Rings and Other Lost Things

One of my biggest pet peeves is losing something. It drives me nuts. Because of this I usually try to take extra special care to know where I put my stuff. Unfortunately life is not always so accommodating to such a desire.

When I do lose something I can almost always find it by retracing my day one step at a time until I realize the moment that I became separated from it. Case in point: just this morning I realized that I had misplaced my wedding ring.

I went back through my morning one step at a time. Where did I lose it? What was I doing? Did it happen when I was getting ready? No. Did I lose it on my morning run? I had it when I got home, I had it after I cleaned up. Then it hit me. I took off my ring when I was changing my son's diaper. I went to his room and sure enough there it was in the floor near where I changed him.

My relationship with God can be looked at in much the same way. Like my cherished ring, that relationship is very dear to me. It is the most important thing in my life. But there are times when I know in my selfishness that I allow other things to come between me and God, that is the stuff we call sin. And all of us do it. We all allow something to cause us to be separated from God. Sometimes it is willful sin. Something we do intentionally. Other times it is something we do wrong by not doing something right. That means we omit the right thing. All of it is something that has potential to drive a wedge between us and God.

We were all lost. We can retrace our steps through the human history found in the Old Testament Book of Genesis. There we see that the moment of separation came when our first parents, Adam and Eve, willfully sinned against God. And each of us have played some kind of role in following them in that.

"For all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God." - Romans 3:23

Here is the awesome part. We know our moment of separation as a people. We also know our own personal moments of separation. And this is our window of opportunity to realize that God has provided a means to account for this. He has restored us in His power, like only He can. We were lost. We chose lostness. But God has made it so that we can each be found again. All we have to do is acknowledge our need for his restoration, and ask for His help. And the best part is that once we allow ourselves to be found God has told us that nothing would ever separate us from His love again.

"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." - Romans 8:38-39 NIV

January 5 - Family Tree

Read: Mathew 1: 1-17

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, Abba! Father! The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. (Romans 8:14-17 ESV)

Family can be a tricky thing. Sometimes personal genealogies are really difficult to understand or research. One of the unique qualities of the Old Testament is the staggering amount of detail it provides about the life of the Jews and their relationship with God. This is the people God chose to use bring the Messiah, Jesus, into the world.

The insight into the lives and times of these people is incredibly encouraging. It can speak volumes into our lives today. Each were imperfect. Some were deeply flawed. Many of them made an incredible turn around to pursue life with God. Abraham was at times a coward. Rahab was a prostitute turned follower of God. David, who is often called a "man after God's own heart" was a murdering adulterer. And these are just three of the better known examples in Jesus' family tree.

What does your family tree look like? What are the stories? What are the failures? Successes? Sometimes we romanticize the bad in our family. Sometimes we are misinformed. And for many people, they just don't know the details of their family history.

Jesus was perfect. He lived, served, died, and rose again without sin. But he was born into a family line that was anything but perfect. Our families are all far from perfect, but we can be adopted as sons of God, what the Bible calls "coheirs with Christ." This is not to discount the heritage we may enjoy (or not enjoy) here, but so that we can be adopted into the family of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus was hung on a tree so you and I could be part of his eternal family tree.