Dec 24thChristmas Thoughts
It’s still surprising to me that something that happened 12 years ago can still evoke the same sense of wonder now that it did then. It was right before Christmas, December 17th to be exact, that God suddenly showed up in my life again after a long absence. To this day, I can’t listen to the familiar hymns of Christmas without reliving those first weeks of hearing the words for what seemed like the first time and realizing bit by bit that this was no fairy story as I had long believed, but it had really happened.
Hark! the herald angels sing
Glory to the new-born King!
The new-born King? King? I’ve been treating him like dirt my entire life . . .
Peace on earth and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!
I remember attending a performance of The Marriage of Figgaro in about 1985. The music was wonderful, but the opera part wasn’t doing a whole lot for me, mostly because it was in another language. Somewhere toward the end, though, everything changed as the music alone just reached right into my soul and pierced all the way through to something I didn’t even know existed. Suddenly my eyes were full of tears and I just wanted . . . . There were no words for what I wanted, but that haunting sense of longing for something I couldn’t even name never really left. What I wanted then, and wandered lost for another dozen years trying to find was what this song talks about – reconcilliation with God.
Mild he lays his glory by,
Born that man no more may die,
I have to admit, I was pretty content with the idea of being worm food after I “passed on.” No need to get all worried about hell or anything nasty like that. All of the sudden, though, the idea of eternity started to make its way into my consciousness.
Joy to the world! the Lord is come;
Let earth receive her King;
There’s that King thing again. What have I been doing all my life?
He rules the world with truth and grace,
and makes the nations prove
the glories of His righteousness,
and wonders of His love,
How can righteousness and love go together in the same sentence?
Oh holy night!
The stars are brightly shining
It is the night of the dear Savior’s birth!
Long lay the world in sin and error pining
Till he appear’d and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices
A thrill of hope . . . Is that what’s stirring around in my soul? Hope? Why would that be so thrilling about hope to an optimist like me? But it was.
Fall on your knees
Fall on my knees? Is that what I need to do?
What child is this, who, laid to rest
On Mary’s lap, is sleeping?
Whom angels greet with anthems sweet,
While shepherds watch are keeping?
This, this is Christ the King,
Whom shepherds guard and angels sing:
Haste, haste to bring him laud,
The Babe, the Son of Mary!
Haste! Haste! All my life I’ve been running as far and as fast away from this Babe as I can. Lots of ground to cover back in the other direction. Haste! Haste!
O come, all ye faithful,
Joyful and triumphant,
O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem;
Come and behold him,
Born the King of angels;
O come, let us adore him,
O come, let us adore him,
O Come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord.
Come and behold him . . . O come, let us adore him. This is what gets me. The instant the Christian radio station came on in my car that December day, I knew it was Him that did it, and I knew that what I really deserved was to be squashed like a bug for the many and various ways I had, often deliberately, rebelled against my maker. And yet . . . I knew that this was also someone who loved me enough to bring my headlong rush to destruction to a screeching halt. I have to adore someone like that. I MUST find out who he is and what’s next.
Begotten, not created;
This is God I’m dealing with — no longer a figment. Figments don’t make things happen in the “real” world.
Yea, Lord, we greet thee,
Born this happy morning;
Jesus, to thee be glory given;
Word of the Father,
Now in flesh appearing
I still relish those words – “Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing.” When we did the John study, I thought for sure since I was getting a 3-month head start that I would have the questions all done before we started. Little did I know that I would spend the next three months exploring that one Word that John confronts us with right at the beginning of his Gospel. What a marvellous thing God has done to appear in flesh for us. What amazed and astounded me and still thrills my soul is that except for the flesh part, Jesus is the same Word of God that we see all through the Scriptures. I didnd’t know that then. I just knew it was an incredible thing that I hadn’t even begun to get my mind around. Like dipping my little toe into an infinite ocean and sensing the raw power of the thing even though I’ve only touched the edge of it. Twelve years later, I still get that feeling that I’ve only touched the edge of that great ocean.
While I still suspect that we might be off a month or two on the actual date (check out when Zachariah was actually serving in the temple and do a little math . . . .), and I’m positive that most of the trappings of the season are purely pagan in origin, I love the songs, and I love that God stepped into my life just when these songs were being played on the radio, in the stores, and everywhere – all the time. No wonder atheists get irritated this time of year.
May 10thQuote of the Day
The greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie. It is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite for heaven, but endless nibbling at the table of the world. It is not the X-rated video, but the prime-time dribble of triviality we drink in every night. For all the ill that Satan can do, when God describes what keeps us from the banquet table of his love, it is a piece of land, a yoke of oxen, and a wife (Luke 14:18-20). The greatest adversary of love to God is not his enemies but his gifts. And the most deadly appetites are not for the poison of evil, but for the simple pleasures of earth. For when these replace an
appetite for God himself, the idolatry is scarcely recognizable, and almost incurable. John Piper
How many people do I know right now, today, whose idolatry is hardly recognized and nearly incurable? Too many. Hence, my subtitle: Pity the person who has never gotten around to living for eternity. I truly do pity those around me who really have no idea what they’re missing, and won’t until they find themselves willing to lose all that they might gain Christ. I found these riches early on, and I STILL find my appetite for God dulled by a piece of land, a yoke of oxen, or a computer. But there’s a picture in my head that God placed there the first time I entered a church again after 18 years of atheism of a hound dog chasing a rabbit with all the single-minded zeal and abandon that only a hound dog hot on the scent can exhibit. It’s that kind of energy with which I desire to follow after God.
But what things were gain to me,
those I counted loss for Christ.Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss
for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord:
for whom I have suffered the loss of all things,
and do count them but dung,
that I may win Christ,And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness,
which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ,
the righteousness which is of God by faith:That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection,
and the fellowship of his sufferings,
being made conformable unto his death;If by any means I might attain
unto the resurrection of the dead.Not as though I had already attained,
either were already perfect: but I follow after,
if that I may apprehend that for which also
I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended:
but this one thing I do,
forgetting those things which are behind,
and reaching forth unto those things which are before,I press toward the mark for the prize
of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Feb 25thIs Not This The Fast That I Have Chosen?
So, it’s official. The funds are in place, the vacation time is approved, the gallbladder is out, and some of my supplies are purchased. I’m going on my first mission trip in May. Consider this the first entry in my “journal.”
Until I return, one of the staples of my daily routine will be removed so that I can spend more time with the Lord in spiritual preparation – Internet discussion boards. Not that I spend a LOT of time on discussion boards, but it does tend to make it harder to focus on what’s going on in the real world, and for the next few months, I need to focus, especially spiritually.
As I was considering my decision tonight, I was wondering what exactly I was going to do to fill the time I would normally spend talking to people I mostly don’t know (except we’ve been arguing theology for so long that it’s hard not to think of some of these people as friends). Isaiah 58:6 came to mind, and so I guess I’ll start off with just meditating on that and seeing where God wants to take me from there.
and shew my people their transgression,
and the house of Jacob their sins.
Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways,
as a nation that did righteousness,
and forsook not the ordinance of their God:
they ask of me the ordinances of justice;
they take delight in approaching to God.
Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not?
wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge?
Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure,
and exact all your labours.
Behold, ye fast for strife and debate,
and to smite with the fist of wickedness:
ye shall not fast as ye do this day,
to make your voice to be heard on high.
Is it such a fast that I have chosen?
a day for a man to afflict his soul?
is it to bow down his head as a bulrush,
and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him?
wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the LORD?
Is not this the fast that I have chosen?
to loose the bands of wickedness,
to undo the heavy burdens,
and to let the oppressed go free,
and that ye break every yoke?
Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry,
and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house?
when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him;
and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?
Then shall thy light break forth as the morning,
and thine health shall spring forth speedily:
and thy righteousness shall go before thee;
the glory of the LORD shall be thy rereward.
Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer;
thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am.
If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke,
the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity;
And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry,
and satisfy the afflicted soul;
then shall thy light rise in obscurity,
and thy darkness be as the noonday:
And the LORD shall guide thee continually,
and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones:
and thou shalt be like a watered garden,
and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.
And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places:
thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations;
and thou shalt be called,
The repairer of the breach,
The restorer of paths to dwell in.
If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath,
from doing thy pleasure on my holy day;
and call the sabbath a delight,
the holy of the LORD, honourable;
and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways,
nor finding thine own pleasure,
nor speaking thine own words:
Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD;
and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth,
and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father:
for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.
Jan 10thA Not So Random Snapshot
Eight years ago today I experienced something that most people will look at you like you’re an alien from outer space if you mention – unless they too have experienced it, in which case there is a sense of instant brotherhood. I was Born Again, just like Jesus told an old Pharisee named Nicodemus he had to be before he could even see the Kingdom of God, much less enter into it.
Eight years out, what’s it like? I think I’m like the kid on Christmas day who just opened the biggest present under the tree, and inside the box found the one thing he wanted more than anything else in the whole wide world but was so sure he would never get because it was just too expensive that he never told anyone that’s what he really wanted. And yet . . . there it is in the box. Wonder. Joy. So much that it doesn’t quite seem real.
I still haven’t gotten over the wonder that Christ is really mine and that I am really his. I still have tears streaming down my face every time we sing in church about the fact that one day I will see him face to face. Me? After all the wretched things I’ve done? He loves me? He’s not ashamed to call me family? Just as I am? This is the wonder of all wonders.
I will glory in my Redeemer
Whose priceless blood has ransomed me
Mine was the sin that drove the bitter nails
And hung Him on that judgment tree
I will glory in my Redeemer
Who crushed the power of sin and death
My only Savior before the Holy Judge
The Lamb Who is my righteousness
The Lamb Who is my righteousnessI will glory in my Redeemer
My life He bought, my love He owns
I have no longings for another
I’m satisfied in Him alone
I will glory in my Redeemer
His faithfulness my standing place
Though foes are mighty and rush upon me
My feet are firm, held by His grace
My feet are firm, held by His graceI will glory in my Redeemer
Who carries me on eagle’s wings
He crowns my life with lovingkindness
His triumph song I’ll ever sing
I will glory in my Redeemer
Who waits for me at gates of gold
And when He calls me it will be paradise
His face forever to behold
His face forever to behold