It’s not unusual for churches to rent school auditoriums for worship services. The Bronx Household of Faith just wants the same rights other community groups have to assemble in public schools during off hours. But school officials who preside over the New York borough are allegedly discriminating against the group because it would use the facility for religious services, the church claims.

The New York City Department of Education consistently rejected Bronx Household’s request to meet at a school building for weekend services until a federal district court in 2002 issued an injunction prohibiting the department from keeping churches out. Now the U.S. Supreme Court may decide the matter. It’s a case that could have far-reaching ramifications for churches across the nation that wish to hold meetings in public schools.

“The government cannot target religious services for exclusion from public buildings when they are open to other similar types of meetings,” says Alliance Defense Fund Senior Counsel Jordan Lorence. 

“The U.S. Supreme Court has definitively ruled that the government cannot limit access to generally available public spaces merely because government officials disapprove of a form of expression. Equal access means equal access, and that includes religious services.”

Should government regulate Sunday morning sermons about political candidates? Most Protestant pastors don’t think so. A survey shows they want the freedom to preach what the Bible says about candidates’ positions.

 According to LifeWay Research, nearly nine out of 10 Protestant senior pastors believe government should not regulate sermons. 

“The survey confirmed what pastors of nearly every persuasion have told us for years: They don’t want the IRS or any other governmental agency to censor what they say from their pulpits,” said Alliance Defense Fund Senior Legal Counsel Erik Stanley. 

The ADF co-conducted the survey and encourages pastors to live without fear of punishment or penalty by the government and decide for themselves what they will sermonize about. Pastors from more than 475 churches nationwide planned to preach sermons recently presenting biblical perspectives on the positions of electoral candidates. 

According to Stanley, they were exercising their constitutionally protected right to free religious expression, despite a problematic Internal Revenue Service rule that activist groups often use to try to silence churches.

Religion is on the move in Europe, but it’s heading in the wrong direction for Christians.

On the one hand, the pilgrim industry is booming. The European Union, local governments and liberal churches are investing millions to modernize and market medieval pilgrim routes. Millions—including a growing number of nonbelievers and charismatic Christians—have set out on holy trails.

On the other hand, campaigns are mounting against Bible-believing Christians who hold on to Jesus as the only way. Europeans, even within the churches, perceive biblical persuasions and morals as fundamentalist and anti-democratic. In some cases biblical Christianity is already illegal.

For centuries European emperors and kings imposed their religion of choice upon subjects—and European governments still claim the right to control religion. Authorities increasingly intervene, judging which religious convictions are compatible with the ruling definition of European democracy—which is secular pluralism.

“I fear that the Bible may soon be forbidden in public places like libraries and schools,” Johan Candelin, former executive director of the Religious Liberties Commission of the World Evangelical Alliance, told Charisma.

He points to a definitive shift in Europe over the last five years in which Christians commonly have been painted as unreliable and even stupid by mainstream media. Insisting Jesus is the only way to heaven could be considered hate speech—a potentially criminal offense.

Moreover, while some European countries—Austria, Hungary and Germany, as well as most of the formerly communist countries in eastern Europe—have so-called recognized religions that enjoy certain privileges, the evangelical, Pentecostal and charismatic churches are mostly excluded or listed in lesser categories and often treated as “cults.” In France and Greece it is forbidden to evangelize children, the elderly and the sick. Belgium currently is debating a similar bill.

In Germany and Sweden the going is getting tougher: Parents are being sent to jail and having their children moved to foster homes for raising them according to biblical principles.

Eduard Elscheidt is a living example. He is from the small town of Salzkotten in northwest Germany. There, a group of Christians is battling the local government and the German courts.

“Between us we have so far spent 300 days in prison,” says Elscheidt, a father of four who has been behind bars twice for keeping his elementary school children at home during sex-education classes at school.

Gabriele Eckermann, defense lawyer for the Salzkotten parents, told Charisma that ideas now taught at sex-ed classes in elementary school conflict with a German law that sets the legal age for sexual relationships at 14. Eckermann also pointed out that according to both European and German law, parents have a “natural right” to direct the education of their children and educational authorities must respect the “religious and ideological persuasions” of parents.

“The German authorities are not complying with their own laws!” says Elscheidt, who moved to Germany from the former Soviet Union, where family members were routinely in prison, either for illegal youth work or for printing Bibles illegally. “We are fined for each day that each child misses school. Refusing to pay, we are sent to jail.”

Recently the European Human Rights Court ruled that Germany is correct in not tolerating “parallel societies”—another blow to Christian parenting.

In a similar violation of parental rights, Child Protective Services in the city of Karlstad in Sweden moved Erik and Malin Berglund’s (not their real names) children, then ages 2, 5, 7 and 8, to foster homes in June 2010. The parents are allowed only two hours every three weeks with their children, and only under surveillance. What’s more, Erik was sentenced to one year in prison and Malin to six months of house arrest.

Their crime? Spanking their kids, and claiming that physical discipline is a biblical concept. Spanking was forbidden by law in Sweden in 1979. The Berglunds have promised not to spank their children anymore. Says Erik: “The authorities say that I must also change my way of thinking, or we won’t get our children back.”

Mats Tunehag, current World Evangelical Alliance global spokesman for religious liberties, is concerned. “Self censorship among Bible-believing Christians in Europe must end,” says Tunehag, who lives in Sweden. “Unless we make use of the freedom of speech, democracy is endangered.”

Although only small groups of believers are targeted today, he says it was much the same in the 1930s. “At first Hitler went after a minority—the Jews—and the majority did not care,” he explains. “In the end the whole world suffered!”

Tunehag also warned of an ongoing shift from the objective to the subjective in the understanding of laws relevant to religious liberties. The courts no longer base their decisions solely on acts committed but on how things are perceived. Swedish gays who feel defamed by biblical views on homosexuality can sue, according to the 2002 national bill outlawing hate speech against homosexuals.

On a parallel track, Tunehag pointed out, there is a trend toward “thought policing.” There is talk of certain ideas and beliefs deserving punishment. In 2010, for example, a Catholic media group in Spain was fined heavily for broadcasting TV ads promoting the traditional family. These ads were perceived as “hateful” against homosexuals.

Even as this article is being written, a ban against prayer in public places has been established in Paris, a new school law is forcing church-run preschools to close in Sweden and a new church is emerging across Europe with the explicit ambition to make room for atheists.

“We need Christian leaders and prophets [in Europe] who stand up for the classical, biblical message about sin and grace, the forgiveness of sin, and the danger of our being lost for all eternity,” Candelin stresses.

Instead, many churches fear being branded as “fundamentalist” and “undemocratic” if they even mention sin. 

In Candelin’s own Lutheran church in Finland biblical Christianity is losing ground, he says. From 2010 to 2011 its support for affiliated churches in Africa that hold to biblical views was cut by about $1.5 million. 

Warns Candelin: “A church that is silent and cautious dies spiritually from within!”

“I am so impressed with Charisma and how it has progressed with the times without losing sight of our mission as believers.”

-Sarah Matthews

A Virtual winner

Wow! The October issue was very powerful and informative. Awesome research on all the new digital and virtual technology for spreading the Good News of Jesus around the world. I also loved the 30-year-old picture of beloved founder and publisher Steve Strang.

Bob Weiner, Gainesville, Fla.

I’ve been carrying my October issue in my tote because it is chock-full of articles I intend to share with friends and family. Charisma is always a blessing. 

Lisa Letterii DeFelice, Marlboro, N.Y.

October was one of the best issues yet. The cover looks like Moses giving the Ten Commandments. Brilliant!

DaisyMay Rader, Minneapolis

The October issue was OK for me. We are in a small town with a small-town church, so none of this stuff really applies to us.

Colleen Cobb Audette, Sebastian, Fla.

Staying true to the mission

I’m a long-time reader and I am so impressed with Charisma and how it has progressed with the times without losing sight of our mission as believers. 

I also get Charisma News updates on my iPhone. I love getting kingdom news—and you certainly can’t get that in the mainstream media. Keep up the great work!

Sarah Matthews, Jacksonville, Fla.

Let’s ‘watch’ our Timing 

Regarding your article “Timing the Spirit” (September, Inform), I say, “Amen.” I suggest that pastors and teachers remove their watches in the pulpit. It is a pet peeve of mine, seeing them checking their time. 

I have said to them on occasion that they should not be concerned about how long the message goes; it is the Holy Spirit’s work, not theirs. I too wonder how many wonderful things have been missed because there was more concern for people-pleasing.

Thanks for all the great articles and information in your magazine. I look forward to Charisma every month. J. Lee Grady is right-on and almost every column of his gets a hearty “Amen!” from me, too. 

Pam Dolson, Lihue, Hawaii

Facing a ‘different’ Christmas while in Africa, our family discovered new meaning in the season

Christmas is the time when nothing ought to change.”

Our newly married daughter, Liz, put into words what all of us were feeling. We had come from our home in New York state to spend the holidays with her and her husband, Alan, in their new apartment in Tucson, Ariz. Outside, on Christmas Eve, cactus-wrens hopped about the mesquite bushes beneath a glorious desert sky, while indoors the four of us gulped iced tea and thought of pine woods and falling snowflakes.

“Home in Leicester,” Alan recalled of his Massachusetts upbringing, “we’d generally go skating about now.”

“And tonight there’d be the midnight service at St. Mark’s!” Liz said. “Remember, Mom and Dad, how you can see your breath, walking in from the parking lot?”

We did remember. We wanted every time-hallowed tradition just as it always had been. No changes. Not at Christmas.

And yet … we remembered one very different Christmas. A Christmas when we’d learned something important about change—whenever it comes. We doubted that Liz could recall many of the details, since it happened years ago. So for her and Alan we related the story of our Banana Tree Christmas.

We had been sent with our three children—Scott, 12; Donn, 9; and Liz, 6—on a year-long magazine assignment to Uganda. Except for one elderly German couple who lived a quarter-mile below us on a jungle hillside overlooking Lake Victoria, our neighbors were Baganda people, living in mud and thatch houses. Everyone in the family was reveling in the differentness of Africa.

That is, until December. As Christmas drew near we began to realize that this was the time of year when we treasured tradition, not contrast. In his own way, each of us began to mourn. We became positively maudlin about the Christmases we had known, lamenting that here on the equator we could never hang our stockings by the chimney with care.

Above all, how could we have Christmas with no Christmas tree—that beautiful evergreen symbol of the undying life that came to earth at Bethlehem? Stringing the lights, hanging the stars, setting the Herald Angel on the topmost branch—every stage of this joyous family activity had been an occasion to talk about the coming of God’s Son. But of course evergreen trees do not grow in the tropics.

At least, that’s what we thought.

One hot, humid afternoon in mid-December we looked down the red-earth road that led up through the banana grove and saw the children returning from school. The boys were dressed in white shirts and short khaki pants, Liz in a green dress and gray bowler hat. But … what on earth was Scott carrying! Over his left shoulder was what looked for all the world like a freshly cut hemlock.

Faces bright with achievement, the children stopped in our front yard. “Don’t look!” Liz called, seeing us in the doorway. While we closed our eyes Scott stood the tree on its sappy stump. “Open!” cried Donn, flourishing—yes, it was a machete, the long, heavy-bladed tool, halfway between a knife and an axe, which every Ugandan household boasts. “Mr. Muwanga loaned it to us,” he explained, naming a neighbor at the foot of the hill.

“But—the tree!” we finally managed to get out. “Where in the world?”

“There!” Liz pointed beaming down the hill toward the German neighbors. Now that we thought of it, didn’t they have an evergreen hedge around their property? A painstakingly tended, infinitely fussed-over and well-nigh-impossible achievement in this climate, probably the only stand of hemlock for a thousand miles? We closed our eyes again, willing the tree not to be there when we opened them.

But it was, and there was nothing for it but to set out, all five of us, down the red dirt road to the Hammerscheimers’ house.

Down through the banana grove we went. The children, thoroughly subdued, trailed behind, the boys lugging the tree between them. Around a bend there it was: the Hammerscheimers’ hedge, a 6-foot hemlock screen, trim and manicured and even … except for an 18-inch stump and a gaping hole in the very center.

We had met the Hammerscheimers twice and knew only that he had been a railroad engineer under the British and had stayed on in retirement, devoting himself to gardening. Who knew what patience and expense it had taken to keep evergreens alive on the equator?

As we rapped on the front door, Liz began to cry. Mr. Hammerscheimer spoke English with difficulty, his wife not at all, and we spoke no German. But we had no trouble communicating, given the tree, the tears, and—when we led the couple to the scene of the crime—the vandalized hedge. The old German put both hands to his head and began to rock back and forth. We were afraid he might actually be having a heart attack there on the spot, but after the first shock his chief concern seemed to be for his age-stooped little wife.

He spoke to her long and earnestly in German, repeatedly drawing the boughs of the adjacent trees together across the gap as though to reassure her that in time the hedge would fill in.

Then he gestured toward the house; several times we caught the word Tannenbaum.

When at last he carried the tree inside the house both were smiling. They even insisted we come inside while Mrs. Hammerscheimer put on strong Kenya coffee and her husband showed us where in their living room their unexpectedly harvested Tannenbaum would stand. When we left we had two new friends.

But of course we still had no Christmas tree. On either side of us, as we climbed back up the hill toward our house, nodded the long, tattered leaves of the banana jungle. These trees do not produce the yellow dessert banana we know in the States, but a small green fruit that looks like a “regular” banana before it ripens. No matter how long you wait, however, they never change color and never become soft.

These are matoke bananas: the Bagandans machete off the hard, green skin and cook the core like potatoes. Our neighbors consumed great quantities of them each day and, in what we took to be a grasshopper approach to the future, hacked down the entire tree to get at the fruit. Then with the ever-present machete they’d lop off the hand of bananas, leaving trunk and leaves on the ground to rot. The hillside on both sides of the dirt road was strewn with these fallen, unwanted trees.

“Maybe,” Scott ventured, in the tentative tone of a leader whose previous plan had misfired, “we could use one of these instead.”

Our hearts weren’t in it, but nobody had a better idea, so we dragged one of the floppy-leafed plants into our living room and stood it in a corner. It did not even remotely look like a Christmas tree, but we set about decorating it anyhow. Our traditional ornaments were packed in boxes in our attic on the other side of the world. Nor did cranberries for cranberry chains grow in Uganda.

But we tore the leaves from another banana tree into strips, made banana-ring chains and wound them around the pithy yellow trunk. We’d bought some long, dangling, bead earrings from a Masai tribesman; we hung these from the leaves and tucked small gifts in the leaf axils.

We stood back to admire the effect. It still didn’t look like a Christmas tree, but it was—well … festive!

What was there after all, we began asking ourselves, that was so sacrosanct about an evergreen tree? Part of a pagan tradition from the forests of northern Europe, it had become a Christmas symbol only because Christians looked for, and found, meaning of their own in it. Originally it had no more connection with shepherds and wise men than this funny-looking tree of ours—in fact the banana tree was probably more familiar to the men and women who took part in that first Christmas.

We decided to make a family project, in the week remaining before Christmas, of finding out everything we could about banana plants—maybe a Christmas message was hiding here too? Scott discovered from his science teacher why local people cut down the whole tree to harvest the fruit.

“Each banana tree reproduces only once,” he told us. “No mater how long it lives, it won’t flower again.” What a wonderful symbol for God’s only-begotten Son!

“The matoke banana is the staple food of central Africa,” Donn read from a book he found in the library. “For some tribes it constitutes the sole food source.” Matoke, in this part of the world was what bread was to Palestine … and Jesus said, “I am the bread of heaven.”

Liz’s first grade class was studying the invention of writing. “In olden days banana leaves were used for paper.” Then the great flat leaves of our tree could stand for the Bible, where the Christmas story was preserved.

Questioning our neighbors, we learned that there is no way to increase the banana’s yield by human effort. The tree requires no pruning, no fertilizing. Its fruit is a gift—like Jesus.

By Christmas Eve we had become excited about our tree as a symbol for the season we were celebrating. We had invited neighborhood children in for a Christmas Eve party; to the pile of brightly wrapped packages that had been growing all week beneath the tree, now were added the Africans’ gifts. And each came wrapped not in paper and ribbon, but in a banana leaf.

“It’s traditional,” explained Mr. Muwanga’s daughter, Nnasuubi. “The leaf is what says, ‘This is for you.'” Once more, a token of God’s gift of Himself.

But it was the Hammerscheimers who added the best insight of all. They’d brought a platter of Mrs. Hammerscheimer’s Pfeffernüsse for the party, and seemed as delighted as the children as we shared the various ways the tree was speaking to us about Jesus.

“The best you have missed, I think,” said Mr. Hammerscheimer. He pointed to the base of the tree. “Where this tree grew, next year a new one comes!” Like the fruit, it occurs without man contributing or knowing how. But, for the new to be born, the old must die.

This was the best of the gifts we received from our banana tree that Christmas: a reminder of the whole Christian story. The joy of Christ’s birth is balanced in the Christian year by the agony of His death. But in that very death, our tree told us, was the promise of resurrection.

How full of meaning our tree had become—once we stopped trying to shape it to some earlier model. Why do we resist change so strongly? Why do we cling to the way “it used to be?” It’s as though change automatically meant diminishment—the robbing of something precious.

But is that what “change” has to mean? Was it true of the mold-shattering changes Jesus brought? Since He is God of the ever-new, perhaps we could make a lifelong game of looking for Him in the change itself.

There have been other Christmases full of adjustments since that one. Christmas following death … separation … career change. And each time, following a bout of nostalgia, we’ve found new meaning in the season through the altered circumstances themselves.

“And we can find it here in Arizona,” we told Alan and Liz as we finished the story. That afternoon the four of us squeezed into the cab of their truck and headed out into the brown-and-gold desert.

“I wonder,” Liz mused, “how a cactus would look as a Christmas tree?”

John & Elizabeth Sherrill co-founded Chosen Books and worked for Guideposts magazine for many years. In the 1960s they wrote what became a classic on the Holy Spirit, They Speak With Other Tongues. They are the authors of Corrie ten Boom’s The Hiding Place, David Wilkerson’s The Cross and the Switchblade and many other books. “Our Banana Tree Christmas” was an original article penned for Charisma by the couple.

Christmas should be a time of awe and reverence. Our salvation was made possible because God took on human flesh in a manger in Bethlehem.

T he shepherds saw a babe in a manger. The wise men, arriving later, also saw a young child. But the one who emerged from Mary’s womb that cold winter night in Bethlehem of Judea was much more than what was discernible with human eyes.

He was God. The sacred record is clear: “Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid.

“Then the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.’

“And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men!'” (Luke 2:8-14).

It is as much a marvel today as it was 2,000 years ago: God the Father so approved of the one born that night in Bethlehem that He bid the angels to worship together—even though the second person of the Trinity wore a menial garb of swaddling clothes and had been laid on a bed of hay!

A Lasting Wonder

We can only approach the high and holy subject of Christ’s incarnation with awe. His name is called “Wonderful” (Is. 9:6). The angels of God are commanded to worship Him (Heb. 1:6). The one born in Bethlehem’s manger is Immanuel, “God with us” (Matt. 1:23), and the “Mighty God” (Is. 9:6).

In Jesus Christ, God was born, lived here in this world, died, rose again and ascended to heaven as the God-man, becoming the object of a lasting wonder to all creation. He is entirely unique. His birth has no precedent, and His existence has no analogy. Placing Him in a category cannot explain Him, neither will an example adequately illustrate Him.

The Scriptures reveal His person, yet they never present an exhaustive definition of Him. We are told, “Without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh” (1 Tim. 3:16).

Moses’ experience in the wilderness—when the angel appeared to him in the burning bush—is an Old Testament type of the presence of God indwelling the man, Christ Jesus. The Exodus account clearly speaks of the flame of fire being “in the midst” of the bush without consuming the bush itself (Ex. 3:2). This is seen by some as a foreshadowing of the fullness of the Godhead dwelling in Christ.

Yet the wonder of an unconsumed bush burning with fire does not ultimately compare to the mystery of Jesus, as a man, being indwelt by the fullness of God. How is it possible that this one person could be infinite and finite, mortal and immortal, omnipotent and vulnerable?

It transcends all human understanding that two wills, two natures and two memories can constitute one person who is God in the flesh. We cannot explain how both natures, in all their attributes and acts, can grow together and unite in one whole being, acting in concert in one person. Yet God declares that it is so!

Christ, in becoming man, did not cease to be God. He did not lose His position or His divine attributes. He voluntarily set them aside to take on our humanity.

Yet the humanity of Christ was not destroyed or consumed by His deity; its own human characteristics were preserved. As Luke says, “Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men” (Luke 2:52).

In the incarnation, God in Christ Jesus established a personal union between Himself and a human spirit, soul and body. Theologian A.A. Hodge declares that the union between these two natures is not mechanical, as it is between oxygen and nitrogen in our air; nor is it chemical, as it is between oxygen and hydrogen when water is formed; nor is it organic, as it is between our hearts and brains.

Rather, it is a union more intimate, more profound and more mysterious than any of these. It is personal. And, as Hodge points out, if we cannot understand the nature of the simpler unions, why should we complain because we cannot understand the nature of the most profound of all unions?

Descent Into Humanity

What necessitated the invasion of Jesus Christ—this God-man, this Son of David, Son of Man, Son of Adam and Son of God—into the realm of our human existence? Two things: the sinfulness of man and the faithfulness of our covenant-making, covenant-keeping God.

Man sinned and came under the curse of sin, which is death. He needed a Redeemer. But according to the Law, before one man could redeem another, he had to have the power, the means and the desire to do so.

No one in the human race possessed these qualities, for as the psalmist said, “None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him” (Ps. 49:7). Man’s sin made it necessary for a holy God to become human flesh to bear the penalty of sin and redeem humanity back into a relationship with Himself.

Thus, we have the mysterious miracle of the virgin birth. In taking on human flesh and being born of a woman, Jesus did not inherit a fallen, depraved, sinfully corrupt Adamic nature. He was born of the seed of God, not of the seed of Adam.

As theologian A.B. Bruce says: “It is not defiled humanity, but the descent of God into humanity. It is not man taking God unto himself, but God taking on manhood.”

Jesus Himself gave sufficient evidence of His origin and miraculous birth. He said, “I came forth from God,” and, “I came forth from the Father” (John 16:27-28). As to His deity, He knew that He was King David’s Lord (Matt. 22:41-45); as to His humanity, He was David’s progeny (Matt. 1:1-16).

Many times He claimed God as His Father, yet it is never recorded in Scripture that He called Joseph His father. And twice the Father audibly declared from heaven that Jesus was His “beloved Son” in whom the Father was “well pleased” (Matt. 3:17, Mark 1:11).

The Revelation of God

The progressive revelation of God that began in Eden now finds its end and highest achievement in Jesus, for He came as the ultimate revelation of God.

He is more than a way-maker; He is the Way. He is not merely a life-giver; He is the Life. He is higher than a truth-bearer; He is the Truth (John 14:6). He came to reveal the Father, for He and the Father are inseparably one (John 10:30).

Jesus came revealing a new way of seeing God. The Old Testament revealed many attributes of God by using explanatory names and divine titles.

The Father, however, was different from the way the patriarchs had been able to present Him. He was greater than the prophets had ever imagined. He was more compassionate, merciful and loving than even David portrayed in his songs.

In the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, God found a perfect vehicle of expression. Scripture says Jesus is “the express image of His person” (Heb. 1:3).

The idea conveyed here is of a die impression. It refers to something engraved or impressed: for example, a coin or seal that bears line for line all the features of the instrument making it.

All the lines of deity have been reproduced in Jesus’ humanity. To see what God is like, we need only look at Jesus.

Take the lines of Christ’s personality, draw them out into infinity, and you’ll obtain a perfect concept of God. Rightfully, Jesus could declare, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9).

Man has never been able to create a visual image of God. Every artistic attempt to portray God has taken the fashion of a man, an animal or, in some heathen lands, a demon.

Among the reasons that God became man was to give us a visual representation of Himself. As John wrote:

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life … we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:1,3).

Jesus is the only apprehensible concept of God that we mortals have. Every revelation God has ever given of Himself, or will ever give of Himself, is found in the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is both the visible and the audible expression of God.

John also wrote, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). The Greek word used here is logos, which means that Jesus is the communication and expression of God.

“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). The invisible God can now be seen, heard and known in the person of Jesus Christ.

A Coming Day

When Jesus came into this dark world as a flesh-and-blood person, the angels proclaimed His birth. But the worship by the heavenly hosts did not end there; it continued throughout Christ’s earthly ministry. And even now the saints and the hosts of heaven worship and adore Him.

Soon the day is coming when God will bring His “firstborn” (Col. 1:15), His “only begotten” (John 3:16), back to the earth. As heir of all things, He is worthy to take dominion of the world. God the Son is sovereign, ruling over His eternal kingdom in righteousness: “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever” (Heb. 1:8).

With great humility, then, let us lift our hearts in praise and worship to Him who is God, born in the flesh. This Christmas, let us acknowledge the greatest of wonders: that our salvation, our blessing, our life and our hope are made possible because God, in Christ Jesus, was born in Bethlehem.

Fuchsia Pickett, who passed away in 2004, was an ordained Methodist minister and held earned doctorates in theology and divinity. She established Fountain Gate Church in Plano, Texas, with her husband, Leroy, in 1971 and pastored the church until 1988. She wrote several books, including The Next Move of God (Charisma House), and published numerous Bible studies and teachings on Scripture.

Explaining the reality of angelic beings in everyday life

Angelic activity always increases at times of great spiritual breakthrough in the kingdom of God. Christmas was just such a moment in history. At the first advent of Christ, the earth exploded with angelic activity.

God sent angels to make announcements to all who took part in the birth of the Savior. Gabriel appeared to the priest Zacharias and told him: “Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your prayer is heard; and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John” (Luke 1:13). Soon after, Elizabeth was pregnant with the Messiah’s forerunner, John the Baptist.

Gabriel was also sent to Mary, Jesus’ mother, to herald her as the woman chosen by God to birth His Son. Joseph was reassured of Mary’s virginal purity by an angel who appeared to him in a dream. An angel directed the shepherds to Bethlehem so they could find the stable where Jesus was. The same angel along with countless others serenaded above the shepherds’ field.

Angelic activity increases when God releases the supernatural into the natural. And angelic ministry increases when our faith responds to the Word of God. Just as the first Christmas was a season of miracles, so it is now. You and I can learn to move on “miracle ground” where God’s angels operate.

On ‘Miracle Ground’

Because Jesus reigns as King, the kingdom of God has come. Therefore, we live today in a time of kingdom breakthrough. These are the last days, and angelic activity is increasing, bringing with it miracles from God. The reason for this rise in supernatural operations is twofold.

First, as we move toward the end, human options begin to dwindle. Our ingenuity has created a world that is rushing toward ruin and chaos. As this time approaches, God releases more angelic intervention to miraculously protect His people and promote His kingdom.

Second, for the last century the church has been experiencing the renewal and restoration of the Pentecostal gifts. Beginning with the Azusa Street Revival in the early 1900s and continuing to this day, a mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit has been sweeping across our world. Conversions to Christianity in developing countries are reaching record numbers. Even the Islamic world is being powerfully impacted by the supernatural. Angels are appearing there even where there is no missionary presence.

As charismatic ministry is increasingly embraced, old divisions are falling away, and kingdom unity is spreading worldwide. The last-days church must be kingdom-focused if we hope to see a release of the supernatural, which includes miraculous angelic assistance.

Kingdom Ministry

It is essential for us to know how to be in a prime position to receive and activate this supernatural (and often miraculous) influence of angels in our world. One of the main things we need to understand is how the kingdom of God works in relation to us and our earthly realm.

There are certain kingdom laws in the Word of God that angels abide by, and if we are to benefit from having angels as our allies, we too must abide by those laws. Here are a few points to help us understand God’s kingdom and make this connection between His laws and our angelic allies.

1. The kingdom of God dwells within us. If Jesus is Lord in our lives, then His kingdom has come through us (Luke 17:21). Yet we will only have full access to it and its resources when we are born again by the Spirit of God (John 3:5). This access to kingdom resources requires a willingness to change (repent) and a submissive, broken spirit (Matt. 3:2; 6:33.) With the kingdom of God present all around us through angelic miracles, with old walls between churches being broken down, and with miraculous conversions occurring in the Islamic countries, it’s clear that we are living in a time of kingdom breakthrough.

2. The kingdom of God is also yet to come. We do not yet see all the aspects and inner workings of God’s kingdom (Heb. 2:8-9). Its “fullness” is still to come because we are still waiting for Jesus to return. Jesus also confirms this in John 18:36 by saying the kingdom of God is “not of this world.”

3. The kingdom of God intensifies through the Holy Spirit. In the letters of the apostle Paul, he calls the baptism of the Holy Spirit a guarantee of the powers of the world to come in the here and now. Furthermore, the powers of the kingdom are released at our sealing and anointing (2 Cor. 1:21-22; Eph. 1:14). I’m convinced that many Christians are children of the kingdom but are not sons. All who are saved are children, yet the rights of sonship—which include angels, miracles, and signs and wonders—belong to those who have been baptized in the Holy Spirit.

4. The kingdom of God brings power and life into the world. Angels are a part of that realm we call the kingdom of heaven. When a church or a believer is willing to sell out to all God has, the angelic activity will increase exponentially. In a suffering, sad and dirty world we need this kingdom that is “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 14:17) to be activated. Let’s look now at some of the ways angels impact our world with kingdom power.

Angels and Ministry

At Abba’s House (Central Baptist Church) in Chattanooga, Tenn., where I have served for 30 years, we have moved from traditional ministry to charismatic. This transition began in 1989 and continues today. Since 1993, there have been angel sightings, angelic singing, orbs of light and bursts of fire in our church. All of these manifestations occurred after I was baptized in the Holy Spirit and as the church moved into the same spiritual realm. I believe that angelic ministry in today’s church is similar to what we see in the New Testament church.

The New Testament is filled with angelic activity that touches the church’s ministry on the earth. For example, when the church brings those who are lost to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ “there is joy in the presence of the angels” (Luke 15:10); angels exhibit a strong curiosity about believers’ spiritual lives (1 Pet. 1:12); and when the church gathers for worship, angels gather with us (Heb. 12:22).

In his book Truth About Angels, Terry Law of World Compassion ministry illustrates how angels are moved by our worship. He quotes the account of Sharon Abrams, who told of seeing two angels during a church service. The angels hovered over the congregation with their arms outstretched and appeared to be about 7 feet to 8 feet tall.

Abrams wrote: “Their faces were broad with high cheekbones and beautiful smiles. They looked like men except they did not have beards. There was an innocence to their faces, and the joy of their expressions was wonderful. They did not wear shoes, but wore long white gowns with gold braid. 

“I knew they were in the service because of our praise and worship … because Jesus was being lifted up and adored. I sensed there were many more beings present … but I was only able to see those two.”

Law also wrote of Marilyn Cappo of Louisville Covenant Church in Kentucky, who reported seeing two angels standing on her church’s front platform during several different services. She described them as “a little over 6 feet tall and dressed in white. They do not speak but raise their wings when songs are sung of direct praise to the Father. …

“I have seen them off and on over a period of months and have prayed often to understand their purpose and mission at our church. One morning one of them walked over behind the pastor and spread his wings as our pastor was making declarative statements about God to us. The angels appear to be waiting for us to do something and always watch intently.”

Perhaps it’s because moments like these would be so remarkable in the everyday of a believer that the Bible cautions us about our relationship with angels. Scripture warns us not to make them objects of our worship (Col. 2:18). 

Angels and Leadership

In addition to their role as ministering spirits in the church, angels accompany and protect those who serve in the fivefold ministry. Let’s look carefully at Hebrews 13:2, an often-quoted but misunderstood verse about angels. It reads: “Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some have unwittingly entertained angels.”

When this passage is read in context, it can be seen that it concerns church authority and order. If we continue to verse 7, we see we are called to “remember those who rule over [us], who have spoken the Word of God” to us. Note the full mandate in verse 17: “Obey those who rule over you, and be submissive, for they watch out for your souls. … Let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you.”

The point is quite clear: Angels accompany those who lead, speak the Word of God, teach faith and are watchful of our spiritual well-being; and these angels release profit or prosperity. When a believer refuses to submit to apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers who are submitted to the Word and the Spirit of God, the angels that accompany them are insulted and will not release blessing to the believer. Those who mock and make fun of men and women of God are blocking the ministry of angels.

An interesting example of God’s care for His chosen leaders, demonstrated through the intervention of angels, can be seen in the life of John G. Paton, a pioneer missionary in the New Hebrides Islands in the mid-19th century. He tells a thrilling story of angelic protection.

Hostile tribesmen surrounded Paton’s missions headquarters one night, intent on burning out and killing Paton and his wife. The couple prayed all during the terror-filled night that God would deliver them. When daylight came they were amazed to see that the attackers were gone. The Patons didn’t know why the men left, but they thanked God for delivering them.

A year later the chief of the tribe accepted Christ. Paton was curious to know what happened on that dangerous night and asked the chief what kept him and his men from burning the house and killing the couple.

The chief was surprised by the question and replied, “Who were all those men you had with you there?”

“There were no men there—just my wife and me,” the missionary answered.

The chief said they had seen hundreds of men on guard, circling the mission—big men in shining garments with swords drawn. The tribesmen were afraid to attack. Only then did Paton know God had sent angels to protect the couple. The chief agreed there was no other explanation.

As this story makes clear, when we welcome the ministries of godly men and women, we also entertain the angels assigned to them. Their accompanying angels battle the powers of the enemy in the local community and release God’s miracles. Only as we receive those whom God sets over us can we have the full ministry of the angelic hosts at their disposal.

Angels and Awakenings

Likewise, the hosts of heaven can move on behalf of our nations only if we respect the spiritual leaders God sends us. When this happens, angels will come with fire to cleanse and rekindle our spiritual lives, which will result in supernatural power and resources being released. Angels are “flames of fire,” according to Heb. 1:7, and Pentecostal fire includes angelic fire released to do its powerful work in the earth. (Even biblical tongues are called “tongues of angels,” as we see in 1 Cor. 13:1.)

As faith increases and the church operates in kingdom power, our angelic allies will help us take dominion in our communities and nations. Let us activate our angels by making the kingdom of God our priority. God will order the angels into our dimension as we move in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Since 1979, Ron Phillips has been senior pastor of Central Baptist Church, now Abba’s House, near Chattanooga, Tenn. He hosts a daily online radio program, CenterPoint, and is the author of more than 20 books, including Our Invisible Allies (Charisma House).

When giving comes from the heart, God will bless the gift-and reward the giver

Luke 6:38 is a wonderful verse. But it’s also one of the most frequently misapplied, misunderstood Scriptures in the Bible. It’s so familiar to Christians, you can probably quote it from memory: “Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over. … For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.”

Many people assume that Jesus is speaking only of money here. In truth, He was unveiling a principle of God’s kingdom that applies to every area of human life. Back up some and read verses 36 and 37: “Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” Only after making those statements does Jesus say, “Give, and it will be given to you” (v. 38). 

Jesus was talking about the broad principle of giving. He was saying, whatever you give is going to be given back to you in “good measure” and “running over.”

Think about it this way: When you give away an apple seed, by planting it, you don’t just get back an apple seed. In time, you get back a whole apple tree, and on that tree are many apples, and each apple has many seeds. You get back so much more than you gave.

This is precisely where so many people go wrong regarding Luke 6:38. Many well-meaning preachers and Bible teachers fall into the trap of teaching this verse as the motivation for giving. Jesus says it is going to be our reward for giving.

Why did Jesus precede this promise by saying, “Judge not … condemn not” (Luke 6:37)? He was putting this promise in context—and in a very sobering light. He was saying, if you give judgment or condemnation, each will be given back to you in good measure and running over. Yet if you give good things, such as forgiveness and love, you will receive an overflowing harvest of those. The principle works both ways!

How must God feel when His people get excited only about giving toward His kingdom purposes after they’ve been whipped into a frenzy through get-rich-quick promises? God doesn’t want us to catch the vision of getting. He wants us to catch the vision of giving.

God is not against our having nice things. On the contrary, He loves to see His people blessed. But motives are everything, as James 4:3 shows: “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures” (NIV).

The Big Picture

If we back up a few verses from Luke 6:38, we see its message in a different light. Well, we get even more context and perspective if we back up a little further and read verses 30-35. Jesus says, in part: “Give to everyone who asks of you. … Do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great” (Luke 6:30-35).

The message of Jesus’ sermon is: “Give! Give, give, give! Oh, and by the way, when you do, your heavenly Father will make sure you get much more in return.”

Do you see the subtle but important distinction in emphasis? God is a giver. The reward comes because we’ve allowed God to do a work in our hearts in the area of giving—not getting. 

There is an Old Testament glimpse of this truth in Deuteronomy 15: 7-15. In this passage, God tells His people:

“You shall not harden your heart nor shut your hand from your poor brother. … Beware lest there be a wicked thought in your heart … and you give him nothing. 

“Your heart should not be grieved when you give to him, because for this thing the Lord your God will bless you in all your works and in all to which you put your hand. 

“From what the Lord your God has blessed you with, you shall give to him. You shall remember that you were a slave … and … your God redeemed you.”

Here is a clear view of God’s heart for helping people. It is also more evidence that God looks at the heart attitude of the giver. 

He makes it a point to tell the Israelites not to let their hearts “be grieved” (v. 10) when they give. All the way back then, God loved a “cheerful giver” (2 Cor. 9:7).

God is trying to do a work in us. But, as that passage points out, there are some things about ourselves we are going to have to confront if we are to become pure-hearted givers.

1. The Selfish Heart. According to Deuteronomy 15:9, we’re going to have to deal with the wicked thoughts that would keep us from having compassion on others. In this verse God clearly labels selfish thoughts as “wicked.” Selfishness whispers that we won’t have enough or that God won’t be faithful to meet our needs if we give.

God says, “Don’t allow your heart to think that way, but instead do the Word, for that brings success and blessing” (see Josh. 1:8, James 1:23-25). That’s why selfishness is your enemy. It tries to manipulate and make deals with God.

The default condition of the human heart is to hoard and avoid sharing with anyone. Then a loving heavenly Father comes to us and says: “I want to deal with this wicked, selfish heart and make you a giver like Me.”

2. The Grieving Heart. God instructs us not to grieve in our hearts after we have been obedient in giving (Deut. 15:10). It’s important not to think about what you could’ve done with the money if you had kept it for yourself. Selfishness can attack us before we give, but grief can attack us after we give.

This is seen in “buyer’s remorse”—a term for what people often feel after they’ve spent a lot of money on an item, such as a car or house. After the excitement wears off, they can experience a panicky “What have I done?” letdown. Because this may happen even when you have been obedient to give as the Holy Spirit prompts, you have to guard your heart not only before you give but also after.

So, how do you combat this kind of grief? You get a proper perspective regarding “your” money. The truth is, everything we have is God’s. 

Whenever I observe a Christian operating selfishly, I know I’m looking at a person who either doesn’t know or has forgotten that it all belongs to God. He’s acting like an owner, not a steward.

3. The Generous Heart. With God’s help, we must also develop a liberal, or “generous,” heart. As Deuteronomy 15:14 says: “You shall supply him liberally from … what the Lord your God has blessed you with” (emphasis added).

This goes against the grain of our fallen natures, but it is perfectly consistent with the new natures we received when we gave our lives to Jesus. My new nature—the spirit man inside of me—wants to be generous, but I must learn to renew my mind in this area. 

To no credit of my own, this is a work God has done in my heart. And I am writing this to testify to you that it works. I can’t begin to tell you how much joy giving has brought to my wife and me. Being givers in God’s kingdom is the most fun we’ve ever had. It has resulted in a more exciting life than we could ever have imagined.

4. The Grateful Heart. We also have to let God develop in us a grateful heart. Look back at Deuteronomy 15 one last time: “You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you” (v. 15).

Why did God tell the Israelites to remember they had been slaves? Because knowing it would fill their hearts with gratitude for what He had done for them. When we’re grateful, we’re generous. Genuine gratitude to God is a rare and powerful thing.

Gratitude or Greed?

Over the years, I’ve gotten a little glimpse of how God must feel as my wife, Debbie, and I have been involved in blessing and giving to other people. Any time we’ve given something to someone, we have encountered one of two attitudes in the people’s response to a blessing: either gratitude or greed.

Once when Debbie and I were giving a vehicle away, we were standing in our driveway with the couple we were about to bless. There happened to be two vehicles in the driveway at the time—the one we were giving away and ours.

The wife was very excited and very expressive in her thanks. The husband, on the other hand, was not. He just kept commenting on how nice my car was.

When we stepped into the house a little later, he finally came right out and asked, “Do you think you will ever give that other car away?” I remember thinking, Not to you!

We need to be aware that our attitudes toward possessions have a powerful ability to expose the true nature of our hearts. Whether it is greed or gratitude, money and material things will bring it out.

Does God bless givers? Absolutely! But those promises of blessing are given not to entice us, but to free us from the fear and grief that keeps so many believers from turning loose and giving.

Yes, when you give, it will be given to you, as Luke 6:38 says, in “good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over.” When we come to the place where we give simply because we have an unselfish, liberal heart of gratitude toward God, we will be well on the road to a blessed life.

Robert Morris, the founding senior pastor of Gateway Church in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, knows something about giving. He and his wife, Debbie, have given away no fewer than nine cars and at one time lived on 30 percent of their income and shared the rest with those who were in need. Robert is the author of the best-selling book The Blessed Life (Regal Books), from which this article is adapted. Used by permission.

Paul and Betty Neff lost four children in a fire just days before Christmas. Six years later, their only remaining son was killed. Yet through it all, they’ve watched God turn their grief into something beautiful.

Betty Neff was 23 and a first-time mother when she dreamed she visited heaven:

“I was a young girl, running barefoot through a soft grassy meadow. I came to a small hill and immediately recognized Jesus standing at the top. He wore a long, white robe with a blue sash draped over one shoulder and wrapped around His waist. I couldn’t see their faces, but there were four children on Jesus’ right side and a person the size of an adult on His left.”

The week before Christmas in 1983, Paul and Betty Neff’s youngsters were pleading with their dad, hammering away at his refusal to attend their Christmas play at church that afternoon: “Please, Daddy, oh, please! It just won’t be the same without you there,” they exclaimed.  

Paul, a 37-year-old, 222-pound ex-Marine who had fought some pretty tough battles in Vietnam, realized that in this case it would be easier to surrender. “OK, I’ll go,” he announced.

Standing nearby, Betty, 36, watched and smiled. Her children—Gabrielle, 7; Amanda, 8; Christiana, 10; Jon, 11; and David, 13—were special; people around their small town of Grove City, Ohio, often said so. Each had accepted Christ and been filled with the Holy Spirit at an early age.

But Betty’s pride was tinged with sadness. It had become more difficult explaining to the children why Daddy wasn’t going to church. Her own understanding was wearing thin.

Just two weeks ago Paul had been out drinking again—this time coming home with his forearm in a cast from busting out a car window during an argument. Yet he remained a loving father. His favorite time of day was when he came home from work to play with his kids.

That Sunday afternoon, he and Betty sat in the back of the small country church and watched their youngsters help portray the Christmas story. Paul’s fatherly pride was soon replaced with an overwhelming sense of conviction. There, amid little shepherds in bedsheets and wise men in bathrobes, he wept silently and asked for God’s forgiveness.

At home that night, Betty handed out homemade cookies and mugs of hot cocoa while Paul strung lights on the Christmas tree and led the kids in Christmas carols. Betty couldn’t decide which were brighter: the lights on the tree or the sparkles in her children’s eyes. They were so delighted—Daddy was back in church!

After they had been sent upstairs to bed, the girls sneaked into their brothers’ room. They listened to Christmas stories on the radio until they all fell asleep lying across the big double bed.

Paul and Betty had decided to live in the country so their children “would be one another’s best friends.” Their two-story, five-bedroom farmhouse, about 15 miles outside Columbus, sat on three acres of farmland and had a barn for the animals.

Waking Up to a Nightmare

Now that winter had set in, it wasn’t unusual for the furnace to act up. So in the early-morning hours of Monday, Dec. 20, when the home’s smoke alarm jarred Paul and Betty out of a deep sleep, Paul set out for the furnace room as he had done on other nights.

This time Paul discovered a healthy fire and instinctively tried to put it out. He soon realized it was beyond his ability. Flames were shooting up the walls, ferociously consuming the room’s wood frame.

He ran upstairs, yelling at Betty to get outside while he went for the children. He would drop them to her from one of the second-story bedroom windows.

Thick black smoke and the unbearable heat already permeating the house made it nearly impossible to see or breathe. With his face buried in his pajama sleeves, Paul scrambled upstairs and found Jon sitting on the top step, screaming in fear.

Paul grabbed his son and headed into the first bedroom, slamming the door behind them. He sat Jon down just long enough to smash through the thick storm glass window and yell for Betty.

Reaching out the window, Paul held Jon in a cradled position. “Daddy, don’t let go of me!” Jon screamed into his father’s face.

“Son, your mama’s gonna catch you,” Paul said. “You gotta let go!” To this day, Betty doesn’t remember catch­ing her son—who was dropped to her from a distance of at least 20 feet.

Paul didn’t realize until later that he had glass imbedded in his stomach from leaning out the broken window; that his right wrist was partially severed from the glass, causing every pump of his heart to spurt out more blood; that he had second- and third-degree burns all over his body.

All he could think about were his children. He had to rescue them.

He headed back to the hallway, but the second bedroom door wouldn’t budge. “God, help me! Help me get my babies!” he cried, even though he could barely breathe. His throat and lungs were burning from the acidic smoke created by burning vinyl wallpaper.

Paul felt himself losing consciousness, but he kept begging God: “Don’t let my sin cause me to lose my babies. Help me!” He rammed the door with his shoulder, then his whole body.

The door gave way. At the same instant, an explosion hurled Paul across the room and out the bedroom window. He fell head over heels, his feet and ankles crashing into the frozen ground and his back breaking in multiple places.

Speeding to the hospital, paramedics worked feverishly to stabilize Paul’s plummeting vital signs. The bitter cold air intensified the pain in his body.

He could hear the medics assessing his condition: “Too much blood loss—his veins collapsed. I can’t get an IV in anywhere.” 

“Have you found a vein yet?” 

“No, we’re losing him.”

Paul could hear other voices, taunting him: You’re to blame that your children are dead. How could a man be awarded two Purple Hearts yet not be able to save his own children? How can you live with yourself?

Suddenly the pain subsided. Instead of shivering from the cold, Paul felt a comforting warmth. The paramedics’ voices grew distant.

Paul then felt the Lord’s presence as God spoke to his heart: “Paul, I took your children when they were sleeping. They never felt any pain. They’re with Me. There’s no need to worry.”

“Thank you, God,” he prayed. A heavy burden lifted. Paul now felt weightless, like he was floating. “Lord, I know I’m dying.”

He could still just barely hear the paramedics: “How’s the mother doing?” “She’s burned, but she’s OK. The boy probably won’t make it.”

Paul continued: “Dear God, my wife—I don’t want her to be alone, not with all of us gone. Oh, Lord, if it’s Your will, let me go back and help her.” He barely finished the last word of his prayer when he felt a jolt of excruciating pain. “I got it!” the paramedic shouted, inserting the needle and the flow of crucial intravenous fluids.

Never Alone

When Betty wasn’t at Paul’s bedside she was across town at another Columbus hospital with Jon, who had suffered burns and smoke inhalation. Paul, she was told, would probably never walk again because of his broken back and crushed ankles and heels. He would be in the hospital for at least seven months.

Her other four precious children were gone. Their bodies were found lying next to one another on the boys’ bed. The coroner said they died from smoke inhalation and never felt any pain.“They went to sleep and woke up in heaven,” he told Betty.

The cause of the fire? Faulty wiring.

Away from the doctors, nurses and concerned loved ones, Betty was thinking, remembering her dream from years before: four youngsters standing next to Jesus. That was my Gabey, Chrissy, Mandy and David, she realized. 

Only now it was more than a dream. It became Betty’s solace, her source of comfort for the days, months, even years ahead—her assurance that her children were never—are never—alone.

Today, 14 years later, Betty tells Charisma: “If it hadn’t been for that dream, I don’t think I could’ve made it. I know where my children are. I’ve never had to wrestle with the ‘what ifs.’”

Paul insisted on attending his children’s funeral three days after the fire, despite doctors’ orders, frigid temperatures, and IVs, wires and monitors. Accompanied by a nurse, he was transported by ambulance, wheeled in on a gurney and stationed down front in a side aisle.

He could turn his head just enough to see four little white caskets lined up parallel to him a short distance away. To Paul they seemed to be enveloped by the mounds of flowers that had arrived.

What Paul couldn’t see behind him were the hundreds of people crammed into the funeral home and spilling out into the parking lot where speakers had been erected. Betty had insisted on no somber funeral—she wanted uplifting songs and an altar call.

“My children, even in their deaths, won souls to the Lord that day,” she said. The Neffs heard from many people who wrote that they had accepted Christ after hearing about the funeral.

Paul’s recovery was nothing short of miraculous. He was released from the hospital just 11 days after the fire and was walking with a cane six months later.

But little did he and Betty know that more heartache lay ahead.

As the years went by, their remaining son, Jon, grew strong in the Lord. He loved to evangelize, telling others about the morning of the funeral when God gave him a comforting vision.

In it he saw his siblings in heaven, waving to him and assuring him they were OK. Gabey had yelled: “Jon, we’re with the Lord! We’ll see you soon!”

It was in June 1990 that the second accident happened. Jon was driving his dad’s tractor on their 13-acre farm in McConnelsville, Ohio, where they had moved after the fire. The 18-year-old was planning to study electrical engineering at Ohio State but was killed instantly when the tractor, while going up a hill, hit a bump and rolled over on top of him.

Betty then fully understood her dream: The young man standing on the other side of Jesus was Jon. Now he too was in heaven.

Having It All

The one question Paul and Betty get asked the most: “Why did God allow this to happen?” They don’t have an answer.

But, Paul says: “It once hit me that the incredible pain we felt from losing our children is similar to what our heavenly Father feels every time one of His children turns away and leaves Him. That realization devastated me—that God feels this depth of pain all the time.”

Betty added: “I don’t believe God chose the method of our children’s deaths. But I believe He is an opportunist—the devil thought he had gotten their souls and could get ours. But God turned it around for good.

“I know my children have it all … in heaven—just as it was shown to me before most of them were born.”

Nancy Justice is the former news editor for Charisma. 

Are there blessings hidden amid the tinsel, the sales and the madness at the mall?

Does it bother you at Christmastime when carols are being played in shopping malls to the accompaniment of ringing cash registers? Does it upset you when the symbols of Christmas such as the Bethlehem star and the manger scene are used to sell merchandise and cards and decorations?

There’s no doubt, the commercialization of Christmas has been overdone. It would be nice if Christmas tinsel wouldn’t appear until at least after Thanksgiving. Nevertheless, I suggest we cool it on the complaining.

It’s unfair to put down people who make their living in merchandising just because they like to do a brisk business at Christmastime, and because they use the Christmas symbols and themes to help them do it. Like it or not, we are a “nation of shopkeepers”—we believe in and depend upon free business, which is a lot better than depending upon the government to feed us and tell us what to do.

When stores have a good Christmas season, we should be glad. Good sales means prosperity for the owners and the employees. I spent years in the business world before going into the ministry, and I remember how nice it was to have a Christmas season with some extra money to spend.

But a far more vital reason beckons us not to complain about the commercialization: Christmas songs and symbols are fast being removed from the public schools and municipal, state and federal properties. Suddenly the right to display nativity scenes and other biblical figures is being challenged. Shopping malls and department stores are rapidly becoming the only public places left where it’s legal to sing songs about Jesus or display Christian symbols.

“O Little Town of Bethlehem” may seem like strange accompaniment to the elbowing crowds around the sales counters, but that crowd may not hear such works anyplace else:

“O Holy Child of Bethlehem / Descend on us we pray / Cast out our sin and enter in / Be born in us today.”

Words like these may have an effect on the people hearing them, even if they are not paying much attention. God is not proud; He is not offended when His name is sung among Christmas shoppers.

Jesus was not too proud to come and live among us as one of us. When He was on earth He didn’t spend His time in a royal palace or with the priests in the temple. He often didn’t have a house to sleep in. He kept company with ordinary people, like you and me and other Christmas shoppers. If that were not His way of doing things there wouldn’t be a Christmas, because Christmas means the Father sent His Son, the beloved, to come and find us.

Christmas scenes, Christmas symbols, Christmas cards—they all are openings for talking about Jesus. Use the opportunity that the music and the decorations give; look for a chance to tell a shopper what the words in the carols really mean. While waiting in a long checkout line, you may say, “This time of year has taken on special meaning since I discovered how important Christ’s birth was to me.” Conversation like this may lead to praying with someone for salvation.

Think about this at Christmastime, amid the rush. Don’t get uptight. Keep a pleasant look on your face and a song in your heart. Pray for the people around you. Pray that the holy words they are hearing will penetrate their hearts so that they, too, will come to know Jesus.

The real problem with Christmastime is that most people do not know what the holiday is all about. If the crowds knew the Lord who came at Christmas, shopping might become a jolly experience rather than a drag.

Dennis Bennett, an Episcopal priest, pastored St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Seattle for 20 years, retiring in 1981 to pursue teaching and writing. During his tenure, he saw his congregation quadruple and wrote a best-selling book, Nine O’Clock in the Morning, about his charismatic experience. He made national news in 1960 when he publicly announced he had been baptized in the Holy Spirit—an unusual experience among clergy members in those days. He passed away in 1991.