My Christology

The other day I was reading an article online about an archeologist who discovered some ancient manuscripts from just before Christ’s day describing someone who talked about a man who would die and rise from the dead three days later. It interested me that his interpretation of that manuscript was that there was a pre-existing resurrection motif already in existence that somehow Jesus and his followers co-opted for their religious purposes. I scratched my head as I read that article wondering how many so called christians would receive that little bit of new information.

It made me stop for a second and do a gut check on my personal Christology (understanding of Jesus Christ). So here in this public forum I am laying out briefly what I believe about Jesus Christ, just so there are no doubts on which side of the fence I come down on.

Firstly and foremost it is important that I state that I follow the historically tested “scriptural principle.” The unfailing scriptures are the superlative and final test for my beliefs and understanding of who Jesus Christ is and what he has done, is doing and will do.

So the basis of my beliefs are contained within the pages of the Word of God as I seek to be as faithful to the written word as I possibly can under the leadership of the Holy Spirit. I believe that Jesus is the very incarnation of God himself in human form, born of a virgin, come to live a perfect life and die a terrible death as a ransom for the sins of mankind.

Key to my understanding of Jesus is that I believe that we can only understand the revelation of the person of Jesus through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. When Jesus confronted Peter about who he thought he was Jesus said this… “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.”

It simply seems to me that we can only understand as much of Christ as the Father thru the working of the Holy Spirit reveals to us. There are so many whose hearts are closed to the things of Christ today, all the while he stands prepared to reveal himself to those whose hearts are made right by Jesus himself. I am not so sure I can say I fully understand it, but I am convinced that Jesus acts, we respond. I would never ever on my own turn to Christ apart from his drawing me. (John 6:44) I believe I have a free will. I just also believe that on my own I would never choose to turn to Him unless he did something first. I have no righteousness of my own that would commend me to the father.

Well that is a start. I have a friend who refers to many people’s understanding of Jesus as a “minimal Jesus.” My prayer for us is that we will have anything but a minimal Jesus. May Christ have pre-eminence in our lives.

Christ Enough?

I was reading thru my post of yesterday and realized that I am early in my writing career and I am already using ambiguous Christianized jargon that nobody (*and often including the writer) really understands. How often have you read something and right after reading it wondered “what in the world was he talking about?” I may have taken you to those heights (or lows) yesterday with several of the things I wrote about.

What I am not sure I was clear on is what I will coin a new term for,…. “enough-ment.” Is your life a life of enough-ment or not enough-ment. I will define as enough-ment as the state of having enough. I will define not-enough-ment as the state of never having enough. That begs for a clearer definition of what exactly is. According to the dictionary, enough is defined as have “all that is adequate or all that is required.”

So having now defined exactly what I am talking about, let me ask the question of us (you AND me); are you living in a state of all that is required or all that is adequate. or are you never seeming to be in that state?You always seem to require more, everything seems to be inadequate.

Don’t let this moment pass without seriously dealing with this question. We let ourselves get off too lightly sometimes when it comes to important spiritually ethical questions. We pander ourselves convincing ourselves that this just a cultural issue and not a deeply seeded spiritual problem enticing us away from a total commitment to serving our king.

Jesus was not being simply metaphorical when he said “where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Where is your treasure? While we are looking at the definitions of words, what is a treasure? It is “something that has incredible precious value.” What are you valuing in your life? How do you demonstrate value? That is a good question…How do you demonstrate value? Do you treat something valuable with contempt, or for that matter do you treat it like any other thing? Or do you cherish your treasures, keeping them safe and well cared for?

This could devolve quickly so I will wrap it up with just a few more thoughts. Simply put, we need to re-define what is enough for us. If we do not, then nothing will ever be enough and our lives will continue o spiral out of control with the acquisition of things and we will never even realize it has happened.

What did Paul mean when he wrote to the Church at Colossae, when he said, Col. 3:1 ”Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Col. 3:2 Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. Col. 3:3 For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Col. 3:4 When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. Col. 3:5  Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.”

Paul seems pretty clear here, if your head is not in the right place you are walking a pretty narrow road to idolatry thru the gateway of greed; which by the way could be a synonym for “not enough-ment.” I implore you dear brothers and sisters, take seriously your propensity for “not enough-ment” it is a slippery slope to idolatry, which is as we all know an affront to our living King.

So what does it mean that Christ is enough? It simply means that you are satisfied in Him. You don’t need more stuff to fill the emptiness in your heart. You don’t something else to satisfy you. For me it could be something as simple as food. We use lots of things to satisfy our souls, our boredom, our loneliness, our discontentment, other than Christ.

From a practical perspective how do I deal with this”not enough-ment?” It is simply by occupying your life with something other than your flesh. Occupy your life with prayer, Bible study, compassion ministry rather than with TV, movies and eating out. Not that those are bad, but for many it is a staple to spending the precious minutes of their life. Hang out with friends, bring lost people into your fellowship, love them, serve them, do something redemptive, something reconciliatory for a searching generation.

Meditate, contemplate, serve. We would all do better by spending our lives on things which will out last it. We would all do better by setting our minds on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. That is the only way I know to defeat consumerism, materialism, discontentment, boredom, self-centeredness and not enough-ment in my life.

The Allure of More

I have been packing this week getting ready for a move. As I pack I am noticing something. I really have a lot of things, some of it I don’t even remember buying. It seems that I acquire stuff naturally and even without thought. Most of it I could do without. A trinket here, a small doodad there. It takes up space, it takes up my time…two very precious commodities in the life of a disciple of Christ.

I am feeling determined by God’s strength to straighten out this area of my life. It seems almost like gravity, this acquisition disposition. My consumeristic tendencies are alarming. Here’s why… After a while the possession of things can actually create discontentment. We all know that stuff by itself is basically not wrong, but the fact is that they don’t matter either. The question in my heart is, why spend so much time, money and energy on things that do not matter. Things require me to maintain them, clean them, dust them, oil them, fix them, pack them when I move, even just getting rid of them when they wear out takes a major effort these days.

The moments of our lives are one of the most precious treasures we possess. When I spend them on things rather than people I feel somehow that I am cheapening their worth. Somehow this inner child that wants more and more has got to be brought under the control of the Holy Spirit in this matter. It seems like such an insignificant thing. Even as I am writing this my inclination is that I am over stating the case.

But deep down inside I know that at the heart of my greatest failures lies my propensity to satisfy myself with worldly possessions rather than with the person of Christ. That sounds like a pretty heavy confession, but I mean it. The desire for things is constantly pulling at us, alluring us to acquire more and more. All the while our flesh is telling us it is ok. It is not a problem to store up possessions which will only rot and decay someday. It is a problem. It is a problem that is so subtle that it hovers around us 24/7 seeking to draw us in without even the slightest hint of struggle.

Paul told Timothy in 1Tim. 6:6 But godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment. Paul was telling Timothy to find his gain in life in seeking to be like Christ, in throwing off his want of things and being content.

I am going to learn to live with less. I somehow believe that the spirit of this age knows that if he can get us to be more concerned about what we have than who we are becoming he knows that we will simply fall in line with the host of others who have fallen into that trap. I adjure you my friends beware of the allure of more.

Forgiven?

I have been thinking…. sometimes I live like I am not REALLY….forgiven. I know cognitively that I am forgiven. But sometimes I live as if I am not forgiven. Sometimes I live as if deep down inside I really believe that God is keeping tally on my sin and that somewhere there is a book with all my sin in it and one day I am going to be called into reckoning. Do you ever feel that way? Let me give you an example so that you won’t get off the hook so easy. You see, saying you believe something and really believing it are really two different things.

Let me give you a couple of examples from my own life that might help jog your thinking as well. Sometimes when I am on a long trip, and let’s say I speed in my car, (and sometimes I do, even though I try not to). I ask God for forgiveness. He forgives me. A few hours pass and I find myself speeding again. So I pray, and I say, God I am sorry for speeding again. I am wondering if the insertion of the word “again” is confusing to God. Here’s why…. in Psalms 103:12 the Psalmist writes “ As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us.” If I understand that the way it reads, when God forgives my sin he casts it about as far away as it can go.

Here is my dilemma. I remember my sin, but I am thinking that God’s forgiveness is quite unique. He chooses not to remember it. He literally takes it and tosses it eternally away. He is not tallying up my sin. If he did, we would all be in trouble…..big trouble. So why then do we continue to approach God as if he were keeping track of our sin?

There appears to me to be only one reason. “Unbelief”, bold faced unbelief. As a matter of fact, it almost seems to me that in order to believe that God may somehow hold onto my sin I would have to temporarily suspend my belief in the Gospel to do so. The Gospel is really a lot about forgiveness ya know?

It all comes down to this. Do we believe that God’s forgiveness is perfect forgiveness or not? Do we believe that Christ’s payment was sufficient or not? Do we believe that I approach the throne of Grace because of who he is, not because of who I am…. or not?

Take stock of how you approach the throne of Grace. We approach the throne perfectly clean because of the blood of Christ. That ought to be the major compulsion to walk in purity alone. Because of who He is and what he did for us on Calvary.

Are you thinking lightly of God’s forgiveness? Let’s commit together to stop it right now. Let’s walk in joyful thankfulness allowing that lead us to walk in righteousness in Christ.

Independence: Could it be dangerous?

I was just taking a few minutes today to ponder what Independence Day means to me. It certainly means many things, but mostly I guess it represents the liberty we enjoy as Americans and the terrible price that liberty costs. For some reason, most of us go through life seldom if ever thinking about the costs of the freedoms that we enjoy each day. They are freedoms that MOST of the world simply does not know.

But what struck me most was I started to think about the whole concept of independence. I was struck by the thought that if we are not careful we might be tempted to transfer the whole concept of independence into our spiritual lives.

You see, in our physical world independence is a sign of growth, maturity. It is a sign that one is able to cast off on their own, fend for themselves, handle life on their own apart from their parents. Not so in the spiritual realm. Independence is a sign of immaturity, not maturity. Independence is a sign of rebellion against our Father not a sign of intimacy or trust.

For followers of Jesus, the more we grow in our relationship with him, the more dependent we become, not the more independent. So enjoy your day with family and friends, have a grilled hotdog on me. But be careful from taking the precepts of man and ascribing them to the precepts of God. It can be a dangerous thing. The wisdom of man is folly next to the foolishness of God. We’re not even close!

Simplicity!

Have you ever taken the time to sit and ponder the benefits of simplicity? The Sweet thing and I are in the middle of getting ready to move again. We decided to get an early jump on it and go thru and look at all the things that have started to clutter our lives. It never ceases to amaze me how easy it is to just accumulate stuff…. Clothes, shoes, furniture, tools, electrical wires, CDs fo just about every kind. They clutter our lives. My question is why might that not be a good thing?

I think it might not be good because simplicity is an obstacle to greed. It seems to be a law of nature that the more one has, the more one wants. We buy stuff, then we buy stuff to put the previous stuff on or in. Then we have to clean ad maintain not only the stuff, but the stuff that holds the stuff. Then we have to buy insurance for the stuff just in case a fire or a, natural disaster or a burglar decides to take that stuff from us.

For me I have noticed that the more stuff I have the less time I seem to have for the really important things I need to be doing for our King. The more I have the less flexible I am. In the end, I think I have discovered that for me when I am not vigilant over my heart, rather than possessing things very quickly things possess me. The dictate to me who much I need to work, how much I need to play, where I can live, which relationships I can foster, what I can give away, what I can keep.

I was struck this morning when I did a little word study on the word “simple” or simplicity. It finds its origins in the greek word for “single-mindedness.” That may be above all a good reason to keep it simple, so that we might be single-minded for our King. I am not presupposing that everyone wrestles with these matters like I do, but for me it is a serious matter.

I think that I am going to adopt the same practice as watchman Nee. Watchman Nee once said that the way he conquered materialism in his life was by making a lifetime commitment to only buy something for himself when he had enough money to buy two. When he would have enough money to buy two, he would buy one for himself and one for someone else. For some reason that really resonates with my heart.

Let’s pursue simple, single-minded lives, devoted to following Christ and making disciples for Him.