Saturday, December 9, 2017

Blogs of Christmas past #4 (of 4)

Today I want to wrap up this collection of blogs from the past I’ve been sharing.  Here is one I wrote last year.

‘It has always seemed rather odd to me that there is a song about Santa Claus with this lyric: “He sees you when you’re sleeping; he knows when you’re awake.  He knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake!”  The song I’m referencing is called “Santa Claus is coming to Town”.  The implication is that Santa is some sort of all-knowing being.  Such a notion is, of course, preposterous.  But I want you to think about this assertion with me for a moment anyway.

If such an idea were true, it’s interesting how people seem to intuitively know that they haven’t been good; they have only warranted a lump of coal in their stocking.  This was recently evidenced to me when I was shopping at a retail store.  Two Christmas shirts caught my attention.  They are humorous, but also illuminating.  One said, “Dear Santa, I can explain.”  Another read: “Dear Santa, define good.”  Rather than parading their own goodness, they are offering excuses.  I think it’s an accurate assessment of the human heart.
 
The fact of the matter is this: even though Santa Claus isn’t an all-knowing omniscient deity, the God of the universe has perfect knowledge of everyone.  In Psalm 139, the writer says to God, “You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.  You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.”  God knows.  And, make no mistake about it: He sees that we are not “good for goodness sake.”  He sees that we fail, falter, and sin.  God knows the worst part of your heart and mine.

Greg Grandchamp, in his book “In Pursuit of Truth” writes, “In the eye of the Lord, none are good, not even one.  All are deserving the wrath of God…However, He already knows precisely who are you and what you’ve done.  And He sacrificed [Himself] anyway because He loves you.”  Amen to that!  Later on in the book, Grandchamp writes, “Christianity is a person.  It is a relationship with that person…our sin has caused a cavernous gap, one that we cannot – in our own effort – cross.  Christ is the bridge that reconciles us with God.  All we need to do is choose it.”  It’s my prayer that, if you’ve never done that, you would do it today.’

To conclude, as I’ve been looking back at blogs I’ve written, I realize just how different my life is now compared to when I started this blog back in 2011.  So much has changed.  I look back at some of those words from the past, and I don’t even feel like I am the same person as I was back then.  But one thing hasn’t changed: my zeal for someone to give up the fight and yield their heart and life to Jesus Christ.  On Christmas 2011, I ended that blog by saying, ‘It would be the privilege of my life if just one person saw their need for Jesus, and through simple words in a blog, someone chose to put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ.  That’s my earnest hope and my sincere prayer.’  That remains my heart’s sentiment today.

Kevin

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