Corby Stephens

I don’t know about you, and I don’t mean to be a big holiday downer, but this year Christmas has lost any magic or charm it may have held for me in the past. And you know what? I’m not sad about that. Because none of the magic or charm was every about Jesus. It was about pretty trees, peppermint mochas, decorations, stockings, presents, and food of course.

I used to believe that Jesus was the reason for the season. Now I’m not so sure. Yes, I get that it’s the time of year we celebrate Jesus’ birth, and if He had never been born He never could have died on the cross and rose from the dead thus providing a way of salvation for us from our sin. I also get that there’s no way He was born in December, that the early church never observed the day of His birth, and that the reality of who Jesus is is being watered down to the point that He is becoming more acceptable to mainstream culture. It’s been a long time since I have seen the phrase, “Merry Christmas” on so many big signs in so many big stores.

Jesus was born to die and to live again. More than that, Jesus was born to die, to live again, and to live in us and through us. God has provided a way for us to die to ourselves and be clean vessels for Him. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleans us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9.) Having been cleansed, we get to be continually filled with the Spirit of God. We get to be temples of the Holy Spirit walking around in this world. We get to be Jesus’ hands, feet, mouth, and face to the world around us, not expressing condemnation, but the representation of God’s love and offer of cleansing for others.

Christmas isn’t just about the baby in the manger. It’s also about the Man on the cross, the Risen Savior, the sending of the Spirit into your heart and mine, so that we can be set apart as “His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” That can be simply sharing a word of comfort to someone who is hurting, to laying down your life for the Gospel.

Through all the noise and static that surrounds what happened in a barn/cave 2000 years ago, I hope that Christmas doesn’t get reduced to a nativity scene for you. My hope is that we can all put Jesus on the throne of our lives and let Him live His life through us.

Merry Christmas (and every other day of the year)!

This article was posted on FoxNews.com. The first three paragraphs are what caught my attention.

WASHINGTON — With all that growing weight up front, how is it that pregnant women don’t lose their balance and topple over?

Scientists think they’ve found the answer: There are slight differences between women and men in one lower-back vertebra and a joint in the hip, which allow women to adjust their center of gravity.

This elegant evolutionary engineering is seen only in female humans and our immediate ancestors who walked on two feet, but not in chimps and apes, according to a study published in Thursday’s journal Nature.

The first two paragraphs are fine. Scientific question followed by scientific observation. That’s as it should be. It’s that third paragraph where we leap from science to science fiction. “Evolutionary engineering.” Seriously? Did they really just say that? How does a process that relies on mutations (which are losses of information) produce something that is engineered? Something that’s engineered is something that has intelligence, thought, and information put into it. A bridge is engineered. A computer is engineered. They are engineered by people with degrees. How does a series of mindless, unintentional, accidents produce something engineered? And then, how does one prove these changes over time? How does one prove that a specific line of offspring carried these changes and passed them on? It cannot scientifically be done.

Don’t get me wrong. I have no doubt that what these people are talking about was engineered. No question about it. It was engineered by God. The fact that these scientists suggest that this spine and hip system was engineered indicates that it is so well done that something was behind it making it happen. There is an intelligent being that has made His existence known to us. He told us that He made us. It just seems so obvious. Can it be scientifically proven? Nope. But this view makes much more sense of the information. It’s much more consistent with real observational science.

When you come across a book, you don’t automatically conclude that a warehouse with paper, ink, glue, cardboard, and stitching exploded and produced that book. When you come across a car, you don’t automatically conclude that a bunch of different kinds of metal, plastic, oil products, rubber, wood, and paint randomly came together and made a car. Why is it that we try to suggest that biological systems millions of times more intricate and complicated (and self-replicating) came into being by accident? It makes zero sense.

In the beginning, God created. All of it. Why? For His pleasure. It just makes sense.

Cheap grace. Greasy grace. That’s what some Christians label the kind of salvation offered by those of us who say that one must simply believe to be saved. But like many things, it really depends on the perspective from which one views these things.

From the human perspective.
From our side of things, grace, forgiveness, salvation, whichever you prefer to call it, isn’t cheap. It’s free. And as local home electronics and home furnishings mogul Tom Peterson likes to say, “Free is a very good price.” We can’t earn it. We can’t buy it. It’s impossible. We can’t even do anything to keep it or lose it. God’s laws were never intended to save mankind or provide a way to heaven. They cannot purify mankind of his sin. The issue isn’t what we have done but what we are. It’s one of nature. We don’t sin and become a sinner, we sin because we are sinner. So God’s grace isn’t cheap, it’s free.

From God’s perspective.
From God’s side of things, grace, forgiveness, salvation, whichever you prefer to call it, isn’t cheap. Its cost is beyond our capability to comprehend. It cost God His Son. From the moment Jesus was crucified and resurrected, He was fundamentally different from what He was before.
Jesus went through life on this Earth, was falsely accused, was murdered, physically died, took on the sin of all mankind (2 Cor. 5:21) and became sin for us, then was resurrected. Jesus still has a resurrected, glorified body that, while it is far superior to the bodies we have now, is different from what He was before.

For us, God’s grace isn’t cheap. It’s free. For God, His grace isn’t cheap. It cost everything.

Cheap grace? Whatever.

Ryan Couch (and anyone who went to CCBC during the Twin Peaks years) can attest that the phrase/verse “Don’t despise the day of small things” was ground into our heads for a reason. Back in the day I felt like the ministry/servanthood required course was forced slave labor. Some people cleaned the conference rooms. Some people set-up and cleaned-up for the conference center meals. Some people did security. And whenever someone started to gripe, someone else would whip out, “Don’t despise the day of small things.”

“I didn’t come here to place silverware and napkins. I came hear to study God’s word so I could go out one day and teach it to God’s people. What does doing any of this for five to eight days a week have to do with that?” Short answer; everything. For example. We recently changed the name of our church. This means that some signage needed to be changed. We are a small church which means to do stuff on the cheap while trying not to look cheap. We have six signs that we put out every week to direct people to the place we rent on Sundays. Six signs, two sides, basically 12 signs. Tonight, my wife and I spent about two hours with a blow dryer and our finder nails removing the vinyl lettering of our old name and web address and putting the new stuff on. Putting on is easy. Removing is a “small thing.”

As we were doing this that verse came to mind. I had to stop and remind her of that lesson learned. Not that she was complaining or needed reminding. It was more like, “I guess they knew what they were talking about.” Ministry can really be about the small things. Folding bulletins. Making a diaper run for the nursery because you have the church plastic. Setting up and taking down chairs when no one else can make it. Redoing your own signage. It would be really easy to say, “This is stupid. Why am I doing this? I’m the (fill in the blank).” But that isn’t what Jesus did. He, too, did not despise the day of small things.

Walk as He walked.