Coming Monday.

Published on by Christine Wyrtzen

A few quotes to carry with us through the weekend. Pray with me that God opens our hearts to receieve the full measure of His revelation.

Jeremiah: There is none like you, O LORD; you are great, and your name is great in might. 

Tim Keller:  “To hallow God’s name is not merely to live righteous lives but to have a heart of grateful joy toward God-and even more, a wondrous sense of awe at the majesty and holiness of who He is.”

Sam Storms: God’s name is qualified by the adjective “holy” in the Old Testament more often than all other qualities or attributes combined.

Charles Spurgeon: Knowledge is best when it exercises itself upon the Name of God.

Tony Evans: Sometimes God will allow you to experience larger problems in life because He wants to unveil a larger portion of Himself to you. People who want to give up on God simply because life’s scenarios don’t make sense could very well be walking away from a new manifestation of God and His name in their lives.”

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Paved With The Finger of God

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While spending the night on the way to Bethlehem, I wonder if Mary thought of her home and her comfortable bed. The ground wasn’t very forgiving to her aching body. Joseph probably didn’t sleep much either, trying to do what he could to soften the place where Mary lay. We can imagine his kindness.

Joseph had to wonder what would happen when they arrived in Bethlehem. He could tell that the baby’s birth was near. He probably felt alone and weighed down with responsibility for their safety. For strength, perhaps he took a deep breath, reviewed the stories of his ancestral fathers, and trusted God.

Their safety was not dependent upon his own ingenuity. God was the Father, just out of sight, ensuring the safe arrival of the Promise. The redemptive plans of God, from before time, would break open upon the Earth and nothing would tamper with divine sovereignty.

My life has also been planned from before the creation of the world. God said so. My calling is as secure in God’s hands as the calling of Joseph and Mary. I can often feel the weight of responsibility, believing that I have more to do with determining my tomorrows than God does. I fear that my own ingenuity will make or break my future. Not so. The presence of God hovers near. His breath warms my way. I cannot miss the way if I am prayerful, if I am listening, because my Bethlehem is always within reach. My roadway has been paved ahead of time by the index finger of God.

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Little Shepherd and Overseer

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For “you were like sheep going astray,” but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.  I Peter 2:25

When an ancient king planned to journey through a desert landscape, the way was prepared beforehand by his advance team.  The road was inspected, repaired where needed, and all that would obstruct his journey was addressed.

Jesus was our advance team.  He came to prepare the way for us to walk the path to His kingdom.  The infant Shepherd who napped in the manger was also the One who made crooked paths straight.

And not only is He the little Shepherd but He is also the little Overseer of our souls.

That means He is the caretaker of our inside world.  He exposes sin and inspires repentance.  He encourages us to examine each crooked place in our hearts so things can be made straight.  He saves us from painful detours.  He cheers us on when we limp. He picks us up when we’re lame.  He helps us when we’re emotionally and spiritually feeble.

We have a deep desire to be known by One who loves us and has earned our trust.  Because we were wired for this divine connection, our souls strain to be under the care of One who sees it all, the good and the bad. We want to belong to the One who can craft an environment where we will thrive.  But there is a caveat ~ we must first give up our lives to Him in surrender.   

You are the perfect Shepherd and perfect Overseer.  I’m going to let you define what is best for me without limiting Your influence.  Amen

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He Reversed The Curse

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Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole. … When he was hung on the cross, he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing.  Galatians 3:13

A wee little baby was born with a purpose that defied understanding.  He wasn’t born to be a teacher, or to tell stories about God, or to perform miracles, or to be king of Israel.  He was born to reverse the curse that was pronounced in the Garden of Eden.  

The curse came upon Adam and Eve when they failed to believe God about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Turning their back on belief, and then sealing it with an act of disobedience, ushered in immense consequences for them and every one of their descendants.  Is it any wonder that Jesus would grow up to say, “Whoever believes in me, though He dies, yet shall He live.”  

The sin of unbelief was committed in a garden.  Thirty-three years after little Jesus was born, He would enter another garden to deal with the weight of our curse and to give up His life to reverse it.  Unbelief brought the curse.  Belief in Jesus lifted it.  

Every one of us who has embraced this little Savior and believed in Him is no longer cursed ~ but blessed.  The theme of our life is not ‘paradise lost’ but ‘paradise restored.’  Barren landscapes, once brown and decayed by sin, are now lush and green.  Futility and hopelessness were instantly banished with His words, “It is finished.”  

I still believe and choose to act on it.  Thank you, baby Jesus.  Amen

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When You Remember The Moment

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And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them.  Luke 2:9

The shepherds didn’t ask to see the glory of God.  They didn’t try to earn it the privilege either. The unmerited favor of God intersected their personal history and brought an experience the likes of which they would never forget.  Nothing in the future would eclipse the memory of that night when the heavens opened up and the veil that limited their spiritual eyesight was temporarily lifted.

Are such defining moments possible today for the one who loves God?  Yes. There are moments that become mountaintops; encounters that become a Bethel.  Don’t settle for monotony.  Don’t live on yesterday’s manna.  Seek, listen, pursue God relentlessly and the glory of the Lord will be near to you at an unsuspecting time. An ordinary day will be turned upside down as the eternal penetrates the temporal.  God’s glory will so fill your field of vision that earth’s trinkets will no longer dazzle your eyes.

Those around you may not see the holy moments but you will.  You’ll take your shoes off even as you remember it.  In the afterglow, you will live dazed and will tremble in the distraction of the memory.  Such is the ecstasy of the one who has seen God pass by.

I want to commune with you in a place that doesn’t need words.  Amen

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Prophets And The Present

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Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an Apostle, set apart for the Gospel of God, which he promised before hand through the prophets in the holy scriptures. Romans 1:2

Nearly every time Paul gave a defense for the Gospel, he didn’t start with the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem.  Since most of his accusers were Jewish leaders, he was intent on showing them that Jesus was connected to their scriptures, the fulfillment of their law.  The Torah, which they embraced and knew front to back, had predicted his coming.  God was not only the Alpha and Omega, but the God of the in-between.  Nothing was random, nothing was haphazard, but each event in history a meticulously conceived plan according to the wisdom of a Sovereign God.

Why was this important to the Jews?  Because it’s hard for any of us to completely leave everything familiar and embark on something new.  And it wasn’t necessary where the Jews were concerned.  They had in their hands (the Torah and the writings of the prophets) the complete revelation of Jesus Christ.  To believe on Him was to complete their faith, to be as Abraham looking ahead for the Lamb of God and finding Him in Jesus.

God is the consummate storyteller.  The revelation of Jesus in Bethlehem was connected to the plot line in Eden when Adam and Eve sinned.  Everything in between followed the story line.

In God’s plot line, there is no such thing as ‘wasted’.  Not even our mistakes.  Though we know the end of the story revealed in Scripture, the redemptive twists and turns take us by surprise.  May I not be like the Jews who failed to recognize Jesus when He stood in front of them.  As He orders the events of my day, I ask for the eyesight to see His fingerprints.

After all these years, I am beginning to love my storyline.  It is interwoven with Yours, with the cross.  Amen

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“May I Hold Him?”

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Let’s go back 2,000 years.  Together, we are standing in front of an opening to a stable.  We look inside and see a young man and woman holding a newborn infant in their arms.  Their mood is hushed.  The moment is holy – though nearly everyone in Bethlehem fails to notice.  We enter, are warmly welcomed, and ask what is so common when visiting friends who have had a new baby.  “May I hold him?”

I have held many newborns, but the experience didn’t hold a candle to the sacredness of holding my own two children in my arms.  When it’s your baby, how different is it?

If you and I pause to enter the Christmas story, we’re invited to internalize that He’s not just Joseph and Mary’s baby.  He’s our baby.  “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.”  Holding him is very personal for us. We know the rest of the story and understand that Jesus was the little lamb of God.  He’s been prophesied throughout the Old Testament all the way back to the book of Genesis.  Mankind, ever since the fall of Adam and Eve, has desperately sought a way to get rid of our guilt.  Our fallen nature eats away at our psyche until we feel like a shell of a person.  We are agitated and tormented until our sins can be forgiven by God’s Lamb.

The most challenging things in life are often bittersweet.  The pain is there, but so is the presence of Jesus.  Against the backdrop of tragedy, beauty arises out of the ashes.  This was true even in the stable.  The manger and the cross were in each other’s shadow, and Mary pondered the enormity of the implications.

Baby Jesus.  My little Lamb of God.  Your little Lamb of God.  As we caress Him and sing Him lullabies, we’re rocking Holiness.

My Lamb.  You are no longer vulnerable but sitting on a throne.  Hallelujah.  

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