Tag: Jesus

The True Meaning of Christmas Joy

Have you sung this famous Christmas carol yet during your celebrations?

“Joy to the world, the Lord has come. Let earth receive her king.”

It’s an uplifting, boisterous song, oozing happiness and promise.

Are you feeling the joy it describes?

 

For many, Christmas is a season of deep joy and peace. For others, the lights, decorations, presents, celebrations, and peace to all men of goodwill talk are the polar opposites of what they’re experiencing in their homes.

Their lives are a stark reminder of why Jesus had to come to Earth in the first place.

And all of the trappings don’t erase their pain and suffering.

And it’s also likely that the “joy” so many are experiencing is not real joy at all but temporal happiness that changes as circumstances change and disappointment sets in.

 

But the promise of Christmas is the real, everlasting joy that Jesus brought to Earth over 2,000 years ago and still offers us today.

But His joy had little to do with temporal happiness or comfort, as His life demonstrated.

As David Brickner says in the December Jews for Jesus newsletter:

 

“[The joy set before Jesus] (as noted in Hebrews 12:2) had very little to do with His personal happiness on earth. Certainly, Jesus was looking past the shame of the cross to fully restored fellowship at the right hand of the Father. But that joy before Him also included the prospect of relationships He would enjoy with those who put their trust in Him. And I think He also had in mind the joy that His suffering would make possible for you and me.

“Jesus’ joy became ours when we trust in Him, and remains ours as we enjoy true fellowship with Him regardless of life’s circumstances.”

 

That’s a statement to meditate on: Jesus’ joy was based on the joy that would result for us from His suffering. He suffered so we might experience joy. And that act brought Him joy.

 

But for a moment, let’s go back to the song.

 

There’s another phrase in “Joy to the World” that says, “Let every heart prepare Him room.”

The message from Scripture, David’s words and the words of the song are clear: without Jesus residing in your heart, it is impossible to experience or possess true joy.

While God gave His son because He loved the world so, the truth is that we must believe in that Son in order to have eternal life, to avoid perishing. To have joy, in all it’s heavenly splendor and depth of meaning.

 

And one more thing about that wonderful Christmas song.

It wasn’t actually written for Christmas—the birth of Jesus—at all.

It was written about His return. A future hope. His return to Jerusalem to establish His kingdom on Earth.

As David Brickner also says:

 

“When you sing that carol will you be thinking about the little town of Bethlehem or about Jerusalem? There are only sixteen miles between those two cities, but for Jesus, that journey took a lifetime of endurance and suffering and death so that He could bring forth an eternity of joy and rejoicing.”

 

So this year when you’re belting out “Joy to the World” at your Christmas Eve service or church service Christmas day, or as you continue to hum and sing it through the rest of the year, I encourage you to think about not only Jesus’ miraculous birth but the joy of His return.

And while you’re at it, make sure you share that joy with others, so they, too, can experience true joy, regardless of any circumstance they face.

That’s the best gift you could give anyone!

 

Until we get together next Monday, I pray you

Have a truly blessed Christmas,

Andrea

May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).

Photo by Ben White on unsplash.com

Enjoying the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I just love this time of year. The lights, the celebrations, the dressing up in Christmas finery to attend plays and parties. I listen over-and-over to Christmas songs I’ve heard and sung a million times, spend too much, eat too much, and stay up way too late binge-watching Christmas movies, which we now have a healthy collection of in the Owan home.

In spite of the world’s sorry state, we can set aside the sometimes-drudging reality of our lives to live in wonder—the wonder of heaven tearing open the thin veil between Heaven and Earth, God’s spirit indwelling human flesh, the beginning-of-time prophesy being fulfilled, the hope and promise of prophesy yet to come, the real beginning of the march toward Easter sunrise three to four months later.

 

I don’t care if the dead of winter really wasn’t the Lord’s true birth date, or the Catholic Church borrowed the green winter solstice tree from the Druids and Celts and re-invented a celebration in order to appeal to the pagans to join the church. (Happy Winter Solstice Day, by the way.) I don’t even care that celebrating birthdays was a pagan tradition (who knows that kind of stuff now, anyway, except the Jehovah’s Witnesses, some Messianic groups, and trivia buffs?) and Christians didn’t want to celebrate it because of that. (The real practicing pagans believe that evil spirits lurk around during days of major changes, like the day you turn a year older.)

Jesus said, “I make all things new.” And this time of year, I’m going with that.

The genius author Charles Dickens managed to re-focus Christmas into a worldwide celebration, (if you haven’t seen the movie The Man Who Invented Christmas, you’re missing out!) where people set their hearts on others and try to bring joy into someone else’s life (and there are a lot of people who need some extra joy). Dickens shed light on the terrible plight of the poor (which he had experience in) and opened people’s hearts to look around them, to see beyond themselves, to lighten the burden of the downtrodden and disadvantaged.

To make people think about how God views our attitudes and behavior toward our fellow man. (Something that should stay with us all year.)

Of course, we have gotten carried away with the commercialism, but we can turn away from that and enjoy the holiday for what it is—a time to truly turn our hearts toward and honor and celebrate the birth of the man known as

  • Immanuel (God With Us)
  • Wonderful Counselor
  • Almighty God
  • Prince of Peace

 

In the back of my mind, I know January 2 is coming, when the festivities will end, I’ll need to reconcile my checkbook and finances, my monthly income will drop like a rock for half the year in order to satisfy the social security taxes due for 2019, and I’ll be back to living out the day-to-day, which isn’t always very exciting, or forgiving.

But today, and for the next several days and especially Monday night and Tuesday, all day, I’ll be celebrating. It’s a veritable peek into the wedding feast of Heaven I’ll enjoy some day.

 

I hope that’s what you’re celebrating too!

 

Until next time—quiet or boisterous—make it a very Merry Christmas!!

After all, if you are a follower of Jesus, you have MUCH to celebrate!

So Rejoice!!

Blessings,

Andrea

May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).

Christmas: When Love Came Down

I really miss performing in yearly Christmas pageants and musicals, especially at church. Not only did the dramatist in me love them, they were truly my first introduction to Jesus, (that I can remember), and who He is. An introduction that shaped my vision and view of God and of Christmas itself very early in my life.

But as in so many churches, ours has gone the way of a worship band playing on a “stage,” with nearly every aspect of High Church ornamentation and ritual stripped away. And I’m left with playing old Christmas programs CDs on my stereo system and blaring the beautiful old songs—that taught about God’s love and majesty and His son’s miraculous birth—throughout my house. They bring back warm memories.

 

One of those particular programs is called “When Love Came Down.”

 

But we don’t always think of Christmas that way, do we? When Love came down. When the Creator of the Universe chose to come to this mean earth in the form of a lowly baby, with one purpose in mind: to restore mankind’s relationship to the Father and provide a way for us to spend eternity with Him.

He gives that opportunity to everyone.

Now that’s what I call love!

Perfect, sacrificial, unconditional love.

 

Love goes way beyond how we normally regard it, how we conceptualize it. And amazingly enough, science backs up the power, majesty and mystery of it! Here are just some of the ways love unleashes its power on us (compiled by Guideposts Editorial Intern Alyssa White for Feb/Mar 2018 issue of their Mysterious Ways magazine):

 

  • According to the HeartMath Institute, the heart produces a strong electrical field that can be measured from several feet away.
  • When asked to rate foods, people in loving relationships experienced sweet and bitter foods—even water!—as sweeter, reported the journal Emotion.
  • A UC Davis study of 32 couples found that staring into your beloved’s eyes for three minutes can cause your heartbeats to sync up.
  • Love letters are good for you! An Arizona State [University] study showed writing affectionately about someone you love—either romantically or platonically—can lower your cholesterol.
  • Cuddling and holding hands releases natural painkillers like oxytocin in your brain, according to data from UCLA.
  • A German study found that men who kiss their wives before work live five years longer, earn a higher income, and are less likely to get in a car accident.
  • A study in California noted that gazing at a photograph of a loved one can measurably decrease physical pain.
  • When a mother focuses her attention on her baby, her brain waves synchronize with her baby’s heartbeat, the HeartMath Institute says.

And here’s a fact that drives home just how powerful—and lasting—real love can be:

 

 The heart never forgets. Neuropsychologist Paul Pearsall observed that heart transplant recipients sometimes retain their donor’s memories.

 

That last one is hard to fathom, isn’t it? But it tells you where memories may really be stored.

 

In the heart.

 

When I think about Jesus and His love for us, I find it more amazing.

He came to Earth with the sole purpose of saving us; of giving us a hope and a purpose; of providing the way to eternal life through his death and resurrection.

He did it because He had us in His heart. You, me, everyone.

And He still does. Two thousand years later.

 

He never forgets us.

 

And that’s what Christmas was and still is about.

 

When Love came down.

 

If we spend our week leading up to Christmas meditating on God, Jesus and that mysterious, miraculous love, I have no doubt our heartbeats will sync and our lives will be much sweeter!

 

UNTIL NEXT WEEK, (Christmas Eve), meditate on Jesus and His love, write and send a love letter to someone special, dig out a photo of a loved one and meditate on it, and spend some time cuddling and holding hands with your sweetie!

Ain’t love—and its power—grand!

 

To explore more interesting facts about love, go to Guideposts Love Facts. (Guideposts.org/LoveFacts)

 

Blessings,

Andrea

May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).

Was the Resurrection More Spirit than Body?

What are you?

Are you spirit or body? Equally? Or more spirit than body? Or vice versa.

As I’ve said in previous body and spirit posts, I have a suspicion God thinks both are equally important. Today I’ll give you another reason why I believe that to be true.

What about the greatest event in human history?

Remember the Resurrection? After Jesus was resurrected from the grave, He appeared to the apostles and then to His other disciples in bodily form. In such bodily form that He tells His disciple Thomas to touch his nail-punctured hands and put his fingers into His lanced side to touch Him, really know that it is He—Jesus—returned from the dead and restored to life. Thomas is so overwhelmed by just seeing Jesus in the flesh that he doesn’t seem to need to do those things, even though he previously claimed he’d have to do them in order to fully believe Jesus had come back to life.

the facts—

Jesus’ spirit was rejoined with His body. He walked with the disciples; he ate with the disciples. He demonstrated a perfect, fulfilled melding of body and spirit by enjoying bodily activities and also performing a disappearing act when He suddenly departs from the disciples he joined while they walked on the road to Emmaus.

What others think—

Some religions that claim to follow Jesus believe His resurrection was purely spiritual, with no real body component. Whatever body we saw seemed to be a figment of our imagination, or maybe something the Lord willed His followers to see. I’ve never gotten them to explain that idea so it’s comprehensible.

I don’t see what the point of that kind of resurrection would be. It doesn’t make sense. Not with the promise of our own future, post physical death resurrections God talks about in Scripture. Jesus had a point to prove, a promise to fulfill.

 

And a future promise to foreshadow.

 

Jesus’ resurrection was a literal conquering of death. It was real, it was tangible, and it held a promise for our own futures. It is the hope we look forward to, the end reward for a well-run race. Being spiritually and physically reunited with Him to enjoy eternal life.

The Resurrection displayed the power of the spirit and its eternal existence. But I don’t think that fact negates the body’s importance.

While our spirit does return to the Lord upon our physical death, the story doesn’t end there. Scripture indicates there is much more to come.

 

 NEXT WEEK we’ll explore that more-to-come truth.

 

Meditation points—

Until then, I invite you to take a moment to explore the following questions:

  1. Why do you think it was so important for the disciples to see Jesus in the flesh rather than just “feel” or experience Him in the spirit?
  2. What do you think went through the disciples’ minds when they actually laid eyes on a fully (in body) resurrected Jesus?
  3. What difference would it make for you to see a loved one resurrected in the body rather than just in the spirit? Do you think Jesus knows the important of that to you and wants you to experience it, like He made sure the disciples did?

 

Enjoy pondering these questions until next week!

Blessings,

Andrea

May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).

Photo by Andrea A Owan