For To Us - Advent Reading 5 - Glory To God

This is the fifth advent reading that went along with the For Unto Us 2016 Christmas Prayer Loft at the Gathering House Covenant Church in Spokane Washington.   

Glory To God
by Margot Cioccio

Glory to God in the highest heaven, 

and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests. ~ Luke 2:14

Luke 2 tells the story of the birth of Christ that many families will read together as part of their Christmas celebrations. In verse13 of that story it says that “Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven,

and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” 

Tonight is Christmas Eve and we light the final candle in our advent wreath. At this point all your shopping should be done. Hopefully your presents are all wrapped and the preparations are all completed and you can stop now and take a big breath or at least a little break from the madness if your not. 

How do we bring Glory to God? What exactly is glory anyway? There are things that are easy to describe like a candle. Its made of wax and has a wick you light it and it illuminates the darkness. There are other things that are hard to describe but when we see the we say there it is that God’s glory. Like, when we get to the point in the service later tonight as we light the candles and sing silent night. I am always over whelmed in that moment how God’s glory transforms a dark room and fills it with his beautiful glory. 

Isaiah 6:3 says of the angels, that they were calling to one another: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” 

Holiness is perhaps a little easier to understand and it can help us understand glory. John Piper writes “we have been taught that holy means separate—distinct and separated that he is in a class by himself, infinite perfections, infinite greatness and infinite worth. His holiness is what he is as God that nobody else is. It is his quality of perfection that can’t be improved upon, that can’t be imitated, that is incomparable, that determines all that he is and is determined by nothing from outside him. It signifies his infinite worth, his intrinsic, infinite value.” later in this same article titled What is God’s glory he writes “ The glory of God is the manifest beauty of his holiness. It is the going public of his holiness. It is the way he puts his holiness on display for people to apprehend. So the glory of God is the holiness of God made manifest.”

Corinthians 10:31 So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God.  Whatever we do we should be displaying the beauty of God’s holiness. We can’t do that if we continue to focus on all that is wrong in the world around us. We need to focus on God and his incredible perfection, his love that is so beyond our comprehension. 

You don’t study the counterfeit or the copy if you want to be able to tell a real thing from a fake. You study the real thing. We need to focus on knowing our God.

Colossians 3:15-17 in The Message says 

15-17 Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off and doing your own thing. And cultivate thankfulness. Let the Word of Christ—the Message—have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense. And sing, sing your hearts out to God! Let every detail in your lives—words, actions, whatever—be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way.

We as believer are those upon whom his favor rests. The sin that once separated us from being able to have a relationship with God has been dealt with by Jesus. God did it in a way that was so contrary to how folks of that time thought it should happen that they by and large they pretty much missed his coming. Its easy to think that we would have handled things better than they did but if we are honest there is a good chance that we are so busy with our lives that we have not really made much room for him. He may have our Sundays but does He have us the rest of the week? Is his glory being revealed in our day to day lives? Tonight as we light this final candle, the Christ candle may we resolve to know him more fully and allow his light to and his glory so transform us that we become the light of his love to the world around us. May his Glory cover the whole earth. 

For To Us - Advent Reading 4 - Joy

This is the forth advent reading that went along with the For Unto Us 2016 Christmas Prayer Loft at the Gathering House Covenant Church in Spokane Washington. 

Joy

by Margot Cioccio 

establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness

from that time on 

and forever.

The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.

All of heaven rejoiced as Jesus was born. His coming would heal the great breach between mankind and the Almighty. As the church we have really run with the message that He is Redeemer and Savior. If we look at the many names of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we start to realize they are so much more than we have begun to understand. Starting from the birth of Christ, from that time on and forever God has been establishing and up holding how we understand and relate to Him. Our God is multifaceted. What a joy it would be if we could help the world around us see God as a good father, a papa who’s love is displayed as strength, protection. Who wants to help us with our own family issues. Could we reflect his love as integrity in the power of Government and show a hurting world that he does care about them…all of them.  What if we could reflect God as communicator who wants to show his love as good news and blessing. Imagine the joy we would have as he brings world solutions through us, his children.  What if we could show God as teacher and show his wisdom as a form of his love?  He is provider and provision and resources can multiplied in and through us as we show the world the ways of kingdom economics. Everywhere we look we see God’s fingerprints, he has put great energy and detail into even the smallest flowers and things that we may not even notice. Could we show him as Creator who has fun creating. Stop and think about the amazing joy there is in actually being able to have a intimate relationship with the greatest creator and artist who has not yet run out of ideas and want to partner with each of us to do amazing things. Think about the joy there is in making him known and showing his love in all these areas and more. 

What if the only thing that holds back the great outpouring of his love in all of these ways is simply that have gotten so focused on the getting people saved and to heaven and getting there our selves that we forgot to be salt and light. We have become so focused on the problems of our world that we forgot to show them our creative solutions and the amazing love and kindness of God .Every generation since Jesus was taken to heaven has thought He would return in their time. Too often we have sat on our hill tops inside our churches trying really hard to be holy while the whole world groaned and ached for the light of God to come to them. Jesus said don’t hide your light under a basket. Put it up on a stand and let it shine brightly.

Acts 3:21-23 in theThe Message it says “Now it’s time to change your ways! Turn to face God so he can wipe away your sins, pour out showers of blessing to refresh you, and send you the Messiah he prepared for you, namely, Jesus. For the time being he must remain out of sight in heaven until everything is restored to order again just the way God, through the preaching of his holy prophets of old, said it would be.

What if Jesus is held out of sight in heaven until we through the power of the Holy Spirit in us, work to bring about the restoration of all things to his order. Jesus said we would do greater things than he did because he was in heaven and had sent us the Holy Spirit. What if he's not the one asleep in the boat this time. What if we are the one’s who are asleep to his calling and purposes for our lives. What if we are here to make a difference?

Gods kingdom is advanced by influence and example not by forcing others to do it our way. It is how we live among others that gives us a platform to speak into their lives. There is great joy when things are done God’s way. When the righteous prosper the city rejoices.  

We have painted the town red like his blood but there are so many more colors of his love that we have yet to really discover and reveal with joy to the world.

Jesus is a living gift. He is waiting for us to unwrap more of the mystery of who he is in each of us. What does his rainbow of love look like as it comes out of you and spills into the things you are passionate about.  Joy is our advent candle today.  - Joy to the world - the Lord is come…Let every heart prepare him room. Let every heart rejoice. Let heaven and nature sing! 

For To Us - Advent Reading 2 - Peace

This is the second advent reading that went along with the For Unto Us 2016 Christmas Prayer Loft at the Gathering House Covenant Church in Spokane Washington. 

Peace

by Margot Cioccio 

And he will be called

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, 

Prince of Peace.

In the prayer loft in front of the Peace banner there is a hand out that has 50 names of Jesus and some other items to help you be more connected.  

In the Bible a persons name told you about their character and destiny. In this verse we are given just four names. Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father and Prince of Peace. Let’s look briefly at each of them. 

Wonderful Counselor: We think of wonderful as meaning really good, nice, kind or likable but it is really more like incomprehensible and full of wonder. His name is so far beyond our understanding that we have to break it down into little bites to understand and even then without the help of Holy Spirit we don’t get very far. Jesus as wonderful counselor brings answers to problems that make a watching world scratch their heads in astonishment. Our lives as believers should never be dull or boring. Jesus wants to fill your life with wonder. In the early church you wouldn’t even be considered as a potential leader if signs, wonders and miracles were not evident in your life. Somewhere along the journey we opted for predictable tradition and religion when Jesus want to be our living God who does amazing things in and through us. Cool stuff beyond our own skills, ability and strength. Colossians 2:3 tells us In Christ is “hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” this includes the knowledge of all human nature  and what makes us tick. He always knows what we are going through, and He always knows what needs to happen. In Hebrews 4 he is our great High Priest with grace and mercy for us in our time of need.

Mighty God: In Hebrew this is El Gibbor that means strong and mighty. A mighty warrior who demonstrates courage, bravery and action. In 2nd Corinthians 10 we are reminded that though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every high thing that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” In Ephesians 6 we are given armor. “Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” God’s war is not against confused and damaged humanity but against the spiritual forces that continue lie, manipulate, kill, steal and destroy the people that God created and loves.

Everlasting Father: I like to think about what it is that Fathers are supposed to do and be for us. They are to protect, provide and give us a sense of our identity. Many of us have a messed up view of Father because our human fathers have not always been those things to us. As such it is often hard for us to relate to God in one or more of these areas. In our trinitarian ideas we don’t usually think of Jesus as Father, but they are all one. If we put on our Hebrew translation hats for a moment this phrase literally translated means “Father of Eternity.” He is the father over time and eternity, the amazing architect of the ages. 

Prince of Peace: We think of peace as being the end of conflict between peoples and nations. If everyone would just get along we could have peace, but perhaps political and cultural harmony is not what he is talking about. Shalom is the Hebrew word for “peace.” a calm and tranquility for individuals, groups, and nations. In Greek it is about unity and being in one accord or purpose. In Galatians 5:22–23 peace is one of the fruits of the Spirit. It is one of the evidences that the Holy Spirit is working in your life.

Still there is a much deeper meaning of peace in the spiritual harmony that comes when our relationship with God is restored. 

Today we light the Peace candle and are reminded that to truly have Peace we need our broken relationship with God restored. Jesus came to provide the way to accomplish that restoration. The lie we must over come is that we must work hard and be good to know God. The truth is that we need a redeemer in order to know God. That redeemer is Jesus. He has paid the price for you and simply waits for you to believe and call upon his name.