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Weekly Greeting: Sunday 11 December
Submitted by Brian Smith on Thu, 2011-12-08 12:45
Dear Friends
So what do you think of the world we live in? That is what most “around the fire” conversations are about these days and we have plenty to say about the condition of the world we live in.
Well when I read the Christmas Story, I catch a glimpse of what God thinks of the world. God’s opinion is that our world needs Jesus. The Christmas Story is not an event but rather an invitation from God to participate in a world that works.
The HOPE OF THE WORLD is for us to live Christ-Centred lives; in other words, to live as people who have fully surrendered our lives, every aspect of our lives, to the way of Jesus.
The challenge as we journey through Advent and more specifically in terms of the theme for today is to thoroughly prepare for the arrival of Jesus. Recently I heard a worship leader speak of preparing the nursery for the arrival of their expected baby.
How they recognised some things in the room needed to stay because it was helpful, somethings in the room needed to be thrown out because it had no place being in the nursery and still other things just had to be cleaned because they were fine but not in the condition they were in. And so it is with Advent. As we prepare for the arrival of Jesus, what in our “nursery”, our lives, needs to stay? What needs to be ended, thrown out? And what about our lives needs some “cleaning”? Maybe there is stuff we need to confess and repent of.
So the invitation is over the next few weeks to prayerfully prepare for the “arrival” of Jesus. How about a prayer like this:
Dear Jesus, I want to be fully prepared to celebrate your arrival and welcome you into my life once again. I want the “nursery” of my life to be ready. Thank you for those things in my life that I can celebrate and be thankful for…(add in your own). I recognise that there are things in my life that are stumbling blocks and have prevented me living a life with you at the very centre. I offer to you… (add in your list of things you want to confess ) I pray that you guide me so that I can remove these from my day to day life. I also know that there are areas of my life that are necessary but have become contaminated over time, they have become toxic, and so guide me in my growing in you so that e.g. my attitude can be more like yours… (think of those things in your life that are necessary, moods, attitude, self-imageetc. that are in need of healing.) And so I journey towards that day when we give thanks and praise that you were born into our world.
Blessings as we journey
Brian and the team
THANKS
I give thanks that I can get my faith renewed by the weekly greetings, the audio downloads and the Northfield site. I pray that there will soon be a video feed to join the audio, and that someone will have the time to sort out and label all the unlabelled audios. God bless you all. I wish I had Christmas at Northfield. You don't know just how fortunate you are! :)
Thanks
Greetings, Tina. Thank you for your email, you will happy to know that we are launching the New Northfield Website on Sunday 5 February 2012. We have made a special effort to ensure that we include all the Social Media Platforms as well as promotional videos, weekly devotions via video and so much more. Our audio sermons will also be classified and downloadable each week. So we ask for your patience. It will be well worth the wait.
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