No “May be” about It

Have you ever wondered at the paradoxical aspects of the work of our Redeemer? I looked up the  meaning of “paradoxical,” and one of the meanings was, “a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement that is or may be true.” http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/paradoxical.

For example, right from the start: A virgin having a baby, but never having done the physical act that would cause her to conceive; a part of the Godhead of heaven becoming flesh and living on earth; a sinless God/man taking all the sins of the entire world upon Himself; a King, but a servant; dying, but not forever. I can only imagine how someone who doesn’t believe the Bible would stumble and mumble while trying to figure this out. And that’s just an itty-bitty part of the paradoxes that are found in the Bible.

The music group, Casting Crowns, has an album out that is entitled, “Until the Whole World Hears,” and as you can imagine if you’ve ever listened to any of their music, it’s filled with words that zero right in on our mission here on earth. There’s one song that brings up even more of the extreme nature of our Savior. In the song, “O Glorious Day,” some of the phrases that are sung include:

Living, He loved me. Well, that’s easy. Being alive and breathing is one of the prerequisites of loving someone. How many dead men can say they love someone else?

Dying, He saved me. That’s explainable, too. Soldiers die every day in the line of duty, and ultimately, they have saved someone, somewhere, from having to fight and die. Body guards stand in the line of fire and take a bullet meant for someone else, usually someone important by worldly standards, or personally more important to the body guard than his own life.

Buried, He carried my sins far away. Whoa! What’s that talking about? When you’re dead, you’re dead. When you’re buried, you’re really dead – and incapable of doing anything. How can someone take my sins anywhere, and why would they want to?

Rising, He justified freely forever. Okay, now this goes beyond paradoxical. This goes into the “crossing over” movies and stories. He was dead, buried, took my sin and guilt with Him and destroyed its power over me, then rose (all within three days)?

But there’s more: He justified freely forever.

Well, there it is, the bottom line. He justified freely forever. I’m not sure what the writer of this song meant, but I’m guessing that by His death on the cross, His descent into Hell, and His resurrection on Easter morning, He paid the price for my life to be worth something. Did you catch that? He paid the price. Did you see money exchange hands? Did you see me having to ante up, contribute something to the pot for the price of redemption? Did you see any of that? No – because the price, paradoxically, did not have a dollar value. It did have a cost, however, and that was the life blood of the God/man; that was the severing of the bonds that held us captive; that was the walk into and through Hell and back to show Satan that He, the Redeemer, had just beaten Satan at his own game. He, Jesus, Son of God and Son of Man, born of a virgin, forever eternal, died for me – but didn’t stay dead – and through all of this, He gave me, freely, the gift of forever.

Galatians 5:1 (The Message): Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you.

Those “seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statements that are or may be true.”?

You’d better believe it: there’s no “may be” about them.

Author: Judy Burhans 

Excuses

Another disciple said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”

But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”

Matthew 8:21-22

I remember growing up and being told to do something by my parents. I don’t know about you, but if my obedience weren’t pretty instantaneous, I felt the result of my “slow to obey” on the backside of my body. I have kids, now, who seem to think words don’t mean anything unless they want them to. For instance, “Turn off the computer and get ready for bed,” is met by one child with no resistance and pretty quickly, his computer is off for the night. The other child, the one who can’t just say, “Yes, Mom,” or “Okay,” comes back with, “I just have to finish this message and then I’ll be done. I promise.” Five minutes later, he’s still clicking those keys as fast as he can, but it’s five minutes later and there’s no “Shut down” on the screen, yet. I once let him go without reiterating my “go to bed,” just to see how long it would be for his definition of “finish,” and it was at least 22 minutes, at which time, I pulled the plug for him and got this look. Yeah, you know the one. The entire time, I was thinking, “If this were my parents and me, I’d be dead by now.”

We all have excuses for things we don’t really want to do. It’s genetic, I think. Look at Moses. “I don’t want to lead these people out of Egypt. I have no experience. I can’t speak. I don’t want to go to Pharaoh and cast down my staff. What if nothing happens? What if something does happen?” Look at Jonah. “Let me go south (or whatever direction was opposite of where he was to go from where he was standing at the time), away from Ninevah. That place is for losers. Why would God want to save any of their worthless hides, anyway?” Look at, well, look at us. How often do we find excuses not to help that disreputable woman down the street? How long does it take us to get our ducks in a row so we can work on something requested/ commanded/
demanded of us by God?

“I will follow You wherever You want to lead me, but first, I have to. . .” Let the dead bury their dead, Jesus said. Does this mean that Jesus had no sympathy for families who had lost loved ones? When Jesus calls us, it means that everything else becomes a non-priority. When Jesus calls us, He wants us up and running, right now. Turn off the computers, shut down the store, hang up the phone, and pay attention! Undivided, totally focused attention to what God is saying to you, because why? Because there is work to be done, work of the Father. Because we, on our own, too often forget about this work that we’re required to do. We get too caught up in the things of this world, the things that we really love to do, the things that take up all of our time. We’re too busy, God, to come now – can’t it wait?

In the above passage, the verses go on to show that Jesus left, after telling the man requesting “leave time” to drop everything and follow Him, and He went across the lake to the other side. Without reading the passages, do you know what He did for the next few hours, while the rest of the world was “busy”? He calmed the storm that His disciples feared would swamp their boat; He provided safe passage to the other side of the lake; He immediately was run down by two demon-possessed men who were frantic and possessed, and He sent the demons into a herd of pigs (who have no souls, by the way), who proceeded to jump off a cliff into the water to their deaths.

Now, what’s the point of all of this? What was so important about doing the will of the Father that Jesus had no time to by “busy” like the rest of the people, or so important that He couldn’t just sit and relax awhile? Because His actions were seen by others. The results of His words and works were experienced by His disciples (“Who is this, that even the wind and the seas obey Him?”); the pig herders saw first-hand their pigs go from grazing, wallowing, calm pigs to beasts possessed, literally, and unable to be controlled by the pig herders. The entire pig herd just ran into the water and drowned, leaving the pig herders standing there in amazement and wonder. And, probably the bottom line, they anxious to run into town and spread the news of all that they had seen and experienced.

The wonders of God. The call of the Savior. The salvation of the lost.

What’s your excuse?

Author: Judy Burhans

The Rock of My Salvation

“O Lord of Heaven’s Armies, if you will look upon my sorrow and answer my prayer and give me a son, then I will give him back to you. He will be yours for his entire lifetime.”

1 Samuel 1:11a

The books of Samuel are two volumes, full of the life and time of Samuel, a prophet of the Lord who served his entire life, minus 1½ chapters, living in the temple with Eli and then roaming the countryside, doing what the Lord demanded of him. We can get a good feel for Samuel, since his books go on and on as he grew into the man that God wanted him to be, but what about those first 1½ chapters before this? What do we learn from them

Well, as a matter of fact, we learn quite a bit of the lives of three people in those few verses. We meet Elkanah, a man who had two wives. One wife’s name was Peninnah who was a mean woman, making fun of Hannah, Elkanah’s other wife. Why? Because Peninnah had children and Hannah didn’t. In those days, it was a sign of disgrace among your neighbors to be married and childless, and Peninnah flaunted the fact in Hannah’s face as often as she could. Even when they were in the sanctuary of the Lord. We learn that Elkanah knew about this conflict between his wives, and his response was, “Why are you so sad about not having children, Hannah? You have me! Am I not better than having 10 sons?” Elkanah was not much into the psyche of childless women, obviously.

As the years went on and Hannah continued to remain childless, she continued to pray for a son, and she especially prayed diligently when she was on the annual trip to the Tabernacle to make offerings before the Lord. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’ve made a few prayers to God where I’ve said, “If You’ll do this, I’ll do this,” which could maybe be taken as a bribe, or a bartering, or maybe just a promise. Only God knows the heart of the woman who comes before Him, and only He has the power and knows the potential of His decision to grant the request, as asked. In Hannah’s case, she vowed to give the child back to God so that the child could serve God for his entire lifetime.

Wow! I’ve made some bargains, but imagine the agony that would have been brought upon Hannah when God did grant her a son, this precious little gift that she had yearned for and wanted so desperately. I could not have been Hannah, I’m afraid. I would have reneged on my part of the deal, and then I imagine I would have been in deep, deep trouble for the rest of my very short life. I love kids, and I especially love babies, so for me to have to give up that child before he got married and had children of his own – unthinkable, for me

The first year Elkanah went back to offer sacrifices after his son was born, Hannah stayed back and didn’t make the trip. She told Elkanah that she would stay with Samuel at home and take care of him there, but that the next year, when he was weaned, she would go and leave him there at the Tabernacle so he could serve the Lord. And then Elkanah, the man of wise words, said, “Do whatever you think is best. And Hannah, may God give you strength to help you keep your promise.”

I don’t know. These people just blow my mind. Elkanah sounds like he knew this was going to be tough for Hannah when the time came in just another short 12 months, but what about him? This was his son, too. Didn’t he have any pains of separation anxiety? Of course, he had another wife and kids with her, so maybe that was enough for him, but still. .

Obviously, God knew what He was doing, and He had the perfect woman chosen to give birth to Samuel, and He gave her the strength she needed to do what she had promised in exchange for a son/child. Did she go on to have more children after Samuel? I don’t think the Bible tells us, because if she did or didn’t, it wasn’t necessary for us to know since Samuel was the one that God needed and used in His own plan for fulfilling all that He had laid out since before time. I would like to think that God did give Hannah more children since He knew the desires of her heart, or maybe after one, Hannah was satisfied and fulfilled, herself. Her stigma of being childless was lifted, and for that she praised God for who He was, which is recorded in chapter two of the First Book of Samuel, verses 1 through 10.

“¹My heart rejoices in the Lord!  The Lord has made me strong. 

Now I have an answer for my enemies; I rejoice because you rescued me.

²No one is holy like the Lord! There is no one besides you;

there is no Rock like our God.”

And maybe that’s all we need to know.

Author: Judy Burhans

Keeping the Score

Jerusalem will be told: "Don't be afraid. Dear Zion, don't despair. Your God is present among you, a strong Warrior there to save you. Happy to have you back, he'll calm you with his love and delight you with his songs.

 Zephaniah 3:16

 This Advent Season, as we prepare our hearts and minds to fully enjoy the celebration on Christmas Day, let’s look at some Christian Basics to help put in perspective these things we take for granted. 

 There are two things that are relevant to be aware of in preparing for Christmas with your Christian families.  The first is that the devil is real and will use his secular tricks to take away from any honor you would give your Heavenly Father.  The second is that you have a mark on your back as a Christian. It’s called a cross, and people want to see you mess up.

The devil is the prince of lies.  The Bible states that he is roaming the earth looking for souls to devour.  Did you know there is a higher incidence of suicides at the holidays?  Why?  Because Christmas should, in its purest form, be about Christ’s birth and the celebration of that with loved ones.  When our society is so far off the mark, the devil is right there ready to go to work.  Any deviation away from making Christmas about God’s love-gift to us, in the form of His Son, will be a point for the other team.  Let’s keep trying to score for Jesus by being aware and knowledgeable about our opponent’s intentions.

 If you are a “hot” Christian, as in opposite from “lukewarm,” then the world just loves it when they see you get ill in a store line, yell at your kids or fuss at a sales clerk.  It reassures them that being a Christian is no different from them; and Christians don’t seem to be enjoying Christmas any more than the rest.  As a matter of fact, Christians then have to worry about feeling guilty for doing dumb things that the rest of the world just blames on other people.  Even more lies from the devil to keep us away from Christ.  Be a good example, folks.  Walk in the way.  Realize that if you are a proclaimed Jesus freak, then eyes will be hot on you.  Pray in everything you do; that is the best ward against our enemy.

It may not seem very ‘Christmas-y,’ and this is not a warm and fuzzy devotion, but it is our reality.  Continually picture yourselves as warriors for Christ, advocates for the lost and leaders to our children.  Our Lord is perfect and good, He has already won the battle for us on the cross.  What a sweet celebration it is on Christmas Day! Let’s work to bring in more to the kingdom to celebrate through the Christmas season!

Author: Katrina Sheely 

Not Always Easy Love

"God alienated my family from me; everyone who knows me avoids me. My relatives and friends have all left; houseguests forget I ever existed. The servant girls treat me like a bum off the street, look at me like they've never seen me before. I call my attendant and he ignores me, ignores me even though I plead with him. My wife can't stand to be around me anymore. I'm repulsive to my family. Even street urchins despise me; when I come out, they taunt and jeer. Everyone I've ever been close to abhors me; my dearest loved ones reject me. I'm nothing but a bag of bones; my life hangs by a thread.

Job 19:13

I know conditional love. I know love that’s powered by a need to be in control. I know love that depends on how one is feeling at any particular moment, that depends on how one is treated beforehand and after-hand, that depends on whether his needs were met or not. Conditional. Heaven help that child or wife who happens to step on the wrong eggshell while treading carefully through the field of landmines, because everyone know what happens when those explode.

Love certainly isn’t easy. I think it comes in the guise of many other emotions and love may not even be on the list, but someone thinks that constitutes “love,” and there’s not much one can do about it. And it isn’t easy.

Notice Job in the above passage. He went from rags to riches, from powerful to impotent, from one “in the know” to one who nobody knows. The love of his wife, his friends, his guests, his co-workers, his staff, the poor he had once cared for – it was all conditional. Once Job lost his ability to be a healthy, generous leader, he became a nonentity. He had nothing to give, nothing to share, and no power to make anything change, so he was not worthy of being loved.

Can you put yourself there? Can you imagine, or do you know, the feeling of only being loved if you can fulfill specific needs, or have what somebody else needs? It’s awful, isn’t it?

Sometimes it helps to commiserate with someone else who has experienced the same thing; sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it means making major changes to get out of the conditional conditions and finding a different way to live, one that doesn’t keep you in the bonds of fear and despair. Sometimes it means hanging in there, like Job did, until God determines that you have been tried and found faithful to Him, and He will provide the change.

It is good to remember, as difficult as it may be, sometimes, depending on where our lives are, that God is a God of love, and it’s not based on what we’ve done, who we are, where we are, how we live or what we think of ourselves. His love is unconditional and knows no bounds. It’s also good to recall how much His love cost Him; how His Son was despised and rejected and mocked by those who claimed to love Him a week before they crucified Him. And it’s good to think about how hard it must have been for God to give His Son to a world so full of sin, to people who would not accept Him, yet He sent Him, anyway.

No, love’s not always easy.'

Author: Judy Burhans 

Hear the Angels Sing

But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see- I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people.

Luke 2:10

 When I was younger, the kids in my neighborhood would get together a few nights before Christmas and go caroling.  There was an area a few streets over where mostly retired folks lived and we knew that’s where our caroling would most likely “pay off” with gifts of candy or small change in exchange for our singing.  For a rag tag bunch of kids, we didn’t sound too bad.  Singing familiar carols that we knew by heart, even if we didn’t get all the words exactly right (sleep in heavenly peas!).

It wasn’t until I was much older that I really began to pay attention to the words of these familiar carols – their message and theology.  In beautiful language they tell of the miracle of Christmas or speak to their time the hope of Christ’s arrival.  One such carol is, It Came Upon the Midnight Clear by Edmund Sears.  The words were written during a time in our history when there was much social upheaval and just a decade before the start of the Civil War.  It was one of the first hymns to speak to the social implications of the angels’ message – finding peace and good will toward others in the midst of social difficulty. In the third verse, Sears captured the angst and despair people felt, but also the message of great hope and good news of which the angels spoke.  He wrote, “And ye beneath life’s crushing load, whose forms are bending low, who toil along the climbing way with painful steps and slow, look now for glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing: O rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing”.

Isn’t that a great image that we all sometimes need to hear?  Life can be overwhelming and difficult.  We can feel beat down and crushed.  But, in the midst of our troubles and difficulty, the angel still sings, “Fear not”.  Advent calls us to “rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing.”  So, pull over, take a deep breath, and quietly listen.  You’ll hear it…ever so softly…the voice of the angels…”I am bringing you good news of great joy.”  Christ will be born. Thanks be to God!

Prayer: God of Wisdom, God of Mercy, calm my spirit so that I can hear the voices of the angels sing.

 Author: Kirk Oldham

Tough Love

"Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons."

Hebrews 12:7

When I was a little girl, my mom would go along for quite a while, just warning me when I was naughty. But there would come a day when I went too far, said one sassy thing too many, overstepped the bounds of her patience...and when that happened, she would march me off to the bathroom and spank me. And Mother always prefaced the corporal punishment with these words, "Kay, this hurts me worse that it does you."

 Yeah, sure!" I would silently fume. "I'll just bet this hurts you a whole bunch!"

Years later, of course, as a parent and now a grandparent, I completely understand exactly what Mother meant. It does hurt to discipline your child, no matter what form of discipline you use. Because you love this little person, you don't like having to make him/her unhappy. And yet you MUST...precisely because you do love the little rascal!

Not to teach your child the correct way to behave is to keep him or her from becoming the best person possible. Children who haven't been taught the bounds of acceptable behavior become little monsters, totally focused on themselves and oblivious to the needs and desires of other people. So, as much as it may hurt to make that child behave, we do it because we love them.

God, too, disciplines His children. He allows us to go through tough times in our lives because He loves us and He wants us to learn and grow in wisdom and reverence for Him. Hebrews 12:4-11 explains this, and it says:

Hebrews 12:11: "No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it."

 Father, we thank You for loving us as Your very own children. Thank You for teaching us Your ways.

Author: Kay Bradburn 

Crazy Love

Change your life, not just your clothes.  Come back to God, your God.  And here’s why: God is kind and merciful.  He takes a deep breath, puts up with a lot, This most patient God, extravagant in love, always ready to cancel catastrophe.  Who knows?  Maybe he’ll do it now maybe he’ll turn around and show pity.  Maybe, when all’s said and done, there’ll be blessing full and robust for your God!

In my life, there have been times when I’ve been close to Jesus and times when I’ve chosen to distance myself from Him, but I’ve always been in a relationship with Him.  So I have some curiosity about people who are not in a relationship with Him and why they don’t want to be.  I think maybe one of the things that the devil uses to keep some people from believing that Jesus is their Savior is that the concept seems too good to be true.  Or maybe they think there’s a catch we Christians are withholding from them that would only be revealed once they’d “signed up.”  After all, Christianity stands out from all the other religions of the world.  It is the only one in which we must do nothing but accept the free gift of salvation.  As Christians, we know that there are then things that come out of what the Holy Spirit does in us after we accept the free gift, but nothing is demanded of us just because we accept the gift.  But in a society in which we know “there’s no such thing as a free lunch,” it can all seem too good to be true. 

 The wonderful news is that the gospel message is true!  God is extravagant in love!  But it is a concept that is hard to explain to someone whose eyes are not open to it, yet.  My belief in and relationship with Jesus go far beyond believing the Bible.  My experience of His love in me and through me is a very real, tangible, unexplainable-in-human-terms thing.  It’s kind of like when a parent has their first child.  You know you are going to love them, but it is not until that child is born and you hold them in your arms that you understand the depth of that love.  It is something to which words cannot do justice. 

 God’s love is even more indescribable!  Just imagine God the Father sending His only Son to be born a humble birth.  To live a simple, yet sin-free life.  To be tortured and killed, but to rise, again, victorious. 

 Why would He do that?  Because He is absolutely crazy in love with you and with me! 

We know it sounds absurd, we don’t get what we deserve

It’s by grace we are saved

 Not only do I know God’s love is real because I’ve experienced His love for me.  I also know it’s real because I’ve experienced the power of His love at work in me.  He has molded my heart in ways I never could by my own power.  He has caused me to love with His kind of crazy love that doesn’t make sense to the rest of the world.

 They say it sounds insane, we say that we’ve been changed

By the power of crazy love

This world, it looks at us like we’re ridiculous

Maybe it’s all because of crazy love

 Hawk Nelson “Crazy Love”

 Author: Heather Roberts

Crazy Love

Change your life, not just your clothes.  Come back to God, your God.  And here’s why: God is kind and merciful.  He takes a deep breath, puts up with a lot, This most patient God, extravagant in love, always ready to cancel catastrophe.  Who knows?  Maybe he’ll do it now maybe he’ll turn around and show pity.  Maybe, when all’s said and done, there’ll be blessing full and robust for your God!

In my life, there have been times when I’ve been close to Jesus and times when I’ve chosen to distance myself from Him, but I’ve always been in a relationship with Him.  So I have some curiosity about people who are not in a relationship with Him and why they don’t want to be.  I think maybe one of the things that the devil uses to keep some people from believing that Jesus is their Savior is that the concept seems too good to be true.  Or maybe they think there’s a catch we Christians are withholding from them that would only be revealed once they’d “signed up.”  After all, Christianity stands out from all the other religions of the world.  It is the only one in which we must do nothing but accept the free gift of salvation.  As Christians, we know that there are then things that come out of what the Holy Spirit does in us after we accept the free gift, but nothing is demanded of us just because we accept the gift.  But in a society in which we know “there’s no such thing as a free lunch,” it can all seem too good to be true. 

 The wonderful news is that the gospel message is true!  God is extravagant in love!  But it is a concept that is hard to explain to someone whose eyes are not open to it, yet.  My belief in and relationship with Jesus go far beyond believing the Bible.  My experience of His love in me and through me is a very real, tangible, unexplainable-in-human-terms thing.  It’s kind of like when a parent has their first child.  You know you are going to love them, but it is not until that child is born and you hold them in your arms that you understand the depth of that love.  It is something to which words cannot do justice. 

 God’s love is even more indescribable!  Just imagine God the Father sending His only Son to be born a humble birth.  To live a simple, yet sin-free life.  To be tortured and killed, but to rise, again, victorious. 

 Why would He do that?  Because He is absolutely crazy in love with you and with me! 

We know it sounds absurd, we don’t get what we deserve

It’s by grace we are saved

 Not only do I know God’s love is real because I’ve experienced His love for me.  I also know it’s real because I’ve experienced the power of His love at work in me.  He has molded my heart in ways I never could by my own power.  He has caused me to love with His kind of crazy love that doesn’t make sense to the rest of the world.

 They say it sounds insane, we say that we’ve been changed

By the power of crazy love

This world, it looks at us like we’re ridiculous

Maybe it’s all because of crazy love

 Hawk Nelson “Crazy Love”

 Author: Heather Roberts

Prepare Ye!

“This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said, ‘The voice of the one crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’”

Matthew 3:3

Growing up a “preacher’s kid” I spent a great deal of time in and around the church.  I’m sure I did my part to live up to the stereotype of a preacher’s kid, but I know those years involved in church youth group were very important and formative for me.  One of the things our youth group did was to put on musicals for the church; one which being Godspell.  I love the music of Godspell and it was fun to be a part of the performance.  I remember I always got chills down my spine when in the midst of a darkened room and a silent audience, the words to “Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord” were sung a cappella from the back, over and over.  It became like a mantra working its way into your heart and soul.

Advent sings to us, prepare ye the way of the Lord.  In the midst of all the “busy-ness” and preparations that go along with the holiday, is the lone voice challenging us over and over to prepare our hearts and our lives to receive the birth of Christ all over again.  I think we sometimes miss that voice because of all the rushing around or because of the baggage we sometimes carry in life. 

So, right now, just stop!  Drop what you are doing and for just a minute, listen to that voice crying out in the wilderness.  Prepare ye the way of Lord.  What is it that you need to clear away so the Lord can enter fully into your life?  Set it aside.  Give it to God to carry, even for just a little while and prepare, so when morning dawns on Christmas day, you can sing with the angels as Christ is born anew in your heart.

Prayer:  Gracious God, help me to prepare my heart, to make straight the path so that your love and grace can be born in me anew.

Author: Kirk Oldham