Today Our Merry Christmas Daily Bread 2 Cor 1 & John 1:14

Scripture selections are taken from the Rock Church Daily Bread Reading schedule for each month. “Lena’s Journalin’” are Lena’s comments on the specific passages from her Daily Journal.

If the e-mail text you receive is encrypted at all, just scroll down to the end of all of the text and click on Lena’s Journalin’ , which will take you directly to the web-page where you will be able to read the text quite clearly in it’s purposed form.
Merry Christmas 2 U !!!
2 Cor 1
Greetings from Paul
1This letter is from Paul, appointed by God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and from our dear brother Timothy. We are writing to God's church in Corinth and to all the Christians throughout Greece. F1
2May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you his grace and peace.
God Offers Comfort to All
3All praise to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the source F2 of every mercy and the God who comforts us. 4He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When others are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us. 5You can be sure that the more we suffer for Christ, the more God will shower us with his comfort through Christ. 6So when we are weighed down with troubles, it is for your benefit and salvation! For when God comforts us, it is so that we, in turn, can be an encouragement to you. Then you can patiently endure the same things we suffer. 7We are confident that as you share in suffering, you will also share God's comfort.
8I think you ought to know, dear brothers and sisters, F3 about the trouble we went through in the province of Asia. We were crushed and completely overwhelmed, and we thought we would never live through it. 9In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we learned not to rely on ourselves, but on God who can raise the dead. 10And he did deliver us from mortal danger. And we are confident that he will continue to deliver us. 11He will rescue us because you are helping by praying for us. As a result, many will give thanks to God because so many people's prayers for our safety have been answered.
Paul's Change of Plans
12We can say with confidence and a clear conscience that we have been honest F4 and sincere in all our dealings. We have depended on God's grace, not on our own earthly wisdom. That is how we have acted toward everyone, and especially toward you. 13My letters have been straightforward, and there is nothing written between the lines and nothing you can't understand. I hope someday you will fully understand us, 14even if you don't fully understand us now. Then on the day when our Lord Jesus comes back again, you will be proud of us in the same way we are proud of you.
15Since I was so sure of your understanding and trust, I wanted to give you a double blessing. 16I wanted to stop and see you on my way to Macedonia and again on my return trip. Then you could send me on my way to Judea.
17You may be asking why I changed my plan. Hadn't I made up my mind yet? Or am I like people of the world who say yes when they really mean no? 18As surely as God is true, I am not that sort of person. My yes means yes 19because Jesus Christ, the Son of God, never wavers between yes and no. He is the one whom Timothy, Silas, F5 and I preached to you, and he is the divine Yes—God's affirmation. 20For all of God's promises have been fulfilled in him. That is why we say "Amen" when we give glory to God through Christ. 21It is God who gives us, along with you, the ability to stand firm for Christ. F6 He has commissioned us, 22and he has identified us as his own by placing the Holy Spirit in our hearts as the first installment of everything he will give us.
23Now I call upon God as my witness that I am telling the truth. The reason I didn't return to Corinth was to spare you from a severe rebuke. 24But that does not mean we want to tell you exactly how to put your faith into practice. F7 We want to work together with you so you will be full of joy as you stand firm in your faith.
FOOTNOTES:F1: Greek Achaia, the southern region of the Greek peninsula. F2: Greek the Father. F3: Greek brothers. F4: Some manuscripts read holy. F5: Greek Silvanus. F6: Or who has identified us and you as genuine Christians. F7: Greek want to lord it over your faith.

~Lena’s Journalin’~
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and all of those celebrative expressions to you.
The point today, is to celebrate- Jesus Christ inside of you!
Notice all month we’ve had the repetitive verse- “and the word of God became human and dwelled among us here where we could see Him with our own eyes. He was the fullness in demonstration of the unconditional love of God, which never, ever fails. He came so that we could see His glory, the glory of a heavenly Father’s great influence and image portrayed inside of an earthly human body…(Lena paraphrase)
How did God get inside of a human?
It was a planned act, and it was by invitation only. Mary was a human, who was invited by a messenger of God to have God live inside of her. She could accept or decline. She believed God, trusted God and accepted. Then she received His word and conceived His word and that word became her flesh and blood, a flesh and bone body alive inside of her humanness.
Do you not realize or think that Christ Jesus is not being invited into any and all of our lives today?
The name Jesus, denotes a Savior, and the name Christ, denotes a Lord or Master. Both want to live inside of human beings.
They want to have a great amount of influence and to deposit the nature and image of God in us in earth. “How can that happen?”, Mary asked.
It happens by accepting the invitation of God to allow His Spirit to become one with our own human spirit.
If we will not allow this, we will be mere humans making it day to day on our own without the help of God Almighty Maker of heaven and earth.
If we do allow Christ to dwell inside of us and influence our nature, we will find a supernatural life being lived in a human body. This is God’s Divine design.
I beg of you, if you have not yet received God’s Holy Spirit, to indwell you enough to overflow you, taking your old nature over and giving you the new Divine Nature of the Almighty God (new DNA), you are just making it- barely, especially in the Christian life.
In order to be all God has created you to be, and in order to fulfill all God has called you to fulfill, I challenge you to be vulnerable to God, and be as Mary was and prayed, “Be it unto me in accordance with Thy word (and Thy will), Amen!
Receive ye the Holy Spirit breath of refreshing, of life, of rejuvenation, of direction, of God! Don’t hold back from God the giving up of your whole life over to His use. Be brave, Trust God, say- “Be it unto me……”

John 1:14 So the Word became human and lived here on earth among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. F1 And we have seen his glory, the glory of the only Son of the Father.