Right Game, Wrong Clothes
Most of us have great memories from our youth where we dreamed of emulating our favorite sports heroes. Who doesn't wanna aspire to play baseball like a Barry Bonds, basketball like LeBron James, hockey like Wayne Gretzgi, or football like Tom Brady?
Pass any park on a beautiful Saturday afternoon and you're likely to see a bunch of kids tossing a football around, running plays, and tackling each other to the ground like the Superbowl championship was at stake.
Maybe for Christmas or your birthday one year, your parents bought you a football uniform, complete with helmet, pads, and a jersey and pants from your favorite team. You'd have looked like a regular little football player.
Eventually, though, you'd have likely discovered that a football uniform does not make one a football player!!! You can't just dress up and make it so.
Some of us sitting in church pews today are not so unlike those young kids dressing up like their sports heroes. We want to be Christian. We wanna be a good Christian, maybe even a great one.
We come to church each Sunday dressed in our Sunday best. We carry our Bibles or our iPads with the latest Bible app. We maybe even mount the stage to lead songs of worship and praise.
We do all of the expected things of a church goer. But just as the old saying goes: Just because a mouse is in the cookie jar, it doesn’t make the mouse a cookie!!!
The only way we can be properply suited up for this thing we call the Christian life is to have a personal RELATIONSHIP with Jesus Christ the Risen Savior through faith in Him and His completed work on our behalf!
Don't show up to the right game in the wrong clothes. We need to be clothed in HIS righteousness alone!
"I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels" (Isaiah 61:10, NIV).
"... for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ" (Galatians 3:27, NIV).
"God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21, NIV).
Jesus Is Just A Crutch
Crutches are an extremely helpful medical device if you are taken lame by either injury or surgical intervention. The premise is simple. Pop them under your arms and let them bear your wait so that you can stand and ambulate.
Of course, they’ve become quite the metaphor for “weak” people needing to lean on something or someone to be able to get along in life.
The last words you want to hear is someone telling you that you are leaning on a crutch in life. They might as well say, “Man, what’s wrong with you? You’re so weak and impotent. Grow up and stand on your own two feet.”
If you are a Christian, you’re probably no stranger to someone accusing you of leaning on your faith as a crutch.
To that point, author/speaker Mark Cahill has this to say:
Next time you hear someone say that Christianity is just a crutch for weak people say, "Yes, it is. I've had a bad fall into sin and I'm crippled. Without Jesus, I can do nothing!!"
"... for without me ye can do nothing" (John 15:5, NIV).
Own your crutch! Wear it like a badge of honor. Place your whole weight squarely on Jesus. Yoke yourself to Him, and He will bear your obligation, your sin, your burden. “For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:30, NIV).
Stealing Baby Jesus
Efforts to scrub Christianity from our culture, even our history are growing exponentially in this post-Christian era. Nowhere is this more evident than in the ever widening epidemic of the vandalizing and theft of Christmas Nativity scenes, specifically the theft of Baby Jesus. Just look at these recent headlines.
- Vintage Baby Jesus, other nativity props stolen from Alexander County church
- Grinch Strikes Again, Baby Jesus is Missing – Again!
- Stolen Baby Jesus returned to local restaurant’s Nativity scene
- Surprising number of people stealing baby Jesus from nativity scene
- Baby Jesus stolen from nativity scene in Solihull
- Statue of baby Jesus stolen from Grosse Pointe Farms church's nativity display
And here’s a particularly sad one …
- "So Much Hatred': Vandals Smash Ancient Church's Nativity Scene, Decapitate Joseph Figurine in 'Barbaric' Attack
Then there’s this one which went viral just this week, as the thieves were caught on camera absconding with the the Christ child figurine …
- Man Runs Off With Baby Jesus Stolen From Sundance Square Nativity Scene
Some people are are giving up and just not putting out their annual displays. Others are looking for a solution, and even for protection. As one news station has reported:
As Christmas approaches, many people are looking for divine intervention, or in some cases insurance to prevent more trouble in Bethlehem. "There is a company that will insure your manger set. There's a company that has a special ‘baby Jesus’ rider for churches and for stores,” said Pastor James Carney of Seattle Capitol Hill Presbyterian Church, whose church display has been vandalized repeatedly.
They cannot hide Him; they cannot dismiss Him; they cannot diminish Him; they cannot extinguish Him. Try as they may, they cannot rob the world of Baby Jesus.
"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it" (John 1:5, NLT).