Jacobs Thoughts and Doings

It is sort of a tradition to have ugali and condiments for our family Christmas meal.  This wooden spoon is designed to stir ugali as it comes to a boil.  One must stir harder as it gets firmer and firmer in the pot.

For years Africans ate ugali as their staple.  Rice came along later so a family can use either one for a nice meal.  Our Christmas meal this year had both.  Rice you eat with a spoon, ugali with washed fingers.

The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.  He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.  Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

John 1:9 – 13

The Eternal Mystery

The Creator himself became a creature in order to rescue us.  That was such an outstanding thing that we will never fully comprehend it, just believe it!

Only those who need Jesus desperately and reach for Him with all their hearts know who he is.  For others, his coming is little more than a tantalizing fable.

Those of us who have experienced this miracle of Jesus in our own lives are, to our delight, “children of God.”

All of us who believe never lose the sense of awe as we think of being born again as believers in Jesus Christ.  No amount of evidence will convince an unbeliever to believe. Belief is the result of desperation.  When all else fails, Jesus is there. All of us believers know that!

I am blessed as I embrace Jesus all over again at this Christmas season.

Isaac lost his remaining incisor on Christmas Day.  Ouch.  Where it was we see a nice ripe red spot.  Before long it was healed and Isaac was his sweet self again.

Not a pleasant picture but, in a way, nice!  Welcome to adulthood, our Isaac!

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made, and without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

John 1:1 – 5

When learning Greek many years ago, we needed to commit to memory these opening sentences of John’s Gospel.  I still remember trying to get the Greek in my head.  I managed. Ever since I have returned to these verses with awe and worship, not that I learned them in Greek but because John, through the Holy Spirit, went right to the heart of the mystery, “In Him was life…”  That makes Jesus absolutely unique, there is none like him!  My mind falters when I try to grasp what John wrote.  It is like poetry, easy to recite but very, very difficult to penetrate to the core of its meaning.

Jesus is eternal, He is the Word of God, with God in creation, the life that shines in such brilliance that we can only stand back and worship.  It is as inexplicable as it is true! 

The little newborn baby, born of a virgin in a strange shed, crying for feeding, is the Word of God, the Creator of all things, the light of the world that no darkness can put out!  Who can fully comprehend what that all means?  Fortunately, we need not explain it, just believe it with all our hearts and conform our thinking, our worship and our lives around HIM!

I live with this truth today.  May his light fill my being!

Our marriage party after the ceremony in the Charles’ front room, December 24, 1949.  Duane on the left, Don’s brother, the Best Man, and Barbara Keener to Anna Ruth’s left, Maid of Honor.  A wonderful day.  So today we celebrate 68th year!  God is good beyond words.

Ye servants of God, Your Master proclaim,

And publish abroad His wonderful name;

Thy name all-victorious of Jesus extol;

His kingdom is glorious, And rules over all.

 Charles Wesley

On the Winter solstice the sunset was dazzling.  Now the days will slowly get longer.  God’s creation is indeed breathtaking.

He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.

Luke 1:53

Those who have despaired of what this world has to offer yearn for spiritual food that truly satisfies.  Our many cultures paint a picture of “the good life.”  The problem is, there is no reality there!  That reality that every seeking soul desires is in Jesus Christ of Nazareth whose day of birth we laud today.

That is the true spiritual food that satisfies!  He is being received by people all over the world today.  That hunger binds us together with believers of every race and culture in this world.  We live in that reality.

Liz Hess is one of my favorite living artists.  This year she painted for Global Disciples – of which I was part of for many years – an amazing scene, the royal bejeweled crown lifted high between the lion and the lamb with grateful followers rejoicing in their cultural settings!  All over the world.  For instance, I think I see a dancing Amish girl down front and a Jewish rabbi and a Jewish lad helping to carry the crown, a study in contrasts.  That is true but it also true that the center of it all is the saving grace of God made possible through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.   That unifies everything!  Thanks, Liz, for sharing this amazing vision of the exaltation of Jesus Christ, here represented by the marvelous crown, and, of course, by the lion and the lamb!  I join, with many others, the thankful worshipers praising in many languages and cultures of the world.  Worthy is the lamb!

People of all sorts are aware that something is happening in Bethlehem, the small village not far from Jerusalem.  Mary and Joseph are the first to worship as the newborn baby nestles into human arms.  Then the shepherds on night duty under the dark sky who saw a great light and heard the voice of angels.  Soon Simeon, an aging prophet, recognized and proclaimed to all that the baby was the promised Messiah.  Then after a while non-Jews, wise men from the east, brought their gifts to Jesus. The Roman ruler, Herod, heard of Jesus birth and was angry.  Absent are the scholars who taught that Messiah would appear.

Liz Hess just painted a powerful picture when people from nations and cultures rejoiced at the coming of Jesus Christ.  I think I will show it in my blog tomorrow.  It is dazzling and worshipful.