Latest / Legacy Living with Dr. Gloria Burgess / Unwrapping Christmas | Episode #475

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Unwrapping Christmas | Episode #475 · Legacy Living with Dr. Gloria Burgess

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  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to today's show, Legacy Living, Make Your
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  Speaker 1: Life Count. I'm your host, Doctor Gloria Gloria Burgess, passionate
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  Speaker 1: inspirational speaker, author, poet, and entrepreneur. Welcome to Legacy Living,
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  Speaker 1: Make Your Life Count. I'm delighted that you join me today.
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  Speaker 1: This is a very special show. Well, They're all special,
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  Speaker 1: aren't they? But today's show is extra special. Why because
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  Speaker 1: it is meant for you. It's devoted to you, my
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  Speaker 1: dear listeners, and it's also devoted to delving more deeply
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  Speaker 1: into the reason, the real reason for this amazing holy season,
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  Speaker 1: when we lift up and celebrate God's amazing grace in
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  Speaker 1: our lives, and when we express our deep gratitude to
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  Speaker 1: God for sending our Lord, Jesus Christ to dwell with
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  Speaker 1: us here on earth. Today's focus is all about the
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  Speaker 1: Christmas season. Now I will focus specifically on the gifts
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  Speaker 1: of the Christmas Season. I can't wait to dive in,
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  Speaker 1: But first I want to be sure to give a
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  Speaker 1: big thank you to all of you who are listening
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  Speaker 1: in today. I also want to give a great big
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  Speaker 1: shout out to those of you listening all around the world.
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  Speaker 1: I'm delighted and so great that you tuned in. I
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  Speaker 1: sure hope you're enjoying a fabulous day to day and
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  Speaker 1: that you're having a fantastic week, because you know what,
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  Speaker 1: in the grand song of the universe, life is so
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  Speaker 1: very short. It's short and sweet and very very precious.
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  Speaker 1: So I hope you're making a difference in your own life,
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  Speaker 1: because when you do, you also make a difference in
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  Speaker 1: someone else's life. Now, a lot of folks want to
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  Speaker 1: make their life count for something, and they ask me,
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  Speaker 1: doctor Gloria, how do you do that? Well, it's really
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  Speaker 1: very simple, very simple. You make your life count day
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  Speaker 1: by day, step by step, moment by moment, every single day.
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  Speaker 1: Three sixty five twenty four seven. That's what legacy living,
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  Speaker 1: make your life count is all about. You can learn
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  Speaker 1: more about legacy living make your life count by visiting
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  Speaker 1: the Gloria Burgess website. That's the Gloria Burgess website g
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  Speaker 1: l O r I A b U r g e
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  Speaker 1: s s dot com. The Gloria Burgess website again, it's
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  Speaker 1: g l O r I A Gloria and Burgess with
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  Speaker 1: A B b U r g E S s dot com,
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  Speaker 1: or by visiting Facebook, Facebook dot com forward slash d
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  Speaker 1: r G l O r I A b U r
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  Speaker 1: g e s s p h d forward slash Okay,
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  Speaker 1: are you ready me too? Today's focus is all about
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  Speaker 1: the Christmas season, and I will focus specifically on the
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  Speaker 1: gifts of this amazing Christmas season. And now there is
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  Speaker 1: no season, no other season like Christmas. Jerome Blanco, editor
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  Speaker 1: for Life for Leaders, reminds us that the Christmas season
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  Speaker 1: is meaningful in so many ways to many different people.
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  Speaker 1: There's hardly anything like the feelings of nostalgia we might
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  Speaker 1: get when Christmas music begins to play on the radio,
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  Speaker 1: or in stores or in coffee shops. Many of us
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  Speaker 1: have lots of fond memories of family and friends during
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  Speaker 1: Christmas time, but let's remember that some of us may
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  Speaker 1: find it to be a very difficult time for one
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  Speaker 1: reason or another. I recall one of my best friends
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  Speaker 1: at this time of year. She was always bubbly and
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  Speaker 1: just filled with joy, but her dad, who was usually
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  Speaker 1: very easy going, very kind and mellow. Her dad would
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  Speaker 1: get kind of grumpy during this season, and for some reason,
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  Speaker 1: Christmas just seemed to bring on the blues for him.
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  Speaker 1: Years later, I learned that when he was a boy.
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  Speaker 1: He had lost one of his own parents on Christmas Day,
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  Speaker 1: and Christmas just sort of brought up a lot of
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  Speaker 1: memories of loss and grief and longing for his dad.
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  Speaker 1: So many of us feel joy, but some of us
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  Speaker 1: still sad and a bit gloomy. Now, there are many
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  Speaker 1: many gifts of the Christmas season, right. Some of us
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  Speaker 1: take time for travels, some of us get time off work.
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  Speaker 1: We exchange presents some of us some of us don't.
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  Speaker 1: And for Christians, many have church events of various kinds.
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  Speaker 1: We have Christmas concerts, Christmas pageants, Christmas Eve, candle light services.
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  Speaker 1: Some of us collect or buy items to make Christmas
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  Speaker 1: baskets to give us gifts to families in our communities.
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  Speaker 1: For the Church, Christmas is all about Christ. Particularly, it
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  Speaker 1: is all about the birth of Christ and his coming
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  Speaker 1: into the world taking on human flesh. In this special season,
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  Speaker 1: we remember God becoming incarnate, God becoming flesh, God becoming embodied,
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  Speaker 1: And we often look at the Gospels for the Christmas story, right,
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  Speaker 1: But you know what, there are many many other scriptures
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  Speaker 1: that delvin to Christ's becoming human. Scriptural passages that delvin
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  Speaker 1: to Christ taking on human form into Christ taking on
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  Speaker 1: a human body. For example, Philippians and Hebrews offer for
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  Speaker 1: a great deal when it comes to thinking about what
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  Speaker 1: it means that the word became flesh, and when it
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  Speaker 1: comes to thinking about what it means that Christ came
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  Speaker 1: to earth and took on human form, human flesh, and
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  Speaker 1: dwelt among us his people. So today I want to
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  Speaker 1: share a few reflections with you. I want to invite
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  Speaker 1: you on a journey to reflect and to remember what
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  Speaker 1: this Christmas season truly means. Now most of us are
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  Speaker 1: familiar with the song Joy to the World. Well, I'd
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  Speaker 1: like to share it with you, But not as a song.
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  Speaker 1: As I share it with you, I invite you to
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  Speaker 1: hear it as a prayer. So not as a song,
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  Speaker 1: but as a prayer, Joy to the world. The Lord
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  Speaker 1: is come. Let earth receive hur King. Let every heart
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  Speaker 1: prepare him room and heaven and nature sing, and Heaven
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  Speaker 1: and nature sing, and Heaven and Heaven and Nature sing.
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  Speaker 1: Joy to the earth. The Savior reigns. Let men their
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  Speaker 1: songs employ, while fields and floods, rocks, heels and plaines
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  Speaker 1: repeat the sounding joy, repeat the sounding Joy, repeat, repeat
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  Speaker 1: the sounding joy. No more. Let sins and sons grow
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  Speaker 1: nor thorns infest the ground. He comes to make his
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  Speaker 1: blessings flow far as the curse is found, far as
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  Speaker 1: the curse is found, Far as far as the curse
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  Speaker 1: is found. He rules the world with truth and grace,
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  Speaker 1: and make the nations prove the glories of his righteousness,
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  Speaker 1: and wonders of his love, and wonders of his love,
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  Speaker 1: and wonders and wonders of his love. Ah Men. Now,
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  Speaker 1: this prayer Joy to the World was originally written as
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  Speaker 1: a hymn almost two hundred and fifty years ago. When
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  Speaker 1: Isaac Watts wrote it, he didn't intend it to be
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  Speaker 1: sung for Christmas. But you know what, these days, it's
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  Speaker 1: pretty hard to imagine the Christmas season without that glorious song. Now,
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  Speaker 1: as I mentioned earlier, there are a number of scriptural
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  Speaker 1: passages that tell us about the coming of Christ, what
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  Speaker 1: we now call the Christmas Story. When I was doing
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  Speaker 1: some research for this podcast, I came across a wonderful
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  Speaker 1: devotional guide for the Christmas season. So the inspiration in
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  Speaker 1: some of the material I'm sharing with you here comes
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  Speaker 1: from those devotions. The other inspiration comes from my favorite
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  Speaker 1: piece of music, Messiah, which was written almost three hundred
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  Speaker 1: years ago by George Frederick Handel. And as most of
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  Speaker 1: you know, all the words of Handel's Messiah are from scripture,
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  Speaker 1: including the most famous part, the part that most of
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  Speaker 1: us know, which is the Hallelujah chorus. Right, Hallelujah for
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  Speaker 1: the Lord God, omnipotent rayneth. The kingdom of this world
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  Speaker 1: is become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ,
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  Speaker 1: and he shall reign forever and ever, King of kings
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  Speaker 1: and Lord of lords. Glorious words, aren't they? All of
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  Speaker 1: those words fueled handles, musical imagination, and musical gifts to
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  Speaker 1: bring us that glorious chorus Hallelujah. So, as I just mentioned,
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  Speaker 1: every single word of all the arias and recidatees and
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  Speaker 1: choruses in Messiah are scriptural passages that come from both
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  Speaker 1: the Old and the New Testament. In fact, in the
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  Speaker 1: Old Testament there are many varied and evocative passages from
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  Speaker 1: the prophets that proclaim the day of the Lord, the
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  Speaker 1: day of his coming. For example, in had I and
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  Speaker 1: Malachi and Isaiah, we have these proclamations, Thus saith the Lord,
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  Speaker 1: the Lord of hosts, Yet once a little while, and
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  Speaker 1: I will shake the heavens and the earth, the sea,
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  Speaker 1: and the dry land. And I will shake all nations,
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  Speaker 1: and the desire of all nations shall come. The Lord
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  Speaker 1: whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his temple, Even
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  Speaker 1: the Messenger of the Covenant, whom you delight in. Behold,
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  Speaker 1: he shall come, Saith, the Lord of Hosts. Now, these
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  Speaker 1: amazing prophecies were actually spoken by the prophets hundreds of
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  Speaker 1: years before Christ actually came to Earth to dwell among us,
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  Speaker 1: And in the New Testament the prophecies are reaffirmed by
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  Speaker 1: the apostles from Isaiah and Matthew. We have behold, a
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  Speaker 1: virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and we shall
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  Speaker 1: call his name Emmanuel, Emmanuel, which means God with us.
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  Speaker 1: The Word also tells us that an angel came to marry,
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  Speaker 1: and the angel said that Mary had found favor with God,
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  Speaker 1: and that he chose her to conceive and carry and
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  Speaker 1: give birth to the long awaited Messiah, God's chosen one. Indeed,
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  Speaker 1: the child, her child, would actually be the fulfillment of
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  Speaker 1: the promise that the prophets had foretold. In fact, Mary
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  Speaker 1: says to the Angel, I am the Lord's servant. May
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  Speaker 1: your word to me be fulfilled? And with this act
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  Speaker 1: of obedience and service. Mary offered her body as a
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  Speaker 1: witness and as a living sacrifice, just as we're all
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  Speaker 1: encouraged to do. In Romans twelve one, the apostle Paul
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  Speaker 1: inspires us with these words. Therefore, I urge you, brothers
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  Speaker 1: and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your
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  Speaker 1: bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.
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  Speaker 1: Paul also reminds us that this is your true and
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  Speaker 1: proper worship. I love that this is your true and
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  Speaker 1: proper worship, offering our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy
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  Speaker 1: and pleasing to God. Now, just a little while ago,
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  Speaker 1: I mentioned that the Christmas season has to do with
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  Speaker 1: the body. Right. In fact, it has a lot to
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  Speaker 1: do with the body, many bodies when you think about it.
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  Speaker 1: In the Book of Luke, the narrative about the Nativity
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  Speaker 1: begins with the body. In fact, before Mary enters the story,
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  Speaker 1: we learn about the news of Elizabeth Right, an older body,
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  Speaker 1: an aged body who will soon bear a son. Then
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  Speaker 1: we hear about a virgin named Mary, and Mary learns
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  Speaker 1: that her body will soon conceive and carry Right will
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  Speaker 1: carry for nine months the very son of God. And
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  Speaker 1: then when Mary actually gives birth to the son of God.
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  Speaker 1: He has a real body, and her son, Jesus begins
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  Speaker 1: his life in a body that's small and weak and dependent.
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  Speaker 1: Like all babies are dependent on his mother and his father,
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  Speaker 1: so Jesus was dependent on Joseph and Mary. So when
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  Speaker 1: you think about it, if you take away any or
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  Speaker 1: all of the bodies, you actually take away Christmas. Right,
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  Speaker 1: So if you take away any of those bodies, you
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  Speaker 1: take away Christmas. Think about that. No bodies, no Christmas. Furthermore,
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  Speaker 1: if you take away bodies, you really don't have Christianity
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  Speaker 1: at all. Without the incarnation, all of which had greatly
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  Speaker 1: to do with the human body, Christianity doesn't exist. So
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  Speaker 1: the body of Jesus matters greatly. And just as his
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  Speaker 1: body matters, your body also matters. In fact, your body
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  Speaker 1: is essential to your living as a Christian. Now remember
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  Speaker 1: the passage from Romans that I shared with you earlier.
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  Speaker 1: Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing
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  Speaker 1: to God. This is your true and proper worship. And
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  Speaker 1: I'll were true and proper worship is possible only through
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  Speaker 1: our body. We serve the Lord and others. Through our body,
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  Speaker 1: we serve God. By working by loving, by offering compassion
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  Speaker 1: and kindness, by seeking justice, by adoring and praising and
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  Speaker 1: bowing before him. And just as God did with Mary,
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  Speaker 1: he fulfills his purposes in our relationships, in our families,
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  Speaker 1: and our communities, in our nation by working through our bodies,
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  Speaker 1: working through each one of us as his vessel. You
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  Speaker 1: know what, We're called to be? Like Mary in our
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  Speaker 1: response to God's grace in Christ when she was called
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  Speaker 1: to be the mother of Jesus. How did she respond?
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  Speaker 1: She said, yes, yes, of course. In fact, Mary's said
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  Speaker 1: to the Angel, I am the Lord's servant. May your
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  Speaker 1: word to me be fulfilled. Similarly, God calls us to
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  Speaker 1: be faithful servants, and we too can say to the Lord, yes, yes,
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  Speaker 1: of course, I am your servant. May your word to
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  Speaker 1: me be fulfilled. Just like Mary, we are called to
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  Speaker 1: offer all that we are to God, and that includes
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  Speaker 1: offering our bodies to live in His grace by faith,
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  Speaker 1: to live, to love, to learn to serve, so that
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  Speaker 1: we make a difference in our own lives and in
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  Speaker 1: the lives of others. Now, as we celebrate Christmas, as
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  Speaker 1: we continue to celebrate this amazing holy season, let us
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  Speaker 1: turn towards one another as we celebrate the many gifts
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  Speaker 1: of the Christmas season. I sure hope your days are
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  Speaker 1: filled with all the love and joy and grace that
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  Speaker 1: the Christmas season brings. As we celebrate this holy blessed season,
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  Speaker 1: I want to invite you to tune in to my
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: show again next time. Don't miss out. You can listen
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: on TNR that's Talk Network Radio, or you can always
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: catch the podcast right. You can catch it on iTunes,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: on Alexa Orsprinker dot com many other places as well.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: You can send download it and listen to it to
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  Speaker 1: be inspired anytime. Three sixty five twenty four to seven.
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  Speaker 1: Before I close today, I want to thank each of
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  Speaker 1: you for tuning in to today's show, for allowing me
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  Speaker 1: to share a bit about the gifts of Christmas with you,
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  Speaker 1: and to share about my journey with what legacy living
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  Speaker 1: is all about, not just living and learning, but living
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  Speaker 1: and learning and serving using your body right as that
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  Speaker 1: living sacrifice, so that you make a difference in your
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  Speaker 1: own life and in the lives of others. It's about
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  Speaker 1: being on purpose in serving and lifting up other folks,
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  Speaker 1: not just once in a while, but every single day.
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  Speaker 1: Three sixty five twenty four to seven. Legacy is just
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  Speaker 1: one of the many ways to make your life count.
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  Speaker 1: Before I close today's show, I want to thank you
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  Speaker 1: for joining me here today. Christmas blessings to everyone during
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  Speaker 1: this holy season. To me, Christmas isn't just one day
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  Speaker 1: out of the year. It's that whole, long, long, long
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  Speaker 1: season way before December twenty fifth, and that season afterwards
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  Speaker 1: as well. So Christmas blessings everyone. I'm your host, doctor
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  Speaker 1: Gloria Gloria Burgess, and this has been Legacy Living Make
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  Speaker 1: your life count. Please join me again next week right
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  Speaker 1: here on Talk Network Radio for another show of Legacy Living.
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  Speaker 1: Make your life count. We're here again right here Talk
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  Speaker 1: Network Radio. Don't just count the days in your life,
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  Speaker 1: Make the days in your life count. That's what Legacy
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  Speaker 1: Living is all about. Have a fantastic day, and remember,
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  Speaker 1: make the days in your life count. God bless.
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  Speaker 2: That's our show today. I'm your host, doctor Gloria Gloria Burgess.
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  Speaker 2: I hope you'll join me again next week. Until then,
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  Speaker 2: don't just count the days in your life, Make the
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  Speaker 2: days in your life count.
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  Speaker 1: That's what Legacy living is all about. Here's to you.
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  Speaker 1: Have a fantastic day. Be sure to make an ideas
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  Speaker 1: kind of day and remember celebrate, celebrate the music of
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  Speaker 1: your life. Make the day in your life account