Randy Alcorn's Blog, page 27

Should Our Faith Be More Easily Perceived by What We Do Than What We Believe?

A friend asked me,

This was in my Bible study: “‘Christianity’ is more easily perceived by what you do than what you believe.” It really made me think. What are your thoughts on this statement? I’ve been studying Paul’s life, and was reading in Acts 23-24. It was diving deeper into “The Way” that is used in chapter 24 to describe Christianity.

That’s a great question. I said decades ago in one of my first books (back in the 80s!) that while our children will sometimes fail to do what we say, they will seldom fail to do what we do. That’s the power of example, both good and bad.

On the one hand, what God says is true, whether or not we live consistently with it. An ungodly person, even an unbeliever, can share the gospel message, and someone can be genuinely saved by believing it even if the person who spoke it was living in disobedience.

On the other hand, a man who calls people to live pure lives while living in immorality is not only a hypocrite, but those around him will find his words hard to believe despite the fact they are true.

First, we need to profess what is right and true, and second, we need to live consistently with what we profess. “Only let us live up to what we have already attained” (Philippians 3:16). A person who by God’s common grace lives a good life cannot compensate for the fact that he does not believe in God. Placing our trust in God is essential to salvation, as Romans 10:9–10 demonstrates. That passage says we are to both confess Jesus with our mouth (which is an action), and we are to believe in our hearts that God has raised Him from the dead (which is faith or trust).

“We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands. Whoever says, ‘I know him,’ but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person” (1 John 2:3-4). No matter what a person professes, he must live an obedient, Spirit-empowered life to effectively point people toward Jesus. This doesn’t mean everyone will automatically like us for representing Christ. Someone can live an authentic life honoring Christ, and it can be highly offensive to unbelievers. We’re told in 2 Corinthians 2:16-17, “For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life.” We just want to make sure we are offending people for the right reasons, not the wrong ones!

So yes, true Christianity is often more easily perceived by what you do than what you believe. On the other hand, true and authentic belief should always come out in our actions. However, those with discernment will understand that a claim may be true, even when a person sharing it fails to live consistently with their own words.

James 2 is powerful here:

16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?

17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

18 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds.

19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

20 You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless.

21 Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar?

22 You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did.

23 And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend.

24 You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.

25 In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction?

26 As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

We are saved by true faith in God alone, as Ephesians 2:8–9 emphatically states, and so does Titus 3:5. There’s no righteous work we can do to become saved. It only requires belief or trust. But if belief and trust are authentic, they will be demonstrated in our actions. Hence, there is no contradiction between the words of Paul and James. They both believe in faith, and they both believe in works that demonstrate that faith. They just say it in different ways, both of which we need to hear.

This is a good article on faith/beliefs and works/actions and how both are necessary and should be interrelated.

I was glad to hear my friend is studying Paul’s life in the book of Acts. I have a graphic novel, called The Apostle. It’s Scripture based, but I also imagine (and the artist envisions) what Paul’s life looked like.

Finally, here’s an excellent article on “the Way.”

Photo: Unsplash

Start Giving Before You Inherit

Millennials may inherit over $68 trillion from previous generations by 2030. According to Newsweek, some experts believe this “could be the largest transfer of wealth in the history of humankind.”

What will younger generations do with that wealth?

Studies show the younger someone is, the less he or she tends to give financially. Not just less in amount, but less in proportion. According to Barna Group, “Only 13 percent of Millennials and even fewer Gen Z (6%) give money on a frequent basis.” In “The Generosity Gap,” Barna reported that 7 percent of those who are 70 or older give 10 percent or more of their income to their churches, but only 1 percent of millennials say they do so. Only 21 percent of all believers give 10 percent or more of their income to their local churches, while 25 percent give nothing.

Without a vision for giving as investing in eternity—and a sense that God’s purpose for prospering us is so we can help the church, aid the poor, and reach the lost—inheriting such wealth could be a curse rather than a blessing.

Dangerous Inheritance

Scripture says that “A good man leaves an inheritance for his children’s children” (Prov. 13:22). In Old Testament times, passing on ownership of the land to the next generation was vital. Many people lived at a subsistence level, too poor to buy land. With no inheritance, they would likely end up enslaved or unable to care for their children, parents, or grandparents.

In the Western World today, however, things are very different. There are exceptions, but inheritances are usually windfalls coming to people who live separately from their parents, have their own careers, and are financially independent. They have dependable sources of income generated by their own work, skills, saving, and investing. In many cases by their forties or fifties, they will have a higher net worth than their parents do.

In a society with such affluence and opportunity, I’ve advocated that, in most cases, Christian parents should seriously consider leaving the bulk of their estate to churches, parachurch ministries, missions, and other kingdom purposes, leaving a relatively small portion to their children.

If your parents are among those who’ve decided to give away most of their wealth rather than pass it on to you and your siblings, I encourage you to rejoice. Honor their choice and support them in it. Having grown up in an unbelieving family, I would’ve loved for my parents to have had such a kingdom vision. 

If your parents do leave you with the majority of their wealth, ask God what He wants you to do with it. Understand it doesn’t truly belong to you and that many lives and marriages have been ruined by an infusion of unearned wealth. Yes, an inheritance can be a blessing. But that isn’t all God tells us. He also says, “An inheritance gained hastily in the beginning will not be blessed in the end” (Prov. 20:21). Jesus knew our tendency to live in denial about the dangers of money love, so He sounded this alarm: “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions” (Luke 12:15, NIV).

When I was a missions pastor, I worked with a couple who finished their missionary training and were soon headed to the field. Unexpectedly, the wife inherited significant wealth. The couple was excited, thinking they could now become self-supported missionaries. When they asked my advice, I encouraged them that they needed the accountability and prayer support of having financial partners. We talked about how they could give away the majority of the inheritance, thanking God for the opportunity to invest in eternity. This would allow them to trust God to provide, as missionaries normally do, and move forward undistracted.

In the end, they kept most of the money, and what happened next broke my wife’s and my hearts. Over the next few years, their marriage, family and ministry plans fell apart. Sadly they never recovered. Obviously, the money wasn’t the only problem, but it certainly had a significant negative effect. What seemed like a blessing—what we believe could have been a blessing if they’d given most of it away—proved to be a curse.

Speaking of God’s kind provision of wealth, Paul says “You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God” (2 Corinthians 9:11). In other words, God provides more money to us not simply to increase our standard of living, but to increase our standard of giving.

Give Today

When it comes to money and possessions, we tend to compare upward, not downward. But even if we’re lower-middle class in America, the truth is we’re in the upper 98th percentile of the world’s wealthy. Whether we’re set to receive an inheritance or not, most of us are already rich by global standards. So instead of starting to make purchases based on money you think you’ll inherit, start giving now as good stewards of what God supplies.

The key to such giving—and to avoiding greed, pride, and possessiveness—is recognizing God’s ownership of everything: “Behold, to the LORD your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it” (Deut.10:14). If our possessions and money ultimately belong to us, no one has the right to tell us what to do with them. Until we truly grasp that God is the owner and we’re merely stewards of His assets, we won’t be generous givers. But once we embrace God’s ownership of everything, it’s a small step to ask Him what He wants us to do with His money and possessions.

When God prospers us, it’s not merely to give us new toys and more beautiful homes but to allow us to give still more: “You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way” (2 Cor. 9:11). God’s extra provision isn’t usually intended to raise our standard of living but to raise our standard of giving. 

It’s human nature to imagine that spending on ourselves will make us happiest. But Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). In that verse, the Greek word makarios (translated “blessed”) really means “happy” or “happy-making.” If giving wasn’t an act of love, if it didn’t help others, and even if God didn’t tell us to do it, it’d still be in our best interests. Because generosity leads to joy.

Jesus told His disciples that when they gave money away, their hearts would follow the treasures they were storing in heaven (Matt. 6:19–21). He said God would reward them for helping the needy (Luke 14:14). We’re forever connected to what we give and the people we give it to. As Martin Luther said, “I have held many things in my hands and I have lost them all. But whatever I have placed in God’s hands, that I still possess.”

Greater Reward

Our role in Christ’s kingdom isn’t only as a son or daughter of the King but also as an investor, an asset manager, and an eternal beneficiary. The command to store up treasures in heaven proves giving isn’t simply parting with wealth—it’s transferring wealth to another location where it can never be lost. Giving to God’s kingdom is the most dependable and profitable investment ever. When you give, don’t think of it as divesting but investing.

Peter speaks of an inheritance God has awaiting us after death that includes both our salvation and the eternal treasures we store up through generous giving: “He keeps them for you in heaven, where they cannot decay or spoil or fade away” (1 Pet. 1:4, GNT). God promises our wise stewardship and generous giving will pay off, with joy now and rewards in the future.

May we always remember that God—not real estate or wealth—is our true inheritance. May we live and give accordingly so that what we inherit doesn’t become for us a curse but a true blessing from God’s hand.

See more resources on money and giving, as well as Randy's related books, including  Managing God's Money  and  Giving Is the Good Life .

Photo: Pexels

Good New Year Resolves Begin and End with God

Note from Randy: Today is the first day of 2024. What better time to stop and evaluate our choices and the direction we’re headed than at the start of a new year? I hope these reflections from Marshall Segal, staff writer for Desiring God, inspire you to pray for greater faith and love in the year ahead.

May your New Year be centered on Jesus and happy in Him!

A New Year Worthy of God

Before you make resolves for the new year — before you start a reading plan, or choose a diet, or buy a journal, or step on a treadmill — find a why worth changing for. As many more have observed before me, our resolutions often wilt because we didn’t have a why big enough to weather the inevitable temptations, distractions, and setbacks.

So what will your why be for the year to come? For me, I want my life to prove the worth of my calling from God. Not my calling to ministry, but my calling to God — the calling every genuine Christian shares. My why comes from 2 Thessalonians 1:11:

To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power.

What evidence do we see in our lives that we have been called by God? What might someone else see in us this year that would suggest something supernatural has happened? What habits might hint that we have been claimed by heaven? Will we live worthy of our calling — or not?

Could We Ever Be Worthy?

Does a Christian resolution for worthiness rub you the wrong way? “We pray for you that our God may make you worthy of his calling.” But none of us is worthy of this calling. Surely the apostle Paul knew that more than anyone.

None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one. (Romans 3:10–12)

“Who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. (Romans 11:35–36)

How could a sinner ever merit anything from God? We can’t. And yet God himself says, through his apostle, that we can be considered — by God — worthy of his calling. What would that mean? Not that we could ever earn or deserve this calling, but that we could increasingly honor the calling we have received by grace alone, based on the merits of Christ alone.

Godliness Honors God

Apart from Christ, we will never deserve to be called children of God, but we can still disgrace the calling we have been freely given — or we can adorn our precious calling with an ambitious godliness. “Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works . . . so that in everything [you] may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior” (Titus 2:7, 10). Our lives can become a wild, grace-filled bouquet laid upon the saving and sufficient work of Jesus — a worthy reflection of his love, his cross, his power, his worth.

Again, Paul says, “[We pray] that our God may make you worthy of his calling . . . so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thessalonians 1:11–12). This is the worthiness of another world. As it grows and spreads in a redeemed life, it doesn’t welcome praise to itself, but gladly bows to worship Christ. The worthiness God finds in us glorifies the greatness of Jesus.

Our worthiness proves his worth, not ours. Why? Because worthiness in us is an evidence and expression of his grace. God makes us worthy “according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.” We strive for a worthiness that draws others’ curiosity and admiration not to ourselves, but to him. We want them to think, Someone who lives like that must know something about life, about reality, about God that I don’t yet know. I want to know what they know and love like they love.

Worthiness in Real Life

So what might this worthiness look like in another new year? A few verses earlier, Paul unfolds the worthiness he sees blossoming in the Thessalonian church:

We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. Therefore we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring. This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering. (2 Thessalonians 1:3–5)

How specifically was their worthiness displayed? Their faith and love held fast through suffering. And not just held fast, but grew. And not just grew, but grew abundantly. The apostle could see that God was for them and in them, because they were seeking God with greater intensity, trusting him with greater peace, and loving one another with greater devotion. Greater — greater faith, greater love, greater patience, greater peace, greater discipline, greater joy — greater is a worthy resolve for a new year.

Where, specifically, could you grow abundantly in the next year? What area of your spiritual life and love for others needs to be revived or nurtured toward greater maturity? Find a greater resolve to focus on, and hold onto, as you step into another January.

Made Worthy in the Valley

Don’t miss that the church in Thessalonica was made more worthy through their suffering. “We ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring” (2 Thessalonians 1:4). Their hardships had become a dark and painful backdrop on which their faithfulness could shine.

Would anyone have seen their steadfastness in Christ if they hadn’t experienced adversity? Suffering, for them, offered an opportunity to experience more of God’s strength and mercy, and suffering also made it easier for others to see the God who was motivating and sustaining them.

How might that change how we think about the sufferings that will come over the next year? When our plans and resolves are inevitably disrupted and disappointed, will we assume suffering is only an enemy? Or, in the hands of our God, could suffering actually be a strange and precious friend of our worthiness?

The Who in Good Resolves

New resolves often fail without a well-defined, deeply-felt why, but they also fail because of a misplaced who.

Look carefully, again, at verse 11: “To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power.” Who makes our lives worthy of such a calling? God does. Who fulfills our resolves for good and our works of faith? God does. Whose power will be the decisive agent for lasting change in our lives? His power.

Good resolves begin and end with God. Which means good resolves begin and persevere through prayer. And so Paul does not merely charge the Thessalonians to live worthy of their calling; he prays for them to be made worthy. “To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling. . . .”

So how might we pray for greater faith and love in the new year?

Lord, I am not content to have last year’s love for you. I want a deeper, sweeter, more active faith in you. Nurture what you have planted in my soul. Prune away more of my remaining sin. Make the sufferings to come magnify your work in me. By whatever means necessary, cause me to grow and to grow abundantly. In Jesus’s name and for his greater glory in us, Amen.

This article originally appeared on Desiring God , and is used with permission of the author.

Photo: Unsplash

The Best Is Still Yet to Be

Emmanuel Ndikumana was nineteen years old when he heard that a group of young men in Burundi planned to murder him in two weeks. He chose to stay where he was and survived the attempted murder through God’s amazing providence. When telling me his story, Emmanuel made this comment: “You Americans have a strange attitude toward death; you act as if it’s the end.”

The truth is, we’ll be far happier in this life if we understand it isn’t our only chance for happiness . . . and neither is it our best chance. I’ve read books on happiness stressing that we must be happy right here and now, living in the moment, because this is all we have. But the Christian worldview is that God’s people will have an eternity of present-tense happiness. This assurance of never-ending happiness is capable of front-loading joy into our lives today.

Jonathan Edwards said of God’s people, “They are not only invited to go with Christ, and to dwell with him, but to inherit a kingdom with him; to sit down with him on his throne, and to receive the honour and happiness of a heavenly kingdom. . . . God made heaven on purpose for them, and fitted it for their delight and happiness.”

In the ages to come, we’ll remember past happiness and its cause (God) and look forward to future happiness and its cause (God). So if you’re not happy today, or if your happiness isn’t as deep as you wish, relax. Take a deep breath. You’re not missing your only opportunity to be happy! The time is coming when there will be nothing you can do except be happy. And that time will never end! Still, the Bible makes clear that God doesn’t want you to wait until then to be happy in Christ.

All who know Jesus will live together in that resurrected world, with the Lord we love and the friends we cherish. We’ll embark together on the ultimate adventure in a spectacular new universe awaiting our exploration and dominion.

Jesus will be the center of everything. Happiness will be the lifeblood of our resurrected lives. And just when we think, It doesn’t get any better than this—it will!

If we come to understand the biblical doctrine of the resurrection and the New Earth, we’ll find exactly what we all wish for. So let’s be sure we understand it! How kind of God to provide for us exactly what he wired us to most desire—to be in His presence forever, delighting in Him and each other and enjoying our lives together.

Father Boudreaux wrote in Happiness of Heaven, “Never can there come a day when He will frown upon us, and make us feel that His love for us has grown cold. . . . Never will there come a day when His divine beauty will fade away, or when He will lose his power of making us happy.”

Think of it: millions of years from now, in the presence of the happy God who will never tire of us, we’ll still be young. We’ll be able to say every day, “I will never be separated from my endlessly loving and creative God and Savior, the source of all happiness. Every day has been better than the one before . . . and the best is still yet to be!”

Browse more resources on the topic of Heaven, and see Randy’s related books, including  Heaven .

Photo: Pexels

Everything Is Going Wrong in the World? G. Campbell Morgan Reminds Us to Adjust Our Focus

The following was first posted on my blog ten years ago. The grandson of Marden Wickman, my first pastor, recently shared it on Facebook, and it made me think that given all that has happened in the last ten years, and even the last five, the message of this blog is more pertinent than ever.

My first pastor was Marden Wickman, at Powell Valley Covenant Church in Gresham, Oregon. I came to faith in Christ through that church, and Pastor Wickman baptized me. For 35 years now Nanci (who grew up in that church) and I have lived less than a mile from Powell Valley Covenant’s church building. I drive by it several times a week and am flooded with memories.

I loved Marden Wickman, who loved to preach God’s Word. There was one preacher he quoted more than any other—G. Campbell Morgan. Under Pastor Wickman’s influence, I bought Morgan’s Westminster Pulpit, the five volume collection of his sermons, and I also read many of Morgan’s books.

G. Campbell Morgan was a British scholar and the pastor who preceded Martyn Lloyd-Jones at Westminster Chapel. One of his many books was The Unfolding Message of the Bible, which he wrote in 1961. That was over fifty years ago.

Recently I was reading a portion in this book where G. Campbell Morgan said something I think evangelical Christians in America really need to hear today—especially those who are obsessed with how bad things are in our culture, and those convinced that as a result of how bad it’s getting, Christ absolutely has to return right away.

I should back up and say I was a new Christian in the seventies when everyone was reading Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth, the bestseller of the decade. We listened to Bible teachers “proving” from Scripture that Christ had to return by 1980. They based this largely on the predominant interpretation of Matthew 24:32-34, calculating that Israel’s return as a nation in 1948 demanded that Christ would come within thirty years of that event, or at least forty. And besides, we said, “Look around, how much darker can things get?” And here we are, forty years later.  (One of my friends didn’t get dental work done—“Why spend the money when Christ is going to return within a year or two?” Believe me, he lived to regret it.)

I do believe in the imminent return of Christ, which means He CAN return any time, as has been true for 2,000 years. But it also means, despite all the books persuading people these are the darkest days of history and that current events in Iran and Iraq and Israel are fulfilling Bible prophecies, He does not HAVE TO return anytime.

Listen to Dr. Morgan, writing over fifty years ago:

I have no sympathy with people who tell us today that these are the darkest days the world has ever seen. The days in which we live are appalling, but they do not compare with conditions in the world when Jesus came into it. Historians talk of the Pax Romana and make much of the fact that there was peace everywhere, the Roman peace. Do not forget that the Roman peace was the result of the fact that the world had been bludgeoned brutally into submission to one central power.…

Notwithstanding the prevailing conditions, the dominant note of these Letters, revealing the experience of the Church, is a note of triumph. The dire and dread facts and conditions are never lost sight of—indeed, they are there all the way through. The people are seen going out and facing these facts—and suffering because of these facts—but we never see them depressed and cast down, we never see them suffering from pessimistic fever. They are always triumphant. That is the glory of Christianity. If ever I am tempted to think that religion is almost dead today, it is when I listen to the wailing of some Christian people: “Everything is wrong,” or “Everything is going wrong.” Oh, be quiet! Think again, look again, judge not by the circumstances of the passing hour but by the infinite things of our Gospel and our God. And that is exactly what these people did.

When Morgan said, “Oh, be quiet!” it is a close equivalent to “Just shut up, would you?” Yes, let’s serve Jesus faithfully and seek to preserve Christian liberties, but let’s not whine about things being so dark. Instead, let’s shine the light as faithful children of God. Let’s trust Jesus to return when He is good and ready to do so, whether that is today, or a hundred years from now, or a thousand. Let’s live as people who are indeed going to meet Jesus soon, either by His return or our deaths. And let’s be ready to meet Him, and by His grace, hear those incredible words: “Well done, my good and faithful servant; enter into your Master’s joy.”

“But concerning that day and hour [when Christ will return] no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.” (Matthew 24:36)

“Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people.” (Philippians 2:15)

Photo: Unsplash

The Place Where God Was Homeless and All Men Are at Home

I am a great fan of G.K. Chesterton, but I don’t recall ever reading this poem of his until last year. Though it is an old-style rhyming poem, it really moved me. Merry Christmas to you and your family. —Randy

The House of Christmas

by G.K. Chesterton

There fared a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home.
The crazy stable close at hand,
With shaking timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.

For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay on their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done.
Here we have battle and blazing eyes,
And chance and honour and high surprise,
But our homes are under miraculous skies
Where the yule tale was begun.

A Child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost – how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky’s dome.

This world is wild as an old wives’ tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.

To an open house in the evening
Home shall men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.

Photo:

 

For Your Sake Christ Became Poor

In a sermon given on December 24, 1854, titled “A Visit to Bethlehem,” Charles Spurgeon portrayed a conversation between a Christian family on Christmas day. This excerpt is drawn (and slightly modified) from part of that conversation, and includes one of my favorite verses: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9). Meditate on the truth of that for a few million years! (We will—may as well get a head start.)

We ought all of us to think how our blessed Lord cast in his lot with the poor. When those wise men came from the East, I daresay they were surprised, at first, to find that Jesus was a poor man’s child; yet they fell down and worshipped him, and they opened their treasury, and presented to him very costly gifts—gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. Ah! when the Son of God made that great stoop from heaven to earth, he passed the glittering palaces of kings, and the marble halls of the rich and the noble, and took up his abode in the lodgings of poverty.

Still, he was ‘born King of the Jews.’ Now, did you ever read of a child being born a king before? Of course, you never did; children have been born princes, and heirs to a throne, but no other than Jesus was ever born a king. The poverty of our Saviour’s circumstances is like a foil which sets off the glorious dignity of his person. You have read of good kings, such as David, and Hezekiah, and Josiah; yet, if they had not been kings, we should never have heard of them; but it was quite otherwise with Jesus Christ. He was possessed of more true greatness in a stable than any other king ever possessed in a palace; but do not imagine it was only in his childhood that Jesus was the Kinsman of the poor.

When he grew up to be a man, he said, “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.” Do you know that our comforts were purchased at the expense of his sufferings? “He became poor that we, through his poverty, might be rich.” We ought, therefore, to thank and praise the blessed Jesus every time we remember how much worse off he was in this world than we are.

Photo: Unsplash

Meet the Messiah Who Came to Serve

When Jesus washed the feet of His followers (John 13), they were amazed that a leader and teacher they respected so much would do the work of a servant. Peter especially couldn’t bear the thought of Jesus doing that. But Jesus insisted on washing His friends’ feet.

Jesus also said, “The servants who are ready and waiting for his return will be rewarded. I tell you the truth, he himself will seat them, put on an apron, and serve them as they sit and eat” (Luke 12:37)!

Chad Bird writes about verse 37:

The master dons the uniform of a servant? Serving his servants? In that culture, this reversal of roles would have been as preposterous as a CEO today having a janitor sit in for him in the board meeting while the CEO scrubbed the toilets.

Ah, but this “unacceptability” is the point, isn’t it? Meet the Messiah who comes to serve and not be served.

Jesus fulfilled this servant vocation not only in His ministry—feeding the crowds, washing His disciples’ feet, and giving His life as a ransom for many—but, as we read in Luke 12, He is pictured as serving us even at the Messianic banquet.

What kind of heart beats inside the Babe of Bethlehem? A loving heart, a serving heart, that will never stop giving to us, His beloved ones.

We owe Jesus everything. He owes us nothing. But that doesn’t keep God from choosing to serve us, His servants. Jesus served us when He died for us. He said about Himself, “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28). And in Philippians 2:7 tell us that Jesus “emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.”

I share more in this video:

As a father who loves his children goes out of his way to help them, God promises that He will always give of Himself for us. Why? Because He loves us and wants to show forever His appreciation for our loyalty and service to Him in this life. Does that mean we deserve God’s grace? Of course not. By definition, God’s grace is something we don’t deserve. If we deserved it, it wouldn’t be grace!

We must assent to Christ’s service for us (John 13:8). But even in Heaven, it appears, Jesus will sometimes serve us. What greater and more amazing reward could be ours in the new universe than to have Jesus choose to serve us?

If it were our idea that God would serve us, it would be blasphemy. But it’s His idea. As husbands serve their wives and parents serve their children, God desires to serve us. “On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples” (Isaiah 25:6). God will be the chef—He’ll prepare us a meal. In Heaven, God will overwhelm us with His humility and His grace.

Somehow, in His great love for us, our King becomes a servant, making us, His servants, kings! Notice that He won’t merely command His other servants to serve us. He will do it Himself. That’s why the grace we sing about in church is called “Amazing Grace.” If you think about it, there’s nothing more amazing than that God would love us so much.

Doesn’t that make you want to love Him more and more every day?

See Randy's books  It's All About Jesus  and  Face to Face with Jesus .

Photo: Unsplash

How to Fight Materialism at Christmas and All Year Long

I was on the Faith & Finance podcast with Rob West, talking about giving guidelines to fight materialism. (You can read all 11 guidelines here.) We don’t need to be victimized by the world’s materialism, especially at Christmastime. By taking our focus off the human receiver and putting it on the divine giver, Christmas can become a symbol of God’s giving heart rather than people’s grabbing hands.

Here’s a clip from the interview, about why we need to keep hearing “God Owns It All”:

You can listen to the full interview here.

See more resources on money and giving, as well as Randy's related books, including  Managing God's Money  and  Giving Is the Good Life .

Photo: Unsplash

Immanuel Came to Secure God’s Eternal Plan to Live with Us

Multiple times in Revelation 21, God says He will come down from the present Heaven to live with His people on the New Earth. The city “comes down out of heaven,” God’s dwelling place is “with man,” God will “dwell with them,” and God Himself “will be with them.” Despite the repetition, most Christians still don’t appear to believe that God’s plan is to bring Heaven to Earth and dwell here with us forever. Not just for a thousand years in a millennial kingdom on the old earth, but forever on the New Earth.

Christ is Immanuel, “God with us,” forever. The incarnation of Jesus was not temporary.

We normally think of us going up to Heaven to live with God in His place. That is indeed what happens when we die. But the ultimate promise is that God will come down to live with us in our place, on the New Earth. The ultimate Heaven will not be “us with God” but “God with us” (Revelation 21:3). The New Earth will be Heaven incarnate, just as Jesus Christ, our Immanuel, is forever God incarnate who will happily live in our midst.

Charles Spurgeon put it beautifully: “‘God with us’ is eternity’s sonnet, heaven’s hallelujah, the shout of the glorified, the song of the redeemed, the chorus of the angels, the everlasting oratorio of the great orchestra of the sky.”

In this clip from a chapel message I gave last year at Liberty University, I share some thoughts about Immanuel, God with us, and the blood-bought hope He secured for us:

You can watch the full chapel message here.

Photo: Pexels