Get Your Fifteenth Gift of 25 Gifts – For Advent Day 15 of 25 Gifts to Christmas. Merry Christmas, you’ll enjoy this new Christmasy excerpt from my non-fiction book, The Gospel Medley (Click here to grab it).My book goes on sale TODAY from December 15th to 22nd, 2024.
Get Your Fifteenth Gift – What Else Happened Before Jesus Was Born?
The four icons of the four gospels
During Mary’s Pregnancy
Matthew 1:18–25
18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was like this; for after his mother, Mary, was engaged to Joseph, before they came together, she was found pregnant by the Holy Spirit. 19 Joseph, her husband, being a righteous man, and not willing to make her a public example, intended to put her away secretly.
20 But when he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, don’t be afraid to take to yourself Mary, your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. 21 She shall give birth to a son. You shall call his name Jesus, for it is He who shall save His people from their sins.”
22 Now all this has happened, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying,
23 “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and shall give birth to a son. They shall call his name Immanuel [1] which is, being interpreted, ‘God with us.’”
24 Joseph arose from his sleep, and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took his wife to himself; 25 and didn’t know her sexually until she had given birth to her firstborn son. He named him Jesus.
[1]Isaiah 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin will conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
The Birth of John the Baptist
Back cover detail
Luke 1:57–80
57 Now the time that Elizabeth should give birth was fulfilled, and she gave birth to a son. 58 Her neighbors and her relatives heard that the Lord had magnified His mercy towards her, and they rejoiced with her. 59 On the eighth day, they came to circumcise the child; and they would have called him Zacharias, after the name of the father.
60 His mother answered, “Not so; but he will be called John.”
61 They said to her, “There is no one among your relatives who is called by this name.” 62 They made signs to his father, what he would have him called.
63 He asked for a writing tablet, and wrote, “His name is John.” They all marveled.
64 His mouth was opened immediately, and his tongue freed, and he spoke, blessing God. 65 Fear came on all who lived around them, and all these sayings were talked about throughout all the hill country of Judea. 66 All who heard them laid them up in their heart, saying, “What then will this child be?”
The hand of the Lord was with him. 67 His father, Zacharias, was filled with the Holy Spirit, and prophesied, saying,
68 “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, for He has visited and redeemed His people; 69 and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David 70 (as He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets who have been from of old), 71 salvation from our enemies, and from the hand of all who hate us; 72 to show mercy towards our fathers, to remember His holy covenant, 73 the oath which He spoke to Abraham, our father, 74 to grant to us that we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, should serve Him without fear, 75 In holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life.”
76 And you, child, will be called a prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways, 77 to give knowledge of salvation to His people by the remission of their sins, 78 because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the dawn from on high will visit us, 79 to shine on those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death; to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
80 The child was growing, and becoming strong in spirit, and was in the desert until the day of his public appearance to Israel.
Luke 1:26–56; John 1:14
Get Your Fifteenth Gift – Excerpt from December 15th
There will be no night, and they need no lamp light or sun light; for the Lord God will illuminate them. They will reign forever and ever.
What is the light of the city?
How long will God’s servants reign?
Prayer: Father, just as You provided the sun to shine by day and the moon by night, they will no longer be necessary in Your Presence in the city of God. You are our sun and moon, our Light of the world. Thank you, Jesus! Amen.
They will reign forever and ever. This is significant, for the reigning of God’s children continues without end. The rule over the Earth from Jesus’s return until the white throne judgment is clear, (See Revelation 20:11-13 for details about the judgment.) but this reign continues into the new heavens and the new Earth. The details of the subjects and the territory are not covered.
Your Fifteenth Gift Concludes
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Get My Latest Book Autographed – Just Launched Here’s How. You can be just like in person at a book convention, walking up to the table.
Here’s my latest book!
What’s it about?
The Book of Revelation is mysterious to many, but if you use this daily devotional, you can understand it like never before.
Each day you’ll have one small verse to read and reflect upon. You will see connections and meanings you’ve never seen before.
Author Jeffry Smith asks provocative questions to help you think about each portion of scripture. He also supplies useful cross-references which give further insight to the scripture.
Begin your journey of inspiration now, with the Revelation Devotional.
What is this site? It’s my Square site. What’s that? It’s my OFFICIAL SALES website. I sell you my autographed books at LESS than Amazon AND include free shipping.
How can I do that? I cut out Amazon.
Amazon takes a 30% commission on each sale. It then deducts the printing cost of each book. That leaves me with 30% of your money.
But Square takes a 1% commission. I get most of your money even though you are paying less. That lets me:
Pay for shipping for you
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Get My Latest Book Autographed – The Story Behind the Book
So how did a fiction author, Andy Zach, end up writing a non-fiction book about the most mysterious book in the Bible under the name Jeffry Smith?
First, the book Revelation always fascinated me When I read the Bible for the first time, I read the book of Revelation first, because I’d heard how mysterious and hard to understand it was.
I read it and there were a lot of things I didn’t understand, but I did understand that God wins in the end.
Over ten years later, after reading many interpretations of the book, I decided to see exactly what it said. I went through it verse by verse and wrote down every statement it made. Here’s Revelation 1:1 for example:
The revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John,
Why was it given? To show Jesus’s servants what must soon take place.
How did this revelation come to John? Jesus sent it by His angel.
Revelation has many other verses this densely packed with information.
Get My Latest Book Autographed – The Story Behind the Book Part 2
So how did this study go from a personal Bible study to a published devotional?
The Revelation Devotional back cover
After I completed the study, it lay in its handwritten version for years. Then I typed it up on my computer, where it resided for more years. Then I decided to make it into a class about Revelation.
I decided I would skip any interpretation and just teach what the book said. That became an eight week class of hour and a half sessions, going through all twenty two chapters.
Teaching the class at my church and then at Bradley University helped me refine it.
My students demanded another book of Revelation class covering the interpretation of its symbols.
So I created a class covering all the symbols in the book, showing how they were used elsewhere in the Bible
Get My Latest Book Autographed – The Story Behind the Book Part 3
The Gospel Medley cover. Click to get
By this time I was pretty familiar with the book of Revelation, forty years after I started studying it. How’d it become a book?
Lastly, Learn More About My First Non-Fiction Book
Hold on to your chair! This book will rock your world.
The four gospels in chronological order, word by word
Here is what this book is all about:
Are you curious about Jesus Christ? Do you struggle to understand the Bible? The Gospel Medley includes the four Gospels in a single narrative, faithfully pulling the text from the World English Bible. You are now able to read all the gospel as a single, easy-to-read story.
Each Gospel describes Jesus’s life from a different point of view with different details and insights. The Gospel Medley combines every word into a single perspective with all details and events arranged chronologically.
Unlike other harmonies, The Gospel Medley doesn’t put the four gospels in columns or rows. Instead, the text is integrated word by word into a smoothly flowing narrative. Further, each paragraph references the four gospels so you can read the original citations. You also get footnotes of all the quotes from the Old Testament, giving you the context of Jesus’s words.
For a unique perspective of the four gospels, read ‘The Gospel Medley’ today.
