St. Paul teaches us that we can maintain our joy in the coming year by thinking about what God thinks is true, honourable, just, pure, lovely, and commendable.

When you take a look at the stories in the New Testament, especially in the Gospels, you're going to see one long narrative of a faithful God, who sent His faithful Son, Jesus Christ, to die for His people who are not faithful to Him. They/We are sinners with a sinful nature, and are more often than not, faithless. Yet God works even in sinners, to help them lead faithful lives, and today we will look at one of those faithful individuals who is often forgotten in the long list of faithful followers. And from this person, maybe we can learn a little about our own faithfulness.

This is the follow up to “Joyful in Stressful Times”. When you know what you don’t want, figure out what you do want, and make your request known to God.

As we take a look at the world and our lives over the past year, there are many words we could use to describe it, but the word today is: inconvenience. But inasmuch as our lives have been inconvenienced because of a pandemic, we have reason to be thankful, and it's all because Jesus Christ inconvenienced Himself by being born for us, identifying with our inconveniences, only to give up His life for us, in order to give us the gift of forgiveness and eternal life.

Christmas is all about Jesus. Why would Jesus us love us so much to come down from heaven?

In the 2003 Christmas movie, Love Actually, you here the opening line show you that amidst whatever is going on in life, if you look hard enough you'll find that "love actually is all around." If we view those words in our lives of faith, we'll find that love actually is all around because Jesus Christ is actually all around, and at Christmas we don't just celebrate His birth, but His death and resurrection, and His eternal presence.

God wants us to access His joy anytime. Paul shows us how.

Using the LASSIE method from Everyone His Witness, we find that being a witness means we Listen, Ask, Seek, Share, Invite, and Encourage. As we look at what it means to be a witness in our world, we see that it happens in the context of relationships. Relationships are built on communication. We've already heard about the listening, asking, seeking, sharing, and inviting parts, and now we hear about encouraging: following up and following through. But amidst encouraging those that we witness too, we can also find encouragement as well.

One of the most encouraging things we can do for someone else is telling them that we are praying for them. Better yet, as part of our witness, let’s offer to pray for them right there and then at that moment.

Using the LASSIE method from Everyone His Witness, we find that being a witness means we Listen, Ask, Seek, Share, Invite, and Encourage. As we look at what it means to be a witness in our world, we see that it happens in the context of relationships. Relationships built on communication. We've already heard about the listening, asking, seeking, and sharing parts, and now we hear about inviting: inviting to keep the conversation about Jesus going. The invitation to come and see the Savior of the world, Jesus Christ, because He is the one who opens the door to eternal life.