A comment by a friend...

"I always find it hard to complain when my mind and heart are entrenched in a good mission bio." So true!!! Also hard to complain when my mind and heart are entrenched in the Bible.

Psalm 19:32 "I will run in the path of Your commands for You have set my heart free."

Guard Your Love

If we must jealously guard our love for Christ, we need also to guard our love for people. Just as the Holy Spirit moves us to love Christ, he motivates us to sacrificially love others. But as we have seen, believers can act selfishly and disobey God's Word. As the eighteenth-century evangelist Henry Moorhouse observed in a letter to a friend, "Love seems in so many hearts to have gone to sleep."


When love goes to sleep, we grow cold and unfeeling toward people. We love material possessions and personal comforts more than people. We love our work more than people. We become bitter toward people because our feelings have been hurt. We become weary in serving selfish, ungrateful people and become content to show love only to those who are agreeable to us. We become lazy and complacent about love. We neglect our duty to love the unlovely and the disagreeable. (p. 61-62)

From Love or Die by Alexander Strauch

"Streams in the Desert" by Mrs. Charles E. Cowman

If we could see beyond today
As God can see;
If all the clouds should roll away,
The shadows flee;
O'er present griefs we would not fret.
Each sorrow we would soon forget,
For many joys are waiting yet
For you and me.
If we could know beyond today
As God doth know,
Why dearest treasures pass away
And tears must flow;
And why the darkness leads to light,
Why dreary paths will soon grow bright;
Some day life's wrongs will be made right,
Faith tells us so.
"If we could see, if we could know,"
We often say,
But God in love a veil doth throw
Across our way;
We cannot see what lies before,
And so we cling to Him the more,
He leads us till this life is o'er
Trust and obey.

My verse of the year:

Romans 13:14

Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.

Or

But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.

Bible reading, anyone?

Check out these plans for reading through the Bible this year:

http://www.navpress.com/dj/content.aspx?id=138

Good Encouragement from my friend, George McGovern

Some Final Reflections on Christmas

Christmas. The fancy name is Incarnation – the “in-fleshment” of God. Scriptures document that the baby in Mary’s womb was the result of God intervening. Matthew records it this way, “she (Mary) was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit”. Joseph didn’t have “relations” with Mary, and yet she was pregnant. This qualifies as a miracle - “an interference with nature by supernatural power”. A master wordsmith, Max Lucado, puts it this way, “He who was larger than the universe became an embryo…he who sustains the world with a word chose to be dependent upon the nourishment of a young girl. God as a fetus. The creator of life being created.”

The classic image of Christmas is the manger scene where Joseph and Mary surround the baby who is “asleep on the hay”. The Bible gives details of this event and the events leading up to it. Interestingly, we have little information about Jesus as a young boy or as a teenager. Have you ever tried to imagine scenes from these stages of our Lord’s life? Lucado helps us here, “Angels watched as Mary changed God’s diaper. The universe watched with wonder as The Almighty learned to walk. Children played in the street with him…Jesus may have had pimples. He may have been tone-deaf. It could be that his knees were bony. One thing’s for sure: He was, while completely divine, completely human…He felt weak. He grew weary. He was susceptible to wooing women. He got colds, burped, and had body odor. His feelings got hurt, his feet got tired, and his head ached.”

I’ve often wished that accounts from the early years of our Lord’s life were included in “the gospels” (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John). The insights and lessons would be priceless. We could use them strategically in parenting our kids.

Place yourself in Mary’s shoes. Not only are you still marveling about the source of your pregnancy, but you’re catching moments as Jesus grows up that take your breath away and cause you to reflect deeply on the nature of your son. Lucado captures the possible experiences that Mary had and puts them in the form of questions that some of her friends might have asked her in hindsight.

- Mary, did you ever see him with a distant look on his face as if he were listening to

someone you couldn’t hear?

- Mary, did he do well in school?

- Mary, what was it like watching him pray?

- Mary, when he saw a rainbow, did he ever mention a flood?

- Mary, when he saw a lamb being led to the slaughter, did he act differently?

Fascinating questions—the answers to which we’ll never know this side of eternity. And yet they cause us to admit the tension between Jesus’ human and divine natures—two natures in one person, a mystery. A mystery, and yet we must not settle on favoring Jesus’ divinity at the expense of his humanity. To focus on the humanness of Jesus seems to reduce him down to our level, which leaves us feeling like we’re doing him a dis-service. Lucado helps us again here, “To think of Jesus in such a light is—well, it seems almost irreverent, doesn’t it? It’s not something we like to do; it’s uncomfortable. It’s much easier to keep the humanity out of the incarnation. Pretend he never snored or blew his nose or hit his thumb with a hammer. He’s easier to stomach that way. There is something about keeping him divine that keeps him distant, packaged, predictable. But don’t do it. Let him be as human as he intended to be. Let him into the mire and muck of our world. For only if we let him in can he pull us out.”

That last line resonates with me. “For only if we let him in can he pull us out.” If I do not consider the idea that Jesus was tempted with sexual sin, or with pride, or even with doubt, how can I call on him for help when these issues knock on my heart? The fact that our Lord, while here on earth, was genuinely tempted “in all ways” and resisted those temptations gives me hope that He can accurately and sufficiently strengthen me to stand against these struggles.

In addition, connecting with the Son of God on an emotional level becomes more plausible and inviting when I recall that He experienced the full range of human emotion. Jesus cried. Jesus felt rejection. Jesus became angry. There were moments when he felt lonely. He had moments of ecstasy and exhilaration. He laughed. He took delight in or disdained the actions of others. He hated hypocrisy in all its forms. He was surprised and at times confused. At other times hopeful. He felt compassion for those who got the short end of the stick. He loved what was right and hated what was wrong. There is no emotion that I can possibly experience that he has not experienced.

When I recall that, I feel free to talk with him about any of my issues or circumstances. I can bring my life’s moments and emotions to someone who has experienced the whole spectrum of life’s moments and emotions and thus feel his comforting touches on my heart. He “pulls me out” because I acknowledge and draw on the fact that he has been “in” and, thus, can pull me out. I’ve experienced this when my brother died of cancer, when my mom was suffering with Alzheimer’s’, when I felt confused about my life’s direction, when some friends questioned my allegiances, and when God provided for our financial needs.

The Incarnation, God with us, the Word become flesh. Fascinating words and concepts. But emanating from these concepts is the reality that my life is being led by a Savior who knows and understands and who feels our pains and our joys. May we all be inspired to worship this Savior with greater fervor as we walk with Him through 2010.