There is a saying that was popular in the early days of the church. Paul called it a “trustworthy saying” in a letter to Timothy: “If we died with Him, we will also live with Him; if we endure, we will also reign with Him. If we disown Him, He will disown us; if we are faithless, He will remain faithful, for He cannot disown Himself.” (2 Timothy 2:11-13)

Have you ever come to Christmas season, caught yourself singing, “O Come All Ye Faithful,” and wondered: “Who’s that? Who can say they have been totally faithful to Christ?” If we were honest, could anyone say they were entirely faithful in their walk with God? I would want to add, “Compared to what?” because “faithful” would have to be a relative thing. We all fail Him from time to time. We all struggle with faith. We all prove to be unfaithful partners with God.

In other words, if our security with God depended on our faithfulness to Him, I’m afraid we would all be in bad shape; but the good news is: our security with God depends on His faithfulness to us.

Jesus chided his disciples for having “little faith,” but He did not kick them off the team for it. He called His followers an “unbelieving generation,” but He did not abandon them. And in spite of the saying above about disowning those who disown Him, Jesus apparently made an exception to that rule for Peter, who on three occasions disowned having any part of Christ. He later forgave Peter and accepted him back.

As we come to the end of another year, I’m sure we can all recall times when we struggled with faith, had a hard time finding it, or perhaps found ourselves unfaithful to God. Some may be in such a place right now. This is a time to worship God for His faithfulness to us. We may have let go of Him, but He will never let go of us, because we are His, and He cannot disown what belongs to Him.

So for us, faith is a relative thing. We all struggle with our own demons. Maybe for you, “faithful” means you’re ready to get yourself back in the fold. Can’t think of a better time to do it with a New Year coming up.

“O come all ye faithful…” and not so faithful, too! The most important thing is to come!

When my children were younger, we lived in a small Massachusetts town where we developed an unusual family tradition around the Christmas Eve service at our church. Since the church was only two blocks away, we would always walk to and from this service, regardless of the weather. The cold night air and the Christmas lights all added to the festivity of the evening. Of course if snow was on the ground or in the air, that just made it even more special.

The service always ended with a candle-lighting ceremony accompanied by the singing of “Silent Night.” For this, each person received a small, hand-held candle as he or she came in, and at the appropriate time, the church was darkened and the pastor would light one candle on the front row, from which the whole room would soon be glowing as the flame was passed on from person to person.

What made it especially unique was the fact that the pastor’s candle was lit from the advent candelabra – whose flame had also passed from candle to candle representing the weeks of advent, culminating in the large Christmas Eve candle in the middle that was lit at the beginning of this service. So you could trace this flame back from the beginning of advent.

This is where our own family tradition took over. We wouldn’t blow out our candles at the end of the service as everyone else did. We figured that if the light had lasted that long, it deserved better treatment. So we would keep our candles going after the service and all the way home to light our own Yule log that was waiting in the fireplace. It became very symbolic. From advent candle to living room fire – from spiritual fire to home fire burning – this light always started our Christmas hope.

I remember the year the wind was so cold and strong that we all had to huddle tightly to keep our candles from going out – slowly inching our way against the storm, lighting and relighting from whoever had their flame still burning, our backs to the wind, and our faces barely glowing in the flickering wick. We had a couple close calls that year and it was our 7-year-old daughter who for some reason kept her candle going for the rest of us.

I’ve always cherished this memory as a picture of faith and fellowship – how we pass the light of faith on to each other and how when we stick together, everyone is important. Sometimes the smallest and weakest keep the light burning.

My wife is a list person. She loves making lists; it gives her a sense of organization. Over the holidays with gift lists, dinner lists, and event lists, she is in list heaven.

As far as gift lists are concerned, we’ve made ours, checked it at least twice, and found out again how it’s more blessed to give than to receive. Not only more blessed, but more fun as well. Think of the favorite gift you gave this year versus the favorite gift you received and which brought you greater joy?

Whenever we give, we are partaking in the nature of God. It is not naturally human to give; it is entirely God-like. If there were any value in the commercialism of Christmas, it would be this. It gets us thinking about what someone else might like for a change, and it gets us giving. We spend our money on someone else. We enter into someone else’s life; we make someone else important. And since giving is one of the things that lends purpose to our lives, it would be wise to carry over some of what we experienced this holiday season and see how we can incorporate more of this sensitivity into our daily lives—keeping in mind that giving is an attitude and an action based on it. It doesn’t have to be a material gift. It can be the gift of our time or talents—even our thoughts.

Our family loves the Christmas Carol story by Charles Dickens that we see every year in so many different forms. The contrast between being a miser and a giver is the theme of this story, and it is a part of the value of this season for me because I am a miser at heart. Being reminded every year of the joy and value of lavish giving is part of the Christmas season well worth carrying on into the next year. Satan’s lie is that the more we hold onto, the more we will have, when the opposite is the truth. The more we give away, the fuller and richer life will be. Hopefully it won’t take the visits of three ghosts to get this.

Whenever we give we are tapping into the life of God. It would be good to think about the joy of giving we experienced this Christmas and look for what of this we can carry on into the New Year. Maybe we shouldn’t stop making lists. Keep those lists going. Keep thinking along the lines of what others need. Keep thinking about how we can surprise the people we love. My wife—the list person—would like that.

“For you have been called to live in freedom – not freedom to satisfy your sinful nature, but freedom to serve one another in love.” Galatians 5:13

What will you use your freedom for?It’s an important question, since one of the greatest things about being born again is the freedom that comes from the Spirit of God. “And wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, he gives freedom.” (2 Corinthians 3:17)

In Christ we have been set free from the power and the penalty of sin, free from trying to earn God’s favor, free from the insatiable need to please ourselves, and free to know the truth. Even though we may not be aware of all these freedoms, they are nonetheless true and available to each of us by faith.

But the question Paul addressed in Galatians is what we use this freedom for. He suggests that we use this freedom to lovingly serve each other.

Notice the things we have been set free from, they all revolve around the self. Think about it. Most of us have spent the better part of our lives getting all the attention. Even the guilt, self-pity, and regret we love to wallow in are all about us. Imagine freeing up the thinking time we put into self-indulgence – feeling guilty, judging others to feel better by comparison, and figuring out how to please our selfish desires – and imagine spending that time on someone else.

First you will need to remind yourself of your freedom in Christ because forgetting that is what gets us stuck in the first place. Then use that freed-up time to identify with what someone else is going through and plan how you can serve him or her.

If being free to serve sounds like an oxymoron, it’s only because we have all become so used to being in bondage we can’t imagine being free. But free to serve is what we were meant to be. It’s how we become useful to God.

Next time you catch yourself absorbed in you-know-who, stop and think about what you can do for someone around you. Remember your freedom in Christ and spend it on others. Think about what their needs might be – ask them, if you don’t know – and serve them in love. It’s time for someone else to get our attention for a change.

Question: How can you share heart for the Lord through through serving your community?

Mister Rogers was right after all: There is only one you. But this information is much more important than to just be boosting your self-esteem. It is to help you better serve others by being more confident about your God-given role in life.

No one else fits your shape. No one else has your blend of gifts, talents and natural abilities—making you very important in the whole scheme of things. “God made our bodies with many parts,” wrote Paul, “and He has put each part just where He wants it” (1 Corinthians 12:18). And as it is with the human body, so it is with the Body of Christ — the corporate collection of all who believe.

But this uniqueness goes beyond giftedness; it reaches as well into the depth of each of our experiences in life. No one else has your life. No one else has your pain, your hardship, your joys and sorrows. Everything in life shapes us and we are shaped by everything for a reason: so that we can touch others in a unique way based upon who we are and what we’ve been through. God doesn’t waste anything in our lives.

Every piece of our lives and experiences can be used of Christ to touch someone else. We were made for each other; we live for each other; we even die for each other. We die with hope so that others who live might see the reality of Christ in even the darkest of hours. God uses everything.

Are you just getting by, or are you living for a reason? Think about your unique gifts and ask yourself how those gifts are benefiting others. What specific way is God using you to touch others in the Body of Christ?

Do you seem to have an extra measure of wisdom, or mercy, or discernment, or knowledge, or administration, or desire to serve? These will help determine how you can look for opportunities to help others.

And then think about the things you have gone through so far in your life—especially the difficult or challenging things where God has met you with His presence and power. That information is not just for you, it’s for you to empathize with and encourage others who have encountered similar struggles.

God isn’t messing around here. There are no accidents with our lives. Whatever we have received and experienced has shaped who we are, and because of that, we are qualified servants. There is truly no one else like you … for a reason.

Question: How has God crafted you uniquely, to make you uniquely you?

“Jesus once set a guilty woman free from her accusers by showing that the people who were judging her were just as guilty of sin as she was. “All right, stone her,” He said to the religious leaders who were ready with stones in hand, to deliver the judgment she indeed deserved. “But let those who have never sinned throw the first stones”” John 8:7, NLT

This incident shows us something very important about our purpose as Christians living in a world of sinners. Our job is not to throw judgment upon sinners, but to identify with them. The Pharisees and religious leaders were trying to separate themselves from this sinful woman they had found in the act of committing adultery. By judging her they were going to be able to feel much better about themselves. Jesus put a stop to their little charade by putting them in the same boat with the woman they were accusing. They were just as guilty.

It is so tempting to think, especially after being a Christian for a while and spending a lot of time around Christians, that you are better than other people. You start to separate yourself from sinners, forgetting it was your sin that brought you to Christ in the first place. I know this because I’m so good at it.

The gospel comes best from people who identify with the sins of others, because they have become so familiar with their own sin. It is noted in the account that as the self-righteous leaders were convicted by the presence of sin in their own lives, “they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest” (John 8:9 NLT). That makes sense. The oldest would be the ones most aware of their own sinfulness. There comes a time in your life when you can’t fool yourself anymore. There were probably a few young, arrogant idealists who hung on as long as possible, but even they had to finally give in to the truth about their own guilt.

The proliferation of both spoken and unspoken judgment found primarily within Christians, has forced many into the world, unarmed and without a known Christian friend and mutual sinner. We are constantly trying to separate ourselves from a world that Jesus wants us in. Not only that, He wants us to see our own sin and not make such a big fuss over everyone else’s. Our sin nature is our connection with our neighbor, our salvation is our hope, and the good news of the gospel is our message.

Sinners can spot a mile away the hypocrisy of proclaiming a gospel about the forgiveness of everyone’s sins but your own.

Question: Jesus preached more about hypocrisy than most other topics; do you see hypocrisy in the church (or yourself) and how can we (and you) start correcting this?

“You believe because you have seen me. Blessed are those who haven’t seen me and believe anyway.” John 20:29

‘There is no question that there is an unseen world. The problem is, how far is it from midtown and how late is it open?’– Woody Allen

Christians believe there is an unseen world that in some ways is more real than the one we see. Not that the one we see isn’t real, but the unseen world sometimes is thought of as being more important because of its permanence. The unseen one will last forever; this one is temporary, and yet for now, this temporary one is our reality.

That’s why I like Woody Allen’s question about how far the unseen world is from us and how late it stays open. In other words: How accessible is this unseen world? I think he may be on to something. As the saying goes: Some Christians are so heavenly minded, they’re of no earthly good.

The Gospel is all about caring for the real human needs of people, not just about getting them into heaven.
Suppose you see a brother or sister who needs food or clothing, and you say, “Well, goodbye and God bless you; stay warm and eat well,” but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do? So you see, it isn’t enough just to have faith. Faith that doesn’t show itself by good deeds is no faith at all – it is dead and useless. (James 2:17)

Jesus Christ brought the Good News of the Kingdom of heaven to earth, but he didn’t just touch down for a momentary appearance. Sometimes we forget he carried on a ministry here for three years. He connected with and did something about the suffering needs of the sick, dying, and mentally ill. Faith in action brings two worlds together.

The reality of heaven doesn’t make earth less real or less important. If our longing for heaven and focus on eternity is disengaging us from earth, we should probably check and see if we have the right heaven. If we have the right heaven, the opposite should happen. The more committed we are to heaven (the more we get an eternal perspective on life), the more deeply we will be committed to this life and those around us. Heaven brings meaning to earth, not an escape. It brings dignity to every human being, a reason for our existence and a desire to want to connect everyone to God.

When Jesus came, one of the first things he did was announce that the Good News of the Kingdom of heaven had come. Heaven is at hand. Let’s live in such a way as to show people like Mr. Allen that the unseen world is right around the corner, and what’s more, it stays open all night.

Question: Have you observed anyone whose faith didn’t seem to make a difference in their lives? How did that make you feel?

Your mission is to live your life.

In 1 Corinthians 7, the Apostle Paul addresses believers who are married to unbelievers, and outlines a general rule that if the unbelieving spouse chooses to stay in the marriage, it would be good for the believer to stay, too. He gives two reasons for this: First, the children will have a godly influence through the believing parent, and second, the unbeliever may be converted “because of you.” (1 Corinthians 7:16) (Exceptions to this rule would of course be situations of abuse and endangerment of a spouse or child.)

Just what does he mean by “because of you,” I wonder? Does it mean you are on a personal crusade to save your spouse? Does it mean that you will preach the Gospel to your spouse at every possible opportunity? Does it mean you will turn your house into a religious institution that coerces your spouse to either put up with Christianity or leave? No, it doesn’t mean any of these things.

It means simply what it says: “… because of you” – because of who you are, because of how you live, because of the way your faith affects everything you do, because of the way you carry on your life, because of the reality of Christ in your life. That’s it. No more; but certainly, no less. Paul is suggesting that living your life with a sense of purpose that comes from your faith in God is enough to convert someone.

It occurs to me that this could be applied to all believers in relation to life in the world among people with whom we work and associate who are not believers. General rule: Don’t leave the world. (Where would you go anyway?) Stay in the world – in relationships with unbelievers – for the chance that someone may be converted “because of you.”

We are not on a crusade; we are on a mission to live our lives according to God’s purposes. When we do that, we make possible an environment of change where a person who does not have a meaningful relationship with God might become curious about someone who does. “Because of you” is a statement of subtle influence, not coercion, and in the context of Paul’s advice in 1 Corinthians 7, it is a steady influence over time, as would be implied by a marriage. There’s nothing complex or even premeditated about a “because of you” influence. This is a believer going about the process of believing; and this is an unbeliever going over their life with a microscope, observing the good, the bad, and the ugly. Does not matter if God is there.

Thought for the day: Don’t ever sell short what God can do “because of you.”

About this Author: John Fischer

I have done a good deal of thinking and writing about Pharisees (probably because I understand them so well) and one comment that Jesus made about them stands out to me: “Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20)

Such a statement would have come as a shock to the general Jewish populace who considered the Pharisees as perched atop the religious hierarchy. It certainly would have come as a shock to the Pharisees themselves, who took pride in looking down from there. These people spent all their time being righteous. They were scrupulous about this, and in so doing, they set the bar for everyone else. They were the righteous professionals. To disqualify them and everyone under them, as Jesus did, put righteousness out of everyone’s reach.

Which, of course, was the whole idea. This was not a statement to make people try harder to be holy. It was a statement to persuade people to give up trying. If Jesus was rejecting the best that the best could do, then who could possibly stand a chance of being good enough to get into heaven? No one. And isn’t that the point Jesus was trying to make? Only sinners get saved; only the lost can be found. The Pharisees were too good for heaven, too good for grace, too good for the gift of salvation.

True righteousness is something that can only come from Christ, and it comes through the admission of our own unrighteousness and a total dependence upon God to make us clean. What He wants is way beyond us and we cannot begin any real growth without realizing this. Our goodness comes through faith in what Christ has done for us on the cross in forgiving our sins and in giving us His Spirit. It is that Spirit that begins to work on our insides, changing us from the inside out, and the good that comes from this is so clearly outside our ability to manufacture it as to leave us as surprised as anyone.

I’ve often heard the objection to becoming a Christian on the grounds of Christianity being a crutch. I always laugh when I hear that because if that’s all faith is, I wouldn’t be a Christian either. Did Jesus endure a brutal death on a cross just so he could hand us a crutch to help us along? I don’t think so. We weren’t just stumbling along without Jesus; we were dead. Christianity isn’t a crutch; it’s an iron lung. It’s a cure for cancer. It’s a heart transplant.

Question: Have you ever heard someone derisively refer to faith as “just a crutch”? How did you (or how can you) respond to such an accusation?

I have a good friend whose daughter has a fantastic singing voice and is sailing through a bunch of open doors in the music business in L.A. and Hollywood. It has thrown her, as a Christian, into a largely non-Christian world, and my friend called me today to record his appreciation for the things I have been discussing here lately in regards to our purpose-driven mission as Christians in the world.

In light of this, he told me how his daughter is often asked to answer questions like “Are you one of those born again Christians?” to which she responds, “Well, what do you mean by ‘born again?’” Pretty consistently the answer she gets to that question prompts her to say, “Well if that’s what you mean, no, I’m not.” What then transpires is an opportunity for her to tell what she does believe. Inevitably, people are more interested in her definition, and are much more willing to accept her as a Christian.

I suppose she could answer the “born again” question in the affirmative and end the discussion right there, but nothing would be gained.

Her open-ended response is wise for two reasons.

1) It gives her an opportunity to correct what wrong impressions people have of Christianity.

2) It allows her to tell her own story and put the meaning of her faith into her own words.

Talking about Jesus needs to be more about meanings than about words, anyway. As Christians we get so wrapped up in words that we don’t stop to consider what meanings our words are conveying. That’s why we need to ask questions instead of just giving answers. I think sometimes we hide behind words because then we don’t have to think about the meaning of what we say. We can just say it, go on our way, and feel justified for having said the right thing.

Memorized phrases and stock words only mean something to those who are already members of the Christian club. They provide a certain security against not knowing what to say. On the other hand, if you have a living, vibrant relationship with God through Christ, you will never be at a loss for words when asked about your faith. It will be the most natural thing to talk about, and you will be able to phrase your response in terms that will take into account the person you are talking to.

Next time someone asks if you are a Christian, ask what he or she means by “Christian.” You might just have the chance for a real conversation, and in the process, find out what you really believe!

“Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” (Colossians 4:5-6)

Question: How do you respond when asked about your faith?