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Posts Tagged ‘renewal’

Idolatry Obstructs Resurrections

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 14, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Becoming is a series of resurrections. In order to optimize the resurrections of the heart, soul & mind, there must be deaths–crucifixions, to be specific. But a number of hindrances to the deaths as well as the awakenings play out in my life. Categorically, the biggest obstacle is idolatry.

Colossians 3:3-5
For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.

This type of idolatry is not just worshiping a statue or foreign god, it’s putting Self up on a pedestal. The earthly nature illustrated in this verse (immorality, impurity, sex, evil desire and greed), is all about self-pleasure and choices made without concern or care for the other. Idolatry is another way of acting out extreme narcissism.

To crucify or “kill” these tendencies, desires, and controlling habits, I must first be willing. Jesus gave us the way to the cross. It didn’t seem very fair at the time. And it was a painful process, a breaking down of everything. His body was stripped of all protections. He was laid bare both physically and mentally.

Can I lay bare my own ego that wants to defy the Spirit and doesn’t want to understand or trust the paradox of faith in a Christ? Sexual behaviors and addictive pursuits are not the only features of an earthly nature. I have other consuming thoughts like ambition, notoriety, fame, power, wealth, and control. These too must be crucified before they can become the seed that dies and transforms into a thriving plant or tree. [John 12:24]

This remains unknown territory. I must willingly walk my personal “Via Dolorosa” and encourage my ego to let go of the survival skills I have developed over the years out of pain and fear and abandonment. They push people away. They block the free flowing release of the Spirit within. And what’s on the other side of crucifying the old ways? The old idolatries? I don’t really know. I only have a promise and a faith in the One within.

But I do know this: until that earthly nature loses its grip on my life, I’ll never know the truth of a truly resurrected life. They cannot live together.

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Reboot with the Christ

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , on October 18, 2010| 3 Comments »

Sometimes my computer is so messed up, the only thing left to do is reboot: shut it down and restart it. And I’m thinking this was God’s plan as well. Humans needed a a restart, a clear way to reboot the system, a specific point in time to begin fresh. Christ is grace personified.

Ephesians 2:4-5
But 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—it is by grace you have been saved.

Of course, a reboot will take care of the current glitches but it doesn’t erase all the old stuff. Right now, my computer is running really slow. I kept thinking it was the Internet connection or the router, but I finally had to go poking around the “C” drive to determine what else might be the cause. Since I’m not a computer expert, this investigation is always a little daunting.

As I scrolled through the “Add/Remove programs” section, I found a number of old programs I no longer use. They were just taking up space. They weren’t hurting anything, they were just memory hogs. As a Christian, there are the same kinds of things that are no longer part of my daily life. I don’t need those rule-sets for anymore. So why hang on to them? Click on remove program.

A second place I looked for memory wasters was the files themselves. Since my family sees the desktop as a “family computer,” I have discovered they leave a bunch of unnecessary files on the hard drive. Many of those were easy to dump since they weren’t mine. However, many other files represented special times in my life. But how much is too much to carry around and store? In our basement, I still have my files from graduate school. OK, that was ten years ago. Isn’t it time to take these boxes of old homework, term papers, and dated books to the landfill? Same for the old computer files.

The biggest file folder turned out to be a music folder of my daughter’s (3.5 gigabytes). I vaguely remember trying to help her salvage her I-tunes from a damaged (trojan/virus infected) laptop. In the end, we put them on the desktop for safe keeping, a holding tank. I was reminded of the times I’ve tried to help other people emotionally and taken on their stuff. I’d forgotten that I had to pass that stuff along to the God who is willing to carry it all. Click on delete … empty the wastebasket.

After I did all this deleting and emptying, I did another reboot, a refresh. Computer is running better.

Same for me. First reboot at accepting Christ was life-changing. But I still need to refresh my system along the way. Sometimes I need a technician to help me ferret out the problems, but sometimes, I just need to delete the old stuff: prayer, confession, thanksgiving.

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Freedom in Christ

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 12, 2010| 2 Comments »

Back in the day, freedom in Christ for a gentile meant “no circumcision required.” That was huge. But what about today? Unlike the first century, most of us are gentile believers. Are we demanding that new believers conform to a standard of our own devising?

Galatians 2:4
This matter arose because some false brothers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves.

Jesus had made it pretty plain during his three year ministry that his primary focus was the Jews. Those who followed him initially understood that the long-awaited Messiah was turning their laws, their norms, and their world upside down. He was transforming their structures.

But the gentiles who accepted Christ were different. They weren’t really transforming what they believed before, they were walking away from it. Following Christ was making something new.

I have a friend who has been a Christian all of her life. Every time the doors were open, she would say, her family would be at church. They were committed, active, and devoted to Jesus and the work of the church. Most, if not all, of her friends were in the church. She understood evangelism as primarily the work of bringing others to faith in Christ and therefore into the body life a church. They had committees, choirs, youth groups, singles groups, fellowship suppers, and holiday traditions. The church folks were loving and friendly. Come into our life, follow us as we follow Christ.

There is nothing particularly wrong with this picture until someone doesn’t quite fit into the mold. Or when someone asks, “is this all there is?”

Was Jesus different on the days he went to the Temple from the days he spent with prostitutes and tax collectors? Did he say, don’t forget to go to Temple on Saturday so you can start following all the laws and rules?

When Paul taught the Galatians, the Corinthians, and all the others throughout Asia, the message was simple: Christ crucified for the sake of all sin and resurrected in power of the Holy Spirit. We are all covered by his act of sacrifice if we accept the Truth of who He is. We are free to be new, to be in relationship with God, to follow a new way, to witness to others about the power of this transformation.

The key to growth as a Christian is fellowship. There’s no doubt about that. But, is the institutional church still that venue? Is passing the peace or saying hello to one another during the obligatory greeting time fellowship? It’s pretty easy to attend a mega-church and greet ten to twenty people, but really, unless I make a leap and start attending a smaller venue, I could be home watching a tele-preacher.

There is nothing more wonderful than to share in the worship and faith of God with people you know. Isn’t that why we have celebrations at home and invite our families and friends? It’s more fun, it’s more meaningful.

Am I getting off the subject of freedom in Christ? Not really. In Paul’s day, the freedom included the breaking of the long-held tradition of circumcision. Perhaps the new freedom in today’s world is to transform what it means to participate in the Body of Christ.

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Body Seed

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on June 30, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Had some fun this morning thinking of my body as a seed being prepared for planting. Each seed is different. Each seed has its own characteristics and with each 3-D life event, the seed is affected (both good and bad). Each seed then creates a “plant” — a new entity.

I Corinthians 15:36b-37
What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else.

It never occurred to me before that a resurrected entity would have as much diversity (or more) than these human bodies we now have.

Really, until Jesus “revealed” himself to the disciples after resurrection, they didn’t really recognize him. He had to manifest something they could understand: the nail-driven hands and feet, the pierced side. But they certainly didn’t recognize his clothes or his features at first.

What else don’t we recognize? They say we “see what we want to see.” We see what we expect to see. For all we know, the resurrected guys are walking around among us. I’m just sayin’…

In the parable of the sower and the seed, the success of the seed had a great deal to do with environment and circumstances. Some of this environment we cannot control initially (caustic families, poverty, etc.) but as we mature, we are presented with more choices. We can actually seek change. We can look for good soil. The human seed does not have to be passive. And apparently, when a bunch of seeds get together they can really transform circumstances.

I know these are just flights of fancy, but word pictures are important because I cannot really fathom anything about this “other” world I have called “heaven” all my life. It’s not just a place . . . it’s a state of being.

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Small Deaths

Posted in Christmas Through Epiphany, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 6, 2010| 1 Comment »

As a believer, I am promised a new life when I accept Christ’s sacrifice (his death) as the propitiation (satisfactory compensation) for my sin. Although the sacrifice is enough, my ability to embrace the truth of it in daily life is wanting.

Romans 6:3, 5
Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? . . . If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.

I firmly believe the faith walk is a process. And although our beloved Messiah did everything necessary to repair the separation between God and us, I am still learning how to walk the new path (the Way). I struggle with the paradox: death = life. I tend to hold onto what is familiar instead of letting those parts of me die.

I understand in my head that I must be more like the seed that dies before the plant will grow. Instead, I keep trying to be the best seed I can be. I’m missing out on the real transformation.

But God is patient. My old nature, my old self, is in various partitions and states of renewal. Gradually, sections do die. And with each small death, new life finds root. This is sanctification, my rite of passage from death to life.

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Dump the Cargo

Posted in Christmas Through Epiphany, tagged , , , , , , , on January 4, 2010| 2 Comments »

I’m still holding on to my cargo, I know it: the stuff… all the stuff that keeps dragging me backward. Some of it is beloved, but how does that compare with the more important things in life?

Acts 27:18
We took such a violent battering from the storm that the next day they began to throw the cargo overboard.

I am embarrassed to say how much stuff I really have. I go through periods of organization and as a result, I’ve gotten pretty good at hiding it (neatly labeled and tucked away). But there are boxes and boxes of books in my basement (above and beyond the bookshelves that are maxed out as well) and boxes of memorabilia and boxes of costumes. Some boxes are filled with my mother’s books; I keep them from a type of sentimentality. And yet, most of them aren’t even in English for heaven’s sake.

God is patient though. I know this for a fact. God will wait and nudge and teach and guide, hoping I will choose, on my own, to start dumping my cargo. I don’t believe God wants me to go through a brutal storm where personal safety trumps the stuff. But, if I persist in holding too tightly to these things, that could happen next.

The nudges I have been getting are about living more simply. We are living in terrible economic times. Our family is not so different from others, credit cards loaded with debt and we’re trudging along from one paycheck to the next. We are fortunate that we still have jobs, but there are no longer guarantees. A great storm could hit any day.

This month I have decided to start shedding pounds… I think that’s just one place for the dieting must begin. It’s time to let go of the “things” … the unused knick-knacks, the “collection” of salt and pepper shakers, the boxes of coffee cups, the books that don’t fit on my shelves (I have 15-20 shelf units), the boxes of old papers (yes, I still have my graduate school papers), the old suitcases, the unstarted crafts, the bowls I never use, the cookbooks I never open, the sheets that don’t fit any of our beds… the list goes on.

And these “things” are symbolic of the spiritual baggage I’ve been carrying around as well: the unforgiven actions of others, the disappointments, the condemnation, the discontent, just to name a few.

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30th Anniversary

Posted in Christmas Through Epiphany, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 25, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Thirty years ago, I finished reading the New Testament all the way through for the first time. I had a decision to make. Was it the truth or a lie? I kneeled beside my bed and confessed to this Jesus that the words felt… they resonated like truth. That decision changed my life forever.

Hebrews 5:14
But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.

In some ways, I feel as though I am still on “spiritual milk” and have not matured as I should. After all, it’s been a long time. I have professed followership of Jesus for many, many years. And yet, I still struggle with many of the basics: love, trust, faith, hope…

Perhaps that is the maturity… I recognize I am still struggling. When I was younger in the Lord I can remember attending spiritual retreats where confession was a signature event where we pounded our written sins onto a cross. For many, it was extremely cathartic. But for me, in those early years, I’d struggle with the writing. What should I put on that little piece of paper? What great sin had I committed that still needed to be confessed. Hadn’t I confessed them all by now?

That makes me laugh. These days, I confess my sins daily. They accumulate quickly. I place even the smallest sin at the foot of the cross before that sin can grow, like yeast, to a besetting mountain of emotional pain or denial; before it can darken or harden my heart any more than it already has. And, unfortunately, I confess, some days, it’s the same sin… judging, pride, resentment, self-pity, anger… to name a few familiars.

I understand now, more than ever before, what it means to pray the Jesus prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me, a sinner.”

My sins are legion, which reminds me of the demoniac [Luke 18:30] who was possessed of many demons. In the same way that many demons can be “swept away,” they can also come back to look for purchase in a newly cleaned “soul.” Sins also reappear [Matthew 12:43-45] to plague the spirit.

This is my message to any believer, young or old: confess often, accept grace and forgiveness daily, and give to others what Christ gives to you.

This is not just the beginning of the church year, it is also the beginning of my own new year in Christ. Continue to teach me, guide me, and renew me. Amen.

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