Month: January 2024

“Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand.”

1 Chronicles 29:14 (NIV)

I have a trusted auto mechanic, whose shop is walking distance from my home. When I need  anything, I can drop my car off and just walk two blocks back to my home. They are honest, friendly and reliable, and because they are so close to home, it’s my first “go to,” for any car problems that I might suspect.

A playlist of music on my phone has been synced to my car speakers for a few years now. Every time I turn on my car, my selected music from my playlist, starts playing through my car radio, as long as my phone is in the car with me.

One day it showed that the songs were playing, but no sound was coming out. I adjusted the volume knobs on my car, but nothing helped. I just could not get the sound to come through. I tried everything except going to the source of that playlist, which was on my phone. 

I was so focused on the car and its speakers being the problem, that I finally drove to my nearby auto repair shop. A nice young mechanic was available, and I told him that something was wrong with my car speakers, and asked him to check out why I couldn’t hear my music. 

He came and looked, first trying to adjust a few knobs on the car radio, but then he turned to me and asked to see my phone. I gave it to him and he immediately found that the volume button was turned all the way down. I don’t know how that volume button was completely turned down, but after he turned it up, the sound of music came back in my car, and I never felt more stupid. 

My phone was the first place I should have looked. It was an embarrassing lesson, reminding me to always go to the source of a problem first. My car radio was not the source of the music, my phone was.

Sometimes a person steps in and reminds us to look to God, who is the source of all that we are. Over the years, we tend to form opinions based on the external influences of social trends, our education, our friends, our family and all the experiences that we’ve had. After a while, we can become conformed to those external influences. They are like the sounds of music playing on the playlist of our lives. 

Paul says “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” 

(Romans 12:2)

God is our source of wholeness for all aspects of who we are, in body, mind, soul and spirit. His voice is always within us. If we turn up the volume at the source, He transforms us by renewing our minds, according to His will, instead of being conformed only by those external influences. 

He is the volume button that enables us to hear His truth over all the noise and chatter around us. 

I was raised in a Christian faith, but never really understood who Jesus was. Although my mother taught us to pray, I didn’t have enough early understanding of Jesus or walking in faith. I remember the philosophy courses in my first year of college, which caused me to wonder what the purpose of life is. I can still recall asking myself the question 

“If there is a God, what does He expect of me?” That was my turning point, where I turned up the volume button at the source, and opened my heart to God’s truth, and He eventually transformed of my spiritual life. 

I was only nineteen at the time, and soon after asking that question, I decided to read a book about Bible prophecy. I recited a prayer that was on the last page of the book, which was the first time I ever prayed, acknowledging my need for Jesus and His forgiveness. 

I immediately felt a sensation of warm oil pouring over my head. 

I  was so overwhelmed with the reality of God’s love and forgiveness in that moment, which I now know was the Holy Spirit, and I had a peace that was beyond understanding. 

I was radically transformed and renewed from that day on, as I found the volume button, which tuned me in to God, who is the source of who I am and was ever meant to be. 

The Lord wants to bring us closer, to speak His truth within our hearts and override all the shallow external influences of our life. He wants to pick us up like a parent holds a small child close, so that we can listen to His voice softly speaking, and find that He is our source of comfort, healing and restoration.

Lord, everything we truly need, comes from you, and you are the source of all we are and were meant to be. We pray that our volume button is turned up as you hold us close, so that we can listen to your voice, above all the chatter in the world around us. Amen

“The Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a person speaks to a friend.”

Exodus 33:11 (NAB)

Just think about this verse, that the Lord spoke with Moses as one speaks to a friend. James wrote, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness, and he was called the friend of God.”(James 2:23) 

The Lord called Moses and Abraham His friends, and then came Jesus, who had twelve chosen disciples, but three in particular who were His close friends. When we think about God and friendship, we can safely say that God desires our friendship.

Jesus had many followers, but He only took Peter, James and John with Him, during His deepest and most difficult moment in the Garden of Gethsemane. He also took them with in His peak moment during a heavenly vision on the Mount of Transfiguration. 

I used to assume that those three disciples were chosen by God, because they had some special qualities more than the others. The beauty of friendship with Jesus is that He calls all of us to be His friends, simply because He loves all of us and equally desires our friendship. It’s up to us to respond to His call. Peter, James and John may appear to be closer to Jesus, but maybe they just responded to His invitation for that closer, intimate friendship.

They were the only three who went into the home with Jesus, when He healed Peter’s mother in law. When going into the home of Jairus, Jesus sent all the others away, except His three disciples, who witnessed the resurrection of Jairus’ daughter. 

Instead of asking Jesus to bless what they were doing, His friends go where He is going and do whatever He is blessing. 

Those three disciples were not perfected in holiness. When they stayed with Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, they all fell sound asleep, while trying to watch and pray with Him. Peter denied Jesus three times, but he later found forgiveness and was empowered at Pentecost. God sees us as we are, faults and all, but He still desires our friendship, just as He did with Peter, James and John. 

To forgive our friends’ offenses, we put ourself at risk of being offended again, but that is what God does. He knows if and when we are going to fail, but He forgives us over and over, as often as we return to Him again and again. It’s what true friendship is all about, and Jesus is the truest friend we will ever know. He believes in what we can become, and is always hoping that our friendship will grow deeper with Him. 

He said, “I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.” (John 15:15)

Whether He was sharing His tears and sweat in the garden, or sharing a small glimpse of heaven on the Mount of Transfiguration, Jesus wanted His friends to be with Him, through the good and bad times. Just as He shared His best and worst moments with His friends, He expects us to do the same by coming to Him with all our worries as well as our gratitude.

We all try to watch and pray with Jesus, and we also struggle with our weaknesses, in disappointing Him, but He doesn’t choose us based on our special qualities or look for redeemable characteristics. He loves us as we are and invites every believer to deepen our friendship with Him. He may wait for years for some people to respond. 

He is meek and gentle with His arms open, calling us to closer friendship. We all have friends and we have family, and some friends are more like family, which is a blessing, but Jesus is a friend like no other, because He knows us, like no other. 

Lord, we say yes to your love and your invitation to friendship. Thank you for always drawing us near, desiring us as we are, with all of our shortcomings, to be your close friends. Amen

“Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.”

James 1:17 ( NASB)

There was an interesting story on the news about a year ago. A young female rookie pilot was taking off in a small plane in Pontiac, Michigan. It was only her third solo flight. After she took off, a veteran pilot who was also about to take off, noticed that her front landing gear just fell off. He quickly contacted her by radio, introducing himself and telling the young pilot what just happened. Knowing it takes an experienced pilot to land a plane without its landing gear, with a calm and confident voice, he guided her step by step, helping her to make a safe landing. 

He later learned that the young pilot’s name was Taylor, which was also his own daughter’s name. Her voice was shaken but she followed his instructions as he calmly guided her, step by step. Afterward, Taylor said that it was his calm voice that helped her to follow his instructions and safely land her plane. If she had landed the plane on her own, it could have flipped upside down, resulting in a crash with injuries, and possibly bursting into flames. 

God intervenes and protects us in exceptional ways, sometimes by sending His invisible helpers, like angels, and sometimes by sending a qualified person, in the right moment, to guide us to safety.

When I heard this story on the news, I thought about how valuable that  calming voice of a veteran pilot was, who just happened to be in the right place at the right time. The whole event was miraculous. The experienced pilot being there at the right time, was the first miracle, and the second miracle was his ability to guide her to a safe landing. He had nerves of steel to calmly talk her through a dangerous situation and she had nerves of steel to follow his instructions, without freezing in panic.

All the right things had to line up with a successful ending like this. It’s the right person at the right time, and it all lined up too perfectly for it to be a coincidence. It was a gift from above. 

Scripture says that every good thing and every perfect gift is from above. Not some, but every good and perfect thing. If it’s good and perfect,  it came from God. We may think we are flying solo sometimes, but God is always watching, and if our landing gear falls off, a calming voice will redirect us back to a safe landing.

Jesus is our veteran pilot, having experienced every kind of adversity before we ever did. We may not have nerves of steel, but Jesus does. He sends us His good and perfect gifts, which may look like coincidences, but He has always been watching. 

In every stage or journey in our life, we have been on His radar, and He is calmly and softly speaking to the radio of our souls. When we commit our life into God’s hands, we start to see God’s hand in every part of our life.

Thank you Jesus, for looking out for us in the many ways that have been miracles, and not coincidences. Keep our hearts tuned in to your soft, calm voice, and lead us safely to our heavenly landing, so we may express our gratefulness for all eternity. Amen

“Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.”

Philippians 3:12 (RSV)

Every sport has a goalpost or a home base, that signifies a point of accomplishment. Just as in a game or a sport, our lives are filled with various goals. We may have physical fitness goals, educational goals, career goals, romantic goals or financial goals, throughout the different phases of our lives. 

There is a temporary sense of satisfaction in reaching any of these goals, but when something unexpected happens and a goal seem no longer attainable, due to a tragedy, an illness, or any type of loss, I know from experience, that it’s difficult to overcome feelings of  disillusionment. It’s a struggle to find hope and we may even start thinking that our best days are behind us, instead of ahead of us. 

That’s exactly what Satan wants us to believe. The enemy of our souls, wants to steal our joy, kill our faith and destroy our hope, but we trust in God, who loves us, and has good plans for us. He wants to lead us forward to fulfill the best, lasting and eternal goals He has for us.

We forget that the trials in our lives are just snapshots, not the whole story. God sees the whole picture, and He has His own goals for us too. His goals outlast the temporary problems we face. In spite of all the setbacks we see, God prepares us by grace, for our best unseen and more lasting goals. 

Paul tells us not to fix our eyes on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 

(2 Corinthians 4:18)

As we rely on God, He brings eternal beauty out of those temporary ashes in our lives. There is a rich and deep peace in knowing God loves us and calls us His own, and because He believes in us, He allows certain trials in our lives. He then uses those trials  to transform and shape us according to His wisdom, for our best eternal benefit.

Everyone is in a preparation process for eternity, whether we know it or not. We are eternal beings and were made for a greater purpose than to acquire things, reach our goals, leave a prestigious legacy, and then die. Of all the marks to leave in this world, the ones that mean the most, are the eternal ones. It’s the mark of our inner transformation by God, as we run to that finish line through faith in Jesus.

We are eternal beings, surrounded by a great cloud of eternal witnesses who are looking down from heaven and cheering us on, while we run this marathon race of faith throughout our lives. (Hebrews 12:1)

We occasionally need reminding that we are running a race, and are being observed by those witnesses above, who besides Jesus, includes all the heroes of faith who went before us, myriads of angels, and many deceased loved ones and friends. 

Since we are running a race, we fix our eyes on the finish line above. We strive for excellence with an eternal perspective, knowing we are in the process of meeting the goals God has for us. We make His goals our own, since He loved us first and called us His own.

Lord, seal our hearts as we run the race of faith, keeping our eyes on the things above, and we trust that your perfect plan is unfolding in each of our lives. Amen

“So, too, it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living being,” the last Adam a life-giving spirit.

But the spiritual was not first; rather the natural and then the spiritual.

The first man was from the earth, earthly; the second man, from heaven.”

1 Corinthians 15:45-47 (NAB)

About twenty years ago, I had a conversation with a doctor I had worked with for years, who had an inspirational experience leading him to return to his Jewish faith with greater devotion. He never shared what inspired him, but it was so intense that he planned on leaving the medical field completely, and devoting the rest of his life to studying Torah, the Jewish scriptures, and he joined a very strict religious group in Chicago. 

I felt a little inadequate, discussing the person of Jesus with him, considering his brilliance and passion for Jewish teaching, but somehow our conversation kept progressing in that direction anyway. I told him that I believed Jesus was the Messiah, the human incarnation of God, and he politely stopped me and said, “That would never happen, because God would never become a man.”

When I asked him why he was so sure of that, he said that the heart of the commandments is to not make or worship any graven image, so God would never do something that is contrary to His own commandments. 

I tried reminding him that the prophet Isaiah predicted that a virgin would bear a child, whose name is “God with us,” a divine person, yet born in human form. He continued to shake his head no, saying that even if God could do such a thing, He never would do it. Mosaic laws were clearly a stumbling block for him, preventing belief in an incarnation. 

Our discussion ended there, although I still think about what he said, even to this day.

If I could continue that conversation with him now, I would like to say that God had a plan to send His Son into the world long before He wrote any commandments. He planned it from the first day that sin was committed in the Garden of Eden. 

The first Adam and Eve brought sin into the world, and sin brought us death, but God’s plans have an eternal purpose. It was His plan long before the commandments were ever written. He promised long ago in the Garden, to send the offspring of a woman, to save us and destroy the head of the serpent forever. 

(Genesis 3:15)

He had a plan to send a new Eve through Mary, and the second divine Adam, through Jesus, who was born through a divine-human conception in her womb. Paul teaches that the earthly precedes the heavenly. The first Adam came from the earth and the second Adam, Jesus, came from heaven.  (1 Corinthians 15:47)

A baby conceived by the Spirit of God in a human womb, is no graven image. He is not made by the hands of man, or in the ordinary way life is conceived. He is not an idol made of gold or carved in stone. He is God’s divine son, conceived by His Spirit in the untouched human womb of Mary.

This plan was a mystery for ages, yet was briefly hinted at long ago in the Garden story in Genesis. Paul even refers to it as “the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things.” (Ephesians 3:9)

The most important component of the incarnation is -Grace. Without grace, we could only think and reason in terms of satisfying rules or commandments to earn rewards or punishments. Grace changed all of that. 

Grace is giving something to someone that they don’t deserve, and cannot be earned. Grace gives us forgiveness and a relationship with God through Jesus. Once someone experiences amazing grace, it’s easy to believe in the divine incarnation. 

Grace outmatches the productivity of our sin, and that’s why it’s so amazing. Why would God do all of this for us? He tells us, “God so loved the world that he gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

God makes plans because He loves us so much, and He started planning since that day in the Garden. His plan for salvation began long before the giving of the commandments and He sent the second Adam at the perfect time, who was born in Bethlehem. 

I disagree with my doctor friend who asserted that God could, but would never become a man. God could and did become a man, when He left His throne in heaven to suffer and carry a cross for us, and it’s all because of His immense love and amazing grace.

Lord Jesus, we thank you and we pray for all people who do not see the beauty and truth that you are the second Adam, the incarnate Son of God. We pray that your Holy Spirit reveals saving grace and love to people of all faiths today. Amen