Thursday - Act On It - The Night That Changed the Wise
We’re been exploring the contrast between the Magi and the Priests and Scribes who advise King Herod. The priests and scribes, the insiders, do nothing, and give nothing to the Messiah they have supposedly studied in depth.
While Magi, the outsiders and travellers, do something and give their gifts of treasure and worship, and make great sacrifices to do so.
None of us here are as powerful as Herod, as knowledgeable as the Magi or Scribes and Pharisees, but as you can see it’s not just about knowledge, it’s about our openness to God acting in our world, even in unexpected ways, that really matters.
We have something to learn from the contrast between the Priests and Scribes and the Magi. Given the same knowledge and experience, the Magi and Priests use it very differently. So we, given knowledge in this world, also have choices as to how we will use them.
We are given the knowledge that the message of Jesus Christ will change the lives of our family and friends for the better. He will transform our world from one ruled over by fear and manipulation to one ruled over by love and peace.
What will we do with it?
Like the priests and scribes, will we have all the info, and do nothing?
Or like the Magi, will we go to all possible lengths to worship this God, giving him our very best gifts?
Giving of our time, resources and even our power, to greet him as our Lord.
So today, with the same history presented to us, we decide how we will go down in history…as knowing much but doing nothing, or as worshipping the true King of love and peace.
Challenge: Explore Jesus this coming year – take c101, get in touch with me. In the process,s you can see if Christian faith is wise, rational, etc. for yourself.
Reminder: We are reading the Bible in sync as one community – so check out today’s reading here.
Reminder: The best way to grow spiritually this year is to join our Christianity 101 in the Cafe Course in Pickering starting January 22nd. Register for you and a friend today!
Read the Bible in Sync Today
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Every family has routines and values, and these are closely connected. Take suburban family life as an example. On the surface, we can see routines: wake, eat, drop-off at daycare/school, commute to work, work, commute home, pickup kids, make and eat dinner, get everyone to bed, and repeat.
But we have to ask what values are behind that. Why do families move to the suburbs? There are choices, you could live in country, or the city. Why here?
For some, it’s where they grew up. Others want to be close to parents, or want their kids to have a yard of a certain size, or to be near nature.
Whatever the values, we chose the routine because of those values.
Yesterday, we saw Jesus shake up his family routine because he was pursuing a higher value. He called it the will of his Father in heaven. We have called these kingdom values, and it can be distilled down to loving God, and loving neighbour.
Jesus is challenging the extended family norms of his day, and replacing them with a new one. A new kind of family. With this new family will come new routines, all because of those founding values.
The other direction works, too.
We are trying to instill some routines in my family like saying a prayer before a meal (grace), asking our son the best and worst part of day, so we can say thanks to God in prayer, and ask for help or say sorry for the low parts of the day. We also read a Bible story and say a prayer at bed. We do this in hopes that our son will learn some values from those routines.
Let’s start simple, and look just at what it means to love God, and love neighbour.
Question: Based on the values of love God, love neighbour, what do you think Jesus’ family routines would be like? What could your immediate family’s routines look like?
This series looks at becoming “like family” with others learning to follow Jesus. We're exploring how the church is not a building, institution or event, but a community of people. It's important that explore what church means as we prepare to launch a new church in Ajax in 2014.
