Christmas Readings

For the last couple of years (I'm not sure how many) the pastors of the Glenview New Church have put together daily readings to help people get ready for Christmas.

Each year there is a theme to the readings. Here's an excerpt of the description of the theme for this year:

It is said that the Word of the Lord holds within it countless truths of heaven. Each time we read, we can see something new. The "something new" this year is gathered around the theme of the Lord as Savior, and also the process of salvation that He lays before us. (Read the full description.)

This year, in addition to being able to download all the readings in PDF form you can also sign up to receive the readings as daily emails, like the popular Daily Inspiration program.

The readings start December 1st.

Pray that the Lord's Kingdom May Come

And the Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" And let him who hears say, "Come!" And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely. (Revelation 22:17)

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"And let him who hears say, 'Come!' And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely" signifies that he who knows anything of the Lord's coming, and of the New Heaven and New Church, thus of the Lord's kingdom, should pray that it may come, and that he who desires truths, should pray that the Lord may come with light, and that he who loves truths, will then receive them from the Lord without his own work. ...

The things in this verse have the same signification as these in the Lord's Prayer: "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done as in heaven so also upon the earth." (Apocalypse Revealed 956)

The Spirits Who Are With Us

I was researching what Swedenborg's Writings say about the spirits that are with us and was glad to find a great New Church Life article about it from 1906 (by searching on NewSearch4). In "Our Attendant Spirits" (PDF) Rev. C. Th. Odhner covers a lot of different topics. He talks about ancient ideas of attendant spirits; he makes sense of some seemingly contradictory statements in the Writings about how many spirits are with us and whether or not the spirits with us are angels and devils. He also talks about Deja Vu (or second memory) and guardian angels.

It's not a short article (19 pages at 1.5 spacing as I've formatted it) but it's definitely worth reading and I'm sure you'll learn something new if you do.