Dear Desiring God Staff,

As 2008 fades into history, I want to tell you again what a precious, undeserved privilege it has been to serve with you in the mission of Desiring God. God granted 44 of you to serve at some time during 2008, 35 of whom remain while the rest have followed the Lord’s call into other fields.

Most of the work—and the most important work—of Desiring God was accomplished this year through you. 1 Peter 2:17 says “Honor everyone.” And so I want to briefly honor each one of you:

Larry Agnew, your godly, pastoral leadership of our remarkable volunteer corps is priceless. When you are here, a sage walks among us.

Scott Anderson, your humble and highly skilled leadership has made our conferences both spiritually rich and logistically excellent. Thank you, brother.

Kevin Beyer, it’s great to have you on board now! Thank you for serving with us in our audio production.

Edd Blott, I can hardly believe we get to have someone of your skill and creativity leading our video production efforts. What you do is amazing!

Dan Brendsel, thank you for years of editorial partnership. God be with you as you pursue your Ph.D. at Wheaton.

Laura Cline, thank you for serving so many on the phone. God bless you in Nashville as you study for an M.A. in English.

Bryan (Stick) DeWire, words are inadequate to express my gratitude for how graciously you assist me, John K, and Carol. I love to hear how you make John laugh!

Sarah DeWire, your excellent assistance for Terry only begins to describe your impact at DG. Thank you for keeping your husband, Bryan, in line for me!

Brian Eaton, I bless the day that you began as Director of Children Desiring God. You are the right man. I treasure our friendship.

Andrea Froehlich, when I saw you serve a struggling caller with your Bible open, I was overwhelmed with how gifted we are to have you.

Ryan Golias, behind your quiet diligence in resource production is a spiritual depth and a bright mind I admire.

Katie Haas, I love that your work station is so close to mine. Your constant cheerfulness buoys my spirit. And you lead our resource consultants very well!

Karen Hieb, you are an answered prayer for the CDG team! You manage projects with great skill and I love your contributions at staff devotions.

Sarah H., I miss you here. I loved your cheerfulness on the phones and your infectious love of the Jewish people.

Eric Johnson, I will miss you too. You are a gifted leader; you have a compelling vision; and you’re a true Christian Hedonist. Thank you for leading the internet team.

Tyler Kenney, your work in preparing so much of our archived material for the web has simply been invaluable. I love your heart. Great days are ahead for you.

John Knight, tears come when I think of the gift your leadership has been this year. Thank you for agreeing to come aboard and for your friendship.

Terry Kurschner, the DG ship stays upright and on course largely through God’s provision of your financial leadership. I don’t know what I would do without you.

Matt Lund, your leadership of BBC’s bookstores, and especially the conference bookstores, have made them world-class in my opinion. Your job is harder than most know. But Jesus knows. Thank you.

Seth Magnuson, it’s a joy to see you in the Int’l Outreach dept now where you heart beats. Exciting days are ahead!

Kate Martin, you are a gift. Beyond skillfully keep our supply chain running, you are always humbly serving the DG staff through your remarkable gift of hospitality. I think there’s a Kate fan club developing...

David Mathis, all of us who at one time have served as JP’s assistant rise up and call you blessed. You far excel us all.

Marty McAlpine, when you pulled me aside at the SLO conference to pray over the video equipment, I knew we had a treasure in you. I cannot begin to thank you for the technical expertise you have brought.

Jeff McFadden, our faraway friend in Phoenix. I rarely get to see you, but I regularly get to see how your excellent programming makes the website soar!

Peter Melling, thank you , thank you, thank you for leading the IT dept singlehandedly and so skillfully! Oh, the help you have been to me personally…

Nathan Miller, thank you so much for assisting David in serving JP! I really enjoyed the breakfast we shared in SLO!

Lukas Naugle, what would DG be without you? I don’t want to think about it. So much of what we’ve done in the last 3 years had its genesis in your creative mind.

Aaron O’Harra, it is not lost on me that we have a pastor-theologian answering phones. Someday I’ll probably be reading your books.

Peter Ostebo, your artistic filmmaking is missed, my friend. May God make you fruitful as you serve the precious church in Illinois.

Matt Perman, you came back! Thank you! Thank God! How good it is to have your brilliant mind and passionate heart in senior leadership at DG!

Bryan Pickering, you are missed. I love your passionate heart for Jesus. He will use you well at Impact and at BBC.

Abraham Piper, you more than anyone are responsible for making the DG blog what it is. Your being on the DG staff is an answer to prayer.

Jenny Rigney, all of us are so thrilled for you and Joe and unborn baby Rigney! But you will be missed more than you know when it’s time to leave.

Josh Sowin, you are still our excellent Webmaster, and I miss you anyway (and Sara)! Though today you’re not regretting your move to Florida. It was 10 below when I drove to work!

Carol Steinbach, your compassion for the suffering and care for prisoners has shaped DG. And thank you for helping us clueless guys actually notice other people.

Michael Stokes, thank you for helping make the Word heard through skillfully editing our audio sermons. Tens of thousands benefit from this every week.

Craig & Kathy Sturm, you are dearly missed. You both were great joys to have around. God’s fruitful blessings on your new ministry in Canada.

Joe & Sarah Sweetman, you both are also missed, but the Navigators on the U of M campus are richer!

Kristin Tabb, you not only have served the CDG effort with editorial excellence, you and Brian have also become authors! Praise God!

Jim Tomaszewski, almost 9 years of partnership. God has used you so significantly to make CDG what it has become. Thank you for enduring.

Mike Tong, I wish I could clone you! Your leadership of the customer service team is outstanding. But it is your heart for Jesus and love of our mission that I treasure most.

Bill Walsh, we will mark 10 years of partnership together next month. I couldn’t be more thrilled with your leadership of International Outreach. Hold tight! The ride will be wild…

And this is just the paid staff. Time would fail me to tell of Terry M, Candi, Nancy, Marlin, Nathan, Alice, Laurie, and a host of other volunteers who regularly give freely of their time to serve at DG.

I love you all and count it one of my life’s greatest honors to have you as friends and co-laborers. Thank you so much for a fruitful year.

Jon Bloom

One of the most memorable moments of my seminary days was during the school year 1968-69 at Fuller Seminary on the third level of the classroom building just after a class on systematic theology. A group of us were huddled around James Morgan, the young theology teacher who was saying something about the engagement of Christians in social justice. I don’t remember what I said, but he looked me right in the eye and said, “John, I love Jesus Christ.”

It was like a thunderclap in my heart. A strong, intelligent, mature, socially engaged man had just said out loud in front of a half dozen men, “I love Jesus Christ.” He was not preaching. He was not pronouncing on any issue. He was not singing in church. He was not trying to get a job. He was not being recorded. He was telling me that he loved Jesus...

Read the rest of the article.

Today is the last day for you to enter the giveaway for the all-inclusive trip to our pastors conference.

You enter simply by registering.

Today is also the last day of the early bird registration rate.

We look forward to seeing you in February!

How do you keep your prayers from sinking into mindless ruts of repetition?

One way is to make a list of what they prayed for in the New Testament, and pray that.

That’s what I did for myself. I keep the list at my prayer bench and review it periodically and sometimes pray right through it.

You might want to print it out and do the same.

Here are some of the reasons you should pray and meditate over biblical truth.

1. Biblical truth saves.

Take heed to yourself and to your doctrine; hold to that, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers. (1 Timothy 4:16)

2. Biblical truth frees from Satan.

You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. (John 8:32)

3. Biblical truth imparts grace and peace.

May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. (2 Peter 1:2)

4. Biblical truth sanctifies.

Sanctify them in the truth; Your Word is truth. (John 17:17)

5. Biblical truth serves love.

It is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment. (Philippians 1:9)

6. Biblical truth protects from error.

Attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God...so that we may no longer be...carried to and fro by every wind of doctrine. (Ephesians 4:13-14)

7. Biblical truth is the hope of heaven.

Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. (1 Corinthians 13:12)

8. Biblical truth will be resisted by some.

The time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings. (2 Timothy 4:3)

9. Biblical truth, rightly handled, is approved by God.

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. (2 Timothy 2:15)

10. Biblical truth: Continue to grow in it!

Grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 3:18)

This week's sermon: "Put in the Fire for the Sake of Prayer"

John's Gospel includes 3 key passages on prayer—all 3 from the words of Jesus in chapters 14 through 16.

First, in 14:13-14, Jesus teaches that prayer is for the glory of His Father. God gives whatever we ask—provided it accords with the pursuit of his glory.

Second, in 15:7-16, Jesus teaches that prayer is for our fruit-bearing. Prayer is a wartime walkie-talkie for advancing God's global mission, not a domestic intercom for calling in personal comforts.

Third, in 16:23-24, Jesus teaches that prayer is for our joy being full. God wants us to be happy, and he means to do it through our prayers.

Yes, prayer is a duty—the way eating and drinking and breathing are duties. But prayer also is a means of grace and a great gift from God.

Zechariah 13:8-9 gives us an additional lesson: God can put his people through the fires of suffering to awaken their appetite for prayer. May we not become so dulled by prosperity that our hearts become too weak to sense our profound need for prayer. And when suffering comes, may it prompt us to turn to God in prayer, rather than turn away in unbelief.

If you knew the struggles of the greatest of saints you might be heartened to press on in prayer in 2009.

John Newton (1725-1807)—slave trader, convert to Christ, author of “Amazing Grace,” pastor, fellow struggler—on a morning in April sometime between 1752 and 1756 wrote this:

Prayed over a part of the eighth of Romans in a way of paraphrase with some readiness. I greatly fail in the duty of meditation and am forced to use some artifice with myself to do it at all; thus sometimes I turn them into a prayer form, sometimes I suppose myself in imaginary conversation, sometimes that I am called upon to speak to a point. 

Without something of this sort I am not able to engage myself to attend with any fixedness of thought, and with it, alas! how seldom, I would remember to pray for grace and direction in this matter that my delight may be in the Law of God to meditate therein day and night. (John Newton, 91)

At Bethlehem Baptist Church this is the beginning of prayer week. This is our way of encouraging each other to pray more consistently, more earnestly, more hopefully, and more biblically in 2009.

The best way to strengthen our faith and our resolve is to read what God has promised to those who pray. Here is a sampling:

Promises of Answered Prayer to Encourage Us to Pray with Hope

Jeremiah 29:11-13

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. 13 You will seek me and find me. When you seek me with all your heart,

2 Chronicles 7:14

If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

Matthew 7:7-11

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

Romans 8:26

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.

Isaiah 64:4

From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides you, who acts for those who wait for him.

Isaiah 65:24

Before they call I will answer; while they are yet speaking I will hear.

Jeremiah 33:3

Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.

Lamentations 3:25

The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.

Psalm 145:18-19

The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. 19 He fulfills the desire of those who fear him; he also hears their cry and saves them.

Psalm 10:17

O LORD, you hear the desire of the afflicted; you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear

Psalm 34:15-17

The eyes of the LORD are toward the righteous and his ears toward their cry. . . 17 When the righteous cry for help, the LORD hears and delivers them out of all their troubles.

Matthew 18:19-20

Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them."

James 4:8

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.

John 16:24

Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.

Psalm 37:4-5

Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart. 5 Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act.

Psalm 38:15

But for you, O LORD, do I wait; it is you, O Lord my God, who will answer.

Psalm 102:17

He regards the prayer of the destitute and does not despise their prayer.

John 14:13-14

Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.

John 15:7

If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

John 15:16

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.

Matthew 21:22

And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith."

Psalm 55:16-17

But I call to God, and the LORD will save me. 17 Evening and morning and at noon I utter my complaint and moan, and he hears my voice.

Psalm 56:9

Then my enemies will turn back in the day when I call. This I know, that God is for me.

Psalm 50:15

Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.

Psalm 81:10

I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.

Proverbs 3:5-6

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. 6 In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

1 John 5:14-15

And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.

Philippians 4:6-7

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Zechariah 13:9

And I will put this third into the fire, and refine them as one refines silver, and test them as gold is tested. They will call upon my name, and I will answer them. I will say, 'They are my people'; and they will say, 'The LORD is my God.'"

(Reposted from last year)

Each year Christmas night finds members of my family feeling some melancholy. After weeks of anticipation, the Christmas celebrations have flashed by us and are suddenly gone. And we’re left standing, watching the Christmas taillights and music fade into the night.

But it’s possible that this moment of melancholy may be the best teaching moment of the whole season. Because as long as the beautiful gifts remain unopened around the tree and the events are still ahead of us, they can appear to be the hope we are waiting for. But when the tree is empty and events are past, we realize we are longing for a lasting hope.

So last night, as Pam and I tucked our kids into bed, we talked about a few things with them:

• Gifts and events can’t fill the soul. God gives us such things to enjoy. They are expressions of his generosity as well as ours, but gifts and celebrations themselves are not designed to satisfy. They're designed to point us to the Giver. Gifts are like sunbeams. We are not meant to love sunbeams but the Sun.
• Putting our hope in gifts will leave us empty. Many people live their lives looking for the right sunbeam to make them happy. But if we depend on anything in the world to satisfy our soul’s deepest desire, it will eventually leave us with that post-Christmas soul-ache. We will ask, “Is that all?” because we know deep down that’s not all there is. We are designed to treasure a Person, not his things.
• It is more blessed to give than receive. What kind of happiness this Christmas felt richer, getting the presents that you wanted or making someone else happy with something that you gave to them? Receiving is a blessing, but Jesus is right—giving is a greater blessing. A greedy soul lives in a small, lonely world. A generous soul lives in a wide world of love.

It’s just like God to let the glitter and flash of the celebrations (even in his honor) to pass and then to come to us in the quiet, even melancholic void they leave. Because often that’s when we are most likely to understand the hope he intends for us to have at Christmas.

My grandson Morrow and I imitate Joseph and Jesus on Christmas morning:

Merry Christmas to you all!

There are good reasons to dream of a white Christmas.

For one, God created crystal, blinding-white new snow to help us understand the contrast between our sinful old selves and the new persons he has made us into: “though your sins are like scarlet,they shall be as white as snow” (Isaiah 1:18).

For another, the first Christmas was one of the times that angels spoke to humans on God’s behalf. And one kind of snow fun reminds us of those Christmas angels.

May your CHRISTmas celebration be blessed. Have fun and give thanks for the birth of our Savior, whether or not you have snow!

…is my big brother, Jim. He has been since I was young. Being five years older than me, he was always the epitome of what it meant to be big.

But when he was in college (and I in Jr. High) he was dramatically converted. And he became the most significant model for me in my teens and 20’s of what it meant to be a disciple of Jesus. He really lived what he believed.

He still does. He and his amazing wife, Raquel, have been church planters among the urban poor of Minneapolis for the past 15 years. I know the work they do. It is hard. It doesn’t garner much attention.

A call to preach to and live out the gospel with those struggling with generational poverty, life-controlling addictions, and deeply ingrained destructive habits does not generally produce impressive statistics. It is the hard work of planting and cultivating. It may be that much of the harvest will be reaped by others.

But such faithfulness is not lost on Jesus. He knows. And he will reward.

All this poured out of my heart last week when I read Jim’s 2-page December ministry letter. It’s a beautiful Christmas reflection on what Jesus meant by “blessed are the poor.” I’m going to read it to my kids.

Who deserves such a brother? I doubt he realizes how much he has shaped me. He remains one of my heroes.

Do you try to connect with God the Santa Claus way or the Jesus way?

The Santa way says,

You better watch out,
You better not cry,
You better not pout,
I’m telling you why,
Santa Claus is coming to town.

The Jesus way says,

“I lay down my life for the sheep" (John 10:15).
“Whoever comes to me I will never cast out” (John 6:37).

Watch John Piper commend the Jesus way:

The Permanence of Christmas, Part 3: Contemporary Articulations

From the New Testament to the present, Christian theology has celebrated that Jesus is forever the God-man. In this series, we saw first what the apostles had to say in the New Testament. Then we picked up the theme of Jesus’ continuing humanity in church history. Today we'll conclude with four present-day articulations of this doctrine.

Jesus’ Body: Not Just a Memory

Donald Macleod’s The Person of Christ is a wonderful book. If you’ve found this series on Christology interesting, Macleod’s book would be a great place to go next. There Macleod writes on Jesus’ continuing incarnation:

The body is not just a memory for the risen Christ. He still has a body: a body which, by definition, is material and which stands in direct organic succession to the one he had in the days of his humiliation. (163)

Jesus Didn’t Drop Us

In his very helpful Jesus Ascended, Gerrit Scott Dawson writes,

If [Jesus] dropped the hypostatic union with humanity, then he dropped us, and we are left forsaken on this side of the great divide, unable to fulfill our purpose, find forgiveness and restored communion, or enact our mission.

Dawson continues,

Thankfully, a Nicene, historically orthodox view of the ascension safeguards our understanding of Christ’s continuing incarnation. (6)

Not “Slumming” for 33 Years

Last December Doug Wilson wrote:

Jesus Christ became a human being, but He did not do this as temporary exercise. He was not “slumming” for thirty-three years, only to return afterwards to His old pre-incarnate state. He became a man in order to be our high priest—so that there would be a man praying for us at the right hand of the Father—and He continues to occupy this office, and will occupy it forever. “It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us” (Rom. 8:34b). Christ is our high priest continually (Heb. 7:3). This means that the second person of the triune God became a man forever. God is clearly up to something that goes far beyond anything we might be able to imagine. But among other things, this means that if God has invested Himself in this way in the future of the human race, it follows that the future of the human race must be stupefyingly glorious.

Jesus Has Come in the Flesh

Finally, a quote from John Piper’s new book Finally Alive: What Happens When We are Born Again. Piper writes that the apostle John

insists that the flesh of Jesus and the person of the preexistent Christ are inseparable after the incarnation. 1 John 4:2: “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.” Notice it does not say “came in the flesh,” as though that union with flesh and bones happened for a while and then stopped. He says, “has come in the flesh.” (146)

Praise the divine Word that, without ceasing to be God, he truly became man! He is forever fully God and fully man in one person, now in the Father’s presence, interceding unshakably for those who are united to him by faith. Our salvation is as sure as his continuing incarnation.

*               *               *

For more, see last Advent’s 4-part series on the incarnation:

• Advent and the Incarnation
• Jesus Is Fully Human
• What Is the Hypostatic Union?
• The Virgin Birth

The Permanence of Christmas, Part 2: Church History

Throughout church history, the best of Christian theology has recognized and affirmed the truth of Jesus’ continuing incarnation—the idea that Jesus didn’t simply make a 33-year cameo in the created world, but rather forever joined our humanity to his divinity and will always be fully God and fully man.

Here’s a sampling with help from Gerrit Scott Dawson’s Jesus Ascended: The Meaning of Christ’s Continuing Incarnation.

Justin Martyr

Second-century apologist Justin Martyr is explicit in affirming that after the resurrection Jesus ascended in “the flesh in which He suffered.” Justin also maintains, in opposition to his critics, that flesh in heaven is not impossible (Fragments on the Resurrection, ANF, vol. 1, 9).

Tertullian

The line continues into the third century. Tertullian (about 160-225) writes:

Jesus is still sitting there at the right hand of the Father, man, yet God . . . flesh and blood, yet purer than ours. (On the Resurrection of the Flesh, ANF, vol. 3, 51)

Augustine

In the 5th century, Augustine speaks of “that one grand and health-giving miracle of Christ’s ascension into heaven with the flesh in which he rose” (The City of God, NPNF, 1st series, vol. 2, 22.8).

Why Origen Was Condemned

In the 6th century, the renowned philosopher-theologian Origen, who died in 254, was condemned posthumously for implying that “after the resurrection the body of the Lord was ethereal” (The Anathemas Against Origen, NPNF, 2nd series, vol. 14, 10).

John Knox

Skip forward to the Reformation. The Scottish reformer John Knox writes in the Scots Confession that Jesus returned to heaven in “the self samyn body” (The Works of John Knox, vol. 2, 102).

Karl Barth

Then to the twentieth century. Karl Barth writes that Christ’s humanity is “to all eternity...a clothing which He does not put off. It is his temple which He does not leave. It is the form which He does not lose” (Church Dogmatics, Vol. IV: The Doctrine of Reconciliation, Part 2, 100-101).

Forever the God-Man

From the New Testament until the present, Christian theologians have rightly celebrated that Jesus is forever the God-man. He is glorious not merely in assuming our human nature but in remaining our brother and continuing as the visible “image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15). Without his continuing humanity, there would be no humanity in the Godhead to which we may be joined for all eternity.

We’ll conclude this 3-part series tomorrow with several present-day formulations of the doctrine of Jesus’ continuing incarnation.

This week's sermon: “Destroy This Temple, and in Three Days I Will Raise It Up”

What made Jesus so furious when he drove the moneychangers out of the temple?

It was because the temple, as his father's house, was meant to be a place of communion with God, not a place of trade.

Those who were doing business in the temple were doing it with a pretense of serving others, but they were motivated by greed. They were using religion to satiate their greed. They were hypocrites.

After Jesus' outburst, the Jews responded by asking for a sign, but they weren't really looking for knowledge so they could understand Jesus better. They were deflecting the problem from themselves onto Jesus. The real problem was their greed, but they were trying to make it look like it was a matter of knowledge.

Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

He meant that he would die and be raised in three days, and he also meant that the physical temple would be destroyed and that by rising from the dead, he would replace that building as the place to commune with the father.

Jesus is the new temple. Authentic worship is no longer attached to any place. It is attached to Jesus. He is the only place to meet God.

The Permanence of Christmas, Part 1: Biblical Foundations

Advent is a chance not only to celebrate Jesus’ taking of human flesh but also his keeping of it. It wasn’t a mere 33-year stint—impressive as that would have been. Jesus is forever the God-man. He is glorious not merely in assuming our human nature but in remaining our brother and continuing as the visible “image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15).

To put it in the apostle John’s language, the Word became flesh (John 1:14). His humanity isn’t a costume. The eternal divine Son didn’t simply make a cameo in the created world. He forever joined our humanity to his divinity and for all eternity will be fully God and fully man.

“As You Saw Him Go”

We get a glimpse of this at Jesus’ ascension in Acts 1:9-11.

As [the disciples] were looking on, [Jesus] was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

He went up with a human body. He sits now in God’s presence in his humanity. And he will return “in the same way as you saw him go into heaven”—in his humanity.

Keeping the Form of a Servant

Philippians 2:5-8 speaks clearly about Jesus taking our likeness. But just as surely as he took it, so he also keeps it. In Philippians 3:20-21, Paul writes,

Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.

Jesus didn’t shed his human skin. He still has a body—a “glorious body,” a perfected human body, a body like we haven’t yet experienced but one day will experience when he transforms us.

The Man Christ Jesus

Paul also makes reference to Jesus’ continuing humanity in 1 Timothy 2:5.

There is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.

Here Paul is writing after Jesus’ ascension to heaven, and he is not afraid to refer to Jesus in the present as “the man Christ Jesus.”

Jesus’ work as the perfect mediator between God and man is not only dependent on his death in history at the cross but also in his continuing humanity. In his humanness, we are united to him by faith, and only in him are we united to God.

More on the permanence of Christmas tomorrow.

Today Noël and I have been married for 40 years.

My father did the wedding and we had one man and one woman in our wedding party—Jane Roney and Billy Watson.

We chose to have no flowers in the little country church, Midway Baptist, outside Barnesville, Georgia. Just a scarlet velvet cross on the wall (that I made), and a Bible on a stand (that God wrote). Those were our decorations—the foundations of our lives. You can see them if you look carefully at this photo of the service in process.

The photographer insisted on a funny picture with Billy and my father. I wasn’t apprehensive. There were no doubts. (Notice my fist. It was for the photographer.)

I married the oldest of ten children.

We have only managed five.

My mother always looked up to Noël—in more ways than one.

We were pretty traditional when it came to the reception—cake and nuts and mints.

God has been good to us. Life has not always been easy. But we did not expect it to be. We don’t expect it now. God has given us five magnificent children and four precious daughters-in-law, and ten grandchildren. I use the words “magnificent” and “precious” carefully. You will understand, perhaps, what it is to look at your own children and feel a sense of wonder. And then to feel your love flow out to the ones with whom they are now one flesh.

I waited forty years to write a book on marriage—This Momentary Marriage: A Parable of Permanence. I think that was about the right amount of time. Maybe I should have waited a bit longer. I am still learning how to love. But once you’ve had cancer, you don’t put things off the same.

To accompany that book I put together a collection of poems that I wrote for Noël over these years. It’s called Velvet Steel. Part of one of those poems hangs on our bedroom wall. It’s my echo of the text that was read by my father at our wedding, Habakkuk 3:17-18.

It’s a hard-times-but-happy text. It says,

Though the fig tree should not blossom,
     nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
     and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
     and there be no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
     I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

The poem says,

Although the fig tree blossom not,
And all the vines of our small plot
Be barren, and the olive fail,
The sheep grow weak and heifers frail,
We will rejoice in God, my love,
And take our pleasures from above:
The Lord, our God, shall be our strength
And give us life, whatever length
On earth he please, and make our feet
Like mountain deer, to rise and cleat
The narrow path for man and wife
That rises steep and leads to life.

He has been pleased to give us 40 years, and it does rise steep. But it’s worth the climb. I thank God for Noël and for these years with all my heart.

We will be welcoming Michael Oh as the missions speaker at the Desiring God Conference for Pastors in February.

He will also be the featured speaker of the International Outreach breakout session on Tuesday night, which I hope you can attend if you come to the conference. His title for the breakout message is, “Global Advances and Global Opportunities: A Look at the State of the Gospel Around the World.”

Recently I had the privilege of spending a little time getting to know Michael. It was a great blessing and I am very excited to hear his messages. We will also be connecting in mission as we dream towards reaching Japan with God-centered resources.

Michael recently gave a chapel message at Wheaton this November. I would encourage you to watch or listen to it.

Here's an exciting announcement I got from one of our key partners in reaching out globally with God-centered resources:

Sovereign Grace Ministries is partnering with Desiring God, Ligonier Ministries, 9Marks, and others in a groundbreaking project called Gospel Translations. Together we're aiming to provide translations of gospel-centered teaching online, for free.

In the 15 months since Gospel Translations began, volunteers have put more than 750 books and articles in 31 languages online. Most recently, a Spanish website launched with more than 350 resources. This includes books like How Can I Change? and This Great Salvation, as well as articles by John Piper, R.C. Sproul, and many others—all in Spanish.

If you'd like to help this growth continue, please consider telling your friends about Gospel Translations, making a financial gift, translating resources, or volunteering in other ways such as administration or web development. Most of all, please join us in praying that the gospel of Jesus Christ will speedily reach every nation.

An amazing progression occurs in the 3 short chapters of Habakkuk.

The book begins with the prophet protesting that God seems to be standing idly by while his people in Judah plummet into rampant evil and injustice (1:2-5).

God responds that it’s not going unnoticed, and, to Habakkuk’s surprise, God’s already attending to it—by raising up the wicked Chaldeans, “that bitter and hasty nation," to punish Judah (1:5-11).

Habakkuk protests the justice of punishing a wicked people with a people even more wicked! (1:12-2:1). The prophet is confident that God can’t answer him on this score, and so he will “look out to see what [God] will say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint” (2:1). Habakkuk is optimistic that he can rebut whatever answer God has to give for this.

God answers and again Habakkuk is floored: God will punish the Chaldeans in due course and bring destruction to their home in Babylon (2:2-20). He assures the prophet, “The LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him” (2:20). That includes Habakkuk and his plans for rebuttal.

Habakkuk marvels at the plans of God and consents that he has been duly silenced: “I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us” (3:16). Only he pleads that God will “in wrath remember mercy” for his people (3:2).

Habakkuk now joyfully submits to the sovereign hand and plan of God. O. Palmer Robertson calls these last 3 verses (3:17-19) “the most beautiful spirit of submission found anywhere in scripture” (The Christ of the Prophets, 260).

Though the fig tree should not blossom,
nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
and there be no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

The book’s final line reads, “To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments.”

What is that?

Habakkuk has ended in song! He has gotten a glimpse of the glory of God, and despite the certain suffering that looms on the horizon, he knows that this God will be enough for him. What a progression—from protest to praise.

            . . . yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

I wrote to my 13-year-old daughter (who is attending a funeral with her mom in Georgia) that the new “signature” at the bottom of her emails has made this dad very glad. It says,

"A girl should get so lost in God, that a guy has to seek God to find her!" ~ Dannah Gresh, author.

My favorite Christmas text puts humility at the heart of Christmas. So this Christmas I am marveling at Jesus’ humility and wanting more of it myself. I’ll quote the text in a moment.

But first there are two problems. Tim Keller helps us to see one of them in a recent article in Christianity Today. He reminds us, “Humility is so shy. If you begin talking about it, it leaves” (Dec. 2008, p. 51). So an article about humility (like this one, or like his) is self-defeating, it seems. But even shy people peek out sometimes if they are treated well.

The other problem is that Jesus wasn’t humble for the same reasons we are (or should be). So how can looking at Jesus’ Christmas humility help us? Our humility, if there is any at all, is based on our finiteness, our fallibility, and our sinfulness. But the eternal Son of God was not finite. He was not fallible. And he was not sinful. So, unlike our humility, Jesus’ humility originated some other way...

Read the rest of the article.