Welcome!
Come on in, friend! Pull up a chair, grab a cuppa, and let's chat! I'd love to share what God's been putting on my heart about the topics of family, femininity, and faith, and you do the same. If you want to go deeper, join my Facebook group for "This Side of Heaven", and be sure to subscribe to keep up with every new post (no spam, I promise!). I look forward to getting to know you and sharing the journey "this side of Heaven!"
Have you ever noticed the irony of this time of year? The season of "peace on earth" ends up being the MOST stressful time of the year. In our family, the first two weeks of December are the most packed with evening activities, the latest bedtimes, the shortest on sleep, and the craziest time of the whole year. But even in the frenzy, you can find peace. Here are five things that have worked for me. Focusing on the Advent season more than Christmas Day. We light an Advent wreath every Sunday at the church where my husband pastors. We have Advent devotionals as a family. We have an Advent calendar (that we're behind on) that focuses on the Nativity. I share Advent Sunday devotionals for our Naomi's Circle ministry. We copy Christmas carols and do Advent activities in our home school activities. I very much enjoy the Advent Season that precedes Christmas, and it helps to settle my heart down as a result, especially in moments when I am missing loved ones. Focusing on experiences more than expectations. The experience of cutting down our own Christmas tree at the Christmas tree farm. The experience of seeing our favorite living Nativity. The experience of putting up the Christmas lights as a family. The experience of surprising our children by taking them to see "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" at a local church. The experience of seeing the lights in our neighborhood and enjoying being with friends and family. The experience of reading the story of Jesus' birth to my children. In the past, my expectations of myself and of what Christmas "should" be have overshadowed my enjoyment of those moments or even prevented them in favor of getting my list done. Lists have their place, to be certain, but try to see the moments for the treasures that they are. Focusing on Jesus more than Santa. This is something that we decided years ago as a family. We don't ignore the jolly old elf entirely, but he is no more a part of our days than our children's other favorite characters, like Tigger or the pups from Paw Patrol. Our focus has been on Jesus...but we try to focus on Him the rest of the year as well. So in some ways, it is not that different from our other days when my children will ask me in the car on the way home from activities, "Mama, tell me a Bible story!" Focusing on miracles more than magic. So much is made of the "magic" of Christmas, in the lights and decorations and fantasy and stories. I love that as much as anyone, and to all of my friends who have decorated their homes and allowed me to enjoy that magic - thank you! But this year, I've been less concerned about recreating that magic in our own home and more focused on the miracles of the first Christmas, as well as the miracles that God has done in my own life - salvation, the gift of my husband, the privilege of being a mother to little ones both on earth and in Heaven, and especially the miracle of peace and joy after the losses of our babies so many years ago. Focusing on God's presence more than presents. My husband's good habit of buying gifts for family and friends throughout the year has rubbed off on me, so that helps immensely since our "shopping" usually is done well before Thanksgiving. But we are also trying to very much reduce the focus on gifts. We are trying to help our children focus on how to bless others during this time more than making a list of things they want. Sometimes we have opened gifts on Christmas Eve, allowing us to focus Christmas Day fully on worship and celebration. We limit the number of gifts we are buying and the extravagance of them. Instead, we are trying to focus more on the gift of "God with us" that Jesus' birth was, and also how to be God's presence in others' lives, whether that means giving to others or doing something for others that communicates God's love to them.
0 Comments
Christmas is just over two weeks away, and one thing you see a lot of is angels. They show up in pageants, movies, songs, TV shows, books, you name it. Angels are a beautiful part of the Christmas story. They are mysterious, powerful, full of light and good news, and most Americans believe in them. But just what do we believe about them? And what is the truth? When you look at how angels are depicted in movies and and popular culture, there is a confusing mix of beliefs. For example, angels seem to be....
So. So that is what we are presented with. But what does the Bible say? Here are five important truths about angels. They are spirits, not people. The Bible is clear that angels are NOT people who died. Rather, they are a special creation of God (Psalm 148:1-5). They are always depicted as adult males in the Bible, and they do not marry (Matthew 22:30). Where the Bible does mention wings, it says they have six, not two (Isaiah 6:2). They are spirit, and not generally seen by humans without special circumstances (Hebrews 1:14; 2 Kings 6:17). When they do mingle with humans, it is sometimes in disguise (Hebrews 13:2), as when they just show up, they are filled with light and glory to a degree that people who see them are struck with fear - have you ever noticed that one of the first things angels say in the Bible is, "Fear not!"? There is a reason for that! Created for a purpose The angels have different jobs to do. They are God's messengers, which is what the term "angel" actually means. They are servants of God and "those who will inherit salvation" (Heb. 1:14) - namely, those of us who follow Jesus! They are warriors and protectors of God's people (Daniel 10:20). They are organized, with some angels, such as Michael, clearly shown as leaders over others (Daniel 10:21; Jude 1:9; Revelation 12:7-8). Focused on God, not anything else. Contrary to what is presented in popular culture, angels are not primarily focused on helping someone to find wealth or romance, or even meaning in life apart from God. Nor are they spirit guides who work apart from God. Except for the fallen angels, who do the work of Satan (Revelation 12:7-9), their focus is on worshiping God (Hebrews 10:22), directing worship to God (Revelation 22:9), and directing and protecting God's people. The messages they bring in the Scriptures are not about meeting Mr. Right, but messages from God of prophecy and righteousness and judgement. Powerful, but limited. Angels in Scripture are shown as powerful warriors and full of light - so amazing that even God's people are tempted to fall down before them in worship (Revelation 22:9). They are powerful, but also limited. They are not all-knowing (1 Peter 1:12), and they cannot be in more than one place at a time (Daniel 10:13). Deserving respect, but not worship. It is clear in the Bible that while angels deserve respect as God's messengers (Luke 1:19-20), they should never be worshiped (Revelation 22:9; Colossians 2:18). They are not mini-gods or goddesses. At. All. Why this matters at Christmas time What difference does this make at Christmastime? As I've shared before, learning discernment about the beliefs we are confronted with in popular media is SO important, both as believers ourselves and as moms raising disciples. Christmas, with all of its cultural trappings, is an important time to learn to discern truth from tradition. The other reason this matters so much is because the involvement of angels signifies something important. When we see the role that angels play in the Bible - bringing messages from God, pronouncing judgement, and acting as protectors for God's people - we can see that they do this in the Christmas story as well. They bring messages from God to Zechariah, to Mary, to Joseph, to the shepherds, and to the Magi about ancient prophecies that would be fulfilled and about judgement for unbelief, reassuring them that God had not forgotten His people, and giving them specific instructions to find the infant Savior and to avoid danger. The interesting thing about this is that, in spite that belief in angels is often ridiculed as being old-fashioned, people in ancient times weren't exactly used to interacting with them. When you look throughout the Bible, in fact, you find that visits by angels were concentrated on key moments in redemptive history - Creation, the times of the patriarchs, the time of Moses and the giving of the law, the times of Daniel and his friends in exile, and the times of certain prophets. There may have been isolated visions sprinkled through at other times, but mostly that was it, until the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus and the times of the early church. Why is that? Because those times were significant in the timeline of God carrying out his plan of redemption, and no time was more significant than heralding the entrance of the Son of God into the world. As one of the newer Christmas songs goes, "a baby changes everything." Do we realize how true that is? How much actually changed with Jesus' life? Because of this baby, we can know God. We can have forgiveness from everything that the Law could never free us from. Gentiles outside of God's chosen nation can have a relationship with the God of Israel. We can have hope, even in the darkest moments of history and of our lives, that God's plan is at work and that his love, expressed in its fullness in the sending of Jesus, will always triumph. When you see angels in the Christmas story this year, I hope you will do several things. First, remember what the Bible teaches about them so that you are not deceived by what the world teaches. Second, model for your children where to find the truth about angels and everything else - the Word of God. Third, be filled with awe, not only at the mystery that angels are to us, but also the realization that their involvement at the birth of Jesus points to the incredible importance of this event in history. For Christmas ultimately is not simply a story of a cute little baby sung to by sweet-faced angels over a warm and cozy stable. It is God throwing down the gauntlet in his amazing rescue plan, stepping into human history in the person of Jesus, in a move so unprecedented and so paradigm-changing that the fiercest warriors of Heaven were dispatched to make sure everything would unfold exactly as it needed to, from his birth to his death and resurrection. It is majestic angels interacting with ordinary people who were taking part in an extraordinary moment in history, with the ultimate result that you and I, thousands of years later, would be drawn into a relationship with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And when you look at angels in that light, all the fluff that is passed off as "angelic" by Hollywood seems rather silly indeed. I can't go into the Christmas season without thinking of Dr. Hulbert, my seminary professor for my "Gospels: Life of Christ" course. I took his class eighteen years ago, and yet the first couple of weeks still stand out clearly in my mind. Dr. Hulbert began with the nativity, the birth of Christ, and clearly dismantled many of our traditional beliefs about Christmas - to be followed up with a careful reassembling of what we actually know from the Scriptures about the incarnation of Jesus. I left those early classes energized and excited, for he had opened the Bible to me in a new way and made the "characters" of the Christmas story more real to me than they had ever been. Dr. Hulbert went to be with the Lord this past spring, and I can only imagine his glee to spend his first Christmas in Heaven and see the celebration from that perspective. For those of us still on Earth, here in a nutshell is what I learned from him that cleared up my Christmas confusion. What the first Christmas wasn't
Does that ruin your Christmas? I hope not! Because what the first Christmas really was is a beautiful picture of what God actually did over two thousand years ago. What the first Christmas was
So...why does this matter? Because, as Dr. Hulbert taught me so many years ago, Jesus really was born, to a real family, in a real culture that was not so different than that of a lot of other cultures in the world today. And it's when we embrace what really happened instead of the pictures on the Hallmark cards that we realize that He came into a messy world to bring sense into our messy lives. He was born into a loving family environment in a humble home that dirty, young shepherds were comfortable crowding into to see the Savior that the angels had told them about. He was born into a culture that understood hospitality and cared less about making things perfect than about making family feel at home. He was born into a world where people of every culture who were interested in the God of Israel could find Him, and a world where the strong and mighty of the "right" cultural background refused to bow before him. A Christmas celebration today that embodies the feeling of the first Christmas is one that embraces family, reaches out to those in need, invites in the humble, and doesn't hesitate to share the good news of Jesus' birth with everyone, no matter their background or standing. And it is one that celebrates the miracles and the intersection of Heaven and Earth that holy night with the desperation of a heart longing for a Savior for this dark world. As you prepare to celebrate His birth this week, may God fill your heart with wonder for what He did, and how, that first Christmas so many years ago. |
Welcome!Welcome! My name is Kristi. I am a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister, a teacher, a writer, a musician... but most of all a child and worshiper of God discovering that even in life's messes, God is still good. Learn more about me and my journey here!
Subscribe!
Subscribe to keep up with This Side of Heaven. As a special thank you for trusting me with your time online, I will send you my e-book, Dear mom of a baby in heaven, for free.
Popular postsClassical Christian PaideiaSupport This Side of Heaven by shopping with these companies!
Memoria PressCompass ClassroomLilla Rose!Homeschool Mom Fitness program!
Christian Book Distributors!
Archives
July 2023
|