Why Are People So Unhappy?

In his book, Knowing God, J. I. Packer illustrates why so many people are confused and unhappy.  He asks what would happen if you took a member of a primitive tribe from the Amazon basin and flew him to London and dropped him off in the middle of Trafalgar Square.  With no knowledge of the language and culture, how would he fend for himself?  And even if you dressed him in modern clothes, wouldn't everything he said and did be nonsensical to those around him? Surely none of us would be so insensitive!

However, as Packer says, "We are cruel to ourselves if we try to live in this world without knowing about the God whose world it is.  The world becomes a strange, mad, painful place...for those who do not know God."  Later he writes:  "As our knowledge of God increases, so does our peace, our strength, and our joy."

Are you confused and unhappy?

   

Relationship or Religion?

Henry Blackaby may be the most spiritually sensitive person I have ever known.  I met him long before he became well-known as the author of Experiencing God.  He spoke at some of our regional college retreats when he was a pastor in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

I love reading the devotional thoughts that he and his son, Richard, wrote for Experiencing God Day by Day.  They are short but pithy.

Here is what they said in a recent devotional:  "Christianity is an intimate, growing relationship with the person of Jesus Christ.  It is not a set of doctrines to believe, habits to practice, or sins to avoid.  Every activity God commands is intended to enhance His love relationship with His people . . . Religious activity apart from fellowship with God is empty ritual . . . Don't settle for a religious life that lacks a vital relationship to Jesus Christ.  When God is present, the difference will be obvious." 

If that made you think, maybe you should get a copy of the book.  Or, you could access it online at http://www.blackaby.net/.

A Prayer for Today

Soren Kierkegaard's prayer is my prayer for today:  

"And now, Lord, with your help I shall become myself."

Indeed, come quickly, Lord Jesus.  Let Christ be formed in me. 

After Christmas

Katharine Lee Bates was a 19th Century professor of English literature at Wellesley College.  She authored many volumes of poetry and children's books but is best known for the lyrics of "America the Beautiful."

Four of her lines from another poem describe how we should know and experience Jesus Christ today:

          Not the Christ in the manger,
          Not the Christ on the Cross;
          But the Christ in the soul,
          When all but love is lost.

Isn't this what Jesus meant when he said, "I am with you always..." (Matt. 28:20)?  Isn't this what the Apostle Paul meant when he wrote, "I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me" (Gal. 2:20)?

Or as Charles Allen has said:  "the Christmas message should bring home to each of us not that we must still seek a Babe in a crib He outgrew, not a Teacher who has now moved from the classrooms of Galilee, nor an exhausted Savior stretched upon a cross, nor a Leader wrapped in the soft linens of death, but rather "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Col. 1:27).