My Advice to You This Christmas

If I may borrow from Charles Dickens’s famous opening line, Christmas can be “the best of times, and the worst of times.” As pastors, we have them both, don’t we?

Christmas

Who hasn’t cringed in September as stores drag out and display the artificial Christmas trees? Who hasn’t felt uneasy about the obligatory exchange of gifts with individuals you hardly know?

Something about those annual experiences can make them seem like “the worst of times.”

But they don’t need to be.

A Season for Humble Gratitude

It’s baaaack! The age-old yuletide season is about to slip in the door once again. Better not shout, better not pout, for the malls will be playing “Jingle Bells” several thousand times between now and December 25.

Christmas
(Image from Unsplash)

If you’re not careful, the crowds and commercialism will weigh you down like that fourth helping of stuffing at Thanksgiving dinner.

And there’s nothing worse than a jaded attitude that resists the true spirit of the season.

Although this has been a challenging year in numerous ways, we have a practical reason to look back over it with gratitude for God’s protection and grace.

This reflection sets in motion the ideal mental attitude to carry us through the weeks ahead.

Hanging Tough When You’d Like to Hang it Up

When Jesus tells us to “seek first the kingdom of God,” the very word seek implies a strong-minded pursuit (see Matthew 6:33). J. B. Phillips paraphrases the idea with “set your heart on.”

Determination
(Photo courtesy of Unsplash)

The Amplified Bible says, “Aim at and strive after.”

The Greek text of Matthew’s gospel states a continual command: “Keep on continually seeking.” The dominating thought is determination, which I define as “deciding to hang tough, regardless.”

All of this urges us to keep in mind the difference between natural sight and supernatural vision.

When I Fell in Love with Thanksgiving

My love affair with Thanksgiving takes me all the way back to my boyhood days. I had just turned 10 years of age and was in fifth grade at Southmayd Elementary School in East Houston.

Thanksgiving
(Image from Unsplash)

As I recall, I was still going barefoot to school—and I combed my hair, maybe three times a week. Girls didn’t matter a lot to me when I was 10! It was on a Wednesday, the day before our Thanksgiving holidays began.

The year was 1944. Our nation was at war across the Atlantic into Europe as well as in the Pacific and far beyond.

Times were simple back then but they were also rugged. Everything was rationed. Framed stars hung proudly in neighborhood windows—and sometimes they were quietly changed to crosses.

Everyone I knew was patriotic to the core. Without television, we relied on “newsreels” that were shown at the movies, bold newspaper headlines, and LIFE magazine, which carried photos and moving stories of courage in battle and deaths at sea. Signs were posted inside most stores and on street corners, all of them with the same four words:

Is God Almost Sovereign in Your Ministry?

Just before Moses died, he spoke these words to God. Read them carefully:

‘May the LORD, the God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint a man over the congregation, who will go out and come in before them, and who will lead them out and bring them in, so that the congregation of the LORD will not be like sheep which have no shepherd.’ So the LORD said to Moses, ‘Take Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the Spirit, and lay your hand on him; and have him stand before Eleazar the priest and before all the congregation, and commission him in their sight.’ (Numbers 27:16–19)

Training

I don’t know your circumstances today. I cannot be certain how God intends to use this episode from the life of Moses in your own life.

But I do know what it’s like to be a shepherd . . . and so I can imagine some possible scenarios.

The Cure for Worry

May I get very personal? The pressures of our times have many of us pastors caught in the web of the most acceptable yet energy-draining sin in the Christian family: worry.

Praying
(Photo Courtesy of Pixabay.com)

Hey . . . don’t look so pious!

Chances are good you awoke this morning, stepped out of bed, and before doing anything strapped on your well-worn backpack of anxiety. You started the day, not with a prayer on your mind but loaded down by worry. What a dreadful habit!

(It happens to me far too often.)

A Contagious Ministry Is a Place of Grace

When considering church growth, we must think strategically . . . we must preach creatively . . . and our worship must connect. Absolutely. But we must also be careful.

Corporation
(Photo Courtesy of Pixabay.com)

A marketing mentality and a consumer mind-set have no business in the church of Jesus Christ. By that I mean, Jesus is NOT a brand . . . human thinking does NOT guide God’s work . . . and the church is NOT a corporation. The church of Jesus Christ is a spiritual entity, guided by the Lord through the precepts of His Word.

If we sacrifice the essentials of teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer on the altar of strategy, creativity, entertainment, and “relevancy,” we have abandoned the main reasons the church exists.

We should build on those essentials, not attempt to replace them.

How to Win the Invisible Battle

It’s simplistic to say that the only kind of battle going on today is the war against terrorism, though that is what the Enemy of our souls would love for us to believe. He would love to preoccupy us with the physical struggles and have us miss the spiritual conflict that rages every day of our lives.

How to Win the Invisible Battle
Image from Photodune.

As a pastor, you know more than most that we fight on the frontlines of an invisible war. But our flock may not realize that. They may have been taken hostage and not know it. They could be wounded, but nobody notices because they don’t bleed. The most spiritually bloodthirsty, wicked creature on earth, our adversary the Devil, wages a bloodless, invisible war against you, your family, your flock, and every other person who has been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb.

The Battle Belongs to the Lord, Part 2

Initially, Joshua expected the battle of Jericho to be his war, but then he came face-to-face with his Commander in Chief and learned that the battle belonged to the Lord. Joshua’s part was not to win the war but simply to make himself available to the true Commander in Chief. Joshua first surrendered to God—only then could Joshua have victory.

We can learn a great deal from Joshua’s response that can help us in our own seemingly impossible battles.

I see several strategies emerge from Joshua’s experience. We need them in the pastorate.

The Battle Belongs to the Lord, Part 1

During the months ahead you can expect that your courage will be tested. It is a constant battle for us as pastors. You’ll face a wall you don’t think you can get over, a battle you don’t think you can win, or an obstacle you don’t think you can get beyond.

You’ve probably thought about that battle today. It may have robbed you of sleep last night or preoccupied your thoughts in random moments. Your “opponent” may be someone in your community, in your congregation, or among your elders or deacons. It may be a battle with pride, or anger, or some habit, or perhaps a secret addiction. Whatever the challenge, the battle you face right now looks impossible to overcome.

You may be right. You may not ever be able to win this battle because you’re fighting the wrong way, using the wrong strategy.

You and I were raised to match strength for strength. If the opponent is strong, we must be stronger. If he is smart, we must be smarter. The only way to win is through intimidation. You must crush or control your opponent and the situation.

All of this is true, of course, unless you’re going to fight God’s way. God’s strategy is altogether different. God specializes in impossible situations. (See Matthew 19:26 and Luke 1:37.) When you are overwhelmed, outnumbered, outmanned, outmuscled, or outsmarted, God steps in, because only He is qualified to be the specialist who can lead you to victory. Only He does it His way.

The courageous Joshua faced a battle that he knew he couldn’t win. God’s charge to him was to go and take the land. “I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you.” God said, “Be strong and courageous” (Joshua 1:5–6). I wonder if (in a weak moment, all alone) Joshua thought, Conquer the mighty city of Jericho? No way! Can’t be done. Not by power, not by intimidation. Not by cunning strategy. This is a wall we cannot bring down. You have read about his impossible situation in Joshua 6. You may have even preached it.

All our lives, we’ve been singing, “Joshua fought the battle of Jericho.” But the song is wrong. Joshua didn’t fight the battle. He marched and shouted just as God told him to, and the walls fell down. But there was no fight to get over the walls! Joshua listened for the trumpet blast, like the other people in the army, and simply stood back and watched God’s miraculous intervention. The odds were against them, and they couldn’t possibly do battle against their fierce enemy all alone. Their only hope of victory was obeying God . . . and the walls around the city fell flat.

From where did such a strategy come? I’ll share that with you next time . . . as well as a few lessons we pastors can learn. But this week is a good time for us to consider: Am I trying to fight this battle in my own strength or in God’s?

—Chuck