This is a profound mystery—Christ feeds and cares for the church; He loves the church so much that he gave himself up for her.

Submission is not a word we like to hear. It sounds harsh; it sounds restricting. But maybe that’s because we’ve got it wrong. We think: I’m weak; therefore, I submit. I’m conquered; therefore, I submit. I’m commanded; therefore, I submit.

In other words, we submit because we are forced to submit. We are forced by circumstance, society, or even the Bible, and so we submit.

BUT…

I love; therefore, I submit.

That’s what Christ does.

Christ submitted to me, and not because I could make him. I couldn’t, and I can’t. Christ loved, so He submitted.

It is a profound mystery. Inexplicable. Unknowable. Yet, it is.

The beauty of the Gospel is found in this mystery. Don’t try to dissect this love. Don’t over-analyze and over-process this love. Bask in it. Marvel in it. Accept it, and live in it.

I love; therefore, I submit.

What do you think about submission and love in all of your relationships (God, spouse, parents, children, friends, coworkers, etc.)? Leave a comment below.

In other words, I don’t need evidence or inclination or previous experience to hope. I can hope.

But it isn’t hope that pleases God; it’s faith. I can hope for almost anything and everything, but not so with faith. In order to move from hope to faith I narrow down and provide substance. It doesn’t have to from within me. The substance can be from God or from others. But faith needs substance. 

The point of Advent is not to just hope for a God-With-Us Savior, but, instead, to transform our hope to faith, to go from Advent (waiting) to Christmas (celebrating).

As this first week begins to wind down, I wonder what hopes will be transformed to faith. What things will I begin to give substance, moving them closer to reality?

“And this will be a sign to you…”

I can imagine young girls daydreamed about being the mother of the Messiah, especially poor girls living in Nazareth. And certainly girls were no different than today and dreamed of being married and what they would name their children. But was this how Mary saw these hopes being fulfilled?

Proverbs says, “A hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” Mary was about to experience life; in fact, the Tree of Life would come to her, and she would be his mother. I guess sometimes hopes fulfilled don’t look like we expect them to. And sometimes hopes fulfilled being problems we never intended or anticipated. 

But when God fulfills your hope it brings life, and life more abundant. I’m praying for my hopes to be fulfilled. And not in a general way. I’m praying for specific things. I’ll let you know one of them. I am praying that God will provide a miracle to remove our debt. I’m hoping desperately for his provision and prosperity. 

So in this first week of Advent, what are you specifically hoping for? Share with us and let us pray together for hopes fulfilled.

We got started a day late, but the first Sunday and week of Advent focuses on hope.

Hope is the bane of mankind. It keeps you going, even when it would possibly be better to stop. At least that’s what I tell myself while golfing. I hit poor shot after poor shot, yet I always hope that the next shot will be the one. At the end of the round, my score looks like I played two or three rounds, and it was hope that made me keep going and get to the end. So hope gets us to keep doing things that frustrate, drain, and even excite us, yet we keep hoping. 

On the other hand, no hope at all isn’t any better. Living with no hope is no life. It’s just baneful. 

Yet that’s what the people of God did for hundreds of years: hoped. Hoped for the Messiah. Hoped for a Savior. Hoped for a sign of life from the dead stump called the root of Jesse. And their hope did not fail them. 

So we continue to hope. We hope for big things like the return of our Soon and Coming King. And we hope for smaller things like a parking spot near the doors of the store. Hope is the bane of mankind. But in so many ways, it’s the only hope we’ve got.

So today, the alarm went off again, and I had this thought—I should blog, but I don’t have anything to blog about. And that’s when it struck me again. A lot of times in life we have to do things when we don’t feel like doing them.

The reality is that I like to write, and I think I have a talent in writing. It’s something that I want to develop and use in an extraordinary way. And the only way to do it is to keep writing, when I don’t have anything to write and when I don’t feel like writing.

Janelle and I were talking about this same thing. If you are waiting for pursuing your passion to be easy or convenient, you’ll always be waiting. It reminds me of a verse in Ecclesiastes (always an interesting book to contemplate). It says, “Whoever watches the wind will not plant; whoever looks at the clouds will not reap.” Or in a different version, “Don’t sit there watching the wind. Do your own work. Don’t stare at the clouds. Get on with your life.”

So it’s not like it’s a new thought, but it’s what I’ve got to write today. So what’s your passion? Now, get on with it.

A young man was playing college football, and, although he was on the team, he had not displayed enough talent or passion to be named as a starter for the team. As the end of the season drew near, the team found themselves playing for the conference championship. While the coaches and players prepared that week, the young man found out his father had died. At the end of a practice, the grieving player walked into the coach’s office; naturally, the coach was surprised to see him. The coach asked, “What are you doing here?” And the young man replied, “Coach, I need to play this weekend. Please start me for the game.” Understandably the coach denied the players request: he had never been a starter and this was the conference championship. But the player would not be denied so he asked to be in the game for the kickoff, and the coach agreed. On the opening kickoff, the young man was the first defender to reach the receiver, and he tackled him with such fury that the shocked coach left him in the game. At the end of the game, the player finished with 12 tackles and had played the game of his life. The coach had to ask why the player had performed so well. The football player replied, “Coach, you know my dad died. But he was blind. Today was the first game that he could watch me play.”

Wow. That’s a story. And it reminded me of so many things, but I’ll just talk about one. Hebrews 12:1, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” It matters to us who is watching. You see that cute guy or girl, so you suck the gut in. The boss walks into the room, so you make sure you look like you’re working hard. The cop pulls up behind your car, so you make sure you obey all the traffic rules. It matters to us who is watching.

And they are some great people watching your life. Don’t let your best potential and passion be left in the corner because you are waiting for someone to watch to bring out you’re A-game. There is someone watching, so let them see all you’ve got.

This inevitably leads to a little white lie we tell ourselves: I could do it all if I had more time. So we work harder trying to get more time because if we work hard enough than we will suddenly have created more time. Yet over and over again, we work harder only to find more work. In truth, a lot of it isn’t more work, but just more busyness.

Which leads to the next lie, which is more destructive: I will never have the time to slow down. So we just keep going, accepting this busyness as our lot in life. At least that’s how it has worked in my mind. So I have said things like this: “Tired people run the world,” or, “You can sleep when you’re dead.” The problem is it’s not true, and, just like any other falsehood, the acid of the counterfeit corrodes and eats away at our lives.

This all came crashing upon me in this past week. I was sitting in the mountains looking for deer. I came upon a beautiful spot where I could just sit and wait. So I looked at my watch, told myself to wait an hour, and sat down. So I sat. I looked around. I spied through the binoculars. I noticed the trees and examined the clouds. I sat. And I sat. And I sat. Finally, after a prolonged period I thought to myself, “I’ve been here forever. I wonder how much time is left.” So I glanced at my watch to see that a whole 5 minutes had passed by. That’s it. 5 minutes! My prolonged period of time turned out to be really nothing at all.

I had the same experience over and over again throughout the week, waiting for eternity to discover only 5 minutes had passed. Then it dawned on me: God’s given me plenty of time. We are time-bound creatures that have difficulty imagining the One who stands outside of time. But God has given us plenty of time, for everything: work, chores, family, rest, breath, all of it.

It’s not that God hasn’t given me enough time; it’s that I am not understanding time correctly. So I determined to use my time differently, but as I write this I realize the first thing I did when I got back was fill up my schedule for the week (I guess I haven’t quite learned it yet).

Freedom stands at the heart of the Gospel. One day, Jesus stood in the synagogue and asked everyone to unroll their scrolls to Isaiah, and he read: The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor. Then he boldy, matter-of-factly said, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” This is the Jesus-version of FREEDOM! Our Gospel, our good news, is that there is freedom, and it’s already been fought for. It is available to all who choose it. FREEDOM!

Most times, we look at this and think that we are now free from sin, which we are, but that does not encompass the freedom in which we live. Paul wrote to the Galatians and said, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free,” and he was not talking about sin. He was writing to people who had already been saved—Paul was there when they accepted the Gospel. He is writing to people who are already Christians and reminding them that Christ has proclaimed freedom. In the case of the Galatians, it was freedom from being obligated to restrictions and to the pressure of others. You can be free from sin, yet not living in the freedom of the gospel.

Christians should proclaim freedom. Our lives should demonstrate freedom. Our gospel must be one of freedom, not just free from sin, but living in freedom. To be honest, when you’re in the midst of sin freedom doesn’t sound all that appealing. For the most part, sinning is fun and feels good (at least for a while and sometimes a long while), so being free from sin may not be the most effective argument for the gospel. Many times, it’s not until we are out of sin that we recognize the effect it was having and would have in our lives. In addition to being free from sin, our lives must demonstrate the freedom from earning God’s favor, the freedom of grace, the freedom from low self-esteem, the freedom from other’s crushing expectations, the freedom from addiction, the freedom from randomness, purposelessness, and mediocrity, and on and on.

It is for freedom that you have been set free. From from what? It’s different for you than it is for me, but I want to bask in it, run in it, enjoy every bit of it. I want people to look at my life and say, “I want to be as free as him,” If people are not shocked, puzzled, and inspired by our freedom perhaps we are missing out on the fullness of the gospel that was proclaimed so many years ago. How are you more free in the kingdom of God than someone who has yet to join the kingdom of God? How is your life, like William Wallace, proclaiming—FREEDOM!?