As 2010 approaches and materializes, a new decade begins. This once-every-ten-years benchmark presents a great opportunity to not only launch a new direction for the coming year but also for the whole new decade as well.

The direction we would like our lives to take and the pathway we are preparing are going to be largely determined by the composition of the matter we journey over as well as the faith we will need to live by over the next 120 months.

A variety of consequential things occurred in 2009. The swine flu spread around the globe. Businesses failed and people lost their jobs and the governments of the world tried to spend their way out of recession. The world dealt with slaughter, nuclear proliferation and dead celebrities.  However, 2009 offered us more than tragedy. There were excellent things too, things worthy of a second glance as we celebrate the successful completion of one more year on the planet.

December 25 is fast approaching and we all know that it will be Christmas time. We should all remember that this is the day we celebrate as the birth of the Savior, Christ the Lord. We all need to remember that it is ultimately not about getting presents or about Santa Claus or Christmas trees or snowmen or reindeer or jingle bells. Jesus is the reason for the season and His free gifts of forgiveness of our sins and of eternal life are the greatest presents we could ever hope to obtain demonstrating God’s love for all of us in spite of our misdeeds and unbelief.

It's the time of year we celebrate the fact that God sent His Son to earth as a humble baby. When it comes to entertainment, though, the occult is trying hard to take over.

The occult is getting increasingly more accepted in our world, and not only at Halloween. It's vital that we take care in what we allow ourselves and our children to be exposed to, especially since we know there is a very real spiritual battle going on in this world.

As we approach the celebration of Christ's birth, I am reminded of the wordsof John Quincy Adams. On July 4, 1837, he spoke these words:

"Why is it that, next to the birthday of the Savior of the world, your mostjoyous and most venerated festival returns on this day? ... Is it not that,in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolublylinked with the birthday of the Savior? That it forms a leading event in theprogress of the Gospel dispensation? Is it not that the Declaration ofIndependence first organized the social compact on the foundation of theRedeemer's mission upon earth. That it laid the cornerstone of humangovernment upon the first precepts of Christianity, and gave to the worldthe first irrevocable pledge of the fulfillment of the prophecies announceddirectly from Heaven at the birth of the Savior and predicted by thegreatest of the Hebrew prophets six hundred years before?"

Every year for the past twenty years at this time of year, Paula takes out the same beautiful Christmas Cookie Basket that I gave to her way back in 1989. The amazing and yet obviously disconcerting thing was that I was living with another woman at the time! What was the big deal, I had asked myself? I know. I know. So sue me!

The "key" to God's presence and the "secret" to true joy and happiness. Without being worshipers, we'll not be able to enter God's presence; and without His presence, we'll have no joy (Psalm 16:11); and without joy, Nehemiah 8:10 tells us, we'll have no strength. Truly, worship is the "key" to being able to stand in these end times.

The holiday season can be filled with warm happy families and smiling couples. Yet even during the holiday season domestic violence does not take a break. According to the National Institute of Justice “financial strain and unemployment” can impact rates and severity of intimate partner violence. In addition, escalation of alcohol consumption can create the perfect tsunami for increased stress and unrestrained domestic abuse.

First off, I would like to thank all of ou who wished me a happy birthday yesterday! It was a good day! Secondly, Hector posed some very interesting questions in the comment section, which I will address in Wednesday’s BLOG.

Now back to our friends at Share International who are claiming that the Norway Lights was nothing more than the re-emergence of the Bethlehem Star, or as they put a giant UFO – think mother-ship here. Here’s the link to their Web-site. http://www.share-international.org/index.htm

In the midst of our crumbling economy, many people are rightly fearful of losing their jobs, having their homes foreclosed, or at least seeing dropping home values, as well as dropping stock values, 401k values, retirement account values, and increasing city and state and personal bankruptcies.

A Christian student organization at a California law school is being denied campus recognition because the students chose to exclude nonbelievers and sexually immoral people from membership. The US Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear their case, which pits freedom of religion against campus antidiscrimination policies.

Nearly 2000 years ago the physician Apostle Luke wrote of the missionary travels of Saul and Barnabas. In one interesting passage he wrote: "And when they had gone through the whole island as far as Papha, they found a certain magician, a Jewish false prophet whose name was Bar-Jesus who was with the proconsul Sergius Paulus a man of intelligence. The man summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to learn the word of God.

Fifty-five years ago young children all across America walked into their respective schoolrooms and with pride bursting in their young chests they recited the Pledge of Allegiance.   There was a new and deeper meaning reflected in the addition to this pledge – the words “under God" were inserted to read, in full, “one nation under God.”

The book of Ruth is a book of only four brief chapters that is both a classic love story and also an essential book of prophecy. One cannot understand Revelation Chapter 5 without it.  It even has implications for our Christmas season.

I watched for the second time the Ancient Alien special on the History Channel last night. It’s a very well done documentary and it promulgates, in short, what I would call the Alien Gospel. That is that aliens, from another galaxy came here thousands of years ago and gave us technology, civilization and were thought of as gods by our ancestors. These so- called ancient aliens built megalithic structures that defy most archeologist as to how these stones, some weighing 100’s of tons were set in place.

He remained for decades one of the most original and controversial ufologists. Keel concluded that “ufology was just another name for demonology”. In 1967, he abandoned the extraterrestrial hypothesis when his own field investigators disclosed an astounding overlap between psychic phenomena and UFOs.