First-World and Third-World Perspectives

First-World:

"Enough" = a high 5-figure salary, cars less than 10 or 15 years old, a house, the techno-toys you use are reasonably current;

"Wealthy" = a 6-figure (or higher!) income, new personal luxury cars every 2 or 3 years (if and as desired), a house large enough to require professional cleaning help, all the latest techno-toys.

Third-World:

"Enough" = having shelter and enough to eat for today;

"Wealthy" = having shelter and enough to eat for tomorrow as well.


Being First-World Wealthy isn't a sin, but what do you do with your stuff, and what does your stuff do to you? He who dies with the most "toys" is dead.

What We Should Show the World

Jesus showed the world God living as a man. We should show the world Jesus living in us.

Spiritual Multiple Personality Disorder?

Wow! I haven't done a post to my blog all year! (Rimshot! Crash!)

It occurred to me a day or two ago how contradictory our views of God can be. On one hand, the sheer complexity and exquisitely intricate order of Creation is cited as evidence pointing toward a Creator greater than humanity and all Creation. On the other hand, we sometimes seem silly enough to think that we can fully understand God's nature, God's purpose, how God works in His Creation and how God works in our lives. I'm not saying God is irrational or monstrous, just that our knowledge and capacity for understanding are a lot smaller than God.

A Little Personal Honesty

It's no brilliant realization, but I'm not the most knowledgeable, smartest or most eloquent of God's teachers. But I emphatically trust God to place me where He can use me.

From Heaven Above …

From Heaven Above …

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. John 1:1-3, ESV

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities--all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. ... He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell Colossians 1:15-17, 19, ESV

… to Earth I come …

And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. Luke 2:7, ESV

… to bear good news …

and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him Colossians 1:20-22, ESV

… to every home …

For God so loved the world,that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16, ESV

This is the Christ, our God and Lord,

Who in all need shall aid afford;

He will Himself your Savior be

From all your sins to set you free.

He will on you the gifts bestow

Prepared by God for all below,

That in His kingdom, bright and fair,

You may with us His glory share.

From the hymn, “From Heaven Above to Earth I Come”, by Martin Luther, translated by Catherine Winkworth. http://lutheran-hymnal.com/lyrics/tlh085.htm.

Who Is This Jesus, Really?

Familiarity tricks people! We see or hear something so often, we think we know it well and understand it. Sometimes we do, but too often familiarity hinders us from really thinking about what we know or think we know. And then some one comes along and asks one of those explosive questions, “How …?” … “Why …?”, and we realize we don't know or understand as much as we think we do. The Virgin Birth and Jesus' coming, generally, are, I think, among those too familiar things. So, why …?

In the previous meditation, I said that Jesus paid the price for sin, not just for one human being, but “for any and all who acknowledge their need and believe in Him and what He did.” Just so. But think on this for a moment. If Jesus had been simply a human being who somehow managed to be truly good, the innocent death of such a Jesus would not suffice to be a substitute for more than one other human being. Or if, Jesus were angel – Hebrews chapter 2 states that man is a “little lower” than the angels – maybe Jesus could be a substitute for 2 or 3 human beings. Or, maybe, angels being different creatures from humans, Jesus could not be a substitute for any human at all!

So, Who/What Jesus was (and is!) goes to the heart of our “simple” just-so story. And Scripture does provide the answer to that question:

"Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel" (which means, God with us). Matthew 1:23, ESV

Right at the outset, even before Jesus was born, Joseph was told Who Jesus would be, God with us, walking, talking, acting among us human beings. Paul gives us the fuller, mind-blowing, picture:

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant,being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Philippians 2:5-8, ESV

Jesus had a dual nature: from Mary, human; from conception by the Holy Spirit, Divine, sinless, infinitely greater than human. As a human, what Jesus said and did was as a human; as God, Jesus was without sin, truly good, and could be the substitute for “whosoever will”.

That leaves us with one major, “How …?” question. How did God accomplish the Virgin Birth? The answer is simple, though not necessarily satisfying. We don't know, because God didn't inform us. But consider … God created this universe; God created human beings; God created woman from man; God created the amazing mechanisms of human procreation. For such a Being, would a virgin birth be impossible?

Some of the wonder at the heart of Christmas is mentioned in the passage from Philippians quoted above. The Word (John 1:1) the Son, voluntarily subjected Himself to the limitations of human beings (power, knowledge, space-time) by being born in the form (and nature) of a human being. Jesus had to have the equivalent of His diapers changed; He had to ask adults to reach things for him; He had to learn things like reading and carpentry. He wasn't like some Graeco-Roman god disguised, but fully capable. Jesus was truly human – He had to grow – and truly God.

Why did Jesus come at all? Paul hints at it in Philippians, but John's Gospel makes the reason clear. John 3:16 has become for our culture one of those too familiar things. Christian children memorize it at age 4 or 5 or 6. People hold up signs inscribed, “John 3:16,” in the midst of sports stadium crowds. “For God so loved the world” is but six words, very simple ... but with a world, a universe and more, of meaning! Try to wrap your brain around this: God loves us. The Creator of this vast universe and of all the living creatures in it … loves … us …..... loves YOU!

Don't just browse on to the next post or webpage, think on that for a few seconds (or more) … how do you respond to that kind of love?

What's the Big Deal?

If you think about it a moment, there appears to be a huge disproportion between who Jesus seemed to have been and His impact on humanity and human history. Jesus was born in near poverty under “curious” circumstances to obscure parents in a backwater corner of the Roman Empire. He lived some 33 years and, except briefly when he was a very young child, never traveled more than 100 miles from where he was born, lived a very ordinary, very private life for 30 of His 33 years, and in His 3 years of public life, never really got much attention beyond that 100 mile radius from His birthplace. How did this seemingly insignificant man become a central figure in the past nearly 2000 years of human history?!

The starting place for the answer to this question lies in us, we human beings. Can we, for a few moments, honestly take a look at ourselves? We human beings are pretty wretched! It hurts to admit it … it hurts to write it ... but at the bottom line, it is true. How do I mean that?

In community, we like to think of ourselves as pretty good, as civilized. Consider, though. If there are “savage” tribes, like the Huarani of Ecuador, who almost revenge-killed themselves into extinction, “civilization” has it Tojos, Maos, Pol Pots, Kims, Idi Amins, Stalins, Hitlers and Napoleons (not an exhaustive list!) who were indiscriminate and far larger-scale killers. Lest societies who lack monsters of their ilk start to feeling smug, every society has its own battles in its midst, against crime and fraud. Accomplishments, such as the medical advances that save lives or the computers such as those on which this is being written and will be read, are more pleasant to contemplate, but human history is a tale replete with human-caused darkness!

When it comes to individuals, humans still don't come off looking very good. Each of the monsters listed above was an individual man, and the henchmen and henchwomen who helped them were likewise individual men and women, hundreds of thousands (millions?) of them. Similarly, crime is committed by individual men and women, acting alone and acting in concert with others. And lest “decent” people think they are OK, if you haven't murdered or beat the @#$% out of anyone, have you ever hated some one, and/or wished you could beat up some one? If you didn't steal or bilk some one of their life savings, is your life one of envy, or centered around acquiring and having material things? If you haven't played mattress polo with every woman or man who caught your fancy, what about your fantasy life?

From whence do these monsters – the world-infamous, the petty, and the mental – come? Jesus, and Jeremiah before Him, put their fingers squarely on the answer to this query:

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? Jeremiah 19:9, ESV

For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. Matthew 15:19, ESV

The problem, our problem, is deep in the human heart (our hearts!), the soul, the very nature and core of man and woman.

Looking at mankind from another direction, from God's perspective, our problem is worse still (stick with me, I am getting to the point)! You see, God is good. Not merely in a good-better-best relative sense of the word, but truly, essentially, absolutely good. To be and dwell in God's presence, one must similarly be truly good. And therein is the problem every human being has. However law-abiding and pleasant we may be, relatively, each of us falls short of being truly good. Not only that, but we are powerless to make ourselves good. The word that describes what we do and what our problem is, the word that no one likes to hear, is “sin”.

What we could not do, God did and offers us, in the person and work of Jesus. Putting it simply, Jesus lived a sinless life, yet took the punishment for sin. Because of Who He is (the subject for the next meditation), He paid the price, not just for one person, but for any and all who acknowledge their need and believe in Him and what He did.

That is life-changing good news! That is society-changing good news! That is a truly BIG DEAL!