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Don’t Despise the Package!
Gifts come in all shapes and sizes. My family Christmas tree is full of gifts in different colored wrapping paper, bows and ribbon. Some are big and some are small. Each of my children hopes that the biggest one goes to them. For some reason, we often get excited thinking that the bigger the gift the better it will be.
Do you remember the greatest gift you ever received at Christmas time?
Christmas is celebrated by Christians as the birthdate of Jesus. We consider Him to be the greatest gift of all. We believe that He is the Son of God that miraculously became a human, born of a virgin. We believe that He died on a cross for the sins of mankind that we could be restored to a rightful relationship with our Father in Heaven.
Truly, He is a great gift.
You would think such greatness would come in a great package. When we want to give someone we love and cherish a special gift we will go to great lengths to pick out the right wrapping paper and the perfect bow. We might even set up the surroundings to make everything perfect for when they open that gift.
But, He didn’t come wrapped up in a great package.
He was born around smelly animals. Truly not a place for a king, let alone the God of the Universe.
He didn’t look like royalty. He was born to commoner parents. No regal robes, no silver or gold plated rattles. He was wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger.
His birth was made known by angels to shepherds and not to anyone else. He was born in a little, out of way town that didn’t have much significance.
His birth was low-key and was not something that you expect of a great King.
In other words, a gift came wrapped up in an unassuming package.
Throughout Jesus’ life, He was not received by many of His own. He didn’t come wrapped in the package they were expecting. They were expecting a mighty warrior King that would free them from Roman oppression. He came as the Suffering Servant. He did not look or act like they thought he should look or act.
They missed the gift because of the packaging.
Have you ever missed the gift of God because it didn’t come the way you thought it should? I have. I looked at the package (the person) and didn’t like what I saw so I was unable to receive the gift.
God wraps His gifts in the packaging of humanity.
He wants us to be able to see beyond the packaging. He wants us to see the gift inside.
The gifts under the tree are not really about the wrapping paper. It’s not even about the box that the gift comes packaged in. It’s the gift itself. It’s what is wrapped up in the paper and the box.
It’s the same with people. It’s not about what’s on the outside. It’s about the inside. Learn to look beyond the exterior to see the heart. This Christmas season, and throughout the coming year, learn to see beyond the exterior of every human being and see the gift that is on the inside.
When God Recalculates Your Journey
Most of us have been there . . . in the car, going on a trip using a GPS to direct us where we are going. Maybe you missed a turn or didn’t want to follow directions. Then it happens, you make her mad and she starts in . . . recalculating! A GPS is great and very handy, especially when you come up to an accident or road construction and you have to take a detour. A GPS can help you find the shortest route.
But what do you do when life throws you a detour. What do you do when your life’s journey is going well and then all of sudden because of a wrong turn, a bad decision or someone else’s bad decision, you are suddenly lost, facing a dead-end, looking at a major detour or just simply broke down at the side of the road?
In a GPS, you can update the maps to stay current with new roads and shorter ways to get you to where you want to go. Life isn’t that easy. Sometimes, you might know exactly what to do in order to keep moving forward. Sometimes, there will be people who can give you directions. There are going to be some times that your journey is so overwhelming that you just want to sit and have a good cry.
It seems that I have been on a major detour for a couple of years now. My life was going along pretty good, and I was enjoying the journey. However, there was a major roadblock that required me to get off the fast lane and spend some time in the middle of nowhere trying to get things sorted out.
Every time I would seemingly get started again I would end up down another deserted road or dead end, for which my “life’s GPS” didn’t have a map for. Every other time in my life that I had faced adversity I usually knew what to do to keep moving and get out of the situation. This time, I didn’t. My “life’s GPS” just keep repeating over and over…..recalculating.
Have you ever been there? It sucks and it’s frustrating.
I remember many times crying out to God, “I’m so lost.” Finally, one day the Lord spoke back to me and said, “Michael, you are not lost. You are in Me and I know exactly where you are.” My response: “I am glad you know where I am but could you tell me where I am because I haven’t a clue.” My prayer changed to, “Lord, I know I am not lost, but I don’t know where I am.” While I chuckle at that, it can get frustrating at times because I want to be in control. I want to be able to chart my course. I want to know where I am going, how I am going to get there and how long it’s going to take.
But, if Jesus is going to be Lord of my life, then I have to yield control to Him and trust Him that everything is going to work out.
Sometimes, though, I struggle in my trust of God. I know that God loves me, that He is good and kind, and that He has a plan. It just feels that He went on vacation and won’t be back for a while and I can’t reach Him. I know that most Christians have felt that way before.
The good news is that God does know where we are, we are never lost to Him. He has a way of recalculating our lives and the journeys we are on in a way that will always work out for our good. It just seems that sometimes the GPS is always on recalculating while we are anxious to get back to the interstate so that we can zoom along again to our destination.
There are three things I’ve learned through my journey of constant recalculation.
1. Along life’s journey, there will always be times when you have to recalculate.
I think that’s been one of my biggest struggles. That is, what happened to me wasn’t supposed to happen to me! I was supposed to be exempt from that. It wasn’t fair, and I have let God know that on many occasions.
God knows the trials, bumps, detours and roadblocks that we are going to face. He knows when we are going to slam into an obstacle in the road while we are flying 70 miles an hour down life’s highway. He knows about everything that is going to jump out at us and the things that are going to blindside us.
He knows. And He has a way of recalculating our journey when needed.
2. God is not afraid of detours.
Many times we think that God is surprised by our detours. He always has a plan. He’s not afraid of our detours.
For most of my life, I have been too focused on the destination. I have been learning that God is focused on the journey. It’s how we handle ourselves on the journey that God is looking at. Remember the story of Jairus’ daughter in Matthew 9? Jairus asks Jesus to come heal his daughter. Jesus agrees but on the way, a women who had been hemorrhaging for many years touched his cloak and was healed. Jesus was on a mission to heal a girl but there was an interruption, and a woman was healed.
It was a detour and God was not messed up by it. And He isn’t messed up by your detours either. You never know when a miracle might take place in the midst of your detour.
3. The destination isn’t the goal . . . the journey is.
Growing up, I heard the word destiny a lot. It was all about reaching your destiny. We all had a destiny that God was going to get us to. For me, my destiny was to become a Senior Pastor. I remember my first day as a Senior Pastor. I had reached my destiny . . . now what?
I was so focused on my destiny that I wasn’t paying attention to the journey. And detours along the way were points of depression and frustration to me, not opportunities for miracles. It thought that each detour, roadblock, and dead-end was a hindrance to my destiny.
It’s in the journey of life that we find God. It’s in the detours of life that we discover his grace. It’s in the dead-ends of our journey that we find God’s redemption. God is more interested in our journey than He is in our destination. In reality, the journey is the destination.
Each moment is the destination because this moment is all we have. I am learning to live in the moment.
Although we may not like detours, dead-ends, and road blocks, they are a part of life. God’s not afraid of them. God will use them. God will recalculate your journey whenever you face a detour, dead-end or road block.
Recalculating . . . . . . .
A Balanced New Creation
One of the great truths I was guided to share with the campers at the Lake Beauty Bible Camp, Minnesota, in 1978, was the need to have a balanced view of new creation realities. Biblical truths can be either in contrast or in correspondence with each other. Law and grace, for example, are in contrast… Read More
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The Axe at the Root (Matthew 3:10)
A ravenous wolf, such as Jesus described in Matthew 7, is someone who uses threats to extort money or service from others. If you were such a person, God forbid, you might to use the following verse to threaten the saints: The axe is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that […]
Walls Around My Heart
Over the years, I have built up walls around my heart. Because of things I have gone through in the past — hurts, rejections, disappointments — I have built these ramparts to protect myself. A lot of us have walls up to protect us from getting hurt. We somehow think that if we isolate our hearts — the center of our emotions and feelings — that we will not get hurt again.
Khotyn Fortress by Yarik Zinkof, Flickr, CC
Sometimes that’s true. Those of us that have fortified hearts don’t allow others into the inner sanctuary of our true selves. We allow people to come in only so far until they are subtly reminded that there is a wall there that says no entry. It’s a defense against getting hurt.
Sometimes, people even build up a wall to keep God out of their inner sanctuary.
But we were not meant to live in isolation. We were not meant to live without others. God created humanity to be interdependent upon one another. We are not meant to be co-dependent but interdependent. We need each other. We need the comfort of another human being during our times of distress, anxiousness, and sadness. We need the strength of another human being when we are struggling and are weak.
We need another human being to see our frailties, weaknesses and failings in order for us to realize that we are lovable and worth immense value despite our brokenness and imperfections. We need another human being to see the shambles of our lives and tell us that it’s going to be okay.
That cannot, and will not happen, if we keep people out of the innermost places of our hearts.
For those that have walls built, because of hurt, rejection, being let down, trauma, disappointment or betrayal by someone close to you, you have most likely stated, “that will never happen to me again.” To keep it from happening again, you build a wall.
Some of us not only have a wall, but we have also built a moat and have a drawbridge. We’ve “castled our heart” to keep the bad people out.
The problem is that in protecting ourselves from the bad people, we’ve also denied ourselves the good ones.
I know because this is how I have lived for a long time . . . with a fort around my heart because I don’t want to get hurt again. I don’t want to be betrayed again. I don’t want to allow myself to get too close to people. And it’s stopped me from receiving the very thing I long for, the very thing I need….love.
I know that people love me. Love is to be shared between two or more people. Love is like a dance. It’s an intimate movement between two people. Love is not supposed to be one sided. The hope of loving someone is for them to love you back. When you have walls up to keep people at a distance, it’s hard to dance the dance of love with them. It’s hard to share intimate moments because you have people at arms length.
Many of us are like two awkward twelve-year-olds at our first dance. We are simply facing each other with enough room to put someone else between us as we shuffle our feet back and forth. Love is meant to be intimate, two souls touching one another in the deepest recesses of the heart. Love is allowing someone else to see you in all your glory and all your weaknesses. Love is allowing someone to see your best and your worst, knowing that they are not going to leave you. Love is knowing that you are valuable to someone else not because of what you have done or not done, but simply because you are.
When you have walls around your heart, you cannot experience the depth of that love, either with another human being or with your Heavenly Father. We were created to have these deep connections with other human beings as well as our Father.
Because of the brokenness of humanity, we have all experienced pain, trauma, hurt and betrayal at the hands of someone who loved us. We have caused pain, trauma, hurt and betrayal to someone else ourselves. We may very well be the reason someone else has put up a wall.
I know that God has been dealing with me about my walls. I know that He has been asking me to let Him in past the protective layers of my fortress. I know that, like the walls of Jericho, He wants to demolish those walls so that He and I can dance the dance of love. As I allow Him to do that, He is also asking me to let others in. Jesus came that we might be free, but we will never be free as long as we have a wall up around our heart.
What about you? Do you have walls built up? Do you find it hard to “let people in?”
Why Won’t God Feel Sorry For Me?
Have you ever had a bad time in your life where you prayed for things to change, but they didn’t? This is especially hard when someone has caused you great pain and done something to cause you loss. 
I’ve been in this season for a while now. It started about five years ago. I am in a much better place now, but I still feel the sting of pain and loss from the actions of someone else.
Throughout this ordeal, there have been many times where I have wanted God to feel sorry for me. I have wanted him to deal with others in the way that David prayed in the Psalms. “Lord, smash them, vindicate me, get them good, let them hurt as I hurt.” That’s not an actual translation….that’s the Michael Wilson version.
I am sure that you are a much stronger person than I am and have never felt this way.
But this is not the Jesus way!
So, why won’t God just feel sorry for me and get me out of this mess? Why won’t he just snap his fingers and cause my circumstances, which were not my fault, mind you, to just change for the better. How long until things are fully restored as I desire them to be?
Because with God nothing is ever wasted! No problem, no scar, no miscarriage of justice. No pain, no hurt, no wound. Nothing is ever wasted with God. He has the ability to make ALL things work together for our good.
He has a way of turning every test we go through into a testimony we can share with someone else. He has the ability to turn every mess we are in into a message of hope and deliverance for someone else. He can turn every trial and tribulation into a triumph for those that will just trust him.
It would be easier for God to feel sorry for us and turn things around but what would we learn from that? Many times our children go through things that are not comfortable for them. As much as we want to, we don’t always get them out of their situation because we use it for a learning experience. It’s a teachable moment about how to overcome adversity. It’s a way to teach them that life is tough, but they are tougher.
Yes, at times, I want God to feel sorry for me. I want him to just supernaturally move me from the trials I am in to a place of comfort, a place of green pastures and still waters.
But I won’t grow like I should if all I have is comfort. I won’t grow if it’s always easy. I won’t learn obedience unless I go through some suffering. That’s how it worked for Jesus. Even though he was the Son of God and sinless, he still had to learn obedience through things that he suffered (Heb. 5:7).
With God nothing is ever wasted! He has the ability to make ALL things work together for our good.
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It’s easy to obey God when things are going our way when we feel we are on top of life and all things are good. It’s not so easy when we are suffering because of someone else’s mistakes and sins. It’s not as easy to trust God when our name is being dragged through the mud and people believe lies about us. We want vindication and justice. Many times, if not all, God simply whispers to us, “Let it go and trust me.”
Many times, we have a conversation like this with God:
“Can’t you just feel sorry for me and right all the wrongs done to me? That would make me feel better.”
“Let it go and just trust me.”
“Yea, but people believe stuff that’s not true and I am paying the price for their sins.”
“I paid the price for your sins and their sins, now let it go and just trust me.”
“But I am afraid you won’t come through for me. I mean look at them, they are prospering and happy. They are able to move on and I am stuck. I don’t like it here and it’s their fault. What are you going to do?”
“I am working all things out for you, and for them. Remember I love you both. I died for their sins as well as yours. My plans and purposes are greater than you will know, but you have to let this go and just trust me.”
“So you won’t feel sorry for me? You won’t make this easier on me?”
“No and no. My grace is sufficient for you, for in your weakness I am made strong. Trust me.”
I have had many conversations with God like this. While I will not say that this is one of those actual conversations, I can safely tell you that over the course of the last five years, this would be the summation of those conversations.
God will not feel sorry for us because he uses everything that happens to us to mold us, shape us, and form us into the human beings he created us to be . . . his sons and daughters reflecting his image and likeness.
God will not feel sorry for us, but he will lead us, guide us, work all things out for us and be strong in us as we simply trust and obey him. Even in the midst of deep hurt and pain, he is always there for us.
He won’t feel sorry for you but he will love the mess out of you!
Job’s Grace Encounter
Tradition has taught that Job endured unimaginable suffering with poise and noble patience. He was a giant of the faith who never said anything wrong, and he is a great example for us all to follow. Baloney. As we have seen in this series, Job was, at times, a self-righteous whiner who complained to high […]
Don’t Be the Devil’s Star Witness
Have you ever been blamed or accused of something that you didn’t do? It’s a terrible feeling. Even if we did do something wrong, when someone points that out often times we are hit with shame and regret. It’s never a good feeling.
Yet, we so often times are quick to blame or accuse others. Many times we do this without even having all the facts. It’s just so easy to cast blame upon someone else.
There is always the opportunity to be an accuser or an advocate.
In the Bible, we are introduced to a character that uses blame, accusation and scapegoating all the time. He is known as Satan, or the devil. The word Satan is not really a name, it’s a title. In the Hebrew it is ha-satan – the satan. The word satan simply means adversary or accuser. To the Jewish people it was used as a term for anyone that stood in opposition to someone else. The ancient Israelites didn’t believe ha-satan to be a fallen angel. They believed that he was a messenger of God, used by God to give humans an opposition that would allow them to choose good or evil.
I believe that the New Testament gives us a more detailed view of the satan, and shows us that he is evil, purely bent on destroying the lives of humanity. Most Christians today believe that he was once an angel who rebelled against God, because he wanted to be God. God kicked him out of heaven, and for reasons beyond the time constraints of this blog, he now has access to earth and to humanity.
His primary tools against humanity are blame, accusation and scapegoating. He accuses people before God continually. He is always reminding God of the wrongs, sins, mistakes, iniquities and just general bad behavior that we human beings engage in.
And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan,
who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night. (Rev. 12:9-10, emphasis mine)
It’s interesting that the blame and scapegoating game got its start with the very first sin of humanity. When Adam and Eve were questioned about eating the forbidden fruit (Gen. 2), Adam starts off by blaming God and Eve.
This woman that you gave me. Adam did not take responsibility for his actions; he blamed his wife. Eve blamed the serpent , which she actually had a little more ground to stand on with this because the serpent did, in fact, deceive her. She believed the lie. Adam, in my opinion, knew better and should have stood up and said no.
Blame, accusation and scapegoating. It’s always someone else’s fault.
Siding with the satan
It’s so easy to blame others. It seems that we human beings need things to make sense, and the easiest way for that to happen in a senseless situation is to simply blame someone. At least now we have a reason for something bad happening. It’s someone else’s fault.
This is so prevalent in America. To the conservatives, the liberals are to blame for all of our country’s woes. To the liberals, the conservatives are to blame for standing in the way of progress.
At the time of this writing, guns are to blame for all of the mass shootings that have been happening. Yet, to the gun owners and gun rights advocates, those opposed to guns are the problem.
In churches, people tend to blame the pastor or church leaders when things go wrong, while the pastor and church leaders tend to blame the people for not being committed enough.
Husbands blame wives for things wrong in their marriage. Wives blame their husbands. On and on it goes.
When we use accusation, blame and scapegoating, we become the satan to the one the we are accusing, blaming or scapegoating. We actually side in with the devil.
In a way, we become the devil’s star witness when we seek to
accuse and blame others. (Tweet this)
As the satan is accusing us before God, and we are accusing and blaming others, the satan could easily say, “See, even their fellow human being, their fellow Christian brother/sister says the same thing.”
God wants us to be an advocate for one another. Since we all understand what it’s like to have limitations, frailties, weaknesses, temptations and sins, we should be the most graceful to one another. Yet, many times, we are not graceful but judgmental.
When it comes to people being accused before God I would rather stand there in someone’s defense, even if they are wrong, than to be the one accusing them. When I stand there in their defense, I am acting like Jesus, our Advocate. But when I stand there in accusation, I am acting like the satan, our accuser.
Jesus stands between the accusers and the accused. 
He did it for the woman caught in adultery in John 8. In this story the accusers were right that, under the Law of Moses, the woman was to be stoned because she had committed adultery. It was a capital offense.
The crowd had truth on their side. This woman had been caught in the very act (where was the man?).
They had the stones in their hands. But Jesus didn’t go along with the crowd. Honestly, most of the time, the crowd is wrong!
Jesus reminds them of their own sin in a most interesting way. As they all leave, he turns to her and asks where her accusers are. She replies that she does not know because they all walked away.
“Neither do I accuse you!” Jesus replies. What an awesome statement. The very one that could accuse her. The very one that could have given her a lecture on the sinfulness of her ways does no such thing. Most Christians tend to focus on the “go and sin no more” statement (which is important), but I like to focus on the fact that Jesus didn’t accuse or condemn her.
In this very situation, to have sided in with the crowd would have made you part of the accusers, the satans.
To accuse, blame and scapegoat makes us the satan’s star witness.
Is Satan God’s Sheepdog?
The Book of Job is one of the most amazing stories in the Bible, but we read it wrong two ways. First, we elevate Job into some kind of faith hero. Second, we think the devil is a sheepdog sent by the Lord to do his dirty work. This crazy notion is based on the following passage: Then the […]
To Him Who Survives??
In the modern American church, we emphasize the God who meets our needs and gets us out of difficult situations. Now before you hear what I am not saying, I am not saying God does not take care of His … Continue reading 
A Man Did Time For Me
Prison life has always fascinated me. It’s another world inside those walls behind the fence. I’ve watched numerous prison movies and documentaries. The whole concept of survival in a place like that is interesting to me. I once had a friend who spent eighteen years of his life behind bars. His stories intrigued me as I listened to the things that went on behind the barbed wire.
Prison Bound/Thomas Hawk /BY-NC
As much as I am interested in prison life, I definitely would not want to go to prison!
Just the thought of it brings on a sickening feeling.
I was watching a movie recently about the life of Christopher Wallace, aka Biggie Smalls or the Notorious B.I.G. In the movie, Christopher was running from the police and he was carrying a weapon. As he was running he ditched the gun in a trash can. He was eventually caught and the police found the gun. They just didn’t know if the gun belonged to him or his friend who was with him at the time. Christopher had already done time and his music career was in the beginning stages of taking off. His friend told him he would take the gun charge for him so that he could get his music career going. It would have been a three year sentence. Christopher reluctantly agreed. Being this was a movie, I don’t really know how true the story line is but I do know that there are men and women who are doing time for someone else. That is true friendship and love for a friend.
I wonder if I would ever do time for someone else. I think about my kids or wife and I think I would do it for them. I don’t believe I will ever be put in that position but the point of doing someone else’s prison time is a very curious concept.
In my thought process, I see Jesus as doing time for me. How could the Almighty Son of God become a human, deal with temptations and human issues and then die? How is that even possible? I know that we read about that happening in myths and legends. I also know that many people believe that Jesus wasn’t the son of God. I know that many people don’t believe that Jesus was fully God and fully man.
But I believe it! I don’t know and understand all the intricacies involved in it but I believe it.
Jesus “did time” as a human being. He willingly became “imprisoned” in a human body with human limitations. The most miraculous part of it all was that he chose to do it. He chose to lay aside all his abilities as God and experience life as a normal human being.
The Bible tells us that he was tempted in every way that we are. I don’t think that most of us have ever thought deeply about that. We read about his temptations in Matthew 4, but we don’t see any temptations beyond that listed in the Bible. I believe that he was tempted to lust after women, to steal, to lie, to cheat, to do things that would make life easier for him. I am tempted with those things and so is the rest of humanity.
Temptation is a part of our daily lives. The good news is that God understands our weaknesses as humans because Jesus did time as a human. I don’t understand prison life because I have never been there but someone who has been will understand the harsh realities of prison life . . . because they have been there.
Jesus has been there as a human being! He understands our weaknesses and frailties.
Because Jesus understands he is able to give mercy and compassion. He is able to sympathize with our weaknesses. He is able to come alongside us and help us carry the burden. He is able to pray for us because of his vast knowledge of the human experience.
The things I have experienced in my life bring me an understanding so that I can comfort, help and guide others who are facing similar experiences. However, I have found myself out of my league when dealing with someone who has gone through something I have never experienced. I have no point of reference. I have no understanding.
Jesus isn’t like that though. Somehow, during his time on earth, he managed to experience all that comes against humanity. I don’t think that he experienced every single little temptation that we do, like the temptation to smoke a cigarette. But I think that the basic temptations of life were experienced by Jesus. I believe that Jesus dealt with things that are related to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life (1 John 2:16).
I believe that our entire temptations boil down to a few basic temptations, such as the need to feel loved, the need for acceptance, the need to feel validated, etc. I believe we all do things for a reason. Every time we do something wrong, there is usually a deeper reason for it. I believe that Jesus’ temptations were in the areas of trying to fill needs within his life that would replace his dependency upon God. That’s simply my opinion and it would make a great discussion but that’s for another time.
Jesus did time for me as a fellow human being. I wonder when Jesus realized that He was the Son of God. I wonder if he felt the limitations of humanity. I wonder if he was ever tempted to use his abilities as God to get himself out of situation. I know that in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night of his betrayal and arrest he appealed to God for deliverance. He admitted that he could call down angels to fight his battle but he didn’t. He accepted the mission of death.
I don’t believe that Jesus looked at his time as earth as “doing time.” When you love someone you will go to whatever lengths necessary to help them. That’s what Jesus did for humanity.
The Creator became the created. God became man. The Son became a son. Life experienced death. Jesus did time for me and you. He is the man that “did time” for all of us.
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