Chris Tomlinson

The Anticlimacy of Christmas

Chris Tomlinson — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 02:30:45 +0000

Something’s wrong with me. I’m already feeling like Christmas is anticlimactic, and it’s not even Christmas yet. (And I’m making up words like anticlimacy). Most people reserve melancholy for after the fact, but not me. I like to get a jump on these sorts of things.

I suppose I’m just getting to the point in my life where the years have piled up enough to notice some things that are always true. And for me, I always find the day after Christmas to be a bit of a letdown. I don’t even put all that much stock in the trappings of Christmas, but there are at least 5 things I love about Christmas, and the truth is, they never pay off. Even the good things don’t pay off.

It’s not the things themselves. We can say they are morally neutral. Or we can say they are gifts from God to be enjoyed, if enjoyed in the right way. And both are probably true. No, the issue is my own heart.

As I consider why this might be so, two things come to mind. First, I have unfair expectations. And second, my expectations are misplaced.

I say unfair because the good things of the Christmas season can never truly satisfy whatever it is that I, and probably you as well, are looking for. We desire a sense of peace, and comfort, and togetherness, and love, and acceptance, and joy—and a season like Christmas seems like it might just do the trick. But as happy as this season may be for some (and for others, it’s not happy at all), it never delivers what we think it promises.

I say misplaced for a similar reason. If Christmas can’t deliver what I’m looking for, then something must be able to do so. Lewis picked up on this: “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probably explanation is that I was made for another world.” And while he’s right, I would add to this that we were not only made for another world, but for the Person who is the chief reason for this other world.

At the end of the day, the way to avoid the inevitable letdown is to see all the good things of Christmas as the vapors that they are—and to see the One great think of Christmas as the rock that He is. Life is a vapor, and all things exist for Jesus, so enjoy the good things of Christmas, knowing they are passing away, and cling to the Rock who will never be moved.

Beautiful Christmas Gifts

Chris Tomlinson — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 22:59:58 +0000

The English have the 12 days of Christmas in song. The high churches have the 24 (ish) days of advent. At Crave Something More, and here at Conversant Life, I’ll be writing a series called the “21 Days of CSM Christmas.” Starting December 5 and finishing on Christmas Day, I will write once a day about all things Christmas, in the hopes that we will all continue to see Jesus as the greatest satisfaction to our soul’s deepest cravings.

Day 6: Beautiful Christmas Gifts

We know this: Christmas is about giving. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” Jesus was the greatest of gifts. But God still gives gifts today.

He gave Christopher Duffey, born premature, blind, and autistic, and adopted at 15 months, the gift of singing.

And He gave us the gift of Christopher Duffey. Enjoy.

HT: Justin Taylor; John Knight

For the rest of the 21 Days of Crave Something More Christmas, go here.

The Christmas Word Game

Chris Tomlinson — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 16:06:32 +0000

Day 5: The Christmas Word Game

What words or images do you associate with the Christmas story? Let’s make a list (here’s mine, in order, off the top of my head):

Bright star.

Dark blue sky.

Cool evening.

Angels in song.

Hay.

Shepherds.

Sheep.

Shepherd stick (staff, right, the crooked one?).

Dark streets in town.

Mary on a donkey (was she on a donkey?).

Wreath (??).

Cows.

Mary in blue with a white sash.

Joseph in the dark (kinda obscured).

Manger.

Baby Jesus (but just because I’ve felt guilty for not including Him so far).

So this is craziness. I suspect much of my Christmas imagery comes from some movie I’ve seen or a sprawling imagination. Some of these things aren't in the Biblical accounts, and I'm not sure how the wreath made it into my mind. But I do find it telling that the words I associate with Christmas do not quickly bring up the one Word the whole story is about.

John tells us beautifully: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

Question: What words do you think of when you imagine the Christmas story?

For the rest of the 21 Days of Crave Something More Christmas, go here.

The Sacred Conspiracy of Christmas

Chris Tomlinson — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 14:15:42 +0000

Day 4: The Sacred Conspiracy of Christmas

Let’s be conspiracy theorists for a moment. Say you are a guy (let’s call you Joseph), and you’re engaged to this sweet hometown girl (let’s call her Mary), and you have watched this girl for years and years and have finally mustered up the courage to ask her to be your wife. And then she goes to visit relatives for a few months, and she comes back pregos, and you’re wondering what you should do.

The law gives you the right to have her killed, but you are a just man, and you love this girl, and she swears she has broken no law, so you resolve to break the engagement quietly. But then an angel comes to you and tells you that the conceived child belongs to no man, but to God, through the work of His Holy Spirit.

Now let’s say you start to get this devious plan in your mind. You remember your teacher telling you that there was this Coming One, the Messiah who would restore Israel to its former glory, and that this Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, because the prophet Micah foretold it. And you also remember a story about the coming one being born of a virgin, because the prophet Isaiah foretold it. And you have watched foreign occupiers suck the life out of your village and your people, and you want to see your nation restored. More than that, you want power yourself.

So you come up with this plan to take advantage of Mary’s situation, and your family happens to be from Bethlehem, so when Caesar issues a decree that everyone should return to their hometown for the census, you see this is your chance. You can work the situation into fulfilling a couple of prophecies by going to Bethlehem and having Mary deliver this child there. And then you could start telling people that your son is the long awaited Messiah! And then you’d coach your son into fulfilling other prophecies, and as he rose to power, you’d rise along with him.

You could do all of that right? I mean, it would be really strange, and you’d be a megalomaniac, and it’d be a super long shot, but it’s possible, right?

Clearly, Joseph and Mary do no such thing. They probably had no idea that any of these prophecies were actually being fulfilled—they were likely just dealing with the really difficult situation they found themselves in. But what strikes me most in this story is the impossibility of any power-hungry man fulfilling Micah’s prophecy himself. You can maybe ride into Jerusalem on a donkey because Zechariah said the king would come into the city in this way, but you can’t control your birth. You can’t, as a child in the womb, control where your mom and dad go to deliver you (or control that pesky star).

Unless, of course, you’re God. And this is the wonder of Christmas. When Micah, facing the prospect of siege, spoke hope into the crumbling heart of Israel, “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from old, from ancient of days,” it meant that the deliverance of Israel was going to be of God.

This is why Christmas was God’s doing. It was the sacred conspiracy, a plan formulated in secret before the ages began, and not one of evil (as conspiracies are), but one of holy origins. Jesus was to be born in Bethlehem, and He would be a ruler in Israel who would “shepherd his flock” of God’s people, and He would be “their peace”, all because God planned it long ago and promised it through His prophet, Micah.

Let us wonder at the delight God has in taking small things (Bethlehem, a manger, a baby; us) and making great things from them (a Messiah who would shepherd His people and be their peace; a redeemed people who are conformed into the image of God’s Son). Let us realize that Christmas was promised long ago, in the midst of great trial, by a God who has our good in mind, and loves to use the weak in this world to shame the strong. And let us feel the love God has for us in this promised Messiah, a love that was made clear some 33 years after that miraculous birth, and a love that gives the substance to our Christmastime today.

For the rest of the 21 Days of Crave Something More Christmas, go here.

The Sign of Christmas

Chris Tomlinson — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 16:42:08 +0000

The English have the 12 days of Christmas in song. The high churches have the 24 (ish) days of advent. At Crave Something More and here at Conversant Life, I’ll be writing a series called the “21 Days of CSM Christmas.” Starting December 5 and finishing on Christmas Day, I will write once a day about all things Christmas, in the hopes that we will all continue to see Jesus as the greatest satisfaction to our soul’s deepest cravings.

Day 3: The Sign of Christmas

If you had to pick just one symbol or sign for Christmas, what would it be? If Google Images is of any help, then Christmas is symbolized by the Christmas tree, or bells, or snow fall against a lit home, or Santa, or ornaments, or gifts, or candy canes, or Homer Simpson on a rooftop in a Santa costume.

But God’s sign was much simpler than all of this. God’s sign was a baby.

“Ask a sign of the LORD your God,” the Lord said to King Ahaz of Judah, “let it be deep as Sheol or as high as heaven.” Ahaz was facing a great threat when he heard this from the Lord. Rezin, the king of Syria, and Pekah, the king of Israel were at the foothills of Jerusalem, readying an attack. And the hearts of Ahaz and his people “shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind.” There was no steadiness of heart; there was no resolve. There was only the unsettling fear that blew gusts of dread among the people.

So the Lord sent Isaiah to calm Ahaz and his people: “Be careful, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint…It shall not stand, and it shall not come to pass…If you are not firm in faith, you will not be firm at all.”

Ahaz’s faith must not have been firm, because this is where the Lord came to Ahaz to tell him to ask for a sign—an impossible sign! How deep is Sheol? There is no depth to speak of. How high is heaven? There is no height to measure. God was basically saying this: My word will stand, Ahaz. What I have promised, I will bring about. I will deliver My people. In fact, you can ask anything you can think of as a sign to prove it—anything at all. Because I have power and control over all things.

And when Ahaz refused God’s offer, saying “I will not put the Lord to the test,” God promised a sign anyway. “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel (which means, “God is with us”).” This is a strange sign to be sure. I’m not sure how Ahaz would have felt at hearing this sign. Great, who is the virgin? Is she conceiving soon, because those two armies are still encamped against us?

But God’s story was greater than Ahaz’s story, just as God’s story is greater than our own. And God’s sign was the impossible sign. Virgin’s don’t conceive and bear sons. No one would think to ask for a sign like this. But all things are possible with God. And wrapped up in this sign, for Ahaz and for us, is the promise of God for deliverance, the promise for salvation from our enemies, the promise that God has our good in mind.

Jesus is this sign. He is this promise. He is our deliverance from sin, and our salvation from Satan’s grasps, and our promise of God’s goodness to us. So when we see the symbols of Christmas in our homes and on our streets and in the public squares this month, let us see through them to the impossible sign that God promised, the glory of a helpless baby who would be our great Deliverer.

For the rest of the 21 Days of Crave Something More Christmas, go here.

Don't Just Hear...See!

Chris Tomlinson — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 17:37:13 +0000

Job: “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5-6).

Here was the most righteous man of his day, steadfastly withstanding the condemnation of his three close and misguided friends. These friends came to Job in his misery and waited with him in silence for seven days. Then they began their escalating (in directness) and diminishing (in effectiveness) arguments against Job, trying to show him that wickedness produces suffering. And Job was right to fight this argument by maintaining His innocence. God was not bringing suffering on Job because of his wickedness.

But then Elihu came to Job, and he spoke of God’s purpose in suffering, to bring sinners to repentance. “If they are bound in chains and caught in the cords of affliction, then he declares to them their work and their transgressions…he opens their ears to instruction and commands that they return from iniquity” (Job 36:8-10). And Job realized that, despite his righteousness, he was still a sinner before a holy God.

There is a kind of hearing of God that produces pride in man. And there is a kind of seeing God that reduces a man to his knees in repentance. Don’t just hear of God, or think of God, or consider God. See, and behold, and delight in Him, that He is a God who is good, and just, and sovereign, and loving, and full of mercy, all for His great glory and our great joy!

Question: Do you ever find yourself hearing of God without seeing Him?

I've Decided To Pray In Church Of All Places

Chris Tomlinson — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:56:00 +0000

As I have been contemplating prayer of late, I’ve found my times of prayer to be growing in both occasion and place. I find myself before God in prayer as I face a decision that needs to be made, or to ask Him wisdom as I read His word. Or I find myself offering bursts of praise as I see His hand in a sunrise, or asking Him for grace when I need help with a hard conversation. But I have also realized there is one place where I’m pretty certain to not be praying: church.

You’d think this is all mixed up, and you would have a point. But our church doesn’t have a specific time for congregational prayer. We have corporate prayer, but I can just listen to a pastor pray over the service or the congregation without doing much of anything other than listening to him pray over the service or the congregation. We also have prayer over the Word, and prayer over our singing, but again, I find it far too easy to watch rather than pray.

But Paul tells us to pray without ceasing, and I want to connect more deeply with God, so I’ve decided that I’m going to pray at church. And short of disrupting everyone throughout the service with constant, outspoken prayers, I’ve realized there are plenty of opportunities to be praying.

1. Pray as we drive in to church: God, do a work in your people this morning, to open our eyes to Your glory and to awaken our affections for You above all other things.

2. Pray as we walk in the door: God, may I be a minister of grace to someone in need, and may You bring someone to minister to my needs as You see fit.

3. Pray as the band begins to play: God, grant us to worship you together with united hearts of praise and adoration for Your name!

4. Pray as we begin to sing: [Insert song lyric, and mean it rather than mouth it].

5. Pray as we shake each other’s hands for 15 seconds: God, love this person through me right now. Give us words to build a relationship of mutual love and encouragement.

6. Pray as the pastor prays for our service: [As he prays], God, may this be so. Do this, for Your glory and our joy.

7. Pray as the teaching pastor walks on stage: God, grant His lips to speak and our ears to hear the wisdom and beauty of Your word, and awaken our minds to understand and our hearts to feel the weight of Your truth.

8. Pray as the Word is being taught: God, shine the light of your Word deep in my heart; show me my sin, reveal to me Your grace, teach me Your truth, and do this for all who are here.

9. Pray as the gospel is being shared: God, awaken faith in those who don’t know You. Help them to see their sin and delight in Your mercy, and help them to respond to the gospel and receive Your Son as their righteousness, their Lord, their Savior, and their Treasure.

10. Pray as we give: God, I give because You own everything I have. Multiply this offering to expand Your kingdom and the reach of Your name.

11. Pray as we leave the sanctuary: God, give me eyes to see friends to encourage and loners to befriend before I reach the door to leave.

12. Pray as we talk to a friend in need: [Stopping to pray during a discussion rather than saying “I’ll be sure to pray for you.”]

13. Pray as we walk out the door: God, consecrate this day for Your sake. Help me to rest in You, obey Your Word, follow Your lead, and love others today while I have breath.

Pray with me this Sunday. And each day until then. May God help us to see our need for Him throughout each day, and may we be found in unceasing prayer before His throne.

Question: When do you pray at your church gathering?

The Realness of God

Chris Tomlinson — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 01:35:27 +0000

I have been contemplating prayer recently. By contemplating, I mean I’ve been thinking much more about prayer than actually talking to God about prayer, which of course would be praying and might just help the whole situation. But here I find myself, wondering why something so central to this faith we share is such a mystery.

Here’s what I do know about prayer. It’s hard. It’s important. It’s much simpler than we care to make it. And it’s far more complex than we understand.

I also know that pretty much every Christian thinks his or her prayer life isn’t all that great. When you ask a Christian if Jesus died for their sins, they will say yes. When you ask a Christian if communion wafers are too dry, they will say yes. And when you ask a Christian if their prayer life could be better, they will say yes.

I am no different, but I’m also tired of lamenting this fact. I can see spending the next forty years dipping my toes into the shallow pools of God while shouting over my shoulder that’s it’s just too far to jump into the deep end. But who wants to stay in the shallow end shouting all the time?

As I consider why my prayer life “isn’t as good as it could be,” I have to acknowledge the reason this is so: because my experience in prayer hasn’t been worth the effort. By this I mean that the reward hasn’t been worth the cost. While there are a hundred other reasons I don’t pray more earnestly, or more fervently, or more expectantly, or more willfully, or more joyfully, the ground-level reason is because I don’t think it’s worth my time.

I say this with conviction because I believe that tasting the sweetness of God and seeing the beauty of God will lead to the savoring of God over anything else, because He is the greatest of all realities. And I’m coming to see that taking hold of this truth, that God is real, with all the strength I can muster, is necessary if I’m ever going to change my mind and see that time spent with God is absolutely time best spent.

It sounds silly to say God is real. Of course we believe God is real. We’d take a bullet to show that God is real. We’ll give our money and our time so that more people will see that He is real. We’re committed our lives to following Jesus, and worshipping God, and serving Him, and repenting from sin, and sharing the gospel, and all sorts of things that pour from a well-deep belief that God is real.

But if God is real to us, why do we cut Him off mid-sentence? God, I pray for our group tomorrow, that you would work…oh shoot, I forgot to send out that email about the time change.

If God is real to us, why do we continue to teach when we pray in front of a group we just taught? God, help us to see, that as you say in your word in the passage we looked at today, that actions speak louder than words, that we need to let go and let God, that the knowledge we gained today should change our hearts and sink down into the roots of our soul, which will bring forth the fruit that will evidence the change in our hearts and [fill in any other bullet points you might want to reinforce from the message].

Real people having real conversations speak in a certain way, and people praying to a God they aren’t deeply convinced is listening speak in a different way. Now this may be a reality of our faith, that the process of being made into the image of Christ comes with stretching and growing and yearning, and that’s OK. But as one preacher says, “It’s OK to not be OK. It’s just not OK to stay that way.”

So this is my prayer today for all of us: God, be real to us. Help us to pray, hear us, speak to us, and give us a heart that desires you most.

Question: How’s your prayer life?

The Hedge Test

Chris Tomlinson — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 01:25:32 +0000

It has been said that the true character of a man is what he does when no one else is looking. I might amend that to say: the true character of a man is what his heart is inclined to do, and what he does, when no one is looking.

I realized this yesterday as I was helping my mother-in-law trim her hedge. I’ve never trimmed a hedge before, but it didn’t look all that hard, so I volunteered. And it wasn’t hard in a mountain-climbing, desert-crossing kind of way, but it wasn’t something I’d typically do on a relaxing vacation either.

Using old-school hedge shears and a small platform ladder, I took to the top and the side of this long, overgrown hedge, and over the course of the next hour or so, I made good progress in the 90 degree heat. I wanted to do a good job, doing my work with excellence, making a good impression on the in-laws, and doing my work for the glory of God. So I took special care to round the top corners and get clean lines along the sides, you know, making the hedge look like it belonged with the best of hedges.

But before long, I realized I needed to go around to the neighbor’s side of the hedge to complete the project. And there is where I found a test of my character, waiting in the shade of cascading fruit trees. Sure, this side of the hedge needed trimming as well, but it was the neighbor’s side after all, so my in-laws wouldn’t really see it. And the hedge was mostly hidden from view by the trees, so maybe the neighbors wouldn’t really see it either. So I thought about skimping on the work, offering a few token cuts with the shears on a side no one would notice.

But that’s when the refrain echoed in my mind: the true test of a man’s character… I realized that if I really meant to work for the glory of God, to cut this hedge for His glory, as it if were His hedge I was trimming (which it was after all), then it meant doing all of the work as if all of it could be seen.

Jeremiah tells us that our God, “who judges righteously…tests the heart and the mind” (Jeremiah 11:20). Jesus tells us that “I am he who searches mind and heart” (Revelation 2:23), and that “nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known” (Luke 12:2).

I decided to cut the entire hedge as if it were God’s, and I’m grateful to Him for testing and revealing the hidden things in my heart. My prayer for all of us is that He would continue to test us, and change us, and shape our hearts and minds and hands so that all the things we do will be for His glory alone, and that our character, as we’re being conformed to the image of Christ, would be sharpened by the shears of His Spirit, so we might be presented to Him as perfect and holy.

Question: What is one of your stories of character-testing?

Convicted On Judgment Day

Chris Tomlinson — Tue, 24 May 2011 14:59:41 +0000

You might have recently heard about Harold Camping. A California-based radio broadcaster, he has made news for his end of days predictions and his influence over thousands of followers who have given to and supported his claim of the coming Judgment Day. Camping predicted that the end of the world would be ushered in last Saturday, May 21, 2011, and that 200 million Christians would be raptured amidst global earthquakes.

Many have written in jest or condemnation or love about this topic, but what struck me most was a thought I had on Saturday morning. Knowing that Camping’s Judgment Day had arrived, and assuming it was another false prophecy consistent with a ministry rife with false teaching, I still wondered what it would be like for Christ to return that day. As I contemplated this Second Coming, here’s what I thought: I’d really like to finish the house first.

You see, we’ve been building our first home for the past year, and we’ve poured ourselves, our time, and our money into finishing this project. The process has gone much slower than we’ve liked, or even thought possible, and we have found ourselves “2 weeks away” from being done for about 3 months now. As of today, I think we’re about two weeks away =).

In all this, I’m reminded of a question John Piper poses in God Is The Gospel: “If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauty you ever saw….could you be satisfied…if Christ was not there?” The question I ask myself today is similar: What do I want most today—Jesus, or something else?

Paul contemplated this question and chose well. “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ” (Phil 3:8). So while we live on earth, and work our jobs, and build our houses, and love our families, and fellowship with believers, and share the gospel with others, and enjoy God’s goodness to us, let us also desire with Paul to see, know, and have Christ above all other things.

Question: What in your life are you treasuring above Christ these days?