Growth

10 affirmations for the day after an election

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1.  As a follower of Jesus Christ, I am a citizen of another Kingdom.
2.  My participation in electoral and political processes and their outcomes does not give ultimate weight to my sense of well-being since I have entrusted my life to the God of all Creation.
3.  I celebrate the freedom liberty affords us all to participate in governance.
4.  The way in which I speak of those with whom I disagree is powerful and viral; respect breeds respect and rancour breeds rancour.  The society I desire to live in will be shaped by the attitudes I present towards those with whom I disagree.
5.  I will pray for those in authority over me and given governance over people.
6.  I will uphold the sanctity of life and our responsibility to steward the image of God in all seasons of human life so that the varied, insipid and unjust activities of the Evil One are brought into the light and human compliance with those activities is challenged.
7.  I will distinguish my preferences from my principles that I might cooperate with other principled people for good.
8.  I will maintain that good leadership runs on the rails of character, compentence, and community; therefore, I will personally continue to develop the integrity required to meet the demands of reality with courage.
9.  My actions and attitudes matter more than my vote and your vote.
10.  I will debate ideas with rigorous and throughtful discipline; I will love people with greater vigor.

What are you affirmations for the day after an election?

meeting God daily

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Meeting God daily keeps us from running on empty.  Meeting God daily keeps us connected and fruitful.  The writer of Psalm 1 creates some urgency to make every day a decision day:  will I meet God or not?  Will I delight in His Words or the word and way of someone else? 

When I was serving in a church in Texas during seminary, I was regularly blessed to hear an older women, Lily White, stand in our services and quote Psalm 1.  As she spoke I felt that every word had weight and pierced through the shallowness of our daily lives.  “Blessed is the man who does not walk int he counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.  But his delight is in the law of the LORD and on his law he meditates day and night.  He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither.  Whatever he does prospers.  Not so the wicked!  They are like chaff that the wind blows away.  Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.  For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.”

To fail to choose God and His Word is presented by the Psalmist as a drift into a unrooted and unfruitful life.  The perishing life is progressive:  to walk in the counsel of the wicked is to be taken in by the words and way of seeing the world that constantly seeks to edit out God; to stand in the way of sinners is to increase one’s association, even flirt with the lifestyle of rebellion against God, so that one may blend into the crowd; to sit in the seat of mockers, is to have developed great comfortability even an unconsciousness of how removed one is from God-His character and His way.

The mocker is one who acts surprised when presented with a view of life that includes God, delights in His Word, and lives with an awareness of the full-bodied character of God which raises such a high view of Creation and people that injustice and lovelessness matters.  The mocker says, “Where’s God?  What can God do?  He can’t touch us?  It doesn’t matter how you live as long as you survive happily.”

Perhaps the mockers biggest problem is that the internal order for of belief and behaviour has been turned on its head.  No longer does conviction of what is true guide their behaviours.  Instead, truth through God’s revelation has been tossed in favour of their truth shaped by the behaviours the mocker has adopted and now must justify.  The mocker will not tolerate the discontinuity of belief in a God who cares when their behaviours and the related crowd and comfort are more important. 

We can all drift into the seat of the mocker–it is the fruit of a long series of choices.  However we are presented with the option of responding to God’s invitation to meet Him and to delight in His Word.  The consequence is dramatically different.  To delight in the Word of God brings us into a life that is rooted into God Himself.  When the season requires fruit our lives can bear it:  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, goodness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).  When others are blowing dry in the wind of life, we can keep our leaves–display the evidence of an interior world that is connected to The Source of all life.

Meditation on the Word of God is the choice to meet God daily.  Christian meditation does not require us to empty our minds of the realities that face us: darkness, pain, suffering, awareness of injustice or even the evidence of grace to enjoy–beauty, nature, relationships, good food.  Christian mediation is the taking in and digestion of God’s Words in response to Him.  To delight in His Word is to chew it up and digest it as a message that connects what is most important-God, to life. 

Begin simply.  10-15 minutes a day.  We have been using the SOAP acrostice and a series of questions to help us connect God’s Word to our lives.  It’s His Word, ask Him to help you.

Scripture:  Open your Bible to the reading following your reading plan.  Take time reading and allow God to speak to you.  When you are done, look for a verse that particularly spoke to you that day, and write it in your journal.

Observation:  What do you think God is saying to you in this Scripture?  Ask the Holy Spirit to each you and reveal Jesus to you.  Paraphrase and write this scripture down in your own words, in your journal.  Is there a:  Sin to confess?  Promise to claim?  Attitude to change?  Command to keep?  Example to follow?  Prayer to pray?  Error to avoid?  Truth to believe?  Something to thank God for?

Application:  Personalize what you have read, by asking yourself how it applies to your life right now.  Perhaps is it instruction, encouragement, revelation of a new promise, or corrections for a particular area of your life.  Write how this Scripture can apply to you today.  Prayer:  This can be as simple as asking God to help you use this Scripture, or it may be a prayer for insight on what He may be revealing to you.  Remember, prayer is a two-way conversation, so be sure to listen to What God has to say!  Now, write it out.

Here are some question for personal examination built from Galatians 5:22-23.  (These can be found in Principle 7 of Celebrate Recovery)  I have found them useful at the end of my day, to meet God and review the day with Him.  Since God watches over the way of the righteous, I want to watch over my way as well.

  • How did I show love to others?
  • Did I act in an unloving way toward anyone?
  • Did others see in me the joy of having a personal relationship with Jesus?  If not, why not?
  • How was my serenity, my peace?  Did anything happen that caused me to lose it?  What was my part in it?
  • Was I patient?  What caused me to lose my patience?  Do I owe anyone amends?
  • Would anyone say that I was kind/good?  In what ways did I act unkind?
  • How was my faithfulness?
  • Did I keep my word with everyone?
  • How was my gentleness and self-control?  Did I lose my temper, speak a harsh or unkind word to someone?

a matrix for identifying and empowering reliable people

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Last Sunday I preached from the hard-working farmer metaphor highlighted by Paul to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:1-10.  Paul directs Timothy to reflect on the soldier, the athlete, and the farmer in order to gain insight for investing his life and ministry in reliable people who will in turn be able to invest their lives in other people who in turn will be able to invest their lives in other people.  Paul envisions the Gospel life and message being passed on through a chain of discipleship.  A few years ago I developed a matrix from these three images for identiying and empowering reliable people for discipleship.  You can download the pdf: matrix-for-identifying-and-empowering-reliable-people-for-discipleship

spiritual dynamics: awakened to reality

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Cooler temperatures are creeping in and I’ve noticed that my house is cooler too.  Yes, our house needs a window and insulation update!  But before we get that done I’m going to need more jackets, sweaters, and blankets.  These are the dynamics required for staying warm and healthy in my house. 

There are signs available too that we need to attend to the spiritual dynamics of our life.  God has not left you dull, insensitive, and or unaware of the spiritual dependence required in your life.  The Christian that lives according to the Spirit of God will attend to the spiritual well-being of their life in Christ Jesus.  A person who declares that Jesus is Lord cannot afford to continue to live as if they are ignorant or unaware of the spiritual ebb and flow happening around them and in them.  God has rescued you from the fate of the proverbial “frog in the kettle!”  Paul describes this fate as one that is part of our past, our life before Jesus inhabited our lives via the Holy Spirit:

“So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking.  They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.  Having lost all sensitivity they have given themselves over to sensuality as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.”  Ephesians 4:17-19  NIV

Instead the Holy Spirit has be give to us and our spirit that was dead to God is now alive to God.  Paul prays with confidence regarding this change saying, “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you… (Ephesians 1:18)  And then Paul writes of this new reality in Ephesians 2:4-5: “Because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions…”   The person who has been made alive to God through Jesus must now cooperate with the Holy Spirit by taking proactive action for living.  Paul writes:

“You, however, did not come to know Christ that way.  Surely you heard of him and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus.  You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”  Ephesians 4:20-24  NIV

The spiritual dynamics of life in the Spirit require me to recognize the reality of the natural or old self and respond by putting it off and putting on the new.  This is not just management of my attitudes or behaviours.  This is the conscious entrance into the new self created in Christ.  God has made this exchange possible and God has empowered us to participate.

when lattices fail and leaders fall

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Perhaps it was a hot day in Israel when Ahaziah leaned back on his upper room lattice and fell to the ground injuring himself. (2 Kings 1)  Ahaziah must have been stricken with dread as he was picked up by the servants and laid out on a couch.  He couldn’t wait, fear of the future took over, he had to know what the future held for him.  Would this fall be the death of him?

What he did next reveals the true condition of his heart and the devotion of his life.  Ahaziah sent messengers to consult with Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron, to see if he would recover from this injury.  However, on this day, what may have been the usual practice of Ahaziah was interrupted.  “The angel of the LORD said to Elijah the Tishbite, ‘Go up and meet the messengers of the king of Samaria and ask them, ‘Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are going off to consult Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron?  Therefore this is what the LORD says: ‘You will not leave the bed you are lying on.  You will certainly die!”

Now Elijah’s message from God set up a series of confrontations with Ahaziah’s military leaders. 102 were consumed by fire from heaven.  The third leader pleaded for the lives of his men and himself.  Ahaziah never repented and died on his bed.

When the walls you have built to provide security and protection fail, who are you going to call on first?  What patterns of devotion and worship have you established in your life?  Is your security in Jesus Christ or in your own health, ability, savings, or savy?  Are you dependent on false gods, sinful habits, shallow people for assurance of your own well-being each day?  What will the crisis reveal about the integrity of your heart? 

The writer of Hebrews calls on us to enter into the presence of Jesus Christ and pursue his holiness in our lives.  Pressure whether it is economic or in the realm of our physical health will come.  Choices remain to be made in a crisis.  However it is the pattern of our hearts devotion that is most likely to prevail when times are tough.  Stick close to Jesus even when times are good; stick close to Jesus even when times are tough.

Hebrews 10:19-39

19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. 25 Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another-and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

26 If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, 27 but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. 28 Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29 How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know him who said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” and again, “The Lord will judge his people.”   31 It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

32 Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you stood your ground in a great contest in the face of suffering. 33 Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated. 34 You sympathized with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions.

35 So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. 36 You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. 37 For in just a very little while,

“He who is coming will come and will not delay.
38 But my righteous one will live by faith.
And if he shrinks back,
I will not be pleased with him.”  

39 But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.
NIV