Thursday, December 25, 2014

My Christmas Wish


By David Hobbs, Christmas of 2014

Everybody’s allowed a Christmas wish, right? My Christmas wish to the Lord is that He would grant me to communicate to one soul the meaning of God’s holiness so that they connect with it.  If you are reading this, pray that you might be the one, because it’s the most precious revelation.

Luke recounts the story where Jesus went to eat at a Pharisee’s house. Though Christ was treated cavalierly by His host, one woman of scandalous reputation approached Him weeping, washed His feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair, then kissed and anointed them with fragrant oil (Luke 7:37-38).

There is something about the holiness of God, the forgiveness of sin, His overflowing love and electrifying presence that can intertwine in the most precious revelation. We don’t have a word big enough to describe  it,  something ike the holovpresness of God. Very few in the Bible, even in Jesus’ day, seemed to receive the fullness of this revelation. But this woman did. And Martha’s sister Mary did when she refused to give up her place at Jesus’ feet in order to wait tables [Luke 10:38-42].  She confirms it shortly thereafter when John records her breaking an alabaster box of very costly perfume and pouring it on Jesus’ feet [John 12:3] (Mark’s gospel says on His head [Mark 14:3]). is holiness
            Jesus hinted at it when He talked about the man who found a treasure in a field that was so valuable he went and sold everything he had in order to buy that field. Speaking of Himself, He said He was greater than Solomon, the richest and wisest man of his day, and greater than Jonah, who brought an entire evil kingdom to its knees with a one-sentence message. In fact, the Bible has so much to say about the greatness of Jesus that words can’t convey it. (Especially since words go to the head as intellectual knowledge, which falls far short.)
But these women understood it at the heart level, where it changed their lives forever! None of the disciples were recorded as having that deep a level of understanding, though they certainly had enough to follow Jesus wherever He went. But these humble women … it’s like they were immersed in His holiness, washed through and through by His purity, saturated by His love and forgiveness which coursed through their beings in glorious waves that words could not express.

            There is a little country church not far from here that I’ve never been to. But a friend who has tells me that whenever the pianist begins to play, a spirit of weeping comes over the congregation, including him. It’s as if the holiness of God invades the room, and weeping is the only possible response.
            I was in a prayer meeting last week where they put on some background music: a CD with just a piano playing. It was so beautiful and worshipful that I had a similar response—I was overcome by tears. It was a revelation of the inexpressible beauty of God.
            The Bible says that if we seek God we will find Him if we search for Him with all our hearts. As Christians we pray a lot, usually asking for things. But how many have sought the Lord until He came with a revelation of Himself like these women received? How many have prayed and asked Jesus to reveal Himself in His holiness, His absolute purity, His beauty and forgiveness that breaks their hearts in adoring love? That makes them like the man in the parable, willing to sell all they have if they could only buy the field containing this revelation?

That’s my Christmas wish—that there would be at least one person out there reading this who would seek the Lord until they connect with His holiness, until they are overcome by His love--until their life is ruined for anything but seeking more of Him.

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