kosarajuraj

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. Colossians 1:15 I want you to try to imagine what the world would be like without the birth of Jesus Christ. It’s beyond our imagination, but just try to picture it. We certainly wouldn’t know God as we know Him. In fact, we’d be fortunate to have even heard about the God revealed in the Old Testament.  So what changed on that first Christmas so long ago? Well, when Jesus Christ came, the Bible says He was Immanuel… “God with us.” God was no longer a distant Deity. He was no longer an unfathomable, unapproachable image. But God became flesh and blood; God was with us! That’s why Jesus would later say, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). When Jesus was born into the world, He was God! He wasn’t a man acting like God; not even God acting like a man; but God who was fully man and a man who was fully God! When Christ was seeing, that was God seeing. And when Chris...

Every family has its own stories. These stories may become embellished over time, but they are part of our families’ history and help us discover our own identity. We tell these stories over and over at family gatherings, which helps us discover who we are as part of our family. We Christians also have our stories that we tell often. Matthew and Luke tell us about the birth of Jesus. God became one of us on that first Christmas morning in a stable, not a palace, to teach us the true values of life. What is inside of us is more important than what is outside of us. Because of Jesus’ birth, we can have the divine life within us. We just need to take time and discover it. The real Christmas story is the story of God's becoming a human being in the Person of Jesus Christ. Why did God do such a thing? Because He loves us! Why was Christmas necessary? Because we needed a Savior! Why does God love us so much? Because He is love itself (1 John 4:8). Why do we celebrate Chris...

In Washington, a visibly shaken President Obama, wiping away tears, said he was "heartbroken." Our hearts are broken today," a tearful President Barack Obama, struggling to maintain his composure, said at the White House. He called for "meaningful action" to prevent such shootings, saying, "As a country, we have been through this too many times." "These were "beautiful little kids between the ages of 5 and 10 years old,'' Obama said. "They had their entire lives ahead of them. Birthdays. Graduations. Weddings. Kids of their own." Police shed no light on the motive for the attack. The gunman, Adam Lanza, was believed to suffer from a personality disorder and lived with his mother, said a law enforcement official who was briefed on the investigation but was not authorized to discuss it. Panicked parents looking for their children raced to Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, a prosperous New England ...

Answer: The ancient Mayans, in their “Long Count” calendar, had December 21, 2012, as the end of the calendar. This “end” of the Mayan calendar leads to many different interpretations. Some see it as nothing more than a reset, the beginning of a new cycle. Others see it as the date for the end of the world (or at least some type of universal catastrophe). So, what is the Mayan Long Count calendar, and does it have any relation to the end of the world? The Mayans developed their own calendar (The Long Count) ca. 355 B.C. They were able to use their observations and mathematical prowess to calculate the future movements of stars across the sky. The result was that the Mayans discovered the effect of the earth’s wobbling as it spins on its axis. This wobbling rotation causes the stars’ movements to drift gradually in the sky (an effect called “precession”) in a 5,125-year cycle. The Mayans also discovered that once every cycle the dark band at the center of the Mil...

  First things first “Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.” Matthew 6:34 In the crucible of His wisdom and the ecology of His grace, God has ordered some trouble for you today. And every day of your life. We’ve been blessed with difficulties. Yes, you read right—blessed! The worst thing that could happen to us would be not to have any difficulties. If that were the case, we’d never know our need of the Lord. So God in essence says, “I’m going to give you sufficient difficulty for the day.” God gives you enough difficulty to draw you close to Him, but then God gives you enough grace to meet those difficulties every day. We don't mind suffering some things as long as someone else is suffering too; we don't like to be the only one. Few things make us feel worse than when everything seems to be going well for everyone else and we are in the throes...

The Word of God is energized by the Spirit of God. Whenever Scripture goes forth, it never returns without accomplishing the work it was intended to do. This is because the written Word of God is "living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword" (v. 12). As we minister to others, the Bible must be central to all that we say and do. We must always remember that it is the Word which is alive, not our own insights, clever arguments, or interesting stories. There was a period in church history that extended from A.D. 100 to A.D. 314, during which thousands and thousands of courageous Christian men and women sealed their fate with their blood. Secular historians are in agreement that there were 10 great persecutions—10 major attempts to wipe Christianity off the face of the earth. It started with the wicked Caesar Nero, who presided over the death of Paul. Christians were fed to wild animals. They were killed in the Roman aren...