Wholly Following – Living a Submitted Life (part 4)

We have been considering together what it means to live a life submitted to Christ and his will.   In our previous meditation, we stressed our need for God’s grace to keep us ever alert to the Spirit’s promptings in our daily walk through life.  “As the Holy Spirit says, ‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness.’” (Hebrews 3:7-8).  Our prayer should be, “Lord, grant me ears to hear your words and a will to obey your commands.”  In answer to that prayer, God continues his work in us enabling us to be living, more and more, a submitted life.    

                            

There is a practice of life that God commands us to engage in order to cultivate both an attitude of our heart to believe his Word and an awareness of our soul to perceive the promptings of the Holy Spirit.  This practice of life is meditation upon the Scriptures.  “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go” (Joshua 1:8-9 ESV).   Meditation upon God’s Word is more than merely reading or even studying the Bible.  Reading the Bible on a daily basis, as well as careful study of the Bible, are both excellent ways to encounter God’s Word, but through meditation upon the Scriptures  we submit our lives personally to what God has to say specifically to me right now in his Word.

Meditation may be understood through the imagery of a seed sown in good ground.  The seed is the Word of God.  The good ground is our heart and mind.  Silently, God works to cultivate the seed, watering it with his Spirit and warming it with his grace until it produces fruit.  God’s particular Word spoken into our lives is then embodied in our thoughts, our attitudes, and ultimately into our actions.  Our lives come to reflect, more and more, the image of Christ as we practice meditation upon the Scripture.  Through the practice of meditation we deny our own individualistic, selfish thoughts and ambitions.  Instead, we begin to yield ourselves to the will of God and, by the strength he gives us, we obey those specific words that he is speaking into our lives.

One of the best explanations of meditation upon Scripture is given by Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his book, Life Together.  Bonhoeffer writes, “In our meditation we ponder the chosen text on the strength of the promise that it has something utterly personal to say to us for this day and for our Christian life, that it is not only God’s Word for the Church, but also God’s Word for us individually.  We expose ourselves to the specific word until it addresses us personally.  And when we do this, we are doing no more than the simplest, untutored Christian does every day; we read God’s Word as God’s Word for us” (Life Together, 82).  So meditation upon Scripture consists in saturating our minds, our thinking with God’s Word as he speaks those particular passages upon which we meditate into our own lives.

Here’s an illustration of how meditation upon Scripture works.  This story comes from the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  Shortly before the outbreak of World War II, Bonhoeffer had been encouraged to travel to America in order to avoid being drafted into the German army.  When he arrived in New York in the summer of 1939, however, Bonhoeffer was very troubled in his spirit because he was thinking of his family members and friends back in Germany who were struggling to keep their fellow Christians loyal to Christ rather than following the ways of the Nazi Government led by Adolph Hitler.  

As Bonhoeffer was praying and meditating upon Scripture, God impressed his mind a verse from 2 Timothy 4, “Do your best to come before winter.”  He did not randomly find this verse.  Instead, the verse was a part of his regularly Bible readings for that day.  He pondered the passage as it stayed in his thoughts throughout the day.  Ultimately, this verse, along with other circumstances and concerns, prompted Bonhoeffer to return to Germany on the last ship that departed New York harbor before the beginning of the war.

God’s Word can speak into our lives in the same way.  Meditation upon Scripture is the habit of life that we must practice in order to submit our lives daily to the will of God.  It is the practice that is essential to denying ourselves if we truly desire to be Christ faithful disciples who are wholly following him.

Wholly Following – Living a Submitted Life (part 3)

As we continue along the path of wholly following Christ through living a submitted life, we yield our lives daily, moment-by-moment, to God’s examining Word. This examination comes through the promptings of his Holy Spirit who indwells each and every follower. God cultivates an awareness of our soul to these promptings of the Spirit.  Just as God is the one who grants and develops within us faith as our attitude of heart, he is the one who we can trust to cause us to become more and more sensitive in our souls to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.  Such an awareness of soul is essential for our living a submitted life.

Paul connects faith and the promptings of the Holy Spirit when he speaks to believers about the reality of walking with God each day.  In his letter to the Colossian believers, he taught that “as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him” (Colossians 2:6).  We receive Christ and his gift of salvation by faith (Ephesians 5:8-10), so it is by faith that we are enabled to walk each day in the newness of life he grants to us.  We must depend entirely upon God to enable us to obey him.  In a parallel passage, Paul exhorted the Galatians that “if we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit” (Galatians 5:25).  Thus, walking by faith and walking by the Spirit are two sides of the same coin.

It is God’s Holy Spirit who leads and guides us day-by-day through his Word.  The Spirit enlightens us, teaches us, and convicts us by exposing our own willful disobedience by the light of God’s Word.  If we acknowledge our sins by confession (that is, by saying the same thing about our sins that God’s Word says about them), then we trust the promise of God to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness step-by-step along our walk by the Spirit each day (1 John 1:8-9).  He strengthens and restores to us the joy of our salvation and continues to renew us with a willing spirit yielded to His will (Psalm 51:10-12).

When we fail to respond to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, the Scriptures tells us that we can actually sadden God.  Paul warns the young believers in the church at Ephesus about this very possibility.  “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption” (Ephesians 4:30).  Paul’s admonition against grieving God is given in the midst of very practical instruction about living in the newness of life that Christ grants to us.  For example, instead of speaking lies in an effort to protect or promote our own selfish pride or ambition, we are to speak the truth to one another in love. When we live for ourselves, we grieve the Spirit, but when we respond to the Spirit’s promptings and live our lives according to Christ’s Word, God graciously enables us to glorify him.

Paul emphasizes the role of the Holy Spirit when he writes: “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.  For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba!  Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Romans 8:14-16).  As followers of Christ, we need to seek God’s grace to be ever alert to the Spirit’s promptings. 

“As the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness.” (Hebrews 3:7-8).  Our daily prayer should be, “Lord, grant me ears to hear your words and a will to obey your commands.”  As we do, we will be living, more and more, a submitted life.

Wholly Following – Living a Submitted Life

Last semester I began a series of articles on the subject of discipleship. That series focused on discovering what it means to wholly follow Christ as an authentic believer in the midst of the realities of life here and now.  As a starting point, I suggested that Christ’s call to discipleship is best expressed when he says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). 

As we thought through Jesus’ teaching, we learned that his call on our lives is three-fold:  to deny oneself, to take-up one’s cross and to follow him on the path he walked here on earth.  To deny one’s self is to live a submitted life.  To take-up one’s cross means living a singular life with every facet integrated together in Christ, and following him leads us to sacrifice our lives in real and practical ways for the sake of others.

In this semester’s series, I would like to explore further the first of these three aspects of wholly following Christ.  We’ll examine what it means to deny ourselves daily, to yield our will to God’s, and to submit our lives to Christ and his Word.  We will see, I believe, that we can only live a life of denial of self and submission to God by the grace and mercy of Jesus present and at work in our lives each day.  It is a life that is daily examined by the Spirit through the Word. 

As humans we have a natural tendency to assert and justify ourselves and to promote our self interests.  The disciple, though, is called to say no to these natural inclinations by denying self every day and submitting his will to God’s.  We live such a submitted life by God’s work within us.  He forms faith as the attitude of our heart, develops an awareness of our soul to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and disciplines us in the life practice of meditating upon His Word as we submit our lives to its examining gaze.

Let’s begin, then, with God’s work of forming faith as the attitude of heart that provides the foundation for living a submitted life.  Faith is God’s gift to us.  (Ephesians 2:8).  At its core, faith is absolute dependence upon Christ and his Word.  Our journey on the pathway of discipleship begins with the single step of faith that is wholly enabled by the grace of God. “Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him.” (Colossians 2:6).  We receive Christ by faith, and so we take the first step to wholly following Christ – denying our self – by faith.

By faith, then, we daily deny our natural self-reliance and depend solely upon Christ’s life in us.  We deny our self-justification and acknowledge sins as they are exposed by the examining scrutiny of God’s Word applied to us by the convicting work of the Holy Spirit.  By faith, we pray: “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (Psalm 139:23-24).  As God forms faith as the attitude of our heart, we begin to take the first steps of living a submitted life -- a lofe examined by his Word and Spirit and fortified by Christ's faithful mercy of forgiveness.

Wholly Following ~ The Pathway of Discipleship (Part 4)

The Apostle Paul passed on the call and character of his life to his protégé Timothy when he wrote, “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12).    Paul exemplifies for us what it means to journey daily the three-fold path of wholly following Christ.   In this post, I’ll conclude our brief description of the pathway of a disciple who is wholly following Christ in the concrete realities of life in the present. 

The path for all who wholly follow the Lord Jesus is three-fold – living a submitted, singular and sacrificed life daily for others.  The pattern is set by Christ himself:  to suffer, to die and to rise.  We are called to choose the path of wholly following, but we cannot choose it by our own strength of reason or self-determination.  We are both prompted to choose this path and enabled to follow his pattern of life only by the grace and strength Christ gives to us as his followers.

We must, however, be very clear on this point.  There is nothing, not a single iota of desire nor scintilla of inclination, naturally arising from our human hearts or minds that would prompt us to follow Christ wholly.  From the first to the last step upon this path of self-denial, cross-bearing and following Christ the whole way to death, each step is enabled by grace through faith.  Our daily following is by faith through faith just as much as our initial conversion was (Ephesians 2:8-10).  Just as we began our journey by faith, so the continuation each day on the journey of wholly following after Christ can only be undertaken by faith through the power of God’s Spirit (Galatians 3:2-3). 

Each step along the way is a step of faith – a step believing that Christ lives within us right now.  And so, we pray each day “Live Jesus!”  Wholly following after Christ is patterning our lives in the here and now after the life that Christ himself lived.  “For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps” (1 Peter 2:21).  The path Jesus walked thus becomes the pattern for our living and dying for others at this very moment in time.

We are able to “follow in his steps” only in the strength that God daily provides us to live submitted to his Word, singularly focused to do his will and ultimately sacrificed for others.  It is by such wholly following after Jesus that we humans image God in the person of Christ to others.  Living life in this way is the fulfillment of God’s purpose in re-creating us in Christ.  In so doing, we live lives imitating Christ.  In him we find our pattern; in him is our daily purpose.  And ultimately, Christ’s life living through us will lead us to death for others.  Laying down our life for others is the completion of a life imitating Christ. Wholly following Christ, then, is our destiny as human beings created Imago Dei.

Wholly Following ~ The Pathway of Discipleship (part 3)

Jesus calls his disciples to follow him on his journey to Jerusalem – to taking up the burdens and sins of others.  Ultimately, his journey is along a path to death, yet it is a death with the assured hope of the resurrection.  His call, then, is to live a sacrificed life.  We offer-up ourselves for others just as he offered-up himself us.  Living this sacrificed life is the goal of wholly following. 

We may think about discipleship as a daily walk along a three-fold path wholly following Christ our Lord.  It is the path of living a submitted life, a singular life, and a sacrificed life.  The three-fold path embodies the whole life of a follower of the Son of God who himself lived a full human life and died a full human death.  He died for us not only to accomplish our redemption from eternal separation from God, but also to enable us to pattern our life and death in this present world after His.  He enables this wholly following in the here and now because he is our life – Christ in you the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27). 

When Christ spoke his call to discipleship he spoke not only the particular path that lay before him, but also the pattern for everyone who wholly follows after him.  It was the path of Peter as the risen Jesus foretold it to him when he met Peter on the shore of Galilee.  Jesus said “Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go” (John 21:18).  John explains that by these words Christ showed “by what kind of death he was to glorify God” (21:19).  Peter, as one of the first followers of Jesus, lived a life and died a death that was both patterned after Christ.

The path Jesus walked in his life and in his death was also the pattern of Paul’s life.  God foretold the pattern of Paul’s life in his commission to Ananias, the person God used to convey his call to Paul: “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (Acts 9:15b-16).  Paul himself passed on that same destiny to his protégé Timothy when he wrote, “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12).    

Truth is Truth, whether from the Lips of . . .

I look to C.S. Lewis as one of my model teachers.  The portrayal of Lewis' tutorial with his students in the film, Shadowlands, is one of the finest displays of formation-in-process that I can point to in contemporary culture. He challenges his students to explore the significance of a rose as a metaphor for desire. Through a series of questions, he guides his students to ponder a persistent question: "What is desire's one essential quality?"  When one of his pupils shrugs-off the answer proposed, Lewis exhorts him into a deeper debate. The student though, at this early point in their relationship, is reticent to take up the gauntlet.

Now, I don't know if Anthony Hopkins' Lewis is an accurate portrayal, but it is an authentically inspiring one to me, and I think it is quite consistent with the Lewis we come to know in his books, especially Mere Christianity and essays contained in God in the Dock.  Lewis' thinking (and his teaching, I would imagine) was significantly formed by the works of the Scottish pastor and novelist George MacDonald.  One of the first books by Lewis I purchased after reading The Screwtape Letters in my high school years was a little paperback entitled, George MacDonald: Anthology.  In the preface to this collection, Lewis wrote:  "In making these extracts, I have been concerned with MacDonald not as a writer but as a Christian teacher" (14). 

George MacDonald

Though he had never met MacDonald, Lewis recounts how his works and life, as told by MacDonald's son in the biography he wrote of his father, substantially shaped his approach to writing and to living.  One of the most telling quotes that Lewis includes among the 365 extracts (most coming from MacDonald's sermons) composing this little volume is this: "Truth is truth, whether from the lips of Jesus or Balaam" (27). From the very first time I read that line nearly 35 years ago it was indelibly impressed upon my thinking.  MacDonald's words have continued challenged me to listen carefully to many speakers, to read thoughtfully many authors, and to watch observantly many actors.

The search for truth -- true truth, as Francis Schaeffer has called it -- will take us in a variety of directions.  I was reminded of this just last evening.  As on nearly every Wednesday evening, I was engaged in a discussion of the Scriptures with some of my fellow teachers here at Handong. Our focus was the first chapter of James, and someone pointed out how this passage emphasizes the need to look into the Scriptures as a mirror that can reveal to us our true selves.  This comment led another participant in the study to mention a book entitled The Man in the Mirror.   When I heard that phrase, my thoughts turned to a pop song with the same title from the 80's by Michael Jackson. 

And being the sort of "quick to speak" guy that I am, I told the group that Jackson had written a song about the "man in the mirror."  The mention of the "king of pop's" name must have struck a dissonant chord though, because another of my colleagues promptly declared, "But Michael Jackson got it wrong!"  I replied, "Did he? Didn't he just express what Gandhi had said -- "Become the change you wish to make in the world"?  Well, my mention of Michael Jackson and Gandhi in the same sentence seemed to be quite enough to alert the group's leader that we (read "I") had now gone way too far afield in our discussion.  It was a Bible study for heaven's sake!

But hold on!  Truth is truth, right?  Whether spoken from the lips of Jesus or Balaam, right?  Whether spoken from the lips of Gandhi or sung by Michael Jackson? -- Well you tell me.  Did Jackson get it right or not? Here's what he sings:

"As I, Turn Up The Collar On My
Favourite Winter Coat
This Wind Is Blowin' My Mind
I See The Kids In The Street,
With Not Enough To Eat
Who Am I, To Be Blind?
Pretending Not To See Their Needs
"A Summer's Disregard,
A Broken Bottle Top
And A One Man's Soul
They Follow Each Other On
The Wind Ya' Know
'Cause They Got Nowhere To Go
That's Why I Want You To Know

"I'm Starting With The Man In The Mirror
I'm Asking Him To Change His Ways
And No Message Could Have Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World A Better Place
Take A Look At Yourself,
And Then Make A Change.
"I've Been A Victim Of A Selfish Kind Of Love
It's Time That I Realize
That There Are Some With No Home,
Not A Nickel To Loan
Could It Be Really Me,
Pretending That They're Not Alone?

"A Willow Deeply Scarred,
Somebody's Broken Heart
And A Washed-Out Dream
They Follow The Pattern Of The Wind, Ya' See
Cause They Got No Place To Be
That's Why I'm Starting With Me
"I'm Starting With The Man In The Mirror
I'm Asking Him To Change His Ways
And No Message Could Have Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World A Better Place
Take A Look At Yourself,
And Then Make A Change."

That's what Michael Jackson sang.  Here's what James wrote:

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.  For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.  ~ James 1:22-25

If truth is truth no matter from whose lips the message is spoken or from whose pen the words are written, then it would appear to me that a question of first importance is indeed: Have I made a change in my life?

School is Never Out -- Instruction is All Around!

This little guy showed-up outside my apartment window yesterday morning as I was talking on the phone with Sandy.  He's a "Yellow-rumped Flycatcher."  Pretty cool! (I didn't take this picture, but I'm hoping to capture a few photo's in the near future). He has quite a song to sing, too!  His appearance reminded me that I need to get a bird feeder.  As I've looked for one at shops and on-line, though, I've begun to realize that folks don't seem to feed birds around here.

I guess they think that the birds do pretty well for themselves and there is just not much "extra" seed lying about to give over to the birds.  And yet, these little beautiful creatures continue to thrive even though "they sow not, nor gather into barns."  Seeing this beauty reminded me also of the fact that all that we encounter in each day is teaching us.  Jesus exhorts us in his Sermon on the Mount to "consider the birds of the air and the flowers of the field."

The reality of on-going instruction for the one who is aware was also brought home to me recently through a brief passage in Thich Nhat Hanh's little book, Being Peace. He writes:  "We can learn from everything that is around, that is in us.  Even if we are not at a meditation center [or on a retreat or even in a classroom] we can still practice at home because all around us the teaching is present.  Everything is preaching . . . each pebble, each leaf, each flower is preaching . . . (36).

King David said it this way: "The heavens keep telling the wonders of God and the skies declare what he has done.  Each day informs the following day; each night announces to the next. They don't speak a word, and there is never the sound of a voice.  Yet, their message reaches all the earth, and it travels around the world." (Psalm 19:1-4a, CEV).  So, give a listen and keep learning.  School is never out.  Instruction is all around you right now where you are.