Making the Theological Understandable
For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will– to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. (Ephesians 1:4-6)
Let the beauty of God’s creative miracle wash over you today. Advent is calling you back to LOVE.
In LOVE He created everything. Let Him recreate in you… the wonder of it all.
He was with God in the beginning. (John 1:2)
All the way back before time, love was a relationship. Not something to be seen with the human eye, but from God’s perspective, filling the blackness of any void we might have perceived. He filled it with Himself. With His glorious character because God is love.
And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. (1 John 4:16)
If this is the case, why do humans in general and Americans as a particularly materialistic sampling, insist upon assigning a material frame eclipsing any relationship of love?
After watching all the Black Friday events of people hurting each other—for what? A TV. Really. An X-box? In the scope of eternity, that will never last. None of this stuff will and yet it distracts us from the love that has been there all along.
The LOVE that has been there—as a relationship—since the beginning beckons us to wake up regarding our priorities and our loves. We cannot see Him in eternity past, but His LOVE is still vibrant and powerful and fills a spiritual dimension we cannot know this side of heaven. Is this the LOVE you know?
Let’s begin our exploration of Gospel of John and see Emmanuel: When LOVE Showed Up In-Person. Read and ponder:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)
Read that verse again—and let this thought sink in:
There is nothing material there.
It seems to be a void. You can’t see the Word unless it’s in print or in another form, such as braille. You can’t hear the Word unless it’s spoken. You can’t see God who is Spirit.
If you or I had been eyewitnesses transported by a magical time-machine or Major Tom’s “little tin can” to this moment, there would have been nothing to see.
No wispy gasses. No grains of chemicals. No asteroids. No stars. No light.
“Ground Control to Major Tom
Commencing countdown, engines on
Check ignition and may God’s love be with you”
It’d be lonelier than an astronaut floating in the silence and the stars like Major Tom. I say lonelier because Major Tom had Ground Control until his circuits went dead, his ship, and the stars. You or I would be floating truly alone in a blackness of total nothingness surrounding us if what we were to see was truly all there was.
Yet this nothingness is what every idea about beginnings must grapple with.
Interestingly, the human mind will superimpose its own patterns upon what it lacks—if we are placed in a sensory-deprived environment for as little as 15 minutes. And yet, had we been transported back to that time with no memories to form hallucinations, it would have appeared to be the scariness of nothingness and the machinations of our own minds would have had no fuel because there were not even thoughts to rely upon to create our own comfort.
We couldn’t perceive anything to give us comfort. And while it is true that there was Nothing Material, it doesn’t mean that there was nothing at all.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)
The Word was there and God was there. Not as a figment of our sensory-deprived minds but as an unseen reality, invisible to our human senses.
LOVE was actively present even though not at all a material thing. It was a powerful, life-giving force enjoyed by God Himself, and an expression of His character.
Ponder again this beginning for Christians and take a moment to answer the following questions:
Take a moment to watch this video on YouTube. Try to watch it in silence to get the full effect.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuT0tC109tc&feature=youtube_gdata
Then ask yourself the following questions to prepare yourself to embrace Advent:
1 Timothy 6:6 But godliness with contentment is great gain. 7 For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. 8 But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. 9 People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
To the voice in our heads that tells us to run after all kinds of things we really don’t need, we silence that stress by realizing that there are many wants in life but only a few genuine needs. Experience Godly contentment by prayerfully discovering the difference.
Thinking of all the things for which we can be thankful today. Create your own list or adapt it from this beloved hymn and sing the refrain and verses:
Lord of all, to Thee we raise, This our hymn of grateful praise.
For the beauty of the earth For the glory of the skies, For the love which from our birth Over and around us lies.
For the beauty of each hour, Of the day and of the night, Hill and vale, and tree and flower, Sun and moon, and stars of light.
For the joy of ear and eye, For the heart and mind’s delight, For the mystic harmony Linking sense to sound and sight.
For the joy of human love, Brother, sister, parent, child, Friends on earth and friends above, For all gentle thoughts and mild.
For Thy Church, that evermore Lifteth holy hands above, Offering up on every shore Her pure sacrifice of love.
For the martyrs’ crown of light, For Thy prophets’ eagle eye, For Thy bold confessors’ might, For the lips of infancy.
For Thy virgins’ robes of snow, For Thy maiden mother mild, For Thyself, with hearts aglow, Jesus, Victim undefiled.
For each perfect gift of Thine, To our race so freely given, Graces human and divine, Flowers of earth and buds of Heaven.
Lord of all, to Thee we raise, This our hymn of grateful praise.
And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father. (Colossians 3:17)
From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. (John 1:16)
When you start to feel stressed out about something, begin to count your blessings. Nothing shakes stress out of your heart like remembering the blessings that God has already bestowed on you. No matter where life finds you today, there are still things which are gifts of grace, one blessing after another.
Luke 10:38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” 41 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”
I found myself this morning with race horses in my brain, running wild, reins flying behind them, and no one’s hands holding them to get control over them as they stampeded over my emotions, my nerves, and yes, my thoughts. As they were dragging me off to the Land of Panic, I thought to myself, “Why do I do this?”
Do you feel that way at the holidays? So much to do and only ___ days before Christmas?
Whoa! Rein those horses in!
Well, I gave myself a few moments in the Divine Time Out Corner called prayer. Ironically, the busier we are, the more we need the priorities and perspective that come from sitting at the feet of Jesus. Take a few moments, trust me: You have time. Lay all your dreams for the day ahead at the feet of Jesus and ask Him to help you sort them by His priorities. Some things, let’s face it, are just stuff we layer onto His priorities and it’s our things He’s not obligated to make sure happen the way we want them to. His priorities are ones He’ll fulfill.
Take some time to pray.
De-Stress yourself by gaining Jesus’ priorities and Kingdom perspective. You’ll be glad you did.
Did Jesus advocate redistribution? Yes. But not in the way you might think.
Matthew 25:14 “Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them. 15 To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. 16 The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his money to work and gained five more. 17 So also, the one with the two talents gained two more. 18 But the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. 19 “After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. 20 The man who had received the five talents brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five talents. See, I have gained five more.’ 21 “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’ 22 “The man with the two talents also came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with two talents; see, I have gained two more.’ 23 “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’ 24 “Then the man who had received the one talent came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. 25 So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’ 26 “His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? 27 Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest. 28 “‘Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents. 29 For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. 30 And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
The primary point of this parable is to show that those who are preparing for the coming of the King will not play it safe with what they’ve been given. Playing it safe while waiting for His return only leads to redistribution from the one who produces nothing to the ones who will produce results. Jesus tells us that the Master in the parable (who is a picture of Jesus Christ, by the way) distributes and then He redistributes based on results (i.e. gain, profit, fruit, etc.).
Doesn’t it seem remarkably unfair in our culture for Jesus to take from one who was given so little and give what that guy had to one who already has so much?
Jesus doesn’t think of fairness the way we do. I wouldn’t go so far as to say we have a capitalist Jesus, but He’s also not a stupid Jesus. He doesn’t want us to:
Jesus is concerned about fruit…and when you stop and think about it, the giving of anything whether the little or a lot is all by grace. The rich of this world are rich by grace. The poor of this world are provided for by grace, too. Apart from grace, none of us would have anything.
A “stupid Jesus” would give equal amounts to every person and not care what happens from there. It would have been equality, fairness, or in the eyes of so many political people, social justice. Everyone has the exact same thing. Until someone begins to use what they’ve been given. Suddenly equality is out the window.
Three gospels tell the same story: John 12:1 Six days before the Passover, Jesus arrived at Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. 2 Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. 3 Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. 4 But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, 5 “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.” 6 He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it. 7 “Leave her alone,” Jesus replied. “It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. 8 You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.”
Did you catch the references to the poor? Both Judas and Jesus mentioned the poor. Jesus said, “You will always have the poor among you.” Or as it says in the Gospel of Mark, “The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me.”
Jesus tells us that the poor, as a category, will always exist.
The minute that totally perfect equality encounters unequal action, equality disappears and inequality results. Suddenly there’s injustice. Suddenly there’s someone who is poorer than another who, by comparison, is now rich. This is why Jesus isn’t stupid. If the poor cannot not be made equal forever on earth, it’s better to show grace to everyone and let each person glorify God with what he’s been given. Whether rich or comparatively poor, what matters is the return on Jesus’ investment and we all have choices to make with what we’ve been given. Are you concerned about how the rich use their money? Encourage them to produce fruit from what they’ve been given and to be charitably minded toward the poor as a response of grace. Rich and poor will be held accountable someday for what we did with the resources God entrusted to us, whether resources of income, property, or of people for whom to care.
Luke 12:48b “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.”
