A BATTLE RAGES ON – THE BATTLE
So what’s the deal? Well first, according to Scripture, our redemption is not yet complete. While on the planet, “the law of sin” is still at work “in my members” -- the outer-self (Rom. 7:23).
“A battle rages, but we must realize that the warfare is between the real people we have become in Christ and the mortal remnants of the old people we were in Adam.” (Kenneth Boa)
Until the redemption of our bodies (Rom. 8:23), we are being transformed but not yet completely. Alright, most of us get that. The battle is still underway. But some of us have given up submitting to the transformation process, capitulating instead to the flesh covered over with some religious veneer because it’s sooooo freakin’ hard and we always fail anyway! And so we give up. And the world suffers, and we suffer, and the Savior is hidden behind our lukewarmness. Again, me too. I’m one of you and it sucks. I’m tired of it.
Here’s the deal fellow Westerners. We have to stop looking for quicker uploads and download speeds and better, newer Bible software -- and sign up again for the daily task of allowing God to gradually conform our outer selves to the image of Christ, which was created in our inner selves at the moment of our salvation. Here’s what I’m learning again -- back to the bull’s-eye:
The essence of the faith-life is learning to exchange our way with His way by personal experience, not just by knowledge and church attendance. It is learning to exchange the collection of truths, for living true – to our new nature purchased for us by Christ Jesus. Until we set ourselves on this gradual incline, by the mediating power of the Holy Spirit, we will not know what it means to be spiritual, and the world will continue to scoff at our version of Christianity.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
ThE BULLSEYE, THE BULL, AND THE BATTLE - PART 2
WHERE HAVE ALL THE CHRIST-ONES GONE? THE BULL
So where are all the Spiritual people? Can we ever attain to what we see in the Scripture and hear about others experiencing? It's like the Air Force's slogan to “Cross over into the Blue” -- that kind of wonderful mystery where the life of Christ really begins to form in those who profess to follow Him. And they, because of this transformation, begin to change their world again!
If those reading this have received Jesus Christ and His invitation to forgiveness and eternal life by faith, you have submitted yourselves to the authority of the Word of God. If you haven’t submitted to that authority, please, at least don’t call yourself a Christ-follower. For the rest of us, we must acknowledge that the battle raging in us between what we want to be and what we are being saved from is keeping us from the journey out of what Alan Jones called “the sucking two-percent self” (his definition of being self-absorbed) and into the Christ-life.
People are waiting for the real Christians to show up, but we have become addicted to our world; sucked into the vortex of popular thought and now avoid the long-distance-in-the-same-direction-kind of spiritual journey that even the humanist, Friedrich Nietzsche recognized was at the heart of a “life worth living.” Spirituality is when one steps into the mystery of transformation, from what he or she was before Christ entered, to what he or she is becoming because Christ entered. If you believe the bull, then spirituality is religious activity like sitting in a yoga-like position for an hour, listening to Bono, joining a book club, buying worship music, voting for the most Christian-sounding Republican candidate or giving to the United Way in response to pressure from our superiors! That's bull!
Christian, we can never hope to affect our world for Christ if Christ is invited to our party but never allowed to drive, to re-arrange the furniture, to take the trash to the dump, and refurnish our rooms with necessities instead of relics from a bygone era! In America, Christians have settled for early 70’s garage sale junk, kind of leftover-fumes-spirituality from the last revival, or the last "spiritual" experience instead of experiencing the daily life of “Christ in You, the Hope of Glory”! Me too, I’m one of you, and it sucks. I’m tired of it.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” 2 Cor 5:17-18 NKJV
So where are all the Spiritual people? Can we ever attain to what we see in the Scripture and hear about others experiencing? It's like the Air Force's slogan to “Cross over into the Blue” -- that kind of wonderful mystery where the life of Christ really begins to form in those who profess to follow Him. And they, because of this transformation, begin to change their world again!
If those reading this have received Jesus Christ and His invitation to forgiveness and eternal life by faith, you have submitted yourselves to the authority of the Word of God. If you haven’t submitted to that authority, please, at least don’t call yourself a Christ-follower. For the rest of us, we must acknowledge that the battle raging in us between what we want to be and what we are being saved from is keeping us from the journey out of what Alan Jones called “the sucking two-percent self” (his definition of being self-absorbed) and into the Christ-life.
People are waiting for the real Christians to show up, but we have become addicted to our world; sucked into the vortex of popular thought and now avoid the long-distance-in-the-same-direction-kind of spiritual journey that even the humanist, Friedrich Nietzsche recognized was at the heart of a “life worth living.” Spirituality is when one steps into the mystery of transformation, from what he or she was before Christ entered, to what he or she is becoming because Christ entered. If you believe the bull, then spirituality is religious activity like sitting in a yoga-like position for an hour, listening to Bono, joining a book club, buying worship music, voting for the most Christian-sounding Republican candidate or giving to the United Way in response to pressure from our superiors! That's bull!
Christian, we can never hope to affect our world for Christ if Christ is invited to our party but never allowed to drive, to re-arrange the furniture, to take the trash to the dump, and refurnish our rooms with necessities instead of relics from a bygone era! In America, Christians have settled for early 70’s garage sale junk, kind of leftover-fumes-spirituality from the last revival, or the last "spiritual" experience instead of experiencing the daily life of “Christ in You, the Hope of Glory”! Me too, I’m one of you, and it sucks. I’m tired of it.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” 2 Cor 5:17-18 NKJV
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