Sunday, December 29, 2013

326. He Is The King Of Our Hearts



Do you know what it feels like to be overwhelmed with love for Jesus and a sense of loyalty to Him right there in the middle of your day? Maybe you’re faced with a temptation or a difficult decision and you want to live it well, so you turn to Him in your heart and ask Him for the wisdom and strength to follow Him. Maybe you’re by yourself on a walk or a drive and you simply want to connect with Him and be close to Him because you love Him. Maybe it’s the conversations you share with Jesus that no one else knows about or is invited into, but they shape your day and who you are. Sometimes, in your spiritual life, it can seem as though you haven’t grown at all or that you’re so far away from the person you’re supposed to be, but there’s something deeper than that feeling. In the unseen depths of who you are, you love Jesus and you want to please Him and follow Him. Sure, you’re not perfect and you mess up a lot, but you do love Him. That’s the truth about who you are, and it’s precious to Jesus. When Jesus was about to be crucified and was standing before the man who held in his hands the power to spare Jesus’ life or kill Him, our Lord was utterly calm. Pilate wanted to know if Jesus was really claiming to be a king. He was. Jesus told him, “My kingdom is from another place.” Jesus let Himself be maligned and killed because He was saving us. He was taking our punishment and winning our hearts. He became the King of our deepest affections.

Saturday, December 21, 2013

325. He Came To Be Real Friends With Us



Have you ever become friends with someone almost instantly, simply because you and that other person shared some common experience in the past? If I meet someone who remembers watching Magnum P.I. or He Man on TV, I know we’re gonna be friends. If I meet someone who stood in line to get their copy of the Nirvana Unplugged CD the day it first came out and then listened to it four times before dinner, I know we’re gonna be close. There are certain experiences, feelings and cultural events that just make people connect with each other because they both experienced them. One of the best things about knowing Jesus is that He isn’t simply some detached Deity, seated on a Heavenly throne barking out orders and expecting everyone to toe the line. Instead, our God came down from Heaven. He set aside His throne and became one of us. The book of Hebrews says He became “fully human in every way” so that He could know what it’s like down here. That means we have a God who knows exactly what it feels like to be exhausted and depleted but to press on anyway. We have a God who knows what the common cold feels like and what it means to be hungry. He knows the blistering oppression of a blazing sun with no shade and He knows the severity and piercing assault of a cold wind with no shelter. The story of Christmas isn’t just the storybook narrative of a beautiful nativity scene lived out. The story of Christmas is about the God of the Universe living out everything you do because He wants to be friends with you - real, actual, close friends.

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

324. He Came For A Fight



Your life, your problems and your relationship with Jesus would be so much easier to figure out if it weren’t for the fact that you have an invisible enemy who lives to make everything more difficult for you. I mean, I know that you and I are sinful and polluted in ways we don’t even know and to depths we can’t even understand, but if the devil and all his cronies weren’t wreaking havoc on our minds and whispering discouraging lies into our ears all the time, we’d be way further down the road than we are right now. Satan is real. He is a jerk and he constantly spews out lies that hold us back, trip us up and take us out. He convinces us that we are worthless and that God doesn’t love us. He assaults our hope by feeding us our worst fears - even if they are complete fiction. Fortunately, Jesus has our back. In fact, Jesus is waging a battle campaign in direct opposition to our enemy. You may not know this, but Christmas is actually all about this fight. You’ve probably heard that the Old Testament is filled with prophecies about the first Christmas. We are told where the Messiah would be born and what He would be like. We learn that He would be born of a virgin and even what tribe and family He would come from. But the very first prophecy of Christmas wasn’t given to God’s people. It was given to His enemy. In Genesis 3, Christmas is not just a promise, it’s a threat. God tells Satan that the woman he tricked will have a descendant that will eventually crush his head. Jesus came to destroy the devil’s work.

Friday, December 13, 2013

323. He's Clearing You A Path



When you stand back from the trouble and pain of your life and look at it all together in one big pile, it’s hard to know what the point is. What is God up to? Why would He allow the things He allows? What does He hope to get out of it? There are plenty of people who will give you lots of specific answers to those questions and you need to be wary of those folks. I don’t think any of us really knows anything about why God allows our troubles and pain. But at the same time, we do know He is up to something. We do know certain things He is doing in the middle of it all simply because He told us. It’s not that we know all the answers, but we do know some of the bi-products of our suffering. For one thing, I think we’re all getting tougher. You may not feel it happening, but you’re growing. Your lows don’t take you as low as they used to, and all the things that used to take you off track have to work harder to derail you. The worldly stuff that used to distract you just doesn’t get you as fired up as it used to and you’re able to bear up underneath more turbulence than you once were. You’re growing. The Lord said He would do this. He said the valleys would be filled in and mountains would be made low. He said rough places would be made smooth and rugged terrain would be made a plain. Jesus is making you a highway to Himself. In all you’ve gone through, God is changing you - clearing a path from your heart to His.

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

322. He's The One You're Looking For



You don’t need more money. You don’t need a better house or cooler clothes. You don’t need to be thinner or in better shape. You don’t need to be prettier and you don’t need a better haircut. You don’t need more talents or more opportunities. You don’t need to be more connected to the right kinds of people. You don’t need a romantic relationship that’s just right. You don’t need more sex. You don’t need perfect, beautiful kids. You don’t need more power, influence or respect. You don’t need more attention from your parents, your boss, your teachers, your friends or even your enemies. You don’t need everyone in your life to think you’re awesome or funny or amazing. You don’t need more of this or that. You don’t need more. None of those things I just listed are really all that bad on their own. That’s not a catalogue of sins up there - it’s just a pretty normal list of the kinds of things we desire. The truth is, it’s totally okay to want those things, but you should know that those aren’t the things you really need. If you had everything I just mentioned and more, you wouldn’t automatically be happy, satisfied, fulfilled and at peace. The things on that list are great, but they won’t scratch the deepest itch down inside your heart. You were made to know Jesus. He made you for Himself. Life will always be just short of operational without Him in it. That’s why He came. On that first Christmas, when Mary laid her tiny baby down in a feeding trough, Ancient Promises were being fulfilled. “Suddenly, the Lord you are seeking will come.” He’s all you’re truly looking for.

Saturday, December 7, 2013

321. He’s The Only One Who Knows How Far He Came



Everyone wants the fairy tale romance to be true of them. Everyone wants to have a great story to tell. Everyone wants to be sought after and pursued in epic ways that seem outlandish and even legendary. We all love to hear those stories about the guy who drove across the country through the night just to chase down the girl he loved and tell her face-to-face. We all want to know just how far love would go. What would a person be willing to risk? What would a person be willing to lose in order to have me? That’s what’s so beautiful about the Christmas story. Love Himself came all the way down from Heaven into our world to rescue us. Jesus willingly chose to live a difficult, dangerous life as a poor, unknown, rejected nobody all because you mean so much to Him. He risked everything for love - for you. The thing is, when someone says they drove across the country through the night to be with their love, we understand what that means. We’ve driven when we’re tired. We understand what a long car trip like that requires. Everything is different with Jesus coming down on that first Christmas. The Apostle Paul says that Jesus emptied Himself and took on the form of a servant - being found in human likeness. The King of all became nothing. I don’t know exactly what it means that He emptied Himself. We could never understand the cost of His condescension, but He knew. He knew and He did it anyway. He became nothing for us. The One who is fullness Himself became empty to give us His fulness. Now that’s a love story.

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

320. He's On Your Side



What do you do when it feels like the world is against you? Have you been there? Do you know how it feels to have people talk about you, whisper about you, doubt you, or even openly oppose you? Do you know the sickening pain in your gut that comes with having enemies who are actively tearing you down? How do you process their criticism?  How much of that stuff are you supposed to internalize or evaluate or respond to? How can you confidently live as yourself when some think you don’t have it? I love how the Apostle Paul says in Romans 8, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” He says it with so much assurance and force that you would think God being on your side means no one will ever stand against you. The only problem is, the world doesn’t work that way. There are times when people are standing firmly against you and you’ll be tempted to fall prey to their attitudes. Paul isn’t saying that God standing for you means no one else will stand against you. He’s saying that if God is on your side, it doesn’t really matter who stands against you. Jesus stood for the hurting, the oppressed, the broken, the sin-weary, the disenfranchised and the outcast. He took up the cause of those too beaten-down to stand for themselves. He believes in you more than you do and He wants a better life for you than you even want for yourself. Jesus is not only on your side, but He’s the one who wins in the end, which means that when it’s all said and done, His side is the only side that really matters.