When Christmas Comes to Annoying People

Two things have heightened my awareness of others’ bad habits—Christmas and childbirth. Both bring relatives near. 

Aunt Linda, the chain smoker, who never covers her mouth when she coughs suddenly becomes intolerable. She is outdone only by Uncle Phil who needs a surgical mask when he talks to keep spit from flying into the potato filling. Someone needs to cover their offenses--for the sake of dinner and the baby. 

I had my first baby in East Africa. I left my village a month before she was born to give birth in better facilities than what was available locally.   When I brought her back to the village, we were surrounded by a friendly mob of dozens of villagers. They had been my friends, but now, all of them seemed far less appealing than Aunt Linda and Uncle Phil.

Their kids suddenly looked like the ones on the Save the Children commercials with snot and flies on their noses.  My neighbor, who I spent time with every day had recurring scabies. Up until the baby came, I never really thought about the danger of catching it. But now she stood there, scratching, beside all the women who shouted childcare instructions to me. I remembered that most of them practiced community breastfeeding, and I clutched my kid.  There I stood, and there they stood, arms outstretched and making my baby the business of the village.

Minding the Business of Christmas

I wonder if that’s what Mary might have felt, having just given birth, to this long awaited son—this little miracle promised just to her and Joseph. They had a rough start, but everything had turned out okay.  Then a band of ruffians burst into their world—shepherds, perhaps scratching their itchy skin.

Scripture says they told everyone what the angels had said-- this baby represented good news of great joy for all people. Everyone who heard was astonished and amazed. Mary’s baby had not only become the business of the village—but the business of the world. The shepherds said that He would bring great joy to all peoples.

The shepherds left Mary and Joseph, still excited, praising and glorifying God. But there’s a little verse between their coming and their going—it says "but Mary treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart."

What did she ponder ? Most likely she thought about all the ways this little infant would grow up to become a leader great enough to bring great joy to all people. 

I had reflective moments at the tiny bush hospital before my daughter was born. An acquaintance of mine named Laura had given birth to a little girl a few days before me. Her baby was perfectly formed and full-term, but her lungs kept filling with fluid. The doctors were beside themselves because they didn’t have the medications to deal with the problem. They would drain her lungs, and we would pray, and her lungs would fill back up again.

After two days the baby's heart stopped.  I remember walking in the nearby missionary graveyard of the compound and noticing that most of the headstones were little ones—more missionary children had died in this place than adults. I didn’t understand why God would ask people to give up everything to serve Him only to lose their children as a result.  I was too afraid to ask whether it would happen to me. The thought was more than I could bear.

A few days after my daughter was born I saw Laura at the mission commissary. I wanted to sneak away but she saw me—me with my baby, alive and well, and hers having just been buried. Laura made a b-line for me—putting her hand on my arm and looking me in the eye she said, “Nan, it is okay to be happy.” 

I’ll never forget her gift. It was an invitation to rejoice from one who was broken to one who was whole.

What Mary heard the shepherds say was true for Laura in that moment. Jesus was her joy in the midst of her brokenness.  

The business of Christmas is us

Mary would one day lose her son in an unthinkable way--it would have been too much to bear had she known from the beginning. Instead, that first Christmas morning Mary did what we all want to do; she embraced joy. 

I’m not a Christmas person. I don’t like the dinners with Aunt Linda and Uncle Phil. I can be easily annoyed by the inconveniences and expectations, particularly of people I do not prefer.  But these intolerant traits of mine reveal that I’m like my African friends.

I may be put together on the outside, but on the inside, under the mask, I'm a child, hopelessly assailed by snot and flies.  I have recurring scabies of the soul—a disease that I cannot relieve on my own terms.  What's more, for every Aunt Linda and Uncle Phil in my life—I am one of them for someone else. I am needy and grievous in ways that you may not be able to clearly see—and if you are really honest, you'll know that to one degree or another, you are too. 

Our joy is that God has made this son of Mary my business and your business and He invites us to open our arms to Him just as we are. We know how He became great joy to all people. He is the cure for our diseases. He brings hope to the brokenhearted, and He is the light of the world--and that is something to celebrate.    

Three Hacks to Understand the Bible for Yourself

You don’t have to go to church to hear good Bible teaching. You may, in fact, hear or read the best Bible teaching outside of church. Christian books, radio, television, and the internet provide us with more Bible exposure than ever before.

Yet, we may be the most Bible illiterate generation in our history. How can this be? 

One possibility is that we have become spiritual consumers who don’t believe we can feed ourselves. Our spiritual food is digested, processed and spoon fed to us by someone else. 

Good Bible teaching is needed. It is part of discipleship. It affirms what we believe. It challenges us to walk more closely with Christ—and it should also make us hungry to search the Scriptures ourselves. 

Below are three principles that will help you to understand God’s Word for yourself:

 1.      Trust Scripture to explain itself.  We all know of media outlets that take portions of what people say—a phrase out of context—and twist words to mean something other than what was intended. Be careful, because even popular Christian teaching can do this too. We tend to remember what sounds good to us without checking to see if it’s really true.

When Paul wrote in Philippians 4:13, for example, that  “I can do all things though Christ who strengthens me.”  He didn’t mean that he could become a millionaire or fly off a building in red and blue spandex.  You can know what he meant because Paul wrote in a context that makes the meaning clear. The verse before it (Philippians 4:12) and the verse after it (Philippians 4:14) tell us that he was talking about being able to live with contentment through Jesus whether in abundance or in need. What great truths we miss when we forget about the context! Be sure to determine the meaning of a passage by reading the verses surrounding it.

2.      Ask questions, and then move on. Educators know that something happens in our brains when we hear or read what we don’t understand. We tend to stop right there. How many times have you sat in a meeting or in a classroom and missed 20 minutes of what was said because you were stuck on one thing that you didn’t get? It’s not your fault. Your brain did it. Your question became a road block. 

Here’s how to get around it: turn what you don’t understand into a question. Write it on a piece of paper, and then move on. It’s that simple!

Your brain will allow you to pass, as if to say “Okay. We’ll get that later.” Keep a notebook of questions if you want—or not. Pray for God to show you the answer in His time and see what happens. Part of understanding Scripture is knowing that you won’t understand everything. That is okay!  

3.      Don’t go beyond what is written.  Not every motive or purpose is explained in Scripture. Some teachers and theologians read their own interpretations or guesses into Scripture and teach opinion as if it were fact.  This can color how we understand Scripture when we hear it. Gideon, for example, a judge in the Old Testament, is popularly known as having been a coward, an opinion derived from one verse: 

Judges 6:11:  “The angel of the Lord came and sat under the oak that was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, as his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press in order to save it [hide it] from the Midianites.” 

Normally when Bible experts draw conclusions that are not clear from the text itself, we tend to think, “Oh, I guess they must be right because they know more than me.” Not true! More than likely, they just heard it from someone else and accepted it as fact, just like you are tempted to do.

Scripture never calls Gideon a coward for hiding the wheat as he worked. If anything, hiding his goods in a wine press from marauding bandits made him a genius. That too, however, is an opinion. It’s best to understand Scripture simply by what it says, not by what it doesn’t say.


* If you are interested in a study, online or in a group that teaches you in simple terms how to read and study for youself, let me know. 

 

© Copyright 2014, Nan Maurer

The Time of Your Salvation

When you believed you WERE…

JUSTIFIED- Romans 5:1; Gal. 2:16– The Judge irrevocably declares you are “Not Guilty!”

As God works in your struggles, you ARE BEING …

SANCTIFIED -  Philippians 2:13; 3:13-14 – You reach far and push hard toward becoming what He says you are.


You live with hope because you WILL BE…
GLORIFIED – 1 Cor. 15:51-53; Philippians 4:21; 1 John 3:2 – You become all that you were meant to be.

The Cross and Scotty McMillan

Not a week has passed since three year-old Scotty McMillan was pronounced dead. Many of us were calling down the curses of hell on three people responsible for the systematic torture of a little boy.  Many moms of young children are still shaken by the reports of a mother who would watch and laugh while her boyfriend beat her child.  It grates against the grain of a mother—and invokes her God-given call to protect with all of her being.

The incident, however, will soon vanish from our thoughts in the flurry of information overload. But the memory of this little boy will not vanish from the mind of God—of this we are all as certain as we are the existence of hell and our wish that his perpetrators be cast into it.  

But are these thoughts God’s thoughts?  I’m not speaking of whether the offenders can be forgiven. Thank God it’s not our business. To hope for forgiveness for them feels like a betrayal to all that is good. But to deny the possibility of forgiveness is to say that Scotty’s murder is somehow more powerful than Jesus’ Blood and forgiveness.  If that is true, then we are all lost. It may be that how these events effect us, as far as we are concerned, has far more to do with our faith than with the fate of Scotty’s mother and boyfriend.

You and I have two options in the face of evil. Rage and curse or run to Jesus. As I think on Scotty and the unthinkable alleged negligence of the woman who was supposed to protect him, all I can do is think about how incredibly grateful I am for Christ, who leads me out of my own darkness.

Paul wrote that I was an enemy of God and that I was darkness myself.  I didn’t kill a child. But I killed the Lord of Lords. He conquered my act of murder and told me to follow. No matter how horrible the things I hear and judge—in the news, in my relationships, in myself, following the path of the cross must govern what I say and what I think.  It is not my sense of justice or mercy that must prevail within me—but the intensity of justice and mercy clashing at the cross. Grace must govern my steps and my voice in following the Savior. 

Grace does not mean there is no outrage over injustice. Grace does not mean we look the other way. But grace recognizes that I stand where I do not because I am better than someone I deem to be a monster—grace remembers that my Savior died for me—and there is no offense that is worse than the offense of the Cross, my offense, which was forgiven and which produced unspeakable joy.

There is freedom from hate in that perspective--a freedom to trust that He is just and He is merciful and He will prevail—even in our tears and confusion. 

Cookie Cutter Christians

God doesn’t make cookie-cutter Christians.  He makes snowflakes—and He makes followers. Snowflakes are like people who follow Jesus. No two snowflakes formed in the entire world have ever been completely identical. But every real snowflake carries the same properties as every other real snowflake—they are all made of water; they all function according to the properties of ice; they are light and beautiful; and yet together they become a powerful and formidable force.

There are no two Christians in the entire world who have ever been completely identical. But every real Christian carries the same properties as every other real Christian—they are all born of water and Spirit; they all function according to the properties of the Holy Spirit; they are the light and beauty of  meekness; and yet together, they becomes part of a formidable and powerful force.  Being wholly Christ-like doesn’t mean losing your identity—it means being holy like Christ through your identity.

Eleven Things You Do When You Believe Jesus Is Better

If Hebrews had a theme, it would be “Jesus is better.” The writer of the Book summed it up in Chapter 13 with 11 things someone who believes Jesus is better does:

1.   I believe Jesus is better when I love others.

2.   I believe Jesus is better when I am hospitable.

3.   I believe Jesus is better when my empathy for the suffering of others drives me to action.

4.    I believe Jesus is better when I honor marriage.

5.   I believe Jesus is better when I practice freedom from the love of money and things.

6.   I believe Jesus is better when I imitate the Christ-centered faith of others.

7.   I believe Jesus is better when I guard the basics of my faith.

8.   I believe Jesus is better when I remember that Jesus is coming back.

9.   I believe Jesus is better when I continually and verbally practice gratefulness to God.

10    I believe Jesus is better when I do good, and when I share what I have.

11    I believe Jesus is better when I obey and submit to my leaders.

©2014 by Nancy L. Maurer

Three Reasons to Stop Worrying about Discipleship

A Guest Post

by Wayne Rissmiller
Calvary Bible Fellowship Church

Here we are, almost at the end of the week, and I’m wondering what you’re thinking about last Sunday’s message on following Jesus from Matthew 4:19.

 Janene Naugle summed up the sermon in her Facebook post: “Discipleship is an intimidating word in Christianity. But no more. It’s simple: growing followers growing followers.”

She also said something that a lot of people seem to worry about:  “I’m not good at it because I keep waiting to be a finished work before I help others grow.”

But if “growing followers begin growing followers” the moment they trust Christ, then there are three things that you should NOT worry about.

1) How much you know.  A disciple usually begins knowing very little about the Bible.

I have been a pastor for more than 20 years, so it’s expected that I know a lot.

But God has taught me new things on a regular basis through the newest of believers. I’ve been inspired to follow Jesus with more excitement. I have been spurred on to grow in areas of my spiritual walk I would not have thought about on my own.

 You don’t need to know anything, except that Jesus saved you. 

That one thing is enough. 

2) How good of a Christian you are. None of us are going to be a finished work until we get to Heaven.

The remarkable thing is that no matter where you are in the process, God wants to use you to help others grow.

This doesn’t mean that you should ignore spiritual growth—that would be ignoring the point of discipleship. But it does mean that God uses the sincere and forgiven follower of Christ at all stages of the journey to spur others on toward growth. 

3)  Learning special methods. Discipleship is natural. It happens when you intentionally open your mouth to talk about spiritual things.

Small groups and Adult Bible Fellowships are great places to grow and encourage others to grow.

Talking with your family about what you are learning about Christ at church, in devotions, or elsewhere is discipleship.

Talking with believers at work or school about spiritual things is discipleship.

Ask “so what” questions of yourself and others.

How will this be put into play in my everyday life as a growing follower (who is growing followers)?