Good morning,
Praise the Lord for the month of December. May the Lord grant His grace and anointing on our lives that we will finish the year well with joy and gratitude. The reading from the Old Testament for first Sunday in Advent was taken from Jeremiah 33:14-16, “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring forth from David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will dwell securely. And this is the name by which it will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’"
Jeremiah was surrounded by a serious mess. The king was a mess and the government was a mess. In our present age does that sound familiar? His life was a mess, and he was being imprisoned. His country was a mess, as there was a war going on. The people were discouraged. In Jeremiah it says, "Look, look at the end." Jeremiah's message, a message of hope, was given while he was in prison. Hope is the best tool for stress reduction. "... I will fulfill the promise I made." Here God said that he would fulfill the promise made to the house of Israel and Judah. In fact, the entire Bible is about promises. We have the Old Testament and New Testament. Testament means promise.
Jesus is known to be the Promised One because Jeremiah said that the Lord says, "In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring forth from David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land." v.15. In the Bible Jesus was sometimes called the Son of David because he was a Branch that sprang forth from David.
Lewis Smedes wrote in his book, “A Chorus of Witnesses”, "Yes, somewhere people still make and keep promises. They choose not to quit when the going gets rough because they promised once to see it through. They stick to lost causes. They hold on to a love grown cold. They stay with people who have become pains in the neck. They still dare to make promises and care enough to keep the promises they make. I want to say to you that if you have a ship you will not desert, if you have people you will not forsake, if you have causes you will not abandon, then you are like God."
That’s what God is like. He is faithful and he keeps his promises. There are more than 7000 promises in the Bible. When we are stressed, we tend to forget God’s promises, making it harder on our hearts. So we need to remind ourselves, of God’s promises by reading God’s Word.
Jeremiah said that on that day Jerusalem will be called "Jehovah Tsidkenu, The Lord is our Righteousness." "The Lord is our Righteousness" is also a name of Jesus Christ (Jeremiah 23:6).
One of the universal stress generators is self-righteousness. Some people are actually addicted to stress. We want to earn our way to heaven by being righteous, doing the right thing, saying the right words, making the right choices, giving the right gifts, and eating the right amount. However, we cannot do it on our own. It will add up to a great deal of stress on us. The Bible says we are fallen beings, and in Romans 3:10 it says, "There is no one who is righteous, not even one."
The good news is that we don't have to be righteous by ourselves. We are already righteous because we believe in Jesus Christ, whose name is "Jehovah Tsikenue - The Lord is our Righteousness." We belong to Jesus. It is written:
"Only in the Lord, it shall be said of me, are righteousness and strength;" (Isaiah 45:24)
“Professional golfer Paul Azinger was diagnosed with cancer at age 33. He had just won a PGA championship and had ten tournament victories to his credit. He was doing well in the ordinary scheme of things. Later, he wrote, "A genuine feeling of fear came over me. I could die from cancer. Then another reality hit me even harder. I'm going to die eventually anyway, whether from cancer or something else. It’s just a question of when. Everything I had accomplished in golf became meaningless to me. All I wanted to do was live." Then he remembered something that Larry Moody, who teaches a Bible study on the tour, had said to him. "Zinger, we're not in the land of the living going to the land of the dying. We're in the land of the dying trying to get to the land of the living."
“Zinger” recovered from chemotherapy and returned to the PGA tour. He has done pretty well on tour since his recovery, but that bout with cancer changed him. He wrote, "I've made a lot of money since I've been on the tour, and I've won a lot of tournaments, but that happiness is always temporary. The only way you will ever have true contentment is in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I'm not saying that nothing ever bothers me and I don't have problems, but I feel like I've found the answer to the six-foot hole" (Robert Russell, "Resurrection Promises,"
In Christ our Righteousness,
Brown
St. Petersburg ( Russia) Men's Ensemble
in Concert. On Sunday December 6, 2009.
The St Petersburg Men's ensemble will be in concert on Sunday, December 6, 2009 at The Union Center United Methodist Church, Endicott, New York. They will present traditional Russian classical Christian music along with some Russian folk music. The public is cordially invited to come. The concert is scheduled for 7 PM. The Union Center United Methodist Church is located at 128 Maple Drive, Endicott, New York. For Information call (607)-748-1358, or (607)-748-6329.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmknWYFr6Xk
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