we together in Jesus: God's dwelling

And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

Ephesians 2:22

In context this is speaking of God's inclusion of the Gentiles or all other people, with the Jews because of Jesus' atoning work, through faith. Revolutionary in its day, most of us take this for granted now. Though we don't live out its implications all that well, it seems. We would do better by demonstrating to the world on Sundays that nationality and race are beside the point; that our unity is in Jesus Christ, and by the Spirit, one new humanity in Jesus.

What about those in Jesus with whom we either disagree or have had our differences with, sometimes to the point of separation? This happens, as we all know. We know in part and we have differing perspectives. Differences are bound to come, and sometimes they seem irreconcilable at the time. And maybe are.

This verse hit me yesterday. God is at work to dwell in all of us in Jesus, as his holy temple, where he lives by his Spirit. We are being built together to that end.

Though again this is simply speaking of the new humanity being built together consisting of all peoples, Jew and Gentile, I think ramifications include working through conflicts and differences. Each of us in Jesus are part of this holy dwelling of God. We need to remember that, and proceed from there when we think about making every effort to keep the unity given to us in Jesus, by the Spirit, through the bond of peace (Ephesians 4).

What would you like to add here?

our part now in the new creation

God in Jesus brings in the new creation, and this new creation is a remaking of the old creation in its entirety. Of course humans are at the pinnacle of creation, made in God's image, and in the Incarnation, God becoming human in the unique person of Jesus.

We humans in Jesus are both recipients and agents of this new creation in the world. God uses us in living out and proclaiming Jesus and the kingdom, in the good news that is brought, that Jesus in his death and resurrection is declared to be Lord over all, to begin to impact all things now. All enemies will by and by be put under Jesus' feet, ending with the last enemy, death.

I often wonder how this is worked out, and certainly at the heart of it is the conversion of others to Jesus. But all the works we in Jesus do, are meant by the Spirit to have God's stamp on them, the stamp and act of new creation. A work of God, yet we are involved in that work.

Any thoughts here that might help us?

Pentecost Sunday

Tomorrow, or today already for many parts of the world is Pentecost Sunday. This is the day on which we remember the coming and outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the believers after Jesus' resurrection and ascension. Jesus from the Father baptizes the believers with and in the Holy Spirit. It is the birthday I take it of the Church, the Body of Christ in the world. It is the coming of the Spirit to empower God's people to be Jesus' witnesses all over the world. And to be Jesus' hands and feet, everything, Jesus' Body, present for each other, but to the goal of living as children of the light in the Lord which we are.

Of course it's personal: the Spirit is changing us who believe more and more into the resemblance of Jesus. And it's corporate: we're in this together as people of God in Jesus. We build each other up by the gifts the Spirit gives us. And it's missional: not for ourselves and our enjoyment, but to be Jesus by the Spirit, to the world, both individually and corporately as each of us prayerfully does our part in deed and word.

Pentecost Sunday. Oh how we need more of the Spirit in our lives. But let's remember also that we have the Spirit. Let's walk in the Spirit, learning to do so more and more. And be filled with the Spirit, speaking the truth as it is in Jesus, in love. This is why we're here; this is why the Spirit has come.

Be blessed in your worship tomorrow, as many of us and our churches celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit.

What does this day mean to you? What would you like to share with us on this?

praying our sin

In weekly team "devotions" at work, we're going through certain psalms and prayer with reference to them. Now we're on Psalm 137, entitled "Praying Our Hate." The psalm is beautiful lyrically, but ends in an awful note, asking God to do what others had done to them. While this may have justification in the old covenant, praying that God would avenge or punish victimizers as they had done to their victims, we find this changed in the new covenant in Jesus, so that we probably should at least be slow to pray down judgment, but should rather, pray down reconciliation, the reconciliation of God in Jesus, upon enemies. We do want God's intervention against all evil, but we also would like to see all evildoers repent and believe, and be reconciled to God and to others.

This leads me to the point I want to make in this post, beginning with a question: Is it good for us to pray our sin to God? Of course we know that if we cherish sin in our hearts, the Lord will not hear our prayers. Therefore we can't come to God in prayer while we hold on to sin in our lives. Yet at the same time God wants us to come to him just as we are. And yes, we are sinners in need of grace. So just how can we pray our sin to God and that be legitimate?

To attempt to clarify this, a bit, let's give an example. Let's say someone is getting to you in what they're doing against you. You're sometimes angry with them, or at least tired that you can't get anywhere with them to resolve the problem. How would you pray about this to God?

I have found that as I pray to God about that which I know to be sin in my heart and life, and I do so acknowledging my need for God's grace in forgiveness and cleansing, then God meets me, and I find his help. I've also found that I have to keep coming back to God with the same things at times. Though at other junctures I see that I've grown in being less tempted and taken in by a particular sin. Of course growth is so gradual that we often lose sight of where we were a year ago. We may have made some progress in an area which we little realize now. And this may lead us to ask God to show us other areas that need worked on so that we can pray those as well.

Of course praying our sin here is when sin has got hold of us. As we pray the Spirit is at work in us, interceding to God on our behalf, as well as changing an shaping our hearts according to God's will.

So I guess the lesson for us in this is simply this: When struggling in sin, don't run away from or avoid God, but instead, come to God in prayer. Pray exactly how we think and feel at the time. God will be present to help us.

Any thoughts on this?

imagine

Imagine what would happen if gradually all the words of Scripture disappeared off the face of the earth. What would that be like? And imagine some time passing and what might occur among Christians and in the world after this phenemona. What might we learn from this? And then imagine Scripture gradually and fully reappearing on all the pages and places it had disappeared from. And what the end result might be, or at least the impact on the world at that time.

John Frye has written a recent and interesting short novel entitled, Out of Print. In it he works through this scenario with a number of characters one can identify with. From "ordinary" Christians to a Christian professor, a missionary couple whose painstaking work in translating Scripture into a language for the first time is lost, along with others. It is a good read, and two weeks from now on Friday, May 9 I will post on it to help us think it through. In the mean time you can order your own copy and read it beforehand.

I've had seasons in which I've slacked off in reading the Bible, and interestingly have often sensed more of the Spirit in my life during such times. They've actually been rare, as I've spent alot of my Christian life fairly heavy, relatively speaking I guess, in the word largely through hearing it and now largely through reading it, though I've begun to listen to it again.

A friend of mine thinks I may often be getting in the way of God. That I'm trying to do more than what God has done or is doing in me. Of course we're to work out what God is working in us. I think this friend has a point in what they're telling me. They're not telling me to be in the word less, but sometimes I think the way I'm in the word of God can actually get in the way of God's word getting through to me. It's like a steady drum beat that if one is not careful can become humdrum. I may be in it just to be in it, rather than be changed by it, or by God through his word.

I like to be in the word frequently throughout each day (though I do admit to slacking off often during normal weekends without missing my normal Bible reading for the most part) and in different ways: listening to it, interacting through a passage with others (our weekly team devotions at RBC Ministries), glancing at a passage I'm slowly working through throughout the day at work, use a different translation or rendering such as The Message, even working through a psalm from my small Bible while I'm driving, which you'll be happy to hear I don't do anymore (though Tiffany thinks I drive at least just as well doing that, which I hope doesn't tell you anything about my driving that's bad!).

Anyhow I look forward to thinking through John's novel together. It's stimulating and fun, and hopefully we can bounce some thoughts off each other and learn some things to both deepen our appreciation of the word, and promote its impact on us, or perhaps better put, God speaking into our lives.

What might you like to add to all of this?

spontaneity and order

Listening to Kevin Vanhoozer recently online (see March 15-16, 2007) reminded me of the value of spontaneity and order. Vanhoozer likens the world and Christian life to a drama lived out. The analogy he draws is compelling, and this book is helpful in seeing his full work on that.

We need to be students of the word of God, of our life in God, of Jesus himself by the Spirit. This involves work over time, though any work at all has value, but we must keep at it. This involves prayer and being in the word, as well as reading good books like the one mentioned above (though what might strike one's fancy may not strike another's; find good books by people of God one might say).

From this can come a needed spontaneity which is a natural response or act coming from what is stored up in one's heart. In other words sponataneity arises from order.

Back to Vanhoozer: he describes it as in a drama. To do the best acting the actors must know their parts well; they must know the character they are acting out as well as possible. So that they learn to think like them, speak and act like them, be like them. And from that learning they must have the freedom to act it out according to the feel they have for it. It must become natural for them, in order for it to be good acting.

Of course the protest will come that mere acting is hypocritical if the heart is not really in it. And Vanhoozer covers that protest well in his second lecture (see first link above). For us in Jesus, as we study or better put, become apprentices of the way, the truth and the life, our hearts are changed. It's an ongoing process, but through it we should more and more reflect in our hearts and lives the one we are seeking to follow, Jesus.

Yesterday in our "devotions" it was brought up that for a number of us, hating someone seems hardly an issue anymore as it was when we were younger and before we came to know the Lord. This just goes to show that a heart change has been going on for us who are in Jesus. We receive a new heart at conversion, and through that we gradually unlearn that which is not in line with it and learn that which is. This is more than the mind; it also involves the whole person. So that who we are is different now than it was times before.

And this "drama" is lived out together in mission to and for the world (as my good friend, John Frye reminded me in a comment the other day). It's not an individual thing. Dramas involve a plot with leading and supporting roles. Everything must work together well for it to come off as a good play. The same holds true for us in the Christian life and experience. We must keep working at this: what we are and our role is in Jesus, together with others: who they are and their role in Jesus, and learn to do this for the benefit of each other and to help us in God's mission to us for the world.

What thoughts might you have, or ways of helping us think through this?

new beginnings

There's a restaurant chain in our area called "New Beginnings". They have a large breakfast menu and I guess, emphasize breakfasts in helping people get a good start on their day.

Anyhow, I was thinking of this, this morning, just the idea of new beginnings. Each day in Jesus is a renewing. And the seasons in our lives change as well, for some who are single in getting married, for some married in losing their spouse, in other lives job changes, for others sickness. And then there are those beginnings important for us in making some breaks from what has kept us from following as closely to the Lord as we should.

In my own life I can point to some things that I think are less than good, or even sins. Sometimes we can excuse that or rationalize that which in God's eyes may not be pleasing to him. There are those times when we need to be hard on ourselves only as God helps us see what is wrong or less than helpful. We give it over to God through Christ, and let him take it, while we leave it behind and go forward in God's will for us.

This is related to my post yesterday about walking in/by the Spirit. I know I can only live this life in Jesus, and follow on, through the Spirit. I hardly know where I'm going or what's up next, or even what I'm leaving behind or the change I need. But that's not that important. What is important, I believe, is that I'm set to go, by the Spirit, in the direction God has for me. Of course toward the goal of conformity to Christ with others of Christ's Body in mission on earth, and related to that, fulfilling the work God has for me, in the love and blessing of our Lord Jesus.

I go that way, knowing it's only possible through God, in fellowship with Christ's Body to do his work in the world.

New beginnings. What might that mean for you, now?

walking by/in the Spirit

Lately I've been pondering the importance of walking by the Spirit, as we read in Paul's letter to the Galatians. Gordon Fee, an eminent New Testament scholar, says:

The first instruction [in Galatians 5:13-6:10] , "walk by the Spirit", is the basic command in Paul's ethics.

I was taught and again have noticed that the filling of the Spirit seems mostly related to speaking as in proclaiming the word of God, the wonders of God, the gospel of God. People often talk much about being filled with the Spirit, and I think that seems to me Scripturally, to be more related to the gifts, at least generally. But to walk in the Spirit concerns more the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, etc.

This is a command (an imperative), no less: present tense meaning it's ongoing for us, and active- we do it. Yet it's of the Spirit. So that we must walk or live in all of life, by the Spirit.

Fee thinks the Spirit's presence was more overwhelming or evident to the believers Paul wrote to, than to many of us today. So that Paul doesn't tell us how to walk by the Spirit. But it was certainly true then, as now that we in Jesus can grieve and quench (or, put out the fire of) the Spirit.

And Fee points out what he wrote had at least up to that time, been missed in most commentaries: how this command is community-oriented. Looking at the passage we can see this to be the case. Yes, we're individuals but individuals coming into and living in community.

This is something I want to work on for my life. So I'm realizing it must be community-oriented, and I'm a rather slow learner here, though gregarious by nature. Steeped in the tradition of individualism, but longing to know better the richness of community in Jesus and out from that, in mission for the world.

And I want to understand better in my life, what is ours in Jesus by the Spirit. Walking by the Spirit. Not by the flesh, which as Fee points out is of our old life apart from Christ, not to be in our present existence even now. And doing this in community. More on this in future posts.

What thoughts might you like to share on this?