Christmas Oranges - Can't get enough of them!

We just brought home two more boxes of Christmas oranges yesterday. Two more, because we have already gone through one! They are a great treat. Growing up we called them Japanese Oranges …these oranges would find themselves in the little gift bags that we received on Christmas Eve at church, along with a candy cane and some foil covered chocolate balls. This little treat served to heighten the anticipation that gifts were waiting at home under the tree.

In later years I learned that just as we anticipate the Christmas Orange, so the people in Japan anticipate the crisp red apples from our orchards. Indeed, another picture of the grass seeming to be “greener” or “oranger” or “redder” on the other side of the fence! 

I am reminded that an age-old issue for all of us is finding satisfaction in the square inch in which we live. We seem to think that what we don’t have could possibly make us happier than we currently are!

Whether it’s oranges, shiny shoes, or a new car, we love to anticipate something better and then Jesus comes along and says that indeed He does make it better. Everyday, He desires to be our Bread of Life…

John 6:35

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

He desires to satisfy us. The Christmas oranges, the gifts under the tree, the cookies and the turkey…these are all great things, but the oranges rot, the sweater you “just had to have” pills after you wear it three times, the tree dries out, the cookies go stale and the turkey, well you can only eat so much turkey and then the gig is up!

Jesus on the other hand offers us a gift that never ceases to meet our need.

Deep and long and wide and high…His love fills up every corner of our hearts and satisfies our every soul-felt desire.

Ephesians 3:17-19

…so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love,  may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,  and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Does the Bible seem relevant to you?

Does the Bible seem relevant to you?

I have often encountered people who look at me blankly when I talk about the application of the bible to real life. I think that they liken the bible to a grade ten math textbook or an instruction manual for a Mikita table saw. I can see how that can be a reality. I think that we often forget that the characters in the narrative of the Bible were real people with real issues, so often we think they are extraordinary in every way and therefore not at all like us. That is a challenge for any of us. One of my great loves is teaching Sunday School. I always have thought that if you can teach a group of grade 4 boys a truth about God and they get it, you can teach anybody!

 Last year I was teaching large group, grades 1-4, at my church and as I unfolded the account of Noah and his obedience to God’s command that he build an Ark with no water in sight, I began to create a scene for the children in regard to what it must have been like on the ark with all those animals...in essence, I wanted my young audience to understand the real life, real time circumstances that Noah and his family were experiencing…I asked the obvious question, “what do you think the ark smelled like?” With no hesitation a little boy in the front row put up his hand and boldly proclaimed that it must have smelled like “100 poops”. I told him he was absolutely right and then I was able to make the application that sometimes in life God calls us to do things that smell like 100 poops but we obey, like Noah, because God has a bigger plan than we can see OR SMELL in the moment. That lesson was not lost on any of us, “old Sunday School teachers” in the room and I was again reminded of the timeless transcendent truth of the Scripture. Yes, it is relevant to us in 2013! 

What is the main point of the bible?

Hi and welcome to this blog....If you are visiting for the first time, you are in luck....this is the first post! We will begin at the beginning....what is the main point of the Bible?

My name is Krista Penner and I grew up in Burnaby as the daughter of a pastor. I came to trust in Jesus when I was 3 because of an influential Sunday school teacher. My journey with Christ took a serious turn when I was 15 and over the subsequent years I have experienced the ebb and flow of life with Christ and the battle to die to self on a daily basis. Currently, I am privileged to serve in ministry to women for Fellowship Pacific.

The main point of the bible is complex and simple all at once. The fact that this ancient living document is without contradiction and as relevant today as when it was written, is so complex that I am in awe even as I write. The layers of the narrative found in each account tell us that we are encountering a sovereign God who cannot be simply explained and put into a box that, humanly speaking, would allow us to understand and master Him. This complex God who knew me before I was knit together in my mother’s womb, has destined me to know Him. He has purposed that in my short life I would encounter Him in all His glory and He says in His narrative that he desires to call me His friend. It would be absurd for me to assume that the main point of the bible is me. It is a nice thought, because in my humanness, I long to be the center of my universe and I would even say in all vulnerability that I long to be the center of everyone’s universe because innately, I long to be my own god and yet, along comes the bible, and God turns my human thinking upside down and reveals His greatness and explains to me that all things are from Him and through Him and to Him and that indeed, He gets all the glory and then He SIMPLY says,  “I Love you.”

Holding to the opinion that the Bible is God’s narrative and that in the midst of knowing His narrative and understanding His character I encounter my own character as in Genesis it plainly states that I am created in the image of God, I then assume that I would use what I understand about God and His plan for mankind as the plumb line for interpreting the written text. 

The challenge for any of us is to keep the main point of the bible THE MAIN POINT....easier said than done!