Welcome to our December 2020 Update! And Merry Christmas early to each and every person reading this. What a great time of year to have the joy of giving to others! And for many, the joy of being together with family and friends as well!

Our prayer is that, this December, our family and yours will have one of the greatest celebrations of Immanuel we have ever experienced! He is worthy of our worship and thanks this season and every season of our lives!!

It is so easy to do "this" during this time of year. Most of us are extra busy with Christmas and end-of-year activities. What's "this"? Not stopping to ponder the awe of what Christmas is really about. When was the last time you stopped to ponder - to give thanks - to worship the One who provided our most needed gift - salvation. So we ask you to consider stopping right now and taking a few minutes to read AND to ponder what Ed Welch shares in this post. We do not think you will regret these few minutes!

I think about ladders during the Christmas season.

In the beginning, the Lord dwelled, in all His fullness and glory, in heaven. Yet He came to earth and began to fashion it into His dwelling. There was a ladder—a vertical bridge—between heaven and earth. The full project would take time, but God made visits and walked with us during those visits.

When we turned from the Lord, the distance between us became greater, and human history then became one long obsession about that distance. Life could only be found in being close to God, yet we preferred to get close on our own terms. The tower of Babel was the first of many aborted attempts to make a ladder to God in our own strength. Now, instead of towers, we try to create righteousness in ourselves by our haphazard attempts at being good or religious, but our attempts to climb the ladder still fail.

Yet God’s plan was to bridge heaven and earth, and He was still going to do it. He came close and spoke to people—Abraham, Moses, Job and others. He made promises that He would bless, which means that He must be close because blessing is dependent on His presence.

When Jacob had doubts about God’s promises, he was given a glimpse into heavenly realities. He saw a ladder, and “the angels of God were ascending and descending on it,” and the Lord stood above it. (Genesis 28:12–13). The vision is clear: heaven will, in fact, come to earth. The two will connect.

With this vision in mind, Jesus spoke to Nathaniel. “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man” (John 1:51).” The ladder is the same. Angels are freely going between two realms. What is different is that God, once seen at the top of the ladder, is now on earth. The Lord—the Son of Man, the Ancient of Days, Jesus the Christ—has descended, in all humility and love. In the weakness of a baby, He came to us and the distance between heaven and earth was forever changed.

Just one more ascent. In His death, resurrection, and ascent into heaven He became the enthroned One. From there, His first official act was to give us His Spirit, who descends and is present with us while we remain on earth. Christ did this for those who trust in Him, and He did it with us. When we trust Him, our life becomes wrapped into His, so we ourselves now traverse the ladder with Him.

Christmas is the time we remember that God came down, which had always been the plan. The ladder, once the domain of angels, has become a level path—a well traveled highway—on which we walk freely with Immanuel.

See original post at: https://www.ccef.org/the-christmas-ladder/

And if you want information about trusting Jesus as your Savior from your sins, then click on this link. And please email Glen at [email protected] if there are any questions we can answer related to this!

I know that for the last few months, we have been asking you to pray for spiritual revival, first in the Church, and then in our country as a whole. We know this is the only real answer for all the issues we face in this life - spiritually, politically, and relationally.

If you have not heard of OneCry, we would love for you to check it out at the link below. Here is a short description: OneCry is a nationwide call for spiritual awakening, a movement of believers urgently crying out to God to revive the church and transform the culture. OneCry is a movement of like-minded people, churches, and organizations who agree that our nation needs a dramatic turnaround. OneCry is also a resource center that provides tools to help your church, Sunday school class, small group, or friends seek God in prayer, repentance, and collective action.

We encourage you to check it out, and share it with others!!

My kids can’t wait until Christmas morning when they get more stuff. They already have a room overflowing with toys and craft supplies and books and stuffed animals. I don’t even know what to get them anymore! But they can’t wait to get more every December.

Christmas is a time of gifts and special treats. And there is nothing wrong with that in its proper place. Gary Chapman wrote an entire series of best-selling books explaining how gift-giving is a language of love. My daughter certainly speaks it. Hardly a day goes by when she isn’t giving someone a homemade gift or even one of her own toys. Of course, she wants to get gifts, too … Not easy for a “words” person like me.

And let us not forget gift-giving is a part of the nativity. Our Lord was given gold, frankincense, and myrrh by those three wise men who traveled so far to see and honor the baby royal. Gift giving was, and still is, a reasonable response to a day worth celebrating.

The problem is what happens the day after Christmas: The toys are piled up with the others from last year and the year before. I’ve found toys in my children’s rooms that were still in unopened packages from the previous Christmas. The beautifully decorated packages that seemed so precious under the tree became just another part of the landscape of things, forgotten and underappreciated.

Maybe that’s why this scripture from the nativity stands out to me: “But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Luke 2:19).

I picture the young mother, smiling down at the newborn baby in her arms. She counts His toes and fingers and marvels at the tiny gift God gave her. The shepherds come in awe, telling stories of a great crowd of angels filling the sky who told them to come and worship the child.

There she was—in a barn, no cozy home to nest, no midwife or mother to help take care of the baby, surrounded by shepherds fresh off the fields. There was no baby shower or flowers. But Mary believed the angel when he told her of God’s favor and blessing upon her. And she tucked those memories deep in her heart and kept them there as a priceless treasure.

That wasn’t the only time the Bible tells us Mary treasured memories in her heart. When Jesus was 12, Mary and Joseph accidentally left Him in the city and traveled an entire day before realizing He was gone. Three days later, they found Him sitting at the temple, soaking up teachings of the scribes. And even though Mary started out distressed, she went home in awe. The Bible says she “treasured up all these things in her heart” (Luke 2:51).

Sometimes the Christmas season has us so focused on the physical gifts that we miss the kind that don’t have a price tag. We’re bombarded with the stress of budgeting, managing schedules, making everything “fair,” and eating lots of food! (Okay, maybe that last one is just me.) But all these things distract us from the treasures that can’t be boxed up and forgotten in a year or two.

Jesus said, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:19-21).

Did you see that? There’s a link between what we treasure and where we find our hearts.

It’s simple, really. What you treasure, you think about. And what you think about all the time becomes the guide for your life. Have you ever tried to drive while looking away from the road and thinking about something else? That’s how people end up in the ditch. And that’s how Christmas becomes a holiday of stuff.

UPWARD FOCUS THIS SEASON: As we shared earlier, our prayer is that this Christmas season would be one of the greatest celebrations of Immanuel for our family, and for yours. Let's intentionally make time to do this. The greatest Giver gave the greatest gift - Himself - so that we could be reconciled to Him!!

CONTINUED PRAYERS FOR OUR COUNTRY: Please continue to pray for the Lord to bring spiritual revival, first in His Church, and then in a broader way in our country. We truly believe this is the only real way to bring real lasting change for all of us.

GIVING THANKS AS A COUPLE: As some of you know, Shawn and I took time on November 28th to thank God for another wedding anniversary - our 28th! And although we did spend time together that day, we are "officially getting away" for a few days mid-December to truly celebrate and spend time together. Appreciate your prayers of thanksgiving to God for His great grace over those 28 years AND for His continued help for what we hope are many more years of growing in our relationship with Him and with each other!

OUR FAMILY IN 2020: Thanks for praying this for us over the course of this year. Please continue to pray that all of us would grow in our humility and gratitude as we end 2020 and those Christ-like qualities would flow into every relationship and every circumstance we encounter in the year to come!

FIRST LOVE: We would never lose our "first love" for Jesus Christ and the pursuit of an active and growing relationship with Him. And that after Him, our priorities would be: Marriage second, Family third, and Ministry activities and everything else after that.