A Thought And Prayer For Christmas, 2014

"And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb....They shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads....Then he said to me, 'These words are faithful and true....Behold, I am coming quickly!...I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last....And let him who thirsts come.  Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.'  He Who testifies to these things says, 'Surely I am coming quickly.'  Amen.  Even so, come, Lord Jesus."  (Revelation 22)

I have heard good news and bad news during the past year, but I have never heard any better words than the words of our text.  If any person on the planet reads and hears these Words of Jesus, receives these words, trusts these Words, that person will overcome in the coming year, indeed, the remainder of his/her life on what someone once described as, "this tortured planet."  All I can do at the end of this quarter's reading is to pass on to you the hope, strength, empowerment, sustaining power which has kept me all my life, but especially over these last 45 years. 

It was the day after Christmas, 1969, that we noticed something was wrong with Stephen.  Six months later he was no longer with us.  Pain, agony do not describe me, and the battle still continues.  But I have a continual choice, as do you; believe The Word of God, Jesus, or believe our helpless, powerless, inability-to-cure feelings and circumstances.  I keep choosing The Word of God, Jesus.  Your choice will determine your defeat or victory.  Choose wisely.

So here we are; the "last" Words of the "God-Breathed" Words of the Scriptures.  Regardless of the events of 2014, regardless of what 2015 holds, and regardless of the past years of our lives, these "final" Words of the Godhead can be nothing but comfort to the hungry soul.  One can choose the words of humanism.  I choose, "the Words of God," incarnate in the Babe of Bethlehem, Jesus, the Christ.

Here is a prayer, confession, and declaration for you and me.  It is a claim and promise of our Lord Jesus Christ, and surely came to pass in The Baby, Jesus, on that first Christmas night:
"The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me, For the Lord has anointed Me to...comfort the brokenhearted....He has sent me to tell those who mourn that the time of the Lord's favor has come....To all who mourn...He will give a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of mourning, festive praise instead of despair.  In their righteous, they will be like great oaks that the Lord has planted for His own glory." (Isaiah 61, NLT)

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Blog:  jhs58.blogspot.com

When Peter, an 18 year old Norwegian, "heard the call to evangelize China, on that day he not only emptied his wallet into the collection plate, but included a small note with the words, 'and my life.'"

"Looking unto Jesus"
Hebrews 12:2

"Our Father Who Art in Heaven"-- And in the Manger

"Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me?  The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father Who dwells in Me does the works."  (John 14:10)

Literally, "....I do not speak from Myself, but the Father dwelling in Me...."  The, "I," is a continual, "we," as in what Jesus a few moments later said, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him."  I think it can be accurately stated, therefore, that Father was in the manger at Bethlehem that "cold winter's night that was so deep"--- Blessed Trinity.

When I was 19, I summed up a two week Bible school session with third grade boys, "God's best gift to us is Himself in Jesus." (Those boys would be 60 today)  I taught them that God the Father and God the Holy Spirit were not somewhere it Heaven in the vast Universe watching the events of that "birthday" night, nor for the succeeding 33 years.  Rather, "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself."  Quite frankly, I think there has been far too much emphasis over the years of the Father "turning His back on Jesus" when Jesus was on the Cross.  So much misunderstanding of God Himself is due to erroneous theology spun by those who are selective Bible readers.  

If the Church is going to do as Jesus said, "....all should Honor the Son just as they honor the Father...," the Church needs to realize that God, Whom we proclaim to the world, is not a God removed from the world, from the daily struggles and battles of humanity.  Father and Holy Spirit were, "in Christ reconciling the world to Himself," and is continually, "in Christ," saving, reconciling, healing, delivering us all, i.e., all who believe Jesus, trust Jesus, surrender their lives to Jesus.  Separating Father and Son gives the impression to the world that there was and is this aloof, sort of angry "god" who would never stoop so low as a manger, as a Roman trial, as a cross, or as in, "I call you friends"----- but He did; He does.  We can say categorically, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock," is a Trinitarian invitation.

Christmas is "merry," because the Living Triune God of the Universe is the Living Triune God who answered the prayer expressed by the song writer, "O, come to us, abide with us, our Lord, Immanuel."
 
Father, in Jesus' Name, what an absolutely wonderful, marvelous, joyous "Holy Family."  I pray that all who have no family will embrace Your Family, and help me to embrace them.  Amen.

When Peter, an 18 year old Norwegian, "heard the call to evangelize China, on that day he not only emptied his wallet into the collection plate, but included a small note with the words, 'and my life.'"

"Looking unto Jesus"
Hebrews 12:2

A Lesson From Dickens' "A Christmas Carol"

"He has filled the hungry with good things; and sent away the rich empty-handed." (Luke 1:53)

This is a part of Mary's response to the news of, "the Coming One," Jesus.  She realized that Jesus would be the One Who would, "fill[] the hungry with good things," and everyone who rejected Jesus, He, yes, even life itself would, "sen[d] away...empty-handed."  Every Christmas Season we watch some of our favorite Christmas movies, "A Christmas Carol," among them.  Ebenezer Scrooge is a classic example of a very rich man, viz., rich in money, yet who had been, "sent away...empty-handed." 

I took particular note this year of a portion of the dialogue between Marley and Scrooge.  At one point Marley says to Scrooge, "O blind man, blind man! not to know that ages of incessant labor by immortal creatures for this earth must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed.  Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness.  Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunities misused!  Yet I was like this man; I once was like this man!"  Scrooge replies, obviously seeing himself in Marley's statement, yet attempting to divert the "conviction," "But you were always a good man of business, Jacob."  Marley replies, "Business!  Mankind was my business.  The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were all my business.  The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"

If I can perhaps pray something this Christmas Season for you and me, it would be that we walk in what Jacob Marley did not see in this life.  Be conscientious in business and life's endeavors, yes.  O, but may we never be as Jacob Marley and Ebenezer Scrooge, who gave themselves to only what benefited them.  May you and I have an "Ebenezer Scrooge" experience, a conviction received and a repentance walked in, a continual life of repentance, a life which lives, "Search me, O God, and know my heart," a life for others, for the poor, the objects of injustice and the selfishness of mankind, a life so lived that many may see, receive, and follow Jesus Christ. 

I just may make, "Mankind is my business," my New Year's resolution.

Father, in Jesus' Name, Amen.

When Peter, an 18 year old Norwegian, "heard the call to evangelize China, on that day he not only emptied his wallet into the collection plate, but included a small note with the words, 'and my life.'"

"Looking unto Jesus"
Hebrews 12:2