You make your choices and your choices make you. Why miss out on what God desires for you? Make sure that Jesus Christ is driving behind the wheel of your life...your drive will be difficult but beautiful. It will be a rush of joy not to mention an unfathomably awesome final destination! The best is always yet to come for the Christian.
The Main Thing...is to Keep Christ Central and Foremost. All else is folly.
Well, 2009 has come and gone and evidently, my informants ESPN alerted me a few days ago (with their "top ten plays of the decade" and whatnot) that a decade has drawn to a close. This of course should not have been news to me, but somehow my silly brain was imagining that it would be another year (at the completion of 2010) that such a "turn-of-the-page" would come. Seeing as how I have only lived through a couple of these decade things, and seeing as how the last one changed when I was all of 18, I am hit with the magnitude of the occasion.
Not wanting to let the moment slip by without sneaking in a quick line, I worked to squeeze in time for a post.
I have spoken before of how the Christian life---from our birth, to our spiritual birth or conversion, and throughout our entire life until our dying day---is a process. It is a spiritual journey in which God is drawing us closer to Himself. We may not always understand how or why or that it is even happening, but for Christians walking with God, He is perfecting us all the while and transforming us back into the image-bearers He meant for us to be...in the image of Christ. I have written about this subject (sanctification) previously.
With that spiritual and theological reality firmly in mind, let me ask you----could you adequately map your spiritual journey in words or art or music or a line graph or some medium of the sort? What if you reflected on where God has brought you, what He has done in you, what He has transformed about you and when by the decade? Where were you spiritually in the early 80s? What changed about your faith by the mid 90s? What did God do in your life by 2000 or by the time you had children, etc? This is a spiritual journey and it is important (even very Hebrew) to walk forward through life looking backwards over your shoulder and recalling the great things that God has done. This reflection is also healthy, deeply rewarding, and often humbling. It also happens to be a marvelous spiritual exercise to start any new year.
Have a happy one!
-RCW
P.S. One of the astonishing things about this sort of activity is that you may at times be tempted to think that you had certain times or years when you were far from God or that you felt distant from Him. Let me encourage you that it is often in our lowest and bleakest of states that God is doing the most refining and bringing about the most spiritual growth in our lives. If I were to graph the spiritual "valleys" of my life, I doubt very much if God would chart them as valleys...to Him they might be mountaintops. For it is when we are weakest---when we must lean most closely upon Him for everything---that His power is perfected in us. To adapt some words from A.W. Tozer: "Before God can use a man greatly, He has to break a man deeply."
P.P.S. For you theology dorks like me out there, Wayne Grudem provides a good spiritual growth graph of this sort in his Systematic Theology in the section on sanctification.
Not wanting to let the moment slip by without sneaking in a quick line, I worked to squeeze in time for a post.
I have spoken before of how the Christian life---from our birth, to our spiritual birth or conversion, and throughout our entire life until our dying day---is a process. It is a spiritual journey in which God is drawing us closer to Himself. We may not always understand how or why or that it is even happening, but for Christians walking with God, He is perfecting us all the while and transforming us back into the image-bearers He meant for us to be...in the image of Christ. I have written about this subject (sanctification) previously.
With that spiritual and theological reality firmly in mind, let me ask you----could you adequately map your spiritual journey in words or art or music or a line graph or some medium of the sort? What if you reflected on where God has brought you, what He has done in you, what He has transformed about you and when by the decade? Where were you spiritually in the early 80s? What changed about your faith by the mid 90s? What did God do in your life by 2000 or by the time you had children, etc? This is a spiritual journey and it is important (even very Hebrew) to walk forward through life looking backwards over your shoulder and recalling the great things that God has done. This reflection is also healthy, deeply rewarding, and often humbling. It also happens to be a marvelous spiritual exercise to start any new year.
Have a happy one!
-RCW
P.S. One of the astonishing things about this sort of activity is that you may at times be tempted to think that you had certain times or years when you were far from God or that you felt distant from Him. Let me encourage you that it is often in our lowest and bleakest of states that God is doing the most refining and bringing about the most spiritual growth in our lives. If I were to graph the spiritual "valleys" of my life, I doubt very much if God would chart them as valleys...to Him they might be mountaintops. For it is when we are weakest---when we must lean most closely upon Him for everything---that His power is perfected in us. To adapt some words from A.W. Tozer: "Before God can use a man greatly, He has to break a man deeply."
P.P.S. For you theology dorks like me out there, Wayne Grudem provides a good spiritual growth graph of this sort in his Systematic Theology in the section on sanctification.
Discipleship,
Encouragement,
Faith,
Growing,
Journaling,
New Year's,
On Life,
Sanctification
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comments (2)
I am beginning to teach a college and young adult Bible study class on Sunday. For curriculum, I am using John Piper's Don't Waste Your Life.
The premise is so very basic, but the message somehow seems to be so needed among those in our churches today. I am not sure why the enormous disconnect (between church on Sunday and the rest of the work week Monday through Saturday) continues to be so prevalent, but when I look around, it has every indication of being an epidemic.
Here is the message:
Life is so precious. You have but one to live. A simple but unforgettable proverb used to rest above the sink where I once did dishes to help pay for my theological education. I was often caught up in worship as I scrubbed. It read: "Life is like a shiny penny. You may spend it however you wish, but you may only spend it once."
John Piper shares of a similar jingle which was hung prominently in his home and continually brought him inspiration as a young man:
"Only one life, 'Twill soon be past; Only what's done for Christ will last."
What this "jingle" DOES NOT mean is that only Bible study, prayer, time at church, mission trips, and the like count for worthwhile or even "eternal" pursuits. What is DOES mean is that anything that you do for Christ...a worshipful act of any sort - whether it is reporting for your job 15 minutes early on a Monday just to be sure and set a Christian example of a godly work ethic, or changing your baby's diapers so that your spouse doesn't have to because you want to love them with Jesus' own sacrificial love, etc. - only what's done for Christ will last. This clarification is so important because it helps us not to see life divided into compartments of "sacred" time and "secular" time, but to embrace ALL of our life - every single circumstance or activity - as "sacred" time. May every moment be unto Him!
One of the many things I love about one of my own alma maters, Wheaton College (which for the record is where John Piper went to school as well back in the 60's
), is its motto: "For Christ and His Kingdom."
The Bible says: You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body" (1 Cor. 6:19-20).
So, what is the verdict? Is your life "counting" by bringing glory to God? Or are you wasting it by worshipping and pursuing other things? Where does your relationship and growth in Christ fit into your priorities? Make HIM your single passion and suddenly real, abundant, eternal life will begin.
-RCW
P.S. For additional related thoughts on this subject matter, there is a wealth of literature. A good start is the book of Proverbs or the book of James, perhaps even Ecclesiastes. The book entitled The Call by Os Guinness is pure gold. You can also see my previous entry here. In the world of literature, there is a phenomenal short work by Samuel Johnson about a prince named "Rasselas" who has to choose a way of life (readable online here). I read it in a literature class in college and it has never left me. These are only a few for starters.
The premise is so very basic, but the message somehow seems to be so needed among those in our churches today. I am not sure why the enormous disconnect (between church on Sunday and the rest of the work week Monday through Saturday) continues to be so prevalent, but when I look around, it has every indication of being an epidemic.
Here is the message:
Life is so precious. You have but one to live. A simple but unforgettable proverb used to rest above the sink where I once did dishes to help pay for my theological education. I was often caught up in worship as I scrubbed. It read: "Life is like a shiny penny. You may spend it however you wish, but you may only spend it once."
John Piper shares of a similar jingle which was hung prominently in his home and continually brought him inspiration as a young man:
"Only one life, 'Twill soon be past; Only what's done for Christ will last."
What this "jingle" DOES NOT mean is that only Bible study, prayer, time at church, mission trips, and the like count for worthwhile or even "eternal" pursuits. What is DOES mean is that anything that you do for Christ...a worshipful act of any sort - whether it is reporting for your job 15 minutes early on a Monday just to be sure and set a Christian example of a godly work ethic, or changing your baby's diapers so that your spouse doesn't have to because you want to love them with Jesus' own sacrificial love, etc. - only what's done for Christ will last. This clarification is so important because it helps us not to see life divided into compartments of "sacred" time and "secular" time, but to embrace ALL of our life - every single circumstance or activity - as "sacred" time. May every moment be unto Him!
One of the many things I love about one of my own alma maters, Wheaton College (which for the record is where John Piper went to school as well back in the 60's
), is its motto: "For Christ and His Kingdom."The Bible says: You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body" (1 Cor. 6:19-20).
So, what is the verdict? Is your life "counting" by bringing glory to God? Or are you wasting it by worshipping and pursuing other things? Where does your relationship and growth in Christ fit into your priorities? Make HIM your single passion and suddenly real, abundant, eternal life will begin.
-RCW
P.S. For additional related thoughts on this subject matter, there is a wealth of literature. A good start is the book of Proverbs or the book of James, perhaps even Ecclesiastes. The book entitled The Call by Os Guinness is pure gold. You can also see my previous entry here. In the world of literature, there is a phenomenal short work by Samuel Johnson about a prince named "Rasselas" who has to choose a way of life (readable online here). I read it in a literature class in college and it has never left me. These are only a few for starters.
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