Christmas Realization

With each Christmas season that approaches, I realize more and more how I still don't grasp the true significance of it. Yes, we could socially criticize our consumerist country; where the giving (& buying) of gifts is the focus of our energy. We could go there, but we are not there. We are not side-lined critics. We are active players. We are those "in the world, but not of the world" and I realize how hard that is to act out living in this country. And I'm sure God is up there almost laughing and probably lamenting us who still don’t get it. Our nativity scenes are set up in our houses along with our Christmas songs playing and we try to show our neighbors, our friends and family that we do know what this season is all about. The Christmas season seems to be such an external presentation of sorts. This season should actually be an inward realization of what it is really all about. And what do we know about this season? Why do we celebrate? We celebrate the birth of Jesus. Who is in fact living inside us every single day. "Living inside us" is what we need to pay more attention to.

Every Christmas morning for a number of years I have read to my family the devotional My Utmost for His Highest, December 25. Here is what Oswald Chambers says about the day:

"Just as Our Lord came into human history from outside, so He must come into me from outside. Have I allowed my personal human life to become a 'Bethlehem' for the Son of God? I cannot enter into the realm of the Kingdom of God unless I am born from above by a birth totally unlike natural birth…The Characteristic of the new birth is that I yield myself so completely to God that Christ is formed in me. Immediately Christ is formed in me, His nature begins to work through me."

How many times have we proclaimed that Jesus is the reason for the season? Countless. But it goes way beyond that. What is the explanation of that phrase? It's our lives, our testimony. It's how we respond to the facts of what God did for us.

The thought of God Incarnate being born to a teenage girl who would someday become the King of Israel and ultimately the King of our lives just floors me every time. I wish each Christmas morning – the day we celebrate – I could fall flat on my face in reverence and cry out with thanksgiving, knowing that Jesus was born to be my King and to live inside me. This Christmas could be the time to share in this realization and thanksgiving.

Our Commonsense

What got me to this idea I'm about to write about was inspired by this quote from Oswald Chambers from his book "Studies In The Sermon On The Mount":

"The conflict for the Christian is not a conflict of sin, but a conflict over the natural life being turned into the spiritual life. The natural life is not sinful, the disposition that rules the natural life is sinful; when God alters that disposition , we have to turn the natural life into the spiritual by a steady process of obedience to God, and it takes spiritual concentration on God to do it."

I have been time and time again trying to understand the difference between my natural life and my spiritual life and how I can live in the spiritual all the time. According to the dictionary, "disposition" is 'a person's inherent qualities of mind and character.' It's my mind and my character that need to be devoted to the obedience of Jesus. But at so many times, I am stopped by my sense of self, by my commonsense.

Reading the Sermon on the Mount and studying it is a tough task for sure. Diving into what Jesus is really talking about and how it relates to my relationship with him, always stirs in me a frustration with myself but also a complete LOVE for His teachings. (And I hope when you read the Scriptures, you also fall more in love with it.) I begin to understand the Why, which motivates me to the figure out the How.

And today it's my battle with my commonsense. It's thinking "Am I acting out of my own thinking, or am I thinking out of what Jesus wants?" It's not just "What Would Jesus Do?" It must be what would Jesus Say, what would he Think, how would he Act and how would he Love? He had a reversal of thinking to the world. And he asks us to think like him. It's the world versus Jesus. The world - our commonsense - says we should look after ourselves, think about how we're going to live and what we will save and that that matters.

But look at Matthew chapter 6 verse 25:
"Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?"

Do you see what he's doing? He making a stark difference from the commonsense to how we need to think. Look at those who you work with or go to school with, see what "carries" them day by day. The daily grind is all about self-preservation, especially today. Think about it. And I have to ask, are we really like that? Are we anxious about our clothes, our rent or mortgage, our money? Jesus says a few verses before that we cannot serve both God and money or mammon. But what is mammon? The Greek word mammon is a Semitic word for money or possessions.

But Chambers says it quite well: "It is the system of civilized life that organizes itself without considering God." We as believers consider God. Right? We are to organize our thoughts, actions and character WITH considering God. Although our commonsense tells us not to. And that is the battle (for me at least).

I'm struck with the image of Jesus standing on the edge of the Sea of Galilee looking up the hill to all his listeners and saying to them "If you want to follow me, you must disobey your commonsense. The way you think you ought think is not the way you should think at all. Come, let me show you how to think and live your life according to my Father in Heaven."

He teaches a doctrine of division, a doctrine of detachment. I am getting that. I am floored by it. I am now looking at the rest of today as a way to align my disposition to be altered and changed by God. To his character. I will look today to be in total concentration of God - not in my commonsense but continue my steady process of obedience. I will ask "Is this the kind of thing that Jesus Christ is after or the kind of thing Satan is after?"

Know Your Poverty

We know our bodies wage war against our spirit. We know we're "in" battle constantly, and that we conform more times than not. But how do we have total "conformation to Christ" in our bodies?

We also know that the Spirit is willing but the body is weak (Matthew 26:41). How then can we move and use our "body" to interact with God for his glorification? This something I've been reading about from all sorts of literature. I try to grasp it, yet my grip is loosened almost immediately. And that is why I write about this topic...

I was reading in Luke today about Jesus' first great big sermon to the mulititudes who follow him. He said Blessed are you who are poor. Blessed are you who are hungry, who weep and who are spit on you for the sake of Me (Jesus). Poor, hungry, weep. Those aren't exciting words. But they are words of poverty, the emptying of "self." Jesus then gives the "woes." Woe to you who are rich, who are full, who laugh now and speak well of yourself. Woe to us who think we are self-relient and who are self-glorifying. It makes so much sense that he says these right after one another. We must be poor, self-emptied before we may follow him.

Oswald Chambers wrote: "We are apt to say that because a man has natural ability therefore he will make a good Christian. It is not a question of our equipment but of our poverty, not of what we bring with us, but of what God puts into us; not a question of natural virtues of strength of character, knowledge and experience - all that is of no avail in this matter. The only thing that avails is that we are taken up into the big compelling of God and made his comrades. The comradeship of God is made up out of men who know their poverty."

For me as of late, it is going back to the first "beatitude": blessed are the poor in spirit. I have to start there. I have to wake up everyday and know that I am not capable - in my carnal flesh - to bring glorification to God. I actually "need" God and have to be God-reliant, not self-reliant. Do we have this attitude when life goes well? I tend to forget to tell you the truth. But it is imperative that the first of the beatitudes is implemented daily. We already are prone to evil... that is why we need to start at the bottom, to re-prioritize and re-plan our days.

Dallas Willard says the habit of self-indulgence can be broken if we train our thoughts by appropriate disciplines of study, meditation and service. Once we start there it will be a "place where faith meets grace to achieve conformity to Christ."

He also states: "In our fallen world this life is prepossessed by evil, so that we do not have to think to do what is wrong, but must think and plan and practice - and receive grace - if we are to succeed in doing what is right."

I have to end with this because it is so good...

"Learning Christ-likeness is not passive. It is active engagement with and in God. And we act with our bodies. Moreover this bodily engagement is what lays the foundation in our bodily members for readiness for holiness, and increasingly removes readiness to sin - so that "Christ will be exalted now as always in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain" (Philippians 1:20-21).

I will continue in striving to know my poverty. Knowing who I am to Christ, but knowing who I am IN Christ as well. I want to be Christ-like. I want to be active, not passive. I want to have that comradeship that Chambers speaks of. I want to wake up everyday and be Christ-reliant. I have to relocate and reorient my body in this world to achieve that. I need to participate in these disciplines so that I will finally conform to Christ.

My goal, may it be yours as well...
Blessings.

Our Purpose Today

I've been reading some of Paul's letters in the Bible as of late and I have found the first chapter of Ephesians to probably be the most intense chapter he's ever written. I could not get over this chapter; I've read it over and over and over again. I'm trying to figure it out, trying to figure out what Paul is saying. I've come to one conclusion: it's about PURPOSE.

There are many definitions of "purpose." Most people try to find their "purpose" in life. Ask your co-workers what their purpose is in life...you'll be surprised I'm sure. But we, are not most people. We are not the same. We have a true purpose.

Here's the dictionary definition: "the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists."

I believe - using that definition - that Paul answers that in the first chapter of Ephesians. We could dig and dig into everything he is saying, but that's not my intent. I want to discover or rediscover our daily purpose. And that is our goal is it not, to be daily renewed, daily engaged "in Christ"? It is for me - I suck at it - but I strive for it...

There are a few things I want to pull out of this chapter and share. First is to see what God's purpose is, or will or plan is... Verse 5 & 6 "he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved." Paul used the words purpose and will together, but what are they: "to be the praise of his glorious grace." And this is what has caught my attention the most while reading this chapter...

Look down in verse 12 & 14: "so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory... the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory." Do we realize that we are to be that? We are to be the PRAISE OF HIS GLORY. I'm quite humbled thinking about that. I severely convicted at that thought of that. But with that conviction comes one thing: HOPE. We have to hold onto hope, which is Christ Jesus.

Today, in my devotional Oswald Chambers wrote about chapter 1 verse 18, that "you may know what is the hope to which he has called you..." I love how he starts this devotional:

"Remember what you are saved for - that the Son of God might be manifested in your mortal flesh. Bend the whole energy of your powers to realize your election as a child of God; rise to the occasion every time."

Later he writes and ends with this: "We have to exercise ourselves in order that the Son of God may be manifested in our mortal flesh. God never has museums. (I love that!) The only aim of the life is that the Son of God may be manifested... we are here to submit to His will so that He may work through us what he wants. When we realize this, He will make us broken bread and poured-out wine to feed and nourish others."

What is our purpose today? Time today to refresh our memories. Let us be one thing: to be the PRAISE OF HIS GLORY. But how, you ask. By knowing your hope. By remembering your purpose, by allowing God to manifest himself in your life. Spending all your energy, all your capable power in bring Christ to life in your "mortal flesh." And as I'm writing these words, I am thinking of my own day, it's not easy; never is. Our hope, our Purpose, our Life is all because of Jesus Christ...

It's time to manifest him today.