God Doesn’t Make Junk!

What do you see when you look in the mirror?  Do you see YOU or do you see Christ?   God created each one of us for a purpose and in his own image.

It’s easy to look at our mistakes and think that we’re useless to God. But no life is so messed up, so broken, so physically imperfect that it can’t be restored into a beautiful handiwork.  The Bible is very clear – we are wonderfully made, we are his workmanship – and we each have tasks or good works to perform.  And what God makes is “perfect”.

Yet at times we may feel like “junk” – everything we do seems to be wrong, nothing in our life seems to be right, and we get discouraged. It’s easy to look at our mistakes and think that we’re useless to ourselves, to others, and to God.  Everyone else seems to have it all together, when in reality, we all are struggling with our own brokenness, mistakes, and hurts.  There is not one person on this planet who isn't struggling in some way. But God loves each one of us and wants us to learn to love ourselves.

God expects those who follow Jesus to look more and more like him from the inside out.  It can seem as though God uses a chisel and hammer to chip away at and shape our lives so we can become the people God longs for – true followers of Jesus.  The longer we live as followers of Jesus, the more and more our lives should look like his because of God’s work in us and through us.

As Christians, it doesn’t take us long to see the areas in need of improvement.  We struggle with issues of anger, pride, jealousy, bitterness, lust and self-centeredness, just to name a few.  Our goal is to fix our eyes upon Jesus and to allow God to chisel away those things in our life that are keeping us from looking in the mirror and seeing Jesus.  This can be a painful process, but is exactly what must take place for us to become the people God desires.

Remember, God is at work in us.  We are to work in tandem with God to fulfill our purpose and to have the relationship God wants with us.  As we come into this new year – what would God “chisel” first in your life?

 

Let me know how this is working in your life and I’ll tell you about mine! 

Merry Christmas!

Every child born into this world, needs the assurance that he belongs to a family who wants and loves him or her. It is believed that during the first year of our lives the need to belong is very dominant. God has intended that parents play the role of fulfilling this need.  If our parents failed to minister to our need to belong, as we become adults, certain social and behavioral problems may start to manifest in our lives. This deprivation may cause some "cracks" to start showing in the very foundation of our existence.

Whenever the Bible gives an account of a person, we are told either their father's name, their mother's name, or where they came from. When we meet Jeremiah the prophet in the Book of Jeremiah, we are told that he is the son of Hilkiah, one of the priests at Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin. However, what gives Jeremiah his sense of being loved, wanted, and planned for is when God tells him, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart: I appointed you as a prophet to the nations" - Jeremiah 1:5. Talk about having a sense of belonging!

At the end of the day when all is said and done, there is nobody on this earth who will ever grow up with a one hundred percent feeling of belonging, and of being loved and accepted. That is because we do not live in a perfect world, and no perfect parent has been born yet.  Because parents have not been brought up in perfect families, they themselves cannot be perfect parents. So everybody is brought up with a certain degree of deprivation - some more than others.

The only person that can give a human being the feeling of being completely and perfectly loved and accepted is Jesus Christ, who died for us on the Cross of Calvary out of the Father's love for us. "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends" - John 15:13. The only way that a parent can perfectly love their child is to let God love their child through them.  Only as God fills parents with His love, can they love a child in a way that gives him/her a sense of belonging.  God is able to transform the lives of those who were brought up in an environment where they did not feel like they belonged, through a personal knowledge of His Son Jesus Christ. "For 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.

Here at Morrison, we want everyone to feel a sense of belonging and find their place in God’s Kingdom.  As we journey through the Christmas season may you feel the presence of God’s love and acceptance.

The Heart of Christmas!

Thank you for joining me in this journey!  WOW what a season this is! 

As poor people who have met with the righteous wealth of God, it is now our turn to model his generosity by sharing our wealth with those in need.  Christmas is our chance to move closer to those in crisis, not further away.  It is our time to notice those who are normally ignored.  In short, it is our turn to love as we have been loved.  In practical terms, our love must include caring for the poor in our midst.

How can Christmas and the way we celebrate it still change the world?  There’s no way around it: Jesus calls us to love and care for the poor.  Throughout the Gospels, he raises the status of those the world mistreats and marginalizes – people who are deemed hopeless and beyond help.

We cannot let the broken and vulnerable become invisible.  Which brings us back to how Christmas can still change the world.  In Jesus’ words in Matthew 25, he describes simple acts of service – giving someone something to eat or drink, welcoming them, clothing them, and visiting them.  Simple as they are, these gifts matter very much to Jesus – and to those in need.  Why not start there?  It is usually the simple, common-sense acts of love that make the difference.

As we come closer to Christmas let us enter into this broken world and show love differently!  Share with me, and those who join us on this mission, the stories of how we are celebrating Christmas differently this year.  Can’t wait to hear from you!

Abundant Giving

Thank you for joining me in this journey!  I have heard many of you tell me that this invitation to push back against overspending and overconsumption during Advent deeply resonates within you.  Rather than reaching the end of the Advent season with an aching emptiness, sifting through piles of things we don’t need and may never use, let us find whatever it is our soul longs for this time of year.

Something deep inside me remembers that the special gifts I have been given are those that highlight a special relationship.  The reason I keep the picture drawn by my son isn’t because it is an expensive piece of art work.  It’s because my son gave me that gift and he created it just for me.  When I look at that particular gift, I am reminded of his love for me and the special relationship we share.

It sounds so obvious, yet we seem to have drifted from this liberating, straightforward truth: God gave us his one and only Son.  God’s answer for the world’s problems has never been material things.  God did not give us more stuff – He gave us himself!

This simple truth is why giving is still a good way to celebrate the birth of Jesus.  It also points to a way out of the chaos of consumerism that Christmas has become, taking us back to the joy that can still be found at the heart of the story.  Our giving can, in some small way, reflect the power and beauty of God coming into our world as one of us.

As we give more this season let us be reminded that the gift is not about the giver, but about the receiver.  Such gifts, when given with the spirit of humility, are expressions of grace.  Can you think of a better way to celebrate Jesus?

If we can resist the trap of giving easy gifts, and if we can reject the assumption that giving expensive gifts or many gifts is the best way to express love, something else might happen.  We might experience moments of relational giving that our friends and family will care about and remember. 

Share with me, and those who join us on this mission, the stories of how we are celebrating Christmas differently this year.  Can’t wait to hear from you!

Money and Love Are Not the Same

So how’s the journey to enter into the Christmas story going?  Still caught up in the season of excess?  Holiday sales and “best deals of the year” continue to beckon us to join the masses.  It is difficult to walk against the crowd that seems to want nothing more than to “eat, drink, shop, and be merry.” 

Jesus is the reason for the season.  Later in his ministry, Jesus said, “People try to serve both God and money – but you can’t.  You must choose one or the other.”  So how do we turn the tables?  We may be face to face with a newborn Jesus who brings us to our knees in worship, but spending less at Christmas still seems like an impossibly difficult challenge.

Spending less requires us to plan, research, give of our time and energy, and cultivate relationships.  These pursuits are more taxing than flipping through the latest catalog or bingeing at the mall.  However, as we choose to go against the cultural flow, it is important to remember that spending less on Christmas presents doesn’t mean we love our friends and family any less.  In fact, we will often find that those to whom we give creative, personal gifts will see our love – and perhaps God’s – more clearly than ever before.  

Together we can strive to thoughtfully evaluate what we support with our spending and allow our spending to support products, people, and causes that are worthy of being supported.  Our giving should be more about giving what is needed rather than what is wanted.  At the end of the day I hope that your celebration of the birth of the Liberating King is focusing less on what you are spending and more on what you are giving from a place of true worship.

I encourage you to take a minute to share with others some ideas about how you are trying to be faithful to the reason for the season!  Thanks for joining me on this mission and may you connect back to the beautiful story of Christmas.

It's All In Your Perspective

This is Advent – a time to prepare for the coming of Christ!  I want to invite you to walk with me to Bethlehem and experience firsthand the nativity, not as an innocent bystander but as a fully participatory individual.  Together we will see the birth of Christ from inside the stable instead of inside the mall. 

As we begin our journey, I am reminded that this trip is about the moment when God entered our world to make things right.  My thoughts center around expectations.  What am I hoping for?  What will make this Christmas more meaningful to me?  I am concerned that if I let the culture define this holiday season than I will be equating love with consumerism.  So I want to get past the shallow story of our culture’s Christmas and enter into the deep, life-giving waters of the Incarnation.  Free to give without comparison, receive with gratitude, and worship with abandon.

Join me in sharing the true meaning of Christmas with one another by giving of ourselves in ways that will truly make a difference in the life of someone else.  During worship we were given “Act of Kindness” cards and asked to do something for someone anonymously and leave this card.  If you have been the recipient of one of these or you are the giver – please take a moment and share your experience.  Also spend a few minutes reading what others are trying and it may just spark some ideas.

Thanks for joining me on this mission and may you connect back to this beautiful story of Christmas.