"Renewal Information Enclosed"

I pulled an envelope out of the mailbox the other day, with "Renewal Information Enclosed" in big letters across the front. I opened it excitedly -- maybe it was an offer for a free vacation somewhere, or even better, a retreat where my spiritual energy could be renewed. No such luck, they were just billing me for another year's membership in this organization. Bummer! But the good news is, renewal information is already inside

Your Bootstraps Just Broke (reprise from 2014)

When I was a boy, people used the expression "pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps" -- referring to the loops at the top of some boots that helped get them on your feet. It meant something like "trying to succeed all by yourself, and failing" because physically, it's an impossible stunt! Studying Colossians 1:28-29, it strikes me

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

The End of Conflict

Last night some friends and I discussed part of a book called "Life Together." A German pastor named Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote about church life, during the Nazi persecution of the Lutheran church in Germany during WWII.  Brother Dietrich realized that if the church didn't

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

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,

What I Learned about Discipleship at the Gym

I don't like going to the gym.  Now, I don't mind work, and I get sweaty and tired fairly often, but that's usually from working in the garden or something else productive, as opposed to running in place on a treadmill. Then too, I get intimidated by the people at the gym who look in much better condition than I.  But I've realized that working out looks a lot like being a disciple of Jesus. How's that?

An Apprentice of the Carpenter

Preachers talk about "following Jesus" but what does that mean? We could use technical language and give a 100-word definition. But simply, it means to be his apprentice in living. Learning what he does and how he does it, learning to pay attention when he teaches, practicing and getting it sort of right, and practicing some more. Since Jesus was a carpenter, maybe

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

The Holy Spirit Invites Us All to Dance

Is Christian life just a different list of required activities than a non-Christian life, but with the same feeling of chores and fatigue? Not at all. It's about a relationship, a friendship with Jesus Christ that deepens as we go through the years together, and about how he comes in and changes our thinking, then our words and actions too. Christian discipleship is a relationship of being filled with

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

By the Spirit, or Nothing!

Every once in awhile a funny quirk takes hold of human nature, especially in the West, and we begin to think we can conquer the world all by ourselves. Maybe it's from watching those Bruce Willis movies where he keeps going and going, and eventually the bad guys meet an unpleasant end; or

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

Spiritual vision involves seeing the way God sees, not the way we humans see (1 Sam. 16:7).  I know several people with
cataracts in one or both eyes. They see the world like they are looking through a veil -- it's indistinct, dark and dangerous. Spiritually, if we can't see clearly, we stumble around, without making spiritual progress. How can we see as God sees? How would that change us?


Perhaps an example will help. In Luke 5, Jesus is calling his 12 disciples out of their own lives to follow him. One of them, Matthew Levi, is a (insert 1st-century epithet) tax collector, assumed to be getting rich by robbing his own people while selling them out to the (epithet) Roman occupiers. Matthew surprises everyone by leaving it all behind to follow Jesus, then invites his friends (some of them are probably epithets too) to a banquet with Jesus, and the Pharisees pitch a fit. Why? Because they thought their job was living by the law and making others do it too, so the nation would be righteous. Jesus took a different approach. He described his mission as extending grace to (epithet) sinners (verses 31 and 32), which he knew the Pharisees wouldn't understand (verses 36-39).

2 Cor. 3:14-18 describes a 'veil' that darkens the spiritual vision of people who, like the Pharisees, see only the way of performance and so do not understand the truth. Only when "someone turns to the Lord" (v. 18) is that blindness removed. "Truth" is defined here as freedom in Christ under that "new way which makes us right with God" (verses 8-11). That's grace, not behavior, and that's how God thinks even if we don't get it.

I remember, 18 years ago this month, when I finally surrendered the survival instinct that told me I had to "do something," admitting that I couldn't save myself from anything, even by my earnest attempts to obey. "All of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord" Paul says in verse 18, and that night I finally began to see the glory of God. I'm still learning to reflect that glory -- that's a journey of seeing the ways I still don't reflect him, and surrendering those also. "The Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him" as we surrender more of ourselves to him. 

Proper behavior is not the path to life with God.  Life with God is the path to proper behavior. In fact, the way of performance is "worldliness" just like the Pharisees' thinking. If you don't see that, I beg you, with all I have, to turn to Jesus in complete surrender and ask him to remove that veil. If you have seen it, then spend some extra time and effort today listening to Jesus and then following him.

Monks and Ordinary People

It sure would be nice to always feel close to God, wouldn't it?  I think we all would like that.  A long time ago, people who were especially passionate about connecting with God took a drastic step, to
live in a mountaintop, desert, or island 'retreat.'  Some lived in monasteries and convents with vows of silence, as a way to hear from God.  They created daily routines of prayers and readings and hymns, and discovered tools to stay more connected with God.  The impression grew up that these were 'the holy elite,' as though the only way to spiritual living was to become a monk or nun.

I'm glad to say the Lord invites all of us to connect deeply with him, and there aren't any 'elite.'  Paul tells us in Romans 12:2, "let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect."  He wrote those words to ordinary people living in Rome -- the hotbed of immorality and evil practices -- without telling the people to 'leave civilization behind' and live elsewhere.  So if Romans can participate in spiritual transformation, all Christians can!

Those who lived in retreats learned, of course, that "wherever you are, you take yourself with you" so they still had the same personal sins and weaknesses, and still had to let the Lord transform their thinking and emotions.   Like craftsmen create tools for woodworking, dozens of different practices were discovered by these people, as they were led by the Holy Spirit to surrender their shortcomings and problems to God.  And what they learned can help us! 

Would you like to feel more connected with God, more often?  I'm going to write a series, off and on, highlighting some of those ancient and effective practices.  I'll learn by distilling and writing about them, and I hope you will learn too.  May the Lord bless our journey together! 

Bilbo and the Fishermen

Gandalf interrupts Bilbo's quiet morning

The new Hobbit movie is a beautiful work of film-making.  This morning I saw a parallel
with the work of Jesus -- probably intentional, because Tolkien wrote Christian themes into his extended allegory about good and evil in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  This story involves Gandalf the Gray, whose character is the Christ figure in the trilogy, and Bilbo, a stay-at-home hobbit quite content with his life.  Gandalf shows up uninvited one day on Bilbo's doorstep, and turns his life upside down!

Gandalf's other guests -- a dozen dwarves -- show up soon, and while eating every bit of food in Bilbo's well-stocked pantry, debate the adventure they are beginning, to reclaim their lost homeland from a dragon.  Their lurid descriptions confirm Bilbo's determination not to be an adventurer.  Finally, though, his curiosity draws him into this crazy journey, where growing comradeship mixes equally with life-threatening surprises. (Disclaimer:  this is not an endorsement of the movie, nor your excuse to drag your unwilling friends or family members to see it "because the pastor said it was good."  It includes a lot of fantasy, fighting and conflict, and it's rated PG-13.  Just so you know.)

I've been reflecting recently on Luke 5:1-11, where Jesus invites some fishermen on an adventure that is just as different from their previous life as Bilbo's adventure was to his.  No nice, safe house to come home to at night, no certain meals or bed, await these travelers.  Rather, they are told they will "fish for people" -- whatever that is supposed to mean -- and to go on the adventure, they have to leave everything else behind.  And so, amazingly, they do!  Just like Bilbo. Their reward for helping Jesus reclaim their homeland -- the whole earth, terrorized by sin and the original dragon, Satan -- isn't gold and jewels, but eternal life beginning now, (1 John 2:24-25) and a "crown of righteousness" (2 Tim. 4:8) in the future. 

And, the same kind of adventure, discipleship with Jesus, exists for us as it did for the original 12, and for Bilbo and the dwarves, even though it might not mean going to a Roman prison, or fighting your way through a cave full of (I won't spoil the movie if you still want to go see it).  We still have to sacrifice, to learn as we go, and to have a great need for faith in our leader, as we journey.  There are times it won't be comfortable, and we won't know what's next; but Jesus is always with us, and HE knows what's next, so that will have to do.  Oh, and one more thing -- the same reward Jesus promised the 12 disciples is given to every single one of us, and is the destiny of all humanity!  Let's get started, together!

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.

Walking Around with the Holy Spirit

I want God to be pleased with my life in Christ, don't you?  In 1 Thess 2:12 we read "live your lives in a way that God would consider worthy. For he called you to share in his Kingdom and glory."  Continuing on our series on the Holy Spirit's work
in our lives, let's look at our day-to-day lives, and how the Holy Spirit can lead us, bearing fruit through us to make our lives "worthy of our calling."  Since, as Jesus said, the Holy Spirit is living within us (John 14:17), we should be able to hear his voice and obey.

Let's see what we can learn about paying attention to the Holy Spirit, by using prayer as a parallel idea.  In 1 Thessalonians 5:17, Paul instructs us to "never stop praying."  As we've heard recently, the word for "never stop" ("without ceasing," in some translations) is used in Greek literature to describe a hacking cough; not that you're always coughing, but the tickle in your throat is always there.  So this command instructs us to "have a heart of prayer" as one translation puts it, rather than to react to life's trials in ways that are less "worthy of our calling."   

So, how would we "pay attention to the Holy Spirit without ceasing"?  First of all, since we are "in Christ" we should expect God to speak to us and we should ask him for direction.  Each of us, according to our own spiritual giftedness and individual makeup, will hear him in a slightly different way, but we will hear the same message because God is not divided.  One way to hear him is to soak ourselves in Scripture, as the Holy Spirit speaks through the words of the Bible (Hebrews 3:7-11) not only "in Bible times" but today too.  Bible students hear from God as they study the Scripture, and often the Spirit brings a verse to our minds when we need it.  Someone with the gift of compassion may hear the Spirit better through the prayers of another person, or through hearing of that person's need.  Another may sense the Spirit speaking through the words of a worship song, or in a group discussion, and some may see a picture depicting something they should do, like Paul saw the Macedonian man in a vision in Acts 16:9-10.  Specifically taking time to turn off all the distractions and seek God's voice is also very helpful.  

There are cautions, of course.  God the Holy Spirit will never speak contrary to the Scripture that he himself inspired.  He will never tell us to do something for selfish reasons, and he rarely tells us that someone else should be doing something.  He expects us to use wisdom as we decide how to obey him, and often we need the discernment of the church he has put us into, to choose the wisest course.   

If we want to hear, we need to listen, and listen with the desire to follow what we're told.  But we should expect to hear the Holy Spirit more and more as we mature in Christ.  There are lots of other resources available if you want to study this topic more, so don't hesitate to ask.