Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Meeting Him Or Missing Him In 2016

It's funny that if you read an autobiography and then a biography of the same person how different the accounts can be. Usually biographers interview people and have some special interest in telling a person's story. The may have an axe to grind with the person. They may idolize them. Perhaps it is a combination of both.

This time of year can make us retrospective. What really happened this year? No doubt God's account is different from our account but in what ways? What are His plans for this next year.

I want my vision for the future and my perception of the past to align with what God would say if I could sit and have a conversation with Him.

"And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified." - 1 Corinthians 2:1-2 ESV

"I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose." - Galatians 2:20-21 ESV

"But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." - Galatians 6:14 ESV

Perhaps these verses sound like religious mumbo jumbo to you. Perhaps this focus on Christ and His cross seem morbid and disconnected but they are keys to understanding God's mind and view of our lives. We are not the main characters in our life story. Jesus Is. Our God Is holy and Jesus was sent into the world to include us in God's narrative.

"Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned - every one - to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth." - Isaiah 53:4-7 ESV

"Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors." - Isaiah 53:11-12 ESV

Meeting Jesus or missing Him will be the focus of God's account of this past year. It will also be the focus of the coming year. If any of you have spent a year with Christ as the focus you know what a relief that is. Years that are filled with Him are amazing years.

We know that when God talks about 2015 He will be gracious. He will reveal the mind of holiness. We can't know all the details. If we know Him now I'm sure He will reveal a great deal to us later about what actually transpired.

I have expectations for 2016. I also have reservations. As I'm sitting here writing and thinking my fervent hope is that I'll be on the same page with God and not at odds with His purposes.

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