Monday, September 28, 2009
God's Chisel by skitguys
If you haven't seen this video, it's powerful. Watch God's Chisel and share it with others.
More Thoughts on Worship
From Fredrick Buechner’s book, Secrets in the Dark, chapter 20 – The Church.
. . . Jesus made his church out of human beings with more or less the same mixture in them of cowardice and guts, of intelligence and stupidity, of selfishness and generosity, of openness of heart and sheer cussedness as you would be apt to find in any of us. The reason he made his church out of human beings is that human beings were all there was to make it out of. In fact, as far as I know, human beings are all there is to make it out of still. It’s a point worth remembering.
It is also a point worth remembering that even after Jesus made these human beings into a church, they seem to have gone right on being human beings. They actually knew Jesus as their friend. They sat at his feet and listened to him speak; they ate with him and tramped the countryside with him; they witnessed his miracles; but not even all of that turned them into heroes. They kept on being as human as they’d always been with most of the same strengths and most of the same weaknesses.
And finally when it comes to remembering things, we do well to keep in mind that the idea of becoming the church wasn’t their idea. It was Jesus’s idea. It was Jesus who made them a church. They didn’t come together the way like-minded people come together to make a club. They didn’t come together the way a group of men might come together to form a baseball team or the way a group of women might come together to lobby for higher teachers’ salaries. They came together because Jesus called them to come together. That is what the Greek word ekklesia means, from which we get our word “church.” It means those who have been called out, the way the original twelve were called out of fishing or tax collecting or running a kosher restaurant or a Laundromat or whatever else they happened to be involved in at the time.
. . . One way or another Christ called them. That’s how it happened. They saw the marvel of him arch across the grayness of things – the grayness of their own lives perhaps, of life itself. They heard his voice calling their names. And they went.
They seem to have gone right on working at pretty much whatever they’d been working at before, which means that he didn’t so much call them out of their ordinary lives as he called them out of believing that ordinary life is ordinary. He called them to see that no matter how ordinary it may seem to us as we live it, life is extraordinary. “The Kingdom of God is at hand” is the way he put it to them, and the way he told them to put it to others. Life even at its most monotonous and backbreaking and heart-numbing has the Kingdom buried in it the way a field has treasure buried in it, he said. The Kingdom of God is as close to us as some precious keepsake we’ve been looking for for years, which is lying just in the next room under the rug all but crying out for us to come find it. If we only had eyes to see and ears to hear and wits to understand, we would know that the Kingdom of God in the sense of holiness, goodness, beauty is as close as breathing and is crying out to be born within ourselves and within the world; we would know that the Kingdom of God is what we all of us hunger for above all other things even when we didn’t know its name or realize that it’s what we’re starving for. The Kingdom of God is where our best dreams come from and our truest prayers. We glimpse it at those moments when we find ourselves being better than we are and wiser than we know. We catch sight of it when at some moment of crisis a strength seems to come to us that is greater than our own strength. The Kingdom of God is where we belong. It is home, and whether we realize it or not, I think we are all of us homesick for it. (147-149)
From C.S. Lewis’s book, The Weight of Glory, p. 25-26
If you asked twenty good men to-day what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you asked almost any of the great Christians of old he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive. The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire. If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
From Fredrick Buechner’s book, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC, p. 97-98
To worship God means to serve him. Basically there are two ways to do it. One way is to do things for him that he needs to have done – run errands for him, carry messages for him, fight on his side, feed his lambs, and so on. The other way is to do things for him that you need to do – sing songs for him, create beautiful things for him, give things up for him, tell him what’s on your mind and in your heart, in general rejoice in him and make a fool of yourself for him the way lovers have always made fools of themselves for the one they love.
From John Piper’s sermon, Worship: The Feast of Christian Hedonism from Psalm 63:5-6 found at www.desiringgod.org.
Therefore, if you feel no delight in the wealth of God's glory, nor feel any longing to see and know God better, nor feel any sorrow that your longing and delight are so meager, then you are not worshipping. Isn't it clear, then, that the person who thinks of virtue as overcoming self-interest and who thinks of vice as seeking our own pleasure, will scarcely be able to worship. For worship is the most hedonistic affair of life and must not be ruined by the least thought of disinterestedness. The great hindrance to worship is not that we are pleasure-seeking people, but that we are willing to settle for such pitiful pleasures.
Jeremiah put it like this:
My people have exchanged their glory for that which does not profit. Be appalled, O heavens, at this, be shocked, be utterly desolate, says the Lord, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water. (Jeremiah 2:11–13)
The great barrier to worship among God's people is not that we are always seeking our own satisfaction, but that our seeking is so weak and half-hearted that we settle for little sips at broken cisterns when the fountain of life is just over the next hill.
. . . Jesus made his church out of human beings with more or less the same mixture in them of cowardice and guts, of intelligence and stupidity, of selfishness and generosity, of openness of heart and sheer cussedness as you would be apt to find in any of us. The reason he made his church out of human beings is that human beings were all there was to make it out of. In fact, as far as I know, human beings are all there is to make it out of still. It’s a point worth remembering.
It is also a point worth remembering that even after Jesus made these human beings into a church, they seem to have gone right on being human beings. They actually knew Jesus as their friend. They sat at his feet and listened to him speak; they ate with him and tramped the countryside with him; they witnessed his miracles; but not even all of that turned them into heroes. They kept on being as human as they’d always been with most of the same strengths and most of the same weaknesses.
And finally when it comes to remembering things, we do well to keep in mind that the idea of becoming the church wasn’t their idea. It was Jesus’s idea. It was Jesus who made them a church. They didn’t come together the way like-minded people come together to make a club. They didn’t come together the way a group of men might come together to form a baseball team or the way a group of women might come together to lobby for higher teachers’ salaries. They came together because Jesus called them to come together. That is what the Greek word ekklesia means, from which we get our word “church.” It means those who have been called out, the way the original twelve were called out of fishing or tax collecting or running a kosher restaurant or a Laundromat or whatever else they happened to be involved in at the time.
. . . One way or another Christ called them. That’s how it happened. They saw the marvel of him arch across the grayness of things – the grayness of their own lives perhaps, of life itself. They heard his voice calling their names. And they went.
They seem to have gone right on working at pretty much whatever they’d been working at before, which means that he didn’t so much call them out of their ordinary lives as he called them out of believing that ordinary life is ordinary. He called them to see that no matter how ordinary it may seem to us as we live it, life is extraordinary. “The Kingdom of God is at hand” is the way he put it to them, and the way he told them to put it to others. Life even at its most monotonous and backbreaking and heart-numbing has the Kingdom buried in it the way a field has treasure buried in it, he said. The Kingdom of God is as close to us as some precious keepsake we’ve been looking for for years, which is lying just in the next room under the rug all but crying out for us to come find it. If we only had eyes to see and ears to hear and wits to understand, we would know that the Kingdom of God in the sense of holiness, goodness, beauty is as close as breathing and is crying out to be born within ourselves and within the world; we would know that the Kingdom of God is what we all of us hunger for above all other things even when we didn’t know its name or realize that it’s what we’re starving for. The Kingdom of God is where our best dreams come from and our truest prayers. We glimpse it at those moments when we find ourselves being better than we are and wiser than we know. We catch sight of it when at some moment of crisis a strength seems to come to us that is greater than our own strength. The Kingdom of God is where we belong. It is home, and whether we realize it or not, I think we are all of us homesick for it. (147-149)
From C.S. Lewis’s book, The Weight of Glory, p. 25-26
If you asked twenty good men to-day what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you asked almost any of the great Christians of old he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive. The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire. If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
From Fredrick Buechner’s book, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC, p. 97-98
To worship God means to serve him. Basically there are two ways to do it. One way is to do things for him that he needs to have done – run errands for him, carry messages for him, fight on his side, feed his lambs, and so on. The other way is to do things for him that you need to do – sing songs for him, create beautiful things for him, give things up for him, tell him what’s on your mind and in your heart, in general rejoice in him and make a fool of yourself for him the way lovers have always made fools of themselves for the one they love.
From John Piper’s sermon, Worship: The Feast of Christian Hedonism from Psalm 63:5-6 found at www.desiringgod.org.
Therefore, if you feel no delight in the wealth of God's glory, nor feel any longing to see and know God better, nor feel any sorrow that your longing and delight are so meager, then you are not worshipping. Isn't it clear, then, that the person who thinks of virtue as overcoming self-interest and who thinks of vice as seeking our own pleasure, will scarcely be able to worship. For worship is the most hedonistic affair of life and must not be ruined by the least thought of disinterestedness. The great hindrance to worship is not that we are pleasure-seeking people, but that we are willing to settle for such pitiful pleasures.
Jeremiah put it like this:
My people have exchanged their glory for that which does not profit. Be appalled, O heavens, at this, be shocked, be utterly desolate, says the Lord, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water. (Jeremiah 2:11–13)
The great barrier to worship among God's people is not that we are always seeking our own satisfaction, but that our seeking is so weak and half-hearted that we settle for little sips at broken cisterns when the fountain of life is just over the next hill.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Worship - John Piper
The following are excerpts from a couple sermons by John Piper – “The Inner Essence of Worship” and “The Curse of Careless Worship.” You can see these sermons in their entirety at www.desiringgod.org. Type in the titles above.
What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed; and in this I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice, 19 for I know that this will turn out for my deliverance through your prayers and the provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, 20 according to my earnest expectation and hope, that I will not be put to shame in anything, but that with all boldness, Christ will even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. 21 For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. 22 But if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which to choose. 23 But I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better; 24 yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake.
Philippians 1:18-24
. . . the main point was that the New Testament reveals a stunning silence about the outward place and forms of worship and a radical intensification of worship as an inner, Godward experience of the heart manifest in everyday life. The silence about outward forms is obvious in the fact that the gathered life of the church is never called "worship" in the New Testament. And the main Old Testament word for worship (proskuneo) is virtually absent from the New Testament letters.
The intensification of worship as an inner, Godward experience of the heart is seen in the words of Jesus that the hour is coming and now is when worship will not be located in Samaria or Jerusalem, but will be "in spirit and in truth" (John 4:21-23). Inner spiritual reality replaces geographic locality. And we see it again in Matthew 15:8-9 when Jesus says, "This people honors me with their lips but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me." Worship that does not come from the heart is vain, empty. It is not authentic worship. It is no worship.
. . . the essence of worship is not external, localized acts, but inner, Godward experience that comes out not primarily in church services (though they are important) but primarily in daily expressions of allegiance to God - in your sex life, in the way you handle your money, or keep your marriage vows, or speak up for Christ.
. . . worship, whether an inner act of the heart, or an outward act of the body, or of the congregation collectively, is a magnifying of God. That is, it is an act that shows how magnificent God is. It is an act that reveals or expresses how great and glorious he is. Worship is all about reflecting the worth or value of God.
Notice from verse 20 what Paul's mission in life is. He says it is "my earnest expectation and hope, that I will not be put to shame in anything, but that with all boldness, Christ will even now, as always, be exalted [the key word, "magnified" - shown to be great and glorious] in my body, whether by life or by death." So what Paul is saying is that his earnest hope and passion is that what he does with his body, whether in life or death, will always be worship. In life and death his mission is to magnify Christ - to show that Christ is magnificent, to exalt Christ, and demonstrate that he is great. That's plain from verse 20 - "that Christ shall be exalted in my body, whether by life or death."
The essence of worship is experiencing Christ as gain . . . it is savoring Christ, treasuring Christ, being satisfied with Christ.
I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ. Philippians 3:8
1. The pursuit of joy in God is not optional. It is our highest duty.
There are millions of Christians who have absorbed a popular ethic that says it is morally defective to seek our happiness, even in God. This is absolutely deadly for authentic worship. To the degree that this ethic flourishes, to that degree worship dies. Because the inner essence of worship is satisfaction in God, experiencing God as gain.
Therefore I say to you that the basic attitude of worship on Sunday morning is not to come with your hands full to give to God, but with your hands empty, to receive from God. And what you receive in worship is God, not entertainment. You ought to come hungry for God.
Recovering the rightness and indispensability of pursuing our satisfaction in God will go a long way to restoring authenticity and power of worship.
2. Another implication of saying that the essence of worship is satisfaction in God is that worship becomes radically God-centered.
Nothing makes God more supreme and more central than when a people are utterly persuaded that nothing - not money or prestige or leisure or family or job or health or sports or toys or friends - nothing is going to bring satisfaction to their aching hearts besides God. This conviction breeds a people who go hard after God on Sunday morning.
If the essence of worship is satisfaction in God, then worship can't be done authentically as a means to anything else. You simply can't say to God, I want to be satisfied in you so that I can have something else. Because that would mean that you are not really satisfied in God but in that something else. And that would dishonor God, not worship him.
Genuine affections for God are an end in themselves. I cannot say to my wife: "I feel a strong delight in you - so that you will make me a nice meal." That is not the way delight works. It terminates on her. It does not have a nice meal in view. I cannot say to my son, "I love playing ball with you - so that you will cut the grass." If your heart really delights in playing ball with him, that delight cannot be performed as a means to getting him to do something else.
Careless Worship
But you say, 'What a weariness this is,' and you snort at it, says the LORD of hosts. You bring what has been taken by violence or is lame or sick, and this you bring as your offering! Shall I accept that from your hand? says the LORD. Malachi 1:13
So the origin of careless worship is a failure to see and feel the greatness of God.
But how does this cause careless worship? Malachi's answer: It makes a person bored with God and excited about the world. If you don't see the greatness of God, then all the things that money can buy become very exciting. If you can't see the sun, you will be impressed with a street light. If you've never felt thunder and lightning, you'll be impressed with fire works. And if you turn your back on the greatness and majesty of God, you'll fall in love with a world of shadows and short-lived pleasures.
. . . And when you become so blind that the maker of galaxies and ruler of nations and knower of all mysteries and lover of our souls becomes boring, then only one thing is left—the love of the world. For the heart is always restless. It must have its treasure: if not in heaven, then on the earth.
And so when it is time to bring sheep from the flock to sacrifice, what do you bring? You bring the sheep with disease and broken legs. Or you steal a sheep to bring. Why? It's obvious. The good sheep sell better and you love money more than God.
So there it is: the origin of careless worship is a failure to see and feel the greatness of God. And so God becomes boring and the world becomes exciting, and worship . . . well, there may be some social usefulness in keeping up a front of religion, but O how the heart beats fast for the world.
Nature of True Worship
And what is the nature of true worship? I would put it like this. The nature of true worship is worship that does two things:
1) it expresses the feeling of God's value and greatness;
2) and it seeks to sustain in the congregation that same spiritual sense of God's immense worth and beauty.
Or to put it another way, true worship
1) comes from a heart where God is treasured above all human property and praise,
2) and it aims to inspire the same God-centered passion in the hearts of the congregation.
What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed; and in this I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice, 19 for I know that this will turn out for my deliverance through your prayers and the provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, 20 according to my earnest expectation and hope, that I will not be put to shame in anything, but that with all boldness, Christ will even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. 21 For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. 22 But if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which to choose. 23 But I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better; 24 yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake.
Philippians 1:18-24
. . . the main point was that the New Testament reveals a stunning silence about the outward place and forms of worship and a radical intensification of worship as an inner, Godward experience of the heart manifest in everyday life. The silence about outward forms is obvious in the fact that the gathered life of the church is never called "worship" in the New Testament. And the main Old Testament word for worship (proskuneo) is virtually absent from the New Testament letters.
The intensification of worship as an inner, Godward experience of the heart is seen in the words of Jesus that the hour is coming and now is when worship will not be located in Samaria or Jerusalem, but will be "in spirit and in truth" (John 4:21-23). Inner spiritual reality replaces geographic locality. And we see it again in Matthew 15:8-9 when Jesus says, "This people honors me with their lips but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me." Worship that does not come from the heart is vain, empty. It is not authentic worship. It is no worship.
. . . the essence of worship is not external, localized acts, but inner, Godward experience that comes out not primarily in church services (though they are important) but primarily in daily expressions of allegiance to God - in your sex life, in the way you handle your money, or keep your marriage vows, or speak up for Christ.
. . . worship, whether an inner act of the heart, or an outward act of the body, or of the congregation collectively, is a magnifying of God. That is, it is an act that shows how magnificent God is. It is an act that reveals or expresses how great and glorious he is. Worship is all about reflecting the worth or value of God.
Notice from verse 20 what Paul's mission in life is. He says it is "my earnest expectation and hope, that I will not be put to shame in anything, but that with all boldness, Christ will even now, as always, be exalted [the key word, "magnified" - shown to be great and glorious] in my body, whether by life or by death." So what Paul is saying is that his earnest hope and passion is that what he does with his body, whether in life or death, will always be worship. In life and death his mission is to magnify Christ - to show that Christ is magnificent, to exalt Christ, and demonstrate that he is great. That's plain from verse 20 - "that Christ shall be exalted in my body, whether by life or death."
The essence of worship is experiencing Christ as gain . . . it is savoring Christ, treasuring Christ, being satisfied with Christ.
I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ. Philippians 3:8
1. The pursuit of joy in God is not optional. It is our highest duty.
There are millions of Christians who have absorbed a popular ethic that says it is morally defective to seek our happiness, even in God. This is absolutely deadly for authentic worship. To the degree that this ethic flourishes, to that degree worship dies. Because the inner essence of worship is satisfaction in God, experiencing God as gain.
Therefore I say to you that the basic attitude of worship on Sunday morning is not to come with your hands full to give to God, but with your hands empty, to receive from God. And what you receive in worship is God, not entertainment. You ought to come hungry for God.
Recovering the rightness and indispensability of pursuing our satisfaction in God will go a long way to restoring authenticity and power of worship.
2. Another implication of saying that the essence of worship is satisfaction in God is that worship becomes radically God-centered.
Nothing makes God more supreme and more central than when a people are utterly persuaded that nothing - not money or prestige or leisure or family or job or health or sports or toys or friends - nothing is going to bring satisfaction to their aching hearts besides God. This conviction breeds a people who go hard after God on Sunday morning.
If the essence of worship is satisfaction in God, then worship can't be done authentically as a means to anything else. You simply can't say to God, I want to be satisfied in you so that I can have something else. Because that would mean that you are not really satisfied in God but in that something else. And that would dishonor God, not worship him.
Genuine affections for God are an end in themselves. I cannot say to my wife: "I feel a strong delight in you - so that you will make me a nice meal." That is not the way delight works. It terminates on her. It does not have a nice meal in view. I cannot say to my son, "I love playing ball with you - so that you will cut the grass." If your heart really delights in playing ball with him, that delight cannot be performed as a means to getting him to do something else.
Careless Worship
But you say, 'What a weariness this is,' and you snort at it, says the LORD of hosts. You bring what has been taken by violence or is lame or sick, and this you bring as your offering! Shall I accept that from your hand? says the LORD. Malachi 1:13
So the origin of careless worship is a failure to see and feel the greatness of God.
But how does this cause careless worship? Malachi's answer: It makes a person bored with God and excited about the world. If you don't see the greatness of God, then all the things that money can buy become very exciting. If you can't see the sun, you will be impressed with a street light. If you've never felt thunder and lightning, you'll be impressed with fire works. And if you turn your back on the greatness and majesty of God, you'll fall in love with a world of shadows and short-lived pleasures.
. . . And when you become so blind that the maker of galaxies and ruler of nations and knower of all mysteries and lover of our souls becomes boring, then only one thing is left—the love of the world. For the heart is always restless. It must have its treasure: if not in heaven, then on the earth.
And so when it is time to bring sheep from the flock to sacrifice, what do you bring? You bring the sheep with disease and broken legs. Or you steal a sheep to bring. Why? It's obvious. The good sheep sell better and you love money more than God.
So there it is: the origin of careless worship is a failure to see and feel the greatness of God. And so God becomes boring and the world becomes exciting, and worship . . . well, there may be some social usefulness in keeping up a front of religion, but O how the heart beats fast for the world.
Nature of True Worship
And what is the nature of true worship? I would put it like this. The nature of true worship is worship that does two things:
1) it expresses the feeling of God's value and greatness;
2) and it seeks to sustain in the congregation that same spiritual sense of God's immense worth and beauty.
Or to put it another way, true worship
1) comes from a heart where God is treasured above all human property and praise,
2) and it aims to inspire the same God-centered passion in the hearts of the congregation.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
The Soil of Obedience
I’ve spent a lot of mental and physical energy trying to grow grass - easier said than done.
Right now, we have bare spots popping up in our lawn. I’ve pondered that problem. I’ve taken a shovel and dug under and around those spots because I thought it might be grubs. I have not yet determined the source of the problem.
I’m good at growing weeds, but I’m not so good at growing grass.
When I share this challenge with others one of the first questions I receive is “Have you had your soil checked?” My soil checked? How do you check your soil? Who checks soil? What are they looking for? It’s dirt, right?
I’m coming to learn how important your soil is to growing grass. It can be too sandy, too acidic, not acidic enough, needing lime, etc. I’m learning that what you plant your grass in will have a huge impact on how it grows (or not).
We are all familiar with the parable Jesus taught about good soil (Matthew 13:1-23; Mark 4:1-20; Luke 8:4-15). Your seed won’t grow on the path. It will struggle growing if choked out by weeds. If the soil is shallow, you’ll see little growth. But if the seed lands in the good soil, growth is inevitable.
We can’t make ourselves grow; that’s God’s work. But we are responsible for where we place ourselves and who we place ourselves with. We can decide where we place our seed.
I want to suggest and challenge us to place our seeds in the soil of obedience.
As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.
Colossians 2:6-7
One of the interesting things about the book of Colossians is Paul’s emphasis on the challenge of false teachers, false philosophies, and deceit. He was very concerned that the Colossians had the right understanding of faith. What they believed mattered and he wanted to make sure they believed in Jesus Christ as Lord “as you were taught.” Paul recognized that false teachings lead away from Christ and undermine what it means to live for Him. Plus, if you no longer have faith in Christ as the Lord, Son of God, Messiah, then you no longer obey. Why would you? It’s easy to move from Christ as Lord to you as Lord.
What we believe matters. If that is undermined, if we allow false teachings to find a place in our lives, it is reflect in how we live. We don’t live for Him; we live for ourselves.
What we believe directly affects what we do.
If we believe in Christ as Lord and that we are His, we do what He tells us to do. We obey. We are planted in the soil of obedience.
Consider for a moment where that has led you. Consider what has happened when you sought to obey. I bet you grew. I bet it wasn’t easy. I bet you look back and are glad you did obey.
When we obey, we grow. (Growth doesn’t mean easy or only good feelings. Growth is often very hard.) When we obey, God puts us in places and with people where growth happens. It’s important to remember that this obedience in not simply into church or with Christians. The soil of obedience will take us into the lives of those in need, we’ll be challenged, we’ll have to trust in God’s help, we’ll be uncomfortable, and we even may experience rejection and persecution. But we’ll grow.
Live your life in Him, it says in Colossians. Rooted and built up in the faith. Abounding in thanksgiving. When we put ourselves in the soil of obedience, our foundation (roots) will grow and deepen. Our character, person will develop (be built up). We won’t remain the same. And proof that this growth is taking place will be the experience of abounding in thanksgiving.
A couple obedience questions:
1. Are you in God’s Word? This is the soil of obedience.
2. Are you encouraging others to grow in faith? This is the soil of obedience.
3. Are you giving your time and money to Him for His work? This is the soil of obedience.
4. Are you taking time to pray and listen to God? This is the soil of obedience.
5. Are you offering Him your job/career/future? This is the soil of obedience.
6. Are you abounding in thanksgiving? This is a sign you are in the soil of obedience.
7. Are you making decisions dependent on His direction? This is the soil of obedience.
8. Are you reaching out to those in need around you? This is the soil of obedience.
And on and on the list goes.
Obedience leads to growth. Obedience reflects what you believe.
If you look at how you live (what’s important, priorities, focus, use of time and money), what do you believe?
Are you growing? Apart from obedience, growth is stunted and even at times non-existent.
Right now, we have bare spots popping up in our lawn. I’ve pondered that problem. I’ve taken a shovel and dug under and around those spots because I thought it might be grubs. I have not yet determined the source of the problem.
I’m good at growing weeds, but I’m not so good at growing grass.
When I share this challenge with others one of the first questions I receive is “Have you had your soil checked?” My soil checked? How do you check your soil? Who checks soil? What are they looking for? It’s dirt, right?
I’m coming to learn how important your soil is to growing grass. It can be too sandy, too acidic, not acidic enough, needing lime, etc. I’m learning that what you plant your grass in will have a huge impact on how it grows (or not).
We are all familiar with the parable Jesus taught about good soil (Matthew 13:1-23; Mark 4:1-20; Luke 8:4-15). Your seed won’t grow on the path. It will struggle growing if choked out by weeds. If the soil is shallow, you’ll see little growth. But if the seed lands in the good soil, growth is inevitable.
We can’t make ourselves grow; that’s God’s work. But we are responsible for where we place ourselves and who we place ourselves with. We can decide where we place our seed.
I want to suggest and challenge us to place our seeds in the soil of obedience.
As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.
Colossians 2:6-7
One of the interesting things about the book of Colossians is Paul’s emphasis on the challenge of false teachers, false philosophies, and deceit. He was very concerned that the Colossians had the right understanding of faith. What they believed mattered and he wanted to make sure they believed in Jesus Christ as Lord “as you were taught.” Paul recognized that false teachings lead away from Christ and undermine what it means to live for Him. Plus, if you no longer have faith in Christ as the Lord, Son of God, Messiah, then you no longer obey. Why would you? It’s easy to move from Christ as Lord to you as Lord.
What we believe matters. If that is undermined, if we allow false teachings to find a place in our lives, it is reflect in how we live. We don’t live for Him; we live for ourselves.
What we believe directly affects what we do.
If we believe in Christ as Lord and that we are His, we do what He tells us to do. We obey. We are planted in the soil of obedience.
Consider for a moment where that has led you. Consider what has happened when you sought to obey. I bet you grew. I bet it wasn’t easy. I bet you look back and are glad you did obey.
When we obey, we grow. (Growth doesn’t mean easy or only good feelings. Growth is often very hard.) When we obey, God puts us in places and with people where growth happens. It’s important to remember that this obedience in not simply into church or with Christians. The soil of obedience will take us into the lives of those in need, we’ll be challenged, we’ll have to trust in God’s help, we’ll be uncomfortable, and we even may experience rejection and persecution. But we’ll grow.
Live your life in Him, it says in Colossians. Rooted and built up in the faith. Abounding in thanksgiving. When we put ourselves in the soil of obedience, our foundation (roots) will grow and deepen. Our character, person will develop (be built up). We won’t remain the same. And proof that this growth is taking place will be the experience of abounding in thanksgiving.
A couple obedience questions:
1. Are you in God’s Word? This is the soil of obedience.
2. Are you encouraging others to grow in faith? This is the soil of obedience.
3. Are you giving your time and money to Him for His work? This is the soil of obedience.
4. Are you taking time to pray and listen to God? This is the soil of obedience.
5. Are you offering Him your job/career/future? This is the soil of obedience.
6. Are you abounding in thanksgiving? This is a sign you are in the soil of obedience.
7. Are you making decisions dependent on His direction? This is the soil of obedience.
8. Are you reaching out to those in need around you? This is the soil of obedience.
And on and on the list goes.
Obedience leads to growth. Obedience reflects what you believe.
If you look at how you live (what’s important, priorities, focus, use of time and money), what do you believe?
Are you growing? Apart from obedience, growth is stunted and even at times non-existent.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
The Complete Book of Discipleship - Hull
The following are excerpts from my readings over the sabbatical. The following excerpts come from Bill Hull’s book, The Complete Book of Discipleship. I hope these help you as you consider what it means to follow Jesus.
We don’t just amble our way into discipleship. We make a conscious decision to live by faith. We agree to join others who’ve committed to follow Jesus rather than try to lead Jesus. We fundamentally give up the right to run our own life. In other words, you can follow your heart, your dreams, your gifts, your personality profile, and seek the right fit. But all that’s inferior to following Jesus.
(119)
Saying no to self in order to say yes to God. The only righteous role of self-denial is to eliminate any obstacle that blocks saying yes to God. When my will conflicts with his will, self-denial makes following his will possible. Jesus wants me to deny myself the right to be in charge of my own life.
(121-122)
First we choose the life. We set aside any competing priorities and follow Jesus. Then he reveals our mission en route.
When we wait at the entrance to the path of obedience for full instructions before we start walking, we can never find our mission. That knowledge is found only en route.
By accepting non-discipleship Christianity, many people don’t have a mission. So they sit in the pew and wait. All those missions never completed – what a tragic loss to people’s lives, and how much poorer it has left the church and the society we live in.
(124-125)
Accompanying Mother Teresa, as we did, to these different activities
for the purpose of filming them – to the Home for the Dying, to the
lepers and the unwanted children, I found I went through three phases.
The first was the horror mixed with pity; the second, compassion, pure
and simple; and the third, reaching far beyond compassion, something
I had never experienced before – an awareness of these dying, and
derelict men and women, these lepers with stumps instead of hands,
these unwanted children, were not pitiable, repulsive or forlorn, but
rather dear and delightful; as it might be, friends of long standing,
brothers and sisters. How is it to be explained – the very heart and
mystery of the Christian faith? To soothe those battered old heads,
to grasp those poor stumps, to take in one’s arms those children
consigned to dust bins, because it is His head, as they are His stumps
and His children, of whom He said whosoever received one such
child in His name received me.
Malcolm Muggeridge (132-133)
I would much rather say that every time you make a choice you are
turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into
something a little different from what it was before. And taking
your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your
life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a
Heaven creature or into a hellish creature: either into a creature
that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with
itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with
God, and with its fellow creatures, and with itself. To be the one
kind of creature is Heaven: that is, it is joy, and peace, and
knowledge, and power. To be the other means madness, horror,
idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at
each moment is progressing to the one state or the other.
C. S. Lewis (138)
Training, not trying: I think we should outlaw “trying.” Trying occurs when disciples try to reach a goal without the proper tools. Training, however, means that we commit to rearrange our lives around the practices of Jesus. We don’t try to practice spiritual disciplines: fasting, silence, solitude, chastity, sacrifice, study, and so forth. Instead, because Jesus practiced them, we train in spiritual disciplines. We’ve answered the call to follow him and to learn from him, so we want to live our life the way Jesus lived his. And over time, through a patient process, we allow the positive effects of discipline to change us.
(143)
. . . you can’t give yourself as a sacrifice and at the same time manage your image.
(144)
. . . Jesus led with weakness, failure, and rejection. He moved straight into everything that the human spirit naturally abhors. An attitude of willingness is the rite of passage to ministering as Jesus ministered, to following in his footsteps, to giving ourselves for others. As an associate of Mother Teresa once commented, “She is free to be nothing; therefore, God can use her for anything.”
(146)
Trust is key, because we only take in the truth we trust. And that trust has to do with the messenger as much as the message. When you trust someone to the point you become vulnerable, you’re giving that person permission to speak into your life. This is where transformation traction takes place.
(156)
Just as humility is Jesus’ primary character trait, it should be the foundation we build on as we seek to follow him and be formed into his image. Think of it this way: without humility, there’s no submission; without submission, relationships of trust can’t exist; without relationships of trust, we won’t make ourselves vulnerable; without vulnerability, no one can influence us; and without influence, we won’t change.
Submission means saying, “I choose to let others love me.”
(158-159)
In fact, the most pressing need in most local congregations is that we own the truth that all of us are ministers. It seems that most Christians believe they’re consumers. They see their faith and life in the community of their congregation as a way to receive benefits from Christ, a way to set some sore of “get into heaven” card that salvation provides. This leads to acceptance of non-discipleship Christianity.
(172)
Eugene Peterson put it bluntly when asked if the church can reform:
Hasn’t happened. I’m for always reforming, but to think that we can
get a church reformed is just silliness . . . We have a goal. We have a
mission. We’re going to save the world. We’re going to evangelize
everybody, and we’re going to do all this stuff and fill our churches.
This is wonderful. All the goals are right. But this is slow, slow
work; this is soul work, this bringing people into a life of obedience
and love and joy before God. And we get impatient and start
taking shortcuts and use any means available. We talk about
benefits. We manipulate people. We bully them. We use
language that is just incredibly impersonal – bullying language,
manipulative language.
(173)
The world needs more than the secret holiness of individual
inwardness. It needs more than sacred sentiments and good
intentions. God asks for the heart because he needs lives. It
is by lives that the world will be redeemed, by lives that beat in
concordance with God, by deeds that outbeat the finite charity
of the human heart. Man’s power of action is less vague than
his power of intention. And an action has intrinsic meaning;
its value to the world is independent of what it means to the
person performing it. The giving of good to the helpless
child is meaningful regardless of whether or not the moral
intention is present. God asks for the heart, and we must
spell our answer in terms of deeds.
Abraham Joshua Heschel (181)
We make a conscious decision to live by . . . (Jesus’) pattern of life: a life of submission, sacrifice, and obedience, built on a foundation of humility.
This part of the process both marks the starting line and represents the essence of discipleship. We make following Jesus our life’s goal and intent. Faith is following and following is faith. The first action requires creating time and space to train. We don’t try to become like Jesus; instead we make a commitment to train to become the kind of person who naturally does what Jesus would do.
Mission refers to God’s mystery that you only find yourself when you lose yourself in serving others. . . Perhaps the greatest sacrifice is giving up the right to run our own lives, putting to death the dream of creating our agenda and of being in control.
(191-192)
We don’t just amble our way into discipleship. We make a conscious decision to live by faith. We agree to join others who’ve committed to follow Jesus rather than try to lead Jesus. We fundamentally give up the right to run our own life. In other words, you can follow your heart, your dreams, your gifts, your personality profile, and seek the right fit. But all that’s inferior to following Jesus.
(119)
Saying no to self in order to say yes to God. The only righteous role of self-denial is to eliminate any obstacle that blocks saying yes to God. When my will conflicts with his will, self-denial makes following his will possible. Jesus wants me to deny myself the right to be in charge of my own life.
(121-122)
First we choose the life. We set aside any competing priorities and follow Jesus. Then he reveals our mission en route.
When we wait at the entrance to the path of obedience for full instructions before we start walking, we can never find our mission. That knowledge is found only en route.
By accepting non-discipleship Christianity, many people don’t have a mission. So they sit in the pew and wait. All those missions never completed – what a tragic loss to people’s lives, and how much poorer it has left the church and the society we live in.
(124-125)
Accompanying Mother Teresa, as we did, to these different activities
for the purpose of filming them – to the Home for the Dying, to the
lepers and the unwanted children, I found I went through three phases.
The first was the horror mixed with pity; the second, compassion, pure
and simple; and the third, reaching far beyond compassion, something
I had never experienced before – an awareness of these dying, and
derelict men and women, these lepers with stumps instead of hands,
these unwanted children, were not pitiable, repulsive or forlorn, but
rather dear and delightful; as it might be, friends of long standing,
brothers and sisters. How is it to be explained – the very heart and
mystery of the Christian faith? To soothe those battered old heads,
to grasp those poor stumps, to take in one’s arms those children
consigned to dust bins, because it is His head, as they are His stumps
and His children, of whom He said whosoever received one such
child in His name received me.
Malcolm Muggeridge (132-133)
I would much rather say that every time you make a choice you are
turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into
something a little different from what it was before. And taking
your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your
life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a
Heaven creature or into a hellish creature: either into a creature
that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with
itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with
God, and with its fellow creatures, and with itself. To be the one
kind of creature is Heaven: that is, it is joy, and peace, and
knowledge, and power. To be the other means madness, horror,
idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at
each moment is progressing to the one state or the other.
C. S. Lewis (138)
Training, not trying: I think we should outlaw “trying.” Trying occurs when disciples try to reach a goal without the proper tools. Training, however, means that we commit to rearrange our lives around the practices of Jesus. We don’t try to practice spiritual disciplines: fasting, silence, solitude, chastity, sacrifice, study, and so forth. Instead, because Jesus practiced them, we train in spiritual disciplines. We’ve answered the call to follow him and to learn from him, so we want to live our life the way Jesus lived his. And over time, through a patient process, we allow the positive effects of discipline to change us.
(143)
. . . you can’t give yourself as a sacrifice and at the same time manage your image.
(144)
. . . Jesus led with weakness, failure, and rejection. He moved straight into everything that the human spirit naturally abhors. An attitude of willingness is the rite of passage to ministering as Jesus ministered, to following in his footsteps, to giving ourselves for others. As an associate of Mother Teresa once commented, “She is free to be nothing; therefore, God can use her for anything.”
(146)
Trust is key, because we only take in the truth we trust. And that trust has to do with the messenger as much as the message. When you trust someone to the point you become vulnerable, you’re giving that person permission to speak into your life. This is where transformation traction takes place.
(156)
Just as humility is Jesus’ primary character trait, it should be the foundation we build on as we seek to follow him and be formed into his image. Think of it this way: without humility, there’s no submission; without submission, relationships of trust can’t exist; without relationships of trust, we won’t make ourselves vulnerable; without vulnerability, no one can influence us; and without influence, we won’t change.
Submission means saying, “I choose to let others love me.”
(158-159)
In fact, the most pressing need in most local congregations is that we own the truth that all of us are ministers. It seems that most Christians believe they’re consumers. They see their faith and life in the community of their congregation as a way to receive benefits from Christ, a way to set some sore of “get into heaven” card that salvation provides. This leads to acceptance of non-discipleship Christianity.
(172)
Eugene Peterson put it bluntly when asked if the church can reform:
Hasn’t happened. I’m for always reforming, but to think that we can
get a church reformed is just silliness . . . We have a goal. We have a
mission. We’re going to save the world. We’re going to evangelize
everybody, and we’re going to do all this stuff and fill our churches.
This is wonderful. All the goals are right. But this is slow, slow
work; this is soul work, this bringing people into a life of obedience
and love and joy before God. And we get impatient and start
taking shortcuts and use any means available. We talk about
benefits. We manipulate people. We bully them. We use
language that is just incredibly impersonal – bullying language,
manipulative language.
(173)
The world needs more than the secret holiness of individual
inwardness. It needs more than sacred sentiments and good
intentions. God asks for the heart because he needs lives. It
is by lives that the world will be redeemed, by lives that beat in
concordance with God, by deeds that outbeat the finite charity
of the human heart. Man’s power of action is less vague than
his power of intention. And an action has intrinsic meaning;
its value to the world is independent of what it means to the
person performing it. The giving of good to the helpless
child is meaningful regardless of whether or not the moral
intention is present. God asks for the heart, and we must
spell our answer in terms of deeds.
Abraham Joshua Heschel (181)
We make a conscious decision to live by . . . (Jesus’) pattern of life: a life of submission, sacrifice, and obedience, built on a foundation of humility.
This part of the process both marks the starting line and represents the essence of discipleship. We make following Jesus our life’s goal and intent. Faith is following and following is faith. The first action requires creating time and space to train. We don’t try to become like Jesus; instead we make a commitment to train to become the kind of person who naturally does what Jesus would do.
Mission refers to God’s mystery that you only find yourself when you lose yourself in serving others. . . Perhaps the greatest sacrifice is giving up the right to run our own lives, putting to death the dream of creating our agenda and of being in control.
(191-192)
The Gift of Being Yourself - part 2
The following are excerpts from my readings over the sabbatical. They address the need we have to know ourselves. This may sound like a pursuit of self-absorption. Read on and see what you think. These excerpts come from David Benner’s book, The Gift of Being Yourself.
Focusing on sins leads to what Dallas Willard describes as the gospel of sin management – a resolve to avoid sin and strategies to deal with guilt when this inevitably proves unsuccessful. But Christian spiritual transformation is much more radical than sin avoidance.
(65)
Discovering our core sin tendencies is helpful because it lets us deal with our problems at their root. But even more than this, it is helpful because discovery of our core sin tendencies will inevitably fill us with such despair and hopelessness that we will have no option but to turn to God. Spiritual transformation does not result from fixing our problems. It results from turning to God in the midst of them and meeting God just as we are. Turning to God is the core of prayer. Turning to God in our sin and shame is the heart of spiritual transformation.
(67)
Everything that is false about us arises from the belief that our deepest happiness will come from living life our way, not God’s way.
(75)
Something else that we know from experience is how to hide and how to pretend. At some point in childhood we all make the powerful discovery that we can manipulate the truth about ourselves. Initially it often takes the form of a simple lie – frequently a denial of having done something. But of more importance to the development of the false self is the discovery that our ability to hide isn’t limited to what we say or don’t say. We learn to pretend. We discover the art of repackaging our self.
In short, we learn how to present our self in the best possible light – a light designed to create a favorable impression and maintain our self-esteem.
While this might seem quite benign, the dark side of pretending is that what begins as a role becomes an identity. Initially the masks we adopt reflect how we want others to see us. Over time, however, they come to reflect how we want to see our self. But by this point we have thoroughly confused the mask and our actual experience. Our masks have become our reality, and we have become our lies. In short, we have lost authenticity and adopted an identity based on illusion. We have become a house of smoke and mirrors.
Nothing other than truth is strong enough to dispel illusion. And only the Spirit of Truth can save us from the consequence of having listened to the serpent rather than God.
(78-79)
The core of the lie that Adam and Eve believed was that they could be like God without God. But without God the most we can ever do is make ourselves into a god.
We are not God. We are not our own origin, nor are we our own
ultimate fulfillment. To claim to be so is a suicidal act that wounds
our faith relationship with the living God and replaces it with a
futile faith in a self that can never exist.
. . . what we get when we choose a way of being that is separate from God is the life of the lie. It is a lie because the autonomy that it promises is an illusion. We do not become free of God by a disregard of Divine will. Instead, by such disregard we forge the chains of our bondage.
What we get when we choose a way of being that is separate from God is the life of the false self.
The false self is the tragic result of trying to steal something from God that we did not have to steal. Had we dared to trust God’s goodness, we would have discovered that everything we could ever most deeply long for would be ours in God. Trying to gain more than the everything God offers, we end up with less than nothing. Rejecting God, we end up with a nest of lies and illusions. Displacing God, we become a god unto our self. We become a false self.
(79-80)
Basing identity on an illusion has profound consequences. Sensing its fundamental unreality, the false self wraps itself in experience – experiences of power, pleasure and honor. Intuiting that it is but a shadow, it seeks to convince itself of its reality by equating itself with what it does and achieves. Basil Pennington suggests that the core of the false self is the belief that my value depends on what I have, what I can do and what others think of me.
Because it is hollow at the core, the life of a false self is a life of excessive attachments. Seeking to avoid implosion and non-being, the false self grasps for anything that appears to have substance and then clings to these things with the tenacity of a drowning man clutching a life ring. One person might cling to his possessions, accomplishments or space. Another may cling to her dreams, memories or friendships. Any of these things can be either a blessing or a curse. They are a blessing when they are held in open hands of gratitude. They become a curse when they are grasped in clenched fists of entitlement and viewed as “me” or “mine.”
(81)
We think of our attachments as anchors of well-being. We feel good when we are surrounded by what seem like innocent indulgences and think they secure a state of pleasure that would not be ours without them. In reality, however, they sabotage our happiness and are hazardous to both our spiritual health and our psychological health.
Ultimately, attachments are ways of coping with the feelings of vulnerability, shame and inadequacy that lie at the core of our false ways of being. Like Adam and Eve, our first response to our awareness of nakedness is to grab whatever is closest and quickly cover our nakedness. We hide behind the fig leaves of our false self. This is the way we package our self to escape painful awareness of our nakedness.
The problem with the false self is that it works. It helps us forget that we are naked. Before long, we are no longer aware of the underlying vulnerability and become comfortable once again.
But God wants something better than fig leaves for us. God wants us to be aware of our helplessness so we can know that we need Divine help. God’s deepest desire for us is to replace our fig leaves with garments of durability and beauty (Genesis 3:21). Yet we cling to our fig-leaf false self. We believe that we know how to take care of our needs better than God.
(82-83)
Touchiness dependably points us to false ways of being. And the more prickly a person you are, the more you are investing in the defense of a false self.
The things that bother us the most about others – our pet peeves – also point toward falsity in our own self.
(83-84)
Every moment of every day of our life God wanders in our inner garden, seeking our companionship. The reason God can’t find us is that we are hiding in the bushes of our false self.
Having first created a self in the image of our own making, we then set out to create the sort of god who might in fact create us. Such is the perversity of the false self.
Coming out of hiding is accepting God on God’s own terms. Doing so is the only route to truly being our unique self-in-Christ.
(88-89)
The true self is who, in reality, you are and who you are becoming. It is not something you need to construct through a process of self-improvement or deconstruct by means of psychological analysis. It is not an object to be grasped. Nor is it an archetype to be actualized. It is not even some inner, hidden part of you. Rather, it is your total self as you were created by God and as you are being redeemed in Christ. It is the image of God that you are – the unique face of God that has been set aside from eternity for you.
We do not find our true self by seeking it. Rather, we find it by seeking God.
(91)
Jesus did not merely accept the identity that others offered him. Had he done so he would have, like us, been pulled in many different directions.
But he did not look to the expectations of others to understand who he was. Instead he looked to his relationship with God.
Jesus gave glory to God by being himself – deeply, truly, consistently. Thomas Merton says that “to be a saint means to be myself.” Sanctity is finding our hidden and true self in Christ and living out the life that flows from this self in surrender to the loving will and presence of our heavenly Father.
(95)
The way of the true self is always the way of humility. Pride and arrogance move us toward our false self, but humility and love allow us to live the truth of our being.
(98)
Too often we think of God’s call (or our vocation) solely in terms of what we do. People speak of being called to the ministry or feeling called to work in healthcare or teaching. However, while doing will always be involved, vocation is much more than our occupation. It is the face of Christ we are called from eternity to show to the world. It is who we are called to be.
(101)
The self is not God. But it is the place where we meet God. There can be no genuine spiritual transformation if we seek some external meeting place. God’s intended home is our heart, and it is meeting God in our depths that transform us from the inside out.
In Christian spiritual transformation, the self that embarks on the journey is not the self that arrives. The self that begins the spiritual journey is the self of our own creation, the self we thought ourselves to be. This is the self that dies on the journey. The self that arrives is the self that was loved into existence by Divine love. This is the person we were destined from eternity to become – the I that is hidden in the “I AM.”
(103)
Focusing on sins leads to what Dallas Willard describes as the gospel of sin management – a resolve to avoid sin and strategies to deal with guilt when this inevitably proves unsuccessful. But Christian spiritual transformation is much more radical than sin avoidance.
(65)
Discovering our core sin tendencies is helpful because it lets us deal with our problems at their root. But even more than this, it is helpful because discovery of our core sin tendencies will inevitably fill us with such despair and hopelessness that we will have no option but to turn to God. Spiritual transformation does not result from fixing our problems. It results from turning to God in the midst of them and meeting God just as we are. Turning to God is the core of prayer. Turning to God in our sin and shame is the heart of spiritual transformation.
(67)
Everything that is false about us arises from the belief that our deepest happiness will come from living life our way, not God’s way.
(75)
Something else that we know from experience is how to hide and how to pretend. At some point in childhood we all make the powerful discovery that we can manipulate the truth about ourselves. Initially it often takes the form of a simple lie – frequently a denial of having done something. But of more importance to the development of the false self is the discovery that our ability to hide isn’t limited to what we say or don’t say. We learn to pretend. We discover the art of repackaging our self.
In short, we learn how to present our self in the best possible light – a light designed to create a favorable impression and maintain our self-esteem.
While this might seem quite benign, the dark side of pretending is that what begins as a role becomes an identity. Initially the masks we adopt reflect how we want others to see us. Over time, however, they come to reflect how we want to see our self. But by this point we have thoroughly confused the mask and our actual experience. Our masks have become our reality, and we have become our lies. In short, we have lost authenticity and adopted an identity based on illusion. We have become a house of smoke and mirrors.
Nothing other than truth is strong enough to dispel illusion. And only the Spirit of Truth can save us from the consequence of having listened to the serpent rather than God.
(78-79)
The core of the lie that Adam and Eve believed was that they could be like God without God. But without God the most we can ever do is make ourselves into a god.
We are not God. We are not our own origin, nor are we our own
ultimate fulfillment. To claim to be so is a suicidal act that wounds
our faith relationship with the living God and replaces it with a
futile faith in a self that can never exist.
. . . what we get when we choose a way of being that is separate from God is the life of the lie. It is a lie because the autonomy that it promises is an illusion. We do not become free of God by a disregard of Divine will. Instead, by such disregard we forge the chains of our bondage.
What we get when we choose a way of being that is separate from God is the life of the false self.
The false self is the tragic result of trying to steal something from God that we did not have to steal. Had we dared to trust God’s goodness, we would have discovered that everything we could ever most deeply long for would be ours in God. Trying to gain more than the everything God offers, we end up with less than nothing. Rejecting God, we end up with a nest of lies and illusions. Displacing God, we become a god unto our self. We become a false self.
(79-80)
Basing identity on an illusion has profound consequences. Sensing its fundamental unreality, the false self wraps itself in experience – experiences of power, pleasure and honor. Intuiting that it is but a shadow, it seeks to convince itself of its reality by equating itself with what it does and achieves. Basil Pennington suggests that the core of the false self is the belief that my value depends on what I have, what I can do and what others think of me.
Because it is hollow at the core, the life of a false self is a life of excessive attachments. Seeking to avoid implosion and non-being, the false self grasps for anything that appears to have substance and then clings to these things with the tenacity of a drowning man clutching a life ring. One person might cling to his possessions, accomplishments or space. Another may cling to her dreams, memories or friendships. Any of these things can be either a blessing or a curse. They are a blessing when they are held in open hands of gratitude. They become a curse when they are grasped in clenched fists of entitlement and viewed as “me” or “mine.”
(81)
We think of our attachments as anchors of well-being. We feel good when we are surrounded by what seem like innocent indulgences and think they secure a state of pleasure that would not be ours without them. In reality, however, they sabotage our happiness and are hazardous to both our spiritual health and our psychological health.
Ultimately, attachments are ways of coping with the feelings of vulnerability, shame and inadequacy that lie at the core of our false ways of being. Like Adam and Eve, our first response to our awareness of nakedness is to grab whatever is closest and quickly cover our nakedness. We hide behind the fig leaves of our false self. This is the way we package our self to escape painful awareness of our nakedness.
The problem with the false self is that it works. It helps us forget that we are naked. Before long, we are no longer aware of the underlying vulnerability and become comfortable once again.
But God wants something better than fig leaves for us. God wants us to be aware of our helplessness so we can know that we need Divine help. God’s deepest desire for us is to replace our fig leaves with garments of durability and beauty (Genesis 3:21). Yet we cling to our fig-leaf false self. We believe that we know how to take care of our needs better than God.
(82-83)
Touchiness dependably points us to false ways of being. And the more prickly a person you are, the more you are investing in the defense of a false self.
The things that bother us the most about others – our pet peeves – also point toward falsity in our own self.
(83-84)
Every moment of every day of our life God wanders in our inner garden, seeking our companionship. The reason God can’t find us is that we are hiding in the bushes of our false self.
Having first created a self in the image of our own making, we then set out to create the sort of god who might in fact create us. Such is the perversity of the false self.
Coming out of hiding is accepting God on God’s own terms. Doing so is the only route to truly being our unique self-in-Christ.
(88-89)
The true self is who, in reality, you are and who you are becoming. It is not something you need to construct through a process of self-improvement or deconstruct by means of psychological analysis. It is not an object to be grasped. Nor is it an archetype to be actualized. It is not even some inner, hidden part of you. Rather, it is your total self as you were created by God and as you are being redeemed in Christ. It is the image of God that you are – the unique face of God that has been set aside from eternity for you.
We do not find our true self by seeking it. Rather, we find it by seeking God.
(91)
Jesus did not merely accept the identity that others offered him. Had he done so he would have, like us, been pulled in many different directions.
But he did not look to the expectations of others to understand who he was. Instead he looked to his relationship with God.
Jesus gave glory to God by being himself – deeply, truly, consistently. Thomas Merton says that “to be a saint means to be myself.” Sanctity is finding our hidden and true self in Christ and living out the life that flows from this self in surrender to the loving will and presence of our heavenly Father.
(95)
The way of the true self is always the way of humility. Pride and arrogance move us toward our false self, but humility and love allow us to live the truth of our being.
(98)
Too often we think of God’s call (or our vocation) solely in terms of what we do. People speak of being called to the ministry or feeling called to work in healthcare or teaching. However, while doing will always be involved, vocation is much more than our occupation. It is the face of Christ we are called from eternity to show to the world. It is who we are called to be.
(101)
The self is not God. But it is the place where we meet God. There can be no genuine spiritual transformation if we seek some external meeting place. God’s intended home is our heart, and it is meeting God in our depths that transform us from the inside out.
In Christian spiritual transformation, the self that embarks on the journey is not the self that arrives. The self that begins the spiritual journey is the self of our own creation, the self we thought ourselves to be. This is the self that dies on the journey. The self that arrives is the self that was loved into existence by Divine love. This is the person we were destined from eternity to become – the I that is hidden in the “I AM.”
(103)
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