The Christmas Friend

Hey, this is Mike Zwick from If Not For God Podcast, our show.

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I say this calls for action and now. Isn't there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about? Sure, Charlie Brown. I can tell you what Christmas is all about. And there were in the same country shepherds, abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

While shepherds watch their flocks by night, all seated on the ground, the angel of the Lord came down and glory shone around. The Christmas friend today on the Christian Car Guy Show. And there you go, Jerry. I like it. I like it. Can we download that on iTunes?

Robbie Dilmore. Yeah, the sound of silence has been changed forever, and you're maybe never going to get that sound out of your head. I hope you can. But anyway, so today's Christian Car Guy Show is the Christmas friend. And by that, I essentially mean the Scriptures are your Christmas friend. When you're trying to find the meaning of Christmas, as Charlie Brown does there, the place you can always return to, you know, is the Scriptures. And so you might have heard Simon and Garfunkel's Song of Silence, but I'll get to why I use that here in a minute. But and then you heard, of course, Linus and Charlie Brown from Charlie Brown's Christmas.

And then while the shepherds watch their flocks by reawakened hymns, which I really like that. So as you might imagine, today's show is always brought to you by Hebrew Letter. And this one has everything to do with friendship. And really, in Hebrew, I think this is really cool to know that the word friend is the root of the word shepherd. And if you think about it, if you're a sheep, you know, that's a good friend to have. And so the letter iron is this—no, there's only two letters in the word friend in Hebrew, and the second one is an iron that has to do with vision, because an iron looks like a Y. And so you got two eyes, but you get this idea of one vision, right?

And somehow or another, when you look with both your eyes, you end up with one vision. Well, such is the same with your friend, right? As you get closer and closer walking with somebody, then all of a sudden, you have the same vision, you begin to like the same kind of movies, you do the same kind of things. And that's very much what happens, I suppose, with shepherds and sheep and friends of all sorts of different ways. But our Christmas friend, as you study certain Christmas passages, as I'm sure you do every year, you become more and more intimate with them, right? And you begin to really see some things.

And I hope you're like me, that this year, you've seen some things that just like, oh, I never saw that before. Like, oh, that's amazing. So the author of Eugene Peterson's biography, which is called A Burning in My Bones, described Eugene Peterson, the author, in this amazing way, and I never really had considered what he said.

But he said that Eugene Peterson had a conversational intimacy with the Scriptures. And when I heard that, I was just like, oh, that's exactly it. That's exactly it. And I was telling about it at my Christian Businessmen's Committee meeting, which is a bunch of old Bible dudes, and one of my dear friends, Harold, who was also a poet when he heard that, he immediately said, oh, that's like Simon and Garfunkel's song, you know? Hello, you know, whatever passage, my old friend, I've come to talk with you again, right? And that kind of stuck.

I was like, yeah, that's exactly it. Like, hello, Luke chapter 2, my old friend, I've come to talk to you again, or Luke chapter 1, or whatever it is that you're studying, it's your old friend, and you've come to talk with it again, and then listen to what it says. And this is my rendition, again, because the vision, right, quite revealing is what I added instead of quite sneaking. But anyway, because the vision, quietly revealing, left its seeds while I was studying, right? And I'm sure you're like me, that all these seeds are in your heart from the studying that you've done over the years, and they just continue to bear fruit in so many different ways. And as it gets there, every year, you can kind of revisit it, and it can't depart. And so, you know, I have a few nuggets that I have gleaned this year.

But more than that, I would love to know what this is a live show, and the purpose of a live show is not that Robbie does the show. I mean, Robbie is the host of the show, and I've got Jerry, my good friend, and also old Bible dude. But I'm anxious to hear what you have gleaned this year from something you've looked at, or maybe you heard it in a Christmas carol you heard a thousand times, or maybe you saw it when you were decorating your Christmas tree. But whatever it was, you were intimate with it, you thought, and then something new came to light, and what that was, in its own way, is Jesus. Because Jesus is the Scriptures, and the Scriptures are Jesus, and it really is your friend. Like, we are a friend of God in so many different ways.

And so, where does that come to light for you this year, okay? And so, what kind of gave me the idea of friendship is, if you look in Luke chapter 1, which is actually the beginning of the Christmas story, you'll note that Luke decides that he's gonna write this book to somebody by the name of Theophilus. I don't know if you've ever heard this, but I think it's absolutely spectacular that Theophilus is actually a Greek way of saying friend of God, okay? And so, as you're reading Luke, you know, you can't help but wonder if Luke wasn't just using, or the Holy Spirit was giving Luke this idea of anybody that wanted to dig a little bit would find out he was writing it to you. Because you're a friend of God, you are Theophilus, right?

It's absolutely spectacular when you think about it. Just, as I ponder that and pondered it, I thought, yeah. You know, Robbie, as you're saying, the thing is, we automatically sometimes just think we're reading scripture.

How does it apply to me? And really, when we start, really break it down and realize that, you know, the gospel, God's Word is speaking. It was written for one purpose, for me. It's sort of the same thing with Calvary.

Why did Christ have to die on the cross? It was for me. Everybody else just kind of got to come along for the ride, but it was for me. And I know you're fixing to go at a different direction, but I just want to take the opportunity to just say one thing. This is a challenge, because I know raising a daughter when she was young and stuff, and all of the other little girls that were at the house continually and stuff. One thing that I always cherished was just that I made sure, and I think it's important, and I challenge you as a parent, a grandparent, sit down and just take time and make sure it's an important time. Make sure our kids know it's an important time, and just read the Christmas story. Just don't rush through it. Just read it, and just look at their faces and the questions and the questions that'll come out of that and stuff. I just think so many times we're too busy talking about the Santa Claus story and the gift story and all of the other stuff, and just don't take time to sit down with our kids and stuff.

Because really, we're doing it for our kids, but man, it's still, we've cleaned so much out of it ourselves. Yeah, because something new is going to come jumping out at you that you've never seen before, and I'm going to challenge you to add something new this year to Luke chapter 1 before you do Luke chapter 2. Because Luke chapter 1 is gigantic, and it's where Mary gets the word, and everybody's going to get the word.

So diving into that for a minute here. So there were 400 years of silence, which is a huge deal. I mean, so to set up the book of Luke or the book of Matthew, before, you know, this stuff happened, there were 400 years that God did not speak through his prophets, that nobody heard anything. And so when you think about it, you know, that's like way before America was only 200 and something years old.

I mean, almost twice as long as we've been a country, nobody heard anything. Yet the Jews faithfully, I mean, faithfully, and certain ones, like Zachariah, we're going to hear about was a priest. And he continued to serve at the temple exactly as God had described it.

And so it's spectacular to me that we always hear about the shepherds, but we don't even think about the first time that God speaks to a prophet after 400 years is actually to a priest who's actually serving in the temple. And his name is Zachariah, but in Greek it's called Zacharias, but his name was Zachariah, just telling you, because he was Hebrew. And he was married to somebody by the name of Elisheba. Now, Elisheba is Elizabeth in Greek again, but that's kind of a famous name in the Old Testament because that happened to be Aaron's wife. Okay, so here's a priest in no coincidence at all that his wife had the same name as Aaron's wife, and we're going to get to all that, but more than that, we need your call.

866-348-7884. Left its seeds while I was studying, and the vision that was planted in my heart, it can't depart within the arms of Jesus. The Christmas Friend today on the Christian Car Guys show, and as we were talking about, like, the Scriptures, like, the more you read certain Scriptures they just become, like, good friends. And here you are talking to them again, and every time something new jumps out at you.

And again, this is a live show, so the beauty of it is you can call us and tell everybody. In other words, this jumped out at you, and now you have a chance to share the light that God gave you, and you can do that by calling 866-348-7884, 866-344-TRUTH. Maybe it was something about the shepherds, or maybe you just saw the stars in the sky in a new way then you've never seen them before, or, you know, I heard James Banks when he did encouraging prayers this week, he said, all heaven broke out. I love that, you know, that's the kind of thing that we're talking about.

Like, when did that happen for you? And it would mean so much to me and to all our listeners for you to share that, even though I know it takes some courage to dial that number, but I'll give it to you again. It's 866-348-7884. So, getting back to 400 years of silence, and then all of a sudden God's going to appear, but not only does he appear, he appears in the temple in the form of Gabriel. In other words, this angel doesn't show up just anywhere. He shows up in the temple. And oh, by the way, for Zechariah to be there, he was in the course of Abijah. And what that means, it looks like a little detail there, but it's actually a huge thing to note, in my opinion, because each course of this particular type of priest had a week that they ministered in the temple, and his was at the altar of incense.

And it was just so happened that his came the eighth week. Now, there were 24 of these courses, like there are 24 elders in heaven, so make the connection, all right? It tells you that these people in heaven got something to do, that there's 24 of these guys that were ministering in the temple, and his came up on the eighth week. Well, why is that important? Well, it's gigantic, because eight is the miracle number.

It just is. It's like you do what you can do for seven days, and God's going to do the big thing on the eighth. That's why all the babies were circumcised on the eighth day, and we're going to hear all about that later on in Luke chapter one, right? Both Jesus and John get circumcised on the eighth day. And the temple was cleansed on the eighth day. In other words, here we are on the eighth week of the year, and here is Zechariah married to Elisha. And that in itself is gigantic, because God is showing himself through Gabriel to a priest. And, you know, it shows how much he really honored these people that had kept the covenant to some extent. Some of them were good guys, and some of them devoted their life to God for 400 years. They heard nothing?

Wow. Just wrap your mind around it. I mean— Yeah, just wrap your mind around that for a minute. And then he shows up, and of course it dumbfounds literally poor Zechariah. But Elisha, right? She gets a visit from the Holy Spirit. Not unlike Sarah. And if you go back, I think it's Genesis chapter 21, where Sarah is visited what? In her old age. Well, what's the deal with Elisha?

She's in her old age. And if you don't see the similarities, I'm sorry, but they're just there. And this is gigantic.

It's huge. God is painting this picture for John to come. Now that name in and of itself is gigantically huge, because John is really Johann in Hebrew. And what it means is God is bringing grace, right? Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ, and here comes John to herald that.

And of course, the idea of grace is comfort spelled backwards, right? Noah was going to comfort his people, and he was the first person to find grace. And so when you look in Isaiah 40, which is, by the way, the whole passage that Gabriel is going to quote at Zechariah to tell him, this is who you are going to have.

You're not going to just have any child. You're going to have the Isaiah 40 child, right? Because he tells him that he's going to be the one that prepares the way, the one crying out in the desert. And he gives him that, you know, it's like Zechariah knew what Isaiah 40 said, and he knew what it meant that his son was going to be in the spirit of Elijah, right? I mean, what he told him there was setting the stage for, like, oh my goodness. And Zechariah knew what that was, and that's what made it even more dumbfounding for Zechariah.

He just didn't get a, like, you're going to have a baby at 80 or whatever, how old he was, but you're going to have the baby. Like, you're going to have John, and his name is a gigantically huge idea, and the idea that you are God's favorite, because that is the idea of grace, is favor. And when you look at Luke chapter 1, it's all about favor. On whom his favor rests, right? Well, his favorite says Jerry's his favorite.

Robbie's his favorite. You are his favorite, and that's what grace is all about, right? That he's going to show up, and here it comes. And it's all about these familiar concepts of comfort and grace and peace and light and all these things as you go on to see what happens with Elisha, which you know as Elizabeth, which maybe you know some Elizabeths, you can tell them, look, it's like all the Marys out there. Their name's actually Miriam, they just don't know it. But, you know, if all these characters that are in there were names that God honored, just like, here's another nugget, and then I'll leave it to your nuggets, that I think is spectacular. Aaron is written in the Talmud as saying that he was the greatest marriage counselor of all time. And if you really think about what a priest should be, he should be a marriage counselor, because it's your union with God that it's your relationship with God that priests are, you know, really, this is our deal, right? This is what we do as priests. We help people with their marriage to God. But you also, marriages with one another is a huge thing. Well, Aaron made such a huge impact in the wilderness on marriages that the whole next generation had an overwhelming number of Aaron's because all these marriages, they named their boys after Aaron, right?

Well, think about how amazing the original Lee Shiba must have been for him to be that kind of marriage counselor, right? So we'll be back. We need your stories, like the Christmas friend. It's the Scriptures.

We'll be back. The Christmas friend today on the Christian Car Guys show. What? The Scripture passage has just jumped out at you and just like, man, I had never seen that before. That is so spectacular.

You know, I could actually go on and on and on and on. But I don't want to neglect the part that this is the Christian Car Guys show, okay? And the Christian Car Guys show has a ministry within it that God has blessed. Oh, my gosh, has God blessed it. It's called the Jesus Labor Love. It's car repair for single moms and widows and families in crisis across the country.

And it really is across the country last week. You heard from a lady in Arizona who was trying to help a homeless gentleman there in, I think it was Tucson. And fascinatingly, our website went down right after she got out the air. So I don't know if some other people had tried to contact me, but I want you to tell our website is up, which by the way, all these nuggets that I made mention of in the Scripture references and the things that I had in the study of what I was talking about earlier, it's all there at ChristianCarGuy.com and my, you know, the Christmas Friend post for today, as well as all the Jesus Labor Love stuff. But I wanted to make you aware that if you've got that car or you've got a connection in and around Tucson, that we would love to hear from you. We're still on the search. However, I had the most, I had an amazing week in Christ. There's no doubt I did that I got a call on Sunday from a young lady in Colorado who had a car that she was considering donating.

We were still working through that. And I don't want to go into too much of a story because that wouldn't be appropriate, but oh my goodness, that call led into a real need that was completely spiritual. And she was being tormented. I mean, horribly tormented. And I really have never had an opportunity to minister like that, not like that, to anybody.

Even though they were, you know, obviously the difference between Denver, Colorado, and Winston-Salem, North Carolina, I don't know. But what I know is like, oh my goodness, God ordained that obviously that show went out and that somehow or another that girl knew what my phone number was because she had a car that would possibly go to the lady in Tucson. And then, oh, this need comes out and it's huge. And I don't know, Jerry, that we didn't save somebody's life. Well, God sometimes puts things in our path that we, it's so unexpected.

But we're called to be ready. Right, right. Because, you know, I'm just like, you know, thinking, well, what's going on with this? And then all of a sudden, oh my goodness. And it's just been on my heart all week that, wow, that, you know, there's a lot of people going through some real stuff.

Yeah. We always think that the holiday season, you know, it's just all the, all the joy and excitement, you know, it's also a tough season for a lot of people. And I, granted, and I know that kind of going off track a little bit, but I've been involved with Fonda Bryant, with the suicide prevention stuff and everything, and over the past couple years, especially the past year, and it just makes, it's just the stories I hear on, on that and from who I hear them from. And it's just, just humbling and heartbreaking at the same time. People, people are hurting. And, and, and granted, it's, you know, the easy thing, the Christian thing to say is you need Jesus. And, and that is the ultimate answer.

But also we have to be able to know how to walk them through it to, to get them to that point. Wow. Yeah. And, and, but interestingly, a lot of times the people that are actually devastated and really hurting definitely have Jesus. Yeah. And, and somehow or another lost their connection with their friend. Right. And they don't even realize that they, you know, he's, it's, you know, right there. And, and it's what an opportunity we have when we just, you know. And what you did, you know, and I don't know the, the, the specifics of it, but one of the things is what we need to do is make sure that we just let them know that somebody cares, that we care, Jesus Christ cares.

And, and if you, I'm also going to say a blanket statement. If you know somebody that in a way you just thinking, you know what, something just isn't right, pick up the phone and give them a call. Holiday seasons, a lot of people are going to struggle from a lot of different, different avenues. And, and the hurt may be something that we don't understand.

It may be a separation or a financial thing or a death that could have happened years ago, but, but the holiday season brings it back to the top. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and stuff. Hey, just reach out. Darrell Bock Right.

Right. And so, you know, I just want to encourage you that your prayers for the Jesus labor love, your support for the Jesus labor love, how in the ever in the world it works, God is, it's, and I, we, we had a chance to share at the missions committee at, at Jerry's church last Sunday. And, and, you know, how amazing is it really that, that, that God allows us in whatever shape to, to be able to take part in what he's doing in people's lives. And more times than any, it's always prayer. In other words, the one thing I can say about the Jesus labor love that I can assure you of the, you know, I guess we're at the point where it's over thousands of people that we've talked to, we pray with every single one. That is going to happen as, as happened with that young lady on Sunday. More than once, I think I prayed two or three times during the conversation because connected them, God is like, there's your marriage counseling right there. I mean, that's, that's what the deal is, Jerry.

Darrell Bock Yeah. And as you, as you mentioned, and since you said Robbie came into Pinedale's mission committee then, and if you're involved in this church and organization and any way possible that you could, well, one thing, if you're not sure that this, that this ministry is important and really is, is just, God is all over it and God is using it in a powerful way, invite Robbie to come in and speak. For one thing, your congregation, your, your, your organization, that committee will be blessed by it. And also it kind of opens up that sort of pulls the curtain back in a way that you can see just how important this ministry is. And, and, and over the course of time, Robbie, I, I'm always amazed because I hear the stories and it's sometimes it may not even be, it was about Terry taking a battery to a girl, met him in Raleigh and you know what the battery was, got, got the car running and met that need. But you know, the, the, the cool part of the story was that Terry connected with her son and was able to show Christ through just, you know, just spending some time with him and just talking about cars and stuff, something he was interested in.

So, you know, sometimes it's the, the side things that, that's really the most important thing. And that's what Jesus' labor of love is able to do. It opens up doors that, that ministers to people. And man, that is, man, that, that puts a smile on all over my, my heart.

I mean, I went in and it, it does mine. And in so many, you know, it's just amazing. So, and Scott and, you know, and as you mentioned, I mean, this, he has a heart, you know, how God has brought people into this ministry that have a heart for it. And if you ever hear Scott talk about having prayer with, with these applicants and stuff, and then the ones we were able to help and the ones we're not able to help, man, that is just, it is just absolutely powerful. Oh, it is.

It is. And I, you know, from my standpoint, we help every single one if we pray with them. And, you know, however it works, you know, I'm just, I'm more than blessed. So, you know, again, that's at christiancargai.com. That website's kind of important and it's up and, and we're going to do our best to keep it up.

But all that stuff, you know, how you can connect in whatever way. If you want me to come speak, I would be delighted. I would be absolutely delighted. I speak at churches all over and, and it's really, really fun. And, and if you happen to be in Tucson or wherever I've, you know, I've, I've, I was supposed to actually go to Montana right before COVID.

They had me going in California in the same trip. So, you know, in different churches. So wherever that may be, you know, I would be honored and, and I love doing that kind of thing. And I don't charge, you know, you can get me there.

There is not going to be any fee. Well, you mentioned that, I know you said you met with the missions committee and that was the group inside the church, but also Robbie came into my Sunday school class and, and shared and took my class, took the class time and touched everybody in that room. And, and then the other piece of that is also for, there was people in there that, that Robbie had, had, had crossed paths with before he become Christian car guy, radio guy.

I mean, back when it was a west side, Chrysler Plymouth and stuff. And just to hear those stories, cause the week before one of the GM in my class shared the impact Robbie made. And that was, that was just a cool story in itself because at that point, you know, Robbie has a heart for people. More importantly, has a heart to introduce people to Christ. And that's all God.

It really is. And so we need your calls. 866-348-7884. One segment left. We need it. And the vision that was planted in my heart, it can't depart within the arms of Jesus. The Christmas friend today on the Christian car guys show. And this is your chance. We got one segment left and I would love to know how God has just taken a piece of scripture and lit up your life that you had not seen it that way before this year.

You know, what, what has jumped out at you? We would love, love, love to hear your testimony. 866-348-7884 is the number to call in and share.

866-344-TRUTH. And so we've been talking about John the Baptist and his father, Zachariah and Elisheba and his, his mother. And you know, you can read in Luke chapter one, all about this story, which I couldn't recommend highly enough that you reread it.

There's a lot there. But the thing that it jumps out at me that I never really had considered was legitimately John the Baptist was a big deal. I mean, his father was one of the 24 that, that, that, that, you know, would minister inside. In other words, he was in the holy place.

He didn't go in the most holy place, but he went into the holy place and he stood there and he burned incense at the altar of incense. And it said a great crowd gathered there when he was in the, in the temple doing that. And they all marveled at what was in there for so long. And so you can imagine this was a pretty big deal father that John had. And you can imagine that everybody was like, man, these people are a little old to be having a baby.

I wonder if this is like Sarah. I mean, they know the story really, really, really well. And so his birth was as miraculous as it could be. And the fact that God was speaking and it says that Zachariah was filled with the Holy Spirit. It says that Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit when Jesus's mother Miriam came to visit. And all these things that even John had this, you know, Nazarite vow kind of placed over him that he wasn't to drink wine or strong drink. And he lived out in the desert and all these things. You know, when he started talking about Jesus being the Messiah, it was a legitimate statement to the people that understood, you know, their faith. And these people were from Jerusalem, not like Jesus who was from Nazareth, right?

These people are from Jerusalem. He was a big deal priest. And, you know, he was according to this just and devout.

And you can imagine that, you know, blessed are the pure in heart, that walking the law of the Lord. And that was Zachariah, you know, to a great extent, Jerry. And I think that's something to marvel at, that yes, they had a lot of corruption in the priesthood at that point in time. But like in all places, God has his remnant. And they were there and they didn't get the Messiah by accident.

There was people that really had been praying, i.e. Simeon and Anna, and that were there in this story that you're going to read more about in Luke chapter 2, right? And it just, to me, is really cool things to ponder, to kind of put ourselves back in that time to where these shepherds, which were friends of the sheep, but when you think back about they're going to get visited, Abraham was a shepherd. Isaac was a shepherd. Jacob was a shepherd. Moses was a shepherd. He was, okay? King David was a shepherd.

They were in great company. A lot of people say they were lowly. Oh yeah, they're lowly because that's the amazing thing about God, is he's God to the Zacharias, but he's also God to the Joses, and to the Miriams, and to me and you, a car salesman. If he could be God to a shepherd, maybe he could be God to a car salesman. Maybe, yeah. Yeah, a lot of people think, you know, well, but that's part of the greatness of God, is that really, you know, when he probably looks at the scale of greatness, you know, here's President of the United States, take your pick, and here you are. Well, you know, you're almost neck and neck.

Go ahead, Jerry. Yeah, I mean, when you're saying that, it's the fact that, I think I'm going to go back to the original thing, how, what Scripture unveiled something to you this past year. I think so many times, as you're saying it, I'm looking back and I'm thinking to myself, I mean, I had a situation with the father passing, Ray passing away, where the situation wasn't, we didn't have, I mean, it was, it wasn't always the best situation, but then at the end, I saw Scripture unveiled come to life because of probably the last few weeks of his life, was probably maybe the best few weeks that we and his kids had together with him, and how could that possibly be laying in a bed after having a seizure and everything else, but God was all over that, and I think so many times, I know this is, we're going into Christmas, and I think sometimes we need to just kind of, when we reflect and stuff, the gift of Jesus Christ, you know, how many times we get those little gifts throughout the year, and we kind of, in our everyday life, we just kind of blow by them and don't recognize them and stuff, and maybe this is a question for, in a couple weeks, as we look back at the, this past year and stuff, New Year's, so many times in all of our lives, God has given us those little nuggets, and not always have we recognized them. Like rarely?

Yeah. So, but when you think about it, you know, what you're saying is that in the case of your dad's life, you guys had been praying for him for years and years and years and years, and I think I actually, Tammy and I watched Dolly Parton's Coat of Many Colors last night, and I cried like a baby because, you know, those people have been praying for their father, all those, you know, but the fact is that love never fails. And sometimes it doesn't come into the last day, but it never fails. And time and again, we see that in the case of, again, Zachariah or Anna or Simeon, they've been praying. These people have been waiting for 400 years.

They've been actually waiting, you know, since Moses, but. Yeah, God calls us to be faithful and to be encouraged. It's hard sometimes, but God is going to walk us through that. Oh, it's hard all the time.

I would, you know, if you look at, if you're like me and you got relationships with kids and friends and things just go sideways, right? But it's a beautiful thing to know that, man, just, you just keep loving them and you just keep loving God and trust, like you said, it's all about faith that, you know, he's going to come through. It's just, he's going to. Yeah, we, our human side sometimes is that the world will beat us down and just thank God, thank my Lord and Savior that, you know what, when I'm beat down and knocked down and I'm laying there and have to get picked back up, it's my Lord and Savior that's knocking the dust off my knees and grabbing my hand and let's take that next step. And so many times we live in a world that we don't recognize that.

You know what? It's not going to be, it's not easy being, it's not easy living out this life. And just because we're a Christian doesn't mean that it's going to be easy. We still have those same struggles.

There's a big difference. We walk with the Creator of it all. Right? And when we're struggling with walking, right, because the Christmas friend is the Scriptures too. So Jesus is the Scriptures and the Scriptures are Jesus.

So when you can't feel him close enough, open your Bible as they could be on your phone and read something familiar to you and you'll be right there again. You know, Christmas Scripture, my old friend, I've come to talk to you again. Absolutely.

I mean, don't miss the opportunity over the next week to sit down and read the true story of Christmas. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for listening today. It's such an honor to be here with you. And we just would ask, of course, that you slow down. Jesus walked everywhere he went, got it all done in 33 years. Thank you for listening. This is the Truth Network.