Bethlehem is not where I would have chosen to start if I were the Messiah (which thankfully I am not!) Bethlehem is a small backwoods town. I definitely would not have chosen a barn to be born in, a peasant 13-year old to bring me into the world, or a feeding trough to be my crib. Again, I am so thankful it was not up to me.

God chose those places and those people to remind me that where you start is not nearly as important as how you finish. God started from the most meager, humblest place imaginable  and became an infant who would become the Savior who would literally change everything after Him.

That means, that if we give God even only the smallest of openings into our lives, He can enter in and transform us from the inside out. He can transform our world through His Spirit in us. He can do outright miracles through even our tiniest steps toward obedience.

“God needs only a little of our agreement in order to work mighty wonders” (Calvin Miller).

God, I give you a broken, messed-up pile of rubbish that the world has thrown away. I give you me. My life. All my ugly failures and wretched stains and good intentions gone to hell. I give you the rest of my life for you to do whatever You want in me, wherever You want,  whenever You want, however You want. I’m all Yours.

I am making room for You this Advent season. Not just in my home, but in my heart. Come and reign with Your peace over me. Use me until I am all used up. Shine through me until the world around me is saturated with Your love.

I am nothing, Jesus, and You are everything. Thank You for invading my life and never relenting or giving up on me!

First of all, I am a fan of saying, “Merry Christmas,” and I will continue to do so. “Happy holidays” always sounded so generic to me. That being said, I have my own opinions about the controversy over Merry Christmas vs. Merry Xmas or Happy holidays.

First of all, we can’t expect non-Christian people and companies to have Christian mindsets. I personally think the problem with America is not lost people acting like lost people (which is natural for them to do), but those who call themselves Christians and not living like Christians. But that is for a different blog on a different day.

I myself am not going to get all bent out of shape if people say Happy holidays. Besides, the word “holiday” is derived from “holy day.” And the “X” in “Merry Xmas” represents the first letter of Christ in the Greek. Kind of like an abbreviation that still means the same thing.

Ultimately, we look to Christ for our example. When people reviled him personally, he didn’t get angry or carry picket signs. He was silent before those who mocked them. The one action He took was to die in the most agonizing way possible on a cross. The only words He spoke in response were, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

How can we expect those without the Spirit of God in them to understand the things of God, especially Christmas? How can someone whose mind has not been renewed and transformed by Christ even fathom what Christmas and the Incarnation mean?

I don’t even pretend to have the final answer on this question. I do know where I stand and that is on the side of grace, not on the side of judgment and legalism. I don’t break fellowship over this. I love people like Christ loved people and I try to be Jesus to all people, whether they say “Merry Christmas” or “Happy holidays” or “Bah humbug!”

That’s my take on “Merry Christmas.”

I got the idea for this blog reading from Calvin Miller’s excellent Advent devotional called The Christ of Christmas. I uber-highly recommend it!

To me, the whole Christmas story is a string of glorious impossibilities. That God the Infinite One should become an embryo in the womb of a 13-year old virgin should be an impossibility, but God made it a reality. And a glorious one at that!

That His salvation plan should start in backwoods Bethlehem in a filthy barn with a feeding trough with outcasts to announce His arrival boggles my mind. It is an impossibility that the Hope of the world could come from that. But it did!

Mary’s obedience to God’s call would lead literally to the defining moment of history. Since the birth of Jesus, every event in history falls into either B.C. (Before Christ) or A.D. (which is Latin for “In the Year of Our Lord”). A peasant teenager said, “Lord, I am Your servant. May it be to me according to Your word.” The world has never been the same since.

Is there anything in your life that seems impossible? Any dream beyond fulfillment? Any hope completely dashed? Any promise that seems past?

Remember in this Season of the Incarnation that NOTHING is impossible with God. NOTHING!

God takes people who have come to a place of humility and availability and does the impossible in them and through them. The result in every case is always worship.

That God can use me as a Kairos Roots table leader astounds me. That I can write a blog that touches people amazes me. It has to be all God, because I know what deep fears haunt me in the night or what vile thoughts sometimes run through my head or how selfish my ambitions can be.

God delights in turning impossibilities into realities. And God delights in you and me! Let that inspire worship not only for the next 16 days, but for every day from now until God calls you home or Jesus comes back.

Let your life be one huge AMEN to God!

I’ve been reading a really fantastic book by Roy Hession called We Would See Jesus. It’s a sequel of sorts to The Calvary Road, another book I highly recommend.

In We Would See Jesus, Roy talks about the name of God, Yahweh and how when God tells Moses to tell His people that I AM has sent you. I AM WHO I AM. So very complete in and of itself. It doesn’t need any outside help, but stands on its own. Like Yahweh.

But the really neat part is where I come in.

In my sinful state, Yahweh says , I AM your righteousness.

In my times of feeling like nobody cares, Yahweh says, I AM your banner.

In my weakness, Yahweh says, I AM your strength.

It amazes me to think that Yahweh doesn’t come with answers to give me or solutions to my problems. He IS my answer. He IS my solution. When I come to Him in my need and in my sin, He becomes my Remedy.

I think tonight I fell into some old pity-party woe is me habits because someone didn’t respond to my facebook post. Or several someones. I know, I know. How juvenile can I get? Apparently, very.

But my Yahweh is my Comfort and my Solace. He is my Reminder of Hope. He is my Hope.

And the ultimate is that the name Jesus comes from the Hebrew Yahushua, which means pretty much I AM your salvation. I AM your deliverance. I AM the one who can take all your sins and failures and fiascos and shortcomings and weaknesses and awkwardness upon myself, pay with my life for your wrongdoing, and give you Me to live inside you and be Your perfection.

I guess I can  never outgrow my need for Jesus. I will never get to the place where I am able to be strong on my own. I will have to settle for being the one who boasts in my weakness because every time Yahweh shows up and His strength is made perfect in my very weakness.

Facebook can be very humbling at times when no one responds to my status updates or blogs or posts. It reminds me that I am not nearly as special and great as I like to think I am. But when I can get over myself, I can find that Jesus, my Yahweh, is my Everything.

Even if only one person reads this, I am not going to be depressed. Ok, maybe a little. But once I get over it, I will trust that my Yahweh will use me in a way that causes not admiration for me, but a deep yearning for Him.

After all, that’s what’s really important.

I was thinking about what Mike Glenn talked about tonight at Kairos. He spoke about Simeon and Anna. Both had dreams of their own that were shattered and unfulfilled, but the one dream both had in common came true for both of them. They both saw their Salvation with their own eyes.

Simeon was an old man who held on to God’s promise past all reasonable expectations of how long he should wait. He was stubborn in his belief that God’s word was true, that he would see the Messiah with his own two eyes before he died. Everything else he held onto, he lost, but that one dream he would not let go. The payoff was him seeing and holding infant Jesus in his arms.

Anna was a widow who had spent a lifetime learning true worship. Her days and nights were spent at the temple, praying and praising God. She too waited long past when most people would have given up and given in to see her Hope, Jesus.

I want to be like those two. I want to hold fast to God. I want to be like Jacob, who wrestled with God and would not let go until God blessed him. I want to be stubborn and tenacious in my faith, pursuing God through seasons of plenty and seasons of want, though blessing and famine, no matter what. I want to be able to come to the point where if I have to choose, I choose to let my other dreams die and hold fast to God’s promise of Himself.

“My goal is God Himself, not joy, nor peace, nor even blessing. but Himself, my God” (Roy Hession).

May that be your prayer as well as mine. May our witness to the world be that we loved God wholeheartedly and loved each other in the same way.

I could add my own comments about this beautiful hymn, but I think I will let it speak for itself. There’s a reason it has lasted all these years.

“O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

O light that foll’west all my way,
I yield my flick’ring torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.

O light that foll’west all my way,
I yield my flick’ring torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day

O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.

O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.

O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.”
May brighter, fairer be.