For my family, Christmas eve is a busy holiday. There is a traditional meal we eat together and almost always have somewhere between 20-25 guests to join us. It may not seem like that many, but consider that we squeeze around a single table. A sit down meal for that many people is undeniably a production.

It’s always a meal our family looks foreword to, but this year it was far less than enjoyable for me. I’ve had a bit of a health scare. Apparently an unexpected cocktail of over-the-counter drugs left me with really high blood pressure, nearly losing consciousness, extremely light-headed, and seriously spaced out.

I ended up having to sleep through dinner and missing the festivities, which was disappointing, but I definitely didn’t want to get out if bed. Every so often one of my family members would come and check on me and see that I was alright, and whether I needed anything. Over the course of a few hours, my whole family had been through to see how I was doing. My brother-in-law even came and hung out with me for a bit.

It reminded me, this morning around 10 as I was getting ready for the day, I thought to myself, somewhere, there’s someone who’s already begun drinking to dull the depression. Somewhere, there’s someone who’s begun a drug bender that isn’t likely to end until the new year. Somewhere there’s someone waking up and wishing he could just sleep through the next two days. After being incapacitated and sick all night, it got me thinking what a privilege it is to have a family that really is knit together and cares about one another—especially during the holidays.

So, my prayer tonight on Christmas Eve, the night before we celebrate our savior’s birth, is that God would visit those who are hurting. Those who have no one—no comfort. That he would be their comfort, and in their misery, reveal himself as the only worthy object of their whole affection.

In Psalm 9, David is praising God for protecting his people and overcoming his enemies. After Christ, however, we find that we are often our own enemies. So as I read, the final verse struck me in my own context. The verse reads like this:

“Arise, O LORD! Let not man prevail;
   let the nations be judged before you!
Put them in fear, O LORD!
   Let the nations know that they are but men! “

We live in a country of unprecedented privilege. Unprecedented resources. Unprecedented safety. And even us in the church struggle to remember that God is behind this. Not government, not family, not self—but God.

So, in my own mind, David’s prayer reads more like this.

“Arise, O LORD! Let us not prevail ourselves;
   thank you that Christ has taken the wrath of your judgment for me!
Put fear in me, O LORD!
  Let me know that I am but a man, and you are my God!”

Growing up Catholic, I’m familiar with the mindset that believes Christians can and do ‘fall out of grace’, so to speak. That if we’ve done something bad enough, we’re in danger of Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf being ineffective. And so there is a need to do some spiritual patch work and yet again seek God’s forgiveness through Christ.

Even in parts of the protestant church where that’s really not the teaching, the mindset still definitely exists (at least on some subtle level).

After all, teaching on post-conversion repentance isn’t really on the top of most church’s list—although teaching vaguely about ‘repentance’ is. So it would seem to me that what we end up with is a whole slew of Christians under the impression that if they’ve screwed up hard enough they’re on the outs. That is until they make things right with some magic prayer of repentance. Although no one can be quite sure what that is so everyone just wings it and hopes they’re getting it right.

Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating the issue a bit. But for the sake of a point, it’s alright I suppose.

Hebrews 10:11-14 sets things straight:

“every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.”

Christians need to understand that the regeneration, justification, and propitiation brought about by Christ’s death on the cross and delivered through the conduit of our faith, are irrevocable.

Notice the change of tenses in verse 14. Yes, Christians are being sanctified, but we’ve already been perfected (in a way).

Following Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension, he didn’t go to some library style grace-renewal booth to divvy out renewals to the grace on sinner’s lives. He sat down at the right hand of God because what he’s done is done.

Continual repentance is crucial in a Christians life. But not because if he doesn’t do it, he’s losing his salvation, but because if repentance never comes, he probably never had salvation to begin with. It’s simply something Christians do. It’s who we are. We love God and when it comes to us that we have wronged and offended him, repentance just happens. Like juice coming from an orange when it’s squeezed—If no juice comes out, it’s probably not an orange.

So keep on repenting? Yeah, of course. We just need to do it remembering that Jesus’ work is done and the Father isn’t angry anymore.

I just came across Jesus’ night in the garden before his crucifixion. I’ve read it a million times, but found a fresh point of relation to Jesus’ disciples. It’s a wonder I never saw it before.

Jesus had gone off to pray. He warned them to keep alert and pray that they would “fall into temptation”. But it doesn’t happen like that. Luke 22:45-46:

And when he rose from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow, and he said to them, "Why are you sleeping? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation."

Anyone who has struggled with extended periods of emotional despair or depression knows that there is something inviting and releasing about sleep. Tons and tons of sleep. When I am in times like that I often find myself “sleeping for sorrow”.

But the temptations that accompany sadness are only puffed up by attempting to sleep away our problems.

Of course, like the disciples who know that they should stay awake and pray against their temptation, I too usually give into the easiest, most comfortable solution.

Sleep.

Pastor Hoye, is going to trial on Thursday for handing out pamphlets to pregnant women walking into abortion clinics. According to the testimony of witnesses, including the abortion center escorts, Hoye’s efforts were always peaceful. In fact, it’s difficult to find anything that resembles harassment in what he was doing. None the less, he was arrested back in December and is being threatened with four years in prison.

You can read the story here:
http://www.lifenews.com/state3708.html

Now, I might be wrong, but doesn’t this seem a little bit whacko to anyone else?

I’m not speaking necessarily as a pro-lifer here. Although I am one. I’m speaking as an American. One who values competition in the market place.

Now, let’s say I owned a Burger King. Business was booming. Then, one day, across the street, or 100 feet away, next door, some one came and opened a McDonalds. Suddenly, people were torn in their decisions to purchase a Whopper and were now thinking about the Big Mac instead.

Do I really have any grounds to take my new competitor to court? Of course not. Because that’s how business works. If someone comes along and makes a better burger than me, the solution isn’t to destroy them by brute force. The solution is to either make an even better burger, or else make the burger I already have more attractive. It’s in this way that businesses improve themselves and society benefits.

As much as they’d like to hide it, abortion clinics are not charity organizations. They usually hide underneath cushy names, like "Women’s Wellness Center," or "Women’s Health Care Center" or "Family Planning Centers". But underneath, they’re a business. They profit like a business. They market like a business. But unfortunately, they compete more like the mob.

Trouble is, the burger they’re selling has a bitter after taste and for the sake of their business it’s important that the competition not get it’s marketing message out.

Pastor Hoye, in many ways represents the competing McDonalds across the street. Peacefully he offered customers another option. Granted, this is threatening to the competition. But shouldn’t they thrive on competition like businesses are supposed to?

You see, here’s the skinny, the abortion industry makes an incredible amount of money. Not only that, the social ramifications of the abortion industry are far reaching and extremely lucrative. If the primary concern of the abortion industry were the well being of women and pregnant mothers, then just how women got help would matter little; whether it be an abortion or a crisis pregnancy center. But, in aggressive behavior like that toward Pastor Hoye, the industry proves that it is indeed a for profit operation and money is the primary concern.

I am upset at the action against Pastor Hoye because of this critical issue at hand,  But I am also very upset at the underlying threat to basic freedoms.

Just as Pastor Hoye should have the freedom to stand peacefully near an abortion clinic and offer another option, the abortion escorts should have the freedom to stand near a crisis pregnancy center and offer another option. But that would never happen. You know why?

Because when a woman goes to a crisis pregnancy center, she’s already considered abortion and decided against it. But when a woman goes to an abortion clinic, 9 times out of 10, she has no idea that other options exist. And that is why Pastor Hoye is such a threat to business. Because the abortion industry thrives on supressing the competition by force.

The fact of the matter is, when you get right down to it and look at the cold hard scientific facts, the Pro-Life argument is hard to beat. It’s simply a better burger and Burger King is scared people might find out.

Pastor Hoye will go for sentancing this Thursday. Please join me in prayer, not for the man necessarily–I’m quite confident he would gladly go to prison for the sake of this cause. Rather, pray for the upholding of constitutional law and the principals this country runs on. The same that, hopefully one day, the Lord will use to bring an end to these crimes against the innocent.

James 4:4 says,

“You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”

In the past couple weeks this verse has become a bit haunting to me. I know that it doesn’t speak directly to my situation, but the principals apply nonetheless.

As I’ve been developing a discipline in prayer of the past couple of months, one of the things I’ve tried to make a priority is prayer for the lost. Specifically individuals in or around my life that don’t know Jesus yet. I think this has begun to deepen the seriousness of their plight in my heart and mind. When I’m around them, their spiritual condition is more on the forefront of my mind than it was in the past.

The trouble is, though my mind is there, my actions aren’t following yet.

It was recently that I was out with a handful of believers and about as many non-believers. At some point during the evening, I looked around and noticed that we weren’t too much different from them. At least not obviously. I don’t mean to imply these were particularly rough people. They were friendly, nice enough and weren’t even especially vulgar. But they weren’t loving either.

Neither were we.

And that’s the problem. Not especially loving to each other, to them or obviously to anyone else. I can’t help but wonder how we expect questions about “the hope that we have” when we’re not even obviously different.

Now, please, don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting that we dawn exclusively black and white attire, with big hats and belt buckles. Nor am I really suggesting that there should be frivolous encouragements thrown around. I’m simply saying that our choices and actions should be shining with love for each other. That is how the world will know we are Jesus’ disciples–heck that’s how I became a believer.

I can’t help but feel like God is often working in spite of his Church, rather than through it.

It seems that people often read verses in the bible about the way God works through believers and assume that it’s true of them. But simply because the bible says that God does it, doesn’t mean he always does it. And, judging my what I’ve seen throughout most of my walk, in me and in my brothers and sisters, it seems unlikely that those verses are talking about us!

I would like to see, through prayer and Spirit lead sanctification, my own choices and my own attitudes, along with the whole church, shift. So that when the world sees us they will actually have a reason to wonder.

Consistency in reading the Word has almost never been a struggle for me in my walk. I don’t mean that as a boast. Consistency in other parts of my life has never been my strong suit. I owe my consistency in the word to God’s refining grace. Through good times and through bad, the Lord has helped me to stay faithfully in the Word every day. That is a huge blessing.

Now, after about 5 years of daily scripture reading, I’m starting to learn some similar things about prayer.

For the past 8-ish weeks I have enjoyed the same God-given consistency in my prayer life that I have had in my time in the Word. This is an absolutely new development for me. Never have I had the ability to stay in prayer day in and day out, so this is something that I’m learning for the first time. And again, I cannot take credit for it, my life does not testify to that sort of behavior.

In this process, I’ve been seeing the contrasting forms of interaction with God and the different ways they have been affecting my life. Of course, these are not expressly biblical concepts and so aren’t set in any kind of stone.

It seems to me that reading the Word is passive, while prayer is aggressive. What I mean by that is reading the Word does not necessarily require any kind of emotional investment, while prayer requires some kind of investment. Even if it seems somewhat superficial, every word we speak is rooted somewhere in our subconscious and in some way is the content of our hearts (Matthew 15:18). Our prayers are no different.

In reading scripture, we sit passively and listen. But, when we pray, speak actively and the contents of our hearts–in some way–are called to the surface.

Now, I’m still working out just what this means, but I believe there is a beautiful design in this dichotomy. It’s for this reason, that I think part of the key to a more consistent walk with Jesus is in the dual disciplines of reading the Word daily and praying daily. While reading, God’s word can fall on me. And, in prayer I come to my surface and am able to retrieve those words and internalize them. Thus allowing them to shape my heart, my behavior and my life.

I know, this is a pretty rough sketch.

I think that many of the brothers and sisters in my generation struggle deeply to remain consistent in their walk with the Lord. I’ve met many of them and I myself at times am one of them. Now I think that I have found, as so many of the saints before me, the grace God offers us in seeking these dual disciplines.

If you are one who has struggled and gone up and down in your faith dramatically, I strongly suggest you look hard at these disciplines and see if the Lord won’t be gracious to you in your faithful pursuit of them.

Note: If you’re interested in the methods that I have used, I’ve written about them in the past, here and here. You’re welcome to try them, but you’ll have to decide what method is really best for you. I don’t claim any magic method, this is just what has been beneficial for me.