Page 7 - Preacher of Righteousness Magazine | Mark Barclay Ministries

I love the time with my family. I travel every week of the year, sometimes
every day. I’m seldom home; and when I am, I must quickly unpack, repack, and go back out again to help preachers and God’s people. I am privileged to be called and graced to do it, but I have always promised my beautiful bride Vickie and
my children that I would be home for Christmas. Other than a couple of tours in Vietnam, I have kept my word on that.
Every Christmas Eve we all gather together—kids, grandkids, dogs, and everyone and everything that is a part of our family. Our tradition is that Vickie makes each family member their own private, homemade pizza—from scratch—and they’re not little either! She’s very, very good at it. I wish you could all be there with us for that. We all get to pick and choose every item on our personal pizza, and then later that evening we let the little ones open a gift or two and just have fun together as a family. This time of year has a cozy, romantic feeling to it; and I must say, it’s one of the greatest experiences of my entire year, every year.
For our family, Christmas Day starts early, with the kids open- ing their gifts from Gramma and Grampa. The smell of coffee and hot chocolate (in pre-warmed cups!) fills the house, as well as the sound of Christmas music and laughter. We always enjoy a special meal together, and we all help cook and clean up. That’s right—even I help with the dishes and carve the meat. Sidney Goode, one of my closest and best friends and one of the ministers in our church, always gives us a beautiful turkey and ham that he has personally smoked for us—one of the highlights of our day.
As we enter the new year, we always make time to rejoice in all the Lord has done in the past year, including the battles we won and how the Lord brought us through to face another year on the earth. I have always taught my family that we are “earth warriors.” We are always in combat; there will always be critics; worse than that, enemies; and worst of all, spiritual enemies. We believe God for His Psalm 91 protection against sickness, disease, depression, disaster, drunk drivers, or any evil thing. Each year in our home church, I take a service to talk about the past year and ask God to help us close it out properly. We also have a special service when we open the new year and make a fresh covenant with God to walk with Him and a fresh commitment to serve Him and help other people to meet Him. I look forward to it.
I guess I’m just reminiscing now, but I wanted to share some personal things about our holidays. One final favorite—Vickie and I always spend New Year’s Eve alone together. We wait for the ball to drop in New York City and then immediately receive communion together as the first thing we do in the new year. We want the Lord to know that we put Him first, before anyone and anything else, grateful for our many blessings. We share a new-year’s kiss, and then our kids call and we wish each other a
Happy New Year. It is a powerful time.
I wish you and I had time to fellowship so you could share
with me all of your own warm and wonderful, holy and pure, family traditions. I’m sure yours are as precious to you as ours are to me.
Here are my holiday suggestions to you:
1. Always pray with your children and grandchildren before gifts are opened, thanking the Lord for our salvation and His goodness in our lives and that there is enough blessing upon us to be able to celebrate His birth by presenting gifts to each other, preparing a special meal, and all the other Christmas activities we enjoy.
2. Always receive holy communion on Christmas Eve or during the Christmas meal, depending on when most of the family is present, to rejoice in the Lord as the center of your family and to let Him know that you want to do what is right in His sight and invite Him to be a part of all the festivities.
3. Spend as much time together with family as you can.
4. Take a moment sometime during the day to say Happy Birthday to Jesus and that you remember it is His birthday and do not want to celebrate it without Him.
5. Make sure you bring an offering to the house of God. After all, it is the birthday of Jesus Christ, and you would not like it if it were your birthday and everyone gave gifts to each other but never brought one for you.
6. During the final moments of Christmas Day, before you go to bed, rejoice that you are a Christian, and thank the Lord for coming to this earth.
7. Remember to close out the old year properly and open the new year biblically with new and fresh commitments to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We have some teaching on this, so be sure to contact our ministry if you’d like to have it.
8. Open the new year with holy communion and celebration, gratitude, and expectation in your heart that it’s going to be one of the finest years of your entire life.
May 2014 be the healthiest and most prosperous year you’ve
ever lived yet, with the greatest anointing and the most victories you’ve ever experienced. May you rise to the highest spiritual place you’ve ever been, and may you win more souls and influ- ence more people to serve the King of Glory than ever before. May you enjoy an even deeper relationship with your Savior and find more and more ways to express your love to Him.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your family from my family and all of us here at Mark Barclay Ministries!
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