David E. Garland: Astonishing reversal

And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. And this taxing was first made when Qririnius was governor of Syria. And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; because he was of the house and lineage of David: To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. Luke 2:1-6

“Jesus’ family . . . peaceably complied with the requirement to be registered . . . A census was not simply a means of organizing the tax rolls but was also a means of demonstrating control over the world. Luke’s mention of the infamous census sets up the opposition between the proud, formidable empire of Caesar and God’s eternal reign. The child born in Bethlehem to parents subjected to Roman tyranny will ultimately challenge the existing political order and create an astonishing reversal of authority and power, not through violence but through obedience to God and the giving of his life.”

David E. Garland in Luke (ZECNT; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011) 119.

Each year as we reflect on the Christmas story, God’s generosity comes into view in a new and beautiful way. Today I read Garland’s commentary alongside Luke’s account. Notice that while the Romans thought they were in control and exercised their power over God’s people through taxation, God’s provision and generosity to all people would come through an “astonishing reversal of authority and power, not through violence but through obedience to God and the giving of his life.”

Father in heaven, thank you God for the gift of Jesus, who saves us from our sins through the giving of his life, so that we too might have life in him. May the astonishing reversal of humble obedience be evident in our lives and through our generosity empowered your Holy Spirit. Make it so, I pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.

He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.” Matthew 13:31-32

“I am confident that these small acts of generosity are like the smallest seed that was planted and will grow into a large tree. Each time we give something to others, and each time we sow seeds of the Gospel in hearts, we are building the Kingdom of God…

What kinds of seeds are you sowing today? No matter how small, they could be very big to someone who sees that somebody cares.”

Michelle de Carion in Samaritan’s Purse blog post entitled “Generosity is Contagious” dated 23 July 2012.

I am safely home from Australia. Last night Jenni, Sophie, and I were watching a Christmas movie, and Sophie shared this Samaritan’s Purse quote with me about how small acts of generosity really add up!

It made us think of our friend, Dee Wolfe, and the great work that she and others are doing at Samaritan’s Purse! Consider the impact when many people do small acts of generosity together. It really adds up.

Their website says they’ve sent 135 million gift-filled shoeboxes to children in the name of Jesus since 1993. At this time they are delivering approximately 12 million more boxes around the world.

Plan to make a box next year. Throw a box-making party with your friends. If you have children, have them help you make one. It’s a great way to teach them about generosity and build the Kingdom of God.

Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me. Revelation 3:20

“I don’t think that it’s a coincidence that Luke used the same Greek word to describe the guest room in which there was no room for Jesus to be born and the guest room which he shared the Passover with his disciples on the night before he died.

The One for whom there was no guest room in Bethlehem now invites his followers into the guest room where, as the host at the table, he takes bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to them…

In that upper room, around that last Passover table, confronted with the astonishing self-giving love of God in Christ, we are invited to take down the No Vacancy signs and allow Christ to come in…

The gospel is the story of the relentless intrusion of God’s love that refuses to acknowledge the No Vacancy signs we post around our lives. It means there’s always hope for every one of us. Is there room in your life for Christ to be born?”

James A. Harnish in When God Comes Down: An Advent Study for Adults (Nashville: Abingdon, 2012) 36-39.

Special thanks to my wife, Jenni, who sent me photos of pages 33-40 of this book for my edification yesterday. It was so good I just had to share it. Lord willing with safe travel, I will arrive home just after lunch today.

To make room for Jesus this Christmas, what do we have to do? Clean up the mess? No. Just open the door, and perhaps replace the No Vacancy sign with a big welcome mat! Without Christ enriching our lives it is absolutely impossible to be generous.

And she gave birth to her firstborn, a Son. She wrapped Him in swaddling cloths and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. Luke 2:7

“Life shouldn’t be so busy. Futurists back in the 1950s and ’60s predicted that by the end of the twentieth century, people would be working an average of twenty-four hours a week. Our biggest challenge entering the twenty-first century would be how we would spend all that extra leisure time. Computers and other technological innovations would free us up from menial labor, developing unprecedented opportunities for rest and recreation.

How’s that working for you?

According to a Lou Harris poll, not so good. Our leisure time has shrunk by 37 percent since 1973. And the average work week has stretched from forty-one hours to forty-seven hours. For professionals today, it is not uncommon to log seventy- to eight-hour workweeks. This is one reason why the initial peace and joy I experienced in my newfound faith started to fade. I was so busy that I had no time to dedicate toward genuine spiritual growth on the Being axis or thoughtfully analyze my life and make practical changes on the Doing axis. I was living the classic hamster wheel life.

My personal experience on the treadmill leads me to tell all my clients, “No margin. No mission.” You won’t experience purpose, meaning, and joy if you don’t create margin in your calendar to proactively make changes in your life. And creating margin is hard work.”

Jeff Spadafora in The Joy Model: A Step-by-Step Guide to Peace, Purpose, and Balance (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2016) 42-43.

I am excited for Jeff on the release of this book. This chapter on margin struck me because of Christmas. There was no margin, no space for Mary and Joseph, so Jesus was born in the stable with the animals. His cradle was a feeding trough.

I am grateful my friends in Sydney made room for me. I have had a peaceful, refreshing, and productive weekend. They made room for me, and I am richly blessed. Soon I will depart for home (and nearly a 100 degree swing in temperature…Lord have mercy).

What about you? As you consider Christmas approaching, make room in your calendar for rest. Set aside margin in life for serving others. Build margin in your budget for generous giving. It’s hard work, for sure, but it’s the only pathway to fulfilling our mission.

Let’s make the Christ of Christmas known to the world today, this season, and throughout the year. We live with margin so that we can give, serve, and love generously.

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich. 2 Corinthians 8:9

“In our materialistic society, it is difficult to know at what economic level to live. With whom do I compare myself? What are my expectations? What assets will help me better minister the gospel? What will I do without? How much can I give? What sacrifice will I make? Such choices are made on a day-to-day basis and, frankly, it can get pretty tiring to resist the pressures of our society to buy more and more and better and bigger. Everyone around us breathes such consumerism, even our Christian brothers and sisters. It is just exhausting to say ‘no’ continually or to have to stop and think about how to use money.

Why not take one step? Make one cutback, simple but radical. Make one choice that will mean that you step away from your peers. For example, skip the weekly family take-away meal. Drop the year’s subscription to the theatre. Get rid of some of your investments. Don’t buy new clothes this year. Walk more and use the car less. Forget the overseas trip. Stop buying [music]. Sell the holiday flat. Move into a smaller house. Then — and here comes the exciting part — take out your cheque book and give away the money you have just saved …

Cheerfully give away what you have so that God may use you as an instrument of his generosity. Such a lifestyle is radical. It is frightening, because we sense a loss of control over our lives. But it is, after all, in God alone that we put our confidence, and not money. Furthermore, we are to follow the example of Jesus who “though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich” (2 Cor 8:9). Now that we Christians are indeed thoroughly rich let us give away our fading riches so that those who are poor in this world may become rich in Christ.”

Sandra King in “Not keeping up with the Joneses” in the Mattias Media Briefing dated 1 March 2000.

As we approach Christmas and the New Year, let us each think about one cutback we could make that would be simple but radical. If you are married, talk about this with your spouse. Do it. Then give the money to some facet of God’s work so that it helps someone who is poor in Christ become rich in Christ.

There’s likely no better testimony to our faith than radical, sacrificial generosity.

Tell them to use their money to do good. They should be rich in good works and generous to those in need, always being ready to share with others. 1 Timothy 6:18

“Timothy is advised to encourage the rich to “be generous and willing to share.” It is not only our acts of service but also our financial generosity that enables us to think sanely about who we are, what we have, and what we want. Generosity is at the core of the satisfied life.

This makes a lot of sense to me. One way to combat the grip money has on my heart is to consistently, faithfully, and generously give it away. The most anti-accumulation thing an affluent person can do is to systematically give money away.

The discipline of giving frees my heart from a growing infatuation with my stuff. Giving is the natural outflow of the thankful heart. Sharing is living in step with a God whose heart is wildly generous.”

Jeff Manion in Satisfied: Discovering Contentment in a World of Consumption (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013) 132-133.

Today I am thankful for my friends, Tom and Jaime Schell, who are sharing their flat in Sydney with me for the weekend to get some work done and finish edits to a book project before heading home for Christmas.

As God has blessed each of us this year, let’s resolve to follow God’s leading in doing acts of service and in making year-end financial gifts as a “natural overflow” in response to God’s generosity to us!

Dear friends, I warn you as “temporary residents and foreigners” to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls. 1 Peter 2:11

“There is too much sleep, too much meat and drink, too little fasting and self-denial, too much [taking part in] the world…and too little self-examination and prayer.”

William Bramwell, Wesleyan preacher, as recounted by Ben Jennings in “Fasting and Prayer” in Principles of Leadership, ed. Martin and Cozzins (Orlando: New Life, 2001) 292. Special thanks to Geoff Folland for the gift of this book Down Under.

As I teach at this retreat for the staff of Christian Super on “Living with Financial Health and Understanding” it’s evident that God is at work in many lives. Pray with me that the time away from life back in Sydney will help attendees hear the Word and see the world from God’s perspective.

Pray that the Spirit continues to work in the space of self-examination and prayer and moves people to self-denial as a platform for living, giving, serving and loving more generously. In plain terms, we are talking about learning to say “no” to some things so we can say “yes” to better things.

Consider joining us.

Take some time today (self-examination) or skip a meal (fasting) and ask God to show you any worldly desires in your life that need to go (self-denial). Self-examination and fasting are not practices we do for God. They are exercises we do for ourselves.

These practices reveal the things that limit generosity in our lives.

Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. 1 Timothy 6:9-10

“I am not a wealthy man, and I will never be a wealthy man. This statement arises not from an inability to generate wealth. In fact, my various professional endeavors have well-recognized income-generating abilities. It is not that I am unable to be wealthy, but rather I am unwilling to be wealthy. Why would I wish to fall into a trap, be plunged into ruin and destruction, be pierced with many griefs and risk wandering from the faith?

In my own heart, where these things must ultimately be decided, I feel deeply the words of the apostle John: “If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?” That particular verse has dwelt with Linda in a closely bound friendship since her college days. Additionally, we are convicted by the example of John Wesley, who said, “If I leave behind me ten pounds for which I have no use, I am a thief and a robber.” It just seems to me that according to the investment firm of John and John, we should keep our needs low, our generosity high, and our expectations heavenward.

We only buy older cars and seldom buy new clothes. We eat simply, and Linda bakes almost daily. She cuts my hair. I don’t own a suit and even though traveling and speaking around the nation and the world, I get by with one sport coat. We cut and burn wood to supplement our gas furnace without central air conditioning. We often buy used books. Our fishing boat is 1950s vintage. Yet we have a rich and fulfilling life in every way.”

Richard Swenson in Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2004) 136-137.

I too feel like my life is rich and fulfilling. Even more so over the past two days thanks to the many people who have expressed warm birthday greetings to me while I have been and remain Down Under.

At dinner with Gary Williams and Peter Murphy on my birthday, both talked about this book so that spurred me to share this classic section from it, entitled, “The Investment firm of John and John.” My favorite line pertaining to financial wealth: “It is not that I am unable to be wealthy, but rather I am unwilling to be wealthy.” That sentiment is spot on with the biblical text and what Jenni and I have experienced. My wife also cuts my hair. We too buy older cars. She’s likely baking something delicious today. I only wish we had a wood-burning fireplace, though I will take my fly rods over any fishing boat!

Let’s resolve to be rich not in finances but in the things money can’t buy. Today and tomorrow I facilitate a retreat for 25 Christian Super staff members and their families. Pray with me that they grasp this.

“No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love Him.” 1 Corinthians 2:9

“I am learning the far more secret doctrine that pleasures are the shafts of the glory as it strikes our sensibility. As it impinges on our will or our understanding, we give it different names — goodness or truth or the like. But its flashes upon our senses and mood is pleasure.

But aren’t there bad, unlawful pleasures? Certainly there are. But in calling them “bad pleasures” I take it we are using a kind of shorthand. We mean “pleasures snatched by unlawful acts.” It is the stealing of the apple that is bad, not the sweetness. The sweetness is still a beam from the glory. That does not palliate the stealing. It makes it worse. There is a sacrilege in the theft. We have abused the holy thing.

I have tried, since that moment to make every pleasure into a channel of adoration. I don’t mean by simply giving thanks for it. One must of course give thanks, but I mean something different. How shall I put it? We can’t — or I can’t — hear the song of a bird simply as a sound. It’s meaning or message (“That’s a bird”) comes with it inevitably . . . This heavenly fruit is instantly redolent of the orchard where it grew. This sweet air whispers of the country from whence it blows. It is a message. We know we are being touched by a finger of that right hand at which there are pleasures for evermore. There need be no question of thanks or praise as a separate event, something done afterwards. To experience the tiny theophany is itself to adore.

Gratitude exclaims, very properly, “How good of God to give me this.” Adoration says, “What must be the quality of that Being whose far-off and momentary coruscations are like this!” One’s mind runs back up the sunbeam to the sun . . .

I don’t always achieve it. One obstacle is inattention. Another is the wrong kind of attention. One could, if one practiced, hear simply a roar and not the roaring-of-the-wind. In the same way, only far too easily, one can concentrate on the pleasure as an event in one’s own nervous system — subjectify it — and ignore the smell of Deity that hangs about it. A third obstacle is greed. Instead of saying, “This is also Thou,” one may say the fatal word, Encore. There is also conceit: the dangerous reflection that not everyone can find God in a plain slice of bread and butter, or that others would condemn as simply “grey” the sky in which I am delightedly observing such delicacies of pearl and dove and silver.”

C.S. Lewis in Letters to Malcolm, Chiefly on Prayer (Orlando: Mariner Books, 2002) 89-91.

Today I turn 49. The benefit of being from America but serving in Australia over your birthday means that you get to have it twice. Though the day has just arrived in the States, warm greetings from family and friends have already made me feel profoundly grateful for many little things that are not little but tiny theophanies, as Lewis would rightly say.

On the eve of my birthday (at least in Australia time) I had a good long day in Melbourne, and then flew back to Sydney just before supper and rode the train to Circular Quay (properly pronounced: “key”) with Gary Williams (head of CMA, which is hosting these seminars). We picked a cafe with a great view of the Harbour Bridge (pictured above). Though people were walking to and fro in the bustling epicenter of this amazing city with seeming inattention to the view, I could not stop looking at it.

If catching glimpses of this massive bridge was not enough, little did I know that because our hotel was in the Castle Hill area, we would soon drive over it. I felt giddy, like a kid on Christmas morning. When I got to my hotel room, God then gave me the best birthday gift ever for a weary traveler: seven hours of consecutive sleep.

When I awakened I opened my first of two cards from Jenni (as instructed). I do believe, though I admit my bias, that Jenni Hoag is the most thoughtful person on the planet. “No wonder she sent me two birthday cards!” I exclaimed to myself. Here I just discovered I’d experience my birthday twice, and she must have known it all along.

Anyway, I opened her first card and felt warm all over. Then the first wave of birthday greetings began to trickle in from people in Australia, Hong Kong, India, and other part of Asia. Sitting in the silence of my room I was so moved that tears formed in my eyes.

I asked God how to process what I was experiencing and felt led to turn to Lewis and his thoughts on gratitude and adoration. That’s where I found today’s meditation. It moves me to join Lewis to pay attention so I don’t miss the “shafts of the glory” about me each and every day, including and especially today! They are but glimpses of the glory that no eye has seen nor ear hath heard.

Then I had another good day of teaching. Really good! It’s easy and fulfilling when the seminar attendees are deeply committed to Christ and eager to be equipped for His service. The perfect ending to my birthday in Australia was a harbor cruise under this amazing bridge and dinner on the boat with Peter Murphy of Christian Super and Gary Williams of CMA.

Before turning in, I read my second birthday card and was moved again. I am deeply loved and not alone. God is with me, and my wife loves me (as does my family and so many dear friends)! It makes a person with lots of words simply speechless. I saw “shafts of the glory” everywhere. Perhaps these glimpses of God’s generosity have always been there, I just noticed more of them today. Each one is a “channel of adoration” so with praise to God I say with Lewis, “This is also Thou.”

I did not miss my birthday. I got the longest birthday ever, and it’s far from over.

Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men. Colossians 3:23

Enjoy The Little Drummer Boy by Pentatonix.

“The power of this story demonstrates how anyone can take a small talent given from God and use it as a gift in return.

For the little drummer boy, glory to God means taking a simple act like drumming and doing it to the fullest so that it brings glory and honor back to the Lord. He infuses his drumming with a love that makes it more than just drumming. He takes “the only thing he has” and turns it into a gift like gold.

Every one of us has been given talents that, in a similar way, we can infuse with our love to give as gifts to Christ.”

Irene Smith in 7 December blog post entitled: “Like the Little Drummer Boy, Every One of Us Has Been Given Talents We Can Give as Gifts to Christ.”

I loved this. My teaching in Melbourne today (as Monday draws to a close) and Sydney tomorrow, as well as my consulting on Wednesday and retreat speaking on Thursday and Friday are my gifts to Christ. What are your talents and how might you give them to Christ this week? This year? 

I confess, am thinking about the former question as I have seven more days in Australia and am starting to really miss my wife, Jenni, and the latter question as I turn 49 on Tuesday, which for me is “today” by the time you are reading this.