Latest / Legacy Living with Dr. Gloria Burgess / Gifts of the Season | Episode #372

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Gifts of the Season | Episode #372 · Legacy Living with Dr. Gloria Burgess

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Hello, and welcome to today's show, Legacy Living, Make Your Life Count.
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I'm your host, Doctor Gloria Gloria Burgess, passionate inspirational speaker, author,
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poet, and entrepreneur. Welcome to Legacy Living, Make Your Life Count.
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I'm delighted that you join me today. This is a very special show.
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Well, They're all special, aren't they? But today's show is extra
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special. Why because it is meant for you. It's devoted to you,
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my dear listeners, and it's also devoted to delving more deeply into the reason,
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the real reason for this amazing holy season, when we lift up and
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celebrate God's amazing grace in our lives, and when we express our deep gratitude
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to God for sending our Lord, Jesus Christ to dwell with us here on
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earth. Today's focus is all about the Christmas season. Now I will focus
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specifically on the gifts of the Christmas Season. I can't wait to dive in,
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But first I want to be sure to give a big thank you to
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all of you who are listening in today. I also want to give a
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great big shout out to those of you listening all around the world. I'm
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delighted and so great that you tuned in. I sure hope you're enjoying a
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fabulous day to day and that you're having a fantastic week, because you know
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what, in the grand song of the universe, life is so very short.
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It's short and sweet and very very precious. So I hope you're making
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a difference in your own life, because when you do, you also make
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a difference in someone else's life. Now, a lot of folks want to
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make their life count for something, and they ask me, doctor Gloria,
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how do you do that? Well, it's really very simple, very simple.
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You make your life count day by day, step by step, moment
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by moment, every single day. Three sixty five twenty four seven. That's
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what legacy living, make your life count is all about. You can learn
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more about legacy living make your life count by visiting the Gloria Burgess website.
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That's the Gloria Burgess website g l O r I A b U r g
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e s s dot com. The Gloria Burgess website again, it's g l
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O r I A Gloria and Burgess with A B b U r g E
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S s dot com, or by visiting Facebook, Facebook dot com forward slash
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d r G l O r I A b U r g e s s
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p h d forward slash Okay, are you ready me too? Today's focus
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is all about the Christmas season, and I will focus specifically on the gifts
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of this amazing Christmas season. And now there is no season, no other
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season like Christmas. Jerome Blanco, editor for Life for Leaders, reminds us
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that the Christmas season is meaningful in so many ways to many different people.
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There's hardly anything like the feelings of nostalgia we might get when Christmas music begins
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to play on the radio, or in stores or in coffee shops. Many
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of us have lots of fond memories of family and friends during Christmas time,
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but let's remember that some of us may find it to be a very difficult
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time for one reason or another. I recall one of my best friends at
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this time of year. She was always bubbly and just filled with joy,
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but her dad, who was usually very easy going, very kind and mellow.
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Her dad would get kind of grumpy during this season, and for some
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reason, Christmas just seemed to bring on the blues for him. Years later,
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I learned that when he was a boy. He had lost one of
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his own parents on Christmas Day, and Christmas just sort of brought up a
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lot of memories of loss and grief and longing for his dad. So many
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of us feel joy, but some of us still sad and a bit gloomy.
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Now, there are many many gifts of the Christmas season, right.
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Some of us take time for travels, some of us get time off work.
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We exchange presents some of us some of us don't. And for Christians,
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many have church events of various kinds. We have Christmas concerts, Christmas
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pageants, Christmas Eve, candle light services. Some of us collect or buy
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items to make Christmas baskets to give us gifts to families in our communities.
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For the Church, Christmas is all about Christ. Particularly, it is all
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about the birth of Christ and his coming into the world taking on human flesh.
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In this special season, we remember God becoming incarnate, God becoming flesh,
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God becoming embodied, And we often look at the Gospels for the Christmas
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story, right, But you know what, there are many many other scriptures
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that delvin to Christ's becoming human. Scriptural passages that delvin to Christ taking on
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human form into Christ taking on a human body. For example, Philippians and
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Hebrews offer for a great deal when it comes to thinking about what it means
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that the word became flesh, and when it comes to thinking about what it
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means that Christ came to earth and took on human form, human flesh,
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and dwelt among us his people. So today I want to share a few
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reflections with you. I want to invite you on a journey to reflect and
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to remember what this Christmas season truly means. Now most of us are familiar
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with the song Joy to the World. Well, I'd like to share it
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with you, But not as a song. As I share it with you,
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I invite you to hear it as a prayer. So not as a
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song, but as a prayer, Joy to the world. The Lord is
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come. Let earth receive hur King. Let every heart prepare him room and
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heaven and nature sing, and Heaven and nature sing, and Heaven and Heaven
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and Nature sing. Joy to the earth. The Savior reigns. Let men
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their songs employ, while fields and floods, rocks, heels and plaines repeat
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the sounding joy, repeat the sounding Joy, repeat, repeat the sounding joy.
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No more. Let sins and sons grow nor thorns infest the ground.
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He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found, far
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as the curse is found, Far as far as the curse is found.
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He rules the world with truth and grace, and make the nations prove the
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glories of his righteousness, and wonders of his love, and wonders of his
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love, and wonders and wonders of his love. Ah Men. Now,
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this prayer Joy to the World was originally written as a hymn almost two hundred
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and fifty years ago. When Isaac Watts wrote it, he didn't intend it
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to be sung for Christmas. But you know what, these days, it's
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pretty hard to imagine the Christmas season without that glorious song. Now, as
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I mentioned earlier, there are a number of scriptural passages that tell us about
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the coming of Christ, what we now call the Christmas Story. When I
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was doing some research for this podcast, I came across a wonderful devotional guide
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for the Christmas season. So the inspiration in some of the material I'm sharing
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with you here comes from those devotions. The other inspiration comes from my favorite
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piece of music, Messiah, which was written almost three hundred years ago by
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George Frederick Handel. And as most of you know, all the words of
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Handel's Messiah are from scripture, including the most famous part, the part that
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most of us know, which is the Hallelujah chorus. Right, Hallelujah for
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the Lord God, omnipotent rayneth. The kingdom of this world is become the
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kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and
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ever, King of kings and Lord of lords. Glorious words, aren't they?
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All of those words fueled handles, musical imagination, and musical gifts to
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bring us that glorious chorus Hallelujah. So, as I just mentioned, every
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single word of all the arias and recidatees and choruses in Messiah are scriptural passages
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that come from both the Old and the New Testament. In fact, in
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the Old Testament there are many varied and evocative passages from the prophets that proclaim
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the day of the Lord, the day of his coming. For example,
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in had I and Malachi and Isaiah, we have these proclamations, Thus saith
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the Lord, the Lord of hosts, Yet once a little while, and
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I will shake the heavens and the earth, the sea, and the dry
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land. And I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations
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shall come. The Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his temple,
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Even the Messenger of the Covenant, whom you delight in. Behold, he
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shall come, Saith, the Lord of Hosts. Now, these amazing prophecies
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were actually spoken by the prophets hundreds of years before Christ actually came to Earth
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to dwell among us, And in the New Testament the prophecies are reaffirmed by
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the apostles from Isaiah and Matthew. We have behold, a virgin shall conceive
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and bear a son, and we shall call his name Emmanuel, Emmanuel,
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which means God with us. The Word also tells us that an angel came
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to marry, and the angel said that Mary had found favor with God,
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and that he chose her to conceive and carry and give birth to the long
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awaited Messiah, God's chosen one. Indeed, the child, her child,
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would actually be the fulfillment of the promise that the prophets had foretold. In
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fact, Mary says to the Angel, I am the Lord's servant. May
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your word to me be fulfilled? And with this act of obedience and service.
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Mary offered her body as a witness and as a living sacrifice, just
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as we're all encouraged to do. In Romans twelve one, the apostle Paul
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inspires us with these words. Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters,
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in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice,
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holy and pleasing to God. Paul also reminds us that this is your
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true and proper worship. I love that this is your true and proper worship,
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offering our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.
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Now, just a little while ago, I mentioned that the Christmas season has
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to do with the body. Right. In fact, it has a lot
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to do with the body, many bodies when you think about it. In
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the Book of Luke, the narrative about the Nativity begins with the body.
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In fact, before Mary enters the story, we learn about the news of
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Elizabeth Right, an older body, an aged body who will soon bear a
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son. Then we hear about a virgin named Mary, and Mary learns that
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her body will soon conceive and carry Right will carry for nine months the very
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son of God. And then when Mary actually gives birth to the son of
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God. He has a real body, and her son, Jesus begins his
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life in a body that's small and weak and dependent. Like all babies are
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dependent on his mother and his father, so Jesus was dependent on Joseph and
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Mary. So when you think about it, if you take away any or
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all of the bodies, you actually take away Christmas. Right, So if
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you take away any of those bodies, you take away Christmas. Think about
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that. No bodies, no Christmas. Furthermore, if you take away bodies,
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you really don't have Christianity at all. Without the incarnation, all of
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which had greatly to do with the human body, Christianity doesn't exist. So
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the body of Jesus matters greatly. And just as his body matters, your
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body also matters. In fact, your body is essential to your living as
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a Christian. Now remember the passage from Romans that I shared with you earlier.
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Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.
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This is your true and proper worship. And I'll were true and proper worship
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is possible only through our body. We serve the Lord and others. Through
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our body, we serve God. By working by loving, by offering compassion
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and kindness, by seeking justice, by adoring and praising and bowing before him.
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And just as God did with Mary, he fulfills his purposes in our
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relationships, in our families, and our communities, in our nation by working
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through our bodies, working through each one of us as his vessel. You
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know what, We're called to be? Like Mary in our response to God's
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grace in Christ when she was called to be the mother of Jesus. How
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did she respond? She said, yes, yes, of course. In
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fact, Mary's said to the Angel, I am the Lord's servant. May
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your word to me be fulfilled. Similarly, God calls us to be faithful
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servants, and we too can say to the Lord, yes, yes,
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of course, I am your servant. May your word to me be fulfilled.
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Just like Mary, we are called to offer all that we are to
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God, and that includes offering our bodies to live in His grace by faith,
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to live, to love, to learn to serve, so that we
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make a difference in our own lives and in the lives of others. Now,
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as we celebrate Christmas, as we continue to celebrate this amazing holy season,
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let us turn towards one another as we celebrate the many gifts of the
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Christmas season. I sure hope your days are filled with all the love and
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joy and grace that the Christmas season brings. As we celebrate this holy blessed
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season, I want to invite you to tune in to my show again next
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time. Don't miss out. You can listen on TNR that's Talk Network Radio,
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or you can always catch the podcast right. You can catch it on
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iTunes, on Alexa Orsprinker dot com many other places as well. You can
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send download it and listen to it to be inspired anytime. Three sixty five
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twenty four to seven. Before I close today, I want to thank each
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of you for tuning in to today's show, for allowing me to share a
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bit about the gifts of Christmas with you, and to share about my journey
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with what legacy living is all about, not just living and learning, but
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living and learning and serving using your body right as that living sacrifice, so
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that you make a difference in your own life and in the lives of others.
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It's about being on purpose in serving and lifting up other folks, not
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just once in a while, but every single day. Three sixty five twenty
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four to seven. Legacy is just one of the many ways to make your
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life count. Before I close today's show, I want to thank you for
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joining me here today. Christmas blessings to everyone during this holy season. To
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me, Christmas isn't just one day out of the year. It's that whole,
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long, long, long season way before December twenty fifth, and that
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season afterwards as well. So Christmas blessings everyone. I'm your host, doctor
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Gloria Gloria Burgess, and this has been Legacy Living Make your life count.
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Please join me again next week right here on Talk Network Radio for another show
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of Legacy Living. Make your life count. We're here again right here Talk
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Network Radio. Don't just count the days in your life, Make the days
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in your life count. That's what Legacy Living is all about. Have a
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fantastic day, and remember, make the days in your life count. God
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bless that's our show today. I'm your host, doctor Gloria Gloria Burgess.
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I hope you'll join me again next week. Until then, don't just count
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the days in your life, Make the days in your life count. That's
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what Legacy living is all about. Here's to you. Have a fantastic day.
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Be sure to make an ideas kind of day and remember celebrate, celebrate
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the music of your life. Make the day in your life account