Did we forget to pray?

With all that's going on (terrorism, death, homosexuality, racism, war, persecution, relationships, career), have we asked God for help with how to think and to act? Have we acknowledged His opinions matter most, not people's? A high view of God reminds us of His character of holiness and at the same time mercy, and of course the gospel. The gospel is thought frequently as just important at conversion, but it is always relevant and needs to be the talk forever.

Pray because we get to talk to the One who is sovereign. Read the Word because He speaks to us there.

CS Lewis writes in his book The Four Loves:

Lamb says somewhere that if of three friends (A, B, C) A should die, then B not only loses A, but "A's part in C," while C loses not only A, but "A's part in B." In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can only bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets. Now that Charles is dead, I shall never again see Ronald's reaction to a specifically Caroline joke. Far from having Ronald, having him "to myself" now that Charles is away, I have less of Ronald. Hence true friendship is the least jealous of the loves. Two friends delight to be joined by a third, and three by a fourth, if only the newcomer becomes qualified to become a real friend. They can then say, as the blessed souls say in Dante, "here comes one who will augment our loves." For in this love "to divide is not to take away." Of course the scarcity of kindred souls - not to mention practical considerations about the size of rooms and the audibility of voices - set limits to the enlargement of the circle; but within those limits we possess each friend not less but more as the number of those with whom we share him increases. In this, Friendship exhibits a glorious "nearness by resemblance" to Heaven itself where the very multitude of the blessed (which no man can number) increases the fruition which each has of God. For every soul, seeing Him in her own way, doubtless communicates that unique vision to all the rest. That, says an old author, is why the Seraphim in Isaiah's vision are crying "Holy, Holy, Holly" to one another (Isaiah 6:3). The more we thus share the Heavenly Bread between us, the more we shall all have.

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Certain people draw out an aspect of me that may be enjoyed by others, but once they are gone, a part of me has departed. Yet new relationships are formed, and I grow in other ways and new aspects of me are drawn out. There is part sorrow and part joy, but in the end it is Christ-likeness we aim for and to see Him more we delight in.

He Became Poor

We see now what it meant for the Son of God to empty himself and become poor. It meant a laying aside of glory (the real kenosis); a voluntary restraint of power; an acceptance of hardship, isolation, ill-treatment, malice and misunderstanding; finally, a death that involved such agony - spiritual even more than physical - that his mind nearly broke under the prospect of it. (See Lk 12:50 and the Gethsemane story.) It meant love to the uttermost for unlovely human beings, that they through his poverty might become rich. The Christmas message is that there is hope for a ruined humanity - hope of pardon, hope of peace with God, hope of glory - because at the Father's will Jesus Christ became poor and was born in a stable so that thirty years later he might hang on a cross. It is the most wonderful message that the world has ever heard, or will hear.

We talk glibly of the "Christmas spirit," rarely meaning more by this than sentimental jollity on a family basis. But what we have said makes it clear that the phrase should in fact carry a tremendous weight of meaning. It ought to mean the reproducing in human lives of the temper of him who for our sakes became poor at the first Christmas. And the Christmas spirit itself ought to be the mark of every Christian all the year round.

It is our shame and disgrace today that so many Christians - I will be more specific: so many of the soundest and most orthodox Christians - go through this world in the spirit of the priest and the Levine in our Lord's parable, seeing human needs all around them, but (after a pious wish, and perhaps a prayer, that God might meet those needs) averting their eyes and passing by on the other side. That is not the Christmas spirit. Nor is it the spirit of those Christians - alas, they are many - whose ambition in life seems limited to building a nice middle-class Christian home, and making nice middle-class Christian friends, and bringing up their children in nice middle-class Christian ways, and who leave the submiddle-class sections of the community, Christian and non-Christian, to get on by themselves.

The Christmas spirit does not shine out in the Christian snob. For the Christmas spirit is the spirit of those who, like their Master, live their whole lives on the principle of making themselves poor - spending and being spent - to enrich their fellow humans, giving time, trouble, care and concern, to do good to others - and not just their own friends - in whatever way there seems need.

There are not as many who show this spirit as there should be. If God in mercy revives us, one of the things he will do will be to work more of this spirit in our hearts and lives. If we desire spiritual quickening for ourselves individually, one step we should take is to seek to cultivate this spirit. "You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich" (2 Cor 8:9). "Your attitude should be the same as that of Jesus Christ" (Phil 2:5). "I will run the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart" (Ps 119:32 KJV)

Packer, J.I., Knowing God (63)