Shine Your Light

Skit Guys- Shine Your Light

This video provides an illustration for what many of us do during the holiday season. We spend a month preparing for the Christmas season putting up lights, buying Christmas presents, finalizing traveling plans, and lighting the candles at the church. As we prepare for the season, what exactly are we preparing for? What is Christmas all about? It's easy to say that it's about the birth of Christ, but what does His birth really mean to us?

We start with the story from the scriptures. In the Christmas story we see different characters prepare for the coming of Jesus. What is that brings Mary the news that she will give birth to Jesus? What is it that leads the wise men to the manger and the shepherds from their fields? In the accounts of the Christmas story we find in scripture, all who are lead to Bethlehem are lead by messengers of the Lord in the form of angels or a star. God uses light to lead them to the one who will be the true light and the brightest light of the world.

He came in the form of a baby, a human that was just like us. He came to embrace us and to walk with us so that we could share in his glory and walk in the light of His kingdom. The birth of Christ is so significant because of the life he lived and the light that he brought to the lives of so many people that day and ever since. At Christmas time, we are all about giving presents, spending time with our families, and eating great food. Sometimes all that stuff, although it’s important can distract us from the light that God is trying to shine in our hearts. When light comes, darkness is shattered. The shepherds were blinded by the glory of the Lord’s angel. The wise men followed the light to Bethlehem. Jesus has come to share his light with the world so that we can share our light with others, but we tend “take the lights down” when talking about our faith becomes uncomfortable or peer pressure pulls us in. Christ's light brings us strength and hope. That’s what we want to remember this season.  Have a blessed Christmas and shine your light.

Living as a Temple Part 2

I recommend reading Living as a Temple Part 1. This post feeds off of the thinking in that one.

This week we took a step backwards to the battles between the Israelites and Philistines before David was king. The Israelites were God’s chosen people. He rescued them out of Egypt and brings them to the Promised Land, but there troubles are not over. Before they had kings in Israel, God was kept in a tent like we talked about last week. The first temple (structure built to glorify god) was the Ark of the Covenant which was housed in a tent. 

In 1 Samuel 4, the Israelites go into battle twice: the first time without the ark and the second time with the ark. Both times they lose and the second time the ark is stolen and gone until David is king and Saul is dead, about 30-40 years. During this time the Israelites feel hopeless. One of them says “the glory of the Lord has departed from Israel." In their minds God was gone. How do you think this would feel? The God who has saved you and rescued you from everything up to this point is gone. 

If you read on it says that the Israelites go on to worship other gods though still seeking after God (1 Samuel  7:2-4). They begin to fill their lives with things that don’t glorify God. They continue to seek him but they turn to other things. They believe that if the ark is gone they can’t do anything. Sometimes we feel like God has given up on us, like he is totally out of the picture. We decide if he is out, we are out, too. We are going to do what we want because he doesn’t exist anyway. Some of you have never left this place. You may have never accepted Christ into your heart because you weren’t ready, so you are trying to find something to fill the God sized whole. Others of you have been walking with God your whole lives but right now you are struggling with what he is doing so you are starting to turn your back.

While this is happening, God is punishing other nations that have stolen the ark (1 Samuel 5). Just like Egypt he sends plagues on them many of them die. Why? God desires to be with his people. God desires to be in your heart, to walk with you and to guide you. Without Christ, it can feel impossible to walk through life.  Because of Christ’s death on the Christ we have the opportunity to have the very Spirit of God dwell in our hearts. He created us to glorify him, but just like the Israelites had to go and return the ark to their community, it requires a decision, but we don’t have to defeat armies or spend forty days in the desert. God is already reaching out his hand all you have to do is take it.

How do we take His hand? It begins with a prayer. Without the Ark of the Covenant and God's presence in their camp, the Israelites were giving up. There was nothing for them to hope for. Through Christ we have the ability to communicate with God and to pray for his strength and salvation. David says in Psalm 51: 10-12

 Create in me a pure heart, O God,
   and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me from your presence
   or take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation
   and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me 

Christ is our sustainer and our life-giver. He will help us to take the hand of God that is reaching out for us. God hears and answers our prayers that we would draw closer to him. The challenge this week is to pray to draw nearer to God and to seek Him through prayer, scripture, or conversation with your parents and friends about what we've been talking about. Have a great week!

Day Hike at Bull Run

 

Yesterday we had an awesome day of hiking at Bull Run Mountain. It was a beautiful day for a hike.  It was a pleasure to be out in God's creation and to see the wonders that he puts before us everyday. 

Psalm 65:8-13

⁸ The whole earth is filled with awe at your wonders;
   where morning dawns, where evening fades,
   you call forth songs of joy.

 ⁹ You care for the land and water it;
   you enrich it abundantly.
The streams of God are filled with water
   to provide the people with grain,
   for so you have ordained it.
¹⁰ You drench its furrows and level its ridges;
   you soften it with showers and bless its crops.
¹¹ You crown the year with your bounty,
   and your carts overflow with abundance.
¹² The grasslands of the wilderness overflow;
   the hills are clothed with gladness.
¹³ The meadows are covered with flocks
   and the valleys are mantled with grain;
   they shout for joy and sing.

Living as a Temple Part 1

First I want you to consider what "church" means to you. I don't mean just the church building or what you do on Sunday mornings, but church as a whole, what does it mean to you? When I was growing up church often felt like school. There was a teacher and I was in a classroom listening to them lecture to me about something I would forget as soon as the test was over. Some people are great students in school and of the Word, but I wasn't in the category and still struggle a bit to engage in church. This had me wondering what the purpose of church (being a part of the body of Christ, attending church, reading the Bible, etc)  really was.

When I presented this question before God, He took me back to what I will call the "first church." The church today is a sacred structure built to be a place where we can glorify God with our praise and worship. The first structure built to honor God was the ark of the covenant and it was housed in a tent. Only leaders were allowed to enter the tent because the glory of the Lord was too much for anyone else to experience. They presented their sacrifices to the Lord and trusted their leaders to guide them. This is how the Lord dwelt among His people and this is the way things were until David and Solomon.

During David's reign it was customary for king's to live in temples. David has this revelation during of his reign as King: “Here I am, living in a house of cedar, while the ark of God remains in a tent” (2 Samuel 7:2). Nathan initially tells him to go ahead and why not. David wants to thank the Lord and glorify him for what he has done for David, but the Lord says:

 “Go and tell my servant David, ‘This is what the LORD says: Are you the one to build me a house to dwell in? I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought the Israelites up out of Egypt to this day. I have been moving from place to place with a tent as my dwelling. Wherever I have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their rulers whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?”’

“Now then, tell my servant David, ‘This is what the LORD Almighty says: I took you from the pasture, from tending the flock, and appointed you ruler over my people Israel. I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you. Now I will make your name great, like the names of the greatest men on earth. And I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed. Wicked people will not oppress them anymore, as they did at the beginning and have done ever since the time I appointed leaders over my people Israel. I will also give you rest from all your enemies.

“‘The LORD declares to you that the LORD himself will establish a house for you: When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with a rod wielded by men, with floggings inflicted by human hands. But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever’”(2 Samuel 7:5-16).

David accepted this and scripture goes on to tell us that Solomon builds a temple for the Lord, but I believe God is talking about the eternal in this passage. It is Jesus Christ who establishes "the throne of his kingdom forever." He was from the bloodline of David and he was punished for our sin by the hands of men because God loved us enough to send his son. The Lord desired to always be among his people. He wasn't meant to dwell in a tent forever, but he also didn't intend to be harnessed in a temple either. The temple of the living God was to be sent down in human form.

Jesus came to the earth as a living temple sent to Glorify his Father in heaven, but God didn't intend to stay forever in human form either. Jesus came to establish the throne of God's Kingdom on earth and to free us from our sin and to offer us eternal life, but his time on earth in the flesh was limited. He had to die, but he left something behind.

“If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you." (John 14:16-20)

When Christ death and resurrection are complete, he leaves his disciples with the Holy Spirit of God to dwell in them forever. When we are born again and are baptized by the spirit, we become temples of the Holy Spirit built to glorify God with our entire being. We have been given life everlasting. We are the body of Christ; we are the church built to Glorify the Lord in the sanctuaries and out in the world.  Let's do it.

"Take my life and let it be all for you and for your glory, Take my life and let it be yours" - Glory to God Forever by Steve Fee