Gospel

God With Us

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Faith in Jesus generates hope. Hope is not a fatalistic “what happens happens” attitude. Hope looks forward and expects God who is good will show up.  Hope is with us when we look forward and wonder how one child could change the world.

Mary was pregnant. Miraculously. And here’s how they understood that bit of history:

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:

“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).  Matthew 1:22-23

Jesus is our hope. He is Immanuel. He is “God with us.”

You may wonder if you have reasons for hope.

If you have Jesus, you have at least one:

God with us.

Immanuel.

 

Washroom Graffiti, Bones, and the Spirit of God

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1 The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones. 2And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry. 3And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” 4Then he said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. 5Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. 6And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.” Ezekiel 37:1-6

 

Holy Spirit renewal dynamics begin with a question from God. “Son of man, can these bones live?”

 

Ezekiel’s answer leans back into God. “O Lord God, you know.”

 

Recently I read these words on the washroom wall, “Life on earth is just a death sentence.” That’s a hopeless, desperate sentence.

 

I have a friend who has lived on the edge of violence and semi-functional drunkenness in leather and jewellery always reminding him of death: skulls and wings. I tell him his skulls remind me of Jesus’ Lordship over death and His question, “Son of man, can these bones live.” My friend laughs.  And then I tell him, his wings remind me of the Spirit of God who truly brings life even to the most desperate sack of bones through faith in Christ Jesus. My friend hesitates.

 

That day God reminded Ezekiel of His power in a dramatic vision. I am hearing the question and even asking it of the Lord, “Can these bones live?”

 

Of this I am sure. God is changing lives through the Gospel of Jesus. The Word of God can accomplish the renewal of our souls for we shall hear, we shall be caused to live, and we shall know that He is the Lord.

Free Range Disciples

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“So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” John 8:36

 

When we are running in our lives full-tilt we might not see our slavery.

 

When life is going well we might to sense our slavery.

 

When we are at the top of the pile we cannot see our slavery.

 

“So Jesus said to who had believed in him…”

 

Notice, Jesus said this to the very people who had attached themselves

 

to him.

 

31So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” 33They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?”

34Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slaveto sin. 35The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. 36So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. 37I know that you are offspring of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you. 38I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your father.”

 

John 8:31-38

 

Sometimes we must have our attachments in this world shaken,

 

so that we will hear the Word of Jesus

 

and be free

 

to abide

 

in Him.

 

Here’s a prayer, Christ has Set Me Free, by Rend Collective:

Going to the well… again

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7A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8(For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”  John 4:7-15

 

It is a great privilege to write for you of Jesus and the Word of God.  When I think of all the people who take up time to meet Jesus with me through His Word I am overwhelmed with gratitude and awe for you. As I look down the list on the email and on the blog I am giving thanks to God for you and praying that God will increase your conviction and experience of His love and grace through Christ. I am praying that you will walk with Him in the power of His Spirit and that welling up in you rife will be streams of living water.

 

May your admiration of Jesus grow with every day that you walk with Him. Jesus came from the communion of God to meet with the Samaritan woman and her village. Years before He had blessed Jacob with the well. And now the True Well of Life had come to be refreshed at it. The woman was astonished that Jesus had crossed the boundaries of race, culture, and gender to speak with her. If she only knew. He had crossed the boundaries of space and time meet her!

 

He does so for us as well. Its time to go to The Well again. On your own. Come to Jesus the well, the spring of eternal life, and ask for strength, grace, mercy, comfort, supply, help, joy, peace, courage, hope, patience, wisdom, and love. He has done more than “cross the room” to meet you.

Longing for Home

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Recently a friend described how she had felt an unexpected wave of homesickness. It was a holiday back home for her family and here in Canada she was missing out. She knew what she was missing and she yearned to be a part of it. For the Christian too there can be a longing for home. But strangely its for a home we have not yet been to: our heavenly dwelling with Christ. Instead it is the Spirit of God who stirs up a longing in us for God and to be with Him. We have a longing this world cannot satisfy. Only God. Notice below in his letter to the church in Corinth, Paul says that God has prepared us in Christ for life with Him and gives His Spirit as the guarantee of what we have in Him.

1For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, 3if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. 4For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. 2 Corinthians 5:1-5