Glad Tidings of Great Joy!

Hello Delightful Friends and Family!
Happy New Year's Eve to you all.  I thought I'd do something a bit different in todays post.  Normally I show a paper craft project or pics of family but this post is a Bible Study that I shared a week before Christmas at Our Daily Bread Designs Forum (formally, Christian Paper Crafts).  For some reason the studies are not being made public as they were before and until they are again I will be posting in both places.  We've been blessed with a Gospel that is free to "whosoever" and I just don't feel right about the studies not being made public. (Kelley - the owner of the site, is checking for me to see if that can be changed).

THE LORD HAS DONE GREAT THINGS FOR US AND WE ARE FILLED WITH JOY!! (PSALM 126:3)

Joy – Greek Chara; Hebrew – Sameach
Meaning: rejoicing, gladness, merry, glad, merryhearted, celebrate.
This is His eternal and internal(!) gift to us through the Lord Jesus Christ. My prayer is that the eternal would rule your joy, rather than the external!

We’ve been given “glad tidings of great joy” (Luke 2:10)

Here are some wonderful gifts the Lord has supplied abundantly to each of us.  It is my prayer that this would be a springboard for you to search the Scriptures for yourselves to see all the blessings that Lord has for us:

Salvation:
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. John 3:16

For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,              1 Thessalonians 5:9

PEACE:
"Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. John 14:27

"These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." John 16:33

TRUTH:
Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."       John 14:6

HIS SPIRIT:
"But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me." John 15:26


"Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you."    John 16:7


"However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come." John 16:13


HIS LOVE:
"And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them." John 17:26

FREEDOM:
Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, "If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 31-32

HIS WORD:
"But now I come to You, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. "I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth." John 17:13-17


Luke 10:17-20 Then the seventy returned with joy, saying, "Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name." And He said to them, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven."



As believers in the Lord Jesus Christ we are encouraged to persevere in the knowledge that the Lord is coming back! I pray that our upward look towards Jesus would dictate our attitudes rather than the hustle and bustle that comes so often with the Christmas season. May our hearts sing throughout the year - Joy to the World!

Amen and Maranantha!

In Christian love,
Natalie