My Christmas gift for you, 2025

It has been 14 years since I had to begin re-learning how to communicate, after multiple catastrophic strokes. My memory was so bad that I could not complete a sentence without forgetting what i was trying to say. 

Next week will mark 5 years since I first watched Susan Heck's A Call To Scripture Memory video and started trying long-passage Scripture memory as “brain training” for ongoing stroke recovery. 

Brain training was only the start. Little did I know how God would use the journey of Bible memorization to not only significantly improve the re-wiring of my physical brain, but to begin changing my thought patterns and healing my battered heart too! 



My Christmas gift to you is the recitation of 4 passages (57 verses) of the Christmas story story quoted from memory. Please feel free to share!



“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” - John 3:16

I would also invite you to follow my ongoing journey through the Gospel of John. I'll share more details in a moment...

But first, to everyone feeling rushed and burdened or overscheduled, please slow down and remember WHY this “holiday season” exists. In the busyness of December, remember that the Baby whose birth we celebrate at Christmas is the Word (John 1:14; Colossians 2:9). Jesus has always existed, since the beginning, not a man who experienced "Christhood," but The Christ, the only embodiment of God Himself - as John 3:16 and 18 say, the "only begotten Son of God" (in this context, "only begotten" meaning "unique, only one of His kind") and "the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father" (John 1:18).
“Hear, O Israel!
Yahweh is our God, 
Yahweh is one! 
- Deuteronomy 6:4
Jesus was never a created being, rather He is the all-powerful Creator by whom all things came into being (Genesis 1; John 1:3) and hold together (Colossians 1:17). He became flesh (John 1:14) so that we might know Him (John 17:3). He was sinless (1 Peter 2:22), the only One perfectly able to keep and fulfill every detail of the whole Law (Matthew 5:17), that we all continually fall so short of obeying (Romans 3:21-23). As the GotQuestions website sums up, "Sin against an infinite God requires an infinite sacrifice. Therefore, either man, who is finite, must pay the penalty for an infinite length of time in hell, or the infinite Christ must pay for it once. Jesus went to the cross to pay the debt we owe to God for our sin, and those who are covered by His sacrifice will inherit the kingdom of God as children of the King (John 1:12).".


Foretold by the prophets, and echoed in the words of angels speaking to Mary (Luke 1:26-38) and Joseph (Matthew 1:18-25) and a group of shepherds (Luke 2:1-20), the purpose of Jesus has always been clear, "to save His people from their sins". As Jesus was just beginning His public ministry, a few years before He went to the cross, John the Baptist said of Him, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29). The animal sacrificial system to cover over sin was never ending, but with His last breath on the cross, Jesus declared, "It is finished!" (John 19:30). When He died on the cross, Jesus willingly offered Himself (John 10:18 - this was His choice, not "cosmic child abuse" as some insist!) to once-and-forever pay the penalty for our sins (Hebrews 7:27; 9:12; 10:1-15; 1 Peter 3:18; Romans 3:23, 6:10) , but only IF we *believe in His name (John 1:12).


"...through [Christ Jesus] forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you and that in Him, everyone who believes is justified from all things which you could not be justified from through the Law of Moses" - Acts 13:38-39

* Like the John 6:66 disciples who turned back after belief became costly, in John 2:23-25, there were people who "believed in His name" because they were fascinated by the miracles He did to prove His claim as Messiah. Yet Jesus "was not entrusting Himself to them" because He knew that their intrigue was not a heart-deep understanding of their sinful condition and acceptance of Him as LORD (Romans 10:9-11 - see more about these verses at https://www.gotquestions.org/public-confession.html). 1 John 2:19 speaks to this kind of easily-abandoned, surface-level faith saying, "They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they were of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be manifested that they all are not of us." Jesus is the anchor that  should ground us in trying times (Hebrews 6:19; Psalm 62:2; Psalm 112:7), not an emotional mascot to rally around as long as my "faith" feels good. So much more than just agreeing that facts about Jesus are true, saving belief involves understanding that we are hopelessly separated from God apart from His perfect atonement for our sins, and relying on the One who is the only Way, Truth, and Life (John 14:6) to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Again from GotQuestions,  from GotQuestions, "Salvation is not about believing a list of facts. Salvation is not about asking Jesus to come into your heart. Salvation is about trusting in Jesus as your Savior, receiving the forgiveness He offers by grace through faith. Salvation is about being made new through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5)."

"In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. And the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it." - John 1:4-5 

When He arose from the grave on the third day, Jesus defeated sin and death. Only the Creator of life is more powerful that death! Only Christianity worships a risen Savior. Our faith is not in vain. He is alive now and forever!

"Do not fear; I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forever and ever, and I have the keys of death and of Hades..." -words of Jesus from Revelation 1:17b-18

If you are still with me here, you may remember that last year I shared part of John chapter 3 after explaining more about my stroke history. I have since gone back to the beginning of John and posted an introduction and explanation of my first-letter memory notebook (notebook explanation starts at timestamp 2:30).  You saw John 1:1-14 in the Christmas story video above, but here is an earlier recording of John 1 through verse 30, as well as John 1:31-51.

Lord willing, by the year 2028, I will have memorized every one of the 21 chapters (879 verses) of John. A year into this process, God has enabled me to memorize the first five chapters of John. To Him be the glory! (I know, I am way behind on recording and posting videos! Prayerfully, I get these posted soon.)


Matthew 1:18-25 is part of the above Christmas story. Though I am not striving to retain it in my memory forever, earlier this year I also tried learning Jesus' legal genealogy (through His adoptive earthly father, Joseph) in Matthew 1:1-17, just to see if I possibly could. I was used to awkward attempts of stumbling through all those names when trying to read, so I kind of figured it would be a rather miserable process. But I was utterly shocked at how much FUN a genealogy list was to learn! Seriously.

I look forward to continuing in John next year. Won't you please follow along?


All Scripture on this post is quoted from the Legacy Standard Bible (LSB).
Scripture quotations taken from the (LSB®) Legacy Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2021 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Managed in partnership with Three Sixteen Publishing Inc. LSBible.org and 316publishing.com

I would love to meet you through social media:


Specialty pages:
    infertility / loss - fb.com/HannahsHopeBook
    stroke - fb.com/StrokieGal
    current book project on church deception - fb.com/DeceptionUnmasked

SubStack @InfertilityMom
Instagram @InfertilityMom
Pinterest @InfertilityMom

My books:

Read about my current book project about deceptions women face from within the church, at JenniferSaake.blogspot.com/2021/04/DeceptionUnmasked.html


Read more about infertility, miscarriage, adoption loss, and my first book, Hannah's Hope (written pre-stroke), at JenniferSaake.blogspot.com/2021/04/hannahs.html

 
Please enjoy a free pdf version of the introduction, my personal infertility / loss story, and the first chapter of Hannah's Hope at www.hannahshopebook.com/media/HannahHopeChapter1.pdf


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