When Love Came Down to Earth

This coming Sunday at NRN I plan to conclude the current Advent Teaching Series.   I plan to present the message of the incarnation is a unique way.  As I prepared for this Sunday, I found the following expression of affirmation of the incarnation of Jesus Christ.  I hope you enjoy it:




When love came down to earth
And made His home with men
The hopeless found a hope
The sinner found a friend
Not to the powerful
But to the poor He came
And humble hungry hearts
Were satisfied again

What joy what peace has come to us
What hope what help what love

When every unclean thought
And every sinful deed
Was scourged upon His back
And hammered through His feet
The Innocent is cursed
The guilty are released
The punishment of God
On God has brought me peace

Come lay your heavy load
Down at the Master's feet
Your shame will be removed
Your joy will be complete
Come crucify your pride
And enter as a child
For those who bow down low
He'll lift up to His side

Stuart Townend     Copyright © Thankyou Music 2002

What could stop a mall filled with busy holiday shoppers?

What could stop a mall filled with busy holiday shoppers?

"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."                                                                                        - Isaiah 9:6







Join us this Sunday at NRN as we sing favorite Christmas carols to the Glory of God!

The value of persistant prayer with faith and action.

This evening at 6:30 we gather for Corporate Prayer at NRN.  I am so thankful for a faithful group of people that join me in prayer each week.  We share life experiences and laugh together.  Then we quiet our hearts and go to the Lord in prayer.  Each Wednesday this year I have attempted to post on my blog a primer on prayer in preparation for our time together. We have established a prayer request box in the lobby of the church and now each week we have request for prayer.

Tonight is the last Corporate Prayer time of this year.  Next Wednesday is Christmas Day, followed by New Year's Day.  We plan to resume our Wednesday evening time of prayer on Wednesday January 8, 2014.  This does not mean that we are not praying. We are to pray without ceasing.


Today I am thinking of the importance of adding faith to our prayer.  And faith without works is dead.  Here is a moving story of how a simple act of faith and generosity can change a persons life.

The Christmas Shoes

Considering we are just a few days away from Christmas I really wanted to upload this music video... The song is by the group - Newsong. 




This is a beautiful song and video about a young boy who's mother is dying and he wants to buy her a beautiful pare of shoes so that she will look beautiful when she meets Jesus.

This Christmas, make the commitment not to get too wrapped up in the horrible materialism that the season tends to bring... It tends to take away the meaning of the holiday. 

Jesus would of never wanted people to celebrate his birth by putting themselves into debt and depression... Christmas is supposed to be time for families to spend together... 'Gift Exchange' is the general key... not who can buy the most and look the richest.  The best gift at Christmas... is the gift of giving.

Just spend some well deserved time with your family... it's what everyone deserves... 

Don't let hot headedness get in the way... Is there ever a guarantee you will all be together again next Christmas?

Two of my favorite Christmas songs that we will not sing at our church this year

Two of my favorite Christmas songs that we will not sing at our church this year. 

These are songs I love to listen to in my time with the Lord.  Enjoy:

A Christmas Devotional - The Wonder of all Wonders

 

The Wonder of All Wonders

God travels wonderful ways with human beings, but he does not comply with the views and opinions of people. God does not go the way that people want to prescribe for him; rather, his way is beyond all comprehension, free and self-determined beyond all proof.

Where reason is indignant, where our nature rebels, where our piety anxiously keeps us away: that is precisely where God loves to be. There he confounds the reason of the reasonable; there he aggravates our nature, our piety--that is where he wants to be, and no one can keep him from it. Only the humble believe him and rejoice that God is so free and so marvelous that he does wonders where people despair, that he takes what is little and lowly and makes it marvelous. And that is the wonder of all wonders, that God loves the lowly...God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings. God marches right in. He chooses people as his instruments and performs his wonders where one would least expect them. God is near to lowliness; he loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak and broken.

That...is the unrecognized mystery of this world: Jesus Christ. That this Jesus of Nazareth, the carpenter, was himself the Lord of glory: that was the mystery of God. It was a mystery because God became poor, low, lowly, and weak out of love for humankind, because God became a human being like us, so that we would become divine, and because he came to us so that we would come to him. God as the one who becomes low for our sakes, God in Jesus of Nazareth —that is the secret, hidden wisdom... that "no eye has seen nor ear heard nor the human heart conceived" (1 Cor. 2:9)...That is the depth of the Deity, whom we worship as mystery and comprehend as mystery.                -Dietrich Bonhoeffer

None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written,

"What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him"-- "these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God."                                                                                     1 Corinthians 2:8—10

Excerpted from:  God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas                                          By: Dietrich Bonhoeffer  WESTMINSTER JOHN KNOX PRESS / 2012

Preparing for Worship at NRN on December 15 2013 - The third Sunday of Advent

Tomorrow at NRN we gather for a great time of worship.  Our special guest is Dr. Greg Mason and his wife Elaine.  Dr. Mason was recently appointed as District Superintendent of the North Carolina District of the Church of the Nazarene.   Tomorrow will mark his first official visit to our church.

Here is the planned songs of worship:

We pause for the lighting of the candles on the Advent Wreath.

 

We plan to enter into a time of prayer and then move into a time to receive new members into our church.  As we present our offerings I pray for a moving of generosity and faithfulness as we trust God for a significant offering this Sunday.  As we present our offerings in faith we sing:




Over the skies of Bethlehem appeared a star
While angels sang to lowly shepherds
Three Wiseman seeking truth they traveled from afar
Hoping to find the child from heaven
Falling on their knees they bow before the humble Prince of Peace

We bring an offering of worship to our King
No one on earth deserves the praises that we sing
Jesus may you receive the honor that you're due
O Lord I bring an offering to you

The sun cannot compare to the glory of your love
There is no shadow in your presence
No mortal man would dare to stand before your throne
Before the Holy One of heaven
It's only by Your blood
It's only through Your mercy
Lord, I come

I bring an offering of worship to my King
No one on earth deserves the praises that I sing
Jesus, may you receive the honor that you're due
O Lord, I bring an offering to you

We bring an offering to you
We are an offering to you
We are an offering to you, Jesus

We are an offering of worship to our King
No one on earth deserves the praises that we sing
Jesus, may you receive the honor that you're due
O Lord, we bring an offering to you

O Lord, we bring an offering to you

We bring an offering to you
We are an offering to you
We are an offering to you