Living the Christian Life

What does it mean to live the Christian life?

Honestly, in my efforts to try and figure it out, it has only become more difficult to understand. I mean, I have been a Christian in name for years but only in the last few years have I begun to look at the pattern of life I have chosen to live in comparison to the life He has called me to.

So here is the rub – as Believers, we are called to rid ourselves of sinful behavior…be transformed to look more like Christ…noble pursuits for sure but terribly elusive if you ask me. Most of my efforts in this area have been mustered up in my own strength…destined for failure from the beginning.

Is this “New Life” one of comfort and convenience…peace and prosperity? Sunday’s pulpits will be full of messages that preach such things but the promised life is one of contradictions. Jesus tells us that He came to bring abundant life while Paul laments that we will live in constant battle between the Spirit and the flesh. It leaves us in a constant state of striving either toward this abundant life or away from the battle of the flesh. Unfortunately, the reality of a walk with Jesus is that all of it is true for those “in Christ”. The true battle can be, after years of grasping and striving in our own strength that we give up on the precious promises of freedom that fill the Gospel…just settling for a life where we allow a low level of sin and malaise to exist.

Unfortunately, we live in a culture that feeds on the pursuit of independence. It’s part of the fabric of our Constitution and who we are as a nation. It ’s taught in homes and schools across the nation but it is in complete opposition to the Way. God admonishes our independence instead calling for us to live in submission to Him as the source of all life.

I find it strange that my independence, the thing I so often equate to freedom, is actually the one thing that has enslaves me. My flesh is fiercely independent from God. I must admit that I have no idea how to die to my own flesh outside of my own efforts. Exactly how does one crucify his own flesh? I mean, c’mon, I know the book answer and intellectually can grasp the fact that we are supposed to “walk in the Spirit“, but practically, how is this accomplished in the day-to day reality of living in this fallen world? (OK…so here is your golden opportunity to try and “fix” me!)

Submission is contrary to the nature of my flesh. Decades of patterns of behavior dominate my thought processes and like a highly trained athlete who relies on muscle memory to perform, I have learned how to react in certain situations through years of practice. Yes, my relationship with Jesus now defines me as a new creation but that definition is only complete when “in Christ” is added. It is only in His Strength that I can accomplish anything for “apart from Him I can do nothing“.

It’s hard to admit but the life I live is often inconsistent with what I believe. I certainly relate to Paul’s lament in Romans 7 where he says…

“…and sin keeps sabotaging my best intentions…I can will it but I can’t do it…my decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep inside me and gets the better of me every time. It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up…parts of me covertly rebel and just when I least expect it, they take charge.”

I have come to realize that there is no amount of effort I can muster up, in my own strength, that will allow me to live freely.

So…the Christian life feels at times like a game of tug of war between the new creature that Jesus says I am and the lingering effect of sin that resides in my flesh. Maybe it is exactly this realization that defines the beginning of the Christian life. Sure, salvation starts it all out but to avoid being stuck there, a change of reference is necessary.

And it is my new, old friend Ian Thomas that says…

“…the flesh within will never cease to love sin and given half a chance will always seek to manifest its corruption and depravity….even the godliest of men have latent within them a terrible potential for evil. It is the godliest of men who know this best, for it is acknowledgement of this fact which is the secret to godliness. They have learned through bitter experience that character does not change for the better by improving the flesh but only by allowing it to be replaced by the Holy Spirit“

The Goose is Loose

I haven’t felt much like writing over the last two months, mostly because my heart has been AWOL and the rest of me…well, has been on the run.  I’ve spent much of the last 12 months confronting ”my stuff”and honestly, I have grown tired of the daily confrontation.  Sometimes, isn’t it just easier to check out for awhile?  

There is a reason Jesus tells us to abide (or make our home) in him because,  leaving the relative safety of The Path that Jesus has laid out,  I can easily find myself chasing rabbits down a trail until I’m lost in the woods.  For me, it happens slowly, like the hunter who catches sight of his prey and follows after it until, looking back, I realize I have lost sight of the trail.

But Jesus (and Henry David Thoreau) calls us to choose the “road less travelled”…the one that lies beyond “the narrow gate“.  It is less travelled because the Jesus life is not easy to follow.  At first glance, this path appears more difficult to navigate…and it is if we intend to do so in our own strength and using our singular resources.  It is not the path of least resistance.   But the difficulty of this terrain is an illusion because the sheer grace and extended mercy available to us on the Jesus Path are exactly what makes this path the right choice.  The relationship with Jesus as our intimate trail guide gives us something not available on the “wider path”…a tender offer of encouragement during trials, a source of strength in difficult times, a deep pool of water from which to drink when our souls become parched from the journey, a voice of truth to guide us back on to more charted territory.

Writer Howard Macy said “the spiritual life cannot be made suburban.  It is always frontier, and we who live in it must accept and even rejoice that it remains untamed”.  The Wild Goose is full of mystery - his ways are not our ways…his path is not the well worn one that the world lays before us.  The path, as any avid hiker will attest, requires our full attention in order to navigate the often treacherous landscape.

I’ve spent years exploring the rabbit trails along the Jesus Path and while there can be peace and solitude in that neck of the woods, it is also a place where a man can hide out…induldge himself in the loner role.  Anyway, that is where a good part of my heart has been residing over the past two months.  I am thankful for the gentle prodding of Jesus to get back on The Path and that He doesnt leave me to find my own way back!

Albert Schweitzer said…”The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives” 

The reality for many men (myself included) is that we can be walking on the less travelled path, sure-footed in our recognition of The Path but,  just for a moment, we allow ourselves to be deceived…to think that we know a better way….to trust our own navigation skills.  I believe that the secrets we keep are one of the great culprits of the death he describes.  When we make choices to live a life of secrecy, it chips away at the soul, bit by bit, until parts of us die.  The secrets may be the big and blatant kind, like pornography or alcohol abuse but they can  just as easily be a secret way of thinking…and deep undercurrent of anger, lustful escapism, or greedy focus on the self. 

Jesus so tenderly allows us to experience that death of self because it was part of his plan from the beginning.  Paul reminds us of that in Galatians when he said, “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me”.  My flesh (and its selfish desires) must die in order for me to fully experience the life that Christ has planned for me and the disparity between a life lived chasing rabbits in the woods pales in comparison to the one we are called to live exploring the path with Jesus.

Drifting Off Course

“By your words I can see where I am going, they throw a beam of light on my dark path”  Psalm 119:105

How quickly my ship can sail off course.  It’s never the dramatic shift…the proverbial iceberg in the middle of the Atlantic but rather a slow drift off course.  A failure to guard my heart…taking comfort in worldly things…seeking the approval of others to fill up those empty places in my life.

I, like many men I know, lean toward self-absorbtion.  We grab the reigns of our lives in a vain attempt to control our out-of-control circumstances.  But Jesus calls us to loosen our white-knuckled grip and humble ourselves to the point of weakness because it is in that weakness that His strength is made real in our lives.  It is completely counter-intuitive to what our culture tells us to do.

I went away this past weekend to hike, fish and camp in the Linville Gorge Wilderness Area.  I had been looking forward to this as a time of refreshing…a respite from the harsh details of life that seemed to be slowing swallowing my joy.  As the day approached, I had dreams of catching huge trout and time hearing from God…but, none of that happened.  I realize that I had created an idol out of this trip.  I exalted it in my mind as a path toward the peace and answers that I had been pressing God for. 

Reflecting, I recognize that I had fallen captive to the dreaded “if-only” myth.  If only I could get away to the mountains, I could gather my thoughts and get some direction for life.  If only I had a few more real estate deals in the works, I would feel more at ease financially.  If only I could get this damn work done around my house, I could sell it, downsize and move onto the “next thing” God wants me to do. 

There are a multitude of these myths that take us captive and lead us away from intimacy with Jesus.  If only I could change my circumstances…if only I could change my behavior…if only I could change my thinking….

So, as I lean back into my booth at my favorite coffee shop, reflecting on the status of my heart and what Jesus might be speaking, I recognize (again) that it is only in my connectedness to Him that I have anything.  In my own strength, I will wander off course again.  In my own strength, I will surely be lead by my flesh toward some dark expression. 

But, today’s manna from heaven has been found is his WORD, which is a “lamp unto my feet and a light for my dark path”.

Shalom…

Trees

  I was taking a camera safari this week around Lake Higgins looking for”creation images”.

I was struck by the hard right angle that this tree had to take and how ultimately, it did what it was created to do.  It’s life, much like ours, is dependent upon the light.  It would have withered and died if it had been forced to live in the relative darkness of the forest floor.

And so, we too are to seek the light…and “that light is the light of men!”

 

 OK, this one was obvious.  The Trinity…three in one!!

 

Ever gone through a painful time in your life when it feels like your guts have been ripped out?

 

What happens to us with unconfessed sin in our lives…it eats us up from the inside.

 

 

Prayer

It perplexes me as to why a intimate relationship with Jesus has become such an afterthought for so many Christians.  He is often brought in as some sort of consultant when our lives are falling apart or implored to deliver us from a crisis.  Better yet, we get out the laundry list of prayers like some grocery store checklist. 

Aldous Huxley puts it this way, “the third petition of the Lord’s Prayer is repeated daily by millions who have not the slightest intention of letting anyone’s will be done but their own.’

Our prayers, when made available to Him, were meant to be a means of developing an intimacy with Him as our loving Father so that a deep well of trust exists for when the inevitable trials of life surround us. When the shit finally hits the fan, your only hope in dealing with these calamities is the solid rock of Christ.

Begin cultivating weekly time for prayer, study and self-examination.  Make time spent in the Word as regular as your trip to the gym or your local Starbucks.  Seek out relationships with others who are also seeking a deeper intimacy with the Son. 

Put First Things First…

Lessons from Lazarus

“…and Jesus called to him, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ and the dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.  Jesus said to them, ‘Take off his grave clothes and let him go’  (john 11:43-44)

Everything changes when we move from death to life and whether we realize it or not,our movement into the light is tainted by the stink of death.  Yes, we are a new creation when we accept Jesus as our Savior but we move forward into our new Christian life, like Lazarus, still wearing our grave clothes.  We continue to stink from the habits of the flesh that have corrupted us for years.

Just as we are called to make a decision, so too were the witnesses to this miracle who were not unaffected.  John tells us that “many put their faith in Him” but some of them “went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done“.  When faced with the life and death call of Christ on your life, how do you respond?  Do you put your faith in the life-giving One or do you choose the things of this fallen world?

The religious leaders of the day responded as we so often do…with self-preservation in mind.  After calling a meeting of the Sanhedrin, they exclaimed “what are we accomplishing?  Here is this man performing many miraculous signs.  If we let him go on like this, the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation”

God told us in the beginning that he would place before us life and death…blessing and cursing and he urged us to choose life.  He knows the utter depths of our hearts and allows us all to make a choice…each day – between life and death…between His good path and the one of destruction…between one of selflessness or one of radical self-absorbtion.

A path has been placed before you today – which do you choose?

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference

…Robert Frost

The Habit of Jesus

I used to smoke Marlboro Lights – the short pack…not really sure why I chose that particular brand but, even after giving up the habit almost a dozen years ago, I can still recall how I disgusted I felt when Bubba behind the convenience store counter would tell me, “we’re out of Lights pardner…but we got 100’s”.   What?  Smoke 100’s?  You’ve got to be kidding!  So, off I would go to the next Circle K in search of “my smokes”

Like so many other human beings, I am a creature of habit. 

Habits provide a source of consistency in a tumultuous world.  They may be as benign as putting on your pants the same leg each time to sitting in the same seat at church each week but dont doubt for a minute that your life is ruled by a myriad of these habits.  It’s estimated that out of every 11,000 signals we receive from our senses, our brain only consciously processes 40.

What allows a certain behavior to become habitual?  Why does a smoker continue to puff away even when told he is suffering from emphysema and heart disease?  Why does the obsese person continue to shovel food into their mouth even after being told it will lead to death?   “We have found that people aren’t changing their behaviors,” said Cindy Jardine of the University of Alberta. “But it’s not because they haven’t gotten the information that these are big risks.” She added, “We tend to sort of live for now and into the limited future—not the long term.”

We live for the here and now…we are rebellious to the core…we want unlimited personal freedom.

Blogging  is a recent phenomonon in my life.  It is a habit I have developed that pushes me to examine my life and the undercurrent of my heart.  In doing so, I find myself cultivating a life of prayer, study and self-examination.  It is making Jesus a habit.

And it is in making Jesus my habit that I have found the source of strength and encouragement to address those other less desireable habits that I had used to manage my life.   I have replaced evenings of drinking alcohol with attendance at Samson Society meetings where I am encouraged and sharpened by being in the company of other men who no longer wish to settle for the diseased habits that have haunted them for years.   We make it a habit to meet weekly to confess our junk and seek strength from each other.

Examine those things that have become habits in your life.  Reflect on why they exist in your life and if they have control over you.

Do you use your habits as a coping mechanism?  Are they beneficial or profitable to you in any way?  Would you be comfortable having your habit manifest itself when others are around?  Do your habits have a socially acceptable slant but cause you private angst?  Do your habits make others uncomfortable…are you sure?

So…dear friends, as creatures of light, cultivate the habit of Jesus.  Immerse yourself in those things that build you up…chew on those things that strengthen you.

A letter to Jesus

Today is my birthday Jesus.

I know this comes as no surprise to you, being Lord of Creation, as you had a hand in the whole thing, knitting me together and all. 

I have much to be thankful for…the blessing of a loving wife…the depth of true brotherhood.  But on this 44th birthday, I sip coffee and peck away at my laptop, thankful for the loving, almost surgical way in which you are revealing a new heart in me.    

I’ve settled for so much less than what you intended for me Jesus.  I admit that I had no idea what you were calling me to and that I have overlooked not only my own glory but also of those that you have put in my path.

I am broken in so many ways Jesus and I so desperately need you as my Father.  My fractures and fissures are deep and my enemy’s stronghold well fortified.  But…thank you for answering my unspoken pleas for rescue and coming after that young boy in me…healing the broken places and ushering me forward toward the man that you intend for me to be. 

Jesus, take my face in your hands, even in my active rebellion…when I refuse to listen and follow your good path and speak tenderly to me.  Look deep within me Lord, to those areas where rebellion has found refuge and illuminate the healing path.  Do not leave me alone on this path Jesus as the terrain is unfamiliar and I quickly find myself lost in the thicket.

Around each corner, my “old life” beckons to me…promising what it cannot deliver.  The truest part of me does not want to go back to the safety of my “old life” as it really offers no security at all but my flesh is conniving and tempts me with a sense of familiarity and comfort.

At times, I admit that I feel like a caged bird who can see the freedom of the forest from my perch but has grown comfortable with the perceived safety of my small existence.  Jesus, rescue me from the smallness of my thinking.

I know you’ve ransomed me but like a prisoner held captive for so many decades, it is hard to recognize liberty.  The doors of my cell may have swung open and the light of your presence in my life has pierced the darkness but what is in the light is unknown.  In the darkness, there was constancy and security.

Years of the enemy’s propaganda against my heart have planted seeds of doubt in my mind, saying that you cant be trusted…that your liberty really isnt freedom. 

I recognize that, while you have freed me from the bonds of captivity, you wont force me to leave my prison cell but merely call me forth like Lazarus from the grave.

Keep calling me Jesus…help me recognize that its you who beckons.

The Desert

What causes a man to lose hope?  To despair so greatly that he would rather die than wade into the deep waters of his pain to discover what God is doing?

A friend of mine tried to take his life this week by swallowing a hand full of sleeping pills.  He has been living in a toxic marriage for the last 5 years and along with a job loss, sent him over the edge.  I cannot imagine what must have run through his mind as he wrote a suicide note to his wife and kids and lifted a handful of little blue tablets to his mouth.  Thank God he was spotted by some passers by at the park who called the police in time.

Why does one person choose to wade into the depth of the pain of life while another chooses to be swallowed up by it?  I have had difficulty reconciling that this week.  It struck me how selfish the act of suicide really is.

Author and counselor Dan Allender says that “suffering can move us toward God or it can move us away from Him and consequently, away from being fully human and alive…if we see our difficult circumstances as a set of problems to be solved as painlessly as possible, then we miss the potential to grasp the nature of the event (and what God would want to bring about in is as a result).  God promises us redemption but his sacred path leads away from safety, predictability, and comfort.  Any attempt to fly over the dangerous terrain or detour to safer ground is doomed because it will not take us to God”

I was reading the story of Hosea this week as I processed what had happened to my friend and the words took me into the desert as well.  I spent many days exploring the Sonoran desert as a boy near by home in Arizona.  It was a place of great beauty and danger as well.  So, why did God use the desert as a place to speak to his beloved? 

Is it because in the silence of the desert we discover our dependence on the noise in our lives?  Is it in the vastness of its landscape that we find our  attachment to the comforts and conveniences of life – the belongings to which we cling for security and pleasure?  Allender says that the desert “shatters our souls arrogance and leaves us crying out in thirst and hunger”   Our soul’s arrogance?  That prideful and self-righteous place we retreat to where we take on life on our own terms.  That defiant and independent stance that puts our agenda ahead of the one that God might have for our lives.

I do not profess to have the answers for the depth of pain that my friend is experiencing but I know that he finds himself far from Eden…in a dry and arid desert where all that he has come to rely on has been stripped away.  I hope that he chooses not to run from the pain that he is experiencing but rather, to persevere in his journey until he discovers the oasis that has been prepared for him just around the corner by a God that has wooed him there…to speak tenderly to him…to let him know that, while the path maybe difficult, it is one of healing when walked with Jesus.

Are you available?

What does this question conjur up in your mind?  Openness…receptiveness?

If you were asked this question, in a social context, you might think the person was making a pass or coming on to you in some way.  The dictionary describes it as “being present and ready for use” and “qualified and willing to be of service“  

Are you present each day to the needs of your family?  Are you willing to be of service to the friend that is struggling?  If I were to ask you the same question in context to your relationship with Jesus, would that change your perspective at all?  Do you find yourself present to Him each day…ready and willing to be used?

The latest book to grace my nightstand is from counsellor and author Dan Allender who writes…

 “There is a door to every heart and every experience in life is either invited in or turned away…we hear the knock, or we ignore the noise and turn our attention more deliberately to other stimuli.  The decision to hear the knock and open the door is a stance that determines how much we are willing to change and grow.”   

Over the past year plus, I have been confronted with a host of long-standing sin patterns and I have reached the point of asking the Lord…so, why now?  Why not 10 or 15 years ago?  Is it that God wasnt ready to put these things in front of me or was it more that I was not truly available to Him until the past two years?  It is certainly no coincidence that, as I have grown in intimacy with the Lord, I have been both wooed and disciplined in the most extravagant ways.

Recently, I have been chewing on Paul’s statement that “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me”.  It’s a mind-bending statement that I have glossed over for years in my reading of the Scriptures.  However, I do not think Paul is waxing philosophic here but is, in a very real sense, telling us that we no longer have a right to our lives and that as we submit to the indwelling Spirit, we see the fruit of His life being expressed in us including the death of ingrained habits and sinful thought patterns that have plagued us for years.

As Allender writes, “..stepping on to the healing path is both a choice and a mystery…and God meets our desire with His presence and then dances with us - but only as wildly as we wish…many moments in life, we simply dont want to dance or choose not to make ourselves available”

So much of our walk with Jesus boils down to the decisions we make…a choice to carve out intentional time for reflection, study and self-examination or to induldge our flesh in its craving for food, alcohol, mind-numbing hours of television or work.  In other words, do I make myself available to God to hear his voice, reflect on his counsel and relax in his company.

Paul tells us in Col 3 (the Message), “So if you are serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it.  Pursue the things over which Christ presides.  Dont shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with things right in front of you.  Look up and be alert to what is going on around Christ – that’s where the action is.  See things from his perspective.  Your old life is dead – your new life, which is your real life – is with Christ in God”

So… I find myself this day as I do so many others, making myself available to my Father.  How about you?