The Significance of Obedience

The front side (recto) of Papyrus 1, a New Testament manuscript of the Gospel of Matthew. Most likely originated in Egypt. Also part of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri (P. oxy. 2) Currently housed in: (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Mick Turner

It has taken me a long time to get this basic Christian teaching past my overly active, comfort seeking, rationalizing mind: obedience lies at the very core of the Christian walk of faith. It should be easy enough to see this fundamental reality but the fact is, no matter how many pious platitudes we may utter or how much lip service we may give to the importance of obedience, the church has a major blind spot when it comes to actually following the teachings of the Master.

I don’t know about you, but when I first became seriously aware of what obedience to Christ really entailed, I wanted to run for the nearest exit. It wasn’t so much that I saw the requirements as too restrictive. Instead, my desire to head for the hills flowed out of my honest self-assessment, which screamed: Ain’t no way I can pull this off.

And it was precisely at this juncture that I needed a solid, gifted mentor in Christ  who, exuding wisdom, confidence, and agape love, would have informed me that this was the most amazing aspect of the whole gospel package: I didn’t have to pull it off. Christ was going to place a new spirit in me, and, in fact, he was going to take up residence in me and in so doing, he was going to empower me to live as he wanted me to live.

Unfortunately, no such mentor appeared. Instead, I was left with an incomplete understanding of the gospel message and how it applied to my life. Yes, I understood who Jesus was, at least marginally, and I understood that through his death on the cross my sins were forgiven. I had no inkling, however, of how Christ and the Holy Spirit were going to help transform me into new order of being.

Over the years I have come to see that the spiritual quagmire that I found myself in was not unusual. In fact, it seems to be the norm. The church has been woefully inadequate in preaching and teaching the full gospel message. Further, there appears to be a marked shortage of teaching on the role obedience plays in bringing about the godly lifestyle described in scripture. In an attempt to make the Christian life appealing to contemporary Americans, many church leaders, pastors, and teachers (far too many) have jettisoned the message of obedience in favor of a gospel of comfort, convenience, and cash flow. The result has been the creation of a Christian faith that is a superficial replica of what the Master intended.

For countless people who identify themselves as Christians, Christ is seen as their Savior but certainly not as Lord. As stated, this shallow sort of Christianity is not what Jesus intends when he issues the call, “Follow me.” Time and time again, scripture reveals that much of our inheritance as Christians hinges upon our obedience to the teachings laid down to us by the Master. Unfortunately, the whole “grace vs. works” issue has clouded this reality to the point that the vast majority of Protestant believers have little understanding of the necessity of obedience in the Christian walk of faith. If you have any confusion on this issue, I suggest you prayerfully and with reflection spend time with the closing section of the Sermon on the Mount, specifically Matthew 7:21-27.

In his latest book, Follow Me, David Platt takes up the practical implications of what it means to walk the Christian path as a disciple, as opposed to a cultural or non-committed “believer.” Platt makes the point, and I have long said the same thing, that “making a decision” for Christ, or “taking Jesus as your personal savior,” or “inviting Jesus into your heart,” are all woefully inadequate in becoming a true follower of Christ. Only one thing will guarantee that you are indeed an authentic Christian: obedience.

Christ repeats this time and time again, along with his call to repentance and his teachings on the necessity of “taking up one’s cross,” which basically means to die to self. It is apparent, however, that we as a church have found all manner of clever strategies for watering down these teachings or worse, ignoring them completely. Platt laments:

With good intentions and sincere desires to reach as many people as possible for Jesus, we have subtly and deceptively minimized the magnitude of what it means to follow him. We’ve replaced challenging words from Christ with trite phrases in the church. We’ve taken the lifeblood out of Christianity and put Kool-Aid in its place so that it tastes better to the crowds, and the consequences are catastrophic. Multitudes of men and women at this moment think that they are saved from their sins when they are not. Scores of people around the world culturally think that they are Christians when biblically they are not.

Earlier in the book, Platt describes how “belief,” although important and even essential, is far from the whole enchilada when it comes to treading the Christian path. The church has perpetrated a glaring disservice to “converts” by stressing the need for belief without a concomitant commitment to obedience to Christ. After all, scripture openly tells us that even the demons believe (James 2:19). Platt goes on to say:

Clearly, people who claim to believe in Jesus are not assured of eternity in heaven. On the contrary, only those who obey Jesus will enter his Kingdom. As soon as I write that, you may perk up and ask, “David, did you just say that works are involved in our salvation?” In response to that question, I want to be clear: that is not what I am saying…….Instead, it’s what Jesus is saying.

Platt goes on to make the clear point that Jesus is not saying that our works are the basis of our salvation. The Master, and later Paul, makes it quite clear that only grace is the basis of our salvation. I think the point Platt is trying to make, and it is the same point I have made on numerous occasions in this blog, is that the church has put so much emphasis and stress on God’s unmerited grace, that our part in the overall Christian walk of faith has been minimized and, in some cases, completely ignored. The result has been a Christianity that is quite frankly, a shallow farce which lacks transformative power. Worse, it has deceived far too many “believers” into thinking they are authentically Christian when, in fact, they are not. Referring to Jesus words at the end of Matthew 7, Platt continues:

…….in our rush to defend grace, we cannot overlook the obvious in what Jesus is saying here (and in many other places as well): only those who are obedient to the words of Christ will enter the Kingdom of Christ. If our lives do not reflect the fruit of following Jesus, then we are foolish to think that we are actually followers of Jesus in the first place.

Rather than following a knee-jerk reaction to those words, spend some time prayerfully reflecting on what Platt just said, asking the Holy Spirit to reveal to you just where you stand in relation to this issue. To what extent are you obedient to the teachings of the Master? Granted, no one is perfect, but how consistent are you in putting your faith, as defined by Jesus, into daily practice? Does your life indeed reflect the fruit of following Jesus?

Only you can answer these questions with any degree of honesty. If you ask the Holy Spirit, he will give you the discernment you need to make an honest, self-assessment. I know when I spent time reflecting on these themes, it was a real eye-opener that resulted in one of those life-changing, epiphany-like moments. And I hope it can become the same for you.

© L.D. Turner 2013/All Rights Reserved

Introducing Jesus Christ – Again (Part One)

English: the first of the Epistles to the Colossians (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Mick Turner

The contemporary church is in the midst of radical change and it is hard to predict just what the Body of Christ will look like even five years from now. Yet in recent weeks the Spirit has increasingly led me to see that no matter what shape emerges out of the current chaos in the church, one thing remains radically clear. We must return to a Christ-centered faith with the principle task and mission being to educate Christians and those outside of the faith about the true and spectacular nature of Christ.

Many sincere believers frequently say that it is time for us to “go beyond” Christ or to “go deeper” into the mysteries of the faith. While there is some truth in the point that we all need to deepen our walk of faith, we must not lose sight of the central figure of our faith. It is precisely because we have lost sight of Christ that the church finds itself in such a predicament as is seen today. Frank Viola and Leonard Sweet speak to this theme:

 The person who believes that a Christian or a church can graduate beyond Christ has never fully seen the Jesus that Paul of Tarsus preached and declared. Instead, such an individual has very small Christ, one who’s far less than the one who fills the pages of the New Testament.

Sweet and Viola go on to illustrate their point by mentioning Paul’s words to the Philippians, written in his waning years:

But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ. (Phil. 3:7-8)

Religious scholars and church historians are uncertain as to the exact nature of the erroneous teaching that was infiltrating the church at Galatia. Yet whatever the content of the teaching, Paul handled it in a very skillful way. Sweet and Viola point out:

What a unique way to combat error – drown God’s people in a revelation of the image of the invisible God, who delivered us from darkness, redeemed us, and made us part of His eternal kingdom.

This alone should cause us to pause in reflection. In times of crisis, the church doesn’t need rules established, laws passed, or wolves shot. She needs a seismic revelation of her Lord – the fullness of the Godhead in bodily form.

The Christ the Colossians knew was simply too small. That was why they became susceptible to chasing other things – including religious ones – in the first place…..

This statement by the authors really speaks to the situation the church finds itself in today. Over the past few decades people, many of them sincere, spiritually-sensitive people, have stampeded out of the church in droves. There are many reasons for this phenomenon and no one answer covers all the bases as to why people are leaving and not coming back. One factor is the reality that the spiritual marketplace is much more competitive than it was even fifty years ago. America is a veritable spiritual smorgasbord with all the world’s major religions are present in significant numbers and lesser known faith systems are thriving as well. As for cults, there are far too many to list.

My point here is this: there is a lot more competition these days and people are more spiritually astute. They are looking for deeper, more life-changing answers and the fact is the church is woefully inadequate on this front. Rather than giving people real bread and “living water,” most churches serve up rubber chicken at Wednesday’s potluck and 2-liter bottles of Pepsi with the fizz long departed. Rather than feeding the flock this tasteless pabulum, it is high time the church returned to offering the real thing, and I don’t mean Coca-Cola. Jesus said that he gave living water and people would not be thirsty ever again. Paul understood that the church at Colasse needed the real Jesus and Sweet and Viola describe his thinking in a very cogent manner:

Paul’s goal was to strip away every distraction that was being held before their eyes and leave them with nothing but Christ. He dared to displace all rules, regulations, laws, and everything else that religion offers, with a person – the Lord Jesus Himself. As far as Paul was concerned, God hadn’t sent a Ruler of rules, a Regulator of regulations, a Pontiff of pontifications, or a Principal of principals. He had sent the very embodiment of divine fullness. So, he reasoned, if the Colossians could just get a glimpse of the glories of Christ, He would be enough. The Spirit would electrify their hearts and restore them to a living relationship with the head of the body. So Paul threw down his trump card – the Lord Jesus Christ. He presented a panoramic vision of Jesus that exhausts the minds of mortal men.

As Viola and Sweet so cogently point out, Paul felt that if the Colossians could gain a true and accurate perspective on the nature and purpose of Jesus many of their issues would be resolved. This dire need that Paul discerned in the Colossian church is also relevant to today’s church. If those within the church rediscover the true magnificence of this being they claim to worship and follow, I am convinced the mass exodus would slow to a mere trickle. Further, if those outside the church come to understand just who and what Jesus was and is, as well as witness the true heart of Christian service flowing from a revitalized, kingdom oriented church, they will likely become less negative and critical toward the faith and more than a few might be drawn to join in the good work that is taking place.

To be continued…..

(c) L.D. Turner 2013 / All Rights Reserved

Wise Words for Today

English: Scroll of the Book of Proverbs (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 God has a purpose for each of us, a role to play in His cosmic drama of redemption for a lost world. Your role will be different from mine and, indeed, from that of anyone else. We are each unique. God has ordained a part for you that you alone can play. The tragedy is that so many people never discover their part until after the curtain call. God calls us to turn to Him for guidance. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.” (Prov. 3:5-6). Another way to render that last phrase is “He will direct your paths.”………..If we trust God and obey His will, He will bring us “onstage” at just the right time to play the “role of a lifetime” – a role He has been preparing us for all along.

Dr. Myles Munroe

Wise Words for Today

A. W. Tozer (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There is within the human heart a tough fibrous root of fallen life whose nature is to possess, always to possess. It covets ‘things’ with a deep and fierce passion. The pronouns ‘my’ and ‘mine’ look innocent enough in print, but their constant and universal use is significant. They express the real nature of the old Adamic man better than a thousand volumes of theology could do… The roots of our hearts have grown down into things, and we dare not pull up one rootlet lest we die. Things have become necessary to us, a development never originally intended. God’s gifts now take the place of God, and the whole course of nature is upset by the monstrous substitution……..Our woes began when God was forced out of His central shrine and ‘things’ were allowed to enter. Within the human heart ‘things’ have taken over. Men have now by nature no peace within their heart, for God is crowned there no longer, but there  in the  moral dusk stubborn and aggressive usurpers fight among themselves for first place on the throne.

A.W. Tozer

The Unfolding of Sacred Potential (Part Five – Revised and Expanded)

Holy Spirit church: Cellingpainting: Assumption of Christ Locality: Heiligengeistplatz Community:Klagenfurt Deutsch: Heiligengeistkirche: Deckengemälde - Christi Himmelfahrt Ort: Heiligengeistplatz Gemeinde:Klagenfurt (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Mick Turner

Continued from Part Four…..

God has placed a unique potential within each and every one of us. The realization of that potential is part of our personal mission on this planet and exists within the context of God’s overall plan and purpose for humanity. When we marry our potential to our individual purpose, our potential is activated and we begin to move toward becoming all that we were designed to be. When our purpose is connected to a specific personal vision, our potential is further unfolded in the context of our purpose and vision. Further, this marriage of purpose and vision gives rise to passion. We become excited about bringing our vision into concrete manifestation. We arise each day with a feeling of optimistic energy and divine direction and we are enthusiastic about working toward realization of our personal vision.

As the process reaches fruition, we then realize our vision, our purpose, and our potential. In doing so, we manifest our glory. Our glory can be defined as becoming the best version of ourselves and claiming our already established identity “in Christ.” By manifesting our glory, we are able to fulfill our God-given role in the establishment of his Kingdom. The entire process is thus carried forward in the Kingdom Context. God planted his divine plan in us in the form of our unique potential. That potential, along with our subsequent purpose, personal vision, passion, and glory, had an overriding purpose and that purpose was the unfolding of God’s kingdom here on earth.

On a practical level, the kingdom context consists of the recognition that the primary reason Christ incarnated was to inaugurate the process of establishing his kingdom on earth. Our spiritual unfolding involves nothing less than having all of our actions flowing from the living awareness of our responsibility of carrying on the Lord’s kingdom mission.

The power that carries this entire process forward, from potential to glory, is faith. We accepted God’s blessing of cleansing and salvation, our justification, on faith. Now we are to go a step farther along the road of faith: we are to accept that God has given us even more grace in that he has provided, as Paul says, “every blessing in the spiritual realm.” Or, in the words of Peter:

Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, in order that by them you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in world by lust (2 Peter 1:2-5).

In the words we often use  here at LifeBrook: God has provided for us all that we need in order to become the optimal versions of ourselves for the glory of God and the benefit of others.

In essence, what we are talking about here is the blessed reality that God, through his grace, love, and infinite wisdom, has seen to it that we have all that we will ever need to be successful in life. He has planted a divine potential in each and every one of us and tied that potential with a personal purpose or mission that we are to carry out. The specifics of that purpose or mission are found in our dreams and our vision, which is also God-given and easily discoverable.

It is upon these very principles, based upon the spiritual reality of God’s love, his character, his provision, and his faithfulness, that we can readily lay claim to spiritual optimism. Indeed, If God be for us, who can be against us?

Your Harvest of Glory

Your God-given potential began as a seed planted in you by the Creator before your birth. Further, he not only planted this great potential within you but also gave you all the talent you needed to discover this potential and, in concert with the Holy Spirit, connect your potential to a divine personal purpose – a call to a specific mission that was yours to carry forward. Once discovered, this mission hopefully gave you sufficient passion and motivation to develop and carry out a specific personal vision that allowed your talents and gifts to blossom and your personal vision to become a vital, living reality.

By realizing the manifestation of your mission you necessarily had to hone and develop your God-given talents and gifts and, in so doing, became more and more the optimal version of yourself. Now, walking in your personal excellence, creativity, and commitment, you are harvesting your personal glory.

We can see hints of this process in the Master’s great prayer in the 17^th Chapter of John’s gospel when he expresses that as he is glorified, the Father is glorified. And the reality is my friends, when we walk in our excellence – when we manifest and live as the optimal version of who we are, we glorify the Master.

Walking in Spiritual Excellence

As a result of reaping our harvest, we are now able to manifest our true potential, realize our vital vision and in the process, become the optimal version of ourselves. We consistently walk in the Spirit and not in the flesh and in so doing, we are able to become more effective servants of the Light.

As you see, we move from our seed potential to walking in our manifest glory. We do this not to glorify ourselves, but to glorify our Master, our Father in heaven, and the Holy Spirit that has dwelled within us, walked along side us, empowered us, and made all this possible. When we come to walk in our personal glory, we are then able to be of true, selfless benefit to others while bringing glory to God.

This is our true aim and our ultimate calling – to be all that we can be; to give glory to our Creator; and to serve others with love. In the final analysis, we can ask for no greater destiny than this.

to be continued…..

(c) L.D. Turner 2012/All Rights Reserved

Related articles

• The Unfolding of Sacred Potential (Part Four – Revised and Expanded) (lifebrook.wordpress.com)
• The Unfolding of Sacred Potential (Part Three – Revised and Expanded) (lifebrook.wordpress.com)
• The Unfolding of Sacred Potential (Part One – Revised and Expanded) (lifebrook.wordpress.com)
• The Unfolding of Sacred Potential (Part Two – Revised and Expanded) (lifebrook.wordpress.com)
• A Note on Unfolding Divine Potential (lifebrook.wordpress.com)

Wise Words for Today

Early Christian ichthys sign carved into marble in the ruins of Ephesus, Turkey (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Christianity is now so fundamentally associated with the formula of fall and redemption, so focused on beliefs about Jesus instead of invitations to follow Jesus, that a new Reformation is needed. It will deal not with matters of doctrine and church order but with a recovery of the concept of transformation through the imitative wisdom of discipleship. It will reject once and for all the illusion that knowledge alone is redemptive and seek to restore the ancient truth that creation is blessed, not fallen…..The new Reformation will be about the very life and death of Christianity itself. We must first recover the original message and then be willing to interpret it for a new age. It will be a return to faith as praxis, grounded in trust, not intellectual assent, grounded in doctrine. Christianity was once, and must be again, about following Jesus, not worshiping Christ.

Robin Meyers

(from Saving Jesus from the Church)

The Unfolding of Sacred Potential (Part Three – Revised and Expanded)

The Holy Spirit depicted as a dove, surrounded by angels, by Giaquinto, 1750s. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Mick Turner

Continued from Part Two…….

I Have Made a Commitment to Excellence. Now what?

Once we become serious about fulfilling our God-given potential, it is imperative that we come to some degree of understanding of how this process of divine unfolding works. Having a map of the territory enables us to better understand how God works in facilitating our spiritual growth, exactly what our role is, and what positive (or negative) contributions others may make as we proceed.

The first thing we need to understand is the fact that the process of unfolding our divine potential does not exist in a vacuum. All along the way we will encounter both positive assistance and problematic obstacles arising from other people, our environmental circumstances, and even our faith community.

We should also realize that when we finally become serious and consecrate ourselves to manifesting our full potential, the potential that God placed inside of us, the enemy and his minions will begin to take notice of you. Expect that problems and issues of a darker nature may also begin to appear and that there is nothing abnormal about this. Satan’s primary goal is to thwart God’s plans and any committed spiritual aspirant, including you, is a threat to the realization of his schemes. I say these things not to create fear or set your teeth on edge. Instead, I say these things to prepare you for what is to come. You have nothing to fear from the enemy and if you prepare yourself spiritually, the enemy and his powers and principalities can do little to knock you off course.

I have written extensively on the map of divine unfolding and am in the process of publishing a book entitled, Divine Unfolding: Becoming Who and What God Intended. The book will be available in both print and e-book formats. In that work I make the statement that although no map of the terrain of realizing your divine potential is completely accurate, we can see certain phases of the work taking place. Let’s take a little time a look at the how this flow normally takes place. Briefly, we can say that our growth into Christ-like character and into the optimal version of ourselves moves through seven interrelated phases.

Acknowledging and accepting our new identity “in Christ.”

Understanding our “Seed Potential.”

Discovering our “Call to Purpose”

Living with “Vital Vision.”

Our “Harvest of Glory.”

Walking in “Spiritual Excellence.”

Serving through Radical Compassion

Our New Identity in Christ

It begins with the acknowledgement that we are not functioning anywhere near our true potential and, at least initially, this stems from the fact that we believers have little idea of who and what we are “in Christ.” For many reasons, the church has jettisoned the vital half of the gospel, choosing instead to focus on the blood and forgiveness at the expense of the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.

It is as if you own a house with an exquisite, one-of-a-kind door. You fell in love with this door and worship it so much that you never cross the threshold and go inside the house, which is even more beautiful. Likewise, many Christians become so immersed in Christ’s atoning work on the Cross and the cleansing of his blood they never grasp why he did this in the first place. He didn’t go through what he did so we could live life half-way, filled with doubt, inadequacy, and spiritual instability. Christ did not die just to get us into heaven my friend; he died in order to get heaven into us. Christ rose, met the disciples, breathed the Holy Spirit into them, gave them a Great Commission, and ascended into heaven, thus making the Pentecost possible.

In light of these realities, our first task is to understand and accept just what Christ accomplished with his death, resurrection, and ascension. We have a new identity and in the words of Paul, the old has passed away and the new has come. We are new creations in Christ and what’s more amazing, we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.

Until we grasp the character and the ramifications of our new identity, we will only grow in fits and starts, if at all. It’s time to walk on through the door, grand as it is, and see what blessings have been placed inside.

Understanding Our Seed Potential

God has placed a potential on the inside of each of us and I am convinced this occurred before we were ever born. This seed has the fulfillment of our calling, purpose, and vision in its core, just as an acorn has a mighty oak hidden within its fibers. God-given potential is like a seed and, with the proper environment, that seed can develop, grow, and manifest those things hidden within its hull.

You potential is like a seed and, until you allow that seed to grow, your dream will remain just that – a dream. God gave you this potential and, with the right environment, that seed potential will grow and develop into something quite magnificent. Dr. Myles Munroe speaks of these issues cogently:

“The entire creation possesses this principle of potential. Everything has the natural instinct to release its ability. The plant and animal kingdoms abound with evidences of this fact. The Creator designed everything with this principle of potential, which can be simplified to the concept of a seed. The biblical document states that God created everything with ‘seed in it according to their kinds’ (Genesis 1:12). In essence, hidden within everything is the potential to fulfill itself and produce much more than we see.”

Basically, we can say that “divine potential” is the God-given blessing to each of us that equips and allows us to fulfill God’s purpose here on earth and our specific calling in relation to that larger purpose.  Divine potential is that force lying within you that, when tapped, can create miracles in your life and help you to achieve godly goals and divine dreams. It is an aspect of God’s presence within you that brings those things that are yet unseen down into the realm of the seen. In essence, divine potential turns dreams into reality.

Divine potential is one of God’s greatest blessings. Imagine if you will for a moment, that the Creator of all that is has prepared everything you will ever need in order to rise above mediocrity, stand above the crowd, and become the absolute optimal version of yourself. This was part of what Peter was getting at when he wrote:

His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption of the world caused by evil desires. (2 Peter 1:3-4)

It is vital that every person understand that we are responsible for developing the potential stored within us. We must deepen our contact with our divine potential and do all that we can to nurture, feed, and actualize our true mission and purpose. Further, we must recognize that as we move forward in developing our optimal potential, we can never afford to stop. In essence, when we travel the spiritual journey, we are either moving forward or backward. There is truly no place to stand on the spiritual path.

Our journey of discovering and developing our divine potential must begin with a commitment to excellence – an agreement with our Creator that we will walk in cooperation with the Spirit to become the best version of ourselves.

 Necessarily, this commitment will involve personal challenges and, at times, a degree of personal discomfort. Spiritual growth involves change and change always requires stepping out of our comfort zone. Still, the process of realizing and manifesting our divine potential is one of the greatest adventures we will ever undertake.

To be continued…….

(c) L.D. Turner 2012/All Rights Reserved

Related articles

• The Unfolding of Sacred Potential (Part One – Revised and Expanded) (lifebrook.wordpress.com)
• The Unfolding of Sacred Potential (Part Two – Revised and Expanded) (lifebrook.wordpress.com)
• A Note on Unfolding Divine Potential (lifebrook.wordpress.com)
• Ascension is Descending! (newheavenonearth.wordpress.com)
• Making Straight the Way: The Bittersweet Mission of John the Baptist (lifebrook.wordpress.com)

The Unfolding of Sacred Potential (Part Two – Revised and Expanded)

Image via Wikipedia

Mick Turner

* Continued from Part One

Contrary to popular belief, living a life committed to Christian excellence is far from a tedious, joyless affair. When Christ calls us, he does not call us to a life of drudgery and boredom; he does not lead us into a life characterized by a restrictive morality and a scowling face. Christ’s call and claim on our life is a challenge to our limited ways of being in the world. When the Lord whispers in a person’s ear, saying, “Follow me,” he is issuing an invitation to an exciting journey of exploration and spiritual discovery. Erwin Raphael McManus, noted author and pastor of Mosaic in Los Angeles, tells us:

 

“Jesus calls us to a life of unimaginable adventure. It begins the moment we choose to follow Him. It is no less than to pass from existence to life. Though we are not taken out of time and space, we are translated into an entirely different dimension of living. Jesus tells us that He is the portal into this life and the quest that follows. Jesus describes Himself as a door, a gate, a portal. In other words, an escape hatch. He has come to lead us out of the mundane and into the extraordinary. Strangely enough we find it hard to trust Him, while all the time he has been trying to lead us out of the dark dungeons we have created for ourselves and let us run free in the light of day. When we come to Him, he translates us into an entirely new realm of living. His promise is that in Him we will find the life that our hearts have always longed for.”

The process of realizing the potential God placed in us is individual in nature. One person may see his or her potential unfolded in one way while someone else may have a different experience altogether. Still, there are several truths that hold firm for each of us as we journey forward with the Holy Spirit. Let’s discuss three of them: the need for discipline; the need for persistence; and the trap of complacency.

Discipline is not a popular word in post-modern culture. Instead, we are encouraged to “follow our bliss” and “do our own thing.” The world pays lip service to the importance of discipline and self-control in daily living, but the over-arching message is in actuality much different. Often, instead of encouraging individuals to delay gratification, defer rewards, and develop character, our culture tells us, “If it feels good, do it.” No one ever manifested divine potential by adhering to this advice.

Scripture repeatedly stresses the importance of discipline, self-control, and personal morality. Without personal discipline, we squander our energies, waste precious time, and lose direction and focus. If we want to become the persons God intended us to be, we have to be disciplined individuals governed by an internalized biblical value system.

As we move forward in this sacred journey of spiritual development, we will experience periods of accelerated growth as well as times when it seems we are advancing at a snail’s pace. This unpredictable pace of spiritual formation is to be expected. There will be times of elation and excitement a you realize the positive changes God’s Spirit has brought about in you life. At other times, you will experience something quite different as you struggle with a particular habit, sin, or negative personality trait. This can be a critical juncture in your growth process. It is easy to become discouraged when change does not come at the pace we would prefer. However, the important point to remember is: “Don’t quit.”

There is an old saying: “Never rest on your laurels.” Basically, this means that we should never be satisfied with what we have accomplished. Reaching a goal is satisfying, but we shouldn’t allow this to be the final act in the play. We must continually press forward toward new goals that will allow us to manifest the best version of ourselves. Also, it is important to keep in mind that we should never focus our mental energy on what it is we think we cannot do. Rather, we should believe in ourselves and always refuse to let what we cannot do interfere with what we can do. By focusing on doing what we can do, and doing it better, we make progress. Moreover, we facilitate our continuing spiritual development by challenging ourselves to reach higher. Both personal experience and deep study has taught me that the optimal method for moving beyond where we are is by “stretching ourselves.” By this I mean it is highly advantageous for us if we encourage ourselves to move beyond what we are now capable of, even if only to a small degree.

For example, I enjoy playing table tennis. I am far from a great player, but I can achieve some degree of success when I am at the top of my game. (Of course, I played much better when I was younger and my reflexes were quicker.) Early on, I discovered I could not improve my play by competing against players who I could easily defeat. By the same token, I could not get any better by playing against opponents who were my equal. If I wanted to improve, I had to play against competitors who were more skillful than I was. I soon discovered that if I took on players whose skills were slightly above mine, my play gradually but consistently improved.

The same is true in terms of realizing our potential in any endeavor. If we want to improve at something, we have to challenge ourselves; we have to stretch ourselves to get to the next level.

Dr. Myles Munroe, the highly respected pastor and Bible teacher mentioned earlier, begins one of his books on divine potential by observing that the richest place on earth is not the vault of a large bank or even Fort Knox. Instead, Dr. Munroe points out, the world’s greatest wealth is often found in the cemetery. It is here, in the graveyard, where many dreams lie buried – dreams that were never realized, missions that were never accomplished, and potential that was never realized.

As I reflect upon the tragic reality of Dr. Munroe’s observations about the wealth lying beneath the grave stones, I ponder another possible tragedy, equally distressing. I wonder how many people are going about their daily rounds, oblivious to the potential placed inside them by the Creator. How many of us will squander this precious life that we have without realizing and manifesting their God-given potential? How many will have their potential buried with them? I, for one, have made a covenant commitment with God not to allow this to happen to me.

 How about you?

to be continued…..

(c) L.D. Turner 2012/ All Rights Reserved

Related articles

• The Unfolding of Sacred Potential (Part One – Revised and Expanded) (lifebrook.wordpress.com)
• A Note on Unfolding Divine Potential (lifebrook.wordpress.com)
• Making Straight the Way: The Bittersweet Mission of John the Baptist (lifebrook.wordpress.com)

Making Straight the Way: The Bittersweet Mission of John the Baptist

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Mick Turner

John the Baptist is one of those biblical figures that is easy to pass over in our rush to get to Jesus and the inauguration of his mission. This is unfortunate because John was a central figure in so many ways. We are all quite familiar with John’s role as the one who was to come before, making straight the way for the appearance of the Messiah. He was the trail blazer, setting the stage for the arrival of the Deliverer – the one whose sandals he said he was unworthy to unlatch. He baptized the Master and introduced him and his mission to the world.

Yet John fulfilled another role, a truly prophetic one, which many times gets little notice, even from astute theologians and Bible teachers. John was the last in the line of pre-New Testament prophets. He, in fact, was the voice that broke a long period of prophetic silence in Jewish history. After Malachi, the last prophet in the Old Testament, there was a period of 400 years when no prophetic voice was heard in Israel. Many scholars and Bible teachers overlook the fact that John the Baptist was a prophet of Israel – the one who broke the 400 year silence and the final prophet before the arrival of the Messiah. Dr. Myles Munroe explains this succinctly when he says:

 This prophetic silence came to an end when John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a message of repentance and proclaiming that the Messiah was coming soon. Although John appears in the four Gospels of the New Testament, he was in fact the last of the Old Testament prophets. His death at the command of Herod Antipas and the initiation of Jesus’ public ministry marked the end of one era and the beginning of another. More specifically, the baptism of Jesus by John was the point of transference. From this point forward, a new order, the Kingdom of God, would be established.

Like many Christians, I spent more than a few years of my faith walk failing to understand the true significance of what transpired that day when Christ met up with John on the banks of the Jordan. I think the church as a whole has been negligent in teaching the import and the impact of the baptism of the Master.

In short, with that event we see the seal of the Old Testament age and the old covenant and the beginning of the New Testament age, the age of Christ and the Holy Spirit. It was in essence the inauguration not only of Jesus’ ministry, but also of the Kingdom of God arriving on earth. Now please, don’t miss the significance of this: with Christ we move into the age where God is with us – the age of Immanuel. And with the descent of the dove, the Holy Spirit came to dwell in Christ. Later on, as the Master breathes on the assembled disciples, he imparts this same Spirit to them. And then, in the drama of the Upper Room, the Holy Spirit descends in full manifestation on the disciples and we move from the age where God is with us to the age where God is in us.

I believe that many sincere followers of Christ rarely pause and reflect upon what a monumental event the baptism of Jesus was and the pivotal role played by John in the unfolding of God’s plan of restoration on earth. I think it is vital that we deepen our comprehension of these themes because it is only when we understand who and what John the Baptist was can we truly grasp who and what we are. Jesus’ words, recorded in Matthew 11:11 tells us exactly what we need to know:

Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he (New American Standard).

Before the arrival of Jesus, humankind had hints and intimations of what the kingdom was all about, but their insight was very limited. Although scholars and prophets talked about it and even prophesied about it, but at best they were looking through a glass darkly. Even John did not fully grasp what he was preaching as Dr. Munroe explains:

John the Baptist preached about the Kingdom, but even John never accurately perceived the full implications of his own message. He witnessed its coming in Jesus, but never fully entered into it himself. . . . . . . . . .John was an Old Testament prophet with a New Testament revelation. He introduced the King who was to reintroduce the Kingdom, but he never experienced it for himself. The Kingdom was of a new era, and John was passing away with the old. John never received the Holy Spirit. He witnessed the Spirit coming down on Jesus at His baptism, but the indwelling Spirit was also a part of the new era that John would not experience to its fullest capacity. This is why Jesus said that, as great as John was, even those who were the least in the Kingdom of heaven were greater than he was. . . . . . . . . .John was a man who stood in the middle, suspended between two dimensions of time. His voice was a voice of preparation, preparing people to enter into this new order. Once Jesus’ public work began, John’s ministry came to an end.

It should be clear by now th John the Baptist played a unique and indispensable role in the great plan of redemption and restoration that was unfolding on earth. When I first encountered these words of Dr. Myles Munroe I became critically aware that I had given very little time to reflecting on the significance of John the Baptist. For the most part, I saw him as the forerunner of the Master, a wild-eyed, bug-eating, finger-waving blowhard that managed to get on the bad side of Herod Antipas and his dark-hearted wife. This indiscretion ended up costing him his head.

 John the Baptist, in addition to preparing the way for the appearance of the Messiah, was also preparing humankind for the advent of a whole new way of being. It is important to understand that with the arrival of Jesus there was an entirely different set of divine laws and principles set in motion. I doubt our limited human understanding can ever fully grasp the intricate, intangible aspects of these divine changes, but we can at least get a faint  understanding by studying scripture in general and the life of Jesus and his disciples in particular.

In doing so, however, it is imperative that we not forget the sacrificial contributions of the John the Baptist. As he cleared the way for the arriving Messiah and the ushering in of the kingdom and this new way of being in the world, there is a bittersweet element in the life, mission, and death of John the Baptist. Even though he played such a major role in the progression of God’s divine plan on earth, John never had the opportunity to partake of this new way of being. He never had the experience of the full indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

As I reflect on this tragic aspect of the mission of the Baptist, I am reminded of Moses, who was not allowed to enter the Promised Land. As I recall, however, this was the result of some transgression of Moses. As far as we know, John never had such an issue. Instead, his life was cut short by the resentment of Herod’s wife.

One can take heart and have hope for John the Baptist, however. You see, Moses eventually did visit the Promised Land. Along with a pair of divine cohorts, he showed up on the Mount of Transfiguration to work some wonder of light and cosmic physics on Jesus in preparation for what was to come. We can only hope, and perhaps even assume, that based on God’s infinite mercy, the Baptist tasted the indwelling Holy Spirit in the afterlife. For all we know, in fact, he may have experienced something far greater. The Father has a way of turning tragedy into victory on a regular basis.

© L.D. Turner 2012/All Rights Reserved

 

Father of Lights – A Personal Prayer

 

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Below is a personal prayer I penned at a special time in my life. Over the years, I have found this prayer to be both inspirational and empowering. It is my hope that it may be of use to any reader that might want to utilize it. It is called “Father of Lights” and it goes something like this:

Father of Lights, you have said that in aligning with you I am a Child of the Light. I thank you for that honor and privilege and also thank you that you have made me a new creation. Today, I seek to take possession of my reborn identity in you and I thank you for providing me with the ability to do so, through the blessed work of the Holy Spirit.

Father, I know you have placed in me from birth a right, preserving and steadfast spirit and I know that the Holy Spirit will empower me to contact, develop, embrace and enhance those divine qualities, all to your glory and for the sake of others as well as for the purpose of growing in sacred character.

I know Father that above all, you are a God of restoration and a God of renewal. I know that according to your holy Word, that you are, at this very moment, renewing in me the mind of Christ – the most sacred mind. Your Spirit is at work in me today, enabling me to live a life of integrity, enthusiasm and empowering me to maintain a commitment to excellence. I thank you Father for your faithfulness and the blessings you are bestowing on me today, both seen and unseen.

Father, thank you for your unfailing faithfulness. You have proven time and time again that you are there, walking as my companion, even when I don’t see you and even more when I don’t acknowledge your presence. I know that you have said that you desire my best and that all things, whether I can understand them or not, work together for my greatest good. Therefore, looking to you, I expect good and good alone.

Father of Lights:

I thank you for your presence with me;

I thank you for your presence in me;I thank you for protecting me;

I thank you for providing for me;

 I thank you for empowering me.

I am grateful my Lord, knowing that I will find in you all I will ever need.

 (In the name of Jesus, Amen)