There He Is

I wrote a post about Josh Hamilton a while ago and it occured to me some people might not know who he his so here's a picture of him to the right.

Gospel = Good News

I know this isn’t about Christmas but I had a thought. I was thinking about sin, face it we all sin there is no man who hasn’t. The only one free from sin is God, which leaves us out. We all sin, we all mess up, I’ve sinned today, yesterday, last week, last month, last year… and I’ll probably sin tomorrow. We’ve all sinned, and anyone denying it is lying. Good news is we’re all fallen so that means we’re all on the same boat. But the bad news is that separates us from God. Adam and Eve were cast out of God’s direct presence; they sinned and were sent away from the Garden of Eden, they were separated. The devil was an angel, in fact Satan and all the devils were angels (kind of ironic) but when Satan sinned he was sent to hell and was separated from God. When we sin we are separated, by sinning we build a wall between us and God. Sin is a slippery slope, imagine it this way, every time we sin we add a brick to the wall that separates us, as we go through our day sins pop up in our lives and each one adds a brick. No big deal after a day right? We can still see God can’t we? Well how about a week? A month, let’s say you’re 25 years old how does 25 years worth of bricks add up? Soon our view is like one of those bad views from a hotel all we see is a brick wall. But there’s more good news, imagine that brick wall again, and then KABOOM! A blast of dynamite blows it to bits and beyond that you get that great ocean view you saw on the web. That’s what Jesus does in our lives, He blows them up. He comes into our lives and shakes them so dramatically that the wall between us and God breaks down, we were separated by a gap and God gave us a bridge through the cross. Does that mean after we all become Christians we are sinless? No, we still sin, I became a Christian four years ago and I still sin, but we are forgiven, we are no longer separated from God. Does that mean it’s okay to sin? No, we can still add bricks to the wall and get lost again; God forgives us and want us to change our lives for Him. When I became a Christian my life was turned upside down, I was literally a new person, but I still have some big changes to make and the good news about that is that God helps us make these changes, He gives us the strength to live for Him, but we have to accept first. I guess that’s why they call the Gospel the Good News.

The Season Of Giving

Well Christmas is coming into view and we all know what that means, time off from work, church services and gifts. It happens every year; we wake up on December 25th to find gifts under the tree from our family members. Once December 1st passes and it is “safe” to start thinking about Christmas we all start our lists of things we want, gift cards, DVD’s (I’ve noticed they don’t make VHS’s anymore) books, all sorts of stuff. Gifts are great, I like giving and receiving gifts and even Jesus got gifts from the wise men at His birth, but as with all good things when they are taken to extremes there is a certain danger. I remember while listening to Christmas music on the radio (gotta love Boston’s favorite Christmas songs) I heard an advertisement from some store (that narrows it down), but the ad was about the treasures of the season, and what were these treasures? Handbags, shoes, necklaces (none apply to me). That is the danger, as great as gifts are and as fun as they are to give and receive we can’t let them fog up our view of what Christmas is really about. It’s great to get all sorts of cool stuff but basically that is what it is, it’s stuff. Stuff is great I like stuff, but we can’t let stuff be the base of our lives or happiness, that’s Jesus’ spot. I’ll ask everyone this, on Christmas morning (or with some families Christmas Eve) when you are opening your gifts don’t’ forget the greatest gift of all that we recieved because God loves us so much and because of His grace that on that warm night we all recieved a gift, His son and our savior Jesus.

Sorry

I feel that I must write an apology for the earlier posts, I think I was too harsh in my criticisms on our Christmas symbols so now I’ll try to make the point I was trying to get across clear because I have a feeling it was misunderstood. I am not trying to ruin anyone’s Christmas, I was just trying to analyze the symbols in our culture and find out what their relation to the Biblical account was. There is absolutely nothing wrong with caroling, or Christmas trees, or Santa Claus. I don’t think it’s wrong to have those thing s in our culture, I never did and don’t think I ever will. All my life I’ve had a Christmas tree in my house and I don’t think I’ll stop. The point I tried to get across was although these things in themselves were good they don’t exactly relate to the Biblical account of Jesus’ birth. I don’t think Jesus woke up to hear a fire crackling, or went caroling or received His gifts under a tree. Actually Mary and Joseph were forced to flee to Egypt because Herod was killing all the baby boys. The symbols we have are like strings we tie to our fingers to remember something, they themselves are not what we are to remember but they act as a reminder, or a stand in. The symbolism around Christmas has religious meaning, Christmas trees are supposed to represent the fact that God lives forever and that we in Heaven will live forever, but the Christmas tree is like the string, it reminds us of our savior but it isn’t the main focus. The commercialization of Christmas is a bad thing, if all we do is focus on the strings we’ll forget what we are to remember, but the opposite is just as bad if all we do is focus on what we are to remember we won’t live our lives. I’ll advise anyone this Christmas to have fun and enjoy the break from work and school, but don’t forget our savior, and also even though we receive nice gifts we shouldn’t forget the greatest gift of all, our savior Jesus.

She Listened

One thing always makes me think is Mary. She isn’t mentioned very often in the Bible but there is a key point we can get from her story, she trusted God. Imagine that you are a young girl around fourteen years old (yes she was that young) and you were walking along and you saw an Angel ahead who said you will “give birth to a son… and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end” Luke 1: 31-33. Sometimes we skip over this passage to get on to the “good stuff,” the exciting passages but imagine if that happened to you or someone you know. How would you react? If a friend of mine told me that I’m not sure what I’d think, and neither was Mary; in Luke 1: 29 we are told Mary was greatly troubled, and throughout the conversation she still had doubts but it ended with Luke 1: 38 when she said “’I am the Lord’s servant.’” When God called Mary she was at first troubled she didn’t know what was going on but she set her fears and doubts aside and accepted God’s plans for her. God has a plan for all of us, there may people who think their forgotten by God or to ordinary or boring but God can proves them wrong, He has a plan for everyone. Mary was going to have an uneventful day and God stepped in to make it extraordinary. God can do great things in our lives, amazing things we wouldn’t believe. If someone told me five years ago that I’d be here right now I might not believe them but God proved me wrong. He can do things in our lives but we need to let Him.

What?

As you can see I have another blog called “Dutch’s life” it’s basically a joke that has to do with my dog that I don’t really feel like explaining, At most there will be funny pictures of my dogs, enjoy.

What Really Happened That Night?

I think I’ll start with the easy question which is ‘what really happened that night?’ which was actually in late spring not December. Well there’s the obvious answer, Jesus was born but I think around this time of year we sometimes miss that amazing yet simple fact. The amazing thing is that it’s not just Jesus but God’s son, the savior and that his birth down to the place and time was predicted hundreds of years before (pretty cool). In Isaiah there are tons of prophecies, some about the virgin birth, his name, his lineage, and what will happen to him. The amazing thing is Isaiah gives more description to Jesus’ looks than any of the gospels! But the really amazing thing (at least I think it’s amazing) is the simple fact that God came down to earth. When Jesus was born the Israelites were oppressed by the Roman Empire (but I’m Italian so go easy on them) and the prophets haven’t spoken for about 500 years. Imagine that, you’re used to hearing God’s voice and then a silence, but God does one better, He comes down to earth. Another thing that amazes me is the fact that God stepped down. God in all His glory stepped down to become a human, to live by our “rules.” Jesus felt hungry, thirsty, He grew up, and He felt pain to name a few. Something amazing happened that night, God stepped down to be with us, Jesus came down so that He may die to save us from our sins. That was what happened that night; there were no fancy meals, no trees or wreaths for Jesus. He did not wake up to the sound of a fire crackling and go down to see presents from all His relatives. He was born into a world of sin that was already against Him and His only gifts were from faraway astrologers. An amazing thing happened that night, and thirty three years later on one morning we were given the greatest gift ever.