Articles

“Do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”  

(Romans 6:3-4)

Baptists and others like to ask, “When where you saved?” They like to be able to point to a specific time and experience when they “accepted” Christ and committed themselves to follow Him. A friend in Northern Ireland recently gave me a good response to that question. When he is asked, “When were you saved?” he responds, “About two thousand years ago.”

We were not saved by some decision we made or by committing our life to Christ. We were saved by Christ’s death and resurrection alone. When Christ died, we died. Jesus bore all the pain, suffering and shame of our death for us, and by faith we have received all the benefits of His death. So when we celebrate Jesus’ resurrection, we are also celebrating our own resurrection.

Now we have a totally new and glorious life. We died to sin. We died to the Law. Now we live with and for Christ. We have been raised with Him to “walk in newness of life.” It is a glorious, joyful life with God.

We cannot describe that new life any better than God Himself did when He inspired Paul to write Colossians 3:1-17. Read these words slowly, thinking of how this is your new life, for you are risen with Christ.Read More »Risen with Christ!

LEAD STORY – TRANSFIGURATION

After six days Jesus took Peter, James and John with him and led them up a high mountain, where they were all alone. There he was transfigured before them.” 

(Mark 9:2 NIV84)

One of the wonders of the created world is the process of metamorphosis. When God called into existence the creatures that swim in the sea and fly in the air (on creation day five), He gave to some the amazing ability to change from one form into another as part of their life cycle. One example is the monarch butterfly, which has four stages in its life cycle: egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, and adult butterfly. A truly remarkable change!

Each year, on the last Epiphany Sunday, the Christian Church recalls the biblical account of the remarkable metamorphosis of Jesus (also known as the “Transfiguration”). One day while He was walking with three disciples on a mountain in Galilee, His lowly appearance was changed. His clothes started to dazzle with whiteness. His face began to shine as bright as the sun.

Jesus’ metamorphosis was, of course, far different from the change that occurs with creatures like the butterfly. For one thing, it happened instantaneously, not gradually. Then, too, Jesus’ metamorphosis did not involve changing into something He wasn’t previously. Rather, it was a revelation of what He already was: God’s all-glorious Son! Whenever Jesus preached a sermon or performed a miracle, people could sense this. “There is something special about Him not visible to our eyes” (Matthew 7:28-29, Luke 8:25). That something “special” was that He was their Messiah in Whom all the fullness of the Deity was living in bodily form (Colossians 2:9, Philippians 2:6-8). It’s just that, during the period of His life on earth, He chose (for the most part) to conceal His divine majesty from their view so that He might live in lowliness, serve them in love, and offer His life as a ransom on the cross.Read More »Butterflies, Jesus, and You

“When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy. And when they had come into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary His mother, and fell down and worshiped Him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to Him: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.”

(Matthew 2:10-11)

The wise men, the three kings, the magi . . . tradition has made these visitors of Jesus to be seen in different ways. We Christians may scoff at wise men in Nativity sets: “The wise men don’t belong in the manger scene! They didn’t get there for two years! They weren’t kings! We don’t know how many there were!” They have become, in many of our minds, the others; strange rich men who came from far away to see the newborn King. They are mysterious; their names aren’t given, and their place of origin is simply referred to as the East. They are outsiders to our usual Biblical narrative that largely follows the Jews up to that point.

The wise men are included in the Gospel of Matthew not because they are a novelty, but because their inclusion was one of the first indications of the new normal for the early New Testament church. They were outsiders, but they were welcomed to worship the newborn King of the Jews as their own King. Matthew himself was also seen by the Jews as an outsider. Working as a tax collector for the Romans, he was seen as a thief and a traitor. The Pharisees disapproved of Jesus’ meal with Matthew and other sinners (Matthew 9:9-13).Read More »Welcome to the Family

COVER STORY – NEW YEAR

Sometimes more is less and less is more. Consider the word resolve. The word mostly conjures up positive images. To resolve is to make a firm commitment to fix a problem or to fill a deficiency. From the same Latin root comes our word resolute—also basically positive. Someone who is resolute is determined and focused. Yet it all seems to fall apart when we lengthen the word to resolution, especially when we add “New Year’s” to it. The whole concept of “resolve” and “resolute” just seems to fade to nothing when we talk about “New Year’s resolutions,” which are more like political promises than firm commitments. No one really expects anyone to actually keep New Year’s resolutions. There’s routinely no true resolve there. And sometimes that’s a good thing.

I once watched a bird try to fly into our living room. The little guy had way more resolve than intellect. The problem was the clean window that he just couldn’t seem to figure out. Over and over again he would throw himself at the window, only to be met each time with an invisible barrier and a sickening thud. From time to time he would pause as if to consider the prize, each time evidently determining that our living room was just about the greatest place he could imagine, and that entrance thereto was well worth the pain and effort.

The problem, of course, was more than just the window. Had the little guy actually achieved his goal, his life would have been instantly and immeasurably worse. We had no desire to have our living room redecorated in white. The window, which he no doubt regarded as his enemy and the source of his frustration, was actually his best friend.Read More »Resolutions Worthy of Resolve