Daily Archives: December 19, 2012

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Hunger and Thirst for God – Charles Stanley

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Isaiah 55:1-5

The story of David inspires us to want an intimate relationship with God. But where does that kind of passion come from? It is not manufactured or created by effort or will power. And we cannot work ourselves into a state of genuine yearning for the Lord—our carnal nature would never allow us to sustain that level of devotion. A hunger and thirst for God is actually a gift from the Lord Himself.

God predestined us to be conformed to the image of His Son, so He planted within us an innate desire to know and be known by the Savior. The problem is that many people, mistaking this yearning for cravings of other kinds, pursue things like affection, flattery, or fame. They go through life trying to create whatever kind of personal connection they can to fulfill desires they don’t even understand. All too often, the result is empty relationships, excessive work, and immoral behavior.

People rush from here to there doing their best to satisfy an inborn hunger created by Almighty God Himself—a hunger so powerful that it will be sated by nothing less than intimacy with God. David knew there was only one solution to the constant yearning in his heart. As St. Augustine said, “Our hearts are restless till they find their rest in Him.”

God has created within all of us the capacity to have a deep personal relationship with Him. But our sin nature does not give us the power to generate such intimacy. If you find yourself trying to satisfy your inborn hunger in your own strength, turn to the Lord, who is the author of your desires.

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Into the Dark – Ravi Zacharias

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There are stories that emerge from the life of Jesus before he was old enough to tell stories of his own. Some are more familiar than others; some are always written out of the school plays and pageants. The prophet Isaiah told of a child who would be born for the people, a son given to the world with authority resting on his shoulders. Hundreds of years later, in Mary and Joseph of Nazareth, this prophecy was being fulfilled. The angel had appeared. A child was born. The magi had come. The ancient story was taking shape in a field in Bethlehem. But when Herod learned from the magi that a king would be born, he gave orders to kill all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under. At this murderous edict, another prophecy, this one spoken through the prophet Jeremiah, was sadly fulfilled: “A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping; Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more” (Jeremiah 31:15, Matthew 2:16-18). While the escape of Mary and Joseph to Egypt allowed Jesus to be spared, the cost, as Rachel and all the mothers’ who didn’t escape knew well, was wrenchingly great.

Of the many objections to Christianity, the one that stands out in my mind as troubling is the argument that to be Christian is to withdraw from the world, to follow fairy tales with wishful hearts and myths that insist we stop thinking and believe that all will be right in the end because God says so. In such a vein, Karl Marx depicts Christianity as a kind of drug that anesthetizes people to the suffering in the world and the wretchedness of life. Likewise, in Sigmund Freud’s estimation, belief in God functions as an infantile dream that helps us evade the pain and helplessness we both feel and see around us. I don’t find these critiques and others like them troubling because I find them accurate of the kingdom Jesus described. I find them troubling because there are times I want to live as if Freud and Marx are quite right in their analyses. I am thankful that the Christmas story itself refuses me from doing so.

The story of Christmas is far from an invitation to live blind and unconcerned with the world of suffering around us, intent to tell feel-good stories while withdrawing from the harder scenes of life. In reality, the Incarnation leaves us with a God who, in taking our embodiment quite seriously, presents quite the opposite of escapism. The story of Rachel weeping for her slaughtered children is one story among many that refuses to let us sweep the suffering of the world under the rug of unimportance. The fact that it is included in the gospel that brings us the hope of Christ is not only what makes that hope endurable, but what proves Freud and Marx entirely wrong. For Christ brings the kind of hope that can reach even the most hopeless among us, within the darkest moment. Jesus has not overlooked the suffering of the world anymore than he has invited his followers to do so; it is a part of the very story he tells.

In a poem called “On the Mystery of the Incarnation,” Denise Levertov gives a description of the Christmas story with room for the darkness and a mystery that reminds us that the light will yet shine:

It’s when we face for a moment

the worst our kind can do, and shudder to know

the taint in our own selves, that awe

cracks the mind’s shell and enters the heart:

not to a flower, not to a dolphin,

to no innocent form.

But to this creature vainly sure

it and no other is god-like, God

(out of compassion for our ugly

failure to evolve) entrusts,

as guest, as brother,

the Word.

The story of the Incarnation presents a God who comes near to the whole story, not merely the parts that fit neatly in pageants. This God speaks and acts in the very places that seem so dark that no human insight or power can do anything. God comes to be with us in our weakness, with us in despair and death and sorrow, with us in betrayal and abandonment. There is no part of the human experience that is left untouched by God’s becoming human. And there is no part of human experience that God cannot redeem and heal and save. There are many Rachels who are still weeping—the poor, the demoralized, the suffering, the mourning. With them, we wait and watch, looking toward the God who comes into the very midst of it.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

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Charles Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening

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Morning   “The lot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of the

Lord.” / Proverbs 16:33

If the disposal of the lot is the Lord’s whose is the arrangement of our whole

life? If the simple casting of a lot is guided by him, how much more the

events of our entire life–especially when we are told by our blessed Saviour:

“The very hairs of your head are all numbered: not a sparrow falleth to the

ground without your Father.” It would bring a holy calm over your mind, dear

friend, if you were always to remember this. It would so relieve your mind

from anxiety, that you would be the better able to walk in patience, quiet,

and cheerfulness as a Christian should. When a man is anxious he cannot pray

with faith; when he is troubled about the world, he cannot serve his Master,

his thoughts are serving himself. If you would “seek first the kingdom of God

and his righteousness,” all things would then be added unto you. You are

meddling with Christ’s business, and neglecting your own when you fret about

your lot and circumstances. You have been trying “providing” work and

forgetting that it is yours to obey. Be wise and attend to the obeying, and

let Christ manage the providing. Come and survey your Father’s storehouse, and

ask whether he will let you starve while he has laid up so great an abundance

in his garner? Look at his heart of mercy; see if that can ever prove unkind!

Look at his inscrutable wisdom; see if that will ever be at fault. Above all,

look up to Jesus Christ your Intercessor, and ask yourself, while he pleads,

can your Father deal ungraciously with you? If he remembers even sparrows,

will he forget one of the least of his poor children? “Cast thy burden upon

the Lord, and he will sustain thee. He will never suffer the righteous to be

moved.”

My soul, rest happy in thy low estate,

Nor hope nor wish to be esteem’d or great;

To take the impress of the Will Divine,

Be that thy glory, and those riches thine.

 

Evening   “And there was no more sea.” / Revelation 21:1

Scarcely could we rejoice at the thought of losing the glorious old ocean: the

new heavens and the new earth are none the fairer to our imagination, if,

indeed, literally there is to be no great and wide sea, with its gleaming

waves and shelly shores. Is not the text to be read as a metaphor, tinged with

the prejudice with which the Oriental mind universally regarded the sea in the

olden times? A real physical world without a sea it is mournful to imagine, it

would be an iron ring without the sapphire which made it precious. There must

be a spiritual meaning here. In the new dispensation there will be no

division–the sea separates nations and sunders peoples from each other. To

John in Patmos the deep waters were like prison walls, shutting him out from

his brethren and his work: there shall be no such barriers in the world to

come. Leagues of rolling billows lie between us and many a kinsman whom

tonight we prayerfully remember, but in the bright world to which we go there

shall be unbroken fellowship for all the redeemed family. In this sense there

shall be no more sea. The sea is the emblem of change; with its ebbs and

flows, its glassy smoothness and its mountainous billows, its gentle murmurs

and its tumultuous roarings, it is never long the same. Slave of the fickle

winds and the changeful moon, its instability is proverbial. In this mortal

state we have too much of this; earth is constant only in her inconstancy, but

in the heavenly state all mournful change shall be unknown, and with it all

fear of storm to wreck our hopes and drown our joys. The sea of glass glows

with a glory unbroken by a wave. No tempest howls along the peaceful shores of

paradise. Soon shall we reach that happy land where partings, and changes, and

storms shall be ended! Jesus will waft us there. Are we in him or not? This is

the grand question.

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A Warning to the Intellectually Convinced – John MacArthur

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“How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? After it was at first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard” (Heb. 2:3).

I will never forget a lady who came to my office, confessing that she was a prostitute and was desperate for help. I presented the claims of Christ to her and asked if she wanted to confess Christ as Lord of her life. She said yes and prayed, seemingly inviting Christ into her life.

Then I suggested that we burn her book of contacts. She looked at me incredulously and said, “What do you mean?” “If you want to live for Jesus Christ,” I explained, “and you’ve truly accepted His forgiveness and embraced Him as Lord, then you need to prove it.” “But that book is worth a lot of money,” she said. “I don’t want to burn it.” After putting it back in her purse, she looked me right in the eye and said, “I guess I don’t really want Jesus, do I?”

When it came to counting the cost, she wasn’t ready. I don’t know whatever became of her, but my heart aches for her and others like her.

I’m sure you know people like her–they know and believe that Christ is the Savior, they know they need Him, but they are unwilling to make a commitment to Him. Perhaps they even go to church and hear the Word of God. They are like the proverbial man who says he believes a boat will keep him afloat, but never sets foot in one.

Those people are the most tragic of all. They need to be warned–to be given a powerful shove toward Christ. May the Lord use you as His instrument for that purpose in the lives of many who are on the edge of a decision for Christ.

Suggestion for Prayer:  Ask God to soften the hearts of people you know who understand the facts of the gospel, but haven’t yet made a commitment to it.

For Further Study:  Read Matthew 19:16-22. What kinds of questions should you ask of someone who appears eager to become a Christian?

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God’s Gift to Us (Part 1) – Greg Laurie

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For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.  – John 3:17

When you’re a child, Christmas is all about receiving gifts. In December, your head is swimming with nothing but images of your favorite toys.

But the true message of Christmas is not the presents we give to one another. The true meaning is the gift that God gave to us, His Son Jesus Christ.

During the next two days, I want to point out to you three things about the gift God gave to us in that tiny manger in Bethlehem.

The first thing we want to realize about God’s gift to us is that it came in simple wrapping. Some people will go to great lengths to wrap presents beautifully. But God’s gift came to us not in beautiful, ornate wrapping, but in a dirty manger found in a cold cave in a little-known town called Bethlehem.

That’s the beauty of the Christmas event. Jesus took His place in a manger so that we might have a home in heaven. The Savior was not wrapped in satin sheets, but in common rags. There in a manger rested the greatest gift in the plainest of wrapping.

The second thing I want to point out about God’s gift to us is that we don’t deserve it. Consider this: God gave us the ultimate gift of His Son Jesus Christ while we were still sinning against Him (see Romans 5:8).

We did nothing whatsoever to merit or deserve His gift. That is the amazing truth of Christmas. Despite who we are, God sent His Son so “that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

With Christmas just days away, begin to prepare your heart for the celebration of the birth of our Savior. Meditate on the fact that Jesus was born to die so that we might live.