I wanted to share it here because it’s a great reminder of what the season is really about: Jesus.

10 And the angel said unto them, “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.” –Luke 2:10-11 KJV.

“A Saviour.” Jesus was born to die to save us from our sins. That is why we have such joy at Christmastime–indeed, when you’re a Christian, every day–because Jesus took upon Himself the sins of the world, and paid a debt we are unable to pay.

May He Increase!

HT: Click

You see this guy? This is me. Okay, not literally, but this image captures how I’ve been feeling for months.

I’ve been working so hard at my tent-making trade that I feel like I’ve had little time for anything else. I’ve woken up with my job on my mind first thing and often-times, I’ve gone to bed worrying about tasks and projects that I’m behind on.

Don’t misunderstand me. I enjoy my job, my bosses, and the fact that I work from home. I just have a lot of work to do (but I guess in these days, that’s a good thing) and I’m not feeling like I’m on top of it all.

Changes

Then, last month, literally over-night, I was handed the leadership role of the Knott Avenue Christian Church Media team. Lest I sound like I’m complaining about that, I’m not. It’s a tremendous blessing and I’m amazed and what God has led me to and through in the past two years that I’ve been a part of that team. Still, the day I found out that I was probably going to be leading it, I felt the weight of the world on my shoulders, right at a time when I couldn’t take any additional burdens. I had to learn things that I hadn’t done before (like all the post-production work and video editing of the church’s Sunday morning webcast) with no training. But to God be the glory: things have gone much smoother than I ever would have thought.

Reminders

Still, since that time, I’ve had daily bouts of anxiety and stress and worry. Sometimes to the point of tears. But thanks be to God for the gift of my wife who is always ready to encourage me and remind me that I’m not alone in any of it.

I notice a huge difference, though, when I wrestle against my flesh and, instead of getting up early and sitting down at my laptop, I instead pull out the Word of God. Today was no exception and I was reminded of the story of Mary and Martha.

When Jesus was on His was to Jerusalem to go to the cross, He stopped at the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus.

39 [Martha] had a sister called Mary, who was seated at the Lord’s feet, listening to His word. 40 But Martha was distracted with all her preparations; and she came up to Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me.” 41 But the Lord answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; 42 but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.” –Luke 10:39-42.

Oh how long to be Mary, but feeling so much like Martha! No, there is nothing wrong with being conscious of doing Martha-type of work, but it cannot take the place of sitting at the feet of the King.

We cannot be so busy about doing work for the King that we forget about the King and neglect Him!

What about you? Have you ever found yourself in a season of being so busy and worried about things that you realized you became disconnected from your fellowship with God?

May He Increase!

For the first time in a long while, I let it sink in. I kept repeating it over and over and just let the Spirit pour it deep into my heart.

But Jesus was saying, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” –Luke 23:34.

Recognize it? You probably do. It’s one of those verses that everyone knows, and I do mean everyone.

But stop and think about when the verse was said by Jesus. According to Luke 23:33, the Roman soldiers had just finished crucifying Jesus to the cross and there was a convicted criminal on each side of him. In the midst of this horrible scene, these glorious words are said:

“Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”

Forgive them . . . These guys have beaten Him, spit on Him, put a crown of thorns on His head, and now have affixed Him to a wooden cross with iron spikes. In the midst of unimaginable pain, Jesus asks God the Father to forgive them!

That alone boggles my mind. I can’t grasp that at all.

But there’s more. Jesus continues with:

“For they do not know what they are doing.”

I think most of us gloss over that part. Or, you just casually assume that Jesus is saying something like “these pagan, Roman soldiers have no idea that I’m Jesus.” Honestly, that’s what I used to think growing up. I used to think that it was Jesus explaining that the Jews at the cross knew He was at least Jesus of Nazareth, but the soldiers just thought he was yet another criminal.

No, it’s much deeper than that. Jesus is addressing all of us across time and space! Jesus is asking the Father to forgive you and I because we don’t know what we’re doing, in a sense, when we sin. And Jesus is paying for our sins on the cross.

Throughout the Bible, Jesus is referred to as a shepherd, specifically “The Good Shepherd.” (John 10:11 and other places.)

Why? What would that signify?

That we are all sheep.

We talked about this in a post about The Judgement of the Gentiles.

Sheep are defenseless, helpless, and not very intelligent animals. Sheep aren’t driven, they are lead. They are food-oriented so will tend to approach people looking for food. (Can’t help but see the correlation to the Israelites wandering in the desert complaining about the food on this last point!)

Keeping with this analogy, what if the sheep were to kill their shepherd? What would happen to the sheep? They’d die from starvation or worse yet, they’d be killed by natural enemies. If they were to kill their shepherd, we’d naturally say: “they don’t know what they are doing!”

The Bible amazes me because of how tight-knit it is. It’s a love letter about redemption. It’s purpose is to draw us to our Shepherd who feeds us (physically and spiritually) and protects us from our enemies (Satan and his demons).

And yet, what do we do? We neglect our relationship with Him. We deny Him. We turn away from Him and then blame Him for when our lives don’t turn out the way we want them to!

Don’t kid yourself. You don’t know what you’re doing. You don’t have control over your life and you aren’t master of your little universe.

Have you been living that way?

Or, Christian, have you been busy about the King’s business that you have forgotten about the King?

There’s a remedy for that. Jesus said: “Father, forgive them; they don’t know what they are doing.” Jesus paid the price for our sin so you can be freed from that debt.

If you’re a Christian, our remedy is 1 John 1:9:

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

What about you? Is is time for you to become more like a sheep?

May He Increase!

I think a lot of us know that Jesus was born of the virgin Mary, but I don’t think we really ask why.

Origins In Genesis

If we start with Genesis, we find a somewhat familiar passage right after Adam and Eve’s sin in the Garden. God is handing out judgments and He is starting with Satan. The key verse we want to focus on is:

“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed.” –Genesis 3:15.

When we think of “seed,” we commonly associate this to the male species. Here, God is associating to the woman which is in anticipation of the virgin birth.

From this point on, Satan goes to work doing everything he can to corrupt this “seed.” Here’s a short list of some of the things he tries to spoil the seed:

• He causes Cain to murder his brother Abel (Genesis 4)
• He causes his fallen angels to corrupt the bloodlines of many generations that precipitate the flood (Genesis 6)
• He causes the tower of Babel to be built (Genesis 11)
• He causes Abram and Sarai to have Ishmael by Hagar (Genesis 16)
• He causes the rise of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18-19)
• He causes Joseph’s brothers to deal treacherously with him (Genesis 37)
• He causes the illicit affair between Judah and Tamar (Genesis 38)
• He causes Aaron to make the golden calf and the resulting worship (Exodus 32)
• He causes David to commit adultery with Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11)

There are many more examples, but let’s jump ahead to the event that probably caused Satan to rejoice.

King Jehoiachin (Coniah)

All through the books of 1 and 2 Kings and 1 and 2 Chronicles, we read of Israel’s many failures and departures from worshipping God and turning to idol worship. Things would get better but then go right back to mire. There would be good kings, and then bad ones. The northern and southern kingdoms would seeming go from bad to worse.

God finally has enough and so with king Jehoiachin He pronounces a blood curse upon him.

“Thus says the LORD, ‘write this man down childless, a man who will not prosper in his days; for no man of his descendants will prosper sitting on the throne of David or ruling again in Judah.’” –Jeremiah 22:30.

With this proclamation, Satan thinks he finally has succeeded in undermining God’s plan of redemption through David’s bloodline. It was announced by God that the Messiah would come from David’s line, but now Satan thinks that the plan has been ruined by his doing.

Joseph

So if we turn to Matthew now, we run across king Jehoiachin in Jesus’ genealogy.

Josiah was the father of Jeconiah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon. After the deportation to Babylon: Jeconiah became the father of Shealtiel, and Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel. –Matthew 1:11-12.

Here, Jeconiah is another spelling of Jehoiachin. The genealogy continues and we’ll pick it up in verse 16:

Jacob was the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, by whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah. –Matthew 1:16.

Remember, Joseph was not Jesus’ natural father. If he were, then the blood curse that God pronounced on the lineage of David would apply to Jesus! No, Joseph was Jesus’ legal father, thus fulfilling the specifications that the Messiah was a descendant of David.

Something also peculiar that you might gloss over. In Luke 3, there is a little verse that has significant implications.

When He began His ministry, Jesus Himself was about thirty years of age, being, as was supposed, the son of Joseph, the son of Eli. –Luke 3:23.

Did you pick up on that? In Matthew 1:16, it says that Joseph’s father was Jacob. Here in Luke, it makes it sound like there is a contradiction by saying “Joseph, the son of Eli.”

Who is Eli?

Eli is Mary’s father! In other words, Joseph is Jacob’s son by birth, and Eli’s son (in-law) by marriage to Mary. In order to really get at what is going on here, we need to dig back into the Old Testament to the book of Numbers.

The Daughters of Zelophehad

I won’t get into all the scriptures here, but will provide them in a moment. Basically what happened is that Zelophehad did not have any sons, only daughters. In ancient Israel, inheritance would typically go to sons. After Zelophehad had died, his five daughters came to Moses asking him what would happen to their father’s property who died without sons?

Moses then took the question directly to God who made a very particular exemption. However, this exemption was absolutely critical to the coming of the Messiah that we don’t appreciate the implications until we get to Jesus’ birth! God anticipated this detail a thousand years before Jesus’ birth!

If you want to dig into the background, check out these passages:

• Numbers 26:33
• Numbers 27:1-11
• Numbers 36:2-12
• Joshua 17:3-6
• 1 Chronicles 7:15

Merry Christmas 2010!

On behalf of the Chavez family, I wish each of you a blessed Christmas and a New Year filled with God’s love, grace, and mercy.

May He Increase!

In case you don’t, it says:

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. –Philippians 4:6.

I like the translation of this verse that I heard recently:

“Worry about nothing, pray about everything, and give thanks for anything.”

I like that, a lot. The only problem is, a lot of times, it’s a lot harder than we think. I’ve had to remind myself lately that worrying is a sin. Did you realize that?

How many times did Jesus command us “do not worry?”

• Matthew 6:31
• Matthew 6:34
• Matthew 10:19
• Mark 13:11
• Luke 12:11
• Luke 12:22

Just to list a few. I guess “do not worry” means, well, “do not worry.”

How often do we view our worrying in direct violation of His commandment?

May He Increase!