Is this change right?

All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward. (Ellen Glasgow)

No, a true Jew is one whose heart is right with God. And true circumcision is not merely obeying the letter of the law; rather, it is a change of heart produced by the Spirit. And a person with a changed heart seeks praise from God, not from people. (Romans 2:29)

The Apostle Paul is dealing with a whole lot of 'we are better than they are' mentality - it is 'better to be a Jew' than a Gentile kind of thing. Isn't it silly to compare ourselves to others by what we see as 'superior' in ourselves compared to what we see as 'inferior' in others? The most profound thing he pointed out to those who opposed Christ as the Messiah was that a changed heart is produced by the Spirit of God, not some 'act' or 'practice' man engages in. A changed heart is God-produced, God-ordained, and God-blessed.

The 'we are better' mentality comes with prideful attitude of seeking approval from others merely because of what you 'do', not what you really 'are'. We are ALL sinners - but they failed to appreciate that fact. We ALL need a Redeemer - but they failed to recognize that every outward action they performed really didn't change the fact that their hearts were still impure and given to sin. A person with a changed heart seeks praise from God - they don't need to call attention to themselves through religious actions. Their heart shines!

All mankind can do on its own merit is produce more flawed individuals, complete with complex hang-ups and deep hurts. What God can do when a man or woman says yes to him may not seem significant, but that is because the heart is often hidden from view. It becomes evident in the actions produced when his Spirit indwells our spirit, and the true communion begins. A changed heart is what we desire - not just changed actions. Eventually the actions will match the heart, but until they do, trust him to do what he began. All change is not growth, so make sure the change you seek is directed by his Spirit. Just sayin!

Is this the right direction?

Are you one of those folks who need to "have it all together" in order to "do life"? I bet you have been pretty disappointed with just how much you find yourself struggling to even get it together in the first place - let alone keeping it together! We constantly limit our potential whenever we think "perfection" is the goal and WE are the ones to actually accomplish this goal! My friends, perfection IS the goal (Christ), but WE are not the ones going to accomplish the goal (salvation and all the "clean up" that comes with it). All we can do is head toward it - Christ is actually the one beckoning us on and he will be the one who gets us over the finish line!

I’m not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don’t get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I’ve got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back. (Philippians 3:12-14)

All Christ expects of us is to get "underway". In nautical terms, when the ship is said to be "under way", it has begun to move. It may not be traveling under its own power or at lightning speed! In fact, in the old days, before we saw the advent of diesel turbines, ships were powered by the elements of nature such as the wind and the flow of the current. It was an external power of wind and current they had to tap into in order to move. It really isn't much different for us - we need an external power to affect us in order to get us "underway". Once that "external" power becomes something we allow to move us, we find we begin to embrace this power as the means by which we make progress in our lives.

It is not the power of suggestion, or even the independence of will-power, getting us across the finish line. It is the external power of Christ brought inward within our lives until it affects us, moving us little by little in the right direction. If you have ever seen a baby learning to walk, it is important for them to have things they can reach out to as they take the next step. If there isn't anything near enough, they won't venture away from what they have in their reach. They toddle back and forth on the object they hold onto, but as soon as they reach the end, they just don't go further. They need the stability of whatever gives them the sense of "standing strong". We need the stability of whatever we think will give us strength and help us to stand strong. As soon as we reach the end of whatever it is we are holding onto, we just freeze. What we often fail to see is the hand reaching out to us to beckon us forward - to take the step of faith we need to take in order to reach the next phase in our lives. As long as we hold tightly to what gives us "anchor" we won't ever be able to "get underway". This is why it is important to look at what might be anchoring us in the present position we occupy. It could be fear - or even pride. Either way, neither of these will help us reach our destination.

These religious pursuits some of us have only anchored us into a life of futility - walking back and forth across the same path, unwilling to let go of what gives us anchor. Religion is just like that - it gives us anchor, but to the wrong stuff! It anchors us to what we can do ourselves and doesn't stretch us beyond our capacity, nor does it build our faith. It isn't until we are willing to let go of our hold on religion and enter into the freedom of relationship that we recognize we are finally "underway". Nothing puts more "wind in our sail" than relationship - nothing anchors us right where we are more than religion. All religion can do is keep us focused on the rules and develop frustration inwardly each time we don't adhere to those rules the way we should. What relationship can do is to begin to lighten the load - so we can finally get underway! Religion is us working our way TO God; relationship is God working his way TO us. If we are to make any positive movement, we have to let go of the things we have held so tightly to and stretch for the hand just in front of us. It isn't the lack of movement on our part which gets us bogged down - it is the lack of movement in the right direction! Just sayin!

Move that...there

Beauty: the adjustment of all parts proportionately so that one cannot add or subtract or change without impairing the harmony of the whole. 

(Leon Battista Alberti)

Is there anyone else out there that is constantly adjusting the parts? My sister has this tendency to put down a cup, plate, or even a napkin - then she returns to it repeatedly moving it a little here or there, never really just allowing it just to be 'okay'. Now, I just set the table and enjoy the meal - the position of the 'stuff' doesn't really matter all that much to me. I wonder how many of us go through life trying to 'adjust the parts', not really sure what is 'proportionately correct' in them? We are fine as long as none of the pieces seem to get lost, or someone upsets our apple cart. The moment we find the pieces falling apart, we panic! We adjust and readjust, sometimes in an attempt to get them all back in the 'regular order' we have established, and at others we are simply trying to hold onto whatever we can! Truth be told, some of the parts just need to go!

Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. (I Peter 3:3-4)

The moment we try to replace the pieces, we might find our perfect plans just falling part - making it impossible to hold all of them in 'perfect alignment' to what we believe is the 'right order of things' in our lives. In terms of holding on let me offer this advice - God may be asking us to let go of those pieces because they are doing nothing to add beauty to our lives! They are not ever going to be 'proportionately adjusted' so as to not impair the 'perfect harmony' only he can provide in our lives. They need to go! While we are working so hard to 'adjust the parts', he is working exponentially harder to get us to just let go!

The inner beauty of our lives is where God works, making 'adjustments' that only serve to adorn us perfectly with evidence of his grace and love. We find ourselves forgetting what he is after 'within' us because we are so focused on keeping all the pieces aligned so nobody sees where the adjustments actually need to be made inside us! His desire is to affect our spirit - the desires created within us are to be directly impacted by his Spirit within us. Anytime we find God is 'upsetting the apple cart' of our lives, he isn't doing it out of meanness - he is arranging the parts, removing some that don't belong, and replacing them with the ones that will only adorn us with even greater beauty. Just sayin!

The same or different?

Do you ever feel like the only thing that remains constant in your life is change? You are probably not alone in this impression because change is all around us. We are expected to change sometimes at the drop of a hat, while other change is gradual and kind of creeps up on us without us really noticing the change has been occurring. Change comes in all shapes and sizes - ranging from crazy, radical change to the subtle changes of age. Change is merely the process of making something that was one way to no longer have the same form. I have to ask a question here - if that 'something' was left alone, would it truly not change? Even things 'left alone' in life will change over time. There will always be influencing factors that lead to change of some sort - maybe not immediately perceptible to the naked eye, but there has been change nonetheless. What would the content of our life be like if Jesus was not an active part of the change we experience in our life? What would the course of our life include if we were 'left alone' to be influenced only by our own desires and actions?

I'm not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don't get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I've got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I'm off and running, and I'm not turning back. (Philippians 3:12-14)

The form of our lives - that which manifests what we are, what we hold to be true, and what we count as important in life - it would definitely change. If there is anything that brings quality to our life, creates a good attitude in our minds, or involves us in activities that are honoring and upright, we receive that from God through Jesus. The "form" of our lives is directly impacted by the one we embrace - just as a "mold" gives a certain structure to the content of that which is placed within it - so Jesus gives us content that differs from what was previously occupying that 'mold' of our lives. If we embrace Christ, the change we experience to our "form" is that of being made into his image - we become the manifestation of who he is.

The nature of our lives - the combination of all the qualities that belong to a person that are revealed in the tendencies we exhibit in the conduct of our lives - it would change because Christ adds new qualities that are not really part of our sinful nature (like the quality of grace). We often refer to our "nature" as our temperament - our disposition to certain things in life - the way we act or respond. Many times, we might find that our temperament is defined by our nurturing - if nurtured well, we tend to conduct our lives with a reasonable sense of good judgment; if nurtured poorly, we might not develop the same sense of responsible conduct. Jesus can take the sum total of our nurture (how we have been raised and what has influenced us most in life) and our nature (our internal make-up including our talents, skills, and tendencies) and transform them into that which consistently produces conduct that is fitting of a child of God. Without that transformation, we often struggle with the temperament we have formed over the years.

The content of our lives - content gives us significance - it fills us up and gives us something we can share with others that they will actually desire. When we feel we have little to offer in a situation, we feel "insignificant" - we see ourselves as lacking what will lend to the situation at hand, therefore we see our contribution as "worthless". The content of our lives is made up of what we have experienced, how we have interpreted those experiences, what we have learned, and what we have "unlearned". That said, if we have allowed "content" that is not quite "right" or truthful into our lives, we have probably established patterns of behavior that keep us feeling like we are insignificant. One thing I want us to understand - in Christ, we are made new - there is a 'significance' poured into our lives, but there is also an awareness of the extreme significance of our lives because it is a life Christ values. The old content is replaced with new - we take on Christ, and we put off the old patterns of behavior, the old patterns of thought, the old failures of our past. 

 
The future course of our lives is not always clear to us when we are constantly in a state of flux or change - when we asked Christ into our lives, we opened the door for change. We actually invited change to occur - not once, but consistently - it is a process of movement, not immobility. We asked for the influences of our past to be diminished, and the influences of our present to be affected deeply by the hope that we find in Christ alone. We invited the Holy Spirit into permanent residence within us - to direct the future course of our lives. Paul reminds us that he is fully aware of his imperfections  - he doesn't have it all together. He recognizes that his past had many things that needed to be changed - but he could not change the past, he could only allow his future to be changed. We get all wigged out by our past - because it influences our present form, nature, and even the content of life. BUT...the past is DONE. We now must look toward the future. That is where change really takes hold. Transformation is a work of the present and the future - not the past. Press toward that which will make you whole - don't hold onto that which will diminish you any further. Just sayin!

Marching in place a little?

Father, may they clearly know Your will and achieve the height and depth of spiritual wisdom and understanding. May their lives be a credit to You, Lord; and what’s more, may they continue to delight You by doing every good work and growing in the true knowledge that comes from being close to You. Strengthen them with Your infinite power, according to Your glorious might, so that they will have everything they need to hold on and endure hardship patiently and joyfully. (Colossians 1:9-11 VOICE)

Although the passage we are looking at today was written as a prayer for the church at Colossae, it has some meaning for us as fellow believers in the grace and forgiveness of God. Most of us will quickly admit one of the most frequent struggles we face is this assurance we are acting in the will of God - knowing what to do, when to do it, and how it should be accomplished.  As we get more experienced with doing things in life, we often discover there is more than one way to actually do something - what you may accomplish one way, I may accomplish with similar end results, but in an entirely different manner.  What works for me may not work for you - because our abilities or circumstances are different.  For me to say there is one way to pray would be quite untrue - just as it would be to say there is but one way to get to a destination located in the center of town.  Paul's prayer for the believers (and that includes us) is that they may clearly know the Father's will - allowing them to grow like weeds in the depth and breadth of God's grace and love!  All the rest will follow when we are assured our steps are "ordered" - right, steady, and well-placed.

As much as it matters that we take the "right" steps in life, we also want those steps to "count". We want them to matter - to be of value to both us and those around us, including those who will come after us.  We don't want to just "bide time" - to merely "exist" leaves us with no real sense of purpose or accomplishment.  If we are just "marching in place" for a while, we might understand it as necessary even when we don't understand the purpose of the lack of progress.  If we are left marching in place for a long, long time, the lack of enthusiasm to continue on our journey is soon lost!  Why?  We aren't getting anywhere! We are people who want to see things accomplished, aren't we?  If not in the outward sense, we need to feel it inwardly.  I am on a journey to get my body back into shape and this includes losing a little weight.  To do so, I have had to "march in place" a little some weeks as my body adjusts to the decreased intake of some foods, increased intake of others, and the increasing measure of exercise I must add in order to see the pounds shed.  Outwardly I may not see much change from week to week, but inwardly I am feeling it!

The same is often true about our spiritual journey - we may not see much evidence of what God has set about to accomplish in our lives on the outside, but inwardly we know he is at work and the impact of that work is beginning to affect us (even when it isn't always seen on the outside or by others).  The greatest change God makes in our lives is the inward change which brings us closer and closer to him.  It is this transition which many of us have a hard time putting into words - we just know something is about to be different - either in the way we see things, how we react to them, or what we take away from them as we walk through them.  At times, we get discouraged because we don't see the evidence of what this "marching in place" is doing - but the seeming lack of forward progress doesn't mean we aren't still in beat with his heart.  God's heartbeat is much like the cadence being called out by the one who keeps the battalion moving forward in perfect marching rhythm.  That heartbeat may be a little faint when we are distracted by our own intent or purpose - but it gets ever clearer and easier to hear when we settle down, march in place a little, and let that rhythm establish our future movements!

Endurance may just be learned in the times we don't actually see much movement or change. It may be hard for us to imagine marching in place increases our endurance - helps us make it even further in the journey.  In fact, we likely don't even have a clue why we are where we are at times because we don't know what got us there.  We just need to settle into his arms and allow him the chance to reveal his purpose to us.  This is the hardest place for us because we are people of "action" - we want it done, in short order, and we want to move onto the next thing.  When we are called upon to march for any length of time without making much progress, our chances of being distracted by the lack of "progress" are greater. We don't see change happening - so we look around us to see if we can find it somewhere else - as though we "missed it" somewhere along the way.  A soldier marching in place will tell you "looking around" is not permitted because it is easy to get out of sync with the cadence when we do.  The straight-ahead focus marching in place demands actually keeps us in sync - it helps us to remain consistent in our "cadence".  A disturbed or disrupted cadence will mean a break in consistency - a chance for what was being accomplished in us to become disrupted or taken off-course.

I don't know what we each are doing today - some may be marching full-speed ahead, while others of us are kind of "marching in place" a little.  Either way, let us do with consistency, focused ever so intently on the cadence of God's heartbeat, so that in the end we will accomplish all he has purposed for our journey.  Just sayin!

More than just a Sunday wander-about...

God did something the law could never do. You see, human flesh took its toll on God’s law. In and of itself, the law is not weak; but the flesh weakens it. So to condemn the sin that was ruling in the flesh, God sent His own Son, bearing the likeness of sinful flesh, as a sin offering.  Now we are able to live up to the justice demanded by the law. But that ability has not come from living by our fallen human nature; it has come because we walk according to the movement of the Spirit in our lives.  If you live your life animated by the flesh—namely, your fallen, corrupt nature—then your mind is focused on the matters of the flesh. But if you live your life animated by the Spirit—namely, God’s indwelling presence—then your focus is on the work of the Spirit.  (Romans 8:3-5 VOICE)

Ernest Hemingway is quoted as saying, "Never mistake motion for action." His advice is quite correct, for not all movement or motion is action - it is simply aimless wandering!  For movement to be "right" or "worthwhile", it has to be movement toward something we set our eyes upon - an end, a goal.  As a child, some of my fondest memories are of Dad getting Mom and I into the car after church on Sunday morning, then heading out somewhere on a "Sunday drive". We'd end up at an eating establishment somewhere along the way, some quite posh and others just run of the mill, but always memorable!  Why?  It was a movement toward a goal - even though it might have seemed like a little aimless wandering.  The goal?  Family!  Dad was taking time to share with his favorite lady and his little girl.  In the end, memories were made, character was created, and relationship was cemented in ways impossible if we would have just come home and vegged in front of the tube!

As long as we continue to attempt to live this life of a child of God in the ability we can muster, we are marching in place.  We are in motion, but we never really move.  We just cannot break free of the past, nor can we move into the next phase of what God has for us until we begin to move 'toward' him.  I am so excited to tell each of us that we don't move toward God on our own, or under our own power.  We move because the Spirit of God energizes us to move - his power within us does more than just draw us to him - it empowers us to take the very steps which begin to do more than just "mark time" in some "maybe someday" kind of existence.

William Shakespeare said, "We know what we are, but know not what we may be."  In essence, the Spirit of God is given to each of us so that we don't have to wonder about what we "may be" because he is busy within us "making us" be what it is we are called to be!  We can spend obnoxious amounts of time and money trying to figure out what it is we "want to be" at some point in life. I watched a couple of those shows the other day which focused on people seeing plastic surgeons in Beverly Hills in order to "remake" some part of their body into the image they wanted to see.  I have to give these doctors credit, for when it made absolutely no sense to mess with what the individual had, they told them!  Sometimes we are so caught up in what we think we should be that we take any movement toward that end, but is that movement always the right one for us?  Not always!

What we may be...something only God really sees.  No wonder he gives us his Spirit within!  He knows we need that insight more than any other thing in our lives - in order to not move in the wrong direction, or to just "bide time" in the place we would be best to actually leave!  It is the "what we may be" which often eludes us, but because of the grace of God within us, we don't need to live in uncertainty, nor do we need to settle for "second-best" in our lives.  We are called forward - toward a goal - not because God needs us in "motion", but because he has a purpose for the movement!  Perhaps he has as much purpose for the "movement" as my Dad had on those Sunday afternoon drives.  Just sayin!

Finishing well

We begin a lot of things, don't we?  How many of these do we actually finish?  In terms of finishing, we don't do as well as we do with the beginning part!  To finish well, we need to have not only tenacity, but we need to have set out on an endeavor we find worthwhile and rewarding.  If the thing we set out to do is so overbearing and adds burden instead of delight, we get bogged down and often lay it aside because it is "too hard".  It is like when we say we will read the Bible in a year.  We find ourselves reading for the sake of reading - not really taking time to savor the truth contained within.  We plug on through the "boring" chapters, get excited about checking off the finished portions, and then look at how much still lays ahead.  The issue is not so much in the starting, it is in the finishing.  How we finish is as important as that we finish!

My child, listen to me and do as I say, and you will have a long, good life.  I will teach you wisdom’s ways and lead you in straight paths.  When you walk, you won’t be held back; when you run, you won’t stumble.  Take hold of my instructions; don’t let them go.  Guard them, for they are the key to life.  (Proverbs 4:10-15 NLT)

There are couple things I would like to consider this morning as we look at what it is we have committed to in life.  If we are to fulfill our commitments, we need to be aware of how our choices will affect what it is we choose to remember and what it is we will let go of as we journey through life.  We also need to figure out who or what it is we will allow to reign in our life.  If that isn't enough, we need to keep in mind some things will just plain need to be released - relinquished completely because they have no part in the "ending" even though we might have been holding onto them in the beginning or picked them up along the way.

All choices we make result in some form of action.  These actions produce memory - good or bad, pleasing or disagreeable, fruitful or wasteful.  Whatever choices we make impact the memories we will have of the journey.  Most of us focus on the "stuff" in the journey - not the memories we are forming along the way.  These very memories may present us with problems or provision in the future.  Job went through a lot - losing home, family, livestock, land, and the list goes on.  He was covered in some kind of disgusting skin disorder which left him sitting on a pile of poop, scraping the disgusting skin lesions with a shard of pottery.  Now, what memories do you think he may have been able to make in those moments?  He could choose to hold onto the memories of how much misery he went through, the pain of the losses, or the agony of the disease.  Yet, as we view the end of his life, we see he chose not to hold onto any of these memories.  He chose to hold onto the memories of God walking him through each of these!  Now, nothing is more powerful than our memory during times of stress and hardship.  What we choose to hold onto in the recesses of our brain may actually be the determining factor between finishing and finishing well.

If you have ever gone through stuff which was a little challenging, you probably have struggled with the tendency to want to "talk about" the stuff a lot.  In other words, you choose to focus on the issues at hand by "rehearsing" the issues over and over in the ways you choose to speak about them.  There is such power in our words - what we choose to rehearse in our words often becomes the thing we believe in our hearts!  Maybe this is why God instructs us to hide his Word in our hearts and to recall it in times of testing and trial.  When we rehearse the right stuff, we often don't get into the misery of the moment so much.  We elevate our perspective through the words we choose to speak!  All of us have "history" and sometimes we tend to be a little histrionic.  We get all wigged out by the things which have happened to us and what we have had to go through in life.  Sometimes we just need to let go of this stuff if we are to move on.  Some of our history isn't helping us finish - it is holding us back!  To move on, we have to let go!

Actions move us - just like the wind moves the leaves on the tree.  You may not "see" the wind, but you see the evidence of the action of the wind.  The same is true of some of the things which we choose to hold onto in life - we don't always see them, but we see the results in the actions which are produced.  Therefore, learning to maintain the right perspective in the midst of the "stuff" we journey through and taking control of what it is we will choose to remember is important to producing the right actions (the right movement) in our lives.  Just sayin!