Christmas Day

"For unto us a Child is born.
Unto us a Son is Given;
And the government will be upon His shoulder.
And His name will be called
Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of His Government and peace
There will be no end,
Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom,
To order it and establish it with judgment and justice
From that time forward, even forever.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this."
Isaiah 9:6-7

Today is Christmas, the day we celebrate as the day in which the Child of promise was born unto us in glorious fashion. I have no words to describe this event's significance or its meaning. We are completely indebted to this one night for the salvation of our souls, the restored relationship with the Creator. These verses came up during the Christmas Eve service I went to last night, and all I can do is meditate on them. And as I stated before, as I meditate, no words come, only the awe of the majesty and the glory and the beauty of my Savior. Let these words and the life of our Lord Jesus Christ bring to you a sense of awe today and through the rest of this time that we get to spend with friends and family. Don't let this season pass out of memory without you being struck by just the true magnificence of Jesus, about His life, and even about His sacrifice and death.

Jesus, I thank you so much for your birth, for the inconceivable idea that the Creator God of the universe would enter into the womb for nine months and would be born in a stable, with lowly parents, as an infant Child, completely dependent on Mary and Joseph to provide for you. Lord, please strike me with a profound sense of awe at your sacrifice, at your life, and of who you are. I don't care to be able to write rapturous descriptions of you, I don't need more verses and more descriptions of you, I want to be struck by the deep revelation of who you are, because you are beyond words, you are beyond any descriptions possible, and you are simply beyond what I can comprehend. This Christmas, let me simply be stunned to silence and reverence by a glimpse into who you truly are. Thank you Jesus, and in your precious and glorious name I pray, amen.

Brokenness

This topic of brokenness has been the theme of my walk with the Lord probably over the last semester, but especially over the last few days since classes ended here at the University of Wyoming. Specifically I've been reading through Jeremiah and a book by Bob Sorge entitled The Fire of Delayed Answers. In fact, there is a quote from that book which I would like to share as I start this topic: "Jesus isn't looking for people who have such a deposit of strength in their hears that they can follow Him; He's looking for people who are so weak that they recognize they cannot take the next step without the immediate help of the Holy Spirit."

For those of you who don't know, this has been a great semester, but it has also been a very rough semester for me. I have been so struck so much by the sheer volume of what God is doing on this campus, and the areas in which He wants to restore to His glory. It is simply amazing to see where God is at work and what He is doing. In this, however, I have also been hit with the mass of sin and bondage that has enveloped this campus and my complete inadequacy of being able to do anything about it. Over this last semester I have felt trapped by my own situation, my finances, my own struggles with sin, and I want to cry out for those around me but I feel restrained from doing so because of my own shortcomings. I have felt weak, powerless, and as though I am failing this community and failing the calling to which God has placed on my life. I feel like I'm barely floating along financially, which has placed doubts in my mind of whether I really heard God when He told me to come here and do this internship. And with student loan payments starting up now, those doubts and fears have only increased. Was I really supposed to go to PLU, a private school in Washington, to finish my education or should I have finished at MSU in Bozeman, where I practically had a full-ride? Should I really be working in campus ministry in Laramie, Wyoming, or should I really be looking for full-time job so I can pay off my loans quicker and easier, with less stress? Have I just completely misread everything that I thought God was leading me to do? Should I be closer to Laurel so that I can be more of a helping hand in the healing process of my father? Have I, by following this unknown path that I think was laid out by the Lord, sent myself into a place where I will not be able to find a wife and will suffer loneliness for the rest of my life? These are the doubts and questions that cloud my judgment and darken my thoughts just about everyday, and many times through the night. And of course, with all this confusion and doubt running through my mind, the question becomes: if all this is causing so much anxiety and stress, can it really be God's plan for my life? There must be something wrong with what I am doing because in God there is supposed to be joy and peace, not strife and worry.

Now, I'm not saying that my life is terrible, that everything is bad, that every thought I have is doom and gloom. There are days when I hardly think of these things at all. God has blessed me with provision every step of the way, I have yet to go a month where I couldn't eat or where I couldn't pay rent. God has blessed me with relationships with friends and family that have sustained me through this time and I am so thankful for every single one of them. It isn't that I am unable to see any blessings from the Lord, but these blessings don't answer the questions that darken my thoughts. God does not promise a mere "getting by" type of existence, He promises life ABUNDANT (John 10:10). I have come here with nothing but a faith that He will make it work, that He will move, and that I will be able to have all that He has promised, and this isn't the life He has provided. I thought the financial support would come in and that I would be able to confidently walk knowing that His hand is upon my life. I thought I would walk onto campus, and doors of opportunity would fly open, that students would be passionate about giving their lives to God, that there would be amazing, big, unmistakable demonstrations of God's power to Christians and non-Christians alike, and that I would get to be a part of it all because I was obedient to come to Laramie.

As you can probably see from those last few statements, there is pride that needs to be addressed. I say "is" because although much of it has been addressed already, I feel like there is probably more on the way. The problem I continue to run into time after time after time is that I'm worried about me. "God, bless ME, use Me, glorify Me. What about ME?" I keep wanting God to tell me what He wants me to do, give me the strength to do it, and then let me alone so I can go do it and glory in what I've done. I'm excited, I'm on fire, and I'm ready to do whatever God wants to be done, and now God is preparing me to actually be used for His purposes. I have natural leadership capacities and a natural ability to read and understand His word. I have "gifts" that I feel qualify me for some sort of position or task. I have a sense of entitlement and pride because I have natural abilities, because I have some strength. But natural strength isn't good enough for the supernatural purposes of God. For the last several years I have felt restrained and held back from fully doing what God wants me to do, and that has lead to a cry in my heart and in my prayers for a release and an annointing for the purposes of God, and He is now answering that prayer.

"Jesus isn't looking for people who have such a deposit of strength in their hears that they can follow Him; He's looking for people who are so weak that they recognize they cannot take the next step without the immediate help of the Holy Spirit." As I read that this morning my heart could immediately connect with what the Lord is doing in my life. I have been focused so much on getting the Lord to do something through me that I wasn't looking for what He was doing in me. God is breaking me, breaking my strength, and bringing me to a place where I will fully rely and trust Him. As I read through Jeremiah, as I look back to Job, and as I see in the life of Joseph and Moses and Paul and Peter, I see how Jesus took them, emptied them of themselves and shined His life through them to bring the glory back to Himself. These were not the "spiritual giants" that we generally make them out to be, they were normal men whose lives were broken and then utilized through the providence of the Father. Jesus is breaking me, He's showing me how weak I really am and He's destroying any reason I have for pride and entitlement. No amount of knowledge, of bible memorization, or talk will accomplish this in my life. The only way for me to fully trust and rely on Him is for Him to take me through the "valley of the shadow of death" and to teach me to hear and listen to His voice. It'll teach me to cling to His words as the only source of life, and to come out the other side in love with Him and able to accomplish His purposes.

I'm just going to end this with a passage. I feel as though I could go on longer but this is probably a good place to stop. This passage, written by Jeremiah in Lamentations, has been important in my life before, but it is taking on new relevance now. "The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth. Let him sit alone and keep silent, because God has laid it on him; let him put his mouth in the dust-there may yet be hope" (Lamentations 3:25-29). I don't know how long this season of brokenness will last, I don't know how long the process will take, all I know is that I'm committed now. I've made my choice, I'm not turning back, I will continue to walk in obedience to what the Lord has called me, through the doubts, through the questions, through the pain and strife, and I will set myself on Him as my only redeemer, my only Savior, and I will refuse to go after a "plan B." In light of everything that I have been taught and that I have read for myself in the bible, this is the only course that makes sense. Only through sitting alone, keeping silent, bearing the yoke and putting my mouth in the dust will the hope of the Lord shine through and keep me on His glorious path. Jesus, open my eyes to Your majesty, empty me of myself that you may be glorified and made known in this world. Amen.

Unity in the Body

“I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me" (John 17:20-21).

Have you ever considered that when Jesus was in His final moments on the earth, giving His disciples the last lesson that He had for them, that He ends this lesson with a prayer that we, as a body of believers, would be one just like He and the Father are one? He didn't pray for comfort, He didn't pray for protection, He didn't even pray that they would all be perfect and that they would be able to follow the law through grace, He prayed for unity. When Jesus was with His disciples for the last time before His death, when He looked out over them and prayed for them, His prayer was that they would be one, and that one-ness would prove to the world that the Father had sent Him.

Throughout the Gospels, as we read the words of Jesus, kind of a startling pattern begins to emerge. Most of what Jesus talks about is the kingdom of God, which is startling because of the fact that personally I've only heard maybe two total teachings on this topic and I have been involved with church and ministry my entire life. The kingdom of God is the major focus of His ministry, and it forms the majority of what He preached on while He was here (Matt 6:33, 12:28, 21:43; Mark 1:14, 4:11, 9:1; Luke 4:43, 8:1, 11:20; John 3:3; as a sample). So this begs the question, why is it that when He entered into that final moment of ministering and praying for His disciples before His death, why did He end with praying for all of His disciples and those who would come to believe in Him through their word to become unified? The only answer I can come to is that this is a part of what it means to be in the kingdom of God.

There are many questions that I want to ask in regards to this: why isn't the kingdom of God preached on, what else does the kingdom of God refer to, what does it mean when Jesus says the kingdom of God is at hand? These are all valid questions, but they are not what I am looking at here. I am at the moment concerned with this question of unity. What does unity look like in the kingdom of God? If we want to enter into the kingdom of God now as Jesus invites us to do (Mark 1:15), how does unity play a role? The answer is profound in it's simplicity, as Jesus states it in the quoted passage above: "that they may also be one in Us." This is the key to the whole question of unity, because without it we will never succeed. To be unified, we must be unified in purpose, and the only One could unify the purposes of that many people is God Himself. As with so many of the things of God, the only thing that will make unity work is unification with Him and His Spirit. We don't have the capacity for the one-ness that our Lord is describing here apart from surrender to the Holy Spirit in all areas of our lives. If there is not that complete surrender, then there remains within us our own purposes, purposes that are centered on our own lives and plans and glory instead of the all-encompassing, all-satisfying Creator of the universe.

Now, before confusion enters into the equation, as Satan always makes sure it does, I want to mention a few things that I'm NOT saying unity means. Unity does not mean that all Christians are supposed to be a part of the same church (i.e. unity does not mean there should only be one denomination or campus ministry group). This is not necessarily a bad idea, and I believe wholeheartedly that when Christ returns all Christians will fall under one banner headed by Jesus Himself. However, unification of doctrine is not tantamount to unification of the Bride of Christ. I think that along with this, mentioning that we as Christians don't all need to be going after the same causes and activities goes without saying. As Paul says in 1 Cor 12, "the body is not one member, but many (vs 14)." I'm sure this has been said before, but every member of the body has a different responsibility, and just because the responsibilities are different doesn't mean any are useless or lesser, and it certainly doesn't mean that for your own physical body parts to be unified that all parts must take on the function of one ("if the whole body were an eye..." vs 17). Paul finally comes to the crux of this point by asking the question (vs 19) "And if they were all one member, where would the body be?" Without the different parts, different tasks, and different responsibilities, there would be no body. This is why the prerequisite for unity is not doctrinal correctness, but obedience. When we all come to a point of complete obedience to the Spirit of God acting in our lives, unity becomes a moot point. Once we stop comparing what we're doing with what someone else is doing, and instead focus on what God is doing and how He has asked us to be a part of it, unity will simply be the normal state of Christian and human behavior. So when I refer to unity, I am not talking about being doctrinally correct, about being a member of the right church, or about doing things the same way as someone else, I am referring to all of God's people being in obedience to His will and living as a member of the community God has called us into: the kingdom of God.

So where do we start? Do we ignore everyone else and try to "get ourselves right with God" before even attempting this unity thing? I can't imagine this is what Jesus had in mind. Our personal relationship with God is crucial for us to be able to enter into the same unity with each other as it exists between the Father and His Son; this is an absolute fact. However, as we grow in our relationship with God we will be able to grow in our relationships with other people. One of the greatest things we can do together is worship. In Psalm 34:3, David invites us to "magnify the Lord" with him and "exalt His name together." In addition, Paul instructs us in Romans 12:10 to show our unity by being "kindly affectionate with one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another." Serving one another and worshiping together is how our attitudes will change from self-serving idolaters to the pure and spotless bride of Christ.

So how will you respond. Will you forsake your plans and purposes for the perfect will of the Father whose thoughts towards you are "thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope (Jer 29:11)"? Will you commit yourself to fulfilling the prayer of the One who has sanctified your soul? A doctrine that stands for artificial peace instead of true unity is not Christian and can no longer be tolerated by those who claim the name of Christ. Jesus tells us that when we come to Him to place our lives before Him on the alter of obedience, we cannot be obedient unless we first reconcile with our brethren (Matt 5:23-24). Jesus also says in the Sermon on the Mount that "if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses (Matt 6:15)." God is not looking for a church and a bride who has the appearance of peace, but He is looking for a body of believers who are willing to go through the nitty-gritty problems of life and conflict so that they may be able to come out on the other side the pure, spotless, and perfect bride of Christ. As with anything worth having, there is a cost: yourself. Are you willing to count the cost and enter into the fullness of God? Are you willing to set your heart on the throne of the Almighty and allow Him to shape you and to form you and your relationships into the unity that He so desperately desires? I challenge you to engage God on this issue and wrestle through it for yourself, that you may know ultimately what God has in store and that you would not run from the correction that may come but that you would embrace it and persevere through it as God uses it to prepare you for the great and mighty things that He has planned for your life. Don't let this moment slip away, but allow the transformation to bring you that "good, acceptable and perfect will of God (Rom 12:2)." And in all things remember that it is God who gives you the strength, God who gives you the desire, and God who deserves all the glory.

I'll end with this passage from Jeremiah, as it struck me this morning with a conviction to release all that I think I have to God: Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom. Let not the mighty man glory in his might. Nor let the rich man glory in his riches. But let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight, says the Lord (9:23-24)." Let us glory in the Lord, and set our heart on what He has set His upon.