Wednesday December 31,
and the Word was God.
A bird perched on top of a tree Picture by Jerry Torres
Our Blog is inspired by The Holy Spirit.
The Seventh Day in the Octave of Christmas
In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came to be through him,
and without him nothing came to be.
What came to be through him was life,
and this life was the light of the human race;
the light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness has not overcome it.
A man named John was sent from God.
He came for testimony, to testify to the light,
so that all might believe through him.
He was not the light,
but came to testify to the light.
The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
He was in the world,
and the world came to be through him,
but the world did not know him.
He came to what was his own,
but his own people did not accept him.
But to those who did accept him
he gave power to become children of God,
to those who believe in his name,
who were born not by natural generation
nor by human choice nor by a man’s decision
but of God.
And the Word became flesh
and made his dwelling among us,
and we saw his glory,
the glory as of the Father’s only-begotten Son,
full of grace and truth.
John testified to him and cried out, saying,
“This was he of whom I said,
‘The one who is coming after me ranks ahead of me
because he existed before me.’”
From his fullness we have all received,
grace in place of grace,
because while the law was given through Moses,
grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
No one has ever seen God.
The only-begotten Son, God, who is at the Father’s side,
has revealed him. Emphasis mine John 1:14a, 12a
As we reported last week we just finished reading Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus By Nabeel Qureshi.
One claim Nabeel made, as a Muslem, was that Jesus never said, in the Bible, He was God, which when we thought about it, I realized that Jesus couldn’t because if Jesus said that He was God, then He excluded His Father and The Holy Spirit. This is another example of why I enjoyed this book.
What would we (you) say if someone made this statement, and this could easily happen to me in the jail, and I, we, you and I) was challenged to rebut that statement.
Simply, I couldn’t refute it,
Until Nabeel’s book, and when Nabell read John 1 the lights came on because when Nabeel read
and the Word was God.
This line convinced Nabeel that being a Muslem was not worshiping God, and he had spent his entire life searching and finally finding the true God.
We believe that if you thought about the birth of Jesus, how it pointed to the Cross, how Jesus had parents who weren’t on any social register, He was a Nobody for thirty years, preached for thirty years inflaming the existing power structures, Jewish and Roman, (don’t forget the massacre of the innocents right after His birth), and submitted to Death on a Cross, (which no god, allah, or any other god created by man even considered, oh and by the way lived what he preached while hanging on the Cross (He forgave those Crucifying Him – you and I), and lastly set an example as to how we are to live our lives while hanging on the Cross, and if we do imitate Jesus we will be filled with Love, Joy, and Peace, and as Bishop Barron reported, standing before a picture of Jesus Crucified, “This is a picture of Joy.”
No sane person would link Joy to death on the Cross.
And
If you pray for an increase of Love, Joy, and Peace, after a week we believe you will see a difference, as I did decades ago, it was a short change lasting only seconds, but I was blessed to recognize the change (Peace) and desire more.
This was my experience, and I thank God for the difficulty that forced me to Pray the “Nine,” and I won’t go back to the person I was.
This New Year, start praying the “Nine,” see the change and get excited by the new person you have set out to become.
Then get some cards and start Evangelizing for God by giving out cards. What a great way to start the New Year!
And,
What do we say when we see someone?
Would you like more Joy in your life?
If they say, “Yes!” give them a card and suggest “Learn the nine red words, and watch for a difference in a week.”
You!!!!
Will be filled after you help the person you ask, and they agree!
Note: I have had only one person say no. Look around you, Joy is what is missing in our society today.
Prayer:
If you want to grow in Love, Joy and Peace, this is a result of growth in Patience, Kindness, Generosity, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control.
Sidebar:
We are writing our blog two weeks early, because we are very busy for the Christmas and New Years Holidays.
I went to confession Monday and our priest gave me for my penance “Pray Psalm 100.” A Psalm of Thanksgiving.
Shout joyfully to the Lord, all you lands;
serve the Lord with gladness;
come before him with joyful song.
Know that the Lord is God,
he made us, we belong to him,
we are his people, the flock he shepherds.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
his courts with praise.
Give thanks to him, bless his name;
good indeed is the Lord,
His mercy endures forever,
his faithfulness lasts through every generation.
This is the FIRST time I went to confession in eighty-five years when I wasn’t told to pray a number of Our Fathers and Hail Marys. In fact when I was a kid the common response was, “Say two Our Fathers, and three Hail Marys.
I thought about this for years and felt I could say I shot my parents and the priest would say, “Pray two Our Fathers and three Hail Marys.”
This penance I intend to read every day – I just did, and finally realized it spoke to our thinking and it really gave me a warm comforting feeling about that confession.
You may be wondering how I prepared. I prepared by asking The Holy Spirit, who knows me much better than I, and this was also brought out by Nabeels’s book, we tend to secretly hide what we don’t want known. Nabeel hid the fact that Jesus was God for example, even when he knew Jesus was, so we decided to let The Holy Spirit give me the words I needed to say to have a complete confession,
AND
The Holy Spirit did!
I left filed with Peace, and Psalm 100 added to my Joy
What better time to tell our story than the first of the year.
We, Gail and I Pray your New Year will be filled with a desire to find and live in the Love, Joy and Peace of The Holy Spirit.
Picture:
I noticed this bird perched high in the tree as I was taking in the view and decided to get a picture of it.
“Who prepares for the raven its nourishment…” Job 38:41 Picture by Jerry Torres
Please keep Snapping!
And if you want the ten calling cards shown above, email me and I will send you my address, send me a STAMPED self-addressed envelope and I will send you ten cards.
The offer for the cards is for American readers only. The Post office won’t accept foreign stamps.
If you want a copy of the prayers we discussed.
And or
If you want a copy of our version of The Nicene Creed in our book, not the book, I believe.
Send an email to: fprince101@gmail.com
Remember, if you want to submit a picture, please do not include people. We have to get permission from that person to use their photograph.
