Come, thou long expected Jesus, 
 born to set thy people free; 
 from our fears and sins release us, 
 let us find our rest in thee.  
 Israel's strength and consolation, 
 hope of all the earth thou art; 
 dear desire of every nation, 
 joy of every longing heart. 

     Born thy people to deliver, 
 born a child and yet a King, 
 born to reign in us forever, 
 now thy gracious kingdom bring. 
 By thine own eternal spirit 
 rule in all our hearts alone; 
 by thine all sufficient merit, 
 raise us to thy glorious throne.

---

radical devotion.

I see so many Christians who say that they would die for their faith, but their lives never reflect that.

They claim that if they were under radical persecution they wouldn’t lose their faith and if a gun was put to their head they would stand fast and give their life up for their faith, because following Christ is that important to them.

But there is no gun to their head- we live in America, after all. So their lives don’t demonstrate the radical devotion to Christ that they speak of.

Is it easier to give up your life for the Gospel than to give your life for the Gospel?

Thoughts for Monday.

“Hear, O Lord, and be merciful to me!
   O Lord, be my helper!” {Psalm 30:10}
 
Rejoice in the fact that God is merciful and let Him be your helper. Let Him lift you out of this and into Joy. He isn’t a tame lion. He isn’t human and wishy-washy. And his love for you is like stepping into the rapids of a whitewater river.

You cannot help but be swept away and drown in it.
And in the loveliest way imaginable.

“Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.”
C. S. Lewis

Jump off of that raft, into the rapids.

Aim at heaven and get earth thrown in.

Run after God like you are thirsty and you need the Water of Life. Run after Him as if your life depends upon it, as if your joy depends upon it. It does. Run after Him like he died for you and you’d like to thank Him face to face. Run after Him like His dying makes your living worth it. Run after Him the way the lame man ran after he had been healed; rejoicing.

Don’t choose to live asleep. Don’t choose to live sitting. Don’t choose to let all of the distractions of the flashy souped up overrated world numb you when there’s better to be had. “It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” {C. S. Lewis.}

Don’t pass up infinite joy and remain satisfied with trash. Don’t waste your life.

Run, run, run. It’s tiring but there is infinite joy waiting for you. At the finish line there is one hugely unimaginable prize to be had. Run after God with endurance and find Joy.

“...and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” {Hebrews 12:1}

The Sunday of Joy!

Gaudete 2012- Third Sunday of Advent- The Sunday of Joy.
Philippians 4:4-7

"Do not fear; do not worry; rejoice in everything. Does that mean that everything that would happen to them would be good? Obviously not. They faced terrible persecution and would have terrible things to deal with. Of course, they would have absolutely no control over what happened to them. Many Christians around the world face the same thing today. In Egypt, in Iraq, in Africa, in China, and in many other places persecution is just a heartbeat away. Think of the parents of the children murdered this weekend in Connecticut. They had no choice in the events that over took them and ripped their babies from their arms and hearts. Two things are necessary for us to consider.

First, joy is often a decision, and not only an emotion. It will certainly come up as an emotion at times, but many other times will require that you make a decision to rejoice. Just using this week's terrible events, you can see both sides of the argument. If you discover that your child was not one of the victims, you would understandably be overcome with joy; you would rejoice to see your baby walk out whole and uninjured. On the other hand, if your child was among the victims, it would be a very hard decision to rejoice about it. I am not saying that someone in the position should be laughing and happy. Joy is not simple happiness. It is ultimately an expression of trust in God, even in terrible circumstances. Remember our brothers and sisters around the world that face persecution every day. At Columbine it was reported that the killers targeted Christians. That is real live persecution here in the United States. Paul's command is clear: rejoice in all things. It does not mean to be happy about all things. 

Second, we need to turn to the Lord to be able to make the decision to rejoice. Paul tells the Philippians to take all of their requests to the Lord. They are to do it with thanksgiving. Supplication is a strong word showing that we can express our needs to God with great feeling. Look at all of the Psalms David gave us while he was persecuted by Saul and his rebellious sons. Crying out to the Lord often means just that: to cry out in agony to the God who loves us and has sent these hard times our way. 

Thanksgiving will be the best indicator of where your heart it. If you can thank God in the circumstances then you will be able to rejoice in them as well. I believe that eventually you will see his kind hand leading you in even the most difficult of times. God sculpts us from hard providences. Just as Jesus learned obedience the very hardest way, our God will shape our character with the hard things that come our way."

-Pastor Gene Franklin, 
from the sermon Joy In Hard Places.

“Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.”
C. S. Lewis

...

...It’s as if I’ve built up this wall to keep everyone out and to hide behind. For the sake of safety and security, long years of building a fortress around myself to keep everyone out.  
But I’ve trapped myself as well.
No one can get in, but I can’t get out, either.
I’ve been alone with myself for so long that I can't stand it, but so closed up that everything beyond that wall fills me with fear. I know that it is time- this wall needs to be torn down and done away with. So I begin wildly beating the walls and pulling down bricks.
My hands are bleeding raw and the process of breaking free...is excruciating.
 
I have to get out no matter what the cost.

And I cough, pulling bricks out as decade-old mortar crumbles over my dusty hands, throwing them away- all of these pieces that make up my prison. They lay in a pile behind me splashed with the blood from my frantic hands.

Finally I collapse- I need a break from attacking these bricks.
I lay in the dust and cough as it settles and swirls, coating my sweaty face. But then...when the chalky grey is done dancing in the air, I taste the sweetest oxygen seeping through the compromised wall.

I sit up.

There is a breeze blowing through, I can feel the outside and for the first time I don’t fear it, I’m eager for it- so eager.

That openness, wide and terrifying and shakingly huge- I want it so badly.

The honesty.

So once again wild with desperation, I continue the task in front of me- determined that there will not be a single brick left in its place. Looking forward to dancing in that openness, free of walls and masked insecurity.

I will be free.

Adventure.

unfurl my sails
shake out their dust
too-eager canvas
fuels wanderlust

hoist the mast high
feel the wind surge
reel in your anchor
let the ship diverge

the fear of being free
of holding nothing back
oft times keeps me from going
off the beaten track

i am not running away
just running for the sake of feeling the wind
i am not lost nor am i astray
just running so restlessly after Him

as swimming in deep salty waters
overcome in tumultuous ocean
so His love drowns my fear,
His grace moves me on,
and His mercy gives this ship motion

Chasing leafy winds...

He clutches the bundle of colorful leaves all gold and red. 
He laughs, not a care in the world besides catching all of them as he chases the wind
laughter bursts out in wide happy peals.
“Get them, get them!”
I urge him on, smiling.
“Dawww, darn it.” he says in his four-year old lisp.
He can’t run fast enough to catch the leaves in mid-air.
I try to encourage him-
“You have to be faster, the leaves are so quick!
but don’t worry, the wind is always around.
More leaves will fall...”
I look around and breathe in the brilliance
the colours that hide all year and then are revealed
when the chlorophyll fades away.
“God’s always around too.” I think,
remembering how I chase him like a child,
eager to touch the wind, grasp it.
And though I never will,
I run all the same after an ungraspable God-
the kind of Creator that you cannot fit into a box.
And the swirling leaves and the blessings 
are the evidence of the wind,
the shadow of Jehovah as he passes by,
giving me something to run after.
Greyson and I walk home and he picks up big yellow leaves,
gasping each time he finds a prettier one.
And of course, each one is more stunning than the last.
“Oh, Esther- look!” he holds up a bright scarlet leaf.
His big blue eyes make me ache,
because I long to be like a child 
and wonder the way that I used to.
Why does the world make us so unresponsive to glory?

So today, as we walked home with an ever-growing bouquet of that glory, I resolved to be enraptured, to live with eyes that see beyond the surface image of life and let myself be filled with wonder. Child-like wonder. 
 


Lord, I want to see.

Soul-Quenched.

As water roaring from a rock,
from the rock that is higher than I
nourishment flows never ceasing
a river of holy communion.

O my soul, come to the water
bathe thyself in grace.
immerse yourself in his goodness
drench your dry thirst, drink in His love.

Saturation of all of my senses,
I am satisfied in you.
The absolute end of a search,
the resolution, the consummation...
The Omega.

Hallelujah, praise God;
He has saved my soul and enlarged my heart.
Do you thirst, does this life leave you parched and dry?
Do you hunger, your soul a moaning cry?
Come to the water. Eat of the bread of life.

Yahweh; holy, exquisite, passionate, eternal, just, compassionate, merciful, patient, jealous, steadfast, impossibly huge, awe-inducing, fierce... {to name a few of the attributes of an indescribable God.}

1“Come, all you who are thirsty,
   come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
   come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
   without money and without cost.
2 Why spend money on what is not bread,
   and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
   and you will delight in the richest of fare.
3 Give ear and come to me;
   listen, that you may live.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
   my faithful love promised to David.”
{Isaiah 55}

Thanksgiving-joy and all it produces.

    Eucharisteo; the giving of thanks

Beholding God

Joy

Being filled with love

Fearlessness

Desiring to serve others

When you give thanks in all things, you behold the blessings of God and you become filled with gratitude at the grace he bestows. And we are able to give thanks in all things because all is grace.

Oxygen, butterflies, the Gospel, the way our mouths conveniently produce saliva when we chew food, papercuts, origami, tangerines, the stomach flu, the ocean- all is grace. You can give thanks when you are hacking up a storm in the bathroom just like you can give thanks when you’re feeling salty ocean wind on your face.

We get so used to grace that we take it for granted. Every day we do this, about so many things. That’s why we become so discontent and restless when we forget to look, because we become blind to grace. Love, though...it stands out because it’s the most powerful grace of all.

None of us deserve it.

When we marvel at grace, it brings us joy- overwhelming joy comes from that gratitude. It is not happy people that are thankful, it is thankful people that are happy. And as you behold the grace of God and His love for you...you become filled with that love. You can’t help it. When you give thanks and behold God and are filled with joy, love just happens. It pours in.
Beholding is becoming {John Piper} and so as you behold the love of your Creator you become filled with it.

Two things {to name a very small amount...} can happen as a result of being filled with this perfect love. You will be fearless, because perfect love casts out fear. {1 John 4:18. Hallelujah!} Love casts out fear, literally throws it out of your heart. It is the antidote for the poisonous fears that take over.
And you will have a genuine desire to serve others; to be compassionate- because the love of God dwells in you. {1 John 3:17}

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Basically...Give thanks, Behold God in the process, Find Joy in Him, Be filled with the Love you have beheld, Take that love and let it cast out your fear, and drive you to serve others selflessly.

This means using my five senses to experience the goodness of God, Being still; ceasing to strive. Giving thanks continually; in every situation. Finding joy in Christ.
Look, be still. See love, give thanks, find joy, behold, be filled, become.

Any circumstances+Thanksgiving=Joy.
Beholding=Becoming
Beholding God’s love=Becoming filled with it. Fear=gone.
Love>Fear.
Hope>Depression.
Love>Depression>Fear.
Love conquers all.

{2 Corinthians 3:18} “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”                                

Com·pas·sion

(noun)
1. a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering. {Dictionary.com}

Compassion is the virtue of empathy for the suffering of others. It is regarded as a fundamental part of human love. {Wikipedia}

We as Americans are pretty awful at taking care of the poor and the hungry. We as Christians are even worse-considering that it’s our job and it’s not getting done.

James says that faith without works is dead. When we have saving faith but we don’t live it out, proclaim the Gospel, help the sick and homeless, care for widows and orphans- our faith becomes stagnant. It doesn’t matter one bit how sound your theology is, or how structured the liturgy of your church is if your faith is dead. If your faith is dead, how will you move mountains? How will God bless a church that has dead faith?

And when you stand before the face of God, that’s what will matter- whether you claimed to follow Christ and believe or whether you followed Christ, and lived out your faith as an expression of that belief. If faith is what saves you, will dead faith save you?  

“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” {James 1:27}

Are you so caught up in yourself, so dead, that you drive by the homeless man on the sidewalk, making a snide remark about how he should work harder, and how he probably doesn’t even have a sick wife? I know I have, countless times. It’s so easy to become a judge and harden my heart.

{1 John 3:17} "But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?"

It is hypocrisy to be a believer and to not have compassion on others, the way it is hypocrisy to be a believer and be unforgiving. God has had compassion on us and saved us, and it has changed our lives. It should change everything about our lives- spur us on to be radically compassionate to others because of the overwhelming compassion our Heavenly Father has demonstrated to us.

I was reading Isaiah 58 earlier this week, and I saw this:

6“Is not this the fast that I choose:

 to loose the bonds of wickedness,

to undo the straps of the yoke,

to let the oppressed go free,

   and to break every yoke?

7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry

   and bring the homeless poor into your house;

when you see the naked, to cover him,

   and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?”

“Bring the homeless poor into your house...” How many of us do that?
 
How many of us would stop and ask the homeless man home for dinner and a night in a soft bed? We don’t like to get our hands dirty, we don’t like to get involved, we don’t like to invest our time in unfortunate strangers...so we ignore our conscience and we drive.
Rolling down the window and asking, “Do you have a place to sleep tonight?” is....messy.

Compassion hurts because it is empathy- feeling the needs of others and their pain and then ACTING on it. Compassion is not a noun, as Dictionary.com would have us to believe. It is a verb. An action word. It is not a feeling, it is an action. Having compassion does not mean having an ache inside of you- it means having empathy that spurs you on to act and alleviate a need or the suffering or pain of another, the way that we avoid pain ourselves and go to great lengths to be comfortable. That is what true compassion is.


 
When we have compassion on others, we are blessed. Isaiah 58 continues by saying:
 

8 Then shall your light break forth like the dawn,

   and your healing shall spring up speedily;

your righteousness shall go before you;

   the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.

9 Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;

   you shall cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’

If you take away the yoke from your midst,

   the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,

10 if you pour yourself out for the hungry

   and satisfy the desire of the afflicted,

then shall your light rise in the darkness

   and your gloom be as the noonday.

11 And the Lord will guide you continually

   and satisfy your desire in scorched places

   and make your bones strong;

and you shall be like a watered garden,

   like a spring of water,

   whose waters do not fail.

When we are compassionate we are blessed beyond our imaginations.
We are like watered gardens, the Creator God guides us continually; he makes us strong. When we cry out God answers us and he is our rear guard, we are satisfied in him. Our gloom is as the noonday- what a picture.

And yet this is us, every day: 
 


Walking past. And even if you’re convinced in your heart that you would never walk past and turn away from this pitiful starving man, how many times a month do you walk past and turn away from this:


 

How many opportunities to be compassionate to we pass up, daily? Our apathy is sickening.

I am done walking past and I am done turning away.
I am ready to be radically compassionate, to pour myself out for the hungry; to satisfy the desire of the afflicted.

Are you?
 

34 Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38 And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39 And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ 40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ 41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44 Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ 45 Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

{Matthew 25:34-46}