Christmas, Theology, Advent, Church, Hospitality
John Beeson
The Faithfulness of God of the Manger

Recently we had someone over and as the night came to a close Angel warmly offered, “Let’s do this again soon!” I wilted as I processed just how many things were on our calendar in the coming month. Just like Angel did, I wanted to be with them again and soon, but her invitation made me flinch.

 

My wife Angel and I are very different people. Angel brings light and life everywhere. People are drawn to her, and she is drawn to people. One of the many things I love about Angel is how she gets caught up in a moment with people. In that space, it’s not unusual that she shares hopes with those we are with of spending more time together. And she means it: there is no doubt of her genuineness.

The Faithfulness of God of the Manger
Advent, Christmas, Theology
John Beeson
A Humble God?

“I don’t compare myself with anybody, but nobody is better.” Michael Jordan

“They say the sky’s the limit, but I think my potential is beyond it.” Jay-Z

“I won’t be happy until I’m as famous as God” Madonna

“I won’t be a rock star. I will be a legend.” Freddie Mercury

“We’re more popular than Jesus now.” John Lennon

We tend to expect that greatest among us are also some of the most arrogant. And why wouldn’t they be? For many who make it to the top of their field, we can see how that arrogance can be a driving force for their greatness.

A Humble God?
Christmas, Forgiveness, Theology
John Beeson
The Just and the Justifier

God became flesh.

Let that sink in. Christianity asserts that God—sovereign, immutable, omnipotent, other—the eternal God who has no beginning and end—became a human being.

 Because many of us have had exposure to Christianity from our early years, it is easy to miss how massive the theological implications of the incarnation are. The incarnation lays the groundwork for a God who chooses to participate in his creation. The incarnation denies the existence of an abstract and distant God, unmuddied by his handiwork.

The Just and the Justifier
Advent, Christmas, Theology
John Beeson
The Theology of the Manger

“God did not, as the Bible says, create man in his own image; on the contrary, man created God in his own image.” Ludwig Feuerbach dropped this theological bombshell three years before Friedrich Nietzsche’s birth. Feuerbach, a name forgotten by most, but who influenced Nietzsche, wrote these words in his book, The Essence of Christianity (1841). He argued that human beings project their own attributes and desires onto an imagined deity, creating God in their own image. This for Feuerbach, is the essence of Christianity (and indeed all religions), the deification of our human ideals. “What man wishes to be, he makes his God… God is the outward projection of a man’s inward nature.”

The Theology of the Manger
Death, Gratitude, Prayer, Suffering
John Beeson
Go To a Funeral

We Westerners avoid death.

 

When was the last time you walked through a cemetery? When was the last funeral you went to? Our churches no longer have cemeteries, those who are older head to retirement communities and then to head to long-term care or assisted care facilities. The number of funerals held in churches has diminished. Death has become professionalized, antisepticised, and remote.

Go To a Funeral

Revelation 22:1

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The Bible is Our Source

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The Bible is Our Source

Recently we were helping my mother-in-law look at properties. One of the first questions you need to know about a property is if it has water. There is some beautiful land not far from our home that can’t hook up to city water and whose wells have dried up. Unsurprisingly their value has plummeted. What use is a property with no water source?

Not much.

Many are living in a spiritual house with no water source.

What do you draw from as your spiritual source? Most draw from many sources: their conscience, self-help gurus, counselors, friends, podcasts, and news sources.

There is nothing wrong with any of these. But they are not the source that we depend on for truth.

THIRSTY

In Amos, God warned of a coming famine. “’Behold, the days are coming,’ declares the Lord God, ‘when I will send a famine on the land—not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord’” (Amos 8:11).

You don’t take a Coca-Cola on a hike. You don’t water your garden with saltwater. You don’t rehydrate with a glass of wine. We depend on fresh water.

STREAMS OF PURE WATER

In the first Psalm, we learn of the blessed man. We are told, “He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in season, and its leaf does not wither” (Psalm 1:3). These pure streams of water were there in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:10). Ezekiel prophesied that one day God would flood his land with these pure streams (Ezekiel 47:1-12). And in John’s final revelation, we see that this crystalline river of life will take center stage in eternity, “flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city” (Revelation 22:1).

What is this source? What were we made to draw life from and always will depend on?

This source of nourishment is our spiritual water and bread, it is the Word of God.

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