I have been thinking about a phrase from one of the college gals we worked with the summer of 2017 at a youth camp. She was a little spitfire of a thing and fiercely loved Jesus. When someone talked about possibly dating someone or being with someone, she challenged them with these words, “Does he or she push you closer to Jesus?” It’s a fair question. One that usually has a follow up question to explain how. And that goes for anyone we are spending time with. Those that we allow inside our circle. Those we give access to. Who are those people for us? Those that have that key of access to our hearts, our thinking, our souls, our faith.
A convicting, challenging, question and yet, one that needs to be answered. Are my conversations peppered with the encouragement of the Word? Am I engaging people in prayer, either with them or over them? Do we ask the questions that spur us onward in our relationship with God? Am I, are you, moving closer to Jesus so we can help others?
In this time of Advent, it is a perfect conversation to have. Are we anticipating the presence of God in our lives through the true historical miracle of God becoming man? What of all this excites us, humbles us, and empowers us? How does this truth impact my ministry and the people we touch everyday? Do we pause in awe of this miracle? This quote from J.I. Packer’s book, Knowing God, struck me deeply-
“The real staggering Christian claim is that Jesus of Nazareth was God made man-that the second person of the Godhead became the ‘second man’ (1 Cor. 15:47), determining human destiny, the second representative head of the race, and that He took humanity without lose of deity, so that Jesus of Nazareth was as truly fully divine as He was human…It is here, in the thing that happened at the first Christmas, that the profoundest and most unfathomable depths of the Christian revelation lie. ‘The Word was made flesh’ (John 1:14); God became man; the divine Son became a Jew; the Almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, unable to do more than lie and stare and wriggle and make noises, needing to be fed and changed and taught to talk like any other child. And there was no illusion or deception in this: the babyhood of the Son of God was a reality. The more you think about it, the more staggering it gets. Nothing in fiction is so fantastic as this truth of the incarnation.”
It is this Jesus we seek. And may we sit in the profound truth of His coming to earth. May a new sense of awe grip us and move us toward the One wise men sought so long ago.
