It’s finished. 2009 is done. That’s it. Another year has ended.

We can’t change anything that has happened to us in 2009. We can’t change anything that we have experienced in this past year. We can’t change anything that others did to us. We can’t change anything that we thought…or said…or did…to ourselves or to others. 

It’s finished. 2009 is done. That’s it. Another year has ended.

How does that leave you feeling? Are you regretting or celebrating this past year? Are you ready to say a quick and final ”Good riddance!” to 2009? Or are you sad to see such a sweet year go?

No matter what we may be feeling, are we willing and able to see and embrace—even in the midst of our struggles…and our successes…our heartbreaks…and our joys…our shameful acts…and our shining moments—God’s eternal truths that are able to make a difference to each of us…each and every day…of each and every year?

God is still God.

God is the One who is truly in control.

God loves us.

God is with us. 

God offers us salvation and eternal life through His Son Jesus Christ.

And God doesn’t change…no matter how many days…and weeks…and years go by…or how many calendar changes occur in our lives. 

God doesn’t change…God is our eternal Abba…our eternal peace…our eternal hope…our eternal joy…our eternal Savior.

Later, knowing that all was now completed, and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.”

…When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.”

With that he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

John 19:28-30

And so, although 2009 is finished—our God is eternal. And what our Lord Jesus Christ proclaims as finished is His own sacrificial work done through His death on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins…and for the renewal and transforming of our lives right now…and to give us the gift of eternal life with Him.

May we each choose to embrace the finished work of our Savior Jesus, who loves us passionately and offers us grace and renewal, life and hope today and each and every day of our lives! No matter what date is on the calendar!

In love, peace and purposeful passion,                                                               Sylane

Today is a day of A Little More Christmas for us. We are extending the celebration because some of our precious family that couldn’t be here for the official Christmas day are here with us now!

It’s not December 25th anymore…there are no special candlelight worship services to go to today…there are no more Christmas carolers singing on the street corners where I live anymore.

But! We’re still going to have A Little More Christmas! Because the celebration of Christmas is acknowledging with wonderment and awe that our Holy LORD—our Sovereign, All-Powerful God, Creator of all the universe, our Savior—came to us through the humble, unexpected birth of baby Jesus!

And that is always worth celebrating with those you love!

An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them…“I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord! This is a sign for you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

…Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.”

Luke 2:9-14

May each of you have A HAPPY Little More Christmas, too!

In love, peace and purposeful passion,                                                               Sylane

For many people today is meant to be a day of rest—at least according to their work or school vacation schedules. Today is another day that comes in between the celebration of Christmas and welcoming in the New Year that many people have off as an official vacation day.

But having today off as an official day of vacation doesn’t necessarily make it a day of rest, does it? Nope. Because the rest of life just doesn’t stop and give us the day off!

So many unrelenting thoughts may be running through our heads—worries, regrets, personal and relationship losses, job pressures, financial strains, concerns for our loved ones, our future, our health—all of which leave us in a state of unrest. Not exactly the Hakuna Matata—No Worries—kind of feeling we would like to have on our vacation days.

Whether today is an official vacation day for you or you are still officially at your work site or working unceasingly at home as spouse, parent, house-keeper, cook, chauffeur, etc—there is Rest in our Lord and in His love.

We just have to be willing to come to our Lord Jesus and receive His rest and choose to put on His yoke by which we are empowered to carry and to move through all that life would present to us—whether on our vacation days or during our days of deepest responsibility at work or in our families.

Jesus is our Life and our Rest…every day…every moment…of our lives.

“Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Matthew 11:28-30

In love, peace and purposeful passion,                                                               Sylane

What takes hold of you? What do you let take hold of your heart, your emotions, your perspective, your thoughts, your words, your actions?

Sometimes we let fear or pride or anger or vengeance or loneliness or depression or judgment or shame or selfishness or laziness or greed or any combination of these…along with all manners of unhealthy and unhelpful addictions and habits…take hold of us. And we are left drowning in our selves and in our circumstances.

Our God reaches down continually to take hold of us. The LORD knows how much we need His love, His help, His rescue, His will and His way as we live in this world. And our LORD wants to take hold of our lives—so that nothing else will.

He reached down from on high and took hold of me;

he drew me out of deep waters.

Psalm 18:16

May we each choose to let our LORD, who loves us intimately, passionately and perfectly, take hold of us—in every area of our lives. Because in the LORD’s care we are given new life…new hope…new perspectives…as He takes hold of our lives!

In love, peace and purposeful passion,                                                               Sylane

What to do now that Christmas is over? The birth of Jesus has been celebrated. Presents have been given. Guests have come and gone. Or maybe you’ve gone and returned from your Christmas travels. What to do now?

Let’s take our cue from Mary and Joseph. They trusted God with the baby Messiah and with themselves…and they obeyed God’s Word as revealed in the Law of Moses and spoken to them by angels.

On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise him, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he had been conceived.

When the time of their purification according to the Law of Moses had been completed, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord”), and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord; “a pair of doves or two young pigeons.”

Luke 2:21-24

Mary and Joseph were far from their Nazareth home when Mary gave birth to our Messiah Jesus in Bethlehem. They had obeyed the decree issued by Caesar Augustus that required them, along with all the occupied people of the region, to register for the census in their families’ hometown. God used even the orders of a pagan emperor to ensure the fulfillment of His Word given through the prophet Micah:

“But you Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel—whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.”

Micah 5:2

God’s Word matters. Mary and Joseph knew that.

And as faithful followers of God and as people who trusted in God’s Word given to them both through the Law of Moses and through angel visitations—Mary and Joseph obeyed God. In trust and obedience, their baby boy was circumcised on the eighth day and given the name Jesus as the angel had already proclaimed His name would be. Then, also according to the Law of the Lord, Mary and Joseph, after the completion of the 40 day purification period, took Jesus from Bethlehem to Jerusalem to consecrate him to the Lord.

So, what to do after the celebrations have stopped? What to do after the crowds are gone? What to do when our lives start going back to our daily-day routines?

The question really is: What to do with Jesus?  And the answer is, as it has always been with regards to our Lord: Trust and Obey.

In love, peace and purposeful passion,                                                               Sylane

Christmas gift giving and gatherings may be nearly over for most of us. But the offer of His gifts to us is never over for God. 

God’s love, faithfulness, righteousness, justice, protection, provision and light are continually offered to all who will accept and receive what God has to give us. God’s loving and lavish gifts are not offered to us for just a day…or even for just a season of celebration. God offers all that is good and true and eternal to us each and every day. God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, offers Himself to us each and every day.

The offer of His gifts to us is never over for God.

Your love, O LORD, reaches to the heavens,

your faithfulness to the skies.

Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains,

your justice like the great deep.

O LORD, you preserve both man and beast.

How priceless is your unfailing love!

Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings.

They feast on the abundance of your house;

you give them drink from your river of delights.

For with you is the fountain of life;

in your light we see light.

Continue your love to those who know you,

your righteousness to the upright in heart.

Psalm 36:5-10

The offer of His gifts to us is never over for God.

Our choice is to continually accept and receive what our God offers to us—according to His love, wisdom, timing, grace and truth. Our choice, as it was with the Christmas presents we were offered from family and friends, is to accept and receive God’s gifts fully and make them our own. We are to embrace God’s offered gifts…trust His love for us and obey His Word.

And just as the offering of His gifts to us is never over for God…neither are the blessings for us who will accept and receive them!

In love, peace and purposeful passion,                                                               Sylane

A CHRISTMAS Message–God Interrupts…Grace Intervenes

Scripture references from Matthew 1 and Luke 2 

God loves us so much that He will interrupt our lives and our plans to intervene with His grace. God has always done this to call His people to Himself. Jesus Christ interrupts our ways of doing things when He comes to us to intervene with His grace for all eternity. He did this in a manger on His way to the cross.

Mary, a young virgin pledged to marry Joseph, was suddenly and shockingly visited by the angel Gabriel who told her that she will be with child…that the Holy Spirit will come upon her and the power of the Most High will overshadow her and the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.     

 Mary’s response: “I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said.”

 These weren’t Mary’s plans, but God totally interrupted her life-to intervene in her life, and in the lives of all who would believe, with His grace.

Joseph’s plans for his life were also suddenly and shockingly interrupted when he found out that Mary was with child. Yet, even in the hurt and betrayal he must have felt, Joseph planned to quietly divorce Mary so she would not be publicly disgraced. But, before Joseph could carry out his plan, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream to tell him to not be afraid to take Mary home as his wife and to assure him that Mary was with child through the Holy Spirit; “She will give birth to a son, and you will call him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

Joseph’s response: he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him.

These weren’t Joseph’s plans, but God totally interrupted his life-to intervene in his life, and in the lives of all who would believe, with His grace.

May we each choose to let God interrupt our plans…our lives…our worries…our self-focused thinking…even our ways of doing Christmas…so that we may allow the full love and grace of Jesus Christ to interrupt and intervene in our lives.

May we each respond in awe and thankfulness, and full faith acceptance, to the God Most High who is born to us vulnerably as a baby in a manger with the purpose to die humbly for our sins on a cross.  

Christmas and the Cross of Jesus and Christ’s Eternal Resurrection are God’s gifts of LOVE to every one of us…these are God’s full interruption over the power of sin and death in our lives through the full intervention of His grace!

Have a beautiful, God-interrupting,

Grace-intervening Christmas!

In love, peace and purposeful passion,                                                               Sylane

Today is Christmas Eve.

I hope and pray that all of us are done with all of our preparing, planning, shopping and rushing around now.

It’s time now to let Christmas be Christmas—deeply, completely and truly. We need to let Jesus be the full focus of our minds and hearts now…even for a little while, we each need to fully invite Jesus, the Holy Child of God, to be born fully into each of our lives.

And just as new born babies are surrounded with adoring love and attention by those who are intimately connected to them, so too it is time for us to fully turn our love and attention to Jesus—our King of kings and Lord of lords—our Messiah, our Savior.

The angels had proclaimed the birth of the Savior to some shepherds in a field—and they responded immediately by turning their full focus and attention on being in the presence of this Holy One.

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them…and the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

Luke 2:16-18, 20

The count down to Christmas is done…it’s time to fully Calm Down…and Consider Jesus…in this season and in every season of our lives! 

In love, peace and purposeful passion,                                                               Sylane

In one day from today it will be Christmas Eve.

In my little corner of the world—right here between Philly and NYC—we have about a foot or so of  beautiful fresh snow covering the ground and decorating the trees. And the sun is shining. It’s lovely. It’s clean and so amazingly white. And it absolutely sparkles as it reflects the sun’s light.

The beauty and the purity of this snow makes me slow down to sense and acknowledge how our God makes everything new with His love and His forgiveness.

The beauty and the purity of this snow makes me think about the holiness of Jesus and all that He poured out in the giving of His life to us—first as that humble, helpless baby in a manger…and then as that humble, full sacrifice for our sins on the cross.

We all need God to make us clean…whiter than snow…and pure and new. And our God does.

…wash me and I will be whiter than snow…Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Psalm 51:7, 10

This is the time to celebrate the birth of Jesus…yet always with knowing and remembering that that little baby was born to die for our forgiveness, for our cleansing, purity and renewal. We are to be washed…made whiter than snow…and reflect the Son’s light in everything we do…at Christmas and always.

So, let’s all Count Down…and Calm Down…and Consider Jesus…in this season and in every season of our lives! 

In love, peace and purposeful passion,                                                               Sylane

In two days from today it will be Christmas Eve.

Yep, today is December 22nd. How is your heart? How is your pace? How is your perspective?

I know mine have been tested mightily recently. And I have to keep asking myself: Does Jesus really make a difference?

And if my answer is “Yes!”—then, I have to keep asking myself: How is that difference seen in me? How do I allow Jesus to make a difference in me in the way I deal with the daily pushes and pulls of life? How do I allow Jesus to make a difference in me in the midst of disappointments? In the midst of shocks to my soul and my life? (I’ve had three big ones recently.) How do I allow Jesus to make a difference in me during this season which is meant to honor and celebrate His birth?

Jesus makes a difference in me…in each of us…when we allow Him to truly rule our hearts…set our pace…and give us His eternal perspective! He is, after all, our Wonderful Counselor, our Mighty God, Our Prince of Peace, our Everlasting Father!—Isaiah 9:6—and that should make every difference in us and through us!

Our Wonderful Counselor should make a difference in us as we grow in the knowledge of our God and His teachings and in His holy fruit within us:

“The Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have said.”

John: 14:26

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

Galatians 5:1

Our Mighty God should make a difference in us as we trust that:

All things are possible with God!

Matthew 19:26; Mark 10:27

Nothing is impossible with God!

Luke 1:37

Our Prince of Peace should make a difference in us as we let Him rule our hearts…and guard our hearts and minds:

Let the the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.

Colossians 3:15

AND

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Philippians 4:7

Our Everlasting Father should make a difference in us as we let His unfailing, incomparable LOVE hold us, fill us and lead us in every area of our life:

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not know love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

1 John:4:7-10

Ahhhhhhhhhhh….when I think about who my God is—who Jesus is as my Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Prince of Peace, Everlasting Father—and allow Him to rule over my heart…my pace…and my perspective, then Jesus really does make all the difference in the world to me…and through me.

So, let’s all Count Down…and Calm Down…and Consider Jesus…in this season and in every season of our lives! 

In love, peace and purposeful passion,                                                               Sylane