Spiritual Formation

In Galatians 4:19, Paul expresses his hope that Christ is "formed" in the hearts of the Galatian Jesus-followers. In the famous Romans 12:1-2, Paul wants the Roman Jesus-followers to be de-morphed out of their conformation to the pattern of this world and be trans-morphed into Jesus-ness.

Spiritual formation and transformation: how does this happen? Here are the four stages, from my point of view.

Stage 1: the recognition of how needy we are. I need to be changed. I need to be different. There are things in me that need to be burned away. I am not all that I need to be in Christ.

I do not think this can be forced on a person, or that sermons and lectures and unasked for advice will work. It comes, mostly I think, as a revelation, as an epiphany, from God. When this happens, the recipient of the revelation is in a good place to be changed.

Stage 2: recognition of the gap between myself and Christ. This is recognition of the magnitude of the transformation, which is: that Christ be formed in us. (Gal. 4:19) This is no small thing.

I like the scene in Isaiah 6 where Isaiah, arguably the most righteous person in Israel, enters the temple and gets a glimpse of a holy God. Isaiah’s response is a prophetic one; he pronounces doom upon his own being. “Woe is me! I am undone! I am dis-integrated! I thought I was a man of integrity. Now I see I am a man with a dirty mouth.”

Isaiah sees the holiness of God. “Holiness” is not another attribute of God. To call God “holy” is to express the “otherness” of God. God, as Supreme Being, is “set apart” from all other beings. There is no one like God.

God is different. God’s difference is expressed in his all-knowingness, all-powerfulness, and all-loving nature. This is, understatedly, different from you and I. To see this is necessarily to be “undone.”

I'm going to use my friend Jordan here in an example. Jordan loves to play basketball. There were a few years, he tells me, when he lived and breathed basketball. And, in his own little circle of basketball-playing friends, I bet he was pretty good and there were times when he and others thought he was pretty dang good.

Now imagine this. Jordan is young and in his basketball-playing prime. A few people think he's really good. He's in the gym. He is scoring points. In walks Michael Jordan, in his prime. We all stop. We’re stunned. He asks, “May I play?” We let him. He decides to guard Jordan. At this point, Jordan says, “Woe is me! I am a man of unclean basketball-playing!” Michael Jordan’s playing is “holy.” Different. Set apart. Not just a “cut above,” but “beyond.” His skills are transcendent. I am on earth, thou art in heaven.

The difference between Michael Jordan’s basketball skills and my friend Jordan's is minor compared to the difference between us and Christ. This difference must be recognized, and should not be minimized. It is jaw-droppingly real. Jesus is different.

This often comes as an epiphany, a revelation, an illumination. The Great Realization. The ultimate “O My God!” happening. This is needed, and it is good. As this happens the prospect of spiritual metamorphosis is positive. But without it, we’re left with the variety of human will power and self-transformation strategies. It is instructive to note that one cannot self-morph into Christlikeness. To think so is to trivialize Christ.

Stage 3: the realization that I cannot change myself. So, no striving allowed, because it won't do any good anyway. "Will power" won't work anyway. To think it will is to diminish Christ, reducing Him to just another fallible subhuman like all of us.

No amount of human striving and effort can serve to morph my spirit into Jesus-likeness, just as no amount of training and practicing could shape me into Michael Jordan-esqueness. Were that to actually happen, God would get the credit.

The gap between myself and Christ is far greater than the gap between my basketball and ability and that of a Michael Jordan. When I realize this, it could cause me to despair, but only if the only option for personal transformation is my own will power and effort. Yet there is another option. God could do it. God, who made the heavens and the earth, could transform my heart into a heart like Christ's. God could "form Christ in me." God could change the shape of my heart from this-worldliness to a heart and mind renewed in Christ. (Romans 12:1-2)

So we have hope! While we are unable to effect the needed transformation, God surely is able. It is this hope, based on the revelation of our deep need and the gap between us and the holiness ('differentness") of Christ that brings us to the inexorable, logical conclusion that is our fourth stage of spiritual transformation.

Stage 4: God can change me!

Stage 5: Therefore, get into the presence of God. A person cannot consistently dwell in God's presence and remain unchanged.

Jesus gives us this secret of spiritual life and transformation in John chapters 14, 15, and 16. We are to dwell in Him, abide in Him. Be like a branch, connected to Jesus the Vine. Attach yourself to Jesus, every day!

We used to have an old pear tree in our back yard. Sometimes I'd see a branch that had fallen off the tree. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that this detached branch will never produce pears. But if that branch could be reattached to the tree it will bear pears. Inexorably. Necessarily. No striving needed or allowed. It will produce fruit simply because it is part of the tree. The Jesus-life is not about "trying hard" but about "abiding." Analogically, Jesus tells us that if we are attached to Him our lives will produce "much fruit." Plus, He gives us His peace and His joy and His knowledge and we're told we will do what he has been doing and even greater things.

All because we are "in Him" and He is "in us."

Therefore abide in Christ. Dwell deeply in Him. Let the morphing begin.

The Absurdity of Life Without God

If there is no God, life is absurd. If there is no God, life is ultimately meaningless. That is, there is no point to life.

I'm not an atheist, but there are some atheists I admire for their logical consistency. Take Richard Dawkins:

"Nature is not cruel, only pitilessly indifferent. This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous--indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose."

Dawkins is correct, if there is no God. But if this universe is a "creation" then it has, by definition, a purpose. Only if there is a Creator God does our life have ultimate purpose. Other atheists have recognized this - such as Sartre, Camus, and Nietzsche.

Thus someone who refers to themselves as an atheist and tries to find ultimate meaning and purpose in life without a Creator God is fundamentally misguided. Only if there is a Creator God does one's life make sense in the greater scheme of things.

The Presence Motif

The great New Testament scholar Gordon Fee writes:

"The Holy Spirit is none other than the fulfillment of the promise that God Himself would once again be present with His people... The Spirit is God's own personal presence in our lives and in our midst; He leads us into paths of righteousness for His name's sake; He 'is working all things in all people;' He is grieved when His people do not reflect His character and thus reveal His glory; and He is present in our worship, as we sing 'praise and honor and glory and power' to God and to the Lamb."

Fee calls this "the Presence Motif." This motif is, for example, the structural key to the book of Exodus. In Exodus the people are seeking for the experiential presence of God, and follow God's tangible presence through the wilderness.

When God is experientially present in a worship gathering, people stay. What people need is the real presence of God. I believe that, for the most part, it is experience, and not theory, that breeds conviction. The love and grace and mercy of God are experiential realities of the God who is there and not just theoretical postulates.

The Sacrifice of Fools

In John 10:10 Jesus says, “The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy; but I have come so that you might have life, and life to the fullest.”

As I see it, the “thief” wants three things from us:
1. Our experience of the loving presence of God
2. Our response of loving God back
3. Our act of giving this love away to others

How does the thief do this? By fulfilling his “job description,” which is “accuser.” Fault-finder. Finger-pointer. Judger. This has been Satan’s strategy from Genesis 3:12 through Revelation 12:10. The “fault-finder” works in two ways. First, he works internally, inside us. He whispers words like “You are nobody,” “No one likes you,” “You will never succeed,” “You are a failure in God’s eyes,” and so on and on.

Secondly, he works through other people to communicate to us these things. I believe that Satan’s greatest pleasures are when he succeeds in tempting Christian brothers and sisters to whisper and murmur such accusations through the ungodly vehicles of gossip and slander. In Romans 1:28-31 gossip and slander are marks of evil, wickedness, and a depraved mind. As this mentally depraved activity happens, “life to the fullest” gets stolen, destroyed, and killed. That’s horrible, isn’t it? What can we do? Here are some things the Bible tells us so we can have victory in this area and thus release more people into the loving presence of God.

1. Refuse to offer the “sacrifice of fools.” This “sacrifice” is described in Ecclesiastes 5:1-2. The “sacrifice of fools” is to “be quick with your mouth and hasty in your heart.” The remedy is to “let your words be few.”

2. Meditate in your heart on whatever things are good, true, and beautiful (Phil. 4:8). That which is meditated on in the heart comes out of the mouth. Meditate on the faults of other people and guess what comes out of the mouth? Note the intimate link between what goes on in the heart and what comes out of the mouth in Psalm 19:14 – “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.”

3. Resolve that your mouth will not sin. Psalm 17:3 states, “Though You probe my heart and examine me at night, though You test me, You will find nothing; I have resolved that my mouth will not sin.” Decide not to sin with your mouth. Can you do it? One of the enemy’s lies is the whisper “You’ll never succeed at this.” But that is another of Satan’s deceiving strategies. Remember – “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” And, you’ll sleep better at night (Proverbs 3:24).

The thief’s strategy is to get the followers of Jesus so much in disunity that a powerful corporate voice cannot unite in its focus and praise of our Savior. This angers me. I want to see every one of you experience the Christ and His promised “life to the fullest.” Therefore let us make our heart-meditations the good, true, and beautiful things of God and our mouths will follow in united praise to our King, who visited our world and remains by His Spirit to offer life like we’ve never known it before.

O Violent Night

Christmas. The birth of our Savior. C.S. Lewis referred to it as "The Great Invasion." In chapter 7 of Mere Christianity Lewis writes:

One of the things that surprised me when I first read the New Testament seriously was that it talked so much about a Dark Power in the universe--a mighty evil spirit who was held to be the Power behind death and disease, and sin.... Christianity agrees... that this universe is at war. But it does not think this is a war between independent powers. It thinks it is a civil war, a rebellion, and that we are living in a part of the universe occupied by the rebel.

Enemy-occupied territory--that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage. When you go to church you are really listening-in to the secret wireless from our friends: that is why the enemy is so anxious to prevent us from going. He does it by playing on our conceit and laziness and intellectual snobbery. I know someone will ask me, 'Do you really mean, at this time of day, to re-introduce our old friend the devil-hoofs and horns and all?' Well, what the time of day has to do with it I do not know. And I am not particular about the hoofs and horns. But in other respects my answer is 'Yes, I do.' I do not claim to know anything about his personal appearance. If anybody really wants to know him better I would say to that person, 'Don't worry. If you really want to, you will. Whether you'll like it when you do is another question.'

Compare that with the most a-cultural telling of Christmas, as found in Revelation 12:1-7. We read:

"A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads. His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born. She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter. And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. The woman fled into the desert to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days.


And there was war in heaven."

Robert Mounce says that: 1) the "woman" here is not Mary, but the messianic community, the "ideal Israel"; 2) out of the messianic community is born a "child," a Messiah; 3) the seven-headed red dragon is Satan (Rev. 12:9; 20:2); 4) Satan is looking to devour this child; AKA Jesus the Christ.

Mary has already been prophetically warned about such things. In Luke 2 we read that...

...the old man "Simeon took him [baby Jesus] in his arms and praised God, saying: "Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel." The child's father and mother marveled at what was said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: "This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too."

Violent night
Holy night
All's not calm
All's not bright
Round yon Virgin Mother and Child
Holy Infant so tender and mild
Begins the Heavenly War
Oh win us our Heavenly War

Christmas Eve - that violent night when the Light of the World descended into darkness...

The Obedience of Desperation

(2 Kings 5, Elisha and Naaman)
The Power of Desperation, Michael Catt

• "The Bible recognizes no faith that does not lead to obedience, nor does it recognize any obedience that does not spring from faith. The two are opposite sides of the same coin." - A. W. Tozer
  
  
• ... no one gets to God on their own. While we do come to Christ alone by grace alone through faith alone, we are, in reality, in need of others to show us the way.
  
  
• God's chain to Naaman:
  * The Little Jewish Maid
  * Naaman's Master
  * The King of Syria
  * The King of Israel
  * Elisha
  * Elisha's Messenger
  * Naaman's Servants
  
  Never underestimate the important role you might play in the life of another person... When people are desperate and dying, it is no time for believers to be fearful of what others might think.
  
  
• We struggle with trust and resist the call to obey. We stand outside the door of deliverance and demand that God come out and meet us on our terms. We expect Him to recognize us even when we fail to recognize Him as sovereign and sufficient.
  
  
• The purpose and timing of God constitute the fuel of victory in the Christian life. And the spark that ignites it, releasing it as a practical and powerful force in the life, is OBEDIENCE. God's power flows in the stream of obedience.
  
  
• You believe only as much of the Bible as you are obeying! What you don't obey, you don't believe.
  
  
• If we are reluctant to give unquestioning obedience to God, it is because we don't really trust Him. If obedience comes from trust, where does trust come from? The answer is--knowledge. You won't obey someone you don't trust. You can't trust someone you don't know. So here is the spiritual equation for obedience: knowledge of God equals faith in God equals obedience to God.
  
  
• This, you see, is evil questioning [referring to Naaman's response to Elisha]. What business of Naaman's was it whether there was any medicinal powers in the water or not? Whether Abanah and Pharpar were better or worse than Jordan? He need have nothing to do but with the simple command: "Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and you will be clean." 'Twas his to obey, not to question. 'Twas his to fulfill the command, not to enquire into its philosophy.
  
  
• Common sense can kill faith. Reasoning and questioning the Word and will of God will destroy faith and justify disobedience. There's a difference between common sense and coming to your senses. You begin to understand God's ways are not your ways. He doesn't have to explain Himself.
  
  
• When Godly people speak into your life: listen; confirm their words with the Word of God; don't try to bargain with God; don't delay!
  

~

Fill My Cup, Lord

(1 Kings 4:1-7, Elisha and the widow)
The Power of Desperation, Michael Catt

• "We will never crave to be filled until we are convinced we are empty." - John Blanchard
  
  
• Hindrances to being filled with the Holy Spirit:
  
  
  * Too much confidence in your own ability to function without help, coupled with a lack of appreciation for what the Spirit can and will do.
  * Being resistant to repentance.
  * When you cannot or will not take God at His Word.
  
  
  
  
• PUSH - Pray Until Something Happens
  
  
• Take God at His Word. Don't negotiate or try to figure it out. Have the attitude of the mother of Jesus who said to those at the wedding feast, "Do whatever He tells you." (John 2:5) End of discussion and the beginning of blessings.
  
  
• Desperate people obey willingly!
  

Additional scriptures to read: Ephesians 3:17-19, 5:15-18; 2 Corinthians 7:1; Romans 10:17; James 2:26.

Also, see this post for more on the story of Elisha and the desperate widow.