Category: General

The following is derived from a sermon I delivered at Wonderful Mercy Church. You can listen to the full message online.

Before reading on, take a moment to read Galatians 5:1, 13-25. The link will take you the New Living Translation, but feel free to use whatever translation you like. When You’ve read the Galatians passage come on back and we’ll chat about it.

What do we make of this passage? In my experience, our natural approach (my approach, anyway) is this. We really only pay attention to the two lists at the end. We treat them as a rule book. Don’t do the bad things, do the good things! It can be very tempting to live the checklist life. We steel ourselves to avoid the bad, start or increase the good fruit, and congratulate ourselves on our spiritual progress. The checklist life is tempting, but it is not where Paul is trying to point us.

So, what is wrong with the checklist life? Quite a lot, really. To start with, it is the opposite of freedom, and that is the main thrust of Paul here. The reading began with 5:1: “So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law.” But living the checklist life is doing the opposite. Living the checklist life is binding myself up in the “law,” not the law of Moses, but my checklist serves as my law nonetheless.

Next, the checklist life ignores the central thrust of Paul’s teaching here. He is describing what our lives look like when we are controlled by our sinful natures (all the bad stuff) and what they look like when we are controlled by the spirit (the good stuff). He is not talking about what we do, but what God does when we are controlled by the spirit. Verse 16, in the Voice translation, makes this very clear. “Here’s my instruction: walk in the Spirit, and let the Spirit bring order to your life..”

Not only Paul’s teaching, but adopting the checklist life ignores Jesus’ teaching, and he had some pretty strong feeling on the matter. Consider Matthew 23:25-28, in the Message translation. Here we find Jesus addressing the Scribes and Pharisees, the masters of living the checklist life:

“You’re hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You burnish the surface of your cups and bowls so they sparkle in the sun, while the insides are maggoty with your greed and gluttony. 26 Stupid Pharisee! Scour the insides, and then the gleaming surface will mean something.

27 “You’re hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You’re like manicured grave plots, grass clipped and the flowers bright, but six feet down it’s all rotting bones and worm-eaten flesh. 28 People look at you and think you’re saints, but beneath the skin you’re total frauds.

Matthew 23: 25-28, Message Translation

There is no doubt: In Jesus’ view what we do is not nearly as important as who we are on the inside.

Now, if none of those arguments against the checklist life don’t convince you, I have one more. IT DOESN’T WORK! If we are living the checklist life we will, sooner or later, fail. Jesus used the metaphor of trees and fruit to talk about people. See, for example, Mt 12:33. If we think of ourselves as tree and we are living the checklist life, we will be about the business of trying to pluck off the bad fruit and somehow produce good fruit, or at least a close approximation of good fruit. We may be successful for a while, as long as things as going our way. But one day, we will be tired or frustrated or overworked and all our good efforts will collapse in a heap. We may justify ourselves, citing extenuating circumstances, but the truth is we will be revealing our true, unfiltered, unregulated self. As Jesus said, “A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart.” (Mt 12:35) Any change we seem to make is ephemeral and will eventually fail. How we are when our defenses are down reflects how we truly are.

No, The checklist life; the self-improvement road, is not the road we should be on. Both Jesus and Paul warn us off this path and our experience tells us that any success will be short lived. That leave us the question of how do we rid ourselves of the bad fruit and produce the good? The answer is pay attention to the kind of tree you are; to tend to the tree, not the fruit. Examine the fruit we produce, but good fruit is not the goal; aim to be the kind of person that produces good fruit.

  “A good person produces good things from the treasury
of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things
from the treasury of an evil heart.” (Mt 12:35) 

  So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you
won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. (Gal 5:17) 

We are not asked to “fix” ourselves (if that is even possible). Our part is to invite Holy Spirit’s ministry and position ourselves to receive it. That is where Spiritual Disciplines come in. Spiritual Disciplines, activities like prayer, meditation, memorizing scripture, and fasting are: ” Intentional practices that help as “keep company” with Jesus. “(adapted from Spiritual Disciplines Handbook, Adele Calhoun, p 19). Dallas Willard characterized Spiritual Disciples as direct actions taken to achieve indirect results.
Disciplines do not, by themselves make us better; they open the door for God.

As we begin to practice spiritual disciplines, as we begin to “keep company” with Jesus, we will begin to change us. Soon, often we we least expect it, we find the fruit we used to strive for now spontaneously appearing. We begin to see the Fruit of the Spirit described by Paul.

Why not spend some time, now is as good as any, asking the Lord to show you what “bad” fruit He notices in your life. Ask Him too, what good fruit is lacking. Don’t be surprised if you He points out things that would not have occurred to you! Finally, see if He is inviting you to any Spiritual Disciplines, direct actions on your part to allow him to produce His results. Here is a paritial list of Spiritual Disciplines, if an unfamiliar one is brought to your mind, don’t write it off. Descriptions are easy to find!

Solitude, Silence, Fasting, Sabbath, Hiddenness,
Submission, Bible Reading, Scripture Memorization,
Worship, Prayer, Spiritual Direction, Examen, Service,
Meditation, Stewardship, Journaling 

If you have spent some time in prayer just now, you likely have a clearer understanding of the health of your soul and of what God may be suggesting you do about that.

If you begin a journey of Spiritual Disciplines, come back some time and leave a comment. I’d love the hear what the Lord is doing in you!

The process of spiritual formation, the internal transformation of souls, is a life-long pursuit for Christians and can be a difficult and confusing journey.  As with any journey, we need to know two key things:  where we are and where we are going.  If we do not know where we are now, it may be impossible to find our way to our destination.  If we do not really know where we are going, then any progress we make will likely be haphazard and could just as easily move us farther away as move us closer to our end point.

For our spiritual journey, knowing where we are now is largely a matter of knowing who we are and, to a lesser extent, knowing how we got to be where we are. I earlier wrote about knowing ourselves and the importance of being known.

Knowing where we are going, is not really very hard, but it is something many of us either don’t think about or assume some generic, vanilla version of christian maturity.  But the reality is that each of us carries within us a God-given spiritual longing.

I recently had occasion to contemplate my destination. The Lord pointed me to Psalm 1’s description of a Godly person, focusing me on verse 3:

He is like a tree
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers. Psalm 1:3 (ESV)

As I thought and prayed about what this verse might mean to me, as a spiritual longing, here is what I came to perceive what I am being called to.

I long to be a tree: Strong, alive, providing shelter and shade
Planted: Immovable, unshakable, deeply rooted in the knowledge of God’s love for me
By streams of water:  Drinking deeply of living water— love that flows from the heart of Jesus. Flowing — always new, continually refreshed and refreshing.
Yielding fruit in its season: Not forcing fruit out of season, but content in times of fruitlessness. In season, obediently yielding Godly fruit to feed and nourish others.
Whose leaf does not wither: with growth and life even when there is no fruit, unaffected by the hot and dry seasons.
Prospering in all that I do:  Prospering not for personal enrichment or gain, but being aligned with the Father’s heart, prospering in kingdom purposes.

That is my longing, my aspirational state. What is yours? I encourage you to take the time, perhaps with a Spiritual Director or other trusted spiritual friend, to prayerfully consider where you have been with God, where you are today, and what you are being called to.

What is your heart longing for?

In the beginning the way is broad and easy.  The road is smooth and the ascent is barely noticeable. I walk happily and easily along the gentle slopes.  I have my pack well-stocked an and on my back. I also have my wooden two-wheeled cart, loaded with my most cherished possessions. Even loaded as heavily as my cart is, it is smooth and easy to push it along in front of me.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the path narrows a becomes a bit less smooth.  The incline seems to increase with each step I take.  As I round a bend I can look back and see that I am indeed climbing more rapidly. The way ahead seems even steeper yet. I can still manage the journey, but it is no longer easy.  I must stop and rest more often.

Soon my times of rest become more frequent and longer, comprising the majority of my time.  My arms and shoulders ache from the weight and strain of pushing my cart before me. The path is becoming less smooth and my card lurches from side to side and crashes down into ruts and over ever larger rocks in the path. Despairing at my lack of progress and worried that I may lose a wheel or snap the axle of my cart,  I decide to lighten my load.  I sift through mounded cart, discarding what I think I can do with out.  It saddens me to leave behind the things I worked so hard to provision myself with, but there is no other way.

With my burden lessened, my trek is once again easy; my strength is once again sufficient.

As I resume the assent, the way becomes every narrower. The once broad avenue is now a narrow foot path.  Shrubs and low tree branches grab at my cart, trying to stop my progress.  I push on through them but soon find that huge rocks on my left form a virtual wall.  On my right, a once gentle slope down has become an alarming precipice. The sides of my cart scrape and catch on the rock wall, threatening to push it off the edge to the right.   

In a rare wide and level spot I stop to assess my situation.  My cart has taken a beating.  I am exhausted trying to keep it from going over the edge.  The way forward seems even more treacherous and narrow.  If I am to go forward  I must abandon my cart.  Yet I have worked so hard to gain my possessions and to bring them this far up the mountain. I sit in that spot for a long time.  My things are so dear to me!

Eventually, I make up my mind.  I will give up my cart but contrive to keep as many of my things as I can.  Casting my cart aside, I sift through my belongings, judging what I hold most dear and what I’m willing to let go of. In the end, I repack my backpack, adding some of my most cherished things.  Still other things are added to the outside of the pack, lashed in place with make-do straps. 

With my burden lessened, the way again is easy.  My strength is once again sufficient. The narrow places are no longer such a challenge.

No sooner have I found a comfortable pace and start to be content with my progress then the terrain changes yet again, becoming more and more difficult. The path becomes steeper and the footing less sure. At times I am climbing as much as walking.  The weight of my pack, combined with some nearly vertical climbs threatens to pull me over backward. As before, I find my need for rest stops coming more and more frequently. 

I know what I must do.  I pare my pack down, leaving behind everything I dare, leaving only the essentials — food, water and the few things I am sure that I will need for my journey. But soon even that is not enough.  The path is too narrow, too steep and too treacherous. Soon I am forced to abandon my pack entirely, trusting that somehow I will reach the summit before I succumb to hunger or thirst.

Unburdened, the climb (for it is not now a hike) becomes easier.  Then, unexpectedly, the nearly vertical path slowly begins to level off.  As it levels, it broadens.  The boulders that hedged me in for so long become fewer and smaller.  The harrowing precipice also ends.  The change is subtle and revealed only over time.  Yet soon I find myself on a smooth broad road.

Looking back, I spot my backpack, left far below. Even further back, so far back that it is hard to believe I can spot it, is my abandoned cart, a mere speck. Looking ahead, the path remains broad smooth, slowly climbing upward.  Not very far ahead I see cool streams of clear water and fruit trees in abundance. It is a natural garden.  For a moment I wish I had my cart, it would be perfect here.  Then I laugh at myself, realizing that I have neither need nor want for the things I once prized so highly but left behind along the way. 

I know that I have not reached the summit, but here, in this garden, I know that I am close. Any sense of urgency I once had is gone. I am free to tarry or proceed. Each step forward now reveals new delights: an especially beautiful flower, an exquisite new fruit to enjoy, a warm and sunny spot to sit and hear the music of a stream flowing over cataracts.

I do not know what is next.  I feel neither urgency to press on nor a desire to linger. In my freedom I continue on my way at a pace dictated by God, enjoying the beauty of his mountain. 

Have you found that God seems to begin some good work in you only to have it seem to evaporate, to disappear, as if it had never been there at all? He may have begun some emotional healing, restoring some relationship, or bringing some fresh awareness or understanding in your life. Then, some time later you discover that what you thought was being born in you seems to have been illusory. To use the metaphor of grapes growing on a vine, we see the small, round new grapes appear on the vine, but then, as time goes on, instead of maturing to ripeness, the grapes have withered and died.

All of us, at sometime or another, have found ourselves hurting, scared, and not knowing where to turn. Finally, we cry out to God. We find that God is good. We find that things start to change. Or perhaps our understanding and acceptance starts to shift, perhaps God speaks to us in our pain and starts the processes of healing and formation.

As our pain starts to subside, we carry on with our lives and one day we find ourselves in distress again. We turn back to God, looking for that nascent fruit we had seen before, only to find it is nowhere to be seen. It has evaporated like the dew. What has happened?

Jesus gives us an answer in John, chapter 15.

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. (ESV) John 15:1-6

Too often, when we first see fruit start to appear, the baby grapes on the vine, we declare victory and move on. Without even thinking about it, with our pain assuaged, we take a step back and disconnect from God. Rather than abiding with God, we detach our branch from the vine. Little wonder the fruit withers and fails!

When the fruit fails, rather than wondering what happened to it or if it was ever really there, we should make sure that we haven’t broken ourselves off the vine. God cannot mature the fruit (and us!) if we do not abide in him.

For many of us, coming to believe in Jesus as Messiah and the son of God was a hard, hard, thing to do.  I know it was for me.  Indeed, Scripture tells us that we can’t come to belief on our own, it is only through God’s grace.

“For it was only through this wonderful grace that we believed in him.”
Ephesians 2:8(a) (The Passion translation)

And yet, it turns out that believe is relatively easy when compared to the day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, second by second work of discipleship, that is, turning away from what we want and toward what God wants.

Consider Mark’s account of Peter’s confession of Christ (Mark 8:27-38). Jesus ask his disciples who do people say that he is and then who do they say that he is. Upon Peter’s identification of Jesus as the Christ, Jesus tells his disciples what it means for him to be Messiah: betrayal, injustice, and death.  Peter is unwilling to accept this and rebukes Jesus, who cutting to the heart of the matter, rebukes Peter:

But Jesus turned around, and glancing at all of the other disciples, he rebuked Peter, saying, “Get out of my sight, Satan! For your heart is not set on God’s plan but man’s!” Mark 8:33 (The Passion Translation)

Peter believes, he had just confessed Jesus as Messiah, but is heart is not set on God’s plan.  Jesus goes on to explain that we really have only two ways open to us. We can give up our lives for true life or continue holding on to our own lives, which leads us to death. We are not given the option of a third way.

Surrendering to Jesus’ ways, taking up his cross,  and disowning our own lives is the necessary, continual work of discipleship.  It can be hard — very hard. All of us do imperfectly.  Most of us do it very imperfectly.  The good news is that we don’t have to reshape our own hearts.  God does the hard work.  We just have to remember to let go and get out of the way so that he can have his way with us. He will, if we let him, keep our hearts set on his plan and not mans.

Are you on the road of discipleship?

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This post is derived from a sermon I preached recently.  You can listen to that message, if you want more on the hard work of discipleship.

At sometime or another, nearly every parent’s refrigerator starts to resemble an art gallery.  We take the wonderful, if not fully recognizable, artistic renderings our children produce and put them on display on the ‘fridge door.  But I think my Father in heaven doesn’t have much of my artwork on his ‘fridge.  Why not?  Because long ago I stopped producing any artwork for him to display.

I am blessed to have a delightful two-year-old granddaughter, Anna.  She recently got her hands on a harmonica and delights in “playing” her harmonica and dancing — in her mind dancing is integral to playing the harmonica!  Seeing her play and dance made me think.

I have several harmonicas.  They sit in a box, unused. I used to play them. I tried to teach myself — to become at least proficient, but in the end I convinced myself that I’d never be very good and stopped trying.  I put my harmonicas away.  I’ve done the same thing with other musical instruments and with painting and even with my writing.  In each case, I convince myself that I am “not that good” or not “good enough.”

But a two-year-old knows something I have forgotten:  the point of playing the harmonica is to enjoy being creative; it is not to impress others with our skill.  Anna plays and dances with abandon, deep in the joy of creative expression.

Our God is a creative God. Since we are made in his image, we too are to be creative.  It is part of our design. When we stifle our creative urges we keep a part of ourselves, the creative part made to create, play, sing and dance, from God.  We keep ourselves from being all we are intended to be.

If you feel like painting, paint.  If you feel like writing poetry, write poems.  If you’d like to dance, dance. It doesn’t matter if anyone else ever sees or hears your creative expression.  And if you feel like playing the harmonica and dancing, follow Anna’s lead and do it with gusto and joy!

Don’t be surprised if God starts to commune with you through your creative impulses. We are told be childlike in our relationship with the Lord — to come to Jesus as little children. Part of being childlike means to stop censoring our creativity; stop being self-conscious and self-critical.  Take joy in creative expression simply because you are enjoying this God-given part of your nature.  Create some masterpieces for your Father to enjoy on his refrigerator.

On Father’s Day the Arizona Republic ran a front page story by Karina Bland headlined A boy’s new life. It is a warm and wonderful story about a man, Nick Dugas, who reached out to help an abused, runaway 12-year-old boy nicknamed “Bug”. Nick eventually adopted Bug. It is a story of selfless and unconditional love.

I have never met Nick and no nothing about him that you won’t know after you read the Republic article. No doubt he is as flawed as any of us, but the story of Nick and Bug can be a powerful reminder of how our Father reaches out to us, saves us, and makes us his own.

Nick discovered Bug lying down in the shade of a building in Phoenix one morning. He offered the boy a meal but was rebuffed. Nonetheless, noticing that the boy had a cell phone, he wrote down his number and said that if the boy decided he wanted help, just give him a call. Nick was barely back to his car before his phone rang.

Nick gave Bug food and clothing and a safe place to sleep. At first Bug didn’t stay; he would come and go from Nick’s house. As trust grew, Bug eventually decided to stay. Nick provided Bug a room of his own and made sure he attended school. Eventually, after learning that Bug’s father had no interest in him, Nick took the necessary steps to become Bug’s foster parent and eventually his adoptive father. At his adoption Nick wisely told Bug that his anger and his hurts would take time to heal but that he was now loved unconditionally and was safe.

This wonderful story is a good reminder of how God, our Father, cares for us. He finds us, often hurt and alone, and offers a way out when we have absolutely nothing to give him in return. He doesn’t suggest that if we clean ourselves up and get our lives back on track, only then will he accept us. He offers to take us in the way we are, clean us up, feed us, keep us safe, and love us. We are free accept the offer or, as Bug did at first, decide it is not for us. Nonetheless, in God’s Word and in the presence of believers around us, we “have his number.” If we call out to him he is always their for us, as Nick was when Bug called him.

We are often distrustful of God’s goodness and fidelity, thinking surely there must be a catch! Even when we do accept help we often withdraw, preferring to live life on our own terms (seeming to forget that we were not doing it very well). But each time we return our Father is there, waiting for us, watching for us, welcoming us back into his home. He patiently waits for us learn that he really does love us and wants nothing more than the love of a son or daughter in return. As we grow closer to our Father’s heart we can learn to trust; We can let him begin the healing of our hearts and souls.

Unlike Nick and Bug, we don’t have to navigate a bureaucracy before we are adopted. When we have faith in Jesus we are adopted as his brothers and sisters. We have access to the lives we were always intended to have: lives where we experience the love of God and enter into the mutual love that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have always enjoyed. Our hurts may not heal overnight, but we can know that we are safe in the unconditional love God.

Pride is Satan’s signature sin. Pride caused Satan’s fall and pride caused our fall. As the great Reformer theologian John Calvin observed, “Hence flowed ambition and pride, so that the woman first, and then her husband, desired to exalt themselves against God.”

Pride takes many forms. There’s vanity, the love of self.  There’s a sense of entitlement, impatience, arrogance, hubris, desiring relevance or appreciation, incessant dissatisfaction, complaining, demanding.  Pride is a stern master.

But God has given us an escape from pride. Listen to learn how you can be freed from pride and free to become your best self.

That is how my Pastor, Graeme Sellers of Wonderful Mercy Church,  summarized the message I preached on March 11th.  I couldn’t ask for a better summary.

You can listen to that message, “The Root of Our Problem,”  here.