My Mother used to wrap and ribbon empty boxes and set them under the Christmas tree so it would look like we were having a bigger Christmas than we actually were. We also had a real tree to set them under. There were never any names on any gifts under our tree so we never really knew which was real and which not, nor which ones belonged to us. Christmas has changed since those early years. No more empty boxes under real trees. Credit card love provides many more gifts under nice, easy-to-store, artificial trees. Disturbed by the changing nature of Christmas? Don\u2019t be. When the Wise Men delivered the first Christmas gifts to Jesus, things began to change immediately. After the Wise Men worshipped Jesus, \u201cThey departed for their country another way\u201d (Matthew 12:2) Not only is it true that once you really \u201cworship\u201d Jesus you never return the same way again, it is also true that once you experience the real Christmas, as the Wise Men did, everything changes. The Christmas message was intact, but the method of celebration began to change immediately. There is a changeless message for a changing Christmas. Emmanuel \u2013 God with us!<\/p>\n
Join me in remembering these global concerns:
\n\u2022 Pray for Cathie as she returns to Houston from Spain for medical evaluation and treatment.
\n\u2022 Pray for the Dec. 19 missionary sponsored Hanukkah celebration for the Jewish people of Berdsk, Russia.
\n\u2022 Pray for the persecuted church and leaders who are presently in prison.
\n\u2022 Pray for missionaries who will take the opportunity of the Christmas season to share the Good News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My Mother used to wrap and ribbon empty boxes and set them under the Christmas tree so it would look like we were having a bigger Christmas than we actually were. We also had a real tree to set them under. There were never any names on any gifts under our tree so we never…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monday-morning-manna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}