Seeing God

Living in a Broken World

Broken…damaged…shattered…crushed

These are vivid words used to describe things that are not as they should be. Whether it is a relationship, a life or the world we live in, people often look around and find themselves feeling overwhelmed by the “wrongness” of it all. The last year has only added to this feeling. I’ve read several articles about how the world is “broken”. Instead of pinpointing one specific problem that is behind it all, instead there is an overall sense that things are so wrong they can’t easily be made right. This problem is bigger than bad circumstances that we find ourselves in, bigger than any one solution and beyond the scope of any leader to fix.

Cultural and racial issues are one area of the broken world that was especially prominent during the last year. Various activist groups expressed dissatisfaction and outrage at injustice that they saw both generally and illustrated in a few specific situations. People wanted things to change, to be better and to see an end to what was wrong, but it was difficult to find a clear, tangible solution that would fix what was broken in society. People saw injustices repeated over and over again and their frustration led to a variety of actions, some more helpful than others. Some of the more extreme responses created more brokenness and division, even between groups that agreed that something needed to change.

Political divisions created their own brokenness, often dividing families, communities and even churches. Political figures offered solutions to the things they saw that were wrong with this world, but these solutions were lacking. Some of them failed to address the real problems, some helped some people while hurting others, and some solutions were empty promises that the leader had no intention of fulfilling. All of this was augmented by a divisive media that seemed to celebrate the brokenness for their own ratings. The reporting was often intentionally inflammatory and it was fairly easy to find stories and reports that would blame the brokenness of the world on those who you personally don’t agree with.

All of this brokenness can lead us to a loss of hope. When we look around and see cracks everywhere, it is difficult to know where to start to make things better. Most solutions can seem like you are putting a band aid on a gushing wound or duct tape on a building that is falling down around you. When you see a broken world what does it mean and where do we turn for hope?

The Bible speaks clearly about the brokenness of our world. Instead of expecting to find a world that is whole, from the time of the Fall of man into sin, the world has been broken and continues to be broken. It describes the world as fallen, sinful and given over to the “flesh”. Here is some fleshing out of what that means in Galatians 5:

19 Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, moral impurity, promiscuity, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and anything similar.
Galatians 5:19-21a (CSB)

The results of sin lead to the brokenness of the world we see around us. Sometimes what we see is not the result of one sin, but of generations of sin and sin patterns that pile brokenness upon brokenness. This is described in 2 Timothy 3:

But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.
2 Timothy 3:1-5a (ESV)

Sin is the problem. Sin is what leaves us in a broken world. Sin is what destroys marriages, relationships, families and societies. When we see brokenness all around us, we are seeing what God promised as people followed the path of living for themselves without God. A broken world is the natural state of the world without God.

God’s solutions for this brokenness is not better governance, better programs, more money, money better spent or better ideas. Instead, God offered only one hope for all of mankind and that is complete life transformation through salvation in Jesus Christ.

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6:23 (ESV)

You may be wondering about what difference can that really make in a society or in a nation? You might be surprised to learn that it can make a greater difference than any of the human solutions mentioned above or promised by politicians today. In fact, a sociologist named Robert Woodberry spent a great deal of time studying the impact of Protestant Missions on communities around the world. He was able to study “empirical, long term, statistically significant evidence that Christianity increased the general well-being of surrounding populations.”

While it is a popular theme to blame Christians for things like racism, division and hate crimes, the evidence Woodberry found showed that “When people selflessly live out the gospel, both through evangelization and through practical application, it changes cultures for the better.”

If you are interested in reading more, you can find a summary of his study here and the full study is available for download here.

As Christians, we should realize that when we look at the brokenness that exists in the world today, there is only one true answer for what ails it, and we have access to that solution. You can be a part of healing brokenness around you, but you have to be willing to go to those who need to know the love of Christ and share the hope of His salvation with this broken world. You and your ideas and opinions are not the answer. Jesus is the answer. What are you waiting for?

Strife in the Family

In the country, not far from where you grew up, there was a very troubled family. This family had a mom and a dad, a brother and a sister. The sister was just a little over a year older than the brother and from the day they were both able to walk, they had been at odds with each other. What made them unique was that everyone agreed that in every area other than when it came to each other, they were model children. They were helpful to their parents and anyone else they came in contact with, even looking for ways to help without being asked. As long as they were separate from one another, you would have never guessed that there was a problem of any kind.

The parents had tried everything to get them to work out their differences, but no matter what, if the sister had one opinion, the brother must have the opposite, and vice versa. Even when it came to simple things like what to eat or wear, if one of them expressed an opinion, the other would be sure to disagree.

These disagreements weren’t just a polite contradiction. Every conflict was full out war. The siblings not only didn’t agree, but they basically demanded compliance with their opinion. There were few rational arguments between them, instead their conflicts were marked by yelling, name calling and often physical altercations as well. From the time they were just a few years old, on into their teenage years, every battle didn’t end until they were physically separated from one another.

Soon, the parents developed an elaborate household system that was designed to keep them permanently separated. They divided the house into zones and each sibling was assigned times that they could be in each zone. During the few times the brother and sister were together, the parents forbid them from speaking to one another. But they still sometimes found ways to be in conflict, even if it was just from a glance in the wrong direction.

After a brief experiment with school that ended with the parents getting called in every day, the brother and sister were home schooled and only allowed to go out into the community on alternate days. As you can imagine, it wasn’t just the parents who tried to solve this problem, but family members, school counselors and medical professionals were brought in to talk to them as well. Most of them had the same experience, whenever they were by themselves, they seemed perfectly rational, calm and compliant with the desires of the person trying to help, but as soon as they were together again, the ruckus started.

Finally, the parents had reached their limit. Even though the children were only 15 and 14 respectively, they knew they couldn’t continue to live in the same house, one of the children would have to go someplace else. But how would they choose? Despite all the trouble, the parents loved these siblings and they really were good kids as long as they could be kept apart. It seemed that the only answer was permanent separation.

They talked to the daughter first, her being the oldest, and she calmly made her case for why her brother had to go. In her mind, he was the problem. She was right and he was the one who insisted on living a lie and holding to positions that couldn’t possibly be true. He was so unreasonable, surely her parents could tell that the obvious solution was to find another place for her brother. Having him in the house was like having an agent of chaos, who just wanted to tear all reason and truth apart. There would never be peace in the house as long as someone who refused to acknowledge the truth was living there.

When it came time to talk to the boy, the conversation was very similar, but he pointed to his sister’s harsh, uncaring nature. She was a cruel person, who had always hated him. He suspected that she had a natural bias against little brothers that made her target him for unfair treatment. It only made sense that because she was the oldest and the source of the problem that she must be the one to go. There would never be peace in the house as long as someone so heartless was living there.

In the end, the parents couldn’t choose. They decided that the dad would take his daughter away and the son would stay with his mom. That way at least each child would have one parent. They would arrange for the other parent to be able to visit occassionally, but the strife between the children had finally ended their home.

Both of the children didn’t like this plan. They couldn’t understand how their parents didn’t see clearly that the other one was obviously the problem. But both of them, unwilling to compromise even a bit, wouldn’t agree to change in order to save their family. Instead, the story ends with a family divided, perhaps forever.

Unfortunately, this kind of division is becoming more and more common in families, communities, churches and workplaces. As a society, we are “birthing” children who are unwilling to come to any type of middle ground where mutual understanding might be found. We are modeling division and all discourse is becoming charged with a severe dislike and disrespect for anyone who does not agree with our opinions. Instead of engaging and talking through ideas, we are obsessed with labeling our opponents with sub-human categories that demean them personally while “destroying” their arguments. We make everyone the “Other”, an enemy that we cannot empathize with.

Just like the two siblings, the path we are on is one that none of us will enjoy in the end. We are headed to a place of desolation. A “broken” place that cannot be repaired by any government or leader. The reality is there is little hope for us to turn away from this path on our own. Just as all of our efforts to save ourselves end in failure, the only real hope for true reconciliation is in Christ.

When we read a human story like the one above, we want a solution. We don’t mind the conflict and the drama if in the end we know everything will work out. But we are fooling ourselves if we think that any human leader has a path out of this. Only Christ can put hostility to death. The way forward is up to each of us. Will we turn away from human solutions and start putting our hope in God-sized answers or will we continue to live daily immersed in strife and enmity?

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

The Truth Will Set You Free

“…and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
John 8:32 ESV

This is one of the most well know verses in the Bible. It has been quoted by Pastors, Politicians and other orators whenever they believed it would serve the purposes of their speech. Many times, it is quoted completely out of context and sometimes it is used overtly as a weapon to advance a particular agenda. The integrity of the usage is tied up in the “truth” the individual is proclaiming will set you free. We live in a world where truth is under fire. Some are attempting to redefine truth at the atomic level. Long standing accepted norms are being deconstructed and the personal interpretation of reality is encouraged. Individuals are blessed to create their own truth and sometimes it seems that the only true sin in the modern world is to declare absolute truth that claims something else is false.

Last May, I talked about this verse in the context of integrity. You might say, I used this verse for my own purposes in that article. That article was centered on our own usage of truth. I wanted to emphasize the importance of Christians considering the truth of information before they passed it along to a public audience. This is a great challenge in this world today and fact checking the fact checkers can take a great deal of time with the expansion of severe bias into most information sources. Today I want to talk about something that is more central to the main idea of this verse, the freeing nature of truth.

Freedom is something that is often taken for granted by those who live in it. When you experience freedom every day, it is easy not to think of it. The opposites of freedom are words like: captivity, bondage, slavery and subjection. Most of us would never define our lives by words like those. While there are and have been places where it was common for people to live under those circumstances, few of us have experienced something like that first hand. The fight against human slavery even unites people from diverse backgrounds in our modern world.

Even though it is not the equivalent of physical bondage or slavery, the absence of truth in people’s lives has its own way of holding people in a state of captivity. This year especially seems to have emphasized the difficulty people have as they try to understand what information they could trust regarding politics and current events. Polarized viewpoints are often presented with extreme bias as undeniable truth. On both the news and social media, people are able to find perspectives that perfectly align and reinforce their own opinions and can share them in their own echo chambers. Differing viewpoints are attacked and treated harshly and most people seem to rush to find “evidence” that supports their own side rather than an honest inquiry into the truth behind the issue.

All of this tends to build a cage that is difficult to escape. We become more and more dependent on untrustworthy advocates of “truth” that are more motivated by their own profits or political agenda than they are by any journalistic integrity that once existed. As followers of Christ, this is a definite problem. We were made for truth. Our hearts and minds hunger for it. We want to stand up to injustice. We desire to be on the cause of righteousness. Truth is truly freeing when we experience it. Many of the founders and most significant contributors to our scientific understanding of the world we live in were driven by this hunger to know the truth. We should all care about the truth, but where can we be sure to find it?

Let’s return to the beginning to expand the context of this verse, this time with John 8:31-32 in the Amplified version:

31 So Jesus was saying to the Jews who had believed Him, “If you abide in My word [continually obeying My teachings and living in accordance with them, then] you are truly My disciples. 32 And you will know the truth [regarding salvation], and the truth will set you free [from the penalty of sin].”

Jesus teaching to the disciples was about freedom in 2 main areas:

Freedom from sin and the penalty of sin through salvation in Christ
Freedom through Godly living found in knowing and following the teachings of Christ (the Bible)

The core of our search for truth must start there and that must be the foundation of truth in our lives. The devil is a liar and this world is the devil’s playground. We will find few guarantees of truth in the things we experience in this world. On the other hand God is truth and He has conveyed truth to us through His word. As we immerse ourselves in that truth, we experience freedom in our daily life. When our thoughts are centered on uncertain truth through reading the news and social media, we tend towards being bound to those things in our thinking. Our minds will keep coming back to the lies and half-truths we find there and they will consume our mental and emotional energy. This is how we become slaves to the world.

On the contrast, when we center our lives on truth, we experience the freedom to carry out the commands of Christ in the context we find ourselves in. Interacting with people in person and online, regardless of their political viewpoints, becomes about who they are as a creation of God, rather than what “tribes” they align themselves with in the culture wars. When a crisis comes before us, we can concern ourselves with the tragedy of the human impact rather than the take of our political alliance. Truth is found in God’s perspective on the world. We see real people, real needs and know the real solution (Christ).

Photo by RODNAE Productions on Pexels.com

Helpful tips:

Don’t start or end your day on social media or by reading the news. Start it by reading, studying or meditating on the truth. End your day with loved ones or reading a good book, preferably non-fiction.
When you do go on social media, don’t have an agenda or fall into the trap of picking a fight with someone who is looking for one. If you see an inflammatory post and don’t have the time to thoroughly research it for yourself, just hide it from your feed and move on.
If you have issues you care about passionately, make it a goal to learn as much as you can from people as close to the source as possible. Don’t rely on lazy reporting from understaffed news agencies with their own agenda, posts on social media, and especially memes. I recommend local news sources. Learn to get to know God’s perspective on these issues. God is just and the Bible has a lot to say about many issues.
Remember that the foundational truth is that there are no human solutions for the greatest problem you or anyone else has to deal with, standing condemned before God for their own sins and unrighteousness. The essential truth that everyone needs to hear is that Jesus is the only solution for this problem, and until a person puts their hope and trust in Him and receives His salvation, all other truths and problems are of little importance.

If you want to know more about what it means to know God and His truth, I wrote a whole book about it, which is available here.

Being “Friends” on Social Media

Friendship has always had different levels of meaning. My wife has made fun of me throughout our marriage for defining many different friends as a “good friend” or one of my “best friends”. Part of this comes from my more extroverted personality. She, like most good introverts, treats terms like these as precious and rarely bestows them on a few choice people. Today, the term has less meaning than ever. The decisions by various social media platforms to use the term “friend” has likely contributed to this. Facebook is the most well-known playground for this type of being a friend.

Friend in this context can now mean any of the following: friend, family member, acquaintance, business associate, people who go to the same church/school/group that I go to, people I think I met once, friends of friends that seem interesting, people who like the same things I like, and even pets that are cute/interesting. That is a pretty diverse list and I’m sure I missed something. If all of these people are now our friends, what does it even mean to be a friend? (Proverbs 12:26) Here are a few principles I want to share that I hope will help you better assess what it means to be a friend on social media and how we should treat one another.

Friends don’t discuss in public what is better talked about in private or not spoken of at all. On social media, it is easy to have both public and private discussions. This is a big change from the way community was structured in previous times. Private discussions have always been possible, but in the past, few people had access to a broad public forum to talk about things. Social media has provided a platform for people to bring things into the public discussion which would never have been possible in the past. If something only concerns us personally, we can make the choice about when to publicly discuss it on our own, but if it involves our family, friends or others in our community, we have no right to discuss private issues in a public forum without their permission. If you don’t feel comfortable talking to them about it privately, you definitely shouldn’t discuss it publicly. (Romans 12:10)
Friends are not responsible for changing their friends minds about everything. There is an issue that I’m sure you are right on. You have the whole truth and are an evangelist for this position. That doesn’t mean you personally have to beat your friends over the head with this position until you have battered them into submission. This is not only a good way to lose a friend, but human nature has shown us that it is not an effective way to change people’s mind. These kind of assaults tend to cause people to respond in kind, put their armor on or walk away. Friendly discussions about issues are great, but when someone indicates that they have a different perspective, the weight of convincing them otherwise is not your responsibility as a friend. (Proverbs 19:20)
Friends don’t attack friends personally when talking about an issue. A public forum is the perfect place to share ideas and to have a give and take about the content of the ideas. This is a tradition that dates back throughout all of human discourse. Offering counterpoints and noting the flaws with ideas is not a problem, but this should never degenerate into personal attacks. Personal attacks and name calling not only demonstrate that you don’t really consider the person a friend, but they often also show that you don’t have an intelligent response to offer. Friends should conduct their conversations on posts in a way that the person you are engaging with will never question your friendship. (Proverbs 18:24)
Friends don’t talk about other friends behind their back. An oldy, but a goody. Gossip spreads even faster in the digital age and a true friend does not engage in gossip in either a public or private forum. If you hear something about a friend that is concerning, you can pray for them, talk to them about it directly, or choose to ignore it. You are not free to run to other friends and start talking about it or even share it as a prayer request with other friends without the person’s permission. (Proverbs 16:28, 17:9)
Friends see their friends as more than their position on one issue. People are complex and to label and write people off for one issue that you disagree with them on is not true friendship. We used to live in a world where most people’s views and opinions were held in private. That is no longer true for many. Social media has given people the opportunity to express these things without restraint. If you choose to call someone friend and they express an opinion that you disagree with, you should practice empathy first and give them the benefit of the doubt. Think about what would lead them or even yourself to hold a similar view. Value their friendship by making sure they are fully heard. If necessary, engage them in loving, honest debate to learn more and share your difference of opinion in a way that doesn’t belittle or demean them. (Proverbs 27:9)
When your friend has a legitimate problem, online is not the answer. Some problems are very real and very serious and require you to stand up and try to help in whatever way possible. This is difficult to do well from a distance, online or in a public forum. It requires personal connection. If you care enough to call someone your friend, care enough to engage with them personally either face to face in person, or on a video call. Pray for them above all else. God solves problems, man is incapable of solving. (Ecclesiastes 4:10, Proverbs 27:5-6)

I may add to this list later, but I think this is enough for now. Maybe after looking at this list, you realize that you have many online friends who are not really your friends. They are people you don’t care enough about to treat them in the way a real friend should. If that is the case, you are probably better off removing them from your friends’ list altogether. It is also possible that in reading through this list, you have realized that you have been a really bad friend to someone who could probably use a good friend. Going to them, apologizing and moving forward is a great way to deepen a friendship. A true friend will forgive you as they should. (Colossians 3:13)

Around the World in (More Than) 80 Days by Larry Alex Taunton – Book Review

Like most things these days, views of America seem to be very polarized. President Trump ran on a platform that pushed for “Make America Great Again”. This was mostly a call to a return to what has been called “American exceptionalism”, a belief in the “manifest destiny” that some saw as a God ordained right for America and Americans to excel in all areas. Part of the success of this siren call was that it was obvious to anyone looking around that America, by many objective standards, had fallen away from being exceptional or “great” in the vernacular of the day. For at least 2 generations, rather than emphasize the amazing accomplishments of those who helped create America, the tendency in our institutions of higher learning (and ever more in all public education) has been to focus on the flaws and sins of those who were responsible for the nation, it’s founding and it’s constitution.

In the Prologue to this book, Mr. Taunton quotes former NFL quarterback, Colin Kaepernick, “How can you stand for the national anthem of a nation that preaches and propagates freedom and justice for all, that’s so unjust to the people living there?” Kaepernick is representative of many from the current privileged generation, which have enjoyed many of the benefits of the sacrifices of those who have come before them, but who still look around and find the flaws that still exist in society unacceptable. When his own personal and professional struggles surfaced, Colin found solace in the arms of Nessa Diab, a Muslim-American activist who is a child of Egyptian immigrants. Under the influence of her and others, Colin became radicalized and soon was the center piece of movement that spoke out against the injustices that still exists in modern America.

Mr. Taunton highlights Mr. Kaepernick’s story as an illustration for the purpose of the book. He finds that America is on trial and one side “sees America’s wealth, power, and influence as an accident of history” and the other side sees “America’s exceptionalism that is anchored in a Judeo-Christian heritage that has given rise to her laws, art, literature, culture, and place in the world as a refuge from just the types of governments the left idealizes.” There is an ongoing struggle every day between these two ideals contested in a variety of arenas. The conflict of these visions is “tearing our country apart.” All of this led Mr. Taunton to wonder, doesn’t the perspective that there are so many things wrong in America “presuppose there are better places in the world to live”?

In this book, Mr. Taunton sets out to answer that question. If the many people who had promised to move to another country to flee the problems and oppression of America had actually left, where would they go? Over the course of about 3 months, the author travels to 26 different countries around the world and seeks to evaluate each of these countries by the same standards those who are critical of America would use of the US. The big question is simple, if America isn’t great, is there actually a better alternative out there, especially for Americans?

Along the way, Mr. Taunton also would like to answer several pressing questions:

Is America’s prosperity merely an accident of history and a result of the exploitation of the weak, or are some cultures superior to others by virtue of their religion and poltical philosophy?
Do reasonable people around the world hate America or are they unsettled by our current identity crisis?
Is Europe’s open borders policy bringing cultural enrichment we should model, or is it laying the foundation for the gradual overthrow of Western culture as we know it?
Is America exceptional in ways that matter and should she remain so, or should America—the holdout in the West against globalism, militant secularism, and climate change panic—tap out and become a socialist democracy like those of Europe?

“At the end of our journey, we will have discovered one of two things: The Left is right and America isn’t so great after all, or we will see she remains, as Abraham Lincoln put it, ‘the last best hope of earth.’”

With that premise in mind, I’m not going to spoil the ending by answering any of these questions in this review, but will say that the author does a fair job of evaluating the serious contenders. Some countries are found to be excellent for those who were born there and who are acclimated to that country’s cultural quirks. Other contenders put on a beautiful façade for tourists, but are greatly lacking for the majority of the citizens. Serious contenders are carefully evaluated such as Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, South Korea, Japan, Britain, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Germany. The combination of the author’s understanding of world history combined with the first hand experiences of this trip provide an entertaining and informative journey.

Mr. Taunton has asked several questions that are very worth asking. Whether you are on the right or the left, the majority of us have not taken the time to carefully consider what it is we are voting for or asking others to vote for at the level presented in this book. By looking at the world with the same critical eye, it gives us a much more capable ability to give our own country an honest appraisal. If you are the type to either boast of America’s greatness or great history or the kind of person who is ready to tear it all down and start over, you would greatly benefit from taking this journey with the author.

Dreams Dashed

Dreams are funny things, filled with unclear images and memories. Sometimes the dreams we have are influenced by the last thing we saw or read before we laid our head on the pillow. Some people claim that their dreams are very different depending on what they eat. For me, my dreams can be impacted most by what is dominating my thoughts in the waking hours.

I have day dreams that are more like fantasies. These are the dreams of conscious thought, over which we have some degree of control. In our day dreams, we can grant ourselves our heart’s desire. Sometimes these dreams are shared. One of the most famous speeches of our times begins, “I have a dream…” A dream like this shared can have a powerful impact. For most of us, they are just simple thoughts of a future we envision.

Unfortunately, most peoples day dreams don’t become a reality. They imagine a reality that can’t come to pass for various reasons. Maybe it is their own poor decisions, shooting themselves in the foot. The dream could be destroyed by the choices of others or by what is universally deemed, “bad luck”. For the majority of people, they will experience something different in the future than what they imagined. People’s lives are often defined more by their response when their dreams don’t come true as they are by the dreams they held in the first place.

I suspect many people over the course of the last year have had the experience of seeing their dreams derailed, or perhaps shattered all together. I know that my 2020 began with very different dreams for the future than I currently possess. So, what do we do when our dreams don’t or can’t come to pass? If we look at how people responded over the last year, we see many unhealthy choices. Depression is common and people turn to substance abuses, reality-escaping endeavours and most tragically, suicide.

This suggests that dreams dashed can become nightmares for many. When people find their expectations unfulfilled it seems clear that they don’t have healthy tools to process their disappointment. As a Christian, I find my hope in these circumstances in God. We have the grace to start over and find our strength in Christ. Just being a Christian doesn’t guarantee someone is fully prepped for the end of a dream. Both believers and non-believers can struggle during these times.

Two weeks ago, I wrote an article about the opportunity to “Begin again, again“. In Christ, we are not expected to be perfect, but to be forgiven in Christ for our mistakes and sins. We pursue Him with a whole-hearted devotion and when we screw up, we can trust in His love and grace providing the forgiveness we need.

If you are someone struggling with broken dreams, there are people who want to know about those struggles. As someone who studied counseling, I know about the special calling of people who want to help in circumstances like these. When our dreams get dashed we need to:

Stop and breath, don’t panic
Talk to a friend or family member or get help from a professional
Take time to remember the good that has come before
Remember that the God of the universe declared the following for people just like you

17 The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles. 18 The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
Psalm 34:17-18 (NIV)

Today, at the beginning of 2021, I have very different dreams than I had at the start of 2020. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Life changes, we change and our dreams change. That is a normal part of this existence. If you can’t find the hope today that doesn’t mean there won’t be hope tomorrow. If you haven’t yet placed your hope in Jesus Christ, He is truly the God of the brokenhearted and the one who saves those who are crushed in Spirit. The Bible tells us how that salvation may be found.

If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Romans 10:9 (NLT)

The Other Worldview by Peter Jones – Book Review

Dr. Peter Jones’ book, The Other Worldview: Exposing Christianity’s Greatest Threat, is aptly titled. Christians around the world have no difficulty recognizing that something is wrong in the world and identifying that there seems to be a shift away from Christianity and its values, but it is often very difficult to narrow down what are the real issues causing this shift. In this landmark title, Dr. Jones is able to show the history and evolution of the thought that is creating these shifts in society.

The secular humanism of a generation ago has evolved into something much more dangerous. Dr. Jones identifies 5 areas in which the “traditional plausibility structures that gave life meaning and significance under Christian influence” have become unrecognizable in the greater culture:

Morality is relativized by varied (and often contradictory) personal and social convictions
Honesty means being true to one’s inner commitments and longings more than to external expectations or objective facts
Acceptable models of sexuality and family allow various combinations of persons and genders
Marriage is often functionally indistinguishable from mutually convenient cohabitation
Motherhood is celebrated in the same breath as abortion on demand

Society is not homogenous and it is rare to find a society in which everyone lives in lockstep in agreement to a set of rules, but it is common for a society to have an agreed upon set of rules or standards, and that is what many westerners have assumed about their societies. The author quotes Peter Berger, who called it the “‘sacred canopy’ of basic Christian worldview, so that the fundamental ideas-about God, morality, sexuality, family, marriage, motherhood, spirituality, and religion-were understood from a Christian perspective, consciously or unconsciously.” As someone who has lived in a society that holds to a very different “sacred canopy”, I can attest to both the commonality of those standards in my society and the shifts that have occurred in the 20 years I’ve lived mostly outside of the US.

As a Christian, Dr. Jones desires to hold up what he is seeing in society and evaluate it according to that understanding. As such, he finds “two worldviews-one based on the ultimacy of creation, and the other based on the ultimate, prior, and all-determining existence of the Creator.” He calls these 2 worldviews Oneism and Twoism and defines them as following in more detail:

“Oneism sees the world as self-creating (or perpetually existing) and self-explanatory. Everything is made up of the same stuff, whether matter, spirit, or mixture. There’s one kind of existence, which, in one way or another, we worship as divine (or of ultimate importance), even if that means worshipping ourselves…This is ‘homocosmology,’ a worldview of sameness. The classic term of this is ‘paganism,’ worship of nature.”

“The only other option is a world that is the free work of a personal, transcendent God, who creates ex nihilo (from nothing). In creating, God was not constrained by or dependent on any preexisting conditions. There is nothing exactly like this in our human experience of creating; our creative acts are analogous with God’s. There is God, and there is everything that is not-God-everything created and sustained by the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This worldview celebrates otherness, distinctiveness. We only worship as divine the distinct, personal, triune Creator, who placed essential distinctions within the creation. This is ‘heterocosmology,’ a worldview based on otherness and difference. This is often called ‘theism.'”

The author takes most of the book to talk about the history of Oneism and to point to what has contributed to its most dominate form in the modern age, such as humanism, Jungism, the sexual revolution and postmodernism. This provides a helpful framework for the reader to understand the viewpoints of many of those acting so differently in society than is considered normal or rational for someone who holds to a more traditional sacred canopy. The author describes how for many their worldview is as much a belief system as what is found in some of the more traditional forms of religion. People have strong, passionate beliefs that are based more on faith than reason, but have nothing to do with a belief in God. These are often centered around social and environmental issues.

In addition to examples of Oneism found in a more secular framework, Dr. Jones also visits some of the more “religious” forms found in the US, which can make use of the terminology of traditional Christianity, but abandons the orthodox theology. These forms can turn the focus on man-made ideals such as prosperity, nationalism or mindfulness. This path doesn’t lead toward a true relationship with God any more than Carl Jung’s teaching did.

The author ends by reminding the readers the Pagan society that Christianity was born into. Paul traveled throughout the Roman Empire and was in the minority wherever he went. The ancestors of modern Oneism can be found in the societies that he engaged. Gnosticism had many similarities with the thought we see today. Dr. Jones implores the readers to not give up, but seek wisdom as they refuse to withdraw from society, but follow the Biblical commands to engage with those who hold a different worldview than our own. I highly recommend this book for any Christian leader or any Christian who desires to follow this path towards engagement. Dr. Jones’ book should be in the library of every pastor and college minister and would be a very helpful resource in training up new ministers for today and tomorrow.

Begin Again…Again

Today marks the new year and I’m sure many people have either formally or informally begun making themselves promises about what will be different in the new year. We are forever starting out on paths to a new life or a new us that meet with the inevitable detour. I grew up with family and friends who talked about New Year’s Resolutions pretty regularly. Every year, people would begin the year talking about regular exercise, new diets and quitting bad habits. The one thing all of these resolutions had in common was that they were all inevitably broken. But that does little to discourage us from trying again the next year.

“Hope Smiles from the threshold of the year to come, Whispering ‘it will be happier’…”
Alfred Lord Tennyson

So, is this a bad thing, should we shun New Year’s Resolutions that are made, only to be broken? G.K. Chesterton had this to say about the topic:

“The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective.”
G.K. Chesterton

I actually think it is very normal for a follower of Christ to continually resolve to be more than they are. As Chesterton said, to start “afresh about things”. We were made to try and try again. This is the hunger for the Kingdom that exists in the heart of every believer. We live as those who experience the salvation of Christ, but sin still exists in the world. In Scripture we find Biblical themes that talk about the good of resolving to be better and trying again.

Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? 2 Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? 3 Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death? 4 For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives. 5 Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was. 6 We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. 7 For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin. 8 And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him. 9 We are sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead, and he will never die again. Death no longer has any power over him. 10 When he died, he died once to break the power of sin. But now that he lives, he lives for the glory of God. 11 So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus. 12 Do not let sin control the way you live; do not give in to sinful desires. 13 Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God. 14 Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God’s grace.
Romans 6:1-14 NLT

There are lots of thoughts about our old life versus the life we live in Christ, but what I read more strongly than anything else is the life that is in it. We are to live, not just lock ourselves away as people bound up by the sin that controlled our lives before. This is the picture of the grace we have in Christ. It gives us freedom to live, knowing we will sometimes fail, but will rise up free to live again. One person described it like living on the trapeze.

Photo by Joshua Ku00f6ller on Pexels.com

Watching a trapeze show is breathtaking. We wonder at the dexterity and timing. We gasp at near-misses. In most cases, there is a net underneath. When they fall, they jump up and bounce back to the trapeze. In Christ, we live on the trapeze. The whole world should be able to watch and say, “Look how they live, how they love one another. Look how well the husbands treat their wives. And aren’t they the best workers in the factories and offices, the best neighbors, the best students?” That is to live on the trapeze, being a show to the world. What happens when we slip? The net is surely there. The blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ, has provided forgiveness for ALL our trespasses. Both the net and the ability to stay on the trapeze are works of God’s grace. Of course, we cannot be continually sleeping on the net., If that is the case, I doubt whether that person is a trapezist.

What kind of life would that be if we simply slept on the net. We will fall, the Grace is there and sufficient to catch us when we fall, but we don’t fall to lay back on the net and go to sleep. We fall, so we can climb back up and live again! The Christian life should look like a historical chart of the stock market’s performance. Lots of dips, but an overall upward movement.

So, when it comes to New Year’s Resolutions, it isn’t the making of them that is the problem, but I think the real problem comes in the waiting until the New Year to make them. For example, if you resolve to be a better spiritual leader of your family and find yourself in February back in the lazy routine of life having failed in your endeavor, that isn’t a problem unless you give up and say, I’ll do better next year.

Instead, we should be ready to pick ourselves up from the state we find ourselves in and resolve to start again as soon as we realize that we aren’t where we should be.

So, why don’t we do this? Why do we continue to stay derailed from the path that we ourselves said we wanted to be on? Here are five common reasons from The Screwtape Letters on a section titled, “How to attack faith” As a reminder, these are written from the perspective of a greater demon writing to a lesser demon, so their enemy is God and Jesus.

Here’s what I recommend —

Don’t let him open the Enemy’s book. Have him think he’s not feeling spiritual enough. Suggest that it’s too complicated. Tell him he’s too tired. Be vigilant — five minutes of prayerful reading can set him back months (Rom 10:17).
If his faith is strong, don’t panic. Have him notice how strong his faith is. Then have him congratulate himself on how his faith is stronger than his wife’s, or his friend’s. Before you know it, his faith will no longer be in the Enemy, but in the pleasures of feeling superior.
If you do manage to weaken his faith, don’t let up. Remember, all he has to do is cry to the Enemy for help, and all your hard work will be lost (Mark 9:24). But be subtle. One of my favorites is to make them think they need stronger faith BEFORE they can cry out to the Enemy (when the only way they can have stronger faith is BY crying out to the Enemy — sometimes I am astonished at my brilliance!).
Keep him from others who belong to the Enemy. Don’t try to have him say “no” to fellowship. Instead, have him say “yes” to everything else. And when the Enemy stirs his heart about being part of a church community, whisper that he can get more involved “as soon as his schedule opens up” (and make sure that never happens).
If he does get time with believers — don’t panic. Work with our fellow demons to keep the conversation shallow. Whisper to him that he’s the only one with weak faith, and that if he says something — he’ll feel out of place. Don’t let any of them ask how he is doing. And especially don’t let any of them pray for him (that’s how I lost Peter — Luke 22:31-32).

So, by contrast, if you want to have a strong faith and continue in your resolve.

Stay in the Word
Be Humble in your successes
Turn to the Father at the first sign of weakness
Spend time with other believers, who can encourage you
Make sure that time is filled with fruitful conversation and prayer.

The Father has promised us in Hebrews that we can depend on Him:

14 So then, since we have a great High Priest who has entered heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we believe. 15 This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. 16 So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.
Hebrews 4:14-16

This is the promise of God that He understands our struggles, He understands our weaknesses, and yet He still encourages us to come boldly to the throne of Grace, to bounce up off the net and get right back on the trapeze.

23 Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. 24 Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. 25 And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.
hebrews 10:23-25

This is the role of us together as a Church. As we resolve to be better in 2021, we don’t have to be better alone, we should be better together. We should think of ways to motivate one another to act of love and good works, we should not neglect meeting together. Let’s resolve above all things in 2021 to not wait until 2022 to live together under the freedom of being slaves to righteousness in Christ.

If you are looking for some good resolutions to start with, here are some excellent suggestions someone who by all accounts, was a great resolution keeper:

Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), from the Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 1

Being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God’s help, I do humble entreat Him, by His grace, to enable me to keep these Resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to His will, for Christ’s sake. [I will] remember to read over these Resolutions once a week.

Resolved, That I will do whatsoever I think to be most to the glory of God, and my own good, profit, and pleasure, in the whole of my duration; without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriads of ages hence. Resolved, to do whatever I think to be my duty, and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general.

Resolved, Never to lose one moment of time, but to improve it in the most profitable way I possibly can.

Resolved, to live with all my might, while I do live.

Resolved, Never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life.

Resolved, Never to do anything out of revenge.

Resolved, Never to speak evil of any one, so that it shall tend to his dishonour, more or less, upon no account except for some real good.

Resolved, To study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly, and frequently, as that I may find, and plainly perceive, myself to grow in the knowledge of the same.

Resolved, Never to count that a prayer, nor to let that pass as a prayer, nor that as a petition of a prayer, which is so made, that I cannot hope that God will answer it; nor that as a confession which I cannot hope God will accept.

Resolved, To ask myself, at the end of every day, week, month, and year, wherein I could possibly, in any respect, have done better.

Resolved, Never to give over, nor in the least to slacken, my fight with my corruptions, however unsuccessful I may be.

Resolved, After afflictions, to inquire, what I am the better for them; what good I have got by them, and what I might have got by them.

Resolved, Always to do that which I shall wish I had done when I see others do it. Let there be something of benevolence in all that I speak.

After Christmas – The In-between

Christmas time is great! Most of the people I know enjoy this time of year. It is when the message to the shepherds rings true for all who would receive it. You find that message in Luke 2:10-14.

10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” 13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, 14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”
Luke 2:10-14

The shepherds received this news, ‘good news that will cause great joy for all the people’ and they believed the message and later went and told others what they had seen and heard. This was truly good news to all people, the best news to ever be proclaimed on the earth. This was the news of salvation. People would no longer live under the weight of a law that they could not honor. Through the perfect sacrifice of Christ, they would no longer be required to offer the sacrifice of animals. The best news had come to them, but there is one problem with this good news.

The solution to all their prayers had come, but they would live another 33 years before the events of Easter that would bring that promise to fulfillment. The news is good, but they would spend most or perhaps all of the rest of their lives waiting for the promised change to come.

The situation they found themselves in after Christmas can be compared to our own after Christmas experience. Have you ever felt a letdown after the holidays? If your family practices advent, you spend a lot of time building up to the event and then on Christmas day it finally comes. We celebrate this amazing, indescribable gift from God, but in some sense, the gift isn’t fully opened until later.

In some ways, this is analogous to the Christian life here on earth. This message of salvation is good news to all people, including everyone here. I hope everyone who reads this understands the significance of Christ’ birth, life, death and resurrection. Through these events, we have hope for all eternity. In these events, Prophecy and History come together to change Eternity. If you haven’t accepted that truth, I encourage you to not wait, but receive that amazing gift today.

For those of you who have received it, congratulations on getting the best Christmas gift anyone ever received. But after receiving it, even though we have a complete and secure hope for all eternity with God, we continue to live here on this fallen world, surrounded by sinners like ourselves. This is the time in-between salvation and eternity. We have salvation and it is secure, but we haven’t received everything that comes with that salvation because of the reality that we live in.

The Christian life is normally not a straight ascension to Christ-likeness. It is usually filled with stalls and starts, great leaps forward and periods of relative stagnation. This wandering is a part of the journey. Our faith is not designed to be a cookie-cutter faith, produced in a factory, but a growing, living faith which reflects the dynamic relationship that Christ would have of all of us. When we give our lives to Christ, we are starting an incredible journey with Him. We have chosen to put our trust in Him and we trust that He will lead us along the way.

We know that one day, we will be with Him in paradise. One day, there will be no more tears, no more pain, but in the meantime, we are living here. That means the day to day grind on this fallen earth, with good days and bad days, mountain-top experiences and valleys of shadow. This is what it means to live in what is often called the “in-between”.

This is the time we have, waiting for the Glory of Christ to be fully realized. It is where we will spend the majority of our faith, walking and waiting with other fallen believers in that place between salvation and heaven. It is in this place that so many of us lose sight of who Christ really is and see our understanding of Him dim. Christ is still who He always has been in the in-between, but we can often lose focus on that as we walk upon this earth, waiting for heaven.

Waiting on God isn’t meant to be a bad thing, but it can be a trial. James talks about this in chapter 5, “Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.” (James 5:7-8, ESV)

In our walk with Christ, we “establish our hearts”. Continuing to have a clear view of the Lord is an active process. We establish our hearts in the Lord, by intentionally pursuing Him, not by ignoring our spiritual life. Christ desires that our hearts would align with His.

The choices we make about how we spend our time have consequences. If we spend more and more of our time on things that are contrary to our faith, our hearts will drift away from Him. By the same token, by building into our lives times with God and His people, we have regular reminders of His truth and grace. This is how we avoid drifting in the in-between.

All of us have a need for direction. We have a need to walk with faithful men and women, who will continually point us towards Him, as we return the favor in their own times of need. None of us should feel we are able to walk alone in our pursuit of God. We may have periods of time where we are physically alone, without church or fellowship, but we shouldn’t build our lives around such a lonely path.

This year, with the pandemic restrictions, we have experienced new challenges in meeting together to encourage one another. Jesus is enough for us, but He also blesses us with community in the Church and we benefit by taking advantage of it.

So, here we are, after Christmas, but before Easter. After salvation, but before heaven. We have the Good News that Christ is born. We have the truth of His salvation, but we live in the reality of our daily lives. Living every day in this in-between place of a fallen world and yet desiring so much for everything to be made right and just and true.

Every day we wake up and go out in the world (or maybe stay home to work because of the pandemic) and we deal with that struggle. We find a great encouragement for how to live during this time in Romans 12:1-2:

12 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Romans 12;1-2

When the shepherds heard the message in that field, they were told about a new type of sacrifice, a once and for all sacrifice that could make all who received it holy in God’s sight, once and for all. Here you see Paul writing about a new type of sacrifice, only made possible in Christ.

Every other sacrifice ends in death, but Christ put an end to death for all who believed in Him. Now our sacrifice isn’t one of death, but one of life. It is a living sacrifice. Every day, living here in the in-between, we can recognize the great mercy of God and present our lives as a living sacrifice. We aren’t saved by this sacrifice, we are saved to be this sacrifice.

We succeed in following God, by aligning ourselves with Him, by learning to see Him for who He truly is and to transform our minds to align with His. Christ provides a means of persevering through the in between. As we gratefully close the door on 2020 and prepare to begin 2021, we don’t have to live bound up with the worries and concerns of the pattern of this world.

Instead, we can find peace on earth, resting in the favor of God, and provision to establish our hearts and minds in the Lord. That is the key to having a great 2021. It is not dependent on the dictates of government or the concerns of the day, but on the Holy One of God, the Savior, the Messiah, Christ the Lord. In view of that mercy, we can rest all of our hopes and trust in Him and encourage one another all the more as we see the day approaching.

If you want to read more about what it means to persevere through the in-between to grow in your relationship with Christ, some of this article was taken from my new book, Seeing God: For Who He Really Is.

The Best News!

Do you remember the first movie you saw with really amazing special effects? For me, my first memory like that was of the old Sinbad the Sailor movies with the monsters created by Ray Harryhausen. If you haven’t seen it, you can watch a sample here. Those were truly some epic special effects!

Unfortunately, if you actually take me up on that offer, you are likely to be disappointed. What was once spectacular can become commonplace and then something that is only background noise. Lucasfilms keeps updating the original Star Wars films with updated effects to try and make them more impactful. We can become numb to yesterday’s spectacle and ignore what was once miraculous.

The Christmas story can become like that. We hear it every you year, which is a good thing, but sometimes some of the amazing elements of the story get lost over time. I want you to approach it with fresh eyes. The audience for this feature had never seen a special effect. They had never seen an electric light, much less a Christmas light. Into the quiet of that silent night, sitting under the stars came something truly miraculous.

“That night there were shepherds staying in the fields nearby, guarding their flocks of sheep. Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord’s glory surrounded them. They were terrified, but the angel reassured them. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David! And you will recognize him by this sign: You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.” Suddenly, the angel was joined by a vast host of others—the armies of heaven—praising God and saying, “Glory to God in highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.” When the angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, “Let’s go to Bethlehem! Let’s see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” They hurried to the village and found Mary and Joseph. And there was the baby, lying in the manger. After seeing him, the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child. All who heard the shepherds’ story were astonished, but Mary kept all these things in her heart and thought about them often. The shepherds went back to their flocks, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen. It was just as the angel had told them.”
Luke 2:8-20 NLT

So many amazing things for these shepherds to experience. An angel shining with the Glory of the Lord followed by a heavenly choir of the armies of heaven. The only explanation could be supernatural. This was an unprecedented event in history. It was truly a God event. A group of shepherds, who had an essential role in society, but not one of great renown. Shepherds were definitely low men on the totem pole, but many Biblical historians have some other thoughts about these shepherds. They believe they weren’t just any shepherds, but they were the specific shepherds that took care of the sacrificial lambs. According to Jewish laws, the only shepherds who were allowed to watch over animals in the vicinity of town were those who were fulfilling the priestly duty of taking care of sacrificial animals. These sheep were kept separate from the other flocks because they were to be kept without blemish.

If this is true, we have shepherds watching over sacrificial lambs hearing this message of Good News about the birth of the Savior, who would be the ultimate Sacrifice. The shepherds’ fields outside Bethlehem, to this day, play a central role in the Christmas celebrations in the Holy Land. Countless tourists have visited the fields between Bethlehem and Jerusalem. The church historian Eusebius linked these fields to a unique biblical location called Migdal Eder, which translated means the “tower of the flock”.

The Hebrew prophet Micah also refers to Migdal Eder. “And you, O tower of the flock, the stronghold of the daughter of Zion, to you shall it come, even the former dominion shall come, the kingdom of the daughter of Jerusalem.” (Micah 4:8)

Based on that prophecy, prominent Jewish writers concluded that from all of the places in Israel, it would be the Migdal Eder where the arrival of the Messiah would be declared first.

That means when the angels appeared that night to the shepherds in the fields outside Bethlehem, it was not just a declaration of the Good News to simple shepherds. It was a powerful prophetic sign to all of Israel. God uses amazing imagery and symbolism at different points in Scripture. This one is no different. God wasn’t just fulfilling prophecy, He was signaling an amazing transformation that was taking place to the sacrificial system with the birth of this child.

See, these shepherds were a part of the animal sacrifice system of the church. It was their job to prepare the sheep for Passover and other Jewish ceremonies. Then, out of nowhere, breaking the silent night, an angel from heaven appears to them with an update to Moses’ Law. Though the shepherds probably weren’t fully aware of what was happening, the angel was hand-delivering a message telling them the time for animal sacrifice was nearly over, and they were the first to know.

The Christ, the promised Messiah the priests had heard about from the prophets, the Savior of the world was finally born. Animal sacrifices would no longer be necessary. Now, Jesus would be the ultimate and perfect sacrifice to pay for man’s sin once and for all through His death and resurrection. No wonder these shepherds ran “with haste (v.16)” to see the baby the angel spoke about. What a shock when they found a baby lying in a feeding trough, wrapped in swaddling cloth, just as the angel said.

One quick note on swaddling clothes. The term used here is the same one used for cloths that the lambs were wrapped in to keep them unblemished before the time of the sacrifice. All these details would’ve been incredibly relevant for the Jewish audience that received this message initially. While we might marvel at the “special effects” of the angels, it is even more remarkable how God aligned prophecy and history to come together for this event.

To the shepherds’ credit, they believed the message and believed when they saw the baby in the manger. They rightfully praised the Lord as their response to the Good News of His salvation. I wanted you to understand a little bit more about what this message meant to the hearers of that time, but what does this amazing message means for us today?

The core of this message, the message that God has for you and for all the world, including the family you’ll be seeing over the coming days and your neighbors and co-workers is this message: “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David!”

When we think of Christmas, this is what we must think about. We have simplistic phrases to help us remember this. Things like, Jesus is the reason for the season. But we have to remember just how good this news is. This tops whatever other good news you’ve ever heard. We think of good news usually in terms of victories and gains on this side of eternity, but one thing most of those examples have in common is when some people win, others lose. I might celebrate my team’s victory, but I’m sure I know many others who were grieving over their team’s loss. Some people’s budget surpluses are others budget cuts. This good news isn’t anything like this.

This was good news that will bring great joy to all people. I know there are those who don’t receive Christmas and Christ as good news, but does that negate it’s goodness? No, it doesn’t. The good news of salvation is still good to everyone, even those who reject it. God desires that none would perish and until people take their final breath, He continues to proclaim the opportunity for salvation to them. Everyone needs to understand that the foundation of our hope, our joy and our faith is found in this message.

When you go out to your holiday gatherings with family and friends, you can celebrate with true joy because you have something that is truly worth celebrating. This is the point of the Angel’s celebration in verse 14, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

If you are a child of God, His favor rests on you. The Christmas story is an amazing story, filled with many miraculous events, but the greatest part of the Christmas story is what God has done in bringing the opportunity of salvation to all people. In this season when people are focused so much on gifts that is the greatest gift of all. If you are missing that maybe you don’t understand the angels’ message after all. Maybe you aren’t seeing God for who He really is.

2000 years ago, God sent a message to shepherds in a field that they would understand like no other. This is the good news we share today and the good news that God brought into the world. It’s a message that is so great, it is better than any other gift, it is better than anything else you might gain. It is worth everything, even losing everything that you have in order to obtain it. This holiday season, we should be spreading this good news to others. As you gather with family and friends, remember what a great message it is and how it brings joy, hope and peace to all peoples.