A Living Christmas Tree Checklist!

This little checklist is more than a helpful hint for Christmas trees. It’s a check list for your approach and attitude toward Christ and Christmas.

Purchase a tree that will fit your home. They look a lot smaller in the outdoors. This point was driven home one year when we went to the wild, with the forest ranger’s permission, to chop down our own live tree. The perfect tree turned out to be nine feet tall and six feet wide. When I finished making it fit, it was a great looking Christmas bush. 

The size of the tree is not the only thing that needs to be checked.  Check your head size. Christmas isn't about you. It isn't about who has the biggest tree or the most decorative house. Christmas is about Christ.

There are no perfect live trees. Do not attempt to trim it to perfection. Another lesson taught from our nine foot tree. 

Despite what Hollywood portraits, there is no prefect Christmas.  The only thing perfect about Christmas is Christ.  The people you celebrate Christmas with are imperfect and you are too. Accept the fact that those that celebrate Christ birth are imperfect.  Don’t try to remake them and don’t be too hard on yourself. The dinner may not go perfect. Uncle Charlie might show up with a Rudolph nose or not show up all. The presents might not fit! 

Unless you are looking for the flaming tree effect, put live trees in a stand that allows you to water them often and water your tree. Your local fireman will thank you. 

During the holiday season and throughout the year, check your relationship with the Lord.  Water that relationship with prayer and daily time in His Word.  Many a fire of temptation can be prevented with proper watering.

Make sure the bulbs are properly fastened into the sockets before hanging lights.  Many a frustration meter has went off the chart because of a bad connection. Check the lights first and not last.

It is also wise to check your head and make sure it is screwed on straight.  People do many foolish things during the holidays. None is more foolish than spending more money than you have. The spirit of giving can be good. Don’t let it turn bad by over spending.

Hang only treasured ornaments on your tree. You are not out to impress the world with your tree. The kid’s painted ornaments are fine. Hang memories and not ornaments. 

During the Christmas season and throughout the year, do not try to impress others. The cost of impressing other is too high.  Love, respect, and acceptance are items that cannot be bought. They are given freely to those that give them freely.

Don’t let the tinsel hide the tree. It is amazing how much time and effort is given by Christmas shoppers to find the perfect Christmas tree; and then they hide it under a ton of tinsel. 

The meaning a purpose of Christmas can be lost in the tinsel of the holiday. Don’t allow Santa to overshadow the Babe in the Manger.  Allow Christ to be at the front of Christmas.

Crown you tree with a star or an angel. Both are symbols of hope. The star announced the birth of hope to the Magi. The angels proclaimed the hope of peace to be found in a babe born to a virgin. They are fitting symbols to top your tree.

Christ is our Prince of Peace. He is our hope. It stands to reason that He should be at the top of our life all year.

If you enjoy Pastor Jim's Wit and Wisdom, then you will love his book, For His Glory: A Kaleidoscope of Wisdom. Find out more and take a peek inside by Clicking Here. 

Check out these related articles: The Madness of Christmas and Is the Hassles of Life Dragging You Down?

The Great Giver*

“But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able thus to offer willingly? For all things come from you, and of your own have we given you." 1 Chronicles 29:14 ESV

It is the glory of God, and His very nature, to be always GIVING. God is the owner of all. There is no power, no riches, no goodness, no love, outside of God. It is the very nature of God that He does not live for Himself, but for His creatures. His is a love that always delights to give. Here we come to the first step in consecration. I must see that everything I have is given by Him; I must learn to believe in God as the great Owner and Giver of all. Let me hold that fast. I have nothing but what actually and definitely belongs to God. Just as much as people say, “this money in my purse belongs to me,” so God is the Proprietor of all. It is His and His only. And it is His life and delight to be always giving. Oh, take that precious thought— there is nothing that God has that He does not want to give. It is His nature, and therefore when God asks you anything, He must give it first Himself, and He will. Never be afraid whatever God asks; for God only asks what is His own; what He asks you to give He will first Himself give you. The Possessor, and Owner, and Giver of all! This is our God. You can apply this to yourself and your powers to all you are and have. Study it, believe it, live in it, every day, every hour, every moment. -Andrew Murray, The Deeper Christian Life

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Lessons from a Toy Boat: 5 Fundamental Character Values

Lessons from a Toy Boat: 5 Fundamental Character Values

As a young boy, some friends and I decided we could build our own toy boat out of some scrap lumber in Dad’s shed. Using a 2x4 for our base, I decided we would build an aircraft carrier.  

Taking small pieces of wood, we built a three story high tower on the right side of our 2x4 deck. Using toothpicks for antennas on the top of the tower and some left over navy gray paint, our aircraft carrier looked fairly good. When we added two small planes, we thought we were the greatest ship builders to come along since Noah.

Packing up our still paint-sticky ship, the three of us climbed on our bikes and headed to the nearby pond to float our boat. There we discovered a major engineering flaw in our ship building. You could not put all that weight on one side of a 2x4 and expect it to float upright!  

This adventure taught a number of important lessons.  This one has served me well.  Although a life may appear to be sound and good, that does not mean it is.  Life like a boat is required to follow fundamental character values to float upright in the sea of life. If there is a single flaw in one of the core values or a core value is missing, life will not float upright.

As a young boy that summer day, I learned that even a toy boat must follow core values to float upright.  Much later in life, I found that fundamental character values must be followed for my life to float upright.

Although my life has not always floated upright and has on occasion been upside-down, the following five life principles have helped me more than once to get my life floating upright.

1) You have been put together by the Great Design Engineer. 

Don’t mess up the design and don’t let someone else mess up the design. Allow God and his biblical principles to guild your life. Quit trying to fix your life and allow the Creator to work through you and in you. Stop looking for a miracle formula or a magic pill or a knight in shining armor to instantly cure all of life’s storms. Like in the sport of Rowing where the Coxswain (Cox) does the steering while facing forward and the rowers face him, let Lord do the steering.  Let God handle to the helm and just row!

2) You are created for a purpose!

Everything in the universe clicks together and you play a part. You are not worthless or disposable. You are important; and although you might not see the great scheme of things, you play an important part. A missing single bolt in ship can sink it.  

3) Get the Heart Right!

The way you look or the way you perceive how you look doesn’t matter. What matters is if you float upright.  Get things right in the heart and you will stand tall in the sea of life. The compass of life is deep within the heart.  When the heart is right, you will know true north and never be lost at sea. 

Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:23-24)

Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. (Proverbs 4:23)

4) You are loved! Learn to love others!

It is paramount that you understand that you are loved by God. He chose to love you!  Because he directed his love toward you, you can learn to love him and others.  Most importantly you can learn to you yourself.

Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. (1 John 3:1)

He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.  In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.  Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.  We love him, because he first loved us. (1 John 4:8-10, 19) 

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.  This is the first and great commandment.   And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. (Matthew  22:37-39)  

5) Seek the truth and be truthful

Seek the truth! If you do so, you will find Jesus because Jesus is the truth!  Be honest and faithful in all of your affairs and you will be an outstanding person.  You will always float upright no matter how stormy the sea of life might become.

“I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” -Jesus (John 14:6)

 If you enjoy Pastor Jim's Wit and Wisdom, you will love his book: For His Glory: A Kaleidoscope of Wisdom. Take a moment and peek inside it.

Prevailing Prayer

I Appointed You That Ye Should Go and Bear Fruit, and That Your Fruit Should Abide: That Whatsoever Ye Shall Ask of the Father in My Name, He May Give It You—John 15.16

Today's Reading is a selection
from my book For His Glory:
31 Daily Meditations

In the first verse of our parable, Christ revealed Himself as the true Vine, and the Father as the Husbandman, and asked for Himself and the Father a place in the heart. Here, in the closing verse, He sums up all His teaching concerning Himself and the Father in the twofold purpose for which He had chosen them. With reference to Himself, the Vine, the purpose was, that they should bear fruit. With reference to the Father, it was, that whatsoever they should ask in His name, should be done of the Father in Heaven. As fruit is the great proof of the true relation to Christ, so prayer is of our relation to the Father. A fruitful abiding in the Son, and prevailing prayer to the Father, are the two great factors in the true Christian life.

That whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.—These are the closing words of the parable of the Vine. The whole mystery of the Vine and its branches leads up to the other mystery—that whatsoever we ask in His name the Father gives! See here the reason of the lack of prayer, and of the lack of power in prayer. It is because we so little live the true branch life, because we so little lose ourselves in the Vine, abiding in Him entirely, that we feel so little constrained to much prayer, so little confident that we shall be heard, and so do not know how to use His name as the key to God’s storehouse. The Vine planted on earth has reached up into Heaven; it is only the soul wholly and intensely abiding in it, can reach into Heaven with power to prevail much. Our faith in the teaching and the truth of the parable, in the truth and the life of the Vine, must prove itself by power in prayer. The life of abiding and obedience, of love and joy, of cleansing and fruit-bearing, will surely lead to the power of prevailing prayer.

Whatsoever ye shall ask—The promise was given to disciples who were ready to give themselves, in the likeness of the true Vine, for their fellow men. This promise was all their provision for their work; they took it literally, they believed it, they used it, and they found it true. Let us give ourselves, as branches of the true Vine, and in His likeness, to the work of saving men, of bringing forth fruit to the glory of God, and we shall find a new urgency and power to pray and to claim the “whatsoever ye ask.”

Warning! Dangerous Curve!

The southern part of the State of Indiana is very pretty in the fall season. The natural woods and hilly terrain make for a very colorful drive on a sunny afternoon. But the hilly topography also creates some extremely dangerous curves and hills. The roads are peppered with yellow warning signs and speed reduction signs. Occasionally a driver ignores the warnings and the result is fatal.

The Bible warns us about living in a "I-have-arrived" state – the place where you think you have conquered sin and are little more saintly than others. That is an extremely dangerous condition that the devil seldom lets pass by and can be spiritually fatal. Traveling the "I'm better than you" highway has sharp turns and extremely slick and hilly roads that even the most seasoned saint will find difficult to handle. Heed what the Bible says!

Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. 1Co 10:12

This is a sample of the snippets of wisdom that Pastor Jim shares in his book, For His Glory: A Kaleidoscope of Wisdom. Currently Net 153 Publications is offering this book with a 30% discount. Find out more by Clicking Here.

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Our 2012 Parenting Tip

Our 2012 Parenting Tip

We really got brave and published this! I can see the eyes rolling now. take moment and check it out.

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