The Ultimate Gift

Our family Christmases have evolved over the years.  When our kids were young, our Christmas was packed with toys.  There were so many toys that it took it seemed like three days to open up all of the gifts.  Parents and grandparents showered the kids with gifts.

Now that our kids are all adults, the number of presents have gotten much fewer and they have become much more meaningful.  But the most important thing is the sheer treasure of having everyone together.  We live most of the year as empty-nesters so it is a real treat to have all the girls with us.  We have had that pleasure twice now in the last month.  God has wired us for relationship and the greatest gift are those relationships.  In the Christmas Eve service, they showed the following video. 

I would venture to say that the kids could have cared less about the presents they received.  The true gift was their father.  Is it any wonder that the true gift of Christmas is a person, the Lord Jesus Christ?  He is offered as a free gift to all who believe (Rom 6:23).  But like all gifts, you must accept and open the gift. Imagine if the kids never opened the box.  They would never have appropriated the gift of relationship.  Likewise, if they had offered to pay for the gift, it would not have been a gift.  The kids had no ability to pay for the relationship gift.  It was free and unconditional.  God has offered an unsurpassable gift, Himself. 

Snatched From the Fire

And have mercy on some, who are doubting;
save others, snatching them out of the fire.
Jude 22-23

We just recently re-watched the movie Toy Story 3.  There is a particular scene where the toys are taking to the garbage dump and are on their way to the incinerator.  You can see it here.  This scene is extraordinarily biblical in so many ways.  First, Rex the dinosaur mistakenly thought the fire approaching was light.  Secondly, there was no way that the toys could earn their way out of their predicament.  They were doomed to the fire.  In fact the word for hell in the NT is “Gehenna”, which literally is a fiery trash heap.  As you fixate on this scene, something happens that is extraordinary.  A claw comes down and literally snatches them from the fire (it was those squeaky toys!).  What they could not do on their own was done for them. 

What a picture of Jesus who snatches us from the fires of hell.  He redeems our life from the pit (Psalm 40:2) and puts our feet on solid ground.  We need to remember that hell is a literal place and our sins have destined us to that place.  It is by God’s grace that we are snatched from the fire.  Jude tells us we need to provide others that opportunity by telling them of God’s saving grace.

Come and Follow Me

Charles Barkley a long time ago (while he was still playing) stated “I am not a role model”.  That is because of numerous scrapes with the law and as a way of avoiding responsibility for his actions.  You see because he was a basketball player and many aspire to be basketball players, they saw him as their role model. 

It was uncomfortable for Charles to think people were following him because of who they thought he was.  Because he could never measure up completely to who people might think he was.  So Nike made this commercial. 

Jesus says “Follow me”.  He says “Come”.  He is the perfect role model but more than a role model because he is more than the example, He is the life.  Jesus never asks us to somehow get ourselves straight first.  The disciples were never asked to clean up their act first. Matthew for instance was not asked to quit the tax collecting business to follow Jesus.  Simon the Zealot was not asked to change what he did.  Warts and all, they were asked to come follow Jesus.  The act of sanctification followed the act of regeneration.  I could never clean myself up first.  Self-effort would get me nowhere.  In fact, I have trouble remembering any occurrence where Jesus asked anyone to clean up their own act.  Even Zaccheus was not asked to change anything – it welled up from within after faith.  Yet how contrary to our world which still says that sanctification comes from self effort. 

You want to clean up your act? Come follow Jesus.  

Just Because We Ask

Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble…
Psalm 107

The term “foxhole faith” refers to someone whose life is falling apart around them and in desperation, they cry out to God to save them. The term actually comes from the wartime, when men who have had nothing to do with God or religion suddenly find themselves in a foxhole with the bullets flying past their head and they cry out to God to save them. “If you get me out of here alive, I’ll serve you, God,” might be something they’d pray in the face of death.  This kind of foxhole commitment rarely ever lasts beyond the rescue. Once the person has returned to safety, the promises fade and life without God eventually returns until the next time they face danger.

In Psalm 107, we have four examples of foxhole faith but the issue isn’t circumstances, but it is depravity.  It is clear from Psalm 107 that the individual is crying out because they are at the end of the rope and the circumstances develop in their lives over a period of time.  The reaction is one of the realization of sinfulness caught up in the circumstances of life.  Remember Peter’s reaction to Jesus in walking on the water or in trying to bring in full of the miraculous fish catch.  It is the realization of depravity and of sin.

Psalm 107:5 – Their soul fainted within them.
Psalm 107:11 – Because they had rebelled.
Psalm 107:18 – They drew near to the gates of death.
Psalm 107:26 – Their soul melted away in their misery.

In each case, God did not ask them to clean up their act.  The solution was to ask.  Nothing more.  God does not ask us to ever clean up before approaching him.  Four times it says that God “brought them out of their distresses”.  He “brought them out of darkness”.  We have a delivering God.  There are no strings attached.  We only need to approach the throne for forgiveness.  Have you asked forgiveness today?