Dec. 5-12, 2004

Sunday, December 12, 2004

What does it mean that God became a man? This is the Christmas sermon series at my church here in Philly - Vineyard Community Church. Last week we talked about humility. God becoming a man - an infant, even - is an example of perfect, loving humility. Today we talked about understanding. God became a man so that we could never say, "God, You just don't understand." He DOES understand - firsthand. He suffered from temptation just as we do, only the suffering was even greater because He never gave in. He's walked in our shoes and He understands. And He continues on with us, suffers with us through each moment of our lives. That is love. I absolutely cannot get over Luke chapter 2. Every time I read it, it absolutely floors me. Can you imagine being a humble shepherd, watching over your flock at night, and all of sudden this angel appears in all this bright light... and you're pretty scared, because you've never seen anything like this before. But then the angel speaks, and says, "Do not be afraid. Your Savior is born! God has come to earth, He has come to us, and His gift of love is for all people." Do you get it? All people! God Himself is here on earth, in the form of a sweet and precious infant. And so you follow the star, and you walk as far as you have to, and you come to the manger, and you look down at a sweet innocent baby - and that baby is God Himself, Who loves you so much that He became a little baby, to grow up, to laugh, to cry, to stub his toe and skin his knee, to be made fun of, to be tempted... to suffer, to die, and to rise again... so that you can enter His Kingdom, and see Him face to face, and find mercy, grace, compassion, joy, and love... ...Hallelujah... Merry Christmas.

Wednesday, December 08, 2004

Check it out! Look what came for me in the mail today!!! SWEEEEEEEET!!! It's soooooooooo pretty and I'm sooooooooo excited! Chris is gonna teach me some stuff on Friday, I can't wait. And thanks to About.com, I can now tune it (decently), play a chromatic scale (decently), and play G, C, and D chords (decently). Fun stuff! Yay rah! I also got a pitch pipe but get this - it's out of tune!!! The D doesn't work and the low C and high C don't match at all. Yikes. I'm sending it back. Much love to everyone!!! Bis später!!!

Sunday, December 05, 2004

What is humility? How amazing is it that a God of majestic wonders and complete, glorious sovereignty over the earth is humble! So humble that He reduced Himself to the confines of an infant's body, fully dependent on imperfect man to care for him in even the most basic ways. No matter what, we will always be humbled in the end. But God dares us to humble ourselves now. And the reward is greater than what we could imagine. "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others greater than yourself." ~Philippians 2:3 (Check out the whole chapter) Grace and peace to all - let's have a revival in Him!! Our Saviour is born and His glorious love transforms and redeems us. How can we not celebrate?