works of art…
If you are a follower of Christ…
What you were:
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 flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. Ephesians 2:1-3
What you have become:
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. Ephesians 2:4-10
* (and are not any longer)
everybody′s killin′ giants…
When David killed Goliath, pretty much everybody thought this was an amazing, rare thing. And indeed it was.
It’s interesting, though, to see—as time passes and the years go by—giant-killing becoming pretty common. Almost a fad.
Why is that?
I was a high school freshman when Christiaan Barnard performed the first heart transplant. The patient survived 18 days before succumbing to pneumonia. His next patient survived 19 months. Meanwhile, Americans Norman Shumway and Denton Cooley began transplants. Success was counted in days, and then months, before it was eventually counted in years. At one point, most surgeons stopped performing the operation until the development of better drugs helped the body accept the hearts, but not the infections that almost always developed with the drugs then available.
By the time I graduated from college, though, heart transplants were so common the newspapers stopped reporting them.
Why is that?
I have seen communities where divorce is common and hopelessness reigns in a majority of marriages. Or so it seems.
Then one couple finds the way to restoration, their marriage saved. Then another. And another.
Why is that?
I think it’s because, for most folks, seeing is believing. As long as all they see is a hopeless situation, hopelessness is reality to them.
They believe what they see.
But that doesn’t mean they’re seeing what they want. What they wish for with all their hearts. When they see the miracle, when confronted with the reality of something they wished for but never thought possible…
What they believe changes 180 degrees from what they expected.
Sometimes all that stands in the way of a better way for those who share our world—who wish for something better, but dare not believe in what they wish for—is for us to believe. And for us to change in a way that lets the world see—maybe for the first time—the very real possibilities. Possibilities that were there all the time. Unseen and unclaimed.
Long term, most people aren’t persuaded by the high muckety-mucks we usually think of as leaders, whether in church or corporation or politics.
They’re persuaded by what they see happening with their friends. What their friends value, what their friends choose. They believe what their friends believe. They believe what they see happening in their friends′ lives.
For good or ill.
The truly effective leader knows who he is and where he is going, and by the example of his life and the power of his words, brings others with him.
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:2)
live the new life…
My journey in becoming a fully devoted follower of Christ began when I was a junior in college, during Spring Break, when I first made the decision to let God be in charge of every aspect and dimension of my life.
Seemingly, not a lot changed. At least at first.
Fortunately, I fell in with a group of students who believed with all their hearts that everything God promised in the Bible was theirs to claim and that everything God commanded was theirs to obey.
In my experience to that point, they were pretty radical.
I began following them around and emulating them. One thing I found out quickly was that they took learning the Bible so seriously, they actually memorized it!
That was a first for me. Even though I was never able to memorize anything (which is why it took me a fifth year of college to re-take Spanish I), I took to scripture memory. It was the first time in my life I was able to focus on anything for more than a few minutes at a time. And that changed everything for me. I began for the first time to find peace in the midst of the emotional storms that were my life story to that point.
Some of the people I was hanging around were working their way through a scripture memory program called The Topical Memory System. So, naturally, I began to do the same thing. The program had 60 verses, broken down into five groups of 12. Each of these five groups was then broken down into six concepts pegged to two verses each. A wonderful system that encourages me to this day.
It so happens, as this season of life finds me in a sort of Golden Oldies phase, that this coming week’s focus is on the first group of verse, called Live the New Life. Here it is:
| LIVE THE NEW LIFE | ||
| Christ the Center | 2 Corinthians 5:17 | Galatians 2:20 |
| Obedience to Christ | Romans 12:1 | John 14:21 |
| The Word | 2 Timothy 3:16 | Joshua 1:8 |
| Prayer | John 15:7 | Philippians 4:6,7 |
| Fellowship | Matthew 18:20 | Hebrews 10:24,25 |
| Witnessing | Matthew 4:19 | Romans 1:16 |
I dare you to give memorizing it a try…
a history of the wheel…
Well, it may not be the wheel you’re imagining.
Very early in my own experience as a brand new follower of Christ, I was blessed to be adopted by a little college community. They were a group of young Christ-followers who, I thought, were leading very radical lives: young people who believed what they read in the Bible and encouraged each other to live out its promises and commands without apology.
They were the ones who first introduced me to The Wheel. And The Wheel was one of the tools God used to re-structure and re-focus my life as a believer. I still look to the concepts of balance it conveys to guide and re-calibrate my life.
Here is its history.
fidelity in spiritual disciplines…
Ken Boa, in No Turning Back—Seven Crucial Characteristics for Finishing Well:
2. Fidelity in Spiritual Disciplines
Spiritual disciplines such as prayer, fellowship, study, worship, and submission are not ends in themselves, but means to the end of intimacy with Christ and spiritual formation. When left to itself, however, any one of these disciplines tends to decline and decay. An infusion of directed intentionality and effort is necessary to sustain order and growth and to bring repeated times of personal renewal.
During the past several months there’s been a radical re-shaping of my daily life. New job (jobs?), new routines, new freedom, new worries, and new opportunities.
One of the new opportunities is a re-do of my devotional life. In some ways it’s been like re-digging old wells that have been polluted and plugged up by disuse and neglect. In some ways, it’s just been frustrating. I started in on a Bible-reading plan that plunked me smack into the wailing and gnashing-of-teeth sections of Jeremiah, followed by Lamentations. A little after that was 1 Chronicles and Ezekiel. Even the Gospels seemed lifeless to me.
It seems I had fallen out of practice. I had forgotten how to find intimacy with Christ through simple daily Bible reading.
Fortunately, I’ve been through this before, and I knew that if I just kept plodding ahead, putting one spiritual foot in front of the other, the intimacy would come.
I also knew—again, from experience—that feeling intimate is not the same as being intimate.
Today, my New Testament reading was Luke 24, the events surrounding the Resurrection. It seems his followers had a hard time believing Jesus had actually risen from the dead, even though he had let them in on it ahead of time. Some of the women went to the tomb on Resurrection Sunday and found it empty. Angels told them he had risen. The disciples didn’t believe them. Even Peter, who ran to the tomb to see what they were talking about, looked in, saw the abandoned graveclothes, and then “went away, wondering to himself what had happened.”
Okay, here’s the part that always freaks me:
Two of his followers are walking on the road when they encounter Jesus. Only, they don’t know it’s him!
Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing him.
He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?”
They stood still, their faces downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you only a visitor to Jerusalem and do not know the things that have happened there in these days?”
“What things?” he asked.
“About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning but didn’t find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.”
He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.
As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus acted as if he were going farther. But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them.
When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?
There are lots of things to learn from this story. Lack of vision. Lack of faith. Lack of ability even to grasp the plain meaning of Scripture until the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to see.
The thing that strikes me today, though, as I long for genuine intimacy with Christ, is the very real possibility that he’s there with me and and I just don’t see him. I mean, it’s happened before.
But notice this:
Though his followers failed to recognize him, he did not fail to reveal himself to them!
Though these people, folks who had actually seen Jesus with their very own physical eyes, who’d spent time with him, did not know him when they encountered him—he knew them. And he showed himself to them.
Isn’t that cool? Isn’t that just like him?
I will be faithful in the disciplines, seeking him with all my heart, trusting him to reveal himself to me.
You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29:13
GOP future
More smart advice from John Avlon
Jennifer Rubin approvingly quotes John Avlon
More on youth vote…
http://roadkillrefugee.wordpress.com/2008/11/10/the-youth-vote-in-election-2008/
some mistakes you can fix, some you can’t…so why vote for the guy sure to make the mistakes you can’t fix?
Sadly, can you understand why I voted Obama? I was disgusted with what the GOP has become. :/
Charles Flemming at 11:31am January 4
Kendale, sorry. You don’t do permanent damage to your country because you’re disgusted with what the GOP has become. That’s like pissing in your drinking water.
Kendale Banks at 11:36am January 4 via Facebook Mobile
Rob- Of all the things about Bush that people didnt like, the one that cut the deepest was that he made Gov. larger when he said he was going to make it smaller, and THATS what I dont forgive :C
Charles Flemming at 11:39am January 4
I’m with you there, Kendale, but again, there are mistakes presidents make that can be fixed and there are mistakes that can never be fixed. Bad Supreme Court appointments can’t be fixed. You must always, always set aside your emotions when faced with two unsatisfactory candidates. You must evaluate how much and what kind of damage each of them is likely to inflict. Never, never vote for a candidate who will do damage to the Supreme Court. Almost any other sin can be cleaned up after but that one.
Frank Rich lives (barely)…
It is widely rumored that Frank Rich was once an outstanding drama critic.
That was the last time poor Rich possessed any professional credibility. Now he’s an empty-headed liberal shill. I hope not all Harvard history majors reflect as dimly as he does about politics. In his present perch at the New York Times doing—what exactly is it he does there anyway? Anyway, he seems to inhabit whatever functional space there is between Maureen Dowd and Paul Krugman. He writes with her substance and his style.
The results, as manifest in Saturday’s installment in ignorance (Herbert Hoover Lives is the clever title), are dismal. Poor Rich begins on this chorus of doom:
HERE’S a bottom line to keep you up at night: The economy is falling faster than Washington can get moving. President Obama says his stimulus plan will save or create four million jobs in two years. In the last four months of 2008 alone, employment fell by 1.9 million. Do the math.
Okay, Frank.
What is the math?
That Messiah spoke and we are simply to deliver?
