None of us are immune to "itching ears", that desire to hear what we want to hear, not necessarily what God wants us to hear. This is one reason we need to keep God's word first.

To live by every word that comes from the mouth of God means living a life in which we rightly handle the Scriptures.

The radical premise behind God's encouragement for Timothy,

When God calls the boy Samuel to be His prophet, He reminds us of how much we need His word, and how much we need the right heart as we listen for His voice.

Like the Israelites in I Samuel 4, we often are tempted to put God "in a box" when lost the daily battle against sin self, that is, we are tempted to recreate God into our image, a God that we can use to do what we want.

As the man of God pronounces God's curse against Eli and his family, we are reminded that the richness of God's grace always provides the backdrop for the conviction and correction of our sin.

When all of our human priests show that they are not immune from the effects of sin, God's priest, Jesus Christ, is always standing to mediate for us through the priestly work of the Cross.

How God uses everything in our life for the good of becoming more like Jesus.

When seen through the story of the Magi, the carol

The Christmas carol Silent Nights points us back to the true beginning of the Christmas Story in John 1, and they both remind us that with God, there is always more than meets the eye.