Spirituality Column #472
December 1, 2015
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville-Geist

By Bob Walters

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith … it is the gift of God.”  – Ephesians  2:8

The Bible convinces me God knew what He was doing when He created man, gave us freedom, gave us commandments, most importantly gave us Jesus Christ, and lovingly gave us grace.

God, evidently, is never surprised by how much help mankind needs.

I believe this “help” was a package deal from the very beginning; a package that in this season of Christmas gifts we are wise to consider as the most important, divine and Godly gifts, and really, the only gifts that truly matter.

We all have on our Christmas shopping lists items we know are a combination of wants and needs for those we love.  The grandchild wants a pricy electronic device, but really needs a practical pair of snow boots.  We as grandparents – y’know, humans – are stuck as to how best to show our love.

God’s instructive secret is this: love itself is the best gift because love is eternal, and God gives it continually because of His grace.

Most of humanity just wants the electronic device and really doesn’t want to hear about grace, love, snow boots or Jesus Christ.  When their feet are warm and dry in the harsh winter snow, they’ll think not about being loved but about their comfort because humanity’s sinful first cause is “me,” not God.  In our prosperous nation we often define luxuries as necessities, and we always want more.

Can there possibly be a greater luxury – or need – than God’s grace in Jesus Christ?  The common Sunday school definition of grace is “unmerited favor,” but I prefer “necessary help.”  Grace has everything to do with humility and weakness (James 4:6,  2 Corinthians 12:9) and nothing to do with merit.  It’s better not to contemplate what we do and don’t “merit” in the eyes of God.

Going all the way back, God created mankind in His own image and vowed to love us no matter what.  “What” took a severe hit early when Satan convinced Adam and Eve of their own “image-of-God” glory – so “why not” eat from God’s tree of knowledge?   Satan still revels in our guilt, in bruising God’s image, and in conflating God’s grace with our worldly appetites.

We err gravely when we evaluate God as a Santa Claus to be judged by his material largesse.  Read First John.  “God is love” doesn’t mean “Here’s a new X-Box.”

That God gave us freedom proves that our love for Him isn’t coerced.  That God gives us His grace proves He knows what we need the very most.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is going to spend December talking about true necessities.

Spirituality Column #318
December 18, 2012
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers – Zionsville

Shopping, Rebellion, and Surprise
By Bob Walters
Author of (click) Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Spirituality Column #316
December 4, 2012
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers – Zionsville

By Bob Walters
Author of (click) Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Rarely when we shop for the perfect Christmas gift are we thinking about the best gift of all – encouragement.

We generally purchase gifts based on what we think will make someone “happy” by meeting a material desire or temporary comfort.  Instead of building people up by providing the stuff of encouragement – peace, grace, mercy, forgiveness, and hope – we shop for the stuff of this world and then beat down doors at midnight to get it cheap.

Anybody see any Bible parallels or problems there?

The gift of encouragement is a much tougher “find.”  Few people put “encouragement” on their Christmas wish list.  I didn’t see a single Black Friday sale featuring a discount on or special shopping hours for “encouragement.”

Christmas gift-giving winds up being about expressing our love – a good thing – by making other people happy, preferably at a righteous discount.  But holiday gift exchanges are mostly semi-redundant expressions of our affection.  We present gifts to, and receive them from, people who already know we care.  I mean, it’s creepy to get a Christmas gift from someone we don’t like, isn’t it?  And who shops for their enemies?

This is all to say that Christmas gift-giving is geared not so much toward mimicking God’s universal encouragement of mankind but toward simple and transitory, worldly expressions of “I didn’t forget you” or “I want you to be happy.”

That’s all fine, but … the entire dynamic is out of sync with the actual story of Christmas and the glorious incarnation of God on earth.  Jesus was God’s ultimate gift of gracious, eternal encouragement to a world that didn’t know Him, would largely ignore Him, would treat Him as an enemy, mock Him, and kill Him.  Mankind never even asked for the gift God so spectacularly provided (John 1:1-14).

This was the gift of all gifts: God’s encouragement in the form of man’s eternal salvation through the humble human life and sin-cleansing death of his Son and our Lord, Jesus Christ.  The entire Old Testament points to this coming gift, but people interpreted scripture and prophecy to mean that God would give them happiness and comfort in exchange for their obedience.

People expected a trade, a transaction, a quid pro quo.  Almost everyone missed the cosmic, life-altering importance of divine encouragement – the love, freedom, grace, and life – God sent in His gift of Jesus.

Be encouraged and think about that while you’re out shopping.

Speaking of Christmas shopping, Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) published  Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary, a book of his first 260 Current columns, available at (click one) Amazon.com, Lulu.com, Barnes&Noble .  He’d be encouraged if you gave somebody one as a gift. 

Spirituality Column #267
December 20, 2011
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

The Holiday Above Every Holiday, Part 4
By Bob Walters

“Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name … Jesus … Jesus Christ is Lord …” – Philippians 2:9-11

Let’s take a final look at the convolutions and ironies attendant to the general topic of “names” as they relate specifically to Jesus, Christmas, the Christ, the holidays and secular convention.

After that, those of us who so choose can go ahead and have a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, Happy Holidays and if we want, a partridge in a pear tree.

Our fearful, hyper-protective, offense-averse modern society annually ties itself in knots trying to celebrate Christmas without actually calling it Christmas. As believers in Christ we can relax. Christ is in our hearts and also at the right hand of the Father, always. Jesus is not confined to a date on the calendar. His name alone supersedes any holiday, and anyway the “why” of Jesus is more important than the “when.”

As for the “Christmas” name debate, I prefer not to be tied in knots, fighting battles that cannot be won and for which, really, there is no prize for winning. It seems a better strategy to dwell in the faithful assuredness of forgiveness that has already been won in Christ Jesus. I cannot argue my faith into someone else’s soul; and it follows that the same goes for trying to argue “Christ” into commerce or convention.

What I can do is to pray – frequently, fervently, and faithfully in the name of Jesus – that somehow my witness, my life, my example, my love, my works, my Merry Christmas, my whatever might somehow add up to a valid case for the peace of Christ being accepted in someone else’s soul; that in their hearts the Holy Spirit will work the miracles of grace, hope and the blessed peace of Christmas.

Satan, representing everything that is not Christ, wants to destroy that peace. The world’s – Satan’s – attack on Christ is nothing new, and the only way we can “fix” that is not to allow the world’s attack on us to rob the joy of our peace in the Lord.

Christmas is about gifts because Jesus Christ is about gifts – of His faithfulness, life, grace, eternity, freedom, inheritance, kingdom … and oh yeah, forgiveness. These are gifts open and available to absolutely everybody.

When we say Merry Christmas we’re offering all those gifts on behalf of Jesus.

That’s the power of His name.

And I’ll keep calling it Christmas because that’s what it is named in my heart.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com, author of Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary, Lulu.com) believes peace exists exactly where each of us in our own heart allows Christ to exist. Merry Christmas!