Each year as we approach the holiday season, our preparations for Christmas include revisiting the events surrounding the birth of Our Lord. Bethlehem,1 the shepherds, and the angels are all familiar to us. But not much is generally known about the mysterious "Magi" who came to worship the infant Jesus.

Can we choose to go "against the tide" and do what God has asked when we really don't feel like it, want to or even think it will work? Will God honor a choice like this?

This is always a difficult time for Christians, especially those with children. It has been suggested that for a Christian to be asked to celebrate Halloween is like asking a Holocaust survivor to celebrate Hitler's birthday! It is also a dangerous time for some, since many of the seemingly "harmless" involvements associated with Halloween can also be "entries" for the occult, and can prove very tragic for the unwary.

We have found that even as Christians, our own thoughts, emotions and desires determine most aspects of our lives. The question is: How can we go against the tide and choose to do what God has asked, when we really don't feel like it, want to or think it will work? Will God honor something we choose by faith, but really don't feel?

Last month we continued our series Against the Tide: Getting Beyond Ourselves by focusing on the subject of single-mindedness vs. double-mindedness. In the Greek, single-minded means only one life is being lived; whereas, double-minded means two lives are being lived.

Every week I go out of my way to speak to teenagers just to see what's going on in their minds. Too often the answer is, "Nothin'." Public school students seem to have this glassy, disorganized, disoriented look about them. They're preoccupied with things that don't matter, especially image and conforming to peer pressure.

II Corinthians 10:5-6 gives us a very important directive. It tells us to "take every thought captive" and to deal with the thoughts that are not of faith. God knows that taking every thought captive is critical because our thoughts are the first to be triggered in the chain-reaction of our souls.

The power of our choice - what does this really mean and why is it so important? God has given us the incredible gift of free choice - the free choice to either follow His will moment by moment or the free choice to follow what we think and feel. Just how important are these moment-by-moment choices?

Over the last several months, we have been exploring the power of our choice; i.e., our willpower. As Christians, God has given us the free choice to either follow His will moment by moment or follow what we think and feel. Emotional choices, however, quench God's Spirit. Whereas faith choices (choices to follow Him regardless of how we feel) unleash all of His power to come to our aid.

Is it possible to make choices to follow God when we don't feel like it, want to or think it will work? This has been the subject we have been exploring over the last few months - faith choices - and why they are so important.

Have you ever thought, "There must be a key to reaching the lost"? There is - but it's rusty through lack of use. The Bible does actually call it "the key," and its purpose is to bring us to Christ - to unlock the Door of the Savior (John 10:9). Yet much of the Church still doesn't even know that it exists.

How do we as Christians overcome the justified hurt feelings, the anger, the bitterness, the resentment, the fear, the unforgiveness, the insecurity, the guilt and the memories that consume us daily?

God has given man a free will, much like His own. Our free will is the most important element of our make-up, because within that will lies the power to choose: to choose to follow what God desires us to do or follow what our own thoughts and emotions are telling us.

As Christians, most of us would agree that we've not been called simply to gain knowledge about Christ, but to gain more of His Life to give to others. We would concur that true Christianity is not about "head knowledge," but about Christ's Life being personally experienced and then passed on.

Last month we began a brand-new series called Against the Tide. This new series will cover some very simple, but extremely important, fundamental principles: i.e., how to walk by faith. If we don't understand how to make moment-by-moment faith choices, we may as well forget "living the Christian life!"

Natural thoughts, emotions and desires. The dictionary calls them "the movers of our soul" because what we think and feel is usually what we choose to follow.

For years, whenever I had a problem, other Christians would tell me, "Nancy, just give it to God." Well, that's really easy to say, but how on earth do you do it in action?

When things fall apart in our lives, it's so easy for someone looking in to simply say, "Oh, just give it to God." Well, the question is, how exactly does one do that? This has been the topic of our discussion over the past several months - how do we give things to God and leave them there?

When God put it on my heart to write a book about worship, I questioned my friends, my family and others how and when they worshiped. "Do you worship the Lord on a daily basis, or just on Sundays?"

In my opinion the "key" to the Christian walk is knowing how, moment by moment, to give things over to God-how to acknowledge and confess our sin and self; how to repent of it; and then, how to give it over to Him.

There's a huge difference between simply knowing that we possess God's Life in our hearts and actually experiencing it in our lives. The key to being able to do this, moment by moment, is understanding how to surrender ourselves to the Lord. This process is what we have been exploring over these last several months in Personal UPDATE.

How do we give things over to the Lord and leave them there? This has been our topic of discussion for the last two months. We briefly talked about the four essential steps to doing this:

In the last article, we began an exploration of the four essential steps that God has laid out for us in Scripture in order to deal with our sin, be reconciled with Him and allow His Life to once again flow through us. This is our "readiness to revenge all disobedience" as 2 Corinthians 10:6 exhorts us.

How does one go about giving things to God? It's so easy to say with our words, "Oh, just give it to God." Well, how exactly does one do that in action?

For over twenty years we have guided Bible study tours to Israel. There is nothing that compares to a visit to the Holy Land. As my daughter once remarked, "It turns your black-and-white Bible into living color."

Over the last two months we have been exploring the four attitudes or predispositions that we must have "on" each day in order to be willing to do God's will on a moment-by-moment basis.

Several months ago, we began a new series entitled The Key, which explores how we give ourselves or surrender ourselves to the Lord on a moment-by-moment basis. Understanding this principle is an essential foundation block for a blessed walk with the Lord. Maturity in Christ is simply recognizing our self-life and knowing how to give it over to the Lord.

Many of us who have visited Israel regard the visit to the "Garden Tomb" as one of the major highlights of the trip.  It invariably ranks highest on our feedback surveys. The people in charge of the British trust that manages the site always present it as simply "representative," rather than insisting that it is the actual tomb.

Recently, we began a new series entitled The Key, which explores what I believe is the most important principle in our Christian walk - how we surrender ourselves to the Lord on a moment-by-moment basis. Over the last several months, I shared my own story of how this basic principle has impacted my life more than anything else. As I mentioned, it has become the "bread and butter" of my Christianity.

The shocking events of the past few months have dramatically impacted every one of us. Across our land we see an almost universal openness and searching for meaning. In reviewing this amazingly changed horizon, I was startled to recall an event that had occurred in the early days of our relocation to Coeur d'Alene.