Mid-Month Encouragement: God is at work! (December Edition)

Greetings! We hope your December is going great. Here is some encouragement from us at Dei Dox to help you finish the month strong, with the Lord! These mid-month emails include links and creative content that caused us to think about God, wonder, praise Him, and that brought fresh wind into our sails. We pray it does the same for you!

(NOTE: This month, some of the links include stories that are way more supernatural than we even know how to process. The links we post don’t necessarily mean we personally endorse everything in them. We are posting because they helped draw us to God and we feel they were worth sharing with you. Please pray and seek the Lord for yourself, using your own discernment!)

PRAYER

Lord, in this holiday season, position my hearts towards You.
Bring to mind anything that might be keeping me from experiencing all You want for me.

(Pause to see if anything comes to mind.)

I repent of these things.

Jesus, I’m yours.
I praise you.
Like in Isaiah 44:3, pour you Holy Spirit out on me and my family.
Give us rest in your arms.
With you, my savior. For you.

WORSHIP

Here’s a great worship set from Paul and Hannah McClure. Consider using this to help position your hearts further towards Christ during this Christmas season! Christ is the reason we’re here and there is much to celebrate!

TESTIMONY

In one part of Heilongjiang province there lives a man in his fifties who was a well-known Communist Party leader. Due to his unhealthy stressful life-style, drinking and smoking, he suffered a stroke and was paralyzed. His unloving wife, who viewed herself as a leading socialite, was embarrassed by her disabled husband and immediately divorced him. He was retired, but the local government allowed him to keep his driver and vehicle, and a personal doctor. In his desperation the man told his driver, “I have heard that those illegal Christians pray and anything can happen. Please take me to them.”

A few weeks later the leader was told that a group of house church believers would be meeting in a forest outside the city that night. He told his driver to get ready and they headed up into the mountains. After about an hour they stopped alongside a forest. The driver hesitated because he thought his boss was planning to commit suicide in his desperate state. The paralyzed man instructed his driver to pull off the road as he wanted to go into the forest. The driver had to carry him in through the trees. They walked for a few miles until suddenly through the darkness he heard noise of Christians singing and praying. It was so dark that none of the Christians could see the men arrive in the forest clearing. The driver stood at a distant and observed, while the paralyzed leader sat on the ground. He told his driver to return to the car and wait for him. In his heart the Communist leader knew that he was a sinful man and that it had come time to confront his Maker face to face. He asked forgiveness for his sins and humbly asked God to receive him into his family.

When one of the believers said, “Let us stand up,” a great miracle took place. Immediately the Communist Party Secretary stood up without thinking about it and realized he was completely healed! He shouted and jumped around for three hours in complete joy. Finally the driver came back to see what had happened and was amazed to see his boss was completely healed. The driver also accepted the Lord. To this day, the former government leader continues to love and serve Jesus, and is known by his sweet and humble spirit. He is a leading testimony in the Heilongjiang churches of the change Jesus can bring into any person’s life. (From Asia Harvest)

INFLUENCER TESTIMONIES

Have you noticed how more and more people with big platforms seem to be coming to Christ? And they’re making videos about it!

We find the stories inspiring, but also a look at the comments on the videos and you see amazing notes about how God used the video at the right time to influence countless people! They’re full of comments like:

It’s amazing how God is using video all over the place these days to communicate His stories, for His glory! Here are a few testimonies from this year that we enjoyed.

First, Kat Von D, a hollywood celeb with music, a reality TV show, etc:

Here’s another that God seems to be using exponentially:

Again, the big picture God story continues in the comments…

Praise God for how He is using this!

African Witch Converts – If you like true crime thrillers… 

Warning: If you listen to the next story, don’t do it with your kids around! It is intense in the descriptions of evil’s ways, and intense in the Christian encouragement that prayer and intercession with Christ have more power than most of us realize…

An influential African Witch that came to Christ through one of the most wild stories we’ve ever heard. It has already been viewed 4.6 million times in 1 month. His conversion experience starts at 2 hours and 4 minutes into it and it’s like out of a Marvel movie. WARNING: The first two hours are rough because he’s outlining his upbringing in the ways of evil, and their strategies for how they would attack the Church. Viewer discretion is advised.

Again, around 2 hours into the above testimony is where he shares his conversion experience. It may be worth skipping to that place to start, then going back if you want to hear the beginning.

Finally, some cool comments have been left on the video showing a glimpse of the exponential ways God is using this. He IS at work:

PROCLAMATION, THE FAITH BEHIND A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS

A post from Christian Life Ministry on Facebook:

In 1965, Charles Schulz, a devout Christian and creator of the Peanuts comic strip was asked to create a Christmas special for CBS featuring the Peanuts Characters. He agreed, with one requirement, that they allow him to include the story of Jesus’ birth. Although the station’s executives were hesitant and tried to convince him otherwise, Schulz was insistent. As a result, for the past 50-plus years, millions of people have watched “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and heard the story of Jesus, “What Christmas is all about.”

Years back, I realized there was a “hidden message” in the film. Linus, a child who seems to have some insecurities, always carries a security blanket with him. Linus NEVER drops his blanket, except once…

While sharing the message of “what Christmas is all about,” Linus drops his blanket when he says, “fear not!”

In this seemingly innocent moment, Linus delivers a powerful reminder of the true meaning of Christmas. We are to “fear not”, for Jesus is born. We needn’t rely on material things for security; we have God with us, “Immanuel” (Matthew 1:23), Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior – the true meaning of Christmas.

A while back, someone informed me, indignantly so, that Linus picks up his blanket at the end of the speech, so my interpretation must be wrong. He was right; Linus picked up his blanket at the end of his speech. However, he “drops” it again later…

Amid big, bright, colorful, shiny artificial trees, Charlie Brown chose the least of these: a little wooden tree with just a few branches. Shortly after that, Linus uses his blanket to wrap around the base of the tree and says, “Maybe it just needs a little love”. At that moment, the tree “awakens” and stands tall and firm. It is a reminder that no matter who we are and how many mistakes we’ve made a “little love” can make all the difference.

Let’s strive to “fear not” (Luke 2:10) and “love one another” (John 13:34), not just at Christmastime but the whole year through.

(Post taken from Christian Life Ministry on Facebook. We don’t know them, but we’re glad to know this story. Check them out here.)

What stood out to us BIG TIME is that Charles Schulz had to insist that he would include Christ in the story. From our experience in Hollywood, we cannot imagine those were casual conversations. How much did he have to put his neck and career on the line to take a stand to proclaim Jesus? Did the Holy Spirit help Charles know this was the time? It brings up so many questions for us, but either way we’re thankful he did take a stand and represent his faith where it would have been “nicer” to just go with the flow.

How much am I willing to risk for Christ?

A DEI DOX CHRISTMAS STORY

A few years back we did a short Christmas documentary about a living nativity in New York. For those who are new to DEI DOX, here it is! Enjoy!

BENEDICTION

May Christ dwell in your hearts through faith – 
that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 
may have strength to comprehend with all the saints 
what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 
and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, 
that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.