Christ Archives

December 14, 2016

Joy: Galatians 5:22-25

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.”
Galatians 5:22-25

When Jesus was born, I am sure that there was no way for His earthly parents — Mary and Joseph — to know that His life was going to be such a big deal, that His way of living and loving would revolutionize the culture at that time, or that all of it would ultimately lead Him to the cross.

No, I am sure that when Jesus was born on that cold night in a dirty manger, they likely imagined that He would lead a fairly normal life. Oh, but how wrong that would have been. Jesus’ life on earth may have started out looking pretty normal for their day and age, but as He got older things began to change, notably once He recognized that His true Father was God.

That’s when things got crazy.

He gathered disciples to follow Him, He was a teacher to the masses and to to the one, and many were loved, healed, and saved as a result. His ministry lasted for only three years, but of course, that’s not the end of the story.

When Jesus was with His disciples after the resurrection, He told them not to let their hearts be troubled because the Father was going to send them another to be with them: the Holy Spirit.

In other words (my own), it is as if Jesus told them to take heart and count it as joy that they would have an advocate on earth once He was gone, one who would give them power, who would correct and guide them, and be the one through whom they could speak with the Father. I imagine the disciples being confused at first, but then what an immense amount of JOY they might have experienced when the Holy Spirit finally came upon them (Acts 2), just as Jesus had promised.

The Holy Spirit can seem daunting sometimes.

I personally think that He is the most misunderstood part of the Trinity, probably and simply because He is just so mysterious. Even in reading our Bibles, there isn’t a ton we can cling to other than that God sent Him after Jesus’ resurrection, that He is our advocate, and that He imparts on each of us unique gifts to use for the glory of God.

Over the last two years, I have been experiencing a lot more Holy Spirit living, and it has been nothing short of incredible. As I began praying for deeper intimacy and more sensitivity to His leading, God really showed up with His Spirit. I received a serious craving for the Word, a greater understanding of my true identity as a daughter of the King, and a brand new sense of wonder, awe, and overwhelming joy. I share this with you to say that there is so much more beyond the surface of the Christian life.

Tapping into the power and presence of the Holy Spirit opens the floodgates for a deeper, more soul-satisfying relationship with God, which is something I believe that He deeply wants to give you.

So with the season of Advent upon us, I pray that you are able to reflect on the birth and life of Jesus, and then remember what He left for us: Holy Spirit. And since we have Him with us here on earth, was can also have His fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

All because of God’s original plan: create absolutely everything, lead His people no matter how much they grumble, allow His Son to live on earth and consequently sacrifice His life for our sake, and send the Holy Spirit to guide us into deeper relationship and power.

What a sweet, sweet reason we have to rejoice in this advent season!

December 13, 2016

Joy: Isaiah 65:18

But be glad and rejoice forever
in what I will create,
for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight
and its people a joy.

Isaiah 65:18

If you’re anything like me, you might struggle with the idea that you’re allowed to enjoy things. We sometimes have this idea that Christians should have it all together and that anything too fun isn’t holy enough or a distraction.

It can be easy to think that we should be living a limited life which is low on delight.

I’m want to throw a few of the things that I’ve been learning out there to challenge that.

Our God is a generous and abundant God. When He fed the five thousand (Matthew 14:13-21), there were basketfuls left over. When He changed water into wine (John 2:1-11), the wine was the best wine at the wedding. God is a master craftsman who doesn’t hold back; just look at creation! He created a variety of different flavours and colors. He created things that don’t just work but work well and are beautiful.
“Those who follow Jesus do not have to live sad, austere and sour lives. In fact the opposite is true. Christ-followers experience the highest form of pleasure, laugh with depth and enjoy all of the goodness life has to offer… They trust in a good and beautiful God who has come not to rob them of joy but to bring them real and lasting joy, the kind found when moderation and boundaries are applied.” This quote is from James Bryan Smith, author of the Apprentice series (highly recommended). He talks about the fact that what we might see as rules put in place to spoil our enjoyment of life are actually a roadmap to living life at its best and fullest. God doesn’t give us guidelines because he likes to spoil peoples’ fun; they are guidelines to living a more deeply enjoyable and fulfilling life.
A friend of mind once quoted Foster the People’s song ‘Waste’ in a sermon. The lyrics (unintentionally) represent God’s heart toward us.
“And every day that you want to waste, you can
And every day that you want to wake up, you can…
I’ll help you see it through ’cause I just really want to be with you.”
The awesome thing is that God wants to waste time with us. We don’t have to be doing anything productive. We don’t have to be doing anything impressive. He just enjoys spending time with us because He loves us. And he wants us to just enjoy spending time with him.

Living a life of joy isn’t just important because God loves us and wants us to have joy, it’s important in the way we represent Him to other people.

How can we give others a taste of God and all he has to offer if we are living joyless lives?

That’s not to say that we need to paste on a smile and pretend everything is fine when it’s not (vulnerability is great!). And it’s not to say that we should expect everything to go right in our lives. It is to say that we have freedom to enjoy what life has to offer (with moderation and boundaries applied).

Immanuel, one of the names of Jesus, means God-with-us.

I think God-with-us is the crazy, wonderful reality of God loving us so much that He became human in Jesus and it’s also God-with-us in the small stuff. It’s God-who-wants-to-waste-time-with-us, God-who-wants-to-enjoy-life-with-us and it’s Jesus coming for us.

Let’s praise him and ask him for joy.

Let’s accept his invitation and have fun with him.

December 2, 2016

Hope: Lamentations 3:21-23

Yet this I call to mind
and therefore I have hope:

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:21-23

A few weeks ago, Holy Yoga, a Christian yoga organization, posted this caption on Instagram:

“Do you know there are two types of hope, and each are incredibly different? There is “worldly hope”, the kind of heart and mind that says, “I hope this works out”, or “I hope He comes through”. And then there is “Biblical hope”, the kind of hope found throughout God’s Word that calls the believer to steadfast and unwavering faith in God and His promises. This is the hope that says, ‘I know in whom my hope lies and I know He is coming through for me.'”

Yes! I love this because it’s so true and it’s so important to have these distinct definitions. The way we talk about hope is often more about wishing. It expresses our feelings about something, not the reality of what actually is. This is not the type of hope God offers us!

When we talk about putting our hope in God, we’re not talking about wishing He’ll come through for us, we’re talking about knowing that he will. And how do we know? There’s a quote that I love from Thomas Smail about Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane before his crucifixion. He says, “The Father that Jesus address in the garden is the one that he has known all his life and found to be bountiful in his provision, reliable in his promises and utterly faithful in his love. He can obey the will that sends him to the cross, with hope and expectation because it is the will of Abba whose love has been so proved that it can now be trusted so fully by being obeyed so completely. This is not legal obedience driven by commandment, but trusting response to known love.”

Similarly, the hope we have in God is a “response to known love”.

It’s a response to his faithfulness. I mess up a lot. But I can put my hope in God because time and time again I have seen him not give up on me, and love me and use me anyway. I can start to trust Him because His love is something proven, it’s something known. He is faithful, even when we are not.

Notice that God’s proven love doesn’t lead to a plan with no suffering in it; for Jesus, it lead to the cross. Suffering doesn’t negate God’s goodness. But because we have seen God’s goodness in the past, we can have confidence (i.e. hope!) that His plan will ultimately be for good. God is utterly faithful.

The other day I was blindsided by some difficult bible verses which made me question things. Suddenly, I lost hope. But this quote by Elisabeth Elliot came up; “Of one thing I am perfectly sure: God’s story never ends with ‘ashes.’” We may not know what the future looks like, but we can know the God in charge of it and He doesn’t do ending with ashes.

Let’s practice gratitude (even if we aren’t very good at it). If we don’t remind ourselves of God’s love and faithfulness, we can easily forget that that we’ve even experienced them. And without this certainty of God’s character, our hope can grow thin. If it already has, then remember Romans 5:8 – God loved us so much while we were still sinners that he died for us.

Are we putting our hope in stuff other than God, wishing for it to give us what we need, instead of putting our hope in God, knowing He will come through?

December 1, 2016

Hope: Isaiah 40:31

“… but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grown weary, they will walk and not be faint.”
Isaiah 40:31

Have you ever gotten super discouraged during the holiday season? Well, if you said yes then I’d tell you, I’m right there with ya girl!

The holidays, especially the advent season, can be exhausting. School, work, kids, presents, decorations, Christmas parties, cooking, baking, family, church events, and volunteering are just a few of the things that set us over the edge during what is supposed to be the most joyous season of the year!

Amidst this discouragement however, have you ever felt beyond that? Have you ever felt hopeless?

I know, I know, hopeless? During the holiday season?! That’s blasphemy to say but I’ll be the first person to tell you that yes, indeed, I have felt completely hopeless during the holiday season.

In the middle of the hustle and bustle I cant help but worry about this and freak out about that. I get discouraged when plans get changed and anxious and uncomfortable when parties last longer than they should. I begin to feel inadequate and, eventually, the hopelessness creeps in.

Slowly, but surely, the dread begins to take over and I find myself praying the season would fly by. And how crazy is that?! God doesn’t want us wishing His Sons birthday away! Yet, I always find my self doing it! And this is exactly WHY God sent us his Son in the first place.

God knew that we would become hopeless.

He knew, long before our DNA was created, that we, His perfect creation would become hopeless. We have sin to blame for that, but God solved this problem with one major Band-Aid, the cross.

In fact, Isaiah 40:31 is a beautiful image of what this hope looks like!

“… but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grown weary, they will walk and not be faint.”

Did you hear that?

God RENEWS the strength for all that HOPE in HIM!

God sent His son to defeat death & evil, the only true hopelessness in this world. Jesus beat the grave and rose again to assure us of our HOPE in Him and in God’s Kingdom.

So, I challenge you to ask yourself this during the holiday season:

Am I putting my hope in myself or am I putting my hope in the person who saved me, defeated death, and connected me with our Father in Heaven?

If you answered yourself than take a moment to read through this verse and the others I have listed below. It’s human nature to get caught up in ourselves but, when we take the time to hand it over to our King, you can be surprised at how much more joyous our lives, and our holiday season, can become.

Let’s give this Advent season over God and honor His perfect Son, the one who gives us our hope, Jesus!

Check out these other verses:

Psalm 34:17-20
Jeremiah 29:11
Philippians 4:6-7
James 5:13
Revelation 21:4

November 30, 2016

Hope: Psalm 130:5

“I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope.”
Psalm 130:5

When we hear the word advent, what comes to mind?

One word that is always associated with advent is coming.

For the church, it’s a season observed as a time of waiting and preparation for the celebration of the birth or coming of Jesus.

When I was a child, I always looked forward to celebrating Christmas. In my young and innocent heart, there’s something in this season that made me feel hopeful. At that time, I didn’t have world-changing wishes or hopes.

I had a simple one: that my Dad would come home and spend that special day with us.

It was a time of the year that I had always waited for excitedly. It was a season of hope for me. Every year, I would wait and expect that this could be the time, but it didn’t happen until two years ago. I was already an adult.

Still, my long wait was over! My hope was finally realized.

I wonder what the shepherds on the night of the first Christmas must have felt when the Good News was announced to them, by no less than a throng of angels! History tells us that at the time, the nation of Israel was under the rule of the Roman Empire. The Israelites had been waiting for the time of their deliverance; anticipating the coming of the Messiah.

Imagine the joy and hope that this good news brought to the shepherds! The long wait was over!

A Savior, their Savior was born! In the darkest days of their history, the brightest message of hope shone like that of the star that guided and led them to the manger.

Waiting is not easy, especially when what you’re waiting for is taking too long to come.

The psalmist in Psalm 130:5-6 said:

“I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope. I wait for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.”

He must have felt weary sometimes, but he didn’t give up. What did he do, instead?

He put his hope/”hoped” in God’s word, knowing that He who promised is faithful that the Lord will come and will deliver His people.
He “hoped” whole-heartedly. His mind, strength and heart were focused on Him. His whole being waited on the Lord.
He “hoped” expectantly. Like the watchmen waiting for the morning because they believed that morning would indeed come. The psalmist was hopeful that the Lord would redeem His people.

Maybe you are waiting for something or even someone and you have been in that situation for a long time now.

Remain hopeful.

As Jesus came on that cold and dreary night, which brought a message of hope and salvation to the shepherds and the world, that someone or something that you’ve been waiting for is coming. The long wait will soon be over and your hope will be realized.