Beyond the “Merry Christmas” Wars

Psalm 73:28

Every year at this time I read an article or see a post on Facebook about how lost people don’t celebrate Christmas right.  How they use the holiday to drink and shop and host parties, and don’t give the “Christ” in Christmas much thought at all.  And then there is anger regarding the “Happy Holiday” we receive at the department store.  And we are told to just say “Merry Christmas” right back in their face… with a tone not exactly reflecting the joy of the season I imagine!

We need to realize that we aren’t gaining anything by winning the “pin the correct name on the holiday” award.  How about we take a different approach?  Celebrate the season with joy along side them.  Wait for the moment to share the depth and the breadth the holiday means within your own heart.  God will create the moment.  The checkout if probably not the venue.

So many people celebrate the 25th… but do so with an emptiness.  They know there is suppose to be some “holiday magic” during this season… but they are left on the 26th a little disenchanted.  It is because they don’t know the “Christ” of Christmas.  Words spoken by a greeting alone can’t convey his mercy and compassion toward them.  How about you be the conduit for them?

Brennan Manning wrote:  “What will separate the men from the boys, the women from the girls, the mystics from the romantics this Christmas will be the depth and quality of our passion for Jesus.”  Wow!  That goes beyond singing the right Christmas songs and issuing the correct greetings at the mall.  My passion for Jesus, himself, not mere passion for his birth date.

Psalm 73:28 says:  “But as for me, it is good to be near God.  I have made the Sovereign Lord my judge; I will tell of all your deeds.”  Has God not changed your life?  Has Jesus not saved your soul?  Passionately display that!

Be His ambassador this Christmas… at every Christmas gathering, at every work holiday party, in every checkout line this season.  God is with us!  Celebrate it with passion!  Take a page from Dicken’s A Christmas Carol.  He wrote of Scrooge at the end of his tale: “… it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge.”  Let that be said of you as well.

Merry Christmas!

Welcome to the Family

Genesis 25

As we roll along in Genesis… we come to a third major figure in this rich history.  There was Noah, then Abraham… and now:  Jacob.  We get to begin his journey at Square 1, his birth, as we are offered a backstory of how he came to be.  Do you know your “back story?”  Sometimes these stories are shared with us by our parents.  “We were long sought after.”  “We were an “oops” baby.”  “We didn’t want to come out of the womb.”  “We were premature.”  Whatever our story, how we were received is part of who we are and what we become.  Now Jacob was a wanted child.  A child vital to the promise of God.

Now Isaac his father knew his own backstory probably from the time he was a small child.  He would one day be the father of a great nation.  But then God interposes a period of waiting for that promised child, much like he did to his father, Abraham.  Isaac and Rebekah struggle with infertility.  It can seem that God is so silent when you deal with waiting for something.

Here are some tips to receiving the blessing of God in your life… even if the wait has been excruciating.

1.  Discover the Role of Prayer in the Sovereignty of God

¹⁹ Now these are the records of the generations of Isaac, Abraham’s son: Abraham became the father of Isaac; ²⁰ and Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Paddan-aram, the sister of Laban the Aramean, to be his wife. ²¹ Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was barren; and the Lord answered him and Rebekah his wife conceived.

We don’t know how long God was silent but we do know what finally broke the silence: the voice of Isaac praying.   Just because God had promised a child to Isaac didn’t mean that Isaac’s prayer was inconsequential.  It seems as though God took into consideration Isaac’s petition in His foresight, before any promise was even made to Abraham.

Could it be that when we don’t pray, God already takes our lack of prayer into consideration as well?  Knowing that becomes for us a powerful motivator for us to bring our petitions before God.  Some in this world say: “Answered prayer is nothing more than coincidence.”  But I’ve also heard it said: “It is amazing the amount of coincidences that occur when you pray.”   As a friend and fellow pastor, Dave Workman, once remarked: “… a coincidence is when God does a miracle but chooses to remain anonymous.”  Isaac and Rebeccah experience breakthrough… through the power of prayer.

2.  Come to Grips with the Choices of God

²² But the children struggled together within her; and she said, “If it is so, why then am I this way?” So she went to inquire of the Lord. ²³ The Lord said to her, “Two nations are in your womb; And two peoples will be separated from your body; And one people shall be stronger than the other; And the older shall serve the younger.”

Rebecca has these strange feelings inside her as the child they had prayed for begins to grow. The Hebrew could be translated this way: “But the children almost crushed one another inside her.”   God reveals to her that it isn’t one child but two. The fact that two nations would rise from this delivery is the reason that they seem to be warring within her. But the younger will be server by the older.

Things just became complicated!  There are now two bundles of joy – so where does the blessing go?  God Sovereignly chooses.  And he chooses Jacob.

Paul deals with what could be perceived as unfair in the book of Romans when he writes:

Romans 9

¹⁴ What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! ¹⁵ For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” ¹⁶ So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.

God determines the outcome before the prenatal brawl even comes to an end.  God sees the future and knows the character of Esau before he is even old enough for it to be manifested.  And God makes his choice.  Sometimes we bump up against this thing called God’s choice.  “I’m not smart enough.”  “I’m not pretty enough.  “I’m not filled with enough social grace or self motivation.”  “Why did God chose someone else instead of me?”  It doesn’t seem fair.

What joy comes over the life that realizes that we have never lost out on one thing that we really needed.  God didn’t make a mistake with Esau.  And he didn’t make one with you.  And by the way, find hope in the fact that Jacob wasn’t the obvious choice.  He wasn’t as masculine, strong, or athletic as Esau… and yet God had chose him to carry forth the blessing.

God indeed has a purpose for each of us.  Some are like Esau… others like Jacob.  But we each have our role to play.  And in the end, the important thing will not be what part we played, but in whose family we were born.  In Christ we receive all the blessing we will ever need.

Blessings!