praise will settle my my mind and before I know it, I am back to sleeping peacefully.

I love the words refuge and fortress.  They communicate strength, protection, security.  We seem to fight a relentless search from the catastrophies of life.

Across all of history people have sought refuge in various ways.  Some have searched for it in education.  Others have sought refuge in science.  Still others have sought refuge in money.

There is no refuge in such things.  These flimsy fortresses are easily penetrated by disease…accident…war…depression.  And,  if not by these, then by time. Time carves its lines upon the face, dims the eyes and makes the hands tremble.

Only in God can refuge be found. And only in God is there any real fortress.

I love the words of this old hymn.

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,  Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word.  What more can he say than to you He has said, You  who unto Jesus for refuge have fled.

Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed; I, I am they God, and will still give the aid; I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand, Upheld by my gracious, omnipotent hand.

As you look into another new year, make sure that  ”In Him will I Trust.”

Lord, we need you so much.  The years go by and we often truly trust in so many other things.  Thank you for being our fortress and our ever present  help in time of trouble.  As we end this year and look into yet another new year, please help us to count on this blessing and to finally learn how to really live in peace through placing all our trust in you alone.  Amen

The taste of this verse is bitter to modern man.  Even the most devout must admit to a measure of impatience.  Much of the best of life is lost because of it.  We become restless and irritable when that email  does not get to someone within a minute or so after sending it.  If dinner is five minutes late….if a departure is delayed thirty seconds by another family member.  I’m sure you can add some of you own irritations to this.

And, at times we even get impatient with God.  We decide the interval is too great between our prayer and its answer, or between our work and its result. So much like Job, we call God on the carpet:  ”I cried out to you, but you do not hear me” (Job 30:20).

Patience is not an easily learned attribute.  I have heard it said that there is something harder than believing….that’s waiting!  All of us know this is true that has stood by the bedside of a critically ill child…or anxiously waited for the test results or patiently prayed for the return of a wayward child.

Patiently pursuing that which is gradual is more difficult than accepting immediate results.  But we should not despair.  Like those fishermen who “fished all night but caught nothing” the moment may be near when God is ready to bless our labor with success.  He is faithful and will reward our patient waiting.

Father, we have become so spoiled in our generation expecting immediate gratification for everything.  We get angry and irritated when things don’t happen on our timetable or go exactly like we want.  Forgive us Lord and help us to trust in your timing.   Help us to accept the fact that waiting on You will ultimately strengthen our faith and deepen our relationship with you.  Amen

I ran across this statement by C.S. Lewis, my favorite author that seemed to relate to all this.  Lewis said,” God designed the human machine to run on Himself.  He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on.  There is no other. God cannot give us happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there.  There is no such thing.”

I know that we get this fuel from other ways as  well, but I can almost always count on my tank getting refilled and therefore being better equipped to handle the challenges of the week.  It is simply how we were designed.

Lord, Please help us to understand and accept that as our Creator, we must operate with you as the main fuel in our lives.  We are so willing to be filled with so much other garbage. No wonder we often feel so defeated and depleted.  Help us Lord to use our Sunday’s to the fullest and to be refreshed by the power that comes from meeting with our church families and fully engaging in what you want to give us so that we can live abundantly.  In the name of your precious son Jesus, Amen.

In the quiet this morning, sitting by a roaring fireplace the memories of a wonderful day with my family are so sweet.  I am also thrilled to think about the fact that I am part of a much larger, extended family.  Beginning with the birth of our Saviour, God made it possible for us to be part of His family and that gives Christmas a very special meaning.  Of course there are other times of the year to celebrate this as well, but there is something about this time of the year that makes it so much more special.  Our everlasting, immortal family was made possible because of the special day we celebrated yesterday.

I pray that the wonderful memories of this season will remain with you, but even more, my prayer is that you will dwell on the memories of your life in Christ during the next week.  Because of what happened over 2000 years ago in a small town called Bethlehem, I hope you can call these precious days the most wonderful time of the year.

Father, family is really what matters most to us here on this earth.  We long to be with our families when we are separated.  One day we will be reunited with you and the rest of our family for all eternity and that was only possible because of your precious gift of love that we celebrate this time of the year.  With grateful hearts we give all Glory, Honor and Power to you! In the name of your precious son Jesus, Amen.

So (the shepherds) hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. (—)The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.  Luke 2:16-18; 20

Who were you before the manger?  How did it change you?

When the angels interrupted the quiet of the night long ago to tell a group of shepherds that Jesus was born, even the angels must have wondered why God picked them to be told.  Certainly that must have crossed the shepherds’ minds as well. Why us?

Why? Because a shepherd living off the land is as precious to God as a king.

Nothing’s changed; the lowliest worker in the newest job is as important to God as the newest leader of the free world.  And isn’t it just like God, in a world turned upside down by financial upheaval, to make it possible for today’s shepherds to change the world again.

Shepherds, we need you now!

We’re not talking, right now, about the clergy, though their role as shepherds of God’s flock brings us hope, too.

No, today, it’s the world-weary, street-savvy, been-there-done-that hard-times Christian whom God picked to star as shepherds in this year’s Christmas story.  You have news and experience people of privilege often lack, and suddenly they need you more than they know.

Why?

Because you’ve lived through life’s storms and come out the other side.  Living paycheck to paycheck, you’ve been in the storm so many middle class and upper middle class co-workers now face, and you know there’s life after the storm.  The wisest of you even know there’s life in the storm.

You’ve heard and seen the worst, and have learned to live life in the face of uncertainty.  For so many people this Christmas, their worst nightmares have leapt from their imagination to reality, and they need the comfort of your company and the benefit of your experience.  But more than that, they need you to point them to the hope that kept you going even in your darkest days; the hope that keeps you going even today.

They need to know you’ve heard the angels and seen the Baby.

This isn’t some poetic plea aimed at stirring you to think, it’s an earnest call to act.  God grows impatient with the all-talk, no-action Christian who talks a game they never live out. Thousands and thousands of people who never dreamed they’d be in need are now, some for the first time ever, truly in need.  While you’ve already learned there’s no such thing as complete security; many of them are only learning it now the hard way. It’s their first time in the darkness.

They need you to show them how to move around in that darkness; and how to find joy in the smallest moments during those dark days; because it will link them to the day when there will be no more sorrow and no more pain; that wonderful day when Jesus stands up to end for all time the sin that racks this world God never intended to suffer.

But until He does; until the Savior stands a second time to bring us that day of eternal joy; it’s up to us, the ones whom the angels have sung to, the ones who have learned that this life is but a foretaste of that greater one; it’s up to us to tell the world we’ve seen the Baby.

Who were you before the manger? How did it change you? If you don’t have a story to tell of the hope the birth of Christ brings you, then it may well be that you’ve never really met Jesus.

The ones who’ve seen the darkest nights know best just how much even the tiniest flicker of hope can light that night.  This Christmas, let the shepherds be the wise ones as we point our friends, neighbors and coworkers to the Light that never goes out.

May this Christmas season find us waiting on others as we wait on Jesus.

–Randy Kilgore

Can you imagine what it would have been like living during the time that Jesus actually lived on the earth and hearing the things he was teaching as well as witnessing the miracles both he and his apostles were performing.  Its hard to fathom how anyone would not believe if you could see the actual evidence of someone who had been paralyzed now walking around.   Such a demonstration of supernatural power and incredible teaching. Many did not believe, but many did.

Deity in the form of a man entered our world and lived among us for thirty three short years. He grew up in a backwater town in Galilee called Nazareth, raised a son of the working class and probably worked as a builder with his Father for most of his adult life.  When just the right time came, he was called by his True Father to carry out the work that he was sent here to do.  He began to teach about who we really are and that our true Father loved us intently and wanted to reconcile all humanity, first his chosen people, then the rest of the world to have peace with God once and for all.  That through just believing in Him, we could be saved from our unrelenting sin nature.  The man who knew no sin could be our eternal savior and would intercede on our behalf personally to the Father when we continually messed up.

What an amazing time that must have been to live.  Yes, many did not believe even though Jesus performed miracles so amazing,  that no one could seriously argue that he was some kind of magician. We are still celebrating this most glorious season because many DID believe  and through all kinds of terror, persecution and torture continued to share the incredible good news of forgiveness of sin and peace with God through this man who lived  for a very short time, then died the most horrific death imaginable for you and for me.

Thank you God for the the most precious gift of your only son Jesus.  It is because of Him that we will live for all eternity with you Lord as you intended it to be from the beginning.  Praise be to God!  Amen