From my friend to my friends.

Just as we come to the day we celebrate Christmas, I and my family want to wish for you the greatest new gift that anyone could receive.

Stop for a moment and look back on where you’ve been.

Is that the way you wanted to go?

It just takes a decision to change your path.

God’s Gift to Us (Part 1)
For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
— John 3:17

When you’re a child, Christmas is all about receiving gifts. In December, your head is swimming with nothing but images of your favorite toys.

But the true message of Christmas is not the presents we give to one another. The true meaning is the gift that God gave to us, His Son Jesus Christ.

During the next two days, I want to point out to you three things about the gift God gave to us in that tiny manger in Bethlehem.

The first thing we want to realize about God’s gift to us is that it came in simple wrapping. Some people will go to great lengths to wrap presents beautifully. But God’s gift came to us not in beautiful, ornate wrapping, but in a dirty manger found in a cold cave in a little-known town called Bethlehem.

That’s the beauty of the Christmas event. Jesus took His place in a manger so that we might have a home in heaven. The Savior was not wrapped in satin sheets, but in common rags. There in a manger rested the greatest gift in the plainest of wrapping.

The second thing I want to point out about God’s gift to us is that we don’t deserve it. Consider this: God gave us the ultimate gift of His Son Jesus Christ while we were still sinning against Him (see Romans 5:8).

We did nothing whatsoever to merit or deserve His gift. That is the amazing truth of Christmas. Despite who we are, God sent His Son so “that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

With Christmas just days away, begin to prepare your heart for the celebration of the birth of our Savior. Meditate on the fact that Jesus was born to die so that we might live.

Have Pastor Greg’s devotions blessed you? Write and tell him!
Greg@harvest.org

Want to read more from Greg Laurie? Be sure to check out his weekly columns at World Net Daily. Click here to read his latest article.

Copyright ©2008 by Harvest Ministries. All Rights Reserved.

Many times the difference between success and failure in a home business lies in doing the little things. 

This is not all that unusual and you probably have seen people making comments on other people’s blogs.

1. One step that I do not see home business owners take however is to personally email the people who take the time to post comments in their blogs.

One common complaint you see in Internet marketing discussion forums is the amount of money people are spending in comparison to what they are actually earning. However, when you analyze this you will find that most people really do not know how much their Internet marketing business is really costing them.

Let’s see if we can analyze the question how much is Internet marketing costing you by reviewing it from the standpoint of money and time.

The two constant factors that is available for everyone is time and money. Some people have more money than they have time, and they choose to build their Internet marketing business by outsourcing various functions. Other people have more money than time, and they personally have to invest their time and learn how to do things to become successful.

One thing the Internet has become famous for is how it does not discriminate against anyone when it comes to becoming an Internet marketing success. There are people earning unbelievable amounts of money, and doing it regardless of how much money they have, their race, their sex, their age, where they live, and so on.

Nowhere is this more evident than when it comes to advertising and promotion. The bottom line with an Internet marketing business is you will never make any money if you do not have visitors coming to your website and making a purchase.

You can buy advertising in the form of pay per click and immediately begin getting traffic. This does not mean you are guaranteed to make a profit, but rather that you are guaranteed to have visitors at a predetermined price per click.

If you don’t have money to invest in advertising you will have to try free or nearly free methods. The most popular of these that is been proven to be successful over the years is article marketing.

Writing and submitting articles is a great way to build up back links to your site and in turn generate traffic over a period of time. This is not necessarily a fast way, but can be a consistent form of Internet traffic for you in the future.

Regardless of whether you spend time or money you should calculate what your Internet marketing business is costing you. Determine what your time is worth on an hourly rate and keep track of that every week.
You should also keep track of your expenses for everything including website hosting, auto responders, advertising and marketing, domain names, and so on.

By keeping track of your time on an hourly rate, and of your monthly business expenses, you can get an accurate picture of exactly how much your Internet business is costing you in comparison to the income you have coming in.