Core-Strengthening Exercises

The Lovely Joanne and I sometimes exercise together. One of the types of exercise we do is to strengthen "the core" which means those muscles that hold you up, and the ones that hold your innards where they belong. That's supposed to help you sit, stand and move in a more balanced way. There's also a spiritual side to that idea of core-strengthening, that has to do with

Oh, For Joy!

I can't get over it. There was something going on in the minds of all the followers of Jesus after he was crucified and then raised out of the grave, that keeps coming back to surprise me and to make me,

Being, Becoming, and Doing

At the end of his gospel, Matthew records Jesus sending the apostles out to "make disciples." Much of Christian church discussion right now centers on knowing exactly how Jesus made disciples, so we can imitate his methods, and thereby be "more fruitful." That's a focus on technique, or "doing." Others are focused on "being" or "becoming" more like Jesus through

Bearing Fruit For a Long Time

A Chinese proverb asks "What's the best time to plant a tree?" The answer is "Twenty years ago!" Trees are symbols of stability and strength (Psa. 92:12), long life and contributing to one's surroundings (Psalm 1). Jesus uses a grapevine in John 15 to

Jesus' Life, Your Life Made New

How would you like a makeover? A whole new life? You have one in Christ. Paul says, in 2 Cor. 5, that we have new bodies waiting for us at Jesus' return; and the older I get, the more I'm wanting one of those! He goes on to tell us in v. 17 that we are, already, a new creation! But I have to tell you,

Following the Lead of the Holy Spirit

Last time I wrote about how our relationship with Jesus Christ is not like a list of chores, but more like dancing with him in a relationship that teaches us the facets of love, both individually and as a church. The Holy Spirit, the mind of Christ, whom we've been given by the Father (1 Cor. 2:16, John 14:16-21) invites

What Do You Desire?

What do you really want in life? I don't mean more money or a newer car or something, but in a more permanent sense -- what you want people saying at your funeral, or the legacy you want to pass on to your children and others. What really matters to you? God Almighty is willing to give you those desires:  "Take

Do You Really?

"Do you want to get well?" That sound ridiculous, doesn't it? Jesus -- who in my estimation was never ridiculous -- asked that exact question of a crippled man. In John 5:1-15, Jesus encountered this man as he lay

Worse than I Thought

Turns out the work on my house is going to take longer than I thought. Not because the permits office takes longer, or that the workers

Things to Leave Behind

The Lovely Joanne and I have moved from our comfortable house to an apartment for a

Explosions, Repairs and Replacements

Some of you know that recently, a house near ours was blown up due to a natural-gas leak. It was not the most fun experience Joanne and I have ever gone through, but we are grateful to God for surviving it and being able to move on. The engineers have been here, and they say that, although the house is sound, some areas will

Listening All the Time

The original 12 disciples had it easy. Jesus walked along and talked, and all they had to do was

It's Time to Take Off the Veil

Moses spent time with God (Exodus 34) and his his appearance was changed. He had to wear a veil to keep from scaring everyone. Jesus was changed
in his appearance ("transfigured") before his crucifixion, to fulfill Moses' experience. After the resurrection and the start of the church, the disciples reflected Jesus by the way their inner selves were changed. (The Jewish high court, seeing them, knew they "had been with Jesus," Acts 4:13). You and I also ought to reflect Jesus (2 Cor 3:18), but sometimes we don't, because of 'the veil': either we don't see God well, so we don't see our sins; or our past is still present, and it veils the shining face of our new self in Christ.


I've been following Jesus for decades, but I still have unhealthy thinking and broken emotional patterns from the past that lead me to sin, hurting me and hurting others. And so do you. What's the cure for our disease? Paul tells us "this is the secret: Christ lives in you" (Col. 1:27). The Holy Spirit, whom Jesus sends us, will keep bugging us to "be with Jesus." Time spent focusing on Jesus will help us see him more, so we can see, confess, and surrender our sins, and so reflect Jesus. For today, here is just one example of such a sin that veils the image of Christ in us. 

Fear: all of us live in self-protection. We are afraid others will hurt us, or that they'll find out the embarrassing truth about us, so we hide behind a polite mask of pretended security. We try to control everything that happens so we stay "safe." And we try to control others by stubbornly holding our opinion, or shutting others off when we don't get our way. Fear and its results inhibit love in every relationship, from a casual meeting on the street to intimacy in marriage. We even try to use the same tactic with God, out of fear he will reject us -- but he has already accepted us through Jesus. His love should rule us instead. 1 John 4 tells us "God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world. Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love."

The love John describes requires taking off the veil instead of hiding behind it in fear. You may not even be aware of a fear you have, but it's still crippling you. God has already put someone in your life who knows and loves you, and can help you, in an ongoing partnership of prayer and confession, to see the roots of your fear and surrender all of it to God. We all need someone to show the love of Jesus to us, and help us take off the veil. I'll be praying for you to find that person. Isn't it time you started this process too?

Taking Off the Veil, Part 2

Last week I wrote about our need to have the spiritual veil covering our eyes removed, by
surrendering our lives to the Lord Jesus Christ, as Paul writes in 2 Cor. 3:16: "whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away." When we see everything in the light of Christ, we no longer try to get justified before God on our own, but trust completely in what Jesus has done. When we're resting in Christ, we can be sure he accepts us, and be filled with his love, to the point we can overflow with it and pass it on to others.  That's what Paul means as he continues in verse 18, "all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord."

But sometimes the physical and emotional drives from our old selves interfere with our rest in Christ, and we aren't a very good example of Jesus' glory. In a time like that, we might react out of selfishness, spend our days in anxiety instead of peace, or speak from anger or self-defense instead of love. But we all want to "reflect the Lord's glory," and not leave other people confused about Christ, or hurt by our human reactions. So how can we see and root out the parts of our lives that don't reflect Jesus?

I'm glad you asked! That's actually one of the purposes of spiritual disciplines. When we halt our normal activities to have focused time with God, we get to shut off the normal background noise of chores, electronic interruptions and sometimes even our own physical needs like food and drink. With practice, we can learn to stop our minds whizzing around so fast, and hear God more clearly. We can learn spiritual practices that help us to review and reflect on our thoughts, giving us a more accurate picture of our true motivations. Through these tools and processes, we grow a step at a time in being able truly to reflect Jesus.

But what happens when we find parts of ourselves that don't measure up to Christ?  Instead of despairing, we throw ourselves once again on his infinite mercy and his absolute love! He showed us that love at the Last Supper: "He had loved his disciples during his ministry on earth, and now he loved them to the very end" (John 13:1). God loves us so much that he sent his Son, who not only died for us, but who served us in a very humble way by washing our dirty feet. How could we doubt such love? So then, why should we be afraid to admit to him what he knows anyway -- that we are still weak and need his help? That surrender of repentance, admitting our helplessness, is the final step in letting go of those old ways of the flesh. As Paul concludes the earlier verse, "And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image." Can we agree to take up the tools of spiritual formation and let the Lord change us?

Spiritual Experiences vs A Spiritual Life

The curriculum at last week's summer camp, SEP Rockies, was "Rooted" and was beautifully delivered by our chapel speaker, Anthony Mullins.  He talked about the life
cycle of a tree, starting with a seed that dies in the ground in order for the tree to sprout, the seedling struggling to push out of the ground to sunlight and then to push its roots deep in the soil to get nourishment and to hold on during storms; and finally to the point of maturity, which is bearing fruit and seed in order to start the cycle again.

I found a book called "Deep-Rooted in Christ: The Way of Spiritual Transformation" by Joshua Choonmin Kang, a Korean pastor in Los Angeles.  It ties right in with that "Rooted" camp curriculum.  I read these comments in chapter 5, and was reminded of the "mountaintop experiences" we have at our camps: "Spiritual experiences and spiritual disciplines are similar, but they have different outcomes...Spiritual formation isn't like a quickly spreading fire; it's like a tree with deeply descending roots, establishing a foundation for future growth and fruitfulness." (The book is $10 at christianbook.com, if you're interested).

Kang's point is important.  Most of us like spiritual experiences, because they're exciting, they give us energy, and they're memorable.  But like birthday cake, we can't make them our entire diet.  Growth and health, both spiritual and physical, need intentional and balanced nutrition.  When we feel spiritually weak, seeking yet another mountaintop experience won't deepen our contact with and our reliance on Jesus.  A steady, day-by-day diet of spiritual habits will feed our understanding of God and of our own needs.

Here are some examples of habits we can use to deepen our spiritual lives:  Self-examination, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, shows us how we fall short of God's best for us and can help us see a way toward peace.  Silence and solitude (turning away from all our distractions so we can focus on God) gives God space to hold an extended conversation with us.  Generosity helps us release our fervent hold on our possessions and remember they all belong to God anyway.  Memorization of scripture -- several verses at a time -- nourishes our thinking and cooperates with the Holy Spirit as he teaches us (John 16:13).

How about trying one of these practices today, and see how it helps you?  If it's helpful, why not make it a daily, weekly or monthly habit?  These and many others will help you be "Rooted" in God's love and life.

The Mind and Voice of the Holy Spirit

The Lovely Joanne was trying to tell me something this morning, but I was in the other room and had noise coming in the window.  Guess what?  She didn't get through -- but it wasn't because she didn't do her part! 

Lately I've been writing about the Holy Spirit, who lives in us and who teaches us the mind of Jesus Christ because he is the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16).  As we see in scripture, the goal of God from before creation is to draw us into a relationship of mutual love.  Despite our continual detours and sins, God has continued to pursue us, even sending the Son to be a human along with us and create the way back to him, and sending the Spirit to draw us toward the Father (even when we don't believe in him yet), creating and deepening that bond of love.

How does the Spirit draw us to God and build the relationship?  Jesus said in John 16:8-9, the Spirit "will convict the world of its sin, and of God’s righteousness, and of the coming judgment. The world’s sin is that it refuses to believe in me." So the Spirit is "the advance man" so to speak, chipping away at our refusal to believe in God.  Once we believe the Spirit's message of our acceptance with the Father, we can gain a stronger bond with God by deliberately living, every day, within the Spirit's influence.  Jesus said the Spirit will "guide you into all truth...tell you about the future...bring me glory by telling you whatever he receives from me."  So when we can hear the Spirit, look how much God gives us! 


This morning, in order to hear Joanne, I had to go in the other room where she was standing.  So how can we hear the mind and voice of the Spirit?  By getting more serious about listening.  Sometimes, to hear the Spirit, we have to shut off the noise --turning off the TV or the XM satellite radio or the music or the video games, or the cellphone and text messages and Facebook.  Sometimes we have to stop the continual march of food and drink into our mouths, because fasting from the physical helps us focus on the spiritual, which is the only real thing anyway.  Sometimes we have to change locations, getting away from all the ordinary in order to hear God in a fresh way.  

What one thing could you do today, in the routine busyness of your life, to stop and hear the Spirit better?  What's stopping you from doing that?  Will you make the decision to change it, so you can receive all God has for you? 

The Holy Spirit's Work

Last week I wrote about the Holy Spirit, the mind of Christ, whom Jesus said would come to live in his disciples (John 14:23).  That was a new thing, because in the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit rarely came upon anyone; and sometimes the Spirit left again, like in the case of Saul:  "Now the Spirit of the Lord had left Saul, and the Lord sent a tormenting spirit that filled him with depression and fear" (1 Sam. 16:14).  This may have led to David's plea "don’t take your Holy Spirit from me" later, in Psalm 51:11.

In the New Covenant, Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would come to live in his disciples, and he and his Father "will come and make our home with each of them."  How is it that by one Person coming to live within us, the other two also live within us?  It's because (in ways we can agree with but not really understand) God is one, and yet God is three, Father Son and Spirit.  The three-ness of God never creates any division or separation in the one-ness of God, and the actions of either Father, Son or Spirit are always the actions of the one God.  (Like I said, we can agree, but it's hard to understand.)  

But here's the mind-boggling truth: in the Person of the Holy Spirit, the one God has come to make his home in us, as a natural next step in his love for us -- the love that he showed us in his Son, whom we know as Jesus, coming to live with us, to die for us and be resurrected for us.   And when the Spirit of God comes to live in us, being active in our minds, then we have "the mind of Christ" (1 Cor. 2:16) by which we can understand the things of God.  So Peter can tell us to "be of one mind" (1 Peter 3:8) -- not that Christians are in lockstep, but that we all have the mind of God in us.  

Having the mind of God in us, then, we are able to perceive the love and intentions of God, not just for us but toward those around us also.  (One might ask, how could we have the love of God for someone, unless the mind of God resides in us?)  So the challenge is to discern and surrender to the mind of God in us, and the spiritual disciplines are an important tool.  You can learn more about applying them on this blog, or by reading from Henry Nouwen, Richard Foster, Dallas Willard and many others.  Let's keep exploring that.  Are you ready to hear from God?

A Balanced Diet

I like hamburgers.  And ice cream.  And carrot cake.  And coffee.  I can justify eating them because after all, hamburgers supply protein, ice cream supplies calcium, and carrot cake and coffee are both made from vegetables.  Right?  Well, although that is true, these are not necessarily the most healthy way to get those nutrients in my diet, and if I only ate those, I would be unhealthy.  I have to conquer my temptations to just eat what appeals to me today, in order to have a more balanced diet. 

Isn't the same true in our spiritual diet?  It might be simpler and easier to read only books about the Bible instead of the books of the Bible. It is tempting, and easier, to read only the books of the Bible I am more familiar with, rather than working my way through genealogies or psalms or the more obscure prophets, to see the lessons they have for me.  And it's easier to read some scripture, pray a little, and pretend I've done my duty -- but that is hardly a balanced or complete diet.  

I was taught as a youth that "prayer is when we talk to God, and Bible study is when God talks to us."  But I've learned that prayer can be a time of stillness before God, and that he sometimes talks to me when I'm listening for him.  (If you want to see an example of that in the prayer life of the apostle Paul, you could read 2 Cor. 12:8-10.)  I've also learned there are many different ways to surrender myself to God's work in me than just prayer and Bible study. 

Here is a partial list of spiritual practices from the book "Spiritual Disciplines Handbook" by Adele Ahlberg Calhoun.  These are a few ways of presenting ourselves before God, so he can form us into the image of Christ:  Celebration; holy communion; rule for life; worship; contemplation; examination of consciousness; journaling; rest; retreat; self-care; simplicity; slowing; teachability; unplugging; confession; discernment; silence; solitude; submission; accountability; chastity; community; discipling; hospitality; and the list goes on and on. 

One way to expand our ways of relating to God would be to explore one new discipline a month, for the rest of this year, and see what God teaches us.  Once your personal portfolio of disciplines is expanded, you'll have a much broader way of being taught by God, or of stopping during a difficult time and regaining your spiritual footing.  Why not give it a try?  And please let me know how it changes your life.

A Little about Prayer

Many Christians think of prayer as our list of requests, worries and admissions of guilt with requests for forgiveness, given to God in a one-sided stream of words and thoughts, and we hope we get it right.  But that's only part of the Bible's teaching on prayer.  In my reading, I've found more than a dozen different types of prayer, each appropriate for a specific time or use!  Today I want to outline two of them for you.  I am grateful for the detailed descriptions given in Adele Ahlberg Calhoun's excellent work, Spiritual Disciplines Handbook:  Practices that Transform Us.  (The link will take you to christianbook.com where you can purchase it if you like, but I don't get any commission or anything.)

But first, why pray?  Jesus said "your heavenly Father already knows all your needs" in Mat. 6:34 shortly after teaching the disciples how to pray.  So prayer is not informing God of our needs or worries or fears or pain.  To paraphrase many different authors over the centuries, prayer is entering into an intimate conversation with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, where we may freely speak but where God also may freely speak to us.  It includes becoming quiet before God so he can respond to all our temporary concerns with his eternal love.  

Breath Prayer:  perhaps the simplest form of prayer, certainly the shortest.  A breath prayer might consist of breathing in while thinking of one of God's names such as "Lord of heaven's armies" or "Jesus, Son of David;" then breathing out and saying "Hear my prayer" or "You are my God forever" or another term of praise or a request.  It's helpful to do the same prayer several times in a row as a way to slow down and focus, perhaps in preparing for another spiritual activity.

Conversational prayer:  you may have experienced a prayer group, where people take turns praying, often about many topics at once.  In conversational prayer, like in a discussion among friends, everyone takes turns, briefly, praying about a specific topic and listening to one another pray.  It is like a discussion with God and one another, prompted by the Holy Spirit moving within each of us, until we feel prompted to move to a new topic. It's a type of prayer that takes sensitivity to the Holy Spirit's voice in ourselves and in one another. 

These are only two forms of prayer that you may not have practiced.  I suggest you give them a try, though, as they can enrich your prayer life and your appreciation for the Lord's intimate concern for you and others. 

Facing Jesus and Reality

Last week I wrote about spiritual reality:  that we have already been given "every spiritual blessing in Christ," and that we can learn to live in those blessings every day, by perceiving and focusing on that reality.  In this pattern of life, when God speaks to us, we actually hear his will for us and are ready to respond. 

The Triune God said "Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us" (Gen. 1:26), and we were created as relational people, so God could have a mutual relationship of love with us.  We are, at the core, spiritual beings (1 Thess. 5:23) so having a spiritual connection with God should be a natural part of life.  The Holy Spirit, who is our guide and helper (John 14:16-17) has come to help us perceive and live within that.

Some think that, if they "get more of the Holy Spirit" then they will achieve mastery over life, sort of like a Jedi in Star Wars.  But that's emphasizing our self-will, when in fact, it is God who gives us both the idea of pleasing him and the strength to follow, Phil. 2:13.  Our life with God is a matter of becoming quiet before God and surrendering our will to his; placing ourselves before God, deliberately, day by day, through practical, useable tools of spiritual development.

These tools are not mysterious matters that can only be practiced by monks in a cave somewhere in France.  They are exercises any of us can do, nearly anytime or anywhere, to experience a deeper Christian life:  "And this is the secret: Christ lives in you" (Col. 1:27).  Human life gets chaotic and broken because we neglect this spiritual journey we are on with Jesus.  Wholeness, the repair of our thinking and our emotions, can only take place as we surrender our self-will in the only truly safe place there is:  the arms and heart of the Father, as we are brought there, in Jesus, through the Holy Spirit's guidance.

We're going to continue exploring, slowly and one little piece at a time, what that spiritual journey is like.  This is not something any of us achieves in a short time, dear reader, so as we journey together with Jesus, let's allow him to lead us one step at a a time, being patient with the process and with ourselves.  I believe we will both find spiritual riches as we go.