MARY'S BEST CHRISTMAS EVER

Notes

Verses

{“The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’).” Isaiah 7:14 NIV}{In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. Gabriel appeared to her and said, “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you!” Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. “Don’t be afraid, Mary,” the angel told her, “for you have found favor with God!" Luke 1:26-30 NLT}{"You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. And he will reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom will never end!” Luke 1:31-33 NLT}{Mary asked the angel, “But how can this happen? I am a virgin.” Luke 1:34 NLT}{The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God. What’s more, your relative Elizabeth has become pregnant in her old age! People used to say she was barren, but she has conceived a son and is now in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God.” Luke 1:35-37 NLT}{Mary responded, “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.” Luke 1:38 NLT}{“Oh, how my soul praises the Lord. How my spirit rejoices in God my Savior! For the Mighty One is holy, and he has done great things for me.” Luke 1:46-47, 49 NLT}

Quotes

Tim Keller : “If God has really been born in a manger, then we have something that no other religion even claims to have. It’s a God who truly understands you, from the inside of your experience. There’s no other religion that says God has suffered, that God had to be courageous, that He knows what it is like to be abandoned by friends, to be crushed by injustice, to be tortured and die. Christmas shows He knows what you’re going through.” (HIDDEN CHRISTMAS ); Tim Keller : “Advice is counsel about what you must do. News is a report about what has already been done. Advice urges you to make something happen. News urges you to recognize something that has already happened and respond to it. The Christmas narratives are telling you not what you should do but what God has done.” (HIDDEN CHRISTMAS ); Larry King : “I would like to ask Him if He was indeed virgin born, because the answer to that question would define history.” (CNN); Tim Keller : “There is a kind of doubt that is the sign of a closed mind, and there is a kind of doubt that is the sign of an open mind. Some doubt seeks answers, and some doubt is a defense against the possibility of answers.” (HIDDEN CHRISTMAS );