Simply having a wonderful Christmastime

Standing on a dot affixed to the floor of an empty coffee shop on a Saturday morning in Frankenmuth waiting for the only other patron in the coffee shop to finish his order. It’s a single man six feet in front of me ordering a triple shot of espresso. 

 I’m staring at the empty pastry case in front of me. There’s a reflection in it of the tiny lit up Christmas tree standing behind me next to two poinsettias. It’s Saturday morning, two weeks before Christmas Day and Frankenmuth , aka “Christmas town” is empty. The states covid mandates are decimating tinsel towns most spirited time of the year. I notice the Christmas song playing that fills the air: 

“The moon is right

 The spirits up 

We're here tonight 

And that's enough 

Simply having a wonderful Christmastime

 Simply having a wonderful Christmastime 

The party's on

 The feelin's here 

That only comes 

This time of year”

 The atmosphere around me in Christmas town doesn’t reflect the mood of the song...suddenly I feel Like Paul McCartney is lying to me.

Thigh crepes and Jesus.

I was putting lotion on my legs last week and noticed how the skin on my legs isn't quite as firm as it used to be. It’s the effects of being 44 and my decades of sun "worship" exposure. The first indication of this problem came just a few years ago near my 41st birthday. I was standing on a pickleball court, wearing shorts, when I looked down and noticed that my knee's looked slightly sad and appeared to be frowning. My knee skin suddenly appeared to hang like drapery over my kneecaps. I had never noticed that my knee’s had depression before that moment. Fast forward to this year at age 44, I began to notice an undesirable and unwelcomed crepe like appearance on what used to be my unyielding taut thigh skin. In other words, my formerly “nice looking legs”. While I was slathering up my crepes with lotion, I started to consider the effects the sun has had on my flesh. We all recognize and know the sun is bad for our skin (unless somehow you've been living under a rock....which....in that case you wouldn't have a need to fret over thigh crepes and sad frowning knee's). I began considering the effects of the sun on my flesh and decided to take these thoughts and filter them through what I’ve learned through the Word of God. I've always considered the obvious analogy between the sun in the sky and the Son of God. How can we not? Both bring light to the entire world. Both have radiance/glory. Everything revolves around them. Life is simply impossible without them as they both bring sustenance to living things. Both are a consuming fire. Both expose darkness. Both act as a disinfectant. The list goes on. The walk to follow Christ requires a continuous crucification of our flesh. The more we learn about and trust Christ, the more willing we are to die to our flesh. We trust our flesh less and Jesus more. Biblically, flesh represents our sinful nature and desires. Consider the following from Gods Word: Galatians 5:16- 5:24 "But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” So to follow and obey Christ is to continuously destroy our flesh. It’s a process called sanctification. “”Sanctify them in the truth, your Word is truth”- John 17:17. We are dying to our flesh and growing in Holy Spirit maturity. As we mature in The Spirit, the fleshly sinful desires weaken and die. As much as I wished that my own sanctification could have been an overnight process, it wasn’t, and continues to be a lifelong process for me. Has it gotten easier? By all means, yes! The fleshly sins I struggled with in my first five years of this walk are not even close to the struggles I have today. And the struggles I have today should pale in comparison to the sinful struggles I’ll have five years from now. There should always marked progress. On and on this sanctification will go until I physically die and my sinful flesh and desires are forever put to death. So those sad knees and wrinkled thighs? They are a natural sign that God is at work in my life! And that’s not so sad after all. Then I considered how the same sun that ages and destroys our flesh is also a HUGE benefit to our immune system giving us the ability to fight off illness and disease that can end our lives. The Sun energizes T-cells which play a central role in human immunity. Catching rays from the sun is the number one way our bodies naturally manufacture Vitamin D, the essential vitamin in a healthy internal immune system and mood lifter! While this benefit may help us ward off infections and disease in the temporal, eventually the flesh will still die. But for the believer, this won’t be the end. Jesus IS our immunity. Jesus, the son of God is the ultimate immunity. Can we please just consider the definition of immunity for a minute here? Immunity: protection or exemption from something, especially an obligation or penalty. Example: "the rebels were given immunity from prosecution" When we die In Christ, we get the ultimate immunity. We escape the deserved punishment for our sin. Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us. We walk away with life. We walk away in new skin. He’s making all things new….even my legs 😊 How anyone can consider all these things and NOT be in absolute AWE of the Lord completely befuddles my mind. HE is as obvious as the SUN in the sky. He is BRILLIANT beyond compare. Who is like Him? What could you possibly be waiting for??!!! Today is a good day to follow Jesus. Get down on those sad knee’s and believe on Him today. You’ll never regret it. If the Wise men sought Him out from Babylon, what is your excuse?

Unclean!!! Unclean!!!!

Leviticus 13:45 “Anyone with such a defiling disease must wear torn clothes, let their hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of their face and cry out, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ As long as they have the disease they remain unclean. They must live alone; they must live outside the camp."

 I'm going to start shouting "Unclean, Unclean" every time I leave my house and am approaching strangers in the distance. So if you're in the bread aisle at Meijers and you hear some screechy voiced lady screaming "unclean"...its just me...breathing. 

 Thinking about making tshirts with the words "UNCLEAN" boldly scripted on the front to supplement for the hearing impaired. 

 I have the unkempt hair thing down...I couldn't quite get into the trendy ripped jeans thing and I certainly don't have the lower face covering down very well. 

 If I've learned anything these last four years from my fellow earthlings and countrymen..not only am I deplorable and unworthy of earthly redemption, I'm unclean even though I'm not physically sick; and my lower face ought to be covered.... theres nothing new under the sun.

 But thankyou Jesus for the gospel...the unclean are made clean....when Jesus comes near.

 Matthew 8:8 When Jesus came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy. What makes you clean?

Context Matters- Jesus leaves the 99

Todays lesson of #contextmatters. I come across posts such as this often. So I wanted to go through the text...the poster here gives us a limited view of the text to deceive the reader into buying in to a current political issue. So lets go along and actually take a look and read ALL of Luke 15, and not just the limited portion he provides, and think about what is actually going on and apply it to what the poster is talking about. Luke 15 ESV "Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. 2 And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, b“This man receives sinners and eats with them.” 3 So he told them this parable: 4 d“What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? 5 And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for i have found my sheep that was lost.’ 7 Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance." Okay , so what going on here? Jesus is being approached by sinners and eating with them... the holier than thou are accusing him of hanging with them. So he tells them this brilliant parable describing how it makes sense for him to go after the sinner that has yet to repent because such a sinner is separated from God. Jesus goes after sinners to call them to repentance and unity with the Lord. So the one sheep represents the unrepentant sinner who Jesus goes after. The 99 could represent the saved who have repented of their sins and are in Christ. (they used to be the one). They could be "righteous persons who need no repentance because there is no condemnation in Christ...we are saved by our faith...you are righteous by faith, not your deeds (although deeds show faith, thats a whole nother long discussion!). If you're righteous, you have put away your old self and submitted to the Lord...aka" you're the 99 in the pen, you're with Him". Or perhaps the 99 are the pharisees he's describing who believe they need no repentance and will never be saved, thus he says theres much more joy over the one repentant than the 99? But they're in the Lords sheep pen, so I have to believe the first explanation. That there once was much joy when they repented also 🙂 The poster goes on to makes an analogy of 'the one lost sheep" to "Black lives matter"....if we follow the logic of what the scripture means, the poster is actually saying that we care about Black lives because they are sinners who have yet to repent. And "all lives matter" would represent the repentant saved who are with God??. His post, if taken into correct context is actually offensive as he is saying that black people are all unrepentant sinners. I don't think he realizes this and this is why its dangerous to use scripture in such a reckless way and you haven't read or fully understood the scripture you're citing. There are saved people of every color, and nation worldwide. There are unsaved people of every color and nation worldwide. The Lord doesn't care about your skin color, He cares about your heart. If you're sharing this post, I want you to understand the context of the parable lest you say something you don't actually intend to say. Also, I want you to read Gods Word and be saved. Read Luke 15, then don't stop there! Todays a good day to surrender to the Lord. How long has Jesus been following you and trying to bring you into fellowship with Him? He's likely been following you around for a long time trying to get your attention. Todays a good day to turn around (a.k.a repent) and follow Him.