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Howdy. Well sorry I did not make it last week. I was in the midst of the throws of

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various coughing bits. It would not have been enjoyable or pleasant whatsoever.

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But it sounds like we had someone who was able to come in and take care of things.

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That looked like an epic beard that guy had. So oh my word, I don't know if and

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when I could ever pull that off. But really wonderful and glad that other

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ministers in the area can have each other's backs at times like that. Today I

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wanted to talk a little bit to you about our fourth advent theme. I wanted to talk

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to you about love. And as much as we oftentimes take this term and this idea

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for granted, is that the idea of love ends up being a lot deeper and more

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expansive than what we may realize. See it turns out that love ends up becoming

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something that's harder for us to abide in than we sometimes realize. And to try

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to get this across a bit, one of the things that I realized was how much I

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was not communicating love because of being late. Something that you have to

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understand is that there is such a thing as Jason time. Jason time is typically

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about a half hour late to any event. It doesn't really matter necessarily what

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the event is, but take whatever the time is at half hour and that's usually the

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time when Jason would be expected to show up. Now over the years it's become sort

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of like recurring joke at various times. At one point even being told one time

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that an event was half an hour earlier in order to make sure that I got there on

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time. However, joke was on them, I actually felt really good about getting

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there on time and it ended up 20 minutes earlier. But with it though is over the

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years it started to become something of you know yeah it was funny but also at

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the same time it was sort of this underlying idea of yeah but if Jason's

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constantly late what does he think of the event he was going to in the first

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one. See one of the things is that oftentimes in being late to something

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it can communicate to people that you don't think that their event is as

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worthy of your time. Whenever a person is late it can oftentimes be seen as you

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don't respect the host. And that was something that I struggled with especially

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for my sister and my sister's family up in Cyprus. I lived in Baytown for a while

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there and if I wanted to go see my sister that was an hour investment each

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way no matter what. But with it though is oftentimes it'd be a Friday afternoon and

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I'm trying to squeeze in everything that I can before I leave. Did I take care of

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all my chores? Was the laundry done? Did I make sure that I had all the things

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ready for my next teaching assignment and I had all my lesson plans prepped? Did I

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make sure that I had everything in my backpack that I could possibly need for

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the entire evening? Even things like well what am I going to do when I get there?

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Am I supposed to be helping with dinner? Am I supposed to be playing a game with

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my brother-in-law? And then realizing that I was supposed to already be there

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and I hadn't even gotten out the door yet. The thing was is that as much as I was

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spending so much time in my mind trying to make sure that I had everything

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taken care of that needed to be done is that I was missing out on just being

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there with my family which was the biggest thing that they had wanted in the

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first place. Over time then as much as from time to time I still have my

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moments but by and large it's usually five to ten minutes now rather than half

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an hour. With it though is that we realize sometimes that the simplest

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things are what's actually needed to communicate love and I want to do that

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with one of the most obvious figures in scripture that helps us to realize how

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to communicate the love of God. King and Cats. Yes that was meant to be a joke y'all

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mostly don't even know who that is and so but somehow one of the things that

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always stood out to me about this story was that literally he had to do nothing

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and it would have been better than what ended up happening. You see what was

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going on is that Israel had been split the northern kingdoms were still called

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Israel and they were being ruled at the time by King Pekka who had killed the

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previous king in order to make sure that he had taken over. With it though is

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there was also Syria being ruled by King Rezin and neither one of them wanted to

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be dominated by Assyria nearby being run by Tiglath Palaeus who was a third. Now

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what they did is they then went to the king in Judah King and Cats and they

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said partner with us make alliances and we'll make sure that Assyria can't boss

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us around anymore but you see the difficulty is that neither one of those

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countries was actually a good country for Judah to ally with. You see they also

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had various practices that were very very displeasing to God not just in

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regard to sacrifices which may or may not have sometimes involved children but

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also in regard to the ways in which that they would practice their rituals

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oftentimes abusing sexuality in the life. See essentially even though Israel had

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the name Israel it wasn't actually behaving like the children of Israel and

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so what did God say? Don't don't ally yourself with them. And then what does he end up focusing on?

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He ends up focusing on the birth of a child. What he is communicating is that

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before this young child can be born and weaned and come to know what is good and

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evil those two countries of Israel and Syria they'll be gone anyway. Don't

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bother with them because by time you even get to that point they'll be gone

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anyway. But you see he did listen he did avoid partnering with them but what did he

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end up doing instead? He partnered with Assyria and Assyria ended up coming and

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besieging them later in making their life miserable. All he had to do was nothing.

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But you see that was the struggle oftentimes is that instead of just

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focusing on what God wanted from the people of Judah instead of just

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focusing on what it was that God had to communicate is that instead they wanted

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to make sure that they stood out that they were noteworthy among the nations.

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You see even back then they were worried about having cool alters. See any

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time they saw the altars in another country they wanted theirs to be just

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as cool not just in the way that appeared but also in whatever practices

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that they had as they would do their sacrifices on the altar. That can sometimes

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be difficult. It is sometimes we can get so caught up in wanting to be attractive

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and obvious and noteworthy. I was I had told everybody you know hey come on over

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if you feel like coming over on Friday and be able to celebrate Christmas you

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know if you have the opportunity if you're free. In the midst of it one of the

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things that was noteworthy is that apparently a lot of people wanted to

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make sure that they invited people to come over to church and as soon as

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somebody said that they were in a sense they were laughing about it. It's like oh

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man well one way or another we got invited to your church one way or another

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and I'm just kind of sitting there thinking okay yeah but you're laughing

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about them I'm actually kind of thrilled that they did but even more though is

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that to go from laughing about people inviting you to church but then the

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conversation started going to a lot of the other churches that they had visited

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and they started talking about this pastor who turned out had actually been

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having an affair with his wife a affair with someone else who wasn't his wife

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then turned out went to go and plant different church somewhere else in

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Houston and then turned out this other one would promise that he would never

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get caught up in drama ended up leaving because he wanted a better salary

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somewhere else and all these different things and I remember and I'm sitting

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there and I'm thinking to myself yes but at the end of the day you're probably

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still going to go to their churches because they're fancier they're larger

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they had a better marketing campaign on Facebook and I'm sitting there thinking

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y'all joked about the people at our church inviting you but at the same

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time are we in the midst of all these other issues that are coming up and

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that was the thing that threw me is that part of me was all the jealous and then

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I had to pause and slow down and say yeah but at the end of the day are we

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showing mercy to people are we hearing scripture are we spending the time

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knowing who God is but also are we more focused on loving God and our neighbor

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or are we more focused on loving whatever trappings are around us and that

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was one of the moments that I had right to pause and I had to say you know what

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maybe maybe it's okay to just let God do what he's going to do in his time you

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see that that son that child that was promised whenever we read the passage

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it says Emmanuel God with us you see the original person being spoken of was

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actually King Hezekiah you see after King A has King King Hezekiah and he went

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and he ended up completely completely redoing the way that they did worship

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the whole goal was for him to come in and to make sure that the altars were not

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being utilized for pagan worship or for idols that they stopped sacrificing

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people to make sure that there was actually going to be the reading of

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scripture among the people to constantly look through and figure out how can we

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be the people of God Hezekiah ended up being one of the better reformers among

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the kings throughout the area but at the very last minute he still slipped up and

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when they had managed to resist the king of Assyria and managed to cause him to

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go back to his kingdom he just couldn't help but demonstrate how strong they were

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to the king of battle who would then end up coming along and taking over them

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for the next 70 years see that's oftentimes one of the things that we

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end up finding is difficult loving God and loving your neighbor sounds so simple and yet that seems to be the part that we miss the most

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when we look at our gospel reading and we're looking at what it is for the

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angel to be speaking to Joseph and says do not be afraid to take Mary as your

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wife you see the thing is is that we oftentimes lose sight of the fact that

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there were many things that actually could have been done wrong you see Joseph

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could have run away he could have been like you know what this is a little too

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complicated I don't know what's going on here she's saying that she is you know

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pregnant by the Holy Spirit that doesn't sound quite right but even if it's

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true who would actually believe it how many people in Joseph's family do you

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think were like dude your wife is pregnant of the Holy Spirit are you

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really gonna buy that he could have just run away or they could have tried to

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rush they could have tried to rush the wedding and to be able to say okay

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let's say that she is pregnant but maybe we just want to make sure that it's not

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so obvious let's just go ahead and go get married now and then that way we

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won't have to worry about the way that it looks or maybe even more than that if

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they were following Abraham's thinking let's go ahead and get married now and

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let's start trying to have kids so that then whichever one is the first one is

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the one that the angel must be talking about which is of course how Abraham had

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Ishmael before he had Isaac or even more than that what does it mean just to stop

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and say God you do what you're going to do and that's a hard part for us right

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now in this season there are a lot of things that we want to make perfect and

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beautiful at this time it is it is December 24th if your packages have not

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arrived by today they're probably not getting here in time I know somebody

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needed to let you know that just giving you a heads up if the cake doesn't come

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out right you probably not going to go get anything new just gotta leave it me

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if there is any pecan pie that is left over in the fridge from Thanksgiving you

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may end up having to serve that that may or may not be what is currently sitting

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in my refrigerator at this time along with some pumpkin pie but it is what it

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is but with this though is that all of these things that are going to be so

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difficult and stressful especially these next 24 hours or so is that it's going

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to be so easy to try to figure out how to be not just busy but also trying to

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make everything perfect when in reality love God and love your neighbor is that

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the greatest gift has already been given to us and more than that is that you

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have the greatest gift in your life already your family and your friends

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and it is so easy to lose sight of that but you see that's the thing about what

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we see not just with Mary and Joseph but also with ourselves is that when it says

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to abide in God because he abides in us that's harder than we might oftentimes

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want to admit right now what is abiding in your heart is it stress is it anxiety

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is it frustration is there somebody that made everything difficult at work did

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somebody end up getting sick and now you have to take their hours is there

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something going on with one of your relatives is one of the kids fighting

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with another one is someone up in Kansas having a visit with family and you're

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not even sure whether or not they're going to see everybody while they're

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there right now what's happening in your heart because one of the hardest parts

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right now is that it is oftentimes not love and that's where we find ourselves

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today is to be able to pause and slow down and say God my heart doesn't always

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have love in it the way it's supposed to it says here in 1st John 4 by this we

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know that we abide in him and he and us because he has given us of his spirit and

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then skips down so we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for

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us God is love and whoever abides in love abides in God and God abides in him

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there are a lot of things that are distracting us from that and a lot of

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things that we feel we're going to need to accomplish between now and the new

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year and everything that we have to try to figure out as January comes along but

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the truth this is that it really just is that simple is that God came to this

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earth to be with us and that as much as Mary and Joseph could have tried to figure

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it all out is that instead the best thing for them was to sit back and to let

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God do what he was going to do right now that's for you too God is currently at

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work but do you let him do that are we so busy trying to make sure that

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everything is perfect the way we want it to be that we miss out on seeing what it

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is that God is doing in our lives this season so wherever you end up finding

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yourself the rest of today hopefully tonight at 7 p.m. here at Christmoriel

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Lutheran but may today and tomorrow be an opportunity to enjoy the time with God

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those who God has placed in our hearts and in our lives not trying to force what

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we think everything needs to be for Christmas but instead enjoying the best

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part of it that God is in control that God loves us and that he has given of

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himself for us and because of what he has done we truly have the love of God

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ourselves thanks be to God