"The Tree With The Greatest Gift" with Ann Voskamp

In this message, Ann Voskamp reminds us that where the enemy intended to harm us, God’s arms have us. And through gratitude, we have access to a deep and lasting joy because we have a Savior that has come for us.

[@blen2006]

Let me start by saying I absolutely love Ann Voskamp. Her tender heart and love for Jesus transcends through her teaching and writing. It always helps me expand my heart and challenges my perspective. I so needed this sermon! I typed up most of the notes and I am sharing them here in the hope it may speak to someone or be helpful in some way. I am one, and I am sure I am not the only one who dreads the holidays (okay maybe I should say find it challenging to give it a soft landing). If it were in my power, I would fast forward us from Oct to Jan (sorry ☹). Grappling with grief and depression, I feel like this year is the year that God is helping me to start overcoming my struggles and live in a healthy space. Thank you for reminding me to pick up my pen again to write down my gratitude. I got carried away and bought five journals earlier this evening. Maybe I should challenge myself to jot down a thousand gifts😊. “The Tree with the Greatest Gift” Ann Voskamp • Whatever family you come FROM, is the kind of family Jesus comes FROM, and the kind of family Jesus comes FOR (Jesus’ genealogy shows people who were foreigners, outsiders, marginalized, grieving, limping, wounded, and scared). • What was intended to tear you apart, God intends it to set you apart for Him. • Whatever happens, whatever unfolds, whatever unravels, you can never be undone. • No matter what intends to harm you God is never absent, never impotent, never distant. You can never be undone. • You have not run out of hope. You have not run out of second chances, fresh mercy, and new starts. You have not run out of the possibility of experiencing real joy. Because this Christmas, you will make it because you have a maker who has come for you! Amen, Amen!!! • If God can transfigure the greatest evil into the greatest gift, then He intends to turn whatever you’re experiencing now into a gift. • You can hope against hope - because to hope against hope - is to hope with nothing but hope supporting you. • To hope against hope is to lean all your hope up against Hope Himself (let Jesus take all of the weight of all of your aches, grief, and heartbreak, and let Him alone be all of your Hope) • You can hope against hope! • In a place of faithlessness and doubtfulness and godlessness, God can reveal Himself wherever, whenever, to whomever. • God gives the greatest gift of faith exactly in the very places you’d most doubt. • That is always the secret to the abundant life, that is always the greatest gift: to believe that God is where you doubt He can be. • Great faith is the greatest equalizer, the greatest eraser, and the greatest definer of who we are. • Nobody and no situation - no sin, no mess, no decision- meets the diagnosis of despair. Because there is God’s cure of amazing grace. • No personal choice that muddied your life, or the life of someone you love, can ever trump God’s divine choice to wash that life (that heart) clean. • No situation is more hopeless than your Savior is graceful. • God who hung the stars - He has taken a red thread of His heart and tied it to yours. • You can feel deep suffering and deep joy at the same time. As the cold can move you deeper toward the fire, struggling can move you deeper toward God, who warms you with joy. • “Deep suffering can deepen your joy in the Lord.” • Joy is always a function of gratitude, and joy is always, always, always possible to find joy in whatever situation you may be in, because there is always, always, always something to give thanks for. • The reason God tells us to give thanks in everything is because if we can give thanks in everything, we can live through anything. • The joy of the Lord is our strength. You let something steal your joy, and you let something still your strength. • Make a promise to the Lord, this Christmas, that you will pick up a pen and start to write down gifts you already have. Have a posture of gratitude. • Give thanks to the Lord, His love endures forever! It causes us to rejoice in anything. • The answer to all kinds of deep anxiety is the thankful adoration of Christ. • The secret of joy is always a matter of focus: a resolute focusing on our Father, not on our fears. • All fear is but the notion that God’s love ends. When does He ever end? • “Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else?” Rom 8:32, NLT. He gave us Jesus, need there be anything more? • He has already given us the most incomprehensible gift, He has given us His perfect heart and taken our broken heart. • Jesus Christ is literally the only one who has ever loved you to death and back to the realest life through His love! • When everything seems to give way beneath us - we fall into Christ’s safe arms and not into hopelessness. It is safe to trust! • When we feel too weak to go on, His strength is made perfect in utter brokenness and His nail-pierced hands help us, and hold us. It is safe to trust! • We can give thanks in everything because there is still a good God leading us through the mystery of suffering, gathering up the pieces, and doing the restoring and re-storing work of working all things into good. It is safe to trust! • Instead of explaining our suffering, Jesus enters into it with us, Jesus shares in the suffering with us because He knows mere answers are cold and His arms, open wide for you at the cross, are warm. • Ache is not the last word for those who believe the miraculous story of God - Jesus is! Hope is! Joy is! • He grafts you into His line, story, and heart. • And into His story and into His heart, and because of the Cross, the tree at Calvary. He looks at your Family Tree and gives you His name His lineage. He gives you His rightness. It happens at the cross, the greatest gift, that great exchange. • Your family tree is grafted into Christ’s family tree, and whatever your story, you are restored - and you are r-storied. • We don’t want a Christmas we can buy, We don’t want a Christmas we can make, We all want a Christmas we can hold A Christmas that holds us, Remakes us, Revives us A Christmas that restores and RESTORIES US. We want a Christmas that whispers JESUS, JESUS, JESUS • Take Me, your God who cradles whole inking galaxies in the palm of His hand, whom highest heavens cannot contain - He folds Himself into our skin and he uncurls His newborn fingers into the cradle of a barn feeding trough… and we are saved from ourselves. • The message of Christmas is not that we can make peace. • Or that we can make love, make light, make gifts, or make our families or our stories, or our past or our future all perfect or right or make any of this old world save itself. • The message of Christmas is that this world’s a mess and we can never save ourselves from ourselves and we need a Messiah. • The family lineage of Jesus throws a lifeline to all of our families. • Whatever family you come from, is the kind of family Jesus comes from, and the kind of family Jesus comes for. • And you can hope against hope, and lean all your hope up against hope Himself. • For unto us a Child is born - the one and only greatest gift we all need and we all get to receive.

[@HannahSquats]

I'm giving my broken hope to the one true source of hope in this world- Jesus.

[@StraitjacketFitness]

I finally found another one of your comments. Thank you for my playlist.

[@HannahSquats]

@@StraitjacketFitness My pleasure 💙 there are a few more comments with your name on them. 🤗

[@toniflashful]

Thank you Ann for so beautifully pointing our hearts to the hope of Jesus.

[@bobbilynnmiller742]

Merry Christmas, Ann ! Thank you for sharing your beautiful vulnerability. My parents were both killed in a car accident on December 28 , 2013 . The ache of losing them has been heart wrenching . You’re so right though . God is faithful . He has seen my family and me through that darkness, comforting us as only He can comfort . I’m sending you warm hugs this Christmas season .

[@TiffanyRodman]

May God bring you great comfort today. He is able to heal our wounds.

[@moonrei69]

I can hope against hope and my Hope leans against Jesus.

[@calandon27]

Ann’s books have impacted my life so much. I am so grateful for all that I have learned through them and her blog. She is an incredible teacher. I was so saddened to hear of her father’s tragic passing this year. Thank you Saddleback for this video.♥️

[@kbhmomma]

Qqq+q

[@dorismaltby1324]

Thank you dear Ann for being so real and so clear about Who Jesus is where we belong in that story

[@richardyoung4400]

Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” But the temple he had spoken of was his body. John 2:19‭-‬21 NIV

[@jussararamirezhilario8376]

Thank you so much, Ann. This message was just in time for me. I love your heart for Jesus. You inspire me. 🤍

[@danielrodriguesdeoliveiraq7298]

Great, terrific

[@cherylsmith67]

Wow!!!! Wow!!! So powerful!!! So hopeful!!! Thanks so much for sharing! ❤️🙏

[@oneangelbug]

Amen. ❤️🙌👑

[@manufabydumbrava]

Great message! ♥♥♥ Thank you for sharing! Could you provide a transcript of the sermon?

[@kaydbug648]

Is she preaching at Saddleback?!

[@diloresalii8024]

🙏🙏🎄🙌👏

[@Finny14754]

KZbin keep unsubscribing me from Saddleback . They clearly don’t want gods word reaching people 🙏.

[@michaelaleebarnes]

Why

[@christinelynn2000]

Not sure why churches are allowing these woman to preach to their congregations, especially Ann who come from false teaching. Open your eyes people.

[@starchild3240]

144,000 All light workers we need to sign the liberation petition for our planet with Gaia mother earth. If you can't write while your astro projected, just say it to her or do highly focused prayer. NOW The portal is open. On the 21st meditate with intention to employ, to procreate, activate the trigger for light loving beings for divine intervention. THIS HAS TO BE DONE OR THEY WILL NOT HELP US. People who are not light workers yet, you can do this! Status is not required, pure intent is required. God I hope I reach them all. This may help humanity.