Christmas--God with us

Matthew 1:18-25 (NASB)

Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: when His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. And Joseph her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly. But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: “BEHOLD, THE VIRGIN SHALL BE WITH CHILD AND SHALL BEAR A SON, AND THEY SHALL CALL HIS NAME IMMANUEL,” which translated means, “GOD WITH US.” And Joseph awoke from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took Mary as his wife, but kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son; and he called His name Jesus.

When a child or someone asks you to define Christmas, what would you say?  Anything else other than it’s the time of year where the Christian church celebrates and/or commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ?  Yet the majority of people in the world think of Christmas either as a non-holiday for them or the time for Santa Claus to visit.  No thought nor appreciation for the real reason why Christmas exists. 

The real reason why Christmas exists is explained in this passage from Matthew.  The key statements of this passage are (1) “……..for He will save His people from their sins” and (2) “God with us”.  Two extraordinary, indescribable truths, yet so many fail to grasp their true significance for this life and the life to come.  Either people don’t understand, don’t believe, don’t care, or simply take these truths for granted without giving them any thought and how they apply in life on earth and life eternal. 

Take time right now to meditate over these two remarkable, almost incomprehensible truths.  First Jesus was born for the purpose of saving you from your sins.  Okay, so what?  So what means that without Jesus there would be no way for your sins to be forgiven.  Without forgiveness the penalty for sin is death---eternal death---complete and forever separation from God.  Eternal death is oblivion.  I know people and you do too who claim that they know that when they die, they will enter oblivion and don’t seem to be concerned about it.  Oblivion means to be completely forgotten.  Oblivion is a component of being in hell.  Yet Jesus came to save all believing souls from oblivion. He was born on earth to be the atonement for the penalty of sin and complete and eternal separation from God. What Jesus did on earth enables you, if you believe in Him, to escape oblivion and have eternal life with Him in heaven.  He also promises you an abundant life while living on this earth.     

That thought leads to the second great truth here—Jesus means “God with us”.  Before Jesus came to earth, man was separated from God.  There was no way for a holy God to be connected to sinful man.  Jesus was born in order eventually to die for the sins of the world.  Think of the cross as the connector between holy God and sinful man.  Think of the vertical beam as the pathway for man to enter into the presence of God.  Think of the horizontal beam as Jesus outstretched arms to gather you into His presence and His presence to enable you to be intimate with God.  Immanuel---God with us. 

Norman Vincent Peale wrote the story “If He Had Not Come”.  A little boy woke up on what he thought was Christmas day.  Yet his joy turned to horror when he saw no stockings hanging from the fireplace mantel.  No Christmas tree.  No Christmas lights, no singing, no time off from work, no joy in the world, not even a church.  The little boy saw a man injured in the street, yet no ambulance was available to pick him up because there was no hospital.  The little boy was so horrified over all this that he had to find the family Bible.  Yet where the New Testament should have started, there were only blank pages.  There was no Christmas story, nothing.  The little boy began crying terribly when his mother ran into his room to wake him up.  He had been enduring a nightmare.  He leaped out of bed and saw the stockings, the tree, the lights, heard the music, heard the church bells, and all other aspects of Christmas that is celebrated.  The little boy shut his eyes and said, “You came……thank You for coming.”   

Are you the Lord's servant?

Luke 1:38 (NLT)

Mary responded, “I am the Lord’s servant.  May everything You have said about me come true.” 

My favorite Christian author is Philip Yancey.  His latest book “What Good Is God” is a masterpiece, in my opinion.  Other highly recommended books--- “Prayer—Does It Make Any Difference?”, “What’s So Amazing About Grace?”, “The Bible Jesus Read”, “Disappointment With God”, and “Fearfully and Wonderfully Made”.  These are all books that can be read over and over again. 

In one of his other books--- “The Jesus I Never Knew”-- Yancey points out that the society when and where Jesus was born resembled that of Russia in the 1930s under Stalin.  The regime of Herod the Great was one of strife and terror, with daily executions and slaughters that are never pointed out in Christmas cards. 

Mary was likely no more than a 13-year old Jewish girl when the Holy Spirit chose her to be the earthly mother of the Savior of the world.  Think about the scandal of today when a teenage girl becomes pregnant; imagine what it must have been like back then?  Yet, when the angel, Gabriel, told her that she was the “favored one” (Luke 1:28) and after she naturally asked how could this be (Luke 1:34), she responded with these words of acceptance.

Despite the potential danger and ridicule that Mary knew she might face, she said “yes” to the Lord’s request.  As Yancey pointed out, often a work of God comes with two edges, great joy and great pain, yet Mary embraced both.  She was the first person recorded in the gospels who accepted Jesus on His own terms, regardless of personal cost. 

Note her affirmation, “I am the Lord’s servant”.  The Greek word she used was “doule” (“doo-lay”) meaning “female slave”.  Other translations use the word “bondservant”, a word the apostle Paul used to describe himself (38 times, e.g. Romans 1:1, Philippians 1:1).  Also Peter, James and Jude used this term that has several meanings:

·  Does not expect to be served but to serve others and to serve without being paid back.

·  Does not expect to be treated better than their master

·  Understands her/his ultimate purpose in life 

Does this describe you?  Is the Lord calling you to serve Him?  Are you saying “yes” or “no”?  Pray about saying “yes” and, if you do say “yes”, you will find that everything God says will come true for you!

Trials and tribulations that test your faith

James 1:2-4 (Phillips)

When all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into your lives my brothers, don't resent them as intruders, but welcome them as friends!  Realize that they come to test your faith and to produce in you the quality of endurance. But let the process go on until that endurance is fully developed, and you will find you have become men of mature character with the right sort of independence.

The book of James is not afraid to “get into your face”.  Here’s an example.  After one verse of introduction, he moves right into an area of life that happens to all of us.  He writes about trials and temptations that he knows are common to every single person who lives life on this earth.  He states somewhat matter-of-factly that (1) not if trials and temptations occur in your life, but when they occur; (2) that you will face not one but all kinds of trials and temptations; and (3) these problems will cause inconveniences and frustrations and pressures—they will “crowd into” your life! 

Anyone who reads these words for the first time is incredulous that you are to face your problems as friends, not intruders; in fact you are to welcome them.  Oh, come on, that’s not right!  Well, from a limited perspective, if God were not around, indeed that would be a laughable statement.  However, from an eternal perspective, from the viewpoint of God, welcoming trials and temptations as friends is a profound statement, full of wisdom.  Why?  Because trials and temptations produce at least three qualities in you that have eternal value—

§ They test your faith that reveals your true character

§ They produce in you the quality of endurance (perseverance)

§ They produce in you mature character that gives God the opportunity to mold you into His likeness.

The Greek word for endurance is “hupomone” that the scholar, William Barclay, defined as “having the quality to stand, to face the storm, to struggle against difficulty and opposition, to make progress against a trial, rather than merely waiting out the difficulty with passivity”.  Furthermore, Barclay commented that these trials and temptations are not meant to make you fall and fail, but to make you stronger as a person and to make you soar.  So, as best you can, rejoice in these trials knowing what their real intent is and what they will be producing in you.  

Is there anything better in life than becoming what God wants you to become?  He uses both joyful and sorrowful events of life to perfect (mature) you.  Yet your growth into a mature person does depend on how you react to your problems.  Of course, you will experience fear and anger and depression.  You will have doubts and you will plead with God to help you.  But, you need to find ways to replace all these normal and natural human reactions and emotions with the attitude of faithful expectation that the Lord is in control and is using these trials and temptations for a higher purpose in your life. 

Have you not experienced a serious illness where after healing had occurred you realized what a joy it is to experience the ordinary things of life that you could not enjoy while ill?  God used your illness to refine you so that you developed a much more mature perspective about life.  You didn’t realize the benefits of your illness initially, but now you appreciate aspects of life that you never appreciated before.

“God is in the process of making us everything we should be as His children. He intends for us to be mature, functioning in every part of our being exactly as He intends.  For this to be accomplished, trials are necessary. They build in us endurance, a steadfastness under pressure which will develop us as mature men and women in Christ.  What a tragedy that trials often become the occasion for complaining and discouragement.  We become obsessed with getting out from under the pressure rather than from learning to stand firm and thus become everything that God intends us to be (Romans 5:2-5; II Thessalonians 1:4 and I Peter 1:6,7).” -- Gil Rugh, pastor of Indian Hills Church in Lincoln, NE

Amen!

  

You are what you think

Proverbs 23:7 (NASB)

For as he thinks within himself, so he is. 

You can find a lot of information about your thought life, especially from a Christian perspective.  In my perusal of Christian literature on the mind and its thoughts, it is incredible how often this one-half of one verse is referenced.  There are so many possibilities for writing about our thought life, but let’s start with the context of this proverbial verse. 

This verse starts with the word “For….” So it is concluding what was written in verse 6.  Verse 6 reads, “Do not eat the bread of a selfish man, or desire his delicacies”.  Then verse 7 reads, “For as he thinks within himself, so he is.  He says to you, eat and drink, but his heart is not with you.”  The context of this verse is that selfishness starts from within, from what a person thinks about, and in this passage the selfish man is thinking only about himself.  The selfish man may say that he cares about you and wants you to eat and drink, but because of his selfish thinking, his heart---what he really cares about—is not you, but himself.

Your thought life will dictate who you are.  What you think about will determine your character.  What your mind dwells on will determine your actions and attitudes.  If you think about God and His Word, your character and actions will reflect Him in your life.  If you think about worldly things, then your life will reflect worldly things and worldly things are not from the Father (I John 2:15-16).  I heard somewhere that 90%+ of the thoughts of people are repetitive and mostly negative.  No wonder people are worry-warts and generally unhappy.     

If you think about yourself all the time, your life will be filled with selfishness and you will have little, if any, positive influence on others.  If you worry and think about negative things all the time, then your life will be filled with stress and unhappiness and, again, you won’t have much, if any, positive influence on others.  We all want our lives to have purpose and meaning, but if all you think about is yourself, if you worry all the time, you are usurping and losing opportunities to give your life purpose and meaning.

In II Corinthians 10:5, there is a very interesting command---“…….take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ”.  If you practiced this command, selfishness, worry, and any other negative thought would not occupy your mind.  This ties in with Romans 12:2 that tells you “to be transformed by a renewing of your mind…”.  You might need to re-program your mind by aggressively telling it to stop dwelling on the negative, stop worrying so much, and give these negative, anxious, yes….evil, thoughts over to Christ.

What you think about dictates your attitudes and, consequently, your attitudes dictate your character and actions.  You have seen/read this before, but it’s a wonderful reminder of the power of attitude on your life by Pastor Charles Swindoll:

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.  Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company... a church... a home.  The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude... I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.  And so it is with you... we are in charge of our attitudes.”

If any of this touches your heart and you truly desire to change your thought life, then pray this prayer from Psalm 139:23-24:  “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.  Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.”  God is faithful.  He will answer your prayer and will help you change your thought life.