“I’ll Be Home For Christmas”

“I will arise and go to my father.” Luke 15:18

Although the world did not yet celebrate Christmas, had AT&T, Sprint PCS or even Western Union been in business when the prodigal son made up his mind to come home, maybe he would have phoned ahead. (He might have found a PhoneCard somewhere with a minute left on it.) Given his dramatic change of heart, he surely would not have wanted to send his father into a coronary. Little did he know that a heads-up was unnecessary. His father made a daily trek to his watching post, keeping up a continual look-out for his boy to come back.

The parable that Jesus told begins matter-of-factly, “A certain man had two sons.” Implicit in this statement is the presumption that children really do belong to their parents. We take care of them, provide a life for them and make all decisions for them. They wear our name, bear our likeness and will carry on our legacy. Most parents do not envision any deviation from this presumed course of events.

Imagine his father’s shock, then, when the younger son said, “Give me the portion of goods that falleth to me.” It was the proverbial bolt out of the blue. Somewhere, between sweet infancy and happy adolescence, a son turned into a stranger. Parents of teenagers know all about this feeling. We gaze into a familiar face and sense something frighteningly different. “Who are you and what have you done with my wonderful child?” we ask. Bewilderment, anger, and fear finally gives way to resignation. We can’t figure out what happened.

This father had provided a solid environment for his family. Through hard work, he founded a business, built an estate and established a strong reputation in town. Like most parents, he probably had definite expectations for his son. He was preparing him for a career in estate-management, schooling him in the protocol of genteel leadership, and had undoubtedly chosen a bride for him. A sound, biblical education and love for God formed the basis of all his training. While riding together over the lands, I’m sure many of their conversations began with, “Son, one of these days…” But exceptions invariably disrupt carefully laid plans. Despite every effort, the father could not filter out the pervasive influence of sin. It seeps into the finest homes, attacks the purest environments and thwarts the noblest intentions. The more immoveable the object becomes, the more irresistible the force grows as well.

This parable is an astounding testimony to a father’s incredible faith. “But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him….” What motivated this man to scan the horizon for the return of a son whom he had already declared to be lost and dead? (v. 24) Was he a sentimental dupe? Was he merely living in denial of the obvious facts? Had his mourning failed to achieve closure? Was he engaged in inane, wishful thinking? Did he feel that just his stubborn persistence alone would be rewarded? I don’t think so.

This godly father believed in something far more substantial than misguided emotions. He kept watching, even though each previous day ended in bitter disappointment. Why? Because he knew what he had put into his son over the course of twenty or so years. He knew he had taught him unfailing truths out of the Word. He knew he had demonstrated to him a righteous and devoted example. He knew he dedicated his son to God and blanketed him with a covering of prayer.

You, too, can tie yourself to God’s promises. They are immutable. “Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath: That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast…Hebrews 6:17-19

Parents, preachers, teachers and all those who have invested the Word of God into the lives of others, keep standing at your post, looking over the landscape. Sin may have wrecked them. They may appear spiritually dead and irretrievably lost. Complications may paint a hopeless picture. Never give up. “So shall my word be…it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper…” Isaiah 55:11

This could be the Christmas you’ve been waiting for.

A Christmas Thought

We sing of angels and shepherds, of Wiseman and camels. They knelt in reverent worship of the manger’s holy occupant. Through their songs, their gifts and their presence, they acknowledged the world’s most profound event. Yet, has it ever occurred to you that there must have been others who had the same opportunity? Where were they?

Where were the multitudes? Bethlehem pulsated with taxpayers, its streets slowed by weary travelers scrambling to find rooms. Surely someone must have known that heaven’s attention was focused on the little town that night. But the multitude never seems to hear the voice of God.

Were there not fellow travelers who noticed Mary’s plight? A mother-to-be who is at the point of delivery is hard not to see. Maybe someone had a few kind words. Perhaps some directions to a local inn, and then off to some other all-important business.

How about the innkeeper? He was the first one that had a conscious, responsible choice to make concerning Christ. He could have asked if someone would have given up his or her room for the birth. He could have given up his own room. He could have helped them find another inn. Did he feel he was doing a big favor to Mary and Joseph by letting them use the stable? Did he have to move some animals around in order to accommodate them?

Also, what about the midwives who were always present at births? They were closer than anyone to the baby, except Mary. They handled him, bathed him, held him and placed him in the arms of his mother. They probably talked with the parents, found out a lot about their background and their lives.

Think of it. All of these were within arm’s reach of God incarnate, the incredible visitation of divinity to humanity. The Savior of sinners, the sacrificial lamb was just around the corner, behind the inn. But the most important thing on the schedule of most that day was to pay their taxes, or trade some sheep or oxen, or buy a loaf of bread. They missed the significance of the event altogether.

We must cry for a fresh awareness of God’s visitation of revival and true joy to the church today. As commissioned servants of God, let us not make the mistake of the multitude. If we are close enough to touch revival, we must not permit it to slip from our hand unnoticed. Let us seize the moment. Let us understand what great things God has prepared for us today. Let us throw ourselves into the work of saving the lost without reservation.

No Room in the Inn

“Because there was no room for them in the inn.” Luke 2:7

Leafing through the latest mags, rags and blogs, I notice clever take-offs on the familiar phrase “no room in the inn” pop up everywhere. From over-booking practices of major hotel chains to discrimination against transgendered people, from lack of rooms for the handicapped to the denial of lodging for SARS virus victims, free-lance journalists recount multiple horror stories of beleaguered travelers. Everyone has a story to tell. It’s amazing how this spiritual event has taken root and continues to grow in the cultural language, forcing people who otherwise despise the Bible to talk about it anyway.

No room in the inn . It wrenches the heart just to think about it. An expectant mother, young and tender, far from home, wearied from travel, through no fault of her own…all the elements of a compelling drama brim over. The inn that they finally found was a khan or lodging house for caravans. An inner court yard spread out behind the main building and stables for caravan animals lined the outside back wall. Within each stable stood a manger, or trough, with straw to feed the animals. Jesus Christ was not born in a stable because Mary and Joseph were poor. He was born in a stable because “there was no room in the inn”. Census respondents had flooded the town and had taken all the available space.

A family of Jamaican origin who attended my father’s church years ago used to tell of traveling long into the night, before the Civil Rights Act became law, and finding no motel or hotel rooms in which to stay. Large, painted signs rudely reminded them that there were no rooms for them, no shared drinking fountains, no seats in the front of the bus, no service in many restaurants, and the list goes on. Americans of that generation were subjected to the harshest of prejudicial treatment. Forty years later, we have become so accustomed to civil rights that we cannot conceive of such blatant discrimination. Yet, for many thousands of older Americans, such scenes remain deeply etched into their memories.

Human society never has been nor will ever be free from discrimination in some form. The problem goes beyond politics, racism or any other prejudice that can be remedied by the houses of congress. It is the nature of man to throw up barriers, put up defenses and select the company he wants to keep. While skin color remains the most common trait that keeps many people out of certain clubs and cliques, it is by no means the only thing. Nationality, religion, political persuasion, language, appearance, ability, accent, height, weight, health and pedigree all act as a shibboleth for acceptance. We can add other characteristics to that list like education, style, personality, attitude and money. In fact, most of us would find ourselves excluded from a far greater number of groups than would accept us.

Rejection stings. Many of us know what it is like to be turned down for a job, cut by the team coach, flunked by the teacher, denied a loan, overlooked for a promotion or jilted by a lover. Even though these rejections may stem from an honest set of criteria, we don’t easily shake off the hurt. We all yearn to be loved, accepted, admitted and recognized. Few sentences strike us as deeply as “Sorry. There is no room for you.”

It was not an accident that the innkeeper had no room for Jesus. He was the most rejected of all persons in history. A virtual vagabond, he had no place even to lay his head. “He came unto his own and his own received him not.” The Pharisees and Sadducees, scribes and lawyers had no love for him. All but his closest disciples fled from him in the hour of his greatest need. Peter described him as “the stone which the builders rejected.” Isaiah foretold his pitiable condition like this, “He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” When he died, he had to be buried in a borrowed tomb.

But, the innkeeper wrapped and delivered a marvelous gift to us when he sent Mary and Joseph to the stable. It was devastating to them at the time, yet it provided a glorious avenue of divine empathy for us. From his very entry point on planet earth, Jesus took up the cause of the rejected. “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” Hebrews 4:15. In the dead of a lonely night, when the cold emptiness of rejection suffocates us, we find comfort in the fact that “there was no room for them in the inn.”

There will never be a welcome sign out for true followers of Jesus. Even as Bethlehem had no room for Jesus, the world continues to reject him today. We must take great comfort in his words, “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” There is a place for us today, and there will be a heavenly place for us over there.

Interrupted by Christmas

Here we are, having a nice, hand-wringing, time-crunching, brain-frazzling, one-more-thing-you-have-to-do kind of normal fall and early winter, when along comes Christmas. And Christmas is not a Memorial Day kind of holiday you can satisfy with a parade of fez-hatted Shriners on mini-motor scooters and a couple of high school bands, topped off by a backyard barbeque. No way. Christmas demands months of planning (we’re already late), generating gift-lists, card-lists and guest-lists for parties, arranging for halls and huge family rooms, getting motel reservations, decorating inside and out, innovative recipes, special clothing for the season, practicing for the obligatory play, picking a night to go caroling…and I haven’t even gotten around to the shopping! You know you’re not going to get away with a trip to the local mall. You’ll have to race to the outlet mall ninety miles away; visit the specialty shop in the next town over; check out a thousand websites for a rare gift; and then wade into the tedious job of tag-removal, gift-wrapping, bow-tying and receipt management. And did I mention tree-cutting traditions, side-trips to see grandma, or writing articles like this? And I don’t dare talk about the budget.

Honestly, we don’t have time for Christmas anymore. To many of us, it has morphed into an overgrown time and cash-eating monster that waddles into our lives in early November and hangs around until after the New Year. Critical projects get postponed until “after Christmas.” Vital appointments have to wait until “after Christmas.” Why, lots of people thoughtfully hold off on lawsuits, bankruptcies and even divorces until “after Christmas.” We can’t move forward with really important stuff until “after Christmas.” Our lives cruise along quite nicely until interrupted by this super holiday.

Interruptions like Christmas cause havoc with the smooth flow of life. After we have settled into a certain mode of operation, after we have invested our plans and finances into predictable routines, after we have derived a measurable degree of emotional and psychological security from “the way things are”, some huge seminal shift descends upon us and turns everything upside down. It interrupts, inconveniences and irritates us to no end. It seems as if we just got over last year’s Christmas. Now, we have to deal with another holiday hiatus.

But, wait just a minute. I would like to interrupt this article for an important announcement:

INTERRUPTIONS ARE NOT ALL BAD! A remote possibility does indeed exist that an interruption may shock you right out of your nose-to-the-grindstone routine. You may be so obsessed with what you’re doing that you don’t realize that what you’re doing is not what you ought to be doing! You may be locked into so much negativity that you believe failure is inevitable. One man said that some people are so sub-normal that if they ever became normal they would be scared into thinking they were abnormal. An interruption may be exactly what you need.

Have you ever noticed, for example, how peace interrupts war? Wartime strategists just get good at executing conflict more efficiently when along comes peace. Fighting forces just hone their skills to the point of perfection, and then peace puts them out of a job. Armaments manufacturers just start raking in the profits, and then peace sabotages their business.

Jesus turned interruption into an art form. A young man’s funeral procession was conforming to all the proper protocol—-with mourners, sigh-ers, long-faced weepers in tow—-only to have the audacious Jesus come along, touch the coffin and derail the pomp and circumstance with resurrection power. Think of the planning and tradition that the “resurrection and the life” ruined! And then there was the disease that afflicted the woman with a discharge of blood. Her malady was progressing according to schedule when healing power from the hem of Jesus’ garment so rudely reversed the malignant advance and restored her to health. In another instance, Satan gloated over a boy’s spasms that would soon destroy him by casting him into the fire, but Jesus’ word ripped the demon out and sent him packing.

Satan wants no divine interruptions. The “prince and power of the air” wants us to assume that he’s in charge. He wants us to believe that “bad” is the way life is supposed to be and the forecast calls for “worse yet.” Given half a chance, he will flatten your faith, gut your glory, jump on your joy, walk on your worship and vanquish your victory. He will deny to your face that you have a right to anything but woe and sorrow. His plan needs a major interruption.

Let Christmas interrupt your harried, hassled, joyless schedule this year. Maybe you’ve already bought into a long and depressing scenario as your lot in life. Maybe you think God’s favors have passed you by. But, like a smile interrupts a frown, sun-shine interrupts the rain, and blessing interrupts tragedy, the seasonal retelling of the good news of Christ’s birth can ignite a brand new fire in your life. Let it. Nothing can turn the tide right now any better than a wonderful interruption from heaven.

The Power of Thanksgiving

Most of of think of thanksgiving as a courteous, nice thing to do. Good public relations, rather than an absolute requirement, dictate the act. We classify it as proper protocol. When people don’t express gratitude, we think they are only being uncouth. When people forget to say thanks, we accuse them only of thoughtlessness. When we study the scripture, however, a far different profile emerges. Thanksgiving actually turns out to be a fundamental spiritual principle. True thanksgiving opens the door to deep spiritual healing and experience.

A powerful fact is attached to the incident of the lepers whom Jesus healed in Luke 17:12-19. Only one man out of the ten returned to Jesus to thank him. When this man fell down on his face to give thanks, Jesus asked, “Were there not ten cleansed? Where are the nine?” They were not to be found. Only this stranger (he was a Samaritan) came back to give God glory. Then, Jesus said, “Arise, go thy way: they faith hath made thee whole.”

There are three words that describe what happened to the leper. He was cleansed (purified), healed (cured) and made whole (saved, preserved). While all ten were cleansed and healed, only the one who gave thanks was made whole.

A number of people in the Bible were blessed, healed and touched, but not made whole. Luke 6:35 says, “Love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.”

What are the steps to wholeness?

Luke 17:12-19

Prayer of desperation

13 And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.

Those who do not pray should not expect answers to prayer.  Prayers that move God are effectual and fervent.

Obedience

14 And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests.

Jesus could have declared them clean because he was a high priest after the Order of Melchezidek. Instead, he sent them to the high priest for evidence of their healing. Why? First of all, it would legitimize their healing to all the people who did not yet recognize Jesus. Second, and more important, if the High Priest declared them clean, it meant that the High Priest would have been forced to recognize the power of Jesus to heal leprosy.

And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed.

Realization

15 And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God,

Worship

16 And fell down on his face at his feet,

Worship=shawchaw (prostrate oneself, bow down)

Gen 19:1 And there came two angels to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom: and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them; and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground;

Gen 42:6 And Joseph was the governor over the land, and he it was that sold to all the people of the land: and Joseph’s brethren came, and bowed down themselves before him with their faces to the earth.

1 Sam 25:41 And she arose, and bowed herself on her face to the earth, and said, Behold, let thine handmaid be a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord.

Thanksgiving

giving him thanks: and

Forgiveness

he was a Samaritan.

17 And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? 18 There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger. 19 And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.

What did the leper who came back communicate with Jesus?

You have changed my life for the better.
I could not have had this healing without you.
I am forever indebted to you.
You did not just restore my health for my purposes; you did it for your own purposes.

What is it that the simple act of sincere thanksgiving does to God?

The nine who did not return to give thanks grabbed whatever blessings and advantages they could get from Jesus and ran. They wanted to be healed to get on with their lives, to pursue their own interests. They either had no concept of God’s purpose or they were totally self-indulgent. Whatever they received, they felt like it was a deserved benefit.

It is possible to have enough faith in God to receive miracles and blessings from him. This does not necessarily lead on to true discipleship.

Wholeness requires an attitude of thanksgiving towards God.

Wholeness is a release of pain.
Wholeness neutralizes long-standing dysfunctional effects.
Wholeness makes one comfortable with who they are and what they have.
The most important truth to embrace is your relationship with God supercedes your relationship with yourself, your family, your friends, your acquaintences, your past, or any other person or thing that can be named.

2 Cor 12:7-10  And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. 8 For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. 9 And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.