Naughty or Nice?

 

For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”

—Romans 1:17

I imagine you recognize these song lyrics:  ¹

You better watch out, you better not cry,
Better not pout, I’m telling you why:
Santa Claus is comin’ to town.

He’s making a list and checking it twice,
Gonna find out who’s naughty or nice,
Santa Claus is comin’ to town.

He sees you when you’re sleepin’,
He knows when you’re awake,
He knows if you’ve been bad or good,
So be good for goodness sake.

With stories like the one in this song, and the use of the well-worn “Elf on the Shelf,” we try to persuade our children to “be good,” so that Santa will bring them the gifts they want for Christmas. While it all seems harmless enough, I wonder if our tales of Santa have somehow crept into our theology of God at Christmas and the rest of the year, as well.

The culture in which we live seems to hold that God, if He is even real, somehow acts toward us as a “Santa.” He knows everything and sees everything about us. He makes judgments as to our fitness for His Kingdom based on some kind of “naughty or nice” quotient.

Now, it should not surprise anyone who truly believes in God that He is omnipresent—always present in all places at all times—and omniscient—possessing a complete knowledge of all things. However, the theological concept of “grace dispensed according to merit” raises a completely different point.

Ephesians 2:8-9 makes it clear that we can do nothing to gain God’s favor:

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is a gift of God—not of works, so that no one can boast.

But what about punishment—the “lump of coal” so to speak? The Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 8:1-2:

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.

We see that neither our good deeds, nor our transgressions of God’s law, have any effect on our salvation or our place in God’s Kingdom. Jesus, and He alone, took care of that. If we acknowledge His gift of grace through faith, we do not stand condemned. Instead, we have all the gifts that He paid with His lifeblood to give us.

So, let’s rejoice in a perfectly just, all-seeing, Sovereign God, whose gifts come to us without anything we can give to Him. Rather, He freely and lovingly provides us with all things solely through the Gift of that Baby born so long ago. That kind of favor should cause great gratitude to well up within us and result in lives of grace and compassion to others.

Our expectation to see our Savior, bringing incorruptible gifts to us, should energize us to do good deeds far beyond the supposed eyesight of one “Jolly Old Elf”!

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1 Coots, J. Fred, and Haven Gillespie, Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town. New York: Leo Feist, Inc., 1934. Quotation included for Educational Use only. All rights reserved by the original holder of the copyright.

 

 

And, He Shall Reign Forever

 

“He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.”

—Isaiah 9:7

The Prophet Isaiah’s word promised a King of Kings and a Lord of Lords—forever! We sing about it, we say we believe it, and yet, we find it so very hard to live in the truth of it!

All of us are born with the compunction to create our own mini-kingdoms—places where we have control of our comforts, conveniences, desires, happiness, schedules, career paths, and more. Just notice how we respond the next time we have to wait in a line of Christmas shoppers! As confounded as we sometimes are about the condition of our world, Psalm 99:1 reminds us of God’s eternal place:

The Lord reigns, let the nations tremble; he sits enthroned between the cherubim, let the earth shake.

Jesus often spoke about His Kingdom, and set patterns for life in His Kingdom that turned on its head the methodologies of the natural world and turned on its head our natural inclinations controlled by our sinful bent. Here’s how author Paul Tripp explains it:

Jesus had to rescue us from our bondage to our little kingdoms of one and usher us into his kingdom of loving authority and forgiving grace. He came to destroy our self-oriented kingdoms and dethrone us as kings over our own lives. In violent grace he works to destroy every last shred of our allegiance to self-rule, and in rescuing grace he lovingly sets up his righteous rule in our hearts. In grace he patiently works with us until we finally understand that truly good rule in our lives is his rule. ¹

I return to Psalm 99:5:

Exalt the Lord our God and worship at his footstool; he is holy.

Here, we can clearly see our place. In modern jargon, “He’s God and I’m not.” Or, in the words of “The Lord’s Prayer”:

Your kingdom come, your will be done. —Matthew 6:10

This Season of Advent, as we hear the beautiful text of Handel’s Messiah, please allow those words to remind us of His place and ours. Let us determine, once again, to submit to the Lord Jesus Christ, as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords over all of our lives, and bow at His footstool in worship.

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1 Tripp, Paul David. Come, Let Us Adore Him: A Daily Advent Devotional. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017. p. 56.

 

 

It Came a Flower Bright

 

“A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.”

—Isaiah 11:1

“I am a rose of Sharon.”

—Song of Songs 2:1

You may recognize the words of this Christmas Carol sung by many people from as far back as the 14th century. The images portrayed in this hymn give us a sense of something unexpected, welcomed in the coldest and darkest time of year.

It came, a Flower bright,
Amid the cold of winter,
When half-spent was the night. ¹

This beautiful meditation reminds us that in our most sinful and hopeless state, Jesus came to us with salvation. This coming also quietly and largely unexpectedly appeared in the most undesirable of locations, in a most unconventional way: the birth of a Baby to a peasant, unmarried teenage girl, into poverty, and in a stable.

That night still surrounds us. But, we can continue to welcome the Light of the World. Even in our darkest hours, He comes to us with His beauty and shocking favors, through that same Flower of long ago.

Meditate this season on the ways Christ has come to us in the dead and cold of night with His light and His fragrance, as a rose blooming in winter. Read and rejoice in these words:

This Flower, whose fragrance tender
With sweetness fills the air,
Dispels with glorious splendor
The darkness everywhere.
True man, yet very God,
From sin and death He saves us
And lightens every load. ²

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1 German Carol. Lo! How a Rose E’er Blooming. Public domain.

2 Ibid. Verse three.

 

 

Dressed for Christmas

 

“To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy— to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.”

—Jude 1:24

How many mothers and grandmothers take pride in dressing their children in matching, festive, adorable Christmas outfits? Most, I would say. They want to show the world, through their holiday greeting cards and long-kept family albums, the pride of their lives: their children.

Never have I seen such pictures of children showing their runny noses, dirty or torn shirts, or their sagging dirty diapers, or with the children squirming and crying for the camera. Even though, from time to time, these same adorable children can look this very un-adorable way, moms always work to put their little ones in the right light for others to see.

Our God does this with us! He brags about us, dresses us in spiritual finery, and speaks of us in glowing terms, even while He knows, all to well, our defects and ugly secrets. Even at creation, we find that God dressed us in the image of His very own spectacular splendor. Psalm&mnbsp;8:5 says of Jesus:

You made him a little lower than the angels and crowned him with glory and honor.

Now that outfit comes complete with a crown! Since we follow in the footsteps of Jesus, we, too, become dressed in His glory by our loving Father. Jesus wants us to look perfect, so He provided a way through His death. Colossians 1:22 tells us:

Now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation.

Jesus presents us to the Father as perfect in Him. Not only did He wash and cleanse us, dress us in His glorious righteousness, but He has seated us for our portrait in the heavenly realms to show off His riches that we now wear! Ephesians 2:6-7 reveals:

And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in the kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

Our enemy, Satan, may accuse us day and night (Revelation 12:10), but our Savior and God, the Lord Jesus Christ, claims us as His own. Having put our faith in His work, He showcases us like a proud parent and presents us to all of heaven and earth as His beautiful children. May the knowledge of this kind of marvelous grace cause us great joy as we dress for this Christmas season!

 

 

His Wonderful Acts

 

“I will ponder all your work, and meditate on your mighty deeds.”

—Psalm 77:12

In this season of Thanksgiving, we need to curb our busy rushings to complete our many tasks, even if for only a brief time, and consider the goodness of our Lord. Over and over in the Psalms, we see the admonition to give our praise and thanksgiving to God. In Psalm 111:4 we read:

He has made His wonderful acts to be remembered; The Lord is gracious and merciful and full of loving compassion.

God intends for us to notice and meditate on the wonderful acts He does for us. He wants us to observe them and to purposefully review them. We can blow our minds, so to speak, by recounting the “mercies and providences of God”—as Christians in past centuries referred to them. Seventeenth century Presbyterian minister, John Flavel, wrote the following: ¹

There is not a more pleasant history than our own lives. If you would but sit down and review, from the beginning, what God has been to you, and done for you. Consider the special manifestations and out-breakings of his mercy, faithfulness, and love in the conditions you have passed through. Let your thoughts dive as far as you can to the bottom, to plumb the depths of providence, and admire them, though we can’t touch the bottom.

If you will allow me to do so, I would like to suggest the following Exercise to help us understand how God has worked in our lives:

• Let us sit in a quiet place and center our minds, perhaps by reading a Psalm full of thanksgiving.
  
  
• Then, taking paper and pen, we should go back over our lives—yes, from the very beginning—and write down major mercies and graces that God has given to us.
  
  
• As you work on this Exercise, think of family, education, life experiences, people, church life, health, material goods, talents, and noble work afforded to us.
  
  
• Also, think about our understanding of God and our personal relationship with God Himself.
  
  
• Next, we should review our lists during this week and arrive at Thanksgiving Day with joy and gratitude in our hearts—joy like we’ve never before experienced.
  
  

I sincerely believe that we will encounter so many mercies and graces that God has poured into our lives that we will have trouble putting down our pens. Through this exercise, I believe we will come to understand that God has given His wonderful acts for us see and to remember!

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1 Flavel, John (author) and Richard Rushing, editor. Voices from the Past: Puritan Devotional Reading, Vol. 2. Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2016. p. 272.

 

 

Time to Hurry Home

 

“The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe.”

—Proverbs 18:10

I found myself in a suburban Conference Center in Baltimore, Maryland, on September 11, 2001. The news of the attacks shocked me to the core. Insecure and, with my husband in another part of the Conference Center teaching a seminar, I felt very alone. More than anything, I felt it was time to hurry home. On another occasion, as I drove through a blizzard, unable to see either side of the road that I knew was framed with deep ditches, I only wanted one thing: to quickly, but cautiously, press onward until I could see the familiar lights of home.

In thinking about the way we respond when faced with times of danger, or other things unknown, I remembered my experience as an Elementary School music teacher. A little Preschooler in my classroom, insecure and afraid, often cried out and declared through tears: “I wanna go ’ome!”

Spiritually speaking, when we are afraid, lost, lonely, feeling abandoned, or facing danger, where do we first long to go? Job, in Chapter 23 of the Old Testament Book that bears his name, spoke these words:

Oh, if I only knew where I might find him!

For Job, his God represented “home” to him. And, in the loving presence of God, Job knew he would find the place where he could rightly feel at home. As Psalm 91:9 tells us:

If you make the Most High your dwelling—even the Lord, who is my refuge—then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent.

When disaster threatens us, or when times of trial overwhelm us, God wants us to hide in Him and trust Him for our security. On such occasions, it is time for us to hurry home. Famous preacher, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, wrote: ¹

God’s children run home when the storm comes on. It is the heaven-born instinct of a gracious soul to seek shelter from all ills beneath the wings of Jehovah. “He that hath made his refuge God,” might serve as the title of a true believer … Nothing teaches us so much the preciousness of the Creator, as when we learn the emptiness of all besides.

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1 Spurgeon, Charles Haddon, Morning and Evening. Mclean, VA: MacDonald Publishing Co., Public Domain. p. 649.

 

 

Perfect Practice Makes a Perfect Performance

 

“Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives’ tales; rather, train yourself to be godly.”

—1 Timothy 4:7 NIV

You’ve heard the expression, “Practice Makes Perfect.” From painful personal experience, I’ve learned that more accurately, “Perfect Practice Makes Perfect.” In fact, “Perfect Practice Makes a Perfect Performance.”

As a life-long pianist—having studied in my youth for nearly 20 years with professional teachers and having taught piano to young students myself—I know, all too well, the results of imperfect practice. My first teacher—a nurturing, patient woman who forever placed within me a love for playing the piano—did her best to give me a very solid foundation, even though she readily admitted her own inadequacies. However, I developed habits of poor technique that followed me into my college years. For example, my pinkies had to learn to stand up and I had to help them develop strength and usefulness as “leads” in the making of sonorous melodies. My college professor gave me humiliatingly boring exercises to break many of my bad habits. But, oh, the results I achieved!

Christians develop wrong habits too. Many of them come with us from our lives as unbelievers: selfish and even unaware of God’s higher standards. We may not have spread “godless myths and old wives’ tales,” as the people apparently did in Timothy’s churches. But, we may have learned, for example, to run to friends with juicy tidbits of gossip we hear. The Apostle Paul warns the believers in Colossians 3:9:

Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.

The Apostle clearly realizes that a practice of lying, or stretching the truth, or deceiving another with a skewed report, can be a habit especially hard to break.

I found in playing the piano that often in practice time my mind would go on “automatic pilot.” My mind would not pay attention what I was playing. So, to break old habits and form new ones, we must first engage our focus. Secondly, we must determine to obey God through His written Word. Then, the long slow process of practice will need perseverance and patience.

How long before a new habit takes hold? Note this report from an on-line article by Signe Dean: ¹

… according to a 2009 study, the time it takes to form a habit really isn’t that clear-cut. Researchers from University College London examined the new habits of 96 people over the space of 12 weeks, and found that the average time it takes for a new habit to stick is actually 66 days; furthermore, individual times varied from 18 to a whopping 254 days.

Progress in making a change in our spiritual lives will sometimes go slowly. Mistakes will occur. Yet, to attain a mature Christian life, the practice and re-practice will yield great results. In speaking about Christian maturity, the author of Hebrews writes about the need for believers to grow up from drinking only milk to eating solid food. In Hebrews 5:14, we read:

But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.

God expects us as mature—or “perfect”—disciples to give up the old ways and practice the holy disciplines and habits that will result in greater glory for Him through our lives.

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1  Dean, Signe. Here’s How Long it Takes to Break a Habit, According to Science. www.sciencealert.com, September 24, 2015.