Some Good News for you this Christmas!

Here's something to think about: If you knew that you could go to heaven in your new resurrection body along with no more pain, no more problems, and on top of everything else, you'd be reunited with all your loved ones, would you want to go? Of course! But what if there was just one problem--What if Jesus wasn't there? If Jesus was absent from heaven, would you still want to go? Would it still be heaven?
                                                      What is the Good News? 

What message did the angel proclaim to the shepherds on a lonely hillside outside of Bethlehem? If you asked the average churchgoer in a Southern Baptist church around where I live, they'd tell you that the Good News means you're saved and going to heaven. Others would say that "forgiveness" is the Gospel. But is that really the good news? Is being forgiven and getting your ticket punched for heaven the essence of the Gospel?

If Jesus wasn't there, would Heaven still be Heaven? 

The point John Piper makes in his book, "God Is the Gospel" is that heaven isn't heaven without Jesus. Yet many Christians would still want to go there, even if Jesus wasn't there. Why? Because they don't really KNOW Jesus. Salvation to many so-called "Christians" means you're not going to hell and you get to go to heaven. But all too many "Christians" know nothing about Jesus, much less knowing Him. He is not their daily bread, or their daily portion. They don't worship Him because they don't love Him. They love church and Christianity, but not Jesus. They love the gifts, but not the Giver Himself.

Here's the Good News that the angel announced to the shepherds on the hillside outside Bethlehem.

Luke 2:8-14 (NLT)
⁸ That night there were shepherds staying in the fields nearby, guarding their flocks of sheep.
⁹ Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord’s glory surrounded them. They were terrified,
¹⁰ but the angel reassured them. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people.
¹¹ The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David!
¹² And you will recognize him by this sign: You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.”
¹³ Suddenly, the angel was joined by a vast host of others—the armies of heaven—praising God and saying,
¹⁴ “Glory to God in highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.” ⁹ Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord’s glory surrounded them. They were terrified,
¹⁰ but the angel reassured them. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people.
¹¹ The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David!
¹² And you will recognize him by this sign: You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.”
¹³ Suddenly, the angel was joined by a vast host of others—the armies of heaven—praising God and saying,
¹⁴ “Glory to God in highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.”

Merry Christmas: God is the Gospel

This Christmas, the Good News is that God is the Gospel. God came down to earth, became a man, lived a sinless life, suffered on a cross, died, was buried and rose again on the third day--Why? So that you and I could be with Him, see Him in all His glory, and KNOW Him. That's what Christmas is all about. It's about the ultimate gift: A relationship with God Himself. He is our everlasting treasure!

Philippians 3:8 (NLT)
⁸ Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him. 

• Search for Him. Find Him. 
• Get to know Him. 
• Christmas is not about church or religion or helping others. 
• It's not about Santa Claus, or giving or receiving presents. 

It's all about Him. Christmas, the Good News announced by the angel to the shepherds is that our salvation has come, and that salvation is wrapped up in knowing and being with Jesus. He is the Gospel. It's seeing him in all His glory and letting His glory shine forth in our daily lives.

I'm on my quest to get to know Him, to learn about Him, to love Him and worship Him. Some days are better than others. Sometimes I drift back into religious piety and put my quest on hold. But deep in my heart, I know this: I want to know Jesus because He is the Gospel.

Merry Christmas.

  

Fragrances, body odor and aroma therapy

My dog, Charlie (this picture doesn't
do him justice).

I have a dog named Charlie who likes to sniff anything and everything on our daily walks. I like to say that this is Charlie's daily "aroma therapy" session. He's really into smells. In that sense, I think Charlie takes after me because I too am into smells, and I have my own version of aroma therapy. I never leave the house in the morning without my daily shot of deodorant and body spray along with a dash of cologne.

This ought to be a required insprection before you can join
 a gym, board a flight, or be hired for a job. 

Let me tell you one other thing about my sense of smell. I have a serious aversion to body odor, to point of gagging. I remember years ago, I had this stereotype in my head that only guys who were total slobs would be the ones to have BO. I have been in the gym on a treadmill next to a guy who reeked of BO and had to stop what I was doing and move at least 3 treadmills away to escape his foul smell. Do you think he even suspected why I was moving to another treadmill? Not at all. Apparently, people with BO seem to think they smell pretty good and can't imagine anyone not wanting to be close to them, even other people are gagging. I can't imagine how they ever have a relationship or sex with a spouse? Doesn't the spouse smell what I smell? Is she too afraid to tell him. How does she put up with his BO day in and day out?

My image of the stereotypical BO offender was knocked on its head one day when a beautiful young blonde stepped onto the treadmill next to me and at that moment I noticed this foul odor. I looked around to see where it could be coming from because the LAST place I expected BO was on this beautiful girl. But, knock me up the side of my head if she didn't have some of the worst body odor that a human could emit. I thought to myself: Doesn't she bathe? Doesn't she use deodorant and perfume? Why does she smell like this? Does she date? Do these guys smell what I'm smelling? How do they deal with it? Don't they have the guts to tell her? Why don't I have the guts to tell her? I'm chicken and I admit it. I decided that maybe she was trying to do a European thing, but on me it wasn't working.

Along those same lines, I was recently on a flight from Chicago to Baltimore. The plane was packed and my son and I were seated in the last row, which is already a drag because those seats don't recline and you have the passengers in front of you reclining and taking up even more of your limited space. You can barely open up your lap top, but you can't unfold the screen all the way because there's not enough space on your little tray when the seat in front is reclining. Know what I mean? If you're assigned a seat in the last row, forget the laptop. Bring a tablet.

I was in the middle seat, fastening my seat belt and securing my electronics and greeting this nicely dressed business woman seated next to me in the window seat. First think I do is look to make sure that she's not grossly overweight and taking up half of my seat. Fortunately for me she wasn't and everything was going fine until she reached up to turn on the air jet. At that moment, I smelled something horrible, bad enough to make me want to gag. It was BO, and it was coming from her underarms and I sat there wondering how I was going to make it through this flight, which was packed with no empty seats. I tried holding my breath.

Somewhere around Pennsylvania, I no longer noticed my seatmate's BO. Maybe my nose and sense of smell had become numb to it. For whatever reason, I enjoyed the final hour of the flight and was hoping that this woman was NOT on my connecting flight to Albany, NY. Fortunately for me and everyone else, she wasn't.

Shameless promotion and product placement. What a
great product from liberals in Vermont.

Renee and I are always on the lookout for a deal on Yankee Candles. My favorite scents are jasmine, evergreen, pine & honeysuckle. Renee knows that I like to come home from to a house with candles lit and a great fragrance emanating throughout the house.

Now along the lines of fragrance and aromas, I was reading this passage in 2 Corinthians 2:14-16 (GW) 

¹⁴ But I thank God, who always leads us in victory because of Christ. Wherever we go, God uses us to make clear what it means to know Christ. It's like a fragrance that fills the air.

¹⁵ To God we are the aroma of Christ among those who are saved and among those who are dying.

¹⁶ To some people we are a deadly fragrance, while to others we are a life-giving fragrance.Who is qualified to tell about Christ?

The greatest fragrance of all is the fragrance that emanates from someone who knows Jesus Christ. I am always amazed that God can use me to be a sweet-smelling fragrance to some people and to others who chose to reject Jesus, I am the stench of death. But Jesus is the sweetest fragrance of all. My prayer is that his fragrance will emanate from my life more and more.

The New Tolerance is Intellectual Cowardice

Greg Koukl (Stand to Reason) writes, 

"The tolerant person occupies neutral ground, a place of complete impartiality where each person is permitted to decide for himself. No judgments allowed. No 'forcing' personal views. Each takes a neutral posture towards another's convictions.

"What the new tolerance means," D.A. Carson writes in his new book, The Intolerance of Tolerance:

"is that the government must be intolerant of those who do not accept the new definition of tolerance." In this vein, tolerance becomes an absolute good with the power to erode moral and religious distinctives. 

Greg Koukl, "Stand To Reason"

In the name of tolerance, Carson writes, the secularists assert that "they have the right to control the public sphere because they are right—completely unaware that they are trying to impose their worldview on others who disagree with it." 

As Greg Koukl writes, 

True tolerance is impossible. In the realm of ideas, one must think that someone else is wrong in order to exercise tolerance towards him, and in doing so, this brings the accusation of intolerance....Most of what passes for tolerance today is not tolerance at all, but rather intellectual cowardice. Those who hide behind the myth of neutrality are often afraid of intelligent engagement. Unwilling to be challenged by alternate points of view, they don't engage contrary opinions or even consider them. It's easier to hurl an insult--"you intolerant bigot"--than to confront the idea and either refute it or be changed by it. "Tolerance" has become intolerance. 

The Tolerance Trick

Greg Koukl gives this real-life example which sums up the contradictions of the new tolerance:
Earlier this year I spoke to a class of seniors at a Christian high school in Des Moines, Iowa. I wanted to alert them to this "tolerance trick," but I also wanted to learn how much they had already been taken in by it. I began by writing two sentences on the board. The first expressed the current understanding of tolerance:

"All views have equal merit and none should be considered better than another."

All heads nodded in agreement. Nothing controversial here. Then I wrote the second sentence:

"Jesus is the Messiah and Judaism is wrong for rejecting Him."

Immediately hands flew up. "You can't say that," a coed challenged, clearly annoyed. "That's disrespectful. How would you like it if someone said you were wrong?"

"In fact, that happens to me all the time," I pointed out, "including right now with you. But why should it bother me that someone thinks I'm wrong?"

"It's intolerant," she said, noting that the second statement violated the first statement. What she didn't see was that the first statement also violated itself.

I pointed to the first statement and asked, "Is this a view, the idea that all views have equal merit and none should be considered better than another?" They all agreed.

Then I pointed to the second statement—the "intolerant" one—and asked the same question: "Is this a view?" They studied the sentence for a moment. Slowly my point began to dawn on them. They'd been taken in by the tolerance trick.

If all views have equal merit, then the view that Christians have a better view on Jesus than the Jews have is just as true as the idea that Jews have a better view on Jesus than the Christians do. But this is hopelessly contradictory. If the first statement is what tolerance amounts to, then no one can be tolerant because "tolerance" turns out to be gibberish.

                                                  Josh McDowell on Tolerance Time:2:57