Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord!

On December 9^th, 2012 my oldest son, Josiah Samuel Asbill, was born again from above as he entered the covenant of faith through water baptism.  My husband and I had spoken with him about it two years ago as we began to see faith becoming real to him.  At the time he said he wasn’t ready but would tell us when he was.  We didn’t push him as we wanted it to be 100% his decision.  Two months ago he came to us and said, “God told me it’s time, and He wants me to be baptized during Advent”.  To be honest my husband and I were a little surprised as this would be our very first time to celebrate Advent (see my article on Advent for that story), but we knew he had heard the Lord.  As we began to study we realized that Advent is a spiritual time of preparation.  A time to prepare your heart with repentance as well as renewing your expectation for the second coming of our Lord.  Each Sunday has different liturgies and scriptures read.  This year the reading for the 2^nd Sunday of Advent (the day of my sons baptism) covered John the Baptist!  John calling on people to repent, and prepare the way of the Lord by being baptized. . .

December 9^th also happened to be the first day of the Feast of Dedication (aka Hanukkah).  The Feast of Dedication is about the cleansing and rededicating of the temple in Jerusalem after it had been destroyed with idols and pagan sacrifice by Antiochus Epiphany.  It may be a Jewish Feast, but that Jewish Feast was celebrated by our Jewish Messiah (see John 10:22-23) as well as his Jewish disciples who encouraged us with these words:

1 Corinthians 6:19 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? 20 For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.

During Hanukkah each year our family remembers to rededicate our lives and temples to the Lord with prayer and repentance. So take all of this in and realize that in a time of year that the world is over-eating, maxing out credit cards, and attending elephant gift exchanges, my ten year old stopped to listen to the voice of the Lord calling him to repentance, cleansing, and dedicating his temple! 

Before the baptism our Pastor spoke a word over him; the Josiah of the Hebrew Scriptures being called as a prophet that called his people to repentance and back to God’s Law.  Our pastor confirmed this as the call on our son’s life (and if you don’t know our Josiah, Pastor Rick hit the nail on the head!).  Josiah was then dressed in a white robe as a symbol of the purity and cleansing of baptism.  Our Pastor took him through a series of questions asked before the entire church about his commitments to serve God, repent of his sins, and walk in the way of the Lord.  As I watched my son go through the “second-birth” I have to say that as a mother it was even more powerful than the experience of his human birth (and less painful!).  When he came up as the new creation the scripture promises our Pastor anointed his head with oil in the form of the cross and then allowed our entire family to place hands on him and bless him.  What I forgot to mention is that not only Roman, myself and our other children were there, so were his Grandparents and Great-Grandmother.  Four generations of those who are called to the House of our God!  Now my grandmother has witnessed the baptism of her children; her children’s children; and her children’s, children’s, children!  Wow!

Psalm 145:4 One generation shall praise Your works to another, And shall declare Your mighty acts.

I share the joy of this day with all of you to present a challenge.  Don’t wait for the New Year to “resolve” to be different.  Follow the example of a ten year old little boy, who opened his heart to hear the Fathers voice and answered.  Take this time to quiet yourselves before your King and ask what ways you need to prepare your temple for His coming!

Matthew 3:3 "The voice of one crying in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord; Make His paths straight.' "

My First Advent

This year my husband came on staff at a Methodist Church so for the very first time we are part of a congregation that celebrates the season of Advent.  For many of you this may seem as no big deal, but for others you may find it just as new and intriguing as I do!  If you are one who, like me, has been kept in the dark about Advent then let me explain. . .

Advent is a season of preparation.  A time to prepare for the coming of a King.  It reminds us of the first time earth prepared to “receive her King”, but it also speaks of a present day preparation for the return of our King.  Advent typically involves a season of prayer, fasting and repentance, followed by anticipation, hope and joy.  How many of us start the holiday season off with a time of  prayer and fasting?  Quite the opposite; most of us start a season of holiday binging just before Thanksgiving and don't let up until January 1st!

To be very honest with you I am not a fan of what Christmas has come to look like in the world.  It seems very self-serving and commercial driven.  In-fact, Americans spent $228.4 BILLION dollars on Christmas last year. As much as we don’t want to admit it, as believers we are just as guilty of giving into all of the bedlam.  Think of how much time and money are spent on trees, gifts, food, parties, and other indulgences.  If we are honest most of us would say that Christmas Day is spent in a frenzy of gifts, rich foods and football.  What about that King we were preparing for?  You know, the One who was born in an animal’s feeding trough.  The One who is completely Divine yet laid down His crown to put on flesh and dwell among sinners.  How much of our time and money is spent on Him in comparison? 

So enter the Advent season.  What if we spent our time and energy preparing ourselves for the coming of our King?  What if we sent $228.4 BILLION dollars to third world countries to put a stop to world hunger?  What if we got up each morning and asked the Lord what we could give HIM, how we could serve HIM.  Think about this for me.  If you knew that KING JESUS was going to show up IN THE FLESH again at the end of this month, how would you prepare for that?  Would you rush to every office “elephant-gift” party you could cram in?  Would you make sure your son had the newest Nintendo DS?  Would you spend the entire day watching 24 hours of Ralphe and his red-rider bb gun?  Or . . .would you take your children to volunteer in a soup kitchen?  How about taking that DS money and giving it to “Operation Christmas Child”?  Instead of 24 hours of Ralphe, how about a 24 hour prayer vigil?   

As I am entering my very first Advent season I leave you with the same question that I am asking myself:

Is my life truly saying: “O’ Come, O’ Come Emmanuel”?

 

A “Thankful” Point of View

 

My personal theme or catch phrase is to live a "Wholly-Holy" life.  My book touches on how we take care of our physical body, but being a wholly-holy person obviously goes far beyond that.  So as Thanksgiving approaches this week, I want to tell you how becoming more whole in my Christian journey is what I am thankful for this year. 

Both my husband and I were raised in Non-Denominational Churches.  We grew up in what would be considered contemporary worship settings.  When we got married we continued the “Non-Denom” world where he was on staff as both a worship leader and associate pastor for a few different churches.  (Not at the same time).  Our experience as believers was a pretty laid back atmosphere with the kind of worship music we hear on K-Love radio.  This is a great atmosphere for many young people as it seems to mesh well with the mood of younger generations.  We felt comfortable in this setting and looked at the traditional “Orthodox” Churches as out of touch and certainly missing the new thing God was trying to do. (Yes, I know, I am telling on myself a lot here).  Then about six years ago the Lord began to shift our vantage point.  He began to take us back to the Hebrew Roots of our faith.  We began and incredible journey of learning about the Jewishness of our Rabbi, Yeshua Ha-Mashiach ; Jesus the Messiah.  We studied the bible from a Hebrew mindset and learned about the Temple service, the Feasts of the Lord, the Sabbath and so on.  We developed a love for Israel and the Lord put it on our heart to start a teaching and support ministry called Word Made Flesh.  Now He had given us a whole new view of the Bible and the God of Abraham.  We began to enjoy hearing liturgical prayers and the rituals of our Judeo/Christian Faith drew us closer and closer to the Jesus we love!  I am so thankful for the relationships God has given us with Orthodox Jews in the Land of Israel who have helped us see God from a whole different view but God wasn’t finished taking us on our vantage-point-tour yet. 

Just a little over a year ago the Lord brought a few key people into our life.  For Roman it was the Pastor of the First United Methodist Church.  For me it was a Catholic friend.  These relationships brought up new topics of conversation for us about God’s Word and about worship.  I had never been to a Catholic service and so my friend invited us to come on Palm Sunday.  . . .my husband and I both cried through the whole service!  From the priest circling the altar with burning incense, to the holy water, to the cantering of the Psalms; the service made perfect sense to us.  Six years ago we would have considered it odd, but God had prepared us with Hebrew study so that the worship made sense! 

Romans friendship with the Methodist Pastor had grown as well so we decided to visit the traditional service at his church.  Once again it was a fountain of tears.  The acolytes, candles, and hymns all brought out a feeling of reverence for the presence of our Holy God that we had longed to find.  It didn’t take long for us to realize we are most comfortable in an Orthodox Christian setting.  It didn’t take much longer to realize this was also a ministry fit for us and Roman was asked to come on staff this past September.  Now we are learning the Doxology, and the Apostles Creed.  The congregation says the prayer of confession before communion and the Lord’s Prayer just after the offering.  I am learning all about the Church Calendar which includes things like Advent and Lent.  We sat at dinner one evening with our new Pastor and his wife.  I told them I had been a Christian my whole life and now felt brand new to so much of it.  She is the one who first said God had given us the gift of seeing Him from different vantage points.  Kind of like sitting in a new spot at the family dinner table.  If you keep the same chair your whole life the scenery never changes.  When you move to a different spot, you see things you were not able to see before.  God is so BIG that we must be willing to move out of our comfort zones to view Him outside of one little box.  I love walking into my church in the middle of a Monday morning and hearing the organ playing,  or knowing that the first Sunday of each month we will hear a performance of worship hymns played on the hand bells.  The Lord has blessed us with many vantage points of Him and we personally fit in a more Orthodox setting; however; I can still go to a contemporary worship service and feel the breath of the Spirit!   I encourage all of you to; at some point, visit a church that may not do things that are within your comfort zone.  Go with a friend who attends that church and ask them about why they follow, or don’t follow, certain traditions.  You may be and Orthodox who needs to see the Contemporary point of view (or vice-versa).  Like me, I know it will help you grow more whole (and holy) as you are on your journey of faith.

I am so thankful that God has allowed me to see Him from more than one point of view!