Hi all! There is no devotion for today because Advent ends on Christmas Eve.  Any of you who follow this site will know that there has always been a devotion on Christmas Day and sometime they even continue afterwards but that is because I do 4 full weeks of devotions so that they can be used any year. This year the 4 weeks end on Christmas Eve.  If you are disappointed to see that there is no devotion today do not let it be so. There is a Christmas Day service on the site that you can use to replace it.

I pray that God will bless you and your family this year. May you continue to unwrap God’s Gift of Love and all its blessing until we meet again.

Take care and thank you for taking the time to read this site.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Lynda

⁵ Then a voice came from the throne, saying:

“Praise our God,
all you his servants,
you who fear him,
both great and small!”

⁶ Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting:

“Hallelujah!
For our Lord God Almighty reigns.
⁷ Let us rejoice and be glad
and give him glory!
For the wedding of the Lamb has come,
and his bride has made herself ready.
⁸ Fine linen, bright and clean,
was given her to wear.”

(Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of God’s holy people.)  (Revelation 19:5-10)

Thought:

Another thing we get to do is PRAISE GOD!!!! We will get to tell God how amazing He is and thank Him for all He has done for us all day long. We will live in a world of praise overwhelmed with our love for God instead of being overwhelmed with work problems hurts and tears.  The praise will just bubble out of us a response to all that God is, and all He has done for us, and all He has given us.  But (I love this word) you don’t have to wait to praise Him this Christmas think of all the wonderful gifts you have received from God already and Praise Him for them and all He has done for you and all that He is to You.  God is so good don’t wait until you get to heaven to praise, Him praise Him now.

May God bless you all this New Year!!

“Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning,  like servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him. It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. Truly I tell you, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them. (Luke 12:35-37 NIV)

Thought:

Wow!!! Ok, I get that we will serve God in Heaven because He is God and we are us, but did you know that in Heaven God will also serve us? We need to do what we have to do to get there. We need to be prepare to go to Heaven, by accepting God Gift of Love and watching in anticipation of Christ’s return to bring us to heaven. But once there, not only will we serve God, but He will serve us. WOW!!!!  This Christmas let us serve others  as if we were serving God and remembering as we get frustrated that we are doing all the serving that one day The God of the universe will serve us as we sit back and relax. Thank you God!!!!

“Then I heard a voice from heaven say, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them.”” (Revelation 14:13)
Thought:

Are you tired of your job are there other things you would prefer to do well look at this verse.  When we get to Heaven there will be no more labour.  Labour was something that came into this world with sin (Genesis 3:17-19) and because sin is not in heaven there will be no labour.  Now we will be Priests there (1 Peter 2:9), so we will doing service with God (Revelation 1:5) but the toil and hard work just to get what we need to live will be gone along with the sin.  What an honour it will be to serve God and see in His eyes His pleasure in what we have done. This Christmas as we feel overwhelmed by all the work we have to do let’s remember that in Heaven there will be no labour just service to the God who has blessed us beyond imagination. Thank You God!!!!

‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”(Revelation 21:4)

Thought:

This world is a hard place to live. Everywhere you look there is pain.  There is sickness death, crime, war, hunger, loneliness, exhaustion, stress, people are lost and overwhelmed by life. I see so many tears that it breaks my heart even when it’s not me going through it. But (love that word), when we get to heaven all that is over.  Sin will be gone so all this stuff is gone to.  There will be no more tears.  Thank You God!!!!

“Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.” (Revelation 21:27)

He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children. But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”” (Revelation 21:6-8)

Thought:

There is no sin in heaven.  All the horrible things that happen here on this earth because of sin will be gone.  We have all made mistakes, we have all sinned, does that mean none of us can go to heaven? No, we all can go if we accept God’s Gift of Love because then our sins are removed and we are righteous again, because our sin was placed on Jesus.  So yes, there will be no sin in Heaven, but as Christians, we are no longer sinners but a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17) We are free to go because we have no sin.  Those who have not accepted God’s gift will not go because they are still in sin.  God, please help people to see Your gift  this Christmas as they see the Nativity scenes and listen to the Carols and let them understand Your gift so many more  can go to heaven.

“My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” (John 14:2-3 NIV)

Thought:

There is room for you. There is room for all of us.  Isn’t that exciting? We can all go it Heaven, it will not fill up. You have a place prepared just for you by Jesus for you to  spend eternity with God, and what a place it will be. God spent 6 days creating this world and you can see how beautiful it is.  He has spent about 2000 years preparing Heaven and the new earth for us! WOW!!! It will be beyond anything I could even imagine.  And this amazing place is where I get to live with God forever.  I am so excited to go. (Revelation 21:10-26)

“He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” (John 3:36)

 Thought:

I so wish that I would see everyone in Heaven, God wants that too, but the only way it will happen is if everyone accepts God’s Gift of Love . This is a choice we have to make we have the right to decide for ourselves.  That is where the risk comes in.  We have been given the choice and it is ours to choose what we will believe whether what we believe is the truth or not.  But the consequence for not looking for the truth will lead to death. I pray that this Christmas you will accept God’s Gift of Love so we will all be together with Him.

“Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”" (John 14:6NIV)

“He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5 NIV)

Thought:

So Many people say God will let me into heaven because I am basically a nice person.  Sorry nice doesn’t get you there.  You can’t earn going to Heaven because sin is a part of us since the first sin in the Garden (Genesis 3). I had it explained to me this way. Sin is now in the world, and we all know it is, you just have to look around or watch the news, or think of the mistakes you have made to see it. We have all been born with a terminal disease which is sin, God has given us the cure which is Jesus, and it is up to us to take it.  We can choose to die in our sins if we want to that is our right from God.  But it is also our right to choose life by choosing God’s gift of life the cure for death, Jesus. Of course our bodies will die but our spirits will live forever with Him (but that is next week’s topic).  This Christmas as we see the nativity scenes and hear the Carols let’s remember that God loves us so much that He gave His Son  to pay the price for our sins because He knew we could never earn our way to Him and He didn’t want to lose us.
“Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die”" (John 11:25)

The Parable of the Rich Fool

 ¹³ Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”

 ¹⁴ Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” ¹⁵ Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”

 ¹⁶ And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. ¹⁷ He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’

   ¹⁸ “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. ¹⁹ And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’

   ²⁰ “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’

   ²¹ “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.” (Luke 12:13-21 NIV)

Thought:

The one with the most toys in the end wins right? Or do they? I know that sometimes there is something I want so badly I can almost taste it as the saying goes.    You hunger for it maybe you think you might even die if you don’t get it. You know your life will be perfect if you get it.  Just the right car, the right dress the right piece of jewellery, or maybe the game or TV.  If you could just get that, everything will be perfect but then when you get it what happens your happy for a while and then guess what? There is something new,  the upgrade, the new latest thing, and the wanting starts all over.  Do things fill that hole inside of you, no they are never enough.  This Christmas as we are looking under the tree and hoping for the perfect gift, remember that no matter what is there it will get used up, broken, obsolete and never be quite enough.  Presents are GREAT I love them but, they will not fix your life or fill the whole inside you.  There is only one thing that will fulfill that hunger or quench that thirst it’s Jesus.  He  will never get used up,  be obsolete, or broken, He never fades.  Turn to Him instead and watch as your need for things changes to a craving for more of Him.

“Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” (John 6:35 NIV)