CHRISTMAS IS THE INVASION OF GOD INTO OUR TIME AND SPACE

 

(Posting from December 6, 2012)

No matter what you may think during this time of year....

Christmas has a purpose....
It is a sign post...a day of remembrance....
A day to remember the birth of Jesus.....
"For unto you this day is born in the city of David a Savior, Christ the Lord."
But this day is only a directional arrow that points to something greater....
The cross.
A birth that would point to something greater.

Jesus was born to die.
That little baby, there in that stable in Bethlehem, was brought into this world to die.
But he was to die for a greater purpose. 
He became the lamb that was offered up for me....and for you. If you want to get down to the heart of the matter.....Sin is the reason we celebrate Christmas. If not for the sins of the world, my sin and your sin, Jesus would never have been born.
His blood was spilt on that rocky hill outside of Jerusalem to pay the price that the sin of the world demanded.
Every drop of that precious blood that flowed and fell to the ground was the key that opened to the door for you and me to have right relationship with God. We were reconciled on that day and salvation was brought to the forefront of humanity. No longer would the blood of sheep and goats and bulls and pigeons be needed. No longer would yearly trips to the Temple be needed to receive atonement for sin.
That baby boy, born in Bethlehem, was to be the ultimate sacrifice for our sin.
Hebrews 9:22 reads: 
And according to the law, one may also say, all things are cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

The mention of a bloody Jesus....
Of crosses.....
Sacrifices......
Sin.....
is not very Vogue in some churches today....
This time of year, we may see Christmas pageant's and plays...
There will be live nativity scenes with men and animals....a woman and a baby....
There will be serenity and peace around such...
We will gaze upon them while singing "Away in a manger".....having warm and wonderful thoughts about that night long ago in Bethlehem....
But we must never forget that Jesus came to die.
It was for me....
It was for you that he mounted that cross and gave himself up to nail, hammer, whip and fist....
But the ultimate pain and agony came when the sin of the world was laid upon his shoulders.
There on that cross, Jesus' heavenly Father looked away from that scene.....
Hung between heaven and earth, Jesus was forsaken because of the sin that he bore.
God the Father poured out every bit of wrath to assuage the anger and hatred for sin....He poured it out on His only Son....That baby born in a stable, laid in a manger.....

But the story doesn't end there.
It only transition's....
Resurrection! Breaking the power of death, hell and the grave, Jesus stepped out of that tomb and ascended back to heaven.....
To sit at the right hand of His Father, as Lord and Savior.
Whenever I think of the baby Jesus, I can't help but get excited about who this child would become.
The very conqueror of Satan himself.
The power of sin IS broken.
Jesus is the POWER that we look for in this dark life of sin/addiction.
Praise God! This can be the first real Christmas for you if you don't know this Jesus as your Lord and Savior.

Talk to Him....Just talk...
Confess (tell Him about) your sin.....
Do you feel that brokenness inside...that emptiness....?
Jesus is wanting to fill you up with His Spirit...
Ask Him to forgive you of your sin......
And believe that you are....Scripture says that "IF we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
Acknowledge Jesus as your Lord and Savior...(Turn will and life over to Him)
If you do this.....
You have just received the greatest Christmas gift ever!
New life.....
Find you a Bible (One that you can understand) and begin reading in the gospel of John.
and get ready for a real Christmas!!!

God on you....
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SOME CAN SEE HIM-----SOME CAN'T

 

Micah 5:2
But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, are only a small village among all the people of Judah. Yet a ruler of Israel, whose origins are in the distant past, will come from you on my behalf.

He wasn't born in a palace, surrounded by servants to meet his every need.
His birth wasn't proclaimed throughout the land by royal heralds.
His parents didn't occupy any ruling position in the government.
Yet He grew to be the only one who could defeat sin, death, hell and the grave.

He came for every man and woman. King or pauper....Queen or whore...because He knew that "All had sinned and fallen short of His Father's glory."
But the way He came to this world is still a mystery.
Plainly spoken of and written about in the ancient Scriptures....the religious rulers of the day could not see the truth. In the passage above from Micah, not only is the town given where Jesus would be born, but the location within the town.....Ephrathah. That's like saying that Jesus will be born in Gadsden, Alabama over in mill village in Alabama city. But they couldn't see it.

Who saw such prophecy?
The Magi......the wise men...those who studied the heaven's and saw THE star that would lead them to the place where Mary, Joseph, and the Christ child lived.
A group of shepherd's huddled together on a hillside in the dark of night. They never expected to be the one's who would be the first carriers of the "Savior" message. 

So there in a stable in the town of Bethlehem....
Amidst the smell of urine and dung.....
Was born the one we call Jesus...
Immanuel.....God is with us.
Stepped out of heaven's realm to become one of us.
Leaving behind the glory and splendor of His father, Jesus took on the mortal flesh that you and I carry around daily.
He grew to walk among humanity...
He saw death up close and personal...
He experienced the twisted logic and dark hearts of those who practiced religion instead of relationship.
He saw the gratitude and tears of those who received back their love ones from the dead when He spoke life.
He watched the silly, wobbly dance of healing as those whose legs and ankles no longer worked. When Jesus spoke healing to those twisted limbs, the dance began. But it was a dance of gratitude and amazement that such could take place.

With all of these things rolling around in my brain, how could Jesus have had such a birth as He did? Because He came to those who were sin/sick. He came to heal. He came as one of us. He came for the common man and woman. Those who had been marginalized by society and by their own lot in life. 
The leper...
The whore...
The tax collector...
The oppressed....
And the list goes on and on...
Like Jesus said, "The healthy don't need a doctor...I came for the sick."
Funny part about the statement "the healthy don't need a doctor." He wasn't actually talking about spiritually healthy. He was talking about those who were deceived and thought themselves to have no need for this Jesus.
Don't ever doubt that we can deceive ourselves.

Revelation 3:17 speaks of such self deception that can even be found in the church.
Speaking to a church in Laodicea, Jesus says, You say, 'I am rich. I have everything I want. I don't need a thing!' And you don't realize that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked." It kind of hard to realize your need when you have surrounded yourself with the things of the world that feed the old sin nature. Jesus came to rip the veal and cover off the human heart so we could clearly see our need for Him and salvation from the destruction that comes when we reject Him.

Maybe we all need to take a spiritual Step #4 during this Christmas season.
Maybe we need to make a fearless and searching inventory of our hearts to see if we have allowed the world to creep in and blind us to the truth. In fact, maybe the greatest gift we could receive this Christmas season would be the healing that only Christ can bring to blind hearts...deaf ears...and muddled brains.
What do you think?

Merry Christmas from the "B's" in Attalla.
God on you...
Michael and Vicki Bynum

THE SERENITY PRAYER

The Truth Behind The SERENITY PRAYER

By Susan Cheever

For many people who attend twelve-step programs, reciting the Serenity Prayer comes as naturally as breathing. So it may come as a surprise to learn that the prayer was originally conceived not as an antidote to addiction but in response to the barbaric evil of Nazi Germany that threatened civilization itself during World War II. Written during the darkest depths of the war by the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, a first-generation German-American, the prayer captured the dreadful ethical predicament faced by Niehbur and his fellow German anti-Nazi émigrés in the United States, who were safe from persecution but powerless to intervene against Hitler.

When he wrote it, Niebhur was particularly haunted by the decisions made by his closest friends and fellow teachers at New York's Union Theological Seminary, Paul Tillich and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whose responses to the war in their homeland were very different but equally fateful. “The historical meaning of this quite modern American prayer is bound up in the war against one of the greatest evils posed during a violently evil century,” wrote Niebuhr’s daughter Elisabeth Sifton in her 2003 book The Serenity Prayer.

The original version of this famous prayer was delivered by Niehbur at the conclusion of a sermon he delivered at tiny Union Church in Heath, Massachusetts, a farming village where he summered with his family. At the time, the United States was still mired in war on the Western Front. Though the German Army had recently been defeated in the Battle of Stalingrad, the genocide of Europe's Jews was still in full swing. Few people at the time yet realized that the tide had turned against the Third Reich.

What would become of German Christianity, the legacy of Martin Luther and the Reformation, in a Germany where theologians and church leaders had either been outlawed or co-opted by evil? And what should—what could—prominent dissidents like Niebuhr, Tillich and Bonhoeffer do about it? “God give us the grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed,” Niebuhr prayed with his small congregation an ocean away from the cataclysm of destruction, “courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.”

“God give us the grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed,” Niebuhr prayed with his small summer congregation an ocean away from the cataclysm of World War II, “courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.”

Accepting tragedy with serenity was the approach embodied by Niehbur's close friend Paul Tillich, who was a respected writer and professor at the University of Frankfurt when Hitler first emerged on the political scene. An early opponent of the rising Nazi movement, Tillich used his prominent perch to lecture movingly against National Socialism, and was ditched from his post in 1933, soon after Hitler was elected chancellor. The professor's prospects in Germany were dire. So when Niebuhr offered him a position at Union Theological, Tillich quickly accepted. Moving his family to New York, he learned a new language, and eventually established himself as one of the 20th century’s most important Christian theorists. During the war, from 1942 to 1944, he faithfully broadcast, through Voice of America radio, hundreds of political pleas to his fellow Germans, urging them to recognize and resist the moral horrors being committed in their name by the Hitler regime.

Their friend Dietrich Bonhoeffer took a far different path, choosing the courage to change. The wealthy and dashing Bonhoeffer was one of Germany’s most outspoken critics of National Socialism and German Christianity’s rabid antisemitism. He started an anti-Nazi Church and an underground seminary before fleeing Berlin for New York City in 1939. But despite strong pressure from his friends, he soon regretted his decision to leave his embattled homeland.

“I have come to the conclusion that I made a mistake in coming to America,” he wrote to Reinhold Niebuhr. “I must live through this difficult period in our national history with the people of Germany….Christians in Germany will have to face the terrible alternative of either willing the defeat of their nation in order that Christian civilization may survive or willing the victory of their nation and thereby destroying civilization. I know which of these alternatives I must choose but I cannot make that choice from security.”

Bonfoeffer ended up returning to Germany on the last steamer to cross the Atlantic. Back in Berlin, he immediately reconnected with the underground and joined first a secret effort to rescue Jews and then a secret plan to assassinate Hitler, which he hoped would bring the catastrophic war to an end. But in the summer of 1943 the assassination plot was exposed and Bonhoeffer was sent to prison. He was hanged in April 1945, just weeks before Hitler’s own suicide and the Nazi surrender. When he wrote the prayer, Niebuhr was in a kind of sympathetic spiritual agony over the alternately failed and doomed choices his two friends had made.

Niehbur's Serenity Prayer struck an immediate chord. His Massachusetts neighbor, Dean Howard Robbins of the Federal Council of Churches, asked Niehbur if his little prayer could be included in material that the Council provided to army chaplains in the battlefield. In 1944 it was published for the first time in The Book of Prayers and Services for the Armed Forces. At the time, Alcoholics Anonymous was still in its formative years. Someone in the fledgling fellowship apparently saw the short prayer and brought it to the attention of AA founder Bill Wilson.

With Niebuhr’s permission, Wilson began using a shortened version of the prayer in meetings he led in his wife’s house in Brooklyn and in Akron, Ohio, where he was working with Dr. Bob Smith to convert alcoholics to sobriety. Less lyrical and less theologically complex—the plea for God’s grace is eliminated and the things that “should” be changed become the things that “can” be changed—the Serenity Prayer soon became as familiar at AA fellowships as the window shades at the front of the room printed with the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.

It's rare for us to be able to see and touch evil in our daily lives. We sometimes recognize such moments as a result of other people’s behavior—and our own complicity or silence. There are times when human beings—individuals, families, even entire societies—are possessed by powers that seem to contradict everything we think of as human. Occasionally these times are so disorienting that the victims can often seem stranger and crazier than the perpetrators and bystanders. That is what it was like to live in Germany under Nazism, and, on a much smaller scale, that's often what it's like to live in an alcoholic household. Action seems necessary, but confusion, danger or powerlessness render action seemingly impossible.

Addiction may be a disease, but it is also an evil that many people prefer to ignore. All we can hope for is the courage to strike out against it when we can, and the serenity to accept its existence when we can’t.

Susan Cheever is a columnist for The Fix, and the author of many books, including the memoirs Home Before Dark and Note Found in a Bottle, and the biography My Name Is Bill, about AA's founder.

CHRISTMAS IS NOT A HALLMARK MOMENT

 

  (First posted back in December 2014)

Matthew 2:11
And when they had come into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary His mother and fell down and worshiped Him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to Him; gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Our brains and minds are forever etched with images such as the ones seen above in a Christmas scene.
Lambs....
Camels....
Wise men...
Shepherds...
Mary and Joseph...
And of course......the Baby Jesus.
Everything so neat and orderly.
So clean and pristine.
We want the perfect setting and the perfect arrangement of our own Christmas images.
Do you think maybe the place that Jesus was born in reeked of urine and dung?
Do you think maybe those involved in this divine play were unkempt and dirty from traveling?

I think that sometimes when our minds turn to Christmas, we want to portray this whole event in a way that doesn't remind us of why Jesus really was born.
He came to die....
Simple as that.
But His death would be unlike any other.
His would be a voluntary death, in obedience to His Father's plan for humanity.
His death would be a payment for a debt that mankind could never pay.
Sin, or the heart and mindset of living outside the will of God, demands a payment.
That payment is death......
But in this death, all connection with God is broken. The individual is forever in a state of separation from God. The place this occurs is referred to as hell. There are several different opinions as to what hell truly is...a place of torment and anguish. A place of eternal fire and misery.....it doesn't matter, because our finite minds cannot comprehend an eternity of pain, misery and, as the Bible puts it.....outer darkness where there is weeping, wailing and the gnashing of teeth. Sounds wonderful doesn't it.

Back to the Christmas card Jesus....
Strip away the everything from the story...
Shepherds...
Sheep...
Wise men and inn keepers....
The birth of Christ was a real event. It took place. There was such hatred among the political rulers of that day that when news of it reached the palace of Herod, he took action.
We love the Baby Jesus....
But at His birth, the forces of evil that rule behind the scene, took flight and mother's all across that region had their own infants and toddlers snatched from their arms.....
Snatched from their arms and put to the sword.
You see, the birth of this Son of God was so threatening to the kingdom of Satan that he would stop at nothing to see Him destroyed.
You won't see this on many Christmas cards, will you?
But it was all part of the story.
All part of the event we celebrate, as the Birth of Christ.

From the moment of His birth until Jesus cried out "It is finished" from the cross, He was surrounded by pain and suffering. Scripture says that "He has come to save that which was lost." To take back from the rule and bondage of the devil and his minions those souls which labor and suffer under the weight of sin.
For the wages, or that which you rightfully earn because of your work, is death.
Not just a physical dying....
We are all headed to that event.
But death becomes the final act on this side of eternity that cements every decision you make while you are alive. Once you die and make that transition to eternity itself, you have sealed your own personal fate by either receiving or rejecting Jesus' offer of eternal life.

So to me, Christmas is more than brightly lit trees....
And packages and gifts that are to be opened on Dec. 25th...
Christmas is the gift of real life from God to us.
Like all packages, you can only do one of two things...
Receive it....
Or
Reject it........
Which will you do?

Merry Christmas from the "B's" in Attalla.
God on you...
mb

EVERYONE IS BORN WITH IT

 

Ephesians 1:5
Having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will......

Every person born is done so with a purpose.
Maybe it's locked away inside our DNA.....
Maybe it's something that comes to us, from God, at certain points in our lives. Or maybe it is a circumstance that draws it out.....
Whatever it might be, I am a firm believer that we are born to do more than take up space, eat the food and breathe the air.
Do let me clarify one thing....
Whatever it is as to our purpose....
It will be found in God....
It will be directed to us by God....
And it will be for His good pleasure as we connect with God.

Moses had purpose....
God appointed him to be the deliverer of a people who were trapped in bondage with no hope of a future.

Noah had a purpose....
He spoke God's warning to a people in spiritual darkness, all the while building an ark.
Simple message....get in the ark and be safe...
Stay outside and perish...

David had purpose.....
Shepherd boy...anointed king...
Saves a nation by slaying Goliath the giant.
Endures hardship and threats on his life until he can take the throne of his nation.

Esther had purpose....
Her beauty put her into a position in the King's court that allowed her to thwart a plan to kill all the Jews.

I could go on and on with the purposes of those we read about in Scripture.
But not everyone is called to such major endeavors as these I have mentioned. Some are called to a much more simple purpose. 
A call to love and speak truth to others on behalf of God's Kingdom.

How about a man named Simeon....
We read about him in Luke 2:25-32
He lived in Jerusalem.
He was a just and devout man, whose mission from God was to wait and see the Consolation (deliverer / the Messiah) of Israel.
He was walked and lived under the covering of God's Holy Spirit.
God had revealed to Simeon that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ.
He was at the temple when Mary and Joseph came to Temple with Jesus.
Simeon took the child into his arms and spoke out a proclamation that was from God. A proclamation that was for all time and all people.
That was the purpose of Simeon.
We might not consider such as dramatic as what Moses did, or what David accomplished.
But Simeon allowed himself to an vessel...to be poured out as God desired.

What if your purpose, as directed to you by God, was to raise your children to be followers of Jesus?
What if your purpose was to simply love those you come in contact with and pray...I mean really pray...for them. Not a hurried, thrown to the sky prayer, but one that fills your heart and mind and you don't seem to be able to shake it off. 

What if your purpose was to speak truth to someone who has ran away from it. You do so with love and not condemnation, to draw them into a real relationship with Jesus.

I do know this.
You were created for higher purpose than addiction.
You were born to be filled with God's Holy Spirit and to simply be available when and where He needs you to be.
Sometimes it will be like a light coming on inside you. You'll find yourself in a situation that you really have given no thought to, and you'll suddenly have a knowing that you need to pray. It may be that you are to pray healing on someone. You suddenly have a knowing that God is at work and you are part of the equation. 

You see, when we pray the Lord's prayer (Matthew 6), there is a statement we all have said at one time or another....

Your Kingdom come...
Your will be done...

On earth...
As it is in heaven

Do you realize that when you pray this, you are asking God to use you to be the conduit through with His Kingdom will is carried out? Is that awesome or what? Me! With all my mess ups and wrong turns....with all my running away and insecurities....me! God would use me to enact His will through so that what is taking place here on planet earth is a revealing of heaven to those who can't see. Now that is cool.

Think on these things today!

God on you...

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FOLLOWING THE STAR

 

Matthew 2:1-2

Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, "Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him."

I have, over the years, wondered about these visitors from the east.

These magi...

These wise men.

It is evident they were learned in the art of science and astronomy. Some have even suggested that they were astrologists.

I do not know this to be true.

What I do know is that they were guided by a star.

How they came to know of the importance must surely have come from God.

It was burned into the hearts to such a degree that they left family and friend to make this journey.

Such a journey could not be undertaken as we do today.

It has been estimated that the Magi's journey took 1 to 2 years to complete.

I would even venture to guess that they traveled solely at night, as the star guided them.

But what was it that drove them on this journey?

Was it a quest for knowledge?

Was it a desire to understand a "new" thing?

Or

Was it God himself who stirred the heart of these wise men, these magi to simply be obedient?

I fall upon the idea that no man can receive unless God first gives.

The magi were all a part of God's plan in the birth of His son.

Scripture says that "WHEN THE Day's WERE COMPLETED" Mary gave birth to her son.

"When the days were completed" does not simply mean that Mary's nine months were up and it was time for the birth.

The Days of completion extends all the way back to Genesis 3:15 where God declares that the seed of woman and the seed of the serpent will be enemies.

If you read this verse, of course the first thing that jumps out is the "seed of woman".

Women do not carry the seed.

They carry the egg.

Man carries the seed.

God was stating that there was going to be a birth that would be unlike any other.

A child shall be born and a son given.....

A virgin shall conceive under the power of the Holy Spirit and Emanuel, God with us, shall be born.

In the midst of all this activity came magi from the east.

Slowly and deliberately they made their way to Jerusalem to find the King of the Jews.

To worship Him.

To bring gifts to Him.

To see what child was of such importance that the very heavens were ordered to proclaim his birth.

This Christmas season, take time to read the story of the birth of Christ as though it really took place.

Sometimes we are so jaded by Hallmark moments and Hollywood movies that we loose sight of the

humanity involved in Scripture.

In the darkest of times.

In the most evil of governments...

In a land that had been given in promise from Jehovah God...

That a babe....

A child entered our time and space...

And things would never be the same....

Praise God!

Merry Christmas...

God on you.....

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UNSHAKEABLE

 

Psalm 46

V.1 -  God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

I love the words that open this particular Psalm. The idea that God is not just our "help" during times of trouble, but that he is a "present" help. He is there, up close and personal in the affairs and situations that come to us. When we are overwhelmed by the circumstances of the day, God is very much present. He is not standing off at a distance.
He is not inconsiderate of our emotions or feelings.
He is a VERY present help in trouble.

V.2 - Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth should change and though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea.

Here we are given understanding of the stability of God's nature and character. God has been defined as a "Very Present Help in times of trouble" and now the Psalmist describes the worst possible scenario's that could happen. Even with total destruction of the planet, God is not going to desert us.
He opens verse two with very familiar words....."Therefore, we will not fear."
Fear is very much a human condition that we all experience. Fear comes when we feel as though things are out of control and we have no answers or solutions to what we are facing.

When God tell us to not fear, he is stating a wonderful truth about his nature.

What is that truth?
TRUST ME!

No matter what it looks like in your life...TRUST ME!

V. 3 - Though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains quake at its swelling pride.

These events written here in Psalm 46 are the very basis Martin Luther used to pen his wonderful hymn  "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God."

Since the mountains and the earth are regarded by men as symbols of stability, when they "dance" and move great terror and fear normally rises up in the hearts of mankind. But when the most stable becomes unstable, there should be "no fear" because of the stability of God.

V. 4 - There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy dwelling place of the Most High.

Don't you find it strange that the Bible bookends itself with rivers flowing from the  most wonderful of places?

Gen. 2:10 speaks of the rivers flowing from the Garden of Eden, while Rev. 22:1-2 speaks of the rivers that flow in heaven from the throne of God.
Jesus spoke to the Samaritan women in John 4 about rivers of living water that would spring up to eternal life.
I need to keep my focus on the eternal promises and nature of God.
Not on the shifting, man-driven, events of this day.
Even with all the trouble....
All the ugly, selfish things going on in this world....
The stability and help of God surpasses everything.
Think on these things.
let your mind dwell above and not be mired down and loaded down with burdens and guilt by the mess of life here on this planet.

I wish to close today's posting with the last two verses of Psalm 46.

V.10 - Cease striving and  know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.

V.11 -  The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our stronghold.

May God richly bless you today.

He is there for you...
He is there with you....
Rest in this truth.

God on you....

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