The Good New at Christmas

 This may be my last post before Christmas.  Op tempo (operations tempo) has increased here at beautiful PolyKahr Estates as Christmas approaches.  And because we are anticipated the anniversary of the birth of our LORD in the flesh we naturally turn to more spiritual things.  So, it is interesting that Richard Rail has a piece at the American Thinker entitled Who be you? that speaks to our most important identity: our relationship with God.

Rail takes as his starting point a previous post by J. B. Shurk entitled Who Are You?

A while back, J.B. Shurk had an interesting item where he discussed a five-point plan to achieve “a sense of peace” in this life. It’s worth the read. I was enamored of the title, “And Who Are You?”

This — Hanukkah and Christmas — is a particularly cogent time of year to consider this question, since it grapples with issues that almost inevitably turn spiritual. That’s helpful, since we may drift away from what matters most, and thinking about the spiritual can put us back on the right road.

So who are you? This question arose in a comical way in Acts 19:13. “Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon possessed. ... One day the evil spirit answered them. ‘Jesus I know and Paul I know about, but who are you?’” We’re not told how the Jews answered.

Commonly, we think of ourselves in terms of what we do. Welder. Writer. Teacher. But those are attributes we develop as we go. Similar are the roles we fill along the way. Father. Aunt. These stations accrue as we move through life, but only superficially do they answer who we are.

I submit that we are our beliefs, which inform our actions, which become the attributes and roles (the adjectives, you might say) that limn our lives. Together these form our relationship with God. Beliefs x Actions = Relationship with God. BA=R. All nice and mathematical-looking.

Jesus came into the world and told us that we too could be sons (and daughters) of the God of creation. His mission was to die for our sins, a sacrificial lamb, so that we, though sinful beings, might be seen by God as blameless. What Good News! It makes all our politics and the day-to-day troubles pale in comparison. Our true purpose is to be imagers of God in the world.  There is nothing more important that to cling to this one Truth and build our relationship with Him.