A New Year Dawns

 Each year ends.  The calendar marches closer and closer to December 31.  The clock on December 31 draws closer and closer to midnight.  Time just keeps moving and we continue to draw closer to every deadline we face.  We never move further from a deadline - unless it is a deadline already failed.  During the ending, we anticipate the beginning.  This pattern of ending and beginning is in one sense one we were prepared for.  There was evening and morning day one, day two, day three, day four, day five, day six, and even on day seven.  We were prepared for the ending of one day and the beginning of another.  But each of these were meant to be enjoyed with perfect harmony with each other, with God, and with the creation in which man and woman lived.

In another very different sense, this pattern reminds us of something that is out of the pattern of what God intended for us.  A day ending is not really all that disheartening, a week ending either - we know tomorrow is another day and next week is another week.  What we do have to consider now, this side of sin, is that we are not guaranteed tomorrow.  We are not guaranteed next week, and each year that passes draws us that much closer to the life expectancy that we are steadily approaching.  Like each year, we too will die.  And this definite end is concerning to us.  

And yet we seldom take time to consider it.  We know that it is coming.  We know that we have limited time to use and yet we use it so poorly.  Would you stop today and consider that a years end is a reminder of a life's end and that your life's end approaches?  In point of fact, you do not know if you will make it to see the year's end.  So what will you do with your time today?  May I suggest that you first ensure that you are at peace with your Creator - the One who created you for more than anticipating your end and has made it possible for you to live without end through the work of His Son Jesus Christ?  He died for you so that you could live eternally.  So that when your time on this earth ends that you would live in His presence for ever more.  A glorious thought that is worth consideration in this moment.  And the next.  And the one that follows.  Tick.  Tock.  

A proper order of things

 We had our annual children's Christmas play last Sunday.  This year's story focused on the shepherds out in their field.  As I was reading through this text, I noticed something interesting in a very familiar part of the story.  The angels say in Luke 2:14, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased." (NASB)

What I noticed is the order.  The angels are announcing to the shepherds that a Savior has been born to them, but notice the order when the angel choir sings:

    1. Glory to God - the angels begin by singing that God is honored and glorified in the work of God to bring the Savior.  So often we make ourselves the center of the Christmas story - we say things that sound an awful lot like Jesus came to earth to save us.  In a sense that is true, but that sense is secondary to His primary purpose - He came to glorify the Father.  He came to bring glory to the triune God.  It is interesting how often the Scriptures talk about this, but so often we forget.

    2. Peace among men - on earth there is to be something accomplished too - namely that men would be at peace with each other - this only happens through the work of God in Christ.  But this is not primary.  It is secondary to the glory of God.  This one cannot happen without the former.  

I wonder what would happen if we got our order correct too - that is that we placed the glory of God in our lives first and then what benefit we received.  We would be doing things far more biblically and we would be living our lives in the way that God intended us to live.  May God help us to live for His glory!