THE WONDER OF

GOD'S PRESENCE

# 1 The Quiet Time Series  (Part 1)
(The "Quiet Time" alone with God every day is probably the most profound thing you can do to grow to maturity in Christ.   Over the course of the first week of a New Year I want to offer you some inspiration and practical steps to help you develop a consistent and exciting daily QT experience). 

"The Most Important Thing You Will Do Today

Is Spend Time Alone With God."

These words hang over the computer desk in my study.   They remind me that in the business of life, when the pressures of life cry out for my time, I must, with all diligence seek the face of God.    It is there that I gain the strength to face the challenges of life and power for my ministry.   If I fail to maintain my "Quiet Time" I fail to maintain my life and I miss out on the unbelievable privilege of having intimate fellowship with God.   But even more than that, If I fail to maintain my Quiet Time, I rob God of the privilege of fellowship with me.

"If I fail to maintain my Quiet Time,
 I rob God of the privilege of fellowship with me."

 
Now before you dispute that statement as narcissistic or self absorbed, consider the fact that the very nature and purpose of God in redemption was that God might enjoy fellowship with us.    The God of the universe desires a close personal friendship with you.

"The God of the universe desires a close personal friendship with you."

The Wonder Of God’s Friendship
When you think about it, God deeply longs for your friendship.    When sin entered the world through Adam and Eve it brought separation from God.    Sin comes between us.    Adam and Eve hid themselves from God.    Even to this day, sin separates us from God.     But God in mercy kicked His plan of redemption into gear with the promise of a Saviour who would crush the head of the serpent and restore our fellowship with God.

In fact, Christ came into the world to woo lost rebellious humanity back to God.
God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8) 
He so longs to fellowship with us that He Himself took on human flesh to redeem us.

Often we are so aware of our own short comings and unworthiness that we can’t image that God would long to have intimacy with us but is true.     He loves us.    His love is the basis of this longing.    If we only knew, God desires our friendship and longs for us more than we long for Him.

If we only knew, God desires our friendship

and longs for us  more than we long for Him.
 

Christ coming into the world was and is God’s offer to renew the friendship that was lost in the garden.    Jesus Himself told us that the Father is seeking those to worship Him.
But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. (John 4:23-24)
Think of it. This is amazing.    God is seeking men and women and boys and girls who will walk with Him and worship Him.    He actually longs for us.     He gave His own Son to bring us back to Him to enjoy this incredible intimacy with Him.    God longs for our worship and friendship.

Don’t Miss The Wonder
The wonder of God’s desire for our friendship is lost to many of us and can be lost to any one of us.     Many of us take God’s love for granted and the wonder and amazement that God wants our friendship is lost.

Many of us take God’s love for granted

and the wonder and amazement that God wants our friendship is lost.
 

We must never forget the wonder of reconciliation through which God gives us direct access into His presence.    Just think of it.    God longs for your fellowship and through Christ, at great cost, has made it possible for you to enter His presence and enjoy His fellowship.     It is absolutely amazing that the God of the universe desires and made possible your intimate fellowship with Him.

It is absolutely amazing that the God of the universe

desires and has made possible your intimate fellowship with Him.

(Check back each day during the first week of January for a complete series of Posts designed to inspire you and give you practical help in developing a daily Quiet Time which is without doubt the greatest thing  you can do to grow to maturity.     Next Post will focus on how to cultivate intimacy with God).

Christmas, Super Heroes, and the Great Cosmic Conflict

 

There is Evil but there is Good.   There is a constant fight between good and evil.   There is Judgement but there is Deliverance.    There is Despair but There Is Hope. 

This fight is classically portrayed in the classic comic book character SUPERMAN¹. Remember that Superman is "Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive! Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound! Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Superman!".

In the classic fight between Good and Evil, Metropolis is a city tormented and harassed by evil villains and needs a good hero who will overcome the evil.

In the 1978 Superman Movie, Super Man does not show up in the movie until half way through the movie.     The writers spend a whole hour and a quarter setting the scene for the arrival of Superman.     You cannot appreciate the importance, power and liberation of Superman until you understand the hopelessness and despair that engulfs the city.


The writers set it up so that you feel that all the people of Metropolis are a half-breath away from drowning in a quagmire of deep woe and absolute hopeless despair as evil grips the city.     Once you know and feel the depth of despair that evil has brought to the city Superman shows up on the scene to overcome evil and save the city.

 

 

The Great Cosmic Conflict

But this fight between Good and Evil is not just the stuff of Hollywood movies. It is the very fabric of life in the real world.     In fact Christmas is confronts us with the Great Cosmic Conflict.    We may not recognize it but we are in the midst of this Great Cosmic Conflict that has eternal consequences and has us in a quagmire of deep woe and absolute despair as evil grips humanity and leaves us in despair and without hope in the world.     Like in the movie, we cannot fully appreciate the Super Hero of Christmas until we fully understand the state of despair that we are in.      We will not cry out for deliverance unless we know the full depth of our enslavement.

In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. 4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. (Galatians 4:3-5)

To fully grasp the conflict and the true dynamic of Christmas we have to go all the way back to the first book of the Bible, Genesis, where we find the creation story.
And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. (Genesis 1:31)
Everything God created was very good and in harmony with the creator until Satan, the Evil One steps unto the pages of human history.
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'?" (Genesis 3:1)
And now, the fight is on.     From the very early days of human existence, The Great Cosmic Conflict between good and evil has been unleashed on the world.    It actually started in Heaven when Lucifer a created angel of God rebelled against the reign of God Almighty and was flung out of heaven.
How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low! 13 You said in your heart, 'I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north; 14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.' (Isaiah 14:12-14)
The scars of his rebellion are seen down through the corridors of time.    The destruction, the inhumanity against humanity, the carnage, the selfishness, the sinfulness, the brokenness, are evident everywhere. Metropolis, the world, as if ruled by an invisible but very real Joker or Lex Luthor, seems irrecoverable, held in the grip of evil.

On the one hand there is our loving Heavenly Father who as our creator has provided us with all good things and desires our good.     On the other is Satan, the Evil One, who in his lust to usurp the authority of God cares not who he destroys in his quest to rule over God. So, this fight between Good and Evil is not just the stuff of Hollywood movies.     It is real life.    If you follow the story line of the Bible through its entirety you know that God has a Super Hero who will come to triumph over evil.     Who will come to deliver His people.
I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. (Genesis 3:15)
The promise of the incarnation of the Son of God to crush the serpent (evil) was made right there in the garden, but at times it seemed like the Hero would never show. Like in the Superman movie, the writer of the script, God, seems to take forever to introduce the hero.. Metropolis is left seemingly in the grip of evil and hopelessness. The story unfolds painfully slow and then, in the fullness of time, at just the right moment, the Hero arrives. You cannot fully appreciate the freedom He brings until you fully understand the bondage under which you live.

You cannot fully appreciate the freedom He brings

until you fully understand the bondage under which you live.

Enter The Hero Of Hope And Deliverance

Into a world in desperate need for deliverance steps our hero, the Incarnate Son of God, born of a virgin.
Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel" (which means, God with us). (Matthew 1:23)
Christmas reminds us that God Himself steps unto the page of human history to be our hero, to be our deliverer.    When all hope is gone, when it seems like all is lost and nothing else could release us from the grip of sin and Hell and Satan, our hero comes to be born in a manger, live a perfect life, die to purchase our salvation and raise again to deliver us.
It may seem strange but I think 1 Timothy 1:1-2 are the perfect Christmas verses to remind us that our hero has come to set us free. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by command of God our Saviour and of Christ Jesus our hope, 2 To Timothy, my true child in the faith: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. (1 Timothy 1:1-2)
　
GOD OUR SAVIOUR - "Deliverer"
Most often He is referred to as "Christ our Saviour" but here in the Pastoral Epistles Paul uses the phrase "God our Saviour".    He is the one who saves us from sin and judgement and the tyranny of the Evil one.    It is God who saves us, who sets us free, who gives us new life.
 
JESUS CHRIST OUR HOPE
In the midst of the Cosmic Conflict, it is Christ who is our source of our hope.    Who in fact, is our hope.     Hope means not a ‘hope so’, but a confident certainly held with firm conviction.     As we celebrate the birth of Christ, Christmas reminds us that in our troubled world, when all seems lost, our hope is fixed steadfast in Jesus Christ.
To hope in Christ, then, is to live a life characterized by confidence in the future as a result of trusting in Christ regardless of the circumstances under which you are now living.     Your hope is not in politicians, not in the good life, not in financial security.     In the midst of the Great Cosmic Conflict, your hope is in our Hero, Jesus Christ who comes from heaven to deliver you from the grips of evil and has promised you an eternity free the from conflict and harassment of evil.

No matter how dark your days. No matter how terrifying the conflict. No matter how hopeless your situation seems to be. Christmas tells us that our hero stepped unto the pages of human history to give us an enduring hope that will carry us into eternity.

 

1. According to Wikipedia Joseph Shuster was born in Toronto, Ontario, to a Jewish family. His father, Julius, an immigrant from Rotterdam, had a tailor shop in Toronto's garment district. His mother, Ida, had come from Kiev in Ukraine. His family, including his sister, Jean, lived on Bathurst, Oxford, and Borden Streets, and Shuster attended Ryerson and Lansdowne Public School in Toronto.. One cousin is comedian Frank Shuster of the Canadian comedy team Wayne and Shuste the great Canadian comedy team.. When he was about 9 years old Shuster moved to Cleveland Ohio where he met Jerry Siegel who would eventually become his partner in the creation of Superman.