We come into Advent with a sense of joyful anticipation and also a sense that all is not right in the world. In the church we recognize that God is at work in the world but that the world has not yet opened it's heart to the possibilities of God. The world fights for recognition, money, power, and control but it is a fight that, in the end, will bow before the Creator and confess that He is, indeed, the Creator and Redeemer of all that has been created.

Often times a key question that is asked is, "Who's in charge around here?" Advent gives us the answer. God is in charge around here. He has patiently and graciously worked in history until a moment in time when He actually came into His creation in Jesus Christ, and brought full and free salvation into the world. Today He lives among us as Savior and Lord. At some future date He will come again and take to heaven those who have received His grace. It will be a great day of consummation when every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Between now and that future event, there will be a lot of uncertainty and violence where nations will rise up against nations. There will be unrest in every place throughout the world. We already know this, don't we; we experience it everyday. Yet, Jesus calls His people not to be discouraged. Though the times and seasons will bring dismay and perplexity Jesus says, "straighten up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near" (Luke 21:28).

So, in Advent we wait and listen and pray and hope. We worship, knowing that God is in our midst and that history is unfolding under His sovereign authority.

I am thinking that the most joyous people on the earth ought to be Christians, and that thanksgiving should fill our lives. Praise should be our unrehearsed and spontaneous response to life in this world because we know that our lives comes to us as a gift from God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.

This is not to call us to naivete and it does not denied the fact that life is hard. Life is hard, sometimes miserably hard and there are many things we do not understand. Thankfully, God knows that we are dust and that our days are numbered on the earth. What we know is that God has spoken to our lives in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ and that "from everlasting to everlasting the Lord's love is with those who fear him." (Psalm 103:17).

The counsel of Scripture stands: "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 4:6-7)

In this thanksgiving season let's join together in the giving of thanks to God for all that His grace brings into our world and into our lives.

God bless you all, and HAPPY THANKSGIVING.

There is a wonderful picture in Daniel 7:9-14 where the God of the Universe called, The Ancient of Days, takes his seat among kingdoms and powers and authorities that have arisen in history; kingdoms that sought to undermine the reality of the living God. Once He is seated an interesting thing takes place: all the other authorities begin to lose their power, place, and prominence. Their fifteen minutes were up, and the true and Living God takes center stage.

Shortly someone comes before the Ancient of Days and is received by Him. This someone is referred as being “One like a Son of Man.” As the Son of Man stands before the Ancient of Days He was given dominion, glory and a kingdom, and He was given these things so “that all the peoples, nations and men of every language might serve Him.” Apparently this Son found favor with the Ancient of Days because not only did He receive dominion, glory and a kingdom, but also these would comprise an “everlasting” dominion. His rule would never pass away and His kingdom is one that cannot be destroyed.

The New Testament makes it clear that this Son of Man is no one less than Jesus Christ. In Him, the writer of the book of Hebrews says, “We receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken.” Before Jesus all kingdoms and authorities bow. They can push and shove, and do, but they cannot take down the “everlasting” kingdom of the Son who takes His authority from the Ancient of Days.

And, this is the kingdom in which we live. We say, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

I sometimes wonder where God is. How is He present? Why He often chooses silence? What is His will? And, sometimes I get bewildered and come face to face with my powerlessness. Thank God I'm not alone, though. The psalmist is my companion for he too experienced those questions. Out of the context of his own life situation he wrote,

Will the Lord reject forever? Will he never be favorable again? Has his lovingkindness ceased forever? Has his promise come to an end forever? Has God forgotten to be gracious or has he in anger withdrawn his compassion? (Ps. 77:7-9)

It is true that sometimes the ways of God are "in the mighty waters." (Psalm 77:19). . Sometimes in life the clouds pour down water and the skies resound with the sounds of thunder (Ps. 77:17). Sometimes lightning lights up the world and the earth trembles and shakes (Ps. 77:18). Sometimes the way of God is deep mystery and his footprints are not seen (Ps. 77:19). What then? How do we proceed? What do we do? What do we say to each other? How do we conduct ourselves? John Henry Jowett says that "Mystery is part of our appointed discipline. Uncertainty is to prepare us for a deeper assurance. The spirit of questioning is one of the ordained means of growth” (My Daily Meditation, (El Camino Press: La Verne, CA., pg. 167) I find great peace in that fact. I think it is wonderful to know when one is "too troubled to speak" (Ps. 77:4) that God is present, maybe in mystery, but still present. As Jowett says,

God's way moves here and there across this trackless wild. God is never lost among our mysteries. He knows his way about. When we are bewildered He sees the road, and He sees the end even from the beginning. Even the sea, in every part of it, is the Lord's highway....And so the bewildering sea is our friend, as some day we shall understand... We need the mysterious sea, the overwhelming experience, the floods of sorrows which we cannot explain. If we had no sea we should never become robust. We should remain weaklings to the end of our days....God take us out into the deeps. But His way is in the sea. He knows the haven, He knows the track, and we shall arrive! (My Daily Meditation)

In his own questioning the psalmist came to a beautiful moment of personal decision that models for us the way of faith, when he said, I shall remember the deeds of the Lord; surely I will remember Your wonders of old. I will meditate on all Your work and muse on Your deeds. Your way, O God, is holy; what god is great like our God? You are the God who works wonders; You have made known Your strength among the peoples. You have by your power redeemed Your people, the sons of Jacob and Joseph (Ps. 77:11-15).

Even in my wondering, God is here. Even when I cannot see his footprints, He is here. When the storm is raging, He is here. When the questions outnumber the answers, He is here. When the pain is greater than the peace, He is here. When the bewilderment elevates the mystery, He is here. When life doesn't make sense, He is here. When the blessings are flowing like a river, He is here. When the path takes us through the fire, He is here. When uncertainty is the order of the day despair is not, for we are on the road redeemed by the God who works wonders (PS. 77:14).

I have a suspicion that until I get to heaven I will wonder about things but one thing I will not wonder about is the fact that God is holy and leads his people like a flock. He did it once by the hand of Moses and Aaron, and his deeds of long ago remind me that what he did once He is continuing to do today. I do not wonder about that at all.

The unnamed multitudes of the Gospels intrigue me. In fact, they haunt me a bit because they so beautifully model things in me I wish would go away. They irritate me, too, because I realize that as much as I want to criticize them ultimately I am just pointing my finger at myself.

Take those folks who were a part of the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John, for instance. There is no doubt about it, they were present the day of the miracle because they had seen Jesus work some pretty wonderful miracles on some very sick people. His actions captured their imaginations and they found themselves following Him. They weren't following Him because they really believed that He was God among them but just because they wanted to be where the action was. After the miracle, they were hooked, sort of. They saw some awesome possibilities of some wonderful things for their own lives and they were very intrigued. However, if the truth be known, they were there because the spectacular always draws a crowd and because of the fact that people want to have their needs and wants and pleasures met.

And, Jesus saw through it all. He saw the phony, the misdirected, the selfish, the ladder-climber, the up-and-coming, the "I have an agenda and I want what I want" crowd -- and He didn't buy it. He rejected it. And as He told them the truth one by one they just whimpered away and faded into the background.

I wonder if their actions startled Jesus or caught Him off guard in some way, because the very next thing He does is to turn to His twelve men and ask them if they wanted to go away also. They said they didn't but I'm not sure He really believed them.

I wonder how Jesus feels when the actions and thoughts and lifestyles and priorities and goals and attitudes of those who say they love Him cause Him in quiet, unguarded, unplanned moments of honesty to feel He must turn to them to see if they are still with Him. That must hurt a little bit, don't you think?

I don't want to be near Jesus because He does spectacular things. I want to be near Him because of who He is. He is Lord and He has called me to Himself, just to be with Him because I love Him. I don't want Him ever to look at me and feel impressed to ask, "You don't want to go away also, do you?"

Solitude is to purposefully withdraw from the noisy world in order to be with God. It is not to be alone. It is to be alone with God. It is to be with Him in such a way that His presence envelopes your very life and exposes you for who you really are. It is the place of honesty, the place of truth, the place where denial is not allowed. It is the place where we confront in ourselves all that is not of God, and come to the act of unconditional surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

Solitude is the place both of struggle and of release. That is to say, in the solitude, where the struggles of our lives are faced, Jesus comes to us and we discover that in reality we are not fighting ourselves. We are fighting God. Yet, in the discovery we find that God is not fighting us. He is present to reveal to us that if we will let go, He will dismantle destructive forces which fight within and without us, and give us a healed and whole, new self.

Solitude is the place where we learn to say, "for to me to live is Christ" (Philippians 1:21). So, the solitude becomes what Henri Nouwen calls the "Furnace of transformation," where we are set free from the entanglements of "The seductive compulsions of the world."

Solitude is the place where we choose to run away no more, but to stand and fight the enemy within. It is the place we go to die to things which are destroying us, and from which we emerge saying "…the life I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me? (Galatians 2:20).

My invitation is to find a way to get alone with God. He is your Creator. He is your best Friend. He is your Confidant. He is your Savior. He is your Counselor. He loves you with an everlasting love. Come within His wonderful embrace and find healing and laughter and joy and peace. Find in Him, purpose and meaning and value.

Here is a wonderful and marvelous thought to think. It comes from Hebrews 9:24: "For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands." We know He entered a holy place and that He is there as a great high priest on behalf of his people. This text, however, places that reality into its greatest and highest context, and it informs us about how unique and special Jesus is.

This text tells us that the life of Christ in the world is a God-thing; it's not a man thing. This is a God thing. Jesus is God's response to the human situation -- and what a response it is. God is with us is history in the person of Jesus. God is with us in redemptive love. His love is revealed in His sacrificial self-giving on the cross. His love is made real to us in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

God is with us. He is present with us according to the power of Jesus indestructible life (See Heb. 7:16). Isn't that amazing? Whatever it means for you to live, the indestructible life of Jesus is with you. You may, in fact, be destructible; Jesus isn't. The indestructible life of Jesus has taken the blow, and today He is speaking to the Father on your behalf. This is a God-thing.

Under the influence of His indestructible life Jesus has made purification of sins and, He has set down in heaven beside the Father, indicating that His work is complete and that now He is free to be in the presence of the Father on behalf of the world and on behalf of those who have come to trust their lives to Him.

Let the Church know that it is being prayed for by Her Lord Jesus. Let the church know that Jesus' indestructible life sets the atmosphere in the church. Let the Church know that Jesus lives to address the destructive influences that seek to destroy people. Let the church know that it comes into the place of ministry not in its own strength but in the strength of the indestructible life of the risen Lord.

He took what was his, left his roots and went to where life was a constant party. Leaving the stifling lifestyle of farm life he entered into a great new world, and what a wonderful time he had; Lots of wine, lots of women, lots of laughter and lots of friends. Then the money ran out and so did the wine, women, laughter and friends. What started out as the time of his life turned out to be the vacation from hell.

In desperation he took to the streets for survival. He lived from hand to mouth and often times went without. Finally, he landed a job on a pig farm just outside of town. He hated the pigs and he hated the job but it was living. Or was it?

One desperate day of soul searching, as he tried to please the pigs' owners he got to thinking about things and decided that he'd really had about enough. His father was pretty wealthy. He had lots of hired hands around the ranch. Maybe he would hire back his son. He probably wouldn't want him as a son anymore, but he was always looking for good workers. Here was his chance, and off the young partygoer went.

When he got in sight of the place that had once been his home, he noticed that way off in the distance someone was running toward him. It looked like his father. He looked closer. It was his father. As his father drew near he heard him giving orders that sort of stunned him. "Kill the calf and prepare a feast... Go get the family ring....Get a beautiful robe and place it on the shoulders of my boy....I can't believe it! He's come home. He's come home."

Suddenly the young man found himself enveloped in the bear hugs of his father whom through tears kissed him and held him and ran his fingers through his hair. Choked-up and almost unable to speak, the boy's father struggled but suddenly forced out the words, "I love you so much. I'm so glad you're home. I've missed you. You're home. You're home. I love you so much."

Sometimes I wish God were like that but maybe that would be asking a little too much. It would be, wouldn't it?

Goliath was a well-trained, killing machine. David was a teen-age shepherd boy on his father's farm just outside Bethlehem. Goliath was mean, aggressive and powerful. David was gentle, reserved and quiet. The odds were all in Goliath's corner and the possibilities of success for David were pretty slim.

And so it was, in the floor of the valley two warriors met face to face, one a warrior of all that is wrong in the world and one a warrior of all that is right. One came to the battle with a spear, a javelin and a sword, the other with a sling shot, five smooth stones and God. The Philistines were confident that their champion would have it wrapped up in a few moments. The Israelites were sort of numb, not really knowing what to do with all the commotion.

When it was all over the giant of a man, Goliath, lay headless on the floor of the valley. David stood boldly in the posture of victory. The Philistines were running for their lives and the Israelites were re-energized with courage, confidence and belief.

A young teenage boy wrote a chapter in history that day which would never be erased. He revealed to a watching world that God is present, at work and in charge. To everybody who looked on that day it was fairly evident that it was little David verses huge Goliath. But everybody who looked on that day was wrong. Reality is not as it often appears to be and the fact of the matter is, it was not Goliath verse David at all. That was just the appearance. The fact was that it was Goliath verses God. Maybe that's why at a crucial moment in the hostile conversation between Goliath and David that David slipped in a little profound truth that shatters our fears and questions and inabilities and weaknesses, and reminds us of one overwhelming, unchanging, life-transforming, situation- revolutionizing fact of life -- THE BATTLE IS THE LORD'S!

I wonder what God could do in our lives if we, His children, really operated on the premise that we are not alone but that He is profoundly present with such authority that the only accurate way to explain the battles, the confrontations with the enemy, the assaults of the thief from hell, the harassing of the evil one is to say THE BATTLE IS THE LORD'S. Wouldn't it change us just a bit if we knew that today was ultimately and finally in His hands and that everything destructive, seeking our demise comes not against us but against HIM? I wonder! I have to admit the thought energizes me. I wonder what Goliath would say about it, or David's brothers or selected members of the Philistine army. Actually, it doesn't matter what anybody else says about it, I suppose. It all comes down to what you and I say about it?

Wouldn't it be great to wake up tomorrow morning or to go to sleep tonight knowing that THE BATTLE IS THE LORD'S? Doesn't that have a great ring about it? What Goliath do you face today? It's not your fight. It really isn't. It's God's. Let Him have it. Take your little resources and let them get lost in the immensity of God. Then come to floor of the valley and watch Goliath’s demise.

Walking with God through His Son, Jesus, and filled daily by the empowering presence of His Holy Spirit is surely grace at its highest possible level of expression. This is truly amazing when compared with the fact that the Bible says we've all sinned against God and fallen short of his glory (Rom. 3:23).

Why would an offended God respond to the offenders in grace and love, when the natural response to them is an "eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise" (Exodus 21:24). At least on the human level this seems to be a natural response. Revenge. Retaliation. Vengeance. Retribution. Reprisal. These seem to be the natural, unrehearsed response of persons to persons. Legal systems are set up to see to it that these are not the context in which judgment is handed down, yet, they still seem to be the spirit and attitude of so many people around the world.

But God does not come in revenge. Retaliation is far from Him. Vengeance is not the issue with God. Retribution is not a part of His way of doing things. Reprisal is unthinkable to Him. The way of God is the way of grace, so much so that the Bible reveals this amazing thought: "The free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 6:23).

God is about life. God is about love. God is about hope. God is about renewal and new beginnings. Jesus said it was "the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy" [and how acquainted with his ways we are] but He also said, "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the abundantly" (John 10:10). That is grace --- Life to the full when your sins say you deserve death.

What is grace? It is God including us in when He could have written us off.

It is a strange thing to hear but it has a wonderful ring about it, too. Hebrews 7:25, in speaking about people who draw near to God through Jesus Christ, says that Jesus lives to make intercession for them. The writer says this in light of the fact that Jesus is able to save forever those who draw near to Him.

God talking to God about us; God interceding to God on our behalf; God in the life of the resurrected Jesus saving forever those folks, like you and me, who come to Him. This is deep for me, and wonderful. Let’s process some of these things together.

Into a system where weak men were appointed as high priests who offered up sacrifices for their own sins and then for the sins of the people, Jesus comes to be a priest who is not weak but whom, in fact, is perfect forever (Heb. 7:28). This perfect one enters into our story so that He might be the one who stands before the Father with us and on our behalf.

It is a marvelous madness to think that Jesus stands with us in all the issues of life and death. We are never alone. Life comes at us as it comes at everyone, and sometimes it gets very messy; but, Jesus is in the mess with us. Can you believe that? In this dangerous world we have a perfect high priest who, just like us, has experienced the realities of life in a broken world. Unlike us, however, He has not succumbed to the brokenness. In His resurrection He is victorious, and He lives as Lord of lords and King of kings. And, He is always praying for us.

You and I are being prayed for by One who really does know how to pray. This fact takes hold of us and energizes us to remember who we are and whose we are. If ever there were a moment when we are compelled to say, "Amazing! Absolutely amazing!" this is that moment.

In the mess Jesus is the Lord who prays for us, and He is with us now. Amazing! Absolutely Amazing!