“For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.” ~ Isaiah 9:6
The
Gift of Love
Have you ever asked the question: what is the atmosphere of Heaven like? I’ve reflected on this a lot over the last several months and have been deeply impacted in my own heart. Simply stated, Heaven is an eternal atmosphere of love because God is LOVE! It is who He is! Even the angels, who are completely enveloped in this atmosphere of love, have one continuous response:“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.”
Every moment of eternity, is a new revelation of the magnitude, the wisdom, the awe of the one who is altogether lovely and altogether beautiful. Could there be any other response than ‘Wow’! What’s it like to catch a glimpse of the greatest love relationship there has been or will ever be the relationship within the Trinity? A relationship of such love, where the Father so longs to give Jesus a pure and spotless bride; where Jesus so longs to give His Father sons and daughters, that He willingly laid His life down; and where the Holy Spirit longs to energize the perfect will of Father and the Son. Together, they are the perfect representation of love, a total preferring of one another.
You and I have been invited,
welcomed into this community of love. “For God so loved the world
that He gave His only Son, Jesus,… that we would have eternal life”
John 3:16 What a gift! Through Jesus, you and I are welcomed into eternity
to be one with Jesus as He is one with the Father.
Romans 5:5(NLT) says “How dearly God loves us for He has given us
the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with His love.” What a gift! The
apostle John caught a glimpse of this love when he wrote “Behold
(see it, know it), what manner of love the Father has lavished on us,
that we should be called the children of God.” John 3:1. WOW!
As we celebrate Christmas, let us reflect on the greatest gift ever given, Jesus. Emmanuel ~ God with us! A gift given out of a love that is unfathomable. A gift that welcomes you and me into that community of love. A gift that us almost indescribable, it is so wonderful. No wonder the cry of our heart is, “Draw me and I will run after you.” Song of Sol 1:4.
When I see Him, I am awed by
His beauty and my heart echoes what the Psalmist wrote in Psalm 27:4,
“I will behold the beauty of the Lord, all the days of my life.”
Yes, the greatest gift of all... Jesus is the gift of love!
Steve Chua
Assistant Director
At Christmas, we celebrate
Jesus, the greatest gift of all time. This free gift, wrapped with the
precious love of the Father and sealed by the joy of His Spirit, is
what we seek to take with us wherever we go around the world. Having
just returned from Taiwan where we conducted a two week school for 157
students from 89 different churches, we encountered a society of people
who have been deeply deprived of love and live in a constant environment
of the fear of failure and rejection.
This has been caused directly by generational conditioning of the intellectual
performance- based philosophy of Confucius and the spiritual control
and curses of ancestral worship (Taoism). As a result, the majority
of Chinese Christians have grown up as spiritual orphans in a culture
where they had to perform to find their value, acceptance and love.
In
Psalm 68:5 God expresses His heart that He is a “Father to the
Fatherless”. For two weeks we saw the gift of this love penetrate
and give life to broken and thirsty hearts. It was neither the eloquence
of our teaching nor the authority of our ministry gifts that was the
lasting memory for these students. It was the power of love that was
expressed from the heart of the Father, which flowed like a river, washing
over each person day after day.
It was this gift of love that began the awesome transformation of these orphans into precious sons and daughters of the Most High. As we go into all the world, surely there is no greater gift that could be given than this amazing gift of love. This Christmas time, may you be blessed and begin to fathom how wide, how high and deep is this love that will secure you into the Father’s heart.
HEALING OF THE HEART
Finding Healing at the Manger
Will
and Madeleine WalkerMinistry Centre Managers
It really is unfortunate how commercialism and Santa Claus have crowded Jesus’ birth out of this glorious season. Yet what have we ourselves done to Christmas? Have we so beautified and sanitized it – the manger, the shepherds, the wise men, even the message of Christmas - that we have obscured just how harsh that first Christmas truly was and what that means to us today?
As someone wrote, “Today
it would be as if Jesus was born to an unwed teenage mother in a dirty
garage, placed in an empty dog box, and several homeless people were the
only ones to find out and offer congratulations to the wandering, lonely
parents.” Add to that a death threat over the child leaving him to
become a refugee in another country.
And oh yes, the only religious people to welcome him were foreigners and
outsiders, astrologers at that!
But that’s the good news!
Jesus is able to identify with us all. No matter how shameful our sin,
how debilitating our sickness, or how much we have been rejected, Jesus
is approachable. He is God’s gift to us - a gift to heal us –
the rejected, broken, hurting and outcast. He understands, because He
has been through it all. By His wounds, we are healed. Jesus was “despised
and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering”
(Isaiah 53:2b). His identification with our wounded human condition was
evident in that first Christmas. Jesus not only became a human, but He
joined us on the very lowest rung of existence.
So let’s celebrate Christmas with joy and enthusiasm. For His presence
is God’s present to us - a gift to save, to heal, to give life. He
is the gift that keeps on giving!
NAME OUR NEWSLETTER
This December
issue is the 4th in our new newsletter series. We had announced at the
start that we wanted your help in naming the newsletter and since then
we have had numerous names suggested.
All of them have been great, but we are looking for that one name that
communicates the vision and purpose of the newsletter as well as that
of Singing Waters. We also wanted to ensure the readers really understood
that we are looking for input from them. This newsletter is not meant
to just list events coming up at Singing Waters, report on events that
have been held at Singing Waters or talk about changes at Singing Waters.
It will do that, but beyond that we want to dialogue with you, give you
a place to express your experience and ideas. This is our newsletter.
We will still consider any new names received up to Dec 15th. You can email them to info@singingwaters.org or phone them to Darlene at 519-941-0929. The January 1, 2006 newsletter will display the chosen name in place of Singing Waters Monthly Newsletter.
So, if you have any last minute suggestions, send them in. It has been great hearing from those who have sent ideas in. We are also looking for testimonies, especially from anyone who has been impacted by Singing Waters during the early years. We are also interested in informative articles or pieces, but we do need to ensure that anything that is taken from someone else is properly credited and that we have permission to use it.
We believe together we can publish a dynamic newsletter that goes way beyond reporting events. It can express the heart and nature of Jesus.
YOUNG LEADERS IN TRAINING
Receiving from the Father
I’ve been to many meetings and many ministry times. I have always been told that I need to receive. Receive the love of the Father, or receive what God has for me. I never really understood the significance of receiving until I started ministering to other people. I was praying for a man, and suddenly I felt God pouring out His blessings into this man and the overflow of those blessings washed over me. I was overcome with awe: God really does have much more to give than I ever realized, and even more importantly, He wants to give. Receiving then became an important part of my life.
I’ve tried many ways in which to receive from God, but the only one that has worked for me until now, has been to not try at all, but instead to simply allow God to pour into me. I have always asked God for His blessing, for the desires of my heart. The times I’ve received the most have been the times of rest, of letting God do His mighty work in my heart. The times I’ve been at my worst, in the very hour of my failure, have been the times when God has shown His faithfulness to me.
~ Patrick Boedeker
WELLSPRING OF LIFE
Luke 1:45 "And blessed, happy, to be envied is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of the things that were spoken to her from the Lord."
Verse 37 "For with God nothing is ever impossible and no word from God shall be without power or impossible of fulfillment."
Mary believed, and today bears the singular honor of being called the "Mother" of our Lord Jesus Christ. Abraham believed, and it was accounted unto him as righteousness.
The day came when Mary gave birth to the Promise of God. The day came for Abraham when he clasped tightly to his breast, the first fruit, of the promise that he would one day be the Father of nations.
I am reminded of another such saintly soul, Simeon. God had promised him that he would not die before he saw the long awaited Messiah. It happened just as God promised. (Luke 2:25-32)
Dear praying saints, what has God promised you? "God's time for mercy will come, yea, it has come, if our time for believing has arrived." Let us believe God today for all those things He has promised us.
"Since God did not spare
even His own son but gave Him up for us all, won’t God, who gave
us Christ, also give us everything else?"
Rom. 8:32
"For He Who promised is
reliable, sure and faithful to His word."
Heb. 10:23
Dear Prayer Partners - Have a wonderful and joy-filled Christmas Season.
Your Singing Waters Prayer Team
