Christomorphosis

Study: Looking into God's Word, Pt. III

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Greg Linton) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 15:15:00 +0000

IV. Meditating on the Word

In the last post, I discussed the need to hear and read the Word. Now we will go beyond reading the Word to meditating on it. The Bible promises special blessings for meditating on God’s Word. Joshua 1:8 promises prosperity and success to those who meditate on God’s Word at moments throughout the day. Psalm 1:1-3 says that meditating on God’s Word results in stability, fruitfulness, perseverance, and prosperity (Whitney, 1991, pp. 44-45).

Hearing and reading the word have been compared to a brief rainfall on hard ground. Meditation, however, soaks the soul with God’s Word and allows it to penetrate deep beneath the surface (Whitney, 1991, pp. 45-46). Studying God’s Word is an intellectual quest for meaning and understanding. It provides one with knowledge about God and his will for us. Meditation leads us into an encounter with God. It internalizes and personalizes the passage (Foster, 1988, p. 29).

Another way to consider the difference is to contrast informational reading with formational reading (Mulholland, 1993, pp. 110-111). Informational reading seeks to control the text: We select the material, we come with our own agenda, and we read it as quickly as possible to find answers to our questions.

Formational reading, or spiritual reading, is open to God’s control of our lives for God’s purposes. We allow God to set the agenda. We approach Scripture with an open mind. We let God question us through his Word. In spiritual reading, we plumb the depths of the text so that the text may plumb the depths of our being and doing.

Sometimes we need to read less in order to meditate more. We need to read for quality as well as quantity. We need depth as well as breadth. We need to slow down and savor the Word rather than gulping it down too quickly. Instead of hurrying to get to the end of a text, we need to take time to get to the bottom of it (Edwards, 1995, p. 93).

A tried-and-true method of meditation on Scripture is called lectio divina, a Latin phrase that means “divine reading.” This practice goes back to ancient monasticism. It was promoted by Saint Benedict in the sixth century, and it eventually was developed into a four-stage process by a Carthusian monk named Guigo II in AD 1150. Protestant leaders such as John Calvin and Richard Baxter practiced this method of reflective meditation on scripture (Thompson, 1995). Because this spiritual practice has proven so beneficial through the centuries, I am going to explain it here.

A. Preparing for Lectio Divina

Preparing for lectio divina requires attention to four crucial elements: time, place, mind, and body.

1. Time

Set aside a certain amount of time, preferably an hour, each day or week to meditate on a passage of Scripture. Set a time when you are less likely to become drowsy. You should also avoid interruptions or distractions during that time. For most people, an hour in the early morning might be the best time for this.

2. Place

Select a place that is free from distractions. A prayer room or prayer closet would be ideal. Each of us must find or create our own poustinia, a place of simplicity and isolation that limits outer distractions to that we can focus on the presence of God.

3. Mind

As you prepare for the reading, seek to quiet and clear the mind. Keep a notepad handy to jot down any anxieties or tasks to be completed that would weigh on your mind during this time. This procedure will release your mind from anxiety that these concerns will be forgotten later. Begin to focus the mind on the presence of Christ.

4. Body

The next step is to quiet the body. Sit in an upright position with the feet flat on the floor. Keep the head balanced on the spine like a ball on a pole. Begin to take slow, deep breaths and quietly command the body to relax. Some find it helpful to repeat a prayer in time with the breathing such as the classic Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus” (breathe in), “have mercy” (breathe out).

Once the body has been stilled and the mind has been centered on the presence of Christ, you are ready to begin the four stages of lectio divina. These stages have sometimes been compared to the process of eating, as I will illustrate below. Another way of thinking about these four stages is the poetic description of Dom Marmion:

We read (Lectio)

under the eye of God (Meditatio)

until the heart is touched (Oratio)

and leaps to flame. (Contemplatio)

B. Stage 1: Lectio = Taking a Bite

Now read the passage slowly. Read each sentence as if it is the first time you have read it. Adopt an attitude of listening to what the Spirit says through the Word. Expect God to speak to you. Try not to think too much about the meaning of the words; rather, let the Spirit tell you what he wants you to know about that passage. Read a phrase at a time and repeat it slowly as you let the Word soak into your mind and heart. Imagine that the Spirit is saturating your spirit with God’s Word so that it becomes part of your very being. You may find that a particular part of the passage consumes your attention, and so you remain there as the Spirit impresses its significance upon you.

C. Stage 2: Meditatio = Chewing on the Word

In this stage, allow the Holy Spirit to carry out his role of illuminating the Word. In John 14:26, Jesus promised his disciples that the Holy Spirit would teach them everything and remind them of all that Jesus said to them. Christians have understood this promise as applying to more than just the original twelve disciples but to all future believers. As we expose our mind and heart to God’s Word, his Spirit reveals its significance and relevance to us. The concept of illumination does not mean that the Spirit reveals a new truth to us apart from Scripture but that he works through Scripture to let us know what we need to do and what we need to tell others that they need to do.

During this stage, enter the text and personally experience it. Some may find it helpful to use the method of praying with the imagination. This approach to prayer is especially helpful when focusing on a biblical narrative. T. Hall (1988) describes the method in this way:

In this approach, called “contemplation” in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius… one enters by means of imagination into a Gospel scene, seeing and hearing the persons, imagining the touch and smells of the environment, etc. I might identify with some person in the scene, or be present there as myself, watching, listening, experiencing what is going on. For example… my imagination might be used in recreating the scene…. And so I hear these words of Jesus addressed to me, and I receive his gaze with my own eyes. What do I see in those eyes as he speaks to me? And how shall I respond? (p. 40)

D. Stage 3: Oratio = Savoring the Word

Now that you have heard the Word, respond to it by opening your heart to God for direct communication and opening your will to God for responsive action. Enter into a dialogue with God about the text. The meditatio stage primarily involved the intellect, but in this stage the goal is to bring the mind into the heart. Consequently, this stage is sometimes referred to as “the prayer of the heart.” It involves not only thinking about God but also experiencing intimacy with him. Hall says that “in this prayer, our hearts are opened to him and by him, so that his light may enter” (1988, p. 42). She also describes it as “the unique and spontaneous voice of the heart which is touched by God and reaches out to him in ardent love” (p. 44).

E. Stage 4: Contemplatio = Digesting the Word

In this last stage, sit in the quiet and enjoy the peaceful presence of God. Be fully attentive to and present with God. Wait on God for whatever he wants to do in you, with you, and through you. Experience the love of God in ways that are too deep for words. This aspect of prayer has often been compared to two lovers who sit in total silence, simply enjoying the presence of the other without feeling any need for verbalizing their feelings. This stage has been described as resting in God, casting our gaze upon God, and paying rapt attention to God. Psalm 131:2 provides a helpful image for contemplation: “But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like the weaned child that is with me” (NRSV). The weaned child is not straining to receive anything from its mother but simply basking in her love.

A Southern preacher once described these four stages this way: “I read myself full, I think myself clear, I pray myself hot, and I let myself cool” (Edwards, 1995, p. 94).

Reflection Questions:

1. When you study the Bible, do you generally focus more on quantity or quality?

2. What time and place would be best for you to meditate on the Word?

3. Try the practice of lectio divina. What did you find helpful about it? What made you uncomfortable?

Recommended Resources:

Edwards, T. H. (1995). Living in the presence: Spiritual exercises to open our lives to the awareness of God. San Francisco: HarperOne.

Foster, R. J. (1988). Celebration of discipline: The path to spiritual growth (Rev. ed.). San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco.

Hall, T. (1988). Too deep for words: Rediscovering lectio divina. New York: Paulist Press.

Mulholland, R. (2001). Shaped by the Word: The power of Scripture in spiritual formation. Nashville: Upper Room Books.

Smith, M. L. (1989). The Word is very near you: A guide to praying with Scripture. Cambridge, MA: Cowley.

Thompson, M. (1995). Soul feast: An invitation to the Christian spiritual life. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press.

Whitney, D. S. (1991). Spiritual disciplines for the Christian life. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress.

Next topic: Meditation: Looking Within

Study: Looking into God's Word, Part II

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Greg Linton) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 23:56:00 +0000

II. Hearing the Word

In the last post, I wrote about the necessity of Bible study for spiritual growth. Now, I want to consider some of the ways in which we open ourselves to God’s Word so that it can transform us. The most basic posture toward the Bible that we need to adopt is that of hearing. The Word will have no effect on us unless we expose ourselves to it. Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hear the word of God and obey it” (Luke 11:28). Note that hearing must precede obeying. We won’t know what to obey unless we first hear.

Romans 10:17 says that “faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ.” Hearing the word must precede faith as well as obedience. There are many different ways that we can hear the word. We can talk with an informed believer, such as a pastor, who can explain the meaning of Scripture to us. We can read the Bible in private devotions. We can attend weekly worship service where we hear God’s Word taught and proclaimed. We can participate in a group Bible study where believers share their understanding of Scripture with each other. We can listen to a narration of the Bible on our iPod or MP3 player. However we do it, we must open ourselves to its teachings.

III. Reading the Word

In the beginnings of the church, most believers could only hear the Word read to them. Paul’s letters, for example, were read aloud to the gathered congregation. Even in later centuries, most believers could not afford their own copies of either Old Testament or New Testament writings. It was only after the invention of the printing press and the translation of the Bible into other languages that it became widely available to believers. Today, we are fortunate that we have easy and inexpensive access to the Bible in our own language.

Since the Bible became more available, Christians have practiced regular Bible reading as a spiritual discipline. However, they do not practice it as frequently as one might think, according to the following research (Stark & Johnson, 2011). A 1988 study by the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center found that 25% of men and 39% of women in America read the Bible weekly.
A 2000 Gallup poll found that 29% of men and 43% of women read the Bible weekly.
Similarly, a 2007 national religion survey by Baylor University found that 29% of men and 40% of women read the Bible about weekly.

Why do so many Christians neglect something that is so crucial to their spiritual growth? Like so many things in life, I think the most common problem is simply finding the time. We need to remember that how we spend our time indicates our priorities. Is there something you do for 15-30 minutes a day that you could give up for the higher priority of reading your Bible? Consider that you can read the entire Bible in a year by reading it only 15 minutes a day. John Blanchard challenges us to make Bible reading a priority (1984, p. 104):

Surely we only have to be realistic and honest with ourselves to know how regularly we need to turn to the Bible. How often do we face problems, temptation, and pressure? Every day! Then how often do we need instruction, guidance, and greater encouragement? Every day! To catch all these felt needs up into an even greater issue, how often do we need to see God’s face, hear his voice, feel his touch, know his power? The answer to all these questions is the same: every day! As the American evangelist D.L. Moody put it: “A man can no more take in a supply of grace for the future than he can eat enough for the next six months, or take sufficient air into his lungs at one time to sustain life for a week. We must draw upon God’s boundless store of grace from day to day as we need it.”

If you need more evidence to convict you of the need for Bible reading, consider this statistic: A.C. Nielsen Co. estimates that the average American watches TV 28 hours a week. That means a 65-year-old person will have spent nine years of his or her life glued to the tube. Do you realize that the entire Bible can be read in 71 hours, which is less than two weeks of TV viewing (Whitney, 1991, p. 29)?

Perhaps some believers think that it is good enough for them to get their weekly dose of Bible teaching in the Sunday sermon. But let’s assume that the average sermon is 30 minutes long. If a person attends church 50 weeks a year (allowing for two weeks of vacation and holidays), that person would receive 25 hours of Bible teaching in a year, which is less time than they spend watching TV in one week. And that assumes that the sermons they hear will actually teach the Bible and not just be filled with video clips and silly stories!

Perhaps we can be inspired by those who had much greater responsibilities than we do and yet have made time to read their Bible. Kent Hughes tells the story of Lt. Gen. William K. Harrison, Jr., who was the most decorated soldier in the 30^th Infantry Division, which was rated by General Eisenhower as the top infantry division in World War II. Harrison was the first American to enter Belgium at the head of the Allied forces. He received every decoration for valor except the Congressional Medal of Honor, including the Distinguished Silver Cross, Silver Star, Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple Heart. He was one of the few generals wounded in action. When the Korean War began, he served as Chief of Staff in the UN Command and was chosen by President Eisenhower to head the long and tedious negotiations to end the war. Surely this man was too busy to read his Bible!

When he was a twenty-year-old cadet at West Point, he began reading the Old Testament through once a year and the New Testament four times a year, and he did this until the end of his life. Even in the thick of war, he would catch up during the two- and three-day periods of replacement and refitting that followed battles so that, when the war was ended, he was right on schedule. By the age of 90, when his eyesight no longer permitted his discipline, he had read the Old Testament 70 times and the New Testament 280 times (Hughes, 1991, p. 76).

The Israelites knew the importance of regular reading of God’s Word. This is reflected in Deuteronomy 11:18:

You shall put these words of mine in your heart and soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your head, and fix them as an emblem on your forehead. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, so that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land that the Lord swore to your ancestors to give them, as long as the heavens are above the earth.

This teaching was literally employed in the practice of the tefillin or phylacteries, which are small leather boxes that contain scrolls inscribed with verses from the Torah. Jews wear them during the morning prayers. One type is worn on the upper arm, and the other is worn above the forehead. This practice symbolizes devotion and attention to God’s Word.

The king of Israel also was commanded to keep his attention on God’s Word. Deuteronomy 17:18-20 instructed the following:

When he has taken the throne of his kingdom, he shall have a copy of this law written for him in the presence of the levitical priests. It shall remain with him and he shall read it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, diligently observing all the words of his law and these statutes, neither exalting himself above other members of the community nor turning aside from the commandment, either to the right or to the left, so that he and his descendants may reign long over his kingdom in Israel.

When read the Bible in a disciplined, systematic way, we find there are propitious moments when what we are reading intersects with some issue or concern in our lives. We often find the Bible speaking to our situation, providing us with wisdom, guidance, and hope just when we need it.

To maintain the discipline of Bible reading, we need a plan. When I was a junior in high school, I committed myself to reading through the entire Bible in a year. I subscribed to a monthly booklet called Bible Pathway that laid out a daily Bible reading plan and provided commentary and information. Not only did I read the Bible in a year, but I did it again my senior year.

There are also many Bibles on the market, such as the One Year Bible, as well as websites that have the Bible divided into daily Bible readings. These are available in every translation. Bible software programs, such as Logos Bible Software, will set up a reading plan for you. Another simple plan is to read three chapters of the Bible every day and five chapters on Sunday. For variety, one might start in Genesis, Job, and Matthew (Whitney, 1991, p. 30).

Whatever plan we choose, the important thing is to do it. Don’t make it too difficult. Don’t think of it as time-consuming or overwhelming. Just 15 minutes a day over your cup of coffee in the morning may produce some amazing results.

Reflection Questions:

1. Evaluate how well you have maintained the discipline of Bible reading. What obstacles hinder you from it? How can you remove those obstacles?

2. What can motivate you to make Bible reading a higher priority?

3. What reading plan would work best for you? Make a commitment now to follow your plan.

Sources:

Blanchard, J. (1984). How to enjoy your Bible. Colchester, UK: Evangelical Press.

Hughes, R. K. (1991). Disciplines of a godly man. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.

Stark, R., & Johnson, B. (2011, August 26). Religion and the bad news bearers. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved January 10, 2012, from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903480904576510692691734916.html

Whitney, D. S. (1991). Spiritual disciplines for the Christian life. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress.

Next topic: Study: Looking into God’s Word, Part III

Study: Looking into God's Word, Pt. I

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Greg Linton) — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 13:27:00 +0000

I. The Necessity of Study

We continue our study of the ways in which we can plug into the divine power source that brings transformation. As we have seen, the first and most fundamental way is worship. But writers on spiritual growth also promote the study of Scripture as a key transformational practice. For example, Donald Whitney writes: "Regardless of how busy we become with all things Christian, we must remember that the most transforming practice available to us is the disciplined intake of Scripture" (1991, p. 25).

Richard Foster concurs that "one of the central ways God uses to change us is study" (1988, p. 63). He says that Christians may participate in worship and yet never be changed, but the mind is renewed by applying to it the truths of Scripture that will transform it.

John H. Westerhoff shares this view that "the central activity is discipline of the divine reading or praying of the scriptures. The scriptures provide us with a doorway into an experience of God and a test of that experience. The scriptures are a Christian's primary means for developing a relationship with God" (1994, p. 70).

Going farther back, John Chrysostom, the great fourth-century preacher, expressed the need for reading of Scripture. He described all the pressures and stresses of everyday life, which sound very similar to distractions that we face today. And then he concludes that these troubles are the very reason we need to study Scripture:

Therefore we have a continuous need for the full armor of the Scriptures.... We must thoroughly quench the darts of the devil and beat them off by continual reading of the divine Scriptures. For it is not possible, not possible for anyone to be saved without continually taking advantage of spiritual reading. (Stevens, 1993, p. 135)

Just as our biological life needs certain nutrients to survive and thrive, even so our spiritual life needs to be nourished in order to survive and develop. Worship is to our spiritual life what water is to our body. We can survive for a brief period without it, but to be deprived of it for long periods of time will cause us to waste away and die of spiritual thirst. Worship is a basic necessity for spiritual survival.

To continue this analogy, Bible study is like eating food. We can maybe survive for long periods of time without it, but eventually we become spiritually malnourished and anemic, and eventually we will suffer from spiritual scurvy. Consistent Bible reading and study will provide us with the basic nutrients and spiritual vitamins that we need to grow and become stronger in faith.

In the Bible, the Word of God is compared to the physical nourishment of milk and meat. Consider Hebrews 5:11-14:

About this we have much to say that is hard to explain, since you have become dull in understanding. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic elements of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food; for everyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is unskilled in the word of righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil.

The Word of God can be described as "milk" because it deals with fairly basic beliefs and concepts. The readers of this letter were still stuck in their spiritual infancy, and these basic teaching were all they could comprehend. The writer would like to move on to more substantial teachings, especially the high priesthood of Christ. He describes these teachings of God as "meat" because they involve deeper and more advanced understanding of God. The study of God's Word is not optional if we wish to grow into the image of Christ; it is a necessity if we wish to flourish spiritually. Similarly, 1 Peter 2:2 says: "Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation."

Another passage that stresses the importance of God's Word for our spiritual well-being is 2 Timothy 3:16-17:

All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.

This passage stresses the transformative power of Scripture. It turns us away from spiritual hindrances and roadblocks and steers us on the path of righteous conduct. It transforms our character and our conduct.

Sociological research has also supported the role of study in our spiritual growth. In the early 1990s, the Search Institute conducted a survey of 11,122 people in 561 churches in six denominations to determine the primary contributors to spiritual maturity. The surprising finding was that "the area of church life that has by far the most influence on faith maturity and growth in faith is Christian education" (Roehlkepartain, 1993, p. 24). Christian education refers to programs and events designed to nurture faith in people, usually centered around the study of Scripture in a group setting.

Let me close these thoughts with a quotation from Richard Foster, who stresses the importance of study for spiritual growth:

Many Christians remain in bondage to fears and anxieties simply because they do not avail themselves of the Discipline of study. They may be faithful in church attendance and earnest in fulfilling their religious duties, and still they are not changed. I am not here speaking only of those who are going through mere religious forms, but of those who are genuinely seeking to worship and obey Jesus Christ as Lord and Master. They may sing with gusto, pray in the Spirit, live as obediently as they know, even receive divine visions and revelations, and yet the tenor of their lives remains unchanged. Why? Because they have never taken up one of the central ways God uses to change us: study. (1988, pp. 62-63)

Bible study is one of the primary ways in which we draw closer to God and come to know him better. I have heard a story of a five-year-old girl named Karen who was caught by her mother going through a Bible storybook and circling the word "God" wherever it appeared on the page. Trying to restrain herself from scolding the child for defacing the book, her mother quietly asked, "Why are you doing that?" Karen answered matter-of-factly: "So that I will know where to find God when I want him."

We find God through his Word. We hear the voice of God speaking to us through his Word. In future posts, I will describe some of the ways in which we can feed on God's Word so that we can continue to grow.

Reflection Questions:

1. What role has Bible study played in your spiritual life? How does it provide you with spiritual nourishment?

2. What pressures or distractions keep you from giving attention to God's Word? How can you resist those so that you make Bible study a priority?

3. How does your church promote the study of Scripture: Sunday School, Bible studies, discipleship training, retreats, workshops, youth ministry, Vacation Bible School, men's groups, women's groups, new-member classes?

Sources:

Foster, R. J. (1988). Celebration of discipline: The path to spiritual growth (Rev. ed.). San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco.

Roehlkepartain, E. C. (1993). The teaching church: Moving Christian education to center stage. Nashville: Abingdon Press.

Stevens, R. P. (1993). Disciplines of the hungry heart: Christian living seven days a week. Wheaton, IL: Harold Shaw.

Westerhoff, J. H. (1994). Spiritual life: The foundation for preaching and teaching. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press.

Whitney, D. S. (1991). Spiritual disciplines for the Christian life. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress.

Worship: Looking Up to God, Pt. III

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Greg Linton) — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 15:57:00 +0000

IV. Corporate Worship

We have seen that worship is an ongoing activity but that we can also have special times of private worship. These facts don’t rule out the need to gather with other believers in corporate, public worship. In this post, I want to focus on the time of worship and the components of worship.

A. Time

Immediately after receiving the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, the first Christians met together daily to worship Christ together (Acts 2:46). Corporate gatherings marked the life of the church from its very beginning. Eventually, the early Christians developed the practice of meeting together on the first day of the week to celebrate Christ’s resurrection, which occurred on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7, which probably refers to Sunday night). By meeting on the first day, Christians were expressing their confidence that the risen Lord was present with them, as he had promised in Matthew 18:20.

Even in the early church, some Christians felt this was an optional or unnecessary practice, especially during times of persecution. Consequently, the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews admonished them to keep meeting together (Heb 10:24-15). Through the centuries, Christians have felt that meeting together in worship was such a high priority that they would even risk their lives to do it. From the Roman Christians who worshipped in the catacombs to the Chinese Christians of today who worship secretively in houses, Christians have always met together to celebrate God’s love, even at the risk of their lives. Richard Foster has noted that the strong emphasis on corporate worship sets Christianity apart from the religions of the East (Foster, 1988, p. 163).

Why do Christians view corporate worship as so necessary for their spiritual growth? For one thing, meeting together strengthens our faith. When we are in physical proximity to each other, we kindle each other’s faith and love for God. At times, I may come to worship with a low spirit, feeling distant from God, but my brother’s or sister’s enthusiasm may spark a flame in me. And at other times I may do the same for the other. Martin Luther said: “At home, in my own house, there is no warmth or vigor in me, but in the church when the multitude is gathered together, a fire is kindled in my heart and it breaks its way through” (Foster, 1988, p. 164). Isaac Pennington says that, when people are gathered for worship, “they are like a heap of fresh and burning coals warming one another as a great strength and freshness and vigor of life flows into all” (Foster, 1988, p. 172). Marjorie J. Thompson explains the need for corporate worship:

While a worshipful attitude should permeate one’s entire life, the role of common worship is crucial. We delude ourselves if we imagine we can live the spiritual life in total isolation from Christian community, for it is impossible to be Christian in solitary splendor. To be Christian is to be joined to the Body of Christ. The central and visible way in which the church expresses this reality is by gathering in the Spirit to receive and respond to God’s living Word (1995, p. 56).

In spite of the Bible’s command to meet together and in spite of the benefits of meeting together, a Gallup Poll in 1989 showed that 70% of church members thought they could be good members without going to church (Hinson, 1991, p. 23). The excuses people give for not worshipping on Sunday led one church to have a special “No Excuse Sunday.” Here is how they promoted it:

To make it possible for everyone to attend church next Sunday, we are going to have a special “No Excuse Sunday.” Cots will be placed in the foyer for those who say, “Sunday is my only day to sleep in.” Murine will be available for those with tired eyes… from watching television too late on Saturday night. We will have steel helmets for those who say, “The roof would cave in if I ever came to church.” Blankets will be provided for those who think the church is too cold and fans for those who think the church is too hot. We will have hearing aids for those who say, “The pastor speaks too softly,” and cotton balls for those who say he preaches too loudly. Score cards will be available for those who wish to list the hypocrites present. Some relatives will be in attendance for those who like to go visiting on Sunday. There will be 100 TV dinners for those who cannot go to church and cook dinner also. One section will be devoted to trees and grass for those who like to seek God in nature. Finally, the sanctuary will be decorated with both Christmas poinsettias and Easter lilies for those who have never seen the church without them.

B. Components

The early church met in homes (Acts 2:42, 46), and their corporate worship occurred in the context of a communal meal (Linton, 2005). Based on the evidence in the New Testament, Dennis Smith concludes that “we should imagine Christian meetings taking place at table most if not all of the time.” In fact, he argues that the entire worship service took place in the dining room (Smith, 2003, pp. 177-179, 200-202). Sharing meals together was a central activity of various social groups in the first-century world, and the Christians also found special meaning in that practice.

First, these meals recalled Jesus’ customary practice of sharing meals with his disciples and others (Mark 2:15-17; 6:35-44; 14:3-9; Luke 5:29-33; 7:36-50; 11:37-52; 14:1-14; 22:7-23; John 12:1-8). Second, they provided a foretaste of the coming kingdom, which Jesus described as a banquet (Matt 22:1-14; 25:1-13; Luke 12:35-48; 13:22-30; 14:15-24; 15:11-31; 17:7-10). Third, they reminded the disciples of Jesus’ postresurrection appearances during meals (Mark 16:4; Luke 24:13-35; 24:36-49; John 21:9-14). For these reasons, the early Christians called their meal gatherings “the Lord’s supper” (1 Cor 17-34). The Greek word for “supper”, deipnon, means “banquet” or “feast.” The Christians had a full meal when they gathered together.

The ancients thought that eating a meal together created a social bond among the diners, and the same was true of the Christians. The Lord’s Supper symbolized the fellowship and unity that existed among the believers. According to Robert Banks, the meal “deepened those relationships in the same way that participation in an ordinary meal cements and symbolizes the bond between a family or group” (1994, p. 83).

Based on the cultural practices in Jewish and Greco-Roman settings, early Christian gatherings may have followed this format:

Blessing and breaking of bread
Meal (which was a full banquet with courses)
Blessing and sharing of the cup
Singing (Eph 5:18-20)
Teaching, discussion, and sharing of spiritual gifts (Acts 20:7, 11; 1 Cor 14:26)
Prayers

Ronald Allen and Gordon Borror (1982, pp. 69-70) provide a fuller list of New Testament “givens” for the worship service, drawn from Don Hustad’s Jubilee: Scripture readings (1 Tim 4:13; Col 4:16); homily (Acts 20:7); a confession of faith (1 Tim 6:12; Acts 8:37); singing (Col 3:16); prayers (Acts 2:42); congregational Amen (1 Cor 14:16); collection (1 Cor 16:1-2); physical action (1 Tim 2:8); thanksgiving (Luke 22:19); remembrance (1 Cor 11:25); the anticipation of Christ’s return (1 Cor 11:26); intercession (John 17:1a, 9b); the kiss of peace (Rom 16:16; 1 Cor 16:20; 1 Thess 5:26; 1 Pet 5:14).

One may notice that the way most of us worship in America today is very different from the way the early church worshipped. The time is different: Sunday morning instead of Sunday night. The setting is different: buildings and rented spaces instead of homes. The format is different: a token meal in the middle or end of the service instead of a full meal at the beginning; a sermon instead of discussion; sitting in rows instead of around a dining room or table; passive observance of a performance instead of participatory contributions to the gathering. Why have things changed so much?

After several centuries, Christianity became legalized and, under the sponsorship of Constantine, Christians began building basilicas for their gatherings. The church left the home, and since their buildings did not contain kitchen and dining facilities, the Lord’s Supper was transformed into a token meal that included just the bread and cup. Sometime between AD 360 and 370, the Council of Laodicea banned Christian gatherings in private homes. And the Lord’s Supper was transformed from a joyous celebration of fellowship into a somber ritual of mourning.

The way we worship corporately today is the result of centuries of historical and cultural developments. That does not necessarily mean that the way we do worship today is wrong. Although I prefer the house church setting for worship in the context of a meal, I can also worship God in a building or rented space as I sit in a row facing the front listening to musicians perform and preachers preach. Why? Because as I wrote earlier, worship is not about me. It is about giving glory to God. Therefore, I can find meaning in worship regardless of the setting, format, structure, or custom.

V. Conclusion

Let me close these thoughts on worship with a quotation from Robert Webber (1982, pp. 11-12). He described worship as “a meeting between God and his people”:

In this meeting God becomes present to His people, who respond with praise and thanksgiving. Thus the worshiper is brought into personal contact with the one who gives meaning and purpose to life; from this encounter the worshiper receives strength and courage to live with hope in a fallen world.

Reflection Questions:

1. What blessings do you receive from corporate worship that you do not receive from private worship?

2. How does the style and structure of the worship service affect your ability to worship?

3. What draws you to gather with other believers in worship?

Sources:

Allen, R., & Borror, G. (1982). Worship: Rediscovering the missing jewel. Portland, OR: Multnomah Press.

Banks, R. (1994). Paul’s idea of community (Rev. ed.). Peabody, MA: Hendrickson.

Foster, R. J. (1988). Celebration of discipline: The path to spiritual growth (Rev. ed.). San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco.

Hinson, W. H. (1991). The power of holy habits: A discipline for faithful discipleship. Nashville: Abingdon.

Linton, G. L. (2005). House church meetings in the New Testament era. Stone-Campbell Journal, 8, 229-244.

Smith, D. E. (2003). From symposium to Eucharist: The banquet in the early Christian world. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

Thompson, M. J. (1995). Soul feast: An invitation to the Christian spiritual life. Louisville, KY: Westminister John Knox Press.

Webber, R. (1982). Worship, old and new. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

Next topic: Study: Looking into God's Word

Worship: Looking Up to God, Pt. II

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Greg Linton) — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 20:07:00 +0000

III. Private Worship

Worship is both a private and a public activity. It is both personal and corporate. In this post, I want to describe how worship takes place in private, personal settings.

During Jesus’ time, worship was generally viewed as limited to specific times, specific places, and specific rituals. Jews viewed God’s presence as restricted to the innermost room of the Temple, and only one person, the High Priest, could enter that place once a year on the Day of Atonement.

This perspective on worship was displayed by the Samaritan woman who said to Jesus: “Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem” (John 4:20). She was referring the temple that was built on Mt. Gerizim by the Samaritans as a rival to the Jerusalem temple. Since she recognized that Jesus was a prophet, she wanted him to settle this interreligious dispute.

Instead, Jesus challenged her to expand her understanding of worship: “But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:23-24). Worship is not a matter of external ritual but of internal fellowship with God, which can take place at any time in any place.

After his death and resurrection, Jesus poured out the Holy Spirit on the church. Now, every person who surrenders his or her life to Christ receives the Holy Spirit as a permanent possession. Because God’s own Spirit dwells within his people, we can turn within and commune with God at any moment.

Other passages of Scripture suggest that our entire lives are to be characterized by an attitude of worship. Paul says: “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thess 5:17). He also suggests that every word and act should express worship for Christ (Col 3:17). Worship of God is not restricted to one hour on Sunday morning when we meet together in a building. Worship occurs any time our thoughts are centered on God’s greatness and any time we say or do something to bring glory to God’s name.

This attitude of ceaseless worship was exemplified in the life of Brother Lawrence, a fifteenth-century French monk. He discovered the secret of what he called “the practice of the presence of God.” Whether he was cooking in the kitchen, washing the dishes, or scrubbing the floors, he had learned to maintain a constant awareness of God’s presence with him (Foster, 1988, p. 162). His devotional book about this topic has inspired countless Christians through the centuries to look beyond the mundane activities of everyday life to experience the presence of God with them.

Private worship also occurs in moments of solitude when we turn away from the distractions of outer life and focus on the presence of God within. I have already written about this in a previous post. Our private prayers should always begin with praise for who God and thanksgiving for what he has done.

We will also find that certain places evoke an attitude of awe toward God. Paul wrote that “ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made” (Rom 1:20). This “general revelation” that we receive through creation makes us aware of God’s greatness and goodness, and so we respond in worship. Athanasius rightly said: “No part of creation is left void of the Word of God” (Chase, 2011, p. 3). Even Calvin confessed that “nature is God” (Chase, 2011, p. 42).

According to Diogenes Allen, “we can better understand and admire God’s power, wisdom, and goodness as we increase in our knowledge of the world’s order, harmony, and beauty—God’s glory” (1997, p. 111). Allen shows that saints of the past such as Basil of Caesarea, Bonaventure, and Julian of Norwich “emphasized contemplation of nature as a way to increase our knowledge and love of God” (1997, p. 109). Bonaventure, for example, suggested meditating on the following seven properties of creatures:

Origin
Magnitude
Multitude
Beauty
Fullness
Activity
Order.

Similarly, John Scotus Erigena regarded the whole world as a theophany, a manifestation of God, in which the God of light illuminates and enlightens matter. Richard of St. Victor taught that “the visible, material things of creation lead those who are contemplative to the invisible, spiritual things of God” (Chase, 2011, pp. 32-34). Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote that “Earth’s crammed with heaven,/ And every common bush afire with God;/ And only he who sees takes off his shoes;/ The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries” (Aurora Leigh, Bk. vii, 1:821).

In her famous essay “Forms of The Implicit Love of God,” the French philosopher and mystic Simone Weil includes “love of the order of nature” as one of the ways that a person becomes aware of God. She describes how God woos us through contemplation of nature: “The soul’s natural inclination to beauty is the trap God most frequently uses in order to win it and open it to the breath from on high” (Weil, 1951, p. 103). She describes nature as a labyrinth that leads us to God:

The beauty of the world is the mouth of labyrinth. The unwary individual who on entering takes a few steps is soon unable to find the opening. Worn out, with nothing to eat or drink, in the dark, separated from his dear ones, and from everything he loves and is accustomed to, he walks on without ever knowing anything or hoping anything, incapable even of discovering whether he is really going forward or merely turning round on the same spot. But this affliction is as nothing compared with the danger threatening him. For if he does not lose courage, if he goes on walking, it is absolutely certain that he will finally arrive at the center of the labyrinth. And there God is waiting to eat him. Later he will go out again, but he will be changed, he will have become different, after being eaten and digested by God. Afterward he will stay near the entrance so that he can gently push all those who come near into the opening. (Weil, 1951, p. 103)

John Eldredge profoundly describes an experience like this when he was a young boy of six or seven. As he wandered through the landscape of the farm, he sensed that, through the music of life sung to him by crickets, katydids, cicadas, and bullfrogs, he was being romanced by some unseen lover (Curtis & Eldredge, 1997, pp. 14-16).

Worshipping God in the cathedral of nature expands the self beyond one’s own petty concerns. It draws our attention away from the orbit of our own self-centered desires. It calms the emotions and pacifies the mind. I have had this experience standing on the south rim of the Grand Canyon overlooking that great chasm carved out over the ages. I have experienced the presence of God in the deafening roar of Niagara Falls while riding the Maid of the Mist. I have sensed something greater than myself while standing in stunned silence with my parents in the yard of our house as we watched the Northern Lights spread their shimmering, multicolored curtains across the night sky. I have seen God’s power and majesty as a young boy watching the midnight sky lit up by the heat lightning from a massive thunderstorm rolling in from the prairies of Illinois. I have come to know the greatness of God while standing on the tower on Clingman’s Dome in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

In these moments of transcendence generated by nature, we join in praising God with creation: “Praise the Lord!/ Praise the Lord from the heavens; praise him in the heights!/ Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his host!/ Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all you shining stars!/ Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens!.... Praise the Lord from the earth, you sea monsters and all deeps,/ fire and hail, snow and frost, stormy wind fulfilling his command!/ Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars!/ Wild animals and all cattle, creeping things and flying birds!” (Ps 148:1-4, 7-10).

St. Francis of Assisi also joined in creation’s praise in his famous canticle “Brother Sun, Sister Moon”: “Praised be You my Lord with all your creatures, especially Sir Brother Sun…. Praised be You my Lord through Sister Moon and the stars…. Praised be You my Lord through Brothers Wind and Air…. Praised be You my Lord through Sister Water…. Praised be You my Lord through Brother Fire…. Praised be You my Lord through our Sister, Mother Earth…. Praised be You my Lord through Sister Death….”

Worship is not a purely private experience. Worship with others is also necessary, as I will show in the next post.

Reflection Questions

1. How would it change the way you live to understand that worship is a ceaseless activity?

2. How do you worship God in private?

3. When and where have your thoughts been lifted up to God by the contemplation of nature?

Sources:

Allen, D. (1997). Spiritual theology: The theology of yesterday for spiritual help today. Lanham, MD: Cowley.

Chase, S. (2011). Nature as spiritual practice. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.

Curtis, B., & Eldredge, J. (1997). The sacred romance: Drawing closer to the heart of God. Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

Foster, R. J. (1988). Celebration of discipline: The path to spiritual growth (Rev. and exp. ed.). San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco.

Weil, S. (1951). Waiting for God. Translated by E. Crauford. New York: Putnam.

Next Post: Worship: Looking Up to God, Pt. III

Worship: Looking up to God, Pt. 1

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Greg Linton) — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 18:35:00 +0000

In the last post, I discussed the role that spiritual disciplines play in opening our souls to God. By practicing the spiritual disciplines, we draw closer to God and depend on him every moment of our lives so that he can use his power to transform us into the likeness of Jesus.

The foundational and primary spiritual discipline is worship. Throughout the Bible, we find that more than anything else, God desires our worship. God created us to love him, and worship is the means by which we express our love for God. Ephesians 1:12 says that we are created to "live for the praise of his glory." Therefore, the top priority of the church is not pastoral care or counseling, helping the needy, changing unjust social structures, or evangelizing the lost. Worship is job one of the church (Miller, 1994, p. 34). These other important activities flow out of the church's worship to God. Apart from worship, they lack power and meaning.

Most believers recognize that worship is the most crucial spiritual discipline. The church growth expert Herb Miller once carried out a survey in hundreds of churches to determine the activities that made people feel close to God. He asked people to mark on the survey all the activities that helped them experience intimacy with God. It is no surprise that worship was checked more frequently than any other item (Miller, 1994, p. 33).

In spite of the priority of worship, many Americans neglect worship. Since the 1950s, the Gallup Poll has reported that about 45% of Protestants and 50% of Roman Catholics attended church in any given week. Their 2010 poll showed that 43.1% of all Americans reported weekly or almost weekly church attendance.

The statistics may actually be more dismal than that. Dave Olsen's American Research Project, using actual head counts rather than self-reporting, found that only 17% of the American population attended a Christian church on any given weekend in 2007, down from 20.4% in 1990. His research showed that 51 million Americans worshipped on a given weekend in 1990, and the same number held true for 2006. But during that time, the American population increased by 51 million people! Although worship helps connect people with God, many Americans apparently do not see the need for it.

To encourage us to practice regularly this important spiritual discipline, I am going to explain the meaning of worship and then offer some ideas about how we can practice it in both private and public settings.

I. The Meaning of Worship

The primary Hebrew word used for "worship" in the Old Testament chawah (always found in the form hishtahawah), which originally meant to prostrate oneself to the ground (Neh 8:6). In the Ancient Near East, bowing down or lying down was a customary way of showing respect and humility to a superior (Gen 18:2; 23:7, 12). For example, on the Black Obelisk, King Jehu is depicted as bowing down on his knees with his forehead to ground before Shalmaneser III. This word is used 170 times in the Old Testament, referring mostly to worship of God (Ps 29:2; 95:6), gods, or idols (Yamauchi, 1980, pp. 267-9).

The primary Greek word used for "worship" in the New Testament is proskuneō, which means "to bend the knee." It is used to translate hishtahawah 148 times in the Septuagint. Both of these terms suggest that attitudes of submission, humility, and dependence are integral to the act of worship. In worship, we recognize that God is greater than ourselves and deserving of our respect. Our English word "worship" derives from the Anglo-Saxon term weorthscipe, which means "to attribute worth" (Watson, 1978, p. 179). When we worship, we acknowledge that God is worthy of our praise and love.

A more comprehensive definition is provided by Ronald Allen and Gordon Borror: "Worship is an active response to God whereby we declare his worth. Worship is not passive but is participative. Worship is not simply a mood; it is a response. Worship is not just a feeling; it is a declaration" (1982, p. 16). William Temple offered an eloquent description of worship:

Worship is the submission of all our nature to God. It is the quickening of conscience by his holiness; the nourishment of mind with his truth; the purifying of imagination by his beauty; the opening of the heart to his love; the surrender of will to his purpose—and all this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable and therefore the chief remedy for that self-centeredness which is our original sin and the source of all actual sin (Watson, 1978, p. 181).

Perhaps the most fundamental fact about worship is that it is primarily for God's sake, not for our sake. We often think of worship as something that serves our needs. We often take a self-centered, consumer-oriented approach to worship. And so we go church-shopping and church-hopping to find the worship experience that best meets our needs. We evaluate worship services just as we do a restaurant or a movie. We say, "What did you think of the service today?" We evaluate the sermon on the basis of whether it was interesting or entertaining or moving. We evaluate how well the musicians played and the singers sang. We complain if the music was too loud or too soft, too fast or too slow.

For some reason, we think the worship service is about us. We evaluate the worship service as if it were a performance put on for our entertainment and pleasure. This point reminds me of the story about the family who was returning home after the worship service on Sunday. The father was complaining that the sermon was boring, the music was too loud, and the service was too long. His little son spoke up and helpfully offered, "Yes, but it wasn't too bad a show for a quarter, was it, Dad?"

We often forget that worship is not intended primarily for our benefit. In worship, we focus our attention on God to give him our devotion and affection. R. Kent Hughes suggests that too often, the question we ask ourselves after attending a worship service is, What did I get out of it? Instead the question should be, What did I give to God? Hughes reminds us that we gather together to worship God, not to get a lift for ourselves (Hughes, 1991, p. 106).

The philosopher Kierkegaard offered a profound reminder about worship: "In the theater, the play is staged before an audience who are called theatergoers; but at the devotional address, God is also present. In the most earnest sense, God is the critical theatergoer, who looks on to see how the lines are spoken and how they are listened to."

When we focus on our own needs and desires instead of on God, we are tempted to use our disappointment with the church as an excuse not to develop the discipline of worship. If we applied the same strict standards of entertainment to other aspects of life as we do to the church, we might never go to a restaurant or see a movie or attend a ballgame. For example, here is a list of eleven excuses for giving up attending sports events (source unknown):

Every time I went, they asked for money.
The people I sat next to didn't seem friendly.
The seats were too hard and not comfortable at all.
I went to many games but the coach never came to call on me.
The referees made bad decisions that I couldn't agree with.
The game went into overtime and I was late getting home.
The band played numbers I'd never heard and it wasn't my style of music.
It seems the games are always scheduled when I want to do other things.
I suspect that I was sitting next to some hypocrites. They came to see their friends and they talked during the whole game.
I was taken to too many games by my parents when I was growing up.
I hate to wait in the traffic jam in the parking lot after the game.

Now, I am not saying that we do not receive any personal benefits from participating in worship. Of course we do. When we focus on God and give him glory, we receive a sense of personal blessing because we are fulfilling God's intention for us. We were designed by God to worship and love him, and we receive a feeling of satisfaction when we do that. As we fulfill God's intention for us, we feel right with him and at peace with ourselves and others.

Herb Miller identified ten benefits of worship (1994, pp. 34-36):

Worship dispels loneliness.
Worship brings hope.
Worship counters self-centeredness.
Worship reminds us of important values that we tend to forget.
Worship strengthens courage.
Worship gives us the opportunity to express thanksgiving.
Worship brings us a sense of forgiveness.
Worship renews our faith.
Worship calls us out of what we are to what we are yet to become.
Worship is a form of corporate prayer that brings positive change to people.

Whenever we fulfill God's will for us, we will be blessed. But that should not be our primary motivation for worship. We worship God because he deserves it.

In the next post, I will discuss worship as a private practice.

Reflection Questions:

1. What role does worship play in your spiritual growth?

2. How often do you critique worship experiences in terms of how they benefit you?

3. What can you do to keep your focus on God in worship?

Sources:

Allen, R., & Borror, G. (1982). Worship: Rediscovering the missing jewel. Portland, OR: Multnomah Press.

Hughes, R. K. (1991). Disciplines of a godly man. Wheaton, IL: Crossway.

Miller, H. (1994). Connecting with God: 14 ways churches can help people grow spiritually. Nashville: Abingdon Press.

Watson, D. (1978). I believe in the church. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.

Yamauchi, E. (1980). חוה. In Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament
(Vol. 1, pp. 267-9). Chicago: Moody Press.

Opening Our Souls to God, Part II

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Greg Linton) — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 22:04:00 +0000

III. 2^nd Condition for Spiritual Growth: Discipline

First Timothy 4:7 says to "train yourself to be godly." "Train" translates gymnazō, which referred to the intense discipline of exercise and training to prepare an athlete for a contest. Paul observes that "physical training is of some value" (1 Tim 4:8a). Many of us seek to improve our physical health and self-image by walking, jogging, playing tennis, doing aerobics, or lifting weights. Such physical discipline shows respect and appreciation for the body that God has given us.

Paul is calling us here to be spiritual athletes. He reminds us that "godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the future life" (1 Tim 4:8b). How much more value is there is strengthening our spirits so that we become more like God. Godlike character and conduct affects every area of our lives—not just our bodies but also our relationships, our thoughts, our emotions, our moral actions. Godlikeness improves our lives in the present and also prepares us for eternity in fellowship with God.

The spiritual disciplines are the means by which we train ourselves in godly thoughts and actions. They are spiritual exercises that prepare us for when we are tested. At first these spiritual disciplines may seem awkward, difficult, even meaningless. We are not used to being alone with God. We are not used to dealing with the spiritual world. We are not used to examining ourselves honestly and deeply.

But over time the disciplines become easier and more natural. This is true of any learned skill. I did not pick up the game of golf until I was in my early thirties. Although I consider myself a reasonably athletic person, I found it very difficult just to get that confounded little clubhead on that tiny white ball. First, I would totally whiff. Then I would overcompensate and dig my club into the ground. Even the overlapping grip on the club felt awkward and left sores on my fingers. And what was the deal with keeping that left elbow straight during my backswing? How is that physically possible?!

With time, practice, and repetition, my golf swing became easier and more fluid. By no means have I ever become a good golfer because I do not practice and play enough. But I cannot remember the last time that I whiffed when I swung at the ball.

Almost everything worth doing in life is difficult at the beginning (Willard, 1990, p. 121). I have seen this with my two boys as they have recently learned to ride bicycles without training wheels, write the alphabet and then words and then sentences, read a book, and add two-digit numbers.

Spiritual discipline means that we will study the Bible even if we understand little of it at the beginning. We will pray to God even though it seems like he is not listening. We will meditate even though we never hear God speak to us. Tom Landry, the famous coach of the Dallas Cowboys, said: "The job of a football coach is to make men do what they don't want to do in order to achieve what they've always wanted to be" (Whitney, 1997, p. 18). If we want to grow spiritually, we will make ourselves do things that we would not naturally do, such as get up on Sunday morning and go to worship service, or get up early in the morning to read a chapter in the Bible. We are willing to put forth the effort and make the sacrifice because of the greater good that will come from it.

One of the greatest barriers to spiritual growth is laziness, the deadly sin of sloth. Too often we think that spiritual growth is something that just happens to us because we have been saved. We are like the playwright George Kaufman, who was enduring a sales pitch from a gold-mine promoter. He said: "Why, it's so rich you can pick up the chunks of gold from the ground." "Do you mean," Kaufman said, "I'd have to bend over?" (Whitney, 1997, p. 19). Similarly, we may think that we should grow spiritually without having to expend any effort.

Dallas Willard warns against passivity in the spiritual life: "The general human failing is to want what is right and important, but at the same time not to commit to the kind of life that will produce the action we know to be right and the condition we want to enjoy. This is the feature of human character that explains why the road to hell is paved with good intentions. We intend what is right, but we avoid the life that would make it reality" (1990, p. 6). The fact that spiritual growth is the work of God is no excuse for passivity and laziness. It is not enough to intend to grow spiritually. We must do what is necessary for God to give us growth.

IV. 3^rd Condition for Spiritual Growth: Time

The greatest enemy of spiritual growth is busyness. Carl Jung once said: "Hurry is not of the Devil; it is the Devil." By filling up every available waking minute with frenetic activity, we avoid intimacy with God, and we avoid confronting our own inner demons.

If we want to get to know the God who dwells within us, we must focus attention on his presence. We can do this only if we detach ourselves from the outer world and attach ourselves to the inner world. It is a scientific truth that the human mind cannot focus on more than one thing at once. Therefore, in order to focus attention on God, we must intentionally disengage our attention from outer concerns and focus it on God instead. Any relationship develops and matures only with an investment of time, and the same is true of our relationship with God.

We can find so many excuses to fill up our time with busy activities. As Parkinson's Law states, "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." Why do we fill up our time with outer activities so that we neglect our inner life? Because we are afraid to be alone. We are afraid of ourselves. We are afraid of what God might tell us or show us about ourselves.

For positive growth and change to occur in our lives, we must stop running from the truth about ourselves. We can never really get away from ourselves anyway, so why not slow down and deal directly with the aspects of our self that need work? By refusing to deal with garbage within us, we allow it to pile up so high that it begins to burst from within us, spoiling every aspect of our lives and contaminating those around us. We need periods of time in which we allow God to perform a spiritual housecleaning.

The person who thinks he or she does not have time to spend in silence with God should consider this analogy. If your car was not working properly, would you ask a mechanic to crawl under your hood and work on the engine while you continued to drive 65 miles per hour down the highway because you did not have time to slow down? If we really want God to work on the dysfunctional parts of ourselves that are not functioning properly, we need to pull over to the side of the road, shut off the engine for a while, and let him repair us.

We always make time for the things that matter to us. We may say that we believe it is important to grow spiritually. We may say that it is important to get to know God. But our actions show what we really believe. If we neglect quiet time with God, either we do not believe that a personal God who cares about us really exists or we do not believe that we can actually experience his presence with us.

To grow spiritually, to be transformed into the image of Christ, to plug our souls into the power source, we must set aside periods of time on a regular basis to spend in silence, speaking to God and listening to him speak to us. If we do not do this, we will be like the schoolteacher with twenty-five years of experience who applied for a promotion but instead a teacher with only one year of experience as hired. When she asked the principal why someone with less experience was hired, he responded, "I'm sorry, but you haven't had twenty-five years of experience as you claim; you have had only one year's experience twenty-five times."

In conclusion, Ephesians 3:16-21 provides a rich picture of the process of spiritual growth: "I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."

Reflection Questions

1. Think about a skill or sport that felt awkward when you were first learning it. How did you overcome the awkwardness? How does this apply to our spiritual life?

2. In what ways do you need to become more disciplined in your spiritual life?

3. How much time do you have available to spend with God in silence? How can you make more time?

Sources:

Whitney, D. S. (1997). Spiritual disciplines for the Christian life. Colorado Springs: NavPress.

Willard, D. (1990). The spirit of the disciplines: Understanding how God changes lives. San Francisco: HarperOne.

Next Topic: Worship: Looking Up to God

Opening Our Souls to God, Part I

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Greg Linton) — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 15:56:00 +0000

Inner transformation is God's work; it is not something that we can produce by our own effort. That does not mean, however, that we do not have a role to play. We cannot simply sit back and wait for God to transform. In previous posts, we have seen that we have a role to play by surrendering our thoughts, emotions, and desires to God so that he can transform them in positive ways. The power of God enables us to put away those desires and actions that hurt us and replace them with desires and actions that promote health and growth.

How can we tap into the power? How do we prepare ourselves for God's work of renewal? I want to discuss our role in renewal in a series of posts, but in this post I want to lay the foundation by discussing how we can open our souls to God and let him do his work within us.

I. The Goal of Spiritual Growth: The Image of Christ (Rom 8:29)

First, let's remind ourselves of the goal of spiritual growth: "For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters" (Rom 8:29 TNIV). Spiritual growth is the process of being transformed into thte image of Christ.

In the late 15^th century, the Florentine sculptor Agostino d'Antonio began work on a huge block of marble with a view to producing a spectacular sculpture, but after a few futile attempts, he gave it up as worthless. The badly disfigured block of marble lay idle for forty years until Michelangelo came along and saw its potential. Out of that block, he created one of the most outstanding artistic achievements of all time, the statue of David. As he was working on the sculpture, a passerby asked him what he was doing, and he replied that he was releasing an angel from the rock.

God sees within us the image of Christ, and he can release that image into view if we allow him. Although it is God's work to make us like Christ, we must decide that we want to change and grow. We must make an effort to allow God to change us from the inside out.

John 15:5 says that a branch produces grapes by being connected to the vine, which is the source of life. We bear fruit when we are intimately connected with Christ. He provides us with spiritual nourishment and strength. But we must make the effort to attach ourselves to the source of life and to remain attached to him. If we try to grow on our own as a solitary branch detached from the vine, we will wither and die.

We create the environment in which God can bear fruit in our lives by meeting three conditions: belief, discipline, and time.

II. 1^st Condition for Spiritual Growth: Belief

Hebrews 11:6 says that we cannot get close to God without faith. If we want to get close to God, we must believe that he exists. Many people follow false forms of spirituality because they do not accept the reality of God. They do not believe there is a spiritual Being who is the Creator of the universe, the Redeemer of all people, and yet personal enough to desire to know each of us individually. To grow spiritually, we must believe in the reality of the spiritual dimension, and we must believe that at the center of that spiritual dimension and pervading all of reality is a personal God whose primary characteristic is love.

Hebrews 11:6 says that we must also believe that God rewards those who earnestly seek him. There are many who profess belief in God, but it is merely an intellectual assent to certain facts about God. They do not believe that they can truly encounter God, experience him, relate to him, or get to know him on a personal basis. They do not believe that God really hears when they speak to him, and they believe even less that God is able to speak back to them.

The first step of spiritual growth after becoming a Christian is to believe that God cares about us and is intimately involved in every aspect of our lives. One of the greatest advances that I have made in my spiritual progress resulted from reading an author (perhaps Morton Kelsey?) who reminded me that God is not way off somewhere. God is not out there and up there, far beyond my reach, so that I have to grope blindly and struggle to find him in some desperate effort doomed to failure.

Actually, God is as close as my heart. When I was baptized into Christ, God's own Spirit entered my heart and my spirit and now dwells within me. So if I want to be close to God, I do not have to shout upward to him in prayer, hoping that my fervency will catch his attention. Instead, I simply become silent and turn my attention within to experience his presence with me. James 4:8 expresses this idea succinctly: "Come near to God and he will come near to you." Believing that it is possible to be close to God and to know him personally is the first requirement for spiritual growth.

In the next post, I will finish discussing the second and third conditions for spiritual growth.

Reflection Questions

1. What have you been doing to keep yourself attached to Christ? What can you do in the future to stay connected to him?

2. Examine your beliefs about God. Do you doubt that he exists? Do you believe he cares for you? Do you believe he wants you to know him?

3. How would it affect your relationship with God if you understood that he is as close as your heart?

Next Topic: Opening Our Souls to God, Part II

Is Change Really Possible?, Part III

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Greg Linton) — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 15:36:00 +0000

In the last couple of posts, I have been considering various types of determinism. These are reasons that people offer for why it is impossible to change. I will finish by considering two more types of determinism.

V. Situational Determinism

Many people feel that they are victims of circumstances beyond their control. They are locked into a situation they cannot change. They are imprisoned in a dead-end, meaningless job, and they have no opportunities to better themselves. Their marriage is unfulfilling, and there seems to be no way to improve it. They suffer from an oppressive economic situation, such as high unemployment or high inflation, and they suffer the consequences of it.

Of course, it is true that there are times that we cannot control or change our circumstances. Some people will have physical disabilities their entire life. Some people will have personality defects or mental disorders that may never change. Many things in life happen to us as a matter of chance, and sometimes these accidents or mishaps leave lifelong scars, both physical and emotional.

On the other hand, sometimes circumstances do change. One of the facts of life seems to be that, if you wait long enough, it will eventually change. Doors do open up; new opportunities do come along; the economy does improve; our spouse may respond to our attempts at reconciliation.

But even when our circumstances do not change, we can control how we react to them. We are all dealt a certain hand, some worse than others, and we do the best we can with what we have received. You know the old saying: "If life hands you a bunch of lemons, make lemonade."

Within any situation, no matter how restrictive it may appear, there are always some choices that can be made. The key to responding healthily to our circumstances is to avoid self-pity. Self-pity robs us of motivation to change. It paralyzes us because we think we are stuck and there is nothing we can do about it.

When we decide not to play the victim but to take control of our lives, we often find that we can make some changes that help us feel better. We can begin with changes in our attitudes and thinking patterns. If we can change our unhealthy intepretations of difficult circumstances, we can change how we feel about them.

History is full of examples of people who rose above their difficult circumstances to accomplish great things. In fact, it seems that most great figures of history suffered difficulties and tragedies early in life. George Washington's father died when he was eleven years old, and his surrogate father, his brother Lawrence, died when he was twenty. Abraham Lincoln's mother died when he was nine years old. He had a difficult relationship with his father throughout his life, and he did not even attend his father's funeral. Franklin Roosevelt was stricken with polio at the age of 39 but went on to serve four times as president. Many more such examples could be given.

We might be tempted to say that such people accomplished great things in spite of their circumstances, but it may be more accurate to say that they accomplished great things because of their circumstances. Their difficulties, and the way they responded to them, created qualities in them that bore fruit later in life.

Of course, this does not happen for everyone. Many people in such situations give themselves over to despair and believe that they can never rise above their circumstances. They feel trapped and victimized, and so their circumstances become a crushing burden they carry their whole lives.

The Apostle Paul encouraged his readers to reject the idea that they had to change their circumstances in order to serve the Lord more fully: "Let each of you lead the life that the Lord has assigned, to which God has called you. This is my rule in all the churches" (1 Cor 7:17). He goes on to say that if you were not circumcised when you came to Christ, don't feel that you have to be circumcised to serve him more fully. If you were a slave when you came to Christ, don't feel that you have to become free in order to serve him. If you were unmarried when you came to Christ, do not feel that you must become married.

This is consistent with Paul's teaching elsewhere that we should be content in all circumstances. Paul himself had experienced difficult circumstances, but he had learned to be content and to serve the Lord in every situation: "Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Cor 12:10).

Sometimes circumstances do improve if we are patient and wait long enough. Sometimes our circumstances will never change. But we can choose our attitudes, our thoughts, and our character in responses to them.

VI. Emotional Determinism

Many people feel that they are slaves to their emotions. Emotions are viewed as external forces that seize possession and cause them to act in ways that they cannot control. If they are angry, then they must lash out at others. If they are depressed, they cannot change how they feel.

In most cases, this is simply not true. Schools of psychotherapy, such as rational-emotive therapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy, have been developed for the purpose of teaching people to control their emotions. These approaches teach that emotions are caused by our thought patterns. Our self-talk affects how we feel. If we can change how we interpret events, we can change how we feel about them. If we replace faulty thought patterns with healthy ones, our emotions will change.

Of course, there are some emotions that result from chemical imbalances in the brain. Fortunately, we have medications today that can help with that. An open question is whether those chemical imbalances are caused by faulty thought patterns or whether the chemical imbalances cause faulty thought patterns.

In an earlier post, I addressed the issue of changing our emotions, so I will not say more about that here.

Reflection Questions

1. How have you felt like the victim of circumstances? What current circumstances do you find difficult to deal with?

2. In what ways you have responded in positive and healthy ways to your circumstances?

3. How can you learn to be content in all circumstances, as Paul was?

Next Topic: Preparing Ourselves for Renewal

Is Change Really Possible?, Part II

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Greg Linton) — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 15:24:00 +0000

In the last post, we considered two types of deterministic views held by people, astrological and genetic. In this post, I will discuss two more, psychological and sociological.

III. Psychological Determinism

Sigmund Freud and his followers popularized the notion that our experiences in childhood affect our psychological state as adults. Mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, were blamed on the mother's treatment of the child. The key to resolving neuroses and other psychological disturbances was to dig deeply into one's past and resolve issues that still lingered from our childhood.

Certainly, there is plenty of evidence to support the idea that our childhood experiences affect our psychological well-being as adults, but do those experiences determine how we feel and think as adults? This view can be taken to extremes. For example, in highly publicized criminal trials, defendants have justified their criminal behavior because of things that happened to them in the past. They claimed to have no control over their actions because their psychological health had been impaired by neglect and abuse when they were younger. One of the most prominent and sensational of these trials involved the Menendez brothers, Lyle and Eric, who slaughtered their parents with shotguns on August 20, 1989. In the televised trial in 1993, they defended themselves by arguing that the parental abuse they had suffered made them incapable of distinguishing right from wrong.

On a more common level, we often excuse many of our bad habits or failures in life by blaming our parents for how they treated us. We feel that we are who we are because of how we were raised, and we think there is little that we can do to change that.

But this viewpoint involves a major misunderstanding of the field of psychology. The science of psychology was not developed in order to give people the right to refuse to change or to control their actions. As I mentioned in the last post, the industry of psychotherapy is based on the supposition that it is possible, and necessary, for people to change. Knowing how the past affects us in the present was never intended to relieve us of the responsibility for the choices we make in the present. That knowledge is intended to help us understand the influences on us so that we can modify our thought processes and change our behavior. Psychologists have continually sought ways to help people change their harmful thoughts and behaviors, resulting in a variety of approaches such as behaviorism, hypnotherapy, and cognitive therapy. The field of psychopharmacology has developed drugs to adjust the chemistry of the brain so that dark moods can be lifted and impulsive thoughts can be controlled.

A major study of how psychotherapy promotes change was conducted by Michael J. Mahoney (1991). He showed that scientific research indicated that it was possible for people to change but that the process is "rarely rapid or easy" (p. 18). He also found that core areas were more difficult to change than peripheral areas. Core areas included things like "a person's experience of reality (order), self (identity), value (valence), and power (control)" (p. 18). Change is not easy, but it is possible, a view which seems consistent with biblical teaching.

The psychoanalyst Allen Wheelis also recognized the difficulty of changing the personality: "Personality is a complex balance of many conflicting claims, forces, tensions, compunctions, distractions, which yet manages somehow to be a functioning entity. However it may have come to be what it is, it resists becoming anything else. It tends to maintain itself, to convey itself onward into the future unaltered. It may be changed only with difficulty" (1973, p. 100).

And yet Wheelis believes that change really is possible. He expresses the tension between viewing ourselves as the product of our upbringing and believing in the possibility of change:

Being the product of conditioning and being free to change do not war with each other. Both are true. They coexist, grow together in an upward spiral, and the growth of one furthers the growth of the other. The more cogently we prove ourselves to have been shaped by causes, the more opportunities we create for changing. The more we change, the more possible it becomes to see how determined we were in that which we have just ceased to be (1973, pp. 87-88).

He goes on to warn against viewing either determinism or freedom to change as absolutes exclusive of the other:

Sometimes it will be necessary to see behavior, individual or social, as the product of preexisting conditions, for we are indeed pushed and pulled, and if we are to increase our authority in reference to these forces we must examine them as causes. Sometimes, likewise, it will be necessary to see behavior, individual or social, as the product of unconstrained will, for we are truly free, even in situations of extreme coercion (1973, p. 96).

So, while many have distorted the findings of psychological research to excuse their bad behavior and deny the possibility of change, psychology actually assumes the possibility of change, as difficult as it may be.

IV.Sociological Determinism

This excuse for avoiding change is similar to psychological determinism. Many people feel they cannot improve themselves or their situation because of the country they were born in or the area in which they were raised or the race they belong to. This view was prevalent in the 50s and 60s: If we could change social structures, people would become better people. This excuse, along with psychological determinism, was mocked in the musical West Side Story when the gang members, in the song "Gee, Officer Krupke," try to explain why they are the way they are. The song begins with these lyrics:

Dear kindly Sergeant Krupke,
You gotta understand,
It's just our bringin' up-ke
That gets us out of hand.
Our mothers all are junkies,
Our fathers all are drunks.
Golly Moses, natcherly we're punks!

Gee, Officer Krupke, we're very upset;
We never had the love that ev'ry child oughta get.
We ain't no delinquents,
We're misunderstood.
Deep down inside us there is good!

Later in the song, A-Rab complains:

Officer Krupke, you're really a slob.
This boy don't need a doctor, just a good honest job.
Society's played him a terrible trick,
And sociologic'ly he's sick!

Undoubtedly, our social background does affect who we are to a great extent. A person who grows up surrounded by racial prejudice will naturally be influenced to hold those views, but many people have broken out of their sociological straitjackets and altered their ways of thinking and relating to people.

Reflection Questions:

1. How have my childhood experiences affected me? Have I used those experiences as excuses for refusing to change?

2. In what ways have I moved beyond my past experiences to become a healthier person?

3. What unhealthy influences have I experienced from my social upbringing? How can I continue to rid myself of those?

4. How has Christ helped me to move beyond my past into a healthier future?

Next Topic: Is Change Really Possible?, Part III

Sources:

Mahoney, M. J. (1991). Human change processes: The scientific foundations of psychotherapy. New York: Basic Books.

Is Change Really Possible?, Part I

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Greg Linton) — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 14:55:00 +0000

Certain types of change are inevitable in many areas of our lives. For example, we know that we will all change physically. A man attended a college reunion thirty years after graduation, and he remarked to a friend, "See that fellow over there? Well, he's gotten so bald and so fat he didn't even recognize me." We know that physical changes will occur as we get older, as much as we try to ward them off.

But what about other aspects of our lives? Is it possible to change our personality? Our habits? Our talents? Our character? Our inner person? The famed psychiatrist Martin Seligman wrote a book with the catchy title What You Can Change and What You Can't: The Complete Guide to Self-Improvement. In this book he details the aspects of ourselves that research suggests are subject to change and those that are resistant to change. This topic is of interest to psychologists because the entire counseling industry is predicated on the possibility of change. One of the best-known books on this subject is Michael Mahoney's Human Change Processes: The Scientific Foundations of Psychotherapy.

The psychoanalyst Allen Wheelis, in his little meditation on How People Change, expressed optimism that change, although admittedly difficult, is always possible: "We are wise to believe it difficult to change, to recognize that character has a forward propulsion which tends to carry it unaltered into the future, but we need not believe it impossible to change. Our present and future choices may take us upon different courses which will in time comprise a different identity. It happens, sometimes, that the crook reforms, that the coward stands to fight" (Wheelis, 1973, p. 13).

Many people think that it is not possible to change. This view is expressed in some of our cultural proverbs, such as "an old dog can't learn new tricks" or "a leopard can't change its spots." Such a pessimistic view gives people the excuse not to try to become better people. Skepticism about the possibility of change can cause a person to become lazy, complacent, self-satisfied, and resigned to their fate.

The view that people cannot change can be termed "determinism." "Determinism is the "a theory or doctrine that acts of the will, occurrences in nature, or social or psychological phenomena are causally determined by preceding events or natural laws" (Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 2007, p. 340). People espouse various types of determinism. I want to examine these reasons why people deny the possibility of change.

I. Astrological Determinism

Astrology teaches that our fate is determined by the position of the stars at the time of our birth. Earthly events are influenced by heavenly movements. The connection between the two is based on the principle of sympathy. The day-to-day events in our lives are determined by the changing positions of the stars and planets, which are in turn controlled by gods and other spiritual beings. This view originated among the Chaldeans and then spread from Babylonia to Egypt and then on to Greece and Rome.

According to Franz Cumont, "the most essential principle of astrology was that of fatalism" (1956, p. 179). He also says that "the postulates of astrology imply an absolute determinism" (Ibid.). He describes the outcome of the view that fate determines all things:

Following the example set by the Stoics, they made absolute submission to an almighty fate and joyful acceptance of the inevitable a moral duty, and were satisfied to worship the superior power that ruled the universe, without demanding anything in return. They considered themselves at the mercy of even the most capricious fate, and were like the intelligent slave who guesses the desires of his master to satisfy them, and knows how to make the hardest servitude tolerable (p. 181).

By the time of Jesus and Paul, astrological determinism pervaded the ancient world:

Soon neither important nor small matters were undertaken without consulting the astrologer. His previsions were sought not only in regard to great public events like the conduct of a war, the founding of a city, or the accession of a ruler, not only in case of a marriage, a journey, or a change of domicile; but the most trifling acts of every-day life were gravely submitted to his sagacity. People would no longer take a bath, go to the barber, change their clothes or manicure their fingernails, without first awaiting the propitious moment (Cumont, 1956, p. 165).

This pessimistic view caused despair among the ancients who felt themselves "dominated and crushed by blind forces that dragged [them] on as irresistibly as they kept the celestial spheres in motion" (Cumont, 1956, p. 181). People felt hopeless to change their situation. They were powerless to change their destiny. They were robbed of motivation and devoid of responsibility. Of course, many people today follow the popular form of astrology but ignore the logical and dismal implications of it.

Paul roundly rejects this view. First, he asserts that Christ actually created these astrological powers: "For in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him." Second, he asserts that any of these powers, both earthly and heavenly, that have strayed from God's will and sought to dominate people have been subdued by Christ's death on the cross: "[Christ] disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it" (Col 2:15). Christ's death has stripped, disarmed, exposed, and unmasked these pretenders to his sovereignty. Paul lets his readers know that their destinies are not controlled by impersonal spiritual beings or by heavenly bodies. Christ has set them free to choose their own destiny.

II. Genetic Determinism

This fatalistic view is of more recent origin. Since the discovery of genetic heredity by Malthus and others and the more recent discoveries of genes, chromosomes, and DNA, many scientists have propagated the view that our lives are largely determined by genetics. Genetic research is identifying certain genes that result inevitably in certain physical conditions.

For example, the genes identified as BRCA1 and BRCA2 are known to be tumor suppressors. If a woman inherits one of these genes in a mutated form, her risks of breast cancer and/or ovarian cancer greatly increase. Tests are now available to identify these mutations so that bearers can taken preventative actions.

We understand that many of our physical characteristics (eye color, skin tone, hair texture, etc.) are largely determined by genetic endowment. But how much is genetics responsible for our personality? Our preferences? Our likes and dislikes? Our vices and virtues? And is it possible to overcome any of these genetic influences? This raises the nature-versus-nurture debate that has raged for the past century in psychology. Is who I am today determined more by how my parents treated me in childhood or by my genetic heredity? Studies of twins who were reared together and apart have shown that many aspects of personality, such as IQ, are inherited. These studies have suggested that perhaps parents do not have as much influence on the development of a child as psychotherapists have often assumed.

Perhaps our genes can provide explanations for some of our behaviors, but many people use them as excuses for their behavior so that they don't have to accept personal responsibility for their actions. Like the followers of astrology, they seem themselves as victims of cruel fate. Such excuses have been offered for alcoholism, homosexuality, other sexual aberrations, obesity, and the list goes on and on.

A cartoon in the New Yorker showed a father scowling over a very bad report card while his little boy stood by, asking, "What do you think it is, Dad? Heredity or environment?" Whether we blame our problems on how were conceived or how we were raised, we often absolve ourselves of responsibility for our actions.

Using genetics as an excuse for irresponsibility, addictions, and immoral behavior brings human beings down to the level of animals. Animals are driven by instincts. They do not have the consciousness that enables them to control and manage their instincts. Their behavior can be modified by a superior intelligence utilizing positive and negative reinforcement, but they cannot modulate, regulate, or modify their own behavior. For example, I recently read a tragic story about an 85-year-old woman in Etowah, Tennessee, who had owned a pit bull terrier for nine years, and it never showed any signs of aggression. One morning she walked into her house to check on the dog and without warning it attacked her and killed her. The dog would not let go of her until the police dragged it off of her and shot it. The dog's genetic inheritance kicked in, and it could not control itself.

I used to see this genetic influence in my Norwegian Elkhound, who would prepare to lie down in the living room by first walking sideways in a circle about six times before lying down. This strange behavior was how his wolf ancestors prepared their beds in the tall grasses of the savannah. He would also rub his nose around his food bowl as if he were trying to bury it because dogs in the wild knew to bury meat in order to cure it so that it would not spoil.

Humans possess inherited instincts also, but we assume that humans are able to control them, and even change them, because we have higher thought processes than other animals. For example, we are genetically programmed to eat until we are filled to capacity because our ancestors often did not know when their next meal would come. But we must learn to control this instinct in order to remain healthy. We are genetically programmed to copulate with just about every member of the opposite sex who passes in front of our vision, which was an instinct necessary for survival of the species. But we know that such instinctual behavior is damaging to us, so we try to control it.

Francis Collins, who headed the Human Genome Project, does not view his faith in Christ as incompatible with his studies of genetics (Collins, 2006). He was raised an atheist, but the key argument that drove him to belief was the fact that human beings have an innate sense of right and wrong that other animals do not have. And this moral sensibility cannot be explained by genetics. He came to believe that right and wrong are grounded in the character of God and instilled in us because we are created in his image.

Some Christian theologians beginning with Augustine have argued that people inherited original sin as a genetic endowment. In their view, babies are born already guilty of sin and therefore must be baptized to cleanse themselves of original sin. However, Paul seems to suggest he was born spiritually alive but then reached the age of awareness of sin and chose to rebel against God, at which point he died spiritually (Rom 7:9-10). Paul does talk about the "flesh" that makes it difficult for us to choose to do the right thing. I side with those interpreters who think it is more accurate to say that we are born with the propensity to sin but not the guilt of it. We have a genetic disposition to sin, but we are still responsible for own choice to rebel against God.

Reflection Questions:

1. What aspects of yourself do you feel that you cannot change? What aspects do you feel are open to change?

2. When have you felt like you were the victim of circumstances or fate?

3. What aspects of your personality and character were inherited from your parents?

Next Topic: Is Change Really Possible?, Part II

Sources:

Collins, F. S. (2006). The language of God: A scientist presents evidence for belief. New York: Free Press.

Cumont, F. (1956). Oriental religions in Roman paganism. New York: Dover.

Mahoney, M. J. (1991). Human change processes: The scientific foundations of psychotherapy. New York: Basic Books.

Seligman, M. E. P. (2007). What you can change—and what you can't: The complete guide to successful self-improvement. New York: Vintage Books.

Wheelis, A. (1973). How people change. New York: Harper & Row.

How God Renews Our Selves

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Greg Linton) — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 17:45:00 +0000

As we have seen in previous posts, spiritual renewal results in a change of character. When God restores us to a love relationship with him, he produces righteousness in us. Obedience flows from our love for God. Spiritual renewal involves an inner transformation.

Some people resist spiritual renewal because they do not want to change. They don't want to give up their old harmful habits. They don't want to try to control their thought patterns. They don't want to replace their negative emotions to which they have become addicted. They don't want to start watching their words. The motto of many people is "Come weal, come woe, my status is quo." They are like the Duke of Cambridge who said: "Any change at any time for any reason is to be deplored."

We should not fear the changes that God will produce in us because they will improve our lives. Yes, we may have to give up some things, but pruning is necessary for growth. I want to describe the process of inner renewal by focusing on its possibility, its process, its goal, and its agent.

I. The Possibility of Renewal (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Paul writes: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: The old has gone, the new has come" (TNIV). When we receive Christ, God re-creates us. He restores us to his original intention for us. Imagine commissioning an architect to draft plans to renovate your house. When he meets with you to go over the plans, he begins by saying, "First, we are going to have to tear down the existing house. Second, we will need to dig up the foundation. Then we can rebuild the structure in the right way from the gound up." That plan would probably be more than we bargained for!

Some people imagine that, if they surrender to Christ, he will simply remodel their lives in some minor ways. They just want a few drapes hung up and some new paint slapped on. Maybe fix up their marriage problems here. Give them a good job there. Nothing too drastic. Not too many changes. Just spruce things up a little bit.

Paul says that Christ is not interested in partial remodeling projects. He is in the demolition and reconstruction business. When we surrender our lives to him, he performs a complete overhaul.

This comprehensive transformation was prophesied by Ezekiel 36:26-27: "A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances" (NRSV). When God renews us, he gives us both the desire and the ability to obey his commands. He performs major spiritual surgery on us, not just a spiritual bypass but a total spiritual transplant. He removes our old sinful desires and replaces them with new holy desires. He puts his own Spirit with us, and that Spirit gives us the power to obey his commands.

Often we do not realize what God can do with us if we would just let him. Two caterpillars were crawling across the grass when a butterfly flew over them. They looked up, and one nudged the other and said, "Man, you couldn't get me up in one of those things for a million dollars." We may doubt that God can do very much with us because we are too far gone or too set in our ways, but Jesus said, "Nothing is impossible with God."

II. The Process of Renewal (2 Corinthians 3:18)

Here Paul says: "And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit." The Greek word for "transform" is the word from which we derive the English word "metamorphosis." This word was used to describe the changing of a caterpillar into a butterfly. Paul describes this inner metamorphosis as continual and gradual. It is a lifelong process that never ends in this life.

The transformation that occurs initially when we are born again should continue throughout our Christian lives. Theologians use the biblical term "sanctification" to describe this never-ending process of becoming more and more holy. Theologians have identified two types of sanctification (Moody, 1981, pp. 322-325). "Positional sanctification" or "possessive sanctification" refers to the change that occurs when we are saved. We are made righteous in God's eyes. Other terms for this initial change are justification, redemption, salvation, regeneration, or baptism in the Spirit. The fact that all Christians have been sanctified explains why the most common term in the New Testament for Christians is "saints."

"Progressive sanctification" refers to the ongoing process of spiritual growth by which we actually become righteous. One's moral character is brought into conformity with one's legal status before God. Because we are justified, we are righteous in God's eyes. Then God works within us so that righteousness is displayed in our thoughts, words, and actions.

"Positional sanctification" (or "justification") and "progressive sanctification" can be contrasted in the following ways: what Christ has done for us vs. what the Spirit does in us; instantaneous vs. progressive; finished vs. continuing; all or nothing vs. degrees; changed relation vs. changed character; same for all vs. varies person by person.

III. The Goal of Renewal (2 Corinthians 3:18)

The "same image" into which we are transformed is that of Jesus Christ. The goal of spiritual renewal is to become like Jesus Christ. In Romans 8:29, Paul says something similar: "For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters." Jesus is our pattern, our mold, our blueprint. We become more like him as we grow in faith.

A well-known story about Gutson Borgium, the sculptor of Mount Rushmore, says that he once was asked how he was able to produce those four massive likenesses of four presidents, and he replied, "Those figures were there for 40 million years. All I had to do was dynamite 400,000 tons of granite to bring them into view." Within each of us is a Christ-image just waiting to emerge if we would give God permission to chip away and blast away all the parts that do not belong to that image. Over time, that Christ-image comes more and more into view.

So if we are going to become like Christ, what does that mean? It means that I will become a person who loves righteousness and hates wickedness (Heb 1:9). Like Jesus, I will love fairness, equity, justice, and honest dealings with others. I will also hate any thought of rebelling against God. Like Jesus, I will desire to do the will of God rather than my own will (John 6:38). Like Jesus, I will always do what pleases the Father (John 8:29).

Now, some believe that it is possible to achieve perfect resemblance to Christ in this life, but I side with those who believe perfection is not possible while we are in these fallen bodies and we live in the present evil age (Erickson, 1998, pp. 983-986). Although we may never reach the goal of Christlikeness in this life, that is the goal that we are constantly moving toward.

Christopher Columbus faced many obstacles as he attempted to reach his destination, such as homesick sailors and mutiny. He experienced trouble most of the trip. But every day in his log the last entry he would write was: "Today we moved WESTWARD!" Every day we need to remind ourselves: "Today I moved Christward." Christ is our ultimate destination.

V. The Agent of Change (2 Corinthians 3:18)

In this verse, Paul also reminds us that it is the Holy Spirit who produces this progressive change in our character. The word "transformed" is in the passive. It is not something that we do to ourselves. It is done to us by the Spirit. Paul makes this point elsewhere. In 2 Thessalonians 2:13, he refers to "the sanctifying work of the Spirit" (TNIV). Peter also says that we are sanctified by the Spirit so that we will be obedient to Jesus Christ (1 Pet 1:2). This sanctifying work of the Spirit has both a negative and positive aspect.

A. The Spirit kills our sinful desires (Romans 8:5-8, 12-14).

In a negative way, the Spirit sanctifies us by killing our sinful desires (Rom 8:5-8, 12-14). The Spirit implants a desire for God's holiness in us, and that desire to be like God battles against sinful desires that are deeply ingrained in us. Even though our old self has died in Christ, the memory of its desires remains with us, and those desires still hold great attraction for us.

A humorous story illustrates this. A preacher once mentioned in a sermon that there were 789 different sins. A few days later he received in the mail 94 requests from members of his congregation for a list of those sins. Although this story may not be factual, it points to the attractiveness of sin.

This inner struggle is reflected in the application a young man sent to a university. When he was asked to list his personal strengths, he wrote: "Sometimes I am trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent." When the form asked him to list his weaknesses, he wrote: "Sometimes I am not trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent." I think we can all relate the inner struggle of this young man.

The Spirit helps us win this inner battle by putting our sinful desires to death so that we are no longer controlled by them.

B. The Spirit produces righteousness (Galatians 5:22-25).

As we walk by the Spirit, he produces Christ's own character traits within us. In Galatians 5, Paul refers to these traits as "fruit of the Spirit." Our part in this process is to remember that we have already died to the flesh and it no longer has power over us. Our sinful desires have no right to control us.

Abraham Lincoln was walking into town one day when he was overtaken by a man in a wagon going in the same direction. Lincoln hailed him and said, "Will you have the goodness to take my overcoat to town for me?" "With pleasure," the stranger replied, "but how will you get it again?" "Oh, very easily; I intend to remain in it." As long as Lincoln kept the overcoat on, he would have a free ride into town.

If we remember that we are clothed with Christ's righteousness, then we will walk the path of righteousness. Conversely, when we sin, we are acting contrary to our nature as renewed people. Sin is temporary insanity for the Christian. It is acting in a way that violates who we are.

C. The Spirit requires our cooperation (Ephesians 5:18-21).

The Spirit does the work of sanctification, but we have to let him work. We must yield more and more of our lives to him so that he can take control and shape them according to God's will. When we surrender control of our will to his will, we are filled with the Spirit. As we rely on the Spirit's supernatural power, we resist that undertow that seeks to drag us back into slavery to sin.

There is an epigraph on a tombstone that reads: "How sad the story of Jane McCleek/ Her will was strong, but her won't was weak." The Spirit makes our "won't" stronger.

As we follow the Spirit's lead, he leads us to Christ. Rather than losing control of ourselves as people do under the influence of alcohol, we gain self-control so that we have a healthier relationship with God and healthier relationships with other people.

VI. Conclusion

When we see what God can help us become, it is amazing that we would delay allowing God to transform us. This reluctance to be delivered is illustrated by Pharaoh's actions during the Ten Plagues. One of the plagues was a plague of frogs. Pharaoh summoned Moses and asked him to get rid of the frogs. Moses asked him when he wanted him to do it, and Pharaoh said, "Tomorrow!" A famous sermon on this text was entitled "One More Night with the Frogs." It seems incredible to us that Pharaoh would not want to be delivered immediately from the plague of the frogs. But we often choose to live one more night with the frogs. We stall God and say that tomorrow we will allow him to change us, and so we spend one more night with the frogs.

I began by observing how some people resist change, but there are also those who believe this kind of deep change is not possible. Against this view, Don Shelby wrote: "When we tell ourselves 'I can never change,' or 'That will never happen,' we presume too much and believe too little. In Jesus Christ God renders all of our final conclusions premature and all of our talk of determinism as simply bad faith. In Christ, God opens all doors, brings resurrection, reveals possibilities, reclaims the lost, liberates the cursed and possessed, and changes the unchangeable."

Let me close with this benediction from Hebrews 13:20-21: "Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen" (TNIV).

Reflection Questions

1. What aspect of your self have you been reluctant to change?

2. What aspect of your self needs to be brought into conformity to Christ?

3. What can you do to yield more of yourself to the Holy Spirit?

Next Topic: "Is Renewal Really Possible?"

Sources:

Erickson, M. J. (1998). Christian theology. 2^nd ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.

Moody, D. (1981). The word of truth: A summary of Christian doctrine based on biblical revelation. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.

How God Renews Our Relationships

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Greg Linton) — Mon, 24 May 2010 20:33:00 +0000

In the previous posts, we have seen how God renews us in the major areas of our lives. He renews us mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Now we will examine how he also renews the social area of our lives. Our experience of God's love renews our relationships with others.

When God lives in us and renews us, he causes us to love others (1 John 4:12). Because God has accepted us, we are freed to reach out to others and show them the love God has shown us. The infusion of God's love into our hearts changes how we relate to others.

In this post, we will examine how the experience of God's love makes it possible for us to relate to others in renewed, healthy ways.

I. The Experience of Alienation

I believe that in some way each of us feels like the Elephant Man. The Elephant Man is one of my favorite movies; in fact, when I watch it I can barely take my eyes from it because the story is so gripping. It is a true story about the life of Joseph Merrick, an Englishman who was born with a disease that disfigured his body so severely that people could not bear to look at him. He was displayed as a freak in a circus sideshow where his owner treated him like an animal and abused him.

He was rescued from that dismal existence by the kind doctor Frederick Treves, who took him to the London Hospital and cared for him. Beneath the grotesque exterior, Treves discovered a warm, sensitive human being who was intelligent and engaging. In one of the most moving scenes in the movie, Treves takes Merrick to his house to visit with his wife. While they are drinking tea, Merrick tells Mrs. Treves that he must be a great disappointment to his mother. He said that he wished he could find his mother because he had tried to be good and he would like to see if she could accept him just as he is.

Like the Elephant Man, each of us desires unconditional acceptance because we feel alienated from others. I agree with Gerald May, who said that there is "a fundamental human longing for unconditional love, one that affirms and supports people just as they are and does not demand that they make themselves different in any way." But he notes sadly that "unconditional love is a very rare experience in our society" (1983, p. 72).

Alienation from others began with the very first sin. When Adam and Eve sinned, they sewed fig leaves for themselves to hide behind (Gen 3:7). Then when God came to talk with them, they hid from him. Their actions illustrate that sin has disrupted our relationships. Because of our shame, we are so defensive and self-protective that we hide our true selves from others. We find it hard to let our barriers down so that others can come to know us; consequently, we feel alone and isolated.

The process of alienation for each of us begins in childhood. As infants, the world revolves around us because we are born helpless. Humans are unique among the mammals in that they are born incomplete, unable to take care of themselves, and subject to the dangers of the world. We are born prematurely because of our oversized brain. At birth, the brain weighs 350 grams, but at the end of the first year it weighs 825 grams (1/2 of its final total). Because our brain grows so quickly, we must be born while the head can still pass through the birth canal, but this means that our body is not developed enough for us to take care of ourselves.

Our helplessness makes us completely dependent on the care of others who love us. Our parents (or other caretakers) must love us unconditionally or we will die. Although we need love to survive, there is not much about us that is lovable:

our eyes are out of focus;
we have a bad complexion and are missing our teeth;
we disturb others' sleep and exhaust their energies;
we are demanding and self-centered;
we break all rules of human decency with glee;
and we leak various bodily fluids at the most inappropriate times.

But our helplessness and vulnerability bring forth compassion from others who must care for us. Infants are accepted, loved, and cared for even though they are self-centered, manipulative, uncivilized creatures.

When we are born, we are completely identified with our mother. Because we began life united with the mother's body, we feel identified with the mother once we leave the womb. Gradually, we become aware that we are individuals separate from our mothers. When we cry, sometimes she doesn't come. She doesn't always want to play when we want to play. Sometimes when we are sad, she is happy, and when we are happy, she is sad.

As we grow older, we are forced to sleep alone in our rooms while our parents get to share each other's comfort in the dark. We begin to explore the world around us, and we discover there is a lot out there that is separate from ourselves. By the end of the first year, we are aware that at a certain point, we end, and the rest of the world begins. Those boundaries are defined by our bodies. The rest of our lives is spent defining and developing our identity and individuality. We develop ego boundaries that separate us from others and give us a unique identity, but they bring a sense of loneliness that makes us long to return to the first year of our lives when we experienced union with all things.

The experience of being loved unconditionally as infants never leaves us, but we can never experience it again. As we grow older, we soon discover that acceptance is conditional. After the first year, the child discovers that love is no longer unconditional but is given only when certain conditions, requirements, and demands are met. Through the rest of our lives, we find that people love us only when we deserve it. They value us only when we can meet some need they have. They accept us only when we live up to their expectations of us. This lesson is reinforced by parents, teachers, ministers, and employers. But we always long to be loved unconditionally again and to love others unconditionally.

The loneliness that comes with individuality causes anxiety, shame, and guilt. Loneliness and alienation are the universal experiences of people, according to Erich Fromm: "This awareness of ourselves as a separate entity, the awareness of our own short life span, of the fact that without our will we are born and against our will we die, that we will die before those whom we love, or they before ourselves, the awareness of our aloneness and separateness, of our helplessness before the forces of nature and of society, all this makes our separate, disunited existences unbearable prisons.... Our deepest need, then, is the need to overcome our separateness, to leave the prison of our aloneness" (Fromm, 1956, pp. 8-9).

II. The Cure for Alienation (1 John 4:8-12)

How do we overcome our loneliness and alienation? Charlie Brown once walked up to Lucy who was standing behind her booth that said, "Psychiatrist, 5 cents." He asked her, "Can you cure loneliness?" "I can cure anything," she assured him. "Can you cure deep-down, bottom-of-the-well, black-forever loneliness?" "All for the same nickel?" she asked. Charlie Brown was looking in the wrong place for help with his loneliness.

Experiencing unconditional love is the only true antidote to our loneliness, as Erich Fromm recognized: "The full answer to the problem of existence lies in the achievement of interpersonal union, fusion with another person, in love. This desire for interpersonal fusion is the most powerful striving in man. It is the most fundamental passion, it is the force which keeps the human race together, the clan, the family, society. The failure to achieve it means insanity or destruction--self-destruction or destruction of others. Without love, humanity cannot exist for a day" (Fromm, 1956, pp. 16-17). Victor Hugo also said: "The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, in spite of ourselves."

Some people try to satisfy their need for acceptance in marriage, but this rarely works. Soon husbands discover that, when they leave their dirty socks on the floor, the wife does not accept them unconditionally. When wives do not keep their house as spotless as Mommy used to, the husband does not accept them unconditionally. Trying to satisfy our need for unconditional love in marriage places an impossible burden on another human being.

Gerald May warns against attempting to satisfy our need for unconditional love from human beings: "If you grow to invest all your longing for unconditional love in me, if you truly come to expect it from me, then your pain will be immense when I fail to measure up—as I most certainly will. Then you are left to deal with that pain, and you have only two options. You can become depressed, hating yourself and feeling that you were somehow unworthy of my love, or you can hate me, reviling me for my callous insensitivity" (1983, pp. 137-8).

Only one person is capable of loving us in all the right ways in all the right amounts at all the right times, and that person is God. First John 4:8 says that God is love. According to Leon Morris, "love is the essence of his being" and "love is the basic fact about God's nature" (1981, pp. 136-7). Daniel Migliore says that "God is self-sharing, other-regarding, community-forming love" (1991, p. 64). God cannot stop loving because love is what he is. Love is not simply what God does; love is what God is. For God to stop loving, he would have to stop being God.

A farmer printed on his weather vane the words, "God is love." Someone asked him if he meant to imply that the love of God was as fickle as the wind. The farmer answered: "No, I mean that whichever way the wind blows, God is love. If it blows cold from the North, or biting from the East, God is still love just as much as when the warm South or gentle West winds refresh our fields and flocks. God is always love."

God proved his love for us by giving his Son to die for us: "God's love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins" (1 John 4:9-10). Leon Morris says that "we will never understand what love means if we start with human response." Rather, he says, "it is the cross that brought a new dimension to religion, that gives us a new understanding of love." Apart from the cross, there is no reason to believe in a God of love (Morris, 1981, p. 129). About this verse, C. S. Lewis says simply: "In God there is no hunger that needs to be filled, only plenteousness that desires to give" (1960, p. 175).

Only God can satisfy our deep-seated need for unconditional acceptance. We sometimes place this burden on other people (parents, friends, spouse), but, according to Diogenes Allen, "only God has unlimited abundance and to seek from a creature more than it can give is to lose even the good of which it is capable" (1987, p. 118). Morton Kelsey rightly concludes that "seldom can we offer to others much truly self-giving love until we have received it from the Divine Lover in one way or another" (1981, p. 27).

When we experience God's love, we cannot keep it to ourselves but must share it with others: "Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us" (1 John 4:11-12). When we allow God to fill us with his love, it becomes impossible to keep it within. His love flows out from us so that we become channels of love.

Love does not require giving up the individuality we have struggled so hard to attain. True love means that we maintain our separateness even as we bind our lives together by our care and concern for each other. When we love, we stretch our ego boundaries to include other human beings. Our ego boundaries become permeable so that others are allowed in. By loving others, our self becomes enlarged so that we lead richer, fuller lives.

III. The Risk of Love (1 John 4:16b-18)

Love overcomes our fear of rejection by God and others: "God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: hat we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love" (1 John 4:16b-18).

This passage refers primarily to our fear of judgment and condemnation, but it also has a wider application. Our experience of God's love gives us the freedom, security, and courage to risk letting down our guard and reaching out to others in love. The more we take the risk of loving, the easier it becomes to step out of our isolation and make ourselves vulnerable to others by caring for them.

Many are afraid to love because they don't want to risk rejection and hurt. C. S. Lewis said: "To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken" (1960, p. 169). Elton Trueblood wrote: "This then is the advice to give anybody who never wants to be hurt: don't care! Don't care and then nobody can ever say, 'I told you so.' Don't care and you cannot be wounded because of the caring. If you don't want to be hurt, don't marry, then you can't lose. If you never want to hurt, don't have a child. A child whom you love so much could be a terrible disappointment. If you never want to be hurt, don't enter the church. Even this redemptive fellowship, on which Christ depends, can itself be disappointing and manifestly unworthy. Don't care and then you will be safe. But those who take the road to safety pay a heavy price, the price of turning their backs upon all of the best things in life."

Throughout our lives, we have found that people disappoint us, put their own interests before ours, and at times betray us. When we move out of our isolation toward another human being, we risk that that person will move away from us, leaving us more painfully alone than we were before. The price of love is pain: People will let you down, people will move away, and people will die and leave you alone.

We can easily become cynical like Linus who said, "I love humanity; it's people who give me problems." But we cannot love just in theory. Love is not just an abstract ideal. To love, we must become involved in the lives of others, and that means we will often become messy and dirty and hurt. Even in the church, it is a challenge to act in loving ways toward others, as one poem says: "To dwell above with saints we love, That will be grace and glory; To live below with saints we know, That's another story!"

We can fear being used and abused so much that we refuse to put ourselves in the vulnerable position of acting in a loving way toward another person. But the alternative is worse: to not live life fully; to adopt a paranoid stance that leads to a life of fear; to shut the door of our heart and lock it so tight that no one can get in and we can't get out.

To live without loving is not living; it is a living death. It stifles personal growth and reduces our world to the circumference of our selves. We may think we are safe and secure behind our locked doors and shuttered windows, but it is a very lonely safety and a fearful security.

The experience of God's love liberates us to let others through our boundaries so that we can bond with them in compassion and care. Our strength and security derives from the fact that no matter what anyone else thinks of us, we know what God thinks of us—and he thinks more highly of us than is humanly possible. Because we know he loves us, we no longer feel a need to compete with others or protect ourselves from them.

IV. The Community of Love (1 John 4:19-21)

When we take the risk to love others as God has loved us, our love will often call forth love from them: "We love because he first loved us. Those who say, 'I love God,' and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also" (1 John 4:19-21).

Daniel Migliore stresses that the concept of the Trinity means that "in God's own life there is an activity of mutual self-giving, a community of sharing, a 'society of love' (Augustine) that is the basis of God's history of love for the world narrated in Scripture" (1991, p. 61). Because God himself exists as a community of mutual love, he desires those he created in his image to experience the community of love. Migliore observes: "The divine life is social and is thus the source and power of inclusive community among creatures" (1991, p. 69).

God's love can reach through us to break down the walls that others have built around themselves. They will answer God's love with their love. They will return love to God who will fill them with more love, which they will then share with us. This completes the cycle of love. Morton Kelsey says that, when two people share God's love with each other, "it appears as if the Divine Lover were communicating with himself, using two of us human beings as the occasion and lifting us up into his love at the same time (1981, p. 45). Paul Tournier said: "How beautiful, how grand and liberating the experience is when people learn to help each other. It is impossible to overemphasize the need humans have to be really listened to, to be taken seriously, to be understood…. No one can develop freely in this world and find a full life without feeling understood by at least one person."

Unconditional love is the deepest longing of people, but they rarely experience it beyond their first year of life. The church should be a place for people to experience unconditional love. I love this quote from Jerry Cook: "Love is commitment and operates independently of what we feel or do not feel. We need to extend this love to everyone who comes into our church: 'Brother, I want you to know that I'm committed to you. You'll never knowingly suffer at my hands. I'll never say or do anything, knowingly, to hurt you. I'll always in every circumstance seek to help you and support you. If you're down and I can lift you up, I'll do that. Anything I have that you need, I'll share with you; and if need be I'll give it to you. No matter what I find out about you and no matter what happens in the future, either good or bad, my commitment to you will never change. And there's nothing you can do about it. You don't have to respond. I love you, and that's what it means'" (1979, p. 13).

A church is a place where people should be accepted in spite of their faults, where the irritations and personality quirks of others are tolerated, where people learn to resolve conflict in healthy ways. In the church, God loves you through me, he loves me through you, and our common experience of his love binds our lives together. In the church, instead of isolation, people experience fellowship; instead of enmity, reconciliation; instead of rejection, acceptance; instead of hostility, peace; instead of division, unity. The church is a group of people with hangups, neuroses, addictions, and sins who have joined hands to form a ragtag band of travelers who accompany each other on the spiritual journey. As we journey together following Christ's guidance, we experience from each other forgiveness, acceptance, freedom, compassion, empathy, and caring.

V. Conclusion

According to Romans 5:5, God pours his love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. God's love overflows from us to others. Our experience of God's love radically transforms how we relate to others. Self-centeredness is replaced by concern for others; coldness is replaced by compassion; fear is replaced by courage; and hatred is replaced by love.

At the end of the movie The Elephant Man, Treves and Merrick are talking, and Merrick says, "I am happy every hour of the day. My life is full because I know I am loved. I gained myself. I could not say that were it not for you." May God help us be the one who shows others his transforming love.

Reflection Questions

1. What does it feel like to be lonely?

2. Why is it so difficult to build healthy relationships with other people?

3. How would it affect someone's life to believe that God is love?

4. How does experiencing God's love affect us?

5. Explain the connection between God's love for us and our love for others.

6. Why do many churches fail to provide people the unconditional love they need? Where else will people find it if they do not find it in church?

Next Topic: "How God Renews Our Selves"

Sources:

Allen, D. (1987). Love: Christian romance, marriage, friendship. Cambridge, MA: Cowley.

Cook, J., & Baldwin, S. C. Love, acceptance & forgiveness: Equipping the church to be truly Christian in a non-Christian world. Ventura, CA: Regal.

Fromm, E. (1956). The art of loving. New York: Harper & Row.

Kelsey, M. T. (1981). Caring: How can we love one another?
New York: Paulist Press.

Lewis, C. S. (1960). The four loves. New York: Harcourt, Brace.

May, G. G. (1983). Will and spirit: A contemplative psychology. San Francisco: Harper & Row.

Migliore, D. L. (1991). Faith seeking understanding: An introduction to Christian theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.

Morris, L. (1981). Testaments of love: A study of love in the Bible. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.

How God Renews Our Desires

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Greg Linton) — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 17:55:00 +0000

We have learned in the last two postings that when God renews us, he begins with our thought life. Our thoughts determine how we feel, and our emotions determine how we act. If we want to change how we act and how we feel, we must allow God to change our thoughts.

A Sunday School teacher was discussing dreams with the children in her class. She said, "I used to have bad dreams. For example, the other night I dreamed that I blew up Preacher Henry's house." One little girl's hand went up, so the teacher called on her, "Do you want to say something?" The little girl said, "My mother told me if you don't have bad thoughts, you won't have bad dreams."

We have learned that if we don't have bad thoughts, we won't have bad emotions. If we don't have bad thoughts and bad emotions, we won't act in bad ways. But our desires also play a role in our actions. We all struggle with inappropriate desires. We all struggle to behave in godly ways. We find ourselves addicted to a thought, feeling, or behavior that we don't like and would like to quit, but we can't seem to find the power to overcome it. Our will, that part of us that makes choices and decisions, must choose between competing desires. Some are wrong, harmful, and sinful, and others are right, healthy, and holy.

How can we tip the balance of the scales in favor of choosing what is right and good and holy?

I. Our Struggle with Desires (James 1:13-16)

Sinful desires dominate us because we seek to control our lives. We place our selves at the center of our lives and expect others to put us at the center of their lives. We think that to be happy and successful we must be in control of everything and everyone. In this grand production of our life, we strive to be the producer, director, screenwriter, lead actor, set designer, costumer, makeup artist, and even the grip (whatever a "grip" is). It's exhausting to be the lord of our universe, but we try nevertheless.

When we feel that our desires are out of our control and are causing us damage, we may try to exert authority over them. We try harder. We call up more willpower. We put forth greater effort. And the result is that we sink deeper and deeper into sin. The more we try to control ourselves, the less control we seem to have.

Because we have failed so miserably at controlling others, controlling our selves, and controlling our desires, we turn to substances that we think we can control. They are concrete things that bring us temporary relief and satisfaction. So we medicate our misery and numb our exhaustion with food, alcohol, drugs, tobacco, sex, video games, and other forms of mindless entertainment. Those pleasures temporarily distract us from realizing how utterly we have failed at controlling anything, so we become addicted to them, unable to resist the momentary release of endorphins that they provide. Ultimately, our attempts to control have gotten us into a big mess.

James 1:13 observes that we might tempted to blame God for our addiction to desires, but "God cannot be tempted and he himself tempts no one." No, we have only our own miserable selves to blame: "But one is tempted by one's own desire, being lured and enticed by it; then, when that desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and that sin, when it is fully grown, gives birth to death. Do not be deceived, my beloved" (James 1:14-16, all quotations from NRSV). James is describing the opposite of Christomorphosis. This process leads us farther and farther away from the goal of becoming like Christ.

II. Our Surrender of Desires (Acts 2:37-38)

When John the Baptist appeared, the nation of Israel had failed miserably at controlling its own fate. They had followed their own desires, which led them into idolatry and the eventual loss of their land. Because of that experience of exile, they emphasized faithfulness to the law so that they would not repeat their mistakes, but the result was that they became ensalved to something that they could not perfectly obey. Their attempts to control their own destiny led to their subjugation by Rome.

John the Baptist offered the Jews one remedy for their addiction to their desires—a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins (Luke 3:3). He confronted them with their need to control and called them to surrender to God. He called upon them to prepare their hearts so that they would receive the Messiah who was bringing God's kingdom to earth. He reminded them that there is only God. We too need to be reminded that God is not our self, our spouse, our children, our job, our education, pleasurable substances, money, possessions, or reputation.

He called the Jews to turn away from their desires and turn to God. They were to perform a decisive act of the will by which they would choose to stop living according to their own desires and start seeking God's will in all things. He encouraged them to express this decision to reorient their life by being immersed in water, which symbolized cleansing of sin. This baptism of repentance would remind them of the two most important facts that every person must eventually grasp: There is a God, and I am not he.

Jesus himself submitted to John's baptism in order to express his own commitment to God. After his baptism, he grappled with his desires as Satan tempted him in the wilderness. As he embarked on his public ministry, he announced that the kingdom of God had come near and that all people must repent and believe in the good news (Mark 1:15). Like John, Jesus challenged people to surrender to God and turn away from their evil desires. After his death and resurrection, he instructed his disciples to continue to preach the message of repentance and baptism (Matt 28:18-20).

On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples, and Peter preached a sermon to the gathered crowd. The listeners were convicted by the message and asked what they should do to be saved (Acts 2:37). Peter presented them with the same challenge offered by John the Baptist and Jesus: "Repent and be baptized" (Acts 2:38). Unlike John's baptism, however, this baptism was performed "in the name of Jesus Christ." It placed one under the ownership of Christ. By expressing their repentance in baptism, they would become Christ's possession.

Peter promised that two blessings would result from repentance-baptism. First, their sins would be forgiven. Forgiveness would provide the remedy for the guilt of sin. Second, they would receive the Holy Spirit, which would be the remedy for the power of sin. When they surrendered to God in baptism, they would receive divine power within that would help them overcome sin. By giving up control to Jesus Christ, they would receive self-control through the Holy Spirit.

III. The Death of Our Desires (Romans 6:1-10)

Those promises that Peter made on the day of Pentecost are still available to us today. In Romans 6, Paul describes more fully the great transformation that takes place in our baptism. Baptism initiates the process of renewal and frees us from the grip of our evil desires.

A. We are united with Christ (Romans 6:1-3).

Before Romans 6, Paul had just explained that we are saved by grace: Salvation is a free gift we do not earn. We are saved not by our own efforts but by surrendering ourselves to the free gift of salvation in Christ.

In 6:1, he anticipates that some might conclude that it does not matter whether or not they sin since salvation is a free gift: "What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound?" Their attitude was like that of the young boy who explained to his sister: "You see, it was Jesus' job to die for our sins; it's our job to sin."

In 6:2-3, Paul answers that they cannot sin because, when they were baptized, they were changed in a way that keeps them from sinning: "By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?" Grace does not give license to sin but gives us the ability to obey.

When they were immersed in water as a public expression of surrender to Christ's lordship, they underwent a spiritual transformation. When they were plunged into water, they were plunged into Christ. They became one with Christ; they were spiritually identified with Christ. Baptism is the beginning of Christomorphosis. Galatians 3:27 expresses the idea like this: "As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ." In baptism, Christ wraps himself around us so that we are united with him. The New Testament frequently uses two interchangeable phrases to describe our union with Christ: Christ in me (Gal 2:20; Eph 3:17) and I in Christ. Our union with Christ has produced the following two changes in our inner persons.

B. We have died to sin (Romans 6:4-7).

In baptism, we are united with Christ in his death so that our self has died: "Therefore we have been buried with him in baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin." Baptism reenacts Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection in the life of the believer (Fitzmyer, 1993). In baptism, we die with Christ on the cross. In baptism, Jesus' death on the cross is applied to the believer. Ernst Käsemann said that in baptism Christ "has caught up Christians up into his death" (1980, p. 165).

According to Ephesians 2:1-3, the old self was enslaved to sin and had little freedom to choose its actions. Sin was an addiction, a habit ingrained through years of repetition and practice. Sin is used in the singular here as if it is an entity or a power that has enslaved us.

Slaves to sin are like the cartoon character Dagwood. On one occasion, Blondie and Dagwood were dining out when the waiter brought desserts over for them to choose. Dagwood looked at each one and said, "No thanks." Blondie, with a knowing smile, said: "Dagwood knows how to handle temptation." Then the waiter held up one more dessert and Dagwood, with a huge grin, said, "I'll take the Napoleon!" Blondie added, "He yields to it." Slaves to sin cannot resist sin's temptation.

Slaves to sin can relate to Tommy Lasorda, the manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, who was struggling to stay on a diet. He told a reporter, "I am a strong man, but linguine is stronger." The power of sin is stronger than the unredeemed person's ability to resist. No matter how strong we try to be, no matter how hard we try, no matter how much we try to control ourselves, sin is always stronger. Sin is like quicksand: The more we struggle to free ourselves from it, the deeper we are sucked in.

But when we are united with Christ in baptism, we are released from sin's power over us. The old self that was dominated by sin dies in baptism so that sin no longer reigns over us. The person that was dominated by sin ("the body of sin") is disabled, defeated, rendered powerless. Martin Luther graphically described our death to sin: "Your baptism is nothing less than grace clutching you by the throat: a grace-full throttling, by which your sin is submerged in order that ye may remain under grace. Come thus to thy baptism. Give thyself up to be drowned in baptism and killed by the mercy of thy dear God, saying: 'Drown me and throttle me, dear Lord, for henceforth I will gladly die to sin with they Son.'"

A story about the great theologian Augustine illustrates this change. He had led a very immoral life before his conversion. One day after he had become a Christian, he was walking down the street of Milan when a prostitute whose services he had used in her former life called out to him. He kept on walking and would not answer. She called out, "Augustine, it is I!" And he responded, "Yes, but it is no longer I."

C. We are alive to God (Romans 6:8-10).

Our union with Christ in baptism also results in a new life, a life centered on God's will for us. What happened to Christ also happens to us. His resurrection guarantees our new life. When we repent and are baptized, the Holy Spirit dwells within us (Acts 2:38). The Holy Spirit makes us alive spiritually so that we have intimate fellowship with God. The Holy Spirit unites us with Christ and gives us new life.

Colossians 1:13-14 describes the transformation that occurs when we are saved: "He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." The inner transformation we experience when we are baptized into Christ causes Paul to declare: "If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!" (2 Cor 5:17). Baptism initiates the process of Christomorphosis so that we begin anew.

Sometimes restaurants signal that they are changing their bad reputation by posting a sign that says, "Under New Management." Baptism is our way of declaring to others that we are under new management and that the new management is cleaning house and refurbishing our inner self.

Around A.D. 400, John Chrysostom stated this profoundly: "For when we immerse our heads in the water, the old man is buried as in a tomb below, and wholly sunk forever; then as we raise them again, the new man rises in its stead. As it is easy for us to dip and to lift our heads again, so it is easy for God to bury the old man, and to show forth the new."

IV. The Transformation of Our Desires (Romans 6:11-14)

A key to understanding Paul is to distinguish the indicative and the imperative. The indicative refers to Paul's description of who we are in Christ. The indicative describes our identity as Christians. Once Paul describes the indicative, he then proceeds to explain how we should act because of who we are. This is called the imperative because it takes the form of commands and admonitions.

In Paul, the imperative is based on the indicative. God has changed our inward being, and that inner change should be reflected in our outer conduct. We need to "become who we are": Our inner transformation needs to become an outward reality. Christomorphosis is not an internal, invisibile process; it should be visible to others.

In Romans 6, Paul has said that when we believed and were baptized, we were united with Christ so that we died to sin and were raised to a new life. In baptism, we were Christomorphized. This is the indicative. He then gives the imperative: Because of this change, Christians cannot sin. We must "walk in newness of life" (6:4). Sin is not congruent with the transformed nature of a Christian. We might say that our lives and our conduct must be Christomorphic, conformed to the image of Christ in which we have been re-created.

Two men who attended the same church met on the street. One said to the other, "Have you heard about Harry? He embezzled the company out of half a million dollars." The other man said, "That's terrible; I never did trust Harry." The first man said, "Not only that, he left town and he took Tom's wife with him." The other man said, "That's awful; Harry has always been a ne'er-do-well." The first man said, "Not only that, he stole a car to make his getaway." The other man said, "That's scandalous; I always did think Harry had a bad streak in him." The first man said, "Not only that, they think he was drunk when he pulled out of town." The other man said, "Harry's no good. But what really bothers me is, who's going to teach his Sunday School Class this week?" This story is humorous because we see how incongruent that behavior is with the man's identity. When Christians sin, they are acting against their own nature.

Let's examine the imperatives Paul gives us. How do we make our inward identity an outward reality? How can our conduct become Christomorphic?

A. Consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God (Romans 6:11).

Since we have died to sin, we should behave as if we have died to sin. We must make that inward fact an outward reality. This outward change begins by understanding and accepting the inner change that has occurred. "Consider" means to realize and remember. We must make a conscious, ongoing effort to remember that God has made it possible for us to resist sin and live righteously. Sin is not a literal impossibility, but it is a moral contradiction (Stott, 1994).

When I learned to ride a bike, no one told me how to stop. The only way I knew how to stop was by running into something that would stop me. Consequently, I was constantly climbing out of bushes, scraping myself off the side of the house, and climbing down from the hoods of cars. I could have been spared a lot of trouble if I had known the bike had a brake. Similarly, we can save ourselves a lot of trouble if we remember that God has made it possible for us to put the brakes on our desires.

A little boy wanted a pair of skates, so his parents made him save the amount from his allowance. One day his mother overheard him in his bedroom shaking his bank and counting his money. Then she heard the bell of the ice cream truck ringing loudly in the street outside. She knew the boy wanted his skates, but he loved ice cream also, so she waited to see what would happen. It was very quiet in the bedroom until the vehicle was gone, and the bell could no longer be heard. Then she heard her son pray quietly: "Dear Jesus, please don't let the ice cream truck come down my street anymore."

Even though our old self has died, sin is still present, enticing us to depart from God's will. But we can resist sin's allure if we remember that it has no power over us. Robert Mounce said: "For the Christian to choose to sin is the spiritual equivalent of digging up a corpse for fellowship" (2001, p. 163). We must remind ourselves that we are free to choose to live according to God's will for us. Sin is a force that still tempts us, but it is no longer a power that controls us. We can overcome sin by relying on Christ's power to defeat it.

B. Do not place yourselves under sin's power (Romans 6:12-13a).

According to 6:12-13a, we can choose to refuse sin's power over us: "Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness...." This passage suggests that a believer can succumb to sin's domination, but we can also choose to be free from it. Sin no longer makes us an offer we can't refuse (Witherington, 2004). Lars Hartman said that "baptism meant a liberation not from sinning, but from sin's reign, from living according to the conditions of its power" (cited in Esler, 2003, p. 217).

A saloon keeper sold his old tavern to a local church. The church members tore out the bar, added some lights, slapped on a coat of paint, and installed some pews. However, they kept the parrot that belonged to the saloon keeper. On Sunday morning the colorful bird was watching the proceedings. When the minister appeared, he squawked, "New proprietor!" When the choir proceeded down the aisle, he piped, "New floor show!" Then he looked out over the congregation and screeched, "Same old crowd!" People should see a difference in the way Christians live since they have been freed from sin.

C. Offer yourselves to God (Romans 6:13b-14).

The indicative is that we have been brought from death to life; the imperative is that we present ourselves to God: "Present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace" (6:13b-14). "Present" means to place ourselves at God's disposal.

We must choose to let God rule our lives and produce righteousness in us. As we surrender to God and experience his transforming power, we will find that

instead of anger, we will choose patience;
instead of impatience, we will choose understanding;
instead of anxiety, we will have confidence;
instead of resentment, we will practice forgiveness;
instead of covetousness, we will practice generosity;
instead of pride, we will have humility (Petersen, 1993, p. 116).

A man always stopped by the bakery to buy some goodies for the staff coffee break, but he decided to go on a diet, so he quit the practice. One day on his way to work he thought, "Maybe I should stop by the bakery and pick up some goodies for the office." So he told the Lord he would stop only if God made a parking spot available right in front of the bakery. And, sure enough, there it was, a parking spot, right in front of the bakery—on his eighth trip around the block! Instead of placing ourselves in temptation's way as this man did, we offer ourselves to God to be used in his service.

Martin Luther summarizes these thoughts like this: "Baptism signifies that the old Adam in us is to be drowned by daily sorrow and repentance, and perish with all sins and evil lusts; and that the new man should daily come forth again and rise, who shall live before God in righteousness and purity forever."

V. Conclusion

A young man was buying a shirt in a department store. The shirt label said, "Shrink resistant." He asked the clerk what that meant. The clerk said, "The label means that the shirt will shrink, but it doesn't want to." Many people view the Christian life like that: We will sin, but we don't want to.

Paul says that we don't have to sin. God has made us sin-resistant. But we must understand the change that has occurred within us. To resist sin, we must remember our baptism. We must remember that we have died to sin and are free to live for Christ. We must continually surrender ourselves to God so that he can continue to change us from the inside out.

"Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and of spirit, making holiness perfect in the fear of God" (2 Cor 7:1).

Reflection Questions

1. What harmful desire do you struggle with the most? What harm does it cause you?

2. According to Romans 6, what happens to us when we are baptized into Christ?

3. According to Romans 6:11-14, how are we to live because of the change that occurred in baptism?

4. How can we surrender ourselves to God so that we will resist sin?

Next Topic: "How God Renews Our Relationships"

Sources:

Bridges, J. (1978). The pursuit of holiness. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress.

Bridges, J. (1994). The discipline of grace: God's role and our role in the pursuit of holiness. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress.

Esler, P. F. (2003). Conflict and identity in Romans: The social setting of Paul's letter. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

Fitzmyer, J. A. (1993). Romans. Anchor Bible 33. New York: Doubleday.

Käsemann, E. (1980). Commentary on Romans. Translated by G. W. Bromiley. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans.

Mounce, R. H. (2001). Romans. New American Commentary 27. Nashville: Broadman & Holman.

Petersen, J. (1993). Lifestyle discipleship: The challenge of following Jesus in today's world. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress.

Stott, J. (1994). Romans: God's good news for the world. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity.

Witherington, B., and Hyatt, D. (2004). Paul's letter to the Romans: A socio-rhetorical commentary. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans.

How God Renews Our Emotions

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Greg Linton) — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 20:31:00 +0000

This is the second installment of a five-part series called "How God Renews Us."

In the last post, we learned that God wants to renew us into the image of Christ, beginning with our thoughts. Once our thoughts are renewed, our emotions and desires also will be renewed. What we think determines how we feel, and how we feel determines how we act. In the last post, we saw how God can change how we think. Now let's consider how God changes our emotions.

Many people think that emotions are uncontrollable. They say they can't help how they feel. Such people tend to think it is unhealthy to restrain their emotions. A humorous story illustrates this thinking. A man was strolling through a men's club and came upon three men and a dog playing cards. Pausing to watch, he asked, "Can that dog really play cards?" "You bet," answered one of the members. "That's incredible!" the man said. "Not really," another member shrugged. "He's really not that good. Whenever he gets a good hand, he wags his tail."

Some people think that it is either impossible or unhealthy to restrain their emotions, but James 1:19-20 says that we can and should keep our emotions under control: "Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry, because our anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires" (TNIV).

Others go to the other extreme so that they suppress their emotions. Such people are uncomfortable with their emotions, so they deny them or ignore them. Many men, for example, were taught that it is a sign of weakness to show emotion. A characteristic of dysfunctional families is that they do not allow the honest expression of emotions. Such people who are afraid of their emotions are like Katherine Hepburn: A reviewer once said that her emotions ran the gamut from A to B. People who suppress their emotions live narrow, unexciting lives.

Jesus himself expressed his emotions, such as anger, joy, sadness, and weeping. Paul expressed honest emotions in his letters, such as frustration, affection, joy, and anger. Emotions in themselves are neither good nor bad. What we do with our emotions can lead to good actions or bad actions. How we let our emotions affect us can have good or bad consequences.

We should not freely express every emotion we feel nor should we deny the honest expression of emotion. Either extreme can cause psychological and spiritual damage. The ideal is to be free to feel and yet remain in control of our feelings (Hart, 1989).

Let's consider how we can transform destructive, damaging emotions into constructive, healthy emotions. We will illustrate the ABCDE Process of transforming our emotions by examining a case study from the Gospels. This process was developed by the cognitive therapist David Burns (1989), but it reflects Biblical principles. Jesus' parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30 shows how distorted thoughts lead to distorted emotions that can cause a person to act in unhealthy ways.

A = Adversity

The emotional process begins when an event occurs that upsets us, frustrates a goal, or makes life difficult. In Matthew 25:14-15, the emotional stimulus for the servant was being entrusted with a great deal of money by his master. He reacted to this responsibility with certain thoughts that triggered certain emotions.

B = Beliefs

We interpret events based on our thoughts, attitudes, and beliefs. Our assumptions about life, our image of God, our concept of self all determine how we explain the things that happen to us. Distorted thoughts and beliefs will lead to distorted interpretations and distorted emotions (Backus & Chapian, 1980). Accurate thoughts and beliefs will result in appropriate interpretations, emotions, and actions. The one-talent man in Jesus' story had inaccurate beliefs that caused him to act inappropriately. He assumed incorrectly that his master was harsh, and that misbelief paralyzed him with fear, and that distorted emotion of fear resulted in sloth.

C = Consequences

Our thoughts trigger a physiological reaction, which we call a feeling. The combination of thought and feeling makes an emotion (Hart, 1989). Our emotions then affect how we act.

Events do not lead directly to emotions. There is an intervening variable between the event and the resulting emotion, namely, the meaning we attach to the event. Our interpretation of what happens to us affects how we feel about it. The meaning we attach to an event results from our values, beliefs, attitudes, expectations, assumptions, and perceptions (Hart, 1989).

In other words, our thought life determines our emotional life. What we think about what happens to us determines how we feel and how we respond. Our thoughts, not external events, control our emotions. Our emotions are responses to our interpretation of events rather than to the events themselves. I would represent this chain of events this way.

Event > Interpretation/thought > Feeling/physical reaction > Emotion > Action

Here are some examples of how emotions result from thoughts (Burns, 1989). Sadness and depression result from thoughts of loss. Frustration results from unfulfilled expectations. Anxiety and panic result from thoughts of danger. Guilt results from self-condemnation. Inferiority results from thoughts of inadequacy. Anger results from thoughts of unfairness.

Philosophers have known for centuries that our thoughts control our emotions. In the second century, the philosopher Marcus Aurelius said, "If you are pained by an external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs you but your judgment about it" (Hart, 1989, p. 28).

Let's look at how each man in this story reacted to the same event. One man was given five talents, which he used to make five more talents. The man who was given two talents invested his money so that he made two more talents. But the man who was given one talent dug a hole in the ground and buried the money.

What caused the third man to act differently from the other two? When he is forced to give an account to his master, he reveals what was going on in his mind: "Master, I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown, and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground" (Matt 25:24-25). His belief was that the master was harsh and unreasonable. Because of his misbelief about the master, the servant felt fear. His fear caused him to act cautiously and defensively so that he missed a great opportunity for more blessings.

Notice that the event itself did not cause his emotions. The other two men experienced the same event, but they interpreted it in a positive way as an opportunity to display their ingenuity and trustworthiness. These men acted differently because they felt differently, and they felt differently because they thought differently. It was the third man's thoughts that caused him to feel fear, not the adversity he faced.

D1 = Distraction

If we are experiencing harmful emotions because of distorted thinking, we can change them in one of two ways: distraction or disputation. Distraction interrupts the thought cycle that produces harmful emotions.

Our emotions can trigger more negative thoughts that produce more negative emotions. Archibald Hart (1989) calls this "emotional chaining," which escalates the severity of our emotional state. We must interrupt the process so that we can return to a state of calm and equilibrium. One way to do this is to divert our attention from the negative thoughts causing the negative emotions.

God has designed our minds so that they can focus on only one thing at a time. This is called the principle of selective attention or the cocktail party effect (Moray, 1987). For example, if you are in a room full of people, you cannot listen to more that one conversation simultaneously no matter how hard you try. Your brain can focus on only one stimulus at a time.

This principle explains how we can keep our minds from dwelling on negative thoughts. If we divert our attention to something else, we will stop thinking the negative thought. And when we stop thinking negative thoughts, we will stop feeling negative emotions.

D2 = Disputation

We can also change our emotions by intervening between the environmental input (what happens to us) and the emotional output (how we respond). Most negative emotions result from distorted thoughts. Our thoughts determine whether we will be happy or miserable, successful or a failure, composed or angry, relaxed or tense. We can attack our distorted beliefs and argue against them so that we will feel better.

Cognitive therapists have identified ten categories of distorted thinking: all-or-nothing thinking, overgeneralization, mental filter, discounting the positives, jumping to conclusions (mind reading and fortune telling), magnification or minimization, emotional reasoning, should statements, labeling, and personalization and blame (Burns, 1989, p. 96). If we identify these distortions, then we can replace them with more accurate perceptions of reality.

The misbelief of the fearful servant was that he thought his master was harsh. This distorted thought falls into the category of "overgeneralization." He should have replaced this distortion with a more accurate interpretation. Indeed, his master was harsh with those who deserve it. There is usually a smidgen of truth on which an overgeneralization is based. But the complete truth that he ignored was that, if he was faithful and put forth his best effort, his master would reward him. The other two men certainly did not think the master was harsh, and the master proved to be generous to them. The unfaithful servant focused only on the negative aspects of his master and discounted the positives, another category of distorted thinking. He thought he could read the mind of the master and that he could predict that things would turn out badly. His thinking was riddled with distortions, which caused him to feel fear.

E = Energization

If we replace our distorted thoughts with truthful, healthy interpretations of events, our emotions will change. Jesus describes the healthy response to events in John 13:17: "Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them" (TNIV). Notice the sequence here. Jesus says that first we must know the truth. We must have healthy beliefs. We must think straight about reality. Then we must act appropriately based on those beliefs. Then, if we have right beliefs and right actions, our emotions will be blessed (Anderson, 1990). If we know the truth, we need to act on that knowledge no matter how we feel. Correct knowledge and correct actions will result in good emotions.

There are many things God wants us to do that we do not always feel like doing, but when we do them anyway, our feelings improve as a result. For example, I have heard people say that they did not feel like going to church on Sunday morning, but they went anyway, and they were glad they did. They knew the right thing to do and they did it, so their emotions felt better.

Test Case: Psalm 73

Psalm 73 provides another clear example of the ABCDE Process. The psalmist begins by ruminating on negative thoughts in verses 1 to 14. His thoughts center on envy of his enemies. He exaggerates the well-being of his enemies, magnifies his own troubles, and discounts his own blessings. Because of his negative thoughts, he feels negative emotions.

His thoughts reflect many of the classic distortion patterns. He reflects all-or-nothing thinking: "they have no pain" (v. 4, all quotes from NRSV). He overgeneralizes: "They are not in trouble as others are; they are not plagued like other people" (v. 5). He dwells on the negatives and discounts the positives: "All in vain I have kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence. For all day long I have been plagued, and am punished every morning" (vss. 13-14). He thinks he can read the minds of his enemies: "And they say, 'How can God know? Is there knowledge in the Most High?'" (v. 11).

Because of his distorted thoughts, he experienced many harmful emotions, including envy, hatred, anger, resentment, frustration, and discouragement.

But then the psalmist interrupts his emotional chaining in verse 15: "If I had said, 'I will talk on in this way,' I would have been untrue to the circle of your children." He pauses to consider the consequences of his beliefs. If he continued with his negative self-talk, he would have been a negative influence on the younger ones. His distorted beliefs were ruining his life and affecting the lives of others.

So how did he correct his negative thoughts? First, he distracted himself: "But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I perceived their end" (vss. 16-17). He put himself in a positive atmosphere where God could influence him. He tried to step back and examine his thoughts objectively to see how distorted they were.

Then he disputed his distorted beliefs. He realized that God would judge people according to their actions, so he could leave vengeance in God's hands (vss. 18-20). He reminded himself of the self-inflicted damage caused by his thoughts and emotions: "When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was stupid and ignorant; I was like a brute beast toward you" (vss. 21-22).

When we are obsessed with certain harmful thoughts or actions, it helps to perform a cost-benefit analysis to see the damage they cause. If the costs of those thoughts and actions outweigh the benefits, then the wise course of action is to stop them. The psalmist could see that his thoughts and emotions hurt him more than helped him, so he actively worked at changing them.

He displaced his negative thoughts with positive thoughts: "Nevertheless I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me with honor" (vss. 23-24). He restored his trust in God's care and protection.

These renewed, accurate beliefs led him to write some of the most moving words of praise in Scripture: "Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth I desire other than you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever" (vss. 25-26). When the writer began the psalm, these are the last words we would expect to hear from him, but because he corrected his negative thinking, he was able to praise and thank and bless God in the end.

Conclusion

Dr. Alfred Adler used to tell the story about a group of people who were crowded together, trying to sleep on the floor of a great auditorium during the war. One woman kept everyone awake with her pitiful cries, "Oh God, I'm so thirsty!" Finally, someone got up in the dark and brought her a glass of water. They could hear the woman gurgle the water down, and just when everyone thought they could finally get some sleep, the woman exclaimed, "Oh, God, how thirsty I was!" The woman could not stop dwelling on the negatives.

We can choose to focus on the negatives of life and interpret everything that happens to us in a negative way. Or we can respond to events with accurate perceptions and trust in God. How we think about what happens to us will determine how we feel.

Discussion Questions

1. What harmful emotion do you find difficult to control? In what ways does it harm you and others?

2. Why do people want to view emotions as uncontrollable?

3. How can you distract yourself from negative thoughts?

4. Which of the ten distorted thinking patterns do you have the most problems with? How can you correct it?

5. How much can you relate to the negative thoughts of Psalm 73:1-14? How can you avoid those negative thoughts?

Next Topic: "How God Renews Our Desires"

Sources:

Anderson, N. T. (1990). Victory over darkness: Realizing the power of your identity in Christ. Ventura, CA: Regal Books.

Backus, W., and Chapian, M. (1980). Telling yourself the truth. Minneapolis: Bethany House.

Burns, D. (1989). The feeling good handbook: Using the new mood therapy in everyday life. New York: W. Morrow.

Hart, A. D. (1989). Unlocking the mystery of your emotions. Dallas: Word.

Moray, N. (1987). Attention. In The Oxford companion to the mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

How God Renews Our Thoughts

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Greg Linton) — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 18:00:00 +0000

This is the first installment of a five-part series on "How God Renews Us."

Many thinkers have attested to the power of the mind over a person's life. Ralph Waldo Emerson said: "A man is what he thinks about all day long." Marcus Aurelius said: "A man's life is what his thoughts are made of." William James wrote: "The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind." James Thurber stated more cynically the power of our thoughts: "Sixty minutes of thinking of any kind is bound to lead to confusion and unhappiness."

The structure of the brain reveals how powerful it is. The brain has 12 to 14 billion cells (Hughes, 1991). Each cell sends out thousands of connecting tendrils so that a single cell may be connected with 10,000 neighboring cells. This is why the brain has been compared to 1,000 switchboards, each big enough to serve New York City, all running at full speed. It has been estimated that there is more electronic equivalent in the brain than in all the radio and TV stations of the entire world.

What we think determines how we feel and what we do. If we want to change how we feel, we need to change how we think. If we want to change how we act, we need to change how we think. If we can learn to replace our negative, sinful, distorted thoughts with positive, holy, truthful thoughts, our lives would improve dramatically.

I. The Problem: Distorted Minds

Second Corinthians 4:3-4 describes the mind as the arena in which spiritual forces of good and evil struggle for control of our lives: "And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God" (TNIV). By choosing to live independently of God, we have placed ourselves under the control of evil.

To ensure that people remain in bondage to evil, the Evil One distorts their thinking so that they cannot see the truth. Consequently, unbelievers are deceived about themselves and about God. They think they are their own gods. They think that God has no meaning for them.

In an Archie cartoon, Jughead told Archie that he was afraid he would fail at something he wanted to do. Archie told him: "Tell yourself you can do it. Speak positive messages of success to yourself." Jughead answered: "That won't work. I know what a liar I am!" According to Paul, we have all lied to ourselves. Until we accept the truth of the gospel, we are blinded to the truth about ourselves.

Second Corinthians 10:3-5 also says that we are engaged in a battle for our minds: "For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ" (TNIV).

According to Paul, evil forces set up strongholds in our minds (Anderson, 1993). These strongholds are negative patterns of thought that are burned into our minds through repetition over time. Once a stronghold is entrenched in our minds, our ability to choose and to act contrary to that pattern is greatly diminished.

In Paul's terminology, we are slaves to sin. We are addicted to sin, and we have little control over our actions. Demonic forces take advantage of these points of weakness and exploit them for their own destructive purposes. We know we are victims of a stronghold when we cannot help what we think and do.

II. The Remedy: The Truth

Second Corinthians 4:5-6 says that distorted, darkened minds are healed by the truth of the gospel: "For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God's glory in the face of Christ" (TNIV). Only the truth that Jesus died to set us free from sin has the power to break through the fog of our distorted minds and clear up our thinking. When we accept the gospel, we think clearly about ourselves, about God, and about Jesus.

Satan confuses our thoughts with lies (Jn 8:44), but his control over our minds is broken by accepting the truth (Jn 8:32). We accept the truth by confession. First John deals with the problem that some Christians believed the lie that they were without sin. This lie caused them all kinds of problems. John said the remedy was to see the truth about themselves: "If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness" (1 Jn 1:8-9, TNIV).

In confession, we see ourselves as God sees us. We agree with God's view of us. We are honest with ourselves and with God about our thoughts, our motives, and our actions. We accept the truth also by repentance, which literally means "change of mind" in Greek (metanoia). Through confession and repentance, we come to think the way God thinks. We focus our minds on God's will instead of on our will.

Once we begin to think the way God thinks, we come to have the mind of Christ (1 Cor 2:16). We think Christ's thoughts after him. We see the truth about ourselves, about others, and about God.

III. The Process: Renewal

1. Submit to God.

Romans 12:1-2 says: "Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your proper worship as rational beings. Do not conform 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" (TNIV). God does not force change on us. We must yield ourselves to him so that he can change us. If we submit to him and seek his will, he will renew our minds so that we will know his will.

2. Resist negative influences.

Romans 12:2 warns us not to be conformed to the world. We need to be selective about the input into our minds because those influences program our minds to think the way they think. We need to be selective about books, music, friends, co-workers, movies, etc.

Television especially is a major influence on our minds (Hughes, 1991). According to studies, the average viewer watches 4-1/2 hours a day, 1500 hours a year. The average child will spend 15,000-16,000 hours in front of the TV but only 13,000 hours in school. By age 20, people see 1 million commercials, including 100,000 beer commercials. And we wonder why 25,000 people are killed each year in drunk-driving incidents!

The danger of TV is that it reflects the values, opinions, and morals of those who produce it (Hughes, 1991). According to one survey of 104 TV executives, only 7% of them attend church (vs. 55% of the general public); 45% have no religious affiliation (vs. 4% of the general public); only 49% believe adultery is always wrong (vs. 85% of the general public); and only 20% think homosexual acts are wrong (vs. 76% of the general public). Clearly, their values are way out of line with most Americans, and they are contradictory to Biblical values. Yet we expose our minds to their subtle and overt attempts to shape our thinking.

3. Displace negative thoughts with positive thoughts.

Philippians 4:8 instructs us to be selective about what we allow into our minds: "Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things" (TNIV). Notice that everything listed here is positive. And each of these things is a matter of choice.

In Luke 11:24-26, Jesus instructs that we must replace the negative with the positive: "When an evil spirit comes out of anyone, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to the house I left.' When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first" (TNIV). This is the principle of displacement: To get rid of the negative, we must focus on the positive. It is not enough to stop thinking sinful thoughts; we must replace them with godly thoughts.

A young child came to her mother complaining that her stomach hurt. "Oh, honey, your stomach is empty," the mother responded. "You just need to get something in it and you'll be fine." A week later, the pastor was speaking with her mother, and he mentioned that he had a headache. "Oh, pastor, my mommy says that your head is empty," the girl responded. "You just need to get something in it and you'll be fine." If we can get positive, holy thoughts into our heads, they will drive out the negative thoughts.

Here is an exercise to illustrate this (Lutzer, 1994). Close your eyes for 10 seconds, and visualize the number 8. Now, when you read this line, stop thinking about the number 8 for the next 10 seconds.

Could you do it? We cannot control our thoughts just by telling ourselves to stop thinking about them: This only makes us dwell on them more.

Now, think about the number 1,000 and divide it by 5.

Are you still thinking about the number 8?

The easiest way to remove air from a bottle is to fill it with water. Similarly, the easiest way to drive out negative thoughts is by filling our minds with positive thoughts.

Our thoughts are in perpetual motion; we cannot stop them. Perhaps the only time we are without any thoughts is when we watch a Three Stooges episode--which may explain why men like the Three Stooges more than women do. We cannot stop our thoughts, but we can control their content and direction.

For example, we can practice "thought-stopping." Thought-stopping works this way: On an index card, write the word "STOP!" in red letters and then write a Bible verse on the other side that addresses the negative thought you are trying to control. Whenever that negative thought enters your mind, pull the card out of your pocket, tell yourself to stop, and then read the Bible verse to replace the negative thought with a positive one.

According to the principle of selective attention, our minds can focus on only one thing at a time. For example, the next time you are in a crowded room, try to listen to more than one conversation at a time. It can't be done! Our minds can focus attention on only one stimulus at a time, or else they would get overloaded.

This principle means that harmful thought patterns can be squeezed out of our minds by focusing our attention on positive thoughts. We fill our minds with positive thoughts by reading the Bible, watching uplifting movies, listening to Christian music, and engaging in conversations with Christian friends.

4. Place your thoughts under Christ's authority.

Second Corinthians 10:3-5 says that we tear down strongholds in our minds by taking every thought captive for Christ. When the negative thought first enters our minds, we must surrender it to Christ's authority so that he can control it. oo often, however, we mull over a negative thought until we commit the act.

A "Cathy" cartoon illustrates how this works (Anderson, 1990). Cathy was struggling with a diet. In each frame, she speaks to herself:

Frame 1: I will take a drive, but won't go near the grocery store.

Frame 2: I will drive by the grocery store, but will not go in.

Frame 3: I will go in the grocery store, but will not walk down the aisle where the Halloween candy is on sale.

Frame 4: I will look at the candy, but not pick it up.

Frame 5: I will pick it up, but not buy it.

Frame 6: I will buy it, but not open it.

Frame 7: Open it, but not smell it.

Frame 8: Smell it, but not taste it.

Frame 9: Taste it, but not eat it.

Frame 10: Eat, eat, eat, eat, eat!

Once we have allowed our thoughts to dwell too long and go too far, it becomes very difficult to turn them around.

5. Meditate on Scripture.

According to Psalm 1:1-2, we have to know God's thoughts first if we want to think them: "Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers; but their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night" (NRSV).

According to these verses, some people allow themselves to be influenced by the wrong people. They adopt the thought patterns of those whose minds are distorted. But others seek to dwell on God's thoughts. As a result, according to verse 3, they are stable, productive, and persevering: "They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither. In all that they do, they prosper" (NRSV).

We need to expose our minds constantly to the truth of God's Word. Just consider how little we expose our minds to God's truth. A dedicated Christian will hear 50 sermons a year at 30 minutes each for a total of 25 hours of Bible exposure in a year. Is that enough to retrain your mind? A really dedicated Christian will receive 50 more hours in Sunday School for a total of 75 hours. That may sound like a lot, but the average person will watch 1,500 hours of TV in a year. Can 75 hours of Bible study counteract 1,500 hours of television? We might say that we don't have time to study the Word, but it only takes about 70 hours to read the entire Bible. And where do we find 1,500 hours in a year to watch TV?

Psalm 119:11 says that dwelling on God's Word will keep us away from sin: "I treasure your word in my heart, so that I may not sin against you" (NRSV). Our minds focus on that which makes the strongest impression on our minds. Studies have shown that a policeman who stops by the side of the road has seven times the chance of having his car hit by a passing motorist if he leaves his flashing light on as he does if he turns the light off. We need to keep God's Word before our minds so that we will put its truth into practice.

IV. Conclusion

Once we allow God to renew our thoughts, how long will it take to retrain our minds to think holy thoughts? A habit is formed by repeating an act for six weeks (Anderson, 1990). So if we can replace negative thoughts with positive thoughts for at least six weeks, those positive thoughts will become our new habits of thought.

To conclude these thoughts about the power of the mind, consider these descriptions of the mind. The mind is a garden that could be cultivated to produce the harvest that we desire. The mind is a workshop where the important decisions of life and eternity are made. The mind is an armory where we forge the weapons for our victory or our destruction. The mind is a battlefield where all the decisive battles of life are won or lost.

V. Reflection Questions

1. What stronghold in your mind do you struggle against? What negative thought pattern dominates your thoughts?

2. What negative input has the most influence on your thoughts? What steps can you take to limit that input?

3. How can you increase the amount of positive input your mind receives?

4. Locate a Scripture that will help correct your negative thought pattern. Write it on a card to keep with you at all times.

Next Topic: "How God Renews Our Emotions"

Sources:

Anderson, N. T. (1990). Victory over the darkness: Realizing the power of your identity in Christ. Ventura, CA: Regal Books.

Anderson, N. T. (1993). The bondage breaker. Eugene, OR: Harvest House.

Crabb, L. (1987). Understanding people: Deep longings for relationship. Grand Rapids, IL: Zondervan.

Hughes, R. K. (1991). Disciplines of a godly man. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.

Lutzer, E. W. (1994). How to say no to a stubborn habit. Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.