Holy Offspring

And Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?"  And the angel answered and said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy offspring shall be called the Son of God"  Luke 1: 34-35.

A crucial component of God's plan rests right here in these two little verses.  No one at the time understood it, even Mary herself must have thought God was a bit unusual-why this overshadowing?  Why not just pick the child He wanted.  We know from the psalms that He does indeed have something to do or at least the power to have something to do with the birth process (whether you believe it to be remote doesn't matter-an eternal viewpoint might have it's advantages in planning a blood line or a genetic line, don't you think?):  "My frame was not hidden from Thee. when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth.  Thine eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Thy book they were all written, the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them" Psalm 139: 15-16.

The virgin birth however had to be, not because it would show off God's power, but because without it the rest of us would never be able to enter into His throne room, become His children, regain what was lost by Adam and Eve in that garden so long ago.  What happened back then?  Once they ate of the fruit of the tree, they died.  God had warned them-because now that they knew good and evil, their eyes were opened to the conditions of sin and while before eating their innocense protected them, now they knew.  The result was spiritual separation from God, a death to the unity they had with him, a death to their relationship with Him.

Their disobedience when they ate the apple resulted in a huge change because they could not say, "I didn't know it was wrong."  Their very nature changed.  Satan was right about that-they knew things now that they didn't before.  An innocent free life not bound by good or evil is difficult for us to comprehend since we are all by nature motivated toward sin, toward living without God, toward thinking we can adjust good and evil to fit our own motives and desires.  That is the true face of it - because I am a man and not an eternal being with authority, power, wisdom, judgment, unselfish love and all of the other attributes of God, I cannot handle having this knowledge.  I know now that I might sin-choose willfully to do something my sense of right and wrong tells me is wrong.  But in choosing that sin, I will pervert my reasons for doing it just as Eve did when she pointed the finger at the serpant and Adam did when he pointed the finger at Eve.  Sin must be justified when it is chosen-therefore I point my finger away from myself.  The results can be clearly seen in the story of Cain's murder of Abel.  I must justify my sin by saying, "Who am I?  I'm not my brother's keeper-I don't need to love him! He deserved what he got.  Besides, I'm only responsible for myself!"

Back to Adam and Eve.  More startling for them perhaps is what happened next:  They were cast out of the garden.  Again, the reason was not as many assume -f or punishment.  God had already given out their punishment-Eve would struggle with painful childbirth, Adam would have a hard time bringing home the bacon as we say in the South.  For Adam, the ground would yield a stingy harvest. So why were they banned from the garden?  Again, for their protection because, "the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, lest he stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.... Genesis 3: 22.  If God has left them in the garden and they had taken the other fruit and eaten it they would forever be separated from God by their sins.  There would have been no need for Jesus to come to the earth at all.  God would have had no way to "save" His children.

But now there was a new problem.  Sin had corrupted man.  And the Scriptures tell us that this sinful nature was passed on through the bloodline inherited from  the man.  That there was some powerful fruit!

Thus the need for a pure sacrifice.  There must be the shedding of blood for the remission of sins, we are told in scripture.  This is foreshadowed by the slaughter of the innocent beast in the garden to provide covering for Adam and Eve and by the temple sacrifices of lambs specifically for the atonement of the sins of the people.  Jesus had to be without sin.  (More about that in future posts.)  And so it is as the angel says, "The power of the Most High will overshadow you and for that reason the Holy offspring shall be called the Son of God."  There would be no bloodline of sin; the flesh and blood of Jesus would be free from the fruits of that tree in the garden.  He would be born without the blood of rebellion so that He would be a fitting, sinless, uncorruptable sacrifice for us.

It was the only way.  It is crucial to God's plan.  It is astounding to ponder! 

That reminds me...I am heading to meet with a friend, share some sisterly love and get me a nice tall glass of sweet tea- some of the best of the simple pleasures of life!

excerpt from The Noble Dream, the story of my good friend Charles Mugisha Buregeya

I thought, in light of recent events throughout the Middle East and in the US as we face up to our economic woes, to take a brief sojourn away from my study to share with you a small piece from the biography I wrote for Charles Buregeya.  I hope it encourages you as it did me today when I reread it for just that reason! 

This night he saw someone in the middle of the path ahead.  "Was it a man with a machete?" he wondered.  "He might be waiting for me."  Fear engulfed him, his skin prickling with its insistent prodding.  He stopped, calculating his options, staring harder at the image ahead.  If he turned and ran away quickly, he might be able to escape; if he was caught he could take a beating, he'd had many before.  And maybe that wasn't a machete...his heart was pounding but he knew he had to get home; his hand clutched the tobacco his father was waiting to have before bed.  He must finish his job and face his fears.  Charging down the path, his head down, he ran straight toward the man, veering as far to the opposite side of the path as he possibly could, telling his feet to fly swifter than they ever had before.  The man became a shadow, the moonlight behind a banana tree stump near the road causing the illusion. 


Later he would tell this boyhood memory to a small church congregation in America and say, "Many things we fear in our lives are not real.  The devil specializes in putting shadows in front of you, especially when there is something we are supposed to do for God.  So you must face your fears - they are not real if they exist only in your minds.  The circumference of your own mind is so small; it is a complete lie to trust in your own little brain!"  Charles told them, pinching his fingers together in front of his eyes for emphasis.  "Only Jesus knows if you will have both of your legs tomorrow, or both of your ears, or whether your stocks will fall (this of course was added due to the recent American recession.)  Have the realilty of the person of Jesus Christ in your life every day.  He is omniscient so why don't you trust in Him?"  he said with a grin, opening His hands to the sky.


At this time, however, Charles only knew that he made it home with the tobacco for his father.


                              @copywrite 2011, do not use without permission.

A note of explanation is probably needed.  Charles grew up in Uganda during Idi Amin's reign and in the middle of the Luweero Triangle, at an early age forced into child soldiering.  To lose you leg was a daily threat because of the mines in the area sown by Idi Amin's army.

This story encourages me to do what Jesus has for me to do today and not to be paralyzed by the threats of all manner of situations around me, and to sink into fearfulness, despair or brood about things I cannot fix.  I hope this story brings a refeshing sweetness to you today as well.  I need to go now, sweet tea is beckoning!

Heart to heart feet off the ground

I used to play a game with my son, Michael, when he was little.  I would say, "Do you know how much I love you?"  And he would say, "No, how much?"  And I would say, "As big as the sky!"  And then he would say, "Mommy, do you know how much I love you?"  And I would say, "No, how much?"  And he would say, "As big as the back yard!"  For someone two feet tall our back yard was really big.  And I would say, "Michael, do you know how much I love you?"  And he would say, "How much?"  And I would say, " As big as the whole world!" And we would keep on going for a bit until one of us said, "As big as the Universe!"  Usually that was me because Michael knew what was coming next. I would fling open my arms and hug my little boy with a heart-to-heart, feet right off the ground and into the sky kind of hug!  Ya'll know what I mean?

Well, I started thinking about Jesus and Who He is-as I said a few days ago, I really want to set my mind on the Love of the gospel message-the love of God and the love of Jesus.  So, where to start?  The beginning seemed like a good place.  If I am going to get this love, really get it, I need to understand where Jesus came from.  The beginning of the love story between Jesus and man is what I set my mind on. 

As I was pondering this, I found a book I haven't looked at in a while called The Hand of God, Thoughts and Images Reflecting the Spirit of the Universe.  This book has pictures from the Hubble Telescope of many of the wonders in our Universe and a whole lot of quotes from those who look into the heavens and from those who try to make sense of what they observe.  I don't want to get into the various philosophies presented-is God revealed in the Universe, can religion and science co-exist, and what about the Big Bang or the theory of quantam mechanics as it pertains to God?  If you want a really great spot to go to for those kinds of discussions, check out Ravi Zacharias website: http://www.rzim.org/.  More to the point-reviewing this book and looking at the pictures and quotes made me stop and think.  I mean, since I do believe in eternity, and I do believe that the Biblical predictions of the Old Testament came true in Christ and that the Biblical predictions in the New Testament will likewise come true in Christ, the pictures gave me an appreciation for the Heavens!  The bigness and vastness of creation are manifested there in mind boggling array!

Swirls of stars, cosmic plumes of dust, unreachable planets, comets, black holes, pulsars, icey domains and firey furnaces fill our Universe and its many solar systems.  You can go and look at the Hubble Telescope website: http://hubblesite.org/ and see the most amazing pictures like these and yet, we still haven't seen to the end of the Universe and we never will.  Remember that word "grandiose?"  The Universe is definitely grandiose! What power and intelligence and creative beauty is manifested in its creation.

And the God who designed it all was in the beginning of it all. In the first book of John is one of those astonishing passages for it gives us an infinite peak into the beginning of all that we can discover or experience:  "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being by Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.  In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. (John 1:1-4)"  So God was not alone!  He was with the Word when He created our universe and all it contains.  It begs you to ask the question...who?...doesn't it?  Who is the "Him" of this passage; who is the "Word" that was with God?  And then John answers that question:  "There was the true light which coming into the world, enlightens every man.  He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.  He came to His own and those who were His own did not receive Him.  but as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.  And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth." (John 1: 9-14).

"I am the Word, the truth and the life," said Jesus of Himself.

So, the Word stepped out of the eternal, creative being who was with God, who created the Universe, and left that vision, that glory, that wonder, and that power to become flesh, to become limited in time and space.  Oh what a beginning!  How incomparable is our Savior.   How vast is the depth of His love for us!  It's a real heart-to-heart feet off the ground and into the sky kind of love!

Grandiose!

Yesterday I was thinking about setting my mind on things that please God.  I think focusing on God's love is something I need to do more often, to be grateful, to develop security in my place with God, and even to protect me from my own folly.  In Romans 8:38-39 Paul tells us how to think about the love of God:  "For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

What security!  And what a deep, vast resource to draw from, to depend upon, to rely on!

Whenever I turn on my computer I see my husband standing in front of the Grand Canyon.  I love this picture of him and I was so amazed by the Grand Canyon.  We rode in a helicopter down into it and around it.  This is a picture of one of the many views out of the helicopter window! That's the mighty Colorado River down there. 

Then we drove it's rim and got out and looked.  Over and over again I felt this incredible feeling of awe.  Each view, each vista was just as incredible as the one before, so indescribable.  It just blew me away and I thought "grand" just wasn't enough of a title for it-why not amazing, stupendous or even grandiose canyon!                                                                           Recently I have been thinking a lot about just how great the love of God really is...you know, trying to wrap myself up in it, to get a hold of it, to really let it come behind me and go before me.  It is gradiose, this love of God!  Grandiose is defined in my Roget's Thesauras as "imposing, impressive, larger-than-life, awful, awe-inspiring, awesome; sumptuous, elegant, elaborate, luxurious, extravagant, deluxe!"  So for the next several posts I hope to explore and record some of what God shows me about his grandiose love as I look from vista to vista and think on it, set my mind on it.  I think I will be blown away and I hope you'll join me here with a glass of sweet tea whenever you can!

Oh for Goodness Sake, What were you thinking?

Have you ever heard that from one of your parents?  Well, if you’re not from the South, maybe you only heard the second part, but I bet you heard it one time or another!  This spasm of parental chastisement usually underscored some incredibly stupid act which was done without any thinking at all and, because of this parental response, was immediately recognized with the thought, “Oh boy, now I am in for it!”  And our minds would have to suffer some sort of training, perhaps a lecture, perhaps a punishment, perhaps just the stomach aching knowledge that once again our thinking was deficit in the eyes of our parents (I am so disappointed in you!)

The result? This link between action and mind was made very clear to us.

Where do we dwell?  Where do we really live?  Most people would say “in our bodies” first, but if pressed would have to conclude that our mind is really the seat of our lives.  It is there that we process whatever happens to our bodies.  It is there that we make decisions on what we will do each day with our bodies.

Paul, speaking to his fellow Christians at Phillipi, instructs them to think on “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things”  (Phillipians 4:8, NAS). 

This got me thinking!   Isn’t it amazing how one thought can generate a single kind act or a lifelong pursuit of actions.  I think of Mother Theresa who has said that seeing a poor person on the streets of Calcutta motivated her to give her life to the service and comfort of the poor and of my dear friend Charles Buregeya who saw the thousands of street children of Rwanda and decided he would help them (check out his ministry at www.anlm.org).  I wonder at the composition of Amazing Grace by John Newton during a terrible storm at sea,  of Handel’s Messiah written in just 24 days, of Beethoven’s  Symphony No. 2 written at the beginning of his deafness http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2LeoGs6ObY&feature=player_detailpage, of Fanny Crosby, the blind woman who composed over 8000 songs of praise to God in her head before dictating them to others to write out, of C. S. Lewis and the many brilliant works he gave us to help us understand the scriptures.  I have gazed at the amazing works of Michelangelo and Van Gogh, where the beauty of the body takes your breath away and you almost feel the wind blowing across the field of flowers, pushing the clouds along.  I have sat mesmerized during concerts when the music stirs the soul to sorrow or joy!  And I have heard sermons or read works that so acutely address our life’s needs and so magnificently lift the soul to worship that I am almost swept away! 

Our minds are so amazing-to be able to create beauty for others to enjoy in sound, in sight, in printed word-what a treasure.  Is that not the part of us that God breathed into us, that part of us that sets us above the rest of our earth’s inhabitants?  This ability to create, to lift other ups with our talents and our gifts, is Divinely given!  Yet so quickly we sink into self-absorption, into daily petty arguments, into righteous indignation at slights which are laughable against the backdrop of what we are truly capable of doing for one another.   How then, can we hope to enjoy one another and what we truly have to offer one another?  The Bible instructs us in part to “set your mind on the things above.”  Jesus gives us marching orders too, intended to help us: “Love one another just as I have loved you and love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind.”  There are a lot of wonderful, true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, good, excellent, praiseworthy things in our world, many of them right around us.  I hope my blog will encourage you today to open your eyes and hearts to see them, to hear them, to feel them and to experience a joyful day as you think on these things .