Tag Archives: Jesus

The Christmas gift of peace

And he will be called “The Prince of Peace.”

Isaiah 9:6

I love Christmas Eve. I love it when work stops, the presents are wrapped, preparations are completed, and the hectic pace of the holiday part of Christmas slows down. And for a moment, there is peace.

Silent night, holy night, All is calm, all is bright.

Jesus is the Prince of Peace. We know that He came to the world to bring us peace, a peace that transcends all understanding. He offers a peace that is different from what the world offers, a peace that overcomes our troubles. It’s the calm that remains in us even when the storm rages around us. It’s the confidence that our circumstances don’t define who we are. It isn’t the false peace of this world but a real peace that permeates our life and overflows onto others around us.

Jesus brings us peace so that we can bring peace to others. He calls us to be peacemakers in a world of warring relationships.

Sometimes Christmas gatherings are anything but peaceful. Too often they are marked by the busyness of preparations, the chaos of excitement or sadly, the bitterness of conflict. How can we be peacemakers in these and other situations?

Exhibit humility and gentleness. (Ephesians 4:2)

Put others first (Philippians 2:3-4). This sometimes means overlooking when others are inconsiderate to us.

Be patient and wise. (Proverbs 19:11) Strive to maintain relationships more than differences of opinion.

Avoid unnecessary quarrels. (Proverbs 17:14) Learn to appreciate others who think differently from you. It’s not your job to change everyone to think just like you. Our job is to shine a helping light, not to blind them with our insisting ways. It’s God’s job to change people.

Let love be your guide. (1 Peter 4:8) Love covers a multitude of sins.

“Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you” (Colossians 3:13; Ephesians 4:32).

Don’t let annoyances and conflicts ruin your Christmas. Receive the Christmas gift of peace that the Prince of Peace offers you and BE the gift of peace to others.

The Christmas gift of faith

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“In those days,” the Christmas story begins, Caesar Augustus issued an order for a census to be taken. So Joseph and Mary went from Nazareth to Bethlehem, the town of His family to register.

Like Joseph we too are called to register and declare that we belong to the family of God. We are his.

It was undoubtedly a tough journey for Mary. If you get uncomfortable riding in the car to your Christmas celebrations, imagine being pregnant and riding on the back of a donkey! As you gather with friends and family, perhaps in a room too small for the number of guests, ponder spending the night in a barn, and giving birth to your child in the presence of barn animals.

Likewise, it was probably tough for Joseph. His betrothed was expecting a child, not his own, but brought about miraculously by God. Imagine the whirlwind of confusion that swept through his mind. And yet, in faith he believed what the angel said. In faith, he protected his bride and their child. In faith, he obeyed.

In faith, they both humbled themselves to accept a dirty manger for the birthplace of their child. Although there was no room in the inn for Jesus at the time of His birth, let’s be sure to make room for Him by unwrapping the gift of Christmas faith. We do this by making room for his Word to speak to and transform our lives. Jesus IS The Word. We can’t experience the real Christmas without making room for the Word, that is Jesus, in our lives.

Like Mary, in faith, let us take quiet time to ponder in our heart this wondrous gift from God, a gift we don’t deserve but desperately need. Like Joseph, let’s have our hearts follow in faith even when things around us don’t make sense. And let our hearts respond with praise to the one who is worthy of all our praise. And may those who follow us say, “In those days, they lived by faith.”
For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world–our faith. 1 John 5:4

The Christmas gift of praise

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How we respond to life circumstances determines who we become.

An angel appeared to the shepherds the night Jesus was born. They responded first with fear. Then, upon hearing the good news, they responded with joy, joining a heavenly host singing praise to God. Without delay, the shepherds “hurried” to see Jesus and responded to his presence by telling everyone they knew about him. Their response of praise and testimony defined whom they had become, certainly more than the work they did for a living. The same is true of you and me.

Fast forward a couple of years and we find that not everyone responded with joy. In fact, bitterness and hatred filled the heart of the king who sought to slaughter thousands of babies in attempt to kill the future King Jesus. Fast forward again to the adult ministry of Jesus and we see that most of the people he witnessed to rejected him. He wasn’t the messiah they expected or wanted. Others recognized him as the Savior they needed and praised and followed him. On his arrival in Jerusalem, crowds praised him in the streets saying, “Hosannah in the highest.” Yet, shortly later many responded with jeers and accusations, shouting, “Crucify him!”

How we respond to truth determines who we become.

The same is true now. How should we respond to the celebration of baby Jesus? Should we coo and awe and wish to always keep him in the manger? Celebrate his birth, yes. Give praise for his coming, absolutely. But let’s respond also to The Lord Jesus with lasting praise, with thankful and obedient hearts, eager to follow him fully and tell others about him.

Respond with praise and find yourself becoming a person whose life is marked by praise. It’s one of the gifts of Christmas. Have fun unwrapping this gift every day!

Do you (really) love me?

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In one scene from Fiddler On The Roof, Tevye ask his wife of 25 years, “Do you love me?” She exclaims, “Do I love you?!” She lists all the things she has done for him in the course of their marriage. Affirming this, Tevye asks again, “Yes, but do you love me?” She ponders 25 years of living with and taking care of this man, concluding with a sigh that she does indeed love him.

God asked this same question of you and me every day. Like Tevye’s wife we might answer in amazement, “Are you kidding? I go to church. I give money. I read the bible and pray …at least a few minutes every day.” And quietly, God replies, “Yes, but do you love me?”

We’re reminded of Peter’s experience with this same question. Three times Jesus asks Peter with increasing intensity. By the third time, I imagine Peter’s eyes were filled with tears, remembering how much indeed he did love Jesus, though his behaviors had contradicted that love. Jesus wasn’t looking to ‘beat up’ Peter for his mistakes. He was looking to renew Peter’s fellowship with Him. I think He is asking us the same questions:

Do you love me… enough to trust me?
Sometimes it’s hard to trust. Of all the rooms in our life, the waiting room is perhaps the most difficult. Presented with lots of pain and anxiety but few answers, we’re quickly tempted to try any door marked “exit!” We just want to escape. But the question rings in our ears: “Do you love me enough to trust me, your sovereign God, even while you wait?”

Do you love me… enough to obey me?
Here’s the truth: we obey what we love and really trust. A reporter once scoffed mother Teresa saying, “How can you expect to be successful ministering to all the poor and hurting people?! There are too many!” She responded with truth, “I’m not called to be successful, only faithful.” And the question burns in our ears, “Do you love me enough to obey in faith?”

Do you love me… enough to abide in me?
Marcia and I have always enjoyed spending time together, but the cancer journey further enhanced our appreciation of simply abiding together. God wants us to abide in Him wherever we go, whatever we do. It doesn’t matter if it’s doing the dishes or paying the bills. Abiding implies contentment and satisfaction. “Do you love me and find satisfaction when abiding in me?”
As we conclude this week of emphasis on the Go Light Our World missions, we invite you to partner with GLOW in regular times of prayer and through your tax-deductible gifts. Beyond that, we invite you to consider your relationship with Jesus. LOVE is the mark of a devoted Christian. Let your love be marked by your faith-in-action. Let your answer be always, “Yes Lord!” Because if it is not ‘yes’, to Him, then who is Lord in your life?

Happy is the one who lives free

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It is for freedom that Christ set us free. Stand firm then and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Galatians 5:1

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.2 Corinthians 3:17

We all want to be happy but there is a battle raging for the control of our mind. It fights on the fronts of lies about who we think we are, our past hurts, guilt over forgiven sin, fear that we haven’t kept some list of do’s and don’ts. It uses our self-image and performance to say we are inadequate. We are bound by our self-absorption and our burdens. The battle makes us slaves to our wrong thinking and habits.

Christ didn’t pay the price for our sin to set us free from its punishment only for us to go back to the shackles of slavery. The Word says, it is for freedom that He set us free. In other words, once freed by His grace He wants us to live in that freedom. What does that look like on a daily basis?

It is believing His Word to be true and living as if it really is true. Our belief and our actions are intricately woven together. We can say we believe God, but if we don’t act on those beliefs, our actions point to what we truly believe. If I present you with a rickety old chair with one missing leg, would you sit in it? No, because you don’t believe, that is you don’t trust it will safely bear your weight. You can politely say, oh I believe it will bear my weight, but your actions will prove otherwise.

Likewise, we can say we believe the bible to be true. But what if we actually proclaimed it to be true by how we lived! God says He loves you. When you feel unloved will you believe His love for you? When you feel abandoned will you believe without a doubt that He is near? When you feel lost and confused in a noisy world, can you sit in silence and listen for His voice? When temptation comes knocking at your door can you believe he will show you the way to keep the door shut? When you feel like a failure, can you hear Him cheering you on? When you feel like you are fighting a battle on all sides, will you choose to believe that He goes before you, He is your rear guard and He is by your side? That all you have to do is stand firm, and he will do the fighting for you?

The things that would enslave us fall down when we pick up the bible and say we’re going to live in the power of Christ, believing it to be really practically true in our life. Trade the yoke of slavery to fears and doubts for resting in God’s faithful arms and be free.

Praying “The Lord’s Prayer”

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Do you ever struggle with prayer? Maybe you find yourself confused about what to pray. Or having heard other people pray, perhaps you think you have to find “better words” to pray. (You don’t.) Some people worry about praying out loud. Some worry that their prayers aren’t heard. I think God is pleased to hear us pray in our own words from our humble heart…to the heart of God. What we call “The Lord’s Prayer” is the model Jesus gave for approaching prayer. If you want to pray this prayer, don’t rush through it. Instead, reflect on the words and what you are really saying.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

Quiet your heart and mind. Close your eyes or keep them open. Stand, kneel, sit or lie down. It is the posture of your humble heart that our Holy God seeks. Focus on who God is: Almighty, Faithful, Loving, Merciful, Wise, Just, Holy, All-Knowing, Without End, Fortress, Refuge, Rock of Salvation, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Praising Him who is worthy of all your praise.

Your kingdom come,

God’s kingdom is the kingdom of love, peace, and joy, of truth and righteousness. Ask Him to bring these into your life and the world.

your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Your Heavenly Father wants what is truly best for you. Ask Him for His good, pleasing, and perfect will to be revealed and carried out.

Give us this day our daily bread,

What do you most need today? Patience, perseverance, courage, wisdom? Ask God for these things He most desires for you.

and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

Ask God to reveal your wrong thinking and behaving, any persons that you have hurt and those whom you haven’t forgiven for hurts they caused. Not forgiving binds up our heart with cords of bitterness and anger. Give it up to God. Confess and find the freedom of forgiveness.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Our greatest need is to be protected from evil and its temptations. Tell God the specific temptations that bother you. Ask Him to protect you from their crippling lies and to give you strength and courage to be faithful to His truth.

For yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever.

Your prayer is an expression of your trust in God’s power and glory. Thank Him for demonstrating His power and glory throughout history and in your own life. Thank Him for inviting you into His kingdom.

Amen.

Saying Amen is an affirmation that you agree with what has been prayed. These are not just words you’ve memorized. They are the expression of your heart’s desires to God.

You are the light

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You are the light of the world. Matthew 5:14

The message of the GLOW (Go Light Our World) ministry is to shine the light of Jesus into the world. We currently support gospel ministries to the unreached poorest of poor in Bolivia, Bulgaria, Greece, Scotland, and the United States.

When Jesus says “You are the light of the world” He intends for that light to shine wherever you go. He isn’t saying, “Look at how talented and smart you are; how much better you are than everyone else.” No, He is illustrating what happens when the power of an infinite and extraordinary God resides in the heart of an ordinary person who follows His Son. His message is, “When I live in you and when you remain in me, my light shines so brightly, the rest of the world will see and come to praise the Father.” (See Matthew 5:16)

He knows it’s tempting for us to keep the truth and joy of His love all to ourselves. When ministry becomes messy and often frustrating, sometimes we want to crawl under our basket and just bask in the light of God’s peace warming us. We think of the image of resting in His arms and long to remain in that quiet place. Pain and sorrow have ways of ravaging the body and the mind and wreak havoc and violence on our soul. In those times all you long for is peace and quiet, a release from what seems to be an ever-increasing grip on your life. God’s light is meant for such times. His Spirit speaks peace, truth, and hope to us in such desperately needed ways.

But His light isn’t meant to remain solely within us for our comfort only. It is meant to encourage others, meaning other believers as well as bringing the hope of the gospel to the rest of the world. Imagine if our message were health and fitness but we didn’t take care of your own bodies. Who would want to listen to us? In the same way we are called to take care of the body of Christ too, that is other believers. His amazing light is meant to pour over the darkness of our world and flow onto all those around us. The role of light is to disperse darkness.

What would it look like if your light shined into someone else’s darkness today? Maybe you’ll search your address book and write an encouraging note of hope to someone you’ve lost contact with. Tell someone else how much you appreciate who they are, not just what they do. Don’t be afraid to mention how good God is when others are around. Tell someone the reason for your faith. Show His mercy to someone who has no other reason to hope.

Be the light. Go light our world today.

Unto thee O Lord!

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Unto thee, O LORD, do I lift up my soul. Psalm 25:1

Some versions say, “In you, Lord my God, I put my trust.”

Where do you put your trust? The psalmist says “Some trust in chariots and some in horses but we trust in the name of our Lord our God. (Psalm 20:7) He trusts not just in the God who does things for Him but in who God is. He trust is in the name, not just the deeds of God. God is the one whose nature is to protect us from evil. He is the one who wants to show you the path you should walk today. He longs to guide us with mercy and love in whatever situation we face. He wants you to know that you are not alone…ever. This is the God who gave His only Son for the forgiveness of your sins and mine, the one draws near to us when we are humble. He promises that, in Him, we will overcomers.

Should we want even more?!

We try to lift our souls to others but try as they might, they can’t fully understand our deepest dilemmas. Only God has the power to release us from that which ensnares us. Sometimes He miraculously does this physically; always He offers supernatural grace and strength to persevere when we are sure we have no strength left. This is the God who comforts the lonely and afflicted, the one who wants to free us from the anguish of our troubled heart.

Can you find anyone else so trustworthy?

Though the psalmist asks for numerous physical helps, he ultimately trusts God to maintain his integrity, to not let his name to be put to shame. God is the one who knows when we sit and when we rise. He knows every hair on our head. This God in whom we trust calls us by name. He knows we will have trouble in this fallen world. But He longs for and empowers us to live the name of good and faithful servant, to live with integrity through the battles, to stand firm.

Can you imagine coming to the end of your life, having everything you wanted but lacking integrity?

We could trust in and align our soul with so many things: our talents and abilities, our fortunes, our jobs, our family and friends, our health, our retirement. We could put our hope in stability and comfort. But we live in an unstable world, filled – as Jesus promised – with trouble. We have to put our hope in the only One who has overcome the world. (John 16:33)

In such a turbulent world, filled with sorrow and woe, where do you rest your weary soul? In whom will you trust?

A changed life – Caroline

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“I just went through life feeling like something was missing,” says Caroline, recently baptized at Niddrie Community Church. “My biggest fear was death. And my only release was cannabis.”

But that has changed.

“I have realized that I need to repent and put my trust in Jesus. I knew he was the only one who could change my life.”

“I’m learning to deal with my anger. And death isn’t as scary as I thought it was. I can’t thank the Lord enough for saving me. And now I’ve found that thing that was missing: Jesus.”

GLOW is involved with ministries across the globe that are focused on being a light to help others discover God’s best for them: Hope and grace, and power for victorious living. Caroline’s life was influenced by workers with 20Schemes. 20Schemes is a ministry to the poorest of poor in Scotland who live in housing projects (schemes). Following the model showed us by Jesus, they make disciples who make disciples. Caroline has expressed interest in becoming a 20Schemes intern, working at the church office and plans to start a new access course at the Edinburgh Theological Seminary.

Would you pray for Caroline and countless other women in Scotland’s housing schemes who not only need to hear the gospel of Christ but be discipled and encouraged to live purposeful and joyful lives. This is one way you can partner with GLOW to bring hope and fulfillment to people across the world.

What agreement are you living under?

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Under law, God requires. Under grace, He provides.

Driving down the interstate highway, especially (ahem) when I am going the speed limit, there are always plenty of folk who want to go faster. When we get our driver’s licenses we enter into a covenant, an agreement, to obey the laws of the road. The expectation of the law is clearly posted about the maximum speed limit but the law does not bring us to keep our agreement. We easily break the covenant when it suits us.

And so it has always been, right? God entered into a covenant with His people. His laws, actually intended to make us aware of our utter dependence on Him, are continually broken. In fact, it seems the human heart is quite unable and unwilling to keep them.

And so God, in His mercy, gave us a way out, a new covenant. “Jesus has become the guarantor of a better covenant.” (Hebrews 7:22). Knowing that we would not and could not faithfully keep His commands, He gave us a new covenant of grace to draw us closer to Him. “For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another.” (Hebrews 8:7) “By calling this covenant “new,” He has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.” (Hebrews 8:13)

Many in the Catholic and Anglican traditions are accustomed to going to a priest as an intermediary between them and God. Others set up rules and lists of accomplishments and deeds as their intermediary to appease God. But who better to put ALL our trust in besides Jesus who lives forever, the exact representation of God Himself, to intercede for us in our trials and weaknesses? (V 23-24) Who else could meet our deepest needs other than the One who is “holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens” – the One who is perfect forever”? ( V26-28)

If you have ever told a lie, taken God’s name in vain, put other things and feelings before Him, dishonored your parents, envied others or their belongings, you know how futile it is to depend on your own ability to always keep the law. Good deeds have their place when they are an outpouring of a faithful and grateful heart. But by themselves, they accomplish nothing of lasting value; and they certainly, by themselves, do not bring us closer to God.

When you look inside your heart and consider your inner motivations, which covenant are you living under? Are you living under the old covenant which demands perfect compliance with the law and an endless list of good deeds to ‘make up’ for your transgressions? Or are you living freely and victoriously under the new covenant of grace?

Under law, God requires; under grace, God provides. Which do you prefer?

Choose the new covenant today and enjoy the full life Jesus desires for you.