We’ve sung the words a thousand times: “O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant… O come let us adore Him.” We envy the shepherds who actually saw the baby Jesus, and returned with a message of joy that pierced the midnight air. We can’t join them in Bethlehem, but thankfully, we can adore Jesus right where we are, for today He is at the right hand of the Father. That’s why the invitation is to all of us—“O come let us adore Him.”
But how do we “adore Him?”
“This people honor me with their lips, but their heart …
Most of us wish that God would work on us while we are asleep so that we could wake to face the day with unwavering confidence and faith! We’d like to be renewed by osmosis, hoping that just being in the vicinity of Christians would make us more Christ-like and that opening a Bible would make us biblical in our thinking. If only such good intentions could make us godly! But although salvation is a free gift, the Christian walk is one that takes some basic disciplines.
In this issue, we honor the family, affirming parents in their crucial role in leaving a godly legacy for future generations. The experts tell us what we already know: troubled children grow up in broken families and well-adjusted children grow up in a secure and affirming home environment. Thankfully, there are many exceptions, but we can almost predict the lifestyle of a child by his or her home environment. Without question, the spiritual and moral climate of our nation is determined by the moral and spiritual climate of our …
