SHOW ME!!

For many years I lived in Kansas and Missouri. The state motto of Missouri is “Show Me”. In my study today, I saw once again how the people of today are not any different than the people in Jesus’ time. I’m no different than the people of Jesus’ time.
As Jesus was hanging on the cross, the people cried out their insults: “You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days’, save yourself! Come down from the cross if you are the Son of God! In the same way, the chief priests, the teachers of the law, and the elders mocked him ‘He saved others,’ they said, ‘but he can’t save himself! He’s the king of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe him!” (Matthew 27: 39-43, NIV).
Too many times, ones have said to me, “If there is a God, He wouldn’t let small babies die!” “If there is a God, He wouldn’t allow ________!” (You fill in the blank) Unfortunately, if I attempted to fill in the blank, you would lose interest before getting to the end of the many ways of answering.  Am I not saying “show me” when I say I don’t understand why God allows: the shootings in churches, the cars or trucks running into crowds of people, the massacres of innocent people because they are Christians,.... Again, the list can go on ad infinitum.
Oh, how quickly I forget the warning the Apostle Peter gives us, “that our adversary prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” (1Peter 5:8, ESV). How many remain lost because they want Jesus to prove Himself? The more personal question for me is, how many remain lost because I’m afraid to speak up or am I hindering another believer’s growth by remaining silent?

ARE WE FOCUSING ON THE WRONG WINDOW?

This week-end I visited relatives close to me in Florida. Due to hurricanes they have hurricane shutters on their house to protect their windows. The first night I was taken into the bedroom I'd be staying in for the next two nights. The room has two windows; one where the hurricane shutter is only opened enough for air to come in the window when opened, the second is on the back of the house and opens out onto the lanai. Behind the lanai was a fence and the backyard neighbor's house.
My cousin assured me no one could see in the side window. Since it was late and dark outside I felt reassured I could get in my nightgown unobserved by anyone. In the morning I again focused my attention to the side window thereby reassuring myself I could get dressed unseen. However, I never paid any attention to the back window until I was putting my bra on and looked up to see clearly the backyard fence and neighbor's sliding glass door neatly within my view.
Immediately I thought, "How many times is our focus on the wrong window? Spiritually, how many times is our focus on the wrong thing and not on God?" Psalm 16:8 is one of my favorite verses, "Keep your eyes always on the Lord; with the Lord at my right hand, I will not be shaken." These few words are the instructions for us to overcome any trial we may face during the span of our day. Paul tells us in Philippians that "we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us". So, friends, don't  focus on the wrong window but on Jesus Christ "the propitiation for our sins..." (1 John 2:2a)

DEATH CAN BE LIFE

The week-end of June 11 and 12, 49 people started their day like any other day; I heard of a person who went to sleep one night totally expecting to wake up the next morning--he didn't. One person gave a concert fully expecting to return home. Forty-nine individuals decided to spend an evening of music and relaxation with the expectation of returning home. Fifty people didn't return home, one didn't wake up in the morning. The truth is most people believe when they wake in the morning they will see their bed that night; most people fall asleep believing they will wake the next morning. The attack in Orlando, Florida, is poignant to Americans because this is not the norm for life in these United States. In other parts of the world atrocities such as this is a daily occurrence.
My heart is heavily burdened for these peop le and for others facing these atrocities throughout the world. Every individual is and will be held accountable when the time comes for us to go before God. Some, like Mohammed Ali, believe if they are good-go to church on Easter, Christmas and a few Sunday's in between; donate clothes, money, even time-maybe God will allow them to enter heaven. The answer is NO. Many believe God, Jesus, the Bible is a huge fairy tale to keep the masses under control. The answer is NO. Unfortunately, our churches are filled with ones who are regular church attendees but are deaf and blind to what is spoken. For these people the answer is still NO.
The "good news" is out of death comes life. The song Glorious Day by Casting Crowns says it succinctly. Meditate on the message this song delivers:

One day when Heaven was filled with His praises
One day when sin was as black as could be
Jesus came forth to be born of a virgin
Dwell among men, my example is He
Word became flesh and the light shined among us
His glory revealed

Living, He loved me
Dying, He saved me
Buried, He carried my sins far away
Rising, He justified freely forever
One day He's coming
Oh glorious day, oh glorious day.

One day they led Him up Calvary's mountain
One day they nailed Him to die on a tree
Suffering anguish, despised and rejected
Bearing our sins, my Redeemer is He
Hands that healed nations, stretched out on a tree
And took the nails for me

Living, He loved me
Dying, He saved me
Buried, He carried my sins far away
Rising, He justified freely forever
One day He's coming
Oh glorious day, oh glorious day.

If something happens to you before you slip between the blankets tonight, where will you spend eternity? What will you answer to God be when you meet Him face to face? You have a choice. You can choose His Son, Jesus Christ. You can make Him Ruler of your heart, mind, and soul. Ask Jesus to forgive you for your sins, ask Jesus to take up residence in your heart this very moment before your time is no more. Die to sin. Rise to eternal life. Out of death comes life, life everlasting.

 

 

LESSONS OF CHRISTMAS--JESUS

Jesus. The whole reason for the season. Christmas, the night of his birth. The night God gave up His Glory so He ouuld experience life in our shoes. As a child, when we felt wronged by someone my grandmother would say, "Walk in the other person's shoes for a mile." God walked in our shoes for a lifetime!!
Does Jesus jump from being an infant to twelve years old to a man of 30 years before he starts being a person to you? If you meet someone as a child or young adult or when we are in the latter portion of our life are they any less a person to us? Oftentimes, we say, if only we had more information of the missing years we could better relate to him. We could better believe he was for real. God gave up His Diety to become man. To experience life as man, to have the same emotions. The fact we don't have information on several years of his makes him no less real.
All too many times, Jesus goes from the cradle to picking his disciples by the Sea of Galilee. We rarely picture Jesus having his diapers changed, falling as he learned to walk, having tummy aches, getting his first tooth, having his mother teaching him life lessons through her eyes, learning life lessons at Joeeph's knee, learning a trade from his father. What other things did he learn from Mary and Joseph?
Paul tells the Philippians that Jesus, "being in the very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness." And, to the Corinthians he says about Jesus, "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He (God, I added) became poor, so that you through his (Jesus, I added) poverty might become rich." For you, for me, God came to this earth as man; experienced everything we experience, suffered a death worse than we can ever think of experiencing, rose from the dead, and sits at the right hand of God so we might have life, and have it abundantly.
Sarah Young in JESUS CALLING helps us to see Christmas from Jesus's viewpoint, "I accepted the limitations of infancy under the most appalling conditions--a filthy stable. That was a dark night for Me, even though angels lit up the sky proclaiming 'Glory!', I became poor so that you might become rich."
God came to this earth as a baby, Jesus, and walked this earth for 30 years doing the very same things you and I do every day. Then, for three years Jesus taught and healed and showed us how we can fulfill the purpose God created us to fulfill. Never before or since in the history of man has a god become man! God became man so we are able to have a relationship with Him. Allow this to soak deep into your soul. Ostwald Chambers in My Utmost for His Highest asks the question to consider for this Christmas lesson, "Have I allowed my personal human life to become a 'Bethlehem' for the Son of God?"

LESSONS OF CHRISTMAS--SHEPHERDS

Ah!! The Shepherds. As mentioned in my first post of this series the shepherds would be equivalent to today's homeless. Some of Israel's greatest heroes were shepherds; Abraham, Moses, David, Jacob, and his son Israel. However, mostly shepherds were hired and were not very reliable. So why were shepherds the ones God chose to be the first to hear about His Son's birth? Maybe, by looking closer at the duties of a shepherd we can discover the answer.
It was the responsibility of the shepherd to move his sheep from meadow to meadow so they would have nourishing food to eat. The shepherd had to water the sheep and if water wasn't nearby, it was there duty to take the sheep to a well and dip a pouch into the well. If the flock was large, this could take many hours. He had to protect them from snakes that could bite them as they fed or thieves that might steal them at night or wolves wanting one for its evening meal. To protect his sheep, at night he would lay across the opening to the sheepfold literally laying down his life for his sheep. If a sheep was killed under the care of a shepherd, by law he was required to show proof it was an animal that killed him and not the shepherd. (Was Jesus referring to this law 33 years later when He told His Father, he had not lost one). Was God showing us what was expected of His Son?
It was the shepherds who were the first to spread the news concerning the birth of a Messiah, a Savior, the Lord. After finding the Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger (this identified where the baby could be found) they went and spread the word, telling everyone what had happened to them and everyone was amazed.   Paul tells us in I Corinthians 1:27, "But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak of this world to shame the strong." Was Paul thinking about the shepherds when he wrote this?
Or was God pointing us to the day Jesus speaks about when he says, "When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory. And before Him shall be gathered all nations and He shall separate them one from another, as a SHEPHERD divides his sheep from the goats. And He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left." The ones on His right will be blessed and the ones on His left will be told to depart from Him. For we know His birth point to His death, His death to the resurrection, and the resurrection to the promise of His return.
Finally, upon returning to their fields, we find them :  "glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told." That's a very busy, very eventful time for the shepherds. We don't have their individual names but as a group they probably performed the second most important act of the evening, they did as they were told; they obeyed. And because they obeyed every year we will read about them. Ordinary people who did extraordinary things because they said "Yes" to God.

LESSONS OF CHRISTMAS

Here we are, once again, preparing for Christmas. The Christmas Scriptures may be excitingly new or boringly old. Some of us have heard them so many times we could almost repeat the Christmas story word for word from memory. What else can we learn from hearing the story again? During this Advent season we are going to focus on five groups of people that can teach us valuable lessons to apply to our lives.

First take the small family of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. Through them God explodes the box we keep Him in and chooses a young, poor, virgin and a carpenter to bring His Son into the world and to raise him. The righteousness of two ordinary people glorify God as they obey, as they say Your Will not mine,  and as they spiritually, emotionally, and physically surrender themselves to Almighty God.

God shocks us again when the angels announce His Son’s birth to the lowliest of the low, the shepherds. Really, SHEPHERDS today that’s like announcing it to a group of homeless people. But wait. He chose Abraham, a shepherd, to father nations. He chose David, a shepherd, the one who had a heart like God’s, to be the line in which His son would be born. Then there was Moses, a shepherd, He chose him to free His people from Pharaoh. Through these three shepherds we learn ordinary people can do extraordinary things when we are obedient to God.

King Herod, the chief priests, and the teachers of the law were seeking the Messiah for the all the wrong reasons. Here was a group of people who were seeking the Messiah intellectually but refused to bend their knees to the sovereignty of God, the power of God, or the Son of God. The sole purpose in seeking the Messiah was to deny and kill him. The lesson here is a difficult one. God will not show Himself to ones whose sole purpose is to deny Him, His power, or His sovereignty. We do not find the Messiah with our mind, it is only through our heart we can find the Messiah.

The Magi are not important for who they were but for the reason they traveled the great distance they did to see this Child. These men recognized this Child as the Messiah when the Jews could not. The Magi illustrate that we must diligently and purposely seek out this baby called Jesus, Immanuel (God with us), Savior before we can discover the gifts He has for us.

Finally, we come to the synagogue to meet Simeon and Anna. Two people who waited a lifetime to be able to see this “babe wrapped in swaddling clothes” who was the Savior, the Son of God, the Promised One. Through these two we learn patience and trust is rewarded by God. “God is who He says He is and God will do what He says He will do.” (Beth Moore, Believing God)

Join me next week as we look closer at Mary and Joseph. Do they have more to teach us?