Being the Person God Wants Me to Be - Part 1

            Any conscientious believer struggles with this question at some time or other in his/her walk with Jesus: Am I being and doing all that He wants me to? How can we know what that looks like and how to get a proper answer? Some questions we need to consider:
            1. Why is it that we find ourselves caught up in DOING things to be acceptable and pleasing to God but rarely think about the need to BE right with and pleasing to Him? Do we think that our DOING certain things will transform us into acceptable people?
            2. What actually makes me BE all of the things God wants me to BE? Do I even know what these things are, or do I come up with my own ideas of what this looks like? Have I selected certain behaviors that pacify my mind and make me pleased with how I am doing with them without even considering that they may be totally different from what God wants me to BE and to Do?
            3. Have I ever realized that what I DO must come out of a person who IS acceptable to God and not the way I BECOME acceptable to Him?

Here are a few thoughts that may help to answer some of the questions posed:
            1. We often try to DO nice things, holy and religious things, pleasing and kind things in hopes that our score will add up to a ‘holy’ description in the eyes of God, ourselves and others. The truth, however, is that we must BE holy before our actions are really holy. We cannot make ourselves holy by our actions. Actions that are acceptable must grow out of a person who has been made holy, set apart, by God. Holiness as a state, a relationship with God, must be realized and prized, possessed and lived out before it pleases God. Many ‘holy acts’ have been done by selfish people with selfish and tarnished goals and motives. Many such actions are performed insincerely with the chief goal of elevating self in the eyes of God and others rather than stemming from a life cleansed by and devoted to God.
         2. There are many, many passages in the Bible that list for us the traits we should have as believers. Take these for instance: Be kind, be patient, be strong, be perfect, be glad, be clean, be obedient, be zealous, be merciful, be witnesses, be transformed, etc, etc. And there are many that instruct us what NOT to be: Don’t be…afraid, stiff-necked, discouraged, stubborn, judgmental, troubled, proud and conceited, anxious and worried, deceived, etc, etc. It should be readily apparent that we are truly helpless to BE or to refrain from BEING the various traits and behaviors the Bible points out to us! So, why are these instructions given to us if it is impossible to BE or to DO them? And why do we keep trying to manufacture them ourselves, when we know in our hearts that we are not doing well? Some of us quit trying while others spend a lifetime working at it. What is going on? What are we missing? Is God playing a game with us or is there an answer to this? 

Being the Person God Wants Me to Be - Part 2

            Because I am convinced that God does not play games with His children and I believe that the Bible is our guide to how life is to be lived, I know the answer to what God wants me to do and how He wants me to live is in the Bible. And what is recorded there is certainly understandable and doable. So, after much thinking and searching and trying and experiencing, here are some of my thoughts on the questions I have posed.

            To me the answer is not as cloudy as we make it. The problem is with us, the main one being that I like to do things my way so I can take some credit and steal some of God’s glory. That is a startling truth I must accept if I am to make any progress at all in understanding and living the life God wants me to live, BEING the person He wants me to be and DOING the things He wants me to do. So, think with me about some things:

1.     If Jesus said that He only did what the Father told Him to do and without the Father, He could do nothing, why do I think I can do things in my own strength and decide for myself what is best for my life?

2.     Do I realize just how strong my old nature is within me, and just how much it wants to rule my life? Do I realize that it will be as religious as I want it to be if that is the way it can stay alive and rule my life? Will it pretend to BE what God wants me to BE so I do not have to rely upon God to MAKE me into anything He wants?

3.     Do I realize that I do not want to feel helpless and dependent on God to make me into a fit vessel, but that I want to do it on my own? What could possibly be my motive, do you think? Who wants to be weak? Who wants to accept Jesus’ words that without Him we can do nothing? Who wants to accept that HE is the one who both makes us acceptable to God and who empowers us to live the life that is acceptable to Him? It is not the old nature’s idea to be dependent! It feels quite capable as king of the hill!

We have learned from our parents and our peers, our society and our religious leaders that WE must be in control, we must DO certain things to be the good person, the spiritual person whom others, even God, finds acceptable and worthy of love and praise. So, we keep on trying. We keep doing….or we quit, when we don’t make the progress that satisfies us. How many believers do you know who worked diligently for God for a little while and then fell away from church and service? Why? Could it be that their determination was not enough to keep them from the lure of the world that says that true happiness is just enjoying things around you and going with the flow?

Being the Person God Wants Me to Be - Part 3

                                                     
Does the Bible give us any direction on how to solve what at times looks like a spiritual riddle?
Consider these passages:
            1. Jesus said we must abide in Him if we want to bear fruit. (John 15) The branch only abides; the vine does the producing. But don’t forget the pruning, not something popular with most of us!
            2. Jesus also instructed His disciples to ‘wait until they were endued with power from on high.’ The result: ‘you will BE my witnesses.’ The action follows the empowerment, not vice versa.

             3. “I can do all things THROUGH Christ which (or Who) strengthens me.” Phil 2:13. We all too often interpret this to mean we should place an emphasis on the I CAN DO….when that is the RESULT of depending on Christ. HE is the one doing the ‘strong behavior.’ I must do the depending. HE does the empowering. The truth here is THROUGH CHRIST is how I do all things….It is Jesus within me that is empowering me.
               4. Paul learned the key and shared it when he responded to Christ’s words recorded in 2 Cor 12:9, “Christ’s power is made perfect in our weakness.” Paul got the message: “For when I am weak, then I am strong.” This is a powerful message we seem to have missed. When we accept our weakness and allow Christ to empower us, then and only then, can we BE and Do what is pleasing to Him! We forget that we have the indwelling presence of God’s Spirit in our hearts. Did you ever wonder why He was given to us? Of course, we like His comfort, His teaching us about God, etc., but do we realize that His main job is to create the life of Jesus within us, to make us BE and Do what is acceptable to God? He wants to BE what we can never BE! Our job? Let Him. We are merely the vessel of clay within which dwells a divine treasure.

     5.  Jesus told the woman at the well the key to what we are struggling to understand. Oh, yes, we know that we need Jesus to be saved, but look at the passage closer. ‘Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4). Recorded in John 7:38-39 is more clarification: “Whoever BELIEVES in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him. By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who BELIEVED in him were later to receive.” The key? It is the Spirit flowing from within us who produces the acceptable life. Our job? Stay out of His way, keep our sins confessed and cleansed, and renounce the activity and desires of the old nature. Then things will work the way they are supposed to work. 

Being the Person God Wants Me to Be - Part 4

It is easy to be accused of passivity by some well-meaning believers who think passages about abiding in Christ, relying on His empowerment, etc., are telling us we don’t have to do anything to be pleasing to God. If such skeptics (or lazy Christians) would only realize that the true way of life is a constant battle, they would not be so critical. Paul describes his own struggles between his old and new nature in Romans 7. Listen to his assessment and his answer: “What a wretched man I am? Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!” He did not underestimate the struggle or his inability to do anything about it. He obviously knew the secret of power, evident by the fruit in his life and ministry. God transformed him from a person who was determined to be perfect in his religious commitments into a man who realized the wretchedness in his soul and discovered the solution was to trust Christ’s life within him. We would do well to learn from Paul.
            Paul also shared in Col. 1:29 that this life of faith is not a passive one: “To this end (his desire to present all perfect in Christ) I labor, struggling WITH all his energy which so powerfully works in me.” There is a struggle, but it should be a struggle against ourselves, our old nature, and a struggle WITH the energy He works within us. Our responsibility is to struggle the correct way. Instead of struggling to BE and to DO what He desires, we must struggle to stay connected with the empowerment already inside of us. It is a battle to the death every day. The old nature has been condemned to death but it does not want to die. It will do anything in its power to stay alive, even being religious and ‘spiritual,’ attempting to live the life that will appease us.

I want to make some observations as I close these reflections:
      It is helpful to study the instructions given in the Bible for how we are to BE and what we are to DO, but ONLY if such a study helps us realize just how impossible it is to BE or to DO those things by our own efforts. If the study helps us realize our desperate need of the Spirit and spurs us on to deeper surrender and faith, then the study is helpful. If, on the other hand, our study either discourages us or makes us determined to try even harder on our own to do these things, then the study digs a deeper hole for us. But to truly understand that all of these traits and behaviors are possible because of what Jesus has done for us and who the Spirit is in us, then we will have a wonderful study that will result in greater joy, more power, a fulfilled life, and one that glorifies our Lord. That is my desire, and my goal for teaching these truths.

Over-Active Spell Checker

Over-Active Spell-Checker

            Spell-checker: a curse or a blessing? That is a question I have been asking myself lately. It seems as if the ones on my devices have a mind of their own! And lately each of them has been designing some of the strangest messages you could ever imagine. I do try to watch what this little ‘monster’ is doing, but sometimes I am just too busy composing the message that I forget to read back over what I, and the spell-checker, have come up with. Not good. The two of us have devised some rather strange messages! But in most instances, they are harmless, although I have received some rather humorous replies to them, as the recipient tried to make sense of the strange message from me. And I, too, have received some funny messages, but most of the time I can interpret them.

            Just this morning, I sent out a prayer request message to my Bible study class, but the spell-checker changed the name of the person needing prayer. Not good. When I sent another message apologizing to the recipients of the email, I received the following reply: “No worries about the Spell Check.  I am sure you will find a spiritual truth in it!!” I laughed of course, but didn’t think much more about it until I was in worship and prayer a little later in the morning. Then it hit me: the spiritual truth. We all need a ‘prayer-checker,’ and praise God, we have One: the Spirit. “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.” (Rom. 8:26-27) As I prayed about people and events, I couldn’t help but rejoice that the Spirit would take each prayer, check it out for its correctness, and make the necessary changes for it to be according to the will of God. My phone, computer, and Ipad all have spell-checkers on them, but they sometimes make mistakes. But I have a wonderful Prayer Checker who gets it right every time!