USA – Thursday fellowship at Lyman, December 25th, 2025

We thank you Jesus for the many things you give us. And we don’t deserve one bit of it. Enjoying the fellowship of the family in Christ. The Christmas season shouldn't focus on material gifts-but it's certainly about giving and receiving gifts. Not just on Christmas Day but every day, hour, minute and second. God gave His Son to heal a broken world. If we've never given Him our hearts, today's a wonderful day to do so. If He already reigns there, let's offer a carol of peace and joy as we think about His arrival all those years ago in Bethlehem-and wait for His return. Dear Jesus, You're the greatest gift of all.

Everything I am, and everything I have, I give back to You.

Just as our Lord came into human history from outside it, He must also come into me from outside. Have I allowed my personal human life to become a "Bethlehem" for the Son of God? I cannot enter the realm of the kingdom of God unless I am born again from above by a birth totally unlike physical birth. "You must be born again" (John 3:7). This is not a command, but a fact based on the authority of God. The evidence of the new birth is that I yield myself so completely to God that "Christ is formed" in me. And once "Christ is formed" in me, His nature immediately begins to work through me.