How's Your Christmas Joy?

We are deep into another Christmas season, and the question begs to be asked: how’s your Christmas joy?  Is joy the first word that comes to your mind when you think about Christmas?  Or do other words – mostly ones that shouldn’t be repeated – better describe your thoughts about this season?  Who decided that joy and Christmas should go hand in hand?

Actually, it wasn’t some smiling, always positive person who came up with the idea so we would sing more carols, buy more gifts, or bake more cookies in order to be joyful.  The idea came from God.  That’s because the real reason for joy at Christmas is summed up in another word: Immanuel.  The reason we can and should be joyful during this season (and all year ‘round!) is because God is with us. 

In Philippians, right after the apostle Paul tells us to rejoice all the time, he tells us why: “The Lord is near” (Philippians 4:5).  Apparently joy has nothing to do with us or our circumstances or anything earthly; joy has everything to do with God.  Joy is possible in every situation (always, as Paul puts it) because God is always with us.  The gift we received when Jesus became human on that first Christmas, and the gift that we celebrate every Christmas, is the gift of God with us – always present, always available – in our past before we knew it, in our present regardless of what we’re doing, and in our future before we get there.

In John 14, Jesus told his disciples that the Holy Spirit would be coming to them (and us) after he returned to heaven.  This presence of God is called Paracletos in Greek, which is “one called alongside to help”.  He is also described in other Scriptures as a comforter, encourager, counselor, and advocate (a word which combines both comfort and counsel).  Isn’t this exactly what we want from those around us?  Wouldn’t we be more joyful if someone would do these things for us on a regular basis?  This is the Christmas gift that we have been given – so joy shouldn’t be all that hard to come by.

But properly based joy – joy that comes from the presence of God with us – doesn’t look the same as happiness.  The best way I can describe it is like this: happiness is on the surface, but joy is deep within us.  That’s because happiness is based on surface things, but joy is based on God’s presence in us.  I’m not always happy, but I should be able to always rejoice.  When Paul tells us to rejoice all the time, he wants us to learn how to focus on God and allow the joy that is inside us to reach the surface where others can see it.  This will result in all of our emotions and feelings being informed and influenced by the lasting joy that we already have because God is with us. 

Joy doesn’t come and go, because God doesn’t come and go.  As long as God is with us (forever!), joy is also with us.  This Christmas, let’s allow everything else that we think brings us joy to take a back seat to the real source of joy by celebrating “God with us”.  Let’s not forget that, more than 2,000 years later, the Lord is still near.  Have a joy-filled Christmas!         

Christmas Contentment

Is it possible to exhibit contentment during the Christmas season?  If you go to a store where people are Christmas shopping, it doesn’t look like it!  Everyone seems to be interested in buying as many things as they can – usually a sure sign that contentment is lacking.  But the issue with contentment isn’t about how much or how little anyone buys or has; it’s about the attitude of the heart.  That’s because contentment or lack of contentment isn’t about external things, but internal things. 

You see, contentment isn’t about being satisfied with the gift; it’s about being satisfied with the Giver.  I’ve always been a fairly contented person, but I am encouraged by what the apostle Paul says in Philippians 4: contentment isn’t natural – it has to be learned.  Here’s what verses 12 and 13 say:

“I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty.  I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.  I can do everything through him who gives me strength.”

Paul knew all about many different life situations, and they didn’t all naturally lead to contentment!  Most of us in first world countries will never experience the types of things that Paul experienced; yet we seem to struggle more with contentment than he did.  Why is that?  Paul says here that he had learned the secret of contentment – and it was focusing on “him who gives me strength” instead of “any and every situation”.  For Paul, knowing Christ was everything.  With this perspective, all of his needs were satisfied and contentment was possible.  To paraphrase from a famous movie, maybe our focus needs more focus in the right direction.

Paul tells us that contentment isn’t natural, and he tells us the secret of how to get there.  In his first letter to Timothy, he hints at the same secret: “. . . godliness with contentment is great gain” (1 Timothy 6:6).  Contentment isn’t natural in our humanness, but it is a natural by-product of godliness – of walking closer and closer to God and trusting him and him alone to give us what we actually need to be content.    

As we continue through this Christmas season, let’s agree to work hard at being content.  All it takes is trusting God more and trusting ourselves and the world around us less.  I want to be different than most of the people I encounter while Christmas shopping – on the inside where it counts.  Contentment can be contagious, so let’s spread some around!     

Decorations

This past weekend, Christmas started to appear in my neighborhood and at my house.  Christmas is my favorite time of year.  I love the decorations, especially the lights; they give me a warm, cozy feeling inside.  I never get tired of the lights.  But is it wrong for a Christian to love the decorations of Christmas?  I know that my focus needs to be on the gift of Emmanuel, God With Us; but is this an “either-or” situation, or can we truly have both?

I am encouraged to remember that the Old Testament is full of stories where God told his people to decorate.  It appears that God also loves decorations!  When God gave David the plans for the temple that Solomon would eventually build, no amount of “decoration” was spared – gold, silver, and many precious stones were to be used.  God expected that the temple built for worshiping him would represent the best of all of the people’s possessions and talents.  But here’s the catch:  the temple’s purpose, with all of its decorations, was to bring attention to God – not to the decorations themselves.  So this is my point of reference for my Christmas decorations: do they help me focus on the gift and the giver and not just the decorations themselves?

When I look at the New Testament, something else catches my attention.  The idea behind decorations shows up in several passages that talk about what types of things Christians should be “putting on” or “clothing” ourselves with.  The apostle Paul was especially fond of this language.  In Romans 13:14 and Galatians 3:27, he tells us to clothe ourselves with Jesus Christ; and Ephesians 6:11 reminds us to prepare ourselves for spiritual battles by putting on the full armor of God.  These are decorations that we need to make sure are in place daily.

But another passage points out several other “decorations” that need to be evident in my life:

“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.  Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another.  Forgive as the Lord forgave you.  And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”  (Colossians 3:12-14)

Decorating my life with these things is a lifelong, step-by-step process.  Sometimes I’m almost fully “clothed”, and other times I struggle.  Fortunately, it’s not all up to me.  The fruit of decorating myself with Jesus Christ and his armor (truth, righteousness, the gospel, faith, salvation, and God’s Word) is the type of decoration mentioned in this Colossians passage – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).  When I clothe myself with Christ, the fruit of the Spirit is a natural by-product.  For that I am truly grateful, because decorating can be hard work all by yourself.

As I continue decorating my home for Christmas today, I want to be decorating myself with Jesus Christ – Emmanuel – and focusing on him.  And every day I want to put on the right spiritual clothes and decorations to help me focus even more on what really matters.  Welcome to December, and happy decorating!     

Counting My Blessings!

In just three days, Americans will celebrate another Thanksgiving Day.  Most of the people celebrating will be focused on the food they are consuming or the shopping they will be doing (now on Thanksgiving Day, not just the day after!).  Some will be focused on the blessings of family and holiday togetherness.  Fewer still (even few Christians) will actually take the time to focus on the blessing of having a relationship with the sovereign God of the universe.

I want to be one of the people in the last group.  I want to separate myself from the trappings and warm, fuzzy feeling of the holiday and really send my thanksgiving in the right direction for the right things.  Don’t get me wrong . . . it is a blessing to be part of a loving family and to have the privilege of enjoying good food together.  Not everyone has that on this day, and I don’t ever want to take those things for granted. 

But when I decide to count my blessings, I need to be able to see beyond the here and now and desire something more than earthly warm fuzzies.  As Christians, the blessings and benefits we seek should be different than those that other people want to achieve.  To be blessed by God means to have a distinctive spiritual joy and ultimate well-being that only comes from relationship with him.  It is the state of being spiritually prosperous, an inner condition that should affect our outward behavior and approach to life.  And while we tend to think of blessings as things that we get to enjoy right now, God’s blessings often involve future generations and also stretch into eternity.  God’s ability to bless us in an eternal way far exceeds our limited expectations for him to bless us in the here and now.

The Bible tells us that we all have the complete package of benefits connected with knowing God: we have been chosen, adopted, and forgiven, and have spiritual insight, spiritual gifts, the power to do God’s will, and a future hope.  “All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ.” (Ephesians 1:3)

Regardless of how many earthly blessings are present or lacking in my life, focusing my attention in the right direction should produce a grateful heart and a different perspective on how my life is truly blessed in all the ways that really matter.  This Thanksgiving, I want to focus on the blessings that are eternal and spend more time being thankful for those than the blessings that are temporary.  It’s not wrong to be thankful for earthly blessings, but will you choose to join me in counting all your blessings?  

Time to Dig In!

I just finished spending a weekend leading worship at our church’s annual women’s retreat.  It was a great time of fellowship with my Christian sisters and focusing on God and his desire for relationship with me.  The theme was “Run After Righteousness”, and the speaker’s thoughts were based on Hebrews 12. 

A recurring thread in what the speaker had to say was the importance of spending as much time as possible in God’s Word, which is something that I have believed for a long time.  It reminded me that only God’s Word will stand forever (Isaiah 40:8).  I’ve read many outstanding books that have had a profound effect on my life.  But, the truth is this: everything written by man will lose its ability to influence and will fade away; but God’s Word will never grow old or become useless.  It is applicable to every generation because it is God’s complete written revelation of truth – eternal and unchanging.

The importance of this comes to light when we try to “run after righteousness” – to persevere in our walk of faith and complete the race marked out for us (Hebrews 12:1).  God’s Word is entirely authoritative for our life of faith.  It is our standard for testing everything else, our safeguard against false teaching, and our source of guidance.  The Bible penetrates a person’s innermost being, revealing who we are and what we are not, cutting through to the core of our moral and spiritual life (Hebrews 4:12). 

I can read a book written by a human and then toss it aside if I want to.  But God’s Word is active in accomplishing God’s purposes and requires us to make decisions.  That’s why it is something that I should always make a priority in my life.  In Isaiah 55:10-11, God tells us that his words never return empty without achieving the purpose that he wants:

“As the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish . . . so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”

Isn’t it encouraging to know that absolutely everything God ever says, from before time began and for all of eternity (and everything in between), has meaning, purpose, and success built into it?  Those are the types of words I can rest my very life on and trust to guide and sustain me.  Time to dig in!

Time Marches On

I’m having a hard time believing that November is already here!  October seemed to fly by at our house, and now a new month is starting.  Fall has always been my favorite time of year, but it’s going by too fast this year.  In no time, it will be Christmas and a new year! 

It’s hard for me to imagine time from God’s perspective, where “A day is like a thousand years . . . and a thousand years is like a day” (Psalm 90:4).  God does not view time as humans do, and he is completely unrestricted by time.  In fact, our entire lifetime is just a moment to him. 

Sometimes God’s perspective on time can be frustrating to us, like when we’re praying about something and it seems like we have to wait forever for his answer.  But I’m thankful that God can be trusted beyond what we can see at any given moment and that we can depend on him because he is eternal.  We constantly feel like time is getting away from us, but God resides outside of time and can be trusted to act when he is ready and do what needs to be done – which might not necessarily be what we would like him to do. 

Since our hearts were created for eternity (Ecclesiastes 3:11), maybe we should try to remind our bodies and minds that we’re not supposed to be completely satisfied with life here on earth because we were created for something different.  This world is not my home!  So, no matter how fast time seems to be whizzing by, I can focus on eternal things and stop trying to fit God into my time constraints.  I can start applying God-principles to my life here on earth instead of trying to apply human principles to God. 

Today I can relate to what the apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 4:18: “. . . the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.”  October and November will soon be gone, but eternity will last forever.  God is much more interested in growing my character and preparing me for eternity than in making sure I get the most (from a human perspective) out of my time here on earth. 

There’s always enough time in each day and each season to focus on God and spend time preparing for eternity.  Just saying . . .

Birthday Celebrations

This is a week of celebrations at my house.  Yesterday my husband and I celebrated the 36^th anniversary of our first date!  And today one of my sons is celebrating a birthday.  I like to celebrate these kinds of milestones – to make sure that we remember the past and how it contributes to where we are today.

But my son isn’t celebrating the day of his physical birth today.  He’s celebrating the day 20 years ago when he chose to accept Christ’s sacrifice for his sins and decided to become a Christ-follower.  He’s celebrating his spiritual birthday! 

Sometimes parents make a HUGE deal out of their children’s birthdays – complete with lots of presents, food, decorations, games, friends, family, etc.  I had a lot a fun when my sons were still children planning and executing their birthday parties.  My husband and I made a big deal out of their birthdays because we downplayed Christmas giving and wanted their birthdays to be extra-special.  But most people don’t even know the date when either they or their children became Christians.  Why is that?

I’m not sure why, but maybe this is a product of our focus on earthly things instead of heavenly things.  Why don’t we throw parties every year to celebrate our spiritual birthdays?  Could it be that we really don’t understand how important our second birth is?  If our spiritual birthdays represent true repentance and life-change, then they are the most important day we could celebrate each year.  More important than original birthdays, more important than Christ’s birthday, and more important than any anniversaries – because they are celebrations that mark eternal changes.  Spiritual birthdays mark a moment in the past that changed who we are today: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). 

So let’s start celebrating!  Parents, make sure your children know the date of the day their eternal, life-changing birthday occurred.  Celebrate that day each year – in whatever way you feel is appropriate.  (My husband and I always gave our boys a card that acknowledged their spiritual growth in the past year and a present that encouraged further growth.)  And don’t stop when they grow up.  My sons no longer live in my home; but every year they still get an email or a text that shows them how important their spiritual birthday is to us and God.  Along with our “first-date” anniversary, these are days that are always transferred over each year to my new calendar – milestones of progress that should never be forgotten.  Will you join me in focusing our attention on the birthday that really matters?     

Fearful or Resting?

Sovereignty.  If you live in a nation that doesn’t have a king or queen, like I do, you probably have a hard time understanding this attribute of God.  Earthly sovereigns are usually people that command some degree of fear from their subjects; yet God’s sovereignty is so much different than what we see in earthly kings and queens.  That’s because God’s sovereignty cannot be separated from his other character traits: love, mercy, compassion, grace, wisdom, and justice.  All of these make up who God is in a perfect balance that we can’t completely comprehend.  Because our own human experience is inherently limited, we sometimes get confused about who God really is in relation to all we experience.  We have a narrow view of God instead of a Biblical view of God.

The point of God’s sovereignty is not to push us down or lord over us that he’s in charge.  The story of Job in the Bible makes it clear that we are not supposed to look at our circumstances using an earthly standard.  God showed Job that there is no standard or criterion higher than himself by which to judge what we see and experience.  The point of God’s sovereignty is that God himself is the standard, and he wants us to submit to his authority so we can rest in his care.  God’s other characteristics work together with his sovereignty, which provides the framework for ALL of who he is to be exercised in full measure.  Without God’s sovereignty, none of his other, perhaps more favorable, character traits would be able to operate correctly. 

The sovereignty of God is a place we can rest in – no matter what life brings and regardless of our inability to fully understand our circumstances.  We need to reach a point where God’s sovereignty becomes a personal place of rest and where we can live our lives in confidence instead of fear because God is sovereign.  Worship is a great start to getting there, like this song by Shannon J. Wexelberg:

            “I am overcome by your goodness

            I am overwhelmed by your lovingkindness

            I am swept away by your mercy

            And I am lifting my hands to the One who fills me.

            I am so amazed at your greatness

            So in awe of what You have done to save us

            I am bowing down to your holiness, my Lord

            I am undone.”

Undone . . . and resting in His sovereignty! 

Choosing Who to Believe

I feel like I’m stuck for another week on the topic of self-esteem.  My women’s Bible study group is studying the story of Gideon from the Old Testament book of Judges, and this week has continued to focus on the importance of believing what God says about us and not what the enemy or others try to convince us is true.  Gideon couldn’t see anything good in his life or himself, but God saw potential in him to be a leader – potential that didn’t match where Gideon was right then or how he felt about himself.  But here’s the lesson from Gideon: No matter how I feel, what Scripture says about me is true!

As Priscilla Shirer says, “. . . trusting God and walking in His pronouncement of (our) potential is the foundation of spiritual victory.”  Gideon had to believe what God saw in him and not what he saw in himself before he could complete the task that God had chosen him to do, and it’s the same for us.  How many times do we settle for a mediocre Christian walk simply because we can’t believe that God would really choose us or would fully equip us for what He’s called us to?  Believing what God says includes trusting that        “. . . he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion . . .” (Philippians 1:6).  Whether or not we feel that we are making progress in our Christian walk or capable of accomplishing anything worthwhile for the Kingdom, we have to believe that God won’t give up on us and promises to complete the work he started in each of us.  And don’t confuse Christian humility and meekness with unworthiness and low self-esteem.  True humility is not convincing yourself that you are worthless but recognizing God’s work in you and having God’s perspective on who you are.  

Lately, God has been calling me to do some things that are out of my comfort zone.  Can you relate?  I can choose to trust how I feel about myself and those tasks, or I can believe that God’s view of me is different and that he will fully equip me for whatever he is asking me to do.  Which of those perspectives I choose to believe and operate on will make all the difference in what my future walk with God looks like.  Are you ready to join me in allowing God’s thoughts toward us to transform our own thoughts about ourselves and enable us to step out in faith to be used by him?  Gideon had to climb out of his hiding place at the bottom of a winepress and face his enemies (the Midianites) with only 300 soldiers and God’s strength.  What do you and I need to do?  

God's Word Trumps Our Mistakes!

I make a lot of mistakes.  We all do.  Some of my mistakes could just be classified as unwise ways of responding to life, while others are actually sins because they are choices to go against God’s will.  No matter what the source of our mistakes, they all have one thing in common: they are Satan’s playground for assaulting our self-esteem.  He likes nothing better than to use our own mistakes, as well as the actions of other people in our lives, to make us feel unworthy, insignificant, or ordinary.  The result is usually low self-esteem, depression, or both. 

But, as with most areas of our lives, focusing on ourselves or our daily circumstances and trusting God don’t naturally work together.  It is imperative that we look at God’s Word to find out what God’s thoughts toward us are so that we can focus on those thoughts and effectively overcome the enemy’s assaults on our own thoughts.  Romans 12:3 says it this way: “The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him” (MSG). 

When we are inundated with doubt and other negative thoughts about ourselves from Satan and our mistakes, we must choose to believe what God thinks about us and recognize what he has done and is doing on our behalf.  It is important for us to remember what the Bible teaches us about God’s thoughts toward us in order to combat the attacks from the enemy on our self-esteem.  First of all, God created us in his own image (Genesis 1:26-27), so God’s character goes into the creation of every person.  God has bestowed high dignity on humans, and to question our worth is to question God’s work.  God also loves each of us enough to send his Son as a sacrifice to bring us back into relationship with him.  This perfect love also expresses itself in actions like kindness, patience, forgiveness, and the gift of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

I have learned through my own experiences with low self-esteem, guilt, and depression that, whenever we make mistakes and Satan assaults our self-esteem, we have to choose to climb out of our own feelings and base our outlook only on God’s thoughts toward us.  Let’s agree to approach our mistakes in a new way: by telling Satan where to go and backing it up with the truth from God’s Word!      

The Gift of Grace

I’ve been a Christian for over 50 years, so I have to admit that I don’t often think about the salvation side of God’s grace.  When I trusted God at the age of four to save me from the eternal death I was destined for because of my inherited sin nature, I had not yet acquired a long list of sins or any understanding of the shame and guilt that could have characterized my life if I had not chosen to follow God.  All but the first four years of my life has been wholly permeated by the concept of grace, so I struggle to understand what it would be like to live any part of life without it.  I have had to learn from others about the depths of God’s saving grace and the effects it can have on a life.  Adults who are new Christians always bring a refreshing dimension to my walk of faith because they have a perspective I have never experienced.

So today I’m looking a little closer at this aspect of God’s grace.  In order to understand how it works, we have to remember that all of God’s character traits operate in conjunction with each other: his grace, mercy, love, holiness, and righteousness are interconnected.  God’s mercy is the compassion that moved him to provide a Savior, and his love is the motivation behind everything he does toward man.  But grace couldn’t operate until God’s holiness and righteousness were satisfied by a sufficient answer to sin.  Grace rules out all human merit because no amount of human effort can provide a sufficient answer to sin (Ephesians 2:8-9).  Only God could satisfy the requirements created by his own character.  All we can do is admit our own insufficiency and accept his free gift of grace in providing a suitable sacrifice that covers every possibility of sin in our lives and bridges the gap between ourselves and a holy God.

Thinking this through again makes me feel like I need to celebrate!  Don’t let a day go by without thanking God for his wonderful gift of grace! 

Losing Can Be Winning

Yesterday I attended a memorial service for an elderly gentleman from our church.  Then I came home and watched the news and discovered that today is the 6-month anniversary of a terrible landslide in our area that claimed 43 lives.  So today I’m thinking about the different losses that we go through in life.  There are many different kinds of losses – loss of life, loss of a job, loss of a friendship, loss of a home or other assets, loss of ministry, loss of health, loss of memory, loss of purpose, loss of innocence . . . the list goes on and on.  Most of us have experienced one or more of these in our lives so far.  As Christians, trusting God is essential through the process of coping with any loss – and yet often the most difficult thing to do.  All loss brings the same result to those affected: the experience of brokenness, emptiness, and feelings of hopelessness.  But how do we move beyond these initial results and allow God to work in us through the loss?  How can losing be turned into winning? 

We are called to face loss with faith so that the changes that occur in us result in growth.  You see, change is an inevitable result of loss, but growth is not.  Loss changes who we are and makes it necessary for us to redefine “normal” – figuring out who we are without whatever we lost.  The apostle Paul taught us in 2 Corinthians 10:5 one of the most important things we can do when we face loss: “ . . . we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”  So that’s the starting point.  Don’t let the enemy steal your thoughts!

After that, it’s all about perspective.  We humans usually approach earthly life as something that we need to hang onto or cling to; but Jesus told us we shouldn’t do that (Luke 17:33).  Clinging to this life means trying to escape physical loss and feeding a materialistic and individualistic perspective on life instead of an eternal one.  A proper eternal perspective recognizes that whatever we have on earth is temporary and that everything we gain on earth is a gift from God to be used for his glory..  Our natural earthly perspective makes us act as if we have a “right” to the gains God has given us, which leads to our interpretation of losses as injustice or unfairness.  This difference in perspective is critical because where it leads is the difference between hope and hopelessness.  When we experience loss, either response is a possible outcome. 

One more thought for today: When we experience loss, healing comes when we allow God’s presence to fill the hole that is left in our lives by the loss.  Did you notice that this requires action on our part?  But, when we choose to trust God’s presence in our lives and rely on him to take the place of what we lost, we receive another gift from him: the gift of contentment.  Let’s agree to trust God through our losses and not allow them to have the final word! 

How's Your Focus?

Yesterday at church I picked up a brochure for our upcoming women’s fall retreat.  The theme is based on Hebrews 12:1-2, which encourages us to get rid of all the extras that might slow us down and run the race of faith as well as we can.  Not surprisingly, this idea is right up my alley – because I believe that everything in life is about faith.  I also believe that faith is ultimately all about focus.  Here’s how these verses plus verse 3 say it:

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with patient endurance and steady and active persistence the race God has set before us.  We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, Who is the Leader and the Source of our faith [giving the first incentive for our belief] and is also its Finisher, [bringing it to maturity and perfection] . . . Think of all the hostility he endured from sinful people; then you won’t become weary and give up.”

This Scripture comes right after Hebrews 11, which is an exhaustive list of examples of past people of faith.  The writer helps us to remember that the Christian life is a long-distance race rather than a short sprint and that we need to be encouraged by the lives of those who have struggled with faith prior to us in order to keep faithfully running.  This is the first part of having a properly focused faith.

But even more important to remember in terms of focus is that the writer of Hebrews tells us to fix our eyes on Jesus.  Since Christ is both the start and the finish of our faith-race, weariness and discouragement can be overcome by properly fixing our eyes on him.  Just as a runner who looks at his feet, we will surely stumble if we look at ourselves or our circumstances.

I hope these verses encourage you to keep your focus on the right things and to not allow your faith to waver because of what you encounter in life.  Life is always changing, but Jesus never does; and keeping our eyes focused on him affects how we look at everything else.    

First Post!

Today is my birthday – a day each year when I have the opportunity to celebrate, to think about the past year, and to look ahead to more years in the future.  So this seems like the perfect day to begin this weekly blog about the life of faith – a journey that also celebrates, remembers the past, and moves toward the future as God reveals it each day.

Faith is an interesting thing.  Everyone has faith in something – either God, themselves, other people they are in relationships with, the law of gravity, the laws of nature, etc.  Faith seems to be hard-wired into each of us, but faith in God is not something we can give to someone else or cause to happen in ourselves.  That’s because the Bible makes it clear that God is the source of faith, and faith is his gift to us (Ephesians 2:8-9).  He has begun a work of faith in each of us and has every intention of completing that work: “. . . being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion . . .” (Philippians 1:6).

The interesting thing about faith is that, even though it is a work begun by God, we can’t just sit back and expect him to do all the work to make it grow.  As Philippians 2:12-13 tell us, faith involves us working out our salvation as God works in us: “Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear.  For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.”  We can’t make our faith grow without God’s help and power, and he has chosen to limit his ability to work in us to include our effort in the process.  That’s because God is all about relationship – and faith is a relationship with the sovereign Creator of the universe.

Here’s the thing, though, about relationships: no two look exactly alike.  Although grounded in the same truths, my faith will look different than your faith.  I have found that God teaches us different parts of himself at different times and in different ways.  What our faith looks like at any given moment directly relates to what God is teaching us through our experiences and his Word.  Faith is a lifelong journey, and everyone is on a slightly different path.  That’s why I believe that faith is not always simple and not always a foregone conclusion, no matter how long we walk with God.  Working out our faith on a daily basis may sometimes involve questioning and struggling along the way, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we’re not on track with God.  The struggle may be God-ordained to help us grow a little more in our faith.

So the question on my birthday is this: are there faith milestones to celebrate from this past year?  Have I learned how to trust God more because of how I followed him during the year?  And am I ready to move into the next year with confidence that God will continue to reveal the best path for me to grow in my faith as he keeps carrying on the good work he began in me?  May I continue to be found worthy, and to God alone be the glory!