Dining Room Waiters and the Manger Birth

The Melrose in Dallas was built in 1924. Today, it is a Four-Diamond luxury hotel boasting a Landmark Restaurant—one of the top ten restaurants in a city priding itself on having more restaurants per capita than any other city in the U.S. Their dining room is set with circular tables covered with linen, stuffed chairs, and a library while you are waiting that makes you feel that you’re an English lord in your castle.
A few weeks ago I got to pretend that I was one of the elites of Dallas as my brother, Don, and I reunited two roommates from graduate school who are now in their eighties for lunch. Jerry Jones and his wife casually strolled in for a quiet meal together half way through our meal to enhance my feelings of power, prestige, and position. There’s a part of me that loves to sit at a table like this, have the multiple waiters repeatedly fill my water glass, and even help place the linen napkin on my lap.
Jesus had all this attention and infinitely more. The blinding stars only reflect a fraction of the divine light that burns forever in His heavenly home. The majesty of the Montana Bear Tooth Mountains a split second before sun down are like a Dollar Store card compared to the true beauty of His perfect landscapes. Think of ants on the floor of the United States Capitol building thinking they are the movers and shakers while in the chairs above the Senators meet in session—this is a weak comparison. Supernatural cherubim and hosts of angels bowed continually before Jesus’ divine throne. Reveling in all this power, prestige, and position, why didn’t God the Father and His Son decide to use the fiery, divine royal war chariot that Ezekiel saw in prophetic vision? Why a Galilean teenager’s womb? Why a cave in a rural, small town south of Jerusalem?
Like John 1:1-18, Philippians 2:6-11 gives us not the melody, but the words to another Christmas carol—more technically an incarnation hymn of praise—that the 1st Century church sang when they met together either early Sunday morning or after work in the evening after their Agape meal and communion. Paul uses this hymn to point out to the Philippian believers and to us the way to the top. This path cuts right across my desire to get rich enough so I can eat at the Melrose daily.
Take some time in the midst of the Bethlehem child's birthday celebration to study what He teaches us about being a slave so that we can rule in the end. Before you conclude that this is all pious sentimentalism ask yourself this: Two thousand years later who actually is august--Augustus or the Lord Jesus Christ?

Only Violence Continually

This Sunday morning between services I was in the church office as one of our men checked the Internet. He scrolled down and read to me the first news of the 24 year old gunmen who took the lives of four of our brothers and sisters in Christ in Colorado.

"I can't believe this is happening!" "There must be some mistake!" " Why attack young people who are seeking to be trained to take Jesus' Good News around the world?" My heart struggled to handle the fact that again believers have been killed right here in the U.S.

This spring my youngest son and his wife completed three years of graduate school in New Haven, Connecticut. The Youth with a Mission students and teachers in the city became their local spiritual family and gave them biblical support. During the graduation week I watched my son play ultimate Frisbee with his YWAM friends. After the game, I got to chat with some of them about their future plans. What an encouragement to interact with young people in their twenties committed to Jesus and looking forward to going overseas and sharing His truth and love with others. Now Tiffany Johnson (26) , an easy going, friendly, adventuresome young lady and Philip Crouse (24), who had helped to build a foster home on the Crow Indian reservation in Montana, will not be able to continue Christ's mission here on earth.

When God looked at the pre-flood world, He saw that it was "corrupt and full of violence." (Gen. 6.11). What does He see when He looks at our nation?

I'm praying that God will open hearts to the power of the crucified and resurrected Jesus. He alone can conquer violence, bring His forgiveness and mercy, and awaken consciences all over our land and soften hearts, including mine. We must not allow murder, especially when it is caused by those who hate Christians, to become only another headline.

God is still the Sovereign Lord who sent His Son into the violent world of Herod and Caesar. Though He was murdered, death could not hold Him and His resurrection power will allow us to keep going into all the world to make disciples in every nation.