A new journey!

I know I tend to be very sporadic in my writing.  I also think that this is a good thing.  I write when I have something on my mind that I think is worth sharing.  I also write when I am working something out in my own mind.  I also know that I have a calling and that my calling is to teach and preach God’s Word.  So my goal is to work through certain topics from a Biblical perspective.

The topics will be things that I am passionate about and that have crucial significance to the continued unfolding of the Kingdom of God.  The topics are:

1. The church (practice, purpose, function, membership, discipline, etc.)
2. Hermeneutics (dispensational vs. covenant approach)
3. The gospel (what is it and what is it not)
4. Reformed theology (is it good, bad, indifferent, what are the alternatives, etc.)

This is going to be a process.  I hope you enjoy the ride.  I know it will be scenic but hopefully it will also be enlightening.

Rejoice! A King is Born!

God throughout history has issued many commands.  He has demanded obedience, worship, faith, and fear.  But on this night He commands men to rejoice!  He tells us to give Him glory.  In the silence of a field populated by sheep and shepherds God sends His angels to proclaim the greatest announcement — EVER!

God became a man!  The eternal became time-bound, the perfect became like us.  Not like the rich and powerful, but like the poor and the lonely.  He was born in a barn.  Not a clean, neat, picturesque Norman Rockwell-like barn, but a filthy, smelly, manure filled place where animals live.

And He was BORN.  The sovereign King of all the universe had His umbilical chord cut and His diapers changed.  He learned to walk and talk.  He fell and scraped His knees.  He who had never felt pain or discomfort came to know and take on all of ours.  And when He was born he was put in an animal’s feeding trough.

He was frail, and weak.  He was a baby.  He who had spoken galaxies into existence now had to cry to be fed.  The one who designed the seasons now suffered from the heat and the cold.

The one who had eternally existed in the glory of the throne room now shared space with sheep and oxen.

There had never been a stranger event in all of History.  God had become a man.  So when the angels said rejoice they were not talking about a simple minute of awe and wonder.  The angels were talking about a new and incredible event that would forever cause men everywhere to sing!  The angels announced the birth of the Son of God.  And His birth is what we still celebrate.

God became flesh.  God came to be with us so that we might one day be able to be with Him.

Word of God become flesh.  God with us, Emmanuel!

He also became sin for us that we might become His righteousness.  It was not just the birth of God incarnate the angels announced.  It was the birth of a Savior!

So as you worship the Christ today remember He is not a babe in a manger.  He is the King of Glory come to redeem us from sin.  He is God in the flesh.  He is the Messiah.  He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the World.  He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah.  He is the Wonderful Counselor, and the Prince of Peace.  He is our propitiation, and our atoning sacrifice.  He is Jesus!

Glory to God in the Highest!

The Babe and The Lamb

Sorrow.  It is an emotion we feel too little of.  Why sorrow?  Because there is blood on our hands.  Blood?  Yeah, blood.  Innocent blood at that.  I am a murderer.  I killed the Son of God.  I am guilty.

 

There is no sugar coating it.  There is no downplaying possible.  The Holy One,  Jesus, the Righteous.  That is who I killed.  I pointed my finger at God and cursed Him.  I drove nails through the hands and feet of His son and I mocked His death.

 

And then God spoke.

 

He did not speak words of wrath or condemnation.  He spoke words of love, and forgiveness.  He spoke of reconciliation.  He spoke of adoption.  He spoke of peace.

 

You see I live in the 21st century.  Jesus lived in the 1st century.  But God knew me (the real, evil, wicked, wretched me) before He spoke the universe into existence.  And still He decided that He would send Jesus, His only Son, to be born of a woman and to live upon the earth He Himself cursed because of my sin.

 

He did nothing wrong!  Not a single solitary thing.

 

But we killed Him anyway.  Because if we didn’t we would have to admit that we were sinners.  We would have to look Him in the eye and see reflected there the sad truth.  The truth that His very presence was evidence that we were (and are) in desperate need of a Savior.  Maybe if we silenced Him we could stop hearing the silent accusation of our conscience — GUILTY.

 

But even at His execution we condemned ourselves.  We drove the nails and with each blow we proved our depravity.

 

The amazing part is that God knew what we would do.  Jesus knew that to be born was to ultimately be tortured and executed in the most horrendous way we could possibly imagine.  And yet He chose to come!  He chose to die.  And today He chooses to forgive.

 

You see, just as Christmas proves our guilt, it also provides hope.  Jesus came to earth because we needed a Savior, and that is why His birth is to be celebrated!  But His birth would give little hope if it were not for His death.  And His death would have nothing but terror for us if not for His grace and mercy.

 

We are, all of us, guilty.  Yet in spite of our guilt God chooses to love and forgive us.  We cannot forget, especially at this time of year, that we should look to the manger with hope and joy, but with sorrow too.  For if in the stall we do not see both a babe and a lamb we have missed the point.  He who brings us life and joy and peace bought it with His blood.  We, the guilty, are made righteous.  He the innocent is made The Passover Lamb.

 

So, please, this season worship the babe in the manger, but don’t forget He is also the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world, and that He was slain for you!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now about that Grinch!

I have often been accused of being the Grinch.  People think I don’t like Christmas.  To be honest I can understand where they get that impression.  So let me take a moment and set the record straight.  I don’t hate Christmas.

I do however get frustrated by all the baggage people  bring to Christmas.  I am not a fan of how people add to Christmas.  Christmas is about remembering  the birth of the Son of God.   It is about God stepping into time .  It is about the beginning of hope.  Christmas is about God being faithful to His promise.

I get frustrated because we talk about Jesus being “the reason for the season” and then act as if Jesus came for us to have a reason to act happy eat too much and then give Jesus a brief nod on Christmas day or Christmas eve.  We may even read the accounts in Luke or Matthew and pray.  But is that truly making “Jesus the reason for the season?”

Many a person hangs lights and decorates a tree that has no clue about the Savior whose birth gives them a reason to make merry.  But the angels whom the Lord sent to announce the birth of Jesus did not talk about parties and cookies.  The angels did not talk about trees and lights.  The angels declared the birth of a Savior!

We all live in a world torn apart by hate and fear.  We live in a world ravaged by the effects of sin.  Christmas is the first gleam of light that will one day drive all darkness away.  It is about the hope that one day all that is wrong will be made right, that all the pain will be soothed, and all the tears will be wiped away.

Christmas is a yearly reminder that this world is not as it should be.  It is a reminder that Christ came so that one day this world may be a thing of the past to make room for a new heaven and a new earth.

I love Christmas!  I love the Savior whose birth we celebrate.  And I love the hope that Christmas brings with it.  I may not get all excited about lights and tress and cookies etc.  But I am not a Grinch either.  I am just trying to look at Christmas in a way that is consistent with my beliefs.   I believe that Christmas must have a very specific focus.  I believe the angels said it best, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom He is pleased!” (Luke 2:14)

There is no greater cause to celebrate than this!  God with us.  Emmanuel!

Why it is good that God is not like us!

It was a dark and stormy night.  (Can you say cliché?)   The funny thing is that the weather varied  because it was not just a night — it was a year.  As a matter of fact it has been the last year of my life.  So, what about the storm?  It was in my heart.

 

A little over a year ago God moved us from a ministry that we loved.  We miss the people there greatly.  To be honest, it was a conflict between the pastor and myself that prompted the move.  We had very different philosophies of ministry.  I felt that I would be compromising some of my deepest convictions to remain there.  And, so, without any clue as to where we would go we packed up and moved to Illinois and into my in-laws’ home.

 

I knew I had made the right decision but it was still humiliating.  My in-laws are wonderful people but it was still hard.  I felt like a failure.  A full grown man with a wife and three children now featuring no job, home, church, etc.  I was sure I had done the right thing but I was also broken.  It was hard.  It was lonely and it was dark!

 

I felt like I was a failure.  I felt like I must have made a mistake at some point.  There was no way I could be where I was and still have done what I was supposed to.  Let me help you find the key word in those statements — FELT.  I FELT that way.

 

Feeling that way is not necessarily abnormal.  What was wrong was when I went from feeling that way to believing it was true.  I felt like a failure.  I felt lonely.  I felt devastated.

 

Over the last year I have learned a lesson that would seem so simple but is actually harder than it looks.  I have learned that my feelings tend to be wrong.  Duh! Right?  But then what?  Why are they wrong?  This year kept getting better, storms, problems and now a riddle.

 

The truth is so basic that I completely missed it.  My feelings cannot be trusted because they stem from my sinfully wicked heart.  My heart will always lean toward error.  My feelings will be wrong.  So, in a world that tells you to follow your heart, what do you do?  For the answer we must go to Scripture.

 

The Bible speaks in very bold terms about emotions.  It tells of anger, love, lust that caused Kings to commit adultery and murder.  In short the Bible does not sugar coat our emotions.  It lays the spectrum right out there for all to see.  No beating around the bush.  In short, it paints our emotions as they really are, fallible.  Not a pretty picture.  And then  . . .

 

Then we have God.  Not a god, but the GOD.  The Bible describes God as holy.  This is more than simply a God without sin.  It is a complete and utter difference from any created thing.  It also has the implication of perfection.  Not perfection just in His character but also in His emotions.  You see our emotions are a reactions to our circumstances.  On the other hand  God’s emotions are products of His will and character.  God is unchangeable and unlike us He has the capacity for multiple emotions at once (even ones we would consider incompatible with each other).

 

What does this mean for us?  It means that God has chosen how He will feel toward us without ever allowing our actions and behaviors to influence His decision.  He has chosen to feel toward us as He determines in His utter perfection what would be best.

 

Why is that important?  Because when I felt like a failure, God still saw me as the child He loves.  Even if my situation was entirely my fault, and it probably was, it did not (could not) change How God felt toward me.  I may truly have been a failure in the ministry, jobless, homeless etc, but God still loved me.

 

That is the problem with anthropomorphizing God.  We don’t make god better by making Him like us.  All we end up doing is removing the hope that comes from knowing that God has chosen to love me and nothing can or will change that.