Category Archives: christianity

The Importance of Prophecy at Christmas — and in OUR Lives…

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In Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Scrooge is an evil man, whose only love is himself and his money. When confronted by the outcomes of his evil life, past, present, and future Scrooge is repentant. He isn’t just sorry – he wants to change, to make amends. He tries to do so with the little time he has left, by investing in the Cratchit family. In a sense, he’s trying to redeem himself.

Even when I was a little kid, watching that in movie or cartoon form, the same thought occurred to me. Ebenezer, what makes you think that these last half-dozen or so years of your life can make up for the decades of evil you’ve done? It is impossible for you to redeem yourself.  That’s true of Ebenezer. And it’s true of you and me.

The Bible teaches us that Jesus is our Redeemer. He is the One who can pay for the evil we’ve done. It says, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” (Romans 3:23-24)

While all of us know this deep inside, the Bible is what makes it crystal clear to us. As the prophecies concerning Christ’s advent in Bethlehem lit the way for those seeking him, so God’s word lights the way for us.

Please forgive the sound of my voice in this message. I could barely talk. ~Steve

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Walking the Walk of Grace…

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It was Phillip Yancey in his book What’s so Amazing about Grace, who first showed me the “new math” that God uses. He writes:

“I grew up with the image of a mathematical God who weighed my good and bad deeds on a set of scales and always found me wanting. Somehow I missed the God of the Gospels, a God of mercy and generosity who keeps finding ways to shatter the relentless laws of ungrace. God tears up the mathematical tables and introduces the new math of grace….

…. Grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us more—no amount of spiritual calisthenics and renunciations, no amount of knowledge gained from seminaries and divinity school, no amount of crusading on behalf of righteous causes. And grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us less—no amount of racism or pride or pornography or adultery or even murder. Grace means God already loves us as much as an infinite God can possibly love.” ~Philip Yancey in What’s so Amazing about Grace, p. 70.

A few pages later Yancey observes…

“At the center of Jesus’ parables of grace stands a God who takes the initiative toward us: a lovesick father who runs to meet the prodigal, a landlord who cancels a debt too large for any servant to reimburse, an employer who pays eleventh-hour workers the same as the first-hour crew, a banquet-giver who goes out to the highways and byways in search of undeserving guests.” Philip Yancey in What’s so Amazing about Grace, p. 91.

That’s not good business, but that’s what is happening in our text. Leaving behind 99 sheep to go find one is not the old math of the law. It’s generally not considered a good idea. But it is the idea that Jesus uses to show us how God loves us. It’s the new math of grace. It’s the way God loves you. He loves you with a reckless love.

This podcast speaks of his great grace.

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Leave No Bitterness…

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I have observed one thing among true Christians in their differences in many countries: What divides and severs true Christian groups and Christians — what leaves a bitterness that can last for 20, 30 or 40 years (or for 50 or 60 years in a son’s memory) — is not the issue of doctrine or belief which caused the differences in the first place. Invariably it is lack of love — and the bitter things that are said by true Christians in the midst of differences. These stick in the mind like glue. And after time passes and the differences between the Christians or the groups appear less than they did, there are still those bitter, bitter things we said in the midst of what we thought was a good and sufficient objective discussion. It is these things — these unloving attitudes and words — that cause the stench that the world can smell in the church of Jesus Christ among those who are really true Christians. ~Francis Shaeffer in The Mark of the Christian.