Often we find in our lives that God is nowhere to be found. We cannot see Him, we cannot smell Him, we cannot taste Him or feel Him. Yet He is there. We know this because if we’re still for long enough we can feel the effects of Him working and moving in our lives. Jacob wrote, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.”
A girl to be married was given the promise of a child. With risk of rejection, she raised her courage to tell the man to whom she was betrothed to be married. “The angel went to her and said, ‘Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you….Do not be afraid, you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus.’”…His time had now come.
I often wonder at the tangled mess that makes up a person’s personality, character, quirks, expressions and interactions. What are the experiences that they have gone through, the pains they’ve felt, the joys they’ve shared, the tears they’ve cried, the passions they live for and the hurts they carry that cause them to be who they are. Finding out this information is like finding the keys to unlocking who someone really is-one finds out what really makes someone “tick” so to speak.
Every single day we must wake up and allow Christ to kill the old man. The flesh must die. The old man must be killed, the desires that raise up within you that desire things of the old man must die. Let Christ kill the old man every time he rears his ugly head. The old man will look strangely familiar—he will look more like you and be more dear to you then anyone else you know. But if Christ is to grow the New Man within you that looks more like Jesus, then the old man must go. There is no use in keeping him around, he will only drag you down to hell. The old flesh must die.
It seems most of us are so fond of our small pleasures in life that we have developed stomachs that would rather munch on cheap candies even though we are offered the chance to eat at a rich and elegant gourmet feast. If you find yourself sitting in church thinking about the football game you’d like to be watching, or wondering when Bible study will be over so that you can watch that new movie you want to see…
“But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”
I remember when I first became a Christian, I was bumping heads with all kinds of people. I had a passion for Christ and I wanted to let everyone know the truth and what they needed to change their life and make themselves right with God. I was on fire for the Lord but I had no sense of how to handle this new found life, energy and passion in my soul. I had no idea how to love others in Christ, I had no sense of listening, offering grace and mercy or just praying for those who did not want to listen to the Gospel.
I knew I was going to be late for my train if I didn’t move quicker. I passed a man who had a loudspeaker telling people they were going to hell. Without pause, I kept walking; he was always on the same street. Many city blocks later, two men were trying to hand me a tract asking me if I had Jesus. They weren’t always there. I figured I had probably already missed my train, so I stopped to talk to them. I found out they were from Milwaukee and were down here in Chicago trying do some “outreach.”
There are a number of jokes that have been circulating the internet and are in little gift books. They are always titled something like, “You know you’re _______ if you’ve ever…”, “You know you’re a pastor if…”, or “You know you’re from Chicago if…” or even, “You know you’re a redneck if…” One of my favorites talks about how you can identify where a driver is from.
I know right now that we exist in a world where there is much that has gone wrong. There is poverty, starvation, rape, murder, war, disaster and disease that is ripping through the entire world pulling it apart, atom by atom. I understand that this world will never be as it was originally made—as it was intended.