There is something special about sheep, something both ancient and pastoral! Perhaps it is because Scripture presents beautiful word pictures of how God shepherds his people. Trusting and obeying the Shepherd’s voice lead to “green pastures” and “still waters”, to fulfillment and security. However, the Psalmist sounds a cautionary note about inattentive, straying sheep because they have left the shepherd’s protective care:
“Let us kneel before the LORD our maker, for he is our God. We are the people he watches over, the flock under his care. If only you would listen to his voice today! “(Psalm 95:1-7)
In view of Israel’s experience with God, the Psalmist also encouraged “all the earth” to joyfully worship and honor God as Creator and Shepherd.
“Shout with joy to the LORD, all the earth! Worship the LORD with gladness. Come before him, singing with joy .Acknowledge that the LORD is God! He made us, and we are his. We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.” (Psalm 100:1-3)
Christians and Jews alike confidently quote or sing “The Lord is my Shepherd, I have no wants” as vocal testament of their faith in “The Lord” who cares for them now and “forever.” The New Testament presents Jesus as the Lord and Good Shepherd, who brings the Kingdom of God, the reality of God, to those who trust and attend to his voice. They know and love him because he loved them enough to sacrifice himself for their life and security. As Shepherd, he confidently reiterates and restates the hope of Psalm 23, the promise that God is now present with His people and will dwell with them forever:
“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” (Luke 12:32)
Boundaries are essential for safe and happy living. Our natural world is guarded by certain principles, and we are fenced in by physical capabilities, intellectual limits, and moral constraints. With few exceptions, reason and conscience restrict human behavior. Our sense of right and wrong enables us to determine conduct which protects us from ourselves and keeps others safe from our bad inclinations. Evil results when those boundaries are corrupted.
Without these confines, men and women are emotionally and morally unstable. “A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls.” (Proverbs 25:28) Without walls, we are vulnerable, unable to discern who or what persons or philosophies may or may not enter our hearts and minds, and can easily be destroyed or headed for turmoil because internal integrity can not be maintained.
For some, the concept of right and wrong raises the important question of why is there evil? There has to be a transcendent morality, some absolute standard of holiness and purity to which we ascribe, or morality becomes subjective, and we are free to determine our own morality based on what we think or desire. That would lead to chaos and to such horrific evils as racism or the killing of six million Jews to produce a “pure” race, and to declaring such wickedness as beneficial. Some use this argument of transcendent morality as proof of the existence of God, who has prescribed life principles as the basis for ethical living and expressing love so humanity can be healthy and happy. These laws may not be accepted by everyone as from God or as absolute, but non-adherence to them absolutely leads to unstable, unhappy, and unhealthy living.
Christ said he was bringing the Kingdom of God or the reality of God into our lives because we are broken and need his help to be righteous. Scripture proclaims that God’s love is too great to fully comprehend and that Christ died once for everyone who has or ever will exist. However, we discover that His Kingdom has its confines as well.
So, if God in Christ is so loving, why would he exclude anyone from His Kingdom? Scripture makes it equally clear that access to God’s Kingdom is restricted to those who wish to live under His good reign, to those who will trust Him and submit to His authority and rule. There are no “ungraced” scoundrels, no rebellious anarchists who want to subvert the peace and love and transcendence of the Kingdom with their own substandard, inglorious ways. Therefore, living within the confines of faith in God’s grace leads to living in His Kingdom. Otherwise, chaos would reign.
While teaching his followers about proper life perspectives, Jesus talked about the importance of being genuine, that seeking approval and self promotion by showing off superficial, self-righteous piety is arrogant and disingenuous, that the distractions of our material world capture our imaginations and desires and divert us from the more important matters of our spirits, and that we have higher purposes. Although we make life almost entirely about what we need , desire, or cherish, our frames are only dust. Life is about what God wants to accomplish in us as we try to survive in a flawed world with our flawed natures. (Matthew 5-7) Created in God’s image, we are made to live spiritual lives which will display that glory for eternity.
Using the natural world, he illustrated how much God cares for us, that we do not need to be anxious, and that God will help us execute the good purposes planned for us. He taught us how to pray to that end. He spoke of how God feeds the birds and clothes the lilies and said we should “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these”
God has given mankind something far more beautiful than what we can manufacture on our own. By His grace through faith, God gives life to our spirits. Even though some lilies blossom for only a day, they are endued with fragrant beauty which fulfills their creative purposes of reflecting and honoring God and bringing pleasure to this world without even trying. Albert Orsborn’s hymn “Let the Beauty of Jesus be Seen in Me” speaks to that thought and the purpose for mankind.
Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me/All His wonderful passion and purity/May His Spirit divine all my being refine/Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me.
There he perched, King of the Birds, quietly surveying his wintry kingdom while sitting high atop an old dead tree on a little island in Sullivan Harbor. Majestic, magnificent, powerful, and properly feared. Not a gull was in sight! As I watched him, I was reminded of several Old Testament passages which beautifully and poetically reflect God’s sovereignty, justice, compassion, and the great hope that lies in knowing Him.
The Psalmist sang: “God looks down from heaven on the entire human race; he looks to see if anyone is truly wise, if anyone seeks God.” (Psalm 53:2)”He made heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them. He keeps every promise forever. He gives justice to the oppressed and food to the hungry. The LORD frees the prisoners. The LORD opens the eyes of the blind. The LORD lifts up those who are weighed down… The LORD will reign forever. “(Psalm 146:5-10 )
God lovingly looks down while we look up… Isaiah lifts our thoughts to God’s transcendence: “…Look up into the heavens. Who created all the stars? (God, the Holy One) brings them out like an army, one after another, calling each by its name. Because of his great power and incomparable strength, not a single one is missing… Have you never heard? Have you never understood? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of all the earth. He never grows weak or weary. No one can measure the depths of his understanding. He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless….those who trust in the LORD will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:22-31)
These descriptions speak powerfully about God’s passion and compassion for, and His presence with, His people. Although God is uniquely God, He is both Almighty God and our tender Father upon whom we depend and to whom we pray, “Our Father, Who art in heaven,…“ He is to be awed, but unlike the eagle, He is not remote from us. He is the source of purpose, spiritual strength, and satisfaction. “… joyful are those who have the God of Israel as their helper, whose hope is in the LORD their God. (Psalm 146:5)
He brings His forever Kingdom to us when we choose to live under His reign.
Another day is ending with a glorious display. Most of us don’t ponder mathematical equations or physical principles when we think about sunsets or “time”. However, since our beginning, “time’s” mysteries and brevity have filled the minds of writers, poets and composers, prophets and preachers, philosophers and scientists— and especially old men!
God exists from everlasting to everlasting, but He created time! (Psalm 90:2-17) (Genesis 1) So, our “today” is where everlasting changes to everlasting… We exist at some strange, moving focal point in an infinity that extends from “now” into all of what we know as space-time dimensions and beyond into some other dimension!! Time puts limits on us as we moves in a linear fashion, relentlessly and uncontrollably forward until it falls into eternity.
As we age and rapidly advance toward our end, we realize that time will fail us. Youthful summers which lasted forever are now fleeting, and we easily relate to the wistful singing of “the Fiddler on the roof”. “I don’t remember growing older”…/ “Sunrise, sunset/ Sunrise, sunset/ Swiftly fly the years/ One season following another/Laden with happiness and tears.”
The Psalmist understood time’s limitations, that life is not always good to us, but that within this mixture of consequences and eventualities, there is peace and joy when life is lived in a relationship with God. “So, teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.……Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil. Let your work be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children. Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us…”(Psalm 90:2-17)
Amidst the confusion and stresses of trying days, we might question God’s “steadfast love”, His “work”, and “glorious power” . But we will know that “the favor of the Lord our God is upon us” if we look at Christ and his work for us as he redeems our circumstances and our numbered days.
On the dawn of that first Christmas morning, an unsuspecting world had no idea that a new era had arrived. It was totally unprepared to accept a poor baby born in a Bethlehem stable as “Immanuel”, God with us. But the Christ-child was the visible manifestation of God’s unconditional love for all humanity, a love like no other. His name was Jesus. He came to be the light of God’s grace.He was “the true light, who gives light to everyone…” (John 1:4)
Standing at the crossroad of old and new religious thought, he was the anticipated child of Old Testament prophecy:“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6) And on that first Christmas evening, heavenly voices announced him as bringing “peace to men”. (Luke 2:14)
Who Jesus was and what he would do provided broken humanity an opportunity to reconcile with Holy God. He would live humbly, selflessly, compassionately and with great wisdom. His life would be filled with the unexplained and miraculous but would end unfairly and tragically. However, there was a glorious twist; he died to give life, to renew and restore the spirits of all who would believe. And in an amazing resurrection, he conquered and wiped out the fear of death and gave eternal hope for mankind.
What a great Christmas gift this Christ Child is! He is our peace! Scripture tells us to believe and live because “In him (is) life…” (Acts 16:31) (John 11:25)(John 1:4-9) He is our reason for having a joyous Christmas!
The moon, silently reflecting the hiding sun and shining on freshly fallen snow, brightens our world by holding darkness at bay and is a reminder of the first Christmas night which happened “upon a Midnight clear” when “the glory of the Lord shone about” and the light of the Gospel came. The night ,“… when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law… (1 Corinthians 1:30)(Galatians 4:4-5)
Whether in the Bible, the classics, or in contemporary or comic book literature, darkness is synonymous with evil. So, in one sense, we fear darkness where bad things happen, where things that go “bump in the night” scare us. But in another sense, Scripture says that men prefer to be unenlightened and in the pitch black where we can conceal our rebellious natures and brokenness, where we can deny who we really are. (John 3:16-20)
This contrasts with God, who “ is light and inHim is no darkness.” (1 John 1:5) In the words of the Psalmist “God lightens my darkness,”(Psalm 18:28) and “even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.” (Psalm 139:12)
Our Creator knew our dreary, fallen world needed His Christmas gift! Jesus came as an illuminator. Christ did not come to condemn us, but His presence exposes us to the reality that we are all sinners in need of God’s help to become who we are created to be. But more than that, He dispels the gloom. He came as the solution and healer for the darkness of our souls. He is “the Light of the world” who gave the great promise that “he who follows me shall not walk in the darkness but shall have the light of life.” (John 8:12)
Just as the moon dispels the shadows, when Christmas truth becomes a faith-reality, spiritual darkness is overcome.The Apostle Paul described those with this belief as becoming “children of light.” And songwriter Tim Hughes beautifully captures the hope which that long ago, unique night gave the world:
“Light of the world, You stepped down into darkness/ Opened my eyes, let me see beauty that made this heart adore You/ Hope of a life spent with You”
The Mountains of Mount Desert Island across Frenchmen’s Bay from Hancock Point, Maine
Those who trust in the LORD are as secure as Mount Zion; they will not be defeated but will endure forever. Just as the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the LORD surrounds his people, both now and forever. (Psalm 125:1-2 (NLT2)
If you have ever attempted walking atop a stone wall, you know that the stones are unevenly positioned. Maintaining balance is untenable and is akin to walking a rail on a railroad track. At some point one finds oneself stepping or falling off on one side or the other. The best way to stay on a fence is to straddle it, but that is both uncomfortable and accomplishes nothing. It gets one nowhere.
But we do “straddle” fences when we have indecisive thoughts, opinions, and actions, when we delay, neglect, or ignore ideas or circumstances because we don’t care or are intellectually lazy, information is incomplete or unclear and conflictual, or the process and/or outcomes seem unimportant. Indecision frequently just delays an inevitable and accomplishes little except anxiety. However, there is one decision which we are all called to make and for which there is no neutral position or compromise.
The Bible gives a fascinating account about conflict between God’s prophet Elijah and Israel’s King Ahab, who was Jezebel’s husband and who considered Elijah a “troublemaker.” (1 Kings 18) This was one of those crucial moments in Israel’s history when they had not completely rejected God but wanted to straddle the fence and claim God but not as the only god. Some of Elijah’s controversy with Ahab revolved around Ahab’s role in leading Israel into idolatrous worship and practices. Maybe the people were superstitiously hedging their bets among gods or were unaware that being a chosen nation meant declaring God’s glorious character to the nations? Maybe they enjoyed the unholy practices of worshipping Baal? Whatever their reasons, Elijah confronted Israel’s double-mindedness and hard hearts. He “came near to all the people and said, “How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.” And the people did not answer him a word. (1 Kings 18:21)
The people were spiritually compromised and in a tenuous position with God. They had no integrity but were limping back and forth between religious beliefs. A decision about God was necessary. Who was He, and what did He have to do with them? As they wavered and hobbled between two opinions, they faced disaster. Their indecisiveness was their decision. God would not bless their unfaithfulness and doublemindedness.
This determination about the existence and nature and purposes and importance of God in history and in personal life faces everyone. Intellectual honesty demands that we seek an informed decision about God. Creation declares Him and requires a response. (Psalm 19:1; 50:6; 97:6) (Romans 1:17-20) Morality leads us to Him as the source of moral behavior and what is good for us.(Exodus 20:1-17, Psalm119) Our spirit, our God consciousness, yearns for truth and desires God. (Ecclesiastes 3:11) The life, claims, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ deserve an intense investigation. (Acts 16:31 and Romans 4:25) Our eternal destinies are determined by our conclusions. (Hebrews 9:27) And there is no pleasing God apart from belief. (Hebrews 11:6)
Doubt about God, if not pursued, becomes a decision in itself. Agnosticism is essentially unbelief. So, it is important to consider the evidences because we all fall on one side or the other of this issue. There is a Biblical promise that a God-seeking mind will discern and discover what is true. (Matthew 7:7,8) However, one has to search in the right places. The sixty six books of Scripture claim to be God’s living revealed Word, which helps us distinguish our self awareness (who we are and our wants) from our God awareness (who He is and His desires). It draws us into an honest evaluation of ourselves in relation to God. Christ told those who had no faith in him that the Scriptures are where they would find out the truth about him because they point to him. (John 5:36-47)
Seeking truth is the spiritual challenge of a life time. A good starting point on this journey is reading the gospels of Mark or John while asking God to reveal Himself. Many have walked this trek from skepticism. Reading their stories may be helpful as well. Lee Strobel, an investigative journalist, wrote The Case for Faith , and C.S. Lewis, Philip Yancey, Josh McDowell, and Ravi Zacharias are contemporary authors who share their interesting faith-journeys.
The point is that we cannot walk through this life without making either an informed or uninformed but crucial decision about God. We cannot ride the fence.
Turkeys, which had been extinct in Maine since colonial days until they were very successfully reintroduced here in 1977, always remind me of the traditional Thanksgiving turkey dinner, of hunting with my Dad, of family gatherings, of reading Henry W. Longfellow’s The Courtship of Miles Standish in the 8th Grade, of pilgrims, of funny hats, and of Native Americans sharing that first New World harvest dinner which included lobster and venison. That was nearly 400 years ago in 1621!!
And Thanksgiving reminds me of grace!
Fall and winter holidays may be difficult, depressing and isolating for some. Not everyone harbors happy memories, and this pandemic season has been especially stressful. Sorrow and grief for loss of loved ones, social isolation, mourning financial setbacks, and anxiety regarding health, national unrest, and uncertain futures may be foremost in our minds. Maybe our greatest blessing this year is a special memory. But regardless of our circumstances, we can be thankful for grace!
Not everyone believes in or is thankful to God, but everyone can be thankful. At our family dinners, it is customary to offer thanks to God for the good food and loving relationships that we share and for all the ways we have been blessed. Those “graces” are expressions of God’s grace to us. Interestingly, Scripture tells us nobody escapes God’s grace, which is His favor and fairness toward us even when we are undeserving. He is a constant source of “common grace”, the general goodness to all people. “Whatever is good and perfect comes down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow.” (James 1:17 (NLT2)
That concept of God and His grace deserves much more consideration than a Thanksgiving prayer. It is the Amazing Grace whose sweet sound we hear and sing. It is God’s love, forgiveness, kindness, and care for unworthy humanity in rebellion against Him. It is God’s redemptive gift to undeserving sinners through faith in His Son. (Ephesians 2:8-9) It is equality in Christ, where race, color, creed, social status, IQ, and difficult relationships make no difference.
Every believer has been the object of grace and should be living it. Jesus made that very evident when he explained what God is like and what his followers should be like by administering undeserved, unconditional care, and kindness: “But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike(Matthew 5:44-45 (NLT2)
Although we live in an increasingly divisive, entitled and ungracious culture, it yearns for a grace it doesn’t understand. We claims to value equality and tolerance but do so with blind hypocrisy and words only. Grace is difficult work because it requires selfless choices, honors others above oneself, and abstains from the arrogance of moral superiority. Grace listens, attempts to understand opposing ideas, is not intellectually arrogant, does not tightly hold onto hurt, forgives rather than accuses, lifts up and encourages, does not shame or degrade, self-evaluates bias and prejudices and refuses discrimination, tolerates rather than demands, is compassionate instead of critical, avoids gossip and slander, doesn’t lash out when frustrated, goes the extra mile, turns the other cheek and does not retaliate! Grace loves with 1 Corinthian 13 love.
Grace is a tall order! We are all imperfect and battle negative attitudes that cause us to act badly. But in the perspective of what God has done for us, Thanksgiving is a great time to remember and gratefully accept His grace and to recommit to live in its power.
Sweet Words from Maine 