4SpiritualSecrets

“So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” (Psalm 90:12)

There is an extremely equitable generosity expressed by God every year.  He gives every one of us 24 hours a day, 168 hours a week, and 8,760 hours a year.  The thought Moses expressed above is that we should cherish our 24 hour days and pray that we have wisdom about the way we live out each day.

There are many metaphors about life in the Bible.  If you examine them all, you will find that they tell us life is brief as a smoke-like vapor.  Life is uncertain like a thread that is about to be cut by a Seamstress and we have no control over when that thread will be cut.  Life is a transitory experience like a ship that fades out of sight as it passes beyond our horizon.  Our life is like a tale that is told and forgotten by the time others have told their tales.

Life is like a sleep when we wake up.  Only the Bible would call life a sleep and death the waking up. The hard reality that we only have 70 or 80 years of life because we are all going to die should lead all of us to wear watches and cherish our days, one day at a time.  The last days and hours of an old year should therefore be a time of reflection, and the first days and hours of a new year should be a time of revelation and resolution.

In light of the Bible’s message, a thoughtful wish for the New Year is:

“May you have a spiritually prosperous and fruitful New Year.”

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.” (Revelation 3:20)

The risen living Christ sends a letter to a Church in Laodicea, as recorded in Chapter Three of the Revelation.  The whole Church of Jesus Christ has been reading that letter for 2000 years.  The risen Christ wishes they were hot, but if they are not going to get hot He would rather they be cold.  Because they are neither cold, nor hot, but lukewarm – they make Him want to throw up!

He then tells them how to have a Christmas that is and can be all day long, every day of the year.  It is as if their life is a house and their heart is the door to that house.  He is knocking on that door.  He is patiently waiting for them to open that door and invite Him into all the meaningful areas of their life.

Verse 19 makes it clear that His knocking is chastisement which He wants to grow into repentance.  His inspired metaphor illustrates and demonstrates repentance.  It would seem there is no latch on the outside of the door.  The door must be opened from the inside.

Martin Luther wrote a Christmas carol that uses a similar metaphor: “Holy Jesus, precious Child make Thee a bed soft, undefiled, within my heart that it may be a quiet chamber kept for Thee.”

In our church on Christmas Eve children sing: “Christmas isn’t Christmas till it happens in your heart.  Somewhere deep inside you that’s where Christmas really starts.  So give your heart to Jesus.  You’ll discover when you do, that it’s Christmas, really Christmas for you!”

“For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus…Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.” (1 Thessalonians 4: 14, 17-18)

The essence of the Christmas that was is that God intersected human history when He became a man.  There is also a Christmas that shall be when God is going to intersect human history again.  He has told us about this future Christmas 318 times in the New Testament where whole books like the one referenced above have this teaching as their primary subject.  And it is prophesied many times and by many prophets in the Old Testament.

In their inspired writings, the apostles call it the only hope of the world and the blessed hope of the Church.  Hope is the conviction God puts in the hearts of people that something good is going to happen to them.  Sociologists, clinical psychologists and psychiatrists who study suicides believe people take their lives when they no longer have this hope.

It’s possible to respond to the only hope and the blessed hope like the priest who let unbelief shut his mouth.  Like the mother of God we can be so holy we ponder these things and keep them in our heart.  Or we can be like the shepherds and tell everybody about the very good news that God is going to do Christmas again!

If you believe in the Christmas that shall be are you willing to give hope to hopeless people? Or has unbelief shut your mouth?

“Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told them.” (Luke 2:20)

A teenager once asked me the question, “If Christmas was surrounded by all these miracles why is it that 30 years later Jesus had such a hard time convincing everybody He was the Messiah?” If you will carefully read the first two chapters of the Gospel of Luke, you will find the answer – the Christmas that was involved very few people.

When God told an old priest what He was going to do, the priest didn’t believe God.  God informed the priest that He was going to do Christmas anyway but the unbelief of the priest shut his mouth.  Zechariah had the greatest sermon to preach any priest has ever had but he was smitten with muteness.  While the miracle of Christmas was happening he couldn’t preach his great sermon.

God then shared the miracle with a very godly young woman who was to be the birth mother of God.  Her response (called the “Magnificat”), showed how godly she was because in about 10 verses of Scripture she alluded to the Old Testament 23 times.  But as godly as she was she kept all these things and pondered them in her heart.  God then informed her fiancé, because it was on a need to know basis and he surely had a need to know.

He then told some lowly shepherds what He was doing.  Why tell them?  He told them because before and after they saw the miracle they told everybody about the Christmas that was.

Luke has given you 132 verses that tell you about Christmas.  Do you tell people about the miracle of the Christmas that was?

“…whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:26)

Has the joyful happy holiday season found you with a heavy heart because you have lost a loved one?  I have suggested in my two previous blogs that if you want to find the happiness and comfort Jesus promised in His second beatitude to those who mourn, you should ask the right questions and listen to God’s answers to the right questions.  My third suggestion was implied by Jesus as He gave an excellent right answer to Martha when he asked her, “Do you believe this?”

My third suggestion is that you believe God’s answers to the right questions.  When we ask, listen, and believe, the death of someone we love is like an investment in the world to come.  We have simply bought shares in heaven and we have increased our motivation to be there in the eternal dimension with Christ and with them.

A devout surgeon I know says that the word we use most in this life is “Why?” However, the word we are going to use most in the next world is going to be “Oh!” An old hymn I don’t hear much anymore proclaims “Friends will be there I have known long ago.  Joy like a river around me will flow.  Yet just a smile from my Savior I know,  that will be glory be glory for me!”

The whole Bible is filled with God’s answers to the right questions.  When we believe those answers we will discover that the happy state Jesus promised those who mourn in one word is salvation.  Salvation and the comfort He promised can begin right now and last forever if you will ask, listen, and believe!  Will you do that now?

“I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.  And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25, 26)

If this happy and joyful holiday season finds you unhappy because you are mourning the loss of a loved one, I have suggested you should ask the right questions.  My second suggestion is to listen to God’s answers to the right questions.  For example, listen to the answer of the One Who was God in the flesh and gave us the second beatitude that promised happiness and comfort when we are mourning.

Jesus gave this answer to a woman who had lost a brother she and Jesus loved deeply.  To summarize and paraphrase, Jesus told Martha that if a man like her brother believed in Him, even though he died he would live.  He then opened this great reality to all of us with the declaration that whoever believes and lives his life in fellowship with Him will never die.

Be sure to make the observation that when the Lord appears to be redundant He is not merely repeating Himself.  The second time He makes this declaration He opens the reality of everlasting life to whoever meets two prerequisites: If we believe in Him, and if we live our lives in Him we will never die.

Faith alone can save but the faith that saves is never alone. There will always be actions that validate authentic faith.  When Jesus focuses the validating action of living in Him, He uses an expression that is found nearly 200 times in the New Testament.  It means to be in relationship with Him the way a branch is in relationship with a vine.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” ..  ..  (Matthew 5:4)

In our American culture today there are many people who are praying for the grace to get through the weeks that begin with Thanksgiving and end with Christmas Day.  These people are very often ‘single again.’  By that I mean those who have lost a spouse through death or divorce, or those who have lost a child or a loved one.

If you have lost someone in any of these or other ways it would be good for you to listen to the second beatitude of Jesus.  He shows that His values are very different from ours when He announces that those who are mourning losses can be blessed and comforted.  The word “blessed” can mean “happy,” “spiritually prosperous” or “in a state of grace.”

If you would like to experience the blessing and the comfort Jesus promised those who are mourning their losses, a first step in that direction would be to ask the right questions.  Perhaps, for the first time in your life – ask the right questions.

When we suffer a loss there are right questions and there are wrong questions. The question “why” is very often a wrong question, because it can lead to more questions nobody can answer.  There are, however, right questions.  When we lose a loved one through death there is a question God wants us to ask.  It’s found in the Fourteenth Chapter of the book of Job where Job writes.  “When a man dies he lies prostrate, he expires and then where is he?  When a man dies shall he live again?”

When we are mourning, God wants us to ask right questions like that one.  Have you ever asked that question?

“… Behold, wise men …came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is He? …” (Matthew 2: 2)

In the Old Testament God begins His dialogue with us by asking the question “Where are you?” The New Testament begins with wise men asking the question “Where is He?” If we are spiritually wise, as we read the Old Testament God will show us where we truly are.  By the time we reach the New Testament we’re ready for the question of the wise men because we know by then that we need a Savior – and we need to know where our Savior is.

Wise men still ask the question, “Where is He?” The Gospel of Matthew reports that those wise men were directed to a house where they found and worshipped a young Child about two years of age.  By application, when we ask that question today, what are the answers we should expect to receive?

In the profound letter of the Apostle John that is found at the end of the New Testament we find these words:  “We know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” (1 John 3:2) These three words “as He is” raise the question in what forms and in what ways can we expect to find Him today?

If you want to be spiritually wise and ask the question “Where is He?” today, I suggest that you look where a unique quality of Love can be found today.  Look for where a unique quality of Light or Truth might be found today.  Look where an abundant and rich quality of Life is being experienced.  Since we do not find Him in a test tube or a fossil, look for Him in the spiritual dimension of life.

“So do not throw away your faith; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what He has promised…For he that is righteous shall live by faith.” (Hebrews 10:35-38)

As the author of the book of Hebrews continues giving doubting disciples reasons why they should not throw away their faith, he tells them in the verses above they should not throw away their faith because they need their faith for living.  Authentic disciples know they are saved by faith, but the disciples to whom he was writing did not know or had forgotten that they are also called to live by faith.

He quotes the key verse of the prophecy written by Habakkuk to suffering people.  When we are suffering we especially need to be reminded that God has given us the faith to persevere and do the will of God in our crisis – until we receive what God has given us the faith to believe will ultimately happen according to His promises.

I have observed a direct correlation between spiritual growth and suffering.  The Greek word translated “persevere” in these verses is a quality God grows in those who are living by faith while they are suffering, according to the Apostle Paul (Romans 5: 3-5).  Other authors of the New Testament agree with Paul.

The immediate response of many authentic disciples when they find themselves in a difficult situation is “Lord, get me out of here!” When that doesn’t happen they are sometimes tempted to throw away their faith.  The message conveyed by these verses is “Don’t throw away your faith.  Your need your faith to live through your crisis.” Is this a message you need to hear today?

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1)

Have you ever reached the point where you were so overwhelmed with doubt that you considered throwing away your faith?  In the context of the verse above you will discover (in Hebrews 10:35) that you are not the first follower of Jesus Christ to allow that thought.  The verse above was written to professing disciples who were thinking about throwing away their faith.

The author of this verse, and the entire faith chapter which follows, is giving doubting disciples reasons why they should not throw away their faith.  In the first verse of the faith chapter he is telling doubting disciples that they should not throw away their faith because faith gives substance to their hope.

God places the seed of hope in the heart of human beings before they come to faith.  Hope is a conviction that there is something good in this world and one day that good thing is going to happen.  Every year between 25 or 30 thousand people commit suicide in America.  When social scientists study those suicides they conclude that people take their lives because they lose hope or the conviction that something good can happen to them.

God wants your hope to grow into a faith that is based on evidence.  As we will see that evidence is action.  It is what the heroes of faith did as a result of what they believed.  Are you willing to let God grow your hope into a faith that acts like these heroes of faith He introduces to us in this great faith chapter of the Bible?  Then, believe your beliefs, doubt your doubts, and apply what you believe.