Christmas Eve

Join us for some Christmas Carols and the Christmas story!

Christmas Eve

Life Changing Love

When I was a young Christian it was something of an in thing to have a "life verse". A verse that was precious to you. A verse of high significance. A verse that helped to guide you or that seemed to sum up your life and your faith.

I never liked being asked what my life verse was, not becasue I was embarrassed to not have one, but because I couldn't settle on one! It seemed to me that there were way too many verses that spoke deeply to my life. Thus when someone would ask me if I had a life verse I would often respond with a qualifier like, "Well, today my life verse is...." Of course that seemed to go against the thought of a life verse and so I felt a certain amount of relief when people stopped asking that question (today they may have thought I had a form of A.D.H.D!)

Yet having said that, I find that over the years my heart does return to certain passages or verses. Three such passages are Psalm 23, Romans 8 and 1 Corintians 13. They never fail to speak to my heart regardless of my circumstances. However recently I have returned to a simple verse from the Apostle John

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! (1 John 3:1 NIV).

When I became a Christian it was something of a culmination of looking for a father figure. My dad had died in his sleep when I was seven and from the moment I knew he was gone I had a hole torn out of my heart. I began looking for someone to replace him, but I was unable to find anyone who could. I loved athletics and turned out for teams in middle school and high school. I lived for sports, but inwardly I was always hoping that one of my coaches might be that elusive father figure to me. It never happened.

When I became involved in Young Life as a high schooler I began to hear about a father who wanted to be my father. It wasn't too long after that I gave my heart to Christ and I came into relationship with my heavenly father. It was thrilling for me and as I read in the Bible I noted the imagery of the father-child relationship with frequency. But the verse that really caught my attention was the one John penned. An old man when he wrote it (perhaps in his 90's) his heart still thrilled to think that God would lavish his love on us and call us his children. God's children!

That's my Abba, Father! There is something so simple, yet so profound in being God's child. To belong to one who will never fail me nor forsake me. One who cared so deeply for me that he made a way to adopt me into his family. I expect that as my life on this earth continues I will reflect on other passages and be blessed richly by them. But I suspect it will always be the enthusiastic, wonder-filled words of the old Apostle, that will cause my heart to soar. Maybe 1 John 3:1 is my life verse.

God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.
St. Augustine

Burn!

Just to see if you are paying attention... this is something my son posted on Deviant Art

Burn

Be Kind

"Be kind to everyone you meet, for everyone is fighting a great battle" (attributed to Augustine).

This Christmas season be intentional to pass on some "holiday cheer". Give a kind word. Open a door. Take a deep breath, slow down and don't worry quite so much about yourself and your projects. Help someone with a small task. Smile.

"Lord, bless someone through me today. In Jesus' name"

Crazy Christmas

The holidays can be a wonderful time of blessing or a very crazy time. Was the first Christmas idyllic or difficult?

Crazy Christmas

The Nativity

Check out this review of "The Nativity" by Scott McKnight for Revelant Magazine

"The Nativity" reviewed

Two Josephs

What would it be like to be used of God in a mighty way? Taking a look at two men named Joseph might give us some insight.

Two Josephs

(We'll return to Romans after the holidays)

Born for Us

God became a man for this purpose: since you, a human being, could not reach God, but you can reach other humans, you might now reach God through a man. And so the man Christ Jesus became the mediator of God and human beings.

God became a man so that following a man—something you are able to do—you might reach God, which was formerly impossible to you.

—St. Augustine

St. Augustine, Commentary on Psalm 134, 5; source: www.artsci.villanova.edu

Fully Present for Prayer

How to pray in a society that prides itself on multitasking every possible moment.
by Trevor Lee

As a child I had the privilege of spending a month on the farm with my grandparents each summer. I learned to drive a tractor, feed chickens, and herd cattle, but the most important lesson I learned came before dinner each evening. As we assembled around the table, I dreaded the pre-meal prayer. My grandpa sat at the head of the table and once everyone was seated he bowed his head and began to pray. When my grandpa prayed you knew you were going to be there for a while. He launched into what seemed like a one-hour prayer before every meal, and I would sit at the other end of the big kitchen table thinking, I want mashed potatoes.

All that changed one day shortly before my grandpa's death. He began to pray as he had so many times before, but this time I wasn't thinking about the potatoes, I was focusing on his prayer. He prayed for his family as though our well being depended on his prayer. He prayed for the kingdom of God like it was the most important thing in the world. And as he prayed he began to weep. It wasn't the first time he had cried while he was praying, and in the past I always thought it was a little strange. I don't know if it was the maturity that comes with being twelve or the Holy Spirit making me pay attention, but this time it I was moved—I wanted to start crying too. I understood that he was weeping because he cared about his petitions with a depth I couldn't fully fathom. His prayer was passionate and meaningful. His mind and his heart were fully engaged as he cried out to his Father.

Prayer should be a moving experience. It is the created entering the presence of the Creator. The image-bearers uniting with the One whose image they bear. The broken feeling the touch of the Healer. Entering the presence of the God who defies our explanation and cannot be contained should never be a boring experience. Yet it often leaves us uninspired. Why?

The answer to that question starts with a study recently conducted by researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and the University of British Colombia. They joined forces to study reading comprehension—with incredible results. According to the researchers, "The readers who zoned out most tended to do the worst on tests of reading comprehension—a significant, if unsurprising, result."

As trite as the findings of this study are, they are profound for our prayer lives. We are left uninspired and wanting because we are not completely present with God when we pray. We thank God for the food we're about to consume, but our thoughts regress to the meeting we had that afternoon. We ask God to protect our kids while we ponder how to survive until the next paycheck. We sit down to listen to God and our minds wander uncontrollably. We lack the ability or discipline to be truly present with God in prayer. Our culture has trained our minds to wander.

One way it has done that is by demanding that we multitask. Not multitasking is seen as wasting time. Our lives are so busy that to do one thing at a time just isn't efficient. I recently noticed a bumper sticker on the car in front of me that said, "Put the phone down and drive!" But we don't have time to put down our phones, or the food we grabbed at the drive-thru, the makeup, or even the paper. We have to maximize every moment by multitasking as many things as possible. The problem with multitasking is that it trains the mind to jump from task to task. As we work on one thing our mind runs to other things that need to be accomplished. So we quit our original task to give attention to the task that just popped into our head, and the process repeats itself.

This translates into a horrible habit of being in the presence of people without being fully present. I often meet people at a bagel shop close to our church. As you approach the front of the line to order, there is a plain white sign taped to the counter that says, "Please get off your cell phone before ordering." They're asking people to give them the courtesy of being fully present for thirty seconds while ordering. Being present with others is a basic human courtesy, even if our culture has over stimulated us into forgetting that.

When we don't give people our full attention we can't truly engage them. We cannot see the pain or joy in their eyes, hear the tremble in their voice, or even remember what they said. Presence is essential in relationships, not just with other people, but with God. If we want to hear him, to be moved by the weight of our petitions, or to be awed by the privilege we have of approaching our Father, we have to be there—heart, mind, and soul.

There is no shortcut to being fully present in prayer; it is a discipline. As we begin to pray and our minds wander, we must force ourselves to come back. One method I have found helpful is to choose a single phrase that can draw my mind back to God. Something like, "In everything your attitude should be like that of Christ Jesus," or "God is merciful." Then when my mind tries to distract me from being in the presence of God, I have something I can use to coax it back.

Training our mind to focus and stay present with God is a process; it takes time and perseverance. But it is time well spent. My grandpa approached all prayer as more than a formality. He often wept because he was completely present. Being fully present in prayer increases the depth and joy of our prayer lives and allows us to enter the presence of God with awe and excitement.

(Trevor Lee is the Pastor of Young Adult Ministries at Southern Gables Church in Littleton, Colorado)

No Mistake

One of Cornerstone's couples is serving for a year in New Orleans with TouchGlobal. Steve sent us an update recently and in it he included the following story.

"I heard a story from a team member who had been here on a work trip earlier this spring. The gentleman and his team arrived in Louisiana and were assigned to gut a home owned by the Jones family in the city. The work team arrived at the site and worked hard all day.

The homeowners were extremely grateful and the team was able to interact with and encourage them. At the end of the work day the team bid the Jones's farewell. As they were saying goodbye the homeowners, looking somewhat puzzled, explained that they were not the Jones family, they lived next door. The team had gutted the wrong home!

As it turned out this was not a mistake. The homeowners explained that they had lost hope since the hurricane and had the work team not shown up to their home that day they would have committed suicide together.

This story really stuck with me, reminding me that there are no mistakes in working for Christ. If He wants us somewhere we'll end up there whether we plan on it or not. The work here continues to be greatly needed and appreciated. Pray that more teams will show up, or
better yet come on down yourselves!"

Why Go Back?

Since the day Jesus Christ was raised from the dead people have misunderstood grace as license to sin. Here in Romans 6 Paul is emphatic that it isn't. To be in Christ is to be set free from a lifestyle of sin, why would anyone want to go back to that?

Why Go Back?