"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men."
Luke 2:14
Many things have happened to us in the past twelve months. Some of them we liked. Some of the events
were painful to us. Like most people, we just want peace in our lives, happiness for our families, and
daily provision. So our prayers are dominated by requests to God asking Him to remove the irritations
from our lives, to heal us, to provide for us, and to make us comfortable. However, God is more
concerned with our character than our comfort. God wants His glory which He most definitely deserves.
When the angels came to proclaim the birth of our Savior to the shepherds, they did not mention peace
and good will first. They started with God's glory. Only when we start with the intention of glorifying God in
our lives, in our behavior, and in our attitudes, does God's peace follow. When we start with our own
happiness at heart, God's peace is absent. If we could just learn this one important lesson at Christmas.
What really matters is God's glory. Everything else follows from that.
Pastor Scott Dean
God has been very good to us. We have a tendency to focus on the negative and notice all the things that we lack rather than to see all the gifts that God has given us.
When we experience the vanity that is life without God, do we return to the God who loves us?
Rest comes from rejecting responsibilities that God does not intend for us and accepting God's yoke for us.
The answer to America's social ills is God's grace and Christian love.