This week's discussion is rooted in scripture, providing a strong foundation to plant seeds of gratitude and personal prayer during this holiday season. Listen in as we unwrap the power of scripture and how to use it as a tool for personal prayer, hold onto God's promises even amid the festive rush, and center your celebrations around Christ.
This episode doesn't merely stop at discussing the significance of Jesus during the holiday season, it also explores key ingredients to infuse your Christmas with all the ingredients you need to be wonderfully mindful of the true reason we celebrate.
We include personal anecdotes and practical tips on how to balance these elements during the holiday season. By being intentional with your time and creating some margin in your schedules, you can nurture a deep, fulfilling, and Christ-centered Christmas.
Together, let's stir up a recipe for the most meaningful Christmas ever!
Learn more about our Revelation Within Community: https://www.revelationwithin.org
This week's discussion is rooted in scripture, providing a strong foundation to plant seeds of gratitude and personal prayer during this holiday season. Listen in as we unwrap the power of scripture and how to use it as a tool for personal prayer, hold onto God's promises even amid the festive rush, and center your celebrations around Christ.
This episode doesn't merely stop at discussing the significance of Jesus during the holiday season, it also explores key ingredients to infuse your Christmas with all the ingredients you need to be wonderfully mindful of the true reason we celebrate.
We include personal anecdotes and practical tips on how to balance these elements during the holiday season. By being intentional with your time and creating some margin in your schedules, you can nurture a deep, fulfilling, and Christ-centered Christmas.
Together, let's stir up a recipe for the most meaningful Christmas ever!
Learn more about our Revelation Within Community: https://www.revelationwithin.org
Hi and welcome to Revelation Within on the Go. I'm Heidi Biles-McEpherson, one of your hosts, and I'm the owner and lead coach of the Revelation Within Ministry.
Speaker 2:And I'm Christina Motley, your other host, also a Revelation Within coach and Heidi's partner in all things Revelation Within. We're so happy to invite you to this very special episode of Revelation Within on the Go.
Speaker 1:Well, here we are. We are just days away from Christmas, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:How do you happen?
Speaker 1:I know, right, right. 2023 is almost over and Christmas is almost here, and so we wanted to talk about a lovely recipe for having an amazing, meaningful Christmas.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's amazing.
Speaker 1:Wonderful, yeah, doesn't it? I love the idea and we hear kind of all the time Jesus is the reason for the season. Well, you know what he really is.
Speaker 2:He is. He is, he is, so we're going to start with him today, right, heidi?
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly. So we're going to open up our Bible because, as Christina's kids know, I'm Heidi Bible's. Ma I have to say that they started calling her that years ago, heidi Bible's ma.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I'm going to start off with the word of God. Scripture is a really good place to start. Jesus is a great place to start, yes, and so we're going to start with the beautiful, meaningful Christmas and John. What I'm going to do is a version of a praise fest, which I'm just going to celebrate the attributes of God, and Jesus is God as we see that in the very passage I'm going to use. So let's start there.
Speaker 1:Lord Jesus, I thank you that you are the word. You were with God and you are God in the beginning and all things, jesus, were made through you and without you, nothing has been made. In you, lord Jesus is life and I thank you that you are the light of all men. Jesus, I thank you that you shine in the darkness. Darkness cannot overcome you. And now I'm going to flip over to Colossians, chapter one, and going with my praise fest. So in chapter one of Colossians, in verse 13,. I'm going to use some verses there for a few of them, like probably seven of them.
Speaker 1:Lord Jesus, I thank you that you have delivered me from the domain of darkness. Yes, I am transferred instead now into your kingdom and you are the beloved son of God. Lord, I thank you that I have redemption, the forgiveness of sins, in you. Thank you, jesus, that you are the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation. You're preeminent. By you, jesus, all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether it's the demons or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through you, jesus, and for you, jesus, and you are before all things and in you all things hold together, all things. You are the head of the body, the church, you are the beginning, the first born from the dead. That in everything you, jesus, might be preeminent In you, jesus, I thank you that all the fullness of God is pleased to dwell and that you reconcile to yourself all things, whether on heaven or on earth, making peace by the blood of your cross, thank you.
Speaker 2:God, thank you. How did you do that? You just turned a beautiful portion of scripture into a prayer and then you called it a praise fest. I'm assuming like festival, like a praise party.
Speaker 1:A praise party.
Speaker 2:Or for someone who hasn't heard us use those words before. How did you do that so beautifully, Heidi? Probably practice?
Speaker 1:No, but you can do it any way you want and you don't have to do it in front of anybody except God. But that's a beautiful way of celebrating Jesus as the reason for this season. Yes, but sometimes it's easy to think of him in that way. It turns him into a button you wear on your shirt, exactly, and he's so much more than that, and you can go anywhere in the Gospels and just thank God. A God list is who God is, what does he like and what does he do for people.
Speaker 1:And basically what I did is I went into the New Testament and just looking for Jesus. What are you like and what have you done for people? And those two sections of scripture jumped out at me, and then all I want to do is say it back to him.
Speaker 2:I'm so grateful that he is who he says he is Well and I just love the way every one of your sentences started with thank you. So you took each verse, put a thank you in front of it and turned it into a beautiful prayer from your heart to God's heart, and that's one of our favorite Mindernual tools.
Speaker 2:Praying through scripture. It is so good, it is so meaningful A lot of people that we talk to talk about. You know, I've got the scripture in my head but it's not in my heart. I feel like my heart is more closed or somehow I'm not in that place. I want to be with intimacy with the Lord in the scripture and so what you just did that was very intimate and beautiful really brings that from the head knowledge down to the heart. I hope you will love it, and Heidi did a great job.
Speaker 1:Thank you, and I love doing that. You know, if I have it in my head, that's a really great tool. I can be driving, running errands, going and getting whatever I need to for whatever event I'm going to or whatever, and I can do a praise fest reminding myself. The more I say it, the more I think about it, the more I will believe that it's true. So in my experience, he is holding all things together. You know, I think of that versus I was praising him for that fact that he holds all things together. Instantly, I thought of. Sometimes holidays have been filled with such frazzled moments for me and he holds me together. He keeps completely losing it. He is the one who does that, and so I can be mindful of that and allow it to come home and be targeted truth in my life. That's a really great ingredient for our recipe A meaningful Christmas this year.
Speaker 2:Okay, here's another ingredient that you can put in your recipe and we want a really nice big helping of it to focusing on others and serving others. Now, this doesn't mean you're not going to take care of yourself and we'll talk about that a little more coming up but if we plan on going to event and focusing on what others need, how others are doing what's going on with other people, we will be so blessed.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:God will use us in mighty ways that we can't come up with. God comes up with it in the moment. We're there and there's a person sitting alone. And that's the person and you ask God, how can I serve, what do you want me to do? And he says go. Go to that person, just talk to them, ask them about their lives, their family. How can you pray for them, be a servant? And then practical ways to like oh, I'll get the napkins or I'll make the chairs over here.
Speaker 1:Or let me get a trash bag.
Speaker 2:And you hold the baby while you set the table. So many of us, especially here at Revelation Within a lot of us, have struggled with food and eating issues, and we struggle with going to events and feeling out of sorts in our bodies and our clothes, what we're going to eat. But if our focus is on others, it really, really helps us to come away with this wonderful sense of I did something important that God needed me to do right.
Speaker 2:Other than well. I showed up and I fell out of sorts, so I love that serving focusing on others, a wonderful ingredient for your recipe for a meaningful Christmas.
Speaker 1:Right, and to me, being intentional when we walk through the door can be one of the most important things. Rather than being intentional about, I can't wait to see the dessert table, which would be my tendency in the past, and even not necessarily that long ago. But for me to say you know what? I can't wait to talk to so-and-so, or I wonder if so-and-so will be here, thinking of people and asking God, show me who I need to reach out to and maybe even asking them how are things going, following up on a prayer request or asking them if they do have need for prayer. You can really make this a great chance to reflect Jesus to them as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, and then a lot of people at these events. They'll bring loved ones, they'll bring family members or friends, maybe that aren't in an environment like that very often.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And so for you to help make them feel welcome might make all the difference in the world. I've actually been doing this at church lately. I will go to church and at the beginning of the service I'll say okay, Lord, who do you want me to connect with at the end of the service, Just pick one. And then I usually pick somebody and I'm usually wrong. And then, as the service goes on and we're singing and we're praying and the sermon and everything, by the end God has usually laid a totally different person on my heart and that has been such a blessing. It blesses them and it blesses me too. Right, and I'm God's hands and feet. I mean, that feels so good.
Speaker 1:Right, and that's a really good point because, as we're coming up on this weekend, it's the last weekend before Christmas. There will be people in attendance who have nobody that's invited them to come to Christmas or they aren't having guests. There will be people who need to feel a sense of love and belonging and maybe even go a little bit farther and, if I am able to invite them to what I'm doing for Christmas the actual Christmas day. So you know, involving people who are alone on that holiday can be one of the best things we could do to be Jesus's hands and feet, like you said.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Well and, as most of us know, the holidays can be really difficult for people who have lost loved ones or have had lost in other ways too, or are going through something really difficult like a health crisis or a financial crisis or things like that. So we want to be mindful that people who are coming to these events they might have some pretty deep needs and if you're there to offer a hug or a welcome, even if you don't get into a deep conversation, that person will be filled by your presence there and Christ in us.
Speaker 1:So if you are one of those people who has kind of a sense of sadness, maybe even depression, at holiday time, if you are able to at all with an act of your will I mean, go to God with your grief, yes, but I'm saying, do this spiritual bypass thing where you don't even recognize your own emotions no, that's not what we teach at all.
Speaker 1:Recognize how you're feeling, bring it to God. And if you are able not guilt tripping at all If you are able, connect with somebody who might be in that same boat or might be even at a place that's lower than where you feel you are, and Minister to them. If you're able, if the Holy Spirit in you will come through and minister to them, that can actually Bring healing into your own life. It's scriptural. I don't remember where the passage is, but it does say that if we spend ourselves on behalf of others who are less fortunate than us, we will experience healing rise up in our lives, and that just is a beautiful truth. If you're able and if you're not, do reach out to somebody to get help yourself, okay. Serving others, that's a great ingredient to include in our recipe for a meaningful Christmas.
Speaker 2:Yay.
Speaker 1:Another really great ingredient is Mind renewal.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Comes from Romans 12 to. In a nutshell, for those who may not know what we mean by mind renewal, god tells us be Transformed by the renewing of your mind. Well, whatever that is, I want it because that's where transformation is found. So, christina and I, in Revelation within, we use the term mind renewal, found in Romans 12 to to refer to Thinking God's thoughts after him. In this way, we can start trading out our runaway thought, our thoughts that don't stand in agreement with God and his purposes for his thoughts, and Speak that truth to ourselves again and again. Doing this actually changes my beliefs, changes my desires. Yes, therefore, I act differently, and that's God's job is to transform me. So he uses that. It's an amazing thing.
Speaker 1:So a great recipe for a meaningful Christmas is going to include mind renewal. I want to think his thoughts about the difficult uncle Manny that I might run into or about the event that I might go to that might present some temptation. I want to think God's thoughts about a must hurry, hurry, hurry feeling and the anxiety that that can bring. I want to think God's thoughts about the importance of serving others, about the other ingredients in my recipe. Yes, that's mind renewal. We have a whole bunch of tools that we share with others, ways of doing that, whether it's gratitude, whether it's the god list in the praise fest, or whether it's you are. So I will.
Speaker 2:Or breath, prayers, and Without you, with you, we have so many, lord. I love what is good, what is true, right. We have so many and it's not like you have to use a specific tool. We have so many to just help us to have a variety of ways to connect with the Lord this way and To ask him and to be able to discern what are your thoughts about this Lord?
Speaker 2:And it really it changes our moments. It changes the way we react to things, the way we make decisions, the way we plan. It changes how we feel about ourselves and the Lord and our relationship with him and others. I mean, it's changed my whole world. Me too you know beautiful, beautiful way.
Speaker 1:It can change the way you view failure when you miss a mark that you really wanted to hit, because you begin to think God's thoughts about failure and his thoughts are way different than ours. Perfectionism, we find, isn't his way of thinking, because he is perfect and he knows that his strength is made perfect in our weakness, which is amazing.
Speaker 1:There are all kinds of ways of incorporating mine renewal into our holiday experience, what we do after we mess up, what we do in Anticipating, attempting or challenging experience. God, what are your thoughts as I look ahead to that event? Oh, it's a beautiful way of adding that super zip and zing to our recipe.
Speaker 2:Yes, it really will. It will change your whole holiday. I was talking to someone the other day who said this will be my very first Christmas with the renewing of the mind. Yeah, and I was like, oh my gosh, this is so exciting. And we, we talked, and we went back and forth and kind of dreamed and imagined and hoped, what will it be like and how will it be?
Speaker 1:different from before. A big part of mind renewal is gratitude, and we treat the days ahead leading up to Christmas as though there's always something to give thanks to God about in each and every day. Wow, that changes the topography of the holiday a lot. We have one more amazing ingredient.
Speaker 2:Yes, okay. So this is really a big one for me and for so many people. I know we are going to be Selective with how we use our time. We're going to be saying no, we're going to be bringing margin into our life. What around the holidays? Is that even possible? Yeah, so many events and there's so many things to do and go to and presents to buy and wrap, and we have to do every. We have to do every single tradition that we've ever done in our lives and Bake all the different things that grandma and her grandma and her grandma based. You know what we do. We put so much pressure on ourselves During the holidays.
Speaker 2:I did this for years and years until I was hit with Lyme disease and I said I'm not doing any of it. I used to think that the holiday wouldn't be worth anything. I guess this is what I thought, this is what I believed. Well, remember, of course, that our thoughts lead to what we believe, and so I was thinking all the time about but we have to do this. We have to go in the mountains and high altitude to cut down our tree, we have to, and all these things. It's like we've always done it this way or this would be better or this would be best. The memories will be great with the kids and by the time we get to it, we are so exhausted that we are not enjoying Anything yeah, jesus at all.
Speaker 2:Surviving yeah, it's. And then going home and then going to a counterfeit comfort Because I have been overstimulated, I've over committed, I've overdone everything and now I want to eat or scroll on my phone.
Speaker 1:So this ingredient, though, is choosing to be selective about our time, and and that means joyful spaces in Margin and being able to say no, and willing to say no right, and that's all good things. Yeah, those are all such good things if you can identify with feeling stress this time of year. Grab a piece of paper it can be a slip of paper, it can be a torn piece of paper and a pen, and write a permission slip for yourself. Oh, there you go Permission to bypass an event or to not do that extra once over with your vacuum cleaner, or whatever you want. You can just buy a salad at the store, or, instead of making one, instead of chopping all the vegetables, you can get pre-cut vegetable. You have a permission slip that has free pass for taking some time off instead.
Speaker 2:When you ask your kids or you think back to your Christmas is when you were a child or a young adult or whatever. What do they remember? This is a really good way to kind of set your priorities. Do they remember that the carpet was perfectly clean? Do they remember that you had this many things in the stocking instead of this many things? Did they remember that you baked five sets of cookies instead of one? They don't remember those things. They don't. We don't. We remember the feelings, the moments, the joy. I'm thinking of my own memory right now, where I'm thinking of driving and looking at Christmas lights so simple.
Speaker 2:It doesn't require anything really. You just get in the car and drive. But as a child I loved doing that, loved it and I still love it.
Speaker 2:So that's kind of a good way to kind of dial it down. You want to open up your days so that you have these joyful open spaces for play, joy for movement, for music, for little bits of time for mind renewal, certainly time with the Lord. A couple of scriptures that you're gonna read. That way your focus Stays where it should be on Christ, not on high expectations that don't need to be there and just stress us out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we have four really awesome ingredients that are included in a recipe for a deeply meaningful Christmas focusing on Jesus, and we shared with you how we can praise him by using meaningful scriptures for that. Focusing on others and serving them, renewing our minds, taking captive, runaway thoughts that kind of add to our anxiety and Replace them with what is God thinking about, that his thoughts are usually not gonna produce anxiety in us, and being Selective with how we use our time, creating those wide open spaces, saying no if we need to and having margin. So if we put all those together in just the right amounts very portions we can have an amazingly meaningful Christmas.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Well. We are so glad that you joined us for this podcast, christmas podcast. Have a wonderful, wonderful holiday and then we hope you'll join us again for our next episode, revelation within.
Speaker 1:Oh.