A New Year

 Each time that the calendar rolls over and an additional number is added to the running total, people seem to get somewhat sentimental.  I can in some ways appreciate that.  Each moment that passes we move toward something and for those without Christ there is not much that they are moving toward that is in any way good.  Each moment that passes we move away from something.  Sometimes we are glad to be moving forward and sometimes we wish we could stay.  So the passing of time is in a way not so much about addition, but about memory and hope.  

I wonder as we consider memory and hope if we have ours grounded in their proper source.  I also wonder if this is why the Scriptures give us commands like "do this in remembrance of me" and tells us that we can have hope in Christ Jesus.    The Bible constantly encourages us in our present to remember and to look forward, but the one constant in all of this is that we are not looking back or ahead based on our own experience but instead based on the revealed Word of God.

In this sense our memory is focused not on what we have accomplished, or what has occurred within our lifetime, but instead of the corporate memory shared by the body of Christ across the centuries.  We are to remember what has been done FOR US and IN US by Christ.  I believe that this will help inform our lives as we think back even on the past year - what if our focus was not what happened to us, but what Christ has done FOR US and IN US?

In this sense also our hope is shaped.  For we do not just remember what has come, but what is to come.  And in this we can hope in what will be accomplished THROUGH US.  What is God going to do to use us in the next year for His honor and glory.  And in these things there can be certainty and stability because God has promised that He will USE US for His purposes.  

So as this calendar year goes into the bygone and we look ahead at 2022, would you pray that God who has been FOR US and is IN US will work THROUGH Us and USE US for His glory?  Amen.

Christmas may not be what you think

 "She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins."  Matthew 1:21 (NASB)

I think that sometimes Christmas is this time of year when we get so bothered by all of the busyness that when we see a peaceful manger scene we stop.  And we think.  But we usually think about the wrong things.  We think about how serene it was (it wasn't).  We think about how life changing that moment was (for most people on earth at that time it wasn't).  And for all of our thinking we miss the main point - Jesus had to come because of our sins.  

It is hard to think about ourselves during Christmas time.  At least it is hard in the context of our own sins.  We often think about ourselves when it comes to what our bonus should be, or what presents we are going to get.  But when God thought of us, He thought enough to send His Son to die for us to save us from our sins.  Christ came to save us.  Which means we need saving.  Which means that it His death that we celebrate and his resurrection.  His advent is simply the avenue He chose in order to accomplish His purpose of salvation - the cross.  And so we should celebrate His coming.  But not because of how pretty it was, but instead because of how grotesque our sins are that God had to send His one and only Son to live as one of us in order to die for us.  

Christmas is coming.  But it may not be what you think it is.  It is a reminder that we should have died.  It is a reminder of how dark our hearts are.  And we need the Light of Life in order to conquer our own dark deadness.  Praise God for Christmas.