Coffee With The Lord

Christmastime – or as the broader culture likes to call it, “the holiday season” – can tragically be one of the most materialistic and self-focused seasons of the year!  And Christ-followers can be swept into cultural vortex and find themselves abandoning or compromising their values.  I do not want to be a spiritual casualty of the season!

So when I read these words this morning during “coffee with the Lord” I was grateful for the reminder they provide (I’ve chosen to provide them in the words of the Message paraphrase)…

“Don’t love the world’s ways! Don’t love the world’s goods! Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father.  Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father! It just isolates you from Him.  The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out—but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity!” (1 John 2:15–17 The Message)

Help me Lord to maintain a Christ-centered – eternal values focused – perspective!

We’ve done the parenting thing (four children of our own)… and watched a lot of other people do it (some more successfully than others) and I can tell you EVERY child has to learn OBEDIENCE!  Some find it easier than others, but every child has to learn it.  If they don’t learn it, they have a long, difficult, road ahead of them!

Children of God with a Heavenly Father have to learn it too!  Thought of that this morning as I read 1 John 2.3-6 in the Bible…

“We know that we have come to know Him if we keep His commands.  Whoever says, “I know Him,” but does not do what He commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person.  But if anyone obeys His word, love for God is truly made complete in them.  This is how we know we are in Him:  Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.” (NIV)

I’ve been “born again” through faith in Christ.  I’m a child of God.  I’ve got a wonderful, loving Heavenly Father.  I want to please Him, but there’s something in me I wrestle with… SELF-WILL!  Every child of God has to learn it – obedience…  Take it from me, I’m working on it – I know you are too!  He’s patient!  And a wonderful, loving, Heavenly Parent!  He’ll help us learn it (and He’s not afraid of DISCIPLINE… lovingly administered, but DISCIPLINE, never-the-less (check out Hebrews 12:5-11)!

The season of the year we call “Christmas” and all the holiday trappings we see around us are so filled with folklore and mythical stories … the stuff of fairytales! It’s all designed, I guess, to appeal to children – to make their eyes dance and fill the air with laughter and excitement. It’s also the fertile ground for marketing schemes and the jingle of cash registers. So what is reality in the midst of all that is mythical?

I read a passage from the Bible this morning that I think makes the case for that…

“We proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning, whom we have heard and seen. We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands. He is the Word of Life! This One who is Life itself was revealed to us, and we have seen him. And now we testify and proclaim to you that He is the one who is eternal life. He was with the Father, and then He was revealed to us. We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that you may fully share our joy.” (1 John 1:1–4 NLT)

In the midst of all the mythical and the merriment I don’t want to miss the reality… JESUS IS REAL! He actually came to earth as a babe in a manger! He lived among us! The miracles in the Bible actually happened! He suffered and died for our sin… and rose again… He ascended back to heaven… and ever lives!!

DON’T MISS THE “REAL THING” IN THE CHRISTMAS SEASON – don’t let your children mix up reality with fiction… Just say’n! AS A CHRISTIAN I’M DETERMINED TO KEEP CHRIST IN CHRISTMAS!!