Faith Firmly Rooted

I've lost some weight recently.  And it has caused me to want to ask the question: What does your before and after picture look like?

No, I am not talking about an actual photo or your physical appearance.  What I am really asking is this:

What has changed about you since the day Jesus Christ came into your life?

Don't rush to keep reading.  Look back at the question. 

Make a list.  Here's how:

Make two columns on a sheet of paper.  Label the left column "BC" and label the right column "AC".  ("Before Christ" and "After Christ", silly!)

In the left colum, answer the question: Who were you long before you knew Jesus Christ or invited Him into your life?  Write down a description or some descriptive words that come to mind.  If some characteristics were more dominant than others, bold them or underline them.

Now, when you embraced Jesus as your Lord and Savior, what changed?  In the left column, cross off the things that no longer described you.  If something didn't go away, but has diminished considerably, draw an arrow next to it pointing either up or down (up could mean that you've given that area to God; down could simply mean that it has decreased).

Now, what are you like today?  Write down some things that describe you in the right column.


When you complete that little exercise, what did you find?  For some, it is a drastic difference to see the two columns.  It is a humbling and liberating exercise to see it on paper.  You feel stirred to worship and thank God for the work He has done.  I hope that is you. 

But not everyone has that story.  Many confessing Christians today would go through that exercise and struggle.  They might not be able to recall who they were before Christ.  They might feel strange that the column on the left was not riddled with "bad stuff."  They might feel guilt that the right side and left side are actually fairly similar.

Many confessing Christians today would have trouble describing how Christ has changed them.

What does that mean?

There are a ton of potential reasons.   It may be a mixture of several reasons or be entirely too complicated to put into words.  But let me encourage you...

1. Sometimes God changes us gradually and not all at once.  Be patient as He continues to work in your life.  Trust His hand even when you cannot see it or feel it.
2. Don't get discouraged if you don't have a terrible pre-Christian past.  Thank God for it!  Not all Christians went from "terrible person" to "perfect person" by the world's standards; but spiritually speaking, any person who gives their life to Christ goes from "dead" to "alive", from "wicked and condemned" to "forgiven"...even those that were "good people."
3. Finally, some may need to sober up to the reality that part of the reason that your "chart" might not look right might be the result of a lack of discipleship.  Your spiritual growth stopped the day it was supposed to start.  There are tons of people who make decisions to trust Christ who fail to mature or grow in their relationship with God.  Sometimes this is the fault of a minstry, sometimes it is the fault of the individual, and sometimes there is no real blame upon anyone.  Whatever the case, there is ALWAYS today and tomorrow.  Ask yourself: What am I doing to grow in my walk with Christ?  Have I cheated myself out of a deeper relationship with God?  How can I give more of me to Jesus? Commit to giving Him even more influence, even more control, even more of you.   Give God fertile soil to work with in your life so that you can be firmly rooted and ready to grow.

 -RCW

I hope you are enjoying the recent series of posts regarding reading and learning as a part of healthy growth in the Christian faith.  If you are, I hate to break it to you, but this entry is only minimally related to that topic.

My wife is about 2 weeks from her due date.  We are welcoming our first child into this world in just a handful of days.  It's truly a wonderful, scary, and exciting time.  And although I did read a great book in the early months that helped me tremendously to process the reality that I was going to be a dad, my emotions (as well as my wife's) have been all over the place.
 
But aside from my wife and I's own prayerful anxiety about bringing a daughter into this world, the real story is --- well, our daughter.  In less than a couple of weeks, a new life will emerge from our lives.  She will be --- all at once --- her mother and me.  This new bundle of joy is going to be welcomed into our family and is going to experience real life!  What a miracle!

But here is what I have been thinking of today... What if my daughter never grew?  What if we fed her and loved her and did everything we could to help her develop as she ought, and she simply wouldn't grow?  God forbid it, but would that not be awful?  It would be an unbelievable abnormality that would very likely put her life itself in serious jeopardy.

But the gripping fact is that Christians do the same thing all the time.  And frequently, churches don't do much to help.  A person might make a decision, walk an aisle, check a box, or pray a prayer...in some way he or she accepts Jesus Christ and enters into new life in Christ.  Hooray!  We have a new creation!  A spiritual infant has been "born again" into God's family!  (Is this not the very Biblical metaphor that Jesus used?)  What an amazing miracle!  And yet, most will stagnate.  Most will not grow.  Most will remain spiritual babes.  Most will seldom nourish themselves with the scriptures, pray, or serve God with any consistency.  Worse still, a few weeks, months, or years may pass so that being still infants in Christ, they begin to wonder why their life isn't all that much different.  They may even seriously question their original decision or feel duped by those that offered them this "new life" in Christ.  It happens ALL.....THE.......TIME. 

I personally work for a church.  If I were to summarize my role there, I'd say my job is to help Christian adults grow and develop in their faith.  Would it surprise you if I told you that I tend to desire the spiritual growth of those adults far more than they desire it?  (This is not a slam to the church I work at...it is simply a statement of the actuality that faces most congregations in the U.S.).  
 
So how can you start growing? Here's a great starting point:

1. Get a good Bible.  Read it regularly, take notes, write down what you learn and what questions you have, even underline and memorize the verses that strike you as worth memorizing.
2. Ask God to help you grow, believe that He'll bring it about, and desire it more than anything else.
3. Plug into an authentic Biblical community that strives to help you spiritually develop.  Get to know a few committed Christians within that community that you can tell are serious about their relationship with God and live it out in all they do.
4. Begin to use and even leverage your natural abilities, skills, gifts, possessions, time, finances, and your whole self to be a part of spreading the good news about Christ and living out your faith with everything God gives you.  In short, serve God and be a steward of what He's given you so that you might bring Him glory. 

If you already feel like you've done the above, check yourself.  Ask yourself these tough questions and answer honestly:

1. When was the last time I spent time reading my Bible?  Am I faithfully involved in personal Bible study and time alone with God?  Have I read any spiritually nourishing material lately?
2. How much time do I spend in prayer?  Do I talk to God about everything?  Do I talk to God throughout the day?  Or do I simply reserve prayer for before meals, at church, before bed, etc.?  When I do pray, do I just ask him for stuff I want, or do I actually have a real relationship with Him that goes beyond that type of interaction?
3. Is my church committed to seeing me grow spiritually?  Do they care as much about turning me into a faithful and authentic follower of Christ as they do about seeing new people pray the same prayer I did to receive Christ?  Have I sought and found Biblical community within my local church?  Have I involved myself with other believers and developed strong relationships there or have I been passive and retreated from being known by others?  Is the Biblical community I am involved with at church really serious about growing or are we just a social group that seems stuck and apathetic?
4. Finally, how am I serving and being a steward?  Am I giving faithfully of my time, talents, money, and energy to see God's rule and reign in the hearts and lives of others?  Or am I holding back and sitting on the sidelines?  What more could I be doing to further God's work in my church, in my community, and in my world?
5. If people followed me around all day every day for a month, would my life clearly tell them that I am a follower of Christ who reflects who He is?

-RCW

A Brief Review
In my last post, I mentioned Augustine and how reading was instrumental in his own coming to faith in Jesus Christ as his own Savior and Lord (or to call those roles something less familiar - his Rescuer and his King).


I mentioned how at first, Augustine had turned his back on God (and that according to his own acknowledgement, this had resulted in part from reading authors like Cicero.  Apparently, Augustine's self-serving ego and arrogance inflated as he acquired knowledge from them).  But later, Augustine was brought by God to pick up a book by Cicero that is now lost to antiquity...Cicero's Hortensius, which was essentially a work that praised and encouraged people toward the discipline of philosophy, since philosophy is by its very etymology and definition the love of wisdom.  Suddenly, Augustine found within himself a desire to know real wisdom, to be taught truth, to personally love wisdom intensely enough to pursue it as a prize.  Augustine also said that he knew that to acquire real wisdom, he would have to travel in the direction of understanding the scriptures that he had grown up with, but had eventually neglected and scorned.  As Paul stated, in his letter to the Colossians, Augustine was well aware that "in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (2:3).  Or to state it yet another way, Augustine knew deep within himself that to get to truth, he would have to be moved closer toward The Truth, Christ Himself, the God of the Bible, Ultimate Reality.  

More to the Story
But I also mentioned that there was more to the story.  There is a second major way that Augustine's conversion was tied to the discipline of reading.*  He tells us of it in Book VIII of his Confessions.

Through a continual lifelong series of events and experiences--an experience reading Cicero in the midst of his very rigorous academic pursuits, encounters with Christians, exposure to the scriptures, through the constant prayers of his faithful Christian mother, through the influence of Ambrose, and much more--Augustine reached a personal crisis of sorts.  He had to wrestle with his will.  He was divided within himself.  On the one hand, he wanted to retain his own selfish pleasures and ungodly habits.  On the other hand, he was increasingly unable to resist the persistent calling of God unto Himself.  

 Eventually, Augustine claims that God allowed him to see himself clearly and become aware of his own sinful and wicked condition.  Distraught, Augustine retreats to a garden and the tears start pouring.  As Augustine pours his heart out to God in agony, he asks the Lord how long he will be torn between belief and unbelief, how long will he remain a miserable slave to his own evil desires.  

But I can summarize no longer.  Augustine must share it with you himself:
 
As I was saying this and weeping in the bitter agony of my heart, suddenly I heard a voice from the nearby house chanting as if it might be a boy or a girl (I do not know which), saying and repeating over and over again 'Pick up and read, pick up and read.' At once my countenance changed...I checked the flood of tears and stood up. I interpreted it solely solely as a divine command to me to open the book...So I hurried back to the place where...I had put down the book of the apostle when I had got up.  I seized it, opened it and in silence read the first passage on which my eyes lit: 'Not in riots and drunken parties, not in eroticism and indecencies, not in strife and rivalry, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh in its lusts' (Rom. 13:13-14). 
 
I neither wished nor needed to read further.   At once, with the last words of this sentence, it was as if a light of relief from all anxiety flooded into my heart.  All the shadows of doubt were dispelled [VIII.XII].**

The Latin phrase "Tolle Lege, Tolle Lege" (Take up, Read!  Take up, Read!) continues to resound for those who would seek to know Christ and follow after him. 

-RCW

*Certainly there were other ways that reading influenced his conversion and faith.  For example, Augustine speaks of he and his friends' experiences watching (and intruding upon) Ambrose's very disciplined reading habits. 

**Translation is Chadwick's.