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December 9, 2019 by Karen Wingate Leave a Comment

Messy Grace: How to Give Christmas Gifts Without Feeling Obligated

Messy Grace - The Stuff of Christmas Gifts

Have you bought all your Christmas gifts?

I don’t know about you but I have trouble with Christmas gifts. Maybe I’m too much of a people pleaser. I get stressed over whether the recipient will like it, whether it will fit, or whether the person needs it at all. I’d give up but I have to give something to that someone – right?

And then I chafe under the expectations. Feeling obligated to give gifts is not what Christmas is supposed to be about! We should give out of an overflow of joy, good will, love, and celebration, not because someone expects a gift from us or we expect that of ourselves. I truly do want to give my family gifts. Unfortunately, the busy-ness of the season, the frustration of shopping, and the inability to find what I had in mind corrodes my love of giving. I get frustrated with myself, fearing I’ve lost the “Christmas Spirit.”

All of us have certain social expectations, people we traditionally give to each Christmas. Yet finding the right gift year after year can easily slip into a sense of obligation. It’s hard to give freely with the same generosity Jesus gave for us when we feel under pressure to include all the nieces and nephews, our co-workers, and The Boss. Or we hear our mother’s voice from the grave saying, “Don’t forget to send a card to Great-Aunt Louise.”

Do you have trouble with Christmas gifts?

Have these questions ever run through your head?

  • If I gave a gift to so-and-so last year, should I give to them this year?
  • If I give something to one single mom in the church, shouldn’t I give to all single moms?
  • Should I give a gift to all the cousins, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters . . . I don’t want to leave anyone out!
  • Should we send cards to everyone in the church or just post one card to everyone on the bulletin board?

How can we combat the gotta-give something blues?

Here’s what I’ve done. Each year, Preacher Creature and I discuss in a prayerful attitude who to include on our gift list. We select at least one person who is not expecting a gift from us. We then discuss what to give that person – what they most need and what will best communicate our love for them and for our Savior.

It is never anything big. It might be nothing more than a loaf of homemade bread or a knitted scarf. The important thing is what that gift represents, for we are giving because we want to, not because we have to. We’re allowing God to direct our gift-giving rather than allowing the expectations of others to motivate our generosity.

We also don’t focus exclusively on physical needs. Spiritual and emotional needs are just as important. It’s not so much about the actual gift but what it represents – that someone out there is thinking about you. Sometimes we choose a person who desperately needs to know the love of God. The fact that someone gives them a thoughtful gift with no strings attached can crack the door open to further talk about the best gift God wants to give them.

Who does God want you to give to this Christmas?

As you construct your Christmas gift list this year, check your motives. Do you give because:

  • It’s expected?
  • You hope to get something in return?
  • You don’t want to leave anyone out?
  • You’ll look bad if you don’t?
  • You don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings?

Or:

  • You love the people on your list and want to express your love in a tangible way?
  • You want your gift to be an encouragement, that someone cares?
  • The gift is something the person really needs or life would be less stressful with it?
  • Your gift has the potential to strengthen your relationship with that person so you can share your love of Jesus with them?

This all sounds lovely. But there’s still these family expectations. How can we break out of the mold?

  • Start small.
  • Start with one person.
  • Choose someone not normally on your gift list.
  • Do the unexpected.
  • Give something of yourself in addition to the tangible gift. Stay and visit a few moments.
  • Make your gift intentional and personal.

Who can you give to?

  • A lonely neighbor
  • A single mom
  • A home bound friend
  • A needy child
  • A homeless man on the street corner
  • A busy clerk
  • A UPS truck driver

What Christmas gifts can you give?

  • A bottle of water
  • A cup of coffee
  • A book
  • A plate of cookies
  • A sack of groceries

Remember to be:

  • Intentional
  • In direct contact
  • Person specific
  • Kingdom motivated

You can’t give something to everyone. But you can give one gift to one person. Yes, you might leave someone else out. Grace is like that. Sometimes grace is messy. Grace is messy because grace is personal. It gives to the need. And sometimes, our world won’t understand that.

But the Christmas gift wrapped in grace gives without restraint. Grace puts on parade the unconditional love of a Savior who expects nothing more in return than our heartfelt gratitude and our desire to have relationship with Him.

You still have time before Christmas. How can you give like Jesus gave?

Filed Under: Grace on Parade Tagged With: Christmas gifts, grace

November 30, 2019 by Karen Wingate Leave a Comment

Evangelism: The Best Way To Win The World For Jesus

Evangelism is great. Watching someone accept your direct invitation to follow Christ can be a euphoric moment. You want to watch it happen again and again.

Seeing someone accept Christ in baptism is a thrilling moment.
Seeing someone accept Christ in baptism is a thrilling moment.

I love Jesus. I want others to love Him too. I want them to experience the freedom of His forgiveness, His sustaining power, lavish love, and the hope-filled future He offers. And I’m thrilled when I get to see it happen up close and personal. So, naturally, I was excited years ago about an evangelism program called, “Each One Reach One.”

Here’s how Each One Reach One works

If I bring you to an acceptance of Christ as your Savior and then both of us bring someone else the following year, we’ve doubled our number. 1+1=2. 2+2=4. And so it goes

  • Year 3: 4+4=8
  • Year 4: 8+8=16
  • Year 5: 16+16=32
  • Year 6: 32+32=64
  • Year 7: 64+64=128
  • Year 8: 128+128=256
  • Year 9: 256+256=512
  • Year 10: 512+512=1024

See how it adds up? In ten years, we will have won over 1,000 people to the cause of Christ. How exciting!

Except, it doesn’t work.

“Each One Reach One” is not realistic or biblical.

The only one-to-one part about this evangelistic method is the equal frustration you experience when someone you’ve tried hard to convince of their need for Christ just doesn’t get it. I’ve been there too. The method must work so the problem must be me, the evangelist, right?

Wrong. It’s not you. And Jesus knew that. That’s why He spoke of a more organic method of evangelism, pun sort of intended.

The One In Four Method of Evangelism

Jesus told the parable of the sower because He knew that not everyone we tell about Jesus will accept the message. Let’s look at His four groups of people from Matthew 13.

  • Some will outright reject the message (v. 19).
  • Once tough times hit, new believers will also turn away (v. 20).
  • Yet others will become distracted by the worries and deceitfulness of this world (v. 22).
  • A fourth group will hear and understand the Word and go on to teach it to others. Even then, those who hang in there will have varying degrees of effectiveness. Some yields will bring in one hundred, others sixty, and yet others thirty times what was sown (v. 23).

In terms of raw data, what does this look like?

Because I didn’t have anything better to do with my time one day, I ran the numbers on what I would call the One in Four method of evangelism.

  • Year 1: Four people share Christ with four people. One person accepts. Now there are five Christians.
  • Year 2: Five people share Christ. Using the one in four ratio, that makes a total of 6.25. Okay, I know there can’t be such a thing as one-quarter of a person but bear with me.
  • Year 3: 6.25+1.526=7.776
  • Year 4: 7.776+1.994=9.72
  • Year 5: 9.72+2.43=12.15
  • Year 6: 12.14+3.03=15.187
  • Year 7: 15.187+3.8=19
  • Year 8: 19+4.74=23.74
  • Year 9: 23.74+5.935=29.675
  • Year 10: 29.675+7.418=37.093

This new set of numbers might be discouraging to you, but I find them reassuring. They reflect reality. You are not going to convince every person of their need to partner with Jesus. And neither am I. Yes, 37 new Christians is a much lower number than 1024, but it’s still more than 1 person. And by year 15, there will be 113 Christians.

The best part of Jesus’ evangelism method.

Every once in a while, according to Mathew 13:23, some new convert will come forward and go far beyond the “One-in-Four” and even the “Each One Reach One” principles.

Let’s fanaticize that, every six years, one convert influences 100 people to come to Jesus. For the sake of simplicity, let’s round off the decimals.

  • Year 3: 6+2=8
  • Year 4: 8+2=10
  • Year 5: 10+2=12
  • ****Year 6: 12+3=15 + 100 = 115
  • Year 7: 115+29=144
  • Year 8: 144+36=180
  • Year 9: 180+45=225
  • Year 10: 225+56=281
  • Year 11: 281+70=351
  • ****Year 12: 351+87= 438 + 100 = 538

Doesn’t that look a lot better? Over 500 believers in twelve years!

Evangelism is a Team Effort

The fact is, evangelism refuses to squish into mathematical predictions. One person is never fully responsible for winning someone else to the Lord. Soul winning is never a solo act. Many other people helped with the soil preparation of their heart to make them ready to listen to you as you paved the final steps toward salvation.

Paul acknowledged this group dynamic when he said some of us plant and some water in 1 Corinthians 3. Your contribution to the salvation of another might be nothing more than offering a cup of cold water to a weary soul, a container of chicken soup for a hospice patient, a plate of pancakes in a church-turned-shelter during a winter blizzard, or a a prayer for a stranger in a hospital waiting room.

One missionary friend says it takes 100 acts of kindness from different people before a Muslim will even begin to listen to the doctrinal tenets of our faith. The Muslim – and I’m sure it’s true with other groups – need to not only hear us proclaim the gospel; they need to see us live it.

Why is evangelism so hard?

I’m a city-bred girl, dumped in the middle of farm country. I’ve spent half of ministry years with Preacher Creature among wheat, corn, and soybean fields. No farmer has invited me to drive a combine or grain truck – yet – but I’ve learned a bit about farming in those twenty-some years.

Farmers are the most pessimistic group of people I’ve ever met. Every farmer loses their crops a dozen times over before it reaches harvest status. It’s understandable. An early spring frost, a summer drought, an extra wet autumn or one nasty hailstorm can diminish the productivity of the harvest.

Farming is better than it used to be. Yields have increased over the last 100 years because of better techniques, more powerful machine-driven equipment, and the development of fertilizer and disease resistant grain. Despite the advances, factors remain that can hinder optimum productivity. I know. I see it on the faces of my farmer friends every year. They are not in control of the results and they know it.

God gives the increase

God gets the credit for salvation, not us. He is the one makes the message grow and come to life in a person’s heart. Whether in the farm fields of America or on the city streets of Brazil, God brings the increase.

I am the Vine, you are the branches - John 15:5
Apart from God, we can do nothing

What is our responsibility?

Many Bible passages tell us that we are still accountable for relaying the message of Christ. Here is what the Lord wants you to do:

Till the soil. Replicate the farming methods of the last century. Remove boulders. Sow more seed by proclaiming the Word to more people more often. Make your presentation resilient to corruption and sin disease. Train workers to become more effective planters, proficient at detecting fertile soil.

Plant the seed. If the sower doesn’t sow, the seed won’t grow. If you do nothing to tell the world or your neighbor about Jesus, you suppress the spread of Christianity. So, each day, ask God how He would like you to be involved in the planting process.

Look at the big picture. Harvest isn’t done until it’s done. Jesus told another parable that predicted the reality of weeds growing among the wheat (Matthew 13:24-30). He reassured his disciples that at the end of time, the harvest will be collected and God will give the final number (Matthew 13:36-43).

No wonder my farmer friends are pessimistic when I prematurely ask about harvest yields. How are they to know? They won’t know until they drive their combine into the barn the final time. Even as I write at the end of November, Western Illinois farmers are out in freezing cold weather, gathering what they can. If they had given up in early October when harvest is usually completed, they would have sacrificed a lot of grain left in the field. Yogi Berra’s famous quote, pertains to both farming and faith – “It ain’t over till it’s over.”

Let God do what He does best. Our part is twofold:

  • Proclaim – That’s the planning of the seed.
  • Portray – We water the seed when we parade God’s grace, publicly displaying what a transformed life looks like. Our boldness in living the life God has called us to live shows unbelievers this Christianity thing really works.

From that point on, God’s Holy Spirit does the convincing and the transformation, working in tandem with the individual’s faith. He’ll call on you if He wants to work through you. After all, it’s his harvest field, not ours. The success of evangelism is not up to you. It’s up to God. You won’t know your rate of return – or God’s – until the final curtain call. You just keep faithful, recognizing the success of your labors will be revealed in Heaven’s courts.

Our responsibility is to preach the Word and live the life.

Whether you reach one, four, four-thousand or four every five years, your responsibility of winning the world to Jesus is to use your gifts and your influence to faithfully proclaim and portray God’s love and life. Someone in your blind spot might be watching and absorbing. Only on the other side of Eternity will you discover how the seeds of your influence took root and reproduced.

Who in your life needs a saving relationship with God? Prayer and love are your best tools. Email me privately and I’ll pray with you for the person who is most on your heart.

Filed Under: Grace on Parade Tagged With: EAch One Reach One, evangelism, parable of the Sower, soul winning

November 23, 2019 by Karen Wingate Leave a Comment

Thanksgiving: Thanking God for the Tough Moments

Happy Thanksgiving!

It’s been a tough year!

And Thanksgiving is coming, the time of the year we look at our blessings of the past year and give thanks to God. We thank Him for health, family, and friends. We thank Him for Creation, our salvation, and our financial stability. But can we thank Him when the year has been filled with numerous tough moments?

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Grace on Parade Tagged With: blessings, grace, Thanking God, Thanksgiving, tough moments

November 12, 2019 by Karen Wingate 1 Comment

Understanding The Bible: Discovering God’s Heart

Discovering God's Heart

You CAN understand what the Bible says.

Are you still nervous about reading the Bible on your own? Do you feel insecure, fearful you’ll come to a false interpretation? Worried you need someone to explain it to you?

Fear no more. While understanding the Bible is a life-long process, the Bible can be meaningful and understandable right now.

Hugh Elmer Brown, of the Chicago Sunday Tribune, attributes this quote to Mark Twain:

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Bible Study Tagged With: Bible, Bible reading, Inductive Bible study

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  • Messy Grace: How to Give Christmas Gifts Without Feeling Obligated
  • Evangelism: The Best Way To Win The World For Jesus
  • Thanksgiving: Thanking God for the Tough Moments
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"But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him."
- 2 Corinthians 2:14

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