Tag Archives: God

12/14/14-Advent Week 3-Luke 1-Love: God’s Greatest Gift

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Well, it is Christmas season, and we always want to remember the less well-off.

-Then I began to wonder, ”those whom we help, the less well-off, they are a great deal like Mary, Jesus’ mom.” Mary was a young woman, poor, and she might not be my first choice as far as who God can use, but remember, man looks at the outside, God looks at the heart.

She had these characteristics, yet God did indeed use her, and when she receives the news that she will be carrying this Christ child, she was no doubt scared, maybe a bit confused, yet her love for her Lord gave her the strength and will to say, “yes”.

We read in Luke’s gospel, Mary gets the announcement, goes and visits her relative Elizabeth, and then John the Baptist is born, and we don’t see Mary again until Jesus is born. Mary visits Elizabeth when Mary is only 3 months pregnant and right after that it is the story of going to Bethlehem for Jesus’ birth. So right there we have all these months not mentioned.

What was Mary going through during those 6 months before the birth? Because being an unwed teenage mother back then was huge taboo. Forbidden. Now, it is a bit less surprising, but then, oh boy! When Mary said yes to God, that was risky.

What was her family going to think, what was her friends going to think, what was Joseph, her fiancé going to think? You think Mary had to endure whispers behind her back, maybe people shunning her.

Mary was doing God’s will, but that does not mean it is easy. In fact, when she sang this song that we read in the second set of verses, we see this teenager thanking God for his justice of all things.

We see her giving praise to God who brings down the proud and uplifts the humble. The One who sends the rich away empty and yet fills the hungry with good things

-God is faithful to those who fear him, exalting low, bringing down high.

In Mary’s song, God is pictured as the champion of the outcast, the oppressed.

Mary is praising God for His justice. Now what does justice have to do with love. We think of love and justice as polar opposites.

We think of love as something done for the sake of the innocent, and justice as something done to the guilty. Yet justice, at least from what the Bible speaks about, is not simply about dishing out punishment. Rather, it is about harmony, it is about putting things right. God judges yes, but remember He judges with mercy.

Justice is about completeness-This same Mary has to trust that God is a god of both justice and love. We have all faced situations in our life where our hearts ache and cry out, “God where are you in this situation?”

“God we want you to make it right. We want you to show your love and your justice and right the wrong”

In this little baby soon to arrive. In this precious child, God does exactly that.

In Jesus, we have God’s divine reversal. God lowered Himself to raise us. He came down from paradise to lift us from the muddy pits of sin. In Jesus Christ, God suffers injustice, in order to bring about true justice. He suffers the brokenness, to give us the wholeness.

In this reversal, God became what we are (human) so that we might be what He is (eternal and perfect). It is a divine reversal, like the King who takes the torn, shredded rags of clothing from us and gives us his beautiful robes to now wear.

At a crime, you can punish the guilty, you can help the innocent, but until you can match those perfectly, you don’t have true justice.

God did just that. At the cross, God’s justice and God’s love met. When we look at the cross, we see God’s justice and love, are one & same.

God was reconciling the world to Himself, and He was not only forgiving our sins, but He shows that in His kingdom, we have the strength to love one another in true brotherhood, experiencing forgiveness when we have been wronged.

God is love. Let love, true-gospel defined love be the motivation for everything you do. God’s love is power, it is the life of the church.

Friends, have courage when doing the work God has called you to do. Mary’s life was not easy, and likewise you may be called to obey God and take up something that will not be easy either, but there is a reason we are still talking about Mary 2,000 years later.

Through her love for God, our Savior entered the world, and saved us all.

When we put our trust in this Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit transforms us, and gives us the love that we did not have as unsaved people.

Let love be your foundation. Love in action, in good deeds. Let love become a habit to you. Intentionally seek to practice it, prove your Christian faith by your love this Christmas season. Love as God loves, and love who God loves…and that is everybody, even the sinner…especially the sinner.

Here it is in a nutshell…Love God and do whatever you want!…because by loving God, you will eventually find yourself desiring the things God desires.

He is the great equalizer, the merciful judge, and found in a manager in Bethlehem so long ago this token of His love is the proof of his justice.

To have God’s justice and love is one and the same, to desire one is to desire the other. When you act in love toward God and toward others, you become a witness to His kingdom.

And in this kingdom, there is a mission of redemption, and You become a co-rescuer. Let love be your driving force. Amen

Reflections of a Ginger Theologian: Nigeria and Human Trafficking

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What is happening in Nigeria and why should we as disciples of Christ care? 

It has been over a month since a group of 300 girls and young women were kidnapped in Nigeria. To date, many are still unaccounted for and few have escaped captivity. As tragic as this all has been in and of itself, my personal interest was piqued when one of the captors announced to the world his intent to traffick the victims and that “Allah” commanded him to do this. No doubt this statement will create more discussions and commentary about the religion of Islam (for me that will be saved for another blog post for another time). 

For now, this blog input focuses on justice…Holy Justice. 

Many do not think the Bible speaks to situations like the one unfolding in Nigeria, but a quick look at the whole of Scripture shows otherwise. Justice for the oppressed and freedom from slavery are two themes throughout God’s story of redemption that He takes very, very seriously. What follows is God’s response to heinous acts of tyranny and exploitation.

Starting from Genesis, the beginning of the story, God did not create man to rule over other men. Instead He has created all human beings equally, and both male and female bear His image. Along these same lines, all of us are broken by the chief tyrant of all humanity: sin. It has marred and tore at all of us, and because we “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”, none of us have the right or prerogative to rule over others because we are to all recognize that God is the ultimate ruler of man. 

Continuing on with the story, one of the most pronounced statements of God’s view of slavery occurs in the liberation of Israel from Egypt. Not only does God ransom His people from bitter bondage, but even the laws that He gives them afterwards (even in the treatment of their own future servants) are always grounded in the awareness of “you were once slaves in Egypt”. Israel and all who follow the true God of the universe are called to stand against the exploitation of others because freedom from slavery of all kinds is at the heart of the Lord.

There are a few prime examples of this in the specific commandments of God’s laws, in ideas within Israel’s Psalms, and in the indictments of the Hebrew prophets, all of these are found in the Old Testament. 

God’s Laws-After Israel was freed from slavery, God gave them commandments and statutes to keep them from exploiting each other for wealth and greed (or any other way). In Deut. 14 and 15, it discusses a concept know as “Jubilee” where debts were to be forgiven and slaves of economic debt were given the chance to be released. There are countless other laws within this code that commands masters, if they are to own slaves, to treat their slaves fairly, as brother Jews. God may have tolerated certain forms of slavery within the Old Testament past, His ideal and goal for which His people were to strive was the freedom and betterment of their neighbor in all situations. 

Israel’s Psalms-These verses in the “spiritual songs” of Israel’s worship talked about how God is the provider. As followers of God, we are called to bear His image of “Provider” to those we see in our world who are victims, and also to pray for their persecutors. We cannot claim to worship the true God who bears the aforementioned title without also following in His example.

Finally, we have the last part of the Old Testament: the Prophets. Although I could cite many other examples, but I call your attention to the entire book of Amos! It is worth considering this fact: God inspired one prophet to have an entire text dedicated to how His people were to treat those who were needy and oppressed!

Moving from the Old Testament to the New, Jesus had a great deal to say about “the least of these”. Although there has been some debate about who “the least of these” are, it is not a stretch to imagine they would include any who suffer from injustice, slavery, oppression. The point is sharp in Matt. 25:31-46. He is represented in the least of these, and anything done or not done to help alleviate their suffering is as if we were treating our Lord in a similar manner.

This is “Holy Justice”. It is not to ask that punishment be dealt to the guilty, but that restoration and freedom would come to the captives. God calls all people to live in relationship with Him, which means complete forgiveness of sin, freed of its tyranny in all forms. It is our duty to proclaim and live that message out in our lives, showing people in our communities and our world what it means to live New Life in Jesus our Lord, our King. 

The implication is clear: It is the will of God for those who claim to love Him to show this love by their actions not simply their words. 

What does this have to do with the kidnapped girls in Nigeria. Sexual slavery and trafficking is one of the worst forms of human degradation because it robs a person of their God-given dignity, and uses sinful acts of evil to scar them. We as Christians are called to fight injustice wherever we see it, not to turn aside, but to stand alongside these victims to speak up on their behalf, to remind an uncaring world that the same God who created and redeemed us is identical to the One who created and redeemed them as well.

Get involved somehow. Whether it is raising awareness, talking about it in your churches, calling your local government representatives, filing petitions, ANYTHING you can think about, do it!

Anything less than this is cowardice, and Jesus Christ did not purchase our salvation for us to be cowardly.