Chosen

1 Peter 2:4-12

(Use the link below to read the verses.)

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Peter%202%3A4-12&version=NIV;MSG

  

What defines you? What is your identity? Is it your career or what you do such as being a parent a student or an athlete? Is it where you live? Is it some great accomplishment; or something shameful that you did? Is it a physical trait like the shape of your body or how attractive you are?

 

Whatever it is, one thing is for sure; your identity sets the course of your life. It gives direction to your attitudes, your beliefs, and your decisions.

 

In Peter’s letter, he wrote to believers that were living in a precarious time. Followers of Christ were being persecuted daily, sometimes at the cost of their lives. Peter speaks to the core of their condition… their identity. Their identity will define them because it will determine how they respond and live their lives of faith.

 

⁹ But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. ¹⁰ Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.     NIV

 

^9-10 But you are the ones chosen by God, chosen for the high calling of priestly work, chosen to be a holy people, God’s instruments to do his work and speak out for him, to tell others of the night-and-day difference he made for you—from nothing to something, from rejected to accepted.           MSG

 

These two translations of the same verses give you insights into who you are as a believer; into what, or who defines you.

 

You have been chosen by God to tell others about the difference that God has made in your life.

       You have been chosen not because you are holy, but to be holy through God’s mercy.

        You have been chosen to be a part of the people of God; not a lone ranger.

         You have been chosen because God has a plan and a purpose for your life.

 

You are a child of God, chosen by Him to serve and to love Him. That is your identity. That is what defines you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Simeon: A Faithful Servant

Christmas Character Series

Luke 2:22-40

(Use the link below to read the verses.)

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%202%3A22-40&version=NIV;NLT

 
 

In the 2007 movie The Bucket List, Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman portrayed complete strangers until fate lands them in the same hospital room.

Both men have a need to come to terms with who they are and what they have done with their lives.

To do this, they decide to complete a list of things that they want to see and do before they die… their bucket list.

 

Over the years, my bucket list has included taking a tour of Europe; hiking the Appalachian Trail; and participating on the reality TV show Survivor. A few years ago I finally fulfilled something on my bucket list; I sang a duet with my daughter at church.

 

Sometimes though, something that should be on your bucket list isn’t because it’s unexpected. Like when my granddaughter recently invited me to take her to the Father/Daughter dance. You can’t plan on something like that, but it doesn’t get any sweeter. Simeon may have had the same thought when he saw Jesus.

 

²⁵ At that time there was a man in Jerusalem named Simeon. He was righteous and devout and was eagerly waiting for the Messiah to come and rescue Israel.        NLT

 

Simeon had a very short bucket list. It was to see the Lord’s Messiah. When he saw Jesus in the Temple, he knew that his deepest desire; his hopes and dreams; his bucket list had been fulfilled.

 

²⁹ “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised,
    you may now dismiss your servant in peace.
³⁰ For my eyes have seen your salvation,
³¹ which you have prepared in the sight of all nations:
³² a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
   and the glory of your people Israel.”    NIV

 

The NIV translates verse 25 above as, “He was waiting for the consolation of Israel”. For Simeon, that was to see the Messiah. For us, it will be when we come before our Heavenly Father and hear his words, “Well done my faithful servant”. On that day, we will finally be home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Magi: Persistent Servants

Christmas Character Series

Matthew 2:1-12

(Use the link below to read the verses.)

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%202%3A1-12&version=NIV;NLT

  

Recently, my wife and I were planning to meet some friends for lunch at the Mohican State Park lodge; a little over an hour’s drive. It would be a beautiful setting in the rustic lodge, overlooking Pleasant Hill Lake in the middle of the Mohican State Forest.

There would be a fire in the stone fireplace and a twenty-five foot Christmas tree beautifully decorated.

 

Before leaving, we set our GPS for Mohican State Park… but not the lodge. Recalculation required! When our GPS said “You have arrived”, there was nothing but pine trees and hills around us; no sign of the lodge. Panic quickly set in. We found that our GPS is only as good as the settings for the final destination.

 

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem ² and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”         NIV

 

The Magi didn’t have a GPS, but they saw the star and knew it was a sign. Because they didn’t know precisely where to find the king of the Jews, they went to Jerusalem to continue their search. They consulted King Herod who in turn consulted the religious leaders who led them to Bethlehem in Judea.

 

⁹ After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. ¹⁰ When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. ¹¹ On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. NIV

 

To find the king of the Jews, the Magi went on a long journey. That journey started and ended with a star. To find the king of the Jews today doesn’t require a brightly lit star or consulting with a king or even a long journey.

 

Jesus continuously stands at the door of your heart knocking, waiting for you to respond. He sends the Holy Spirit to open your heart, to give you direction and then the power to follow him. You don’t need a GPS to find Jesus.

 

 

 

 

Jesus: The Message of Hope

Christmas Character Series

John 1:1-18

(Use the link below to read the verses.)

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%201%3A1-18&version=NIV;NLT

 

 

This headline appeared in the Columbus Dispatch on Christmas Eve morning. Initially, I thought how cool that on Christmas Eve they printed a story about Jesus. Instead, it was an article about the 50^th anniversary of the Apollo 8 space mission that circled the moon.

 

Here is how the journalist introduced the story.

“At the end of a violent, turbulent 1968 in which the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr and Robert F Kennedy were assassinated, protesters and police battled outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and American troops were mired in the war in Vietnam, there came a semblance of peace from 230,000 miles away.”

 

That “semblance of peace” was issued on December 24, 1968, as the astronauts looked out the window of their spacecraft, and saw the earth in a way that no human had ever seen before. As a message of hope, they quoted a passage from Genesis 1. However, I think the following verses would have been better.

 

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was with God in the beginning. ³ Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. ⁴ In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

 

¹⁴ The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.         NIV

 

This is the best message of hope possible. It is the message of God becoming man; of the word made flesh; of God with us. In The Message, it is paraphrased this way:

 

¹⁴ The Word became flesh and blood,
                        and moved into the neighborhood.          MSG

 

Thank goodness we don’t depend on the Columbus Dispatch, or any other temporal source, for lasting hope. But we can depend on the Living God, who sent His one and only Son into our world to seek us out and bring us love, joy, peace and hope.

 

May you experience “The Message of Hope” throughout the coming year.