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Worldwide Christmas December 15, 2025 Devotional

by David Joynt on December 15, 2025


MARK 1:5-6 | 5 And the whole Judean region and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him and were baptized by him in the River Jordan, confessing their sins. 6 Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.

Individuality is less a right than it is an achievement. It takes considerable effort to avoid the mentality of the herd when it comes to morals, fashions, or spirituality. It takes time and effort to form an independent opinion on politics and ethics. John the Baptist had enough ego strength to have a lifestyle that set him apart. His unusual clothing and desert habitat were untypical. Even his dietary habits were unconventional. When it came to the way he lived, John had the courage to be different.

 

Is there anything unconventional about your lifestyle?

 

How do you express your individuality?

 

 

Gracious God,

Free me from worries about how others perceive me. Let me be an independent person formed in Your image.

Amen.

 

About the Author
David Joynt

Dave Joynt began his service as a pastor at Valley Presbyterian Church in Paradise Valley, Arizona in September 2014. This meant a move away from the Northeast, where he has a long history, growing up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and then serving congregations in Delaware and New Jersey for a total of 23 years.

Dave was nurtured in a great church in Bethlehem where his parents, Anne and Carey, served as elders. He graduated in classics from Lehigh University where his Father taught, and then from Oxford, where he met his wife Julia. Ordained in 1988, he completed a Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1993.

He and Julia have a son, Tristan, and a daughter, Madeleine.

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