Christmas Eve is upon us! If you are like me, you can hardly believe it! Where has 2009 gone? They say that the older you get, the faster the time flies. now we all know that the ticking of the clock has remained the same since God created time, but it does take on the appearance of wings every once-in-awhile.

That being the case, I trust that you will have an eternal perspective toward time in 2010. The apostle James wrote about our life being like “a vapor, that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away” (James 4:14). We all know full-well the reality of that statement. Moses stated in Psalm 90 that the years of our life are “soon cut off, and we fly away” (vs. 10).

Therefore, let us follow his instructions to “number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom” (Ps. 90:12). May we endeavor to redeem the time (Ephesians 5:16) that is allotted to us by investing our life (time) in that which brings eternal dividends. Walk with god through your church. Meditate upon and memorize more Scripture. Discipline your life controlling how you spend your time. And when Christmas Eve comes quickly around next year, you will be able to say how 2010 was a very good and spiritually profitable year!

Merry Christmas!

Pastor Jeff Berg

Last evening I read a letter to our church family from one of our missionaries in a country of Central America. In the letter, he tells the story of a ninety-year-old man who has served the Lord most of his life. He tells of his very crude living conditions: a mud and thatched roof hut supplied with only a couple of homemade wooden chairs, a homemade rope and board bed frame, a homemade mattress stuffed with dried grasses. He has never had electricity, running water, or a concrete floor. He has never owned a flashlight or radio because he didn’t want to spend his meager resources on batteries. He was satisfied with candles and besides, the neighbor had a radio to listen to.

The missionary went on to relate that the elderly man couldn’t understand why Christians needed so much stuff to think themselves happy. He had learned to be content in the most primitive of environments. The man recently died and the missionary expressed his longing to see the old man in his new place!

We have just come through Thanksgiving and are now approaching Christmas. If we are not careful, Christmas can cause us to not be content because we don’t think we have received enough “stuff.” As you know, Christmas isn’t about “stuff,” it is about the Savior. There was something else in the missionary’s letter that gives us a clue on how this ninety-year-old learned that life wasn’t about accumulating the most “stuff” in order to be happy. he wrote that even at ninety, the old man would walk about a mile and a half, even crossing two rivers to get to church. Many American Christians won’t even drive a mile and a half in a heated or air-conditioned automobile to get to church. Could it be that therein lies the difference between a contented life and a discontented life? A life of joy or a life of complaint? May you find yourself seeking the kingdom of God first (Matthew 6:33), rather than the kingdom of “stuff.”

Pastor Jeff Berg

I read in my devotions yesterday morning of God’s promise to Israel of inundating them with an overflow of blessings. Isaiah 44:3, “For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring:” You will notice that there are conditions associated with the blessings. They are 1) thirst, and 2) dry ground. If the conditions are present, the promise is that blessings will break forth like a flood, even with an abundant overflow that will affect the next generation!

There is no doubt that we live in a dry and thirsty land (Psalm 63:1). The spiritual and moral condition is drought-like with devastating consequences! Yet it is in such times, under such conditions, that God can do “abundantly above all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20), by pouring out water and bringing on the flood that will refresh the dry and thirsty land. How? Our verse in Isaiah says it is brought about by the pouring out of His Spirit. When the people of God recognize the condition of the land, yea, and their own heart also, and become thirsty for God to respond to the needy conditions, He will pour out His Spirit. “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts” (Zechariah 4:6).

Friend, will you get thirsty for God and ask Him to pour out His Spirit on a dry and thirsty land where no water is? “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled” (Matthew 5:6). Could we say, like a flood?

Pastor Jeff Berg