5 Steps to Change Your Life

Filed under Experiencing God, God's Goodness, Nature, Reality, Relationship with God, Rules, The Gospel, The Law, Theology, Transformed Living, Truth, Worldview by on December 17, 2013 at 5:53 pm {no comments}

I have yet to meet a Christian who truly wanted to sin. They might say they want to sin, but if you dig a little deeper they would confess that any perceived desire they feel to sin is actually a torment to them. It’s a source of guilt and shame, especially if they give in to those temptations.

What these Christians need to hear is that, while God does call us to live transformed lives, He’s actually made it a lot easier than we maybe realize.

Here are the five steps God leads us through to have the transformed lives we desire:

Step One: Believe the Gospel

It should go without saying that we’ll never have transformed lives until God enters the picture. The good news (no pun intended) is that all Christians have already taken this step or they wouldn’t be Christians. We believe Jesus died for our sins and rose again to give us life everlasting with Him.

Step Two: Get Adopted

This actually happens at the exact same moment as Step One. One is the result of the other, or maybe better put, it’s simply a different way of defining our salvation. Taking Jesus as our Savior by faith also means taking God as our Father. You can’t have one without the other. So, dear Christian, congratulations on already completing the first two steps toward your transformed life!

Step Three: Receive Discipline

Hebrews 12:7 promises us that being a child of God means He will discipline you, which doesn’t often make us think happy thoughts.

However, it’s helpful for us to consider the means and purpose of God’s discipline. Deuteronomy 8:3-5 explains, “And [God] humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD…Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the LORD your God disciplines you.”

God’s method of discipline was not sickness, death, destruction, or disaster; it was the daily practice by which He proved His word is trustworthy, giving manna just as He promised. Though every household was bankrupt of food at night, He met their need the following morning every day for forty years. The purpose of this was to teach them to trust His words, which included obeying His commands, but also included the promise that He would deliver a land filled with hostile giants and a multitude of strong nations into their hands. Without faith in His words, Israel would never enter the Promised Land.

That was why God, as a good father, trained them through discipline to live by His words instead of by their circumstances. God’s discipline in our lives will be equally gentle and accomplish the same purpose, establishing trust and faith that His words are true so that we will believe and live by them.

Step Four: Become Free

Jesus prays in John 17:17, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.” He also said, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32).

This is the exact process we are talking about—living in His words so that we know the truth, which then sets us free. It’s interesting that God’s words result in two things: 1) Us being set apart completely unto Him and 2) Us becoming free. Isn’t it wonderful to see the very thing that brings us closer to Him also sets us free from the things that would control us and cause us to sin?

Step Five: Be Transformed

It’s no wonder then that Romans 12:2 says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your minds.” Perhaps it’s easier for us to read this verse and apply it backwards—trying to be transformed in our actions first so that we can think differently about ourselves and earn a closer relationship with God—but that’s not what it says. We can try to transform our lives all we want, but there’s only one way it’s going to happen—by renewing our minds.

That means to make our minds new, to think in a new way. But how are we going to do that? By now the answer is clear. We learn to think a new way by listening to the truth of what God says to us. We regularly bathe in His view of us and become increasingly cleansed from who the world, our past, or any other voice says we are or ought to be. The result of this is that we no longer resemble the world around us, but instead live the transformed lives we always desired but could never attain through our own efforts.

Trying harder won’t stop your sin, but thinking in a way that agrees with God’s words will. This isn’t crazy. It’s biblical.

Transformation really isn’t as hard as we thought it was. That was a lie we believed, but God’s words today can wash away that lie so our new life can truly begin.

Trusting Fatherhood

Filed under Experiencing God, Faithfulness, Fatherhood, God's Goodness, Identity, Love, Nature, Reality, Relationship with God, Theology, Truth, Worldview by on September 10, 2013 at 4:58 pm {no comments}

Nothing damaged my trust in God as my father more than this mystery. I simply could not reconcile the idea of Him as a good father with the reality that he sent His Son to suffer and die when He could have come instead. After all, if God the Son can become incarnate for the sake of dying in our place, why couldn’t God the Father? And if He could, then why didn’t He? Was He unwilling? Was He selfish? More to the point, how can I trust Him in my life if He calls me His son, yet treated His Only Begotten in that way?

Intellectually, I knew that God is incapable of that kind of—there’s no other word for it—betrayal. But I lacked the key that would cause it all to make sense. I kept this question on a spiritual back burner of sorts, waiting until God brought clarity to the issue. When He did, it completely changed the way I think about Him.

Here’s some background for the thinking that led to this mystery: I had been taught that God’s purpose for mankind was to bring Himself glory. I was told that in anyone else, this would be disingenuous and self-seeking, but because God is truly worthy, there is no moral dilemma when we say this about Him. His worthiness makes it okay for Him to make all things about Himself.

I know. It doesn’t sound right to you and it never did to me either. Maybe it technically makes sense, but it doesn’t sound right. But that’s what I was taught, and by some very brilliant minds in Bible college. Here’s the problem with that theory and where it began to unravel for me:

God is love (1 John 4:16), and love is not self-seeking (1 Corinthians 13:5). If God is love then His very being is defined by unselfishness. He cannot seek His own benefit or He betrays the nature of His very existence!

Moreover, Ezekiel 28:12-17 says, “‘Thus says the Lord GOD… “You were an anointed guardian cherub. I placed you; you were on the holy mountain of God…Your heart was proud because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor”‘” (Ezekiel 28:11-17). God is addressing Lucifer in this passage, lamenting over him, actually. What stood out to me here is the very last thing He says: “You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor.” In other words, when Lucifer’s wisdom sought the benefit of others, it was pure, but when he turned his wisdom to seek his own benefit, it became corrupted. It may sound reasonable at first to say, “God can do things that look selfish to our finite human minds and it’s okay because He’s worthy,” but then I find that this kind of self-seeking is Satan’s very nature. I cannot possibly say that God can act like Satan and it’s okay because He’s worthy and Satan’s not.

This much helped reassure my confidence that God is not selfish or malevolent, but it didn’t help me understand why a good father, the best Father, would send His Son to die instead of going Himself. That answer came from Philippians 2:5-11, which says:

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow…and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

These verses wrap the whole thing together, showing the perfect nature of God in the humility, sacrifice, and love of Jesus Christ. Yet because of His humility, God the Father exalted Him so that Jesus is exalted above everyone else. Jesus didn’t exalt Himself. His Father exalted Him, and there—right there—is where God gave me my answer.

God the Father knew that whoever went to save the Earth would also receive the greatest name and become the most exalted over everyone else. God the Father knew He could do that horrible task, and that He could receive the exaltation that would come with it. But that would have been self-seeking, so that’s not what He did. Instead, He set aside His rights to be the most highly exalted for the sake of letting His Son surpass Him. He asked His Son, Jesus, to suffer and die for us, not to spare Himself the pain, but so that His Son would be more highly exalted than He was.

That is the nature of a father, which is why this is the way God the Father is glorified. Look at the last line of the passage; God the Father is glorified when all creation is worshiping the Son. God the Father was nowhere to be seen through all those verses until the very end! He is far from center stage, yet while the spotlight is on the Son, the Father is glorified.

I finally had the answer to the mystery. This answer proved to me, once and for all, I also had a Father I could trust.

What Is Real?

Filed under Culture, Evangelism, Experiencing God, Miracles, Missions, Relationship with God, The Gospel, Truth, Uncategorized, Worldview by on May 7, 2013 at 11:39 am {no comments}

If truth be told, I scan Facebook a lot. Like everyone else on Facebook, I see all the debates raging back and forth—homosexual marriage, abortion, gun rights, political debates, and more—and in all the stuff that gets slung back and forth, I don’t know if there’s a single person who stops to recognize that the way their message will be received is in large part determined by the culture to which their audience belongs. Most likely, culture never entered their mind when they shared that meme or wrote that post because they assumed that the people who would read it share the same culture. Well, they are wrong.

So to help all of us out, here is an admittedly oversimplified definition of culture. Don’t let it sound boring to you, either, because the good stuff comes only when you understand this foundation; and trust me, it is good stuff. Okay, so here are four layers of culture based on what we would observe, in order, if we were to go into a different culture:

  1. Behavior—what is done?
  2. Values—what is good or best?
  3. Beliefs—what is true?
  4. Worldview—what is real?*

Each layer of culture is driven by the one below it, but to help us see how that works, let me give some examples so we don’t get lost in anthropological mumbo jumbo. We’ll consider a devout Hindu and someone whose culture has been influenced by the Christian worldview, walking through how they answer each question associated with the layers going in reverse order from what’s written above.

  1. What is real? Hindu: Karma is real. What you did in a previous life determines what you’re getting now. Christian-influenced: God is the creator of all things, including you and me as unique individuals.
  2. What is true? Hindu: You deserve your low status. Christian-influenced: God died to save sinners and adopt us as His sons.
  3. What is good or best? Hindu: That I treat you as your born position deserves so that we both gain good Karma for our next life. Christian-influenced: I treat you as God treated me, regardless of position or status.
  4. What is done? Hindu: Oppression or reverence, as position deserves. Christian-influenced: Equal and loving treatment for all mankind.

Or consider a more western-culture version:

  1. What is real? Atheist: Only what can be scientifically proven. Christian: God and His created universe.
  2. What is true? Atheist: People are only highly evolved animals. Christian: Humans are created in the image of God.
  3. What is good or best? Atheist: Potentially anything, whatever leads to the greatest expedient practical benefit. Christian: God’s will is the highest good.
  4. What is done? Atheist: Anything—abortion, euthanasia, divorce, promiscuity, etc. There’s no ultimate consequence for your choices, so choose to live however you want.  Christian: Following the example of Jesus.

What this shows us is that most of what we debate about is behavior, or perhaps the values behind them, but few of us recognize that disagreement at a deeper level of culture creates a gap that cannot be bridged by arguing at a shallower layer of culture.

What’s more, getting someone to agree with you about behavior is terribly superficial if their conversion didn’t touch what they believe to be real. For example, a Hindu might “believe in Jesus,” but in reality only be taking Him to be one more god among all the others that they worship because their worldview didn’t receive Him as the only God. Or, frighteningly, we might convince an atheist that an unborn child is a vital human life, but if they hold fully true to their worldview, that still does not produce morality or ethics because you cannot scientifically establish absolute rights or wrongs; that belongs purely to the realm of philosophy and religion, which science cannot explain. They could still logically reason within their worldview that it’s better for both you and that baby for it to die because it would detrimentally effect “quality of life” for both you and it.  In fact, this is the entire argument behind eugenics, which tries to control human population by “trimming off” what it perceives as negative to society through means of abortion, euthanasia, and in extreme cases like Hitler, genocide.

But while I can (and want to) get on a soapbox because of my horror at such practices, that does nothing if I only reach people at the level of their behavior, values, or even their belief system. What really has to change is peoples’ worldview, and our own as well, so how do we do this?

Well, because our worldview defines what we believe to be real, experience is the powerful dictator of this layer of culture. It’s very hard for us to deny the reality of what we experience. For this reason, when someone experiences God through His intervention in their lives—a healing, miraculous provision, a supernatural sense of His love or presence, etc.—they immediately realize that all they saw before was blindness compared to the reality that just opened before them.

Also, Hebrews 4:12-13 says, “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” Certainly, if God’s word pierces between soul and spirit, then it gets as deep as our worldview. I believe that God sends out His word and it always bears fruit (Isaiah 55:10-11). I also believe that God sometimes takes His word—His scriptures—and makes something stand out to us in a particular moment for a particular reason. When we are able to “hear” what God is saying to a person in a given moment and say it to them, it opens them up like nothing else and paves the way for them to enter a new reality.

Once someone’s reality changes, so does their belief system, and then so do their values, and then so do their actions. But when we only aim at actions, we never change their reality. It’s like cutting the head off a dandelion, but not getting the roots.

But I said that we also need to do this in our own lives. Why? Because there are two different kinds of belief systems—operating and theoretical. Operating belief systems are what you truly believe that then influences your values and actions. Theoretical belief systems are like rote creeds that you can recite, but it doesn’t affect how you live.** For example, every Christian will tell you that they believe God loves them, yet, from my experience, the vast majority of them actually believe that they are broken, rejected, unloved, despised, ugly, unwanted, and so on. The former is only a theoretical belief system that has little to no power in their life, while the latter is the operating belief system that leads to genuine actions.

However, if we experience an aspect of God’s nature—His love, healing, provision, protection, etc.—then His reality becomes our reality and our theoretical belief displaces the former operating one. Now, suddenly, we truly believe that God loves us. We say that it went from head knowledge to heart knowledge and we experience freedom from doubt and confidence to minister that reality to others who need it.

Thankfully, God is the ultimate reality, which means that we have every reason for hope both for ourselves and for everyone around us. For as we pursue not just a soapbox regarding how people live, but instead pursue God’s reality within which we live, we can get under the surface issues to people’s hearts, as well as our own, and see God transform us all into everything He created us to be.

 

* Loyd E. Kwast, “Understanding Culture,” in Perspectives Exposure: Discovering God’s Heart for All Nations and Our Part in His Plan, ed. Meg Crossman (Seattle, WA: YWAM Publishing, 2003), 87-89.

** Loyd E. Kwast, “Understanding Culture,” in Perspectives Exposure: Discovering God’s Heart for All Nations and Our Part in His Plan, ed. Meg Crossman (Seattle, WA: YWAM Publishing, 2003), 88.

The Whole Truth

Filed under God's Goodness, Miracles, Nature, The Gospel, Theology, Truth, Uncategorized by on October 9, 2012 at 10:48 am {no comments}

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

If you have spent much time in church, you know this verse. This is because we assume that people need to be convinced that they are sinners in need of a Savior, and that when they see that need, it’s simply a logical choice for them to turn to Jesus. This choice becomes even clearer when we tell them that “the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

The options are now clear. You can a) ignore the reality of sin and its consequences by rejecting Jesus, or b) acknowledge your sinfulness and receive the only hope you have—salvation in Jesus.

This is the gospel of salvation and I believe every word of it. It is 100 percent truth. It’s just not the whole truth, and because it isn’t the whole truth, a lot of genuine believers who have responded to this message have continued living under the belief that they are still sinners falling short of God’s glory. This is because, while they finished the second verse to see that the free gift of God is eternal life, they didn’t finish the first verse to see that there was more good news to the Good News in which they believed for salvation.

The rest of the sentence begun in Romans 3:23 continues on to say, “…and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith” (24-25). This means that most of us were only told half the story when we first heard the gospel. We were told that all have sinned and fall short of God’s glory, but the other side of the coin says that all have also been justified, redeemed, and reconciled through Jesus’ blood. That simply needs to be received by faith, or in other words, you have to believe that what I just said is the truth.

Now maybe you’re sitting at your computer thinking, “I’m not sure I heard the difference there.” The difference is that, in the past, we’ve focused on the issue of sin. After all, the problem is that people have sin in their lives, right? Because the wages of sin is death, and that’s a big problem.

You’re right, sin is a big problem, and it does lead to death. But the whole truth is that sin isn’t the problem anymore because all have been justified. Have been. That was a past tense statement there. Everyone has already been justified by God’s grace as a gift. Period. How? Well, through the redemption that’s in Christ Jesus, by the propitiation (or reconciliation) that is found under Jesus’ blood.

Let me sum it up in less theological language: Everyone in the whole world throughout all time has now already been made right before God. Their sinful record has been wiped clean by the blood of Jesus, reconciling the relationship that used to be severed. Nothing now stands between them and God except their unbelief. As soon as they simply believe these words to be true, they are instantly restored to perfect, unblemished, unhindered relationship with God and nothing can ever interfere with that relationship except more unbelief.

And that, right there, is why this is so important. Because a lot of us still believe the issue is sin, not unbelief. So when we sin, we think that we’ve somehow turned from God and we have to repent and work our way back to Him. Nothing could be further from the truth. We’ve never been able to earn or qualify for a relationship with God. We were justified as a gift, remember? And that gift was never taken back; we just stopped believing that God is good enough to really restore us unconditionally so that all we have to do is believe it.

Which brings me to our second point: What is it that we fall short of? It’s God’s glory, right? Well, in Exodus 33:18-19, God declares that His glory is His goodness—the reality that He is gracious and merciful to whomever His chooses without any consideration for whether they deserve it or not.

So here’s the whole truth of the gospel: Everyone has sinned, and that means we’ve fallen short of how good God is. But because of His goodness, He has chosen to wipe the record clean for all of us, for everyone. And all it takes to be brought back into perfect relationship with Him is to believe the goodness He has shown us through the sacrifice Jesus made on our behalf.

That’s it, just simply believe. Sin has never been an issue. Never. And it never will be, either, because Jesus made sure of that. That’s how good He is.

Is something standing between you and God? Is someone you love so lost that they’re beyond hope? Is this world so full of sin that God’s judgment is about to be poured out? We’ve answered all these questions today, and the answer is a resounding no. We just have to actually believe that this is true, and in so believing, start living in the reality of the goodness of God.