For I did not keep from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.

— Acts 20:27

I remember talking to ministers, older and supposedly much wiser than I. I particularly recall one who was the editor of one of the country’s leading Christian magazines. I said to him, “How can we possibly do anything else? There are men and women dying and going off into everlasting condemnation and perdition without Christ. We must get the message to them.”

He looked at me as if I had come from Mars and said, “You will come to understand.”

What I came to understand was that he had lost his first love. Ah, dear friend, how is it with your heart? Is that first love still there? Do you remember that time when you were at church every time the doors opened? Was there a time when you spent more time in His Word? I can remember when it was nothing to me to memorize a chapter of Scripture every day. “A verse a week? Isn’t he asking too much of us?”

May God open our eyes to see the precarious state of the lost. May He grant us a greater love and concern for them.

Question to ponder:
If not, could you ask God to give you one?

Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, I will help you, yes, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.

— Isaiah 41:10

In Julius Caesar, Shakespeare puts these famous words into the mouth of Caesar as he is talking to his wife, Calpurnia: “Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.”

It would seem that our land is filled with many who are not valiant, many who are tasting the fear of death, which for most in our secular society is the fear of the ultimate loss of all things. When faith in God and in Christ disappears, that faith is replaced not with a vacuum, but with fear. People’s hearts, generally, are filled either with faith or with fear.

The deepest fears of men are these: is my life to end in a pile of ashes and a skull? Am I to occupy naught but six feet of space beneath the ground? Is there no meaning to my existence? Is there no one who really loves me or cares for me? What about my loved ones whom I have lost? Will I meet them again?

These are the deepest fears and cares of human beings throughout the years and they are met in Christ for those who believe.

Question to ponder:
How does Christ Jesus conquer our fears?

Glory to God in the highest …

— Luke 2:14

In praise and honor of His Son, God has reserved some of the most beautiful music on earth for the celebration of Christmas. Music, this heavenly language, has been lent to us express what words can not. It has enriched our hearts when no words would do.

I recall many years ago, I went to a Christmas musical program that was being held at the high school I attended. Songs of Christmas were being sung and I recall that I was the only one seated in the balcony. Although I did not know Christ personally, there was something about the music that seemed to reach out and wrap its fingers around my heart and pull. There was a strange sort of mysterious wonder about it. I remember sitting there with tears streaming down my face. I didn’t know why. There is something about Christmas.

Why not take time this Christmas season to go to a concert—Handel’s Messiah if possible—and let the music minister to your soul?

Question to ponder:
What piece of Christmas music is especially meaningful to you?

Sing, O heavens! And be joyful, O earth! And break forth into singing, O mountains! For the LORD has comforted His people, and will have mercy on His afflicted.

— Isaiah 49:13

Tragically, so many today miss the real meaning of Christmas. A little boy attended Sunday School infrequently and on Christmas, when the teacher showed him a picture of the manger scene, the little boy said, “What’s a camel doing there? Don’t they know that camels don’t have anything to do with Christmas? Santa Claus uses reindeers.” Sadly, many Americans, like that boy, don’t even know whose birthday Christmas celebrates.

Behind all of the frenetic rushing about and the man-made glitter of this season, I believe there is something strangely poignant, tender and touching about Christmastime. Perhaps it is felt in the music, in carols such as “Silent Night Holy Night,” “Joy to the World,” “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” and “O Holy Night.” There is something about the season that seems to just reach out and tug at the human heart.

What is it that we sense? Some deep and ancient joy calls to us from heaven above, our ultimate true home. In Christmas, God is reaching out with His mercy for us afflicted humans. He is showing us a little glimpse of heaven. Earth and heaven are a little closer at Christmas than any other time of the year.

Question to ponder:
Why do we long to be home for Christmas? What is this intense longing that we feel?

“A virgin shall be with child, and will bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is interpreted, “God with us.”

— Matthew 1:23

At Christmastime we celebrate the fact that the infinite, incomprehensible, ineffable God descended to dwell among us in human flesh—a fact so astonishing that there is no need for chipmunks or reindeer, with or without red noses.

Christmas is an incredible event. The almighty Creator of the universe with its hundreds of billions of galaxies, this glorious One has visited this planet. This small planet has been visited by the almighty God. Even more astonishing than that is the fact that this God has come for the purpose of dying for creatures such as ourselves.

The miracle of Christmas is the incarnation. According to C. S. Lewis, this supernatural act of God becoming a human being is the Grand Miracle. Upon this miracle all the others stand or fall. When someone denies the virgin birth and incarnation, they deny the foundation of Christianity and the joy of the season.

Christmas is still the time for miracles.

Question to ponder:
Think of how the natural and the supernatural meet in Christmas. How has it touched your life?

For as the body is one and has many parts, and all the many parts of that one body are one body, so also is Christ.

— 1 Corinthians 12:12

At a national convention, sociologists came to a conclusion that I think you will find fascinating. They said most of the problems, the troubles, the anxieties and the turmoil that plague our society today are due to … to what? Now, this is not an assembly of Christians; these are secular sociologists meeting in national convention, and they said most of the turmoil, troubles, anxieties and problems that plague our society are due to… have a sneaking suspicion that few would guess what they said. But here it is. These problems are due to … a lack of communion.

They didn’t say “communication,” because surely we have an abundance of that.

Communication is the transfer of ideas and facts, but communion is something much deeper. It is a mutual sharing of values, emotions, and the deepest purposes of our lives. And this is what we have too little of in our society.

The lack of communion found in the home, in the school, in society, in the Church, is what is causing many people to have such aberrant and deviant behavior resulting in so many of today’s problems.

We have a need to belong. The Body of Christ, the Church, helps meet this deep-seated need.

Question to ponder:
Where do you belong?

… choose today whom you will serve …

— Joshua 24:15

One of the great problems in the Church today is that people just can’t make up their minds. One minute they determine they are going to serve God and Christ. The next minute they are afraid they are going to miss out on some goodies of this world. They don’t want to become too religious, and so they have just enough religion to make themselves miserable, but certainly not enough to get them into heaven. However, their indecisiveness will one day be solved for them at the final Judgment, when heart and mind and soul and body will be cast into hell. No more indecision then.

The present problem with indecision is that it causes people to do nothing. That is the great problem of the Church. That was the great problem of Joshua’s day. That is why so little progress is made in the kingdom—why it is so difficult to get people to volunteer to serve.

Let us decide to follow the Lord wholeheartedly and to serve Him all the days of our lives.

Question to ponder:
Can you truly say, “As for me and my house we will serve the Lord”?

Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who exchange darkness for light, and light for darkness; who exchange bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

— Isaiah 5:20

Many times, we find that our modern society has things exactly backwards. They do what Isaiah decried—they call evil good, and they call good evil.

Let me indulge in a bit of sarcasm to illustrate this phenomenon. We have a problem today in sexual matters. The problem is that we have so many of you who are “homophobes.” Ah, that is the problem. No doubt homophobes have caused the plague of AIDS. Our problem is not perversion. Our problem is not homosexuality. Our problem is you, the homophobes.

“Are you he that troubles Israel?” asked the wicked King Ahab of the righteous Elijah. But Elijah would have none of this, and armed with the power of God, he said, “I have not troubled Israel, but you and your father’s house, in that you have forsaken the commandments of the Lord” (1 Kings 18:18).

We have people who won’t take responsibility for their sins, but, instead, redefine illicit behavior so that they’re no longer sinning. For example, there was a politician who was pulled over for a DUI. He said that it wasn’t his fault: “I was overserved.”

Despite the attempts of Hollywood or a sinful world to redefine good and evil, God’s Word stands firm. As President Lincoln once said when he received a copy of the Bible. “But for it, we could not know right from wrong.”

Question to ponder:
Can you think of a few examples where someone has called evil good and good evil?

Then Elisha prayed, “LORD, open his eyes and let him see.” So the LORD opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw that the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire surrounding Elisha.

— 2 Kings 6:17

If we had supernatural vision, we would see all around us God’s angels protecting us. That was certainly the case in biblical history. For example, when enemy forces came against Elisha, as recorded in 2 Kings 6, the prophet could see God’s heavenly army protecting him. But Elisha’s servant couldn’t see that until Elisha prayed for his eyes to be opened.

Spiritual vision is something that is vitally important, as the servant of Elisha discov­ered. Theologian Clarence Maclaren tells us what we can learn from this text about God’s angels (His messengers): (1) they were ever near; (2) they were most near when needed most; and (3) they come in the form most needed. Specifically, they are warriors when we are ringed about by foes. They are counselors when we are perplexed. They are comforters when we mourn. Their shapes are as varied as our needs, and ever correspond to the “present distress.”

Speaking of angels, God said, “Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to minister to those who will inherit salvation?” (Hebrews 1:14). We should be thankful for God’s angels, but we should never worship them, nor talk directly to them. They are God’s servants, not ours.

Question to ponder:
What role do angels play in the salvation story?

For He shall give His angels charge over you to guard you in all your ways.

— Psalm 91:11

God sends his angels to minister to and to watch over His elect, even those who are about to come to conversion, lest they should perish before they are saved.

Corrie ten Boom, that brave Dutch lady who protected so many Jews during World War II, tells how, during a rebellion in the Congo, there was a school where 200 children of missionaries were being taught. Hundreds of rebel soldiers were closing in on that school. Word had come to those at the school that the soldiers were going to take the school and kill everyone inside. Students and staff prayed that God would intercede.

Finally, they saw the soldiers inching out of the jungle. There was only a small wall around the encampment and a couple of soldiers protecting it. The rebels came closer and closer. Suddenly they jumped up and fled back into the jungle. They came back the second day and did the same thing again, and again on the third, the exact same thing occurred.

One of the rebels was wounded and brought into the compound for treatment. As the doctor was treating him, he asked why they did not take the school as they had planned. He said, “We could not do it. We saw hundreds of soldiers in white uniforms and became scared.” In Africa, solders never wear white uniforms.

Question to ponder:
Can you think of any potential encounter you might have had with an angel?