Exmas in Acirema
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My travels have taken me to a strange and wonderful country called Acirema. It is a land of many contradictions. It has high mountains, yet flat plains. It has vast open spaces, yet cities crammed with people. It even has a holiday with contradictions – a holiday called Exmas. Continue reading
Merry Christmas 2017
The Bible tells the story of Jesus’ birth in different gospels. Matthew 1:18-25 and 2:1-18. Luke 1:26-38 and 2:1-21. For this devotional, I am using only Matthew 1:18-25 and Luke 1:26-38 and these verses are found below. These verses tell stories from Mary’s and Joseph’s perspective. I found four, amazing similarities between their stories:
- Both Mary and Joseph are visited by angels. An angel appears to Mary. An angel came to Joseph in a dream. Communication with angels was extremely rare.
- Both Mary and Joseph were told by the angels, “Do not be afraid.” They were to be married and found out that Mary was pregnant by the Holy Spirit. These were unusual circumstances to say the least.
- Both Mary and Joseph accepted what the angel had told them. What faith!
- Both were told to name the baby Jesus. He will save his people from their sins.
Matthew 1:21. “She will give birth to a son, You will name him Jesus. Give him that name because He will save his people from their sins.” (ERV)
Jesus is our hope. Named by angels, He was born for us, for you, for me. We can come to know Jesus as our Savior. Jesus comes into our hearts and saves us from our sins. We do not have to be afraid. God is with us. Amen.
Continue readingHappy Thanksgiving Day 2017
I was wondering how Thanksgiving in America got started and when it became a Holiday. Just a Brief history lesson!
Thanksgiving began as a day of giving thanks for the blessing of the harvest and of the preceding year. In 1621 the Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony set aside a day of Thanksgiving to God. It was a harvest festival.
Thanksgiving proclamations were made mostly by church leaders up until 1682, and then by church and state leaders until the American Revolution, according to Wikipedia. Thus Thanksgiving has historical roots in both religious and cultural traditions.
Through the years after the Revolution, Presidents from George Washington to Abraham Lincoln made Thanksgiving proclamations with Lincoln, in 1864, turning it into a Federal holiday on the last Thursday of November. Finally, Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the holiday to the fourth Thursday of November to make more time for Christmas shopping.
Continue readingLove not Hate
Today is the day before our national Thanksgiving holiday. The day has a long history starting with the early Pilgrims who braved dangerous seas to arrive in a new land. They came to escape the religious persecutions of their home in England. In coming to what is now known as the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, they realized they had made a mistake for they were really bound for Virginia. It was too late in the Fall season to doing anything else but try to survive the coming Winter where they landed. Over the years, the Pilgrims survived brutal Winters and ongoing war with the native people called Wampanoag. After being nearly wiped out by Western diseases and war with European immigrants, these native people are back in the news. Why? It’s Thanksgiving Season and descendants of the Wampanoags are bringing back their own language by teaching it in schools. Continue reading
Blind Date, Part 2
Walking under trees in the park during that hot Summer helped clear my mind about the world around me. I came to realize it was all a part of God’s Creation. Science could explain how it was made and how it works, but science has yet to actually create anything brand new. We’re good at taking what God made and changing it into something else. Like little boys, we break things or knock them down and then try to make something else of the pieces. Sometimes for bad, sometimes for good. But, we still do not make anything brand new under the Sun. Continue reading
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