A NATIVITY REVELATION

My favorite Christmas hymn is "O Holy Night"; I am often overcome with emotion when I hear the hope filled lyrics soaring amidst the initially serene, then triumphant notes of the musical score of the hymn. This year, on the first day of December, I came upon the most beautiful rendition of that hymn on YouTube that I have ever heard by Celine Dion (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Jr-2eyRtV4&feature=colike), and decided that I was going to listen to it every morning during my prayer time until Christmas Day to remind me of the real reason for rejoicing and celebrating the Christmas season. I shared the video with my family, and my daughter sent me an amazing music video of "O Holy Night" she found on YouTube based on scenes from The Nativity Story movie (2006) and sung by Josh Groban (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Zh-yR0pbmU&feature=colike), which absolutely blew me away; so I decided to alternate renditions of the hymn in my new seasonal daily ritual.

You know how after reading or hearing or seeing something over and over again you begin to notice a lot of things that you did not pick up on the first few times around? Well, after listening to and watching the nativity scene video for about the 12th time, the Holy Spirit gave me a revelation which amazed and overwhelmed me, which I believe He wants me to share with you, and that we really need to get a hold of. Before I share this with you, would you take a few moments to watch that Groban video? I included a link above.

Here's what hit me all of a sudden about this video that I believe the Holy Spirit was trying to show me: All the actors in the video except one did such a wonderful job of acting in portraying their characters that they make the event of Christ's birth come alive. The one exception was the actor who made it all come together, but who wasn't acting: He was the baby who portrayed Jesus...who's name is not even revealed in the IMDB.com credits. What I mean is this: The baby wasn't acting...he was just doing what babies naturally do; he had no idea of how many "takes" he was in or what was going on around him, nor did he care. He just totally and unknowingly trusted in the people around him to take care of his interests, and went about being a baby, not acting like a baby. And then, the significance of what I was seeing washed over me...The same scenario existed for the infant Christ-child in the real event! An all-knowing God became the all-unknowing baby Jesus, totally dependent on the very humans He created, and their dependence on His heavenly Father, to provide for His every want and need; a baby - the perfect example of a most important spiritual concept: A "faith being", as opposed to a being "acting" in faith.

Jesus demonstrated His teaching to Nicodemus in John 3:1-8 ("I tell you the truth, no one can see the enter the Kingdom of God unless he becomes born again") and the answer to the question about who is the greatest in the Kingdom of God that He would teach about later in Matthew 18:1-4 ("I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is greatest in the kingdom of heaven."). Our whole life is is spent growing up and distancing ourselves from childhood - physically, mentally and spiritually. But then, in chapter 3 of the Gospel of John, Jesus tells a man who has matured to an adult - physically, mentally and spiritually according to the world's terms- that in the spiritual realm, he must become "born again" - become like a baby again - to enter the Kingdom of God; and then, according to his teaching in Matthew 18 (and corresponding verses in Mark and Luke), stay as innocent and dependent as a child in that realm in order to reach its pinnacle.

Wow! For me, that adds a new dimension to the Christmas celebration. Christmas is all about the baby Jesus, joyful children with excited expectations and becoming like a kid again...the perfect example of what our spiritual life should be!

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

Substance That's More Valuable Than Gold

Recently, my beautiful, Spirit-filled wife came into my prayer closet and asked if she could share an interesting and timely Scripture with me that God had pointed out to her in her prayer time. The passage she cited was from 1 Peter 1:7, which reads as follows:

"These (from previous verse, "all kinds of trials") have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed." (Please take a moment to read the whole chapter when you have a chance.)

As we traded thoughts about the significance of the scripture, the Spirit of God revealed an important extra dimension about the reference to the "genuineness of your faith" being of "greater worth than gold."

Before I go on to share with you the significance of the reference to faith and gold in this scripture to us, and hopefully to you, in today's tumultuous times, please allow me to give you a little background into the significance of gold and its pricing in today's worldly economic picture.

Since almost the beginning of recorded history, gold has been a universally important and valued commodity because of its beauty and scarcity; for perspective, it is said that all the known stores of processed, pure gold could be contained in 60 normal size tractor trailers. Gold has been found and mined on every continent of the world except Antarctica, and almost every country, so that in spite of its scarcity, it is available universally, which helped to make it universally acceptable as the commodity of choice for bartering, trade and commerce between most all nations of the earth. However, as time went on, it became obvious that do to it's bulk and weight, it wasn't very practical or safe to carry enough around for any but the smallest of transactions, so countries began to mint coins out of cheaper and lighter metals to be used among their citizens and neighboring countries; the value of these coins were based on the reserves of gold controlled by the countries' treasuries. Eventually, with the advent of the printing press, countries began printing paper notes of various styles and denominations to represent larger quantities of coins for ease of transport and security in larger transactions, once again based ultimately on the amount of gold they owned or controlled.

However, as you can guess, the big problem with the paper money and substitute coins thing is that when more money is printed or minted by a country without acquiring control or possession of a corresponding increase in gold, or when counterfeit money is surreptitiously introduced into the a country's money supply, or when questions arise concerning who is in control of a country's gold supply, the substitute paper and coins become worth less, which of course results in a corresponding increase in the value of gold. This situation inevitably occurs during times of inflation, insurrection, instability and war...People would rather have valuable metal than worthless paper money and coins in exchange for their goods and services; and when citizens' money becomes worthless, and they don't have gold (or similar commodities of value, like silver or food or petroleum) to meet their basic needs, they resort to theft, violence and rioting to obtain what they need or want. Unfortunately, this is the scenario we find both our (USA) economy and the international (or global) economy at present time, and the situation is escalating relentlessly! In fact, in a mere three years the price of gold in the international market has more than doubled, from $700 an ounce to over $1600 an ounce, and one needs only to take a look around us to see that "the natives are restless".

So how does all of this relate to the reference in the scripture from 1 Peter to the "proven genuineness of your faith - of greater worth than gold..." and to the prayer directed life in general? Simply this: If the value of gold has more than doubled in few short years, and if, according to Scripture, genuine, solid faith is worth more than gold, then hasn't the "value" for possessing a strong, "refined" faith in these times increased accordingly? In other words, hasn't the importance of having a proven, genuine faith increased tremendously in just a few short years to deal with the very same factors that are driving up the price of gold?

My Brothers and Sisters, the Bible tells us that "faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ."(Rom 10:17) Doesn't it behoove us during these times to be devoting some of our prayer time on a regular basis to reading (or hearing) the word of God and listening to Him for what it means, and how we can use our strengthened faith to "bring us through" the difficult times we are facing in today's world? Isn't it incumbent upon us to be prepared for "the worse" by exercising our faith in God and His word early and often when troubles appear...And perhaps laying in a little gold, too, if that is what God is telling you to do? (Keep in mind, the scripture says that it will perish, leaving only our proven faith.)

Finally, there is a line from a song from Hillsong called "It Is You" that expresses the most important end result of exercising our faith according to the scripture. It says:

"This Treasure that we hold,

More than precious gold,

It is You,

Jesus it is You."

The final part of our scripture from Peter infers that WE will receive praise and honor and glory on the Day when Jesus Christ, who lives in us and is the source of our faith, is revealed to all! How AWESOME is that?!

As always, thanks for reading my blog. I hope you can take a few moments to share your thoughts on this topic with me; I look forward to reading them.