Rejoicing in the Presence of the Angels of God

"I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." Luke 15:10

Christmas is Coming! The Advent of the Messiah is being celebrated and anticipated each Sunday and week at Canton First Church of the Nazarene. I am so excited about the way in which God is working this Advent season.

We have been reflecting the past few weeks on the coming of Christ as a baby in Bethlehem but also his return at the second Advent.

On the first Sunday of Advent we looked at the idea of Waiting and how it can sometimes be extremely difficult.

The second Sunday of Advent we looked at the hope of God entering into the world. We said that Advent is a time when we realize that God has not given up on the world.

Yesterday we explored the joy of Christmas and made commitments to make this Advent season a time of Joy. We are actively seeking was to remove stress from this season, and also ways to bless others so that this Advent can actually be a time of Joyous Celebration.

God has been working in some powerful ways. Two weeks ago we had several people respond to our message about hope. People gathered around our altars and prayed that God would work through the pain, disappointment and fear in their lives.

This past week I received a phone call from a guy in our church, his name is Tim. Tim and I met a few weeks ago at my house. Kara and I had ordered some new furniture and a guy, Jay, from our church helped me to pick it up and bring it to our house. When we arrived back at the house Jay had his nephew Tim come over to help us unload our new couches and bed.

As we were bringing the bed into the house Tim told me that he and his wife also just moved into a new house the week before. We formed an instant bond - he too shared in the pain of moving!

As Jay and Tim were getting ready to leave I asked them if they knew of anything we could do with our old bed. Tim got excited and said, "You're really wanting to get rid of it?"

I said, "Yeah, do you want it? I could load it on the trailer now. We have a love seat we need to get rid of too. Do you want that?"

He said, "Yeah!!! We just rented some furniture for $130 a week. I'll go cancel that and we will just use this for a while!"

Our friendship just got a little more solid - He was going to save $520 a month!

As we were loading the couch and mattress onto the trailer Tim told me that he and his wife were going to come to our church the next Sunday and were looking forward to possibly getting more involved.

The showed up that Sunday. I said hi to them in the hall way and they asked if we wanted our remote back. Apparently the remote to our DVD player that had been missing was discovered in the couch we gave them!

Two days after the service, last Tuesday, I received a call from Tim. We kept missing each other and leaving voicemails, but we finally got in touch with each other on Wednesday night. Tim told me, "I've been trying to get ahold of you all week. My wife and I have been talking about Sunday a lot. We loved the church. Everyone was so nice and welcoming to us. And your message about hope has had us talking too. We've been talking and we want to set up an appointment with you in your office and ask God into our lives. We want to do it right!"

I set up a time for them to come in on Thursday and we hung out at my office for a while and shared our stories of how God was working. Then Tim and his wife and daughter all prayed and received the forgiveness and new life that Jesus offers. It was a pretty powerful time here in my office. The three of them will all be baptized here on Sunday morning as part of our Christmas celebrations!

After the service yesterday Tim and Melissa waited around to talk with Kara and I. The gave us this cross as a gift,


and told us, "Thanks for helping us start our new life together."

We are so blessed to play a part in the life of this couple. I can not tell you how excited I am to baptize them on Sunday morning. God has done a great thing in their lives and we are going to celebrate!

Yesterday we added some new flowers to the 30 poinsettias that were already decorating our sanctuary.

I have a close friend in Indiana who shared with me a tradition that his church has in celebrating new lives in Christ Jesus. Every Sunday there is a vase on the altar in the front of the church. Each week they put a white rose in the vase for every person that accepts Christ into their lives. Every Sunday I usually get a text message from my friend with how many white roses they had that morning. I was thrilled to place our three white roses on the altar yesterday!


We are praying for more roses! We are praying for more changed lives. We are praying that God would continue to do great and amazing things!