Best Christian Blog of The Week (2014)

Listed below are "Best Christian Blog of the Week" winners:
::2014::

Dec 28: The Star of Bethlehem
Dec 21: The Festival of Chanukah
Dec 14: High-Ranking Bankers Dying in Large Numbers
Dec 7: The Origin of the Antichrist
Nov 30: rapha
Nov 23: Jerusalem Intifada Is Underway
Nov 16: If Everything Is Just Fine, Why Are So Many Really Smart People Forecasting Economic Disaster?
Nov 9: America Makes A Right Turn
Nov 2: Bible Prophecy - Signposts of the Times
Oct 26: What Is The Big Deal About A Pastor's Big Salary
Oct 19: eschatologytoday.blogspot.com
Oct 12: bibleprophecytruth.com
Oct 5: Yom Kippur
Sep 28: Rosh HaShana — The New Year
Sep 21: The Islamic State Thinks 'Big': Next Target - Jordan and Israel?
Sep 14: Prophecy Update
Sep 7: Joel C. Rosenberg's Blog
Aug 31: Signposts of the Times
Aug 24: Behold Israel
Aug 17: Behold Israel
Aug 10: Joel C. Rosenberg's Blog
Aug 3: Twelve Books
Jul 27: Godly Witness for Christ
Jul 20: Psalm 83 War and the Blood Moons
Jul 13: Sound doctrine Vs Radical grace
Jul 6: Bible Prophecy Is Being Fulfilled And Iraq Is Breaking Into Three Provinces
Jun 29: The Heavenly Signs
Jun 22: The Misunderstood
Jun 15: The End Time
Jun 8: Pastor Bill Randles Blog
Jun 1: Transformed by Grace
May 25: Twelve Books
May 18: Now the End Begins
May 11: Church Everyday Ministry
May 4: Walk Freely in Righteousness
Apr 27: Abundant Life Living
Apr 20: Signs in the Heavens
Apr 13:   B L O G P A S T O R
Apr 6:   Sound Doctrines
Mar 30:   Bible Prophecy : Signs of the Black (Dark) Horse in Revelation
Mar 23:   Righteousness is of Faith
Mar 16:   The Gospel Is About the Righteousness of God, Not About Man's Sin
Mar 9:   Show Me The Righteousness
Mar 2:   How Grace Works
Feb 23:   We Don’t Find Grace, Grace Finds Us
Feb 16:   Grace Reigns Through Righteousness
Feb 9:  Two Kinds of Righteousness
Feb 2:  Fresh Manna
Jan 26:  Truth and Grace
Jan 19:  MidnightWatcher
Jan 12:  Incorruptible Beauty
Jan 5:  Signposts of the Times

2006 / 2007 / 2008 / 2009 / 2010 / 2011 / 2012 / 2013

Dear Winners, feel free to display this award on your blog ya:)

What others say about "Best Christian Blog of The Week" award:

""We believe this is truly by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is also a testament of the Grace Gospel that is setting many free. We are honoured and am grateful for the Lord. All praise be to Him." ~~ Simon Yap

"Thank you for voting for my blog. I was so pleasantly surprised to know that someone is reading it and has been touched by it. It is very encouraging for me. Praise God for loving us so much and leading us to Him. All Glory and Honor to Jesus Christ the King of Kings and Lord of Lords! " ~~ Kristin Willruth

"Praise the Lord! Indeed it is such a testimony to the fact that God's paths drip with abundance and He never fails to surprise His children with good things! Thank you cybeRanger for the efforts to seek out and encourage bloggers like me! I know that there are more blessings to come! All glory to God!" ~~ Avin Lee

"AWESOME!!! Thank you for viewing and voting The "I AM" Alphabet blogspot best Christian blogspot of the week. It is quite a blessing and I give all glory to God. He used you to bless me this Mother's Day week. LOL You gotta lov'um...HE is such a good God in the big things and the little things...I give HIM praise." -- The "I Am" Alphabet Book

" I have truly been blessed today after a tumultuous week, when even my blogging abilities were made fun of; I've received a Best Christian Blog of the Week Award by cybeRanger. What an honour! All glory to God for this one!" - - Paula

"Thanks for the encouragement. Awards like these push me to blog more to be a blessing to others as you have been to me." - - Mikes Sumondong

"Praise the Lord! All Glory to God! I am so encouraged to know that there are people out there reading my blog, which is really God's blog because I've dedicated to Him. Thanks Cyberanger, I am humbled to receive this award." - - bunnyexpress

"Thank your for the recognition. It helps to know that my blog is being read and appreciated for its mission and content. I want the blog to be a blessing to the saints who are in Christ Jesus."
-- Jerry Teets

"I am astonished I was awarded the Best Christian Blog of the Week. Thank you for the encouragement." - - Annette

"It took me by surprise to be awarded. I am really happy and honoured to share the Good News around. To HIM our Lord our God shall be the glory." - - eLLis

"This is a great encouragement for me as I am rather new to blogging and was wondering if anyone was actually reading my blog posts. " - - Paul Spencer

"Thank you Cyberanger for awarding my blog entry Christian blog of the week for May 3. What an encouragement! & Thank you Abba Father. Would your name spread far and wide, and may your glory fill the earth as the waters cover the sea. " - - eds

+ "All glory to Jesus and the great work He does in our lives and those of the children. This award is dedicated to Him first and foremost, to my hubby who is my dear prayer partner, and also to my little son, whom I hope will be encouraged to always abide in Christ." - - Daughter Of Sarah
+ "This is really nice, totally undeserved and an awesome blessing" - - Dan Bowen

+ "I am very honoured to be awarded the 'Best Christian Blog of the Week' for Jan 4 2009~All glory is given to God above,who is my pillar of strength through difficult times" - - Carolyn Koh

+ "I believe that our Abba Father wants me to know that I should continue to stand firm in what I have faith in and I am on the right track." -- Pebbles

+ "I appreciate the time and attention that Cyberanger takes to make his choice. I'm sure it's difficult given the excellent quality of the blogs listed on his sidebar." - - Aida

+ "I am happy to receive the award and I am also happy that this web site does this. It gives encouragement to those who have a Christian blog and gives affirmation that they are doing God's will. " - - Christopher

+ "Thank you for your recognition and most of all, Our Lord Jesus Himself affirms and recognizes the preaching of His grace. By His grace, I am honored to receive this award." -- Alan Hiu

+ "Very honoured to be rated “Best Christian Blog of the Week” by CybeRanger. This came as a little encouragement as a lot of things are going on right now in my life" - - King David

+ "Wow. All glory to God always. Thanks for the award Cyberanger. It came as a very blessed surprise. Very humbled and feeling undeserving of the award really. " - - As The Deer

+ "I take this as the LORD affirming me to continue to declare the great and mighty deeds He has done in my life. This award could not have come at a more appropriate time. Thanks be to God! Hallelujah! It has motivated me to carry on and blog for the glory of Jesus!" - - Malcolm Loh

+ "All glory be to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for this honor really belongs to Him and Him alone." - - Andrew Lee

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Dorothy Sayers on the Incarnation

"[Jesus of Nazareth] was not a kind of demon pretending to be human; he was in every respect a genuine living man. He was not merely a man so good as to be 'like God'�he was God. 

"Now, this is not just a pious commonplace: it is not a commonplace at all. For what it means is this, among other things: that for whatever reason God chose to make man as he is�limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death�he [God] had the honesty and courage to take his own medicine. Whatever game he is playing with his creation, he has kept his own rules and played fair. He can exact nothing from man that he has not exacted from himself. He has himself gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, and death. When he was a man, he played the man. He was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it well worthwhile."

- Dorothy Sayers, Creed or Chaos? (1949)

Hat Tip to TitusOneNine

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St. Bernard of Clairvaux: "A physician is coming to the sick"

"A physician is coming to the sick, a redeemer to those who have been sold, a path to wanderers, and life to the dead. Yes, One is coming who will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea, who will heal our diseases, who will carry us on his own shoulders back to the source of our original worth." 

- St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)

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Sermon for the 2nd Sunday of Advent 2014

RCL Year B

Click here to listen to the sermon.

I think the Owen family has finally gone Louisiana native. Because just over a week ago, we made the best batch of chicken and sausage gumbo we�ve ever attempted.

The gumbo took lots of preparation. In fact, it was really a two day affair. It started out on a Friday. I prepped a whole chicken with a homemade brown sugar rub. I then put it on the Big Green Egg to smoke it with apple wood chips for a couple of hours. After removing the meat, I made a rich chicken stock with the bones.

Then the next day, my wife Julie made a perfect roux. It was just the right color: a nice, dark chocolate. I gathered and cut up the onion, bell pepper, and celery. I seasoned the chicken with a special rub, and then browned the smoked sausage from the Farmer�s Market in a cast iron skillet. And then the ingredients were put together in just the right way at just the right time, simmering away on the stovetop during the afternoon hours to let all those flavors blend together into a culinary masterpiece.

That gumbo took hours of preparation. But the end result was so wonderfully good that it was worth every minute.

Think of how much of our lives revolve around the time-consuming tasks of preparation. We�re always getting ready for something. And that�s particularly true at this time of the year during the stretch of 3-4 weeks after Thanksgiving until Christmas. There are parties to attend and parties to host, and all of the house-cleaning that requires. There are meals to plan, cook, and serve. Students have final papers and exams coming up, and teachers are working hard to finish their lesson plans. Choirs and church musicians are rehearsing for Lessons & Carols and Christmas Eve services. There are decorations to pull out of storage to make our homes festive. We have Christmas trees to set up, decorate, and to try to make cat-proof. Some of us have December birthdays to celebrate. And still others have weddings that will take place shortly after the New Year.

In these and so many other ways, this �holiday season� is a time of preparation. We have to think ahead. We have to make plans. We have to be organized. We have to pay attention. We have to do certain things to be ready lest we miss out on the joys that await us.

This time in the life of the Church called Advent is also about preparation. We are preparing for the coming of Christ. And we hear this theme of preparation sounding in our scripture readings for today.

�Prepare the way of the Lord,� proclaims the prophet Isaiah. Make things ready for the coming of the One who announces that sins are forgiven and those who have been cast away into exile can now return home. Get ready for the coming of the One whose judgment rights all wrongs, whose tender mercy heals the brokenhearted, and whose steadfast love enfolds the lost, guiding them back into the fold.

Get ready, Isaiah says. God is coming. We need to be prepared.

We hear a similar call at the beginning of today�s Gospel reading. Citing the passage from Isaiah we�ve heard this morning, St. Mark opens his Gospel by saying: �Prepare the way of the Lord and make his paths straight� (Mark 1:3). Get ready because Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Savior of the world, is on the way.

So how do we go about this work of preparing the way of the Lord?

One writer wisely notes that the root meaning of the word �prepare� helps us out here. The word has two parts: pre-pare. �Pre� means �before,� and it speaks to the ways in which we anticipate or expect something that�s coming in the future. Like I was anticipating the taste of last weekend�s gumbo. �Pare� means to trim or to cut. Like using a paring knife to trim the vegetables and cut away the fat from the chicken I threw into the gumbo, the work of preparation involves paring or trimming things out of our lives.

Paring things out of our lives to make room in our hearts and souls for what�s coming: that�s what Advent is really all about. And so the work of preparation is really another way of talking about the spiritual work of repentance.

To prepare for the coming of Christ, we must repent. And repentance is not just something we do in penitential seasons like Advent or Lent. For in our baptisms, we promise to persevere in resisting evil and, whenever we fall into sin, to repent and return to the Lord (cf. The Book of Common Prayer, p. 304). Following Jesus as Lord and Savior involves a daily lifestyle of repentance. It�s a 24/7/365 commitment.

Repentance literally means �to turn around.� It�s all about turning away from the wrong path and on to the right one. It�s about choosing a new life, returning our gaze to God, changing the direction of our lives in order to receive the salvation offered to us in Jesus Christ [source].

To do that, we have to face the truth of our lives: the good, the bad, and the ugly. We have to rightly recognize the damage that sin does to ourselves and to our relationships with God and other people. And when we see the truth for what it really is, repentance calls us to pare or cut those things out of our lives that separate us from God.

So to prepare the way of the Lord, to make space in our hearts and souls for the coming of Christ, we need to do the work of self-examination. We need to pinpoint those areas of our lives where we�re stuck in our sins and where we resist growth and change and then open them up to God�s transforming grace and love.

Over 250 years ago, two students at Oxford University started a small group that met on a regular basis for fellowship, support, prayer, and Bible study. And in their private devotions, they used a set of questions for self-examination to hold themselves accountable as disciples of Jesus Christ. Their names were John and Charles Wesley, the founders of the Methodist movement and priests in the Church of England. Here are just a few of the questions of self-examination that John Wesley used each day to do the work of repentance. As you hear them, I invite you to reflect upon your own life.

1. Am I consciously or unconsciously creating the impression that I am better than I really am?
2. Am I honest in all of my acts and words, or do I exaggerate?
3. Is there anyone whom I fear, dislike, disown, criticize, hold a resentment toward or disregard?
4. Do I give the Bible time to speak to me every day?
5. Am I enjoying prayer?
6. Do I pray about the money I spend?
7. Do I disobey God in anything?
8. Do I insist upon doing something about which my conscience is uneasy?
9. Am I defeated in any part of my life?
10. Is Christ real to me?

Honestly engaging questions like these can be time-consuming and difficult. And if we�re serious, it can push us out of our comfort zones, challenging us to face realities about ourselves that we might not necessarily want to know or deal with.

But just like we can�t make a good gumbo if we don�t know the ingredients we need or how to rightly prepare them; and just like we can�t host a party if we don�t first clean the house, plan the menu, and set the table; we won�t be ready to receive the coming Christ if we don�t know what�s blocking the doorways of our hearts or do the work the helps make us receptive to him.

So this Advent, may we examine our lives: the things we do, the things we think, and the things we say. May we be honest in acknowledging the ways in which our thoughts and deeds fall short of the mark of God�s holiness. And may we trim back or cut out anything that stands between us and Jesus, knowing that with God�s help, our work of preparation insures that when Jesus comes he will find in us a mansion prepared for himself.

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