The Light of Christmas
In this week's special episode, Janet and Jocelyn discuss the hope of Christmas. They remind listeners of God's redemptive plan, which He fulfilled through the Christmas story.
The light of the Christmas story is not merely an addition to an already-illuminated world, but rather the sole hope and radiant light that illuminates the path to a relationship with the Holy One, the Prince of Peace, the true Light of the World.
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Transcript:
Jocelyn: I don't just need to feel better. I need the truth. And ultimately that will make me better.
Janet: I just want to make it as totally simple as possible for ladies to see that the Bible is really applicable to their everyday life.
Jocelyn: When they understand theology, the application flows out of it quickly with joy.
Janet: It is a journey, but even the journey itself is joyful when I'm doing it, holding the hand of my savior and trusting him all along the way. This is the joyful journey podcast, a podcast to inspire and equip women to passionately pursue beautiful biblical truth on their journey as women of God. When you choose truth, you're choosing joy.
Janet: Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas. We are here for our Christmas episode. So my name is Janet here once again with Jocelyn.
Jocelyn: Hi, friends.
Janet: And Jocelyn is going to lead us on a Christmas episode where we get to talk about the birth of Christ.
Jocelyn: I'm so excited to celebrate the birth of Jesus with our listeners.
Janet: It just continues to amaze me that He came into this mess. I remember reading that by, oh, who wrote the Knowing God book, Tozer?
Jocelyn: Yeah.
Janet: And he said, it's not really unbelievable that He rose from the dead. It's powerful, but we would expect God to do it. What's unbelievable is that He would come as a baby. That kind of love is really unbelievable. So that is something to celebrate.
Jocelyn: So Janet, we know how much you don't love favorites questions.
Janet: Okay, it's true.
Jocelyn: So to start off our Christmas conversation, I'm just going to ask you to give me a bullet point list of some of the activities that your family has done just for fun and togetherness during the holidays. What are some ways that your family likes to hang out and celebrate at Christmas?
Janet: And can I tell you that's so much less pressure.
Jocelyn: Thank you.
Janet: I can do that.
Jocelyn: Carefully crafted that question for you.
Janet: I can do that. I can't. I don't know what my favorite thing is. Isn't that silly? But okay, this I can do. Well typically the weekend after Thanksgiving is when we put up our tree. Although there are years it's earlier that's what we do.
Jocelyn: Depends on the calendar.
Janet: Yeah. And lately, that can be just me and Brent, but I'm going to try to get my daughter to help put up the tree as well. The weekend after Thanksgiving, Black Friday shopping, we actually try to do that.
Jocelyn: Yeah, that actually is very surprising to me. I would have never thought you guys are Black Friday shoppers.
Janet: Yes. And what's fun is for us. It's fun. It's just fun. We've done this now, honestly, with all the deals and specials, it doesn't even matter, but years ago, when there really were.
Jocelyn: When Black friday was a thing.
Janet: Yes, and so my sisters and I did it growing up. My dad used to, we had a mall near our house. So on Thanksgiving day, we would drive two cars up to the mall when it was closed. Dad would park a car in the first parking spot and then we'd all drive home in the one car. So the next morning he would take us early and we'd have a good spot.
Jocelyn: Strategy.
Janet: Isn't that funny? And then dad would.
Jocelyn: I would have never thought you'd be a cutthroat shopper like that.
Janet: But see, we're not. I'm not going to knock down an old lady, but it's fun. We would get in there and we would separate and do things. So we were always doing that. So when we were adults, my sister lives an hour south of here, I would, me and when the kids were little, we'd go down to my sister's Thanksgiving day at night and then be up and out by four in the morning.
Jocelyn: Oh, that sounds terrible.
Janet: so we would talk about, okay, do we want to, so when the kids were little, they slept in and just the sisters went, their rite of passage was when they could join us.
Jocelyn: Oh my word.
Janet: And they loved it.
Jocelyn: were their family photos?
Janet: Oh my word. I don't know if we got, are you kidding? You probably couldn't even see, but we have to get up. At four, Josh couldn't wait, and it was all girls and Josh, but he thought it was hysterical because my sister makes him laugh, so he couldn't wait until he was old enough to go with us. So then we had the one year where we decided, we're getting up so early, let's just not go to bed. Bad idea.
Jocelyn: That's a terrible idea.
Janet: Because we can't do that. That was bad. So we never did that again. But we get up early. Our first thing is go somewhere for coffee. Kids didn't drink coffee, but Josh would get a white chocolate hot chocolate. We would all go to Kohl's, wait for it to open. It would open at four. We'd all go in with our list of what we're going to get. We're laughing. We're all tired. We're punchy. We don't even care. We just think it's hysterical. So we go in making fun of the people who are surprised anyone else is there. Because people are always mad that there's crowds and we're like, you came out on Black Friday and thought nobody else would come. That's hysterical. So we don't care. We're laughing. But my son, there's an immediate line. So within a few minutes when the line has started, Josh would stand in line while we would shop.
Jocelyn: Oh my word.
Janet: And drink his hot chocolate. So that when we're done shopping, we were near the front. So we've done this forever well now it doesn't matter the stores are open the deals have started so we just decide it's got to be dark because that's half the fun is we get as many people as we can in one car we stop and get coffee. We stay there and laugh and talk we go. We do our Christmas for everyone gifts our church supports the needy of the community, so we get several of those and then we get to together go through the stores and try to get the best deals to get the most things for these kids we'll never get to meet and have fun doing that. And then by probably 10:30 in the morning, we're completely done. We've done the whole mall and we stop at McDonald's and have an early lunch.
Jocelyn: Wow.
Janet: Then we come home and we have an eggnog moment.
Jocelyn: Oh, wow.
Janet: So that's another one of our traditions that started probably 15 years ago. I make homemade eggnog, and anytime somebody calls for an eggnog moment through the holidays, we all get together, and we have these little cups, and we all sip eggnog, and we have to say, we sip eggnog and we have to say something that we're thankful for with each sip.
Jocelyn: That's so cool.
Janet: And we just use that as our, so.
Jocelyn: Eggnog moment. That's cool.
Janet: Yes. So we do all that together. What else do we do? I love looking at Christmas lights. It's been a bit of a tradition, but I'm really the only one. So we haven't gone as much lately. We'll see if I can get some of my adult kids to take me. It always includes Brent making his famous family recipe chocolate pie. So the holidays are going to include that somewhere. We serve in the Living Nativity, lots of years of memories attached to that, that we've gotten to do together. And each year as the kids were growing up, we had an envelope on the tree with our gift for Jesus.
Jocelyn: Oh, that's cool.
Janet: And every year we did something typically on Christmas day that was a way to say, if you love Jesus, you love His people and what are we gonna do for His people today?
Jocelyn: That's cool.
Janet: And so we kept that list in there so we can always go back and look at the things we did.
Jocelyn: Aw.
Janet: That's some of the things we do.
Jocelyn: That's so cool.
Janet: How about you?
Jocelyn: Some of our favorite ways of hanging out together and celebrating Christmas are making and eating gingerbread together, which is something that none of us ever did in our past. Like, I never made gingerbread growing up.
Janet: Oh, I don't know how to do it.
Jocelyn: Brian never ate it, but it's like. I love the flavor of gingerbread. And so I was like, I'm just going to learn how to make gingerbread men. And now it's just this fun thing that we do.
Janet: Oh, fun.
Jocelyn: Drinking hot cocoa. We go out and pick out and cut down our favorite Christmas tree.
Janet: That's fun.
Jocelyn: We decorate it together. Decorating it is way bigger of a deal than going and cutting it out. Cause often it's just like, hey, I'm going to go cut down the tree who wants to come with me. It's not like a big family to do, but putting the Christmas tree up and decorating it is a huge thing. And then we go and look at Christmas lights. I would never, ever, ever put Christmas tree lights up on our house because that is so much work. And also, can you imagine how much that cost to have an electricity bill for that?
Janet: Totally. Ditto. We don't do that. I think we're both a little too practical for that.
Jocelyn: Oh yeah.
Janet: I love looking at other houses.
Jocelyn: I like it when other people are impractical and rich. Well, one of our favorite ways to view Christmas lights is to go to this one city park near where we live. It's famous for its Christmas light display every year. Seriously. They put up millions of twinkle lights and these elaborate lighted displays. You literally do not even need a map to get there. You just look up into the sky, see where the clouds look like they're on fire and follow it. It's so famous for its light display that anytime you go, especially on the weekend, there's about an hour wait to even get into the park as your car crawls around like five miles an hour waiting to get into the entrance. The whole experience lasts like two hours, which is really picturesque, especially if it's snowing. We're listening to Christmas music and holding our hot cocoa, being a merrily. We're like oohing and aahing over everything. It's just magical to like an hour and a half in and you're totally, totally locked in the traffic line and someone has to go potty real bad.
Janet: That's exactly what I was thinking. What happens when that cocoa goes all the way through ya?
Jocelyn: Oh, it's fun. Well, it's a drive thru display, which obviously adds the traffic issue. But the first sight you see as you enter the park is this giant green and red Christmas wreath arch that you literally drive your car through to enter into the Christmas wonderland. It's gigantic. Two cars can fit through it at the same time. Then eventually you make your way around to the petting zoo, which is now wildly illuminated. I often wonder what the animals think about it. Next to the playground, which is all twinkled up now. And then, then you drive through a tunnel that is created of hundreds and hundreds of strands of twinkle lights that are synchronized to music.
Janet: Oh, how fun!
Jocelyn: So you roll your window down and you're like staring out of your car window and these cascade of twinkle lights are making a tunnel all around you. It actually makes very, very pretty pictures. And there's also the 12 days of Christmas all illuminated at least 20 feet long. There is a penguin cannon where a Christmas light display shoots a cannon and a penguin shoots across the road on skis. There's polar bears, there's ice skaters. It's an extravagant Christmas light illuminated 1000 megawatt lit park for nearly two months straight. You need to take Ari there. Like you need to see what Ari's face looks like.
Janet: I can't wait.
Jocelyn: All those lights. And then nestled into all of that illuminated shining glory is the glow of the four foot plastic illuminated yard ornament Baby Jesus, of course, He's there among the elves and the penguins and the polar bears and the giant Christmas wreaths. Of course, we acknowledge Jesus as the actual star of the season, the bright and shining baby that arrived in the midst of the already bright and shining park that you can see from 30 miles away. It's like festive joy, merriment and extravagance in the middle of an already bright and cheery fabulous holiday season. That started the minute that Janet woke up the day after Thanksgiving dinner to go shopping and last every day of the first three weeks of December. And then an explosion of glittery light culminates on Christmas day when the baby Jesus is laid in the manger. It's like Jesus got in on the tail end of a party that already started without Him. And the way that we celebrate Christmas, sometimes Jesus is just one part of the already bright, overwhelmingly majestic, fantastical, brilliant, magical illuminated celebration that is Christmas. And with that in mind, I want us to look at a passage from Isaiah, that a lot of us love to reflect on at Christmas, but it's a little bit different than that park experience.
Janet: Right.
Jocelyn: Isaiah 9:6 says, "For a child is born to us, a Son is given to us. The government will rest on His shoulders, and He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace". But that child that is born to us is not the icing on the cake of an already wonderful time.
Janet: Yeah.
Jocelyn: The child that is born to us that we celebrate at Christmas was something much, much different. And to really understand that difference, we just have to see the context of Isaiah's ministry when he wrote that passage, looking forward to our Messiah that would one day be born.
Janet: Yeah.
Jocelyn: And so just for context, Isaiah ministered in and around Jerusalem as a prophet to Judah during the reign of four different kings. So think about that a long span of time, Uzziah, who was also called Azariah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. And that was between 739 and 686 BC. And we surmise that he must have come from a family that had some sort of rank because he had really easy access to the king. Like he could just talk to the king and he had an open relationship with the priest and both of those things would not have been normal for an average person. But he was married and he had two sons with very long symbolic names, which are cool, but we're not going to talk about right this minute.
Janet: I love that you're not saying them. That's hysterical.
Jocelyn: And he was contemporaries with Hosea and Micah. And so at the beginning of Isaiah's ministry, King Uzziah helped develop Israel to become a really strong commercial and military state that had a port on the Red Sea. That's huge. Like commercially, that's huge. And they constructed all sorts of walls and towers and fortifications. So Israel was just bumping. And like prospering and being this mighty nation of grandeur. But in the middle of that wonderfulness, something terrible was also developing and Judah was declining deeper and deeper into idolatry. And in the end, King Uzziah dishonored God by assuming the duties of a priest and he burned incense on an altar that he was not allowed to. Authorized to do and as a result, God judged him and gave him leprosy and he never recovered from that. And so then his son King Jotham was forced to take over his dad's duties before his dad's death. And during Jotham, a new threat emerged Tiglath Pileser was emerging as the newest Syrian international superpower and he was threatening to take over the entire known world. As if that wasn't bad enough, Israel and Syria. So the immediate North also started opposing Judah. So King Jotham kept building and fighting, but Judah was still spiritually corrupted. And so the next one, King Ahaz became King when he was 25 years old and he reigned for almost 20 years. And during that time, Israel and Syria made an alliance to try to resist the Assyrian invasion. And this is the kicker, they refused to include Judah. So those Northern neighbors were basically threatening to dethrone him and war broke out. And in a panic, Ahaz did the unthinkable and invited Assyria, their enemy, to help Judah. And obviously the king of Assyria was like, oh, an open invitation to take over a smaller country. I'm in.
Janet: Sure.
Jocelyn: How could I say no? The king of Assyria promptly sacked Gaza , carried all of Galilee and Gilead into captivity and finally captured Damascus. And because of the Assyrian alliance, King Ahaz was introduced to more foreign gods, which he unbelievably set up an altar to in Solomon's temple.
Janet: That's so sad.
Jocelyn: It's so unbelievable.
Janet: Yeah.
Jocelyn: So this is the context that Isaiah was serving in. And during that wicked King Ahaz's rule. And because of his influence to save himself, Assyria captured all of Samaria, the capital of the northern kingdom, and carried away most of Israel's notable people into captivity. Like, King Ahaz is the reason that his country people to the north were captured and taken away.
Janet: Wow.
Jocelyn: What a traitor.
Janet: Yeah.
Jocelyn: So the beginning of the book of Isaiah tells us that Isaiah had a vision in which he saw the divine glory and holiness of God. And he was so overwhelmed by it that he was a ruined man. He was agonized at God's perfection and glory compared to his own imperfection. And so he offered himself to God to be used as a messenger to teach his people about God's holiness and majesty. And that would unfortunately include condemning his own beloved nation while he watched it completely crumble and fall apart. And guess how his people responded? His people responded to that sacrificial service by bitterly opposing him, willfully disbelieving him and ridiculing him.
Janet: And that's so sad. But I think, number one, I've thought about, I mean, what a hard thing God asked of him.
Jocelyn: Yes. Very hard.
Janet: And before he did it, God gave him this amazing vision, which would strengthen him.
Jocelyn: And motivate him.
Janet: And motivate him to do this hard thing. Then I also see what a mercy again of God to warned them again. Now they didn't hear it. Instead, they opposed him and ridiculed him. But you know, what a condescending, merciful God to give them another opportunity to repent.
Jocelyn: Multiple.
Janet: Yeah.
Jocelyn: Isaiah condemned Judah's empty ritualism. He begged them to abandon idolatry and he warned them that God would judge them for the obvious guilt that was evident everywhere in their nation. Isaiah warned Judah and King Ahaz that God's patience was going to run out. He foresaw that even though He was warning them about the consequences of both that empty ritualism and the idolatry, they would persist and eventually they would be taken into captivity by Babylon, just like Israel to the North had. So there's Isaiah, generationally surrounded by wicked kings, who are leading their people into idolatry and blood guilt. And the citizens were pridefully participating in both empty ritualism and outright idolatry. And in Isaiah 7, Isaiah says, God is going to whistle and call in nations more wicked than you can imagine to destroy you. And then they're going to take over your land. They're going to take you captive. They're going to steal your houses and your fertile areas. And they will shave off everything, your land, your crops, and your people. And on that day, farmers will be desolate. Their vineyards will be destroyed. All like generational vineyards destroyed. And they will lie fallow. The entire land will be a vast expanse of briars and thorns, and a hunting ground overrun by wildlife. The fertile hillsides will become wild with weeds and briars, and everything that had been built up in their beautiful country would be demolished. And all the while, Isaiah is building Begging Judah to trust the Lord, to make them holy in their lives, to fear him and to tremble before him. And he begged them to listen to God and follow His instructions. And they refused year after year. What a devastating dark time and place to exist.
Janet: Yes.
Jocelyn: Isaiah 9, which is what we just read. That passage was a promise in that darkness.
Janet: Which makes it even more powerful. It wasn't the end of a great night.
Jocelyn: It was not a shining light in an already wonderful time. It was a pinprick of light in the middle of devastating darkness. So for greater context, I'm going to start reading Isaiah 9 from verse two, and it's going to culminate in the passage that we started with. It says this, the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them a light has dawned. You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy. They rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as they are glad when they divide the spoil. For the yoke of his burden, and the staff for his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian. For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire. For unto us, a child is born. Unto us, a Son is given and the government shall be upon His shoulder and His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor. Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. And of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end. On the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will do this. Isaiah foretold that the Messiah would be coming and He would come into the darkness and He would annihilate the darkness with His light.
Janet: Wow.
Jocelyn: The coming Messiah is the light that will remove the darkness of sin and captivity. And God reminds them of this, His absolute commitment to His covenant with them that we saw from the Abrahamic Covenant that would give them land, seed, and blessing. Even though the discipline of the Lord is necessary, eventually the Lord will free them from bondage to Assyria and Babylon and every other foreign power that will overtake them.
Janet: What a gift of God to tell them this as they're still living sinfully.
Jocelyn: Yes.
Janet: And as they're about to have discipline, He's already planned their redemption.
Jocelyn: Yes. So in Isaiah's day, war is everywhere.
Janet: Yeah.
Jocelyn: But there will no longer be times of war, but peace. And why? There is going to be a child, who will be born to a virgin who is in the royal line of David with rights to the Davidic throne. And He will rule all the nations of the world with righteousness and justice. And in huge contrast to King Ahaz, the wicked, brute, selfish, self centered, desperate, grasping ruler of their country, this child future king will be a wonderful counselor. He will implement supernatural wisdom in discharging his office. He's not going to hatch foolish plots like evil King Ahaz. This child future king will be a mighty god. He will be able to accomplish the military exploits that King Ahaz tried to orchestrate and failed miserably to accomplish. But He will accomplish even more.
Janet: Yes.
Jocelyn: This child future King will be our Everlasting Father. The Messiah will be a Father to His people forever, and He will compassionately care for and discipline His people instead of exploiting His country and exposing them to evil. Like King Ahaz has who sold his own people out and this child future King will be the Prince of Peace. Instead of all the wars, military action, alliances, feuds, and upcoming conquering by wicked Assyria, Jesus will bring about a government of peace among all the nations of the entire world. Isaiah didn't foretell the coming of a glorious Messiah who would enter into an already wonderful world. Isaiah foretold in the middle of overwhelming, suffocating darkness, there was a light who had come and that light would be so strong, so powerful, so effective, so perfect, it would overwhelm their dark time. And how can we be sure that this will happen? The zeal of the Lord will do this. So about 700 years later, in another period of darkness, the Roman Empire, that prophecy of Isaiah was realized. We celebrate that baby's birth at Christmastime each year. A child was born, the Son of man, 100 percent human, knowing what it feels like to live on this earth in these bodies. A Son was given, the Son of God, to conquer sin and death forever through His sacrificial death. The perfect Son of God, the promise of the ages, the Holy one of Israel, the desire of the nations, the light in the darkness, the only hope for our lost world, the King of Kings whose government rests on his shoulders, the Wonderful Counselor who has the answers all of the world's confusion, the source of truth, who not only knows the needs of our hearts, but also has the power to answer those needs. The Mighty God, whose kingdom is free from all chaos, whose divine power frees us from death, forgives sin, defeats Satan, liberates us from the power of evil, redeems us, answers our prayers, restores our broken souls, heals our broken hearts, and reigns over our rebuilt lives, bringing order out of chaos. The Eternal Father, the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega, the first and the last, who declares the end from the beginning, who is in complete and sovereign good control, who sees the end of everything, and guarantees it will all work together for the ultimate good of all His kingdom's subjects. The Prince of Peace, who brings an end to all conflicts, who makes peace with God for those who surrender to Him in faith, who gives peace from God, the supernatural peace of God, and is the answer to all of the confusion, chaos, complexities, and conflicts in life. The light has dawned. And He is obliterating the darkness.
Janet: Ah, praise God.
Jocelyn: Praise God. But this year in 2024, we're celebrating Jesus birth, not as the final light in an already brilliantly illuminated and wonderful magical world.
Janet: Not at all.
Jocelyn: We're still celebrating Him as the only light. In a world that is still suffocating in darkness. Our world is dark. Like the time of Isaiah, like the time of the Roman Empire, and in 2024, we celebrate Jesus coming into our desolation. Churches are hurting. Our nation is divided.
Janet: Yeah.
Jocelyn: There is idolatry and empty ritual all around. There are leaders who are inviting alliances with countries that want to destroy us. There are broken souls and hurting hearts everywhere you look. There's chaos and confusion and complexities and conflicts in every component of our lives.
Janet: You know, we act like this is new and as you describe what was going on in Isaiah's time. This is exactly what it was like then, too.
Jocelyn: It's the same. And a child was born for people who walk in great darkness, us, who dwell in a land of deep darkness. On us, a light has dawned. To us, a son was given, and He will be our wonderful counselor in times of confusion, a Mighty God in our times of chaos, an Everlasting Father in our times of desperation. A Prince of Peace in our times of anarchy and lawlessness. On His throne, He establishes righteousness and justice that will help and heal us. And we of course know that there's coming a day when He'll sit on a literal throne and govern a literal government that will accomplish that in ways we can only imagine right now.
Janet: I can't wait.
Jocelyn: I can barely imagine. But Isaiah made a promise that a light would enter the darkness and 700 years later, it did. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts promises that He will complete the mission all the way up to Jesus, our King, sitting on a literal throne, bringing peace to every corner of our planet and we know He will. And so because of that, we have peace in our hearts now in our time of darkness and despair. The light has come and He's defeating darkness and He will defeat it permanently at the exact right time in the future. Jesus is not just one light entering into our already overwhelmingly bright and happy existence. He is the light and He is shattering the darkness. Colossians 1:13 says this. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His Beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. And He's inviting us to participate in that light now, in our difficult existence. Ephesians 1:18-19 says, I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope He has given to those He called His holy people, who has rich and glorious inheritance. I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God's power for us who believe in it. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated Him in the place of honor at God's right hand in the heavenly realms. We know for a significant percentage of our listeners, life is hard right now. Many of us have experienced trials this year we could have never imagined. Many of us are clinging for our life to the light right now, and we're holding onto the promises of God in this dark place, and we're trusting Him in our times of desperation. We want you to know that you and I, Janet, you and I, we are praying yes for our listeners to be strengthened with His power and encouraged by His word. And we also want you to know that we really love you listeners. And we hope that you enjoy celebrating a very Merry Christmas because the light has dawned.
Janet: You know, after hearing that, what I want to do right now is let's pray.
Jocelyn: Let's pray.
Janet: Oh, Father, we praise you that You are the light in the midst of the chaos and the turmoil and the evil that seems to be so much stronger. God, we pray for certainly our own lives and the lives of our listeners that we would be strengthened in our inner man because the same zeal that brought Christ means that we will trust that He will come again and He will make all things right. And in the meantime, we have the down payment of His Holy Spirit in us, if we know Him, and if we know you and we have your spirit within us, we have hope today. God help us to show that light to a hurting world that throughout this Christmas season, it wouldn't just be about the fun things that we get to do as a family, but that we would realize there is a lot of darkness, there is a lot of pain, there is a lot of suffering, and You came the first time, and you're coming back, and we get to live in the hope of that, and we get to share that. So I pray that our listeners would first be overwhelmed with evidences that You are who You say You are. You really do care. You really are good. And then that would motivate us to use this season to scream that hope and that love to the world around us, and that more and more would come to the light now. And then we just say, Come Lord Jesus. Amen.
To keep from missing any future episodes, please sign up for our newsletter on our webpage faithlafayette.org/JJP From there you can also subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Google, or Spotify. You can also visit us on our Facebook page or Instagram at Joyful Journey Podcast. If you have questions or comments for us, you can email us at joyfuljourneyquestions@outlook.com. Joyful Journey Podcast is a ministry of Faith Bible Seminary. All proceeds go to offset costs of this podcast and toward scholarships for women to receive their MABC through Faith Bible Seminary.
Host Janet and her husband, Brent, also speak at a variety of conferences as a way to raise money for the seminary. If you want to look at what they offer or book them for a conference, go to their website.
