I was sitting at a red traffic signal waiting for i
Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, … Hebrews 9:27
Since we only live once, I must resolve to live this new year with a heart for God and a focus for what he has destined for me.
Happy New Year
After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” Matthews 2:1-2
… and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Matthew 2:9-11
When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”
So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told. Luke 2:15-20
And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
“Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”
In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register.
So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them. Luke 2:1-7
God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
Mist around Haystack Rock, Cannon Beach, OR
Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." James 4:13-15
James writes that we are a mist that appears on this earth for a little while, I can’t say I think of my life in this way, Focused on the day to day things I often take my mind off of Jesus.
Solomon accomplishment much in his lifetime. He expanded his nation, built the temple and became very wealthy, and yet towards the end of his life he writes:
Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done
and what I had toiled to achieve,
everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;
nothing was gained under the sun.
Jesus said, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.”
May the Lord help me to maintain my focus on him.
I realized I’d not posted a “What’s On My IPOD?” entry in a while. Superhero by Hillsong Kids is a song we’ve done at camp the last two years running – Gotta say, it’s fun to sing.
The pages of the web site Voice of Martyrs are filled with men and women who are imprisoned for their faith. I am sure that this is of no surprise to you the reader. For generations, Christians have been imprisoned and martyred for their faith. Acts 12 tells us how King Herod had James brother of John killed and when he realized that this pleased the Jews, he imprisoned several other Christians, including Peter. The church’s response was prayer.
So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him. Acts 12:5
And the result of prayer was:
Peter motioned with his hand for them to be quiet and described how the Lord had brought him out of prison. "Tell James and the brothers about this," he said, and then he left for another place. Acts 12:17
Prayer works today as well. A few months back, one of our church members traveled to his home country where Christians are imprisoned for their faith. He had been working underground with the local church and was on his way back to us when his Christian activities were revealed and he was thrown into prison. As Christians throughout the ages have done, we prayed for his release and God provided him release from prison.
Prisons are sometimes not made of physical bars but of our own emotional problems, addictions and fears. These type of prison bars are equally confining to those made of steel. They can keep us from fulfilling our destiny in Christ.
I don’t think that the parallels between these two types of prisons stop there. I think that just as prayer can grant us freedom from physical prisons, so can prayer release us from the emotional and spiritual prisons.
Lord help us to break free from anything that might stand in our way of serving you and fulfilling our destiny in you.
Anne Frank Memorial Boise, Idaho
This week marks a week of remembrance for those who were victims of the holocaust. Ceremonies have been happening around the world to commemorate one of the blackest periods in the world’s history, lest we forget how low man can sink in the treatment of his fellow man. We watched a Masterpiece Theater presentation of Anne Frank’s diary. And once the show ended, one couldn’t help but wonder how and why something like this could ever have happened, and yet it did.
Many grasping for an explanation of horrors such as this try to lay the blame at God’s feet. Whether it’s an illness, loss of a family member, earthquake, or some other tragedy, I have often heard someone remark, “How could a just and loving God allow this to happen?”
I think it’s easy to forget that God’s original plan was one of peace, harmony, and perfection. The Garden of Eden, where he first placed man was a place of love, provision, without any guile, strife or sin.
Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. 9 And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Genesis 2:8-9
God had a friendship and a relationship with the man and woman he had created. It was man that ruined this perfect setting, the relationship with God, and it was he who brought all the things we abhor into our world. God had provided so much and yet kept one thing from the man Adam and his wife Eve. God asked Adam and Eve to not eat of the Tree of Knowledge and like most humans this became the one thing they appeared to have obsessed about and eventually they finally ate some of the forbidden fruit. Aren’t we all attracted to the things we can’t have?
So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. Genesis 3:23
The story could have very well ended there. Man receives his just reward for disobeying God and as a result is separated from God forever. But it doesn’t end there, because God is a God of love. He wants us to be reconciled with him so that we can once again have a relationship with him just like the one he had with Adam and Eve prior to their disobedience. The path of reconciliation is through his Son Jesus.
Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. Romans 5:9-11 I don’t want to appear too critical of Adam and Eve. I see myself in almost everything they have done. Often times we have a nice label for it such as “Human Nature”. We brush things off by saying, “Oh well, that’s just Human Nature.” It’s because of this Human Nature that I am so thankful that God has provided us with his Son, the great reconciler. Knowing that there’s nothing I could do to level the score for the things I’ve done wrong, I gladly accept Christ as my savior, reconciler and true path to the presence of God our heavenly Father. Access to this path is not exclusive but open to anyone who wants to be reconciled with God. You can take that first step towards God by committing yourself to Christ and the salvation he offers.
I heard recently that politicians have a view that they are always running for re-election. I don’t know if it’s due to the network and cable news programs tracking they every move and word, but it seems that the days are gone where candidates spent their time governing and worked on their campaigns the year before the election.
I find that I can get really caught up in the constant political events that are splashed across our television screens. Sometimes I find myself panicking about the outcome of this election or that election & taking my eyes off of the one who not only orchestrates the nations of this world, but the universe as well.
Chapter 5 of Daniel records a miraculous event where God announces to Belshazzar that God is removing him from power. Daniel begins this announcement with a reminder to Belshazzar that God was the one who had put his father in the high place of King.
"O king, the Most High God gave your father Nebuchadnezzar sovereignty and greatness and glory and splendor. Because of the high position he gave him, all the peoples and nations and men of every language dreaded and feared him. Those the king wanted to put to death, he put to death; those he wanted to spare, he spared; those he wanted to promote, he promoted; and those he wanted to humble, he humbled. But when his heart became arrogant and hardened with pride, he was deposed from his royal throne and stripped of his glory. He was driven away from people and given the mind of an animal; he lived with the wild donkeys and ate grass like cattle; and his body was drenched with the dew of heaven, until he acknowledged that the Most High God is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and sets over them anyone he wishes. Daniel 5:18 –21
Although I sometimes can get caught up in the world-wide politics of the day, Daniel’s words are a firm reminder that our Heavenly Father puts those, who govern over nations, in their places of authority and can remove them as he sees fit. Our trust should be in the Lord regardless of how earthly circumstances seem to play out on the world stage.
