journey onWord with us

Yesterday you received an invitation.  I wonder if you noticed.  Amid the hustle of the holiday season, possibly as you took to the highways and bi-ways to return home from Thanksgiving visits, Almighty God himself invited you to pause — to pause, look and listen in the direction of a cradle.

For the past several years at Journey onWord, we have called attention to the season of Advent.   Each year It seems increasingly important to offer the contrast between the trappings and timelines of this world and the intentional practice of quieting and orienting our hearts and minds on the birth of Christ.

If you were to have your eyes checked today, what are they focused on?  Is it the people, places and things of this world, or the purposes of the kingdom?

If you were to have your pulse checked today, is your heart rate resting or racing?  What, and who, is it beating for?

As genuine followers of Jesus, we are called to “come out from among them and be separate.”  This truth from 2 Corinthians 6:!7 is spoken in the context of ceremonial purity, but i believe there is application in this very present and practical place as well.  What kind of witness can we be if we choose to reject the trappings and timelines of this world?  If we choose to live out the “feelings” of charity that seem to swell in this window in between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but amount to little more than medicating what desperately needs deep healing?

What if we truly chose to “come out from among them and be separate”?   These questions are not deep.  This challenge will take little time to read or digest.  But, what if?

In a little less than a month, we’ll gather together as families and communities of worship to celebrate the birth of Jesus.  Along the way, many will be quick to lament or confront our culture’s efforts to take Christ out of Christmas.  But what if we quietly and genuinely took it on ourselves to put Him back in?  Not for the purpose of being right, but for doing good (for others).  Not to save the world, but to show it His love.

Yesterday you received an invitation.  Have you already, or will you begin now to take time each day to read God’s Word, pray, and obey His prompting to “do the good things he planned for [you] long ago”? (Ephesians 2:10b NLT)  Will you begin orienting your heart and mind in the direction of the cradle?  Will you see in the story the posture our King takes in coming to earth to become one of us in order to save us?  Will you choose that posture yourself in loving others as He first loved us?