Christmas comes in the week with the least daylight.
When we celebrate family, friends and Immanuel, God with us, some of us may find ourselves longing to recapture the sense of excitement and awe remembered from childhood. Responsibilities and worries can crowd out wonder and joy, and at the end of the day there may be a mess to clean up as well.
Christmas comes in the week with the least daylight, but there is a light that shines in the darkness.
I received a newsletter yesterday from a young man who was one of the kids when we had a small home church for seven years. He grew up and married a woman who would travel on temporary medical assignments to rural areas around the country. Eric and Renee eventually moved back to town. He bought a business and they had three kids, but their hearts were telling them to go to the mission field.
Their family just finished a year of language study in Costa Rica and will leave the end of this year for Shell, Ecuador where they want to look "for where God is at work and join Him there." The opinion of the world is that it is arrogant to go to another culture to share the love of Christ, but my first thought when reading their newsletter was, "I can't imagine how difficult it would be to humble yourself that way".
The dad of one of my road test clients today works with disturbed and often violent adults at Pine Rest. I asked him how he got into that line of work. Lynn told me that he was a youth pastor for many years. There were a few kids that needed special help and this led him to start things like half way houses and other special services. Eventually he ended up working at Pine Rest. His group of men do a 6 month program and Lynn's rewards come with seeing their eventual progress.
A light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
The account of Jesus birth in Matthew 2 tells us the story of the magi and their gifts. But if we read on we see what follows is the slaughter of the children by the order of Herod. "A voice was heard in Rama, Weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and she refused to be comforted"
Try as he did Herod was not able to extinguish the light. Jesus of course did not remain a baby. In the course of time the Spirit led Him to John to be baptized, and coming out of the water the Spirit descends on Him like a dove and the Father says; "You are my beloved Son, in You I am well pleased". Mark 1:11
Jesus calls the 12 and ministers for about 3 years.
At the end of the 13th and into the 14th chapter of John, Jesus tells His disciples that the time was coming soon when He would be glorified, and this would bring glory as well to the Father. This meant that He would soon be leaving them. Peter, wanting to follow Jesus, asked Him where He was going, and Jesus responds that Peter could not follow where He was going now ( the cross) but later he would be able to follow (Jesus would rise from the grave, ascend into Heaven, and be with the Father). " In my Father's house are many dwelling places . . . I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also".
When we celebrate family, friends and Immanuel, God with us, some of us may find ourselves longing to recapture the sense of excitement and awe remembered from childhood. Responsibilities and worries can crowd out wonder and joy, and at the end of the day there may be a mess to clean up as well.
Christmas comes in the week with the least daylight, but there is a light that shines in the darkness.
I received a newsletter yesterday from a young man who was one of the kids when we had a small home church for seven years. He grew up and married a woman who would travel on temporary medical assignments to rural areas around the country. Eric and Renee eventually moved back to town. He bought a business and they had three kids, but their hearts were telling them to go to the mission field.
Their family just finished a year of language study in Costa Rica and will leave the end of this year for Shell, Ecuador where they want to look "for where God is at work and join Him there." The opinion of the world is that it is arrogant to go to another culture to share the love of Christ, but my first thought when reading their newsletter was, "I can't imagine how difficult it would be to humble yourself that way".
The dad of one of my road test clients today works with disturbed and often violent adults at Pine Rest. I asked him how he got into that line of work. Lynn told me that he was a youth pastor for many years. There were a few kids that needed special help and this led him to start things like half way houses and other special services. Eventually he ended up working at Pine Rest. His group of men do a 6 month program and Lynn's rewards come with seeing their eventual progress.
A light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
The account of Jesus birth in Matthew 2 tells us the story of the magi and their gifts. But if we read on we see what follows is the slaughter of the children by the order of Herod. "A voice was heard in Rama, Weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and she refused to be comforted"
Try as he did Herod was not able to extinguish the light. Jesus of course did not remain a baby. In the course of time the Spirit led Him to John to be baptized, and coming out of the water the Spirit descends on Him like a dove and the Father says; "You are my beloved Son, in You I am well pleased". Mark 1:11
Jesus calls the 12 and ministers for about 3 years.
At the end of the 13th and into the 14th chapter of John, Jesus tells His disciples that the time was coming soon when He would be glorified, and this would bring glory as well to the Father. This meant that He would soon be leaving them. Peter, wanting to follow Jesus, asked Him where He was going, and Jesus responds that Peter could not follow where He was going now ( the cross) but later he would be able to follow (Jesus would rise from the grave, ascend into Heaven, and be with the Father). " In my Father's house are many dwelling places . . . I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also".
Jesus assures His disciples that they will know the way He is going. Thomas then says that if they don't know where He is going then how can they know the way. And Jesus answers; "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through me". Jesus teaches His disciples that they will know the Father by knowing Jesus, because His words are the Father's words and His works are the Father's works. "Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me, otherwise believe on account of the works themselves. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go to the Father".
Now Jesus tells His disciples that the Father will give them another "Helper" who would be with them forever, "that is the Spirit of truth, who the world cannot receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you, and will be in you". A little later Jesus says; "These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you, but the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you".
Earlier in His ministry Jesus sent out seventy of His followers in the power of the Holy Spirit to do the works of the Father - proclaiming the kingdom, healing the sick, and casting out evil spirits. And the Holy Spirit that was imparted upon them enabled them to come back with joy saying that "even the demons are subject to us in Your name." (Luke 10). But now Jesus was telling them that soon this same Holy Spirit would be living in them.
In Acts 1, forty days after the resurrection and just before Jesus ascends to Heaven He commands the disciples not to leave Jerusalem but to wait for what the Father had promised through Him; "John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now . . . you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses". And the Father poured out the Holy Spirit upon the church at Pentecost 10 days later.
All believers have a reborn spirit that is indwelt by the Holy Spirit. But not all experience a great release of the Spirit into their lives. Baptism speaks of an immersion, and the baptism with the Holy Spirit given at Pentecost was an immersion of the Holy Spirit into the soul of man, to empower us to do the works of the Father. The soul (mind, personality, will, desires) usually changes a lot after salvation because of the presence of the Holy Spirit in the spirit. And all born again believers yield to the working of the Spirit that ministers to their soul to one degree or another.
But God also has available to man a
baptism, an in flooding, a surge of the Holy Spirit into the soul that
clears away many of the barriers of doubt, fear and pride that reside
there even after being born again. Surrendering our souls to the mighty
wind and the incoming flood of the Holy Spirit should result in the
"greater works" that Jesus spoke about.
The gift then of the Holy Spirit is not just for our benefit, but also for a world that remains mostly in darkness. Let us unwrap that gift this Christmas season and let it shine.
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