Are you Ready if Called?

“By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went…”-Hebrews 11:8

I don’t know about you, but when I think about the story of Abraham, I picture a guy enjoying life, big smile on his face, getting ready to maybe take his wife out for a large lunch and then come home to take a nap on the couch. You know, life is pretty good. Then suddenly God calls out to him and says GO! And Abraham just walks down the hall to their bedroom where his wife Sarah is talking on Facebook and says we are leaving—and so they get up and go. I don’t think that Abraham knew this was coming when he woke up that morning. I think that this was probably something that caught both he and Sarah a little off guard. And yet, he obeyed and went.

Now if you are a fan of college football or even if you are not a fan, you may be aware of the drama that unfolded last week as the University of Texas longhorns played the Alabama Crimson Tide for the national championship game. Colt McCoy, the Longhorns MVP and star quarterback was taken out of the game early in the first quarter with an injury never to return to the game. The coach of the Longhorns, Mack Brown, had to look down the sidelines at a young freshman backup quarterback named Garrett Gilbert who had played very sparingly during the season and tell him that his number was up and it was now on his shoulders to go out and win a national championship game for UT. As you can imagine, during the first few plays for Garrett he looked like a deer in headlights—the game was just too fast and he was ill prepared. As Garrett headed to the locker room at halftime having just given up a costly turnover that led to a touchdown by Alabama, Garrett was in tears. Meanwhile, Colt McCoy was also in tears in the locker room after hearing from the coaches and his own father that his amazing college career was over. As Colt would later say, “I am a man of faith in God, and so I won’t question why this was God’s plan for me tonight, it just was.”

Two different players both in tears in the locker room at halftime of an important game. Both men facing stress, both men facing pressure, both men facing confusion and both men’s fate completely, totally and utterly in the hands of an all knowing almighty God. Now Garrett could have easily given up, told his coach that the stress was just too much and that he was not going to go back into the game after halftime, but he didn’t. And while I would love to tell you that Garrett led the Longhorns to victory—I can’t. But what he did do was to get back into the game, to play as hard as he could in the situation that he was thrust into and to simply leave the results on the field with Colt McCoy all the while encouraging him, cheering him on and praying for him on the sidelines.

Now my point here is not that Garrett heard from God to get back on the field and was obedient to this calling. I don’t know if Garrett is even a believer. The point is that like Abraham, I am sure he got up in the morning with a smile on his face, thinking it was going to be a pretty good day. He was on a team playing for a national championship and he was only a freshman. All he had to do was to sit back, watch, learn, cheer and hopefully get a ring. But of course, God had other plans (“For I know the plans I have for you declare the Lord.”)

God stories like these involving unsuspecting people are not simply found in the pages of the Bible but are seen all around us every day. In fact, this may be YOU tomorrow morning. The question is, how will you respond if called?

A Christmas Message

(Excerpted from Knowing God by J.I. Packer-1973)

"For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich."-2 Corinthians 8:9

It is here, in the thing that happened at the first Christmas, that the profoundest and most unfathomable depths of the Christian revelation lie. "The Word became flesh" (John 1:14); God became man; the divine Son became a Jew; the Almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, unable to do more than lie and stare and wriggle and make noises. Needing to be fed and changed and taught to talk like any other child. And there was no illustion or deception in this; the babyhood of the Son of God was a reality. The more you think about it, the more staggering it gets. Nothing in a fiction is so fantastic as is this truth of the incarnation.

How are we to think of the incarnation: The New Testament does not encourage us to puzzle our heads over the physical and psychological problems that it raises, but to worship God for the love that was shown in it. For it was a great act of condescension and self-humbling. "He, Who had always been God by nature," writes Paul , "did not cling to His prerogatives as God's equal, but stripped Himself of all privilege by consenting to be a slave by nature and being born as mortal man. And, having become man, He humbled Himself by living a life of utter obedience, even to the extent of dying, and the death he died was the death of a common criminal" (Phil. 2:6, PHILLIPS). And all this was for our salvation.

The key text in the New Testament for interpreting the incarnation is not, therefore, the bare statement in John 1:14, "the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us," but rather the more comprehensive statement of 2 Corinthians 8:9, "you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich." Here is stated, not the fact of the incarnation only, but also its meaning; the taking of manhood by the Son is set before us in a way that shows us how we should set it before ourselves and ever view it--not simply as a marvel of nature, but rather as a wonder of grace.

For the Son of God to empty himself and become poor meant a laying aside of glory; a voluntary restraint of power; an acceptance of hardship, isolation, ill-treatment, malice, and misunderstanding; finally, a death that involved such agony--spiritual, even more than physical--that his mind nearly broke under the prospect of it. It meant love to the uttermost for unlovely men, who "through his poverty, might become rich." This Christmas message is that there is hope for a ruined humanity--hope of pardon, hope of peace with God, hope of glory--because at the Father's will Jesus Christ became poor and was born in a stable so that thirty years later he might hang on a cross. It is the most wonderful message that the world has ever heard, or will hear.

We talk glibly of the "Christmas spirit," rarely meaning more by this than sentimental jollity on a family basis. But what we have said makes it clear that the phrase should in fact carry a tremendous weight of meaning. It ought to mean the reproducing in human lives of the temper of him who for our sakes became poor at the first Christmas. And the Christmas spirit itself ought to be the mark of every Christian all the year round.

It is our shame and disgrace today that so many Christians--I will be more specific: so many of the soundest and most orthodox Christians--go through this world in the spirit of the priest and the Levite in our Lord's parable, seeing human needs all around them, but (after a pious wish, and perhaps a prayer, that God might meet them) averting their eyes, and passing by on the other side. That is not the Christmas spirit. Nor is it the spirit of those Christians--alas, they are many--whose ambition in life seems limited to building a nice middle-class Christian home, and making nice middle-class Christian friends, and brining their children up in nice middle-class Christian ways, and who leave the sub-middle-class sections of the community, Christian and non-Christian, to get on by themselves.

The Christmas spirit does not shine out in the Christian snob. For the Christmas spirit is the spirit of those who, like their Master, live their whole lives on the principle of making themselves poor--spending and being spent--to enrich their fellow men, giving time, trouble, care, and concern, to do good to others--and not just their own friends--in whatever way there seems need. There are not as many who show this spirit as there should be. If God in mercy revives us, one of the things he will do will be to work more of this spirit in our hearts and lives. If we desire spiritual quickening for ourselves individually, one step we should take is to seek to cultivate this spirit. "Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich." "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." "I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free" (Ps. 119:32)

Knocked Off My Feet

"Fall on your knees..."
So goes a line from my favorite Christmas carol which I have been singing and meditating on today. When was the last time you fell on your knees? I am not talking about kneeling during prayer--although that is a powerful place to be as well. I'm talking about literally having your feet kicked out from under you as you come into the awesome presence and holiness of Almighty God. When...OK, if we will just stop and take some time during our busy lives to seriously pursue and experience standing in the presence of God, I don't think we will be standing very long. Instead, I think we will find ourselves falling to our knees in overwhelming thankfulness, humbleness, unworthiness, joy and pure love. What other reaction can there possibly be as we come to the God of the universe and sustainer of all things?

John paints us a very powerful image about this in Revelation 7:11, "All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying: 'Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!'"

Oh God, how I long to daily be knocked off my feet by you, falling to my knees in your presence so that I may be able as Paul rightly says,
"...to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that I may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."
-Amen

A God Experience

I had a true God experience two weeks ago. You see, I REALLY enjoy hiking but this isn't something my wife particular shares my enthusiasm for. So, you can imagine just how surprised I was when on our recent vacation to the Davis Mountains, Denise got up early one morning and agreed to hike up to the top of a mountain with my son and I. What? You want to do what? This was a first! And it wasn't an easy climb. Over 1.5 miles of hiking ascending some 1,000ft to the top (and no there wasn't a Starbucks when we got up there).

What a beautiful climb it was. A huge cloud bank conceled the tops of the mountains from our view below. So, as we climbed higher, the air cooled and the mist swirled until we found ourselves moving through the cloud inching closer to the top. AND THEN...it began to rain. Wow! An experience like none I have ever had before. Finally, with our boots a little muddy and our hair a little damp, we made it to the top of the mountain and watched as the clouds floated through the valleys far below us.

As amazing as all of this was, I will be forever grateful to the Lord for allowing me to experience this moment with my wife and son. Watching their faces as we reached the top and seeing their smiles as they gazed on the valleys below and mountains far into the distance will forever be etched in my mind. In fact as I sit here at 1:15am writing down these memories, I can't help but smile. This experience has forever bound us together in a whole new way, a whole new God way. And if this is what running the race of life is all about, I can't wait to get up tomorrow morning and get back out there!

Prayer of Love

Jesus, I am SO in love with you today. I am SO in love with you!

You are the air that I breathe, the muscle that allows me to move, the nerve that lets me blink. In you, I am known and loved and defined. You have become my all consuming everything. Through you, I have learned it is not what I do, but who I have become and am becoming.

Because of you Jesus, I love my wife today more than I did when we were first married sixteen years ago. I LOVE MY WIFE MORE TODAY THAN EVER BEFORE! Because of you Jesus, I see life as a child through the eyes of my three children. Because of you Jesus, I realize my need for people to love and be loved by. Because of you Jesus, I desire to forget the things of this earth, and long to know the things of Heaven. I LONG TO KNOW THE THINGS OF HEAVEN!

Jesus, I want to know you more and the power of your resurrection. I thirst and hunger for you and desire to passionately pursue you the rest of my life. And Jesus, I want others to know you. I want them to experience you as life, AS LIFE!

JESUS, I LOVE YOU! -Amen