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Wise Men

They saw his star, and it led them to Israel.

These scholars, “wise men from the East,” were on a mission to worship a special king, a Messianic king, whose birth was marked by a star in the heavens.  Yet when they arrived in the capital city of Jerusalem, how astonished they must have been to learn that no one knew of the birth of this special king.   He hadn’t been born in the palace.  His birth had not been celebrated with the ringing of bells or great proclamations of joy throughout Israel.

Instead of a palace in Jerusalem, these wise men finally found the king they had been searching for in the lowly, obscure village of Bethlehem.   His star led them not to a royal residence but to a simple home.*  How astonished Mary and Joseph must have been when they answered the door and standing before them were these regal men, strange in dress, imposing in manner and decorum.  And to amazement of Mary and Joseph, with great humility these men bowed down and worshiped their child, Jesus, presenting him with precious gifts of gold, myrrh and frankincense.

These wise men weren’t bothered by the simple surroundings.  They weren’t interested in worshiping one who appeared royal.  They wanted to worship the One who was divinely royal.  They pushed aside their preconceived notions as to who and what this king would be like and worshiped the king who was revealed to them by that guiding star.

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Perfection

Tis the season when it is so easy to seek perfection.

The perfect tree,

perfect decorations,imagesALEM9BXW

perfect gifts

the perfect Christmas meal,

hosting a perfect Christmas celebration.

No glitches, no flaws, no missteps.

But the one whose birth we celebrate, the one perfect person who became a perfect sacrifice to perfect some very imperfect people, doesn’t seek this kind of perfection from us.

Now it is true Jesus gave this command:

“Be perfect like your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matt. 5:48)

And taken out of context, it seems like Jesus is requiring the impossible expectation to live a life without flaws, without error or mistakes. But in context this command takes on a different meaning. For you see, his command comes as a concluding statement about God’s perfect love for mankind – a generous and gracious love.

“For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.   If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that.  But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect. (Matt. 5:43-48)

Jesus set before us a challenge to develop this kind of “perfect” love – to perfect the way we love one another, to perfect the way we treat others.   In the Message translation, His command encourages us,

“(To) Live out your God-created identity. (To) Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.” (Matt. 5:48)

So this Christmas let’s alter our focus from trying to make things perfect and ask the One who is perfect to perfect His love in us – to help us demonstrate His “perfect” love by being patient when the Christmas meal goes awry, gracious when the gift we receive doesn’t measure up to our expectations, and forgiving when confronted with a thoughtless word or deed. Let us love not just when it is easy but even when it is hard. This season let us love generously and graciously as our heavenly Father loves us.

Give Thanks

On a crisp, clear “up north” night we sat around a bonfire.  But quickly our gaze turned from flames of the fire to the brilliance of the star studded sky.  As our eyes looked upward, we were mesmerized by its majesty; we were filled with wonder at the omnipotence of our God who spoke these stars into being.

Although the number of stars we could see with our naked eyes were too numerous to count, they were but a minute number of stars that fill our galaxy.  Scientists tell us the Milky Way consists of 100-300 billion stars.  Even further confounding is the fact that our galaxy is but one of over 100 billion galaxies in our universe.  Our God is an incredible star-Maker, planet Creator!

And, it is this awesome and powerful God who calls out to us with an extraordinary invitation:

“Draw near to me and I will draw near to you!” James 4:8

How incredible it is that the loving desire of our omnipotent God is for us to have an intimate, personal relationship with Him – a relationship where we have the privilege to call on His name, knowing that He hears and answers us.

When we truly reflect on how blessed we are by God’s great love for us, I think we can relate to the words David wrote in Psalm 8:

milkyway“I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous,

your handmade sky-jewelry,

Moon and stars mounted in their settings.

Then I look at my micro-self and wonder,

Why do you bother with us?

Why take a second look our way?”  vs. 3-4

 

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His Touch

Leprosy.

It had ravaged his body, leaving behind deformed fingers, toes, ears, and nose.  He watched with despair as His appearance became unearthly.  But, the physical misery of leprosy was surpassed by the extreme social ostracism this disease incurred.  Because it was believed that leprosy was contagious through touch, he had become a social outcast.

 No longer permitted to embrace those he loved.

No longer welcome to join family celebrations.

No longer allowed to worship in the temple or enter the synagogue.

No longer able to earn a living, reduced to a life of a beggar.

His identity had been changed – from blessed to “unclean.”  He was not quarantined for 21 days, he was quarantined for life.  What years remained would mean living a rejected, lonely, desolate life.

No cure.

No mercy.

No hope.

But one day hopelessness was replaced with a glimmer of hope.  A man named Jesus was nearby and rumors had proven true; He was a healer.     Three of the four gospels document the healing of this leper, and in each account, whether it is in Matthew, Mark or Luke, the details are the same:

 The leper knelt before Jesus and begged to be healed, to be made “clean.”

Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man.

Jesus then declared, “Be clean.” (Be healed.)”

And the leper was healed.

As I was reading yet again the concise account of the leper’s healing, I was struck by one these recurring details, one in particular:  Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man.

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M’mm, M’mm, Good!

God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. (Gen. 1:3)

He spoke.

His words went forth as a divine edit,

and there was light.

By the power of His word, over the next five days, our world and the life upon it were created.  And at the end of each day, God reflected on what He had created,

                “And God saw that it was good.” (Gen. 1)

Then at the end of the week,

“God looked over everything he had made; it was so good, so very good!” (Gen. 1:31 MSG)

The work He had accomplished by the power of His words was not just good, but very good.  And, therein lies the challenge for us:  to use our words to create what is good, indeed, what is very good.

Certainly our words do not have the omnipotent power to create light or to hang the sun, moon or stars in the sky, but we do have the power to use our words to speak life or death into the lives of others.

“Words kill, words give life; they’re either poison or fruit – you choose.” Prov. 18:21 MSG

My words have the power:

to criticize, to demean, to wound OR to encourage, to comfort, to show love.

The desire of my heart is that each day I will choose to use the power of my words to speak life into the lives of others.  At the end of each day, I want to be able to declare what God declared – that what was “created” by my words was good, that the way I chose to use my words was “so very good.”  

Perhaps the message of this photo can help inspire us to speak “life” – to speak words that taste good!

tasting_words

Pressing On

Jesus went through the towns and villages, teaching as he went, always pressing on toward Jerusalem.  (Luke 13:22 NLT)

Jerusalem.

No matter where Jesus preached, no matter where he performed miracles, Jerusalem was always on his mind.  His destiny lay before him in Jerusalem.  But it was not an easy destiny.

He knew he would be betrayed by those closest to him.  He knew he would be ridiculed and humiliated.  Yet, he pressed on to Jerusalem.

He knew he would be spat upon, flogged, tortured, and crucified by Roman soldiers.  Yet, he pressed on to Jerusalem.

He knew on the Cross the Father would pour into him our sin so that we might receive his righteousness.  He who enjoyed a sublime relationship with the Father would experience a separation from the Father because of that sin.  Yet he pressed on to Jerusalem.

Indeed, the choice to press was on was not easy.  In fact, once in Jerusalem that choice brought anguish and deep sorrow.  That choice brought sweating drops of blood.  Yet he never let the pain or anguish side-track him.  He remained resolute to press on to Jerusalem. Continue Reading

God’s Plan

He came bursting through the door barely able to get his words out. All she could decipher at first was, “We’re leaving!” 

Running from room to room, he scanned each one quickly determining what would be taken and what would be left behind.  She could barely keep up to him and had an even harder time comprehending what he was telling her.  She had never seen such joy and excitement on her husband’s face.  I imagine Abraham must have finally turned to her and said something like this:

“Sarah, I met God today – the living God.  He promised great blessings, unbelievable blessings.  But Sarah, the most incredible blessing is that from us would come a great nation.  Do you know what that means?  It means God is promising that we will have a son.” 

 A son!

This was the one thing Sarah longed for.  In her culture, a woman’s worth was based on her ability to bear a son, an heir for her husband, and Sarah had lived long with the stigma of barrenness.  No matter what joys of life she experienced, they were always dampened by her desire for a child..  I think Sarah must have started pulling clothes out of drawers, emptying every closet.  Most likely she called the realtor and scheduled a yard sale.  Oh, how she wanted a child!  Yet in the midst of the excitement,  she must have paused and asked Abraham this question,

 “I’m willing to leave, but where are we going?  What’s the plan?”  Continue Reading

The Shepherd’s Rod and Staff

Long before he became a mighty warrior or the honored king of Israel, David was a shepherd.  And, Psalm 23 was written from the heart of that shepherd.  He used what he knew about the relationship between a shepherd and his sheep to reveal to us that:

The Lord is our Shepherd and we are His sheep. 

Each verse of this psalm is written with powerful imagery, but for me the most striking verse is:

 “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, For you are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.”           (Ps. 23:4 NKJ)

Whenever I face adversity, I find myself reciting this verse.  Yet one day, I was compelled to look at this verse more closely, questioning how the Shepherd’s rod and staff can comfort us.

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I AM

Eighty years old,

while tending sheep on a wilderness mountain,

he catches a glimpse of a bush on fire.

What holds his attention, what compels his curiosity is that the bush is not consumed.  As Moses moves closer, he hears God speak to him from that bush.  And, what he hears shakes him to the core.  God commissions him to do what seems impossible – to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, to free them from the bondage of slavery.

Certainly God couldn’t expect him to be their deliverer.  Forty years earlier in his prime, it may have been possible.  But not now!

God’s response?  Moses, this time,

“I will be with you.” (Ex. 3:12)

Then God did something for Moses that He had not even done for the great patriarch Abraham, nor his descendants, Isaac and Jacob.  God revealed to Moses His name – “I Am.”   Abraham knew God by a title, “Almighty God” but to Moses, a man whose hopes, dreams, and aspirations had become ashes of despair and resignation, to this man, the Lord revealed His name.

“This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I Am has sent me to you.”’ (Ex. 3:14)

With the name “I Am,” God declares He is a “present tense” God.  He is not just a God of the past who has done great things.  Nor is He just a God of our future, who is the hope of our salvation. 

He is the God of our present.  He is our “present tense” God. Continue Reading

Uncluttered Prayer

I wish I had entered the room just a few minutes earlier.  All I heard was the tail end of a conversation between my two granddaughters, Caitlin, who is 4 ½ and her cousin Scarlet who is 3 ½ years old.  I’m not sure what sparked the conversation, but Caitlin was reassuring Scarlet with this simple but profound truth:

            “Scarlet, you can’t see God, but you can talk to Him and He will listen.”

My heart skipped a beat.  With one simple statement she had defined genuine prayer.

Hundreds, maybe even thousands of books have been written about prayer – how to pray, when to pray, where to pray.  Many of these books inspired by the Holy Spirit reveal important truths and strategies that enrich our times of prayer.  We are blessed that Jesus shared a pattern for prayer with his disciples that we know as the Lord’s Prayer.  In his letters to the Early Christian churches, the Apostle Paul provides powerful insight regarding prayer. 

But there is a danger:  when we find ourselves embracing what we have learned and then focusing more on the eloquence of our words, the precise application of patterns and strategies for prayer, than on the One who listens to our prayers.

Prayer isn’t talking about God or talking at God.  Prayer isn’t about using certain words or phrases, certain patterns or strategies.  We may use them and they can be helpful, but they aren’t the essence of prayer.  

With one simple statement of faith, Caitlin parsed all the information and knowledge of learned theologians, all the words of instruction and strategies for intercession into a simple definition of uncluttered prayer. 

                        Talk to God and He will listen.