garycombs.org

Growing more like Jesus in 2013

"And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men" (Luke 2:52 NIV84).

For many years I have made it a habit to spend the last week of the year in prayer, meditation and Scripture study. I call it my annual study break. It's also a time to evaluate how I am living life. I want to be intentional about how I live. It's so easy to let the urgent and the maintenance stuff of life fill up my days. I want to know that I have focused on the important.

I have developed a tool for setting annual goals and for self-evaluation that I call my "Luke 2:52 Goals." Reading a description of how Jesus grew in Luke 2:52 motivatied me to want to grow in those same ways. If Jesus grew, than I want to be like Jesus. I want to grow too.

Notice that Jesus grew in four areas. He grew in wisdom, stature, in favor with God and in favor with men. For the benefit of my goal sheet, I list these four growth areas as follows:

1. Mental. 
2. Physical.
3. Spiritual.
4. Social.

Under each category I list several items of which I believe God wants me to focus or where I want to grow for personal reasons. I try not to list too many things. I keep the total list small enough so that it fits on a single page. I usually post it in my church office and home study, so that I can see it every day. 

Under "Mental" I might list: 1) Read a book a month, 2) Learn to play the banjo, 3) Take a course in Latin, 4) Attend a leadership conference, 5) Organize my blogs into book format, 6) Get finances in order...

For "Physical" my list might be: 1) Lose 20 pounds to weigh 185, 2) Workout at the Y three days a week, 3) Get a physical...

The "Spiritual" category might have items like: 1) Read the One Year Bible every day and post a comment about it on facebook, 2) Memorize the Sermon on the Mount, 3) Take a Sabbath day weekly to recharge and reflect, 4) Take two days quarterly and one week annually to reflect and study what God wants of me...

"Social" might include: 1) Take Robin out on a date weekly (Friday night), 2) Be active in a WCC Community Group, 3) Spend quality time with my family (Sunday lunches and Combs family vacation in September), 4) Reach out to and pray for my neighbors (I name them specifically)...

I know that it is God's job to cause me to grow more like Jesus. He is the One who will accomplish it. But I want to cooperate. I want to yield to the Spirit's pull. 

I want to grow more like Jesus in 2013. Don't you?

 

(This article is an edited reprint of a previous garycombs.org entry.)

Love Came Down At Christmas

"In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him" (1 John 4:9 ESV).

My wife, the mother of my children and grandmother of my children's children, has begun her annual ritual of converting our kitchen into a Christmas bakery and confectionery extraordinaire. During this time, I, the master of my house, must humbly request admittance before entering this sanctuary of sweets from the maker, who is busily buzzing about from cookie to cake leaving a cloud of flour and sugar in her wake.

"What?" She asks, with a perturbed look on her face, when she catches a glimpse of my entrance in her periphery.

"Uhh... I was just wondering how long you were staying up. I mean, it's uhh... nearly 11:00 P.M. Aren't you coming to bed?" I mumble, carefully staying out of her path as she carries a sheet of peppermint chocolate bark to the counter. I've learned after 33 years of marriage to this woman that she is not to be interrupted without consequence during this time of year.

"Bed? Do you realize how much I have to do before Christmas? I've made the cookies that Finny likes. I've started the peppermint bark that Binzy requested. I've got the second batch of fudge on the stove for your oldest son, because he already ate the first batch. And I still have to make the peanut butter pinwheels, the chocolate logs, the ginger snaps, the maple..." She goes on and on from here, while wiping a stray hair from her forehead with the back of her hand, leaving a white streak of confectionery sugar behind.

I must admit I can't remember everything she said. My mind fogged over a bit as I sneaked a taste of one of the white chocolate covered cookies on the counter nearest me. Which was quickly followed by slap of my hand and my wife's exclamation:

"I told you those were for Finny!"

As I hurriedly left the kitchen, grabbing another of "Finny's" cookies as I made my escape, I thought of how much my wife loves her children. And I reminisced about how most of the items in her kitchen are Christmas recipes that have come down from my mother and from hers. Each of these are like gifts of love coming down from mother to daughter to us.

My wife loves to cook for us. She loves to make things that she knows each of us like best. She knows each family member's favorites. Her cooking for us is an expression of her love. 

Just don't get in her way while she's doing it!

Don't try getting in God's way either. There was no stopping Him from sending His only begotten Son to us that first Christmas. Believe me, Satan and King Herod tried. Yet, God's love came down and was made visible for all to see in the person of Jesus. And God wasn't finished, having given His only begotten Son to us, He offered Him as a propitiation for our sins, atoning for us, so that we might have eternal life through Him.

As the poet, Christina Rossetti, wrote:

"Love came down at Christmas,

Love all lovely, Love Divine,

Love was born at Christmas,

Star and Angels gave the sign."

God is the source of love and Jesus is the greatest manifestation of that love. We receive this gift of love from God at Christmas when we receive His Son, Jesus Christ.

Now, I've gotta go... I think I smell a red velvet cake that needs tasting...

Christian hope and the Mayan calendar

“'The LORD is my portion,' says my soul, 'therefore I will hope in him.'” (Lamentations 3:24 ESV).

“No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man" (Matthew 24:36-37 NIV84).

Have you been following this news about the Mayan calendar? Since the 5,000 year old calendar runs out on December 21, 2012, many people are concerned that the world is coming to an end.

This apocalyptic mania has spread across the globe. In Russia, a company is selling an "Apocalypse Kit" that contains food, medicine and a bottle of vodka. In France, authorities have temporarily closed the road to the Pyrenees to prevent throngs from fleeing to the hills in fear of the end times.

I don't understand the panic. The Norman Rockwell calendar that I get free from the drugstore most years is down to the last page, but I'm not worried. Hopefully, they'll send me another one for 2013.

It's not that I don't believe in end times. I do. It's just that I believe what Jesus said about it. He told His disciples that they should always be ready because He would return some day, but he also told them that no one would know the exact time. Jesus gave us signs of the end times... an increase of wars, earthquakes, famines, persecution of believers, false prophets, an increase of wickedness and a decrease in love, as the love of many will grow cold (Matthew 24). He said that the gospel would be preached in the whole world so that every nation had heard and then the end would come (Matthew 24:14).

Jesus said that it is as if the world itself is in labor with birth pangs as the end approaches. Just as young Mary labored to give birth to baby Jesus, so the earth itself labors until His return. And He will return.

Just as Jesus came 2000 years ago at the very first Christmas, so He is coming again. He has already fulfilled the Messianic prophecies of His birth, satisfying the hopes of seekers and believers of old, like the Magi and old Simeon who saw him with their own eyes.

He will return just as He said. But when? Well, only the Father knows.

In the meantime, ours is to watch and wait, while telling others about our hope in Christ. Because we have not placed our hopes in a calendar, but in a Person, the Person of Jesus Christ. He is the object of our hope.

By the way, I like this cartoonist's explanation of the Mayan calendar. Don't you?

Whatever happened to peace on earth?

"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men" (Luke 2:14 KJV).

“'Peace, peace' they say, when there is no peace" (Jeremiah 8:11 NIV).

Some 20 centuries ago the angel announced to the shepherds the birth of the Christ child in the city of Bethlehem and the inauguration of peace on earth. Yet, 2,000 Christmases later there is no peace on earth. Sure, there are periods of cease-fire, but no real peace.

Whatever happened to this promise of peace on earth?

Frenchman, Gustave Valbert, in his day reported that "From the year 1496 BC to AD 1861 in 3,358 years there were 227 years of peace and 3,130 years of war, or 13 years of war to every year of peace. There were 286 wars in Europe from 1550 to 1850. From 1500 BC to 1860 AD more than 8000 treaties of peace, meant to remain in force forever, were concluded. They averaged remaining in force two years." 

Valbert's averages would only be multiplied by the last 150 years of failed peace. There has been an increase of wars, including many that have touched the entire planet. Wars to "end all wars" have been fought, only to be followed by wars even more bloody and costly.

The last part of the 20th century was marked by the Cold War between the USA and the USSR. And while I suppose a cold war is preferable to a warm one, it still kept much of the world in fear of nuclear holocaust. The thawing of the Cold War with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 gave only a brief reprieve of fear and was replaced by, in some ways, an even more chilling anxiety: terrorism.

Since a car bomb exploded in the basement garage of the World Trade Center in 1993, American's brief respite from Cold War fears have been transferred from a Russian face to the face of the militant Islamist. The last 20 years have been marked by this war of terror.

Why haven't we experienced the promise of peace on earth? Instead of peace, we have been living in an ever-increasing state of war.

I think it's because we've misunderstood the meaning of peace. Peace is more than the cessation of hostilities. It is what the Hebrews of the Old Testament called shalom. This shalom is an expression of health and well-being, safety, good relations between peoples and nations, quiet tranquility and contentment, friendship, wholeness, soundness, and completeness. Shalom is a state of the human heart that has been touched by God. The only true source of shalom is God's Son, the Prince of Peace Himself, Jesus Christ (Isaiah 9:6).

There will be no peace on earth until human hearts are changed. Wars on earth begin as wars within us.

"What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires at war within you? You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them" (James 4:1-2 NLT).

The only way we will see peace on earth is by facing this problem of the human heart. In the meantime, Jesus warned us that before peace would come, there would be an increase of war. When His disciples asked Him about this, He replied,

"You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains" (Matthew 24:4-8 ESV).

It's as if the earth itself is having birth pains, laboring to give birth to peace, it experiences an ever-increasing amount of warfare.

How should we respond? Jesus says, "See that you are not alarmed." Don't be afraid or surprised. Instead, discover true peace, true shalom for your hearts by coming to Christ. Then, spend the rest of your life on planet earth being peacemakers and peace ambassodors, sharing the peace of Christ one heart at a time.

What's so "Merry" about Christmas?

"And the angel said to them, 'Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord'" (Luke 2:10-11 ESV).

Do you ever wonder why we say "Merry Christmas?" Why not say, “Happy Christmas" or some other thing? 

The 16th century English carol, "We Wish You a Merry Christmas," probably promoted the greeting and the commercial printing of Christmas cards in 1843 in London may have spread its usage. But most credit the continuing popularity of Charles Dicken’s, A Christmas Carol, and the Victorian era Christmas traditions it typifies with really popularizing the phrase. First published in 1843, ironically the same year as the first commercial Christmas cards, it became the preferred Christmas greeting in the English speaking world even until this day.

Of course, not everyone believes in saying, "Merry Christmas."  Some prefer "Happy Christmas" because of the unwholesome stigma they attach to the word "merry." At least that seems to be where the change in preference began, as the word "merry" was understood to include the idea of public insobriety, as in "making merry." The strong Methodist influence in the United Kingdom during the 19th century probably made "Happy Christmas" the UK preference. Queen Elizabeth II is said to prefer the "Happy" version.

Today in America, there doesn't seem to be as much resistance to the word "merry" as to the word "Christmas." As our culture becomes more and more secular, there is a kind of cultural war against saying anything religious in the public square. The generic sounding "Happy Holidays" is preferred by today's politically correct. They would no doubt have no trouble with sayng "merry," but I suppose it doesn't have the alliterative ring that "happy" does.

So we can see that Dicken's Ebenezer Scrooge isn't the only one who has had trouble with saying "Merry Christmas." The cynical Scrooge rudely deflected the friendly greeting and brooded on the foolishness of those who uttered it. 

"If I could work my will," said Scrooge, "every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding." 

If you’re suffering from the spirit of Scrooge this Christmas, you aren't alone. According to psychologists, Americans miss more work, and complain of a myriad of more health problems that really relate to clinical depression. America, the land where the “pursuit of happiness” is guaranteed by our Constitution, is filled with depressed people. Americans are increasingly unhappy, especially at Christmas. Why are so many Americans "un-merry?"

Perhaps it's because we've misunderstood the message of Christmas. It's not about whether we say "merry" or "happy." The angel who announced the very first Christmas said that it was news of "great joy!"

And joy is better than happiness. Happiness depends upon happenings. It comes from the word "hap" which means "luck, happenstance." Happiness is based on circumstances and when they change we're not happy anymore.

But this "great joy" that the angel promised is based on knowing and receiving the true gift of Christmas which is Christ Himself. Happiness is based on chance, but joy is based on choice. As Christian, we can choose joy.

Fortunately, after the Spirits of Christmas effected his transformation, Scrooge was able to heartily exchange the wish with all he met, saying, “I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a school-boy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody!”

After which Scrooge learned to laugh again. As Dickens described it, “It was a splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh. The father of a long, long line of brilliant laughs!”

When was the last time that you laughed like that? 

Stop worrying about being merry or happy. Decide to have a "Joyful Christmas!"

No more empty seats at the table

“'O death, where is your victory?  O death, where is your sting?'

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain" (1 Corinthians 15:55-58).

For the past 21 years, we've had a special service on the Sunday evening before Thanksgiving that we call our Thanksgiving Praise Service. It has become a tradition at WCC.

We sing worship songs, we hear Scripture readings, we watch video highlights of the year's events and these past few years we've been finishing the service by preparing gift boxes for Operation Christmas Child. It's a powerful look back on what God has done in our lives during the year, as well as a hopeful look forward to what He will do next.

I can get pretty emotional at these services. Worshiping together with my fellow Christ followers, I look around to notice the new members, those who came to Christ that year and were baptized. Also, I notice all the new babies in the arms of our young mothers. I'm filled with overwhelming joy as I consider all the new life that God is bringing into our church family.

I also take note of the empty seats. Who are the ones that we have lost this year? We've had some wonderful births and baptisms, yet how many failures and funerals have we experienced in the last year? How many have stumbled and fallen into sin? How many loved ones have passed away?

This mixture of emotion follows me home from church and into my own house. As we celebrate Thanksgiving at our house this year, we're thankful for our new baby granddaughter, Addison. But we're also still grieving the loss of our grandson, Conner.

Sitting at the table on Thanksgiving Day, I know I'll be looking at all the young and beautiful faces of my kids and grandkids. I know that I will swell with gratitude. Yet, I also know that I will think about all the previous Thanksgiving Day meals that I have enjoyed in the past and all the loved ones that are no longer sitting at the table with us.

How can we be truly thankful with this mixture of life and death in our lives?

The apostle Paul says that we can give thanks to God because He has given us the victory over death and sin through Christ! He says that we can "abound" in doing good because nothing we do for Christ is in vain. We can be thankful, because in Christ, nothing good is ever lost!

We can remain "steadfast" and "immovable" in our thanks to God because there's a Day of thanksgiving coming someday soon when there will be no empty seats at the table!

You can't say "Thanks" without "Giving!"

"Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name!" (Psalm 100:4 ESV).

You can't say "thanks" without "giving." The two go together. Yet many Americans have forgotten this secret to a thriving life of giving and gratitude. The result is a grumbling and greedy society that is growing increasingly unhappy.

Perhaps it is our focus on money and possessions that keeps us so discontent (Have you noticed that "miser" and "miserable" have the same root?). We make it our life's goal to accumulate money and more stuff, then we discover that we never have enough. We always need a little more to make us happy.

What's the answer?

Simple. "Thanks-giving." The cure for grumbling is gratitude. And the antidote for greed is giving.

The Psalmist encourages us to "enter" God's house with "thanksgiving." We shouldn't come empty-handed. We should come bringing our gifts of thanks. The people of the Bible understood the connection between thanks and giving.

Listen to these words from Judah's King Hezekiah:

"'You have now dedicated yourselves to the Lord. Come and bring sacrifices and thank offerings to the temple of the Lord.' So the assembly brought sacrifices and thank offerings, and all whose hearts were willing brought burnt offerings... Hezekiah and all the people rejoiced at what God had brought about for his people..." (2 Chronicles 29:31, 36 NIV).

This coming Sunday is the Sunday before our national holiday of Thanksgiving Day. I can't think of a more appropriate day to bring in our "Thrive Drive" pledges and offerings. That's why we're asking our WCCers to give their "thank offerings" by turning in their 36-month Thrive Pledge cards and one-time Thrive gifts on this coming Sunday.

Prepare your hearts and wallets now. So that on Sunday you'll be able to "enter" God's house with a heart full of gratitude and hands full of giving!

Are you like the chicken or the pig?

"For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him" (2 Chronicles 16:9 NIV84).

Have you heard the story about the trip that the chicken and pig took together? No? Well...

...Once upon a time, a chicken and a pig took a trip together. And after many miles and hours on the road, they got hungry. Finally, the sharp‑eyed chicken spotted a restaurant. Approaching the door they saw a sign which read, "Ham and Eggs: Our Specialty!" 

"Hold it!" shouted the pig. 

"What's the matter?" asked the chicken. 

"Plenty. All they want from you is a little compromise, but they're asking me for a total commitment!"

That's a silly little story, yet many of us are like the chicken when it comes to our commitment to God. We want to offer a "little compromise," but God wants our "total commitment." As the Scripture above says, God is looking for "those whose hearts are fully committed to Him."

Perhaps the reason that many in our world today aren’t thriving is that they are afraid of commitment. They don't want to be committed to anything. They don't want to commit to a job, to a long term investment, to joining a church or even to a life-long marriage. Americans have become commitment adverse.

If there is any operational attitude today it's "I want to keep my options open. I don't want to be tied down!”  It seems that the only thing we’re committed to is being uncommitted!

That's tragic because you can't thrive without making commitments. You can't buy a house, you can't get married, you can't even get a credit card without making a commitment. Nothing great happens without making a commitment.  If we go through life without making any commitments, we just drift without focus.

This lack of commitment for Christians in America usually crops up most noticably in how we manage our possessions and money. Like the Christian knights of old who held their sword hands up out of the water when baptized, Christians in America hold up their wallets! Sure, we've committed everything to God, except for our stuff of course.

Essentially, we are saying to God, “It’s my money and I’ll do what I want with it!”

If we want to do more than just survive, if we want to really thrive, we must commit our finances, our stuff, and our very lives fully to God!

Stop holding back. Commit yourself fully and thrive!

Will we leave them as orphans?

“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you" (John 14:18-20 ESV).

 This Sunday we will join churches around the country to shine a light on the plight of orphans. As we continue our "Time to Thrive" sermon series, we want to focus on how we want to be a giving church and a giving people. We want our giving to be led by God and to be spiritually strategic, so we're asking some questions before we give of ourselves sacrificially.

Questions like:

• Where is the greatest need in the world?
• If Jesus is found with "the least of these," then where are they found?

It seems to me that both of these questions might be answered by really seeing the plight of the world's orphans. Listen to these disturbing statistics:

• It is estimated that there are 210 million orphans worldwide.
• 8 million orphans live in institutions
• 5,760 become orphans every day.
• 250,000 are adopted annually, but 14.5 million orphans age out of the system every year without being adopted.
• 2 million orphans, the majority of them girls, are sexually exploited in the multibillion-dollar sex industry.

God spoke through the prophet Isaiah saying, "Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow" (Isaiah 1:17 NIV84). Yet, many in the church sit comfortably, while the fatherless are left alone and defenseless.

I want you to come to WCC this Sunday prayed up and ready to give sacrificially. We're going to give you opportunities to take action. Actions like:

• Praying for the 210 orphans in our world.
• Adopting a child or helping someone else adopt.
• Visiting the fatherless (We're planning a trip to a Ugandan orphanage in June 2013).
• Sponsoring a child.
• Fostering a child.
• Giving sacrificially.

We're going to have representatives from Amazing Grace Adoptions, Caroline's Promise, the Kennedy Home, Wilson County DSS, and our own WCC Ophan Care Ministry in the foyer this Sunday, available to answer questions and to help you take action for the sake of the fatherless.

Jesus has not left us as orphans. We will leave them?

Seeking the peace and prosperity of our city

"This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: '... Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper'” (Jeremiah 29:4-7 NIV84).

When we first moved to the city of Wilson, North Carolina, we thought we would only live here for a couple of years. I was transferred here from Roanoke, Virginia in late 1987 by my employer. They had moved me before, so  I figured it was only a matter of time before they asked me to move again. After all, if you wanted to be on the corporate fast track and make V.P. by age 35, then you had to be mobile.

But that's not what happened. December of this year we will have lived in Wilson for 25 years.

We didn't choose to stay. We thought a job brought us here until we tried to leave. In January of 1991 I got off the corporate fast track. I quit my job and started seminary. I had my house for sale for over two years, but we didn't get a single offer. We were stuck in Wilson it seemed. So I commuted to seminary and eventually planted Wilson Community Church (The first church meetings were in our house that wouldn't sell).

While other church planters did their demographic studies and moved their families to large unreached cities, we planted in Wilson because of an apparent real estate downturn. In the early days of WCC, I felt very insecure about this, especially since planting a contemporary, community church in Eastern North Carolina in the early '90s was unheard of. Starting a church in Wilson was very hard work and the results were extremely slow.

It took a while before I recognized God's call to the city of Wilson. The message that the Lord gave the prophet Jeremiah for the Jews exiled in Babylon, actually helped me work through my own sense of "exile." God told the Jews that it was He that had "carried them" to the city of Babylon, not King Nebuchadnezzer.  He also told them to stop living in limbo and to start being a blessing to this pagan city of Babylon because they weren't leaving anytime soon.

Apparently, they had been huddling in a city ghetto to themselves, not investing, not growing, just surviving. But God told them to increase, to build, to plant, to be a blessing to the city to which they had been called. God called them to stop just surviving, He called them to thrive!

Looking back, I now believe it was God who "carried" me to Wilson (not my employer). And I believe it was God who kept me here (not the poor housing market). God wanted us to plant a church in Wilson, a church that would "seek the peace and prosperity" of the city. 

WCC is now approaching its 21st anniversary. We meet in a former movie theater across the street from the hospital on the main, 5-lane highway that goes through downtown. We live in a county of 82,000 people where 56% say they don't attend church. That's 46,000 unreached people. We are also experiencing a huge population growth in the Eastern part of our state that includes Wilson.

Over the next 10 years it is predicted that Eastern North Carolina will grow at a rate faster than the rest of the state. While Charlotte, Winston Salem, and Greensboro and the Western part of the state will continue to grow, it is the Eastern part of North Carolina that is predicted to grow the fastest. Raleigh-Durham, Greenville, Wilmington and Fayetteville are the new magnets for NC growth trends. These Eastern NC cities will drive the population to the nearby cities like Wilson (Which is half way between Raleigh and Greenville making it a 40 minute commute to either).

As it turns out, it looks like God did His own demographic study on Wilson. That's why we're ready to put in another 20 years "seeking the peace and prosperity" of the city to which we've been carried.