Matthew’s target audience were the Jews, who were familiar with the Old Testament Scriptures and were waiting for the Messiah or Christ (kristos in Greek). He makes that clear from the start of his Gospel.

Matthew 1:1 (NKJV) The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham

He ends Christ’s genealogy with this summary:

Matthew 1:17 (NKJV) So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations, from David until the captivity in Babylon are fourteen generations, and from the captivity in Babylon until the Christ are fourteen generations.

In Matthew’s Gospel, the birth of Jesus is limited to three historical events:

– A potential scandal that ended happily in marriage

– a group of “magos” from the east who came looking for a king

– and a madman who slaughtered innocent babies

THE FIRST STORY: A MARRIAGE – Matthew 1:18-25

Matthew 1:18 (NKJV) Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: After His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit.

How did Joseph respond to the message of the Christ?:

He was a righteous man

Matthew 1:19 (NKJV) Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly.

Matthew uses the word “dikaios” to describe Joseph – a person whose way of thinking, feeling, and acting is wholly conformed to the will of God. Joseph lived his life guided by the laws of God. He allowed God’s laws to shape his thoughts, feelings, words and deeds.

He chose to be gracious to Mary and divorce her secretly

Joseph concluded, understandably, that Mary had been with another man. The law would allow him to publicly shame her and the consequences of that could have been that she would be tried and stoned to death if found guilty. Instead Joseph decided to “put her away secretly”. The root word is hide – he chose to hide what he presumed was her sin.

How far the church has drifted away from what a righteous life should be. For Joseph righteousness and graciousness were synonymous. Today, we seek to expose sin, make public stands against immoral behaviour. Gracious would be the last thing the world would describe today’s Christian.

He recognised the voice of God

Matthew 1:2021 (NKJV) But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins.”

“The Lord appeared” – Not really a natural response for someone in deep crisis as Joseph was in. It would have been easy enough to explain the dream away. Of course he would dream about this situation that was churning in his mind for days. But Joseph’s exposure to the Scriptures and the practice of the laws of God actually enabled him to recognise the voice of God. The tone, the sound, the feeling, the experience must have been familiar to this righteous man. He recognised that it was the Lord who was appearing to him in a dream.

He did as the Lord commanded him

Matthew 1:2425 (NKJV) Then Joseph, being aroused from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took to him his wife, and did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn Son. And he called His name JESUS.

Let us not miss what Joseph actually had to do to be obedient to God. He took Mary to be his wife and did not consummate until she gave birth. Why? Because the Scriptures were clear – the virgin shall conceive, the virgin shall bear a Son.

Matthew 1:2223 (NKJV) So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying: “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.”

THE FIRST RESPONSE TO CHRIST WAS COMPLETE OBEDIENCE. JOSEPH DID WHATEVER IT TOOK TO BRING ABOUT THE WILL OF GOD.

– Complete obedience will produce the will of God in our lives.

THE SECOND STORY: SOME MAGICIANS – Matthew 2:1-12

Matthew 2:1 (NKJV) Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem

The word translated as wise men is the Greek word “Magos” – a name given in ancient times to wise men, teachers, priests, physicians, astrologers, seers, and sorcerers. The word is found only in two other passages in the New Testament where it refers to a Simon (Acts 8:9) and a Elymas (Acts 13:6,8). Both were called magos, translated in our Bibles as a sorcerer or one who practices magic.

We may have spruced up these magos for our nativity scenes but in reality magos were not looked at favourably by the Hebrew people. Their activities were quite questionable and sometimes outright unbiblical. They wouldn’t have been a group that the Jews would have expected God to entrust the message of the birth of the Christ. Yet God did. They were the ones who were present enough to hear from God and receive the message of Christ.

How often we write off people as being too far out of the reach of the Gospel and yet God reaches out and touches them and saves them.

HOW DID THE MAGOS RESPOND TO THE MESSAGE OF CHRIST?

They noticed the star – “we have seen His star”

Matthew 2:2 (NKJV) saying, “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.”

So often we are too busy to notice God incidents, Divine interceptions, Holy interventions. No wonder our first response to difficult situations is always to ask “where are you God?”

TAKE TIME TO LISTEN. HE IS A LOVER WHO COMMUNICATES FREELY TO HIS PEOPLE.

They enquired about the message – “where is He?”

Experiences and encounters are very important. Many times they are keys to hearing God. But it is not enough to merely hear God through experiences and encounters. We need clarity that can only come from the Bible. The magos knew they had limited knowledge – they needed to search the Scriptures to clarify their experiences.

They worshiped him

Matthew 2:1011 (NKJV) When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy. And when they had come into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary His mother, and fell down and worshiped Him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to Him: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Jesus was no longer in a manger by this time. He was living in a house – possibly a toddler between 12 to 24 months old. They fell down and worshiped Him – worship involves your whole being – body, mind, soul and spirit. It’s physical, mental and spiritual.

They “opened their treasures” – Gold, frankincense and myrrh. These were physical treasures that the Magos presented to the Christ child. We now posess these treasures as we worship the ressurected Christ. I call them the 3 ‘P’s – provision, presence (fragrance that reminded of God) and protection (embalming from decay).

THE SECOND RESPONSE TO CHRIST WAS UNINHIBITED WORSHIP

THE THIRD STORY: A MADMAN – Matthew 1:38, 16-18

Herod and the message of the Christ:

He had all the information he needed to know that the Christ was born

Matthew 2:46 (NKJV) And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. So they said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet: ‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, Are not the least among the rulers of Judah; For out of you shall come a Ruler Who will shepherd My people Israel.’ ”

He chose to respond with anger and murder

Matthew 2:16 (NKJV) Then Herod, when he saw that he was deceived by the wise men, was exceedingly angry; and he sent forth and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its districts, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the wise men.

THE THIRD RESPONSE TO CHRIST WAS UTTER CARNAGE AND MURDER

BETHLEHEM OR BEDLAM

As we come into another Christmas season, we are faced with a reminder that Christ the Lord our Saviour has come. What has been our response to that message so far? Has it been like the couple – complete obedience, or the magos – uninhibited worship or has our response been to live our lives irreverently and irrespective of the coming of our Saviour and King?

COMPLETE OBEDIENCE AND UNINHABITED WORSHIP IS THE RIGHT RESPONSE TO THE CHRIST. WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO GIVE THE RIGHT RESPONSE TO JESUS CHRIST?

1. A revelation from God

Joseph and the magos had personal encounters with God. To stay in a life of obedience and to continuously offer uninhibited worship, we need to be exposed afresh on a daily basis to encounters with God. Our approach to the Scriptures should never be merely for knowledge of the Scriptures alone. When we come to the Scriptures, we need to come expecting to receive a personal revelation from the Holy Spirit.

DON’T READ THE BIBLE TO KNOW GOD, READ THE BIBLE TO ENCOUNTER GOD

2. A willing heart

Among the three events in Matthew’s birth narrative, two stories had characters who had hearts willing to submit themselves to the purposes of God. The other was destroyed by a hardened heart and a selfish agenda. Let these words of Jeremiah speak to you this Christmas.

Jeremiah 17:910 (NKJV) “The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it? I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give every man according to his ways, According to the fruit of his doings.

Let God search your heart and test your mind. Then and only then will we experience the harvest of fruit that comes from a life shaped by the will and purposes of God.

This post was originally published in December 2022 and updated on 31 December 2023

Tough times can become a slippery slope. When life throws a curve ball at us there is a tendency to turn cynical. We begin to distrust even the things we have taken for granted and relied on all our lives. Institutions that have served us well in the past, have now come under scrutiny. Right or wrong – we have begun to question the integrity of doctors and medical science, journalists and the media, national leaders and politics, religious leaders and the church. Phrases like these have become common everyday jargon today – “fake news”, “new world order”, “conspiracy theories”, “going down a rabbit hole”. Social media has added fuel to the fire by enabling these conversations to reach the heights they have attained.

Cynicism however is nothing new. Psalm 73 may just as well be written by a Christian living today. The words of a modern-day psalmist comes to mind –

Ophelia, she’s ‘neath the window for her I feel so afraid

On her twenty-second birthday she already is an old maid

To her, death is quite romantic she wears an iron vest

Her profession’s her religion, her sin is her lifelessness

And though her eyes are fixed upon Noah’s great rainbow

She spends her time peeking into Desolation Row

There is of course a vast difference between Psalm 73 and Dylan’s “Desolation Row”. The psalmist gives us a way out of our conundrum. The psalmist takes an honest look at himself and shares with us how he became overwhelmed by the turbulence of his times and began spiralling down a rabbit hole of cynicism and negative thought.

Psalms 73:1-3 (NKJV) Truly God is good to Israel, To such as are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled; My steps had nearly slipped.

“…my feet had almost stumbled” he confesses. “My steps had nearly slipped”.  Almost, nearly – these are valuable spaces to cherish. We seldom appreciate the subtle voice of reason that stops us dead on our tracks before we begin sliding down into the abyss. That voice, His voice is what preserved the psalmist from slipping into a crevasse of mistrust, envy, resentment, and bitter disappointment. After unpacking the state of mind he was in, the psalmist gives us the secret to living in turbulent times. Before we peer into his enlightened mind, let us capture two insights the psalmist gives us on what causes the downward spiral when we face hard times.

 

1. Your view of God

The psalmist went into his turbulent experience with a valuable mindset. He learnt the secret of living life in the valleys of despair – “God is good…to such as are pure in heart”. In other words, to the one who’s heart is pure; the one who continuously filters their heart from sediments that make them see God in a negative way. That person who is able to say always in all circumstances – God is good.

How you view God determines how you relate to God. In times of trouble we need to know all the players – who is good?, who is evil?

 

Know who is evil

John 10:10 (NKJV) The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

The Bible is very clear on the two extreme players in everyone’s life. One is good and only good, the other is evil and only evil. Whenever you experience being robbed of your dreams, your health, your relationships, your finances – when things fall apart – I’m not saying that the devil is the cause of it – however you can be rest assured the devil will be seeking to manipulate that situation or circumstance to steal, kill and destroy. At the same time, God is ever present during those times seeking to lead us into life and life in abundance.

 

Know who is good

James 1:17 (NKJV) Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.

The apostle James is convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that not only is God good, God is “only good” – there is no variation in His personhood. His nature is only good and nothing else. Not only is God “only good”, He is also “always good” – there is no shadow of turning. God doesn’t change in His goodness ever. He is consistently good, always good. God is Good, God is “only good”, God is “always good”.

This is the all-important mindset we need whenever we find ourselves in turbulent times.

How you view God determines how you relate to God

 

2. Your view of the world around you

But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled; My steps had nearly slipped. For I was envious of the boastful, I saw the prosperity of the wicked

Fixing our attention on what is going wrong, seeing through negative lenses, engrossed at the wicked and what they are up to – or just obsessing over the troubles we are in – that is a sure recipe to stumble into desperation or slip into envy. I’m not suggesting that we naively ignore what is going on around us. Neither am I in anyway minimising the pain and anguish one goes through during trying times. I’m merely highlighting the psalmist’s personal observation that when he focused on the wicked and boastful, how they seemingly are insulated from troubled times, he found himself on “stumble street” leading to “slippery avenue”.

Focusing on the negative circumstances around us make it hard to believe God will come through for us. Our sight gets affected. We see the problem disproportionately larger than God. Peter’s experience of walking on water is a good example of how focusing on the turbulence affects our faith. The moment he shifted his focus from Jesus to the raging winds and the swelling waves, fear got a hold of him and he began to sink. Keep focusing on all the negative all around you it will cause you to sink into despair.

What you see is what you will believe.

So here are the two important lessons from the psalmist we need to remember as we enter turbulent times. Your view of God, your view of your circumstances – both will affect you. Let us be quick like the psalmist to discern when things are going wrong internally. “I almost stumbled”; “I nearly slipped”.

 

The secret to getting through tough times

Psalms 73:28 (NKJV) But it is good for me to draw near to God; I have put my trust in the Lord GOD, That I may declare all Your works.

After an honest conversation with God, where he shares his struggles, sparing no emotions, the Psalmist returns to the posture that will take him through his troubles. Three things he intentionally practices.

1. DRAW NEAR TO GOD

Stay close to God especially during troubled times. We need to learn from little children. Children run to parents when they feel they are in danger. Make it your default setting – when faced with challenging moments, run to Jesus. Stay very close to him. Draw near to Him.

James 4:8 (NKJV) Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.

2. PUT YOUR TRUST IN THE LORD

 One of the best prayers you can pray in times of trouble is the prayer Jesus prayed at the garden of Gethsemane. “Nevertheless not my will but yours be done”.  During turbulent times we lose our bearings, but He remains a firm anchor.

Proverbs 3:5-6 (NKJV) Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.

3. DECLARE HIS WORKS

Drawing near to God, Trusting in His promises, you now can declare confidently that God is at work even though the circumstances around you say otherwise.

Psalms 118:16-17 (NKJV) The right hand of the LORD is exalted; The right hand of the LORD does valiantly. I shall not die, but live, And declare the works of the LORD.

Look for the Divine in everything – where is God in this?

Look for the biblical promises in everything – what has God promised me?

Separate the players in everything – make this clear distinction: evil is from the devil, hurt and offense from people (self or others), good and only good is from god.

• evil is from the devil (Put on the Armour of God)
• hurt and offense from man (forgiveness prayer)
• good and only good that’s from God (praise and thanksgiving prayers)

When you pray the Lord’s prayer, remember this:

• forgive us as we forgive others (healing from what others do)
• lead us not into temptation (deliverance from my tendency to mess up my life)
• deliver us from evil (protection from the devil)

Like seatbelts on an airplane during turbulence, we need to train our minds to live within the constraints of these boundaries during hard times:

DRAW NEAR TO GOD

PUT YOUR TRUST IN THE LORD

DECLARE HIS WORKS

I’m not a doomsday prophet. But I’m sensing some turbulence ahead. Our Captain has turned on the seatbelt sign. BUCKLE UP!

In his book “The secret of Guidance”, late nineteenth century pastor and author F B Meyer wrote about the importance of reordering our worldview around what he termed as fact, faith and feeling.

“We repeat here our constant mistake about the things of God. We try to feel them. If we feel them, we believe them; otherwise, we take no account of them. We reverse the divine order. We say feeling, FAITH, FACT. God says FACT, FAITH, feeling. With Him feeling is of small account—He only asks us to be willing to accept His own Word, and to cling to it because He has spoken it, in entire disregard of what we may feel.” F B Meyer, The secret of guidance.

Meyer saw these three elements as influencing factors in our quest to discern the will of God for our lives. He challenged the prevalent practice of believers prioritising their feelings when it came to believing what God says in His Word. Instead of giving precedence to the promises of God in Scriptures, believers tend to pay more attention to their feelings which almost always are determined by circumstances and surroundings.

In my opinion, this “constant mistake” of prioritising our feelings above all else is a symptom of a more dysfunctional chaos that is going on in the believer’s life. Most of us would probably agree with the understanding that human beings are basically tripartite beings – body, soul and spirit. The chaos I speak of lies in the incompatibility of the Christian life with the dominant influence of the body and soul over the spirit. Before I elaborate on this let me first briefly revisit the concept of the tripartite being.

Body, soul and spirit

At the risk of oversimplifying this complexed idea, the body is the recipient of knowledge mainly from our five senses. The information we receive from these senses interact with our existing experiential knowledge to make up what an individual would perceive as fact or “truth”. Based on the inner processing of this information the body responds accordingly to the outer world with actions that effect ourselves and our surroundings.

The soul on the other hand is that inner “part” of a person which processes the information received from the body at any given moment. We speak of the mind and intellect, feelings and emotions, will and choices – these are all active cogs in the inner processing of a human being that ultimately expresses itself through the body in the way we think, speak and act.

The spirit of a person has been vastly ignored for centuries as it neither can be observed or proved. In recent years however there has been an awakening to the spirit component of a person and many seek after spiritual experiences. So what is this third element we refer to as the spirit? I tend to liken the spirit of a person to the operating system in a computer. You may have a computer that runs on the Windows operating system, the Mac OS or maybe an open source Linux system. What software or applications you use is very dependent on the operating system your device is on. The operating system is the ecosystem of your digital device. The spirit of a person is the ecosystem where the soul and body function in. It is the core of a person. A way of being which governs the person.

The spirit as an ecosystem

The spirit of a person has three possible “operating systems”. The “ego” or self-directed worldview, is and ecosystem where everything revolves around a person or a people group and culture that the person has an affiliation with. The “ego” is the most popular “operating system” in the world we live in. People in this ecosystem pledge allegiance, are committed to, embrace a particular belief system and adhere to a way of life because it nourishes their self indulgent needs. Words like self-esteem, self-image, self-made, self-worth are all familiar language in this ecosystem. Ideologies, institutional religion, economic and political systems – these systems thrive in the “ego” environment. The “ego” worldview is only about me, myself and I.

The second “operating system” that can dominate a person’s spirit is the demonic realm. Not many Christians, let alone church leaders, would be comfortable talking about the demonic realm but Biblical writers did not shy away from their obligation to warn believers of the dangers of this controlling environment. The apostle Paul spoke plainly about such things. In his letter to the Corinthian church he instructs them to receive back a person who had been disciplined and excluded from fellowship due to his harmful behaviour. In his exhortation to forgive and receive back to fellowship he highlights one of the reasons being the hostile and evil environment the man could be susceptible to outside the Kingdom of God.

2 Corinthians 2:7, 10-11 (NKJV) …so that, on the contrary, you ought rather to forgive and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one be swallowed up with too much sorrow…Now whom you forgive anything, I also forgive. For if indeed I have forgiven anything, I have forgiven that one for your sakes in the presence of Christ, lest Satan should take advantage of us; for we are not ignorant of his devices.

The context teaches us to be vigilant and not ignorant of the devices of Satan and the demonic realm to take advantage of people in their pain and misery. Again to the Ephesian church Paul instructs vigilance in keeping their defenses up against the evil ecosystem.

Ephesians 6:12 (NKJV) For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

I don’t think anyone chooses to allow their spirit to be dominated by this ecosystem but it is a present danger to all who are outside Divine protection. Everyone who is not living in the safety of the Kingdom of God is susceptible to the evil that is ever present to “steal, kill and destroy”. The demonic realm as an “operating system” is all darkness, all wicked and all evil.

The final ecosystem that can dominate a spirit of a person should they choose it is The Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is the original “operating system”. This ecosystem was best described as a garden in Genesis 1 and 2. Everything that exists in this environment functions under God’s Divine authority. Nothing can exist within this ecosystem unless it is subject to the will and rule of God. The Kingdom of God is the manifestation of the goodness of God. The Kingdom of God is good and only good.

James 1:16-17 (NKJV) Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.

God is good and only good. God is light and no darkness exists within Him. As such there is no evil that can survive in the Kingdom of God.

John 1:3-5 (NRSV) All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

The Kingdom of God is the way of life believers are called into. We are called to be born again into the Kingdom of God. In keeping with my digital world analogy, the invitation is to have our spirits reformatted to this new operating system called the Kingdom of God. That is the very gist of the Lord’s Prayer. When we pray the Lord’s prayer we are praying for our spirit to be reformatted to the Kingdom of God “operating system”. We are availing ourselves to be subject to God’s ecosystem.

When God dominates our entire worldview (Your kingdom come, Your will be done), then our entire lives are influenced by this. Our cares and concerns (our daily bread), our relationships with God and others (forgive us…as we forgive those), and the everyday moment by moment decisions (lead us…deliver us) – areall dominated by God, His rule and His will. This optimal place of being, where God is be all and end all, is what Paul refers to in his letter to the Colossians.

Colossians 3:15 (NKJV) And let the peace of God rule (arbitrate, umpire, direct) in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful.

Paul speaks of a place we can come to in our Christian walk where there is peace in our entire person. Our body, soul and spirit at peace – “set at one”. The wholesome me, the tripartite being, is in harmony and not living in contradiction. This state Paul calls “the peace of God” is where Divine direction, wisdom and discernment occur. Our spirit, functioning in God’s ecosystem, creates a conducive environment for the soul to find it’s balance. Our mind, will and emotions functioning in perfect harmony – being led by God the Holy Spirit.

Submitting our spirit to the Divine environment of the Kingdom of God is the only way we will see ourselves functioning under the divine order F B Meyer speaks of : FACT → FAITH → FEELING.

Philippians 4:8 –9 (NKJV) Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things. The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you.

FACT – Submitting ourselves to the truth of the Word of God and what the word of God says about us and our situation. Don’t start your day with the diagnosis. Don’t fill your mind with your surroundings or your circumstances. Let the Word of God be the beginning and the end of your day. Look up promises of god in Scriptures that are relevant to your circumstance and pray those scriptures repeatedly through the day.

FAITH – When your mind is full of the word of God and the promises of God, faith automatically rises within you. A supernatural confidence and hope that can only come from the Holy Spirit fills your spirit. Confidence and hope are the 2 natural ingredients of faith (Hebrews 11:1).

FEELING – When your spirit is full of faith (Divine confidence and hope), your soul and body respond accordingly. Everything in you moves in the same direction, “set at one” – that peace of God – dominates your entire being.

Renovation of the heart

It is time for a spiritual make over. Reformat your inner being today.

• Recommit your life to God afresh.

  Surrender your life in full to Him. That simple prayer “Your kingdom come, Your will be done” – that is all that your need to pray. Pray that daily. Pray that until it becomes a reality in your life. Until your spirit operates solely on the Kingdom of God.

• Reorder your life everyday

  Start everyday with this Divine order FACT → FAITH → FEELING

  FACT – Make God’s Word your truth. When fear or doubt creep in, return to the fact – what did God say in His Word?

  FAITH – keep filling your mind with the Word of God. As you meditate and pray His promises daily, you will be filled by the Holy Spirit with confidence and hope.

  FEELING – that Divine confidence and faith will permeate your entire being and govern your feelings and your actions.

Exodus 33:11 (NKJV) So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.

I was 13 years old when I first read this verse. A few weeks prior to this I was in prayer with my family, and the Holy Spirit turned up. I was filled with such an overwhelming sense of God’s presence and I burst into a new language I never heard before. I was speaking in tongues. I was praying for this gift since I heard about it some months before this encounter. The experience transformed me. My whole worldview changed. I began to desire spiritual things. I was hungry to know the Scriptures. Then I came across this passage. It was mind boggling that God would speak to a man “as a man speaks to his friend”. There was nothing I desired more than to speak to God face to face. I became obsessed with this idea. That was all I could think about, pray about. I got to the point I was sick to my stomach longing for such an encounter.

Years have passed since then and I have had some amazing encounters with God – but I haven’t spoken to Him face to face. I haven’t had the experience the man Moses had, where God spoke to him “as a man speaks to his friend”. Don’t get me wrong. I hear God regularly. I hear Him through the Word, through circumstances I like to call God-incidents, through men and women of God and many times just in that silent inner serenity which the Apostle Paul called the “peace of God”. Recently this desire that came to me when I first encountered the Holy Spirit returned again. It crept up unexpectedly. As I was reflecting on the past, the only thing I felt a longing for was this desire I had as a young boy. A naïve desire that said, “if Moses could have it, I want it too.” So, I looked at some New Testament Scriptures to help stimulate that young boy’s dream again. Here are some Scriptures that spoke to me about that face to face experience.

1. Become pure in heart through the cleansing Word of God

Matthew 5:8 (NKJV) Blessed are the pure in heart, For they shall see God.

In the series of teachings of Jesus which Matthew put together and we now refer to as the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus spoke of a company of people who will “see God”. Jesus teaches us that the ones who get to experience this kind of intimate relationship are those who are “pure in heart”. How does one become pure in heart? It isn’t a purity that can be attained by human effort. That was my mistake that led to a huge disappointment with God. We cannot attain purity by things we do or not do. You are not rewarded with this experience. You are gifted with this experience. So becoming pure in heart is not something you strive towards. It’s something you are transformed into. Only the Lord can undertake such a work and He does it through His word.

John 15:3 (NKJV) You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.

God’s Word is transformational. Exposing ourselves to Scriptures cleanses us in the inside. Be careful not spend time merely reading the Bible. The cleansing occurs in the process of reading, meditating, listening in order to apply the word in our lives. That consistent daily exposure to the Word of God is like a cleansing stream that keeps purifying our hearts.

Expose yourselves to Scriptures daily as you experience the becoming of a people who are pure in heart.

 

2. Maintain peaceful relationships and a set-apart life

Hebrews 12:14 (NKJV) Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord

The second passage I want us to look at is in the book of Hebrews. The author of the book of Hebrews speaks of two things that seem to be part of the active response of someone who will see the Lord. A lifestyle of pursuing peaceful relationships with others and keeping ones self holy. The two areas of focus here is the way we present ourselves to others and the way we position ourselves in the world. With regard to our relationships with others we are instructed to pursue (follow after vigorously) peace with all people. It is not always within our power to have peaceful relationships, but we are to make that our life’s pursuit. We are to make peace the goal in all our relationships.

The other area of focus is in our attachment to the material world. He speaks of a lifestyle of holiness. Holiness is not based on behaviour. Holiness is to do with being consecrated, set apart. We have limited the concept of holiness to religious actions. The Biblical teaching on holiness is a separation from the world unto God. It is really a worldview, a way of thinking, speaking and doing that differs from the norm. Separated unto God. It is a detachment from the norms of the world and clinging on to the norms of a life in Christ.

The pursuit of peace with all people and the detachment of self from the world unto God are interconnected. Chaos in our relationships with people create a dissonance in our intimacy with God. Likewise the more attached we are to the world, the more difficult it is to pursue peace with all people.

Make this your focus – to pursue peace with all people and to live a separated life unto God.

 

3. Keep hope alive

1 John 3:2-3 (NKJV) Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.

Discouragement can have a devastating effect on our faith. This world is full of people who are disappointed with God because He has not come through for them. Some keep up the façade of religious acts while others totally abandon the idea of desiring a relationship with God. Disappointment or discouragement is really a symptom of hope(less)ness. The wisdom writer says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, But when the desire comes, it is a tree of life.” (Proverbs 13:12, NKJV)

The Apostle John speaks into this desire to see Jesus and be like Him. He alludes to this deep longing within all of us to not only see Jesus fully but also to become like Him. He goes on to say that everyone who hopes for this focuses on purifying himself. This longing and hope to see Jesus and be like Him, fuels the desire to be pure like Him.

Keep hope alive – remind yourselves we will see Jesus, we will be like Him.

 

4. Serve Him faithfully

Revelation 22:3-4 (NKJV) … and His servants shall serve Him. They shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads.

The passage is typically seen as something we will experience one day when the end comes. Biblical ideas around end time events have two parallel themes running through them. The binary “already” and “not yet” ideas around end time events have made us categorise various passages of Scriptures in this dualistic framework. Revelation chapter 22 is one example. We see that event as something in the future and so the entire chapter ends up archived for a time to come. While I do believe that it is for a time to come but I also believe that we are to experience a foretaste of what is spoken about now in the in-between life of the “already” and “not yet”. I believe those who serve the Lord (by this I mean those whose lives are lived for Him), shall see His face in this life, just as I believe His name is already on their foreheads. John says we shall serve Him and we shall see His face. Let’s ensure we keep doing everything that we do unto Him and for His service.

Remain faithful in serving Christ. His servants will see His face.

 

5. Celebrate the small encounters

1 Corinthians 13:12 (NKJV) For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

The Apostle Paul, with all his personal encounters with Jesus, still described his experiences as “dimly” and “in part”. He identifies the main hindrance to intimacy with Christ – spiritual immaturity. He encourages us to put away childish things and be mature in our thinking on spiritual matters. I see childish things as the inability to understand the concept of time and the process of development. The child cannot fathom the concept of waiting till something is ready, distance of travel till we get to the destination, process of growth and development. He or she wants it and wants it NOW. The sign of maturity is the ability to accept that it is a process for us to grow into a being that can experience this face to face relationship with God. Until then, we celebrate the little things that remind us we are getting there. Landmarks, familiar places, sign posts that reminds us we are getting closer to our destination. Every sighting of God when we look into the mirror, however dim it may be, we celebrate. Rejoice over the “prophesies in part”, the “knowing in part” and the seeing “dimly”. They are instalments of the eventual face to face.

Be grateful and celebrate the glimpses and close encounters with Christ. They are assurances of what is to come.

 

So let’s prioritise these as we seek a life of intimacy with Christ:

• Expose yourself to Scriptures daily as you experience the becoming of someone who is pure in heart.

• Pursue peace with all people and live a separated life from the world unto God.

• Keep hope alive – remind yourselves of the promise that we will see Jesus, we will be like Him.

• Remain faithful in serving Christ. His servants will see His face.

• Be grateful and celebrate the glimpses and close encounters with Christ. They are assurances that there is more to come.

So the Christmas season is finally over. Nearly a month has passed and the festive ornaments are all packed up and put away. Even the Christmas story is tucked away at the back of our minds and we will wait another eleven months before preachers dust off their old Christmas sermons and preach another Christmas series while we sing our carols again to remind us of the Christmas message.

The reality is most Christians will be quite happy to leave the story of Christmas behind and move on to more refined thoughts and ways of living that reflect the twenty first century we live in. If we are honest with ourselves the Christmas story is an unbelievable story. It is so far fetched to any educated reader that we have cleverly wrapped the gist of the story in lovely wrappers and glittering tinsels and leave it to our children to reenact the story. So I thought, since the Christmas season is all over, I want to revisit the Christmas story now that we are all sober again.

The evangelists who gave us the Christmas story unashamedly told us the raw truth. They didn’t soften the blow. They told the story as is – no redaction, no editing – just raw unadulterated truth about the birth of Jesus the Christ. The Christmas story demands that we believe in the supernatural. In order to accept the birth of Jesus the gospel writers expect us to receive it at face value. The reader must be able to believe that something miraculous occurred. Hear these words again. Let them sink in and see how it doesn’t make any logical sense.

Matthew 1:18 (NLT) This is how Jesus the Messiah was born. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. But before the marriage took place, while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Stop! Take a moment. Look at these words again – “before the marriage took place, while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit”.

Say my daughter when she was a teenager came to me and said to me “Dad, I’m pregnant and it is through the Holy Spirit”, my response to that would be – “my darling whoever that young man is he definitely is not the Holy Spirit”.

So pause again and hear these words – “before the marriage took place, while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit”. Have you considered that? Do you believe that? You are required to. If you don’t, the whole Christian message will make no sense to you. The entire Christian faith rests on this bedrock. Christ was born apart from the usual process of procreation. Mary was conceived through supernatural means by the Holy Spirit. It doesn’t make logical sense. If you do not believe in the supernatural. If you cannot find it in you to believe there is One who possesses the power to do such a thing – then the virgin birth will be an entertaining thought just like Santa and his reindeers.

Put yourself in Mary’s shoes. In Luke chapter 1 we are told of Mary’s experience. She is visited by an angel who tells us she is with child. She of all people knew it could not be true.

“How can this be since I’m a virgin?” (Luke 1:34, NLT).

For Mary it also didn’t make any logical sense. “It cannot be so. I know I haven’t been with a man.” The angel responds to her.

“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you…For with God nothing will be impossible.” (Luke 1:35, 37, NKJV).

The amazing thing about Mary was that these words spoken by a supernatural messenger of God was sufficient for her. “Oh, ok, I see – you are talking about the supernatural. You are talking about God activity.” That’s why her immediate response was:

“I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.” (Luke 1:38, NLT)

Mary had a default setting that believed in the supernatural. She believed God can do anything. When the angel of the Lord reminded her, “For with God nothing will be impossible” – That was sufficient for Mary. “That’s fine Lord. I’ll let you work it out”.

Matthew on the other hand focused on Joseph’s experience. When Joseph finds out about Mary’s pregnancy he goes straight to the most logical explanation.

Matthew 1:18-19 (NKJV) Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: After His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly.

Try and put yourself in Joseph’s position. You’ve heard Mary’s explanation but it is so far fetched. “An angel visited me. Told me I am pregnant and it is the supernatural working of the Holy Spirit”. As “just” as Joseph may be, he isn’t a fool. Being an ardent follower of God doesn’t mean you have to be naive. He makes a decision to divorce her quietly without a public humiliation. But God intervenes.

Matthew 1:20 (NKJV) But while he thought about these things…

Nice way the English translators have put it – “thought about these things”. The Greek word used by Matthew is “enthymeomai”. It’s root word is “thymos” which means passion as in breathing hard, with fierceness, indignation, wrath. You know those nights when you lay in bed, filled with persistent thoughts that create all kinds of emotions like a blazing fire out of control. Joseph laid in bed and had those thoughts spinning around him.

Matthew 1:20-25 (NKJV) But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins.” So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying: “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.” Then Joseph, being aroused from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took to him his wife, and did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn Son. And he called His name JESUS.

Please don’t miss this. Joseph in deep crisis, with thoughts that were probably spiraling his emotions downwards to the abyss, has a Divine encounter in his sleep and obeys every word spoken to him by the angel of the Lord. Two things you must not miss. Joseph recognised it was a Divine message from God. Secondly, he obeyed God unreservedly.

The birth of Christ was a supernatural miraculous event

The Christmas story is not just a good way to bring the year to an end. However great or awful the year was, the Christmas season allows us to be merry, deck the halls and say words we would never say in everyday life – like “Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la”. But the Christmas story is not just a feel good story. The story of the birth of Christ requires you, no it actually demands that you believe in the miraculous. Christmas is an annual reminder that the Divine plans of God will happen irrespective of whether we believe it or not. But to those who do believe in God activity. Those who accept that His ways are higher than ours. These ones position themselves to hear from God. And when they do hear from God, they act decisively in obedience to Him. The story of Christmas must be the starting posture of every one who seeks to be a follower of Christ. Like Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the Maggi from the East – we too must be ready to hear from God. Recognise the Divine in the mundane everyday life we live in. And when we do hear or see or dream the Divine activity – we respond with complete obedience. That’s the only road to the miraculous.

Our Latin church Fathers called the Christmas season Advent (the Latin word adventus meaning “coming”). It is the season where we remind each other of the advent (the coming) of Christ. Not just the first advent but the second that draws nearer everyday. He has come and He is coming again. His first coming was miraculous and supernatural. And His second coming will be equally miraculous and supernatural. Many missed the first coming of Christ because He came in the most illogical way. If you don’t want to miss His second coming then I challenge you to go beyond the logical mind in your everyday living. Make room for the miraculous to occur in your life. When faced with whatever the year may bring to you – act logically but go beyond that. Trust God for the miraculous. That’s the only way to experience the Kingdom life.

Let 2023 be a year of the supernatural.