Monthly Archives: December 2023

Happy [Almost] 2024

We record life based on years, but what makes a year New?  Really each additional year ties together the as-yet unknown of the future year with the leftover realities of the previous year.  So describing it as “New” isn’t quite accurate.  It’s those leftover realities that often prompt us to make a “new year’s” resolution. That also is an inaccurate way to describe our hopeful yearning between the transition of one year ending and another beginning.  We need a vision!  Those who’ve pledged their heart to following the Creator’s Vision of the New Beginning whose birth we’ve just celebrated know it’s that Vision of life, not a new year or a new resolution that ties together the realities of the past with the unknown future to allow 2024 to become the reality of hope for a truly

Be Thou My Vision
Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art
Thou my best thought, by day or by night
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light

Be Thou my wisdom, and Thou my true word
I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord
Thou my great Father, and I Thy true son
Thou in me dwelling and I with Thee one

Riches I heed not, nor vain, empty praise
Thou mine inheritance, now and always
Thou and Thou only first in my heart
High King of heaven, my treasure Thou art

High King of heaven, my victory won
May I reach heaven’s joys, O bright heaven’s sun
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall
Still be my vision, O ruler of all 

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The Christmas Purpose of Daily

New Forever

Romans 8:3 For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, 4 so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who are in accord with the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are in accord with the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. NASB

Looking for an Advent connection to this passage seems odd for several reasons. It doesn’t use the word baby, it doesn’t mention birth and why would God choose to intervene on behalf of the people He described as making His Law “weak as it was through the flesh?”  But thankfully “God did.”

God filled that Advent cradle with a perfect impression of Himself, free of mankind’s original legacy; “the likeness of sinful flesh.”   God chose to step out of His timeline of eternity and insert Himself into the human timeline of years “according to the flesh…as the one recognizably human proof of a new beginning…a Baby…“so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”  It took a beat for my heart to recognize the purpose of God “sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh“ was to eliminate the forever part of that legacy of sinful flesh from His timeline of eternity, for many.

 Jesus’s life would change the forever part of the human timeline of years for many in another way.  This “Baby” step for mankind would give “those who are in accord with the Spirit, the things of the Spirit” and teach them to begin living forever with God, now.  There’s an old legend of a European ruler who would sneak away and walk among his people incognito.  It drove his security people nuts but his response was “I cannot rule my people unless I know how they live.”

Third Sunday of Advent

1 Corinthians 15:44b…If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being;” the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46 The spiritual did not come first,  but the natural,
and after that the spiritual.

Remember this saying — You never get a second chance to make a first impression? That’s not true if your identity has been changed by the Creator of Life.  God’s first impression of life was a grand miracle that revealed life itself.  He picked up a handful of dust and “the first man Adam became a natural living being.”  “God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very  good.” That first man’s natural identity was a perfect relationship with God, meant to last forever, in a perfect place.  But sin changed that identity.  Fast forward to a much later time in a world where all that’s left of that first natural identity is the impression of separation and loss.  

Now reread those verses above.  They’re the hope of Advent…God’s choice was a second grand miracle of life, “the spiritual,” and it came to pass in those days!  We celebrate Advent because “after that” natural time God chose to reveal His Own Identity to mankind in the most easily recognizable human form of a new beginning — a baby.

Life must always begin with a natural birth but that Baby was God revealing a second impression of life that could never be separated from Him or lost. “The last Adam, a life-giving spirit,” would replicate God’s own pattern of life.  “New” life for many, and a new identity that would exist forever in perfect relationship with God, not because it happened in a perfect place but because His Perfect Life would be in them.  “The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God.a 

a CS Lewis, Mere Christianity

 

The First Church

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 2:6-7

Churches today are definitely different than that stable, but in this season there are similarities that caused me to ask this question: was that feeding trough the first “church?”  That manger was not an accident that happened because of an overcrowded village at a busy time…God provided it!   Don’t be fooled into believing any details of the birth of Jesus were God’s last-ditch effort to provide a place for Jesus because there was “no room in the inn.” God picked that time and place and designated it a sacred space because Jesus the Christ was there. 

A stable isn’t the perfect structure I would have hoped to find a new beginning, but like every other “church,” availability matters.  That first church wasn’t meant to be a place for privileged and perfect people, but for people who just needed a “place.”  A place where the curious could come and look to see whether what they’d heard was real. The things that made that “first” church perfect, still matter.  The angel’s praise-filled words still remind our hearts of their timeless proclamation; “Glory to God in the highest heaven.”  We still have shepherds who boldly tell the story of what they’ve seen and heard.  There are still wise men and women that follow a Holy path to a “modern stable” to offer the gifts they bring to Him.  Today’s modern stable still holds the eternal promise of that first church: God has chosen His church today as a sacred space where the needs of the people and His holiness finally have the opportunity to come together…because Jesus the Christ is there.