Missed Christmas

Matthew 2:1 NIV

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem

What Should You Expect of People?

I was substitute teaching in a sixth grade class and one of the students walked past me after recess and I could tell she was quite upset.  In fact, nearly everyone in the class noticed it.  I pulled her aside and asked what was wrong.  At first, she wouldn’t say, but then a tear or two trickled down her cheek and she told me what happened.  She was playing in a four-square game and some of the kids told her she had gotten out.  She told them she wasn’t, and they made fun of her and yelled for her to leave the square and go to the end of the line.  Humiliated and feeling wronged, she just quit the game and waited for recess to end.  I didn’t have any wise counsel for the child, now suggestions.  Because I was not there, I could not even be certain her side of the story was accurate or not.  What I did know was that the student was a bit heart-broken and I had no real strategy for consoling her.

It of course makes no sense for children to get upset while playing a game intended to be fun but there are many times when what is done isn’t reasonable.  The problem we face is that we do not live in a reasonable world.  We see examples of this time and again.  My son was recently in a car accident and his car was totaled when a car and a pickup truck collided on the freeway and the truck spun out and hit my son’s car, sending his car into a guard rail.  Now, the insurance companies for both drivers are refusing to pay for the damages to my son’s car because each driver claims the other was at fault.  This of course is not reasonable because now lawyers will have to be paid to help settle this.  Elvis Pressley was well-known for taking a gun and blasting TV sets when he didn’t like the show he was watching.  The shoe company Puma was formed because the two brothers who created the Adidas company had a violent falling out and one brother, Rudolf, left Adidas and formed Puma.  For twenty-seven years, the two brothers battled over market share and did not talk to each other the rest of their lives.  This is not reasonable.  The cofounding brothers of Kellogg cereals became so angry with each other that they sued each other for more than a decade and did not talk to each other for thirty-three years.  The world is not reasonable and much of what happens in your home and mine isn’t either.  We do things that don’t make sense even though we know better.

When the shepherds Christmas Eve saw the angels up in the sky singing praise to God, they immediately, as soon as the angels left them, ran off to follow the instruction to go find the newborn baby Jesus lying in a manger.  Like me and you would have been, they were amazed at the sight of the prophesied Messiah born in their town and it catapulted them to action.  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. (Luke 2:17-18 NIV) It is most interesting in this account what is not said here.  No mention is made of anyone else going to see Jesus.  There was no parade of worshippers heading down to the stable to see the King of Kings.  Everyone that heard the shepherds’ story was amazed, but it does not seem that anyone followed the example of the shepherds and went to see the baby “lying in a manger”.  It was not that big of a deal for them to leave their homes, quit making dinner, stop doing their chores to make it out to the place where Jesus and Mary and Joseph rested.

Now the other Gospel writer who talks about the baby Jesus, Matthew, also makes it clear that no one made any sort of fuss about seeing the Lord Jesus.  In fact, it seems that the birth of Jesus went completely unnoticed by the world at large.  When the Magi from the east came to see the King of the Jews because they had been led to Israel by the great star, no one in Jerusalem, which is only a few miles from Bethlehem, knew anything about the miracle of Jesus.  King Herod, who was paranoid about any threat to his rule immediately became alarmed when the Magi came to him wondering where the newborn King of the Jews was to be found.  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 in the east and have come to worship him."  When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. (Matthew 2:1-3 NIV)

Herod quickly called for the Bible scholars of Jerusalem to come and tell him what the Scriptures had to say about the birth of the Messiah.  "In Bethlehem in Judea," they replied, "for this is what the prophet has written: "'But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.'" (Matthew 2:5-6 NIV)  What is astounding about this record of the birth of Jesus and the events surrounding it is that even after Herod and all those in court found out what the Bible said was the location of where the Messiah would be born, not one of them went themselves to see Him.  Not a single scholar bothered to hike down with the Magi and go see what might have happened.  Despite the star, despite the account of the shepherds, despite the coming of the Magi, not a solitary soul explored the possibility that the long awaited and anticipated Messiah was actually in their midst.

We have expectations of others and set standards that we think they should reach and they all too often fail us.  They don’t love us like we think they ought, they aren’t honest with us, they don’t work very hard or put the effort into their endeavors we hoped they would.  Friends and family members do mean things, are selfish and get easily offended, they aren’t faithful, they sin in ugly ways and embarrass us.  I have good Christian friends who are sad because of what their children are doing.  Some have cried when they told me about the awful choices their sons and daughters are making.  The writer of Ecclesiastes wrote, If you see the poor oppressed in a district, and justice and rights denied, do not be surprised at such things; (Ecclesiastes 5:8 NIV) We should never be surprised when someone we love falls into an immoral lifestyle, a politician lies to us or a close friend stops talking to us.  This is a broken world and every person we know is corrupted by sin and damaged by it.  Christian people have old habits of sinning that have not yet been turned around and many are emotionally and psychologically damaged by sin and its destructive force.  Should anything evil in this world surprise us?

Each of us need Christ to take away our sin.  We need His perfect life worked into us so that we can be thoroughly transformed and made Christian.  When salvation is typically described, it almost always is spoken of as getting to heaven.  Salvation is much more than that.  It is Christ becoming a part of you and working out of you all the sin and making you perfect in every way.  That is why all people on this planet need Christ as Savior.   Sin cannot be removed from them any other way.

Beyond Me

John 7:38 NIV

“Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."

What About You?

This week I have been substitute teaching in a class of second graders.  The level of affection they have for me has been astonishing.  I gave them an assignment to write two or three sentences about a cause and effect event.  For example, I planted seeds in the soil and flowers sprung up out of the ground.  A rainstorm came and the creek overflowed with water.  One of the children wrote, “Mr. Walkup and me went to Starbucks and we got coffee.  It helped me stay up late.”  Now, I have only been in the class three days and why I entered into this narrative I cannot say.  Perhaps it is just proximity, that I was the only adult in the room who could bring the child to Starbucks, but I think it was more than that.  Somehow, I made an impact on that student that was significant enough to enter into the story.  I was taken aback a bit when I heard my name being read by the child, but it also struck me how quickly we can become a part of the narrative of others.  We don’t even have to work at it.  We enter into dreams, we invade the emotions and thoughts of those we barely know, we impact people all around us.  Now you and I must ask ourselves the important question.  What sort of impact do we wish to have?

One of the fascinating people in the Bible was actually a sort of “second banana”.  Even his name is easily mistaken for his more popular mentor.  There are plenty of children named Elijah.  I have known several Elijahs, but I have never come across anyone named after Elijah’s apprentice, Elisha.  It is not always easy standing in someone else’s spotlight; many become jealous of their more illustrious peers.  But not this prophet.  There is never a hint of him wanting to take Elijah’s place.  Rather, Elisha just wanted to not mess up as he took on the critical role of chief prophet of Israel once Elijah was taken away by God in a fiery chariot.  He knew that he could never live up to that responsibility if he did not have the same tools his teacher had so he asked Elijah if he might pass them along to him.  It wasn’t like he was asking for Elijah’s saw and hammer, his stud finder or his stethoscope.  Elijah had something unique that he could not just hand over to his loyal apprentice.  It had to come directly from God.

When it was about time for Elijah to be taken away by God, Elijah asked Elisha what he could do for him before he left.  Elisha’s reply points to just what he thought of the task before him and how tough it might be if he did not have what Elijah had.  "Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit," Elisha replied. "You have asked a difficult thing," Elijah said, "yet if you see me when I am taken from you, it will be yours — otherwise not." (2 Kings 2:9-10 NIV) Elisha, if he was to live up to the high standard of excellence his mentor set, needed, not Elijah’s talents or developed skills; he needed all of God that he could get.  He had to have every bit of the Spirit of the Lord that was within Elijah if he were to have any hope at all of leading Israel as God’s prophet.  The wickedness of the nation was too great and the expectation of how a proper prophet of the LORD was to be was set too high for Elisha to have any hope of succeeding if he did not have the same measure of God as Elijah.  That explains his audacious request; a double portion of Elijah’s spirit.  Perhaps you too have felt like the task before you was too great; that you had to have more God than ever to do what was set before you.  If anything truly good is to come out of your life, you need more God or you have no hope of succeeding, at least, not at what lasts forever.

When Elijah was taken up into heaven by God, what was left was Elijah’s cloak.  Not much of an inheritance and yet it was more than enough to provide for Elisha in his life’s work.  He picked up the cloak that had fallen from Elijah and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan.  Then he took the cloak that had fallen from him and struck the water with it. "Where now is the Lord, the God of Elijah?" he asked. When he struck the water, it divided to the right and to the left, and he crossed over. (2 Kings 2:13-14 NIV) Right then and there, the LORD became a part of Elisha and all that Elijah did, Elisha could do…and more.  Let us be clear about this.  God did not give Elisha His Spirit and the ability to do miracles so that Elisha could make something for himself.  He did this so that God might pour out of Elisha and fall upon all he came across.  It was not for Elisha that the Spirit came into him but for the world that was lost and without a Savior.

The Bible has this to say about every Christian.  “You are not your own…”  You are not here for you.  That life of yours is not to make something of yourself.  It is a funnel out of which all of God comes to all you meet.  Jesus put it this way.  On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.  Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."   By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified. (John 7:37-39 NIV) What can be said of this promise of Christ?  You do not get the fullness of God so He can stay cooped up in you!  There is no power of prayer, no comfort from His Spirit, no guidance and help in times of trouble for you so you can hold on to it and be happy with what you have.  Christ is not making you into His likeness so it all stays there with you.  You have God so that He might spill out of you and invade the world.  He is a torrent of Living Water that cannot be kept in the reservoir of your life.  There must be no dam blocking up His Spirit in you.

All of God is to break out of you and come spilling over into each person He brings you.  His love and patience and holiness and honesty and encouragement and hope and faith and goodness are all at the boiling point and if they don’t pour out of you, they will make you into a miserable little miser who is no good for anything.  But if His gentleness and His truthfulness and His mercy and His kindness come rushing from you, you will be the happiest person on earth.  There is no good in you that the Lord does not want becoming the good others gain.  It is the measure of Christianity, this matter of being a flowing river of holiness and love that goes out into the world and makes it good.  Before I took this recent assignment in the second-grade class, I wondered why Jesus wanted me with those same children and staff for an entire week.  I asked the Lord to use me as His cup of blessing and encouragement for them and if He didn’t, I did not want to go.  What good are you if God is not pouring out of you, making the world better, not because you are talented or smart or creative but because the Lord is supernatural, and He is the Savior of the world.  This world does not need more cool or successful people; it needs a Savior who can save them from their Sin and if you are available, He can pour out of you and save the world.

It Takes Time

John 14:6 NIV

Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

What Will You Do About The Truth?

Last month our church had a potluck and it was poorly attended.  In fact, there were fewer people in the worship service that day than I can remember.  A number of people put a significant amount of work into getting the potluck ready and the food was great.  Yet I wasn’t sure if we should have another one for a while.  I asked a couple if they thought we should wait a few months for the next church potluck or have one this month and they both smiled broadly and insisted that we have it this month.  I was caught off guard by their enthusiasm and then in a split moment of certainty, I knew that the Lord had spoken to me through them, that He wanted us to have a potluck so I went ahead and scheduled it.

I must admit though that I had a dilemma.  How was I to know that it really was God speaking to me and not just peer pressure?  It is not always God speaking to you when you want it to be and it isn’t easy knowing if you are right or wrong in it.  I did not have any Bible verse I could point to as evidence that this was coming from God.  Do you just rely on positive thinking and optimistic strategizing to guide you when you aren’t sure how to connect with the Lord on some matter that means a lot to you?  What is your go to method for hearing from God?  Most don’t care what God might be saying; they never give it much thought but what about you?  Have you come to the place where you want the Lord to show you the way?

Good people, God’s people have made horrible mistakes, when it comes to God.  We rightfully commend Peter for his tremendous faith taking God at His word and walking on the water.  When he and his fellow disciples were going across the Sea of Galilee in the middle of a great storm, they all saw Jesus coming toward them but at first none of them were really sure it was Him.  Timidly, Peter cried out to the Lord with a tremendous request.  "Lord, if it's you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water."  "Come," he said.  Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.  (Matthew 14:28-29 NIV)  However, quickly Peter’s faith failed him and he started sinking into the billowing waves.  But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!"   Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?" (Matthew 14:30-31 NIV) When Peter started out toward Jesus, He had complete confidence in God to take him along but it didn’t last and rather than walking in the might and protection of God, he went out in his own strength and insight.  He could see no way that he was going to survive the waves and down he went.

The same was true with Mary, the mother of Jesus.  Instead of maintaining her faith in Jesus and walking in Him, she trusted in her own wits and along with her children, came to the conclusion that Jesus had lost His mind.  What He was teaching and how He was behaving seemed irrational to her.  Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat.  When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, "He is out of his mind." …Then Jesus' mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. (Mark 3:20-21,31 NIV)  You can talk yourself into nearly anything if you rely just on you to figure out everything, including deciding that Jesus is crazy.  When Saul, who later became Paul was an unbeliever, he was convinced the Christian people were the worst sorts of souls and he set out on a quest to destroy them.  It seems so very reasonable, any conclusion you make when you are walking in yourself and deciding what you think is best.  The most rational and acceptable determinations are made by those who have no relationship with Christ.  They make sense and their arguments are levelheaded.  Mary, Saul and Peter all had their ducks in a row with their conclusions but just because the whole world agrees with you doesn’t mean it is so.

Jesus told His disciples not to talk about certain things until He was risen from the dead.  As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. (Mark 9:9 NIV)  There are many things you cannot understand nor can you grasp their importance until Christ is raised from the dead in you.  No matter how hard you look at a matter, regardless of how intensely you stare at a problem or an idea, you cannot get the gist of it until Jesus Christ has come alive in you.  Here is a Biblical example.  When Saul was just an ordinary person and had no sense of Christ in Him, he thought it was best to do whatever He could to stop the progression of the Christian message.  However, He met Christ and could no longer refute His Presence or authority as Lord.  Jesus became alive in Him and it completely changed the way He saw everything.  There is  a magical moment recorded in Acts 13 that completely altered the course of His life.  In the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul.  While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them."  So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.  The two of them, sent on their way by the Holy Spirit, went… (Acts 13:1-4 NIV)

Consider just how monumental this really was.  Saul, who had been instrumental in the horrific persecution of Christian people in the Middle East, who personally ordered the murder of Christians and their imprisonment was now being commissioned to begin the great missionary movement into the depths of the Roman Empire.  Not only that, Saul was accepting the call and going off on the enterprise...without coercion, without resistance on his part!  We treat this lightly because we are used to Paul being the greatest of all missionaries and the author of one fourth the New Testament.  This was new ground however; for the Church as well as for Saul. Never before had any Christian workers officially with the blessing of the Church been sent out beyond the narrow confines of the Jewish world and certainly not someone of Saul’s notoriety.  You must consider the risk being taken by everyone involved.  What if Saul turned on them?  What if he wasn’t spiritually strong enough to withstand the persecution they might face?  What if Saul’s Christianity had no staying power?  It was a most shocking enterprise!

Take a close look at how this decision to send Saul and Barnabas into the wild pagan world of Roman rule developed.  In this one church in Antioch, there were a group of believers who had some experience hearing from God and praying.  While they were in a time of worship, the Holy Spirit told them to make Saul and Barnabas missionaries.  Somehow, the Lord got this message across to each one of these Christian leaders and church members.  They knew it was God saying it and they were certain of what He said.  Also, Christ in some way prepared Saul and Barnabas for this dramatic change of course.  They were not like Moses or Gideon who were spiritually unprepared for the calling each received from God.  Saul and Barnabas were ready to go; up for the challenge.  God did that in them.  God prepared their hearts for this crucial mission.

God has important things to say to you.  He has tasks for you that matter for eternity.  He has a way of looking at things that He wants you to see.  The Lord has plans for you, challenges for you, certain ways of doing things that are critical for you and for others that you may not even know yet.  You can be oblivious to Christ and remain in a spiritual fog if you like or you can come up into the bright sunlight of God and His word.  You can know what only Christ can show you.  You can see what only the Lord can reveal.  It is possible for you to be just as alert and spiritually alive as those Antioch church members who all knew God wanted Saul and Barnabas to be the first missionaries to the world outside the Middle East.

You must read the Bible if you want to hear from God.  You can never be certain it is Jesus talking to you if the Bible isn’t a part of your thinking.  You don’t read the Bible to get something out of it but to be with Jesus.  If you don’t care what He is doing or how He thinks, then keep the Bible on your coffee table or stuck in your phone.  But if you want God to talk with you and be close to you, then you must read the Bible.  Do what God says whenever you know what He wants you to do.  The Lord will be as silent as a door knob if you disobey Him and ignore what He is telling you.  Pray.  Just sit with God and tell Him you love Him and be quiet…do this several times a day.  You don’t have to ask for anything.  If you have a sin to confess then confess it.  If you feel the desire to thank Him or tell Him you love Him, then do that.  Mostly just sit with Christ and let the Lord have room in your mind to work in it.  Become someone the Lord talks with and gives His thoughts and directions.  Be a disciple that the Lord can guide and lead.  Make the best use of your time here on earth by being one of the Lord’s trusted friends.  Be a disciple!

Heart of Gold

1 Thessalonians 5:11 NIV

Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.

Have You Been Searching For A Heart Of Gold?

As I was finishing my classes for my doctoral degree, I was scrambling to try and come up with an adequate topic for my dissertation.  There were countless possibilities but if I were to spend two years of my life dedicated to the project, I wanted it to be something that mattered; something that I could look back upon and feel like the work had an impact upon my field.  I knew that was a lofty aspiration, one I could probably never attain but nonetheless, it seemed worth pursuing.  While in a meeting with other staff members at work, I brought up my struggle to come up with a meaningful topic.  Several were suggested and then a friend of mine said I should do a study looking at the effect having a foster child had on the families where they were placed.  It sounded like such a great project and the research felt important to me.  What a benefit it would be to foster families if they had some idea what it would mean to them taking a foster child into their homes.  And yet I did not feel up to the challenge.  I did not have any experience with such types of research and did not know anyone at the seminary who had been involved in this kind of study and none of my doctoral advisors seemed qualified to help me with the statistical aspects of the research.  As I was about to cast the idea aside as impossible for me to pursue, one of my co-workers, who had spent several years doing research at a university, offered to help me.  She said she would meet with me and give me advice on my work.  Elaine kept her promise and the hours she spent advising me and helping me with my statistical analyses were invaluable to me and the success of my dissertation.  I have framed in my office the card she gave me congratulating me on earning my doctorate.  She was a perfect friend; one whose kindness I will never forget.

Years ago Neil Young wrote a song titled “Heart of Gold”.  In it he sung about his inability to find someone with a heart of gold despite his ongoing search that had lasted a lifetime.  It is not easy finding people like that; the truth is some never do. Many haven’t developed friendships that make them better people, never have had a real friend to count on when they are having a rough go of it.  There are those, even with countless acquaintances and work associates, who can’t think of anyone to look to for support.  The Apostle Paul near the end of his life made the heart-rending comment that when he faced a traumatic ordeal, he was all alone.  At my first defense, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me. May it not be held against them. (2 Timothy 4:16 NIV)

Not everyone in the Bible though struggled to find a friend when one was needed.  David, when he was running for his life from the king of Israel had a friend who was passionately loyal to him.  Hiding in the desert with a cabal of warriors, David was exhausted psychologically, spiritually and maybe even physically.  His good friend though, who happened to be the son of the man trying to hunt down David and have him killed, suddenly appeared and lifted David’s spirits.  And Saul's son Jonathan went to David at Horesh and helped him find strength in God.  "Don't be afraid," he said. "My father Saul will not lay a hand on you. You will be king over Israel, and I will be second to you. Even my father Saul knows this." (1 Samuel 23:16-17 NIV)

One book of the Bible is named after a great friend.  Ruth, who herself was a widow and struggling with her own loss, refused to let her mother-in-law be alone in her time of sorrow.  Having lost her two sons and her husband, Naomi quite understandably fell into a depression.  Feeling abandoned by God, Naomi just wanted to return to her hometown of Bethlehem and mourn there.  Yet one of her daughters-in-law, Ruth, wouldn’t let go of her.  She insisted that they stay together and was willing to leave her own village and family members and friends to remain close to Naomi.  Her pledge is one of the loveliest declarations of friendship found in literature.  "Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.  Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me." (Ruth 1:16-17 NIV)

A friend of mine reminded me of a poignant scene in the movie, The Passion of the Christ.  As Jesus was carrying the Cross through Jerusalem, bloodied and bruised, He stumbled and fell to the ground.  Mary, His mother was standing nearby and saw Him collapse.  Just as this happened, her thoughts flashed back to a moment when as a child, Jesus fell and scraped His knee.  Mary rushed to Him and picked young Jesus up and comforted Him in her arms.  In a flash, Mary flung herself down before Jesus in the road, gazed into His weary eyes, and tenderly mouthed to Him, “I’m here!”

The Bible uses a vivid term to express a simple way we can make the world a better place to live.  It is the Greek word “parakaleo” and it is rendered “encourage” in many English translations of the New Testament.  It literally means, “to call alongside”.  In the Gospel of John, Jesus says that the Holy Spirit is the “Parakletos”, the noun form of the word “parakoleo”.  It means “the encourager”, “the one who picks you up and helps you keep going”.  Jesus, by describing the Holy Spirit this way says that God in you is a strengthener, a motivator, a friend who stands by you.  God’s people are commanded to be encouragers, uplifters, faithful friends who are loyal.  How can we be that sort of people though all the time?  Won’t we get drained if we keep pouring ourselves into others?  Not if we allow the Encourager God to replenish our internal supply of courage, mental toughness and joy!  As we move toward the end of time and it gets tougher and tougher for people to avoid depression, not be pulled to commit suicide, stay out of alcoholism and drug abuse, not melt under the heat of anxiety and worry, the Bible tells us that Christian people must be there for others.  Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing. (1 Thessalonians 5:11 NIV)  The Lord insists this must be a priority of ours every single day!  “But encourage one another daily…” (Hebrews 3: 13 NIV)

Who will you reassure today?  Who is on your list to comfort, to encourage?  No one wears a sign that reads, “I am depressed”.  “I am ready to quit.”  “I feel hopeless.”  “My life doesn’t matter.” There aren’t red lights on the foreheads of your family members or co-workers that flash when they are discouraged and broken.  You just have to assume that the Holy Spirit, who encourages you and wants you to encourage others, will put it in your mind those who need you to say something loving, something supportive, something uplifting.  Perhaps you will be the voice God uses to give courage to someone, to motivate someone, to breathe life into someone.  With Christ living in you and through you, I wonder who it might be that will remember you always as the one who was there when life got rough and it seemed hopeless, who became the voice of God for them.  Who might one day look at you as the inspiration that led to a new direction in life?  Who will point to you as the reason they found new life and hope when they were lost and without the love of Christ to give them strength?  Who needs you to say, “I’m here”?

God Revealed

Isaiah 6:1 NIV

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple.

What Do You See In God?

The other day I was in a high school class and a couple of the students asked me how old I was.  It was of course somewhat presumptuous on their part but I decided to play around a bit with them so I asked the kids how old they thought I was.  I did not expect them to be as wildly off base as they were since they were fifteen years old but they guessed 42, 44 and 45.  I just smiled and walked away, leaving them without an answer.  The next day the same group asked me again how old I was and this time I told them.  “Sixty.”  The shocked expressions on their faces were the best Christmas gifts ever.  They argued that I did not look that old and once more I smiled and walked away.  How fascinating to learn something new about someone, to discover secrets about that person you might never have guessed.

We often fail to consider the fact that God is a person.  He is not an idea or a premise.   The God spoken of throughout the Bible is not a theological concept but someone specific with actual characteristics that are His.  I have had conversations with different ones who have opinions of how the Lord should be if He really existed as if they are the ones who determine God’s nature and personality.  Either God is or He isn’t and if He is, then we do not decide what He is like any more than biographers can chose the qualities of George Washington or Pocahontas.  It does no good whatsoever to speculate about the characteristics of the Lord; one can only discover them through experience.

There is a rather humorous account found in the Bible that illustrates just how wrong we can be in our speculations about God.  After the Arameans attacked the Israelites and got soundly beaten by them, the counselors to the king of Aram insisted that the reason the Arameans were soundly defeated by the Israeli army was because they had fought in the uplands of Samaria.  The God of the Israelites they speculated was a god of hills.  What they needed was a change in location.  Meanwhile, the officials of the king of Aram advised him, "Their gods are gods of the hills. That is why they were too strong for us. But if we fight them on the plains, surely we will be stronger than they.  Do this: Remove all the kings from their commands and replace them with other officers.  You must also raise an army like the one you lost — horse for horse and chariot for chariot — so we can fight Israel on the plains. Then surely we will be stronger than they." He agreed with them and acted accordingly. (1 Kings 20:23-25 NIV)

When the Arameans were crushed again by the Israelite army, one wonders if the Arameans might have pulled out their canoes to fight on the lake, hoping that God was not a god of lakes.  The Arameans were certainly right to guess that the Israelites had a God who brought victory to His people.  They however were wrong to make determinations about Him without actually knowing Him.  It is like watching movies depicting aliens when no one has ever seen an alien and if they exist have no idea how they look or act.  There is absurdity in the way so many talk about God without having the least bit of experience interacting with Him.  When the patriarch Jacob ran away from his furious brother and exhausted fell asleep he was unprepared for what came next.

He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.  There above it stood the Lord, and he said: "I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying.  Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.  I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you."  When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it." (Genesis 28:12-16 NIV)  Jacob’s reaction is priceless.  He did not realize God was where he was!

Nearly the entire world is oblivious to God.  Ambulances run to heart attack victims, senators discuss tax plans, shoppers comb the stores for deals, librarians restack books and hardly anyone realizes God is there.  Cynics decide God is cruel, professors think He is a myth and pharmacists believe He is a legend and all the while God is among us with His own specific personality and characteristics waiting for someone to notice Him.  The old pop song, “One of Us”, absurdly wonders what God would be like if He was one of us.  “What if God was one of us? Just a slob like one of us.  Just a stranger on the bus tryin' to make his way home?”    The idea is that we cannot know what God is really like so we just make up things about Him.  For many, we can read the Bible and take what is said there as one person’s view of Him or maybe even the impressions of lots of people but we cannot really know what He is like because He is an idea or a concept and not an actual person.

When Jesus Christ was born and placed in a cattle trough after He was born, grew up and became a man, everyone who met Him discovered that God had specific, observable characteristics that made Him unique with certain qualities and personality traits.  God did this and behaved like this and reacted this way to these kinds of things.  God was not Fred down the street or the imaginative ideas of Marvel Comics.  He was not Thor, a made up character that could be anything the writers or the movie director wanted him to be.  God was there and He was just as He was seen and heard.  But you may argue that that was then and this is now.  How can we know what God is like now?

The last book in the Bible, the famous book of Revelation, or as the Greek name for it would be translated, “unveiling”, presents us with two specific groups of people.  The first would be those who are either oblivious to God or opposed to Him.  They react to circumstances they face without any sort of relationship to God.  There is no interaction with Him, no attempt at communication with Him.  They fear what is happening, are angry with their circumstances but never reach out to God or try to align themselves with Him.  The book of Revelation describes a typical response of those in this group to the destruction God will bring to the economic structures of the world.  "When the kings of the earth who committed adultery with her and shared her luxury see the smoke of her burning, they will weep and mourn over her.  Terrified at her torment, they will stand far off and cry: "'Woe! Woe, O great city O Babylon, city of power!  In one hour your doom has come!'  "The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her because no one buys their cargoes any more— (Revelation 18:9-11 NIV)

If you can just not let the nature of the events that are described in this chapter distract you, the point is that no one here looks to God for help or even tries to reach out to Him.  The entire crowd only reacts to the circumstances as if that is all that is there, as if there is no God involved in it.  Yet there is a second group of people described in the book of the Revelation and that is those who are aware of God all the time.  They view Him not as a story or an opinion or a thought but as He is, there, present, with characteristics that are specific and certain.  They do not speculate about God, they interact with Him and the result of being with Him is worship and undiminished love for Him.  Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting: "Hallelujah!  For our Lord God Almighty reigns.  Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory.   For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.  Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear." (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints.) (Revelation 19:6-8 NIV)

There is a clear and defined line of demarcation between two parts of humanity.  There are those who live without any consciousness of God, who live within the world and see nothing beyond it but the wins and losses of what they do and what they face.  God, the real God Jesus Christ, is beyond their mental scope.  The second group is made up of those who worship Christ, who love Him and yearn for His affections.  Worship is the mechanism through which those who are born-again experience Christ; it is the means by which God becomes known to us.  Like your ears enable hearing and your eyes seeing, worship enables you to be aware of Christ.  You cannot know God without worship.  You can read about Him, think about Him or have conversations discussing Him but you cannot know God without worship. 

A disturbing statement made by the Apostle Paul under the direction of the Holy Spirit is found in the book of Romans.  For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.  (Romans 1:21 NIV)  Literally, it reads, “Formerly knowing God not as God they neither glorified nor gave thanks…”  In other words, what knowledge these people had of God did not lead to them worshiping Him or thanking Him.  The result of this was that they could not think clearly or understand what they saw.  Without worship, you become irrational and mentally dull.  Worship of Christ is the gateway to seeing and understanding what you see.  Why is worship so critical to the church service?  It enables you to see God as He is and live with your eyes wide open and your mind able to comprehend what you face.  To skip worship or to not try to worship is like taking a pill that shuts down your brain and deadens your ability to comprehend.

When you are born again and have Christ as your Savior, your operating system is completely reworked so that worship of Christ is the way you connect with God and access His gifts.  Peace, joy and wisdom all flow into a heart that worships Christ and without that worship, it all gets blocked.  Practice worship this week.  You might not be very good at it.  You might get quickly bored with it.  But like any habit crucial to your well-being, practice is the only way you will develop it so that your mind will know Christ and understand God as He works in your life.

Broken Bread

Luke 24:35 NIV

Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.

Does It Matter To You What Christ Wants?

The world is morphing at light speed.  Yet the most important parts of life have not changed a whit since Adam and Eve left the garden and pursued their dreams with Sin permeating their thinking.  We must contend with the same concerns David, the second King of Israel, did as well as those of the disciples who followed Jesus.  Last week I was asked by someone whose opinion matters to me, “Why do you stay with that same little church?  Why don’t you do something different?”  Someone else wanted to know what I planned on doing with the books I have written.  The implication was that my life might improve if I made certain changes.  Of course I was glad that people I love care about me and I knew they meant well but both times I found my heart pricked by a pang of disappointment that troubled me.  Why do I face so many difficulties?  What can I do to improve my life?  Do I need to make a change?  Should I be a bit more proactive in meeting my own needs?  Have I thrown away my life doing what I do?

You have important decisions to make about how you will use the time you have been given.  It is a bit daunting trying to have the best life possible because you only have one shot at it and then you are finished, at least with this temporal existence.  Without becoming overly melodramatic, there is a certain urgency to your decisions, as probably you want to make the most of what you do and squeeze out of your life the greatest amount of fulfillment you can.  There has been a philosophy which nearly all people around the world have adopted and it is illustrated by a request two of Jesus’ disciples had for Christ.  Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. "Teacher," they said, "we want you to do for us whatever we ask."   "What do you want me to do for you?" he asked. They replied, "Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory." (Mark 10:35-37 NIV)

Is it crazy to want something for yourself?  Don’t you have a right to try and make the most of your life, to achieve your goals and fulfill your dreams?  The Christian community generally believes James and John were philosophically in step with the great human push for fulfillment and personal achievement.  Much of the Church promotes this line of thinking and in fact usually celebrates it.  Jesus however seemed perturbed by the request and His response to the brothers reflected that.  Jesus called them together and said, "You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them.  Not so with you.  Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. (Mark 10:42-45 NIV)

This of course was not what the disciples were expecting and if it were not for our familiarity with the text, it would not be for us either.  Consider carefully Jesus’ response when told by the twelve disciples that the huge crowd He had been teaching was famished.  "You give them something to eat." (Luke 9:13 NIV)  What were they supposed to do?  They didn’t have the money to pay for food for the crowd of thousands and although they were able to come up with two small fish and five loaves of bread between them, it seemed ludicrous to think they should provide food for all the people.  Keep in mind what Jesus demanded.  He did not expect them to be able to feed everyone.  He did tell the disciples to give the crowd the food they had after He blessed it.  There was no room here for the twelve to get a snack for themselves first before they started giving away the bread and fish.  They had to hand over all they had without any promise of getting any of it back.

The Sermon on the Mount is often read but rarely taken seriously.  We solemnly proclaim it as “God’s word” but mostly ignore it.  Notice the theme woven throughout.  Here is just a quick overview of some of what is found in it.  Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.  And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.  If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.  Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. (Matthew 5:39-42 NIV)  And then He tells us what to do about our enemies.  But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you...(Matthew 5:44 NIV)  Further, we are not even free to entertain ourselves however we want in the sanctity of our own mind.  I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.  (Matthew 5:28-29 NIV)  Even if we are justified in our anger over how we are treated, we do not have the right to hold a grudge.  We are to forgive immediately any mistreatment we have received.  For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  (Matthew 6:14-15 NIV)  Perhaps most difficult of all, we are not free to criticize others.  "Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” (Matthew 7:1 NIV)

If you put all of these admonitions of Christ together, you do not find a formula for success!  In fact, it does not even seem to matter to God how things go for you, whether you are liked or not, whether you have fun or don’t, whether you get what you have earned or you are cheated out of what you deserve.  You are here it seems, to make the lives of others better no matter how much it costs you.  That of course is not the Christianity we find promoted but it is what Christ has said Christianity is.  I recently heard of a pastor who discovered a couple of bags of trash dumped in the church dumpster by someone from the neighbor and not with the church.  He found somehow the address of who it was that left it there and brought all the trash back to the person’s house.  Is that what we find described in the Sermon on the Mount?

The Old Testament has a lovely picture of how Christianity is intended to look.  In the badly corrupted kingdom of Israel, a pagan king and queen ruled.  The person they put in charge of their palace was Obadiah, a man of faith who risked his life to save over a hundred prophets of God from being murdered by King Ahab’s soldiers.  The great prophet Elijah approached Obadiah while Obadiah was walking through the countryside.  Elijah wanted a meeting with King Ahab and asked Obadiah to arrange it due to his connection as palace administrator. 

As Obadiah was walking along, Elijah met him. Obadiah recognized him, bowed down to the ground, and said, "Is it really you, my lord Elijah?"   "Yes," he replied. "Go tell your master, 'Elijah is here.'"  "What have I done wrong," asked Obadiah, "that you are handing your servant over to Ahab to be put to death?  As surely as the Lord your God lives, there is not a nation or kingdom where my master has not sent someone to look for you. And whenever a nation or kingdom claimed you were not there, he made them swear they could not find you.  But now you tell me to go to my master and say, 'Elijah is here.'  I don't know where the Spirit of the Lord may carry you when I leave you. If I go and tell Ahab and he doesn't find you, he will kill me. Yet I your servant have worshiped the Lord since my youth.  Haven't you heard, my lord, what I did while Jezebel was killing the prophets of the Lord? I hid a hundred of the Lord's prophets in two caves, fifty in each, and supplied them with food and water…And now you tell me to go to my master and say, 'Elijah is here.' He will kill me!" (1 Kings 18:7-10, 14)

Obadiah faced a very real dilemma.  Would he risk his life to do what Elijah asked?  Without complaint he already had done more than enough to qualify as a good and godly man but now it felt like too much to ask of him.  Many will only go so far when it comes to practicing Christianity.  When it gets uncomfortable or inconvenient, how easy to just walk away from the tough demand of God!  Many Christian people are good at telling God, “No!”  Obadiah took the demand of Elijah as some sort of punishment. “What have I done wrong?”  He had not done anything wrong!  He was in fact gloriously right in his actions.  So why did God put him in such a dangerous spot?  God chose Obadiah to bless God’s people by giving up his right to manage his life as he saw fit.    How would he do it?  By opening the door for Elijah to speak with King Ahab!

We do not choose how God will use us to feed the world.  Like bread that is broken off and shared or juice that is poured into a cup and passed along, we are nourishment for a world hungry for God.  Your ignoring of an insult, generous gift, kind words, moral purity, love for people who should be despised is the bread God uses to feed starving people.   You may say that it does not matter if I hold back my criticism but you cannot know who will notice what you have done and be drawn to Christ by it.  When you are not aware of God using you, when you are simply doing the good thing our Lord has said to do, Christ will use that good thing to nourish someone, encourage someone, strengthen someone or heal a wound in someone.  You may not know in your lifetime what a great deed you did simply by forgiving someone or not paying attention to the mistake that person made but someday you will see how you were nourishing bread for a person starving for the generosity of God; thirsty for His mercy.

Imagine the tiny desert lily, hidden away next to a rock but without warning a gentle breeze carries its fragrance off to an unsuspecting soul who at the moment it reaches her, gains courage to try to put her marriage back together, stop drinking or find enough hope to go to one more job interview.  In that instant, the forgotten lily becomes the hand of God when He seemed to be no longer there.  You are that lily and by just doing what God says to do, your fragrance brings hope once more to those who may have lost hope along the way.  Never underestimate the power of Christ to transform your simple actions of generosity, kindness and forgiveness into the power God uses to put together new lives through the Gospel of Christ.

Unmasking Christ

Isaiah 48: 6 NIV

"From now on I will tell you of new things, of hidden things unknown to you.”

What Do You Know About Jesus?

The other day I stood at the door while eighth graders filed past me as they entered the classroom where I was to be their substitute teacher.  I heard one say, “Oh, we have a sub!”  I don’t know if that was good or bad.  Was she happy there was a substitute teacher or disappointed?  I wasn’t greeted.  Eye contact was not made with me.  The girl just walked past me and made the declaration, “We have a sub!”  She did not know me and I did not know her and it seems unlikely we would ever come across each other again in this life unless of course I was a substitute teacher in another class of hers.  What struck me was that I was a category, not a person.  The only characteristic I possessed that this young teen cared about was that I was a sub.  She was not wondering about me at all.  It did not matter if I was young or old, married or single, a father, a Raiders or a Patriots fan, a Christian or a Muslim or a Hindu, an intellectual or a high school dropout, a nice guy or mean and disinterested in what I did.  The girl did not even worry herself over whether I was a human being or some creature from another galaxy.  I was a sub and that was all that mattered.  This girl did not have any interest in knowing anything else about me.

When someone like the famous atheist Carl Sagan makes clear that he has no interest in finding out anything about God, no one is surprised.  It seems normal for him to not even have a bit of curiosity about the Creator.  When someone who is Hindu or Buddhist makes no effort to learn about Christ, we aren’t shocked.  But if a person who claimed to have an interest in Christianity did not care about finding out what God was like or how Christ thought about things, we might wonder about that.  It would maybe be odd if you did not show interest in knowing more about God; if you were in fact satisfied that you knew all you cared about knowing when it came to Christ.  Now we come against a rather stunning discovery.  Many Christians without saying it have decided they know all they need to know about Christ; that they have come far enough in their understanding of Him to be satisfied.  What about you?  Have you gone as far as you care to go in your familiarity of God and what He is like?  What is your true interest level in God and how He is personally?

When we think of heaven and eternal life and the rewards of God, we don’t generally think along the right lines of all this.  Jesus defined the chief characteristic of eternal life when He was praying in front of the disciples just before being arrested and crucified.  He declared, “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” (John 17:3 NIV)  Eternal life is knowing God; knowing Jesus Christ.  That is all there is to it.  Nothing about streets of gold or great food or new bodies!  The most crucial aspect of eternal life is knowing God.  The verb translated “know”, has two qualities to it.  It is intimate knowledge, not hearsay, not proclaimed and overheard but personal knowledge that is experienced.  Second, it is a knowledge that keeps developing, keeps happening.  It is not the knowledge of a moment but the knowledge of everlasting, of never-ending.  Eternal life is God and more God and more God.  It is like falling in love and never wanting to back away or take a break but being so head over heels in love that you cannot get enough of the one you love.  There is always something more wonderful and beautiful to discover, always something more fascinating and electrifying to learn.  That is eternal life.  Getting to know God more and more and never being bored of it, never getting weary of it because it is too good to quench.

Here is the problem we face.  We have the heritage of Adam and Eve as our own.  Before Adam sinned, he walked with God and enjoyed Him continuously but as soon as he sinned, Adam hid from God and did not want to be seen by Him, did not want to talk with Him or be with Him.  That is the heritage of the human race.  Sin has made God irrelevant in us; unattractive to us and uninteresting.  We certainly want Him to give us something but the interest is more in what He gives than who He is.  It is like Jacob, who when he found out his father Isaac was going to bestow a blessing on Jacob’s older brother Esau, he dressed up as Esau to fool his blind father into giving him the blessing rather than who his father wanted to have it, Esau.  Jacob did not care how it hurt his father to be fooled.  He did not love his father enough to let him do what made him happy.  He did not want to know why his father felt strongly about giving the blessing to Esau. Jacob just wanted the blessing…but…and we are not being too judgmental to see it…Jacob was not very interested in the father behind the blessing.  That is the curse of sin in us.  It makes God less inviting and less desirable than whatever He might give us.

There is a fascinating case study in the Bible of just what it is like to begin the journey of eternal life and it is a mirror of our own experience.  When Jesus invited Peter to follow Jesus, he knew enough about Christ to do so.  What information he had, we cannot say exactly but it was enough for Peter. As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen.  "Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men."   At once they left their nets and followed him. (Matthew 4:18-20 NIV)  Sometime later, after having seen some of Jesus’ miraculous deeds and listened to Him teach, Peter made a most surprising decision.  When a great storm arose on the Sea of Galilee and Peter was with the other disciples, off in the distance came someone walking toward them on the water and everyone in the boat thought it was a ghost.  It was of course Jesus and when the Lord reassured them that it was Him, Peter asked if he could climb out of the boat and walk on the water too and Jesus told him to come on out and join him.  But after just a few steps, Peter looked at the waves and his faith in Christ sank.  Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.  But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!"  Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?" (Matthew 14:29-31 NIV) Now Peter knew by experience, personal experience, something about Jesus he did not know before.  He could trust Jesus to take care of him in even the worst of circumstances.  That is eternal life; knowing more of Christ.

Later, Peter was on a hill with James and John and Jesus when something wild happened.  About eight days after Jesus said this, he took Peter, John and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray.  As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning.  Two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus. They spoke about his departure, which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem.  Peter and his companions were very sleepy, but when they became fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him.  As the men were leaving Jesus, Peter said to him, "Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters — one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah." (He did not know what he was saying.)  While he was speaking, a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud.  A voice came from the cloud, saying, "This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him." (Luke 9:28-36 NIV)  What an amazing experience.  Peter got to meet the legends Moses and Elijah.  What he did not know until then was that Jesus was not on a par with Moses and Elijah.  He was not their equal, not their peer.  He was the Son, He was their God.  He did not know this before.  He thought he knew who Jesus was but He was much more than Peter realized.  He was the Son.  This was eternal life.  He knew more about Christ than he did before.

A fourth experience of Peter gives us an even better idea of what eternal life is.  Boldly, before Jesus died, Peter announced to everyone including Jesus that he was far more brave and loyal to Jesus than any of the others.  Jesus was not very encouraging.  He told Peter that Peter would in fact deny that he was one of Jesus’ followers three times in the next few hours and that of course is what happened.  Peter was heartbroken later when it came to pass and he felt like an absolute failure.  But after Jesus returned to life and began meeting with the disciples and others, Christ pulled Peter aside and three times asked Peter if Peter loved Him, the exact same number of times, Peter cowardly denied knowing Jesus.  In the end the Lord gave Peter a special mission one that required great courage and dedication.  Jesus said, "Feed my sheep. I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go."   Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, "Follow me!" (John 21:17-19 NIV)  Here, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, Peter found out how merciful Jesus is.  Christ did not hold Peter’s cowardice against him.  He did not lose confidence in Peter.  He gave Peter a mission, to take care of the new community of Christians who would soon join them and He did so without any sort of warnings against failing.  Jesus, Peter learned does not hold our sins and failures against us but builds up our lives and gives us honorable work to do.  Peter learned something new about Jesus and that is eternal life.  He discovered how kind and generous Jesus is.

One more moment we can consider about Peter’s life.  After Jesus went back to heaven and physically left the disciples, now known as Apostles, they all were gathered together praying when the Holy Spirit came upon them and they began to speak in all sorts of foreign languages that were supernaturally given to them.  A crowd was nearby made up of people from various parts of the world.  As the Apostles preached to the mass of people, each one understood perfectly in his or her own language what the Apostles were saying.  This was a miracle and one that was stupendous but that was not the greatest miracle that day.  What the Apostles discovered and Peter in particular was that God took them all in, regardless of race or national origin; gave each of them salvation.  Peter saw, and more fully than he had ever seen before, that Jesus is Savior no matter who you might be or what you have done or where you have been.  Christ takes the sin out of you and makes you perfect in every way.  All the heartache, all the anger and bitterness, all the hard feelings and held grudges, all corrupt lusts and selfishness and wrecked parts, Christ saves you from them.  There is not a part of you that Jesus will not make perfect and completely good and lovely.  He will do this for every person who comes to Him for salvation.  He is Savior.

This week, become attentive to Christ.  Think about Him.  Let your thoughts turn to Him again and again.  Assume He will talk to you.  There is so much for you to learn about Christ.  So much you don’t know.  You and I are like little children.  We have just begun to begin to get to know Jesus and to find out what He is like.  If the Bible is true, and we say it is, then God is love and the more you know the love of God, the more joyous and peaceful and full of hope your life will be.  Make Christ the center of your thinking this week and every time He comes to mind, be prepared for our Lord to show you something you have never seen before.