Clean Sweep

Psalm 51:10 “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”

Ah the Holidays, love ‘em…no wait, hate ‘em. Well both I guess. How is it that I can love a time of year so much, and still find myself so stressed out about decorating and gifts and parties, that often times, the power of what this time of year celebrates is a million miles away from my heart and motives. Slow down…. Yeah right, I’ve got all this shopping to do, then there’s that dish I have to make for the party. I’ll be glad when it’s over and I can get back to my normal routine. I’m reminded of the time when Jesus was on the mountain with Peter and John and suddenly appear Moses and Elijah out of what seems to be thin air. In this incredibly powerful moment you would think that Peter and John would be ready to march back down the mountain and take over the world with the power of the good news. But no, what do they do? They want to set up shop right there and have a private party with Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. Self gratification, sound familiar? Somehow, I don’t think that’s what Jesus had in mind.

But aren’t we the same? Christmas is a time when we celebrate the incarnation of the Creator of the universe, and somehow we dumb it down to a couple of traditions and to-do lists that often times leave us more distracted from our Lord than when we began.

Create in me a clean heart O God. How often do I really sit down and pray that, mean that. Not enough for sure. It seems to me that sometimes one thing can be the key to many things. And often times the million miles that can seem to get between me and God in my busiest times can often be whisked away by simply re-aligning myself with the fact that it is ALL about Him. Renew a right spirit within me. Isn’t it when we take the time to really give ourselves completely to Jesus that all the hustle and bustle of this time of year suddenly have new meaning? I’m praying that over the next few weeks, God would help me do just that.

The Challenge: Pray that God will show you areas in your heart that need a little sweeping. It’s tough to do, but very rewarding if we listen and obey.

Ideas to Share: Share any decorating traditions your family has. Tree trimming? Putting up outside Lights? Share one way you are going to focus on your spiritual beautification.

Becca Fincher

Deck the Halls Week

It is hard to believe that in 3 short days, we will be gathering with family and friends to celebrate Thanksgiving.  And then, as soon as the leftovers are packed away in the fridge, we will focus our attention on Decking the Halls for Christmas!  It’s Week 5 of our Countdown and we will look at frugal ways to decorate, plan our decorating strategy and continue to march on towards reducing stress this Christmas.

We are taking inventory this week of our decorations and making plans to beautify our homes for the holidays. Don’t our hearts deserve at least as much?  We will talk about decorating our homes and our hearts as we continue to Give Thanks for our blessings and look forward to the celebration of the birth of our Saviour. 

 

Countdown Week 5 Challenges

□     Keep working on that Christmas Card list!

□     Make 1/4 of your gifts to make this week.

□     Dig out those decorations from last year.  Use the Holiday Decoration Inventory to record what you have and what you need.  Check those lights to make sure they all work then add replacements to your Master Shopping List if needed.

□     Prepare for Thanksgiving dinner, baking desserts and salads ahead of time.

□     Begin interior and exterior decorating (after Thursday ).  Plan your decor.  Whether you only have a small tabletop tree or a house filled with festive holiday goodies, planning for decorating and storage may be in order.

                            Room-by-Room Decor Planner

                             Holiday Storage Planner

Check out this article on Frugal Holiday Decorating tips.

□     As you trim your tree this year, consider preserving the memories associated with the ornaments you are hanging.  Use the Ornament Memories Journal to keep those memories alive.

□     Continue christmas gift shopping. Divide the master gift list into four sections. Purchase gifts for one-fourth of the List entries. Wrap gifts as they are purchased and keep track of your expenses and receipts in your Christmas Planner.

Ideas to Share:  Do you have any fond memories of trimming the tree?  Are there any traditions in your home regarding Decking the Halls?

For a printable version of the challenges, click here.

Congratulations!

Congrats to Kristian Ogden!  You have won the Early Christmas Present this week, just in time to put it under your tree (or open immediately as I would do ). 

Enjoy your Thanksgiving and your gift.

Thank Him For Who He Is To Us

1 Chronicles 16:34” Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; for His steadfast love endures forever!”

As a mom, the kitchen is the place where I can be found most of the time. It is the place where we nourish our bodies and share our experiences of the day. It is where we come for a quick snack or to get warm when it is chilly outside. As we approach Thanksgiving we will begin preparing our homes and our kitchens for celebration. We will enjoy the fellowship of family and friends and feast on a wonderful spread of food.

However, this can be such a busy time of year and we often get caught up in all of the preparation and forget how blessed we are. In a society that focuses on more and much more we often overlook the little things.

God came to the world as a very small blessing – baby Jesus. I have found that when I focus on the little blessings in my life I have a much closer relationship with Him. God wants us to remember and be thankful for all the blessings He bestows upon us. In order to do that we need to remember Who God is and What He has done for us.

He is my Father, Redeemer, Comforter, Provider, Healer, Strong tower, He is HOLY!!

This video describes him best:  Lord, you are Holy!

The Challenge: Sit down and write out a list of Who God is to you – be specific, you are the only one who will read it. Then audibly give Him praise

Ideas to Share: Share a way in which God has proven His love for you

Kim Andrews

Come Before Him With Thanksgiving

 As we “come before Him with thanksgiving and extol Him with music and song” (Ps 95:2), “let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker for He is our God and we are the people of His pasture, the flock under His care.” (Ps 95:6-7)

During this season of the year, perhaps we are more focused on our blessings that the Lord , our God has provided for each of us than any other time of the year. While we busily prepare our holiday meals and menus, let us remember to daily:

Thank Him for our MEAT. “My food,” said Jesus “is to do the will of Him who sent me to finish His work.” (Jn 4:34) The Lord desires for each of us to choose to do His will, not our own. Is the intent of my heart to obey Him each day, to fulfill the purpose He created me for? 

Thank Him that He tells us that our converations, our speech should always be full of grace, seasoned with SALT (salt is a preservative that retards spoilage. Our speech should be tempered so as to never be insipid, corrupt, or obscene), so that we may know how to answer everyone. (Col 4:6) The church is to be like salt in the world, to be an influence for good. Am I “salty”? What comes out of my mouth?

Thank Him that He teaches us that Jesus is the BREAD of life. (Jn 6:35,48,51) “ Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD (Dt 8:3). Do we treasure the words of His mouth more than our daily food?

Thank Him that “how sweet are His promises to our taste, sweeter than HONEY to our mouth? (Ps 119:103) He has given us more than 7,000 promises in His Word to know and grab on to for our lives. Do we know the Word and are we “fully persuaded that God has power to do what He promised?” (Rom 4:21) 

Thank Him that when we are born again, we are to be “like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual MILK, so we may grow up in our salvation” (1 Pe 2:2). As we grow up, we learn that “solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” (Heb 5:14) To grow up requires us to discipline ourselves to pray, read, meditate, memorize and study the Word of God and then apply truth in our daily walk. Is growing up spiritually a priority in our lives?

Thank Him that when we are born again that we have the FRUIT of the Spirit. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” (Gal 5:22-23) Then we are held accountable to live it out, “to work out your salvation with fear and trembling: (Phil 2:12) Are we living this FRUIT out as we go through our day? 

During this season of the year, let us stop and thank our Lord for our families. The whole family in Heaven and on earth derives its name from our Heavenly Father- this shows the great significance God puts on family (Eph 3:15). No matter what kind of family we grew up in on this earth, we can be thankful to be apart of God’s family here and our eternal home with Him. 

Karen Rosa

This is a recipe for family pie: 

One handful of forgiveness

One heaping cup full of love

A full pound of unselfishness

Mix together smoothly with complete faith in God

Add two tablespoons of wisdom

One teaspoon of good nature for flavor

Then sprinkle generously with thoughtfullness

Take a cup of kindness

Mix it well with love

Add a lot of patience and faith in God above

Sprinkle with joy and thanks and cheer

And you’ll have lots of angel food to feast on all year 

–Author Unknown

Cookie Swap?

Have you ever hosted a Cookie Swap?  I’ve always heard of them but have never participated in one.  Sounds like fun, though.  How would one organize such an event?  I’m so glad you asked.  Simply invite 6 to 12 women to contribute as many dozen cookies as there are women.  Host a party or plan a time when everyone makes the Swap.  Each person leaves with a wonderful mix of holiday goodies. Freeze them immediately, and label them “liver and onions.”

Here are some cookie recipes to get you salivating:

JoyofBaking.com (you do not want to miss this – SCROLL DOWN)

AllRecipes.com Cookies

PopularCookieRecipes.com

Christmas Cookie Recipes

Please post if you’ve ever done this or a variation of this in the past - would love to hear your ideas.  And don’t forget to post your favorite cookie recipes to the Recipe Page. 

 

In the Kitchen Week

Do you love to cook?  Do you live for the perfect meal?  Ok, neither do I, but it is a necessary part of life!  It’s Week Four of our Countdown to Christmas and we are talking about all things cooking.

We’ll discover some ways to plan holiday meals and menus, save money on holiday meals, prepare easy freezer entrees for busy December nights, and make holiday baking easier.

And the most exciting part of all. It’s the official launch a new branch to our blog – Good Eats!  A separate post about can be found here if you missed it.  Check out the site, use it and set yourself up for a cool early Christmas present.

Alright – let’s get In the Kitchen!

Countdown Week 4 Challenges

□     Keep working on writing and addressing your Christmas cards.  The goal is to do at least ¼ of your list this week.

 

□     Make one-fourth of your handmade gifts this week and consult your budget, then buy gifts for about ¼ of the people on your Master Gift List.   Don’t forget to wrap as you go.

 

 

□     Fill out a holiday menu planner form for any holiday meals that you will be serving in your home and start working on it

 

       Read this article on Saving Money on Holiday Meals.

 

 

□     Check out your freezer.  You can use the freezer inventory form to keep track of what you have in there. Plan to eat from the freezer over the next 2 weeks, making room for holiday meals and holiday goodies.

 

 

□     Are you a baker?  Start planning your holiday baking with the baking planner form, and be alert for supermarket specials. Try to buy nonperishable holiday foods this week and next week for all upcoming holiday meals.

 

 

□     This challenge is not easy but will really go a long way in helping out this season.   Set aside a time to invest in a freezer cooking session to put 5 to 10 entrees into the freezer. Use these meals on busy December evenings.

Also, be sure to check out these great sites with lots of resources & recipes for successful Freezer Cooking!

Mom’s Budget – Freezer Meals (This one is must to peek at!)

Thrifty Fun – Freezer Meals

My Recipes – Easy Freezer Meals

Frugal Mom – Once a Month Cooking

 

□     Post your favorite recipes to the Good Eats Page!  Come on, do it now.

 

 

Ideas to share:  Do you have any tips to make holiday cooking easier?  Any gift ideas related to cooking/baking? 

For a printable copy of these challenges, click here.

Congratulations!

Congrats to Becca Fincher.  You were chosen randomly from everyone who commented on the blog this week to receive an Early Christmas Present!  Enjoy.

Add a Recipe

This is a teaser to next week’s Countdown to Christmas – it will be In the Kitchen Week and will include the official introduction of Good Eats.

Some of you have already checked out this new addition -  CrossPointe Women Recipes.  And some of you have even added recipes to it – yeah!  If you haven’t yet, you are missing out.  The recipes are divided into major categories and you can search by ingredient or by the first name of the person who submitted the recipe.  This is especially helpful because you can use this site as a “home” for all of your own recipes.  Do you ever try new recipes you find on the internet, discover the dish is a big hit with the family, then forget to write it down so never get to repeat your success?  Here’s a great place to store those recipes and we all get to benefit from your find!

And this week, there is an extra incentive to add recipes!  We will be talking about All Things Cooking and for EACH recipe you add to the site from now until next Sunday, your name will go into the Early Christmas Present pot and therefore increase your chance of winning the gift.  See the previous post or the Good Eats page on this site for details about how to do this, but basically if you add your recipe in a comment on any post on that site or any related posts on this site – we’ll get it and add it to the appropriate category.

Fun, fun!  I can’t wait to see what you guys are cooking up!

The Gift Of You

There is a very beautiful story of a Martin of Turin. He was a soldier and he was a Christian. As he was entering into a city one cold day, there was a beggar in rags asking him for help, but Martin didn’t have any money. Martin took his coat, his Army coat, cut it in half, and gave half of it to this beggar. It was sort of a tattered coat, but he was willing to share it with this man in need. That night, it is said that Martin had a dream. In his dream Martin saw the Lord standing with all of His holy angels in heaven, and the Lord was wearing half of an army coat. “In asmuch as you’ve done it unto the least of these my brethren, you’ve done it unto me (Matthew 25:45).”

When thinking about Christmas we often think about: the Christmas story and baby Jesus wrapped in the manger, Christmas plays done by our kids, the yummy family dinners, all the beautiful decorations, the sparkling lights on the tree, the Christmas carols resounding everywhere we go, the beautifully wrapped presents, and the reaction of family and friends when they open the perfect gift you worked so hard on or thought so much about. It is so easy for us to get caught up in making Christmas special for our family and friends, but do we ever think about the people who do not have the ability to decorate the house and to lavish gifts upon their family? Do we ever think about how we can make a strangers or even a mere acquaintance’s Christmas special or how we can bring the spirit of Christmas and God’s love to everyone we see and meet?

Surely in these days of economic crisis, we as true children of God should be very concerned with those less fortunate ones in our midst, around us, who are in need of help at this time. How can we continue to lavish luxuries upon ourselves, when someone next to us is going hungry? For many of you, you might already go downtown and feed the homeless or send shoe boxes filled with goodies to kids around the world. We often think we need to do something big and extravagant to make a statement to those around us that we were charitable this Christmas. But it doesn’t take an extravagant jester to share God’s love or bring about the CHRISTmas spirit.

In fact this week, God gave me an example that demonstrated this principle in full. He must have known that I was writing this devotional, because out of the blue I received the sweetest card from a high school friend who I haven’t spoken to in years. (Yes, I am only 24 but still high school was 6 years ago) It was a simple card that spoke about past memories and how much she appreciated our friendship. It was something so small on her behalf but meant the world to me. It was an inexpensive way to share God’s love and to brighten my day. There are many more ways to show God’s love and the Christmas spirit this season.

As we get into the Christmas spirit this season, let us not forget that we should do everything as unto the Lord and that we should not forget those less fortunate around us and keep the mindset that, “Inasmuch as you did it unto the least of these, you did it to me.”

I encourage you to look for someone in need this week and throughout the Christmas season and find a way to give to them. The gift of friendship, a prayer, a sweet email or even a helping hand may be just what they are looking for.

Natalie Keller