Another New Year's Resolution?

One guy that stands out to me in the Old Testament is Balaam. Balaam is not your typical prophet; he was a sorcerer and changed his ways when God spoke to him. The change seemed genuine until he told the Moabites how to ruin Israel. The thing about Balaam that jumps out is how he can compare to us today, and even me. Balaam fell away from God because of his greed, he used to be a sorcerer; he was used to getting money for his services getting paid for everything he did. God didn’t pay Balaam and neither did Balak the Moabite king. Balaam didn’t realize that the true reward in obeying God isn’t money but life. As I look back on the year I can identify myself with Balaam, there are a lot of instances where I used my “world vision” instead of obeying God’s commands. We all do this. Balaam’s sin was greed, he was used to being paid with cash for his services and when he wasn’t he returned to his sin. As I’ve said before the world can be like a pair of sunglasses that dim our view, they block in the light of God’s power and love. I never liked those New Year’s resolutions but I am going to make one right here for all of us. In 2009 I am going to try to take off my sunglasses and obey God’s commands. I’ll also do my best to not be like Balaam, and understand that the reward in obeying God is a life with Him and that will outlast the physical benefits of my sin. Balaam didn’t understand God, he didn’t want any part in His plan, he continued with his sin and that led to his death in an Israelite raid. In 2009 I encourage everybody to focus on our true reward, a new life in our walk with God. Hebrews 12:2 “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus.”

GO SOX

Well here's a new gadget that gives the Sox scores for anyone who is reading my blog. Too bad it won't show anything for four months.

Dutch's Life

I wrote a post saying that I have a new blog and I realize I never wrote how to get on it. There are two ways.
1) you can access "Dutch's Life" through my profile
2) or type in the web address http://www.dutchboylife.blogspot.com

Enjoy and Merry Christmas.

Here's a funny picture of my dog

Merry Christmas

Well it’s finally Christmas Eve and almost 2009 (hopefully a better year for the Red Sox, but since the Yankees have got Teixeira who knows). Books have been published and sermons have been given about the night Jesus was born, and in the few posts I’ve written is barely a glimpse of what happened. Christmas is a time when we not only get presents or spend time with family but when we reflect. I’ve been spending a lot of time lately thinking about the year, how I pleased God and also how I disappointed Him. As I said before there’s good news and bad news for us all and I know one thing for certain, there is one gift I will enjoy receiving tomorrow and that is the life that Jesus gives. When Jesus came down here He didn’t just create a new holiday, He did the amazing, the light of God entering our dark world. The thought is so simple, at the creation when Adam and Eve sinned God knew what had to happen and thousands of years later just when the devil thought he’d won God stepped out. There are dozens of ways to phrase this simple sentence but I think the only thing to say to God for what He did is this: Thanks. It is my hope that when we all wake up we can say ‘Thanks’ to God and remember that although we get nice gifts from our family and friends the best gift of all is from our savior Jesus. Also, Merry Christmas.

Not Your Average Joe

One guy that doesn’t get enough credit is Joseph. He like Mary isn’t mentioned much in the Gospel, but unlike Mary he doesn’t get much attention in our culture. All those old Roman paintings you see are of Mary, songs about Christmas mention Mary, and we preach sermons on Mary but where is Joseph? It’s easy to miss him, he’s only mentioned in Matthew and Luke, and from then on we can infer that he may have died as Jesus grew up. Joseph may not be mentioned much but he did play a big part in our savior’s birth. First off Joseph is descendent of King David, Jesus was referred to as the “Son of David” in the Old Testament and there it is right there in the genealogy. Second Joseph was responsible, imagine his surprise when Mary came back from Elizabeth with the visible signs of pregnancy, put yourself in his shoes, you’re going to be married soon and your fiancée shows up pregnant, according to Old Testament laws Joseph had every right to stone Mary. Yet he didn’t, we are told that “Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly” Matthew 1:19. Joseph even before knowing that this was the Messiah being born didn’t want Mary to be publicly disgraced, he didn’t want her to be in trouble, and instead he took some of the shame. Imagine the looks he may have gotten before his marriage as Mary’s stomach slowly grew, and we are told in verse 20 that “An Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said ‘Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit…’” Not only did Joseph take some of the shame from Mary he also believed what God told him and followed his command. I wrote in a post earlier how Mary did what God commanded and here Joseph does as well. We have no idea what kind of father Joseph was to Jesus, all we know is that obeyed God’s command. Joseph continued his faithfulness as he packed up his family and moved to Egypt, another example of his willingness to serve the Lord. Joseph was just a man like anybody else, he was righteous and responsible and the same with Mary, she was an ordinary girl who was about to be married and obeyed the Lord’s command, and when God planned out how Jesus was going to come to earth He knew exactly who to call.

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.