Each year we’re reminded of the humble circumstances of Jesus’ birth. Born in a stable, laid in a manger. But oh, He was so much more than just another baby born that night or any other night. (And by the way, why do babies love to come in the middle of the night?!)
That very night would begin the proclamation of who this Child really was as angels gathered in a holy chorus of praise glorifying His name, and shepherds ran to see for themselves this baby who was the Savior, the Messiah, the Lord.
And not too long after, the truth of who He was began to spread.
“Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, ‘Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.’” Matthew 2:1-3
“And this was his (John the baptist’s) message: ‘After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
“Then Jesus declared, ‘I am the bread of life…’” John 6:35
“I am the light of the world…” John 8:12
“Jesus said again, ‘I am the door…” John 10:7
“I am the good shepherd…” John 10:11
“I am the resurrection and the life…” John 11:25
“Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.'” John 14:6
“I am the true vine..” John 15:1
“So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” Mark 2:28
“Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” John 8:58
“…He was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. John 5:18b
“Now Jesus stood before the governor. And the governor asked Him, saying, ‘Are You the King of the Jews?’ Jesus said to him, ‘It is as you say.’” Matthew 27:11
At the beginning of His life, wise men called Him the King of the Jews.
And at the end of His life (well, a very temporary end!), Pilate called Him the King of the Jews.
This Christmas season, as we celebrate the birth of Jesus – the Son of God, the Word of God, the Creator, the Healer, the Anointed One, the Prince of Peace, the Beginning and the End…let us also remember that He is the King of Israel.
He sits on His throne in a place we can’t yet see, but He is there nonetheless, reigning over all. And someday soon He will return in full regalia as Judge and King.
May we keep our hope and faith in Him who is not only full of grace and mercy, but is also faithful, righteous, and just. Praise His Name!
I ask myself this question every time I come across these words of Jesus –
“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.” Matthew 5:13
So, how does salt lose its saltiness?
What was Jesus telling us?
We mostly use salt now to make great burgers and to bring out all the good flavors in our food, but in Jesus’ day, salt was very important and used for many things. Besides being used to flavor food, it was also used to preserve food, to heal, and as currency, or trade. (The word salary comes from the Latin word salarium, the root word of which issal.) And it’s essential to our health.
Mountainside by the Sea of Galilee
When Jesus sat on the mountainside teaching by the Sea of Galilee, not far from the salt-filled Dead Sea, the people who were listening had a much fuller, richer understanding of the metaphor “you are the salt of the earth.” And my guess is they would have also understood how salt could lose its saltiness and what a horrifying thought that was.
Salt is made up of a number of chemical compounds, but what it is mostly, what makes it salty, what makes it useful, is sodium chloride, which is very stable and will keep its usefulness for years.
But…
If salt is exposed to water, or diluted, the sodium chloride can be dissolved and removed, and the salt will lose its essence, or saltiness. It still looks like salt, but it’s no longer useful.
We, too, can look the same on the outside, but if we let our faith become weak, we’ll lose our usefulness in the kingdom of God.
So how can we, being the salt of the earth, lose our saltiness?
How can we lose our usefulness?
There are a million ways, but it all comes down to letting our faith become diluted.
Watered down. Weak. Tasteless. Flat.
“But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.” Jude 1:20
Jude writes an impassioned letter to his fellow believers warning them that wolves have always, and will always slip in among the sheep, and will corrupt them and their faith if they’re not careful. The ungodly “pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.” (Jude 1:4)
In this age of television, computers, and smartphones, we no longer need to wait for the godlessness of the world to physically come in among us. The world comes at us constantly, and the more we allow it, the more we become steeped in it, the more we’ll begin to look like it, think like it, and believe like it.
Not only are there people who pervert the gospel itself, sometimes even calling themselves Christians, all around us there is a pervasive attitude of anger, hatred, judgment, unforgiveness, self-righteousness, salaciousness, among others. The apostle Paul warned about this explicitly in his second letter to Timothy.
God’s Word warns us over and over to be careful of allowing any false beliefs, no matter how subtle or how good or even inspirational they may sound, to water down the true gospel, and our faith.
Every day we have to be vigilant and spiritually discerning of what is true and what is not, and
“not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” (Rom. 12:2)
And by doing that we are able to build ourselves up as Jude exhorts us, and
“…make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love.For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins.” (2 Peter 1:5-9)
The same word Jude used for holy faith is used for the Holy Spirit, in whom we are to pray at all times. He enables us to worship God over the world and ourselves, to seek God’s will above our own, to repent of our sins and be cleansed and made holy, set apart for the work of God.
Unless we’re walking in Him we will revert right back to walking in our flesh, to living for the world and for ourselves, and in that state we cannot be useful in spiritual things.
“So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in Him, rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.” (Colossians 2:6-8)
If we ever wonder what God’s will for us is, it must include this: “…to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” James 1:27b
And whatever we do, we cannot allow anyone, especially those who have set themselves up as pastors or other type of spiritual leader, no matter how popular they are, to water down the truth in the Word of God and our faith.
“For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what they itching ears want to hear.” 2 Timothy 4:3-4
Sometimes popularity comes at the expense of the truth that most don’t want to hear. Watering down the truth, appealing to our flesh, is exactly what the enemy will use to weaken our faith and our witness.
So, let’s determine to look and be more like Christ and less like the world, to live our lives worthy of the calling we have in Christ who paid for us with a hefty price.
“So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.
You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God,
you will receive what He has promised. For,
‘In just a little while,
He who is coming will come
and will not delay.’
And,
‘But my righteous one will live by faith.
And I take no pleasure
in the one who shrinks back.’
But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed,
but to those who have faith and are saved.”
Hebrews 10:35-39
Maybe there are things in this life you’ve missed out on. All around you there are constant reminders of those things others enjoy and you don’t, and maybe in this life you most likely won’t.
Relationships are gone or never were.
That opportunity passed by.
You wonder what it would be like to live a day without pain or some other sickness.
You see the world normalizing behaviors you’re tempted to, but you choose not to indulge in.
Oh, you could run after them. You could leave the footsteps of Christ and fill your life with all kinds of things.
But you don’t. You don’t because as much as you desire those things, you desire Christ more.
Still, it’s hard.
I want to tell you what the Lord told me, because as His followers we’re all one in Christ: “Your day is coming.”
He sees the ache in our hearts, the longing for certain blessings, and though in this life we may never see them, our Father will more than make up for it. He sees our faithfulness and our love for Him and on that day we see Him face to face, He will flood us with a reward so powerful, so eternal, so full of Himself that we will instantly forget that we ever missed anything.
All we’ll know is completeness of love and joy. We will never want for anything again, and we will forever know a freedom the world never will.
For now, we remember that if God has chosen not to give us certain blessings now, it is out of an abundance of wisdom and righteousness. So we keep our eyes on Christ, our Redeemer and the Rewarder of our souls. And we walk by faith.
“He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!'”
Revelation 21:5
“Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me,
and I will give to each person according to what they have done.”
Revelation 22:12
For whatever reason, God put on my heart to look up and post the blowing of the shofar. I did a little research to find out some of the reasons it was sounded, and this is what I found:
“beginning on the second day of Rosh Chodesh Elul (and continuing until Erev Rosh Hashanah) the custom is to blow the shofar every day (except on Shabbat).” The Hebrew month of Elul is a time of repentance in preparation for the High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
“It is a wake-up call to sleepers, designed to rouse us from our complacency.”
Do you know what day is the 2nd day of the Hebrew month of Elul?
It began today at sunset.
“Yeshua spoke of the shofar blast from the angels who would ‘gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.'” (Matt. 24:31)
The eclipse took place on Elul 1, the same day that Moses went up on the mountain for 40 days and nights, the same day Jesus went into the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights. The shofar signifies spiritual warfare, and God’s victory.
Listen to the shofar. Can you imagine it?
If you want to read more about it, I found these websites:
http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Holidays/Fall_Holidays/Elul/Shofar/shofar.html and http://www.jewfaq.org/elul.htm
Paul, in his 2nd letter to the church in Corinth (11:1-4):
“I hope you will put up with me in a little foolishness. Yes, please put up with me! I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him.
But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.
For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the Spirit you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.”
From the very beginning of the church the enemy did his level best to deceive God’s chosen. Beware of imitations! False teachings, false gods, false beliefs, false prophets, false miracles and false doctrine are all around.
Do not be fooled.
Know God’s Word so when wolves come in sheep’s clothing you can smell it a mile away. We must be discerning in these last days and refuse to settle for anything less than the pure truth of the Spirit of God that washes us clean and purifies and readies us for the day of our wedding feast with our Bridegroom.
Until then, God has so much in store for us!
Let us put the world behind and be about our Father’s business so that we will have no reason to be ashamed when He comes for us. What a glorious day that will be!
He had performed miracles, taught in the Synagogues, cast out demons, healed the sick, raised the dead, forgave sin. And if that weren’t enough…
He claimed to be King.
“Tell the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your King is coming to you, lowly, and sitting on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.’” Matthew 21:5
He claimed to be the fulfillment of prophecy.
“Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. Matthew 5:17
He claimed to be the long-awaited Messiah.
“The woman said to Him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ). ‘When He comes, He will tell us all things.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I who speak to you am He.’” John 4:25-26
He claimed to be the Son of God.
“He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter answered and said, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.’” Matthew 16:15-17
He claimed to be the Son of Man.
For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” Matthew 12:8
He claimed to be the only way to heaven.
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6
He claimed to be the King of the Jews.
“Now Jesus stood before the governor. And the governor asked Him, saying, ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ Jesus said to him, ‘It is as you say.’” Matthew 27:11
Jesus was all that and so much more. And the Israelites were thrilled, for a while. But they had expectations of their Messiah that were simply not true.
They expected Him to set up an earthly kingdom, to end their suffering, to take over rule and provide for them, to sit on a throne and be their king.
And it’s in those wrong expectations where things went awry.
Things can go awry for us, too, when we conjure up in our minds a god who simply does not exist. When life happens and what we expect this god of our imaginations – the god we’ve set inside our parameters, in our little box – to be and to do for us does not happen. When we want God to conform to our image of Him, and we set up this false god as an idol and worship him, and then tragedy strikes, prayers aren’t answered, what we hear is silence, we can begin to shout “crucify Him!”
Oh, we may not use those words. We may just stop praying, or reading the Bible, or going to church. We may stop trusting, or witnessing, or believing. We may just stop walking with Him.
Throughout the week we’ll see that the disciples did that very thing. Instead of listening and learning and believing the truth, even in the face of overwhelming fear, instead of allowing their expectations of a limitless, righteous, holy God Who can never put in a box to be changed, instead of throwing away their pride, they turned back. They scattered. They hid themselves in the darkness of the world.
“And it happened in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. (This taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be registered, each to his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee to be taxed (out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family line of David). And he took Mary his betrothed wife, being with child.
And while they were there, the days for her deliverance were fulfilled. And she brought forth her son, the First-born, and wrapped Him, and laid Him in a manger– because there was no room for them in the inn.
And in the same country there were shepherds living in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came on them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them. And they were grievously afraid. And the angel said to them, Do not fear. For behold, I give to you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For to you is born today, in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this is a sign to you. You will find the babe wrapped, lying in a manger.
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
And it happened as the angels departed from them into Heaven, the shepherds said to one another, Indeed, let us go to Bethlehem and see this thing which has happened, which the Lord made known to us. And hurrying they came and sought out both Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in the manger.
And seeing, they publicly told about the word spoken to them concerning this Child. And all those who heard marveled about the things spoken to them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these sayings, meditating in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as was spoken to them.”
Luke 2:1-20
From my home to yours, I wish you a very Merry Christmas and pray today and everyday you are reveling in the joy of the Gift that is above all gifts, the gift of a Messiah, a Savior, the only one by whom we can be forgiven for our sins and given the promise of heaven, Jesus Christ. I pray you know Him, and not only that you know about Him from your parents or grandparents, or from going to church, or because you live in the America, but because you’ve repented of your sins before Him, put your trust in Him and received Him as your own personal Lord and Savior. If you have not done that, you can do that today, right now, right where you are. You will never receive a greater gift. And I pray that you are endeavoring to walk with Him so closely that you hear His heartbeat, that you breathe His scent of servitude and compassion, that His light is your light, and that it all flows through your spirit as a witness to the world around you of His great grace and mercy and love and joy and peace….. I could go on and on!
Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn
“‘a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—
a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.
Matthew 10:34-36
Whoa. That is some pretty inflammatory language Jesus is using here. Did not come to bring peace? A sword? Enemies?
What on earth could Jesus be talking about?
First, we need to understand who He’s talking to. Jesus is giving instruction to the twelve disciples as He sends them out, specifically to the Jews, as His witnesses to heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those with skin diseases and drive out demons.
But before they head out, they need to understand His message, and what they’ll be up against. Many, even the disciples, were under the impression that when the Messiah came He would set up His kingdom on earth and reign over all, bringing peace, ending famine and wars.
But Jesus makes it clear that is not His mission. Not yet, anyway.
As they went, they were to proclaim this message: the kingdom of heaven is near. The Messiah has come.
And He came to be the fulfillment of the law.
The law showed us we were sinners, and sin requires a payment of death. Jesus came to die in our place to pay for our sins. He came to make truth known, even as He Himself is truth. But not everyone wants to hear that they’re a sinner. And of those who know they’re a sinner, not everyone wants to be saved from it.
Jesus references the words of the prophet Micah in Micah 7:6. Micah lamented about the terrible times in which he lived when sin was rampant, and there were few who held onto faith and righteousness. And many of those who did found that their sons or daughters or other family members fell into the other camp—the one that reveled in immorality–and that caused strife, to say the least.
Centuries later, the disciples would find that, again, there would be relatively few who would choose faith and righteousness, even among the ancient sons and daughters of God. Few who would choose to align themselves with the truth—Jesus Christ. The disciples themselves would be among the few who stood in a world full of people who would rather deny the Christ and live in their own sinfulness. Even then the disciples were unaware that there was one among them, a friend, a fellow servant, who would choose sin over Christ.
And now, centuries later, the story is the same. Sin is rampant and there are few in this world who acknowledge their sin and put their faith in Christ. And even among those who call themselves Christians, there are fewer still who are willing to submit their whole lives to Him, leave the world behind, take up their crosses daily and live upright lives before their God.
And for those who do, for those who know that truth triumphs over sin and evil and destruction and death, for those who desire to live in that truth, we will, sooner or later, be called on to make a choice.
Someone we love, a close friend, a fellow servant, someone in our own family, someone who doesn’t adhere to the truth, will want to sin and drag us along with them. They won’t understand why we won’t do this or allow that. And a son will be against his father, a daughter against her mother, a fellow servant against another.
And a battle will ensue. This is the metaphoric sword Jesus speaks of.
The battle could get bloody. Sharp words may well be thrown our way. Wounds will be inflicted. Relationships could die. We could feel as though our heart is being ripped clean out of our chest. And all the while we’ll need to keep loving them and praying for them.
Prayer is the real battleground, and whether or not we choose to remain in prayer is where the battle will be won or lost.
Through it all we might have an inkling of the pain Christ suffered on the cross.
Are we willing to risk it all for Him? Is His cause our cause?
It’s at this moment when the foundation of our faith will be revealed. Is it sure? Do we stand on the Rock which does not move, is not shaken and does not compromise? Is our love for Him real?
Or will we falter? Will we choose sin over truth? Now is the time to choose, not when we’re in the heat of battle and the enemy is coming at us full force. Put on the spiritual armor and don’t take it off.
Satan comes to kill, steal and destroy. He will get at us any way he can, even through family members. Especially through family members. He will come and whisper “It’s just a little sin. Just a little compromise won’t hurt. And you love them, right? You don’t want them angry with you.”
If we listen and give in, before we know it we’re far from God, and so is the one we love.
Stand strong.
Love them enough not to compromise. This is not a battle for mere ground or castles or other earthly kingdoms. This is a battle for hearts and eternities.
And love Christ more. He saved us and He wants to save the other person in our lives whose ways are at odds with His, whose heart is far from Him and whose eternity will be a bitter one unless they have a lighthouse to show them the way.
Better than keeping a false, temporary peace, be a light shining the truth of God, so they can find their way to Him and experience real, lasting, eternal peace.
One day you may see a glimmer of hope. You’re gaining ground. Hearts are softening. Christ is winning.
“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” Galatians 6:9
Each year we’re reminded of the humble circumstances of Jesus’ birth. Born in a stable, laid in a manger. But oh, He was so much more than just another baby born that night or any other night. (And by the way, why do babies love to come in the middle of the night?!)
