He sees you when you’re sleeping; he knows when you’re awake.  He knows when you’ve been bad or good.

Wait a minute, who are we talking about here?  Santa or Jesus?  They both seem to know all about you, no matter your age.  However, while Santa is known to deliver smiles, he also has a reputation of being somewhat drunk on a street corner, less than reliable to fulfill all wishes of the lap-sitters, and has been caught kissing Mommy underneath the mistletoe.

Jesus, on the other hand, can deliver lasting smiles, but is also expected to bring introspection, which can turn that smile upside down.  Go to any church Advent service, and you will see folks welcoming Him back each year — just like Santa.  Shouldn’t Jesus be here every day?  How many people just welcome Him once a year?

Millions of kids get lots of toys each year, but the baby in the manger probably didn’t even get a rattle. And it’s hard to play with gold, frankincense and myrrh.  What He did get, though, is the adoration of many generations to come.  But does our adoration quickly fade when the holiday hoopla is over?

God’s message of peace and love and righteousness could have been delivered by anyone.  But the correct and true message needed to come by way of his only Son.  He’s truly the gift that keeps on giving.

Merry Christmas

‘Tis the season to be giving — and receiving.  It’s also the time of year that the charity seekers constantly have their hands out.  Salvation Army bell ringers, Toys for Tots, the angel tree at church, along with several special Christmas offerings.  This activity particularly peaks at the holiday season.  Why?

You could say that they saved their campaigns for this time, rather than to hit us up for money all year long, but I don’t think so.  They play on the spirit of giving at Christmas.  How can you buy those wonderful presents and ignore the downtrodden who have nothing for Christmas?

So what happens when Christmas is over?  Aren’t the downtrodden still trodden down?  Is there a way that we can focus not on the Christmas band-aid, but on the progressive healing?  Or can our apathy only be worn down in December?

Jesus told his followers, “Freely you have received, freely give.”  Then he instructs them not to take any money with them.  Is it because he wants them to give of themselves?  Isn’t it easier to open the wallet than to open the heart?

Children will tear open boxes on Christmas morning, looking for the many things that they begged for.  Quite a few will be tired of the toys by the end of the day. God gave his best gift in Jesus.  How many of us will lose his message as we struggle on through life?

Maybe this year we should strive to be humble givers and gracious receivers, because we, ourselves, are gifts that don’t need to be wrapped.

It’s here again.  Another year of singing, bustling, rushing, wrapping, cooking, baking, spending and celebrating.  Will you be glad when it’s over?

There’s the commercial Christmas, and there’s the spiritual Christmas.  These days, it’s difficult to separate the two in some churches.  Each year the season becomes a big production, in or out of church.  At a time when we are recognizing the arrival of the Prince of Peace, we appear anything but peaceful.  Is this what Jesus wanted?  Is God okay with how it turned out?

How do you reconcile Christ with today’s Christmas?  Do you tell your kids that there’s no Santa Clause, because it doesn’t fit in with your doctrine?  Our church has a miniature nativity set that has Santa kneeling before the manger. Do you spend too much money and buy presents for people that you’re not sure that you care about, only to make sure they don’t think that you’re too cheap?  I don’t think the Wise Men had that problem.

Do you spend too much money on kids who play with the toys for 3 minutes tops, then move on to TV or an old toy?  Is your Christmas table filled with small talk with friends or relatives that you can’t be honest with at other times?

Where’s the Christmas peace and joy?  Where’s the love of Christ when you get angry with the store clerk, or with the guy who just cut you off in traffic, or when no one appreciates all of the work you put into this holiday season?

Does it bother you when you’re told that the baby Jesus actually came to die for your sins?  Are you able to keep the frivolity separate from the Christian message of Christmas?

I love Christmas.  No humbug here.  But maybe we should take a serious look at how we address it.  Maybe we should ask Jesus what He thinks.  It’s his birthday.

Teach.  Or so the saying goes.  Meaning that people who can’t master their given field can always fall back on teaching about it.  I don’t believe it’s true.  At least I hope it’s not true.  But it may be true for some.  I would rather believe that teachers are called to teach.  That is, they have an inner desire to open minds to learning, and that they look forward to seeing students mature and become successful, knowing that they had a part in the process.

The Christian faith is much the same.  Where would we be without our teachers?  Sure, God uses the Bible, but wasn’t that written by teachers?  And are teachers always right?  Even if they’re not always right, do we dismiss them as teachers when they’re wrong sometimes?

Teachers, if they are any good, stimulate us to think.  Great teachers love questions.  But should the goal of a teacher be to make you think like he or she thinks?  Wouldn’t it be better to lead students to seek the truth, even if they’re not currently on the same page as the teacher?  Can Christian leaders trust God to eventually bring the student around to the truth, or must they force their truth into the students, they themselves being God’s instruments?

I wonder how much teachers of Christianity fear that they will be held accountable for the failure of their students to learn the real Truth.  (James 3:1)  Is it hard for teachers to be humble?  Do they see it as failure to admit that they don’t know an answer?  How much does pride play into the teaching equation?

Learning is a necessary part of our existence.  Teachers are necessary tools for the learning process. Some do it professionally.  But shouldn’t we all be ever learning, as well as ever teaching?

God is the great Teacher.  From Him all teaching flows.  What we do with it is up to us.

Or is it?

If you look in the upper right-hand corner of the home page of this blog, you’ll see a photo of my favorite writer, George MacDonald, along with my favorite quote of his.  It answers the question of, “What does God really want from us?”

Sin is doing wrong.  Some sins don’t make you a bad person.  A lot of sins make you suspect.  Our preachers remind us that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) So God knows that all of us are going to sin, right?  So why hold us accountable for sins that he knows that we are going to commit; even the same preachers point out that we are born into sin, that we have sinful natures.

And if Christ died for all of our sins — past, present and future — doesn’t that really mess with our minds? I don’t really want to sin, but, oh well, at least it’s covered by the blood of Christ.  Can it be that God would actually like for us to NOT sin, period?

Would it help our children not to sin if we would just die?  I don’t think so. How about if we select one of the little sinners and put him or her to death for the sins of all of the rest?  Oh, right.  The sacrificial child would have to be sinless.  But what difference would that make if the rest of the kids are going to continue to sin anyway?  Wouldn’t it be better if they could be disciplined in order to learn how to NOT sin? Isn’t that possible?  Can’t God do it?  Isn’t he the Father of us all?

And if said discipline could be executed in this life and the next, then what’s the purpose of the cross? Jesus said to “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48)

Now that sounds like a plan.

Romans 8:38, 39
For I am convinced that neither death nor life,
Neither angels nor demons,
Neither the present nor the future,
Nor any powers,
Neither height nor depth,
Nor anything else in all creation,
Will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The Apostle Paul seems to go to great lengths in order to assure us that God’s love is greater than anything that would attempt to keep us away from him. It’s a wonderful verse, and I believe it with all my heart. But most “Christians” don’t.

What can separate us from God’s love? Can hell? Are those that are in hell now on the outside of God’s love? How can he still love them and burn them forever?

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I work in an office, and most of my day involves the use of a computer.  So an interesting thing happened to me today.  After an hour or so into my morning, I had just finished a brief meeting with someone and was making some notes after she left.  Suddenly, I couldn’t write.  My right hand became weak, my fingers tingled, and I couldn’t grip my pen.  When I tried to write, I couldn’t write clearly, and my hand would twitch or move in a different direction.

A stroke?  I wasn’t sure.  I had no other one-sided symptoms.  I shook my hand by my side and retried to write.  Still nothing.  I remember being more annoyed than scared, thinking I would have the tedious task of learning to write and type with just my left hand.  All this in a span of five minutes.  I work for a doctor, but I didn’t want to tell him because I figured he would want me to go get a CT scan, and, with no insurance and little money, that was seriously out of the question.

So I toughed it out, and a few minutes later, I attempted to write a receipt for someone, cleverly disguising the fact that I may not be able to complete the task.  But I did, however slowly, carefully guiding my hand through the motions — not some of my best writing, but legilble.  Still a few minutes later, and I seemed to be returning to normal.  My hand was tired, and a little sore, but now I had time to reflect.  Was it a stroke?  Carpal tunnel syndrome?  Then I remembered that I had seriously tried to beat my wife’s score in a Yahoo game the night before, which involved some furious clicking with my index finger.  So then I rationalized that I had just strained a tendon, and some wrist or hand movement this morning set the nerve off and running.

Then I wondered how my grandkids could click on those games for hours with no apparent discomfort — oh right, I’m almost 62 with gradually increasing arthritic hands.  Get a grip, Steve!  I did talk to the doc later about it, though, and he pretty much agreed with my self-diagnosis.

But for a fleeting moment I had experienced something that was out of the norm, accompanied by thoughts of life-changing consequences.  What does it mean to “get a grip?”  Some things won’t return to normal in five or ten minutes, a day, week or year.  What then?  I know that every beat of my heart, every twitch of my finger and every breath I take are under the purview of my loving heavenly Father.  Would I still be able to make this statement if it had been a stroke?

I hope so.  I’ve have three heart attacks, so I know something about life-changing events.  And I believe that everything we go through has a purpose; we just don’t always know what that purpose is, or if what we’re going through is meant to work a desired effect in us — or if someone else is being affected through our experience.

My prayer life is quite simple.  It daily consists of “help me” or “thank you.”  Everything in between can be attributed to meditation, or keeping quiet, in case he has something to tell me.  When the alien hand thing happened this morning, I prayed for wisdom and strength to get through it.  After it was over, I thanked God for giving me my life back.  I know that there are greater tests yet to come.  But each time I trust him to help me get a grip.

Until the mad scientists figure out how to create humans without need of opposite gender participants, each of us owes our existence to the consummation of a “loving” relationship between father and mother.  And because we are not only physical beings, but spiritual, we are taught to assign a gender to heavenly (or devilish) beings, be it gods, angels or demons.  These are necessary pronouns to complete our dialogue, such as “He loves me” or “She tempted me.”

So unless we are Greek god/goddess worshipers or feminists, we are likely to regard God as “he,” along with his son, Jesus and the only angels mentioned in the Bible as guys.  That being said, if we are to speak of God in the third person, how do we address him/her?  Or do we just never use the pronoun?  Does any of it make any difference to God?

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