GET RID OF THE LEAVEN IN 2007!       -A Word from Gary

           As we move forward and look ahead to an exciting and wonderful New Year in 2007, I ask for God’s will to be made perfect in our lives. Thank you Lord for Your continued blessings, Your grace, Your mercy, and provision for us during this past year. Therefore, as followers of the Christ, we “look forward to what lies ahead in 2007”! Several years ago Pat and I used a simple motto “A Taste of Heaven in ‘97” to encourage “Jesus Followers” to ponder and speak heavenly things and keep their eyes on Jesus as the last days of grace are upon us.
         

         Today as we look forward to a new year with God’s grace, I encourage you to “Get rid of the Leaven in 2007!!  Yes, this can be both an encouraging and challenging word IF you have ears to hear and desire to be “doers of the word and not hears only”. In the Word of God “leaven” or “yeast” primarily means a substance used to produce fermentation in dough and make it rise. In making their bread, the Israelites would place a piece of fermented dough that was kept over from a former baking and knead it into the new loaf thus producing leavened bread. Leaven is used metaphorically in the Bible of an influence that can permeate whatever it touches. Leaven is used as a symbol of either good or bad influence so let’s examine God’s Holy Word for truth.

            Jesus told his disciples in Luke 12:1-3 -"Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy”. Leaven here means the false doctrines of the Pharisees, who gave mere interpretations and traditions of man that they substituted for the Word of God. The Pharisees knew better than to teach such things but “pretended” to believe God’s Word when they did not. This hypocrisy is of two kinds: 1) pretending to be what we are not and 2) concealing what we are. Because these two areas are intertwined, it was the latter that Jesus warns His disciples in the verses 2-3: “For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, nor hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have spoken in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have spoken in the ear in inner rooms will be proclaimed on the housetops”.

           The Lord is mandating His people to be open, honest, and transparent before Him and your brothers and sisters. Yes there is some “Pharisee” in all of us but let’s strive to become men and women of unadulterated purity in what we say, do, and think. We are exhorted by the Apostle Paul to “put away and rid yourselves [completely] of all these things: anger, rage, bad feeling toward others, curses and slander, and foulmouthed abuse and shameful utterances from your lips! Do not lie to one another, for you have stripped off the old (unregenerate) self with its evil practices (Col 3:8-9 AMP). There are some who “pretend” to be somebody they aren’t but I hear the Lord saying, “Just be yourself; the new self that I created”. The Lord is encouraging each of us, “Put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection" (Col. 3:12-14).

           Listen to Paul’s words as he admonishes the Corinthian Church in 1 Cor 5:6-8 NAS -“Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Clean out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth”.

           We must purge (clean out) the old leaven (old and evil habits, evil coming out in word and deed, repeated sins) and become the new lump (new creation, new man) that God has made us! Because Christ is our Passover Lamb, His precious blood cleanses us from all confessed sin. Let us celebrate the feast that we are truly unleavened children of God, free from sin by the grace and mercy of Christ Jesus and we are moving forward to obtain all the promises that God has given to us. Just as the leaven will leaven the whole loaf of bread, we must be men and women of God who can be holy leaven that permeates all people we come in contact with; by the hidden, silent, and mysterious but all pervading transforming work of the Gospel of Jesus Christ!! Lord, make us leaven to the least, the last, and the lost! Let them see the work of the cross of Jesus Christ in our lives so they too can have this glorious hope; “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col 1:27).

REMEMBER THE MANGER!     -A Word from Pat

            As you place your Christmas tree and decorations in boxes for next year; as you ponder all the wonders, the great meals, family and friends, and joys of this glorious Christmas Season and look forward to a bright new year ahead in 2007, stop! Ponder this for a few minutes.
Remember December 7th, 1945? Most of us were not even born at this time, yet who can forget that infamous day in history and the now famous slogan, “Remember Pearl Harbor!” On my night stand sits my Father’s lapel pin with the American flag inscribed with those same words, “Remember Pearl Harbor”, a silent and grave reminder of that horrific date in history.

            Yet there is a scene that occurred more than 2,000 years ago that cries out so very strong to remember… “Remember the manger!” This message should be the “heart cry” of every Christian. To some the manger scene with Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the Shepherds and Angels is very comforting, for others it is disturbing, but the implications are far reaching. To the atheist and agnostic, it is sheer folly. For others, it is the source of hatred, conflict and persecution.

           Why remember the manger? Firstly, the manger speaks of ransom (a sum demanded for a prisoner). People are often held for ransom while governments often pay huge bounties for the capture of notorious people, yet refuse to pay ransoms to free people. In that manger 2000 years ago lay the One who came to “give His life a ransom for many.” Listen to the words of Peter: “For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And the ransom he paid was not mere gold or silver. It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. God chose him as your ransom long before the world began, but he has now revealed him to you in these last days. (1 Peter 1:18-20 NLT) …Remember the manger!

           Secondly, this manger speaks of an unfailing and incomprehensible love; a love which is stronger than the worst evils in our world. Our Creator came to a decidedly hostile world, not with His divine wrath prepared to destroy all that would treat Him with contempt, but with His divine mercy He prepared to endure all that mankind could throw at Him. Could God’s attitude of mercy and love toward our hostile and rebellious world have been any clearer than when He was found lying in a manger? When we encounter times of discouragement, confusion, and loneliness we need only picture the God of eternity, too glorious for mortal eyes to look upon, enduring that filthy and incredibly humiliating setting. It was His love for us that put Him in the manger, though He despised the shame of it. Could the Lord Jesus say “I love you” any clearer! ....Remember the manger!

           Thirdly, the manger scene forever frozen in time, immortalized in Christmas plays and school dramas around the world, reminds us not only of His character but also of ours. It speaks of our character in preparing no room for Him. It speaks of His character of humility. God entered the world in the one place no one coveted or cared about, a place where no one would fight to keep Him out; a place that no one even noticed. The God of the Universe spent His first day of humanity lying in a manger, in a cave of Bethlehem. Sometimes we think of God as the wrathful, vengeful, judgmental God of the Old Testament and certainly wrath and judgment will come. But, would such a God suffer Himself to be disgraced by lying helplessly in a manger? The manger scene reveals as much about the mercy of God as do any of His others words and works. …Remember the manger!

          Fourthly, this lonely manger reminds us that we are no longer alone. "Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel," which is translated, "God with us." (Matthew 1:23) The manger scene also says “I will never leave you and I will be with you even to the end of the age”…Remember the manger!
And finally, if you are feeling humiliated or if you think you deserve more than you have, or if you believe life is treating you unjustly; Remember the manger! What we suffer involuntarily, He suffered voluntarily. This is the message of the manger. This isn’t the stuff written on our Christmas cards; it’s the stuff of true transformation…..Remember the manger!

Move Forward but …..remember the manger all throughout 2007!