While we were traveling to be with our daughter and family for Christmas a few years ago, a dear friend shared a link to this article from GodTube via Facebook. I couldn’t resist passing on the backstory as well as this unique rendition of this most moving of contemporary Christmas songs.
Why not meditate afresh as you read and listen. And a blessed Christmas to you and yours!
Read MoreWe would give up everything we've ever written to have penned this one verse, a stanza that comes as close as is humanly possible to capturing the splendor of who Jesus is.
Jesus Manifesto: Restoring the Supremacy and Sovereignty of Jesus Christ, by Leonard Sweet & Frank Viola, p. 173-174
What is that one verse? that one stanza? Authors Sweet & Viola are referring to the last stanza of the well-known carol, Hark, the Herald Angels Sing.
In my opinion, however, it isn't just the last stanza that is all glorious with the splendor of Christ...it's the entire song. In fact, even the stanzas that were removed* from the older version are splendid indeed. But I'm getting ahead of the story.
Read MoreA few Advents ago, I met a new-to-me British author, Tim Chester, through his Advent devotional The One True Light. I’ve loved this little volume that has led me year by year through the first eighteen verses of the Gospel of John.
Well, this year I discovered his other two Advent books: The One True Gift (On Philippians, chapter 2) and The One True Story (on the story of Christ through the Old Testament to Jesus’ Coming). So this year, each Advent day finds me meditating through all three, each one in turn.
The books are not coordinated, but one day in reading all three, a thread grabbed and entwined me in an amazing truth: Jesus is not only Emmanuel, God with Us; He is also Emmanuel, Us with God!
Read MoreIf ever we needed to know God is WITH us in every possible way, it's NOW, after another year of the unanswerable "why's" of life. We struggle to make sense of all the violence, suffering, and injustice we see all around us. Though we can't know the answers, we can turn afresh to the One Who has us in the palm of His Hand. The God Who became One of us...flesh and bone and joint and sinew...who experienced every emotion possible, raw and gripping, tender and affectionate! He felt it all! And He feels our current struggle with us too!
Read MoreEmmanuel…a Christmas Reading
by Kathy Compton
Christmas means different things to different people. For some, it is a difficult holiday because of memories that are cherished…but they are just memories now.
There is an emptiness about Christmas.
For some, it is the delight of family and friends, of decorations and cards, of cookies and carols. There is a fullness about Christmas.
Read MoreUnfathomable oceans of grace are in Christ for you. Dive and dive again. You will never come to the bottom of these depths. (author unknown)
Those of you who have followed my blog for the past 10 years may have caught on how obsessed I am with the ocean and the beach.
Read More"The Good News isn't just that Jesus died for our sins. The Good News is EMMANUEL...GOD WITH US!" So declared Deb at the end of our Bible Study.
As John and I drove home that evening, we reflected on her statement. We recalled a conversation we had had years before when we were discussing what the heart of the gospel ("Good News") is. The Good News isn't just that our sins are forgiven so we can go to heaven someday (and now we just do the best we can in the meantime).
Read MoreFor the past several years, I have been following an Advent devotional by a British author Tim Chester. One of the unique things that the author does is quote some “unknown to me” hymns and carols. However, the other day I recognized the final lines of each stanza in the quoted hymn of the day. Sure enough! I had been listening to that very carol each year on an old Christmas CD in our collection.
Read MoreWhen I was a child, I always loved Advent. There was a melancholia, a longing...but mixed at the same time with anticipation and hope. How did I get all that as a child? I'm sure I didn't, except to say that maybe all the sights and sounds and smells...all the scriptures and songs and prayers and stories of the "liturgical celebration" weren't entirely lost on me, nor on many of you. The reality of our God-Man Jesus has grown in me over the years as I've walked and talked with my Savior.
But whether you have had that sort of background as a child or not, why not journey with us these next weeks. Take it all in as if for the first time...all the sights, sounds, and smells...all the scriptures and songs and prayers and stories.
Read MoreNovember 27, 1971
Dear John Loyd, Thank you for 50 years together of “married bliss.”
Fifty years of struggling to learn how to do life together… to care for one another … to throw off the lies we believed about what marriage was all about … like those lies of the extreme views of the total headship of the male and the extreme submission of the female — those lies just about killed the love we started out with, didn’t they?
Read MoreI had a major vertigo episode late last night, as I was finishing a tutoring session online. I pushed through the last few minutes. But for the rest of the evening and through this morning, I have been nauseated and wobbly and less than stable.
By God’s grace, I fell asleep last night and have been resting ever since. So now I’m revisiting where the Lord took me a little more than exactly two years ago. Why not join me as we hear what HE says about walking wobbly in this “out of kilter world.”
. . . I’m walking wobbly these days. Intermittent vertigo and bouts of mild dizziness have been mine as I go about my daily life — difficult because I never know when it will hit (two times while driving were terrifying).
So changes have been made, especially since the testing determined that a couple of small strokes (past) in the balance area of my brain are likely the cause of my symptoms. Scary but good to know and now to process.
Read MoreJesus books . . . one of my most precious treasures (along with my mother’s hope chest). These little books date way back to our son Jeremy’s (1977 +) and our daughter Beth’s (1983+) babyhoods. Little by little, I would add to the collection each time I stopped at the Christian bookstore, first in northern Virginia and then in Dallas.
As you can see from the picture below, they were handled and read with “enthusiasm.”
Read MoreToday I awoke with thoughts about “receiving” one another and “being received.” I remember my mentor/friend/home school coordinator/ Bible teacher Donna saying many times that “such and such a person didn’t receive you, did they?” Or “you didn’t receive that person, did you?”
I remember this always caused me to wonder… what does it mean to “receive” a person? It always seemed like a different/deeper thing than accepting a person or what they had to say, etc.
Read MoreOctober 31, 1517… the day that changed the world of Christendom forever. German monk Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on the door of All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg. His action launched what came to be known as the Protestant Reformation (Or Protestant Revolt, depending on which side you are on).
Luther never intended to leave the Catholic church, but rather to reform it. But in God’s will, reform and a Biblical revolution began and continues to this day.
Luther didn’t get everything right, but he did get it right that “the just shall live by faith” (Romans 1:16-17) and so much more.
And Luther got something else right that helps us today. He got it right about how to live in the midst of a pandemic (the Black Plague) with God’s balanced, grace-filled perspective.
Read MoreA mature young Christian woman goes to her regular adult Bible study class. The teachers of the class are experts in Biblical counseling. Week by week they share from the Scriptures answers to common problems faced by individuals and families in today's culture. One Sunday after learning the "formula" for solving a particular problem biblically, our mature young woman asks, "But where is the Holy Spirit in all of this?"
A member of a sound evangelical church is a student in a class on Christian church history. He reads some articles ...
Read MoreGreater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.
1 John 4:4 NASB
We just returned from visiting again this year with our grandson Eli and his family to celebrate his “Halloween time” birthday. Predictably, we got to see the neighborhood again filled with ghosts and goblins, scarecrows and pumpkins, punctuating yards all around. .
Read More“Should we knock on the door or just leave them here?” I wasn’t sure which would be best.
John and I were just passing through on our way home from a Bible conference at the Cove in Asheville. And now we found ourselves on the front porch of a perfect stranger in a neighborhood of a city not our own.
Having checked into our hotel, we had walked out the door to build up a few thousand steps on our exercise app. After all we had been sitting in the car for hours. And in the course of our walk we found ourselves walking past some houses in an older neighborhood reminiscent of earlier times in our lives.
Read MoreEarly in the current pandemic, the Lord spoke to my heart about how to make it through in peace and rest in Him. I took a peek back at a post He gave me early on. I realize this is something we need everyday in every circumstance of life.
Come and revisit this post with me. You won’t regret the few moments to reflect and receive from the Holy Spirit for your TODAY.
. . . The implication was that this same balance can help us survive this present pandemic crisiS. The two things kept in balance are “accepting our present reality” and “holding on to hope” at the same time….
Read MoreChristianity is a PERSON, not a procedure; the LORD, not a list! Not church attendance, not Christ-like qualities, not good works, not the Christian "to-do list" (which may vary depending on the group and "camp" you are in)...
Not evangelism, not mission trips, not a quality "quiet time," not Scripture memorization or Bible study...
Not spiritual disciplines, not prayer, not fasting, not obedience, not miracle-working faith...
Read MoreDetachment, Relinquishment ... Letting go! No matter how you say it, it is hard but beautiful. And it is needed...needed, that is, in order to grow in the spiritual life. In fact, Jesuit Richard Rohr, says, "All great spirituality is about letting go." (Everything Belongs) Our Lord Jesus was the One truly spiritual Person on this earth. And He was detached in a healthy way. He was detached because He was attached to Another ... to His Heavenly Father. All through the gospels, especially the gospel of John, we see and hear this truth clearly.
Read More
Janet Renner Loyd has been a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ most of her life. Her formal education includes a degree in education from the University of Arizona and also a degree in Bible & Theology from Moody Bible Institute. For more than thirty years, she has been involved in teaching and leading women’s Bible studies, retreats, and meetings…most notably Precept upon Precept and various studies that she has personally developed. Professionally, Jan recently retired from teaching language and writing to GED and adult ESOL students.
About her life, Jan says, “The most important thing about me is my relationship with my Father God through my Lord Jesus Christ. I am forever grateful to Him for His love, mercy, and grace to me and my family and friends...and the world.”
Jan has been happily married to John Loyd for more than forty years. They have two adult, married children and five lively young grandsons.
