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God’s Math

December 20, 2023 / / 0 Comments

If you remember from yesterday, we were surprised by the unexpected light that God brought into the darkness of the war torn regions of Galilee. It was into that very place, Nazareth of Galilee, that Jesus would shine the light of his glory. Such an unexpected response to all the destruction. But he doesn’t end there. 

Isaiah goes beyond just bringing light into darkness. Another unexpected response God brings in the midst of this Advent season is the promise of abundance in a time of great scarcity. Isaiah 9 tells the flip side of the devastation of the northern territories. They were blasted by war and enemy invasions, yet Isaiah says they will see by a new light. Then he goes on to say to this broken people you have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy. 

Could you imagine? Multiplied a nation that lost in battle? Increased joy to a people held captive by an oppressive government? This is the scenario into which Isaiah is writing. God will bring abundance of people and joy to our lives…no matter how bleak things seem in the moment. 

God’s math doesn’t always work the way we want it to. Things like the whole trinity where God is three yet one and one yet three. Or communion where we have bread and wine but at the same time body and blood. God’s math is unexpected. When we come to him with nothing, he can provide us everything. That’s the story of Christmas. 

God knew we couldn’t save ourselves. We are bent toward our own destruction. We’re like cars out of alignment that just continuously turn into oncoming traffic. It was into this empty and destructive world that God sent His Son. An unexpected response to a devastated world. 

Peace. Joy. Increase. When we have nothing but Jesus, we have everything we need.

Unexpected Light

December 19, 2023 / / 0 Comments

A war torn village. A land that is the center of invasions and destruction. A people that have fallen to their own folly. To a people in deep darkness a great light has come. This comes from Isaiah 9. It’s one of those famous passages we use around Christmas and really don’t spend a ton of time unpacking it. 

Isaiah is writing this portion of his prophecy to the territories in the northern region of Israel’s land. This was the portion of land through which the enemy nations would generally invade. They would break through the barriers and storm the cities. Towns were ransacked. Hope was all but lost. 

This is the picture of darkness. It’s a picture of devastation the likes of which many of us have never seen.   It is into this place and atmosphere of darkness that God would bring an unexpected response. When we see darkness and devastation we tend to get depressed and brokenhearted. We hang our heads low and play the whole woe is me game. 

But that’s not God’s response to darkness and devastation. As a matter of fact as we read the surrounding verses in Isaiah 8-9, we see that this actually was God’s plan. His plan was to allow for darkness to appear to win. He knew it was going to happen and he let it! 

Even though we get caught up in the moments of darkness and despair, we should find comfort this advent season that God doesn’t let darkness win. His promise was that he would bring an unexpected response to all of this darkness. It would be the sending of a great light. 

Now light and darkness are natural enemies. But in every instance in which they clash, light always wins. The unexpected response to the time of darkness would be that God would bring a blinding light that would shatter darkness and send it running. God’s theme for Christmas was to send Jesus, the very light of the world, to send darkness fleeing. The promise of Christmas is that God brings unexpected light into even our darkest moments.

Unexpected Birth

December 18, 2023 / / 0 Comments

There he was minding his own business. He had lived a long life and really didn’t have much to show for it. I mean he had possessions and a lovely wife, but in his day if you’re name didn’t pass to a son none of that really meant much. 

We’re looking at Isaac today, one of the most prominent examples of an unexpected person. But to get to Isaac, we need to first find Abraham, his dad. Abraham was an old man by the time God came to him and interrupted his day with the promise that he’d be a father soon. You could only imagine the shock that came to his heart (not to mention his face)! 

That child would’t just be any old child though. God promises in Genesis 17:16 I will bless her, and she shall become nations; kings of peoples shall come from her. That’s God talking about Sarah, his wife. Nations? They were almost 100 years old. She wasn’t able to have kids, so how in the world was this nations thing going to happen! And if you know anything about the Bible you probably know that she didn’t have literal nations of kids. She had Isaac. That’s one child, so what about this whole nation deal? 

That one child was all that was needed for nations to be part of her lineage. You see the one child that was born to Sarah was the most unexpected child she could have imagined. Not because he was a wonderful gift from God that would bring her much joy. No it was because that one child would bring us another child a few thousand years into the future. His name wouldn’t be Isaac or Abraham.  Instead, Jesus was his name. 

Jesus would establish another nation but his nation would be different than any other nation on earth. It wouldn’t have boundaries of land or kings living in palaces. His nation is eternal. It’s a universal kingdom that outlasts time and even space. And all of this because God allowed an unexpected child to be born to a couple near 100 years old. Talk about an unexpected birth!

Hide The Spies

December 17, 2023 / / 1 Comment

Another example of an unexpected person used by God to save His people is found in Joshua 2. This is the story of a woman who lived a life that did not line up with God’s desire for healthy relationships. She found herself looking for approval and love from any man who came by. She made her living bouncing from man to man. Yet God chose to use her. 

Could you imagine for a minute being Joshua and his men? They go into a town and things get a little dicey. They need help getting away from the people trying to hurt them. Who do they find willing to help them? Rahab! You know the woman who didn’t look like a follower of God by her actions. She’s the one God chose to call for this particular mission – Save my people.

She would even go on to give a pretty good testimony of her faith that God had already delivered things over to the Israelites. She let her faith lead her actions even though her lifestyle to this point didn’t show it. 

When God chose to send His Son to be born in the little town of Bethlehem, he didn’t do what everyone expected. He didn’t send a powerhouse king or a warrior. He sent a child. Not even a rich child. Just a regular lower to middle class child! 

This child would grow up and do more than just hide God’s people from danger like Rahab did. Jesus would grow to win the ultimate victory over our greatest enemy – death. The point of Advent is to put our hearts in the right place to be able to see what God is up to this time of year. He’s giving us time to slow down and prepare for the coming of the unexpected King of kings who looked more like a peasant than royalty. That’s just how God works. Now it’s time to look for the unexpected as we prepare our hearts for Christmas.

Stutterer

December 16, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Have you ever thought there’s no way I could do that? When we’re met with an obstacle we just are not qualified to tackle, that’s one very common answer. We say it when we’re overwhelmed. We say it when we’re scared. We say it when we lack confidence or focus. We say it when it appears that our resources are just not lined up in the right places. And we’re not alone in thinking this way. 

In Exodus 4, God tells Moses that he will be the one to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. The plan would involve Moses going to Pharaoh and telling him that God said Let My people go. Moses simple answer was I don’t think I’ll remember that and I stutter a bit so you should probably pick someone else. 

And it’s not just Moses that has these feelings of inadequacy either. All throughout the Bible, God picks the unexpected people to do his work. This will be our focus the next few days as we continue our journey toward an Unexpected Christmas. 

Moses would end up leading the people out of Egypt but not without consequence. He had his failures but God was able to still work through him. That’s the story of Advent and Christmas. It’s the story of God sending an unexpected person to be the one we need to save us. 

As we journey through this time of year, who are the unexpected people God has placed in your path. Maybe it was a co-worker or a friend at school. Perhaps it was the person who cut you off on the highway making you slow down and avoid an accident just seconds ahead of you. God uses some very unlikely people to accomplish the mission for which he came – the most unexpected of all was Jesus. No one thought he could be the one they were looking for – even his closest friends. 

This season of Advent we celebrate the unexpected person of Jesus not only as a baby in a manger but as God made man. 

Unexpected News

December 15, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Have you ever received one of those calls in the middle of the night? You’re sound asleep and the phone rings and startles you to a half awake state? You know in your heart that nothing good happens at 2 o’clock in the morning! And yet there you are, half awake and listening to the voice on the other end of the line.

Sometimes that news is nothing. A wrong number. Someone living on a different continent forgot what time it was in your neck of the woods (yep that one actually happened not too long ago.)

But then there are those times when the phone rings and it’s not what you want to hear. How do you react when crisis hits home? What do you do when you get unexpected news?

I’ll be honest I’m the fix it guy. I like to come up with answers or create plans for how to move forward. I have a tendency to try to cut off problems before they become huge obstacles. But that doesn’t always work.

Some things in life are outside of our control. There are some things we just can’t do on our own. I don’t like those things. I don’t like to sit back and feel like I’m doing nothing.

I’m going to be honest with you here and even a tad vulnerable. If someone looked at my life, they’d likely think I’ve got it pretty easy. And for the most part they are right. I have a great family. Loving wife. Children who are phenomenal examples of people of God. A wonderful home. A terrific place of employment. A church family that would rival any other church throughout history. Like many people around I have a lot going for me.

But the me that everyone sees is the me that I want them to see. I know that sounds a little evil sounding but we all do it. We put a smile on our face when we have bad news. We will often bury the hurts and pains of the losses we’ve faced so we can get the job done. This is the way I get through life’s challenges. For right or for wrong, this is my standard operating procedure.

When people I thought were friends turned to selfish motives and abandoned their position in life, I bit my tongue, smiled and walked on. When I lost three grandparents in 18 months, very few people know what I was feeling. When I was in the midst of challenges and minor conflicts with people close to me, I didn’t spend a lot of time dwelling on it.

But the way I do things doesn’t work for everyone. As a matter of fact, that way doesn’t work for most people. None of these moments that I described above are a crisis in and of themselves. Each of them add a little pressure. Each of them brings a little more weight. Each of them mount on the previous and have the potential to really get heavy. How do you deal with the pressures and crises in life?

Now before someone goes all “see a counselor” on me, let me tell you that I have people around me to talk to. I don’t bottle things up forever. I need to internally process these kinds of things. I hit the gym. I might even go for a run (and I don’t like to run just fyi). I take my dog out for a walk. Mow my lawn. Work in my garden. Walk around my property. These are ways I deal with the crap life throws at me. Eventually, I’ll loop someone in. Eventually, when the emotional storm settles a little, I’ll open up and share what’s on my heart.

The point of this post is that it’s ok to not be ok. It’s ok to clench your fist and want to yell at God. It’s ok to curl up in a ball and ask why me. It’s ok to be broken for a moment. But it’s not ok to feel broken, carry the burdens of life around you and do it all alone. Eventually, you need to lean on someone. Eventually you need to talk to someone. If you don’t…you’ll hurt people close to you. You’ll isolate yourself from people who care about you. You might even end up losing friends when you try to carry the weight of the world by yourself, because you’ll end up taking it out on the people who are trying to care for you.

How do you react when crisis strikes? Break but don’t stay broken. Cry but don’t sit in tears alone. Worry but don’t let that worry overwhelm you. Surround yourself with people who can help you.

It’s Not Supposed To Be That Way

December 15, 2023 / / 0 Comments

No one likes to be blindsided. Something coming out of nowhere and knocking you off course is not fun. Maybe it’s an unexpected car repair or a leak in your roof. Maybe it’s a bill you just didn’t see coming or hospital stay you weren’t planning on having to pay. Sometimes these unexpected blindside moments come in confrontations with people that become angry and divisive. They can even be disobedient moments from our children. 

It’s easy in those moments to think It’s not supposed to be this way. That’s probably what was going through the heads of the disciples in Mark 9:31 when Jesus says, The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him.

Wait just a minute! We were just getting in a groove here Jesus. Everything is just starting to work out. We’re starting to click and really understand what you’re about. This is not how it’s supposed to work! Now that all is a guess as to what was going through their minds but if you read the surrounding passages, it’s probably pretty accurate. 

One of the most unexpected parts of the plan for Christmas was that it would all end in this gruesome and horrific death. That’s not the image we’re generally given around Christmas time, but without Good Friday and Easter this season really doesn’t mean a whole lot. 

When Mary and Joseph welcomed their little baby in that tiny town of Bethlehem, they had no idea what he would end up doing. So often we take the Christmas Jesus and hold onto him as if that’s all there is. But the beauty of this story is that it doesn’t go how we expect because God uses unexpected plans to accomplish his perfect outcome. The season of Advent is all about this unexpected plan of God that ends with us getting a new and perfect life. 

Upside Down

December 14, 2023 / / 1 Comment

Have you ever turned upside down so you could see the world from a different perspective? If you stand on your head everything looks kind of odd. People are walking in the air. Your hair falls down in your face. Things are backwards to your eye and it’s sometimes hard to figure out exactly what is going on. 

That’s the image we need as we look at today’s bible verse – upside down. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 1:27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. 

Look all over the Bible and you’ll see it. This should not be seen as an unexpected plan of God, yet we seem surprised every time we run across it. David is the youngest son and he is able to take care of Goliath with one whip of the slingshot. None of the disciples were college graduates, yet Jesus chose them to be his disciples. 

God’s plan almost always involves using things in ways we would not normally expect. Even the extended Christmas story shows us this and we often miss it. Shortly after Jesus is born Mary and Joseph present him in the temple. When they do they have to offer a sacrifice. There are two different options for the sacrifice. You were to bring the offering of a lamb for sacrifice in this ritual, but they couldn’t afford that. So God made an option for those who were less well off, a pair of turtle doves or a pair of pigeons. 

You see God would bring the greatest demonstration of riches into the world and drop it in the lives of a poverty stricken couple. Mary and Joseph didn’t have a lot of extra. Yet God showed them his amazing grace and love and flipped the script for them. He didn’t require them to have everything together before he chose them. And he doesn’t do that for us either. Instead he chooses those of us who are less than kind of people in the world. He chooses the weak, poor, and outsiders and comes right to where they are. 

The story of Christmas is the story of God welcoming those who no one else would welcome and making them part of the family…just like He did with you and me. 

Are They Even Qualified?

December 13, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Over the past couple of weeks, splattered between some devotions for Advent, we’ve covered a couple of posts on the idea of discipleship. It’s one of those sticky words and is about a process that’s often left undefined at best. If you haven’t looked at those posts, I’d encourage you to take a quick peak before perusing what follows. Here are a couple links to help you out.

The two posts I referred to above are titled Sticky Words and What Discipleship Is NOT.

Assuming you’ve read those, we’ll continue with the qualifications needed to be a disciple. Here’s the list…

Yep that’s the list. Did you get it all? No you did not miss a paragraph. There is no list of qualifications needed!

If you dig through the Bible you’ll probably see some pretty odd characters being invited to the process of following Jesus. They didn’t come from the same background. They didn’t all have jobs in the church. None of them were people who were super well respected. Most were uneducated. And not a single one of them was the head in their class in seminary.

Discipleship and leadership in the world Jesus lived in had nothing to do with your qualifications. Actually it only had to do with Jesus’ qualifications and your surrender. The disciples that Jesus called to come and follow him were not the prime candidates to change the world! We’d call them the misfits. The B team. The not quite good enoughs. The bottom of the barrel. You get the point.

So if that’s how Jesus gathered his disciples, then why don’t we do it the same way? Or at least in a similar fashion? I think we tend to make things way more complicated than they really have to be.

We make the hurdles higher for people to come into our churches as members than we do for admission into Ivy League colleges. We make leaders and pastors in churches go through enough classes they could be doctors but they aren’t. Now I’m not saying that we go out and just throw everyone into the hopper but perhaps there is a better way? or maybe another way even if it’s not better.

A group I’m part of uses the phrase belong before you believe in a few different scenarios. And I think we could apply this here as well. Look at what Jesus did with his disciples. None of them believed in him when they started to follow! They didn’t even know who he really was, aside from the son of a woman named Mary and guy named Joseph. That’s pretty much it. He was a carpenter’s kid who looked, talked and acted pretty normal from what I understand.

So when he invited them to follow him and be part of his life, he didn’t make them take a test first to see if they got it or not. He invited them to walk with him and shared some pretty amazing life experiences.

Could it really be that easy? Could we really invite people into the journey of a lifetime? Treat them like they are real humans who really belong to something far bigger than themselves without putting up a bunch of hurdles? Then walk with them as the Holy Spirit does his work?

I mean I hate to be the one to break it to you but we don’t really play an active role in the whole believing and transforming gig anyway. That’s the Spirit’s job. So how about we do what we can do and let God sit in the God seat. He’ll take care of the qualification part. We just need to do the loving and relationship piece of the puzzle. It’s really just that easy.

So if we’re going to be really practical here, take a look at your life. Who do you know? Who are the people in your circle? Your barber or hairstylist? The dude at the gym? The girl on the volleyball team? The kid next to you in class? Your neighbor? Yeah even that one, the one who really gets on your nerves. When you make a list of who is in your life, you can see just how many chances there are to enter into these relationships with great intentionality.

After you make that list of your own personal who’s who, hang out with them. Walk with them. Talk with them. Have a beer with them. Sit down for coffee. Don’t preach to them. Just ask how their day is going. Show them how much you care. Show them that they actually belong somewhere. When that relationship is grounded in real care, the next steps will be way easier…and we’ll talk about that in the next post.

I Got It

December 13, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Some days I miss the cartoons from when I was growing up. You know the kind I’m talking about. Not nearly the animation technology we have today, but we didn’t really care. They were often corny but we all got it. I can remember the symbol in those cartoons for when someone had an idea, one of those moments when the light goes on. 

As we prepare for Christmas we often fill our lives with artificial lights. We put them on our tree and string them around our house. We light them as candles in our windows. We even have things that shimmer and reflect the light around it. I’m a sucker for all things Christmas. I love the tree and lights and fire crackling in the fireplace. These are just part of the season to me. But they can’t replace the real light we all need this time of year. 

There’s a story in Joshua 24 that deals with the darkness of the world taking over the hearts of God’s people. They were confused who they should follow. They got distracted by all the shiny things around them. The glamour and light of popularity and fame, money and power were all the rage. But Joshua calls them back again with one of those lightbulb moments. 

Choose this day who you will serve…but for me and my house we will serve the Lord.This is Joshua’s call to the people to come back to following God in verses 14-15. 

As we approach the day that all of these lights point us toward, we can’t lose focus. We have to remember that all these extra lights of the season can’t replace the real light we have in Jesus. The meaning of this whole time of year is found in the light that would come into a darkened world. That light wouldn’t come in fancy things or lots of money. It would come in a towel wrapped baby. In a manger for a bed. It would come in the most unexpected plan you could ever imagine and that’s what made it the perfect plan!

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