Advent Reflection

From Anglican Mainstream.

The lessons today come from the Latin Rite Lectionary for the feast of Francis of Xavier. They remind us that his life like our season of Advent is about hope. One of the three great virtues: faith, hope and love. Faith leads to hope and hope leads to love. Our world needs hope very desperately! We need to believe that this world with all it brokenness, violence and lack of opportunity and freedom, – can be quite different. And that is what Christ comes to bring. A new world, a world transformed.

Engage the reflection.

Why Read the Bible: To Learn How to Live as God Intends for Us

As for other matters, brothers and sisters, we instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong or take advantage of a brother or sister. The Lord will punish all those who commit such sins, as we told you and warned you before. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. Therefore, anyone who rejects this instruction does not reject a human being but God, the very God who gives you his Holy Spirit. Now about your love for one another we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other.

–1 Thessalonians 4:1-9 (NIV)

In today’s passage we get clear instruction from the Lord via Paul on how to live as people of faith and hope. As you  read this passage, ask yourself this question: “Does this passage help me understand what it means to be truly human or does it sound more like a bunch of arbitrary rules I have to follow?” If you answer with the latter, chances are you are still harboring thoughts that you know better than God on what it takes to live a happy and fulfilling life.

Paul tells us clearly that God desires us to get control of our body with its fallen nature so that we can live as God’s called-out (holy) people. In this age of increasing sexual permissiveness, Paul’s injunctions against promiscuous sex may seem strange to our ears. But he is simply harking back to God’s original intention for sex to be a blessing reserved for marriage and for procreation (see, e.g., Genesis 1:27; Mark 10:7).

And when we think about it, this makes sense to us, even if we do not like to admit it. How many of us, for example, want our kids to become pornographers or involved in pornography? How many of us want our family members to be engaged in blatantly promiscuous or deviant lifestyles? Or how many of us who are (or have been) engaged in sexual promiscuity are anxious to share that fact with the ones we love most? I know that in my days of sexual promiscuity, that was not a fact I wanted to share with my parents or extended family. Even today, some thirty years later, I get occasional drive-by emails on Facebook from women who remind me of my checkered past and it makes me feel ashamed and embarrassed. I sacrificed God’s good intentions for sex for a series of momentary pleasure that ultimately left me feeling cheap and empty. And if I had to do it all over again with the knowledge and experience I have gained, I would work really hard to avoid sexual promiscuity and remain chaste because I know what the former does to people and it isn’t pretty.

No, sexual intimacy, which is God-given and healthy when used properly, should be reserved for the monogamous relationship of marriage because it is so intimate and leaves us so terribly vulnerable. When we give ourselves promiscuously to others, we are engaging in a dehumanizing activity and giving in to our base desires and lust, which are always selfish and self-centered. Neither behavior is welcome in the Kingdom because God is neither selfish or self-centered and he expects his children to behave likewise. This attitude will no doubt be greeted by scorn and contempt from the more “enlightened” quarters of our society. But that should not matter to us because those who heap scorn on us can neither give us life or raise us from the dead.

And of course Paul emphasizes the need to love one another as a distinctive trademark of holy living. We are to love because God loved us first (1 John 4:19) and he expects us to behave as he does. By love the Bible is not referring primarily to an emotion or feeling. It is referring to action, just as faith always manifests itself in action that is consistent with it.

Love is not some sappy sentimental feeling that gives the beloved anything he or she desires because as Scripture makes abundantly clear, not all of our desires are healthy or good for us (see above). No, biblical love means that we are to look out for one another in the light of God’s Truth and his will for us as humans. This means that not only are we to support and encourage one another when we are behaving as God intends so that we can truly enjoy being human, but also to gently warn each other when we see our beloved go astray, not because we are morally superior to others but precisely because we know our own failings and don’t want our beloved to fall victim to them the way we have. Of course, love means that we will not force others to do or believe something they refuse to do or believe–that would not be loving at all, but rather quite selfish on our part. But God help us if we see those we love going down a slippery slope and remain silent when perhaps a word of concern might be all they need to stop their present course of action. Remaining silent in those situations is not love at all. It is cowardice and that is why Jesus or Paul or any of the NT writers ever hesitated in warning us about the consequences of behavior. They loved others and were no cowards (read 1 Corinthians 5.1-5 from this lens and see how differently it reads).

Last, Paul hits us with the quite sobering notion that his commands and warnings here are not from human origin but from God himself, and so we have a fundamental choice to make. Do we think we know better than God what makes us happy or are we humble enough to acknowledge that God really does know what is best for us since he created us, has an eternal perspective, and is omniscient? As the NT writers and our Lord himself remind us continuously, if we are willing to take the plunge and lead the kind of holy lives God wants us to live, we will see that these commands are not arbitrary rules to be followed and which enslave us, preventing us from having any fun, but rather they point us to a lifestyle of holy living that will produce a joy and peace in us that no circumstance in this world can take away.

Yes, we will meet opposition because we will be behaving in ways that challenge the ways of this fallen world. But we don’t mind because we know the One who loved us and claimed us, and are pleased and eager to become like him because we are convinced that doing so constitutes real living. We are confident that in the end he will redeem us and as Paul reminds us today, we are also confident that he is alive and well in us in the Presence of the Holy Spirit. So we are relieved that we don’t have to try to live life on our own power because we have reviewed our own track record and found it to be terribly wanting. Instead of trying to live life on our own, we have God’s very Presence living in us, helping us to live truly human lives and getting us ready to be citizens of the New Creation.

“Try it,” our Lord says to us. “Give holy living an honest shot and you will like it. It’s hard and it is costly but you will win far more than it costs you. You will win life itself as I created you to live it. You have my very word on it as well as the experience of countless other Christians over time and across cultures.”

Another Advent Devotion from Biblegateway.com

From Biblegateway.com

I am publishing this Advent reflection in its entirety because it really touched my heart. Living in the land of plenty as we do, I pray that God will use it to touch your heart and move you to action.

A Different Kind of Christmas

by Sharon Jaynes

Today’s Truth

“Give and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measure to you.” —Luke 6:38

Friend to Friend

Of all the Christmases that Mike Wekall remembers, his seventh stands out from all the rest. Mike was the fifth of six Wekall children. Like every child, Mike met December with the anticipation of new toys, freshly baked goodies, glittering decorations, and school vacation. But one week before Christmas, Mike’s parents called the children into the den.

“Kids, I’ve have some bad news for you,” Mr. Wekall said, barely able to look his children in the eye. “As you know, things have been pretty tight at work this year. In fact, we are going to have to file bankruptcy, so we won’t have Christmas this year. I’m sorry. Maybe we can make it up to you next year.” Then he quietly walked out of the room.

The children just sat there for a while in silence. Mike thought to himself, “What does he mean ‘we won’t have Christmas’?  Does that mean I’ve been bad and Santa isn’t going to come? And what is bankruptcy?”

It was a confusing time for little Mike, but one thing became perfectly clear on Christmas morning–Christmas had not come to the Wekall house. No presents were under a tree, and the aroma of a roasting turkey did not come from the kitchen. The family did, however, go off to church that crisp, cold morning.  When they arrived at church, all the other children were sporting new clothes and chattering about what they had found under their trees.

“Hey, Mike, what’d you get?” one asked.

“Nothin’. We didn’t have Christmas at our house. We’re having a bankruptcy.”

“What’s wrong? Have you been too bad to get anything? Didn’t you even get a few switches?”

Feeling rather blue, the family of eight went home for a lunch of lima beans and hamhocs. About an hour later, the door bell rang. “Maybe it is Santa after all,” Mike thought as he ran to the door.

Standing in the doorway wasn’t Santa, but it was the Bosky family, all ten of them. Each of the eight children had smiles on their faces and two gifts in their hands. Mr. and Mrs. Bosky held a turkey dinner with all the trimmings.

As it turned out, the eight Bosky children went home from church and told their parents about how the Wekalls weren’t having Christmas this year. Seeing how they had been so richly blessed, the children decided to pick two of their toys and wrap them up for the Wekalls. Mom and Dad joined in and brought gifts for the parents. Even though Mrs. Bosky had Christmas dinner all choreographed for her own dining room, she gathered up the food in boxes and baskets to share with a family who needed it more.

That was over forty years ago, but Mike still gets tears in his eyes when he shares this story. “It was the best Christmas I have ever had,” he told me. “The Spirit of God showed me that Christmas wasn’t about getting presents but about giving and caring for others. It is about showing goodness toward other people. Every year, I tell this story to someone, because it exemplifies how Christ gave so freely of Himself for us.”

Let’s Pray

Dear Lord, I have so much and I am surrounded by people who have so little. Show me someone I can help this Christmas. Open the eyes of my heart to see the needs of others. Make me an extension of Your lavish love. In Jesus’ Name, amen.

Now It’s Your Turn

Consider some ways you can help others less fortunate this Christmas. Here are some ideas from my book, Celebrating a Christ Centered Christmas.

  • Help an elderly person decorate his or her home and take the decorations down at the end of the season.
  • Give an anonymous gift of money to someone who lost their job or someone who you know struggles financially.
  • Offer to do Christmas shopping for a disabled person.
  • Purchase and deliver a gift for a child whose parent is in prison
  • Pack a shoebox for a needy child overseas through Operation Christmas Child.
  • Process toys for the Salvation Army.
  • Volunteer to ring the bell for the Salvation Army.
  • Work in a Soup Kitchen
  • Visit someone in a nursing home who has few relatives.

Today’s Advent reading is from the Girlfriends in God devotional ministry. There is no Advent devotional email tomorrow (Saturday); the next email will be on Sunday, when we’ll introduce a new set of Scripture passages to reflect on throughout the week.