Christmas is over, now what?

We are now over one month post-Christmas and life has settled back into our normal routines.  Life continues like nothing happened.  But something did happen; we celebrated Christmas and the mysteries of Emmanuel and the Incarnation.  The whole course of human history changed with Jesus's missions trip to Earth.

If Christmas is not a Civil War reenactment and Jesus has truly come into the world, my life today should look different than it did on 12/24/2012.  But how?  Now what?

We must allow the truth of Jesus' coming, dying, and resurrecting to permeate our lives.  Every aspects; every nook and cranny.  We have to live with the truth our world and our lives will never be the same, nor should we allow ourselves to complacently think so.

Where to begin?  When Jesus was about ready to beam back up to Heaven in Acts 1 He lays out the next stage in His plan for global domination/reconciliation saying "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all of Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." (Acts 1:8).  We see Peter in John 21 trying to go back to fishing, to his old life.  But Jesus follows him there and calls Peter back into the identity Jesus has for him.  Instead of returning to our old lives of 2012 let us seek Holy Spirit and God's power to be His witnesses here, there, and the world.

With this call to be Jesus's witnesses we cannot afford to stay in our Jerusalems.  I don't want to sonud too dramatic, but the Greek word for "witness" is "martyr", and our call is to martyrdom in whatever forms this may take.  Sharing the Gospel is risky.  It has always been risky.  It will always be risky.  We cannot wait for a "better opportunity" because such a thing will never come.

If we are truly honest with ourselves and with God, we will realize God loves us and God cares about us, but God also loves and cares about everyone else around the world too.  God in His goodness never promised His disciples safety.  Jesus never guaranteed comfort.  In fact He assures us of quite the opposite (Mt 24:9-14, Mk 13:9-13, Lk 21:12-19).  But Jesus did promise to be with us.  "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age" (Mt 28:20).  We may lose in life, we may suffer, but we will never be abandoned.  This is the mystery of Emmanuel; even now in 2013 God is still with us.

My motivation is not based on a guilt-trip, it is rooted in my Jesus who is with me.  He has called us not only to be reconciled with Him, but also to be agents of reconciliation.  We are Christ's ambassadors to this world (2 Cor 5:19-20).

We have to take the Gospel to the world.  We have to live to see God's Kingdom advanced.  This Advent season the Lord continually reminded me of the billions of people on Earth who have never heard of Jesus's first Advent.  We have to see the Gospel taken to the unreached people groups and the far corners of the globe.  Jesus said the "Gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations(ethnic groups), and then the end will come." (Mt 24:14) and we need to take His statement seriously.

May your 2013 be an excellent and Jesus-y year.  May this year not be just another lap around the Sun, but see God's Kingdom come and His will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.