Walking with God Honestly

Jesus said that He is the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6).

One of the implications of this verse is that, because He is truth, we will experience the presence of God on a consistent basis only as we live in truth. In this case, truth means far more than simple honesty. It speaks to being genuine and truly yourself. This is difficult to do in a world that expects each of us to be and to behave certain ways. In addition, we live in a church culture that places its own burdens of performance on us.

In response to these pressures, and out of a desire to be a good Christian, we learn early on how to behave properly - often at the cost of being ourselves. We no longer feel safe in church being ourselves, so we hide ourselves and put on a show of acceptability to those around us.

I have decided that one of the most precious gifts I have in my life are the people who are safe enough that I am able to be myself with them. They help reconcile me to myself and draw me closer to God. I wonder what would happen if we decided to leave behind the dysfunctional rules of how we ought to behave and decided to be genuine, to walk in truth.

Maybe we would find that sense of community and belonging that we long for.

Maybe we would come to terms with our struggles instead of hiding from them.

Maybe we would find God in a deeper way.

Worthless Christian Activities

1 Corinthians 3:10-15 (NIV)

By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.

Yikes! This passage gives us a very strong warning that it is possible to do all kinds of Christian things and then discover that God considers all of our work to be pretty worthless. Can you imagine serving the Lord for years and discovering that He thought all that you did was a waste of time? Sadly, I think this is true for most Christians and Christian ministries. I know that is the case for me.

You see, although Paul warns us about worthless activities (wood, hay and straw), he does not tell us what God's standard is for evaluating our work. What makes what we do wood as opposed to gold? The answer is found in the book of John.

John 15:1-5 (NIV)

"I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing."

Here at the end of these verses, Jesus says that if we are not abiding in Him, we can do nothing. What does that mean?

To start with, abiding in Christ is not simply being a Christian. It is living in a love relationship with the Lord in which we have an active, on-going communion with Him. We are able to sense what the Holy Spirit is saying and we respond in loving obedience to His leading.

Secondly, when Jesus says we can do nothing, what He is telling us is that apart from abiding in Him, nothing we do matters to Him. We can do plenty of things apart from Christ, good and bad, so the saying that we can do nothing must apply to the value of those works.

So, here in John, Jesus says that if the things we do are not birthed out of an on-going love relationship with Him, they are worthless in His eyes.

Sadly, I think much of my Christian life has been wood, hay and straw. I was taught how to be a performer for God, not a lover of God. It also seems to me that most American Christians fall into that same category - and most churches and ministries as well. We have programs and activities and we are very, very busy. But in the process, we, like the church in Ephesus (Revelation 2:1-5), have lost our first love. As a result, even if God uses our efforts, they amount to very little in His eyes. Our works, because they are not grounded in a genuine relationship with God, are wood, hay and straw, if even that.

So, if you have a very successful ministry, but do not have a deep love-walk with Jesus, do not deceive yourself that God is pleased. He is using your efforts, but they are wood, hay and straw. Likewise, if all you do is mop floors for a living, but your work springs out of a deep love for your Savior, then there is precious gold every time your mop slides across the floor.

What will is take for us to quit doing all kinds of stuff and learn instead how to be lovers? At what point will we finally lay aside our wood, hay and straw so that we can pick up the gold, silver and costly stones that are found in loving God?

Walking by Faith

There comes a point in our Christian growth when God calls us to walk by faith. Walking by faith has two key components - having faith and surrendering. This means that our walk by faith may have a couple of different stages to it (Note: there is no set path from stage to stage, however).

Baby Stage (Low Faith, Low Surrender) - In this baby stage, we do not really trust God, nor have we surrendered ourselves to Him in a significant way. We are walking by faith in name only. This is the typical starting point for most of us. The key indicators of being in this stage is that our life matters a great deal to us and we do not think God can or will take care of us.

There is a second group in this category of low faith and low surrender, but they are not babies in the faith at all. This group consists of people who have such a negative emotional picture of themselves and the Lord that they cannot trust Him or surrender themselves to Him in a significant way. Typically, they are well aware of their struggles and really want things to be different. However, they are in the ICU Stage (Low Faith, Low Surrender) where much healing needs to happen before they can walk by faith.

Self-Sufficient Stage (High Faith, Low Surrender) - When we believe in the goodness of God, but we are not yet ready to lay down our self-will to Him, we are in the self-sufficient stage. It is possible for us to have been Christians for a long time and to be well-regarded by others, and yet still be in this stage. This is especially true if we are very talented or have a lot of worldly wisdom. Because our hearts are so deceitful, it is also possible to live in this stage and not even be aware of it. The key indicators are that we still consider our lives to be important and we still think too highly of ourselves. It is a place of great, albeit subtle, pride.

Wounded Stage (Low Faith, High Surrender) - Frequently, people who have been wounded in the past are willing to surrender themselves to the Lord, but do not have any expectation of receiving anything good from Him. They are willing to pay the cost to follow Jesus, but they walk by faith in not being blessed instead of in being blessed. Because they simply cannot face the disappointment of being let down once again, it is easier to just not expect anything. The key indicators of someone in this stage are unresolved abuse, rejection and authority issues.

Faithful Stage (High Faith, High Surrender) - The person in this stage has embraced the paradox of losing their life to gain it. He or she places no importance on their life anymore - they do not love it even to death. They exist only to serve the Lord. At the same time, this person has discovered the tremendous love that the Father has for them. As a result, they gladly trust Him and have no fear of what may happen.

Notice this, though, what may happen may not be pleasant. The person in the faithful stage is no longer personally invested in how their life turns out. Their life is fully surrendered to God and they have released any claim they may have had on what God does with it. Instead, their satisfaction and success in life is found in the love of the Father - and this allows them to have great faith that whatever the Father does with them is good.

Also keep in mind that the stages presented here are not distinct categories. There are gradients to faith and surrender. Rarely will we find ourselves exactly in one category or another. However, we can begin to see what our dominant tendencies are and ask the Lord to work specifically on those areas so that we can mature in our walk with Him.

Conclusion - The way we grow in being able to walk by faith is simple: The more we know the Father and His love for us, the better we can surrender, the more faith we can have, and the more healing we will experience. So, we don't exert ourselves to generate more faith or greater surrender by ourselves. Instead, we make it our goal to press in to know the Father. As we do that, all the rest gets taken care of.

Impossible Callings

There are times when the Lord calls us to do something that is impossible. It may be an act of forgiveness or a task that is outside of our abilities or any one of a number of things. In our performance Christianity, we usually think that every task God reveals is one that we need to do, even the impossible ones.

God's plan in those moments, though, may not be to make us do the task at all. More often than not, God's purpose is to expose our self-sufficiency and call us to a deeper level of trust in Him.

The next time you are confronted with something you can't do, don't beat yourself up over your failing or get discouraged at the task demanded of you. Instead, quiet yourself like a little child on its Father's lap and confess your smallness before Him. The Lord loves it when we trust Him and make room for Him to work.

Embracing Shortcomings

In Colossians 2:6-7, we are told that we should walk out our Christian life in just the same manner as we received salvation. In effect, what Paul is saying is that living the Christian life requires the same thing from us that salvation did.

What is that? Surrender.

The key to salvation is an act on our part to surrender ourselves to God. We no longer rely on our abilities or our worthiness to achieve salvation. We understand that it is only by His work that we are saved.

The same is true in the spiritual life. We can try to accomplish many things by our own efforts, but true success occurs when we surrender and allow God to accomplish in us what only He can do.

Too often, because we do not yet trust Him fully, we rely on our own efforts to grow spiritually. As we do, God will often show us the many areas in which we fall short of what He desires. Sadly, we may understand this revelation as a demand by the Lord that we work harder. In fact, He is trying to show us how incapable we are of true righteousness so that we will finally yield to Him and let Him work that righteousness in us.

When we do this, we are truly working out our salvation with fear and trembling, knowing that it is God who is at work in us (Philippians 2:12-13). We can also embrace our shortcomings and delight in our weakness. We have finally discovered the truth that when we are weak, He is indeed strong (2 Corinthians 12:10).

Too much of Western Christianity more closely resembles a self-help program or a how-to manual, and too little of it calls to us to fall on our knees and cry out to the Lord as our only hope. But if we are to be truly spiritual, the road involves surrender, not accomplishment.

Religion versus Relationship

"Jimmy" is a model Christian. He's about as perfect as they come. His behavior is moral and kind. He attends church every week, leads a mid-week Bible study and teaches a Sunday school class. In addition, he has regular, daily devotions and is frequently reading Christian books.

Everyone speaks well of Jimmy. Everyone, that is, but God.

Jimmy's problem is not that he is doing anything wrong. In fact, he is doing things very well. The problem is a question of motive. You see, there are two ways we can approach God. The most common way is through religion. In religion, we attempt by our behavior to seek God's favor or blessing in our lives. The religious person, whether Hindu or Christian or Muslim, does what their religion requires out of a place of emptiness. They need God's blessing, so they do whatever their particular faith says is necessary to experience God's favor.

The Christian faith is the only faith that offers an alternative to religion - relationship. In relationship, we already know that we are fully accepted and loved by God. As a result, our behavior is no longer an attempt to earn His favor, but the response of a heart that knows it is truly loved.

Sadly, most Christians have never had a deep experience of the love of the Father, let alone an on-going sense of His favor. As a result, whether we realize it or not, we become like Jimmy and start living out of religion instead of relationship. That is because when we are empty inside, we will make getting our emptiness filled the motive for what we do, whether we realize it or not. Our outward behavior may be wonderful, but it is a form of manipulation, not adoration.

It is only when we are filled with the love of the Father that we are able to live unselfishly, because it is only then that we have no need we are desperate to meet. We are free to love others and serve God with no ulterior motive. Our life is now a response to being loved, not a desperate attempt to get love.

That is the true Christian - the one who lives their life as an outflow of a love relationship with God. Other followers of Jesus may indeed be born again, but they have not entered into the abundant life that God offers each one of us.

So how do we enter into this abundant life? It is not necessarily easy or quick. For me, it took several years of unlearning my performance-based Christianity and learning to make seeking God my top priority. When He became more important than all of my other Christian activities, then things began to change. Still, I needed a lot of emotional healing to be able to receive the love that God had for me.

The result is that much of the time I walk in an awareness that I am incredibly loved by the Father. That awareness changes the entire way I think about life, myself and other people. What matters most is simply loving God back and worshipping Him. Ambition, pride, selfishness are all crucified by the power of love.

Relationship with God

Two thoughts on this subject:

First: I have six children. My relationship with each of them is different - not because I am different, but because they are each different. In the same way, we should expect that each of our relationships with God will be different because we are all different. Similarly, as we grow and change, our relationship with the Lord will also grow and change. This growth is one reason why many people who have been believers for a while no longer feel like they fit in the Christian culture. The cookie cutter relationship presented by much of the Christian culture is designed for the young and less mature. It does not have room in it for the nuances, freedom and mutuality of a more mature relationship with God.

Second: God will often place people in positions to argue or disagree with Him. Moses, Ezekiel & Peter each had experiences like that. In some cases, He does it to teach us a lesson (Like Peter and the vision of unclean animals), but in others, it is to enhance our relationship with Him (like Ezekiel cooking food over human excrement). You see, real relationship requires communication and mutual decision making. When we require God to be the only decision maker, we prevent Him and us from having a deeper relationship.

So, God will ask us to do outlandish or very difficult things - not to see if we will measure up, but to engage us in dialogue and discussion with Him. These tough requests are not designed for us to see our shortcomings as much as they are designed for us to engage in a full relationship with the Lord.

In Ezekiel's case, God told him to cook his food in a way that would make it unclean. Ezekiel protested and God all lowed him to use cow manure instead of human excrement. The issue in the interchange really had nothing to do with the fuel used for cooking. It had everything to do with God wanting a depth of relationship where they could discuss and decide together what to do.

Christian Obedience

Romans 8:1-4


1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,
2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.
3 For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man,
4 in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.


It is tempting to read this passage as solely having to do with salvation. Because we are saved, there is no condemnation. We are set free from the law of sin and death.


I am wondering, though, if this passage is really addressing our daily lives as believers. We have no need to walk in any kind of condemnation any more because in Christ there is no condemnation. In fact, He has set me free from the law of sin and death. That entire way of viewing life no longer applies to me. Rather than living under the need to obey, I am free to obey out of love instead. In the first case, my obedience is about how it benefits me and in the second case my obedience is about how I can bless the Father.

Why we don't seek His presence

I am more and more convinced that people do not experience the presence of God more for the following reasons (no particular order):

1. They were never taught how.

2. They were never taught to value the presence of God.

3. They feel unworthy, rejected, condemned or otherwise shunned by God and undeserving of His love.

4. They are so busy serving God that they miss out on being with Him.

5. They prefer a lower level of intimacy due to fear or control issues.

I'm sure there are more reasons. Maybe I will add to the list later.

Another ginosko (See March 13, 2009 post)

In John 17:3, Jesus says:

"This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent."

The word in the Greek for "know" is ginosko. So what Jesus is saying here is that eternal life is not found in an intellectual understanding of God, but in an intimate knowing of Him. It is a relationship thing - not an intellectual or performance thing.

Knowing God and Knowing God

It is a bit of a shame that English has only one major word for knowing. In the Greek of the New Testament, there are two main words, oida and ginosko. Oida refers to knowing something through an intellectual apprehension of the subject. Ginosko, in contrast, carries with it a sense of experientially knowing something.

So, when the Gospels say that Joseph was not intimate with Mary until after Jesus was born, they say that Joseph did not know (ginosko) her. Likewise, when the woman with the issue of blood felt that she was healed and when Jesus felt the healing power leave him, in both cases, the word used is ginosko. Both the woman and Jesus knew what had occurred not by an intellectual understanding, but by the experience of what just happened.

1 Jn 3:6 states (in part): No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.

This verse is puzzling until we understand that the word for know in this verse is ginosko. What John is saying is that the way to overcome sin is to have a life-changing experience of the presence and love of God - to know God by an intimate experience, not just intellectually.

This truth highlights that being a Christian is all about experiencing the love and presence of God. Everything else in the Christian life is the natural result of having developed the habit of being in His presence in a significant, experiential way.

Authentic Spirituality

Much is written in Evangelical circles these days about spirituality. For the most part, a lot of it can be distilled down to the idea of emotional authenticity. In other words we are not genuinely spiritual unless we live in the moment with our emotions. It is then that we have courage and are real with all around us. This, we are told, is authentic spirituality.

The problem, of course, with this line of thinking is that it is not really spiritual at all. It is teaching us how to be authentic humans, not how to be spiritually authentic.

Spiritual authenticity comes when we are fully emotionally engaged in life and we are experiencing a relationship with God that transcends our intellect and emotions. It is this communion with God from the core of our being expressed in a real, vulnerable way to others that is true spiritual authenticity.

Missing the point

The point is simple: We should not allow ourselves to be satisfied with hearing the truth only. We must have a determination to see the truth manifested in our lives before we will be satisfied. Otherwise, we will have our ears tickled with truth but not have our lives transformed by it.

Life as a Response

In some sense, everything we do is a response. Even when we seem to be initiating something, we are still responding to the environment around us. In addition, every action we take is in some measure a response to everything that we have experienced before.

When we encounter the presence of God in a significant way, our lives cannot help but change because that incredible experience becomes part of the basis for all of our future responses. When we can get immersed in His love, then our responses in life become more Christ-like because of the experience of His love becomes such a powerful force in determining our responses.

The Centrality of the Love of the Father

Everything in the Christian life must begin with a deep & profound understanding of the love of God for us individually. It all comes out of the love of the Father. If you miss that, then everything else you do as a Christian will be built on the wrong foundation.

Theory Versus Practice

We all want to be a servant - until we are treated like one.
We all want to be fools for Christ - until we look foolish.
We all want to be humble - until our pride gets hurt.

Thy Kingdom Come

I wonder what it means in the Lord's prayer when it says, "Your kingdom come." In this phrase, the verb is an imperative or a command. We often think of this phrase as a petition spoken by us to God, i.e. "God, please bring Your kingdom." What if instead it is intended to be a command spoken by us, ordering the Kingdom itself to be manifested? Or maybe we are speaking to the created order, demanding that it all come into agreement with the kingdom of God? Either way, there is a huge difference in our understanding of the power we have and how the Christian life should be lived based on how we decide to understand this phrase. Is it a polite request or a forceful demand? There is room in the Greek for both options.

God's Leading

How often have you heard that God leads us through circumstances? Does that really make sense? This is not to say that God does not use circumstances, but it seems like circumstances in themselves, are not good sign posts of the Lord's leading. Think of what would have happened if Paul had followed God's leading through circumstances.

Pharisees

I am troubled by the realization that as a seminary graduate I am more qualified to be a Pharisee than the average Christian. Perhaps one of the errors of the Pharisees was their over-emphasis on obedience. Their emphasis on the Law allowed them to lose sight of the Law Giver.

Obedience without relationship breeds legalism. True relationship without obedience is not possible.

Holiness

Holiness is important. We are told in the Bible to be holy because God is holy. What is critical in holiness, however, is the heart motivation, not the behavior. If we have hearts that are fully in love with God, then we will walk in holiness simply because that is what we want to do. On the other hand, if we seek to walk in holiness apart from love, it will only lead us into the dry desert of legalism. Such a situation soon saps the grace completely out of our faith and our walk with God becomes a self-energized effort at obtaining His approval, not the loving response of one who is already approved.