I have never been a fan of making New Year’s resolutions. There are two primary reasons for this. First, seldom are those resolutions kept until the first of February. Second, the resolutions made always deal with things people should be doing anyway. Usually, they concern issues such as living healthier lifestyles, committing to deeper spiritual pursuits, or spending more time with family. While these are certainly admirable goals, it seems that resolutions such as these only attempt to address symptoms stemming from a more profound problem.
If each of us were to step back and look at our lives and do an honest evaluation, I am sure we would find things we are disappointed with. Each of us could point out things we either need to stop doing or at least get under control. We would find things we have been neglecting to do and should have done sooner. If we wrote these all down, our list would probably get pretty long, and possibly even overwhelming, in no time at all. So, is the answer to try and pick these things off one-by-one in our resolution shooting gallery? I would say no.
Let’s look at a more general but immensely effective approach to making a New Year’s resolution. Here are a few lines from a song titled "I Am Resolved" which was written in 1896 by Palmer Hartsough and James Fillmore:
I am resolved no longer to linger,
Charmed by the world’s delight,
Things that are higher, things that are nobler,
These have allured my sight.
I am resolved, and who will go with me?
Come, friends, without delay,
Taught by the Bible, led by the Spirit,
We’ll walk the heav’nly way.
Is it possible that the answer to overcoming the disappointing attitudes, habits, and behaviors in our lives is as simple as resolving to pursue the “heav’nly way”? Look at the following verses of Scripture from the ESV:
Proverbs 3:5-6
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths.
Matthew 6:33
But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you.
Colossians 3:1-2
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.
Without question, trusting, acknowledging, and seeking God should be our first priority. Did you notice that these verses present this endeavor as a volitional choice we must make? In other words, we must “resolve” to do it! God has put the ball in our court.
Through surrendering to the lordship of Christ and to the leading of the Holy Spirit, we would supernaturally receive the power to resist temptation and to break old habit patterns? We would receive the motivation and self-discipline we need to develop a closer and deeper walk with God? We would receive the desire and ability to take control of our schedules and to fulfill our family responsibilities? Trust me, resolving to do these things individually and in your own strength would only lead to more disappointment and failure.
Let me close by encouraging you, even if you have no plans of making a resolution this January 1st, to make the pursuit of God your priority this year. This will be the only resolution you should ever need to make. See what a difference it will make in every aspect of your life!
Wednesday, December 31
Thursday, December 18
Slappy Holiday
Why not take the Santa Claus tradition a little further?
by Gene Edward Veith, provost of Patrick Henry College and director of the Cranach Institute at Concordia Theological Seminary
Santa Claus had his origins in St. Nicholas, the fourth-century bishop of Myra in present-day Turkey. Known for his generosity and his love of children, Nicholas is said to have saved a poor family's daughters from slavery by tossing into their window enough gold for a rich dowry, a present that landed in some shoes or, in some accounts, stockings that were hung up to dry. Thus arose the custom of hanging up stockings for St. Nicholas to fill. And somehow he transmogrified into Santa Claus, who has become for many people the secular Christmas alternative to Jesus Christ.
But there is more to the story of Nicholas of Myra. He was also a delegate to the Council of Nicea in AD 325, which battled the heretics who denied the deity of Christ. He was thus one of the authors of the Nicene Creed, which affirms that Jesus Christ is both true God and true man. And unlike his later manifestation, Nicholas was particularly zealous in standing up for Christ.
During the Council of Nicea, jolly old St. Nicholas got so fed up with Arius, who taught that Jesus was just a man, that he walked up and slapped him! That unbishoplike behavior got him in trouble. The council almost stripped him of his office, but Nicholas said he was sorry, so he was forgiven.
The point is, the original Santa Claus was someone who flew off the handle when he heard someone minimizing Christ. Perhaps we can battle our culture's increasingly Christ-less Christmas by enlisting Santa in his original cause. The poor girls' stockings have become part of our Christmas imagery. So should the St. Nicholas slap.
Not a violent hit of the kind that got the good bishop in trouble, just a gentle, admonitory tap on the cheek. This should be reserved not for out-and-out nonbelievers, but for heretics (that is, people in the church who deny its teachings), Christians who forget about Jesus, and people who try to take Christ out of Christmas.
This will take a little tweaking of the mythology. Santa and his elves live at the North Pole where they compile a list of who is naughty, who is nice, and who is Nicean. On Christmas Eve, flying reindeer pull his sleigh full of gifts. And after he comes down the chimney, he will steal into the rooms of people dreaming of sugarplums who think they can do without Christ and slap them awake.
Department store Santas should ask the children on their laps if they have been good, what they want for Christmas, and whether they understand the Two Natures of Christ. The Santas should also roam the shopping aisles, and if they hear any clerks wish their customers a mere "Happy Holiday," give them a slap.
This addition to his job description will keep Santa busy. Teachers who forbid the singing of religious Christmas carols—SLAP! Office managers who erect Holiday Trees—SLAP! Judges who outlaw manger displays—SLAP! People who give The Da Vinci Code as a Christmas present—SLAP! Ministers who cancel Sunday church services that fall on Christmas day—SLAP! SLAP!
Perhaps Santa Claus in his original role as a theological enforcer may not go over very well in our contemporary culture. People may then try to take both Christ and Santa Claus out of Christmas. And with that economic heresy, the retailers would start to do the slapping.
From the St. Nicholas Center, www.stnicholascenter.org.
by Gene Edward Veith, provost of Patrick Henry College and director of the Cranach Institute at Concordia Theological Seminary
Santa Claus had his origins in St. Nicholas, the fourth-century bishop of Myra in present-day Turkey. Known for his generosity and his love of children, Nicholas is said to have saved a poor family's daughters from slavery by tossing into their window enough gold for a rich dowry, a present that landed in some shoes or, in some accounts, stockings that were hung up to dry. Thus arose the custom of hanging up stockings for St. Nicholas to fill. And somehow he transmogrified into Santa Claus, who has become for many people the secular Christmas alternative to Jesus Christ.
But there is more to the story of Nicholas of Myra. He was also a delegate to the Council of Nicea in AD 325, which battled the heretics who denied the deity of Christ. He was thus one of the authors of the Nicene Creed, which affirms that Jesus Christ is both true God and true man. And unlike his later manifestation, Nicholas was particularly zealous in standing up for Christ.
During the Council of Nicea, jolly old St. Nicholas got so fed up with Arius, who taught that Jesus was just a man, that he walked up and slapped him! That unbishoplike behavior got him in trouble. The council almost stripped him of his office, but Nicholas said he was sorry, so he was forgiven.
The point is, the original Santa Claus was someone who flew off the handle when he heard someone minimizing Christ. Perhaps we can battle our culture's increasingly Christ-less Christmas by enlisting Santa in his original cause. The poor girls' stockings have become part of our Christmas imagery. So should the St. Nicholas slap.
Not a violent hit of the kind that got the good bishop in trouble, just a gentle, admonitory tap on the cheek. This should be reserved not for out-and-out nonbelievers, but for heretics (that is, people in the church who deny its teachings), Christians who forget about Jesus, and people who try to take Christ out of Christmas.
This will take a little tweaking of the mythology. Santa and his elves live at the North Pole where they compile a list of who is naughty, who is nice, and who is Nicean. On Christmas Eve, flying reindeer pull his sleigh full of gifts. And after he comes down the chimney, he will steal into the rooms of people dreaming of sugarplums who think they can do without Christ and slap them awake.
Department store Santas should ask the children on their laps if they have been good, what they want for Christmas, and whether they understand the Two Natures of Christ. The Santas should also roam the shopping aisles, and if they hear any clerks wish their customers a mere "Happy Holiday," give them a slap.
This addition to his job description will keep Santa busy. Teachers who forbid the singing of religious Christmas carols—SLAP! Office managers who erect Holiday Trees—SLAP! Judges who outlaw manger displays—SLAP! People who give The Da Vinci Code as a Christmas present—SLAP! Ministers who cancel Sunday church services that fall on Christmas day—SLAP! SLAP!
Perhaps Santa Claus in his original role as a theological enforcer may not go over very well in our contemporary culture. People may then try to take both Christ and Santa Claus out of Christmas. And with that economic heresy, the retailers would start to do the slapping.
From the St. Nicholas Center, www.stnicholascenter.org.
Wednesday, December 10
A Pirate at the Manger
Well, Black Friday has passed and we are headlong into the Christmas shopping season. Those of us that battle with Scrooge-itis this time of year are well on our way to saying “bah-humbug.” Like many of you, I struggle desperately with the secularization of our Lord’s birthday. I struggle with the rampant materialism that is always present in our society but seems to bubble up out of control every December. Thankfully, there is a cure for Scrooge-itis and joy can be restored even when we so regret what this holiday has become.
The cure for me is focusing on the Christmas story itself. While I love the story in its entirety, especially when Linus recites it from the Gospel of Luke in “A Charlie Brown Christmas”, there are certain elements profoundly meaningful to me. I guess the part of the story surrounding the birth of Christ that restores my joy most effectively is the presence of the shepherds.
The fact that God the Father sent a host of angels to inform this lowly group of people of the Savior’s birth is astonishing. It both reveals the very nature of the Gospel and the heart of God. Remember, these men were outcasts. They were poor. They were unlearned. They were of no social or political significance. They were nobodies! But God, in His grace, made sure that the glorious news of Christ’s birth was extended to them. Their pronouncement to the shepherds was accompanied by a personal invitation to go and find the babe “wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.”
I was reminded that the Gospel is for all people on Thanksgiving night. Sherron and I went to her cousin’s house to visit after eating dinner with my family. Her cousin has a house full of children, so their home was already decorated for Christmas. Part of their decorations included a Lego manger scene sitting on a sofa table in their living room. The fact that the set was made of Legos was not what made this particular manger scene unique. On further inspection, we were told that one of the wise men had somehow gone missing since his last appearance in 2007. But not to worry, he was provided with an able bodied stand-in. His stand-in was a Lego Pirate on loan from another box of the colorful cubes. I just smiled.
Not only was I reminded that the lowly shepherds were invited to the manger, this year at least, a scurvy Pirate was as well! And lest we forget, we were no better off than any of these outcasts before God drew us to Himself and saved us. We were all in the same boat as the shepherds and the Pirates (no pun intended). Look at Ephesians 2:1-7:
“And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”
We were all poor, wretched, blind, insignificant sinners who were enemies of God. You see, at the manger and at foot of the cross, all men are equal. All are undeserving of God’s grace and forgiveness. All are born into what John Gill called a “sad estate” because we come into this world dead in trespasses and sins. However, the most powerful words in the Book of Ephesians, and possibly in the entire Bible, are the words that begin chapter two, verse four. Those words are “But God…” These words tell us that God did something about our wretched condition because He is rich and mercy and love. He took the initiative to provide, through His Son, a way for us to be revived from spiritual death and to be relieved of the burden and guilt of sin.
For me, focusing on what the birth of Christ was really all about is the perfect cure for “Scrooge-itis.” Let’s keep praising God because His grace and mercy have been extended to the lowly and to the mighty, to the shepherds and to the pirates, to the kings and to the rulers. There is so much to be joyful about year round if you know the Savior so, don’t let the trappings of how Christmas is being celebrated get you down.
Gloria in Excelsis Deo !!!
David
The cure for me is focusing on the Christmas story itself. While I love the story in its entirety, especially when Linus recites it from the Gospel of Luke in “A Charlie Brown Christmas”, there are certain elements profoundly meaningful to me. I guess the part of the story surrounding the birth of Christ that restores my joy most effectively is the presence of the shepherds.
The fact that God the Father sent a host of angels to inform this lowly group of people of the Savior’s birth is astonishing. It both reveals the very nature of the Gospel and the heart of God. Remember, these men were outcasts. They were poor. They were unlearned. They were of no social or political significance. They were nobodies! But God, in His grace, made sure that the glorious news of Christ’s birth was extended to them. Their pronouncement to the shepherds was accompanied by a personal invitation to go and find the babe “wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.”
I was reminded that the Gospel is for all people on Thanksgiving night. Sherron and I went to her cousin’s house to visit after eating dinner with my family. Her cousin has a house full of children, so their home was already decorated for Christmas. Part of their decorations included a Lego manger scene sitting on a sofa table in their living room. The fact that the set was made of Legos was not what made this particular manger scene unique. On further inspection, we were told that one of the wise men had somehow gone missing since his last appearance in 2007. But not to worry, he was provided with an able bodied stand-in. His stand-in was a Lego Pirate on loan from another box of the colorful cubes. I just smiled.
Not only was I reminded that the lowly shepherds were invited to the manger, this year at least, a scurvy Pirate was as well! And lest we forget, we were no better off than any of these outcasts before God drew us to Himself and saved us. We were all in the same boat as the shepherds and the Pirates (no pun intended). Look at Ephesians 2:1-7:
“And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”
We were all poor, wretched, blind, insignificant sinners who were enemies of God. You see, at the manger and at foot of the cross, all men are equal. All are undeserving of God’s grace and forgiveness. All are born into what John Gill called a “sad estate” because we come into this world dead in trespasses and sins. However, the most powerful words in the Book of Ephesians, and possibly in the entire Bible, are the words that begin chapter two, verse four. Those words are “But God…” These words tell us that God did something about our wretched condition because He is rich and mercy and love. He took the initiative to provide, through His Son, a way for us to be revived from spiritual death and to be relieved of the burden and guilt of sin.
For me, focusing on what the birth of Christ was really all about is the perfect cure for “Scrooge-itis.” Let’s keep praising God because His grace and mercy have been extended to the lowly and to the mighty, to the shepherds and to the pirates, to the kings and to the rulers. There is so much to be joyful about year round if you know the Savior so, don’t let the trappings of how Christmas is being celebrated get you down.
Gloria in Excelsis Deo !!!
David
Thursday, December 4
An Unexpected Blessing
Last week, Sherron and I, along with Chad and Amber Scarbro and Derek and Kristin Duvall spent several days in New York City serving the homeless with the New York School of Urban Ministry. Each year, NYSUM conducts a Thanksgiving event called Operation Drumstick. Church groups from around the country come to help do street ministry to the homeless and to serve them a Thanksgiving meal. The goal for this trip was to determine if Operation Drumstick might provide some of the youth families of First Baptist an opportunity to go on mission together next year. While our team had some amazing experiences serving on the streets of New York, I wanted to share an unexpected blessing that God chose to bestow upon our team.
On the very first morning, as I sat in an alcove on the third floor of NYSUM headquarters having a quite time, a man who looked to be in his early forties stopped to say hello. The man’s name was Brad Wos. Come to find out, Brad is a PCA (Presbyterian Church in America) missionary. He and his family serve in an area near Cape Town South Africa but are in the US on home assignment in St Louis. During our conversation, Brad shared with me that he and his 16 year-old son Andrew had come to New York for a few days to do street evangelism together.
Imagine that, a dad actually taking his son to a big city to show him how to share the Gospel with strangers! Could it be that Brad takes his God-given responsibility to train up his son seriously? Apparently, he really does see himself as Andrew’s primary spiritual role model and looks for ways to teach his son how to express his faith.
Some might be thinking that since Brad is a missionary, he is of a different breed. He is one of God’s called out ones and should be expected to do that type thing. Remember, this family is on home assignment and will be going back to South Africa soon. They are away from their typical area of ministry so, it would certainly be easy for them to chill out in St. Louis and take it easy for a while. Instead, Brad took his son to New York City to witness to people on the street. He is no super-Christian he is just an example of a “normal” Christian father. Oh, that God would give us a wealth of Brads here at FBC!
The team went to NYSUM to seek an opportunity for our parents to model serving and evangelism for their children and God, in His goodness, gave us a living example. I hope this unexpected blessing we received will bless you as well and, maybe even challenge those of you that are parents.
On the very first morning, as I sat in an alcove on the third floor of NYSUM headquarters having a quite time, a man who looked to be in his early forties stopped to say hello. The man’s name was Brad Wos. Come to find out, Brad is a PCA (Presbyterian Church in America) missionary. He and his family serve in an area near Cape Town South Africa but are in the US on home assignment in St Louis. During our conversation, Brad shared with me that he and his 16 year-old son Andrew had come to New York for a few days to do street evangelism together.
Imagine that, a dad actually taking his son to a big city to show him how to share the Gospel with strangers! Could it be that Brad takes his God-given responsibility to train up his son seriously? Apparently, he really does see himself as Andrew’s primary spiritual role model and looks for ways to teach his son how to express his faith.
Some might be thinking that since Brad is a missionary, he is of a different breed. He is one of God’s called out ones and should be expected to do that type thing. Remember, this family is on home assignment and will be going back to South Africa soon. They are away from their typical area of ministry so, it would certainly be easy for them to chill out in St. Louis and take it easy for a while. Instead, Brad took his son to New York City to witness to people on the street. He is no super-Christian he is just an example of a “normal” Christian father. Oh, that God would give us a wealth of Brads here at FBC!
The team went to NYSUM to seek an opportunity for our parents to model serving and evangelism for their children and God, in His goodness, gave us a living example. I hope this unexpected blessing we received will bless you as well and, maybe even challenge those of you that are parents.
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