Reflections and challenges on the Eve #3

Merry Christmas everyone! This is my third year doing my Christmas Eve post, so please enjoy reading!

My thought actually came a few weeks ago. It's simply this: Do we recognize Jesus? "Well sure we do...He's that little porcelain baby on my coffee table." We recognize Christmas as a celebration not of commercialism but of Christ's birth. Even non-believers get annoyed at the crazy commercialism of Christmas and recognize that there is something more to this holiday (Why are churches packed on Christmas Eve?). But do we really see Jesus for who He is and was? Do we decorate Him in lights? Do we act like Him? We have some work to do...

Last night in church, 4 people came up to the podium and gave their life testimonies, people from different stages of life. Our senior pastor also gave a quick testimony, saying "I've always thought myself as...average. I'm not incredibly athletic, not incredibly smart or good-looking, I'm just, average." But he used this to say that the angels that came to announce Jesus did not come to kings. They didn't come to high-ranking members of society. They came to shepherds. They came to these outcast, dirty, average, shepherds. Why is this important?

Imagine the scene where Jesus was. Here is Joseph and his 14-year old wife in labor with a child not of his blood. The two of them are likely staying with Joseph's family in Bethlehem, since they had to go back for Caesar's decreed census (Luke 2:1). Now multiple translations in verse 7 use the word "inn". I really have no idea why inn was used, but it paints a different picture in our American minds. The greek here is "kataluma" which is more accurate to mean "guest quarters". Most Jewish houses had guest quarters that were separate from the main rooms of the house, and with everyone returning to Bethlehem for census, it's easy to see why the house would be packed initially. So Mary goes out to the guest area where all the animals also sleep (hence the animals at nativity) and gives birth there. And of course Mary needs a crib of some kind or somewhere to lay Jesus...oh look, a feeding trough! And there lay Jesus. Eventually the shepherds came and the magi came to present their gifts. But even though the magi, these men of high position, came with gift of gold and myrrh and incense, my point is this: Jesus' birth was HUMBLE.

The point of this post is highlighted in the following verse. Matthew 11:29 - "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." I asked earlier if we truly recognize Jesus. When the true picture of Jesus' birth is painted, Brandon Heath's song Jesus In Disguise comes to mind: "Jesus in disguise, a scar across the sky. You were looking for a king you would never recognize." When we read the Christmas story, we as Americans tend to "Americanize" and "Hollywood" the real Christmas story. Why? Why can't we accept the birth of Christ as is? Well, because we're looking for a king we wouldn't recognize. We prefer the Revelation version of Jesus...the one who comes with an iron fist and pounds Satan to a pulp before sending him to the lake of fire. We don't recognize the one who came humbly, lived humbly, and used love as his main weapon. Take away the Bible from our minds just for a second, and imagine that we don't know Jesus. What is our first thought when we see this man have dinner with prostitutes? What do we think when we see him visiting disease-ridden lepers, the outcasts of society, the men that no one wants to be bothered with? My first thought would probably be "Ew." Think if we were members of our middle-class society, which we mostly are, and saw a 14-year old girl get pregnant to a respected elder in our church, unmarried. Christians AND non-Christians, isn't our snap reaction to judge them first? Mary, you whore. Way to knock her up, Joseph. News flash...through all of the jeers of society, that's how our king was born. Not in a royal palace, but in a feeding trough. He didn't dine with kings, he dined with the hated members of society. I'm not exempt from all of this...I've visited a homeless shelter all of once in my entire life, on a required field trip at school to sing Christmas carols and give gifts. I'm sitting comfortably in my apartment, I've shelled out about $500 on Christmas gifts this season, and not a dime of it went to feed someone hungry or homeless. Do I recognize Jesus?

Christmas is one day per year, and we have 364 days until the next one. The "Christmas spirit" will certainly fade as it always does, but we need to have the hearts to love others, because we're no better than the "outcasts". There was one other testimony in our Christmas eve service that was especially driving but I didn't get a chance to share it here. The man who gave his testimony spoke with a very business-like tone, was somewhere around 30-35, was in a full business suit, and opened with a very driving statement which is what I close with:

"Hey you. Yeah, you with the smart phone. Put down your game of solitaire for a second and listen to what I have to say. I didn't want to be up here, but I'm here. And certainly you can take a break for just a few minutes to listen to me. And I say this to you, because I AM you. Whatever list of sins you have, mine are worse."

Everyone, let's lead the example of Jesus. Whether it's family, friends, or complete strangers, love others and love God. Merry Christmas everyone...this day our Savior is born!

#IWILL

Often, companies (or just people) will put out motivational sayings; little quips to keep us going through whatever trial we find ourselves in. #IWILL is Under Armour's current motivational campaign. On their website, they have a few quotes and pictures of athletes doing some crazy things. One quote on the site is from Julio Jones, wide receiver for the Atlanta Falcons, "When the ball's in the air, nobody brings it down but me. #IWILL". Another is from Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton, "Every single day, you have to have a relentless will to be something greater than what you are. #IWILL". Last is from my favorite running back in the NFL, Houston Texans running back Arian Foster, "I mentally push myself through so much pain that, by gametime, it's second nature. #IWILL".

#IWILL has become a slogan for my own life recently, even though I haven't necessarily lived it every day. #IWILL is a very sincere callout to anyone who chooses to accept it. The life that we live is tough, and being a Christian sometimes makes this life even tougher. As a Christian, people around me will judge me because I choose not to party and get drunk. As a Christian, I believe in absolute right and absolute wrong, which makes me have to resist what we refer to as "sin". Now, I have an eternal joy and an eternal hope ("But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." - John 4:14). I have the hope that I will enter heaven, be given a new body, and will experience the beauty and power of God to the fullest degree. That's my hope. But I live in a backwards world where hope is laughable, and happiness is sometimes hard to come by. So how do we still maintain the mindset of joy in this fallen world? How do we continue to live in a world that we KNOW is going to laugh at us for having hope? Read the title again.

I WILL do this. I WILL love others. I WILL worship my God. I WILL. It's a challenge to everyone, but it's a challenge especially to me as a man of God. I'm reminded of the long quote at the end of Courageous: "You don't have to ask who will guide my family, because by God's grace, I will. You don't have to ask who will teach my son to follow Christ, because I will. Who will accept the responsibility of providing and protecting my family? I will. Who will ask God to break the chain of destructive patterns in my family's history? I will. Who will pray for, and bless my children to boldly pursue whatever God calls them to do? I am their father. I WILL!" Any man of God should have the cry of "I will" in their life. Sanctus Real's song "Lead Me" is chock full of the passionate cries of "I will". A wife calling her husband out to lead, his children calling him out to lead and be their hero, and the husband crying out to God and begging for the strength to lead them. I have my own battles to fight. I have a girlfriend who calls me out every day to be the spiritual leader of our relationship, and that is not something I can afford to take lightly.

Truth be told, I've been working on this blogpost for awhile. In fact, the last time I wrote on this specific post was about 2 months ago. #IWILL...do it later, I suppose. In fact, I still have 3 other blogposts that are waiting to be finished just because I apparently don't have the drive to finish them up. But this relates well to the warning that goes along with this whole thought, and one thing that we have to gracefully accept. #IWILL...fail. We live in this fallen world where nothing is perfect. No matter how much drive we shove into an activity, we'll always fall short if we're not striving toward the correct goal. Listen to Ecclesiastes 2:22-23: "What do people get for all the toil and anxious striving with which they labor under the sun? All their days their work is grief and pain; even at night their minds do not rest. This too is meaningless." Whoa. That's in the Bible?? The book of hope and joy?? Sure is...and the author? Unknown, but widely accepted as the wisest man in the Bible, King Solomon. So the wisest man in the Bible is saying that our toil, our work, is meaningless? Ecclesiastes 1:3, "What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun?" However, throughout the book Solomon maintains a tone of sarcasm and pessimism, ultimately teaching us that all that we do is meaningless if we are not working for our Creator. Ecclesiastes 10:17-18, "Blessed is the land whose king is of noble birth and whose princes eat at a proper time—for strength and not for drunkenness. Through laziness, the rafters sag; because of idle hands, the house leaks." Solomon is telling us that all that we do is meaningless unless we purpose our actions for Christ.

But even though we purpose our actions for Christ, we will still fail, being fallible humans. And God knows it. God knows we will always be tempted, will always stray from Him, will always break His commandments and sin against Him. But Proverbs 24:16 states, "For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief." Even a just man, a righteous man, will continue to fail. I consider myself a man of God and a born again Christian, but I will continue to fall. The question is not IF I will get back up; Proverbs states that I will. The question is HOW I will get up. People that try to simply pull themselves up by their bootstraps are just doomed to trip and fall on their face again. Trust me, I've tried it far too many times. The way to get back up is by saying "#IWILL trust You, God." We can't pull ourselves up...we've been trying it since Adam's bite of fruit in Genesis 3. We need God. We need His love, we need His power, and darn it we just need to worship Him for all that He is and all He can do for us. But we have to do our part. God's not going to open the Bible, glue our butts to a seat and shove our nose in the book until we read it cover to cover. This is where we have to push ourselves. I've used this excerpt before, but this from the life of Winston Churchill: "A professional author said to [him] that he couldn't write unless the 'mood' came on him. The great statesman replied: 'NO! Shut yourself in your study from nine to one and make yourself write. Prod yourself! Kick yourself! It's the only way.'" God's going to meet us where we're at, but we have to meet Him too.

Everyone has something that is standing in their way of something they want. So get up and go get it! Myself, I've been missing a deep connection with God for awhile now. To say I haven't really prayed recently or even read my Bible in awhile would be an overstatement. But #IWILL. If I were to add a small slogan to add to Under Armour's website, here's what it would be at this stage of my life:

I have goals to achieve, I have a beautiful girl whose heart I need to fight for every day, and I have a mission from God. This is mine to bear, and I won't let anyone take my God-given duties. #IWILL