This Christmas Season

centeriframe frameborder=”0″ height=”225″ src=”http://player.vimeo.com/video/17493689″ width=”400″/iframebr /a href=”http://vimeo.com/17493689″Advent Day 06/a from a href=”http://vimeo.com/twelvestone”12Stone Church/a on a href=”http://vimeo.com/”Vimeo/a./centerbr /br /span style=”color: black; font-size: 12pt;”This Christmas Season our church is doing an a href=”http://www.facebook.com/12Stone”online advent calendar/a. This is such a creative idea to build traditions and do family life together. The posting today was very…well…humbling. It reminds us in this season to “serve others”. I am sure we have all had those times where we didn’t want to serve or wondered why we weren’t being served. However, serving others can be one of the most rewarding things we can do./spanbr /br /span style=”color: black; font-size: 12pt;”Is it easy? Not always./spanbr /br /span style=”color: black; font-size: 12pt;”There are times when one serves, but is knocked down for the effort. It is difficult to continue serving when that happens. Jesus served many and was ridiculed and knocked down often, but he continued to serve selflessly. /spanbr /br /span style=”color: black; font-size: 12pt;”Other times, one may serve someone and receive no recognition. Our human nature wants and desires affirmation, but Matthew 6:2anbsp;states, em”So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others.”/em/spanbr /br /span style=”font-size: 12pt;”The most interesting quote from the clip above was, “strongPride repels people/strong.” That is so true. It is difficult to be around people who are prideful and devalues others. Dictionary.com describes pride strongas ema high or inordinate opinion of one’s own dignity, importance, merit, or superiority, whether as cherished in the mind or as displayed in bearing, conduct, etc. /em/strongYikes!span style=”color: black;” /span/spanbr /br /span style=”font-size: 12pt;”span style=”color: black;”The definition of value is /spanstrongemrelative worth, merit, or importance. /em/strongWow! There are similar words define value./spanbr /br /span style=”font-size: 12pt;”Pride is when you emvalue yourself/em before others. Valuing others embefore/em you value yourself is being humble./spanbr /br /span style=”font-size: 12pt;”Philippians 2:3-4/spanbr /sup3/sup Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, sup4/sup not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.br /br /span style=”color: black; font-size: 12pt;”In this Christmas Season if we all were to seek out ways to serve others without pride or without the expectation of something in return wouldn’t it be a GREAT Christmas! /spanbr /a href=”http://www.aghdesigns.com/images/blogs/siggy.png” target=”_blank”img alt=”Anna” border=”0″ src=”http://www.aghdesigns.com/images/blogs/siggy.png” //a