Report of the Stockmen

We found the baby Jesus
wrapped in strips of rag
and lying in a feedbox
in a shed.

His hands were red,
new born red.

We heard the baby Jesus
lying in the straw
and crying for its mother
in the shed.

His face was red,
new born red.

We believe the baby Jesus
dreaming in the hay
was God who came to find us
in a shed.

His flesh was red,
new born red.

Like ours,
his hands, his face, his flesh
were red.

So we told the world that God is one of us,
red flesh,
red face
and all.

Luke 2:15-20
Outback Christmas

A very Merry Christmas to you.

Believe Jesus or not.  One day - maybe tomorrow, maybe next year, maybe fifty years from now - you will let go of this little trapeze called your life, and so will I.  One day you will take your last breath, and your hands will go slack, and the trapeze will fall from your hands.  The real question is what will happen then?

Some believe that is the end.  No safety net.  Some believe that the neurons that you mistakenly believe add up to a soul will just stop firing on that day.  The six trillion atoms that were employed by your body will find positions somewhere else, and the universe will neither know nor care.

But Jesus believed there was and is a Catcher, and He does not have sweaty hands.

-- John Ortberg, Know Doubt

A proud, vindictive, violent, arrogant, self-occupied religious leader named Saul of Tarsus was traveling down the road when suddenly he had a vision of Jesus.  As a matter of historical record, he became Paul--a different man with a different name, whose mind, writing, love of people and self-sacrificial gift of his life to the world were so compelling that human minds are still fascinated by him two thousand years later.  People devote their lives to studying what he wrote.  How did that life get changed?  The evidence of lives changed by Jesus is so abundant that the full story can never be told.  It can never be matched.  Not by any culture, by any book, by any program, by any hero.

I have never heard anybody say, "One day I realised that there was no God, no one behind reality, no life after death.  I realised existence is a meaningless accident, begun by chance and destined for oblivion and it changed my life.  I used to be addicted to alcohol, but now the law of selection has set me free.  I used to be greedy, but now the story of the Big Bang has made me generous.  I used to be afraid, but now random chance has made me brave."

I have never the story of an accidental, meaningless universe changing a life like that.

--John Ortberg, Know Doubt

A thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.  I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. (John 10:10)

John Eldredge goes on to say that Jesus married the two statements. Ever wondered why?  Did you know that He spoke them at the same time?  He says them in one breath.  And He has His reasons.  God intends life for us.  But right now that life is opposed.  It doesn't just roll in on a tray.  There is a thief.  He comes to steal and destroy.  In other words, the offer is life but it must be fought for because there is an enemy in our life with a different agenda.  There is something set against us.  We are at war.

Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king.  I was born and came into the world for this one purpose, to speak the truth.  Whoever belongs to the truth listens to me." John 18:37.  Why is the truth so elusive?  Because Truth is not a list of beliefs or statements or mathematical formulas that can simply be memorized.  It is not a philosophical system or the end of a journey where you can arrive and then be done.  Truth is a person--Jesus Christ--and knowing the truth is a relationship.  Just as getting to know a person takes time, getting to know Jesus can happen no faster.  It happens day by day, meeting with Him, walking with Him, talking with Him, listening to Him, being with Him, and obeying Him.

Even if it takes all of eternity to get to know Him, there can never be a better use of time.  Where is the time for bitterness, hatred, depression, power mongering, judging others, and drawing lines between people if we are consumed with getting to know Jesus?  If we are busy searching for the Truth and loving others as Jsus told us to, there are worlds of problems we will never get into and there are worlds of problems we will help solve.

--Jesus Freaks II
--John 14:6

When I became a Christian, it was clear to me that my call was to stay in the “secular vocation” that I had entered two years earlier.  The possibilities were endless.  I had the opportunity to sow God’s seed to my workmates and students by word and deed as an “insider” as Tim Downs calls it.  Time will tell how fruitful that has been because, as a sower, one does not often see the end results of one’s efforts.  One thing I do know is that for me it has been a true “calling” and one which I have tried, and will continue with God’s help, to give my very best to.

What if William Wilberforce were alive today, and if, in his agonized searching, he sought the counsel of a modern day pastor or Christian leader?  How many would counsel Wilberforce to stay in politics?  How many would encourage a perfectly good candidate for full-time ministry to remain instead in a secular vocation for the possibility of having some uncertain, nebulous future impact?  How many would encourage him to sow instead of harvest?

The answer, I think, is very few.  Despite the lesson exemplified in Scripture and church history, most Christians are unconvinced of the value of sowing and suspicious of any “calling” to be an insider.

–Tim Downs, Finding Common Ground

The other day I found myself asking God in prayer for something that I'd asked Him for the day before.  I remember saying to Him, "I understand that you're not hard of hearing or have a bad memory, but I really care about what I'm asking you for guidance on."  I have pondered from time why I repeat prayer requests to God.  The following is a good explanation, I feel, towards answering that question.

Here, I believe, is the key to understanding what is most personal in prayer.  We do not pray to tell God what He does not know, nor to remind Him of things He has forgotten.  He already cares for the things we pray about . . . He has simply been waiting for us to care about them with Him.  We speak to Him as we speak to our most intimate friends--so that we can commune together in love.

--Tim Stafford