Clever Free Methodist

  The last Lectionary reading for 2022 is very appropriate for ending the year and anticipating the new months ahead. The two passages are from John 1, and 1 John 2. They are a contrast of thoughts to me.   The main focus comes from John 1:6-9 , “A man named John was sent from God. He came for testimony, to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.”   May we all make the sacrifice to invest more of ourselves into our faith and relationship with Jesus to ensure we powerfully illumine His Light into the darkness of this world. We need to be like John who testified to the light so that all might believe. The world needs to hear about the redeeming love of God. The world needs to see God through us.   As believers, we cannot “just exist” and go about our lives day after day with “self” as our main objective. There are so many people who still need

  We must go back into the middle of the first century (AD) to learn of St. Nicholas of Myra (modern-day Turkey). His “claim to fame” was that he was noted for his extreme generosity to the poor. In most cases, he would secretly provide for people in need. Either way, his kindness and passion for the disenfranchised earned his reputation.   Here we are, several centuries later, and with the help of Thomas Nast’s iconic painting of “Santa Claus” in 1881, with some help from the Coca-Cola bottling company, we have our “jolly fat Santa” immortalized in our imaginations today. Given all the historical evidence of the “real” Saint Nicholas and all the stories and legends of the “mythological” Santa Claus, he has to be, without a doubt, one of the most recognizable icons of the Christmas season.   Instead of thinking of Santa Claus as some blasphemous or sacrilegious replacement for the Christmas story of the baby Jesus, I honestly feel we can use the known characteristics of Santa to

  There is an obvious lesson written throughout the Scriptures when referring to God, by name. Reverence. Respect. Honor. We should handle the use of any attribute of God with the utmost sincerity and holiness. Psalm 34:3 , “Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together.” Showing the highest degree of respect to God applies to our recognition of who He is in both word and deed. This is why, before I learned this lesson I am sharing with you, I would cringe in disgust when people would “abbreviate” the holiday “Christmas” by taking out the name of “Christ” and replacing it with a big-fat-ugly “X!” It would never fail, at some point, to get a card, letter or email with the inevitable greeting, “Merry X-Mas!”   Either way, I always thought it grossly disrespectful to “x-out” the name of “Christ” from the word “Christmas.” However, as I have become a pastor and have studied the Biblical languages, I have come to discover that there is something quite liberating b