The Greatest Gift

What a year 2013 has been, and now, it’s Christmas!  What a tremendous time of the year it always is.  The family is home, the presents are under the tree, and the smell of breakfast casserole arises from the kitchen on Christmas morning.  It’s a time to celebrate the Giver of gifts and the greatest gift in the world.

Because there are so many gifts and blessings we enjoy it would be good to count them one by one.  First we have family, a big family, and a growing family.  In our family picture there’s our two new grandsons, Michael & Elijah who were born this year in July and November, respectfully.  Michael was born to Valerie & Tim sitting on the right, and Elijah was born to Carolyn & Jason sitting on the left.  In the back row there is Leanne and Daniel on our left, and Andrew and Alison to our right.  In the middle there is Sue & me, and we celebrated our thirtieth anniversary this year.   Wow, what great blessings, and how the time flies. 

The greatest gift of course is the gift of Christ who left the glory of heaven to become the Savior and live a sinless life for us.  The incarnation is complicated but it is made very tangible through the birth of Jesus as a baby in the manger.  The immortal became mortal so that we could have immortality if we receive him in faith.  This is the gift of the eternal life of Christ, the greatest gift of all. 

As we celebrate giving gifts to each other at Christmas let’s remember to see the gift that God gave in Jesus Christ.  Let’s receive this gift afresh and live out this faith throughout our whole lives so that we can help others to also receive the greatest gift of all. 

FAITH TODAY:  Luke 2:10-11, Then the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people.  For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord."

Commitment to Christ

In this blog, Faith Today, I seek to promote and develop our faith through the grace and truth of Christ.  There are many different aspects of our faith that we experience and need to recognize.  Perhaps the most important part of growing in faith however is to be committed to Christ throughout our life.  He is the one we need to be committed to in a constantly changing world. 

 

Our commitment to Christ however will not be the first thing we do as we come to know God.  The commitment to Christ is a conclusion that we come to after learning both the greatness and grandeur of God and after we experience the many hard knocks and difficulties life will bring.  

 

To be practical, life is filled with good times and hardships in many ways.  They both can cause us to forget who Christ is or what he has called us to do.  When times are good we tend to believe we don't need God.  And then, it is easy to forget God when we are overwhelmed with many real problems every day.  The tangible often overshadows the theoretical.  But let the tangible be a witness to the unseen.  

 

Both in the good times and the challenges we need to be committed to Christ because he is the source of all life, and he is the author and perfecter of our faith.  We are called to live for Christ and not ourselves because he is building his kingdom.  When we take his perspective instead of our own we find our lives take on new meaning and purpose.  We see problems as opportunities for ministry and the good times as an opportunity for praise to him.  When we see our lives as something we own we lose sight of God's reality and Christ's salvation.  

 

Be committed to Christ then because his purposes are the key.  His life is the greatest life that brings joy, and it is eternal life.  Consider the many faithful people who have come before us to show us the way.  Consider the Psalms in times of discouragement as they point us upward to the majestic presence of God.

FAITH TODAY: Psalm 16:8-11,  “I have set the LORD always before me, because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved.  Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices, my flesh also will rest in hope.  For You will not leave my soul in Sheol, nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption.  You will show me the path of life, in Your presence is fullness of joy, at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”  

Back to the Basics

From time to time Christian leaders need to assess a situation and make a call to "Back to the Basics".  What are the basics of the Christian faith?  At the center of the faith is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  Christ is alive today and gives Spiritual life and renewal to his people if we call out to him.  In fact, he delights to bring restoration to his children in grace and through the Holy Spirit.  We must emphasize in Christian renewal that the Christian faith is a Spiritual life in Christ, we cannot live this life in our own strength.  This is why we need Spiritual renewal.

 

It is absolutely fundamental therefore that we seek the Holy Spirit to come to us through the Word of God.  It was the Holy Spirit that inspired the writing of the Word, and it is this same inspiration that brings us alive to the Word today.  We find in Scripture many different words of encouragement and inspiration.  The Bible brings us comfort and rest, as well as correction and reproof.  

 

King David tells us in Psalm 23:1-3, “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.  He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters.  He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.”  David knew the importance of taking time to rest and be restored in his soul.  He found that renewal in who God is and what God has done.  First, we must find Spiritual rest.

 

The Apostle John also sees a key element in the Spiritual life through walking in the light, or the truth, and turning away from the darkness.  In 1 John 1:5-7, we see, “This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.  If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.  But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His son cleanses us from all sin.”  

 

John shows us that fellowship with God is always fellowship in the Light, which is a metaphor for truth.  But it is more than just intellectual truth, it is Spiritual Life, the truth of living in the Spirit.  And we must be actively walking in the Light.  The second fundamental for renewal is to turn away from darkness and walk in the Light.

 

John continues to prescribe another essential element in Spiritual renewal.  He also teaches us in chapter one, (v.8-10), “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  If we say that we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar, and His word is not in us.”  These verses contain some of the most precious truths and stern warnings in all of Scripture.  

 

It is absolutely essential to acknowledge sin in our lives to be forgiven and then to be restored to fellowship with Christ.  Even more, if we claim that we have no sin, we in essence are saying that God is a liar, and then the Word of God has no place in us.  The third fundamental of renewal is to confess and repent from any sin in our life.

 

We see that the Word of God is tantamount to a vital Spiritual life.  We must have the Scriptures in us, in our hearts as we rest beside the quiet waters, as we seek to walk in the Light, and as we confess and repent from sin.  These three fundamentals are essential to return to the basics and find the renewal of Spiritual life.  

 

FAITH TODAY:  1 Peter 2:1-2, “Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby.”

Easter Resurrection

Just this last Sunday we celebrated Easter again.  This is absolutely my favorite holiday of the year.  Not only do we get to celebrate our faith that we have eternal life in Christ and we will experience resurrection after we die, but we also have the opportunity to evangelize this "good news" to unbelievers in the here and now.

First and foremost I do rejoice in the faith that I have.  It is a gift that has been given to me by the grace of Christ.  And I accept it gladly.  Probably the greatest need anyone has is to find eternal life so that they know they will not perish when they die.  The Bible clearly teaches in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."  The primary issue for all people is to know that we will not perish, but have eternal life when we die.

But there's more as you can imagine.   The Christian faith transforms our whole life in the here and now. By accepting the Son of God we receive his Spiritual life and that causes us to be born again and become a new person.  This is the "resurrection" life even now in Christ.  And with this new life, we are able to tell people they too can be saved.  It often comes spontaneously because we are living a different life, we are filled with the Holy Spirit and have a Spiritual nature that spills out.

The resurrection life sounds like "pie in the sky" and idealism to some but it really comes down to earth when we experience its power.  We can live differently than the secular culture because we have experienced a Spiritual rebirth.  Even though we will never be perfect in this world we have tasted the sweet Spiritual blessing of Easter resurrection.  This touches at the deepest point in our souls, we have found God through the grace of Christ.  We can experience the life of Jesus because of the death and resurrection of Jesus.

He is risen, He is risen indeed!

FAITH TODAY: Mark 12:26-27, "But concerning the dead, that they rise, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the burning bush passage, how God spoke to him saying, "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?"  He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living."

Faith Anniversary

On one of my other posts, Veritas Fellowship, (veritasfellows.blogspot.com), I described that today is my anniversary or birthday for becoming a Christian.  Thirty-seven years ago, on March 21, 1976, I was asked about my faith and a pastor led me to the Lord.  My life was forever changed, and I still have "faith today".

Many things have changed since 1976 when Jimmy Carter was the Democratic candidate, gasoline was .59 a gallon, and you had to be connected to a "land line" in order to make a phone call.  Bell bottoms were something everyone still knew about, Rocky was the first in a series of Stallone movies, and the beloved Red Sox lost to the Reds in the world series.  Even more, Steve Wozniak designed the Apple I, in March, and together with Steve Jobs, they founded Apple Computers on April 1.  Just a year earlier, Paul Allen and Bill Gates wrote the first computer language for personal computers (PCs), which was a form of BASIC designed for the Altair.

We live in a fast-paced technological revolution that is changing the world.  But interestingly, it really is only changing culture, the world is being discovered technologically.  Christianity hasn't really changed throughout all the cultures or centuries either.  Because cultures are different and do change our view of truth, our faith in God can change.  But God never changes. 

Personal lives change as well and in 1976 I was a freshman in college when I became a Christian.  Later I would change schools and go on to graduate with a Bible degree at a Christian college in 1980 and work for a couple of years as a youth pastor in Massachusetts, before running off and joining the Navy to fly the P-3 and chase Soviet subs in the Atlantic during the Cold War.  As you can imagine, there was a girlfriend in my life, and that turned into a wedding in 1983, and then the kids, in 1985, '87, '88, '90, '93, and 1995.  Yup, a six pack.  It wasn't my idea, but they were too big to throw back.  And I love them all forever.

My Spiritual life has seen some highs and lows with steady progression I hope.  "My theology" has changed at least seven times, starting at conversion when I thought believing in God was good enough, and then realized I needed to accept Jesus as the Savior and Lord.  Probably the most important theology I have ever learned, however, is that it is a Person we want to know.  We want to know God and to be known by him.  And we need God.  He has sent his son Jesus into the world as the God-man to show us who he truly is.  But we don't want to really know about him as much as we want to know him personally.  And he wants us to know him, and to seek him and recover the relationship we lost in the fall of man.

Still in faith after all these years.  And I can't possibly describe how great it is to know the triune God, even in such a limited or small way.  He reveals himself in the creation and in the Bible.  He is eternal and trustworthy.  He created us and can redeem and sanctify us.  We are blessed when we walk in faith with him, even as the people of faith before us lived by faith and were blessed.  God is the goal.

FAITH TODAY:  Hebrews 11: 13, "These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth."

 

Creation Design

The new life in Christ is a Spiritual relationship with the Creator of the heavens and the earth.  As we grow in our relationship with Him we discover there is a creation design for all of life.  This design is especially valuable in relationships, particularly in the marriage relationship. 

There are two primary sections in the Bible that describe God's design in marriage.  One of course is in Genesis where we learn that God creates Eve to give as a companion to Adam.  In Gen.1:26, we see God made man in his image, which shows we are much different than all the animals and we have a special representation of God.  And in Gen.1:27, we read that God made them male and female, and thus both genders are significant in representing God.  Even more in Gen.2:18, we hear that God said, "It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him."  Here we discover one of the most foundational reasons for marriage, and that is companionship, it's not good to be alone.  The creation design is that both genders represent God and God created man and woman for companionship with each other.  

But also in the New Testament, we see another section in Ephesians 5 that discusses the Spiritual marriage between Christ and the church.  In 5:31, Paul repeats a section from Gen.2:24 that says, "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh."  Paul is describing how children grow and eventually leave home and form their own marriage, and there is a distinct break from one generation to the next, to establish a new relationship, a new companionship just as described in Genesis.  

In the next verse Paul describes that this marriage relationship mirrors the Spiritual marriage between Christ and the church by saying, "This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church."  That is to say, that God created mankind to have a love relationship with us, much like we understand in marriage.  It's not because God was lonely and needed a companion but because he was so overflowing in harmony in the Godhead (Trinity) that he created humanity to display his glory in relationship.  The church is the Bride of Christ so that we can understand the love relationship with God that God has in his triune nature. 
 
Our Spiritual lives are greatly enhanced when we live by God's design.  And marriage is created by God to give companionship between a husband and wife, and that in turn is to help us all see the heavenly picture of Christ's marriage to the church. 

FAITH TODAY:  Mark 10: 6-8, (Jesus said), "But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female.  Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh."