Peace Joy Hope

For many people, the “most wonderful time of the year” is not so wonderful. Even for Christians and those who very much approach the season with a joyful spirit, it is easy to be plowed over by everything else that the world piles on top of us during all the holiday festivities.

I suppose it is ironic that the time of year that we celebrate the birth of our Savior, we fail to see that He came to carry our burdens for us, to do that which we can never do on our own. Scripture reminds us time and again that there is power in His name, He is a mighty shelter and fortress, and His Spirit gives us peace that we can’t even comprehend by the world’s standards.

I was reading in Hebrews 12 today and verses 1 and 2 struck me a little differently than in the past. “Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.”

So often, we think of Jesus as a “standard” or a “goal”–and an unattainable one at that. We forget that Jesus is the AUTHOR of our faith. He is the PERFECTER of our faith. Using the race analogy from Hebrews, Jesus doesn’t say, “Hey, I’m the finish line. When you get here, I’ll be glad to welcome you in.” I think it is more appropriate to see Jesus as the starter pistol; the shoes that protect our feet; the refreshing water that sustains us along the marathon; the one who tucks his shoulder under our arm and helps us run across the finish line. I envision Him saying, “You are not going to finish this race because of YOUR strength, but because of MINE. You are not going to know the path to run because YOU know the way, but because I DO. And it doesn’t matter if you FEEL like you’re stumbling to the finish–everyone who runs MY race is victorious!”

I said that it is ironic how we treat Jesus at this time of year, and it’s true. We seem to tuck our chins and try to plow through the physical and emotional challenges of the season rather than celebrating that we can cast our burdens on Him. The world tells us all the things we must do, must accomplish, and must be–and it’s a false standard that no one can achieve; a moving finish line that we’ll never reach.

Quit trying to run the race alone. Jesus transforms us–we don’t transform ourselves. There is power in His word, power in His name. Cast your eyes and your burdens on Him daily.

Knowing that I do not need to rely on my own strength, my own wisdom, my own knowledge to run the race He has marked out for me–especially at this crazy, hectic time of year–does indeed give me great JOY!

Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one knows the Father but through me.”

It’s October–the month of Halloween–so I’m going to use a scary movie analogy.

We’ve seen it many times in one form or another: the killer is coming, the potential victim is desperately trying to escape. She found the keys to the locked door or the keys to the car outside. She has to unlock the door to get away or she has to start the car in time to drive off before the killer gets her. In these movies, the victim always struggles to find the right key on a keychain full of options. Her hands shake as she tries the first key–no good! Another key–doesn’t fit either! Another key–it fits the hole, but isn’t the right one! The killer is closing in! Time is running out! Find the key! FIND THE KEY!

It’s an easy story device to ratchet up the tension of the moment. It may even be based in reality to some degree: the greater the pressure of the moment, our nerves may make our hands jittery, or we may be too flustered to think straight. Whatever the actual reason, the moment is always fraught with terror. Find the right key and you live. Don’t find it (which means choosing the wrong key or keys) and you die. Yikes! No wonder her hands are shaking.

Now imagine this same situation, but the keychain only has one key–whether it’s for a door to escape or the key to crank the car. You have one key, you insert it into the lock (or the ignition), and there’s no guesswork. The door opens; the car cranks. The victim escapes the killer and lives!

How much better is that situation than the one we’re used to seeing in scary movies? Having only one key eliminates the guesswork. No fumbling around, trying key after key. Your hands may shake a little, but the one and only key fits, and you escape to live another day.

How cruel would it be for God to leave us in a fallen, dying world in which we have to fumble around with the keys and HOPE it’s the right one?

If we take a step back and examine the psychology of the situation, we can easily see why it’s such a reliable device in scary movies. 1) There’s a time component–the killer is coming. Every wrong key takes time and the killer gets closer. The more wrong keys the victim chooses, the longer it takes, and the closer the killer gets. 2) There’s a choice–numerous wrong keys and (hopefully) one right one. Every wrong choice postpones relief and prolongs fear and desperation. And 3) the stakes are high. It is truly life or death. Only one of the keys leads to life. ALL OF THE OTHERS lead to death. Every wrong key is a death key.

How cruel would it be for God to leave us in a fallen, dying world in which we have to fumble around with the keys and HOPE it’s the right one? We talk about God as a loving God (which He is!), yet so many people want to believe that there are many, many keys on the keychain–some of which might work and some of which might not. With so many options–many of which are similar, but not identical–how would we ever know which one to choose?

Have you ever tried to unlock a door with a “similar” key? The key fits in the hole, but doesn’t turn the tumblers inside. It’s frustrating, slows us down, and muddies the water–heck, the keys are so similar, we may even accidentally try the same wrong key over again (with the same result, of course).

No, God is not cruel. He LOVES us and He WANTS us to choose the right key. So what did He do to make that clear and easy for us? He said so! Jesus Christ said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life–no one comes to the Father but through me.” Note the key words there: “NO ONE…” and “through me.” In other words, the way to get to the Father, the way to LIVE, the key to avoid DEATH is through Jesus Christ. He Himself said it.

He didn’t say, “ONE WAY to the Father is through me.” He plainly stated that He is the only way. He gave us the one key that we need. GAVE it to us. We don’t deserve it. We didn’t earn it. Be thankful that we have a loving, Heavenly Father who gave it to us freely and made sure we know that it is the ONLY key we need.

A life full of keys that don’t work will lead to death. I pray that each of you chooses the one and only key that leads to LIFE.

Something occurred to me today as I was reading in 2nd Corinthians that further testifies to me that God so perfectly gave us what we needed instead of what we wanted when He sent Christ to live and die for us. In 2nd Corinthians, Paul is boasting of his weakness as testimony to God’s greatness–meaning that everything good that God was doing through Paul would be rightly attributed to God’s glory rather than glorifying Paul.

What struck me uniquely today is to realize the utter perfection in Christ coming as a man of peace–humble, submissive, and the ultimate servant–rather than as a warrior or political leader. Israel was expecting a deliverer, a warrior king that would re-establish Israel’s power as God’s chosen people. Even the disciples failed to grasp how God’s plan differed from their expectations until after Jesus’ resurrection.

We are called to be Christ-like–even the average-Joe Christian understands that to be “the goal”. Now, imagine for a moment if God had sent His Son as a warrior or as a political leader. How impossible would our lives be if we were called to be politicians and warriors! And how in the world would we all live (or survive) together if that’s what all of us were?!

No, Christ came to set an example that we all can aspire to–an example that WILL actually make the world a better place; an example that results in love rather than conquest; an example that recognizes the weakness of our flesh and calls us to glorify Him instead of seeking to glorify ourselves. In our celebrity-obsessed culture where we elevate flawed humans like ourselves to god-like status, we seemingly choose an impossible path that the overwhelming majority of us will never travel. Christ’s path does require that we set aside our selfish pride, but how many of us can say that pride has benefited our relationships or prideful pursuits have made life better for us or our fellow man?

Unlike what the world tells us, Christ simply asks us to step back from the competitive nature of human comparisons and trust Him–with all of our weaknesses, frailties, and flaws. We don’t have to “prepare” ourselves to come to Him. We don’t have to get our lives “right” and come to Him. We just have to sincerely come to Him–flaws, weakness, and all. He’ll do the rest within us.

As someone who spent the majority of my life brimming with misplaced confidence in my own abilities, I can tell you that His yoke is so much lighter. I delight in knowing now that I don’t have to figure it all out. Christ on the other hand, DID have it all figured out. He could (and can) conquer anyone and everyone with just a thought if need be, yet He set that limitless power aside to humble Himself and set the example for what we are all called to be.

Those of you who believe you have to be today’s “perfect Mommy”, or those who believe you have to conquer the business world, or those who struggle from paycheck to paycheck trying to keep up with the Joneses…

…stop it.  You don’t have to do that. Really, you don’t.

If you think you do or you think you can, you’re just kidding yourself.  Even those of you who lack confidence in yourself still struggle daily to do on your own what Christ has called you to entrust to Him.  Don’t allow insecurity to masquerade as humility while your stubborn pride refuses to surrender it all to Christ.

When Paul was still called Saul, he didn’t lack for confidence. He thought he was hot stuff in the eyes of man–until he saw Jesus. Then he saw himself as he really was:  weak, powerless, and an enemy of Jesus. He was humbled. He became a slave, a prisoner, and a servant… just like Christ.

And God used him to spread the Gospel with powerful words that we still study today. When we discover our weakness, it is then that God’s glory will triumph in our lives and in the lives of those we impact.

Thank you, Lord, for being the Savior we needed instead of the Savior we thought we wanted.

Trust me when I tell you: you will never “find” some quiet time–not on a regular basis. You have to choose to make it happen.

“If the Devil can’t make you bad, he’ll make you busy.”

That quote has stuck with me since I first heard it and I have to repeatedly remind myself that the Devil will use every trick in the book to veer us off-target from God.  Satan doesn’t have to tempt us with sin to drive a wedge between us and God.  All he has to do is get in the way.

In our efforts to maximize every available waking moment, we’ve ceded the Sabbath–a gift from God for our rest and restoration–to the Devil and along with it, any sense of the idea of solitude, reflection, and stepping away from the demands of the world.  When we buy into this idea of packing as much “life” into life as we possibly can, we train ourselves to view down time or stillness or peace and quiet as a waste of time or maybe as a waste of an opportunity to make up lost ground and get ahead on that giant to-do list of life we never seem to catch up to.

“If the Devil can’t make you bad, he’ll make you busy.”

We bounce around like balls in a pinball machine rushing kids from one side of town to another for this activity or that because the world says that’s what we’re supposed to do to prepare our kids for high school, college, or career.  We sacrifice Sunday for traveling sports, work, or activities that require others to work for us (going to restaurants, shopping, etc.).

I’ve written here before about the significance of having a daily–yes, daily–quiet time.  NOTHING has impacted my life more than when I finally made the decision 4 years ago to rearrange my schedule so that my quiet time was a structural part of my day.  I get to the office about 45 minutes before anyone else and have that time for myself to read the Bible and pray.

Amazingly, when we submit our time to God, He multiplies it, and somehow the work we didn’t have time to do gets done anyway–and in less time.  God is awesome like that.

The Holy Spirit is described as a “whisper behind the ears”, but who can hear a whisper in the tornado of modern life?  Psalm 46:10 tells us, “Be still and know that I am God.”  How soothing and calming would it be to hear that Voice every day?  We spin our wheels constantly trying to figure out for ourselves how to make sense of our world, our finances, our family and a hundred other things–when all the while God has so much to tell us that we desperately need to hear for wisdom, comfort, and peace of mind.

Trust me when I tell you: you will NEVER “find” some quiet time–not on a regular basis.  You have to choose to make it happen.  You have to decide that spending time with God is worth your commitment–that stepping away from the world for even a brief period of time is an opportunity to escape the hustle and bustle, escape the noise and hear God’s voice within the quiet.

If only we would be still.

We have the opportunity to KNOW Him personally, the Creator of everything, the Beginning and End of everything, the definition and very existence of Love who has a purpose for your life.

Ask yourself: “Do I KNOW God or do I know OF God?”

I know OF President Trump. I know he’s President. I know some facts about him, but I’ve never spent time with him, talked to him, learned what he likes, dislikes, etc. I know him from a distance–as do most Americans, and therefore, we have no relationship.

Most people know OF God. They believe He exists. They know that there are some inherent powers that come from being God. They know a few of His rules/commandments, but they’re never met Him.

If you want your life to have meaning, direction, and significance, then spend some time reading the Bible and pray for God to reveal His true self to you.

I’ve posted before about the life-changing importance of knowing God as He ACTUALLY is–instead of who we THINK He is or who we WANT Him to be.

I was reading in Romans 1 today (“For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him… Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools.”) and was reminded of how we are in actuality attempting to glorify ourselves when we re-imagine God into our own image of Him and that he must certainly share our “enlightened” views on life.