Thursday, December 19, 2013

Thinking about an Incredible Christmas Gift

One of the blessings of God in my life was being raised in a family that loved God and loved each other. A noted result of that is Christmas is filled with many positive memories for me. Memories from the wonder of a six year old looking at the presents wrapped under the tree to 30 family members filling my parents’ home for Christmas dinner seem to bubble up for me this time of year.

Another memory that seems to re-surface each year is of being a college student teaching Sunday school. A couple of years in a row, as I taught 6th graders and then moved up to work with junior high students (7th-9thgraders), the story of the angel appearing to Joseph seemed to be a part of the curriculum at Christmas time. Though the story has much richness to it, one verse repeatedly struck me:  Matthew 1:23. It reads:

"Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel" (which means, God with us).

For a number of reasons the words “God with us” have always wowed me. The Lord Jesus came as a baby to save us from our sins, as Matthew 1:21 states, but the reason He did that was to be with us. Perhaps because as a college student I struggled with issues of personal worth and value, I was taken back in a good way by the statement that God the Son came to be with us. God desires to have a relationship with us to the extent that He reached out to us by coming to us. Though the analogy is far from perfect, indulge me for just a moment. As a child, and maybe even as an adult, there is something about having another child knock on your door and ask if you wanted to play. In coming, the Lord Jesus is like the neighbor kid coming and knocking on the door asking us to come out and play with Him. As I said, I know the analogy is not perfect, but it strikes me that Jesus came to be with us. I do not deserve His interest or attention, but I am dramatically blessed by it. We have been given an incredible gift in Jesus’ coming.

No longer being in college – now we have two sons and a daughter-in-law in college, with a third son starting next fall – that Sunday school teaching college student era seems like a life time ago, but the wowness of Jesus coming to be with us still shows up every Christmas. And I suppose part of the reason why is because before the Lord Jesus ascending to heaven, He made an amazing promise at the very end of the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew 28:20 ends with the words:

And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

The gift of God’s presence at Christmas is not just a Christmas thing. Jesus is not just present during the time you have your nativity set out. If you are a follower of the Lord Jesus, He has promised to be present always. That is a Christmas gift that keeps giving and giving to us all year round. God gives the most incredible gifts. I pray your Christmas is about celebrating and thanking God for the amazing gift of a relationship with Him this Christmas.





Thursday, December 12, 2013

Being Impacted

Since I was in the 11th grade and God brought me into a personal relationship with Himself through the Lord Jesus, the Bible has been really important in my life. As I have studied the Bible and had lots of opportunity to teach the Bible, I have become increasingly convinced that the Bible is a gift from God to us to mark our lives. Perhaps more exacting, I should say that I believe is vital to us really being able to live life. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 have influenced me to reach that conclusion. Those verses read:

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

That belief seems like a pretty big claim. Claims are easy to make, but do they actually happen in life? It feels trite to say that the Bible can promote or stimulate change in your life so you can really life. In the trenches of real life, we want to that it does, and we want to know how we can experience the impact, influence, and outcome of the Bible in our lives.

This Christmas season we have been studying Luke 1 and 2 as a church family. In going through those chapters I have been hit by a couple of things related to the above discussion. One is that Zechariah, hesitant to believe a message from God, was given 9 months of silence. Coming out of that period, he was changed (see Luke 1:5-20, 57-79). Mary, the mother of the Lord Jesus, is described in Luke 2:19 and 51 as treasuring and pondering the things said concerning the Lord Jesus.

Then, as I have trying to do work ahead on the series we will be doing in the New Year from the book of Joshua, the words of Joshua 1:8 captured my attention:

This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.

Zechariah, Mary, and Joshua are three people who were greatly impacted by God’s Word. A common thread in their stories seems to be either by choice (Mary), command (Joshua), or consequence (Zechariah) the impact of God’s Word can be traced to their noted reflection on God’s Word.

There are a multitude of things that constantly clamor for our attention, and often it is the squeaky wheel that gets the grease. To be impacted by the Bible so that God informs our attitudes and actions, maybe I need to see the Bible as a squeaky wheel. I need to give noted attention to what God says, so my life is shaped by God and not by those other sounds. A God-shaped life can look pretty good according to Psalm 1:1-3:

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; 2 but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. 3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.


Sounds like if we want to prosper as 2013 ends and 2014 begins,  we need to take some time to mull over God’s Word so God, through His Spirit, does some molding and moving work in us.