My Christmas Gift

This year once again, our family decided to focus on sharing 'presentations' instead of presents - either in word or music. I decided to write a poem on the obedience of Christ, and I found both the writing and the reading of it very encouraging. I hope you find it so too.

Advent Poem - The Lawkeeper
When long ago all things that are
Came into life from what was not,
It was submission to command
Of nothing to the word of God.
Time, light-years, sunshine, moonlight, stars
Green ivy, chattering parakeets
Fruit-heavy trees and brilliant flowers
Fish swimming shimmering rivers deep
Were fueled by atoms that obeyed
That word commanding them to be
They lived as wisdom's pow'r displayed
In slavery that made them free.

The tawny lion, bounding bold
Through high fields thick with golden grain
Knew not that his strong frame obeyed
A law that pulsed through all his veins.
Yet he was bound by that one law
That sounded through the milky way
In silence, in the bubbling brook
"All things their Maker must obey"

And after the unknowing things
Had come to be, God made a man
To image him, in thought and will
To understand and love His plan.
Here was creation's shining crown
Who could articulate that law,
Obey, not thoughtless, but with love
And of His Maker stand in awe.
To man God spoke his wise commands
That man might do them willingly.
And if he would submit and live
By them, he would be truly free.

But, woe! To man a voice declared
Dark whispers of another way,
Emancipating happy slaves:
"Your Maker you need not obey"
And willing man believed the lie
That he could rise above that law
By which he lived and moved and breathed
Thus came his death; thus was his fall.

Fruit from a tree? How could it be
That eating should be so condemned?
That biting was a mortal strike
Against a law which must not end.
This strike sent wailing tremors through
The universe of living things
The law that made and blessed them had
Been broken by their God-sent king.

So all was cursed, and bruised and dark
Before this sad law-breaking king
Yet shone a light, for promised God
Another coming conquering king.

Man's race increased and toiled with sweat
To rule the world his sin had cursed
Some toiled with greater sin. Some found
With God, a grace that loved them first.
To Abraham God sweetly swore
To make of him a nation great
And many nations bless through one
Though he must for the promise wait.

The promised nation came to be
And burgeoned in the desert land
Where from a life of slavery they'd
Been freed by God-sent Moses' hand.

Might Moses be that mighty one
Who'd crush the head of God's vile foe?
And save God's people from the curse
Law-breaking men were doomed to know?
For through him God declared the law
Unto His people. But they spurned,
That law, and Moses disobeyed
God's orders when his anger burned.

Yet God preserved the rebel race
And brought them to his promised land
From enemies delivered them
With merciful and mighty hand.
He gave them priests to come before
His presence in law-breakers stead
With lambs and goats whose bleeding throats
For these law-breaking people bled.

Perhaps a priest in Aaron's line
Would overcome the rebel way
And keep God's law and crush with joy
The serpent in one sinless day.
But neither did this line bring hope -
Old Eli's priestly sons, depraved,
Were laws unto themselves, and broke
God's holy law without dismay.

'A king!' The chosen nation cried
'To fight our battles, save our land!'
But this king also disobeyed;
God took the kingdom from his hand.
Obedience, God then declared,
Better to him than sacrifice
Of lambs, or works of men whose hands
Did what was right in their own eyes.

Oh who could right the cursing wrongs
That blighted all the world with night
And bring God's smile again to men
Whose works did not give God delight?
Why would each one so love his own
Decisions over God's commands
Fools, blind with self-adoring pride
Destroying joy with their own hands.

A baby in a feeding trough
With tiny, empty, helpless hands
Come see this one, a faithful son
Who comes to keep the Lord's commands.
Where Adam rose in rebel pride
To disobey God's law and die
This one will stoop by humble choice
Obey God's law and lamb-like die.
This child's a king whose only crown
Is glorying to do that will
That ordered all the universe
And calls men to submission still.
This man obeys, for this man loves
His God, and God delights in Him
"This is my well-beloved Son
In whom I'm pleased - listen to Him!"
This child is God himself, who came
To do what man had failed to do
In God-created flesh, to keep
God's perfect law his whole life through.

Yet he must make amends for many
Sons of Adam and their sin
Thus take their curse of death and know
God's favor turned away from him.
God's favor turned? Oh surely not
Pure reason could assault God's son
But serpent-reason crushed, he prayed
"Father, not mine - Your will be done!"

"Who's hung upon a tree is cursed"
God's law declared in somber tone
So Jesus, took the deathly tree
To be a curse, for us atone.

Fruit from a tree? How can it be?
That one death should atone for sin?
That dying was obedience
Unto the law that must not end.
That death sent mighty tremors through
The universe of dying things
The law that killed and cursed them was
Accomplished by their God-sent king.
And justice rose, and made alive
This once-dead and law-keeping king
Who promises to come again
And set aright all sin-cursed things.

- Alyssa Colby - Christmas 2009

"...no proof of humility"

"The very fact that pompous is now used only in a bad sense measures the degree to which we have lost the old idea of 'solemnity.' To recover it you must think of a court ball, or a coronation, or a victory march, as these things appear to people who enjoy them; in an age when every one puts on his oldest clothes to be happy in, you must re-awake the simpler state of mind in which people put on gold and scarlet to be happy in. Above all, you must be rid of the hideous idea, fruit of a widespread inferiority complex, that pomp, on the proper occasions, has any connexion with vanity or self-conceit. A celebrant approaching the altar, a princess led out by a king to dance a minuet, a general officer on a ceremonial parade... all these wear unusual clothes and move with calculated dignity. This does not mean that they are vain, but that they are obedient; they are obeying the hoc age which presides over solemnity. The modern habit of doing ceremonial things unceremoniously is no proof of humility; rather it proves the offender's inability to forget himself in the rite, and his readiness to spoil for every one else the proper pleasure of ritual."

- C. S. Lewis - Introduction to Paradise Lost

Fear Nothing

Fear nothing but the loss of that which is most dear to you.
Let nothing be so dear to you as Jesus' love.
Remember that this will never be taken from you.
Then, fear nothing.


"...nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."
- Romans 8:39, ESV

Submission Better than Sacrifice

"I am not appealed to on the line that I am of 'more use' in certain places. It is me where He wills. Bless the Lord, He guides! Pay attention to the source and He will look after the outflow....


He is preparing us for what He is preparing for us. ...[Christ said] 'As the Father sent me, so send I you'. His first obedience was to the will of God, not the needs of mankind. The voice of the age that says 'Here you will be most good,' is to my mind the voice of the tempter. It is where He places us."

- Oswald Chambers

Our reading from Jonathan Edwards in family devotions tonight gave me some encouragement in my blundering attempts at following the second greatest commandment. I once thought that I was a wise person, until I began to have a love for the Lord's people. Though perhaps I could pinpoint a theological error in a split second, I began to realize how often I am at a loss as to how to express love for others in a way that will edify them. But Edwards gave me hope in remembering that the Scriptural prayer "that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and all discernment" will one day be perfectly fulfilled, even as I work toward it today...

In heaven love will be expressed with perfect decency and wisdom. Many in this world that are sincere in their hearts, and have indeed a principle of true love to God and their neighbor, yet have not discretion to guide them in the manner and circumstances of expressing it. Their intentions, and so their speeches, are good, but often not suitably timed, nor discreetly ordered as to circumstances, but are attended with an indiscreetness that greatly obscures the loveliness of grace in the eyes of others. But in heaven the amiableness and excellence of their love shall not be obscured by any such means. There shall be no indecent or unwise or dissonant speeches or actions - no foolish and sentimental fondness - no needless officiousness - no low or sinful propensities of passion - and no such thing as affections clouding or deluding reason, or going before or against it. But wisdom and discretion shall be as perfect in the saints as love is, and every expression of their love shall be attended with the most amiable and perfect decency and discretion and wisdom.

...There shall be no wall of separation in heaven to keep the saints asunder, nor shall they be hindered from the full and complete enjoyment of each other's love by distance of habitation; for they shall all be together, as one family, in their heavenly Father's house. Nor shall there be any want of full acquaintance to hinder the greatest possible intimacy; and much less shall there be any misunderstanding between them, or misinterpreting things that are said or done by each other. There shall be no disunion through difference of temper, or manners, or circumstances, or from various opinions, or interests, or feelings, or alliances; but all shall be united in the same interests, and all alike allied to the same Savior, and all employed in the same business, serving and glorifying the same God.

- Jonathan Edwards, Heaven, A World of Love

"May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ."
- Romans 15:5, ESV

"I am more and more convinced that the personality of Jesus Christ is the truth, and anything about Him that does not lead to Him is not the truth." - Oswald Chambers

"I am the way, and the truth and the life..."
John 14:6

the feast of love

"Sincere and strong love is greatly gratified and delighted in the prosperity of the beloved object; and if the love be perfect, the greater the prosperity of the beloved is, the more is the lover pleased and delighted; for the prosperity of the beloved is, as it were, the food of love, and therefore the greater that prosperity, the more richly is love feasted."

- Jonathan Edwards