SURPRISE OF THE DAY ~ December 15

Things in the Bible not really in the Bible...and a few surprises

Christmas Surprise of the Day

The wise men from the East arrived to see the newborn baby Jesus sleeping in a hay trough the same night as the shepherds.

Matthew 2:7 – Matthew 2:9-11  –  Matthew 2:16

Christmas Fact of the Day

No!  Mary and Joseph had moved into a house by then.  It must have taken the wise men two years to get there.  Herod had all boy babies aged two and under in Bethlehem killed, according to the time when the wise men arrived and consulted with the mad king.

You’re smart.  Read the Bible for yourself.  Find out for yourself.

Joseph is bleeding. From the broken promise. The broken heart. The broken life.

Joseph sinks down to the floor with his etched picture of Mary. All broken. Crushed. Cut to the heart. Unhealable. Inconsolable. Betrayed with the ultimate betrayal.

Sprawling completely prostrate now, Joseph hits his fist against the floor. He is bleeding. Bleeding from the broken pottery. Bleeding from the broken promise. The broken heart. The broken life. “Oh, Mary… Oh, God…” he groans

(Excerpt from “The Other Father” chap 3 of STAR SONG)

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SURPRISE OF THE DAY ~ December 12

Things in the Bible not really in the Bible...and a few surprises

Christmas Surprise of the Day

The herald angels sang to the shepherds on the night Jesus was born.

Luke 2:8-13 –  Revelation  5:11-12

Christmas Fact of the Day

No!  Sorry to be a scrooge and all that.  But, just because a popular Christmas carol says, Hark! the Herald Angels Sing, doesn’t mean it’s so.  Luke said the angels declared, said, and announced, but they did not sing.  

Check out Revelation with all its appearances in heaven.  The great multitude with their robes made white in the blood of the lamb sang, but the angels said.

What a privilege God has given humans.  We can sing!  

You’re smart.  Read the Bible for yourself.  Find out for yourself.

SURPRISE OF THE DAY ~ December 11

Things in the Bible not really in the Bible...and a few surprises

Christmas Surprise of the Day

What did Gabriel mean when he told Mary the Holy Spirit was going to overshadow her and then she would be pregnant with the Son of God taking on flesh?

  Luke 1:35 – John 1:1 & 14 – Genesis 1:2

Christmas Fact of the Day

 When you study the Holy Spirit, you find the Life-Giver (or re-Giver), the Animator, the Mover, the Implementor of  the Mind of God’s will.  

The Greek word translated in Luke as OVERSHADOW is the same Hebrew word translated in Genesis 1:2 as HOVER.  The same thing happened when God created the earth as when God came to Mary’s womb.  

You’re smart.  Read the Bible for yourself.  Find out for yourself.

OOPS OF THE DAY ~ December 10

Things in the Bible not really in the Bible...and a few surprises

Christmas Oops of the Day

When Joseph and Mary arrived at Bethlehem, she was about to deliver, but all the inns were full.  

Luke 2:7

Christmas Fact of the Day 

No! Luke did  not say “all  innS  were”.   He  said  “THE  INN WAS.”   There was only one inn in Bethlehem!

This little tidbit in grammar can make a lot of difference when we view the panic Joseph must have been feeling that night.

You’re smart.  Read the Bible for yourself.  Find out for yourself.

Click here to download the app in your language. 

OOPS OF THE DAY ~ December 9

Things in the Bible not really in the Bible...and a few surprises

Christmas Oops of the Day

Joseph was a decent man, so decided not to tell all their friends the wedding was off, but to save Mary the embarrassment and just divorce her secretly.  Besides, it would give Mary time to get out of town,  have her baby somewhere else, give it away, and return home still with her pride and resume her life as it had been, sans Joseph.

Matthew 1:19 and Deuteronomy 22:13-21

Christmas Fact of the Day 

No!  Joseph was not just saving Mary from being embarrassed .  He was saving her from being killed!

The Law of Moses, under which they lived, said that a woman who was not a virgin when married could be publicly exposed by her newly betrothed husband.  Then she was to be stoned to death at the door of her father and mother.

True, we today who believe the Bible believe she was still a virgin.  But her pregnancy was “proof” to the villagers and the world that she had committed adultery.  

Can you imagine the taunts that Joseph endured by marrying a woman already pregnant?  What a strong and brave man he was.  More tomorrow.

You’re smart.  Read the Bible for yourself.  Find out for yourself.

Click here to download the app in your language. 

The two women fall into each other’s arms, locked in love, faith, and ultimate submission to holiness.

My dear friends in the Lord, I’d like to share with you how this book – STAR SONG – came about . When I was seventeen years old at Harding College in 1958 I wrote some of which you will read in this book. When I showed it to some of my girlfriends, they said I should write the entire life of Christ. I told them I was not old enough and had not experienced enough of life yet. But I promised I would write it when I was sixty.

Through the years, I added things and changed things, first on my portable Royal typewriter, then an electric typewriter, and finally my “amazing” Selectric typewriter. And the pages had smudges where I had erased and replaced words here and there and became aged and brittle. Much of what you will read now of Mary’s conversations with Gabriel, her family, and Elizabeth I wrote when I was seventeen. Also, most of what you will read from the time Jesus left the fortress with his cross to his last breath I wrote when I was seventeen.

Throughout the years, my growing number of pages were stored in closets, bottom drawers, and, finally, file cabinets as I moved through life from one place to another.  I even sometimes separated parts of them into inspirational pamphlets which I printed with those ditto machines with their purple ink and later on mimeograph machines, getting ink all over my hands and clothes. Yet, all through those forty-three years, I remembered my promise made in my dormitory room so long ago when we were all so young.

Then, when I was fifty-nine, having lived and experienced far more during those years than I had really desired, I sat down to finish writing my entire life of Christ. I cannot recall whether it was during the summer or winter months when I finished it, but it was in the year 2000. I had kept my promise.

SURPRISE OF THE DAY ~ December 8

Things in the Bible not really in the Bible...and a few surprises

Surprise of the Day

One of the last messages of God at the end of the Old Testament was

“I will send you my Malachi.” 

BOOK OF MALACHI

Fact of the Day

     The very last book of the OLD Testament – Malachi –  was written about four centuries before the birth of Jesus (which occurred at the beginning of the NEW Testament).  Through Malachi, God sent the world the above final message of hope.  Soon now (considering the age of the world) the promised Messiah (“Anointed One”) would arrive.  But how will the world know him when he gets here? 

     Don’t worry.  God explained…  

“I will send you my Messenger.” 

     Huh?  What messenger? You just said you were going to send your Malachi. Now you’re saying you are going to send your Messesnger. You’re taking us in circles!

     Well, Malachi’s name means “messenger” and as a prophet, he “delivered messages” from God.

     Ohhhh.  Was God planning for the prophet Malachi to live another four hundred years to introduce the Messiah (Anointed One) to the world?   That’s what it looks like.  Didn’t God just say…

“I will send you MY Malachi”

      Oh! He will send someone else who will be HIS Malachi!

     Well, my friends, if your head isn’t swimming with this play on words in the Bible,  hold that thought.  In a few days, the answer to this divine riddle will become clear to you.

     See you tomorrow!

You’re smart.  Read the Bible for yourself.  Find out for yourself.

SURPRISE OF THE DAY ~ December 1

Things in the Bible not really in the Bible...and a few surprises

Surprise of the Day

When people hold back from giving to God,

they lose more than their contribution would have been.

Haggai 1:1-11 and Haggai 2:19

Fact of the Day

  • 538 BC – King Cyrus allowed his enslaved Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their temple and city.  They completed the foundation amid enemies.
  • 520 BC – King Darius I defended the Jews to their enemies and gave them what they needed to finish their temple.
  • 518 BC – The Jews had done nothing.  So prophet Haggai stepped in on behalf of God.
  • 516 BC – They finally  finished rebuilding their 2nd temple.

 

  • THE JEWS:  “It is not time to finish the temple”.  
  • GOD:  “Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?”
  • THE JEWS:  “We’re earning wages, but put them in purses with holes in them.”
  • GOD:  “What you brought home, I blew away.  I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, the new wine, the olive oil and everything else the ground produces, on people and livestock, and on all the labor of your hands.”
  • THE JEWS:  “Why?”
  • GOD: “Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with your own house.”
  • THE JEWS:  “We’re sorry.”
  • GOD:  “Give careful thought to your ways.  Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build my house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored,

So, two years later they finished building the temple.  And what did God have to say then?

“‘From this day on I will bless you.’”

YOU’RE SMART.  READ THE BIBLE FOR YOURSELF.

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Do you believe it, Mary? Can you? Try hard, Mary.

My dear friends in the Lord.  Of all 70 books that I have written, the series I poured my heart and soul into the most is this one:  Soul Journey with the Real Jesus – the life of our Lord in 8 lyrical novels.   I began writing them when I was 17 years old at Harding University.  I finished when I was 60.   Forty-three years in the writing. 

Won’t you come along with me and take a journey with Jesus?  You are one of them.  Probably you are several of them. Go ahead and struggle with him as they did. Laugh. Cry. Do mental battle with him. Emotional battle, too. Fight for your faith as they fought. Pause to listen for what you’ve never heard before. Then touch the soul of Jesus.  These are the stories of faith in the impossible. Hope in the inconceivable. Love for the invincible. It is the dreams of youth, the desperations of infirmity, the hopes of age, and the song of eternity. Follow the suspense as each person in Jesus’ life comes to terms with who they are, and who Jesus is. Jesus accepts them as they are. But can they accept themselves as they are? More than that, can they accept Jesus as he is? Both God and man? Both Creator and created? Both King and servant? It is the story of doubts explained away, animosities melted away, misunderstandings cleared away. It is your story and mine. For deep within each of us is everyone who ever went on a journey and struggled with Jesus.

I wrote it in present tense so you will feel like you are right there with them.  During December I will be sending you short exerpts from each of the ten chapters in book one, STAR SONG – entirely on the birth and childhood of  JesusHere is the first:

Enlarge the picture so you can read the rest of this excerpt from Chapter 1 of  Star Song & the “FIRST CHRISTMAS”.

Stock up on this beautiful 270-page paperback for Christmas gifts for only $9.75.  This 1/2 price is “at cost” for me. It is MY GIFT to you.

Here is the Amazon 1/2 price purchase link shortcut: https://bit.ly/4p9Aibm

To read chapter one FREE, go here: https://bit.ly/4om6pUs