{"id":667,"date":"2008-12-21T19:41:36","date_gmt":"2008-12-22T00:41:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/192.185.166.32\/~davidfoster\/?p=667"},"modified":"2009-10-16T19:43:19","modified_gmt":"2009-10-17T00:43:19","slug":"today-the-gathering-miracle-on-34th-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/today-the-gathering-miracle-on-34th-street\/","title":{"rendered":"Today @ The Gathering – Miracle On 34th Street"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"SurvivingChristmasIconLarge\"Today at The Gathering<\/a> we continued with our series \u201cSurviving Christmas\u201d<\/em> with installment number three entitled, \u201cMiracle On 34th Street.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Christmas is a time of miracles. <\/span> It causes us to have faith; that a virgin could conceive a child who could be called \u201cEmmanuel, God with us,\u201d or \u201cJesus, our Savior;\u201d that indeed the Prince of Peace, God Himself invaded this planet in this way, requires faith; the power to believe.<\/p>\n

Today we talked about life by other means, or the foundations we try to lay for our lives:<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 You can live by facts<\/span>, or what you perceive to be the facts that seem to be constantly changing.\u00a0 Have you bought a map lately?
\n2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 You can live by fear<\/span>, which only creates more fear, and doubt, and sorrow, and pain.
\n3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 You can live by fables<\/span>, the things you\u2019ve heard other people say or buy into.
\n4.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Or you can live by faith<\/span>; not just a faith in the faith, but faith in the person who is God and His Son, who is our Savior, Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n

We also talked about, when you opt for faith over facts, fear, and fables, there are two kinds of faith.\u00a0 There is second-hand faith and first-hand faith.<\/span><\/p>\n

1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Second-hand faith is based on family history<\/span>.\u00a0 \u201cMy parents were (Baptist, Methodist, Catholic, Episcopalian), so that\u2019s what I am.\u201d
\n2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Second-hand faith is based on what we\u2019ve heard<\/span>.\u00a0 It\u2019s an amalgamation, a collection, a smorgasbord of this belief and that belief that we\u2019ve hear on TV, or You Tube, or Internet, or in a college lecture, or at a funeral.
\n3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Second-hand faith is based on where I was born. <\/span> People say, \u201cI was born in the north where we don\u2019t go to church,\u201d or \u201cIn the south where we always go to church,\u201d or in the \u201cBible Belt,\u201d or the \u201cBuckle of the Bible Belt.\u201d\u00a0 That\u2019s like saying if you were born in McDonald\u2019s, you\u2019d be a Happy Meal.
\n4.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Second-hand faith is based on apathy.<\/span> I just don\u2019t care enough to investigate and seek the truth.<\/p>\n

We turned then to first-hand faith<\/span>, which is trusting God, testing God, and taking Him at His word.<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Trusting<\/span> that God always tells us the truth.
\n2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Testing<\/span> His promises.
\n3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Taking<\/span> Him at his word and trusting that as we test Him that we will see achieved what we have faith for.<\/p>\n

Make sure you join us this Wednesday night at 4:00 and 6:00 in Jamison Hall at The Factory here in Franklin for our great Christmas Eve services<\/span>.\u00a0 Both will fill up so make sure you arrive early.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today at The Gathering we continued with our series \u201cSurviving Christmas\u201d with installment number three entitled, \u201cMiracle On 34th Street.\u201d Christmas is a time of miracles. It causes us to have faith; that a virgin could conceive a child who could be called \u201cEmmanuel, God with us,\u201d or \u201cJesus, our Savior;\u201d that indeed the Prince … Continue reading “Today @ The Gathering – Miracle On 34th Street”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"series":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=667"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}