Yesterday, we kicked off our new series called "A Survival Guide to Christmas."  Our first week covered the topic of "Dealing with Doubts" from Mary’s story in Luke 1:26-38.

Here are some extra thoughts:

• I thought the stage design team did a great job on the Christmas living room feel.
• WHAT A STORY from our guests on dealing with doubts about their humanitarian efforts in the Middle East!
• The thought that keeps ringing through my mind after yesterday?
  • Mary was asked to believe something (i.e. virgin birth) that was less common than having people raised from the dead (i.e. which has at least a small group of people in history).
• The verse that I’d like to make part of my spiritual DNA right now?
  • Luke 1:37 — "For with God, nothing will be impossible.
• The 2 virgin birth prophecies I referenced yesterday were:
  • Isaiah 7:14 — The promise of the amazing sign of the virgin birth.  Compare Matthew 1:23 with the fact that the baby’s name would be called "Immanuel" (or "God with us").
  • Genesis 3:15 — Found in the curses upon the serpent.  In the Bible, you always read about the "man’s seed."  What makes this unique is that the "woman’s seed" (virgin born Son) would defeat the serpent, Satan.
• We give away Bibles each week for people to follow along in the study.  One person returned theirs to me after service because the Bible we gave him was missing 32 pages from Mark 8:9-John 7:10 (including the entire book of Luke…our study).  Actually the Bible had 2 copies of Zechariah 9:2-Mark 8:8!