Our responsibility to be totally responsive to our Father’s directives is of the utmost importance if we are to regain territory from the enemy before it is lost forever. As time goes on it is also running out; lives not reached today may never be reached. We, as soldiers, must not entangle ourselves with the affairs of this world if we are going to be of greatest effect. We must remember, that the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God, and so it ought to be with us. We are involved in a life and death struggle: the stakes are high, the battle fierce, and so we must fight.

Our enemy’s greatest concern is that we would be awakened to this reality, so he is constantly devising methods of occupying our time elsewhere. Thus the cares of this life persist, demanding time and attention. Family matter after family matter, possession after possession,…till like a faintly remembered dream, the battle no longer constrains us. The deception goes on and on and …

But like the wind around me, I ‘m not really sure.

I believe there is a purpose, a reason for my life.

Someday I’m sure I’ll know it, at least I hope I’m right.

I’ve got a plan, a book to write, some people I should see.

 I think I’ll sit,  and rest awhile, and see what’s on T.V..

I feel a gentle tugging, at my heart as I sit here.

There’s a business opportunity, a mission to explore,

an old broken relationship ready to restore.

Hidden among the voices is the answer to my prayer,

but like the wind around me, it is easy to ignore.

Come and see!

Maybe the change started when greeting card companies saw that there was an undeveloped market selling holiday cards to God haters and atheists. ( From my personal observations most other religions don’t have a problem with the expression ) Or maybe politicians decided to remake the holiday out of fear of losing a non-christian voting block. However it started, it didn’t take corporate executives and government officials long to jump on board. After all their incompetence and greed had made them too many enemies to risk offending anyone else. In fact they might even be able to market this new “christmas” censorship as proof that they were concerned with the, “greater good” of our society.

Now to be honest, I was never really a big fan of “merry christmas”, anyway. It always seemed to me to be too contrived, and so out of touch. It seemed too much like asking people, “how are you?”, an expression devoid of any real meaning. Not that I am a rebel or anything, it’s just that I think things, especially holiday greetings, should be real. For me the problem with “merry christmas” has never been with the word “christmas”, which has lots of meaning, but rather the word “merry”. “Merry”, always reminds me, for some reason, of ” Robin Hood”. and is a word with no common usage, at least in the world I live in.

The problem is, people want to participate in christmas, and to participate in something it has to be called something. It has to be called something but there is a problem with the word, “Christmas”. So to accomodate those who aren’t christians, governments and corporations have pledged to protect everyones’ ear from having to be exposed to any expression connected to the christian religion. We will now be able to pay our parking ticket or buy our “holiday” presents, without Jesus being around. We will have new expressions, so that we can truly enter into the festivities of the occasion. “Merry christmas will now be replaced by, “happy holiday” or “seasons greetings” or even “bah humbug” if you like.

The good news is that for those of us who do believe in “Jesus being the reason for the season”, our greetings ( more than ever) will stand out in stark contrast to the politically sanitized versions that are the current rage. And with all the controversy over “merry christmas”, it just might become my favourite expression this year.

So, I hope you have a very Merry Christmas !

 To the casual onlooker it must have seemed odd to see this little boy swimming so well. And it wasn’t until I began to swim out in the deeper water, that I made a discovery. I hadn’t been swimming at all.

 I looked like I was swimming. I thought I was swimming. But, in reality, I wasn’t. I had been kicking my feet and making the stroke motion with my arms. But the whole time, my other hand had been firmly placed on the bottom of the pool. Now, as I got out into deeper water, I had to really learn to do, what I had only been going through the motions of before, I had to learn to swim.

 Many christians live out their christianity the very same way. To the casual onlooker, they seem to be christians. In fact, they may even have fooled themselves. In reality though, they are only going through the motions. They copy the actions and life styles of christians around them, but they have never learned to let go and trust God. They are buoyed by the fact that they believe in a God, in much the same way that as a boy, I was partially buoyed by the water of the wading pool. They are christians because the people they are copying are christians, aren’t they? But theoretical christianity just doesn’t cut it.

 Real christianity is an applied science. The problem is, that you don’t know the difference until you experience the real thing. It is a frightening thing to try to do something that you have never done before. It is frightening thing to take God at His word. No theological excuses, qualifications, and exceptions. Just to take Him at His word, and learn from Him.

 The call is to launch out into the deep, where you can no longer touch bottom, where your reason, your intellect and your strength can’t carry you. Then, and only then, will you learn to swim. Then the reality of the christian life will open to new depth, opportunity and purpose.

 So launch out into the deep and trust God!

In Matthew 9 verses 37 and 38, Jesus, speaking to His disciples, instructed them to pray to the Lord of the harvest that He would send workers into the harvest, because the harvest was great but the workers were few.

It is still true today. We need to pray to God our father, the lord of the harvest, that He would send workers into the harvest. Who are these workers? Well, it is those of us who are willing to be used.

 Often, when we are making decisions about our careers, or where we live, and so many other significant decisions, little consideration seems to be given to how those plans fit into God’s plan for impacting the world. Money, benefits, and pension plans are given far more consideration than the leading and direction of God. We need to be careful not to let our responsibility to provide for our family distract us from the greater issue of being where God wants us to be. After all, God is more aware of our needs and responsibilities than we are.

 The question is not, “do I evangelize?’, but rather, ” how and where do I evangelize?”. Should I be a preacher or police officer? Should I be a teacher or sanitation worker? Should I be a business person or a missionary? Regardless of where I serve, I am called to the work of the harvest, and that is the work that God is calling me to. We need to pray for God’s direction as to where we best fit into His plan.

Why should we pray?

We should pray because, the job is large and the workers are few.

We need to pray because, there are too many preachers in the pulpit who shouldn’t be there and too many people who should be in the pulpit who aren’t.

We need to pray because, our greatest efforts will fail, but God’s simplest plan will succeed beyond our wildest expectations.

We need to pray because, as we pray, we will hopefully be convicted of our laziness and get off our blessed assurance and do something.

We need to pray because, we need to be awakened again to the truth of the gospel, and as a result break forth into thanksgiving, adoration and praise to God for what He has done for us. I wonder what that would do for the church!

We need to pray, that we would see how hurting our world is, and then be moved with compassion to help meet the need.

And we need to pray because, like our Father in heaven, we care!

 If you ask people what sin is,

you will probably get a list of things such as murder or rape, but you probably won’t see on the list many of the more common behavioral things such as lust, gluttony, or lying. Some people would put smoking on their list, and in response to that I would like to quote a somewhat popular expression that goes like this. “Smoking probably won’t send you to hell, it will just make you smell like it.” Most of us put the objectionable conduct of others on the sin list and omit the majority of our own objectionable conduct.

Sometimes our viewpoint of sin changes with our personal struggles in dealing with things. What we considered sin, during the enthusiastic and sometimes utopian years of youth, become areas where we still need work later in life. Whether or not we personally struggle with something cannot be and is not how we decide what is or isn’t sin.

Firstly we must recognize that we all sin. 

1 John 1:8  ¶If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
9  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
10  If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

The solution for sin is the ongoing confession of it in our life, and the receiving and giving of God’s forgiveness through the blood of Jesus.

The problem of sin really only becomes terminal, when instead of confessing it and being forgiven of it, we deny and justify it. We all can easily justify our position with logic and state that the idea of sin is old fashioned and obsolete, but ultimately that decision isn’t ours to make. What is and isn’t sin is revealed to us by God through the scriptures and through our ongoing walk  with Him through His Spirit.

The liberty of the christian experience comes through the daily renewal and purification that comes through surrendering our ideas to the will and purposes of God.

1 Peter 1:22  Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently:

 In the idealism of our youth we envisioned changing the world. We were going to make a difference. We had this music within us waiting to be expressed. We were going to write that great novel opening the minds and hearts of everyone to the possibilities that existed. Our social agenda was going to usher in a new era of hope and equality. Our entrepreneurial skills and ideas were going to be the bench mark for modern business and industry.  But it didn’t happen.

It wasn’t that the ideas weren’t good enough or that we didn’t have the skills and abilities. It’s just that talking about it and dreaming about it aren’t enough. Sooner or later you have to launch out on that unpredictable and intangible journey of believing. To watch the dreams be born into reality and see them unfold before our eyes. To let go of the “for sure” and to stand with the intangible, the “what if” and believe. To believe in the vision and the source of the vision, He who knows all and has our best interest at heart.

For many of us, however, the importance of our dream was lost in a sea of things that demanded our attention, our time, our effort. Not later, but now! And the vision lay abandoned and neglected. Replaced by grocery shopping and alarm clocks. And so the vision was relegated to next week, next month, next year. Pushed off to some more convenient, more prosperous time down the road called, “never”. Oh, we didn’t call it that. We called it amusing things like, “after we’re established” , “after we raise the kids” , “when things get easier” and “when we retire”. Smoke screens for “phoney baloney” believing, designed to numb the memory of a path not travelled, an adventure not lived.

  And yet, it isn’t too late! There is a calling, faint, as if off in the distance. Gently wooing us back to that which we were created for. To live out that dream. To really live not just exist. To create with the Creator and to believe that He has called us to something extraordinary. A life of dreams and passion and excitement. The abundant life.

Romans 6:23  For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

It is for this reason that rich and successful people have a difficult time entering God’s Kingdom. They have become successful through their own efforts and that has become their M.O. ( method of operation ) The Kingdoms of this world are gradually winding to a close, to be replaced by the Kingdom of God. God’s Kingdom is a kingdom delivered to the weak, the poor and the foolish as a free gift. The rise of the foolish is part of the new governing principals of the kingdom to come. The rise of the foolish and the end of self reliance. God’s blessing, and approval will be demonstrated in the lives of those who can’t earn them and don’t deserve them but who have received them as a God’s free gift.  Foolish by this world’s standard but blessed by God’s standard. Will you receive God’s gift, an entrance into His eternal Kingdom.

1 Corinthians 1:27  But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;
28  And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:
29  That no flesh should glory in his presence.

 For some, it would seem, started out well and never recovered.  And others are still searching to find out what it is that defines success and failure.  Some are driven by an increasingly unattainable objective of money, fame, or personal achievement.  And if we are going to spend our lives on these things, the question becomes,” who is keeping score?”.   If it is to be left to those who come after us, it is small consulation, we will be gone.  If it is based on who has the most stuff, there can only be one winner, and then he or she is gone.

  To spend our whole life on the pursuit of some poorly defined objective, and then not to be able to enjoy it in the end seems foolish to me. And yet everything we do in our life is defined, to some degree, by that objective.  It would be maddening if it were not for the fact that there is a much simpler, clearer, more defined objective. 

 We were created for His pleasure.  We were created to please God.  The issue then is not about whether I was a garbage collector, teacher, or soldier.  It’s not about whether I made more money or had more possessions then the guy down the street.  It’s not even about whether I put work before family and friends, or family and friends before work.  It is about trusting Him as He leads me. Trusting that He knows better than I.  That is the meaning of life.

Revelation 4:11  Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.