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...
- 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.
- 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."
- 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
[The current topic relates back to a previous post I made a long time ago.]
What would it take to make your spiritual life your number one priority?
For many of us, the question is almost offensive. I've even heard it asked, "How would your life look differently if you really began to obey God's word and live it out as though it were true?"
The question may be offensive, but it is one we must daily ask ourselves if we want to take Jesus' words seriously. For real...what's your #1? Do you seek Christ, knowing Him, honoring Him, knowing His will and doing it above everything else? Do it and you'll find that everything else suddenly comes into focus, priorities find their proper place, and things are rightly aligned. Jesus spoke of this when he said:
"But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." Mt. 6:33
and
"The most important [commandment],” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’" Mk 12:29-30
Spiritual self-examination is so very Biblical. When was the last time you did a spiritual pulse-check? Don't wait 'til your life is already wrecked to give God first place. A great starting point is Psalm 119.
Get alone somehow with God today and pray this prayer:
"Search me, Oh God and know my heart. Test me and know my thoughts. See if there be any wicked way in me and lead me into the way everlasting..." (Ps. 119)
-RCW
One of the things that gets talked about the least when it comes to discipleship is the importance of service.
It's surely a very important thing to begin your walk with Christ by reading the Bible and spending time in prayer and devotion with God, etc. Yet, sometimes putting your faith into action becomes an enormous catalyst for spiritual growth.
I once heard someone say, "I'm so tired of coming to church and having responsibilities...I just want to go back to when I could show up, sit, get fed, and leave." I've been there too. But honestly? Would that not be a step backward? Sure, there are times when God may be calling us to rest and retreat from the work (Jesus went to the mountainside alone to pray with good regularity throughout his ministry). But God also demands that we not simply acquire knowledge about Him and never put it into practice. What God reveals to you He intends for you to share with others.
I've been around a lot of Christian academic types. I love them. I resonate with them. But it broke my heart that time and again the seminary students who knew the most were quite often the students who served the least. (Many of them wouldn't even attend church!) God didn't mean for you to soak up truths like a sponge. Once you start growing, you had better start serving. And for some people, they would say that they really didn't start growing until they started serving.
Get your hands dirty doing work for God. Feed the hungry. Donate your time and energy. Set up some chairs or tables at church. Visit a shut-in. Offer to fold or stuff some newsletters. Scrub a toilet for Jesus. Coach an Upward team. Teach 3 year olds in the nursery. The next time a minister asks you to help with something, do something crazy and just say yes. Better yet, go ask your church leaders where you can help and maybe even use your spiritual gifts. American churches are generally plagued by a lack of volunteers. Why? It's because everyone wants to receive from church, but nobody wants to give. Our consumer-driven culture has caused our churches to be full of consumer-minded Christians. Don't be part of the problem. Be a part of the solution. Get in the game...for God's sake!
-RCW
One of the very first basic lessons I ever learned in my walk with Christ was at an early age. I was fortunate to learn it early, but it seems that at certain periods of my life I have had to force myself to relearn it...
Of what am I speaking? I am speaking about my identity in Christ.
It is a huge concept and yet such a simple one at the same time. When I gave my life to Christ, I became His own. I became His child. I became a new creation fashioned in His likeness. I became set apart and content in Him. I became happy with me because of who He was and who He was making me. I began to draw my self-worth from Him alone...and He values me more than anyone ever could value me!
But don't take it from me alone. This foundational truth is hammered home in Scripture. Ephesians chapters 1 through 3 are a great read on the subject, but if you're in a hurry, here are a few verses.
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. [Eph. 2:1-10]
The question “Who Am I?” is both theoretical and philosophical as well as practical and deeply personal. It is a question that everyone deals with throughout the entire course of their lifetime. For the believer, it is a wonderful truth that –- no matter what the world's categories may say about us, whatever we may be feeling about our own self worth (good or bad), whatever we might think about who we are –- all other “identities” get placed at the feet of the Lord. It is Him we depend upon to properly understand our selves, our personality, our emotions, our feelings, our habits, our gifts, our skills, our desires, our ambitions, and everything else about ourselves. It is God who defines us and not we who define us.
Today, examine the Bible for yourself and ask God to remind you that you are his child. Ask God to remind you this day of your worth, His love for you, your satisfaction in Him, your trust in Him, and your contentment in who He is...and in who you are.
-RCW
Alright, so if I haven't thrown enough resources at people at my workplace and through this blog, I must beg your forgiveness and continue the trend.
At the church I work for, I have recently recruited a professor from a nearby university to come teach a class for our lay equipping ministry. The class is essentially about what it means to take seriously the command we've been given in Scripture to love the Lord our God with all our
mind.
Easter is (like Christmas) never really truly “over.” The reality that Christ has risen is just as real today as it was two weeks ago as we celebrated Easter Sunday.
Most sincere apologies for not having written anything for almost a month!
Last month, I read some very cool news from my dear old
Wheaton. For the full press release, you can click
here. It seems that the
Billy Graham Center Archives of
Wheaton College are opening up to the public more treasures from the past.
The story of missionary couple
Jim and
Elisabeth Elliot, who served among the Waorani people of Ecuador, is widely known to American evangelicals through their published writings as well as the movie entitled "
End of the Spear," which was based upon their story. After Jim and four fellow American missionaries were martyred by the Waorani (also called the Huaorani, or the Auca Indians by non-Waorani) on January 8, 1956, Elisabeth Elliot returned to continue ministering to the people who had taken her husband's life, she edited and published his journals, and later wrote more than 20 books.
In January, the Billy Graham Center Archives made additional writings available for the first time, as the 54th anniversary of the missionaries’ murder approached. Thirty previously unpublished letters, dated from 1953 to 1959, provide insights into the relationship the Elliots had with the Williams Community Church of Williams, Oregon. The church was one of several which provided financial and prayer support for the Elliots. Williams Community Church donated the letters to the Archives last year. They are now posted at
wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/docs/Elliotletters/intro.htm. I might add that Jim and Elisabeth happened to have graduated from Wheaton as well. :)
The story of those martyred missionaries and the glory that God brought about through their tragic deaths is a story worth remembering. For myself, it definitely brings to mind some ideas about the theology of suffering and how God's ways are far beyond our own understanding. Sometimes it seems that by allowing evil, God brings about an even greater good than if He had not. (For more on this, just read some
Alvin Plantinga's
God, Freedom, and Evil). Or for a Biblical reference, some good examples would include:
- the story of Joseph (Genesis 37-50 --- see especially Joseph's statements in Gen. 45:4 and 50:19-20),
- Job (the book of Job),
- Jesus (the Gospels --- Matthew, Mark, Luke, John),
- the early church's martyrs (the book of Acts), and
- Paul's words about God having allowed him to have a "thorn in his flesh" (2 Cor. 12:7-10).
These are just a few examples among others.
Do you have an opinion? Leave a comment!
-RCW
As you ready your hearts for Christmas, let us not easily forget that Jesus Christ is central to our celebration.
Certainly, we know that Jesus was not born on December 25th. Few people would ever make such an argument (and if they did, they'd be flat wrong!). But it
is at this time every year that we remember His coming. We as Christians anticipate Him throughout the Christmas season via Advent and we long for His coming---both remembering His first coming on the 25th and ultimately looking to His future glorious second coming as well.
The Christmas holiday season is a great time of year (like Halloween
as I mentioned before) to ask yourself a question....
- Does the way I celebrate Christmas bear the markings of something distinctively "Christian"?
OR
- Does the way that I celebrate Christmas (or even my Christianity) instead seem to have adopted all the trappings and accommodations of our contemporary culture leaving nary an inch for Christ?
As you ponder that question, I'll leave you with a humorous story. C.S. Lewis once pinpointed the marked difference between celebrating the birth of Christ and "all this ghastly [Christmas] racket at its lowest" with this story actually, so the credit for the laugh is his and not mine... Lewis wrote to a friend: "My brother heard a woman on a 'bus say, as the 'bus passed a church with a crib outside it, 'Oh Lor'! They bring religion into everything. Look--they're dragging it even into Christmas now!'"
Prayer: Lord, help us at this time of year to think of this season as we ought. Help us to enjoy the time of rest, the time with family, the time of reflection, and let this all lead us ultimately to savor this time of year as a time of worship. You are the cause of celebration for us this season and forever. Amen.
-RCW
P.S. For some of my Southern Baptist friends who live somewhat in a bubble and legitimately do not know what "Advent" is, click
here and you can see what the majority of the universal church in western culture does around the holiday season. (That means what other Christians do who aren't Baptist....Yes, I do mean to tell you that there are a great many Christians who aren't Southern Baptist). :) I don't mean to poke fun....for I was certainly once very ignorant of these matters myself.
P.P.S. For my scholarly friends, the Lewis quote is from
Letters to an American Lady (29 December 1958), p. 80. The letter itself is housed in the
Wade Center at Wheaton...an amazing place should you ever manage a visit. I know how several of you (like myself) have a nasty distaste for quotes that lack a citation.
A few of my recent posts have reminded me of yet another subject.
A classic pet peeve of mine is the enormous amount of "Bible Lore" out there. How many times have you been talking with someone and they say, "Well, the Bible says, 'God helps those who help themselves.'"? No, the Bible does not say that phrase anywhere. It actually came from Ben Franklin.
Another great one..."God won't give you more than you can handle." The Bible actually doesn't say this. (Try "quoting" such a "scripture" to a person in a serious crisis. Let me know how that one goes.) You won't find the reference because it's not there.
In general, I simply hear the words come from someone's mouth: "Doesn't it say in the Bible somewhere...." or "What's the verse in the Bible that says something about..." and I begin to brace myself for the shock. I never know what nonsense might sputter out after the first few words. :)
The Bible (and spiritual things in general) is one of those subjects that everyone has an opinion about....many people are eager to share their own. Many people think they know fairly well what the Bible says, but in reality haven't studied it for themselves a whole lot. In short, "Bible Lore" results is a lot of muddled thinking about spirituality and numerous common myths about Christianity, Christians, God, the Bible, etc.
So, here's a novel thought: how about we all make it a goal of ours to READ our Bibles and MEMORIZE scripture? That way, instead of being guilty of such embarrassing blunders of biblical illiteracy, we can know God's word, hide it deep within our hearts, and be ready to explain the scriptures the next time someone rattles off one of these statements.
I myself am by no means immune or beyond this fault. I have been praying and asking God to reveal some things to me lately and yet I know that the easiest way to hear God's voice is to open and "devour" my Bible. How about you? Are you planting scripture within you? Or is your Bible just a dusty relic? When was the last time you cracked it open?
-RCW
Yes, it's been a while since I wrote. Let's not make it an issue. Such is life. On a personal note, I have been refreshed to be leading a group of college students and young adults on a journey toward spiritual growth. It's been awesome and really rejuvenating to see their passion for God and how much they are enjoying it. No credit to me whatsoever except to say I have been extra busy as of late...with the class, with the rest of my responsibilities at the church I work at, marriage, my wife's recent downturn in health, etc. All that has made the writing (on this blog anyway) cease...but only temporarily.
The name of this particular entry is identical to the name of one of C.S. Lewis's essays. It is a very good quick read (maybe a couple of pages long). I will summarize it for you.
There is something innately human about our tendency to fault-find. No person is immune. For instance, we think that some people are absolutely charming until we get to know them and realize that we can find several things we'd change about them. Just ask a newly married wife...a few months into the marriage is when she realizes that there are some things about her husband that she did NOT sign on for. My wife of course is no exception. Hence, the title of Lewis's essay is "The Trouble with X..." In other words, the title is using the phrase that we so easily slip into - "The trouble with so-and-so is...
fill in the blank here." It simply rattles off of our tongue readily. "I like Tom except that he always bites his nails and interrupts." Or "I enjoy her, but I dread the way she fixes her hair." These are superficial remarks, but they generally go much deeper. And to make matters worse, the closer we are to the person (let's say the person is an immediate family member), the most sharp and merciless the judgements become. Sometimes we spend so much time dwelling on the "troubles" with our family members (their faults), that we forget that there was ever any good in them at all!
Jesus of course said much on the subject, but perhaps the most important thing he said about it is this:
"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in someone else's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from the other person's eye."
-Matthew 7:1-5
Those aren't my words, they're His. If you want to follow Christ, we have to examine our own flawed selves first and foremost before we start criticizing everyone else...especially our loved ones and family members. How sad that we often treat worst the ones we love the most.
Prayer: Lord, help me to examine my own self before I am so quick to criticize everyone around me. Help me to see my own self and my own glaring sin clearly so that I may remove it. I ask that you help me with this that I might not only understand my self better, but that I might love others as you love them. Amen.
-RCW
What a confusing title, eh? (And no, I am not Canadian).
I suppose the title deserves some explanation. To mix things up, I will start with a question:
How is that other people define you? Do they ask you for a definition? Perhaps sometimes they do - maybe on a first date or in some sort of "get-to-know-you" game, etc. There will certainly be times for this. Perhaps the most common time is during a job interview. It is a classic interview question: "Tell me a little bit about yourself." It's such a vague question.
If we really get honest, those scenarios are exceptions. The much more frequent way that people find out about us or begin to understand who we are is simply by watching and listening.
In other words, people who spend a lot of time around you may know you even better than you know yourself. How? Imagine it this way: Every single action that you take and every single word you say, communicates something about you. Sometimes its explicit (like when you answer the interview question and say, "I am from Pittsburgh and I love cats."), and sometimes it is implicit (like when someone asks you if you'd care for anchovies on your pizza and you respond with an "Ugh!"). In either case, you communicate something (either explicit or implicit) about yourself. The scary thing is that the number of implicit statements you make about yourself is overwhelmingly enormous compared to the relatively few explicit things you may claim about yourself.
Imagine...everything you say and do makes a statement about yourself. In other words, everything you do fills in the blank in the sentence: "I am ____________." If I have you over to my house and I ask you if you are comfortable with the temperature, offer you a beverage, make you feel at ease, and the like, then you hear me say, "I am a considerate host." If I slap you on the back, turn on the television, and ignore you, then you will deduce that "He is not a very considerate host." My actions fill in the blanks on their own without me ever saying a single explicit word about my own hospitality.
Jesus surely meant to point out this whole concept when He said that "No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thorn bushes, or grapes from briers. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks" (Luke 6:43-45 NIV).
If I followed you around everywhere you went for a couple of weeks, I would have a very good idea of who you are. Would it be who you hope to be? Actions speak so much louder than words. "Be very careful, then, how you live — not as unwise but as wise..." (Eph. 5:15 NIV).
Prayer: Father, help me to examine my actions. Help me to be the person you've made me to be. May you open my eyes to the messages I communicate about myself and (since I am a Christian) therefore about you. Make me someone who is so transformed by you that everything I say, do, or think would communicate your life-changing power within me. May I not have to fake holiness, or tell people constantly what I am about. Instead, may I BE holy as You are holy (Lev. 11:44; 1 Pet. 1:16) so that "my light would shine before men, that they may see my good deeds, and glorify You, my Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:16)"
Back in November, I wrote a few blogs about Discipleship (They were titled:
Discipleship and Learning;
Discipleship and Feelings;
Relational Discipleship; and
Discipleship and Actions).
I spoke of the inter-relatedness of three mind, heart, and will of a disciple of Jesus Christ (and of humans in general). It just dawned on me that I had another little tidbit sitting in my blog compositions ready to be published. This was a 2nd part to the Discipleship and Actions post.
Part of the reason that the "actions" aspect of discipleship becomes so important is because of the unique inter-relationship our actions share with the previous two aspects (the mind and heart). Our deeds, behavior or actions are unique because they are linked DIRECTLY with the first two - our head and our heart. There is a dependency upon our head and our heart that will most often determine our actions. In other words, we all tend to act
BASED UPON how we think or how we feel. Hence, this "action" component is frequently the first to be forgotten when many people think of discipleship. As a result comes one of the most wonderful (if we are following Christ) and yet most scary things (if we are not following Him) is that our actions are so inextricably linked to our mind and heart that it is nearly impossible to allow the two to be in opposition for very long. For instance, if my belief in Christ suddenly changes (for better or worse), soon my desire or effectiveness to DO THINGS for Christ or in a Christ-like manner will change as well (for better or worse CORRESPONDING to the belief and emotions). Many would even say that the feelings are dependent on our thinking (thereby placing the
mind into the foremost place of importance. Likewise, if our behavior changes for the better or the worse, soon our thinking and our emotions are changing along with it. In short, God designed our entire
self to be one whole complete indivisible person...mind, body, will, emotions, soul, spirit. If one part of our self changes (for better or for worse), then we can rightly expect the other parts of our self to follow suit with time.
Prayer: Oh, God, help me to be someone that honors you with my whole being. Let me worship you with my entire self...my mind, intellect, thinking, heart, emotions, loving, will, actions, relationships, soul, spirit, personality, expressions, language, eyes, ears, hands, and feet. May I be wholly yours.
-RCW
For extra credit, listen to David Crowder's song entitled "Wholly Yours."
Some of you may have seen this coming.
I did a blog entry on Discipleship and Learning. I then published one on Discipleship and Feelings. Now of course, I am writing one on Discipleship and Actions. This is for some people the "holy trinity" of discipleship....God's word penetrating and transforming the human
mind, human
heart, and human
hands or will. I am not sure that I want to limit discipleship to
JUST those 3, but it makes a handy-dandy and memorable formula.
I think I am going to keep this entry as short as I can and simply state that discipleship MUST have a volitional component. In other words, if we begin to describe discipleship, there is always a definite piece of it that involves our own will.
Think of it...
- We already spoke of the potential flaw in giving God our mind, but not our heart and emotions. (We run the risk of becoming dry and lifeless! Discipleship is more than JUST learning!)
- We also spoke of the danger of giving God our heart without our mind.
(We risk having zeal without knowledge, or passion without content, passionate devotion without a proper understanding!)
NOW what we are talking about involves the surrender or non-surrender of our ACTIONS or WILL.
- What happens when God has our mind but not our will?
(We are with those who call Him Lord, but will ultimately perish! We become the ones who hear and know the Word, but don't act on it...as bad as the foolish man who built his house upon the sand. Read Lk. 7:43-49!)
- What good is it if God has our heart surrendered to Him, but not our behavior?
(We run the risk of being hypocrites...forgetting that love is an action, not feelings!)
- What good will it be to God if we ACT like Him, but don't surrender our mind to Him as well?
(We are just do-gooders...having a type of godliness but not acknowledging its source.)
- Or what good will it be to God if we give Him our actions, but not our heart?
(Our service is passionless and will be nothing more than mere obligation...like the Israelites who confessed God and observed rituals, but whose hearts were far from Him!)
In the end, we could find scripture after scripture (many from the mouth of Jesus Himself) that condemns and rebukes these various conflicts of allegiance.
The bedrock bottom line reality is: Real discipleship involves submitting our head, heart, and hands (and whatever other parts of ourselves that we might speak of -- soul, spirit, body, speech, passions, relationships, priorities, calling, vocation, time, etc.) wholly and completely unto God.
Any non-surrendering on our part amounts to a violation of the first and greatest commandment: To love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, might, and strength.
-RCW
After rereading my last blog, I realized that I may need to bring some clarification. Notice the title was "Discipleship
AND Learning". This is worth noting since it means the two are separate things. They should not be equated as though one IS the other or that they are interchangeable somehow. Rather, there is a very unique relationship between the two that deserved mentioning.
Everyone should know that discipleship is more than
just "learning." If someone is a "learner" of Christ, or a "learner" of "The Way" as Luke liked to call it, there is certainly more to it than simply an academic acquiring of knowledge. (Although I will readily admit that I am one who many times emphasizes the importance of reading and using one's mind for God's glory than may be normal... If so, it is simply because I am trying to bring change to an area within the church where I see room for improvement. :) There are a few outstanding books on this topic...
Fit Bodies Fat Minds by Os Guinness;
The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind by Mark Noll; and
Your Mind Matters by John Stott. The latter is the shortest if you find yourself particularly deficient in this area. :) There are actually several others, but these are just some very good ones that I have read.)
No, discipleship is more than getting knowledge or acquiring facts. Discipleship also involves the emotions, feelings, and affections. In my own estimation however, the role of emotions can never surpass the role of the intellect in our walk with Christ. That is, we can't and shouldn't get ourselves emotionally excited or pious over unintelligible gibberish, but rather the truth and facts within God's word. After all, Christ desires that we worship in spirit AND in truth, having a zeal or passion for God THAT ACCORDS WITH knowledge. What might be helpful to remember is that our emotions tend to simply follow after our thoughts in the end. We can (for the most part) rarely
feel something that we cannot ultimately understand or rationalize, explain, comprehend, or find a general reason for the feeling.
What I would say very briefly about our emotions and their role in the discipleship process is that they can trick us. They can go up or down in a matter of moments. We need keep them grounded in God's word. The human heart is deceitful according to scripture and is in need of Christ to renew it. Discipleship actually involves us laying down our selfish emotions and affections and allowing God to reshape both our mind and heart. In the end, our prayer should be that God would cause our hearts to think and feel in ways that please Him... to love the things that He loves, to hate the things that He hates, to laugh at the things he would laugh at, to be angry at the things He would be angry about, etc.
In essence, being a disciple or "learner" involves not just acquiring knowledge and reading or studying the Bible, but also applying it in our core so that it penetrates both our thinking as well as our feeling. As "learners" of Christ, we do more than learn new facts about Him by reading our Bibles. We also adopt His demeanor, conform to His likeness, live by His standards, value the things He values, love what He loves, and bring our own sentiments into line with His own.
-RCW
Prayer: God, help me to give you my heart as well as my mind. Create in me a clean heart, Oh God - one that beats in tune with yours. Give me a heart that is married to a mind centered and concretely focused upon your truth. Make me love what I ought, hate what I should, and feel what you feel towards everything in between. I ask you to reshape my thinking and my feeling. I commit my emotions and affections to you now this day. Amen.
P.S. Have you read or heard someone explain this before in a similar or more convincing way? How or when did
you personally first come to understand and practice this aspect of discipleship? Let me know about it! I am always looking for new resources and ready to hear about other believers' experiences!
It's been a few days since I have written. My apologies. Here is a thought that I'll only briefly mention...
Have you ever thought about the fact that as a disciple of Jesus Christ, there should be a natural desire for "learning"? After all, the very meaning of the word "disciple" in the New Testament means "learner." with that fact, there should arise a certain sort of self-examination: Does that characterize your life? Would you call yourself a "learner"? Do you have a deep and urgent, pressing desire to know more about Christ, about God, about His world, about His word, about yourself, about your spouse, etc.? It is this connection - the link between discipleship and between education, between faith and learning, believing and questioning, between knowing the truth and continuously searching for more of Him - that has become a consuming passion of mine. I hope that it is the same for you as well. Come with me on the journey... a journey of discovery. It is a journey that Augustine called "Faith Seeking Understanding." We will never fully arrive in this earthly life, but we won't ever be the same after we begin! I could write for miles about this topic, but I won't. More to come....
-RCW
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