HAVE YOU GROWN THIS YEAR?

You may find it in the bedroom.  Perhaps on the wall in the “utility room” (that was the name for the room where our washer and dryer and industrial sink could be found).  Maybe even in the garage. 

If there are small kids, they may step up to it every week, or monthly.  When grandparents come over, the kids may take their hands and lead them to it.  “See how much I’ve grown, Papa?”

In countless homes there are yardsticks, or perhaps nicely painted markings on the wall alongside the door jam.   And next to the inch and foot designations, there are additional marks, perhaps with a name and a date next to them.  “Jill – March 2013” and then “Jill – November 2013” and then again “Jill – April 2014.”

Kids quite naturally love to see how much they’ve grown.  Most want to grow up too fast, perhaps, but wanting to progress and become an adult – both physically and personally – is natural, normal, and healthy.

Life without goals and progress is stagnant and, if you will, lifeless.

HAVE I GROWN?

I woke the other morning after a trek across the country with this question in my head.    Chronologically, I’ve lived over 6 decades.  Physically, unless I decide to eat too much too often, I will not be growing any more.   But life without goals and progress is, well, you know…

My confession is that it took me awhile to size up the more important growth measurement in my life.  I don’t have a tape on the wall that I can stand next to (for some, crafting a list of “resolutions” becomes their next year’s “stick”) that will give me a read.  So I had to think.  “Have I grown?  If so, in what ways?”

TO THE MEASURE OF THE STATURE OF CHRIST

Now there’s a yardstick!  But in fact it is our Father’s measuring tool for us (Romans 8:28-29, Ephesians 4:11-16, Colossians 1:29).  Simply put, How much more like the Lord Jesus Christ have I become this year? 

But how do you measure this?

Some might quickly reference “the fruit of the Spirit” as a helpful set of measurements.  “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23).  Still, besides simply saying, “Yeah, I think I got better in those things,” the list begs a closer analysis, which can be helped by turning the list into 9 questions.  For example:

·      How have I expressed more genuine, self-less love this year to others?  To whom?  When?

·      In tense or stressful situations, have I more consistently been peaceful because of my dependence on the Spirit of God?

·      Has my typical harsh responses to people I disapprove of yielded to more gentle responses?

Time spent reflecting on questions like these can accomplish two things (at least).  One, it can open up a conversation in your heart with the Holy Spirit about how much like Christ you are (or are not) in simple, identifiable areas.  And second, it can help set a “measuring stick” up on the wall of your thinking for future reference.  Jotting down questions like that, and referring to them each quarter, could be a major way the Holy Spirit grows you and me in the future.

If you’re truly brave (or open to God’s Spirit), you may even invite trusted friends, or your spouse, to join in the conversation.  Sure it may sting a bit, but the humility that it can produce in your heart is the soil from which new life can grow.

ASK GOD FOR THE QUESTIONS ON YOUR MEASURING STICK

Even though our Father has the same outcome for all of us (i.e., to be like the Lord Jesus in character and obedience), the questions for each of us might differ a bit.  That’s the exciting part – the questions for you are up to your Father, His Spirit, and you. 

My encouragement – take some time with your Father and craft a spiritual measuring stick for 2015.

For the team I coach (Christ Community Church), we are landing on 6 questions.  I’ll cite them as an example.  Perhaps they will get you started on your own:

1.    Did God make my day?  (i.e., Where does God show up on my daily calendar of to dos and events)

2.    Is the Holy Spirit flowing through me? (i.e., Do I express the Spirit of God’s flow through my living)

3.    Who shares my tough stuff? (i.e., to whom and how often am I accountable spiritually, personally)

4.    With whom am I fishing? (i.e., building shaping relationships)

5.    How worn in my welcome mat? (i.e., inviting others into relationship, and toward God)

6.    How are my spiritual investments doing? (i.e., am I helping another disciple grow)

Don’t get mired in a stagnant life.  Get growing…

The Greatest - and Most Important - Story in Human History

The Christmas season is full of stories.

Some of them are fun.  Others are silly, forgettable.  Still others are sobering.

The best stories are about reconciliation.  People coming back together after days, months, years of regrettable and destructive fighting.  The famous Christmas truce days of WWI in Europe (1914) rank as one of the best.  This year those brief days of "peace on earth" are a century old, and rightly remembered.  Men in the killing fields emerged from opposing bunkers dug into mud and stench to stand with their enemies for moments of encouragement, blessing, sharing pictures of family, spirits...and a respite from the slaughter.

The truths of the birth of Christ, or what we popularly call "Christmas,"  produce such peace and giving.  Pare away the tinsel, overspending, and hectic preparations, and Christmas is actually about God giving His Son.  More specifically, God the Son coming into the world through the agency and power of God the Holy Spirit in order to do the reconciling work and plan of God the Father. 

"God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself" (2 Corinthians 5).

An unholy mankind has, through the centuries of history ,been at war with himself and with the Holy God who created him.  Adam ran from God and hid when sin crippled his heart, his marriage, and his world.  God had to come seeking, looking, calling.  Unholiness produces everything we hate in ourselves and in this world.  Yet by ourselves, without God's seeking and intervening help, we are virtually powerless to extract the moral cancer from our bones.

Christmas is about a God who sent His Son into the sinful, stench-filled bunkers of humanity, to bring us out.  He chose to die so that those who simply believe do not need die themselves.  When Christ died, and rose again, the intractable war between an unholy man and a holy God could be over.  Men could be forgiven, and reconciled to the God who created them.

"God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself" (2 Corinthians 5).

At our Christmas eve services at Christ Community Church, we offered a simple copy of the New Testament Scriptures to all of our visitors, with a Christmas day devotional tucked inside.  A devotional which simply leads through God giving of His Son in love, and the possibility of reconciliation and the gift of life eternal.

Two Chinese students came and each took a Bible.  One simply said, "I've never had a Bible," and then asked her host, "Why do you read this?"

What a wonderful question.

We read this -- and invite you to do the same -- to clearly and fully understand the greatest story that ever happened in Human History.  That God became a man.   For a reason.  God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.  Calling us out of our deeply dug bunkers, up and out of sin, to be forgiven and called into peace with God.

The only Christmas story that really matters.

HOW PEOPLE GET TO HEAVEN

Surveys consistently find that most Americans believe that there is a "heaven" to which people go after dying.  We are less sure about "hell."

[Recently, Pope Francis assured us that even our pets will land in heaven.  Chapter and verse, please?]

Our cultural optimism is likely the root of our bullish view on the eternal future.  We simply like believing in a God who will give us a pass into "a better place" if we tried our best on this side of the river.

Unfortunately what we like to believe may not be, quite frankly, the truth.  But what truth about heaven is available?  Whom should we believe about this all important topic?  Most human beings sense intuitively (and rightly, I might add) that our 70-90 years on the planet is not the end of the story.  So if there is a "next" the following questions naturally arise

• what is "next"?
• is what's "next" the same for everybody?
• if not, then can anyone have confidence that "next" is "heaven"?

RELIGIONS HAVE ALL KINDS OF ANSWERS

One day, I was talking with a Jewish friend.  We were riding a bus together and somehow got on the topic of eternity and heaven.  He shocked me with his perspective.  "Judaism insists that everyone gets there - to heaven - eventually."   "Really?" I asked, "even Adolf Hitler?"

He paused just a second, and then said with a tone of some certainty, "Yes, even Adolf Hitler.  God is forgiving."  My friend, however, did not explain the basis for God's forgiveness, just that he was sure God was.

Depending with whom you speak, one can gather many views of "heaven" and "how to get there."  Hindus believe that following the right path will lead to being finally released from desire (produced by the physical world) so as to be ushered into nirvana.  However, if you imbibe too much pleasure, you will likely have to work off your sin in the next, reincarnated life.  Getting caught in that  downward cycle provides very little realistic hope.   

Muslims believe that by believing in Allah and being obedient to the Koran, heaven can be gained through faithful effort.  Almost every religion has some pathway that you have to follow, and perhaps you can get to a better place, but only if you really, really, really try hard enough.

Even many "Christian" sects make "getting to heaven" the reward of enough good works and self-effort.  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is an example of such a "be good enough" approach.

CLARITY IN THE CLAIMS OF JESUS

Jesus of Nazareth made a remarkable statement.  He said,

In my Father's house are many dwelling places
If it were not so, I would have told you.
I go to prepare a place for you
If I go and prepare a place for you
I will come again, and receive you to myself
That were I am, you may be also

And then added,

I am the way, the truth, and the life
No one comes to the Father
Except through me.
John 14:1-6

Christian truth, as recorded in the Scriptures of the Bible, present a much simpler picture.

First, Jesus taught there were both a "heaven" and a "hell."  People, after they complete this life on earth, go either to one or the other.

Second, Jesus taught there was a way to arrive in "heaven."  It was "through Him."  He is the way, the truth, and the life about getting to the place where the Father is.

Third, getting to heaven through Jesus requires faith - that is, a decision to trust that when God's Son died on a cross of crucifixion, He was in his death God's provision to satisfy the penalty for each man's sin.  "For by grace you are saved by faith, and this is not from yourself.  It is a gift from God" (Ephesians 2:8-9).  Anyone who will BELIEVE in Jesus death for sin and resurrection from the grave -- anyone who will BELIEVE (or trust) in this - can be saved.  The way to heaven through Jesus is opened to that person.

Fourth, as someone believes in Jesus in this way, Paul describes it as God "shining the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ" into the heart of that person.  The visual imagery is intentional.  Just as God called LIGHT into the darkness during the early moments of Creation, so God shines the LIGHT of the knowledge of Christ into a believers heart.

It's a miraculous moment...and a person knows that heaven is ahead.

WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE?

Frankly if you're reading this, you may believe in all kinds of ideas about heaven.  You may not want to believe there is a hell.  You can draw your ideas from a thousand different sources, and have a scrap bag of jumbled ideas.

But is that what you want when it comes to your eternity?  Would you not rather have, about something SO important, the truth?

Listen to someone who came from heaven (and became a man), and who went back to heaven (after his death and resurrection).  Why not listen to God the Son, Jesus the Christ?  Why not trade in your scrap bag of ideas for "the Way, the Truth, and the Life," who can bring you to a place He's preparing for you...

...if you will believe.

TRUST and OBEY...NO OTHER WAY...HAPPY IN JESUS

I grew up going to church at least 3 times a week.  Sometimes 4.

Sunday morning.
Sunday night.
And once mid-week.

Some weeks, throw in a Saturday morning.

Sunday night worship services were given to singing the hymns of the Protestant faith.  Even today, I can sing many of the hymns' verses without cracking open the hymnal.

One we sang often was "Trust and Obey."

When we walk with the Lord
In the Light of His Word
What a Glory He sheds on our way.
When we do His good will,
He abides with us still,
and for all who will trust and obey.

Trust and obey, for there's no other way
To be happy in Jesus
But to trust and obey.

When I was young, having to sing that song over and over again, it came to sound trite in my mouth and to my ears.  Familiarity can breed contempt.

But frankly, it shouldn't.  The hymn speaks of the essence of truly walking with God through the years He gives us.

TRUST

"Without faith, it is impossible to please God.  For He who comes to God must believe that He exists, and that He is a rewarder of those who pursue Him" (Hebrews 11:6).

Faith is trust.  It is not a leap in the dark or a choice against reason.  It is a confidence that the chair you sit in will hold you up, and so you let your weight fall into the chair.  It is a confidence that when you put your money in a local bank's saving account, that it will be there tomorrow, and so you make a deposit.

Faith is a confidence that behind the creation there is a Creator powerful enough to bring all this about, and so you use your capability to develop a relationship to in fact develop one with that Creator -- The God who has made his existence clear and revealed He wants a wonderful relationship with Him every moment of every day.

Trust motivates you to pursue that God  When you do, you find that He rewards the hunt.

AND OBEY

"If you love me," Jesus observed, "you will do what I command" (John 14:15).  "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him" (John 14:23).

What an amazing promise!!  There is a special intimacy afforded to those who trust Jesus without question and obey his directions without hesitation.  Such a person truly loves the Lord Jesus, and if Jesus' word is accurate here, He and His Father love to be close to that kind of person.

When we do His good will, He abides with us still...

A SIMPLE "HAPPY" BOTTOM LINE

How would someone describe your walk with God?   Would someone say, "Elizabeth really trusts and obeys her Lord!"   "Shane without shame believes the Scripture, and puts into practice what God has shown him!"

Here's how the 4th and 5th verses of that hymn go -- enjoy!

But we never can prove
The delights of His love
Until all on the altar we lay
For the favor He shows
And the love He bestows
Are for those who will trust and obey

Then in fellowship sweet
We will sit at His feet
Or we'll walk by His side in the way
What He says we will do
Where He sends we will go
Never fear, only trust and obey.