Merry Christmas...God Loves You!

I was in the unfortunate circumstance of having to brave the supermarket on the day before Christmas. I normally avoid this at all costs, but not this year.

I got my cart and wheeled into the fray. It was chaos...jaw-clenching, wild-eyed, fierce women with anxious children trailing behind. Everyone was rushing, rushing, rushing with that get-out-of-my-way-or-else look in their eyes.

Feeling a little testy myself, I plugged in The Three Tenors Christmas album. As the beautiful music filled my ears, I began to relax and really look at the people around me. And I started to feel the stirrings of Christmas! Impatience was replaced by what I can only describe as love! Surely this was not from me...I felt like Scrooge after he awakened from his dream. I was about a minute away from leaping in the air...and I am definitely NOT one to leap.

And when José Carreras, Plácido Domingo and  Luciano Pavarotti, in heavily accented English, began to sing Amazing Grace, I immediately understood evangelism. I wanted to jump up on the self-serv checkout and cry "God loves you! God loves you! Christmas is good news!"

I'm not talking about the angry, red-faced men screaming-about-hell type of evangelism, but the kind of evangelism where people just can't help telling others about Jesus.

Really, it was a transformational moment. I found myself wandering around the store with what I'm sure was a goofy, it's-a wonderful-life grin on my face. 

I had a great time at the supermarket on the day before Christmas. Of course, the Three Tenors helped. But mostly I think it was the Holy Spirit, whispering "I love you."

God so loved the world, so LOVED THE WORLD, that He GAVE His only Son. And He loves me! And He loves you, too!

Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!

Pragma

'Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.' [Hebrews 11:1 KJV]

Over the last couple of years, I've written several pieces on faith as the substance of things hoped for, focusing on the Greek word for substance, or hupostasis, as being that which has actual existence, a substance, real being. [See Substance, Pull Back the Curtain, Enter His Rest Today, What Faith Is, Tap the Power, If It Looks Impossible, Walk by Faith, You Can't Get What you Don't See, I Have It Now, Oh, I Get It! to mention a few]

Keeping that in mind, what's really interesting about this verse is the Greek word for things, or pragma. Obviously we get our word pragmatic from this word, meaning to deal with things sensibly and realistically.

But the Greek word pragma means that which HAS BEEN DONE, a deed or ACCOMPLISHED FACT; that which is being done or being accomplished; that WHICH EXISTS; a thing.

Sounds like Ecclesiastes to me.

'That which HAS BEEN is that which WILL BE, and that which HAS BEEN DONE is that which WILL BE DONE. So there is nothing new under the sun.

Is there anything of which one might say, "See this, it is new?" ALREADY IT HAS EXISTED FOR AGES WHICH WERE BEFORE US.' [Ecclesiastes 1:9,10]

'That which is has been already and that which will be HAS ALREADY BEEN...' [Ecclesiastes 3:15]

'Whatever exists has already been named...' [Ecclesiastes 6:10]

[See That Which Has Been Will Be]

Hebrews 4:3 tells us that His works were finished from the foundation of the world.

A thing is real. An accomplished fact or something that already exists is real. It's different than a want or dream or wish, which is usually how we interpret Hebrews 11:1, largely because of the word hope in the verse. But hope doesn't mean the thing or object of our hope doesn't exist! If our hope is based on the forever settled Word of God, it is real.

We've interpreted not seen as not being real. But we can't see God yet we know that He is real. We can't see Jesus yet know that He is real.

We can't see heavenly places but we're seated there in Christ just as real as we're sitting here in the earth.

Spiritual things are real. The well of Hagar or Isaac's ram or Elisha's army were real. They just weren't revealed to the natural eye. [See Pull Back the Curtain, The Quantum Table]

I was so busy looking at faith being the substance or title deed [AMP] that I didn't really pay attention to the what—the object of faith.

Pragma isn't the kind of thing we usually think of when we read this verse. We usually think of this kind of thing as something not real yet—it is, after all, not seen. So we just unconsciously translate that as some kind of hope or dream...a desire, maybe. A sort of oh-I-really-hope-I-can-get-this...

Pragma is an ALREADY ACCOMPLISHED thing, that which is already done, that which already exists, an accomplished fact. This verse is telling us that faith is the substance/title-deed/assurance of things that already exist!

Faith is the SUBSTANCE—that which has actual existence, a substance, real being—of THINGS—that which HAS BEEN DONE, a deed or ACCOMPLISHED FACT—hoped for, the EVIDENCE or proof of THINGS NOT SEEN.

'For as many as are the promises of God, IN HIM they are YES; therefore also through Him is our AMEN [so be it] to the glory of God through us.' [2 Corinthians 1:20]

Hallelujah!