Growth

i’m not religious, but I’m still pretty good

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I call this the PG effect.  I’m pretty good, I don’t need God.  But even when I hear it with emphatic vigor, I still hear a question behind it.  The speaker is seeking affirmation from themselves and perhaps also from others.  They have to seek it from others, because it is a statement of comparison.  As long as I can find someone else who is “worse” than me, my self-righteousness is intact.  This kind of living may be fun for a while but it seems to me to be tedious, and ultimately leads to a callous heart; the PG effect depends on denial.

When people do good things, live well, or demonstrate good character it does not invalidate the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  The Gospel of Jesus–that faith in Jesus ushers us into the love of God and empowers us to live responsive and obedient to our Creator–does not operate ultimately in the realm of our goodness.  The Gospel operates in the realm of God’s goodness and our response to Him.  People doing good is part of the common grace of God.  James says, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights” (James 1:17)  In the letter to the Romans, the apostle Paul identifies those who might be called good among both the Jews and the Gentiles.  He seeks to establish that God is just when He judges anyone–whether they had the testimony of the Law of Moses or not.

Perfect goodness, Paul argues eludes every person.  The Jews who had the tradition of the Law might claim goodness or righteousness because they had it and the Gentiles did not.  But goodness could only be established by obeying the Law perfectly.  The Gentiles who did not have the Law might claim goodness because they “obeyed” the Law without having it around to guide them.  And here it gets really interesting to me.  In fact Paul argues that the Gentiles do have a “law;”  they have their conscience.  “When Gentiles, who do not have the law do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them”  (Romans 2:14-15)  So I have to ask, “Have you ever violated your conscience?”  “Did you go against your internal compass of what was right or wrong?”  And the honest answer is that we have each felt the pain one time or another of going against our conscience.

I have met some very principled people, who rejected God, but lived close to their conscience.  Yet the PG effect is still in place.  To establish their own goodness they have to look around and compare.  God is comparing too, but not to other people; He is comparing, examening through Jesus Christ.  The Scripture says, “This will take place on the day when God will judge men’s secrets through Jesus Christ” (Romans 2:16).  The PG effect is established only through self-righteousness.  And against the goodness of Jesus Christ I am seriously lacking.

The good news is that I can change plans through faith in Christ.  I can get off the plan of my own goodness and accept the plan of faith in Jesus’ goodness, grace, and power.  This capitulation to Jesus as Savour and Lord as the only One who is good may seem costly.  (See the story of this young man who came to Jesus with a questions about goodness and eternal life in Luke 18:18-30)  But what good is it to gain the world and yet forfeit your soul?

Heavenly Father, I reject my pride that rests on my efforts to be pretty good and the examination of the failings of others.  Forgive me for rejecting you.  You alone are good.  I receive Jesus as the only One who can establish me in your grace and set me into a new life of knowing You and responding to You.  Fill me with your Holy Spirit and empower me to live by faith.  I am so thankful to be freed from the aweful paradigm of “good enough.”  I rest in the acceptance of Jesus Christ.  Help me to extend this grace to others, in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

the Triune God and the absence of control or passivity

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Christmas revolutionizes our knowledge of God through the incarnation of Jesus the Son in the flesh.  At Christmas we are introduce to The Triune God–Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who relate together as distinctive persons as one being.  God relates!  What we see in the Gospel of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit reveals a way of relating that is mutual serving love.  The way we apprehend or are apprehended by the knowledge of God has tremendous influence on the nature and projectory of our relationships.  Growth in my knowledge of the Triune God through Christ can restore to me the relating capacity for love.  This growth is not without its pain.  In fact the movement into God’s glory is not without struggle.  (See John 13:27-35)  It seems to me that apart from the fresh and daily work of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit I would easily drift into the tides of control or passivity in the context of marriage, parenting, friendship, and community.  However, by entering often into the mystery of the Gospel and the revolutionary perspective of a God whose very existence is relational–Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I am also called to honor the distictiveness of the people with whom I share life.  I am called to love as a third way contrary to the ways of control or passivity.  To love is to engage in the creation of a “we.”

redemptive stories and success

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I am reading the Summer 2008 publication Perspectives on Language and Literacy of The International Dyslexia Association.  This issue is dedicated to stories of people who have struggled with dyslexia and how they grew through the struggle to achieve success.  I love what Michael Ryan has to say about redemptive narratives from D. P. McAdams’ perspective.  I believe both Ryan and McAdam’s observations have implications for how we each meet God through the Gospel narrative and actually become part of the story of Jesus’ kingdom.  Ryan writes:

McAdams is this country’s preeminent researcher in the area of personal narratives.  He believes that personal narratives (the stories we tell about our lives) are critical to our self-image and our ability to function as successful adults.  He has studied the personal narratives of thousands of individuals and found that the most socially minded people in our society share common themes in their personal narratives.  He labels these themes, “the Redemptive Self.”  These stories of redemption are not necessarily religious in nature, but their essential theme involves overcoming a struggle or a tragedy and growing from it.  McAdams asserts that much of these individuals’ successes are due to these redemptive narratives.  In fact, he goes as far as to suggest that part of our success as a nation grows out of the fact that we have, as a group, many redemptive narratives, such as taming the wilderness and overcoming discrimination and segregation.

It seems to me that one of the major tasks of discipleship is to help people retell the story of Jesus and also tell how their intersection with Him has helped them overcome the world.  They now live His-Story.

“Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God… This is love for God: to obey his commands.  And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world.  This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.  Who is it that overcomes the world?  Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.”  1 John 5:1,3-5 (NIV)

17 observations from 1 John on the difference knowing Jesus makes

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The writer of 1 John observes differences that knowing Jesus makes in the lives of people.

1.  Loving relationships with God and with other people.   1:1-4
2.  Honesty about sin(s), purfication and forgiveness from sin.  1:5-2:2
3.  Obedience to the commands of Jesus as a lifestyle that reflects that character of Jesus.  2:3-8
4.  Loving “your brother” rather than living in the darkness of “hating your brother.”  2:9-11
5.  Progressive growth;  new beginnings–the delight of being forgiven by your heavenly Father; youthful zeal–the delight of overcoming the evil one through the strength of God and His Word; parental joy–knowing God and passing on the life of faith to others.  2:12-14
6.  A willingness to do the will of God that triumphs over the desire to possess the stuff and powers of this world.  2:15-16
7.  An annointing from God that leads into the truth and ultimately into confidence before Christ.
8.  An Intense desire to live purely and abandon sin, in response to the love of God through Christ that creates a child of God.  2:29-3:10
9.  Love for others even when it brings the Christian into conflict with the world.  Love for others even when it costs.  3:11-20
10.  Effectual prayer life.  3:21-23
11.  Personal awareness of the presence of God via the Holy Spirit.  3:24
12.  Discernment regarding the “source” of messages and their messengers.  4:1-6
13.  Growing maturity in loving and receiving love in and out of the church. 4:7-21
14.  Overcoming the world through faith in Jesus, the Son of God.  5:1-5
15.  Deep conviction of the divinity of the incarnated Jesus Christ and the necessity of knowing Him for eternal life.  5:6-12
15.  Confidence in prayer.  5:13-15
16.  Concern when a brother is caught in sin.  5:16-18
17.  Persistent devotion to Jesus in a world devoted to the evil one.  5:19-21

i am thankful for celebrate recovery

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Last night Cityview had its first public meeting of Celebrate Recovery.  CR is a recovery program based on the 8 Beatitudes of Jesus and the 12 Steps.  Our commitment to a LIFE vision of the follower of Jesus means that we believe every person can Find freedom in The Truth.  CR is part of that journey at Cityview now.  I am thankful for the ministry team that has stepped up for this new season at Cityview. 

One of my favorate authors on the process of knowing God and becoming like Jesus is Brennan Manning.  He writes and speaks often of the recovery that Jesus has given him.  In A Glimpse of Jesus:  The Stranger to Self-Hatred, Manning writes of the challenge of being free.

Two millennia later I find myself threatened, challenged, and exhilarated by Christ’s freedom from human respect, by his extraordinary independence, indomitable courage, and unparalleled authenticity.  In preaching the gospel I have been graced to speak fearless in the knowledge and conviction that the Word of God must not be fettered, compromised, or watered down; but in my personal life, my fears and insecurities continue to lead me voraciously to seek the approval of others, to assume a defensive posture when I’m unjustly accused, to feel guilty over refusing any request, to doggedly live up to others’ expectations, to be all things to all people in a way that would make St. Paul shudder.

I cannot free myself.  I must be set free.  Yes, the untrammeled freedom of Jesus disturbs me, his utter indifference to human respect makes me uncomfortable; but he invites me to make friends with my insecurities, smile at them, outgrow them in patient endurance, live with the serene confidence that he never abandons his friends even when we disappoint him….

It can be unequivocally stated that the central, most important theme in the personal life of Jesus–the theme that lies at the very heart of the revelation that he is–is his growing turst, intimacy, and love of he Abba, his heavenly Father.  The interior life of Christ was completely Father-centered.  The master clue for interpreting the gospel narrative, the foundation of Jesus’ compelling demands, the source of his towering zeal–was her personal experience of God as Abba.

The pearl of great price in my life, the most treasured gift I’ve ever received from Jesus is to come to know the Father.  “No one knows the the Son except the Father, just as no one knows the Father except the Son and those tho whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Matt. 11:27).  Biblical scholar Joachim Jeremias did not hesitate to call this the central revelation of the New Testament.

Jesus brought a revolution in the understanding of God.

–select passages from p. 43-45, A Glimpse of Jesus:  The Stranger to Self-Hatred

My ultimate prayer for all those participating in Celebrate Recovery is that they would be set free by the grace and truth of Jesus to fully enjoy knowing their Heavenly Father.

Celebrate Recovery meets at Cityview on Wednesday Nights at 7 PM.