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When Jesus Comes

Imagine the sensation he caused. Word spread through Jerusalem and Judea like wildfire. An eccentric loner who lived out in the wilderness and ate bugs was now preaching the one message Jewish people had for centuries longed to hear: The Messiah is coming! The one who will deliver us from foreign rulers and set up His own kingdom is coming. Get right with God, because it is happening now!

And they did get right with God–at least, as they understood the process. Rich and poor, young and old, strict religious leaders and those who had been slacking off in observation of religious traditions—they flocked out to the wilderness to hear the preacher, throngs believed his message, and they confessed sins and were baptized in the river as a symbol of their “rightness” with the God who was going to come and establish himself as their king.

Some were even talking about the possibility that this man in the wilderness was in reality the Messiah himself.

“No, I’m just the messenger,” the preacher said. “I’m baptizing you with water to show that you’ve asked God to forgive your sins, but someone is coming who is much greater than I am. And when he comes, he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit!”

The preacher in the wilderness baptized, but it was a mere hint of what was to come. The baptized walked into the river as an act of faith, hoping to show they were right with God. The water washed down over them and then dried as they made their way home. For many, once they were back in their everyday world the power of the moments in the river wore off. John’s baptism was an outward act on the part of sincere but unaware and too fickle men and women.

When the Great One did come, He didn’t live up to expectations. Many found it difficult to believe and accept Him for who He was. In spite of their hesitation, though, large crowds came to hear what He had to say. And one thing He said was this:

“If you love me and follow what I say, my Father and I will come and live with you.”

When someone comes to live with you—spouse, baby, parent, roommate, pet—your world changes! You change. Your thinking changes. Your schedule changes. Your commitments change.

Jesus baptizes those who believe and He comes to live with them.

His baptism is not a symbolic human gesture to represent what might or might not be going on internally. It is not an act that is soon forgotten, “dries off,” or becomes ritual and loses its power.

He baptizes with His Spirit to transform every aspect of our lives.

This is a deep, soaking, penetrating baptism.
    an act of the living God
    to do away with the old life and create a completely new life
    and seal a new relationship.

Everything depends on this:
When Jesus comes, He baptizes those who believe and makes possible all we are powerless to do.

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Scripture: See Mark 1:1-8 and John 14:23

To read about how life changes, click on “The Spirit” category in the right panel.

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Morning Prayer

O Lord, you have examined my heart
and know everything about me.

You know when I sit down or stand up.
You know my thoughts even when I’m far away.

You see me when I travel
and when I rest at home.
You know everything I do.

You know what I am going to say
even before I say it, Lord.

You go before me and follow me.
You place your hand of blessing on my head.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
to great for me to understand!

If I ride the wings of the morning,
if I dwell by the farthest oceans,
even there your hand will guide me,
and your strength will support me.

Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
Point out anything in me that offends you,
and lead me along the path of everlasting life.

May your children know your hand of blessing on them today, Father.

Amen.

 

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from Psalm 139 (NLT)

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Your Lazarus life, in Christ alone

Sometimes I wish John would have been more Paul Harvey-like. Why didn’t he give us the rest of the story? I mean, come on – wouldn’t it be great to know what happened to Lazarus after he walked out of his own tomb and the graveclothes dropped away? (John 11)

He must have been quite the celebrity. His story would have hit our Yahoo headlines within minutes. Yet we know more about his sisters, Mary and Martha, than we do about Lazarus.

Surely, after that astounding day, his family lived every hour knowing the life they had together was a gift from the One with power to give life to the dead. Surely, for years afterward, they would sit in reflection of how their friendship with Jesus completely changed the course of their lives.

But do we need to know what life was like for Lazarus after he was called out of the darkness of his tomb? Isn’t it much more exciting to think about what our lives are since Christ called us from the darkness of the grave and gave us new life? Everything we have, we have because of Christ.

Keith Getty and Stuart Townend wrote “In Christ Alone,” a song about our Lazarus lives. It deserves to be a “Christmas song,” because it celebrates what Christ came to give us: all of life as children of God. Through Him alone, we are now sons and daughters of the Almighty Creator of the universe. Only because of Christ, we are the new people of God (Galatians 5:16 NLT).

Everything we have in this new life, we owe to Christ.

His love gives us hope and strength, comfort and peace.

His death paid for the wrongs I’ve done and gave me a way back to God.

His victory when caught in Satan’s most powerful trap—death—released me from the power of that curse.

I can live with “no guilt in life, no fear in death.” Wow. Wow. (Help me, Spirit, I do want to live that way!)

His power is greater than anything I can imagine or anything I will meet here on earth, and nothing, nothing, can separate me from that love and comfort and power.

That’s the new life, the new way of living, that Christ gave us.

What if the “rest of the story” was that, once the furor had died down, Lazarus drifted away from his friendship with Jesus, eventually forgot he owed every breath to the One whose power had given him life. How sad and what a waste if, after being given such an amazing gift of life, he did not live it to the fullest!

Do not forget who brought you from the grave. Everything has changed because you know Him. Live the life He came to give you.

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Listen to “In Christ Alone” (I recommend skipping the ad at the beginning!) at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENtL_li4GbE . It’s a song to be sung with great reflection; and if you do so, you’ll fall in grateful tears and awed worship at the feet of the One who has power to give you such life.

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New Year’s Day Elijah

Encouragement for all of us from a guest contributor, Vicki VanNatta.

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January 1, 2013, New Year’s Day:

Sigh…Do I really have to face another one of these? Setting goals, evaluating the past year, reviewing my accomplishments – except in my case I review what I didn’t accomplish, which is more obvious. All those things left undone on Dec 31, like a kitchen counter cluttered with the effects of a busy week of running to and fro. It’s draining. January 1 seems like a day designed to showcase my failures, highlight my shortcomings and remind me that my life is passing by—and what exactly have I really accomplished? How will I be remembered? Will I be remembered? What did I do with the time I had? How in the world did I manage to waste so many years?

So I would rather go to bed – yes, I know it’s 10am. And for a person who battles depression, going back to bed at 10am is like an alcoholic having a vodka on the rocks at 10am; a sign that today I am again falling off the wagon. Going to bed, curling up under the safety of blankets and comforter, letting sleep make it all go away for a few hours—I may as well have had several drinks at 10am. I sleep and sleep and sleep some more. Drifting in and out. Feeling guilty, rehearsing my failures during times of consciousness. And to top it off, back to bed at 6:30pm, sleeping soundly until –

 

January 2, 2013:

What time is it??? 4am?

Lord, did you waken me for a reason? It has to be you, Lord, because I’m that no-good sleepaholic bum. Remember? I wasted a day under the covers. Wasted the day I was supposed to be setting goals and creating my life’s plan for this year. Yes, I was truly wide awake and hungry. Only my hunger pangs got me out of bed.

Hot food and drink. A hot shower. Small blessings I often overlook. I visited someone in the hospital this week, and now this morning, standing under hot water running over me, I thought of all those people lying in hospital beds who may not be able to shower for a long time. I’m blessed.

I remember my mom telling me, “Get a good night’s sleep. Things will look better in the morning.” You were right, Mom, they do.

Perhaps I needed the sleep. Can 12 hours of sleep ever be God’s plan? Doesn’t sleeping 12 hours make me a ‘sluggard’? Don’t I remember reading something in Proverbs about lazy people who will come to no good?

But wasn’t it Elijah who slept for hours when he wanted to die? And wasn’t he a prophet or someone God used in an amazing way? Now where is that story? Searching my Bible, I find it. The story of Elijah in I Kings 19.

Elijah was ‘zealous for the Lord,’ but on this day, he ran into the desert, sat under a tree and told God he wanted to die. Utterly hopeless, he slept and ate and slept and ate, in that time finding strength to continue. He heard God’s voice, then, when God spoke to him; and he went on with the work God gave him.

In the end, he never did die, but God took him home in the middle of a whirlwind, in a chariot of fire pulled by horses of fire (2 Kings 2:11). Amazing! He never had to die an earthly death even though he begged for God to take his life that day in the desert.

Yes. I slept the day away, but I think it was God’s plan for me. This morning I have renewed strength and hope; determination to make some changes that need to be made; renewed awareness of the Holy Spirit in my life; and realization of simple blessings – like a hot shower.

New Year’s Day isn’t a day to review my failures. It’s a day to look forward and see that God has given me one more day to be a blessing to someone, to be ‘zealous for the Lord God Almighty.’  Don’t look back. God has forgotten those mistakes of your past. You should work at forgetting them too. You may not be exactly where you want to be, but aren’t you glad you aren’t where you were 20 years ago?

“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.” Isaiah 43:19

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Writing and Speaking the Word

Just a few of my own words today, and these from Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Life Together:

But God put this Word into the mouth of human beings so that it may be passed on to others. When people are deeply affected by the Word, they tell it to other people. God has willed that we should seek and find God’s living Word in the testimony of other Christians, in the mouths of human beings. Therefore, Christians need other Christians who speak God’s Word to them. They need them again and again when they become uncertain and disheartened.  (my emphasis added)

When I read this quote, I saved it in my “writing” files, to read occasionally and remind myself why I write.

Then I realized it applies to all of us who follow Christ together: writer, farmer, salesman, preacher, homemaker, nurse, truck driver, architect, businessman or woman, but above all, Christian. It matters not what we do to make a living; what matters in the journey we travel with others following Christ is that we speak God’s Word to each other.

Psalm 119 says that the Word is a light for our path, it makes us wise, it guides our steps, it revives us when we are low as the dust, it brings encouragement, renews our life, and leads to joy and freedom. Paul says in Ephesians that the Word is the sword of the Spirit, a weapon the Spirit uses to defeat our enemies.

Speak that Word to the Christians who journey beside you. Hand them the sword, offer the bread that revives and encourages, shine the light that shows the way and brings freedom and joy.