Category Archives: Bible

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Our Tradition: Decorations And Movies

This is part of the series The Gifts Of The Holidays: Celebrating Thanksgiving And Christmas. Read more from the series!

Our kids get really excited about our Christmas traditions. And, to be honest, so do I.

And the day after Thanksgiving is probably my favorite day of the year because of this.

The Gifts Of Christmas

This is the day we decorate the house.

First of all, I’ve booked this day as a recurring entry on my calendar. It’s always pre-booked, so that I will never forget and double schedule something else on this date. That has the added benefit of communicating to my wife and kids just how important this day is to me.

Once we are all awake, the work begins. The kids clean and vacuum the house, especially the living areas while I’m unloading boxes from the storage area under the stairs.

After the living room passes inspection, we set up the tree. We now have a pre-lit tree, so it’s a little easier than in years past.

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Our Tradition: Expressing Thanks

This is part of the series The Gifts Of The Holidays: Celebrating Thanksgiving And Christmas. Read more from the series!

One of the character traits we are trying to instill in our children is gratefulness.

And so we have developed several traditions that help to foster this.

The Gifts Of Thanksgiving

This is a habit we strive for all year long, but it seems especially powerful around Thanksgiving time.

It’s the habit of expressing our thanks.

For us, it’s simple. When we are seated at the table for our Thanksgiving meal, we go around the room, allowing each person the chance to share what they are thankful for, especially over the past year.

We also do this on a more immediate basis in our family devotions regularly. We each share something we are thankful for from the day or the last week.

We have five young kids. It gets pretty entertaining as they come up with things that they are thankful for, because once they share the basics, such as family, food, our home, and friends, we encourage them to get more creative.

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The Gift Of Family

This is part of the series The Gifts Of The Holidays: Celebrating Thanksgiving And Christmas. Read more from the series!

I am very family centered.

I get teary when I watch a family movie with my wife and kids. I choke when I see a strong family loving one another.

And I love spending time with family.

The Gifts Of Thanksgiving

Family is important. More so now than it has been in my life in the past. I’ve been brutally reminded of the mortality of this life with the loss of my brother and my father.

Now, it’s only my mother, a brother and myself. Seems sad…

Granted, I have several families through the years that have “adopted” us. We have grown very close, and will always be so.

But it’s not the same.

One of the things that scares me about 21st century American culture is the complete lack of priority of the family. The breakdown of the family is a dangerous path that will lead us to where we do not want to go.

America, and the world, needs to retrace our steps and re-realize the importance of family.

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The Gift Of God’s Provision

This is part of the series The Gifts Of The Holidays: Celebrating Thanksgiving And Christmas. Read more from the series!

I will admit it: I’m sometimes a product of our society.

As American’s we have been blessed. Sure, I’m not wealthy by American standards. But compared to the rest of the world, I’m rich beyond imagination.

And I take that for granted.

The Gifts Of Thanksgiving

What I often don’t remember is that everything I have has been granted to me by God.

He provides.

I could list out all the needs he provides for my family and me: food, clothing, shelter, love…

But what I’m poignantly reminded of frequently are all the little things God provides for me.

The wants. Above and beyond the needs.

One of God’s names in the Old Testament is Jehovah Jireh. It means “The Lord will provide.”

How true! Even in the little things.

Most of us know the story of Abraham going to Mount Moriah to sacrifice his only son Isaac. Isaac must have been pretty confused.

He asked, “The wood and fire are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”

Abraham trusted that God would provide, even though it didn’t seem like he would. He replied, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.”

Remember what happened? Abraham was willing to obey God no matter what. Isaac was on the altar, Abraham had the knife in the air, and the angel of the Lord stopped him.

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The Gift Of Gratefulness

This is part of the series The Gifts Of The Holidays: Celebrating Thanksgiving And Christmas. Read more from the series!

Sometimes the state of America saddens me. It seems as if we’ve lost our way.

We love to celebrate, but one of the most important holidays seems to be largely overlooked. Stores move from Halloween to Christmas. Families use the day to gorge themselves and watch football.

And the whole idea behind Thanksgiving is ignored.

The Gifts Of Thanksgiving

We’ve forgotten how to be grateful. Instead, we view life as if we deserved everything we have; all the gifts, blessings, and good things.

We feel entitled.

We shouldn’t.

We should live with an attitude of thankfulness.

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Blog Series: The Gifts Of The Holidays

The holidays are a special time for my family. Both Thanksgiving and Christmas have come to bear special meaning for us. We have several traditions in place surrounding both days that help us to avoid the all commercialization, and instead to focus on qualities that demonstrate the true meaning of them both.

This series, The Gifts of the Holidays, is a series of posts that I will write this year, describing those characteristics, as well as some of our family traditions, both old and new, that we enjoy.

This page will serve as a landing page for each of the posts in this series. From here, you will be able to navigate to each post.

The Gifts Of Thanksgiving

The Gifts Of Thanksgiving

 

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Classic Bible: My Favorite Passages From Galatians

This is part of the Classic Bible: Favorite Stories & Passages series. Read more from the series!

A couple of days ago, I sat down and read through the book of Galatians. I had read through it earlier in the year, in my scheduled Bible reading plan. Going back through it the other day, I noticed that I’d underlined and highlighted several passages. There is a lot of great stuff in this little letter.

Galatians

I decided that it was time to read it again, taking a closer look at some of these passages.

The letter to the Galatians was written by Paul, somewhere around AD 52-56, but could have possible been written as early as AD 48. Paul was writing to the churches in the province of Galatia, which is modern day Turkey.

Since there were several churches in this region, most of which Paul was instrumental in starting, Paul’s instructions are fairly general, since they are addressed to a wider range of congregations than just one. That facts nakes them extremely applicable to the church today.

As I read through the six chapters of this epistle again this week, I noted several passages that always seem to stand out to me.