Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! May we ever be aware of the blessings continually coming from our precious Heavenly Father, and never fail to give Him thanks.
The Lord has done
GREAT
things for us, and we
are filled with
JOY!
Ps 126:3
Category: treasure
The Best Things in Life Are Free
Hello Friends,
I’m unable to type much right now, so I thought I’d re-post this from December 2013. I pray the Lord blesses each of you with the continual gift of knowing and walking in His love and the fruitfulness of sharing Jesus through the spiritual gifts given especially to you.
***
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matthew 6:19-21
They say the best things in life are free. Yet every year the day after Thanksgiving (well, now you barely have time to eat your last bite of pumpkin pie) the stores open and people rush the gates like race horses at the Kentucky Derby. Even now there are people everywhere still scrambling to find that last perfect present or two.
I wonder if we really do believe the best things in life are free. All the frenzied waving of credit cards is really just a distraction, a way to make Christmas mean something when we fail to make it about Christ. And it’s hard to do that when He hasn’t been Lord the other 364 days a year.
Thanksgiving Day I was in the kitchen, as I am every Thanksgiving, going about the cooking I’ve now gotten down to a science, when I stole a moment to take a peek through our kitchen window which faces the front of our house. The streets were lined with cars that had brought family and friends to spend Thanksgiving with so many neighbors. It made me feel just a little bit lonely.
I love my family, my husband and our two sons whom we’re still blessed to have at home, but we have no extended family we’re able to spend the holidays with.
I didn’t have much of a family life growing up, so it was always my dream to have huge family gatherings at the holidays, the house full of laughing, eating, cooking, and a dozen different conversations going on a once, catching each other up on our lives, our victories and our defeats, encouraging and loving each other, so that when the day was done we’d be as full in our hearts as we were in our bellies.
A long time ago, though, I accepted the house would be a little less full and a little more quiet. That it would be just the four of us, and I’m happy with that. Still, I couldn’t help but peer out the window a time or two (maybe three) more and caught a glimpse of all those cars in front of so many other houses.
Instead I’ve filled the holidays with one of the few talents I did have: mad baking skills. I started baking when my kids were tiny and we didn’t have enough money for store-bought birthday cakes. I started collecting cookbooks and practicing the art of cake making, frosting, and decorating. I bought all kinds of frosting tips and every food coloring in the rainbow. I practiced my royal icing roses. My mouth full of sweet teeth had me quickly expanding to almost any kind of cookie, pastry and dessert you can think of.
And when the holidays rolled around I’d have a field day. I’d stock up on flour and sugar and butter and chocolate and peppermint candies. I’d pore through my hundreds of recipes of Christmas cookies and delectable desserts and wonder which to bake first. Wedding cookies or Chocolate Peppermint Pretzels? And there are always cream cheese frostinged cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning.
But now I have health issues that make it almost impossible to enjoy eating sugar or any kind of carbohydrate. Oh I can eat it, I just have to be willing to face the consequences when I do. My family is trying to eat healthier, too. So every year I’ve baked less and less, and this year I haven’t done any. Yet we are inundated with messages that for Christmas to be Christmas we should indulge in one sugar-laced treat after another. But since I can’t it’s just one more thing that can make me feel like I’m somehow outside the party peering in.
There are other things, too, that getting older make celebrating Christmas the way I’d like very difficult or impossible.
Sometimes, when we’ve been stripped away of so much that the world says we must have and do to be happy, God is able to show us what’s most important. To see what the best things in life really are.
No matter what gifts I’ve been given, the best by far will always be my salvation. Ultimately, of course, I am forever indebted to Christ for dying for me, and to the Holy Spirit for pursuing me, opening my eyes, and revealing to me my need for a Savior. Regardless of what I am not able to have in this life, eternity will be filled with family and feasting. Relationships will be restored and my body will be perfect. This life is only temporary. Eternity’s forever. And I’m looking forward to it!
I would not have that hope if it weren’t for the willingness of some to offer prayers and the honest teaching of God’s Word. Those were gifts to me, gifts I could never afford. Gifts that are free.
And now I, and many of you, are in the position to be able to offer those gifts to others. No credit card needed. Some may not open their gift of salvation right away, perhaps for years. But even seeds are gifts. Water is a gift.
So maybe it’s time to slow down and allow those things the world says we must have in order to have Christmas be stripped away. Maybe it’s time to give a gift that would last for eternity. Maybe you’re a seed-bearer, or a waterer. Maybe you’re a harvester.
Wherever God would have you be in the process, give a gift of your gifts. Your spiritual gifts have been given to you to not only encourage fellow believers, but to bring truth to unbelievers. There is no better gift than the truth that leads to salvation.
One phrase that I hear over and over every Christmas season that’s become a pet peeve of mine, is when someone uses the word Christmas in place of the word gifts. “She won’t be able to give her kids Christmas.” “They won’t have a Christmas.”
Even the Grinch came to understand Christmas when he’d stripped the Whos of all he thought would make them happy, yet their joy on Christmas morning was undeterred and unrestrained.
“That’s a noise,” grinned the Grinch, “That I simply MUST hear!”
So he paused. And the Grinch put his hand to his ear.
And he did hear a sound rising over the snow.
It started in low. Then it started to grow.
But the sound wasn’t sad! Why, this sound sounded merry!
It couldn’t be so! But it WAS merry! VERY!
He stared down at Whoville! The Grinch popped his eyes!
Then he shook! What he saw was a shocking surprise!
Every Who down in Whoville, the tall and the small,
Was singing! Without any presents at all!
He HADN’T stopped Christmas from coming! IT CAME!
Somehow or other, it came just the same!
And the Grinch, with his grinch-feet ice-cold in the snow,
Stood puzzling and puzzling: “How could it be so?”
“It came with out ribbons! It came without tags!”
“It came without packages, boxes or bags!”
And he puzzled three hours, till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before!
“Maybe Christmas,” he thought, “doesn’t come from a store.”
“Maybe Christmas…perhaps…means a little bit more!”
A little bit more indeed. A lot more. It means the birth of our precious Savior who came to give us the best gift of all.
So if you’re struggling this year, I hope you’ll take heart,
And know that the life we live here is only the start!
Christ was born in a stable for you and for me
And He died to give us eternity.
So wherever you are, whatever you do
Remember that Jesus, yes Jesus loves you!
He gave you salvation and that’s the key
To knowing the best thing in life is free.
So remember that Christmas doesn’t come from a mart
It comes when we let JESUS fill up our heart!
So store up for yourselves treasures in heaven
Give the gift of telling others how they can be forgiven!
Merry Christmas and God bless you!
The Way Out is To Stay In
“For the Word of God is alive and active… Hebrews 4:12a
The author of the letter to the Hebrews implores its readers to not drift away from Christ, from His message, from their belief in Him as their Messiah, the final authority, and the only way to be saved.
Many of us, if not all of us, will at some point come to a trial that will cause a crisis of faith. A turning point. A time when the pressure will be almost intolerable and we will either press in to Him all the more, or we will look for a way out, and turn away from Him.
God’s Word clearly states that those who have been truly converted are sealed with the Holy Spirit, and I believe God will keep those believers in the faith through trials.
And those who completely turn away, who choose unbelief and never come back to faith are the ones who never had a belief in Christ that resulted in conversion.
But there is a third group, and those are the ones who have believed, who have been converted, but at that turning point choose to allow their hearts to be hardened and walk away, or step back to one degree or another, for a time.
I think any of us can find ourselves in that category if we’re not careful.
The author of Hebrews exhorts them to keep believing.
“See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that runs away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called ‘Today,’ so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.” Hebrews 3:12-13
Life can get pretty hard. And we can become disillusioned when we think God shouldn’t have allowed something so intensely painful, or that He should have rescued us in a certain way, or in a certain amount of time.
Right now we’re all facing a trial together. Many are out of work, many are sick, and many have lost loved ones.
We can choose to be angry and walk away from God, or we can choose to take our pain and our trials to the One who sits on the throne, who’s always sat on the throne, and who will always sit on the throne. The One who’s also taken up residence inside our hearts, and can heal our hearts and bring us through the trials.
For that reason, God’s given us His word which is “alive and active…”
Spending time in God’s Word is not like reading just any other book.
It is “God-breathed…“
If we allow it, through His Word God will teach us, rebuke us, correct us, change us, encourage us, reveal to us, cleanse us, fill us with His peace and joy, and draw us closer to Him so that instead of drifting away when a trial comes, our faith will grow stronger than ever before.
The way out of trials, is to stay in. Walking away from God does nothing but cause more heartache and pain. Stay in the trial, stay in the faith, stay in God’s Word, and let Him bring you out, or through, His way, in His timing, shining with faith.
Did you know it takes 725,000 pounds per square inch of 
pressure to turn carbon into a diamond? That’s a lot of pressure. But when they come through the process, they are one of the purest, most precious and most beautiful items there is, and because of that, they’ve become symbols of love.
God allows what He hates to accomplish what He loves. Those trials full of pressure will purify our faith if we let them, if we seek Him and His heart-changing Word through them, if we allow Him to have His way in us. And when we come through it all, we will shine for eternity as treasures of God’s great and precious love.
Treasure Hunting
This time of year we start seeing and hearing scripture about the birth of Jesus, and if we’ve been a believer long enough, or even alive long enough, they’re probably all words we’ve heard before…
“And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.” Luke 2:7
“Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.” Luke 2:8-12
As beautiful as those words are, as amazing and miraculous as those events were and what they still mean for us today, we might start thinking we’ve heard it all before and there’s nothing new to learn.
But that’s the amazing thing about God’s Word – it is chock full of buried treasure just waiting to be uncovered.
Rabbi Jason Sobel gives us an amazing jewel that I’d never heard before about Jesus’s birth and the significance of being wrapped in swaddling cloths.
The series Rabbi Sobel refers to – The Chosen – is an amazingly well-done show that portrays the life of Jesus and how He radically changed those who encountered Him.
I can relate.
Life is hard and I need God’s treasure, the seen and unseen. The treasure left for me in plain sight and the deeper, buried treasure that can only be found by those who are willing to hunker down and dig deep.
More than ever I want to go treasure hunting in the coming year. I want to continue encountering Jesus in new and precious ways so He can continue molding me into the person only He can make me to be.
I hope you come with me as we seek Him and His treasure together.
Heavenly Father, thank you for the gift of your Son. Please lead us in the coming year as we seek to know you on an ever-deepening level. Change us into the men and women you desire us to be, and may we bring you glory as we follow you. In Jesus’ name, amen.