How do you celebrate the run up to Christmas? Do you have an Advent calendar, an Advent candle or some other way of counting down to December 25th?

Sometimes on Twitter I’ll ask “does anyone have any prayer requests today?”. Please know that I really mean that when I ask and I take them all seriously. Every now and then I take time out to pray for my online community, as you are a very important and real part of my life!

As I prayed for you all – us all – I felt like God said a few things to me, so I thought I’d share them.

I opened the first door on my Advent Calendar and felt like God was saying this Advent that he wants to open up the doors inside our lives that we have left closed to others and closed to him.

In the same way that he came to Earth to dwell with us by stepping down from heaven and into time and  space, he wants to step into our inner lives and occupy every place. The Greek terms in the New Testament that describe the incarnation say that Jesus ‘pitched his tent among us’. In that same way, he wants to pitch his tent inside our inner world -to be at home there and let us know that he enjoys living on the inside of our souls.

I don’t know about your house, but my apartment is usually messy! Maybe it’s because I’m a musician?! There is always at least one room that’s a DISASTER and I’ll keep everything stuffed in there when visitors come and usher them past it’s closed door so that we spend our time in the neat tidy rooms!

Are there rooms in your inner world that you usher people and God, past? Are there parts of yourself that you assume God doesn’t like or love, and that you keep locked and in darkness? Perhaps things from long ago in childhood, or things you’ve done that you deeply regret, or things that have been done to you. As the hymn says “Jesus take me as I am, I can come no other way”. This is the only way we can come to him – just as we are, in authenticity and honesty, even if we wish some of our ‘baggage’ didn’t exist. He longs, like a perfect Father, to catch us up in his arms and love every single part of who we have been, who we are and who we will be.

Advent comes from the Latin term ‘adventus’ meaning ‘coming’. It’s a time of waiting in expectancy – both for us and for God. We waited for him to arrive as the Rescuer. Now he waits for us to crack the doors of our selves open a little more each day, letting him in.

So as we open the doors on our calendars and celebrate Jesus walking into our universe, let’s also invite him to walk into our inner world and pour his love and light into the rooms that have long sat dormant.

If that resonates with you, then take time this December to think it over and invite him into those inner rooms you didn’t think he could occupy.

Emmanuel, God is with us. With us in every part of our deepest selves. Now THAT is good news to all! Hosanna in the highest.

Over to you:

• This is a more introspective post, so feel free to just think it over rather than comment, if you’d rather.

• Does the message of this post resonate with you? In what way?

• Do you think much about the season of “Advent” or just about Christmas eve/day? The time leading up to Christmas is so rich with significance, it’s worth really celebrating it in it’s own right.

Yesterday was the anniversary of the arrest of Rosa Parks. She’s one of my all-time heroes. If you don’t know her incredible story, I’ll tell it in a nutshell.

On December 1st, Rosa was travelling to work by bus. It was the era when blacks were forced to sit in a different part of the vehicle and were forced to give up their seat if a white person required it. Rosa refused to give up her seat and was arrested. As a result, the growing Civil Rights movement under the leadership of Martin Luther King Jr rallied behind her arrest and called for the entire black community to boycott the buses. The black population were the majority of the paying customers on buses, so when they decided to boycott the transport companies began to sink into finanical difficulty. That was the famous Montgomery Bus Boycott which led to the end of racial segregation.

Rosa Parks is hailed as one of the great figures in the Civil Rights Movement. She was a woman who knew her calling and was willing to risk everything to stand for truth. What a legacy! She is someone I deeply respect.

Sometimes you just need to take a stand. What will you stand for? What is the one thing you are willing to risk it all for?

Sadly even though racial segregation is largely over, there are still examples of it’s continuance today. Check out the video below from this year, about a mixed race couple who are not welcome in their American church. Shocking.

“A church in Pike County, Kentucky, voted this week to ban interracial couples from becoming members of the congregation, as well as from participating in worship services. Melvin Thompson at the ironically named Gulnare Freewill Baptist Church, asked that a proposal stating unequivocally that “the church did not condone interracial marriage” be brought to a vote. It passed 9 to 6, with several members abstaining. Thompson was apparently incensed that the daughter of church secretary Dean Harville brought her Zimbabwean fiancé to church.”  (Source)

It’s interesting and heartbreaking that many of the issues of injustice that we assume are “done and dusted” really aren’t. That’s why I focus on women in ministry so much. Many people thought that once we got the “ok” for women to be ordained in the Church of England, we’d crossed through that barrier and it was all done. But the reality is that with racism and sexism, much injustice still continues today.

I want to be like Rosa Parks – willing to give my life for something that matters. To make the world a better place for people who feel crushed and sidelined. That way I’ll die knowing I lived for something that will outlive me.

Over to you:

• Are you familiar with the story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and Rosa Parks?

• What is the one thing – or several things – that you feel called to give your life to?

• How do we know where the line is between obeying the law because God instituted it, or breaking it for a good cause?

• How does all of this reflect on the Occupy protests?

Very soon it will be Christmas!! As we begin the liturgical season of “Advent” we think about Jesus coming to earth as a baby – the long awaited Messiah who arrived to rescue us.

But, did he really come to rescue us ALL or just a select FEW?

This is clearly a very old and time-worn question. If you subscribe to the Calvinist perspective of “predestination”, then Jesus was born not to offer each of us the chance to be rescued, but only a handpicked group that he foreknew.

Is it really a happy, merry Christmas? Not really if you aren’t hand-picked?!

Yes, the Bible has some content that may lend itself to this kind of reading. For example:

“For many are called, but few [are] chosen.” (Matthew 22:14, KJV)

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” (Jeremiah 1:5 NIV)

“In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will,…” (Eph. 1:5, NASB)

“To you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but those who are outside get everything in parables, so that while seeing, they may see and not perceive.” (Mark 4:10-12, NASB)

For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified.” (Rom. 8:28-30, NASB)

“… but we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory; …” (1Co. 2:7, NASB)

“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.” (Romans 9:15-18, NIV)

“And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.” (Acts 13:48, ESV)

Some of these seem pretty convincing and mysterious – like when God says “Jacob I have loved but Esau I have hated”. How do we understand that?!

But when exploring the ‘how does this actually work theologically?’ of predestination, it all falls apart for me.

It’s usually based on ‘Five Point Calvinism’ which asserts five things:

1. Total Depravity (basically we are all doomed. Which is accurate).

2. Unconditional Election (God has hand-picked a group of people to be saved).

3. Limited Atonement (Jesus only died for this small hand-picked group).

4. Irresistable Grace (Those who are chosen cannot say no).

5. The Preservation of the Saints (Everyone God has hand-picked will be saved).

Those statements seem pretty shocking to me. Especially the Limited Atonement. What about John 3:16 – WHOSOEVER BELIEVES shall have eternal life?? How can belief merely be a set up? What about evangelism? (Granted some believe differing levels of Calvinism – calling themselves a ’3 pointer’ or a ’2 pointer’ but points 2, 3, 4 and 5 are very perplexing to me).

Here are a few verses that back up the idea that we ALL can be saved and ALL have freewill in choosing Jesus.:

Deuteronomy 30:19 “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants”.

Ezekiel 18:32 “For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the LORD. Repent and live!”

Romans 10:9 “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”

2 Corinthians 5:15 “He died for all, so that those who might live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.” (NAB)

I Timothy 2: 3-4 “For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (NKJ)

II Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” (NKJ)

My interpretation of God’s foreknowledge is that he sees from the perspective of eternity and so knows everything that will happen. In that sense, he knows who will and will not choose him. But I find it impossible to believe that he limits the ability of some to choose him.

As we consider the coming of Jesus into the world, let’s think about our beliefs on exactly WHO he came to save.

Like I asked at the start – is it really a happy, merry Christmas? Not really if you aren’t hand-picked?

OVER TO YOU!

• What do you think about this?

• If you believe in predestination, don’t feel like I won’t welcome your comments!! In fact I’d love to hear how YOU arrived at that place.

• Have you every thought about this much?

• What does it mean for your non-Christian loved ones and friends – how do you process it?