Before the Throne of God Above

Before the throne of God above

I have a strong and perfect plea

A great High Priest whose name is love

Who ever lives and pleads for me

My name is graven on His hands

My name is written on His heart

I know that while in heav’n He stands

No tongue can bid me thence depart

No tongue can bid me thence depart

When Satan tempts me to despair

And tells me of the guilt within

Upward I look and see Him there

Who made an end of all my sin

Because the sinless Savior died

My sinful soul is counted free

For God the Just is satisfied

To look on Him and pardon me

To look on Him and pardon me

Behold Him there, the risen Lamb

My perfect, spotless Righteousness

The great unchangeable I AM

The King of glory and of grace

One with Himself, I cannot die

My soul is purchased by His blood

My life is hid with Christ on high

With Christ my Savior and my God

With Christ my Savior and my God

He's Christmas to Me!

"O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together." Psalm 34:3

From the moment of Creation,
Heaven and earth have proclaimed,
The expected hope of every nation,
One always spoken of, but never named.

The prophets and the scribes foretold,
That He would one day come to earth,
But no one thought they would behold,
Him as a baby in a human birth.

Everyone was looking for a prophet,
Or a priest they could crown king,
Someone victorious they could celebrate,
A happy ruler, of which the children could sing.

But on a very unexpected day,
Over two thousand long years ago,
Something happened in such an amazing way,
I have to tell the story so you'll know.

In the Gospel of Luke we read,
In chapter two how in days of old,
Ceasar decreed all come with speed,
To pay taxes in their city as told.

And so it came to pass in those days,
That as the people obeyed and went,
Joeseph and Mary went on their way,
To Bethlehem is where they were sent.

Now Mary was with child of the Holy Ghost,
But only she and Joseph knew,
Because they had been told by heavenly host,
And the days were near when she was due.

As they travelled into Bethlehem one night,
Mary's full time came that she should be delivered,
Christ was born in a stable manger before the first light,
Because no room was found in the inn to be given.

Shepherds in their fields abiding,
Kept watch over their flocks that same night,
When angels came and told them the tidings,
Christ was born to bring them light.

The angels told where they would find Him,
Lying in a manger stable den,
And then they sang that blessed hymn
Glory to God, and peace to men.

The shepherds found it as they said,
With haste they'd come to find him there,
In a manger for his cradle bed,
His parents watching him with care.

So as the shepherds retuned home that day,
They praised and glorified God above,
And told others who journeyed on that way
That God had sent us Jesus in His love.

And just like the shepherds, we too must find,
Our voice to share what we have heard,
With people of each and every kind,
That Christ's love to us has been transferred.

Now we can share this promised gift,
Through each and every year,
How Christ came down from heaven to lift
Our hearts from every tear.

He came to give us love and peace,
To live and die, and take our sins,
So that we might have full relief
And live forever praising Him.

And at this special most wonderful time of year,
When I see the decorations and lights on the tree,
I can't help but celebrate Christ with joy and cheer,
Because more than anything else, He's Christmas to me!

I hope you enjoyed this poem as much as I enjoyed writing it! I'd like to give a special "thank you" to Rachel for asking me to write this post! You're inspiration was just what I needed!

For those of you who don't know me, I'm Elanee Smythe, from elaneesendeavors.blogspot.com   and I was very excited to share this poem with you today. I enjoy writing, music, Bible   study, and keeping my small blog to share with others what God has been doing in my life.

I struggled with writing this poem over the last several days, wanting to make it as close to the Biblical account as possible. I hope it encourages you this Christmas season to glorify Christ, and make His name lifted on high throughout your life. Merry Christmas, and a very happy New Year to all of you!

Sticking Together So We Can Stop Traffic

Go back and read that quote again. I know you just skimmed through it. ;)

You read it again? Great. Good job. Now read it a third time, but this time actually think about what it could possibly mean.

You did that? *100 brownie points from Bonnie* :)

But seriously, it's an interesting thought isn't it? Let's analyse that quote. Let's dig a little deeper and see if we can really understand what it is trying to say.

Christians, like snowflakes, are frail. Well to me this first bit is a little like, "duh, seriously?" I mean, we are frail. The Bible says in Psalm 103 vs 13-16 (emphasis added):

As a father has compassion on his children,
so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;
for he knows how we are formed,
he remembers that we are dust.
The life of mortals is like grass,
they flourish like a flower of the field;
the wind blows over it and it is gone,
and its place remembers it no more.

So okay, we get that we are frail. Cool. Great. Awesome. Movin' right along.

.....but when they stick together, they can stop traffic. Yay! This is really gettin' into the interesting stuff, now, folks! Who knew that something as massively awesome as being able to stop traffic comes from sticking together with other like-minded believers?

I know some of you may interpret this quote as to it's first apparent meaning (stick to other Christians), hence the long "go back and take another look at it" bit at the start. Aha, you think. Now I get it. Yes, you do! Good for you. ;)

I see this whole quote as a call to prayer. Actually, here is that sentence again in bigger font because it's so important.

I see this whole quote as a call to prayer.

So some of you people may know that I am a leader at holiday kids camps called Good News camps, so basically we get all these random local kids out to camp for a week, give them a blast at all sorts of awesome activities but also explain the gospel to them and that sort of stuff. Anyway, as a leader, I am required by the leadership to have three prayer partners who pray for me while I am away at camp. 

I always try and get more than three prayer partners because well, who can get too much prayer?! :) But anyway, this one camp I was really busy beforehand and I got my three prayer partners and they did a fantastic job praying hard out for me during camp. Which was totally awesome and everything. But you know what? I really felt like that was a really hard camp. I found it exhausting both physically and emotionally. I know I had people praying, but I felt like I could really have done with more pray-ers! That was the hardest camp I've ever done and I feel like it was because I had less prayer coverage than usual. There are probably other factors too, but that is the main one I think.

It is amazing how effective prayer is. 

Whenever I get into a bit of a sticky situation my first response is to find someone who can pray for me / with me until the stickyness of the situation is cleared up.

So anyway, back to the quote. If we stick together we are way more effective and powerful than each of us going our own individual little ways. Well how about we pray for each other? Prayer is a massive weapon against the enemy. 

"The greatest thing anyone can do for God or man is pray." S.D. Gordon

"Don’t pray when you feel like it. Have an appointment with the Lord and keep it. A man is powerful on his knees." Corrie ten Boom

So, who to pray for?

Here are just a few ideas of people and things to pray for. The list goes on and on! I'm sure you can think of many others to add to the list. 

- Friends

- Missionaries

- Family members

- Churches

- World leaders

- Current events

- Cities and countries

What I often do is pray that the Lord will lay someone on my heart that needs prayer that particular day then just pray hard out for that person all day long! They never know I prayed for them, but I'm sure a battle is being fought in the heavenly realm.

Join with me in prayer - oh, and snowflakes, let's see how much traffic we can stop!