Advent Day Three

First of all if you did not attend the annual RE Christmas sock party last night, you missed a really good time. I remember the first year Kelley Thomas hosted this and there were less than 10 of us there. But each year it has grown and grown and last night 37 women oohed, aahed and stole from each other to make sure they were going home with the cutest pair of socks or gloves. I laughed so hard my sides were hurting. Good times, great food, and fellowship.

So about four years ago I bought my first creche. Family Bookstore had their Willow Tree creche on sale for 50% off, so I got one. I have really enjoyed it each year but always have this thought about whether I should put the wisemen at the manger. I am surprised at how many people really don't know the wiseman did not see Jesus until he was approximately two and actually visited him at a house and not the manger. Matthew 2:11, 16 "On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him...When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi." So what do you think? Is it important to be biblically correct in setting up your creche? I talked to someone recently who said their sister actually places her wiseman in another room.

This is the scripture for Day Three of Advent

Mark 13:33-37 Take heed, watch; for you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Watch therefore--for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning-- lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. And what I say to you I say to all: Watch."

Finally, I found this article from Oswald Chambers "Upmost For The Highest" on drudgery and since I have read some blogs lately about people not really enjoying all the "tasks" of Christmas I thought I would post it because I thought he had some good things to say. "When it comes to taking the initiative against drudgery, we have to take the first step as though there were no God. There is no point in waiting for God to help us— He will not. But once we arise, immediately we find He is there. Whenever God gives us His inspiration, suddenly taking the initiative becomes a moral issue— a matter of obedience. Then we must act to be obedient and not continue to lie down doing nothing. If we will arise and shine, drudgery will be divinely transformed.
Drudgery is one of the finest tests to determine the genuineness of our character. Drudgery is work that is far removed from anything we think of as ideal work. It is the utterly hard, menial, tiresome, and dirty work. And when we experience it, our spirituality is instantly tested and we will know whether or not we are spiritually genuine. Read John 13. In this chapter, we see the Incarnate God performing the greatest example of drudgery— washing fishermen’s feet. He then says to them, "If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet" (John 13:14 ). The inspiration of God is required if drudgery is to shine with the light of God upon it. In some cases the way a person does a task makes that work sanctified and holy forever. It may be a very common everyday task, but after we have seen it done, it becomes different. When the Lord does something through us, He always transforms it. Our Lord takes our human flesh and transforms it, and now every believer’s body has become "the temple of the Holy Spirit""