The Significance of Grace

"It's not what you've done, but what's been done for you."


                                                              Jars of Clay

Perisseia: New Series

All women are invited to attend a new discussion series on Godly relationship at Windsor Chapel. Perisseia (a feminine derivative of the Greek word for abundance), our women's growth group, meets Thursday evenings, 7:00-8:30, at Windsor Chapel in the Chapel House. No preparation or commitment is required. For more information, please contact Cindy Bills--clbills@verizon.net.

New Year's Resolutions

‘Tis the season...to make New Year’s resolutions.  There are many styles of New Year’s resolutions.  Some make a list that is abandoned and forgotten by Spring.  Others focus on one big resolution that too often devolves into discouragement and failure.  Still others don’t bother to make any resolutions for a new year, either on principle or, more often, because of a history of frustration.  A few make resolutions and apply enough determination and discipline to succeed, changing their lives, presumably for the better. While I would be loathe to discourage anyone from taking steps to witness to neighbors, reconcile broken relationships, or make healthy improvements in diet and exercise, I believe that the typical New Year’s resolution is fundamentally misguided: it usually defines success in terms of performance, and it emphasizes “doing” rather than “being.”  Just as bad is its individualistic rather than relational approach.

Let’s consider Jesus’s emphasis on heart issues.  In Mark 7:21, Jesus explains that our thoughts, words, and deeds are manifestations of what is in our hearts.   It is our hearts that define and reflect who we are, and who we are becoming.  In Paul’s famous teaching on love in I Corinthians 13, the apostle makes it clear that doing wonderful and powerful works for God are meaningless if they are done without an appropriate heart attitude.  Simply put, there is no shortcut to Godly living.  C.S. Lewis puts this truth very eloquently: “We might think that God wanted simply obedience to a set of rules: whereas He really wants people of a particular sort.”  (Mere Christianity).  The Christian life is not so much about doing ministry as it is about becoming like our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ.  Then, as we become more and more like Him, we will be able to minister according to His will rather than our own.

So how do we go about becoming like Christ?  I believe it begins with a resolution of sorts: we resolve to place ourselves before God and to invite the Holy Spirit in the deepest recesses of our hearts.  We define our identity and value wholly and completely as bond-servants of Christ.  We seek to know our Master and follow Him. 

A desire to become like Christ inevitably directs us back into the realm of doing.  In order to become like Christ, to experience the power of the Holy Spirit within us, and to know and follow our Master, we are going to need to engage in spiritual exercise: prayer, Bible study, Christian fellowship, and using our gifts to promote the kingdom of our Lord.  It is our attitude, though, that is crucial: are we “doing” prayer, Bible study, and ministry so that we can complete a performance checklist, or are we praying, studying God’s Word, participating in Christian fellowship and using our gifts in order to better see who God is so that we can follow Him more closely? 

While each of us is responsible for his/her own attitude and personal spiritual growth, Christ has called us to exercise that responsibility in the context of His body, the Church.  It is primarily in the context of relationship and in the midst of a corporate commitment to spiritual growth that the Holy Spirit can maximize His work in and through each of us.  A body comprised of individuals committed to becoming like Christ and becoming who God created them to be has unlimited spiritual potential.  As we encourage one another to become who God has created us to be, rather than to perform according to Christian expectations, we will, individually and corporately, be free from the burden and distraction of performance and be free to follow our Lord with our whole hearts.

Finally, I would like to share a favorite Christian chorus of mine from years back.  It is my prayer and  desire for myself, for my brothers and sisters in Christ, and for communities of believers.

            Give me one pure and holy passion.

            Give me one magnificent obsession.

            Jesus, give me one glorious ambition for my life,

                        To know and follow hard after You.

            To know and follow hard after You;

            To grow as your disciple in the truth.

            This world is empty, pale, and poor,

                        Compared to knowing you, my Lord;

            Lead me on, and I will run after you.

Thanksgiving

A grateful heart does wonders to improve our sight, making it much easier to see God's hand in our lives.

Onesimus: Lessons From a Sinful Slave

Although I have been a Christian for many, many years, it was only relatively recently that I encountered a character that I had never met and from whom I had a lot to learn.  His story is closely tied to the books of Philemon and Colossians, and perhaps Ephesians as well.  The books of Philemon, Colossians, and Ephesians were written some 2,000 years ago.  No one can be sure of all the details as to its writing, but scholars have pieced together an account that is a very powerful picture of redemption.  Even if all the details aren’t correct, the redemption remains.  I would like to share his story with you.

Once upon a time, during the Roman Empire, there lived a slave named Onesimus.  Onesimus lived in Colossae with his master, Philemon.  In those days, the life of a slave was not a particularly attractive one.  A slave had no identity, no rights, and was considered to be merely a possession.  Any attempt to escape this lot in life was rewarded with certain death.  It does not appear that Onesimus was a very good slave.  He was certainly not honest, and probably not very wise.  Onesimus stole from his master, then ran away, a continent away, to Rome, hoping to lose himself in that crowded and busy metropolis. 

In Rome, Onesimus encountered the Apostle Paul.  And what do you know?  Paul knew Onesimus’s master, Philemon!  I suspect that Onesiums was not particularly happy with this “small world” experience.  By all expectation, Paul should have sent Onesimus back to Philemon immediately to be punished, i.e. executed.  But Paul had a master to serve as well.  As an apostle of Jesus Christ, Paul shared the Gospel with Onesimus, who received it.  In turn, Onesimus became a real blessing to Paul, to the extent that Paul thought of Onesimus as a spiritual son, and wanted to keep Onesimus with him for service.

Since Onesimus was Philemon’s slave, Paul needed to ask Philemon’s permission to keep Onesimus.  This is the subject of Paul’s letter to Philemon.  And since mail delivery was not what it is today, Paul needed to send his letter with a messenger (named Tychicus).  Meanwhile, Paul had received word about life in Colossae from Epaphras, who was with him in Rome at the time.  Given Paul’s affection for the Colossian church and his concern in regard to the philosophies that were threatening the Gospel there, Paul took this opportunity to write to the Colossian church as well.  At the very end of the letter to the Colossians, Paul refers to another letter that was circulating in Asia at the same time.  Many scholars believe that that letter was what we know today as Ephesians.  It is likely, then, that Paul took advantage of the opportunity to communicate with the believers in Asia and also sent with Tychicus a general letter to the Asian churches, which eventually became associated with Ephesus.

So—God used one insignificant slave, a dishonest, insignificant slave at that, to work an incredible web of redemption.  He used Onesimus’s encounter with Paul to redeem Onesimus.  Onesimus in turn blessed Paul and became a participant in Paul’s apostolic work to extend God’s redemptive work to the Gentile world.  These events triggered Paul to write not one but possibly three letters, all of which proclaimed God’s truth and which would be used by God to continue His work, not just for that generation, but for every generation of believers since.  God used the events surrounding one slave to “buy back” countless souls.

We have not only been blessed by these events—we now have the books of Philemon, Colossians, and Ephsesians—but we are invited by Christ to participate in His ongoing work of redemption, of “buying back” those enslaved by sin.  It is good to be reminded of this, especially when we feel as insignificant (and possibly as guilty) as Onesimus, or when we encounter people who might appear to be as insignificant as Onesimus.

The point here is that God is serious about His work of redemption, and He will take any and every opportunity to prosper His kingdom.  We do not need to be anyone special or do anything spectacular to be a part of what He is doing.  We simply need to come to Christ and depend upon Him to enable us to fulfill His purposes for us.

Success in the Christian Life

 I have been thinking about the importance of body life in the pursuit of personal holiness.  As counter-intuitive and uncomfortable as it may be, our personal growth in Christ depends on our spending time with and exposing our lives to other believers.  It is in the context of relationship that our sins can be exposed and we can share unconditional love.  Unconditional love is relatively easy to give and receive when we don’t know one another.  It becomes significantly more difficult—and more powerful—when it is offered and received in the knowledge of our unworthiness.  It seems to me that one of the biggest obstacles to experiencing the power of this unconditional love is the fear of failure.

We live in a time of unprecedented inspection, measurement, and evaluation.  Unborn babies are monitored and measured by ultrasound and sometimes amniocentesis.  Newborn babies are given an APGAR score at the moment of birth.  Pediatricians track growth and development.  Standardized tests in school measure cognitive growth.  College admissions exams determine whether we qualify for the college of our choice.  Once our education is complete, there are still more evaluations and exams in order to become certified or licensed in our particular field of expertise. 

While continual evaluation has real benefits, it also establishes a climate of success and failure by which we measure ourselves and one another.  Success is good; failure is bad.  This is easily translated to “I am good when I succeed; I am bad when I fail.”  Success and failure become the standards by which we determine our worth and the worth of others.  As long as we live by these standards, it is very difficult for us to expose our weaknesses and admit to someone that we have failed.  The drive to avoid failure leads us down a path on which we either hide or play the “Compare and Compete” game.  The game is pretty simple: We define success in terms of comparing ourselves with others (on our own terms, of course), and as long as we compare favorably to at least a few people, we win.  The competition associated with playing the Compare and Compete game, however, makes it very uncomfortable for us to reveal weakness or to fail in any way.  We therefore become quite adept at protecting ourselves by minimizing the spiritual and relational risks we take.

It doesn’t take too much study of the Gospels to see that Jesus didn’t play the Compare and Compete game.  His worth was based on His identity as the Father’s Son and on their relationship.  It is also clear that Jesus was operating from a perspective that makes the concepts of success and failure irrelevant.  It is easy for us to think that as God, Jesus didn’t need to worry about failing—He couldn’t!  I believe, though, that Jesus didn’t worry about failing for a more profound reason: success and failure are insignificant if not downright irrelevant concepts for God.  Certainly there were and are many people who look at Jesus as a failure, but their opinion is tied to their human perspective rather than God’s.

We can see God’s view of failure quite clearly in Jesus’s interaction with the Apostle Peter in Matthew 16.  In verses 13-19, Jesus is asking the disciples about His identity.  In the course of the discussion, Peter declares Jesus as the Christ, God’s Son.  Jesus affirms Peter and declares that He will build His church upon Peter, the rock.  Jesus embellishes this promise by promising Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven, with commensurate authority.  In the very next section, verses 21-23, Jesus again initiates conversation, this time about His upcoming death.  Peter rebukes Him, and Jesus, in turn, rebukes Peter and calls him Satan.  If ever there was an example of failure, this is it!  Remarkably, though, there is no indication that Jesus valued Peter any less as a result of his “failure.”  He didn’t express regret at planning to build His church upon Peter, and he didn’t retract His promise to give Peter the keys of the kingdom.

The second incident—Peter’s “failure”—is every bit as important as Peter’s declaration of faith.  Peter needs to have his human perspective corrected, but his value, his worth to God, is not about his performance; it is about his faith.  As he allows Jesus to mold and teach him, he becomes equipped to fulfill God’s glorious purposes for him.  Peter does not need to earn his place nor prove his worth; neither does he need fear failure.

I would suggest that we could benefit from a paradigm shift.  Rather than thinking in terms of success and failure, we could focus on inviting God to do His work in us, through us, and among us.  Our value would not be tied to our performance, and we would be free to take risks.  Failure would no longer be a threat, and we would be able to deeply engage in one another’s lives without the stress and pressure of the Compare and Compete game.

Personal Growth is a Group Activity

The beautiful weather that we enjoy in Fall is a irresistible invitation to be out in our Lord’s glorious creation.  One of my favorite cool-weather activities is biking.  The colorful trees, the dashing squirrels, the crisp air, and the crunch of leaves under my tires all make the experience exhilarating.  That said, biking does require effort on my part, and I admit that I often pedal harder than necessary at times so that I can “coast” a bit later. 

If the truth be known, I would like to coast in my spiritual life as well.  But try as I might, I cannot find any Biblical justification for it.  On the contrary, Scripture continually reminds me that the spiritual life is not one of sitting still.  The author of Hebrews spends a significant portion of his epistle exhorting his readers to grow, to “press on to maturity.”  My observations lead me to believe, though, that we don’t really know how to do that well.  Yes, we enjoy worship and listen attentively to sermons.  We can read our Bible regularly and keep a commitment to daily prayer.  All of these activities are good and necessary, but I believe that Scripture teaches that they are not sufficient.

Please consider Ephesians Chapter Four.  The Apostle Paul is imploring his readers to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which they have been called.  He becomes more specific in his exhortation, and it becomes very clear that pursuing personal holiness is a corporate activity.  Stretching toward spiritual maturity is an exercise of the body, each using his/her God-given gifts to build one another up so that no one will be swayed by false teaching.

Paul’s message to the Ephesians—and to us—can be rather disconcerting.  Our American culture prides itself on rugged individualism.  We have inherited from Eve the desire to “do it ourselves.”  Pursuing spiritual growth in the context of the body can be pretty threatening.  After all, we may make mistakes.  Worse, our sin and selfishness may leak out.  I am afraid that this is at the heart of Paul’s point.  It is only as we get close to one another that our more subtle sins will be exposed.  Only then will we be brought to the point of confession and repentance.  Only then will we have the opportunity to experience the incredible power of forgiveness and of being known and loved.  And only then will we be able to demonstrate the love that our neighbors in the world are longing to find.