merittmusings

A God-Shaped Hole

www.bible.com/1713/ecc.3.11.csb

There it is. This is why we are never content. This is why we keep looking for the next thing. This is why without God we are never happy. Paul once said “godliness with contentment is great gain.” Why? Because few there are that find it. Without God Life is just a great black hole sucking joy out of all things. God designed with an eternity-shaped hope, a hole only He can fill of we will let Him.

Solomon in his vast wisdom knew this. But this book of his isn’t finished until the end of his life, after he’s made his mistakes. He realizes now towards the end of his life that he really has nothing without God. The world itself cannot fill the vacuum of our heart. And Solomon could certainly have explored every avenue and venture there was in His time. Every pleasure and lust he could invent were his to explore. He did everything there was to do. And he still recognized that none of it was enough. He still felt the god-shaped hole in all of us.

As we come to the close of another year, perhaps you are feeling the same thing. You’ve done everything you can do to fill that hole. You’ve dumped everything you can think of into it and you still feel empty. You’ve tried everything to be happy, and you come to this time of self-reflection and see nothing but dread for the new year.

You have a god-shaped hole in you. You can’t fill it. Nothing you do or experience will ever satisfy that deep hunger for something more until you accept Jesus as your Savior. It may sound like cliche, but Jesus is the only One that can fill your heart because your were designed for Him. That hole is there because He built you that way.

There are places in your life that only your parents can fill, good or bad. The same goes for children. We know how these feel when suddenly these holes are empty. We know the grief and the loss after losing a loved one. We are familiar with these kinds of holes. So it is with this God-shaped void in us.

I urge you today. Don’t turn to a bottle or a syringe to fill that hole. Don’t rely on friends or even family to fill it, because they are not enough. Decide today that you will accept Jesus as your Savior, and be filled.

May God bless you as you go into your new year!

That New Baby Smell

www.bible.com/1713/2co.5.17.csb

Have you ever picked up a baby and smelled the top of his head? You know the smell I’m talking about. It’s like hope and potential all wrapped up into one tiny package. That small child is capable of so many different things in that moment, you can hardly bear it. Because it reminds you of all the potential you once had. You used to be like that small child, seeing the world for the first time, eyes filled with wonder and amazement. Oh all the places we’d go.

Yeah, now that I think about it, its kind of depressing, isn’t it? When you first start a new project, your mind is filled with the potential of all the things you will accomplish, the accolades you will receive, the joy at a job well done. By the end, you just want it over with. You have to finish it before you can get to the next, better thing that lies ahead. We come upon this cycle of accomplishment that just doesn’t end like we thought it would, and we come upon disappointment. So it is with New Year’s.

Only this new year isn’t just a new year, but a new decade. It reminds us that we need to review not just the last year, but the last ten years. Are you where you’d thought you’d be ten years ago?

Ten years ago I was pastoring a church in Illinois called First Christian Church. I thought ten years ago that that would be a good place to retire. Going to Kentucky and living in Morehead was never on the radar, ten years ago. I would have laughed if you talked about moving to Kentucky. Yet here we are. Ten years on and living here for the last 7+ years. I had no thought at that time that I would be a Chaplain. I always thought I would be in ministry in a local church. But God always has other plans.

With the lessons I’ve learned about people I’d go back in a heartbeat believing myself more capable or ministry than I ever had been, and I should be. I should be more mature and have better skills today than I did ten years ago. But who knows what the next ten years have in store for me? In ten years, I will be in my late fifties. My youngest will have graduated high school, and I may even have grandchildren by then. I may also have to face the death of my parents, as they are both in their seventies. These next ten years may make the last ten look pretty good. I suppose that’s true for a lot of us.

But this is the hope offered by the verse above, isn’t it? In Christ, we are new? In Christ we put aside the old and put on the newness He offers? We don’t have to wait for the calendar but even today can put on the new.

Have you been making New Year’s resolutions to get back into your Bible or buffing up your prayer life? May I suggest that you not wait until January 1st. Start today. His mercies are new every morning. For this morning, I offer you this verse, the old has gone, the new has come. Make today the start of something new. Leave off regrets of the life you could have had and make the best of your life now. God has steered you in this direction for a purpose. Find it and do your best to fulfill it. God cannot and will not move you until you’ve accomplished His purposes here.

May God bless you and have a great Monday!

Receive and Believe

www.bible.com/1713/jhn.1.12.csb

It may seem to you that God sets the bar kind of low when it comes to salvation in Jesus. Perhaps it is because we have watered down the language so much from its biblical use that we don’t even know what the Bible is asking us anymore. (I might note this is another subtle Satan hack.) This recent holiday season being an example, what does it mean to believe in Santa Claus?

I suspect that if you believe in Santa Claus, it’s not a belief you think about throughout the year. The practice of this faith means what: setting out milk and cookies on Christmas Eve, writing a letter to Santa, and visiting Him in the mall, once. If you are a fanatic, you might remind yourself that you need to be “good” relatively speaking to stay off the naughty list. Sure you decorate like all the doubters out there, but how much of you life is consumed with this belief? Do you have enough have to resist buying presents for yourself or others, trusting that Santa will come through this year?

Such is modern belief.

Belief in Jesus Christ calls for a bit more. Affirming that Jesus lived, probably died on a cross, and some say he rose from the dead won’t change your life. Believing that Jesus died for your sin and loved today, that’s something else. I don’t pray to Santa to change my circumstances. I pray to Jesus. I don’t pray that Santa would fix my marriage. I ask Jesus. I know Jesus is alive and well. I know Jesus rose from the dead. I know Jesus cares for me even now. Why? Because He told me in His book. Even as o write this, Jesus is present with me. I don’t have to hope it’s true. I know it’s true.

That’s the difference between belief and faith in our culture. Faith motivates. Faith influences action. Belief is often just something I think I know. Faith is knowing something for certain without having seen the proof.

This is what makes children of God. These are the children who have the faith that God is their father, that they are His children, and act accordingly. They have received the truth of Jesus Christ in their hearts and serve Him faithfully. This is true and authentic faith for the believer.

May God bless you in your walk with Jesus today.

Needs

www.bible.com/1713/mat.4.4.csb

What would you consider a “need”? I am often surprised what others consider their needs. In Eastern Kentucky, I often see people forego their need for shelter, family, even good to afford their drug habit. People will give up everything to satisfy that need. Even the dignity of their own body.

You however might have more simple needs, like a warm bed, a stable marriage, kids that are kind, food on the table, a roof over your head, clothes to wear and so on. But have you ever considered the Word of God as a need?

What this implies is that we all need food to survive, no one will thrive without the Word of God. Honestly if it were not for this blog, there would be whole days I may forget to look up a verse of Scripture. So this blog is as much a daily discipline for me as anything. It forces me to get into the Word, if only for a little bit.

How does the word impact your life? Are there days you go without picking a Bible or reading from an app? If we don’t intentionally put it on front of our eyes every day, the temptation is very easy to forget. And what happens when you forget to make God’s Word a priority? Our human minds begin to slip, slowly at first. We skip out of the habit and we lose that daily reminder of hope. Depression enters the picture because without Jesus, this world is a sorry place.

Little by little if we avoid God’s word, we lose a little hope and acquire a little despair. We need the word of God to remind us of our journey, our purpose, and our destination. Without them we wander in darkness, and that’s no way to live.

Please consider in the coming year of making daily Bible reading a priority. You will feel much better for it. God bless you in your daily walk.

All Things Created

www.bible.com/1713/col.1.16.csb

Before you can question God’s authority, you must first ask, “who made who?” There is a popular notion in vogue today that God is a creation of the mind of man. That somehow we needed to invent God in order to explain the things we can’t explain. And then, when science has sufficiently matured, we will no longer need God to explain the unexplainable. Hmm.

There is a far older notion that God created us, not because He needed us, but because He wanted to make us because God is love. God wanted someone else to love. Don’t think that God was not completely content in Himself. He certainly is. He does not need us at all in order to love. Rather He chooses to.

So the question of authority is “who made who?” Who made man? Who made God? If you read the Bible, you would know that we could not and would not come up with the God of the Bible. We would not invent a God beyond our understanding, unapproachable by man’s sinfulness, and requiring a redemptive Savior to act as intermediary. We would certainly invent tamer gods. On the other hand, God would certainly invent man, made in His own image, to be subject to Him.

God made man. Not the other way around. This God has all the authority of a Creator. He made us. He made the rules by which we interact. He has whole and complete authority over us. He is our Father and our Judge, but in the best way possible. In this way, we do not have authority over each other except by that to which we are appointed. And none of us have greater authority than God.

Who of us have the authority to raise the dead? Any of us could kill, but none of us could undo such an act. We could maim, but only God can restore lost limbs. We can harm, but only God can truly heal. Who has the authority in this world? Who made who? Praise God that we don’t have that authority.

May God bless you today.

What’s So Special about Us?

www.bible.com/1713/psa.8.3-4.csb

This is the value of the Christmas season. If you stop for five minutes and examine why Christmas is a celebration, you realize that Christmas is all about God taking on human flesh. It is all about the incarnation of Christ into a living human being. The date is not important, since no one knows for sure what the date actually was. But the event of Christ’s birth is certain. We know He lived because He died.

So why does that make us special? God did not come into this world as a dog, or an elephant, or a whale. None of those things are nearly as accessible. He did not come as a cat, or a zebra, or a tree. The only vessel that could close go represented who God is is a human being, because we are made in His image. We are the only fitting verse for His presence. Even then, we could not hope to contain His presence, so He limited His essence to fit into a human body. But this is the miracle of the Incarnation.

Since Jesus has come to be like one of us, He offers the invitation to come and be like Him, a child of God. He went and died on a cross for you, so that you would believe in Him and be like Him in His resurrection. What a marvelous and wonderful gift.

Merry Christmas on this second day of Christmas. There’s just too much to celebrate for just one day.

Merry Christmas!

www.bible.com/1713/luk.2.11.csb

On this special holiday, may you and yours have a Merry Christmas. If you have opportunity to spend time with those you love today, you are truly blessed. May I also add that if you are working today, I grieve with you, but may offer your gifts with joy since you are counted worthy today to serve. May you extend your Christmas joy to others others.

God bless you today!

He Will Save

www.bible.com/1713/mat.1.21.csb

From our perspective, Jesus has saved the world from sin, all those who would be saved. From Joseph’s perspective, Jesus will save, as he had not been born yet in this passage. But from Jesus’ perspective? Jesus has seen the entire narrative from beginning to end.

Consider that as God’s Second Person, Jesus has seen his entire story, his life as a man, play out from beginning to end. He knew what choices He would make before He made them. He had already seen Himself die on the cross, be buried, and be risen again. He knew this without any doubt while He was still in Heaven. He could have said that He has saved the world from the beginning. Since for Him his foreknowledge of time and space was a foregone conclusion.

However, what Jesus has not done was to actually carry it out. He knew Judas would betray Him and that Peter would deny Him, but He has not experienced how that would feel as a human being. That was new. And as much as His omniscience as God could prepare Him, He still begged His Father for another way in Gethsemane, if there might be another way to avoid the suffering of the cross. He knew there wasn’t and there had never been another way, but His human experience begged all the same.

Jesus knew from the day he was born when He would die. That knowledge is a terrible burden. Jesus is the “lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” He knew from the very beginning. But He still loves us enough to carry it out. Can you comprehend that kind of love?

May you feel God’s love for you this Christmas. All of this is for you. Merry Christmas.

Those With Whom God is Pleased

www.bible.com/1713/luk.2.14.csb

You know you are in pretty rare company if you are among those with whom God is pleased. You probably already know that God is pleased with only a few, and those are His who follow Him. Which means that this grand declaration on the night Jesus was born didn’t necessarily apply to all men and women, but to those few who answer this message in faith and follow the Messiah of whom they declare. Upon you is conferred this precious grace.

God knows upon whom His favor rests. Unto all He offers the grand invitation. Come unto Me. Come let us reason together. This message is for you and for all who afar off. Christ came in the flesh that He might live as one of us, to die our death, so that all might come unto Him and be saved. The invitation is offered to all. It is accepted by those upon whom His favor rests. Will it be you?

This is no lottery, where you have a chance of winning. This is like shooting fish in a barrel. All you have to do to win is to play. But the price of entry is your soul. But why not exchange what you cannot keep for something you cannot lose? The price is too high? Can you tell me what amazing things you have done with your life that you can’t afford to give it away? You may give your life to him, even your rags and filth, and He will give you a better life, far more abundant than you can imagine. He doesn’t take your life to keep, but to purify, to cleanse, to make whole again. He wants you to fulfill your purpose, but you must do it His way. You win by playing by His rules.

Give glory to God. If you have submitted to Him and His grace, then you win! his favor rests upon you. Now make today a day for Him! This is a season of joy, not just temporary happiness. Bring joy to your world. Glorify God, because you have already received the best gift ever because of Christmas.

God bless you today.

The Light of Men

www.bible.com/1713/jhn.1.4-5.csb

I want to give credit to my pastor this morning at Better Life from whom I am borrowing this morning. In His message he said that God has not given us a map. We are not given a destination, so we don’t know how it’s all going to work out for us, who we will marry or what career path we will choose. Instead, He gives us a direction. Or more specifically, He gives us a star, just like the Magi. The star gives us a direction. That star for us comes in the form of His word, for his word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path.

This light shines into the darkness of o ur lives. Our darkness can not overcome His light. Even in our darkest selves, the light still speaks to us and convicts us. This light exposes the deeds done in darkness, which is why the darkness despises the light and does everything it can to blot it out.

But the darkness can not overcome the light. The light will always be stronger. He will always be stronger. That’s why we follow Him.

May this encourage you this season. Merry Christmas to all!