Tag Archives: Jesus

Transitory Obsessions

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“Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow…”
(Philippians 2:9-10 ESV)

We are a people easily obsessed with the transitory.  Something new and sparkly catches our eye and we say, “Ooh, that’s nice.”  Over time, we begin to picture ourselves owning/using/wearing whatever caught our attention, and we think, “I’d really enjoy having that.”  Next we begin to think about all the good things we could do with this new object, how we could use it to help others, to make their life enjoyable, or simply to make ourselves more enjoyable to be around because we have “IT”.  Then we begin to obsess, we put “IT” on our wish list; we drop hints to family and friends when birthday/Christmas/anniversary is approaching; we become sullen and disappointed when we don’t get “IT” immediately.  We know we won’t be satisfied until we have “IT.”  Then we get “IT” and the world seems right.  There is nothing more we could need to be happy.  Then, something new and sparkly catches our eye…

The pleasures this world have to offer are gifts from God, gifts to be a blessing in our lives and to be enjoyed.  The problem is, because our hearts are so inclined to idolatry and evil, every good gift from God has the potential to become an idol for our hearts.  We become obsessed with the things that can only bring momentary pleasures, fleeting joys.  We think, “If only I can have “IT”, then I will be truly happy.”  But when we have “IT”, happiness quickly escapes us, and we are left disappointed and wanting more.

The simple reason for this is there is only one thing that can really satisfy our longing for true and lasting happiness in life.  We look for happiness in all the wrong places.  We look for happiness in the names we know – our relationships, our circle of influence, our social networking.  We look for happiness in the names we possess – name brand clothing or products – after all, “the label makes the man.”  We even look for happiness in the names we are called – the respect and honor given to us by our peers – “He’s a good man,” “She’s a beautiful woman.”  If you look to find your happiness and satisfaction in any of these, you will be left empty.

There is only one name that can truly bring us satisfaction and peace – that is the name of Jesus.  Only Jesus can answer the deepest longing of your soul, that need for completion, for fulfillment, for lasting joy.  How does Jesus satisfy?  The opening chapter of Hebrews tells us:

  1. He is the heir of all things… Here the word “Heir” is synonymous with the title “Lord.”  Everything that has ever been created has been created by and through Jesus, and therefore He is the Lord, the possessor, of all things.  Whatever we might need, Jesus can provide.
  2. He is the radiance of God’s glory… Man was created to reflect the glory of God.  Because we have sinned, and each of us knows our sins, for they are always before us (Psalm 51), we have fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).  Falling short of God’s glory means that we do not bring glory to God as we ought, but it also means that we have lost sight of God’s glory.  We despise His glory and want it for ourselves.  We fear His glory and want it diminished.  We are blinded to His glory, and cannot recognize its beauty.  But Christ comes as the radiance of God’s glory, as the rays shine from the sun.  A.W. Pink wrote, “Were there no rays, we should not see the sun.  So, apart from Christ, the brightness of God’s glory could not be perceived. Without Christ, man is in the dark, utterly in the dark concerning God.  It is in Christ that God is revealed.”
  3. He is the imprint of God’s nature – All that God is, in His nature and character, is expressed and manifested, absolutely and perfectly, by the incarnate Son.  All we need to know about God, about His love, about our salvation, is clearly revealed in Jesus.
  4. He upholds the universe by His power – We teach our children the song, “He’s got the whole world in His hands,” but then we grow up and leave such thoughts behind.  We have a hard time swallowing the truth that Jesus is the central force that holds all things together.  But Jesus stands in the middle of it all, and holds everything together.  We were created to orbit Him, for our lives to revolve around Him.  When they don’t, that is when we begin to unravel and spin out of control.
  5. He has atoned for our sins – Only Jesus has paid the price for our salvation.  By coming to be with us, bearing our sins upon His cross, He has set us free from the guilt of sin and the power of death.  Now He sits at the right hand of God and intercedes for us, prays for us, and promises to bring us to Him.

What other name can do all that?  Can your childhood sports hero claim any of these titles that have been given to Christ? Can the labels you wear do any of the things that Jesus has done?  Can the thing you want satisfy your soul in the way that Christ has?

Let us leave behind these transitory obsessions, and “fix our eyes on Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith!”

In the Fullness of Time

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In Paul’s condensed version of the Christmas story (Galatians 4:4-5) he uses a curious phrase, “In the fullness of time.”  I’ve often wondered about this.

In the Greek, this word “fullness” suggests a completion, or the end of a period of time, when all intended within it has been accomplished.  In other words, when everything that needed to happen before Christ’s coming had taken place, then God sent His son.  The ESV Study bible commentary says, “God sent his Son at the right moment in human history, when God’s providential oversight of the events of the world had directed and prepared peoples and nations for the incarnation and ministry of Christ, and for the proclamation of the Gospel.”

Scholars have suggested several reasons why this was the “fullness of time” in historical perspective:

W      Because the Babylonian captivity had purged Israel from idolatry and at least they were focusing on the true God and looking for the Messiah, and so Israel, the people to whom the Messiah first must come, were not engulfed in idolatry but were looking at the true God even if through their own skewed vision and were looking for the Messiah. 

W      The canon of the Old Testament had been well-established; the prophecies were laid down; the synagogues had been established so there would be places to go to preach the Gospel to people who at least ostensibly were seeking to know the true God in Israel. 

W      Alexander the Great had spread the Greek language over the whole known world, certainly the Biblical world, so that everybody spoke Greek, so that the scriptures could be in the New Testament, written in a language that would be understood by everyone. 

W      Romans with their powerful Pax Romana had brought peace out of diverse cultures and built roads everywhere so that easy access both from the standpoint of travel and from the standpoint of authority would be available for missionaries spreading this Gospel. 

All that being said, I can’t help but wonder about the possibilities if Christ had come today.  I remember getting cable when I was a kid, we had a whopping 13 channels, and we were really excited because we could get WGN out of Chicago.  Oh the days wasted watching “Bozo the Clown”.  Now, we’ve got the Dish Network with a couple hundred channels (and still nothing to watch).  We’ve got newspapers, radio, internet, Facebook, blogs, YouTube and viral videos… with just a little talent and the right online connections, your name could be known around the world tomorrow – remember the “numa numa” guy.  In Jesus Christ Superstar, Judas asks Jesus, “Why’d you choose such a backward time in such a strange land?  If you’d come today you could have reached a whole nation.  Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication.”  With all we’ve got going for ourselves, wouldn’t today have been the fullness of time?

A friend of mine directed me an article titled “Your iBrain” in the October/November edition of Scientific American Mind, which reports

“Our high tech revolution has plunged us into a state of “continuous partial attention,” which is described as continually staying busy – keeping tabs on everything while never truly focusing on anything.  We scan for an opportunity for any type of contact at every given moment.  [And so we] exist in a sense of constant crisis – on alert for a new contact or bit of exciting news or information at any moment.  Once people get used to this state, they tend to thrive on the perpetual connectivity.  It feeds their ego and sense of self-worth and it becomes irresistible.  The pathways for human interaction and communication weaken as customary one-on-one people skills atrophy.  Although having all our pals online from moment to moment seems intimate, we risk losing personal touch with our real-life relationship and may experience an artificial sense of intimacy as compared with when we shut down our devices and devote our attention to one individual at a time.

Perhaps this is why God sent His son as a child, in a manger, so long ago.  With all the online connectivity we have, what we really long for is a personal connection, what we desire is to have our worth affirmed, to be highly esteemed for who we are, what we need is someone who knows us and understands us and can save us from our sins.  We need God with us – not some digital messiah, but a real and personal savior who is all in all.

So Paul says in Galatians 4, “when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.”  Jesus wasn’t made, He was sent forth.  He always existed in the presence of God (John 1) as the second person of the Trinity.  Yet at the same time, He was born of a woman, He was fully man. In order to save us He had to be God, for only God can overpower sin and death and hell.  In order to save us he had to be man because only man can substitute for man and die man’s death.  He had to be God and man, God to give His sacrifice infinite value, to bear our sins in his own body.

God sent us His son so that we might receive adoption as the children of God.  1 John 3:1 says “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.”  What an amazing privilege, what a spectacular gift!  Our adoption into God’s family points us to the overwhelming joy and assurance of knowing we have a Father who loves us and a family with whom we share and enjoy our new life in Christ.  The meaning of Christmas could be summed up in this: Jesus came as the Son of Man that we could become the sons and daughters of God.

May this news fill you with joy and peace this Christmas!

SDG