Good Morning,
My computer crashed the day after Christmas. I just came back on line yesterday. The Lord blessed us with an amazing Christmas and Epiphany season. Praise the for the celebration of Christmas and the festival of the Epiphany. The party is still on. Janice, Jeremy, Micah, Simeon , Sunita, Andy, Jessica, Laureen, and Tom (Jessic'a boyfriend) all were here for Christmas. We praise the Lord for the gift of His Son and for the gift of love that came down at Christmas. In Revelation 21 we read, "He who sat upon the Throne said, 'behold I make all things new.'" Praise the Lord for this new year. Praise the Lord the for this life the Lord has given us that we might live as the sojourners and the pilgrims on this earth. He takes the broken and bruised lives, and by His wonderful touch He makes them new. He restores the years the locusts have eaten.
Stephen Leacock once wrote: 'How strange is our little procession called life! The child says, 'When I am big...' and then, grown up, he or she says, 'When I am married.' But then the thought turns to 'When I am able to retire.' Then when retirement comes, we look back over the landscape traversed. A cold wind blows over it. Somehow we have missed it all, and it is gone. Life, we learn too late, is in the living, in the tissue of every day and hour.'
Life is in the living! If I were a novelist I'd probably start a book I was writing with: 'In this year of grace, ...'2009 But will it be a year of grace? That depends mostly upon ourselves. As Shakespeare put onto the lips of Cassius: 'The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.'
In John 16, Jesus talks very frankly to his friends about what was soon to happen. There was plenty to be fearful about. They would be persecuted by the Jewish authorities, and even martyred (16:1-4). He was going to leave them - in a world of sin, unrighteousness, and judgment. Like a woman in childbirth, their pain and trauma would be intense (19-22). In the hour of trial, they would all desert him (32). Their destiny: suffering (33)!
The chapter, however, ends with one of the most encouraging and hope-producing words Jesus ever uttered, "In the world you'll have trouble, but don't be afraid, I have overcome the world!" Just as Jesus was identified with us in our defeats and sicknesses and suffering, so, he says, we can be identified with him in his victory. This opens up some amazing possibilities. I can make His victories my own. If I adjust my life to his, and relate intimately to him, when he overcomes I can overcome. I actually live by the life and victories of Another. That doesn't imply the absence of trouble, but the transformation of trouble.
E. Stanley Jones tells of a missionary couple, married rather late in life, but who were deeply in love with each other. The husband at the breakfast table was telling guests of a dream he had the night before. His wife broke in, 'Why, Frank, did you dream that dream or did I?' They were so identified with each other's experiences that they couldn't tell which one dreamed the dream! We can smile at the naivete of these married lovers, but in truth a committed Christian can say to Christ, 'Why Master, did you win that battle, or did I?' And we hear him gently answer, 'Why, we both did, for my victories are your victories!'
Jesus can overcome our feelings of resentment and fear. We don't have to harbor them in this new year! Resentments are deadly - literally. 'Nothing on earth consumes a person more quickly than the passion of resentment,' said Nietzsche.
What happens TO us in life is relatively unimportant; it's what happens IN us that counts. 'But,' you ask, 'isn't everything that happens God's will?' The answer is simply 'no!' Who rained all those calamities down on Job? Did God? No. The Bible is very specific about that: it was Satan who did all that. So when YOU get boils, don't blame God! Who drove the thorn into Paul's side? Did God? No, again. The Bible says this was Satan's messenger to Paul (2 Cor. 12:7).
A French writer describes our frustrations as coming from the fact that 'we have one foot in the finite and the other in the infinite, and we are torn between two worlds.' The answer to calamity , resentment, and frustration is, "Rejoice always, pray at all times, be thankful in all circumstances" (1Thess. 5:16-18). As the beautiful book by David Steindl-Rast suggests, live a life of gratefulness; it is the heart of all true prayer.
With much Gratitude,
Brown
The Work of Christmas
by Howard Thurman
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the Kings and Princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flocks,
The work of Christmas begins.
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry
To release the prisoner,
To teach the nations,To bring Christ to all,
To make music in the heart.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6StS1K_KKWo
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