A little Bit Further

Week 3:

  
Excerpts from Religious Affections: Jonathan Edwards:1703-1758

Jonathan Edwards basic premise that "true religion" is an affair of the heart. Real circumcision of the heart holds the promise of life. He states that  baptism of the Holy Spirit is as much an inward journey as any outward manifestation.  I think the fruit of that inward journey being represented by the Fruit of the Spirit.

He goes on to suggest unless we have a heart that deep affected by we will never achieve great things. These things are challenging, we when we have so many experiences, but so many of them are shallow. Richard Foster in his book The Celebration of Discipline commented that we don't needed more gifted and talented people what we need is more deep people. Our lives are so busy that we skip from activity to activity without truly experiencing all there is for us in any particular thing.

One of the most challenging statements for our generation is "The fear of God is a great part of godliness". In our current Christian climate the fear of God is not preached very often. I feel it is a missing component that stops us operating in all the authority and power we could.Fear of the Lord is about due honour to our Lord who is in fact King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Revelation suggest that until we get this kind of reverence we will have little understanding of the workings and authority of heaven.

I have found this difficult to write and I have very imperfect understanding. Here I am thus far.

The Cut Price Version

The week from Dallas Willard's ( 1935-) The Spirit of Disciplne

Dallas Willard  spent a good deal of time explaining that there is quite a difference between being a disciple and a Christian. The Christian is basically have mental assent to a set of principles and being able to fit into "Church culture". Sometimes this has little or no bearing on truly following the life and teaching of Jesus. In the Greek "disciple" had an implication of being a learner, following the  teaching and lifestyle of the leader.

In the western Church when have a salvation experience, we are educated into our church culture, whatever that may look like.  Therefore we fit in with the other members of our particular church flavour. I guess  the question then becomes, if Jesus came to our church would he want to be there? Because if he doesn't, can we call ourselves his disciples or are we simply followers of our church leader? Much as it was in Jesus day, when the Hebrews followed different rabbis for different reasons.

I have feeling that be a true disciple is not a decision that can be taken lightly. Dallas Willard says it like this:
".... there is a decision to be made: The decision to devote oneself like becoming like Christ. The disciple is one who, intent on becoming Christlike and so dwelling in "his faith and practice," systematically and progressively  rearranges his affairs to that end."

This a costly process and completely countercultural in the 21st century. That being said I am not sure that this will be unappealing to the under thirties and the dissatisfied. So it would appear some are rejecting church culture to some extent. Discipleship is the hope of the 21st Church and is not beyond reach, it your and my individual choice to start the journey from wherever we are. If we look around we will find like minded people to journey with.

As they say to Neo in the Matrix: 'If you take the blue pill your life will never the same again"

But we have a lifetime:

Philippians 1:6

 Being confident of this, he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus

The selfie is just another symptom.

This week's was from C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity.

God simply says, I want all of you!!

How do I react to that blunt and definitive statement? There doesn't seem to be a lot of margin here for discussion. I look around at the Christian world and go, OK, what does this look like? I am not sure I see too many examples. I have been thinking about this for a week and have come up with a few observations.

Firstly, I personally don't find it difficult to give it all to God at any given moment. My big problem is having given it to God is to leave it there with God. I am rather prone to take things back and try and do it in my own strength. I can tend to have my own agenda on certain things and if doesn't seem to go the way I would like or in the time frame I would like, I can often take back over the controls. I live in an age where being master of your destiny and in control are cultural gems, things to be sought after. Here however my Heavenly Father is saying, Give all to me. It is very counter cultural and counter intuitive, it does not fit with much we see around us.

We in the western countries are the "self help" and "self made" culture. There lies the key: God would have us surrender "self" to him, so that  he comes first. You see God doesn't want to modify  "self", he wants to kill it and replace it with the image of his Son. I have to treat myself as an addict, I am addicted to "self" and God wants to replace that with a dependence on him. This can be quite scary - if I give all I am to God, will I still be me? The answer to that is probably not as I am now, because the present me is a shadow of who God created me to be. God has so much more but that can be rather scary.

For me the addict picture works well because it allows me freedom to fail and start again which addicts do on a regular basis in recovery. When I feel as though I have it all together I may be able to give it all to God in the morning, but on a bad day I may be down giving my all back to God to every 5 minutes. As I continue to practice giving myself to God, I will become more attuned to knowing when I have taken parts of self back. Practice will in fact ultimately make perfect!

As with addicts, I don't think that you can master this process alone; you have to work in community. This was modeled by Jesus, he lived and worked in community because God himself is community in  the Trinity. Jesus' heritage is based on the Hebrew culture which centered around the family as a source of learning and development. This is a community-based model that values relationships and intimate knowledge of the people in the group. Our modern churches are based on a Greek model also  common at the time, which has teaching and learning at its center. Only as I move away from individualistic culture into a community culture will things begin to change. The focus moves from myself to God and others. Therefore change begins.

The best illustration of community would seem to be a good marriage where through love, transparency, and intimate knowledge growth and development take place. After all, Christ is coming back for a bride, so that type of relationship will be at the heart of what the church is about. Through community we learn to give "self" away to take on all the God has for us.

So next time you take "a selfie" make sure there are others in the picture!!