Why is Christmas so Important?

This year has been a bit harder than usual for me to get into the "Christmas spirit." I know it's not about a feeling or anything like that. But it's seemed like I was just doing all the things I usually do at Christmas and they were just things to check off my list - just going through the motions. Almost like I was just tired of doing the same thing every year.

Something was missing. And even my niece's excitement, or her rearranging my nativity set so that everyone is worshiping baby Jesus, "because that's what Christmas is about, auntie," wasn't helping me. To be honest I was tired of it all, and in the midst of my tiredness, I was missing why we were doing this thing.

Then I went to church on Dec 23 - not a Christmas Eve service yet, our regular weekend services. Except it wasn't - at least not for me. Something clicked as we sang the familiar songs, as I listened to the message, as we took communion together. The rest of the story doesn't happen without Christmas.

Sure, God could have found a different way to start His rescue story. But, He didn't. He chose to send His Son to earth to live and die for us. So, the cross and the resurrection started here. The story begins at Christmas with a baby in a manger.

At our Christmas Eve service, I was struck by the words of these familiar songs. We sing them every year, and I know I often have without realizing how they point to the mission of rescue Jesus was on for His life on earth. They speak of the freedom He was coming to bring. Of the healing He is bringing. They speak of the hope that was held in the birth of this child.

And so I'm reminded again of the importance of what we celebrate today. Christmas was the start of God's rescue plan for His creation. We often and easily see the cross and the resurrection as God's rescue plan, but Christmas was where the plan was launched. The birth of the Savior as a baby.

Redemption in Abundance

          "Israel, put your hope in the Lord,
                    for with the Lord is unfailing love
                    and with Him is full redemption."
                                                       -Psalm 130:7


Psalm 130 is a psalm about God' forgiveness of sin. It is a cry to God for mercy and a declaration of hope in the truth of God's Word.

As I read it recently, I was struck by the thought that God offers "full redemption." Another translation I read said it this way: "redemption in abundance." (Holman Christian Standard Bible)

They all convey that it's something complete. God doesn't just sort of redeem our past our sin when we turn to Him. He redeems it completely and He does it abundantly.

I've been working through Beth Moore's Bible study on the Psalms of Ascent recently and she said something about God's work of redemption that really stuck with me in part of the study for this psalm.

"Allowed to do so through our confession, invitation, and cooperation, God can restore our identity, our purity, our ability, and our sanity! He not only diffuses our past of all power to harm and haunt us but He infuses it with power to help others." (Stepping Up, page 129)

God's work of redemption in our lives is so much more than just forgiving our sins. He also takes our pasts and uses them for His glory and His purposes.

This is where I think the translation that used the phrase "redemption in abundance"  really challenged my thinking on this. God doesn't just redeem our pasts, He does so abundantly! As we allow Him to do His work, He creates something beyond what had been stolen by sin. He is generous with us in His redemption. He doesn't just barely redeem us; He redeems abundantly.

The lyrics to the chorus of a song I've been listening to lately have made me continue to think about what this looks like in my life.

The song is called "You Redeem" (by Aaron Shust)

You redeem, You redeem
You restore what's been stolen from me
You reclaim, You release
You rebuild with the words that You breathe
You redeem

You can listen to the whole song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boV5ER7O90o

A Church Family is a Must

Yes, you need a church you belong to.

These days, that's a controversial statement. I probably upset a few of you reading this to state it that way. But, right now, I'm okay with that, because I believe it's true. I hope you'll keep reading and see why I state this so emphatically.

If you've read my posts for any length of time you know I write regularly about our need for community, about our need for people we can share life with. As I was writing my last post on this topic, I was struck by how needing each other goes beyond those we naturally choose to create community with.

Those amazing sisters in Christ I was surrounded by in the situations I referenced in that post went beyond just those I intentionally built community with. And they were there in those moments because they are part of the larger church family I belong to. When those I don't normally rely on in those moments weren't there, my church family was still able to be there for me.

It's not just because of that I think we need to be a part of a church somewhere. When I read Scripture, I see the church as something instituted by God. The common arguement that the church is just something created by man doesn't stand. Some of our structures and the way we do church when we're together may be man-made, but the idea of church is not.

All through the letters in the New Testament and all through the book of Acts, there is discussion of the church and of the importance of meeting together. In the face of everything the church of the day faced, they needed each other and they needed the encouragement of meeting together. In our world today, it's just as important.

When I talk about church, I'm not talking about just a group of people we know, and like, and choose to be around. That's a small picture of what the church is.

Church is also about learning from others in the body of Christ who we would not be normally drawn to spend time with.We need the diversity that comes from different life experiences. And that requires us to be a part of a church body that is larger than just our friends and those we are naturally drawn to.

Yes, I would say that it's important to be a part of one of the local expressions of the body of Christ we call the church. Part of the larger group of people who make up the congregations in one of the church buildings we drive by in our communities.

I can't tell you which one you should be a part of. I won't tell you the size it needs to be. I won't tell you the theological distinctives it has to have (I will say that it should be a Gospel-centered, Bible-living church). Those are things you have  to figure out for yourself.

I can't tell you that you won't be hurt at some point by the people who make up that church. In fact, I can probably safely say you will be hurt by some of them at some point. But, even when that happens, it's not an excuse to stay away from the church.

Hebrews 10:24-25 says:

"And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another - and all the more as you see the Day approaching."

We need to be part of a local church body. One that goes beyond just our friends and those we're naturally drawn to.

The Problem with Using Shame

Do not let me be put to shame

This phrase, or a variation of it, is repeated over and over in the Psalms.

     "I trust in You;
          do not let be put to shame." (Psalm 25:2)

     "Guard my life and rescue me;
          do not let me be put to shame." (Psalm 25:20)

     "In You, Lord, I have taken refuge;
          let me never be put to shame;
          deliver me in Your righteousness." (Psalm 31:1)

     "Let me not be put to shame, Lord,
          for I have cried out to You." (Psalm 31:17)

Those are just a few of the uses of it, I've noticed. The more times I've read it recently, the more I've been thinking about it.

Why this constant cry? What is the importance of it?

It starts with defining shame. We have to know what it is to know why it's so important. The best definition of shame I've found comes from Brene Brown:

"I define shame as the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging - something we've experienced, done, or failed to do that makes us unworthy of connection." (brenebrown.com) 

We live in a society where shame too often keeps us quiet, and where it is used as a way to attempt to change someone's behaviour.

When we're ashamed of something, we feel isolated, alone, disconnected, fearful of someone finding out. Shame is our enemy, Satan's, specialty.

Shame isn't something God uses. The psalmist could confidently pray for God not to let him be put to shame because he knew it wasn't from God. The psalmist was praying for protection against the schemes of our enemy.

I've been thinking about why God never uses shame and I've realized it's because shame attacks our identity. Shame attempts to label us based on "something we've experienced, done, or failed to do," to use Brene Brown's definition. It tells us we are wrong as people, puts down who God created us to be.

God doesn't label us by our past. He doesn't label us by our sin. He's made us His children and He wants us to identify ourselves this way. God sees us the way we were meant to be - the way can be because of Jesus' victory through the cross. He desires for us to live that, so He's not going to use shame to label us and attack our identity.

When the psalmist prays to not be put to shame, he's seeking protection from the attacks of the enemy. In the psalms where these words are used, the psalmist also talks about trusting God and finding refuge in Him. That's our best defense against the shaming tactics of the enemy.

God is Gracious!

Recently some of my posts have been talking about the dangers of building our life on lies, of refusing to listen to the truth, and of going our own way. If that's the only part of the picture we see, then it would be easy to get depressed and lose hope. But, as we continue to look at Isaiah 30, we see the hope and the way to grab hold of it again.

"People of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious He will be when you cry for help! As soon as He hears, He will answer you. Although, the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying: This is the way; walk in it."
                                                                                  -Isaiah 30:19-21 (emphasis mine)

These verses begin to outline how God responds when Israel turned from their disobedience and cried out to Him. In the verses following these ones, some of the specific ways God would bless Israel's repentance and obedience are outlined.

I was struck by the words: "As soon as He hears, He will answer you." God's response to a cry to Him of true repentance is immediate. All we have to do is say the words.

He doesn't wait for us to start changing things to prove it, he responds immediately. He will help us change our actions as soon as we acknowledge we turned away and that we want to go back to His way.

God will become our Guide again. He will help us to walk according to His plan for us. Then we can life His life for us.

It all begins with simply calling out to God.

Is there a place in your life where you've gone your own way and you need to get back on God's path?

Are you will to confess it?

Exposing what Hides in Darkness

"This is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you: God is Light; in Him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin.
If we claim to be without sine, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."
                                                                                                            1 John 1:5-9

Fear hides in darkness.

Fear causes us to hide in darkness.

We don't want what we've tried to keep hidden in darkness to be brought into the Light.

This means we don't let God in, because He is Light.

Because God is Light, He exposes what we try to keep hidden in darkness.

Sometimes we only allow Light into part of the space. We'll allow the Light to shine on the places we feel we've had time to clean up a bit.

We think by doing so we're walking in the Light, but there is still a darkness beyond the entryway. We've been confused by the enemy to think that doesn't matter, and the he uses it to gain back ground in the areas we've begun to let the Light into.

In these times, we think we're walking in the Light as long as we're facing the door so we can't see the darkness behind us. We're lying about walking in the Light, because the enemy has confused us.

We have to make the choice to let the Light go beyond the door and the immediate area we feel like we can keep somewhat in order in our own strength.

We live with a fear of what will be exposed if we allow the Light to come completely in and dispel the darkness. What we see in the shadows of the Light we've allowed in only so far scares us and we feel like it would be better if we just leave those places untouched and in the dark. But, Jesus wants to expose those places to the Light so the good work He has begun in us can be finished.

These verses in 1 John speak of exactly that. Our need to admit our darkness and let the Light in. The process of taking that first step may be full of fear and anxiety, but once we actually let the Light in, we'll never regret it.

That first step is confessing our sin, our darkness. God gives us forgiveness and purifies us from our sin. He removes the darkness by flooding that place with His Light. Darkness cannot continue to exist when the Light comes.

As much as we might wish this was a one time thing, it's something we must do continually, as we easily forget and turn out the Light in areas of our lives. We also have an enemy who is diligently looking for any way he can get in and turn out the Light on us.

We need to continually invite God's Light in to expose what's been hidden in darkness. And then be willing to confess what is exposed. That is the only way we can walk in the Light that brings fellowship with God.

Redeeming the Label Christian

One of my first posts on this blog was about taking a break from the term Christian. In it, I talk about choosing not to self-identify with the label Christian anymore because of the many negative things associated with that label.

As I reread that post, I began to wonder if there was a different way to approach the negative things so often associated with the label Christian. What if, instead of seeking to avoid the name, we sought to redeem it? What if we decided to live in such a way that people began to associate something positive when they heard the label Christian?

Acts 11:26 tells us that "the disciples were called Christians first at Antioch." The church was already established at this point. The surrounding culture gave them the name knowing the reputation of the early believers for caring for and loving those in need around them.

In the 2,000 years since then, Christians have come to be associated with lots of negative. To be sure, we've deserved some of it as our actions, as a whole and as individuals, has been anything but Christ-like. But that doesn't mean it has to stay that way. We can change it.

We can build on the good that does still happen in the name of Christ. There is much good being done in the name of Christ and we should be building on that rather than simply trying to distance ourselves from being called by a name that has incredible history attached to it.

As Christians, we have a rich heritage. Even with all the times we've failed and messed up in representing Christ, we have a history of doing good in the name of Christ. We should be building on that, not running from it.

When we run from it, we leave behind both the good and the bad. A better choice would be to acknowledge the places where we've done wrong and learn from them, and build on the good that has been done.

We serve a God Who is all about redeeming our lives. He takes our failures, our sins, our wrongs, and He redeems them for His glory. I know God loves to and wants to redeem us individually. He does this all the time.

I believe He also wants to do this for those who claim Him name as a whole. God designed us to go through this life and He uses His church as a body. I believe this means He wants to do His redeeming work in us as a whole.

When we choose to run from everything in our past, God can't redeem it for His glory - not the good and not the bad. What if, instead of running from it, we sought to changes people's associations with the label Christians? It will take time, but it won't ever happen if it doesn't start somewhere.

Why Do We Forgive?

Forgiveness is something we often struggle with. It doesn't come easily in many situations. The whole idea of it can sound so wrong to our ears.

We usually feel that it's easier to just refuse to forgive the other person. To either hold onto the hurt, or try to pretend it didn't happen and it didn't hurt. The problem is that refusing to forgive is actually more harmful to us than we realize.

I've sometimes wondered if part of my struggle with forgiveness is because of a misunderstanding of what it is based on words commonly associated with it as a kid. I have no idea where I learned it from, but somewhere along the line, the standard response when someone said they were sorry and I needed to forgive them became "that's okay."

Those words never felt right. But, I knew I had to say something and they were the only words I knew to say. The words "that's okay" always seemed to downplay the incident - make it seem less significant.

Somewhere along the way, this changed my thinking about what it meant to forgive someone. I came to associate it with making the situation and how I felt about it less important. I began to see it as saying the hurt I felt didn't matter. And that made it more difficult to forgive.

Except that was a wrong understanding of forgiveness.

Scripture teaches the importance of forgiveness. We're told over and over that we need to forgive. Jesus says it is so important that we should make things right with someone before we worship. Matthew 5:23-24 says:

"Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First, go and be reconciled to theml then come and offer your gift."

Unforgiveness prevents us from being able to worship God. When we become aware of a someone we need to forgive, Jesus' words in Matthew 5 teach us that we should deal with that right away.

So, if forgiveness is so important, even when it's so difficult, there must be something more about it than thinking it downplays the significance of a hurt. In fact, that is a misunderstanding of what it's about.

Forgiveness is about releasing the other person from having a hold in our lives any longer. It's not saying that what happened is okay. That's not what we're asked to do. It's about allowing God to bring His healing to our hurt rather than waiting for the person who hurt us to enough of the right things to make it right - something they will likely never do.

Forgiveness isn't saying that what happened wasn't important and didn't hurt. It is acknowledging that it happened and it hurt and then allowing God to heal the hurt. That is why we forgive.

Regretting the Hurry

"Someone asked me recently what was my biggest regret in life. I thought a moment, surveying the vast and cluttered landscape of my blunders and losses, the evil I have done and the evil that's been done againstme.
'Being in a hurry,' I said.
'Pardon?'
'Being in a hurry. Getting to the next thing without fully entering the thing in front of me. I cannot think of a single advantage I've ever gained from being in a hurry. But a thousand broken and missed things, tens of thousands, lie in the wake of all that rushing.'
Through all that haste, I thought I was marking up time. It turns out I was throwing it away."
(Mark Buchanan, The Rest of God, page 45)


Go back to the beginning and read the quoted passage above again. Slow down while you read it. Take time to reflect on what Mark Buchanan is saying here.


How would you answer the question about what your biggest regret was in life? What do you see as your biggest regret?

It usually doesn't take us long to come up with things we regret. Choices we made. People we chose to keep in our lives and people we chose to remove from our lives. Jobs we chose to take or not to take. Things we chose to do with our money or possessions and things we chose not to do with them.

When I really stop to think about it, despite all the choices I've made that are regrets, I have to say that I've come to agree with Buchanan on this one. My biggest regret is being in a hurry and it's the root of most of the decisions I regret making.

When we're living life in a hurry, our decisions suffer. We're so concerned about getting to the next thing that we run from one thing to the next with no time to think.

Are you living life in a hurry?

Do you see living life in a hurry as a regret? Why or why not?

I wonder what would happen if we became intentional about not living life in a hurry. What would happen if we slowed down enough to be really present in the moment and gave ourselves the room in our schedules to think?

I think that rather than feeling like we couldn't possibly get everything done, we would find that we have the time to do what we need to do without a problem.

Five Minute Friday: Begin

God provides us chance to begin again each day, each moment.

We stumble. We sin. We mess up.

When we confess it to God and ask for His forgiveness. He freely gives us His forgiveness and a chance to begin again. We start over with a no record of what we have done.

That chance to begin again is something we need constantly. A chance to begin again is something we need each day, each moment.

I'm thankful that God offers us that chance. As many times as I may need it.

All I have to do is return to Him and ask Him for that chance again. I don't have to try to do the right thing so He will give me that chance. I just have to ask and it is given. God's grace poured out on my life.

The chance to begin again is available to all who are willing to confess their sin and ask God for forgiveness - for a chance to begin again.



Joining in with Five Minute Friday again today. This week's word is "begin."

Choosing to Forgive to Find True Freedom

I've been feeling like I should write this post for a while, but I've been hesitant to write it, let alone post it. A couple of days ago, I briefly hinted at this journey when I shared a post of a poem I had shared a few year earlier that talked about this same thing. But, God is not letting me go on this one - the topic even came up loud and clear in a TV show I was watching - so here goes the post.

At the beginning of April I drove to one of my favourite places to be. To the Bible camp that has played a significant role in my life. I was heading to a retreat. I've gone to many retreats there, but I really didn't have any idea what this one would be about. I knew it was a retreat called Encounter God, and that for the people I knew who had gone before it had been life-changing for them.

I won't say all of the weekend was easy, but all of it was God-ordained. God had things planned that He wanted to deal with that weekend. But even in the face of things that weren't always easy, God was gentle and loving in how He brought things up.

It doesn't take long walking through this life to gather up hurts from other people. It happens when you interact with people. We're all fallen and we hurt other people - sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally - but we hurt each other nonetheless.

Over the years, I've picked up my fair share of hurts from other people (and I'm sure I've hurt people along the way too). It took me a while to learn to trust people again. I started on that first Encounter God weekend to trust people again.

But that was only the beginning of that. I had taken those hurts and decided that the way to protect myself. That first weekend, I made the choice to trust people again. To begin to remove that wall.

Fast forward a couple of months to this past weekend. I found myself driving to my church for another Encounter God retreat. I knew what to expect the second time, but at the same time I didn't know. I went open to what God had for me that weekend.

But, once I figured out where He was going this weekend I wasn't sure I wanted to go where He was going. Over the years, I had taken all those hurts from other people and held onto them. At first I thought it was a good idea. But, over the years, I had come to see that it was not a good thing.

The problem was that I wasn't sure I was able to forgive those people any more. The unforgiveness I was holding onto towards those people had become something I was so used to carrying around. And the truth was that I didn't want to let it go because I thought it was protecting me.

This last weekend, God showed me that I needed to forgive those people - that holding on to that unforgiveness was hurting me, not helping me. It happened as I knelt before the cross, contemplating all that Jesus had forgiven me for. I was overwhelmed with all that Jesus had forgiven me for. And I knew I had to forgive others as I have been forgiven. It was a choice I made to forgive them.

But, in making that choice, I realized just how good choosing to forgive was. I quite literally felt like a weight had been lifted off of me. Letting go of something that I had carried for years that had been slowly destroying me, was the best choice I could have ever made.

Three months ago, I would have told you it wasn't possible - that I would be carrying this with me to the end of my life on this earth. Now, it's been a week since I finally let it, but I can't imagine carrying it around any longer.

It's changed the way I look at life. It's changed the way I look at the importance of being in community with people.

I know I'll probably be hurt again in the future, because that happens with fallen people, but the one thing I do know for sure is that I don't want to pick up that hurt and start carrying around unforgiveness for it with me for years.

Forgiveness is possible with the help of Jesus. And it really is the best way to live. We may not feel like it, but when we make the choice to forgive, it is worth it.

Choosing Forgiveness

It seems like in the past few months, some of my Thursday posts have been reposts of things I wrote and shared here years ago. I've shared them again because I feel like they are what God has been teaching my lately. They reflect where I'm at on my journey with God.

And in the case of this poem I wrote that I'm sharing again today, when I first wrote it I had no idea how significant what I was writing was. I wrote about forgiveness and unforgiveness back on December 11, 2010. I know I was walking that journey when I wrote this, although I don't remember all the details. When I read this poem again today, I was struck by how much of what I wrote spoke to deeper issues of unforgiveness and the choice to forgive then I realized at the time. I've learned much about it on my journey in the last few months.

So, with that introduction out of the way, here's a repost of a poem I wrote and posted on December 11, 2010.

Choosing to forgive

With the help of God

Frees us from the other

Helps us to move on

Unforgiveness traps us

Keeps our heart all tied up

With the one who caused us pain

Freedom seems elusive

Revenge our only choice

But when will it be enough

That the other person pays?

Will it ever satisfy?

Or will we long for more?

Maybe God does have it right

The only way to freedom

The only way to peace

Forgiveness from our hearts

Cancelling the debt

Letting go of anger

Giving Him our hurt

Seeking reconciliation

Moving on with love

Choosing to forgive

With the help of God

Frees us from the other

Helps us to move on

The Power of Forgiveness

I recently saw something on a church sign that hasn't left me. I've found myself thinking about it often.

Forgiveness doesn't change the past,

but it enlarges the future.

The more I've thought about, the more I've realized the truth contained in those few words.

When we refuse to forgive, our world grows smaller. The longer we refuse to forgive, or the more people we refuse to forgive, the smaller our world grows. Because we stop being able to trust people. So we being to live isolated lives where we keep people at a distance - even those who were once close to us.

But when we choose to forgive, our future grows. We're no longer held back by what someone else said or did.We're free from them and have great opportunity to move forward. To move beyond what happened and see what God has for us. Our future is enlarged - both in potential relationships and potential opportunities.

All the good that forgiveness of others can bring into our lives, doesn't mean forgiveness is easy. It usually isn't. Forgiveness is hard because it goes beyond what we naturally want to do. It's counter-intuitive.

Thankfully, we don't have to do it on our own. We can ask God to help us forgive and He will. He is the ultimate example of forgiveness for and He wants the freedom forgiveness brings for us.

Forgiveness doesn't change the past,

but it enlarges the future.