I wanted to share some quotes with you this morning out of Graham Cooke’s book, Approaching the Heart of Prophecy.  I really like his prophetic style and what he has to say about many things.  I thought you might be blessed by a few quotes as well.

If we perceive God to be harsh, demanding and prone to judgment, then our experience of Him is not going to grow into any great place of relationship. How do we make friends with a tyrant?  It is impossible because fear governs the relationship – fear of making mistakes, of saying the wrong thing, of doing a wrong act. Paranoia rules and peace is impossible.

         However, if we perceive that the Father has huge wells of compassion and mercy, which never run dry; if we know Him as being the one who is full of grace, rich in love, and abounding in love and truth; if He is slow to anger and incredibly patient toward us; if He is joyfully happy, with a sunny disposition; if His very cheerfulness can cover the world; if He is scandalously forgiving and generous; if He is the very epitome of goodness, so much so that we can only be transformed when we link our repentance with his goodness and kindness, then our whole personality is formed by such values.

         Jesus was always accused of lavishing too much time on sinners (Mt.19:11-13) and always had an answer for religious people.  God desires love and compassion in his people.

         We are called to pray, not condemn.  We are called as Jesus to intercede for a depraved world to the God who cares.  God takes care of His own wrath; He does not need our help.  (Graham Cooke, Approaching the Heart of Prophecy, p. 15)

There is a rising tide of evil in the earth and there is no rising tide of goodness to combat it. “We overcome evil with good” (Rom.12:21). What if the problems in the world are not lawlessness and crime, not poverty and sickness, not greed and selfishness, not drugs or terrorism, not abortion or immorality? What if the biggest problem in the earth is simply the lack of goodness? (Graham Cooke, Approaching the Heart of Prophecy, p.14)

 Joy is who God is, where He lives from, and what he does. He lives in perpetual, everlasting and eternal joy.  In His presence there is fullness of joy. The Father does not give us joy. He gives us Himself. He is absolute joy personified.  The atmosphere surrounding God is always joyful. We need to anchor our souls in the person of God and embrace his uninhibited delight in all things…. Joy is meant to overwhelm every negative emotion.  “Weeping may last for the night but joy comes in the morning” (Ps.30:5).  When joy is present, not negative emotion can flourish. Jesus was acquainted with grief (Is.53:3); it was not a close traveling companion. We need to be restored to the joy of our salvation, the delight and pleasure of our first major contact with the Lord.  Joy keeps all experience in God fresh. …  It is His plan for us to be joyful on a constant basis. “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you and that your joy may be made full”(Jn.15:11). (Graham Cooke, Approaching the Heart of Prophecy, p.87)

These quotes from Cooke remind me that during this season of remembering God’s great gift to us, it would be good to really reflect on the joy of the Lord that comes from Him.  We all know the quip, “Life is hard, and then you die.”  Many believers reflect that sentiment more than the joy of the Lord. Some days I’m wearing the t-shirt.  But joy is a fruit of the Spirit, not somberness or depression or cynicism.

As we reflect on the birth of Christ, we might reflect on the angelic proclamation sent by the Father to us, to you.  “Do not be afraid.  I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.  Today, in the town of David a savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.  Suddenly a great company of the heavenly hosts appeared with the angel praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace to men on whom his favor rests’” (Lk.2:10-14).

God is joy.  Find Him and we find joy.  Be blessed this Christmas season.

One of my favorite Old Testament accounts is the story of Naaman.  I find new instruction every time I read it.

Now Naaman was commander of the army of the king of Aram. He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded, because through him the Lord had given victory to Aram. He was a valiant soldier, but he had leprosy. Now bands from Aram had gone out and had taken captive a young girl from Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. She said to her mistress, “If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.” Naaman went to his master and told him what the girl from Israel had said. “By all means, go,” the king of Aram replied … So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha’s house. Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.” But Naaman went away angry and said, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than any of the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” So he turned and went off in a rage. Naaman’s servants went to him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!” So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy. (2 Kings 5:1-14)

This story is instructive in the context of receiving miracles from God.  Naaman was a great man who had been honored greatly by his king for his exploits in battle. Undoubtedly, a man of his strength, skills, and position was the quintessential soldier – tough, proud, and self-sufficient.  He was the Rambo of his generation.  And yet he finally faced an enemy that all of his battle decorations and military prowess could not intimidate or defeat – leprosy.  To be honest, the word translated as “leprosy” could mean any number of skin disorders and not necessarily the rotting flesh form.  However, he may have been infected with the early stages of that fatal disease.  Whatever his infirmity was, the doctors and the priests of his faith had no solutions for his problem.

That his skin disease was serious is suggested by his willingness to seek a man he did not know in a place where he was not welcome at the word of a captive servant girl. You don’t pack for a long chariot drive and load up with cash and prizes for the man you seek without being a bit desperate. So in desperation Naaman sought out Elisha the prophet.

When he arrived at the prophet’s door, the prophet himself did not bother to go out but simply sent a servant with a message to go to the Jordan River and dip seven times. In that moment two things happened.  God extended grace to a non-covenant individual who was also an enemy of Israel and he tested the heart of the man who was seeking healing.  Sometimes we ourselves start thinking that the love of God, the grace of God, and the miracles of God are reserved only for those in his household.  But all of those things came to us when we were not yet in his household.  We are told that the kindness of God leads to repentance and many times to conversion.  Expect God to bless those outside of Christ as an invitation to receive Christ. Ask God to do miracles for unbelievers as well as those already in the kingdom of God.

Secondly, miracles most often come to those who humble themselves before God.  It is the humble that God raises up.  Naaman had already humbled himself about as much as he could stand by even coming to a foreign prophet in a back eater town of Samaria.  But to add insult to injury, Elisha himself didn’t even bother to come out the meet the great man but sent a servant.  In Middle Eastern culture that was quite a snub.  He then was instructed to go down to the muddy Jordan River and dip in it seven times.  Naaman must have thought, “Are you kidding me? I’ll look like a fool and maybe I will be one. All I will probably get out of this is muddy and wet and humiliated.”

His response was anger.  He felt disrespected.  He was a great man who had brought great wealth to this nobody in Samaria.  He had envisioned the prophet himself coming out to honor him and then with pomp and circumstance, cries to the Lord, and the waving of hands he would be healed. But he had been treated like a commoner and told to go dip in a river that had no reputation for healing. His pride welled up along with his anger and he started to leave.  He started to miss his miracle.  His servant was wiser than the master and called on him to humble himself so that he might receive from the God of Israel.  He made the point that if God had asked him to do some great thing to prove his worth before healing, then he would have gladly gone off to “slay the dragon.”  To do so would have brought him glory for his bravery and  “worthiness” rather than bringing God glory for his grace.  In the end, he submitted to the strange ritual and received his healing.

Basic Principles for Receiving a Miracle

•  God does not heal or grant miracles because of our worthiness or accomplishments, but because he is merciful and full of grace.

•  We must receive a miracle on God’s terms not ours.  Sometimes, in our imagination we have written a script for God about how and when he should answer our prayer for a miracle of healing, provision, promotion, children, or relationships. When it doesn’t begin to unfold as we scripted it, we (like Naaman) are tempted to abandon the dream and the request. Stick to it and follow God even in unlikely directions.

•  Sometimes, we need to go where God is working rather than waiting for him to come to us. That would be especially true in healing. In addition, many times God will not grant a miracle without the involvement of others to facilitate that miracle in your life.

• Receive prayer and “ a word” from the lowliest of God’s servants regarding your miracle.  God heals though 12 year olds as well as through leaders of worldwide ministries. You may even be asked to do something that is out of your theological comfort zone.  Many have missed a miracle because the prayer or the methodology did not fit their theology so they walked away.

• Be obedient when you get a clear word.  Obedience is an expression of trust, which is an expression of faith. Many times, miracles only come to us according to our faith.

Be blessed today and expect miracles….on God’s terms!

Have you ever wondered where God is and how he feels when you are being abused, wronged, or wounded?  I was visiting with a friend of mine who is a gifted songwriter.  My friend has been deeply wounded on several occasions in this life but reminded me of a great psalm that pictures God’s response to those who would harm his children.

King David wrote: The cords of death entangled me; the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me. The cords of the grave coiled around me; the snares of death confronted me.  In my distress I called to the Lord; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears. The earth trembled and quaked, and the foundations of the mountains shook; they trembled because he was angry. Smoke rose from his nostrils; consuming fire came from his mouth, burning coals blazed out of it. He parted the heavens and came down; dark clouds were under his feet. He mounted the cherubim and flew; he soared on the wings of the wind…The Lord thundered from heaven; the voice of the Most High resounded. He shot his arrows and scattered the enemies, great bolts of lightning and routed them… He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters. (Ps.18:5-16).

Although David employs a great deal of imagery in this psalm, the picture is clear. God is a loving Father who hears the cry of his children and rises in anger toward those who would injure them.  David wrote this after God had delivered him from the hand of Saul who had been hunting David for years. In this psalm the Holy Spirit reveals the heart of God toward his hurting children.  He is described as a Father seething with anger, who rends the heavens to rescue one of his beloved children.  Before you say, “Well, he’s never done that for me when I have cried out!” remember that David went through a number of trials before he was finally and fully delivered from his enemy. But this psalm reveals a great deal that should comfort us.

First of all, God is not indifferent to our pain or our dilemmas.  He feels as any good father would feel watching someone hurt his child.  I remember a moment when my youngest daughter was in kindergarten. I was at her school for a Fall Festival when I saw her come of the door leading to the playground and a boy about twice her size pushed her so that she nearly fell.  It wasn’t an accident as he hurried by.  I saw him look at her and intentionally push her.  I felt my blood pressure rise along with a great deal of anger over what he had just done to my little girl. I confronted the boy and let him know very clearly that if that ever happened again there would be swift and severe consequences.  In that moment of anger, I still exercised restraint.  After all, he was just a boy…and there were witnesses. But I still remember my automatic and immediate response to seeing my daughter wronged by a bully.

David paints that picture of our heavenly Father.  He rises in anger breathing fire and coming in vengeance on those who would wrong his child.  And yet, even in this psalm, he showed great restraint.  With all of his power, he still only scattered the enemy and routed them.  Unrestrained, God could have annihilated every one of them in a moment. In his heart he wanted to do just that. Yet, he also loves those who hurt us and still desires for them to repent and be saved.   Remember those moments in the wilderness wanderings of Israel when God would tell Moses to step aside and let him destroy Israel and start over?  That was his feeling, but in his restraint he allowed Moses to intercede on behalf of a stubborn and faithless nation so that he could change his mind and give them another chance.  Think of the restraint of the Father as he watched cruel men abuse and crucify his only begotten Son.  God’s dilemma is that he is not only holy and all-powerful, but he is love. He loves us and our enemies as well. And so he restrains himself and by that restraint is restricted to comforting and healing us rather than annihilating our enemies the moment they wound us. Before you push back against that, remember that there have probably been moments in our lives when he restrained his anger and frustration against us as well.

However, there will come a day when those who refuse to repent will feel the wrath of a loving Father because of what they have done to his children. God does store up wrath. In that Day, men will cry out, tremble, and want to hide under the mountains because of the wrath that will be coming their way.  God is not indifferent and he will display his love for his children and his justice toward those who have abused, rejected, wounded, and even killed those in Christ who have not come to faith and repented.

Remember the parable of the sheep and the goats that Jesus told in Matthew 25.  It is a parable of judgment.  He says that when he comes with his angels, all men will stand before him and will be separated based on what they have done for the poor, the lonely, the imprisoned, and the oppressed.  Those who ministered to the victims of this world will be rewarded.  Jesus says, “Whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”  To those who did not care about the victims of this world, Jesus released them to eternal punishment and said, ”Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.”  How much more will that be true for those who injured his children without repentance?

Jesus told us that in this world we will have trouble.  He even told us to expect persecution. He also said, “ I will never leave you nor forsake you” and “I will be with you even unto the end of the age.”  Even in our suffering God is there. He is filled with pain and anger because of what is being done to us. His heart is to save, to comfort and to heal and also to punish the wicked who would hurt you.  He will do so in time. In the meantime, a Father’s restraint blesses us all.  Be blessed today knowing that whatever you have suffered, your Father is stirred deeply and will rise from his throne on your behalf.

In his book, The Jesus I Never Knew, Philip Yancey poses an interesting question.  If you had been alive and walking the dusty roads of Palestine in the days of Jesus, what would you have noticed about him when you encountered him? Yancey goes on to discuss the phenomenon of having no physical description of Jesus in the New Testament.  The closest the Bible comes to a description is found in Isaiah’s Messianic prophecy, “He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him” (Isa.53:2).

Yancey goes on to document that no paintings of Jesus appeared until six hundred years after his ascension and those paintings were only imaginative speculations.  Even then, artists painted Jesus to look like the idealized man of their culture.  The Greeks first painted him as a young, beardless man who looked much like their versions of the pagan god Apollo. Yancey documents other views when he says, “One tradition dating back to the second century suggested Jesus was a hunchback.  In the Middle Ages, Christians widely believed that Jesus had suffered from leprosy.  Most Christians today would find such notions repulsive and perhaps heretical” (Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew, p. 87).

It’s easy to find those views of Jesus weird and laughable but Hollywood has presented Jesus as tall, blond, and blue-eyed with a British accent on more than one occasion. I just saw a nativity scene with a blond baby Jesus. That is as unlikely as being a hunchback since Jesus was very Jewish and much more likely to have been short with dark hair and a Middle Eastern complexion.  But we simply don’t know.

I continue to think it is remarkable and, therefore, intentional that the gospel writers never gave a physical description of Jesus. In fact, it is rare for the writers to give a physical description of anyone – even the most well known New Testament characters – the woman at the well, Nicodemus, the Roman Centurion, the prodigal son, the woman caught in adultery, etc. The Romans focused on appearance produced hundreds if not thousands of idealized sculptures of all their famous and powerful leaders. But the New Testament writers are silent.

I can think of two reasons that the Holy Spirit may have chosen to omit such a description.  The omission may allow each of us to personalize Jesus in our own imaginations. Maybe each of us needs Jesus to look a little like us so that we can identify with him more easily.  Jesus has been painted as being black, Latino, European, and probably somewhere as Asian.  I don’t think Jesus minds.  After all, after his resurrection he took on many forms that often did not look like the Jesus the apostles walked with for three years.  Jesus wants connection and if we imagine him in a way that facilitates that personal connection then he is probably good with that.

Perhaps, there are few physical descriptions because physical appearance is deceptive. Remember when Samuel went to Jesse’s house to anoint the second king of Israel who would take Saul’s place?  Saul was tall and looked kingly but his heart was not the heart of a king.  He failed miserably.  But as the prophet was scanning Jesse’s sons to sense who would be the next king, he kept making the same mistake. He would judge the young man standing before him by his appearance thinking that the one who “looked like a king” should be king.  In one of those moments, God reminded him that the one who sits on the throne in heaven does not look at the appearance of a man but at the heart. In the kingdom of God, the heart qualifies a person rather than good looks. Perhaps, the Father did not give us a description of his son because we would have spent our time trying to duplicate his looks in our lives rather than his heart.

Isaiah’s prophecy doesn’t suggest to me that Jesus was ugly or deformed.  It just suggests that on the outside he looked like an ordinary man.  He didn’t look presidential and in our media saturated world of image, he would have never gotten the nomination for president because he didn’t look the part – tall, slender, handsome, polished, athletic, thick haired, etc.  By the way, our best presidents have not fit that image. Lincoln was tall but not handsome or polished.  Franklin Roosevelt was tied to a wheelchair, which he kept from the public.  Theodore Roosevelt wore glasses, was stocky, somewhat short and brash.  From all accounts, George Washington would not have struck you as a general or president if you had simply met him on the street.

I think God left us to look at the heart of Jesus rather than his outward appearance. If Jesus had ordinary or even less than ordinary looks, he had something on the inside that transcended his looks.  How many teachers today could hold the attention of crowds for three days while they sat in open fields and went without food just to hear him?  Who among us today could have temple police sent to arrest him but would return empty handed saying. “No man ever spoke like this man!” How many preachers among us today would have sinners flock to him without a world-class praise band and light show and give their lives to the kingdom of God?  Something within Jesus was transformative.  I believe it was the love of God and the hope of eternal life that flowed out of his heart giving life to those who were dying to be loved.

Jesus challenges us. Do we spend more time each day thinking about our appearance and the outward trappings of life or do we spend more time developing the heart of Christ within us?  I’m not saying that Christians should take on an ascetic lifestyle giving no thought to the physical.  Please shower, shave, comb your hair and … ladies put on your makeup.  But at the end of the day, do we think more about the externals of our lives or whether our hearts were directed by the presence of Jesus that day?

Imagine a world where late night television was no longer filled with adds about loosing weight so you could slip on your new bikini or about hair transplants, facelifts or the newest wrinkle creams.  What if there were no infomercials about getting rich quick and grabbing the big house with the luxury status cars?  Instead, what if late night television had infomercials about forgiving those who have wounded you, learning to love the poor, doubling your prayer life rather than your income or loosing excessive anger?

Okay, I know those things can’t be purchased in a box or sold like a product. But my point is that we should hunger after those things more than all the products offered to enhance our appearance and perception by others. If God doesn’t look at the appearance of a man but at the heart, we should have the same priorities. We don’t remember Jesus for his looks but for his life, his words and his heart. The same will be true about us.  Lord, give us the heart of Jesus today in every circumstance and for every person. Be blessed.

In scripture, “keys” represent authority. Jesus said, “And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Matt.16:18-19).  In essence, Jesus was declaring war on hell and pronouncing the victory in advance. In order to prosecute the war against a supernatural enemy, the church was going to need supernatural power and authority.  Jesus said that he would give that authority to his church.

Jesus had already demonstrated the supernatural power and authority of the kingdom of heaven in his own ministry.  “Supernatural” does not always mean mystical or magical. It simply means “above the natural” or “beyond the natural.”  In our context it means that power and authority derived from the spiritual realm exceeds or trumps anything that can be found in the natural or the temporal realm. In the natural realm disease, hunger, and storms have their way. But Jesus dominated each of these in the natural realm by exercising authority derived from heaven.  He also demonstrated that the power of heaven is greater than the power of darkness within the spiritual realm by casting out demons, raising the dead, and by his own resurrection.

While Jesus was on the earth, he delegated that same power and authority to the twelve and then to seventy other followers who also healed the sick, raised the dead, and cast out demons. Upon his return to heaven, Jesus sent his Holy Spirit who also imparts power and authority to the followers of Jesus for healing, deliverance, miracles and so forth.  That power is manifested through spiritual gifts that are backed by the authority and power of heaven.

In addition, the Holy Spirit himself has taken up residence within every believer and has made us partakers of the divine nature (2 Pet.1:4).  John tells us that we now possess eternal life through our relationship with Jesus.  When all those factors are taken into consideration, it appears that we should operate more in the spiritual realm than in the natural.  In fact, if we possess eternal life now, we are primarily spiritual beings because only those things that belong to the spiritual realm are eternal.  “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Cor.4:18).

Since we are primarily spiritual beings, Paul directs us to fix our eyes on that realm – to make the spiritual realm our first point of reference in all things.  Jesus lived with the heavenly realm as his primary perspective.  Storms weren’t a problem because there are no storms in heaven. A little bread and a few fish could feed five thousand because heavenly economics are not limited to what we can see or hold in our hands. The dead are only asleep.  Water can become wine with a simple command or can become rigid enough to walk on.  Jesus didn’t perform magic; he simply knew that he was not limited to natural law because he was a citizen of heaven with the power and authority of his homeland establishing the things he commanded.

We are called to live by that same heavenly perspective.  It’s called faith.  Jesus taught us to pray for God’s will to be done on earth  (the natural realm) as it is done in heaven (the spiritual realm). Whatever God does for his children in heaven, he is willing to do for his children on earth. Heaven comes to earth through faith. “Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer” (Mt. 21:21-22).

God’s will for his children in heaven is perfect health.  Healing brings that heavenly reality to earth.  Provision is God’s will for his children in heaven.  Prayer provides for his children on earth. Heaven is a “no demon zone.”  Deliverance establishes that reality on earth. The fruit of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, etc. – releases the atmosphere of heaven into this troubled world. If we believe that we are currently citizens of heaven seated with Christ in heavenly realms then we are releasing the manifestations of heaven to earth rather than begging for heaven to do something about this mess.

The apostles experienced the difference in perspectives on the boat in the storm while Jesus slept.  They were living with the perspective that they lived in the natural realm and were terrified of the storm that had power to destroy them.  Jesus slept in the midst of the storm, not because he was exhausted but because he had peace. In a sense, he “owned the storm” because the spiritual realm has power and authority over the natural. Faith is not just believing who Jesus is but also who we are in Jesus. Faith is seeing life through the eyes of the Spirit rather than the eyes of the flesh. Faith is fixing our eyes on what is unseen and believing that if God is for us, no one or no thing can stand against us.

Today let me encourage you (and myself) to view life and even our struggles with a heavenly perspective – not just, “What would Jesus do?” but “What will Jesus do?”

Ask yourself, “What would the Father do in response to a challenge if that challenge surfaced in heaven?”  Then expect his will to be done on earth as it is in heaven on the basis of your prayers, your declarations, and your faith because you are his authorized representative on the earth – loved and empowered by heaven.  Live in the spiritual, walk with authority, and carry the atmosphere of heaven with you today. Be blessed. It’s the Father’s will for you.

The Gospel of Matthew takes us into the desert with Jesus immediately after his baptism.  As soon as the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus, he was directed into the bleak landscapes of Israel surrounding the Jordan River.  There he fasted for forty days. The NIV says that the Spirit led him into the wilderness.  One translation said that he was driven by the Spirit into the desert.

I believe that Jesus, operating as man, had been given glimpses and impressions of his mission as Messiah but after his baptism he spent forty days fasting and seeking a much clearer picture of the Father’s purposes for the next three years.  He also denied his body for forty days to break the power of the flesh so that the Spirit could rule the day every day.  The entire eternal future of humanity hinged on that very thing.

After forty days of fasting, when the body begins to devour itself, the enemy happened along just as he had happened along in the Garden of Eden. Some scholars believe Satan knew exactly who Jesus was while others think he was trying to determine who this man might be. Three times Satan said. “If you are the Son of God….”  Those same words could be translated or understood as, “Since you are the Son of God…” Either way, Satan was out to derail whatever mission this man or Messiah was on.

You know the story.  Satan tempted Jesus to satisfy the gnawing in his stomach by turning small, desert stones into bread.  He then challenged him to throw himself off the highest point of the temple mount to be protected by angels.  Finally he simply offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world if he would simply worship the prince of darkness.

Philip Yancey put it this way. “As I look back on the three temptations, I see that Satan proposed an enticing improvement.  He tempted Jesus toward the good parts of being human without the bad: to savor the taste of bread without being subject to the fixed rules of hunger and of agriculture, to confront risk with no real danger, and to enjoy fame and power without the prospect of painful rejection – in short to wear a crown without a cross” (Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew, p. 72).

It seems that at the heart of our fleshly nature is a hunger to have everything we desire without cost – the cost of waiting, suffering, or transformation. In short, we want a crown without a cross as well. In one sense, Adam and Eve fell for the same ploy. Take one bite and all wisdom will be yours along with other undreamed of pleasures. Why wait for it or work for it when it can be yours right now without breaking a sweat? It’s the dream of simply rubbing the lamp and the genie giving you what you always wanted or it’s winning Power Ball against all the odds.

Jesus came to win the hearts of men for God and to take his rightful place as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Satan offered him all that instantly and without the pain and humiliation of the cross. Why wait three years when he could have it then?  Why risk failure when the goal was within reach as Satan spoke?  Undoubtedly the natural man in Jesus was offering every rationale imaginable for saying, “Yes” to these offers. But it wasn’t the Father’s will or the Father’s way.  Something very poisonous and perverse was imbedded in those shortcuts.

First of all, the shortcuts offered a self-sufficiency that would separate Jesus from the Father. Like seeking wisdom from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil rather than from the Father, the act in itself would separate man from the divine.  In his own way, Satan was seeking to step into the role of God by offering to be the source of provision and promotion in the life of Jesus.  When we want the gifts more than the giver, we will be tempted by shortcuts, but Jesus wanted the Father more than anything else.

Secondly, God always considers timing and connection with other events in the fulfillment of his promises. Shortcuts put us “out of sync” with God’s timing. When Abraham and Sarah decided to “engineer” their own version of the fulfillment of God’s promise of a child, 3,000 years of war were spawned by the enmity between Ishmael, the son born of natural means and the father of the Arab nations, and Isaac, the son born of supernatural means as the child of promise and the seed line of the Jewish nation.

Thirdly, the process of waiting, struggling and even suffering develops the character in each of us to steward the destiny God has promised. We are told that even Jesus learned obedience though his suffering. “During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him” (Heb. 5:7-9). Waiting and struggling teach us things worth more than silver and gold.

How often are we tempted to take shortcuts in our walk with the Lord and the fulfillment of his promises in our lives?  How many have sensed God’s promise for a spouse but were unwilling to wait for the unfolding of the promise. Rather, they forced a relationship toward marriage only to find that the marriage that occurred in the natural did not live up to the marriage of promise. How often have we done that in career building when positions that pushed us to compromise Christian values offered the provision and success we believed God had for us, but rather than waiting on God’s promotion we grabbed the first thing offered without seeking God’s approval?  Even in the arena of sexual fulfillment most Christian singles want to experience the promise before the marriage and are unwilling to wait and to struggle for the “oneness” God promises in the marriage covenant.  It always costs the marriage and our relationship with God something when we take the shortcut.

Satan always offers the crown without a cross. But the cross perfects us, draws us closer to the Father, and places us and the fulfillment of promises in God’s perfect timing.  As Americans, we are not good at waiting. Though the average life span is close to 80 years, we can’t seem to wait six months or six years for the promises of God to bear fruit in our lives. We even want easy or instant spirituality.  I think I’ll right a book entitled “The Spiritually Empowered Life of Amazing Intimacy with God in Five Minutes a Day or Less.”  It should be a best seller because that’s what we all want – myself included. But, it doesn’t work that way.

Satan will offer to satisfy your hunger in a moment or give you overnight fame and fortune or power and influence in the world. He will even remind you of all the good things you can accomplish when the “end justifies the means”.  But there will be serious strings attached and the worst is that our shortcuts will create separation between the Father and ourselves.  We may end up like the prodigal who couldn’t wait for his inheritance but took the shortcut to the good-life but ended up in the pigpens. The Father never stopped loving him and his place in the house was still available when he returned, but the “shortcut” turned out to be a long and painful detour in his life.  The Father’s way was so much better.  Beware of shortcuts today and be blessed.

John Ortberg is an author and speaker you need to check out if you aren’t familiar with him.  I was listening to a video message he presented at a prominent church in Atlanta recently and was reminded that many Christians struggle with the concept of God’s grace in their lives.  I thought it was an observation that deserved some attention on this blog.

Many of us were quite comfortable with our need for God’s grace when we were unsaved, unknowing sinners. Our rationale is that, no matter how sinful our lives were, we didn’t know any better. Because of our “ignorance,” God was glad to pour out his saving grace on us. And so we live a life of joy for a few months after coming to Christ filled with the knowledge that all is forgiven because we have been saved by grace through faith and not by anything we have done or by any merit we have earned.

But for many of us, a subtle or not so subtle sense of condemnation begins to creep into our lives. Perhaps the condemnation comes as a steady whisper from the enemy or it comes through well-intended but somewhat misdirected teaching from our churches.  An unspoken belief begins to take root inside of us that we were saved by grace but we must become Christ-like by our own efforts and if we are not growing by leaps and bounds God is unhappy.  Somehow we begin to think that grace was available when we didn’t know any better but now that we know what constitutes right and wrong, we better toe the mark by our own efforts if we want to continue in God’s good graces.

At that point, our Christian walk becomes a burden rather than a joy and a source of condemnation rather than a life of freedom.  Have you ever noticed how hard it is to find the fruit if the Spirit in many long-time Christians?  I’m not talking about morality or good works. We can find those things.  I’m talking about the first three expressions of the fruit of the Spirit that are listed in Galatians 5 – love, joy, and peace. Week after week I see believer’s come forward during our ministry time at the end of each service and they are burdened, troubled, and joyless.  I’m not talking about those who just lost a loved one or found out that their spouse has been unfaithful.  I’m talking about believers who live year in and year out without a true sense of love, joy, or peace.

I believe two things are missing.  One is the transformation that Jesus offers to every believer. His promise and mission is to extend God’s grace to all who will receive it through the preaching of the gospel.  It is also to heal broken hearts and set captives free while exchanging garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness (Isa.61).   Many of us have heard the good news of forgiveness but not the good news of transformation and freedom which also stands on the grace of God. If believers have no expectation for significant change in their hearts and in their lives, they will not change.

The other missing component is the belief that I am not only saved by grace but also live by grace  – even when I fall short and even when I knew better.  Living by grace is not having a cavalier attitude toward sin. Rather it is believing that God’s grace is always much bigger than my sin. It is knowing that, by my own invitation, God is working in me every day by his Spirit to transform me into the image of Jesus Christ.  My part is to make myself available to him and ask him to do his work in me.  His part is to transform my heart which will then transform my actions.

In my book, Born to Be Free, I speak of a position / condition paradigm for understanding our sanctification (the process of becoming like Jesus).  The writer of Hebrews tells us “by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy” (Heb.10:14).  That means that the grace of God, through the sacrifice of Jesus, has given us a sinless status before the Father and he always relates to us on the basis of Christ’s righteousness which has been credited to us.  While doing that, however, he is also working on our condition (sinfulness and brokenness) to make us like Jesus and to bring our condition in line with our position.

We get focused on the ugliness of the process while the Father is only focused on the end product.  Builders have a very clear picture of what the home they are building will look like in the end. They don’t focus on the weed-choked lot where the house will eventually rest.  They don’t despise the ugly pieces of plastic PVC pipe sticking up out of a fresh foundation. They don’t get hung up on bare lumber sticking up into the air or all kinds of trash on the lot that will be cleared out later.  For the majority of the process, a stately home looks like a chaotic mess that will never amount to anything.  The master builder, however, knows what the end product will look like so he doesn’t despise the process. The same is true for our lives.  We condemn ourselves for the chaotic process while God is confident in his finished product.

A life lived by grace, remembers that Jesus is the carpenter not us. It remembers that God always views us through a lens of righteousness not failure or sin, and that God is quite aware of our condition and is faithfully working on that.  You are God’s project. He does not hold us responsible to transform ourselves, but only to invite him to do the work and trust him while he is doing it.  In that environment love, joy and peace can develop and, like trees alongside the river of God, can bear fruit that heals the nations.

Remember – you were saved by grace and you go on by grace every day.  Rejoice in that truth and live in its warmth. God’s grace is sufficient and we must trust in it now as we did when we first came to Jesus. When the church is filled with loving, joyful, and peaceful Christians, the world will flock to Jesus.  After all, those are the very things everyone is looking for and those are the things the world is selling.  It’s just that the world is selling “knock-offs” rather than the real thing.  When the world finally sees the real thing in us, they will beg to know where we got ours.  Living by grace after being saved by grace is the answer.  Be blessed.

In our ministry to brokenhearted people, we obviously see a lot of broken people. If I could identify one theme that runs through the lives of most of these men and women it would be an extreme amount of self-focus.  That self-focus is brought on by pain but it also amplifies the pain.

Think of it this way.  If you have ever gotten up in the middle of the night and tried to navigate your way through the house in the dark, you may have stubbed your toe on something hard and immovable.  If you did, you felt pain shooting up your leg and exploding into your brain.  Suddenly, all you were concerned about was that toe and the throbbing pain that was being broadcast from that little digit at the end of your foot.

In that moment, all you wanted to do was to soothe that toe – rub it, soak it, ice it – whatever.  The lights you left off so as not to disturb your spouse were then on and you were making enough noise to wake the dead or you were clinching your teeth tightly enough to bite through steel. In that moment, if your spouse had asked you to bring him/her a glass of water from the kitchen, you would have totally ignored the request or howled with pain, offended by the fact that your spouse was ignoring your intense anguish enough to even ask for water.

In the moment that makes sense. You are in pain.  Your total focus is on yourself and all you care about is finding relief and for others to acknowledge your pain and to help – or, at least, to express some sympathy. That little scenario has been experienced by many of us. I have also seen two different responses to the injury.  Some simply shake it off, wrap the toe with tape and get on with their day.  Others spend the day checking their toe every few minutes looking for deepening hues of purple and blue. They notice every ache as they walk across the floor and sense the pressure of their shoe against that toe for the very first time.  They begin to wonder if it’s broken or whether they will lose the nail. They tell everyone at the office or at school about their trauma in the dark and show their toe to anyone who will look.

Here is the question.  Is their toe more injured that the person who wrapped it and went on with their day or do they experience more pain because they are totally focused on the toe?  When we go to the doctor and he brings out the needle to give us a shot, we have learned to distract ourselves.  We look away from the needle and think of something else.  In doing so, we reduce the pain we feel because our focus is elsewhere. I believe that emotional pain and past trauma’s can also be amplified if we make it the central focus in our lives.

I’m not saying that emotional pain and brokenness are not real or that they don’t need to be healed.  They do.  Jesus made “healing the brokenhearted” a major focus in his ministry. In our freedom ministries at Mid-Cities we believe it is crucial to walking in freedom.  But the “how” of healing becomes the question. We should also ask, “How do I live while I am being healed?”

Jesus not only came to save us from our sins but to show us how to live healthy, joyful, and significant lives.  The New Testament instructs us to develop an “other” focus rather than a “me” focus in our lives. Our first focus is to be on the Lord.  “Love the Lord thy God with all your heart, soul strength and mind.”  We are then instructed to have an outward focus in caring for others.  In the N.T. we are commanded to love one another, pray for one another, serve one another, teach one another, encourage one another, build up one another, etc.  We are commanded to pray for the sick, seek the lost, and care for the pour and hurting.  All of these force our focus outward.

We are even called to be concerned about social justice issues.  Isaiah speaks for the Lord when he says, “Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for a man to humble himself? Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed and for lying on sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?   “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard” (Isa.58:6-8).

Notice that healing is attached to a concern for others and action on their behalf.  The more wounded we are, the more intentional we should be about getting our focus off of ourselves and on to the needs of other people.  When we use our pain to minister to others, healing flows back in our direction.  When we choose to serve others, our pain is not as acute.  God understands our need for healing.  We do need to acknowledge our pain, lift it up to the Lord and ask his Spirit to touch our broken places for healing. We could even do that daily.  But having done it, God’s therapy plan is to shift our focus from ourselves to Jesus and to the needs of others.  We do so trusting God to do the healing he has promised without overseeing his work every minute of the day.

There is power in learning to give God our concerns and even our pain but then shifting our focus to the needs of others. It is the spiritual version of focusing elsewhere while the doctor puts a needle in our arms. It is also the way to emotional health, healing and significant ministry.  It is also the way of becoming more like Jesus. I lost my second wife to cancer after being married for twelve years.  On my way home from the funeral, God put it on my heart to stop and pray for another man whose wife was on the verge of death. It was a healing moment for me as well as for him.  My pain wasn’t the only pain in the world and this man had been married to his wife for fifty years. It helped to put my loss in perspective.  An outward focus does that. If you have been so focused on your own pain that you cannot notice the needs and hurts of others, please choose a different focus today.  It will bless you as much as them.

Wisdom is highly valued in the kingdom of God. Proverbs is full of wisdom so it’s a good idea to spend time in the book of Proverbs on a regular basis. This morning I was scanning a section of Proverbs and a verse that I had thought about before caught my attention again.

The proverb says, “Under three things the earth trembles, under four it cannot bear up: a servant who becomes king, a fool who is full of food, an unloved woman who is married, and a maidservant who displaces her mistress (Prov. 30:21-23).

The part of the proverb that struck me this morning essentially declares that the earth trembles when a servant becomes king. In a related proverb, Solomon said, “An inheritance quickly gained at the beginning will not be blessed at the end” (Prov. 20:21).

Both of these proverbs speak about wealth and power being given before an individual has been groomed with character and understanding to manage the wealth and power well. A prime example is the recurring theme in newspapers and tabloids about celebrities and professional athletes who are making a wreck of their lives. Typically, these are young, talented men and women who have achieved fame and wealth quickly.  In many cases these men and women seem to be totally out of control and feel that the rules of society – even the laws – should not apply to them. They seem to have no capacity to govern what has been given to them.  Their fame and fortune arrived before their character could manage what had been entrusted to them.

Many of these young men and women have overcome the childhood adversities of poverty or abuse which is certainly something to be admired. However, when the praise and the money begin to flow in their direction they obviously cannot handle the perks and the temptations attached to those things.

When a slave becomes king, he suddenly wields wealth and power that he has not been trained to exercise with restraint and wisdom.  When “trust fund babies” are granted immense wealth at age twenty one, they seem to have no capacity to appreciate the work that went into building the fortune they are spending nor do they seem to have any respect for those who do work.  The “entitlement” mentality of those who have been given much without working for it is as destructive as drugs.

Wisdom tells us that those who will be entrusted with wealth, power, and influence must be mentored, trained, and given opportunities to develop character and a framework (worldview) for understanding and exercising the power and wealth entrusted to them. In essence, they must be taught to accomplish good rather than to simply satisfy the desires of the flesh. Some arrive at their “privileged stations” with good intentions but simply don’t know how the world operates in the circles in which they will be moving. In that case, good intentions are rarely accomplished.

In a culture that exalts youth, talent, and idealism over experience and wisdom, we will often see men and women in positions of power who have no idea how to operate in those positions effectively but who also will take no instruction because they feel entitled to that position.  Our nation will require a cultural shift to overcome a future where many “slaves” will become kings and where many will inherit what they have not worked for.  The earth will tremble.

The Lord reminded me this morning that this will also be true in the spiritual realm.  In these last days God will be giving great gifts to young believers.  Some of these will be the gift of generosity and perhaps the ability to create great wealth to go with that gift.  Others will be given amazing gifts of leadership while others will be operating in healing, prophecy, miracles and knowledge. Some will be gifted with creative talents for worship and art.  These gifts must be poured out on the church in these last days but those who receive them may be slaves who become kings or those who quickly gain a spiritual inheritance they have not worked for.

“Wrecked” lives, ministries, and churches can occur in the kingdom of God as well as in the world. God’s solution will be “spiritual mothers and fathers” who come along side these gifted men and women to provide a mature framework for the exercise of their gifts.  My experience tells me that that church is full of twenty and thirty year old believers, gifted and full of world-changing potential, who are hungry for spiritual mentoring.  The spiritually mature in the church who have weathered the storms of life and who have learned hard lessons must make themselves available to these men and women who will be the next leadership generation in the kingdom or who already are beginning to lead.  Those who are developing gifts, beginning to excel in the market place, or who are moving into leadership roles in the kingdom must seek out mature men and women to mentor them as well.

Historically, great moves of God have died out in one generation because the leaders of that movement did not impart their gifts and experience to a younger generation.  Perhaps, the younger generation did not ask those leaders for impartation or instruction.  It has always been God’s desire for his ways to be passed from generation to generation – one teaching and the other being teachable. My hope is that in these last days, we will invest in the generations behind us and that those generations will receive.  I hope you will be active in the process. Be blessed.

“Sorting through the stack of cards that arrived at our house last Christmas, I note that all kinds of symbols have edged their way into the celebration.  Overwhelmingly, the landscape scenes render New England towns buried in snow, usually with the added touch of a horse-drawn sleigh. On other cards, animals frolic: not only reindeer, but also chipmunks, raccoons, cardinals and cute gray mice. One card shows an African lion reclining with a foreleg draped affectionately around a lamb.

Angels have made a huge comeback in recent years, and Hallmark and American Greetings now feature them prominently, though as demure, cuddly-looking creatures, not the type that would ever have to announce “Fear not!”  The explicitly religious cards (a distinct minority) focus on the holy family, and you can tell at a glance these folks are different. They seem unruffled and serene. Bright gold halos, like crowns from another world, hover just above their heads.

Inside, the cards stress sunny words like love, goodwill, cheer, happiness and warmth. It is a fine thing, I suppose, that we honor a sacred holiday with such homey sentiments.  And yet when I turn to the gospel accounts of the first Christmas, I hear a very different tone and sense mainly disruption at work.” (Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew, Zondervan, p.29)

In his book, The Jesus I Never Knew, Yancey reminds us that the first Christmas wasn’t all that serene.  Imagine Mary as a very pregnant teenager and her young husband traveling to Bethlehem to enroll in a census that the Roman government demanded. We’re reminded that Jesus entered this world as a scandal of sorts because no one but Joseph and her cousin Elizabeth believed her story about being impregnated by the Holy Spirit. Joseph had nearly divorced her and, perhaps, wondered from time to time if he had actually been visited by an angel who told him that Mary’s story was true or if he had just imagined the whole thing.  Having been married for eight or nine months, Joseph had never been able to sexually consummate his marriage with his young wife.  He had been “cheated” out of his dreams and traditions of the Jewish wedding feast and wedding night.

Traveling this late in her pregnancy was a severe hardship and risky.  For her to leave her family at such a time suggests that there was still a great deal of tension and embarrassment about this pregnancy. Arriving late and finding no rooms available must have added to the tension as well.  This was not how any little Jewish girl had ever imagined her marriage or the birth of her firstborn.  Not only was she in a strange place bereft of her family, but their only shelter was most likely a damp cave with the smell of animals and animal droppings all around. Perhaps they had found a mid-wife to help Mary through her labor.  Perhaps, they faced that very human ordeal alone with some pain and some fear.  We really don’t know the time of the year that God had chosen for his only begotten to enter this world in the flesh.  It may have been cold or hot or reasonably pleasant but there was no climate-controlled room to welcome the creator of the universe.

Sometime in the night a handful of unknown shepherds smelling of sheep appeared with stories of angelic visitations announcing the birth of this “King of Israel.” To them it had been a terrifying experience more than a joy-filled moment in the serene pastures surrounding Bethlehem.  On this first night, no kings appeared to welcome this child but only dirty, semi-religious shepherds.  Joseph and Mary were not given a commentary of the purposes of God in all of this.  They were left to wonder what God was up to just as we have to wonder when events in our lives are not what we ever anticipated.

Christmas cards and pageants always have the wise men from the east arriving with the shepherds while the star of Bethlehem adorns the sky outside of a nice, clean wooden stable with the baby Jesus lying neat and clean and smiling with his arms stretched out in a welcoming pose. A careful read of the gospels indicate that the wise men came later – perhaps as much as two years later.  Joseph and Mary had chosen not to return to Nazareth with their new son but apparently had remained in Bethlehem, the city of David. Once again, we are reminded that they may not have felt welcome back home.  When the wise men, kings from the east, arrived they went to Herod to see if he knew where this recently born King of the Jews was.  His response was treachery as he asked the kings to alert him to the presence of this child if they found him so that he could worship this “pretender to his throne” as well.  His intention was to kill this child whose very presence threatened him.

The kings brought their valuable gifts and laid them at the feet of Mary and Joseph and worshiped the child.  Mary found the whole thing a little odd and simply stored the moment up in her heart to ponder later.  She would have to because as soon as these kings left, she and Joseph were warned in a dream to pack up, leave quickly, and flee to Egypt to avoid Herod’s death squads. Shortly after their departure, Herod murdered every male child under the age of two years that lived in Bethlehem.  Apparently, the star had first appeared 12 to 24 months earlier indicating the birth of the king.  I’m sure Herod gave himself some margins so that his death squad would not miss this child the prophets had spoken about.

By the time Jesus was two years old he had been driven from his hometown of Nazareth by scandal, born in a dark stable, kept from the nurture of loving Jewish grandparents and had become a political refugee fleeing by foot to Egypt.  There he would live in exile for several years until Herod had died and enough peace was finally made with the families that Joseph and Mary and their young son returned to Nazareth.

The scandal of God, the confusion and anxiety of a young couple, the murder of the innocents in Bethlehem and the flight to Egypt are not depicted on our Christmas cards. Certainly the faith of Joseph and Mary brought some peace in the midst of this.  The kings from the east funded their flight to Egypt.  Angelic choruses brought a sense of wonder and majesty to the birth of the Son of God becoming the Son of Man. But all in all, Christmas should remind us again of the price Jesus paid for our redemption. And not only Jesus but the people attached to him as well. While we were yet sinners, Jesus not only died for us but was born in harsh circumstances for us as well. Jesus, from birth to resurrection, is the expression of God’s amazing love for us – for you.  This Christmas that is worth celebrating.  Be blessed.