What’s God’s will for my life?

People ask that question all the time. I’ve asked it. You’ve asked it. It’s as common of a question as they get. And it seems that for every person who asks that question, there is another person trying to answer that question for others.

Even when you read Scripture, the answers to the question, “What does God want?” vary from person to person.

Ecclesiastes says this: “Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind” (12:13).

Fear God. Keep his commandments. Done.

But…which commandments? There are, according to most counts, 613 commandments from God found in the Law of Moses. Just fear God and keep his checklist of requirements. You’ll be fine!

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But 613 is a little steep. So let’s boil it down to 10. Keep the Ten Commandments and you’ll do well. In fact, Jesus tells a guy that if he just keep these commandments he’ll be alright. The only thing he would lack would be to sell all his possessions, give the money to the poor, and follow him.

That seems a little extreme. How about narrowing it down a little more. What is the single greatest command? If we had to boil it all down to one thing, what is this life all about? Jesus answers that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with your entire being. And he throws a bonus command in with it – love your neighbor as yourself.

Here’s the paradox. The more commands we are given, the easier it is for us to do. We can feel really good about ourselves if we follow 586 out of 613 commands. Even 9 out of 10 commands isn’t all that bad. But what if we fail at obeying ONE command? What if we have ONE job and we screw it up?

I would rather take a test with 200 multiple choice and/or true and false questions than a 2 question essay test. I could miss 60 questions on the first test and still walk away with a passing grade. But if I mess up on even one of the two questions, I have failed.

That’s why Paul can say in Romans 5, “But where sin increased, grace increased all the more.” The stakes are higher now than they were under the old law. A few sacrifices a year could atone for breaking a few of the 613 commands. But what sacrifice can take care of breaking the one command that really matters? There is more on the line. The failure is more obvious, more blatant. We have less of a safety net when everything hinges on one or two commands – love God and love your neighbor. But as the stakes get higher, the grace becomes that much more powerful.

I think that’s behind the heart of what was written by the prophet Micah so many centuries ago:

With what shall I come before the Lord
and bow down before the exalted God?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousand rivers of olive oil?
Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? (6:6-7)

What kind of sacrifice can cover such catastrophic failure? We’re at a loss of what to do. There are not enough bonus points available to even bump us up to a passing grade.

God simply says, I’ll take care of it. Here’s all I want you to do.

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.

Jesus, the savior of the world, the Son of the living God, takes your test, rips it up, and says, “Follow me.” God will give us Jesus’ test score. We simply need to become like Jesus in the process.

What is God’s will for your life? What does He want from you?

Love God and walk humbly with Him.
Love your neighbor as yourself by acting justly and showing mercy.

That’s it.

Or as Agustine of Hippo put it, “Love God and then do as you will.”

More on this next week.

This Friday is Valentine’s Day. Little is known about Saint Valentine, but there is evidence that he was died in northern Rome on February 14. One thing led to another and now we commemorate his life by buying expensive chocolates and cut flowers.

Valentine’s Day is a day to celebrate love – specifically romantic love. I’m sure there will be countless proposals in fancy restaurants across the globe, and many more children who are able to do the math backwards 9 months from their birth date.

To the world, romantic love is about as good as it gets. Hollywood makes billions by capitalizing on our felt need for love, affection, and romance. Nicholas Sparks and Danielle Steel know exactly the kind of thing their audience longs for. Songs are written in the name of love. Masterpieces are painted and sculpted for love’s sake. Romantic love has inspired plays and poetry, wars and suicide. To the world it would seem that the pursuit of romantic love is the highest calling one can hope to achieve. Once you’ve “put a ring on it,” you have arrived.

But Christians know something the world does not know. Romantic love is but a shadow of true, unconditional love. The Greeks had a word for this kind of love. English does not. In Greek the highest form of love is called agape.

Agape is the love by which God’s very nature is defined. “God is love,” says 1 John 4. In Jesus’ farewell speech before his crucifixion, he gave them one last command, “Agapate (imperative for “love”) one another as I have egapesa (loved) you” (John 15:12). In fact, Jesus makes his expectations crystal clear. The world is supposed to know who Jesus’ disciples are, not by their clothes or their doctrine or their political agenda or their bumper stickers, but by their agape love.

So what does this kind of love look like? Paul helps fill in the blanks a bit in 1 Corinthians 13, AKA “The Love Chapter.”

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. (1 Corinthians 13:4-8)

That’s a look at agape love. It seems very different from the “love stories” produced by Hollywood or shown on prime time TV. We live in a world governed by romantic love. The Greeks also had a word for that, eros. It’s where we get the word “erotic.” But think about this, romantic, eros love as we see it in the world is pretty much the opposite of unconditional, agape love.

Romantic love is impatient, romantic love is unkind. It envies, it boasts, it is proud. It dishonors others, it is self-seeking, it is easily angered, it keeps record of wrongs. Romantic love delights in evil but does not rejoices with the truth. It rarely protects, rarely trusts, rarely hopes, rarely perseveres.
Romantic love often fails.

And we wonder why the divorce rate is so high.

I want you to read through this passage two more times and think how the world would be different if the following were true:

Christians are patient, Christians are kind. They do not envy, they do not boast, they are not proud. They do not dishonor others, they are not self-seeking, they are not easily angered, they keep no record of wrongs. Christians do not delight in evil but rejoice with the truth. They always protect, always trust, always hope, always persevere.
Christian love never fails.

Wouldn’t this be a wonderful world to live in if the above paragraph were true? Unfortunately, the church is made up of imperfect people, and imperfect people love imperfectly. So it might be a bit much to wish for all Christians everywhere to love to this extent.

But what about you. You can’t change what others do. You can’t force anyone else to love. But you can make the change for yourself. You can insert your name into that paragraph and make it your own. So try this with me. Maybe even read it out loud. Copy and paste this paragraph and print it out. Stick it where you will see it on a daily basis.

Learn how to love.

I am patient, I am kind. I do not envy, I do not boast, I am not proud. I do not dishonor others, I am not self-seeking, I am not easily angered, I keep no record of wrongs. I do not delight in evil but rejoice with the truth. I always protect, always trust, always hope, always persevere.
My love never fails.

Love is the most powerful tool Jesus left for his disciples. Let’s become master lovers. Let’s be recognized by nothing other than our love.

I’ve been on a parenting kick recently. Not sure why. Probably has to do with the fact that being a parent of two is much more demanding than being a parent of one. No offense to anyone who is raising a single child! I’ve just found that, for myself, raising two demands much more of my time, efforts, energy, and patience.

So I’ve been trying to focus recently on what it means to be a good father. And as I study, learn, and grow, I am attempting to share my thoughts so that somehow I might help make a difference in the lives of other parents and children.

I’m offering up Five P’s of Parenting that tie in closely with Proverbs 22:6, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Yesterday, I wrote about the first two P’s, Prayer and Presence. Now I’m going to finish up with Passion, Persistence, and Perseverance.

3. PASSION
I think Proverbs 22:6 is one of the most misunderstood and misused of all the collected proverbs. It has been used to build a case for an authoritarian style of parenting in which the children must fully and utterly obey the parent, or else. Some parents have a tendency to view this verse as a “My way or the highway” mentality. It ends up being understood as something like, “Train up a child in the way [you think] he should go…” or, “Train up a child in the way [that you demand] he should go.”

But I really like the way the Amplified Bible translates this verse: “Train up a child in the way he should go [and in keeping with his individual gift or bent], and when he is old he will not depart from it.”

When there are multiple ways of translating and interpreting a certain word or phrase, the Amplified Bible will include those meanings in brackets. Here, the translators want to make it clear that the idea behind the phrase, “in the way he should go,” has more to do with the child’s own God-given gifts, abilities, talents, and interests than those of his parents. In other words, train your child up in keeping with his God-given passions.

This is a lot more difficult to do because it requires that parents actually, like, get to know their kids. You can’t know your kids’ passions if you never spend time with them or let them choose what activities they want to pursue. This requires parents to get over themselves and stop trying to live vicariously though their children. Little Johnny might like chess more than baseball. Susie might like a chemistry set for Christmas instead of a doll house. Your right-brained artist might not want to follow in your footsteps to become an accountant.

And let me be clear – this is more than just giving your children what they want and bowing to their every desire. Training a child in the way he should go sometimes requires laying down the law, unplugging the video games, and making your kids be productive. On the other hand, discerning the way he should go requires you to discover, together with your child, how God has gifted him and training/guiding him to reach his full potential.

You can’t really tell your child what to be passionate about, and your passions may not be her passions. But the one passion you absolutely must share with your children is your passion for God. A child learns to worship from his/her parents. Be passionate about God in your homes and in worship on Sunday. Make involvement in the church a priority. Study the Bible together. Pray together. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs together.

We may not be able to demand that our children go a certain way (lower case), but it is definitely our job as parents to get our kids started in The Way (upper case).

4. PERSISTENCE
Our three year old son is nothing if not persistent. If there is something he wants, he will ask for it and ask for it until the very act of asking gets him in trouble! There are only so many times I can stand to hear a little whiny voice asking, “Can I have a cookie?”


But when it comes to parenting, we must be persistent. Webster defines persistence as, “the quality that allows someone to continue doing something or trying to do something even though it is difficult or opposed by other people.” Those “other people,” in this case, might be the cutest little bundles of joy, the very fruit of your womb. But. Lord, do those tiny rays of sunshine know how to test limits and push boundaries!!!

This can be the most difficult of the Five P’s to stick with. But the simple fact is KIDS NEED STRUCTURE. I’m so sick of this psycho-babble out there that says kids need the freedom to discover their own way. Well, Mr. PhD, I’d rather not have my kid discover his own way right into the kitty litter box or the roof of my house.

This laissez-faire, anything goes style of parenting just simply does not work. It gives parents an excuse, backed by “experts,” to be lazy and inconsistent. Children need boundaries, not only to keep them safe but, more importantly, to give them a sense of trust and security with their parents. Children need to know that their parents are going to keep them protected every single time, no matter what. And if that means we have to punish them again and again for testing the same boundary, so be it. I want my child to know that when I say stop, I mean stop – whether he is about to jump off the couch in our living room or about to run into the Wal-Mart parking lot.

We must be persistent. Children need consistency. They need to know what to expect.

And as our children mature, it’s increasingly important that we parents model persistence in our faith – worshiping, praying, and meeting with the church even in the midst of crisis or hardship. Older kids, especially into their teenage years, can see right through our “Christian” masks. They can spot hypocrisy a mile away. They need parents who will demonstrate faithful discipleship at all costs.

5. PERSEVERANCE
I could have chosen “patience” for my last “P,” but I think many parents are way past patience. Most days, patience seems so far out of reach that I would simply be putting myself and my fellow parents on a guilt trip if I harped on the need for more patience.

What I think parents, myself included, need instead is perseverance. James 1:2-4 says, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

Parents face trial after trial, test after test, day after day. We work long hours with little appreciation. It’s one of the hardest jobs to do right, and it seems like everybody has an opinion about what you’re doing wrong! And many first time parents, quite frankly, are immature. I know I was. But like James reminds us, perseverance in the face of trials produces maturity.

I don’t know what it is that keeps me going, able to get up night after night, morning after morning. There are days where even the best parents just want to stay in bed and not have any responsibility whatsoever. But that’s not possible. We must persevere. We have no other choice.

Parenting is a 24/7 job for 18 (or more) years. It can often be difficult to keep the end result in mind.

Romans 5:3-4 gives us a good reminder: “Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”

And again, Peter lists perseverance among the highest Christian virtues: “For this very reason, 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.” (1 Peter 1:5-8

So don’t give up. Persevere. Be persistent and passionate. Be present. Be prayerful. By doing so, you will “Start your child off on the way they should go, and when they are old they will not depart from it.”

I am a horrible bowler. I’m lucky if I get within 20 points of 100. On the Wii I’m pretty good, but in real life I’m that adult who should probably go ahead and use the bumpers.

And I know why I’m no good at sending a 10-pound sphere down a 60-foot lane in an attempt to knock down the ten pins. Two reasons: 1) I only go bowling once or twice a year, tops, so I have no chance to practice at getting good. 2) My release is horrible.

Really good bowlers have their steps, their back swing, their release, and their follow-through down to a science. And it’s all a matter of muscle memory for them. They know as soon as the ball is released if it’s going to be a strike or if it’s going to veer left.

It’s all in the release. Give the ball a good start down the lane and the rest will take care of itself.

It’s all in the release.

Proverbs 22:6 says, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

Many of the problems we see with kids once they get to school age can be traced back to their home life long before school began. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell speaks very effectively and passionately about the need for a good start in life during the following TED Talk. If you’ve got a few minutes, go ahead and watch the video. He makes some excellent points about what it means to train up a child in the way he should go.

So what does it look like for us Christian parents to “Train up” our children “in the way [they] should go?”

I’d like to offer up 5 P’s of PARENTING


[Full disclosure: As a young parent myself, the things I am writing and talking about are as much for my own sake as anyone else’s.]


1. PRAYER
This should be obvious to Christian parents. Prayer is one of the fundamental spiritual disciplines. It’s our primary life-line through which we communicate our praise, thanksgiving, petitions and requests to God Almighty. God, the Creator of the Universe, wants us to talk to Him just like we want our own children to talk to us.

When my oldest son (3) is angry, upset, frustrated (he says “flusterated;” it’s adorable), scared, or hurt, I WANT him to talk to me about it. It would break my heart if my own son didn’t feel like he could cry out in the night for me to come into his room because he’s afraid. If he’s playing in another room and hurts himself, I can’t help him unless he tells me what’s wrong.

Listen to what Paul says in Philippians 4:6-7, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Oh, I’m not anxious about anything concerning my parenting skills, my children, or our family’s future! – Said no parent ever. God wants us to bring our requests to Him. He doesn’t want us to be anxious and fret over situations we can’t control. But he wants us to turn our worries over to Him – because He CAN control the situations (see 1 Peter 5:7). And in doing so, the promise is that we will be blessed with a “peace that transcends all understanding” – wouldn’t that be nice?

So pray. Pray for yourself as a parent. Pray for your spouse. Pray for your children. Pray for your children’s future spouse and children. Pray for protection. Pray for courage. Pray for peace. Pray for patience. Pray when you’re happy. Pray when you feel like you’re the Worst. Parent. Ever. Pray with your kids. Teach your kids to pray.

In effect, “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17).

2. PRESENCE
Study after study after study has shown a correlation between quality time as a family and higher levels of success in school, college, and the work place as children get older. The opposite is also true. Children who spend very little time interacting with their parents tend to do poorly in school and are even more likely to end up in jail. And this is a crying shame, especially in a country where nearly HALF of all children will grow up in a broken home or a home where only one parent/caregiver is present.

Being a youth minister has opened my eyes to how dysfunctional many families can be. Even in intact homes, the parents are over worked and over stressed because they have established a lifestyle for themselves and their family that is nearly impossible to maintain. They fall into the trap of thinking that what their kids need is more things – video games, cars, smart phones, clothes, exotic vacations, and so on. But what their kids, what our kids, really need is more TIME. And quite frankly, time seems to be the one thing that a lot of parents are simply unable or unwilling to give their kids.

It was never intended to be this way. God had an ideal in mind for the family unit that seems completely alien to our society today. It was an ideal in which the parents would, you know, teach their kids. A child’s education, especially in spiritual matters, was never intended to be out sourced to some uncaring, paid “professional.” Any training and education a child received outside the home was meant to be merely supplemental building upon a solid foundation that had been laid over the first formative years of the child’s life.

Deuteronomy 6:4-9 makes this point abundantly clear:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates.

How many Christian families never talk about spiritual matters outside of church? Unfortunately very few keep the conversations going throughout the week. And the biggest reason, I think, is that families are simply too busy. Families allow themselves to get caught up in the busyness of life and allow chaos and crisis to govern their time.

We need more parents who are willing to take a stand and say “No” to some things. We need more parents who are committed to being the very best spiritual guides for their children, parents who are not content to outsource their NUMBER ONE JOB to some Sunday School Teacher or Youth Minister. We need parents who will totally and completely immerse (baptize) their homes in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to the point that their is no question about what is most important to them.

But we can’t do that if we don’t spend time with our kids and if we don’t spend time with God.

TO BE CONTINUED…
[Next time: Passion, Persistence, and Perseverance]

I am a young father of two amazing boys. My amazing wife is a Stay At Home Mom (SAHM). We are in our mid-twenties. We’ve been married 5 1/2 years.

That puts us right in the thick of a raging battle. We are on the front lines of the “Mommy Wars,” the
“Daddy Wars,” the “War on Women,” the “War on Men,” the pacifier wars, the cry-it-out wars, the circumcision war (I wish I were kidding about that one…), the home school vs. public school wars.

(In a sad twist of fate, one of our guilty-pleasure shows is Cupcake Wars. Our ancestors will be quite confused by that one when they research our culture in the coming centuries.)

It’s BRUTAL out there.

Everybody’s an expert. Everybody has an opinion. Everybody knows what worked for their kid, so of course it must work for all kids everywhere for all of time!

The dreaded “P” word has been cause for taking offense and going on the defensive. Wars and battles and bloody massacres destroy, corrupt, and confuse young couples with kids, sucking all the fun and joy out of raising a family. It seems that the “P” word (“Parenting”) has become a hot bed of controversy all across the blogosphere and Pinterest.

And I wish the church were a refuge from the battles waged under the flag of Parenting. But the church can be anything BUT a safe place for young families.

Sit still. 
Be quiet. 
You know, my kids never ran around the church like that. 
Kids these days have no respect for other people’s property.
You just need to spank your boy more.
Spare the rod, spoil the child.
Stop running.
Stop jumping.
Be careful not to knock over the ugly plastic flower display adorning the stage.
Don’t push Tommy…into the baptistry.


It can be hard enough navigating the minefields of playground politics. We young families need a BREAK from that when we gather together as the corporate family to worship on Sundays.

It’s amazing that our families with young kids can even make it out the door and into the car with sanity still in tact. Many Sundays I find myself driving to the church building thinking to myself, I love my kids. I love my kids. I love my kids. I really do. Because sometimes I need a reminder.

When the kids wake up early, whine and pout the entire morning about EVERYTHING (I don’t want to watch THAT episode of Mickey!!!!!!), after getting breakfast – and then getting the right breakfast because the kid suddenly changes his mind about what he wants, getting everybody dressed, finding the lost shoes and the missing stuffed animals, getting the diaper bag packed and the screaming baby strapped into the torture contraption we call a “car seat”…

The last thing young parents need is “well-meaning” church folks telling us what we are doing wrong as parents.

It’s easy to sit back and make smug comments about how much of an angel your son was at 3 years old. It’s easy to point out that so-and-so’s kids may not be that well behaved. It’s easy to grumble about all the smiling, laughing faces dashing, darting, and jumping around the auditorium as soon as worship service is over.

It’s easy, but it’s not helpful.

What’s helpful is volunteering to PLAY with the kids after worship service – thus making sure that they have fun AND stay out of trouble. What’s helpful is to build such a relationship with the young families in the church that they welcome and cherish your stories and advice about parenting. What’s helpful is treating the young kids as prized possessions in the church, knowing that one day they will be trying to win the world for the kingdom – if they’re not driven away by bitterness and criticism while they are young.

So let’s all call it a truce and agree to a cease-fire in the Mommy Wars that rage in the world. Let the church be a safe place for young parents with small children. Let Sundays be a time that young families can worship freely, knowing that there are several hundred other people who have nothing but the best interests at heart for their children. Most of all, let’s make the church a place where collectively we can undertake the monumental task of training up our children in the way they should go (Proverbs 22:6).

More on this next time…

My sermon from last Sunday night. It’s an expansion on a previous post called “What Was Mary Thinking?”

Enjoy.

One such group of proverbs that I’ve been looking into for the past week or so has to deal with the righteous and the wicked. In chapters 10 through 17 alone (less than 1/4 of the whole book) I found about 40 different verses all giving the same hope – the righteous will be blessed by God and the wicked will get their due.

The Lord does not let the righteous go hungry,
but he thwarts the craving of the wicked. (10:3)

The name of the righteous is used in blessings,
but the name of the wicked will rot. (10:7)

The wages of the righteous is life,
but the earnings of the wicked are sin and death. (10:16)

What the wicked dread will overtake them;
what the righteous desire will be granted. (10:24)

Trouble pursues the sinner,
but the righteous are rewarded with good things. (13:21)

The righteous eat to their hearts’ content,
but the stomach of the wicked goes hungry. (13:25)

The house of the righteous contains great treasure,
but the income of the wicked brings ruin. (15:6)

If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God:

You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country.

The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.

Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed.

You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out.

The Lord will grant that the enemies who rise up against you will be defeated before you. They will come at you from one direction but flee from you in seven.

The Lord will send a blessing on your barns and on everything you put your hand to.

The Lord your God will bless you in the land he is giving you.

The Lord will establish you as his holy people, as he promised you on oath, if you keep the commands of the Lord your God and walk in obedience to him. Then all the peoples on earth will see that you are called by the name of the Lord, and they will fear you. The Lord will grant you abundant prosperity—in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your ground—in the land he swore to your ancestors to give you.

The Lord will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. The Lord will make you the head, not the tail. If you pay attention to the commands of the Lord your God that I give you this day and carefully follow them, you will always be at the top, never at the bottom. Do not turn aside from any of the commands I give you today, to the right or to the left, following other gods and serving them. (Deuteronomy 28:1-14)

Deuteronomy promises all sorts of blessings upon you and your people if you will just remain faithful and righteous. But then the other side – the nay-sayers and the pessimists remind you of Psalm 14.

The Lord looks down from heaven
on all mankind
to see if there are any who understand,
any who seek God.
All have turned away, all have become corrupt;
there is no one who does good,
not even one. (Psalm 14:2-3)

It’s hopeless. It’s pointless. You can never be good enough, so just stop trying so hard.

Fight the Romans! Befriend the Romans! Stay faithful to God! God has forsaken us! Do God’s will! Do whatever you want!

One of my favorite Christmas songs is “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” which captures the mood surrounding the advent of Jesus Christ:

It’s in the midst of this chaos, confusion, frustration, and despair that God appeared to a young, Jewish peasant girl named Mary who was betrothed to a construction worker named Joseph. And it’s through Mary that God himself is going to burst into the middle of human history and set things straight. God is putting his very self at the mercy and care of Mary, even though a million and one things could go wrong from conception to birth to adulthood. That’s the risk God is willing to take to fulfill his promises.

So what was Mary thinking about all this? It’s pretty amazing actually. We get a glimpse into her thoughts. What did this all mean to her?

And Mary said:
“My soul glorifies the Lord
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has been mindful
of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
holy is his name.
His mercy extends to those who fear him,
from generation to generation.
He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
remembering to be merciful
to Abraham and his descendants forever,
just as he promised our ancestors.” (Luke 1:46-55)

All those promises in Proverbs, those grand promises in Deuteronomy – Mary knew that the baby growing inside her womb was the fulfillment of those promises. Her son, the Son of Man, had come to exalt the humble, to fill those hungering and thirsting for righteousness, and to “proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” He had also come to scatter the proud, tear down the evil rulers of the age, and bring judgment on the wicked.

That’s what Christmas meant to Mary. That’s what Christmas means to us still today.

I love the holiday season. Halloween through New Year’s is just about my favorite time of year. But it’s being ruined. People are taking these holidays and completely trampling over their intended purpose.

You might think I’m about to bash the consumeristic society, the greedy mega-corporations, or the materialistic masses who would rather trample over people to get a video game system than observe a day of Thanksgiving and gratitude. You may think that Capitalism or the free market is to blame for my holidays being ruined.

You would be wrong.

The thing is, I am a Christian. The majority of the world is not. They may stake a claim on the title and even observe our holidays, but for all practical purposes the majority of the world is nonreligious. Therefore, it doesn’t matter to me if they want to celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, or Festivus. In fact, they very idea of a nonreligious “Freedom From Religion”, “God Is Dead”, atheistic culture observing holy-days at all is kind of preposterous. Nothing is sacred to the world. Why should Halloween, Thanksgiving (an American holiday but very Christian anyway), or Christmas be any different?

Demanding that the secular world observe our holy-days is right in line with throwing “pearls before swine.” Pigs have about as much use for a pearl necklace as the secular world has for religious holy-days.

So it may come as a surprise to you that it is not the secular world ruining the holy-day season. It’s Christians. Well meaning Christians are ruining Christmas by posting things like THIS:

Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. (Colossians 2:16-17)

The reality of Christmas is found IN CHRIST. The whole reason we celebrate Christmas is to point to and remind ourselves of Jesus Christ, not just as a little baby but as the Savior of the world. The evergreen tree represents life even in the midst of death. The lights represent The Light that shines in the darkness. The presents represent the ultimate Gift of salvation and every spiritual blessing found in Christ.

Christmas is a shadow; the reality is in Christ.

Paul also tell the church in Rome:

One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. (Romans 14:5-8)

In other words, we who choose to celebrate Christmas are to do so TO THE LORD. We are supposed to honor Him and glorify Him through our celebrations. If we celebrate holy days, we are to do so in the Lord. So if you are celebrating Christmas, then keep Christmas in Christ.

Christ is the ultimate reality, the fulfillment of all our religious holidays. Christ is also the lens through which we view the world and these sacred days. If we keep these holidays, we do so in Christ because the reality of these sacred days is found in Christ.

By saying “Keep Christ in Christmas,” well meaning people are simply trying to remind everyone that this is, in fact, a religious holiday. They are attempting to de-secularize it. I get that.

But that phrase also implies that Christ can be taken out of Christmas. If Christmas is the ultimate reality of Christ, his truest expression here on earth, then it is important to keep Christ in Christmas. But Christmas is not bigger than Christ. Which is more important – the manger or the baby who was laid in the manger? The swaddling clothes or the one wrapped in them? The stable or the baby born therein? The new mother or the new baby? The cross or the one who hung upon it? The holy day or the one for whom we celebrate?

So let’s do our best to keep Christmas in Christ. If you celebrate it, remember that we are celebrating it to the Lord and that the reality of Christmas is found in Him.

I’m not a preacher.

I have no desire to do full-time pulpit ministry. But I do preach on occasion – usually every fourth Sunday night, and I fill in as needed when our preacher is away. I enjoy preaching when I do it, but it is not something I could do week in and week out, as least not right now. I won’t even begin to move that direction unless I hear God calling me there.

I don’t really have a fear of public speaking. I enjoy studying Scripture and drawing out the meanings from the text. I like reading books and commentaries and blog articles to help my insights into God’s word. I listen to sermon podcasts – for fun!

But during my short time in ministry I have discovered something. Most people don’t know this. Most people will never understand this. But for every sermon delivered, there are multiple unfinished sermons that will never be made public.

When writing my sermons, the absolute hardest part for me, believe it or not, is making sure I have something worth saying. It’s not enough to exegete the text, we must also exegete the audience and understand where they are in life and what message the Lord is trying to give them through us.

For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken. (John 12:49)

I can’t tell you how many times I begin writing a sermon with a specific premise in mind, a certain end-point that I want to drive home, only to find the text driving me in a completely different direction.

That’s why I thank God for unfinished sermons.

Every preacher has them, and that’s a good thing. Speaking from experience, it is incredibly difficult to get myself out of the way when I prepare a sermon. When preachers begin speaking only the things that make them comfortable or things that interest them or things that concern them, they aren’t leaving any room for the Spirit’s guidance.

The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. (John 14:10)

So I thank God for unfinished sermons because that means He has a hand in the process. There have definitely been some sermons I have started that deserved to be scrapped. Going back to square one is just one way God keeps preachers humble. It’s his way of reminding us that we can’t do it on our own. We don’t have it all figured out. We aren’t up there to spout off our opinion or to get on our personal soap boxes.

For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. (2 Peter 1:21)

Some sermons need to remain unfinished.

This is why preaching is one of the easiest professions to fake but one of the hardest professions to do right. But when we do it right, by listening to God, following the Holy Spirit’s guidance, and revealing the Word made flesh, then it all seems to click.

If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. (1 Peter 4:11)

For every delivered sermon there are many that remain unwritten and unfinished. But out of all the unfinished sermons there is only one that really matters: the life of the preacher.

You see, Jesus preached a lot but he also lived out his sermons. “The Sermon on the Mount,” for instance, pretty much sums up his entire ministry on earth. He preached, and then he lived out the sermon. He preached about loving our enemies, and he had compassion on those crucifying him. He preached about not laying up treasures on earth, and he went to the grave owning nothing. He preached about walking on the narrow path, and he showed us how to find it.

Paul says of himself, “Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize” (1 Corinthians 9:26-27).

Ask any athlete if they are as good at their sport as they want to be. The answer? No.

Ask any artist if their work is as perfect as they would like it to be. The answer? No.

Ask any preacher if his life is fully in line with the words he preaches. The answer? No.

There is always work to be done. There are always improvements to be made. There is never a point (in this life) at which a minister can say, “I have arrived.” Even Paul, again, says, “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:12-14).

My life is an unfinished sermon. I’m still working on it. It’s still being written. I don’t know exactly what the end-point will be, but I bet it’s something much different and far greater than I could have imagined when I started out.

I thank God for unfinished sermons.

Here’s a sermon I preached back on November 24. It’s based on Proverbs 21:21

Whoever pursues righteousness and love
   finds life, prosperity, and honor.