Small Town Mysteries. Big Time Suspense.
I wrote this for my parents as a Christmas gift many years ago and they kindly said I could reprint it here.
Be still
On the holiest night of the year
And think
Among the billion, billions of stars
In the vastness of forever
He would have come
If only
For you.
I liked this devotion from Almost an Author. For this time of year when everyone is so busy, it packs a lot of meaning with some very well chosen words and scripture.
God’s BlogThis is a speech I wrote to accompany the presentation of Bibles to the third-graders at my church and I wanted to share it because I enjoyed writing it.
How many of you know who your principal is? Sure, you know his or her name and where that person works, but do you know his favorite food? Or favorite subject? What college she went to? So you know enough about your principal to identify him or her and to say hello but not much else.
Sometimes, that’s all the more we know about God. We know He’s there and He makes stuff like nature and miracles, but we really don’t know much else.
God wants us to know him as well as you do your mom and dad and best friends. Nothing is more important than getting to know God. So God set up a blog, e-mail, and Facebook pages so we can do that.
The Bible is God’s blog. In it, God tells us about what he likes, like creating things, and what he hates, like sin. He tells us about people He’s helped because they got to know him. God posts all kinds of information about Himself on His blog in histories, poems, and essays.
He also receives e-mails, but when we e-mail God, we called it prayer. We can e-mail God about anything, even just ordinary, everyday things, and He always responds.
God also has Facebook pages. Interestingly, God uses real faces for his Facebook pages. Everybody who believes Jesus saves us from our sins is a Facebook page for God. Checking out all the Facebooks pages here in our church is a wonderful way to get to know God.
So remember to use all through of God’s electronic formats – blog, e-mail, and Facebook — and you will be working on the most important thing you can do with your life.
The news estimated that 8,000 people attended. I think that was a great attendance for noon on a weekday. It was very encouraging to see so many Christians from different walks of life in one place. The only things I can compare it to was a Billy Graham crusade I attended in Cincinnati around fifteen years ago and a United Methodist world conference I went to in Cleveland in 2000. The choir in the church where I grew up was invited, with many other choirs, to sing during the opening service. It was very moving to take communion during that service with Christians from around the world.
I wrote about prayer last week. I’m writing about my Bible study habits because both activities have to go together if you want to get to know God.
I began reading my Bible daily when I was fifteen. I had read somewhere if you read three chapters a day you could get through the Bible in a year. I kept to that schedule for a long time, so I learned the stories and passages really well. But I missed a lot of the meaning.
When I read Mere Christianity, it opened my mind to completely new aspects of my faith. I have read a lot of complimentary books to the Bible since then, and most have been helpful, but nothing beats actually reading and studying the Bible.
I think when we Christians don’t read the Bible regularly and work at understanding it, we imagine it means things that just aren’t there. If we stick to studying the Word, familiar passages will gain new meaning, and ones we don’t understand or don’t like may become clear to us. Or God may say we aren’t ready for Him to explain a problem passage. But if we stop reading, it definitely won’t get any easier to understand.
I now read a chapter of the Bible a day, usually before I start praying. I like reading first because it calms my mind so I can focus on the prayer. I used to read the Bible in order, but now I read the sections I feel moved to. When I was really depressed one spring, I read Lamentations. This summer I read the really short letters before Revelations because I felt I didn’t know them very well.
One thing I need to work on is learning Bible verses. I can relate stories and explain sections, but I don’t know actual verses well at all. Two I like are:
I lift my eyes to the mountains – where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. Psalm 121:1-2 NIV
The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. Hebrews 13:6 NIV
JPC Allen Writes
