You realize something is wrong with Christmas when people are more excited about trees, flying animals, elves, snow, and a guy who shamelessly wears red than the Christ from whom the whole affair is named after.
Author: Jojo Agot
Asking Hard Questions

People who go through life too busy or indifferent to ask hard questions about why they believe as they do will find themselves defenseless against either the experience of tragedy or the probing questions of a smart skeptic.
Timothy Keller, The Reason for God
I Promise
Let me play nerd for a moment here and share this one piece of trivia. Did you know that in Classical Greek, it was always the humans who promised something to the gods, not the other way around?
Don’t ask me to prove this. I never studied Greek. The closest I could get to learning anything remotely Greek is by reading Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians novels and trust me, all you find there are Americanized view of the Olympus.
I actually got this little trivia from my devotional book this morning and now that I learned this, I realized that indeed, I can’t remember any of the Greek pantheon promising anything to mortals. In fact, the little that I know about them is that they don’t really care about humans, not even the demigods they sired.
I believe this has a significant bearing on the kind of God that we serve. The Egyptians and the Greeks, with all their pantheons of gods, faltered on this one very crucial point. Their gods are NOT able to make a promise, let alone fulfill it.
When Adam and Eve sinned, God made a promise to save humanity. Thousands of years later, Jesus was born in a manger in Bethlehem, a fulfillment of an old promise made by God to His people. As we celebrate Christmas this December, let us be thankful that we serve a promise-keeping God.
Obedience
God doesn’t owe you an explanation or reason for everything he asks you to do. Understanding can wait, but obedience can’t. Instant obedience will teach you more about God than a lifetime of Bible discussions. In fact, you will never understand some commands until you obey them first. Obedience unlocks understanding.
[Purpose Driven Connection]
Easy Life
Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks. Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle, but you shall be the miracle. [Phillip Brooks, via Michael Hyatt’s blog]
Promises
In Classical Greek, it was always the humans who promised something to the gods, not the other way around. Unlike Jesus, the Egyptian and Greek pantheon aren’t capable of making any promises, let alone fulfill them. http://bit.ly/fiGjyK
