Here’s a video of some of our Christmas day for family back home to enjoy. Merry Christmas!
Monthly Archives: December 2008
Christmas Reflections
I’m reading Luke 2:1-20 this evening at our Christmas Eve service and as I read through this passage this morning, I couldn’t stop the tears from coming. I read this story as for the first time, but it also occurred to me that the story of Jesus’ birth is so much more than a part of history; so much more than just a written account of something that happened two thousand years ago. It is a loud and resounding affirmation that the words written by the ancient prophets are true, all true, and that the rest of God’s word will come to pass. It cannot be stopped. Incredible. The baby that we read about and whose birth we will celebrate tomorrow grew up into a man, was crucified, rose again, defeated sin and death, and lives forever in a glorified human body. But here’s the best part: He’s coming again, as the God-Man, to rule forever, and will establish perfect peace, justice and righteousness.
It’s easy to get preoccupied with the manger at Christmastime, I think. The baby Jesus is easy to deal with. We think, “Awww…there was no room for him in the inn, but I’ll make a little room for him in my life.” So we remember the Christmas story amidst all our festivities and Christmas traditions. The Jesus who grew up into a man, though, demands much, much more than just a little space in our lives. He wants our hearts, our minds, our stregnth. He demands it all. He will come again and declare war on sin and unrighteousness and, to put it bluntly, it’s going to be a hostile take over. He’s not coming as a baby this time, and he won’t be crucified again. Many will hate his leadership. The cool thing is is that we can give Jesus rule over our lives now, we can chose to love his leadership in our lives now.
This Christmas I pray that you will reflect on the real meaning of Christmas. Yes, it began in a manger, but it reaches far into eternity and transends our finite understanding of a God who became flesh for us. It is about a plan set in motion by Holy God to set up his kingdom here on earth. And we get to be part of it.
Have a Merry Christmas everyone!
A Labor Of Love
Here’s a little window into what’s been keeping me and Dave very busy for the past week…
A huge homemade Christmas present…an ice rink right outside our front door! Isn’t that the coolest?! It took many, many hours of trial and error, reinforcing the sides, late night floodings, early morning clean ups of leaks onto the sidewalk but…it finally worked! It was a ton of work, but so worth it.
Elijah and Zeke have already spent countless hours on it this weekend, and the neighborhood kids and Noah are out with them this afternoon. Such fun! If you live in the area, come on over for a skate! 
P.S. Now for the addition of some hockey nets and sticks on Christmas morning – shhh! – (courtesy of Grammie and Grampie Horsman…thank you for the generous gift of money!) and I’m sure this in one Christmas gift that they’ll never forget!
Christmas Has Come
Christmas has come to the Horsman house. We had a great weekend of vistiing and partying with family, and the boys did an awesome job with the Christmas program at church. Elijah had the staring role and he did awesome!
Eat The Scroll…Or Not
I have some good news. A good friend of ours has started an end-time discussion forum, eatthescroll.net. Good news for me and Dave since, as you know, we’ve been wanting a way to share and discuss end-times “stuff.” I’ve already posted some of my material on eatthescroll.net and have enjoyed some pretty lively discussion around it. So, it’s safe to assume this will be the future venue for the rest of my end-time thoughts. This is good news for all of you too, since you probably visit djandtheprophets solely to be enamored with cute photos and stories about our kids…not to have to think about eschatology!
I want to say, as a bit of a disclaimer, that writing is very therapeutic for me. It helps me to take abstract thoughts and ideas from my brain and get them down in black and white written form. It is only then, for me anyway, that ideas become concrete and understandable. And by “concrete,” I don’t mean that everything I write then becomes some sort of dogma to me. I mean, rather, that once my thoughts assume a written form, that I myself can read and ponder and wrestle with them in a much more profound way. One of my very favorite Bible teachers, David Sliker, whom Dave included in one of his recent posts, says that for the Word of God to become alive inside you, you must teach it. I truly believe that and, for me, this blog has kind of been my classroom as of late…and I’m teaching myself!
I also want to say that I’ve been very much wooed into this whole thing. God has divenly and gently guided my heart into a place where I can feel the urgency of the hour we are living in. (A year ago, I probably would have thought that I had lost my mind!) Admittedly, I have a lot of zeal for you all to feel this same urgency and I don’t really know what to do with it all. I’m new at this! Thankfully we are only at the beginning of the beginning, and I have time to learn. My desire is to share all that I’m learning with boldness and meekness.
Also, I have a lot of faith that, in the same way that has God wooed me into this, He will, and He is, wooing the Church. He will prepare his people. I was super encouraged yesterday at church as our pastor shared his conviction that he felt it was his responsibility, as our leader, to prepare us for the coming storm, the persecution that will come to the end-time church. He also shared about how the Lord has been shifting his idea of what it means to have a successful church in this hour…it’s not about numbers, money, or the size of our building or programs. It’s about hearts in his congregation being steadfast in Christ; the Christ of the entire Bible, not just the baby Jesus of Christmas or the meek and tender lamb who said not a word as he was led to the slaughter, but the Jesus of Revelation too.
So, in the new year, our church will be hanging out in the book of Revelation. I’m really excited. I felt like standing up in the middle of church and yelling, “Give it up for Pastor Matt! Who, who, who!” (You know, like the dad on the TV show Home Improvement ?) I love that he is stepping out in faith and leading our church into an understanding of eschatology. It’s brave of him to tackle such a controversial and weighty subject, I think, and I’m really proud of him! But also, the fact that he is willing to do this is proof positive to me that this whole thing is so, SO much bigger than me. God is going to bring forth a church that is ready to stand amidst the shaking that is to come.
Some Long Overdue Pictures…
Elijah turned nine on November 24th. Nine!!! How can this be?! Soon he’ll be a whole decade old, and then a “tween,” and then… But, hush…we won’t speak of such things.
We had one of the best autumns ever here in Minnesota this year. All the leaves seemed more vibrant than usual, I thought, and mild weather allowed lots of opportunity to play in them… And set up the tripod for some family pics.
I love this one of Noah from that day…
Here’s Zeke preparing to take a flying leap into a huge pile of leaves that is under this tree…
Zeke, by the way, won 2nd place in his first grade class’ “lace race” last week! Pretty impressive, I think, since he didn’t learn this skill until about a week before the competition…when he came and asked me to teach him. Oops…blame it on Velcro.
Here are a couple of Phoebe from just yesterday…
She just gets cuter and cuter every day. She can call us all by name now, Noah is her favorite one to say. She often follows him around yelling, “Noah! Noah!” as loud as she can.
One of her favorite things to do is eat. Interestingly, she loves most vegetables, especially legumes, but turns her nose up at most fruit. Isn’t that weird?
Here’s a cute one of Noah from yesterday. Do you notice the gray tooth on the left side? He knocked three of his front teeth loose one day when his face connected squarely with a sidewalk in a bike accident. The teeth all righted themselves in a few days, but that left one has turned gray. I’m not sure what to do about it. I suppose I should schedule a visit to the dentist, but I’m half scared that he’ll tell me it needs to be pulled. 
And here is one more from yesterday evening at Elijah’s very, very impromptu, belated birthday party. We had his two best friends, Jack and Petros, over for some games, pizza and ice cream cake. (Oh, and by the way, those are root beer bottles on the table!)
P.S. Doesn’t Phoebe kind of remind you of Forrest Gump the way she’s just sitting back there in the corner chowing down on her ice cream cake?
The Global Bridegroom Fast
|
Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them … then they will fast. |
| — Matthew 9:15 |
The Global Bridegroom (GBF) is the first Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of each month, with seven days in December, totaling forty days of deliberate prayer and fasting throughout the year. So this month’s GBF starts today!. The GBF is a monthly global solemn assembly of fasting and prayer in the pattern of Joel 2. As the Bethany House of Prayer, we join with believers worldwide to pray and fast for revival, motivated by experiencing love for Jesus. This is a time when we are called to listen to God directly, not just the words of man. We will continue in this fast until Jesus returns.
| Behold, darkness shall cover the earth and deep darkness the people; but the Lord will arise over you and His glory will be seen upon you. |
| — Isaiah 60:2 |
The IHOP Prayer Room webstream is free for the next 7 days with specific two hour corporate intercession meetings at 6AM, 10AM, 4PM, 8PM, 12AM, and 4AM. Here is the link to join in anytime 24/7.
http://webstreaming.ihop.org/GBF (PC Only)
This is also a good opportunity, if you’re curious, to see what the Prayer Room at IHOP-KC is like.
