Archive for the ‘New Year’ Tag
Planning
Filed under: By Bill Winn, Christian Living, Church, Evangelism, Gospel, Love, Relationships, The Plan of Adoption, Worship | Tags: blacksmithing, Jesus, New Year, New Year's Eve, Planning
Leave a comment What a year this has been! Where have we gone right as individuals and where have we gone wrong? What did I accomplish last year? What do I want to accomplish this year? These are some of the questions we often ask ourselves around the turn of the New Year. Planning is an important part of life. It is something that we must do in order to meet goals that we desire and to be prepared for milestones and events in life that are inevitable.
For instance, we may plan and prepare for the goal of graduating from high school or college by increasing the amount of time we devote to our studies and carefully choosing which classes to take.
Retirement goal of the author
We might plan and prepare for marriage by paying off debt, reading books on the subject, and counseling with a person competent and experienced in the subject.
Planning for retirement is important for all but more so as we draw closer to the age when we will desire to quit working full time and just spend our days out in the blacksmith’s forge sweating over a 2800-degree fire and anvil. (well at least that’s the plan for some)
What we usually hear from preachers about planning and the eventuality of each of our deaths is the question, “Have you planned for your eternity?” Generally, the message centers around whether or not we have accepted Jesus, prayed some prayer to invite Jesus into our lives, or confessing to God how utterly worthless are we and begging for acceptance.
Recently my buddy, Lee, was at a worship night where the theme seemed to be how unworthy and undeserving of God’s love we are and yet how good God is because he loves us anyway. What a crock! Hidden inside such statements about God loving us in spite of our unreservedness is the confession that God’s love must be earned or deserved. Any affection that must be earned or deserved is a very shallow affection indeed. The Father’s love is not shallow but unfathomably deep and his heart is unflinching.
Just who do we think invented planning anyway? Yep, Paul the Apostle says that before the beginning of anything Trinity’s plan was to have you in relationship with them! (Eph. 1:3-6)
You are worthy of God’s love!! You were declared worthy of the Father, Son, and Spirit’s unconditional affection and adoration from the very beginning. We hear the exclamation of the Trinity’s approval of humanity, in the Word of God at Creation. “Let us make humankind in our image.” You and I were made in the very Image of God!! What greater value and worth is there than to be created in the image of God??
You see, your value and your worth was set in eternity at Creation, your secure place in the very life and existence of the Triune God was determined before the foundations of the world, and sealed forever in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ.
Planning… yeah… better get started if you haven’t already but just leave the eternal life stuff to Jesus. He is no procrastinator- he took care of your eternal security before there was time- before you were born!
You belong to the Father, Son, and Spirit. You always have. You always will. The Father loves and likes you. You are his beloved child!
From all of us at Trinity and Humanity; have a very blessed year in 2016 and may you come to know as you are known by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!
~Bill Winn
Wishing You A Christ-Centered New Year
Filed under: By Tim Brassell, Christian Living, Gospel, Trinity | Tags: Christ, Christian, Church, Jesus, New Year, Perichoresis, Trinity
Comments (2) After rehearsing the truth of the Gospel again, which is Adoption, or,
the Good News that God the Father, Son and Spirit created humanity and all of creation in order that they, and it, might share in God’s exact Love and Relational Being, in the Person of Jesus Christ,
I thought that wishing you blessedness in the New Year might be best said the way I entitled the blog post! In other words, did you notice that I didn’t use the customary “Happy” in front of the words “New Year”? That was done on purpose and more in the light of the Gospel.
Let’s face it, most people (including me!) tend to operate out of an optimistic or pessimistic paradigm based on feelings and their own subjective and distinct perceptions about life. Some of us will say “Happy New Year” because we can look at people and things in the world like Susan Boyle, a Black President of all things, and a chance that all Americans might receive basic health insurance as reasons for optimism. Some of us will hear the phrase Happy New Year, and hate it (secretly!), thinking to ourselves that with what is happening in Darfur, Iran, Afghanistan and the American economy, how could anyone possibly say, let alone hope for, a Happy New Year!
I think the Gospel gives us a better alternative than either optimism or pessimism regarding the New Year, while including both in its tremendous wake!
Because the Gospel is Jesus Himself, and what He has done to all of Humanity and Creation in His Divine/Human Body, then we can’t go the way of sin-filled pessimism regarding the state of humanity no matter how dire things seem! It is one thing to say that “as in Adam all die”, but it is a completely other thing to say “so in Christ will all be made alive” (1 Cor 15:22). No real question about the difference in those facts. Whatever mess Adam made (and it was a huge mess!), the Author of Creation, God the Trinity, in Jesus, has undone it (and it was a more huge undoing than Adam’s doing!!), and will continue to undo it, in full actualization! All WILL BE MADE ALIVE!
And because this fact of God in union with His creation is the truth of all truths behind real happiness, ironically, we should be very pessimistic about any other person, place, thing or system in this New year that claims to be able to accomplish it! Humanity’s Adoption and ultimate happiness has been, and only can be, fulfilled by the God/Man Jesus! Improvement in this life won’t get it! We need Jesus’ exact life of New Creation, including a new and transformed body! Even so, come Lord Jesus!
But, because the Gospel is Jesus Himself, and what He has done to all of Humanity and Creation in His Divine/Human Body, then we can’t go the way of sin-filled optimism regarding the state of humanity either, no matter how great things seem! It is one thing to say along with the Apostle John, “Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health”, but it is a completely other thing to add “just as it is with your soul” (3 John 2). No real question about the difference in those facts, either. It is one thing to be happy and healthy! It is another thing to be as happy and healthy as your soul is because of Jesus Christ, Who lives in you! Most people I know aren’t anywhere near as happy as their soul REALLY is because of the Holy Spirit Who lives in them!
Yes, somehow in a mystical but real way, the Holy Spirit of God Himself, has been given to all flesh (sinful humanity! YOU!) in a special way, inaugurated at Pentecost! Acts 2:17! YOU, in the first instance, are in union with Christ apart from works, promises to do good, or even faith and repentance!!!
In more plain words, because God wants you to prosper and be in happiness and health as your soul is prospered by being in union with THE Holy Spirit, this may need to be a very painful year for you as you come to change your mind (repent!), embrace the truth of Jesus and Who you are in Him, and participate more in life as life really is! It will hurt like hell, at first, as you Embrace the Gospel of Humanity’s Adoption and live accordingly in the Spirit’s grace, with Christ’s same intention:
so as to live the rest of your earthly life no longer by human desires but by the will of God. You have already spent enough time in doing what the Gentiles like to do, living in licentiousness, passions, drunkenness, revels, carousing, and lawless idolatry. They are surprised that you no longer join them in the same excesses of dissipation, and so they blaspheme!- 1 Peter 4:1-4
Ouch! A Christ-centered year, but not necessarily a happy one, at first! Ha-Ha!
But, because God is in union with all of His creation, including you, in some mystical but real way, ironically, you should be very optimistic about the New Year because of Jesus’ intent to live victoriously in you! In Jesus, your Adoption and ultimate happiness is sealed despite the hatred and disappointment of persons, places, things or systems that will blaspheme God and seek to discourage you this year!
So, again, in the spirit of this post, “I am wishing you a Christ-centered New Year!” (not necessarily an optimistic or pessimistic one! Ha-Ha!)
– Timothy J. Brassell