Expect the unexpected

When it came time for God to send His son to earth, he did not send Him to the place of some mighty king. He was conceived in the womb of an unwed mother, a virgin, who lived in the lowly village of Nazareth.

In choosing those who would represent Christ and establish His church, God picked some of the most unusual individuals imaginable: unschooled fishermen, a tax collector, a mystic, a doubter, and a former Pharisee who had persecuted Christians. He continued to pick some very unusual persons down through the ages. In fact, He seems to delight in such surprising choices to this very day.

So, let God be the God. Expect the unexpected.

Mimic God

Since most humans suffer from a lack of balance in their lives, our best counsel on this subject comes from God's word the bible. In that book, there appears a most unusual command: "be imitators of God, therefore as dearly loved children". Maybe you never realized such a statement was in the bible. What a strange command. "Be imitators of God".

In other words, this is neither a passing thought nor a once-in-a-blue-moon experience. the practice of our being people who "mimic God" is to become our daily habit. We are to do what he does. Respond to life as he responds. Emulate similar traits. Model His style.

Holiness is part of the process

Some people give the impression that we'll never be able to work hard enough to be holy enough. We'll never give up enough things to be holy. At the opposite extreme are those folks who see holiness as entirely passive. God distributes it. He dumps it on you. You enjoy it, take advantage of it, but you're just a passive part of the process.

Let me correct both of these extremes. First of all, we must be holy. Holiness always suggests separateness and difference. God, being holy, is different and separate from all other Gods. And we, as His children, must be separate and different as well.

We must live of ethical integrity and moral excellence . If that were impossible for us, God would never require it for us. But He does.

Second, holiness is not passive. It isn't all up to God. We are active participants in the process. Holiness is part of the process of the will of God for us, His children.

Focus fully on God

We get in a hurry when we don't wait on the Lord. We jump ahead and do rash things. We shoot from the hip. We run off the mouth, saying things that we later regret. But when we have sufficiently waited on the Lord, He gets full control of our spirit. At such moments, were like a glove and His hand is moving us wherever He pleases.

When you wait on the Lord, you don't have to sit in a corner contemplating your navel, or walk around in daze humming " Sweet hour of prayer" You don't have to wear a robe and live in a hut in Tibet for winter. Sometimes, of course, you need to sit down quietly, by yourself alone with the lord for a time of quietness. Solitude and silence are wonderful when nourishing our souls. But mostly you go right on with your business. You press on with your regular activities. You just focus more fully on the Lord in the midst of it. You stay preoccupied with Him. You think His thoughts. You feed your soul his manna.

A steady stream of love

What is Christ like? He is charaterized by love and forgiveness. An insightful person once said, "We are most like beasts when we kill. We are most like men when we judge. We are most like God when we forgive". Every one of us can blame somebody for something that has happened in our lives. But don't waste your time. What we need most is steady stream of love flowing among us. Love that quickly forgives and willingly overlooks and refuses to take offense.

Some people are so easy to love that you just naturally fall into their arms. But others are so hard to love, you have to work overtime at it. Some are the opposite of magnets. They repel, Yet even they need our love, perhaps more than the others. How very important that we " stretch fervently" to love each other.

Make a difference

Does one person make a difference? Let me ask you, did Christ? God so loved the world that He did something. He didn't select a commitee. He didn't theorize how great it would be for someone to come to our rescue. He didn't simply grieve over our waywardness and wring his hands in sorrow. He did something! And, in turn, the Son of God said to God the Father."I will go." He did something about it. And that's why we can be saved. We don't believe in a theory; we believe in the person of Christ, who died and rose again that we might live and make a difference.

The question is not simply, what do you think of Christ? The question is, what have you done about what you think?

Everyone is included

When the world looks for qualities that will get the job done, the externals get the nod. We like people with charisma, people who have pizza, who can put up a good front. I've noticed in the past twenty-plus years, we are looking less and less for integrity and honor and true character . We look for people who look good on television, people who can debate an opponent with great ease and little facial sweat, who can compromise enough to please just about everyone. We prefer the externals. Character we'll do without if we have to, but not those externals. Character we'll do without if we have to, but not those externals. But God passes up the externals and looks for the humble heart!

We live in a world where we take care of our own. We look for number one. But God's plan encompasses everyone. Every nation. Every race. All cultures. Huge, highly developed countries, but not excluding the small, struggling ones. His message us shalom through faith in Chirst is universal. Unlimited. Without prejudice. Vast!

So close

God's presence can be a hidden oresence not because God chooses to withdraw himself. but because we fail to see him who is so near. " We don't see that God is all around us and that we are always trying to see what is ahead, overlooking him who is so close".

There are many reasons for our failure to see, apart from being our so concerned about futureprojects that we fail to see present blessings. We also fail to see because we are looking for the wrong indicators. We may be looking for peace when God's presence is in the turmoil. We may be looking for resolution when hope lies in the non-fullfilment of our present expectations. We may be wishing for answers when God's goodness manifest in further questions.

God is frequently closer than we think. We need, however, to develop a new confidence that he inhabits our despair as well as our praises.

Giving God as the only 'first place'

If some corporate position is the God of your life, then something terrible occurs within when it is no longer a future possibility.If your career, however, is simply a part of God's plan and you keep it in proper persepective, you can handle a promotion. It all depends on who's first and what's first.

Breaking the magnet that draws things ahead of God is a lenghty and sometimes painful process. There is a line found in Jewish Talmund that puts it well: "Man is born with his hands clenched; He dies with them wide open. Entering life, He desire to grasp everything; leaving the world, all He possessed has slipped away."...

Just remember: Whatever is in first place, if it isn't Christ alone, it is in the wrong place.

Set yourself apart

What does it mean to be holy? stripped down to its basics, the term holy means "set apart" in some special and exclusive way.In holy matrimony, for example, a man and a woman are set apart, leaving all others as they bond exclusively to each other.

In Holy Communion, the bread and wine are set apart from common use and set aside to God alone. The same meaning lies behind the word sanctify in 1 Peter 3:15 " But we sanctify Christ as Lord in our hearts" We are to "set Him apart" as Lord in our hearts.

What a successful way to deal with the cosmos! To begin the morning by saying, "Lord, I set apart my mind for you today. I set apart every limb of my body and each area of my life unto You as Lord over my life". When we start our day like that, chances are good that temptations wink will not be nearly as alluring.

God's ultimate design

The Lord God is just as involved and caring during adversity as during prosperity. the Hebrew term translated "consider" suggests the idea "to examine for the purpose of evaluating". In the hard times-when the bottom drops out, enduring days of financial reversal, or serve domestic conflicts- wisdom allows us to examine, to evaluate with incredible objectivity.

God wants us to walk by faith, nor by sight. His ultimate design is nothing short of perfect. He's got a plan, but something without operating on the basis of His wisdom, we'll panic and run or we'll stubbornly resists His way.

The Goal is Hope

Can you remember a recent "gray slush" day? Of course you can. So can I.

The laws of fairness and justice were displaced by a couple of Murphy's Laws. Your dream dissolved into a nightmare. High hopes took a hike. Good intentions got lost in a comedy of errors, only time nobody was laughing...You felt like telling Bunyan to move over as you slid down into his Slough of Despond near doubting castle...

Discouragement may be awful, but it is not terminal.

God has an ultimate goal in mind: that we might have hope. And what leads to such a goal? Two things: perseverance and encouragement from the scriptures. Again, the goal is hope. God has not designed a life of despondency for us. He wants His people to have hope... through endurance and through encouragement from the Scriptures.

Servant's heart

A spirit of humility is very rare in our day of strong-willed, proud-as-a-peacock attitudes. The clinched fist has replaced the bowed head. the big mouth and the surly stare now dominate the scene once occupied by the quit godliness of the "poor in spirit". How self-righteous we have become! How confident in and ourselves! and with that attitude, how desperately unhappy we are! Christ Jesus offers genuine, lasting happiness to those hearts willingly declare:

"Nothing in my heart I bring, Simply to thy cross I cling."

The indispensible condition of receiving a part in the kingdom of heaven is acknowledging our spiritual poverty. The person with a servant's heart- not unlike a child trusting completely in his parent's provision- is promised a place in Christ's kingdom.

Sharing freely

Ancient koinomia(fellowship) must have been something to behold. As I try to form a mental picture of it, I come up with this description: Koinomia is expressions of authentic Christianity freely shared among members of God's family. It is mentioned about twenty times in the New testament, and without expectation it is in invariably expressed in two directions.

First, it is used in the sense of sharing something with someone such as food, money, supplies, encouragement, time, and concern. And second, it is used in the sense of sharing in something with someone, like a project, a success, a failure, a need, a hurt.

The significance of all this is that biblical koinomia is never something done alone. In other words, God's desire for his children is that we be personally and deeply involved in each others lives.

Set yourself apart

What does it mean to be holy? stripped down to its basics, the term hoy means "set apart" in some special and exclusive way.In holy matrimony, for example, a amn and a woman are set apart, leaving all others as they bond exclusively to each other.

In Holy Communion, the bread and wine are set apart from common use and set aside to God alone. The same meaning lies behind the word sanctify in 1 Peter 3:15 " But we sanctify Christ as Lord in our hearts" We are to "set Him apart" as Lod in our hearts.

What a successful way to deal with the cosmos! To begin the morning by saying, "Lord, I set apart my mind for you today. I set apart every limb of my body and each area of my life unto You as Lord over my life". When we start our day like that, chances are good that temptations wink will not be nearly as alluring.

Integrity and honesty

If we walk in integrity, we will not stumble. What a great thought! If we decide that we will live honestly- which means, for example , conducting an honest business-we will not stumble into dishonesty. We will model honesty. God promises He will honor that. He will protect us. That means that ultimately we win over the ungodly. We gain because were living in the realm of honesty and they're not. He stores up sound wisdom for us. With it, he gives us a shield for protection as we alk in integrity.

God is ready to do His part whenever we're ready to do ours.

The Soul Belongs to God

Nothing physical touches the soul. Nothing external satisfies our deepest inner needs. Remember that! The soul belongs to God. He alone can satisfy us in the vrealm.

The soul possesses an inescapable God-shaped vacuum. And not until He invades and fills it can we be at peace within-which is another way of saying, "If God isn't in first place, you can handle success." If God fills your soul, If God fills your mind, If God satisfies your spirit, there is no problem whatsoever in prosperity. You've got it all put together. Your priorities will be right, and you will know how to handle your life so you can impact the maximum number of people. If He prospers you., if He entrust you with material success and you continue walking with Him, God can use you mightily in His plan. Furthermore, if you lose it all. He can give you what it takes to handle the loss and start all over again.

Gallery of Memories

Our past is like an art gallery, Walking down those corridors of our memory is like walking through an art gallery. On the walls are all yesterday's pictures: our home, our childhood, our parents, our rearing, the heartaches, the difficulties, the joys and triumphs as well as the abuses and inequities of life.

Since Jesus Christ our Lord is the same yesterday and today and forever, then we can take Christ of today and walk with him into our yesterday and ask him to remove the pictures that bring bad or defeating memories. In other words, the Christian can lead Jesus invade yesterday and deal with those years of affliction those years with the locusts have eaten- and remove those scenes from the corridors of our lives. I have them. You have them. We need to let him leave the murals that bring pleasure and victory and take down from the walls of those things that bring depair and defeat.

Shaped by God

A sculptor was asked how he could carve a lion's head out of a large block of marble. "I just chip away everyhting that doesn't look like lion's head," was his reply. God works away in our being and chips away everything that doesn' tlook like Christ, the impatience, the short temper, the pride, the emotional drives that lead us away from our Father. He's shaping us into His image. that's His predetermined plan. And He's committed to it. Nothing we can do will dissuade Him from that plan. He stays at it. He is relentless. And He never runs out of creative ideas.

That's why he sends one person to the mission field in China and another to the bank building in downtown Seattle. That's part of His sovereign plan to shape individuals into the image of Christ.

An endless cycle

You work so that you can make money, so that you can spend it, so that you can work and make money, so that you can spend it, so that you can get more, which will mean you spend more, and you'll work harder to make more. So goes this endless cycle.

That explains why people will line up by the millions to view a fantasy on film and sit in silent amazement at someone's imaginary world of imaginary characters who do imaginary things- because life under the sun is so dreadfully, unchangingly boring.

To put in bluntly, life on planet Earth without God is a pit. That's the way God designed it. He made it like that. He placed within us that God shaped a vacuum that only He can fill. Until He is there, nothing satisfies. There is no hell on earth like horizontal living without God.