Unfortunately, people get so caught up in materialism to find happiness, that the one and only “perfect” Gift, Jesus Christ, the Lord Our Righteousness, is squeezed into the end of a busy schedule, if at all.
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Three readers are needed for this program that could be presented at a group meeting, or used in conjunction with a workshop to make Advent wreaths or as a mid-week congregational service.
Props: Advent wreath, three purple candles, one pink candle, and a larger white Christ candle for the center of the wreath. The candles are lit during the presentation. An accompanist is needed as are hymnals for attendees. Each reader should have a Bible (ESV).
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The Book of Psalms is considered to be the first hymnal and prayer book. It includes hymns of praise and worship, prayers for help and salvation, please for forgiveness, thanksgiving for blessings, and please for removal of enemies. Psalm 96 is a song of praise. It is an urging for all people to praise God for His greatness, His kingdom, and His judgment.
Needed: 12 speakers or speaker parts may be divided between 3-4 people.
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The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? (Psalm 27:1).
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May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all (1 Thessalonians 3:12a).
It is not always easy to abound in love. There are days when it is not easy to abound in like. Abounding in love seems impossible when a spouse has forgotten to take out the trash or the children bicker over a toy or gadget. Yet, Christ says in John 15:12: This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. We don’t have a choice to love or not.
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Christian Stewardship is concerned with God’s gifts and the way we use them. There are many passages in the Bible that are concerned with a giving God and a receiving people. How the receiving people use all that comes from a giving God is, in my book, what Christian Stewardship is all about.
Our Missouri Synod has this as their definition of stewardship: “Christian stewardship is the free and joyous activity of the child of God and God’s family, the church, in managing all of life and life’s resources for God’s purposes.”
The Eight T’s are: Time, Talent, Treasure, Testimony, Touch, Tissue, Trash, and Technology. You know the first three; the last four go like this: testimony (Christian witnessing), touch (relationships), tissue (care of our bodies), trash (care of God’s creation), and technology (our use of the electronic devices and tools with which God has blessed us).
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One of the things that we all must deal with, no matter how rich or poor we think we might be, is greed. Greed, contrary to what we want to believe, is not confined to those who are rich. Those who have very little seem to easily become preoccupied with their material needs. Affluence tends to give a higher and higher value to things as the whole standard of living rises. Things that were luxuries become necessities and our covetous spirit continues to grow.
My father-in-law, Mr. Orval Dehning, told me some 33 years ago, when I was still dating his beautiful daughter, this axiom (and it is very true), “expenses always rise to meet income.” No matter how much our heavenly Father blesses us, the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh will tell us that it is not enough. They will use every tool at their disposal to convince us that we always need more and to make us constantly unhappy and discontented with the blessings God has lavishly showered down upon us.
To be sure, everything we have is a gift from God, but even these material blessings, as they grow closer and closer to our heart and become our heart’s desire, can even shut God out, taking His place in our lives. That is why St. Paul calls upon us in Colossians 3:5 to: Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is Idolatry.
So, the question for us to ponder for the next few topics is: “How can we who have been so richly blessed by God be on guard against the greed and covetousness that so easily and incessantly continues to creep into our lives?”
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