O Holy Night

“All of this occurred to fulfill the Lord’s message through his prophet:“Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means ‘God is with us.” — Matthew 1:22-23

You’ll hear “O Holy Night” sung in practically every style, from gospel to choral, to country, to pop. But no matter what genre, it is hard to sing. It’s a solo, for one thing, with tempos and soaring sustained notes not meant for unskilled singers. Back in the old days, there were a number of audible sighs when O Holy Night was being sung. But it is a beautiful song about a holy night that changed history.

Jesus came to earth as a baby, born of a woman, to change the world. At no time of the year are we more reminded of just how much He has changed the world than at Christmas. In Philippians 2:6-8, Paul tells us of the glory of Christmas. “Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to.Instead, he gave up his divine privileges he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.” Paul is reminding us why the night on which Jesus was born was such a Holy Night. The entire Old Testament, from Genesis to Malachi, points to the birth of Jesus Christ.

The line in the song that stood out to me the most was the line, “the soul felt its worth.” Many people struggle with this idea of worth.  We too readily listen to people tell us “you’re never going to amount to anything.”  Or“You’re not smart”  and we carry those narratives with us. Most people struggle with trying to earn their own righteousness. We are wired for the law. We don’t understand grace. I think the more we can show people that their worth is not the issue, the better they will understand it.   

The message of the gospel is the message that although you are unworthy, He (God) deems you as having unending value and worth. He proved it by living and dying and taking our sin upon Himself and conquering death through the resurrection.  You cannot read the Christmas story and not come to the conclusion that in the eyes of God humanity has deep, deep worth and value. Since the resurrection, followers of Jesus have been reminded that for some reason we are of great worth to the King of kings and the Lord of lords.  

We can throw our misgivings and our personal appraisals out the window. They are not relevant. What is relevant is the fact that Jesus took on flesh, lived a perfect life, died on a cross for you and for me. As we celebrate the day of His birth, remember that you are deeply loved by the King of kings.  In His eyes you’re worth it.  Think about that for a second..you are worth it.

Discussion Questions:

  1. How do you balance your worth with Christ dying on the cross for you? 
  2. What is the best way to celebrate the holy night of Christmas?

Adopted Children

“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.” – Galatians 4:4-7 (ESV). 

I don’t think most Christians would identify themselves as sons and daughters of God. Yes, we were created by God, but do we really grasp what it means to be the adopted children of God. Grasping that God has adopted me would change everything. That means we would truly understand that God loves us with unending love. He has chosen me and called me His own. 

Galatians 4:-5 says – “But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children” Verse 7 adds, “Now you are no longer a slave but God’s own child. And since you are his child, God has made you his heir.”

It’s all God. Start to finish, it’s God. It’s Father, Son, Spirit, working together to make us children of God. His beloved. His precious adopted children. All we need is faith and the commitment to be His children.  We need a childlike love and a childlike faith in our Abba, Father.  

The heart of God is that His people would know they are His sons and daughters. He wants us to know who we are to Him – which is to say, He wants us to know who we are to the only One who has the authority to define us: our Creator, our Lord, our King. We are His sons. We are His daughters. If our faith is in Him, this is who we are. Over and above anything and everything else, this is who we are.

In the secular world, adoption was usually for the benefit of the adoptive parents, not for the benefit of the child. For example, a farmer might want help with tilling his land, or a childless couple might want someone to look after them in old age, or an aristocrat might want someone to perpetuate the family name. In the New Testament, the benefits are all the other way. While we may be sure that adoption gives God immense satisfaction, He never adopts in order to meet some need of His own. He adopts us because He loves us. And because He loves us, He showers upon us every spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3) and fills our lives with the melody of joy and victory (Psalm 118:15).

The whole reason for Christmas is this: God wants you to be His child. God wants that kind of relationship with you. He wants you to experience the intimacy, the privileges, that come from being His child.

Discussion Questions:

  1. How does knowing God as your Father impact the way you view your relationship with Him?
  2. How does viewing God as your Father impact the way you approach Him in prayer?

Joy To The World

“For seven days you must celebrate this festival to honor the Lord your God at the place he chooses, for it is he who blesses you with bountiful harvests and gives you success in all your work. This festival will be a time of great joy for all.” – Deuteronomy 16:15. 

Is there any better feeling than the intense feelings of satisfaction and joy? Take a moment and reflect on what causes those moments of satisfaction and joy. Are those moments created internally or do we need external help? Or both? One thing is certain, everyone is looking for joy. Everyone wants it and seeks after it, but can we deliver it? And if not, who can? Reading through scriptures, we see that joy is important.

Real joy comes from God, who sought us, found us, and keeps us. He has poured out His love through the Holy Spirit whom He has given us. Romans 5:5 says, “And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.”  Joy comes from God, not from within. When we look within, we see joy in all the wrong places. We have joy only when we look outside ourselves to Christ. Joy is not something we can conjure up.

The joy offered by God joy is different than the one promised at a local restaurant or amusement park. God is not interested in putting a temporary smile on your face. He has no interest in giving you shallow happiness that melts in the heat of adversity. Rather, He offers you a deep-seated, heart-felt, honest-to-goodness, resilient sense of joy that can weather the storms in our lives. 

Peter referred to this in 1 Peter 1:8-9: “You love him even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him now, you trust him; and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy. The reward for trusting him will be the salvation of your souls.”

Christmas is a time of great joy. It begins by receiving the great gift which brought joy to the heart of the Father in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ.  “…But to all who received him, he gave the right to become children of God. All they needed to do was to trust him to save them”  (John 1:12 TLB) How can I experience the “peace on earth”’ and “joy” during Christmas with so much busyness leading up to the holiday? The answer lies in Jesus Christ alone. Joy in your heart, in your personal life, is part of the gift of Christmas, the gift which difficulty, or pain, or even loneliness should never take from you. Christmas joy is the abiding presence of a living Christ.  In 2020, we need to believe in that joy.

What Jesus said to his followers, He says to you. “I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow!” (John 15:11).

Discussion Questions:

  1. Have you ever felt the peace and joy of the Lord in surprising ways? How? 
  2. Read John 15:9-12. Jesus wants us to have His joy and the fullness of His life. What is His joy? What can we do this week to have that kind of joy? 

Now in Flesh Appearing

 ” He came to his own people, and even they rejected him. But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.” –  John 1:11-13. 

“He came to his own people, and even they rejected him.” That verse has to be one of the most gut wrenching verses in the New Testament.

Jesus, the Messiah, the great I AM, the King of kings, the Alpha and Omega, the Author and Finisher of our faith, Author of life, almighty God in flesh, yet when He came to His very own chosen people, they did not accept Him. Think a minute about what that means for us when we feel alone, deserted, misunderstood, or forgotten. We have a Savior who has experienced being rejected by people He loved. He knows because He has experienced it firsthand. He knows what it’s like to be rejected by those for whom He made major sacrifices. 

God chose the nation of Israel to be His special people – returned to the place that He created and to the people that He chose, but  “…those who should have recognized him, but they did not receive him.rejected Him.” And so “He was despised and rejected— a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care.” (Isaiah 53:3 ) God came to earth as Israel’s Messiah but Israel, His own chosen, covenanted people, did not receive Him. 

We probably wonder while Israel rejected Jesus, given all the evidence and testimony we read about in the Bible. Surely, if nothing else they would believe their eyes or eyewitnesses. Raising people from the dead, donkeys talking, feeding the 5,000, healing the blind and the paralytic, etc. But before we question the ancient Israelites, perhaps we should evaluate how well we see Jesus today. Like the Israelites in the first century if you don’t want to see Jesus you won’t. It takes willingness, initiative, and a “want to” to see Him. Over and over again in the Gospel of John, we read these words: “Come and see.” To the two disciples of John who questioned where Jesus was living, Jesus replied: “Come and you will see” (John 1:39 NIV). Nathanael questioned if anything good could come out of Nazareth, referring to Jesus. Philip said, “Come and see” (John 1:46 NIV). That is exactly what Nathaniel did. Rather than reject Jesus, he came and saw and came to this conclusion: ““Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.” (John 1:49 NIV)

We need to see Jesus for ourselves. We have heard about Him from others; now we are invited to see for ourselves, to experience Him first hand. Today may be the chance of a lifetime to see Jesus. We have the opportunity to not only see Him but to accept Him as our Lord and Savior.  

Discussion Question:

  1. Is it hard to see Jesus today? Why or why not? 
  2. What can we do this Christmas season to see Jesus more clearly? 

Come Let Us Adore Him

“O come, all ye faithful; Joyful and triumphant. O come ye, o come ye to Bethlehem. Come and behold Him. Born the King of Angels! O come, let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Him. Christ the Lord”

We’ve sung the words a thousand times: “O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant…O come let us adore Him.” It is a Christmas tradition like so many others. Every Christmas season comes around, we look forward to putting up a tree, giving and receiving gifts, and participating in other traditions that make this wonderful time of year so special. But sometimes the most significant aspect of the season — remembering and focusing on the coming of Jesus — grows old and familiar. 

We envy the shepherds who actually saw the baby Jesus, and returned with a message of adoration and joy that pierced the midnight air. We can’t join them in Bethlehem, but that doesn’t stop us marveling at God with us, and heeding the invitation to come and adore Him.

Do we adore the risen Savior or do we unintentionally undervalue Him in some way? Have we become so accustomed to His grace and love, His mercy, His forgiveness, that we take the Creator of the universe for granted? It’s like living in a beachfront condo that we stop appreciating the beautiful gulf view after a period of time. Or walking past your brightly-lit Christmas tree because you have been looking at it for over a week. Both were truly amazing initially, but have now become just part of the background. Or you used to stare up to a starry sky and the magnitude of it all took your breath away, but now you don’t look towards the heavens that much anymore.  

Jesus can be that way. He can blend into the background of blessed lives, sparkling holidays, and warm family get-togethers. God can take a back seat. “O come, let us adore Him” should refresh our perspectives and rejuvenate our love and adoration for our Lord and Savior.

We are called to adore Jesus. That’s what Christmas reminds us to do every year. The wise men bowed and worshipped him, brought gifts, and rejoiced when they found Him. We can learn a lot from the three Magi. We need to have a surrendered heart (bowing down) when we come to Him. He is the king of kings. We should approach Him in the same way. We also need to give Him our gift of worship. That is our sacrifice to Him. Finally, we need to have hearts filled with joy. When we surrender our heart and give our worship to Jesus, the result is a heart that is filled with joy. Come let us adore Him on this Christmas day.

This Christmas, tell Jesus how much you adore Him and why. In addition, give yourself time to be alone each day during the season to talk with Jesus directly, giving Him your heart-felt adoration.  If we do really adore Him, we will want to introduce Him to others. Someone invited us to come to Jesus, so let’s invite others to attend our Christmas Eve services. 

Discussion Question:

  1. What have you learned about God’s presence through your setbacks and in the hard places? 
  2. How does the fact that God is always with us impact how you live your life? 

O Come All Ye Faithful

“for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see—such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world.  Everything was created through him and for him.” – Colossians 1:16. 

Christmas is such a complicated time of year, but one of the more amazing features of this time of the year is the music you will hear proclaiming the birth of Christ. There are so many wonderful Christmas songs but “O Come All ye Faithful” is on most people’s favorite list and no wonder, we have been singing this song for as long as we can remember.  But have you ever stopped to consider the words of the first two lines of this iconic song: 

“O come all ye faithful, joyful, & triumphant.”

We try to be faithful, but in spite of our best efforts, there are still times where I wrestle with doubt. I have not always been faithful to God. I haven’t shown that steadfast love and allegiance to Him. There are times when I am not faithful to God’s word. God tells me to forgive someone and I resist forgiving them. That isn’t faithfulness.

Have we always been joyful? Maybe this invitation isn’t designed for 2020. There are days where we experience sadness. Pandemics tend to cause despair and anxiety, not joy. Some of us experienced loss this year so when we hear these carols instead of joy, we are reminded of loss. O come all ye joyful? Am I still invited to come?

O come all ye triumphant. 2020 has not produced a lot of wins. In fact, losing seems more popular than winning this year. Maybe this invitation isn’t for us. We had goals but failed to achieve them; not only did I not get the promotion I was seeking but I lost my job. This was the year I was going to be a better parent. I set my sights on being the epitome of love and patience. But I find myself freaking out over the littlest things. There is no triumph here. 

But then I look at the opening two lines of the song in a slightly different way. Jesus helps us become faithful. Hebrews 12:2 says, “We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith…” Faith starts with Jesus and faith is perfected with Jesus. Jesus helps us become joyful. He brings joy even though we have never seen Him. 1 Peter 1:8 says, “You love him even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him now, you trust him; and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy.” Luke 2:10 says, “but the angel reassured them. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people.” Joy depends on Jesus. O come all ye joyful!  And Jesus helps us become Triumphant. 2 Corinthians 2:14 (KJV) “…thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ,..” Jesus causes us to triumph.

We become faithful because we came to Jesus. We become joyful because we came to Jesus. We triumph because we came to Jesus.

Discussion Questions:

  1. What can we do this week to demonstrate more faith? 
  2. What can we do this week to demonstrate more joy?  

What Does Propitiation Mean?

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” – 1 John 2:1-2

“If anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the father.” The term “advocate” conjures up images of a courtroom. There we are trembling at the defendant’s table, our sins laid bare before the court. Things would look pretty grim if not for our advocate. There is Jesus arguing as my defense attorney before God, the Heavenly Judge. Jesus defends me from every accusation made against me by the persecutor Satan. Through Satan is formidable, every accusation he hurls at me is repelled by the effective intercession of my Savior. 

In verse 2, John explains how Jesus is such an effective advocate. “He is the propitiation for our sins”  Propitiation is not a word we use every day. Or every week. Or month. Or year for that matter. Maybe you’ve never seen it before. Webster’s Dictionary defines it as “the act of appeasing wrath and conciliating the favor of an offended person.” Propitiation is the biblical doctrine embodying the concept that the death of Christ fully satisfied the demands of a righteous God with respect to judgment upon the sinner. The doctrine is not found with great frequency in the New Testament, the word propitiation appearing only three times in the ESV version (Romans 3:25; 1 John 2:2; 4:10 ).   

Scripture makes it clear that God’s holy response to sin is wrath: “But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness.” (Romans 1:18), and the price of sin is death. “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23) The sacrifice of Christ effectively cleanses God’s people from their sins. 

When Jesus suffered and died on the cross, He was substituting His holy, righteous, and sinless Self in our unholy, unrighteous, and sinful place. The spotless Lamb of God was the perfect propitiatory sacrifice to atone for our sins and the sins of everyone who would believe in Him. The good news is that Christ’s advocacy and propitiation is free. The grace of salvation is freely given by our Lord Jesus Christ. “But there is a great difference between Adam’s sin and God’s gracious gift. For the sin of this one man, Adam, brought death to many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of forgiveness to many through this other man, Jesus Christ. And the result of God’s gracious gift is very different from the result of that one man’s sin. For Adam’s sin led to condemnation, but God’s free gift leads to our being made right with God, even though we are guilty of many sins. 17 For the sin of this one man, Adam, caused death to rule over many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of righteousness, for all who receive it will live in triumph over sin and death through this one man, Jesus Christ.” (Romans 5:15-17)   

Jesus isn’t claiming that I am innocent, and therefore deserving of salvation. He acknowledges that I’m a sinner, but He has taken my place, paid my debts and satisfied the legal demands of God’s law on my behalf.

Discussion Questions:

  1. Propitiation is a theological term that describes how Jesus absorbed the wrath of our sin through His payment on the cross. For those who are in Christ Jesus, God sees us as righteous and justified (right standing before God). Is the idea that God sees you as righteous and justified through Jesus a spiritual concept that is easier for you to accept or is it more difficult for you to process? Explain why.

God With Us In Technological Terms

For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved.” – Romans 10:10. 

You can’t escape technology.

It’s a part of your everyday life. Not in a scary sense like being watched by Big Brother from George Orwell’s classic book 1984. But in the sense that technology plays an essential role in your daily life. The microprocessor would change all our lives — bring computers into our homes and then eventually bring smartphones into our pockets. From the time you wake up to the moment you hit the bed at night, you will live beneath the umbrella of technology. From the lights in your house, the smartphone in your pocket, to the computer on your desk, you benefit from technology. The bottom line is computers bring tremendous blessings to our lives,

The Christian can easily look at God as a kind of supercomputer that exists and inhabits a certain place with the necessary software. As a result, the individual needs to go to a certain place to access Him. The same as we tend to use maybe 10 percent of the capabilities of software packages like Microsoft Word, we don’t expend too much energy getting to know God on a very personal level and as a result, God inhabits a portion of day-to-day lives. God is with us and wants to communicate with us directly. He desires to speak into our hearts; encouraging us, shaping us, convicting us, inspiring us. God is not a simple tool like a computer to be occasionally used.

Imagine your heart is the computer of your life. When you accepted Jesus as your Savior, you automatically downloaded the most powerful, most sophisticated, and most advanced operating system in the universe. You now have access to everything you need to live a joy-filled and abundant life. You now have access to unlimited knowledge and mysteries, to information and resources far beyond what you knew before the new operating system was installed. Using this operating system allows you to find counsel, be encouraged and comforted and the best part, find real solutions to every problem you face.    

But then 2020 came along. The pandemic as well as other things are like a computer virus, attacking your operating system. As hard as you tried not to let it happen, some malware can be downloaded into your system.  The malware or virus wreaks havoc with the internal operating system: suddenly, your ability to connect to God, to search, to hear, to explore spiritual matters is infected and not working as it once did. You have to shut down the parts infected with the virus, operating at a much lower level. Your heart capacity is diminished and gets full very quickly.  You can’t download new things.  

The good news is God is with us. No virus can overtake the heart if you don’t want it to.  And even though you haven’t been able to access certain parts of your heart, nothing has been lost.  It’s all still there.  And all of it can be restored. God always has a plan to heal and restore. You can always go to God for support because He is always with us.

Discussion Questions:

  1. How do you keep “viruses and malware” out of the heart? 
  2. What can we do this week to be better connected to God? 

I Am With You Always

“…And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” – Matthew 28:20. 

In Matthew 28, Jesus is commissioning His disciples to go out into the world and spread the good news.  At this point, Jesus’ disciples had been with Him for 3 years. They had been learning from Him, watching, and doing as He did. They never did ministry without Jesus or without being able to go back to Him after being sent out. For the first time, they were commissioned to go to new nations to spread the Good News by themselves. Or were they? Jesus is quick to tell them that He will always be with them, even to the end of time.

Think about this for a second, specifically the impact that confidence must have had on the humble men that Jesus had dispatched to reach the world. These were not influential or powerful men. They had no financial or business or strategy acumen to use as a foundation for their task. But they had seen Christ die on a cross and rise from the dead three days later. They had seen Jesus perform miracles pre- and post-resurrection, but in spite of all that the task the Lord had given them must have seemed impossible for a small group of people. But here’s the bottom line: no sooner was this command to go into all the world and preach the Gospel given to them, than the assurance followed it that “I am with you always.” In other words, you are not going alone. Yes, I am sending you on an intimidating task, but never forget that the greatest presence in the world, is going with you, the presence of God.  

When Moses was about to undertake the job of convincing Pharaoh to release the Israelites, God said “I will be with you’. (Exodus 3:12) When Joshua was afraid to carry on the work of Moses, and cross the Jordan into the promised land, we read in Joshua 1:5: “…For I will be with you as I was with Moses. I will not fail you or abandon you.”  Fast forward to the New Testament: An angel makes an announcement to Mary: ‘Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means ‘God is with us.’”  (Matthew 1:23) 

We need the presence of Jesus. We grow stronger in faith and in our actions when we are in the presence of Jesus.  In times of loneliness, His always presence will give us company and confidence. In times of weakness, His always presence will give you that strength to get through. In times of suffering, His always presence will give you peace of mind.  

That’s why the Psalmist could say in Psalm 46:7, “…The LORD of hosts is with us.” Isaiah 43:2 adds, “When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you.” 

There is nothing better than the presence of Jesus. Nothing. The question is how much do we experience it? How much of a difference it would make in our lives if, with confident faith we believe that God will be with us always, even to the end of the age?   

Discussion Question:

  1. What have you learned about God’s presence through your setbacks and in the hard places? 
  2. How does the fact that God is always with us impact how you live your life? 

God Is Always With Us

 “If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I go down to the grave, you are there. If I ride the wings of the morning, if I dwell by the farthest oceans, even there your hand will guide me, and your strength will support me.” –  Psalm 139:8-10. 

When I awaken in the morning, God is with me. When I kneel to worship Him, He is with me. When I am driving on I-10 He is with me en route and when I reach my destination. He is with me as I turn out the lights at night no matter where I am. The bottom line is we cannot go anywhere that God is not with us.

NASA’s Apollo 13 experienced an explosion that not only threatened the mission but the lives of the three astronauts on board. NASA scientists were unsure whether the space capsule would have enough engine power and cabin oxygen to return the three astronauts to Earth alive. The most anxious time of the mission was when their space capsule orbited behind the moon and out of radio contact with Mission Control in Houston. All over our country, Americans prayed for the safety of the astronauts. The three astronauts returned to earth safely. The reality is that God is no less present behind the shadow of the moon than right beside you right now. He hears the prayers of the Apollo 13 astronauts just as clearly as He hears your prayers in Panama City. 

How comforting it is to know that Jesus is always with us.  He is with us on the mountain top and in the valley. He is with us when we are in crisis and when everything is good.  He is with us when we have doubt and fear. The good news is that we can live with confidence knowing that Jesus is always with us. There is no time limit, no bad deed, and no obstacle that could turn Jesus away from us. Whether we’re facing unemployment, or a sour relationship, health issues, God is still with us. He is there to give us the strength, wisdom, and peace we need to keep moving forward. We will never be alone, Jesus is always here, helping us, guiding us, pouring His love, and mercy into us. Even time wouldn’t get in the way of God being with me. If time itself couldn’t get in the way, nothing can.

God is always with us whether we are taking giant steps of faith or we are taking the first baby steps of faith. He lives inside of every person who puts their trust in God through faith in Jesus Christ. 

Discussion Question:

  1. What have you learned about God’s presence through your setbacks and in the hard places? 
  2. How does the fact that God is always with us impact how you live your life?