Who Are You Looking At?

Do you ever wonder how God wants us to pray? I do.
I am not satisfied with most prayer. 
It seems self-serving, not God-serving.
It sometimes sounds whiny, like "This is what I want, God. Would you help me out and give it to me, please?"
Prayer can also sound like the person praying has too little faith to even know what, or more importantly, who to ask. Like "I am so overwhelmed, God. Please help me. Please bail me out. Don't let me suffer like this."

I know that God tells us to ask for things.
And I also know that He understands when we get in so deep we can't see the way out.
But when these prayers of rescue or favor-granting become our standard fare, when our daily prayers consist of fearful flailing and endless lists of I-wants, I am sure we are not in the place God wants us.

To confirm that, I look at John 17:
After Jesus said this, He looked toward heaven and prayed...--John 17:1
He looked toward heaven, not toward His concerns on earth.

Glorify your Son so that your Son may glorify You.--John 17:2
He asked only for what would benefit His Father, not Himself.

I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me.--John 17:9
Jesus confined His prayers to what His Father had already indicated as concerning Him.

May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.--John 17:21
He prayed for the success of the plan His Father put in motion through Him.

Jesus does not once here pray for His own concerns--His coming suffering, His earthly friends and family, or His own strength. He trusts God for all of these.

If I pray for a thing, then my goal is clearly the thing, not God.
If I pray for a relationship, I am more interested in the relationship than in God.

I cannot even pray for new motivations, or emotions, or will. Those are my part.  God will not control me. I must control myself and dealing with my own will and emotion and motivation is how I do it. My obedience in emotional self-control is what I bring to the party.

And we wonder why our prayer is not answered.
God does not give His favors to relative strangers looking for a new toy.
Proper prayer, however, God always answers, and we find it in those rare moments when our will intersects with His own.

Prayer is answered from a place of union with God only.

Here is Eternity

The seventeenth chapter of John is one of my favorites in the Bible.
There, we hear Jesus not only proclaiming His identity and intentions, but also showing his heart for men. In it, He prays for men.  All of us. Believers and unbelievers. Disciples and newbies.
In it, he speaks out loud His love for us in plain words, not by saying 'I love you', but by telling us what He most deeply wishes for us.
I like that.  A lot.

But He also shows us something we have a very hard time grasping.
He shows us the nature of eternity.

Father, the time has come.--John 17:1
Jesus understands that progress of time and that certain times are designated for certain things.
His declaration separates the things designated for certain times from those designated for all times, that is, to be eternal.

Glorify your Son that your Son may glorify You. For you granted Him authority over all people that He might give eternal life to all those You have given Him.--John 17:1-2
Jesus is talking about Himself, of course, and states plainly His job from the beginning of time. He does this so that we, who live in time, can recognize His eternal mission. Like any good boss, He clearly articulates Himself, telling us what must be accomplished and when.

Now this is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.--John 17:3
This is the job--both Jesus' and ours.

And eternal does not mean later, afterlife, or heaven. 
Eternal means always--now, before, and yet to come. 
And this life, then, this life of knowing, is eternal.  It is to be done always.
It is a knowing that must precede the doing. Understanding eternity and our God who inhabits it is the source of strength, the beginning of right motivation, and the intentional goal of every holy thought and action.

This is life, and life eternal. Today. Right now.

Only One Journey

Everybody started with God, so we are all in the process of returning to God.

If we believe God made us, and that we are, at the bottom of all things, His, then we have to acknowledge not only that our yearnings always draw us back to Him, but that our failure to follow them is the root of all of our unhappiness.
“Their deeds do not permit them
    to return to their God.
A spirit of prostitution is in their heart;
    they do not acknowledge the Lord.
Hosea 5:4

We talk about being saved, but this is not a new experience, it is a returning.
We have already been near to God, so it makes sense that we should want Him back. Only one thing--only one-- prevents that.
Israel’s arrogance testifies against them;
    the Israelites, even Ephraim, stumble in their sin;
    Judah also stumbles with them.
When they go with their flocks and herds
    to seek the Lord,
they will not find him;
    he has withdrawn himself from them.
Hosea 5:5-6

Whether we know it or not, we are always seeking God. It doesn't always look like Him, but it is God nonetheless. He is farther away from some than others, but we are all on the same way. There is no where else to go. We must seek God. We were made for this and only this. We only have to admit it and go.
“Come, let us return to the Lord.
He has torn us to pieces
    but he will heal us;
he has injured us
    but he will bind up our wounds.
Hosea 6:1 

Why Aren't We Holding Hands?

All Christians belong to the same church.
Did you know that?
Well, it's true:
In Christ, we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.--Romans 12:5

But we sure don't act like it.  This is how we sound:
"The Catholics aren't Christians. The worship Mary."
"The Baptists believe in once-saved-always-saved. I couldn't worship with them."
"Pentecostals roll around on the floor in trances. That isn't biblically orderly."
"Methodists welcome gays. I couldn't go there."
Sound familiar?

You may not like it, but this is what makes a Christian:
If you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved."-Romans 10:9
That's it. That and nothing else.  And, as far as I know, all of the above-named denominations would qualify.

Why don't we like that? Why are we not celebrating that we are a big, big club rather than little exclusive sects patting ourselves on the back for being smarter than the next sect?
Because people are different.
We worship the same God differently, I think, based on who God made us. 
Bobby likes liturgy. Suzie likes hymns.  Bob likes long sermons. Mary likes contemporary worship.
It Doesn't Matter.

We go to two churches in our family, his and hers, sometimes together, sometimes not. We consider both congregations an important part of our lives.  My husband and I have different personalities and upbringing.  Should I be surprised that God reaches us through different kinds of worship?
Just think of all the ways we express the principle of salvation:
Christ died for our sins.
Christ did what we couldn't do.
We are washed in the blood of the Lamb.
Christ defeated death.
They are all the same thing, but one undoubtedly appeals to us more than the others because of who we are.
It's OK.
By the way--I'm the analytical type.  I like the second one.
Can we hold hands anyway?

Is It Time Yet?

I always got a kick out of our first glimpse of the adult Jesus at a party with his mother. When she asks Him to do something, He tells her He doesn't think it's a good idea.  Sounds like conversations I've had with my own thirty-something son:
"Not now, Mom."
"Really? Now?"
Sounds a bit like what Jesus said to his own mother:
Dear woman, why do you involve me? My time has not yet come.--John 2:4
At least He called her 'dear woman.'
But, aside from the common familiar comedy of it, the situation reminds me of something important.
Even in the kingdom of God, there are times for things.

Jesus knew this at the above wedding, when He told His mom that it was not yet time for Him to be acclaimed for public miracles.
He knew this later, when His friends went to Jerusalem for the festival, but He did not:
Therefore Jesus told them, “My time is not yet here; for you any time will do.--John 7:6
He also knew when His time had finally come:
Jesus replied, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified."--John 12:23

And He also knew when the time had not only come, but was over:
 “It is finished.”--John 19:30

It is the same for us.
There are times for things.
To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to reap, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to break down and a time to build up, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance...--Ecclesiastes 3:1-4

It's true.
Once a life situation begins, it will probably end.
Once we pick something up, we will probably have to put it down.
Once we take someone into our life, we will probably have to let them go.

Not worship, love, or my battle with sin, of course. Those will continue all my life.
But the others? They will all, at some time, end.
And it's OK.
Their time has either not yet come, or is over.
Really.

Spitting Images Sometimes Still Spit

Two peas in a pod...
Frick and frack...
It's reassuring to be like someone. 
More than likely, your best friends are like you in many ways. It's how we get along.

But it's not how we grow.
God did not make a church of identical twins. Instead, He made complementary parts.
Just as each one of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.--Romans 12:4

But we don't like that.  We want people just like us. We want the minister to preach in a way that reaches us. We want the kind of music that moves us. We want a liturgy that is meaningful to us.
And we expect it to reach, and move, and be meaningful to everybody else, too.

Well, that is not God's plan.
We are different.  And we are stuck with each other.
We do not get to change other people to be like us.
And we do not get to divide ourselves from them because they are different.

The church is meant to be more like a family, complete with weird Uncle Ralph and crazy Grandma Mabel.  Or maybe a husband who just doesn't understand us. Or a child who has broken our heart. They are an intentional gift from God. We are supposed to learn to love them exactly as they are.

Spitting images get along pretty effortlessly, but we rarely have the opportunity to find out. More often, we share our lives with people very different from ourselves and have to figure out how to share in peace. It is good. God would have us make the effort.

Born by Will

Of all children physically born into this world, of all ages and times, only Jesus Christ chose to do it.
I did not choose to be born.  Neither did you.
I did not choose my time, my place, or my parents.
But He did.

And, by doing so, by inhabiting a physical body, by living and dying, He made it possible for us to do the same.
Now, we can be born by our own choice and the Father's will, just like He was.

To those who received Him, to those who believed in His Name, He gave the right to become children of God--children born not out of natural descent, nor of human decision, or a husband's will, but born of God.--John 1:12-13

By believing we choose, and we are made new.
As Christ was born by His own consent to fulfill His Father's purpose, so can we be.
And when we are, Christmas shines through us all.