Tag: joy

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Four Blessings to Ask God For in 2025

This article first appeared at Small Town Summits Articles.

Father, as we sail out upon the unknown waters of 2025, we are reminded of past years that held joys and trials and we are a bit weary. It could be a year of smooth sailing and joy that easily points us to you, the giver of all good things (James 1:17). But life in this fallen world is so uncertain. What life-changing squalls could hit with hardly a moment’s notice?

Jesus, we know that you are our captain and that you are Lord over the storms. So, with you in our boat, we cry out to you, asking you to work in our lives, our church and our family in 2025.

We ask these things with boldness, knowing that the same Jesus who heard the cries of the disciples and asked where their faith is hears us today (Romans 8:34). Jesus, we believe—help our unbelief (Mark 9:24)! We serve you in faith, believing that you not only exist, but that you reward those who earnestly seek you (Hebrews 11:6). Lord, may you be our reward as we seek you today and look ahead to 2025.

We ask for four blessings from your hand in 2025—hope, peace, joy, and to see Jesus’s glory.

Give Us Hope

Give us hope that you are working all things for our good (Romans 8:28). Give us hope that you are forming us to look more like Jesus even though we get so impatient with our progress in sanctification sometimes (Romans 8:29).

Give us hope that the Word is doing its work in other church member’s lives and that you are at work in our community even when we can’t see it (Mark 4:26-29). Give us hope that you will never abandon your church (Matthew 16:18) and that you will use us, but that gospel ministry is not reliant upon us (1 Corinthians 15:58).

Give us hope that you are cheering my spouse and I on each time that we move towards each other (Song of Solomon 5:1b). Give us hope that you are working in my spouse’s heart and life and that you are forming his or her character into a beautiful work of art that belongs to you (Ephesians 2:10). Give us hope that you hold each of my children in your hands and that no one can snatch them out of your hands (John 10:28-29).

Give us hope that you can do more than we can ask for or imagine in our walk with you, in our church, and in our family in 2025 (Ephesians 3:20-21)!

Give Us Peace

Give us peace, knowing that we can sleep because you never sleep, always watching your own (Psalm 121:3-4). Give us peace as we navigate our own doubts and fears (Matthew 10:31). Give us peace that can only be found in knowing you personally, as we pursue you even more than we have in past years (Psalm 119:10).

Give our church peace in conflict that may arise in 2025, and give us a heart to seek the unity of the Spirit (Ephesians 4:3). Give us peace as we navigate the complexity of being believers in today’s world (2 Corinthians 11:28). Give our church a greater measure of the peace that comes from resting in Jesus (John 14:27).

Give my spouse and I peace if financial or health or extended family situations arise this year that add stress to our marriage (Isaiah 26:3). Give our home peace and may our children and grandchildren grow in enjoying their relationships with each other (Psalm 133:1). Give our children your spiritual protection from the evil one, so that they can experience the peace that comes from walking with you in a tumultuous world (John 17:15).

Give Us Joy

Give us joy, knowing that joy is always available in Jesus regardless of what circumstances may come in 2025 (John 15:11, 16:20). Give us your joy in the happy days, and the eyes to see the world as a place where your beauty and power are constantly on display (Psalm 24:1). Give us joy in trials, knowing that you have not abandoned us and are producing Christ-like character in us (James 1:2-3, Romans 5:3-5).

Give our church joy so that when unbelievers visit, they will want this joy that the world cannot offer (Luke 2:10). Give our church joy that is not surface-deep but rather that is deep like a glacier, because it is joy in God (2 Corinthians 1:24). Give our church joy that is Spirit-produced as we worship the living God on Sunday mornings together (Psalms 4:7).

Give us joy in our marriages, as we seek to enjoy life with the spouse you have given us (Ecclesiastes 9:9). Give our spouses joy in their day-to-day responsibilities and in their ministry opportunities (Romans 15:13). Give our children joy through spiritual tastebuds that savor Jesus rather than sin (Psalm 16:11).

Give Us Jesus’s Glory

In the same way that Moses did not want to move into the Promised Land without viewing your glory (Exodus 33:14-18), we don’t want to move into 2025 without a fresh view of Jesus’s glory!

Give us Jesus’s glory in our times of Bible reading and prayer in 2025, so that we can take a spiritual drink and be satisfied (John 7:37-39). Give us Jesus’s glory through seeing your salvation in our personal witnessing with friends and community members (Luke 5:25).

Give our church a view of Jesus’s glory that is so breathtaking that they will want to run from sin (1 Peter 1:13-16). Give our church the focus that church is about Jesus’s glory, not their preferences or ease (1 Thessalonians 5:14). Give our church such a sense of Jesus’s glory on Sunday mornings that they will long for the next time of worship together (2 John 1:12).

Give our families a view of Jesus’s glory that comes from having a privileged front-row seat to your work in so many lives (Acts 2:43). Give our children Jesus’s glory so that they have mountain-top spiritual experiences, but also we ask that when they come down from them that they will have eyes for Jesus only (Matthew 17:8).

Father, we recognize that we don’t deserve any blessing from you. But we also know that you love to give good gifts to your children (Matthew 7:11). So, we are asking you today to give us, our family, and our church four things in 2025: give us hope, give us peace, give us joy, and give us Jesus’s glory!

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To the Person Who Tried to Steal Jesus

On Saturday, December 18th, as my wife and I tidied up a few things for the next day’s worship, my kids came running into the church sanctuary: “Baby Jesus was stolen!”

“Really? One week before Christmas?” Sure enough, it was even worse than we thought. We know it was not bad wind or a curious dog because not only is the baby Jesus missing out of the large Nativity scene on our church’s front lawn, but also the manger, a lamb, and one of the two signs advertising our Christmas Eve Service.

“We believe that the Bible’s message about Jesus is true, so he is alive in heaven today and will return again. He is our king and we bow our hearts before the real Jesus just as the wise men and shepherds bowed down to him when he first came. So you can steal a figure, but you can’t steal the real Jesus.“

As we shared about the loss on our church’s Facebook page, hoping somebody might find the figures thrown somewhere in town, it became obvious that this was a discouragement to more than our church family. The Nativity scene was a labor of love from a team of people from our church, attempting to share with our community the humble story of God coming down to live with us and redeem us.

So I want to say a few things to the person who tried to steal Jesus from us:

You can’t steal Jesus. We know that the figure was only a representation of what happened that first Christmas night. The Bible tells us that the real Jesus was not only born, God become flesh, but that he grew up and became a man who lived a perfect life, then died on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins and later rose from the dead. We believe that the Bible’s message about Jesus is true, so he is alive in heaven today and will return again. He is our king and we bow our hearts before the real Jesus just as the wise men and shepherds bowed down to him when he first came. So you can steal a figure, but you can’t steal the real Jesus.

You can’t steal our joy. It made my children and others sad to think of the figure of Jesus being the one stolen. But sadness can mingle with true joy, and this doesn’t take away our joy. Our joy is not dependent on traditions or circumstances. The manger scene can sit empty or we can look around at the difficulty in our country right now or even grieve losses like death or divorce and still have joy because our joy is dependent on knowing God through his son, Jesus Christ. The night before Jesus went to the cross he taught his scared disciples a truth we continue to hold onto: “You have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.” (John 16:22) The sorrow of the crucifixion was eclipsed by the joy of the resurrection. The sorrow of disease and sin in our world will one day be eclipsed by the joy of heaven. Giving invincible joy is one reason Jesus came.

You can’t take away the meaning of the Christmas story. The sign taken had the word “HOPE” in large letters above a representation of a nativity scene. The reason we believe that the coming of Christ brings us hope today is because of what the angel told Joseph, the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel (which means, God with us).” (Matthew 1:23) Many today wonder where God is as they look at the sin in the world around them and the effects of sin on a world God had originally made perfect. But God isn’t aloof. He actually entered our world and wasn’t born in a palace, but found his first cradle in a feeding trough, a manger. This brings us hope today–that God cares, that God has come, that he is active today, that he loves us today, and that his promises in the Bible are true. The meaning of the original Christmas story is that God came to earth as a human. He didn’t come as we would have expected. His first worshipers were a poor young couple, foreign kings, and stinky shepherds. But he came in a way that shows his care for those who are discouraged and marginalized and down-and-out. This gives us a hope that can’t be stolen.

You are loved. Whether or not you return the figures or even can at this point, I want to tell you that you are loved. We have been praying for you, and not with hatred. We have been praying that a heart that would hate Jesus this much or not be aware of what the Christmas story represents would be a heart that would be broken in order to be healed with the unconditional love of the Jesus you tried to steal. Jesus interacted with thieves. There was one on either side of him on the cross. One mocked him, but the other believed in him. And Jesus told him, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43) He has that kind of power, to forgive sins and give eternal life. Jesus didn’t come for people who had it all put together, but for people who realize they are sinners and need God himself to enter our world to rescue us. That is how deep his love is, a love we can receive if we will come to him.

You can’t steal the real Jesus. But through this, we are praying that he might steal your heart.

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“Always Winter But Never Christmas?”: Finding Joy This Season

This article appeared in the December 20, 2019 edition of our local paper, The Manchester Journal.

“It is winter in Narnia, and has been for ever so long…always winter and never Christmas; think of that!” With these words, Mr. Tumnus the faun from C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe captured the imagination of my children—and me. This winter, my wife and I have been reading them “The Chronicles of Narnia” for their bedtime stories. I had read the beloved classics, as perhaps you have, as a boy, but it had been decades since I last read them. This time, reading them as an adult and as a pastor, I have been amazed at the beautiful parallels with life and even the Christian life as Lewis’ allegory points to Jesus through Aslan, the lion.

But I have not been able to let that phrase go: “always winter and never Christmas.” We know that in one sense so many of us love winter or we would not live in Vermont. We love the skiing, we love the crunchy snow under our feet, we love sipping hot cocoa while watching the snowflakes gently fall. There’s nothing quite like celebrating Christmas in Vermont with snow on the ground. But if it was always winter and never Christmas, if there was no joy in the midst of the long winter, if six months of no leaves stretched into twelve months with no foliage, we would tire of the winter weather.

Lewis described our hearts without joy so well with his phrase, “always winter and never Christmas.” As we approach Christmas, I have been thinking about what we try to draw joy from around Christmastime. We see the word “joy” all over the place: in decorations for the season, in songs on the radio and in the stores. But joy can be elusive. The grandkids don’t visit. The cancer has returned. The toys were exciting for the kids for a couple of hours, but now they’ve moved on to playing with the boxes. Maybe for you the season brings back difficult childhood memories. In your soul, you feel like it is always winter, but never Christmas, even on Christmas Day.

Lift up your head. Aslan breaks the curse, and even heals our hearts. There is joy available that is outside of our circumstances, joy that can coexist with tears. It is a joy that is elastic enough that it can bring the joy of Christmas to both the young parent with the overwhelming list of things to do for the kids, and the elderly person in his or her empty home. It is a joy that stretches to magnify the best times of life and that quietly comes alongside of us to meet us during our darkest moments. This joy is a person who is so much more than a person. His name is Jesus. This is why Christians get so excited about Christmas.

The Gospel of John explains about Jesus, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it…to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God…the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory.” (John 1:5, 12, 14) You see, Christians get excited about Christmas because we truly believe that we can’t work our way to God. The darkness is not only outside of us, it is even in us. But the message of Christmas is that God didn’t expect us to work our way up to him, but he came down to us to offer us free joy now and for eternity.

Before the spring thaw comes, my kids and I will be reading the seventh book in the Narnia series. We will read these words in The Last Battle that I hope will ring true to your heart this Christmas season so that for your soul it will not be always winter and never Christmas: “‘Yes,’ said Queen Lucy. ‘In our world too, a stable once had something inside it that was bigger than our whole world.’”

Talk about joy to the world!

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