Altar of Veit Stoss, Left bottom, The Magi honour Jesus, St. Mary’s Church, Krakow, Poland (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
You see, there is hope. It starts with one. One step. One kind deed. One loving word. One. The church may
have problems, but it is not beyond repair. All that is needed is for us to
turn around and go in another direction. God can do incredible things with one
single act of faithfulness. Taking that one step may be all that is needed to
start a chain of events that bring life back to the church. You don’t have to
be a leader of the church to take that first step. Life comes from following
after Jesus. You can be the spark that sets the church ablaze.
Jesus washes the disciples’ feet (Photo credit: teawithlizzie)
Mick Turner
For decades the church opted for “membership” over “discipleship” and the fruit of that choice has come back to haunt the Body of Christ. The result is a large number of Christians who are quite shallow and inconsistent when it comes to understanding and implementing the faith they profess. While this creates a cadre of Christians who are lacking depth and discernment in their walk of faith, it also has a domino effect. It is impossible to live as Jesus lived and do as Jesus did without a firm, committed, and consecrated method of Christian practice, especially of the classic spiritual disciplines. Lacking such a practice, these folks wind up giving a poor witness for the faith and as a result, often drive people away from the Master rather than attracting.
It is for these reasons that we must come to have a highly practical and personally applicable definition of just what a disciple is if we want to become the optimal version of who we are, for the glory of God and the sake of others. Margaret Campbell gives us this cogent definition of “disciple” and/or “discipleship.”
A disciple of Jesus is a person who has decided to live in attentiveness to Jesus. We live in attentiveness in order to become like Jesus on the inside and, thereby, able to do what Jesus would do on the outside. As maturing disciples we progressively learn to live in attentiveness, adoration, surrender, obedience, and thankfulness to God, and all of this, without ceasing. Through the hidden work of transformation, God writes his good way on our minds and hearts and this is very good. By his grace, our hearts are divinely changed. We are progressively conformed to be like Jesus in mind and will and soul and word and deed. What we say and what we do more consistently reflect the glory and goodness of God.
If the church is to have any hope of rectifying the situation described above it must passionately embrace the renewed practice of spiritual disciplines within a context of ongoing spiritual formation.
Dallas Willard, speaking at the inaugural Pastors Conference in 2001, gave this cogent description of spiritual formation:
Spiritual formation is shaping the inner person in such a way that the words and deeds of Christ naturally flow from us. It is the inward transformation of the self that makes it easy and natural to do the things that Jesus said. Christian spiritual formation is the process. What we call spiritual formation in Christian circles now, is really spiritual transformation. Formation has already happened and that is a major part of the problem. We have already been formed spiritually and we need to be transformed. It is holistic; it applies to all of us. It is not just a matter of changing the center part. It is a matter of the transformation of self so that now your body is going to be set to do righteousness, as previously it was set to do what was wrong.
Scripture tells us in no uncertain terms that have in a very real sense been “spiritually formed.” For example, let’s recall the words of Peter:
By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share in his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires (2 Peter 1: 1-4 NLT).
Each time I read these words of the apostle Peter I am moved to a place of stunned silence. If this is one of those passage of scripture that you have often read, but just quickly glossed over the words then you have done yourself a great disservice. Go back and carefully and prayerfully read over these four verses, soaking in the incredible message they contain. God has already provided everything we need in order to live the kind of life Jesus calls us to live. Along these same lines, Paul tells us that the Father has “blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ” (Eph. 1: 3). As Dallas Willard told us in the quotation cited above, we have already been formed. It is now up to us to become transformed.
I firmly believe that we are transformed by bringing down these spiritual blessings, these incomparable gifts of the Father, from the spiritual realm into the concrete and clay of our daily living. We do this first and foremost by accepting these gifts on faith. Just as we were restored to right standing with God by faith, we also appropriate the gifts he has already given us by faith. Second, we make these spiritual blessings, including the day-to-day ability to lead the Christian life as defined by Jesus, by making ourselves receptive. We do this through the committed practice of the classic spiritual disciplines of the Christian faith. Third, we follow Christ by abiding and we do this by immersing ourselves in his teachings and especially by living in obedience to those teachings. And finally, we make ourselves receptive by emulating Christ in walking the path of selfless service to others – in ways both great and small with take up our towel and basin and find some feet to wash.
Superficial dissection of the right side of the neck, showing the carotid and subclavian arteries. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
By the grace of God and the skillful hands of the surgeons involved, Thursday’s procedure was successful. As some of you might recall, the doctors attempted to put a stent in an area of blockage in my subclavian artery on August 2, but were unsuccessful. This past Thursday, they made a second attempt, this time going in through my left wrist as opposed to the groin. The doctors had continued difficulty getting the stent in place and matters were further complicated by the fact that my left arm began to have muscle spasms. Fearing this would possibly lead to a tear in an artery, they withdrew the cath.
A decision was then made to go back in through the right groin and try again from that angle. This time, after much difficulty, the stent was successfully placed and blood flow was restored in the subclavian artery and also into the mammary by pass graft.
I want to thank everyone for their prayers and well-wishes. I am a firm believer in the efficacy of prayer, especially in matters like this. I will be having one more surgery to clear out an 80 percent blockage of my left carotid artery. This will be done some time in mid-to-late September I think. I will keep you posted.
Diagram of coronary angioplasty and stent placement (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
As I mentioned a few days ago, tomorrow (August 23) I will undergo an angioplasty and, for the second time, the doctors will try to place a stent in my subclavian artery, which is blocked. This time, they will enter through the brachial artery in my left arm, as it gives them a better angle of approach to the blockage. This is preferable to the standard entry through the groin approach, but for a writer, it does have one drawback. I will have to restrict movement of my left wrist for several days and the powers that be tell me that typing (unless I do it with one hand) is out. So I may be unable to post here for a few days. I do have some unpublished material that I might be able to put up, but we’ll see how I feel.
As always, I appreciate any prayers for this surgery and for my wife and daughter, who are under a bit of stress with all this.
Stained glass at St John the Baptist’s Anglican Church http://www.stjohnsashfield.org.au, Ashfield, New South Wales. Illustrates Jesus’ description of himself “I am the Good Shepherd” (from the Gospel of John, chapter 10, verse 11). This version of the image shows the detail of his face. The memorial window is also captioned: “To the Glory of God and in Loving Memory of William Wright. Died 6th November, 1932. Aged 70 Yrs.” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
If you are looking for reading material that is both informative and inspirational while, at the same time, covers the fundamental aspects of positive Christian living, let me make a recommendation.
Chip Ingram’s Living on the Edge: Dare to Experience True Spirituality is an excellent treatment of the struggles and rewards of living the Christian path on a daily basis. Recognizing that the church has been woefully inadequate in presenting the “whole gospel,” Ingram, Senior Pastor at Venture Christian Church in Los Gatos, California, takes the view that the second half of the gospel, the half that presents the basics of spiritual formation and empowerment, has been largely ignored. It is a view that I share and have often discussed on this blog. In order to glean a picture of Ingram’s take on all this, consider the following synopsis, taken from the book’s introduction:
The great majority of Christians have been taught that life is about coming to know Christ personally, being saved, being good, and then helping other people “get saved.” Before long, they become a part of the religious machinery whose primary goal is to help more people enter the kingdom of God.
Please do not get me wrong: evangelism is very important and leading people to Christ is at the top of God’s priority list. But the second half of the message has been sorely neglected: the part about God’s dream that you become a precious and cherished son or daughter living in deep union with Him.
God’s dream and plan for each of His children is not about rules or religious activity but about relationship. God’s desire is not for our performance, but for us to learn to live out of the grace and favor you already possess. God’s primary agenda is to make us more and more like His Son so we can enjoy and love Him and others the way He loves them.
This life can be yours. I have tasted it and watched countless other ordinary people like you and me experience it. My passion is that you will dare to step out to the dramatic and exciting edges of life – the place where you are in sync with God and feel alive and vibrant and filled with purpose.
As I mentioned in the opening paragraph, Ingram’s treatment of the subject matter is both inspirational and informative. Sharing deeply of himself, the author candidly discusses not only the pinnacles of the Christian life, but also, the numerous pitfalls along the way. Again, if you are looking for a read that will provide not only a detailed discussion of the principles of Christian living, but practical “where-the-rubber-meets-the-road” guidelines as well, I highly recommend Pastor Ingram’s Living on the Edge.
(I apologize for the brevity of this review, but I am quite busy preparing for this week’s surgery).
Left subclavian artery – The Anatomy of the Arteries Visual Guide, page 17 (of 57) (Photo credit: robswatski)
As I mentioned in the last update, I underwent an angiogram on August 2 and a significant blockage was found in my subclavian artery. This blockage was impairing bloodflow to one of my four bypass grafts (two of which are closed and cannot be opened). A third graft has a stent in place. As a result of this blockage, my only decent graft was only getting restricted bloodflow. The doctors attempted to place a stent, but were not successful.
In the meantime, I also had an ultrasound of my carotid artery done, which also revealed blockage. To cut to the chase, this coming Thursday, August 23, I will have an angioplasty on the subclavian blockage and this time they will go in through my left arm. The thinking is they will be able to place a stent in there from this angle. Later this fall, I will most likely have a separate operation to clear up the blockage in my carotid artery. Tests also reveal that I am getting reduced bloodflow to the brain, so if my writing seems even more erratic than normal, I have a decent excuse!
I am generally positive about all this and believe that once these blockages are cleared out, I should feel a bit better. Also on a positive note, my ejection fraction, although still quite low, has not had any further deterioration.
I would greatly appreciate any and all prayers, not only for myself, but for my wife Li and eight year old daughter, Salina. This is all quite stressful on the two of them as well. I will keep everyone posted as to progress.
English: A woman walking a prayer labyrinth (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The incarnational model of the ancient church is relational. God relates to humanity by becoming one of us. We relate to God because, through the incarnation, we are lifted up into a relationship with the divine. In this ancient depiction of incarnational spirituality there is a divine indwelling of God, a mystical union between God and man, a relationship of continuous prayerful dependence. Contemplation of God and his wondrous story is characterized by the delight of the heart, an inner reality that proceeds from a union with God that is real…..By contrast, a justification/sanctification spirituality is less relational and more intellectual…..In summary, ancient spirituality is placed within the whole story of God and maintains the dynamic relational aspect of spirituality that is in union with God. On the other hand, the impact of the Enlightenment emphasis on justification and sanctification separates spirituality from the story of God (especially the incarnation in which humanity is lifted into God) and creates an intellectual spirituality that not only affirmed a forensic standing before God but one that equated spirituality with “right belief.” Spirituality ceased to be a “lived theology” and became faith as an intellectual construct.
I have mentioned before that there are times when I experience the Bible as a living organism, a being in and of itself that seems to come alive and teach me exactly what I need at that moment. It may be a scripture that I have read hundreds of times, but never really understood or thought relevant to my life. All of a sudden, that very scripture would leap off the page and hit me right between the eyes. Animated and brought to life by the Holy Spirit, that particular scripture suddenly held deep meaning and relevance to my current situation.
I think this happens because we are constantly changing and growing and as a result, a passage of scripture that held little significance at one stage of our life might suddenly be filled with pertinence. Tyler Edwards, in his book Zombie Chruch, makes the following observation regarding the fluid nature of scripture and its impact on our lives:
In reading the Bible, something that has helped me is to approach the Bible every time as if it were the first time. Although you may have read the words before, you have never read those words at this precise point in your life before. Daily your life changes: your circumstances change, your needs change, your knowledge, understanding, and emotions change. Perhaps a passage of scripture that was nothing more than words on a page for twenty years did not connect to you because you were not ready, but at this moment in time, as you are reading this passage you have read countless times in the past, all of a sudden God will speak to you through it. If you come to the text with a humble heart, you might be amazed at how it speaks to you.
As mentioned earlier, my personal experience has verified what Tyler Edwards is saying many times over. And I suspect that if you are a regular student of Holy Scripture, then you most likely have had similar experiences.
My grandfather used to encourage me to approach the familiar things in life, the things we encounter on a repeated, routine basis, with what he called “fresh eyes.” By that, he meant that we should make every effort to see these things with the eyes of a child, as if we were seeing them for the first time. Tyler Edwards recommends that we approach our time with scripture with this little prayer:
God, I am opening Your Word. You said this Word is living and active. You wrote it for our benefit. You said, ask for wisdom and You’ll give it. I’m asking: help me to be aligned with You. Show me what You want me to get from this. I don’t trust my reason, opinions, feelings. I am submitting to Your superior mind. God, I want to know You. Please show Yourself to me as I read, so that I may continue to find favor in Your sight.
I will be the first to admit that my experience with the Bible has been less than what it should be. For many years I viewed scripture with a marked ambivalence. Although I saw much wisdom in its pages, at the same time, I encountered much material that I felt was outdated, irrelevant, and especially erroneous. Further, I held great resentment toward those believers who tried to prove their particular slant on things by quoting scripture incessantly, more often than not out of context. I also had little patience with Bible thumpers who beat people over the head with the “Good Book,” while applying few of its teachings to their own lives.
I still struggle with these sorts of issues, but by the grace of the Holy Spirit, I have been able to separate the Bible itself from those who misuse and abuse it. As a result there are more than a few occasions where, as mentioned above, the Holy Spirit animates the words of scripture, bringing them alive with meaning and practical application for my life. It is at such times that scripture becomes what I think it was intended to be, an agent of spiritual transformation and a portal through which the Creator and I might encounter one another.
When I began to see the Bible in this light, scripture became something very sacred in my eyes. In the pages of the Bible I was able to experientially encounter the unfolding of God’s great story of redemption and restoration, as well as my own journey of exile and return. I also gained a greater appreciation and sense of gratitude for all those who came before, serving future generations by preserving the Bible and its life-changing message of a Creator that loves us in a manner beyond human comprehension. I will close with one more quotation from Tyler Edwards, who expresses far better than I can what the Bible can come to mean for those with “eyes to see”:
When you start looking at the Bible as a message that was preserved so you could read it – that God saved every verse that He did because He wants to tell you something – then it changes the way you view the Word. Each word is a gift bought with the blood of those who came before us. In each word we can find the life that God designed for us to have. As you seek God, He will open your eyes to what He is saying to you, and He can begin to mold and shape you. When you start to let the Word come to life, then you will not feel guilty when you don’t read it, you will feel an overwhelming passion to make sure you do.
When this transformation from reading as obligation to reading as positive desire occurs, you have received a great blessing from the Holy Spirit. A great blessing, indeed.
Before a man accomplish anything of an enduring nature in the world he must first of all acquire some measure of success in the management of his own mind. This is as mathematical a truism as that two and two are four, for, “out of the heart are the issues of life.” (Here Allen is referring to Proverbs 4:23). If a man cannot govern the forces within himself, he cannot hold a firm hand upon the outer activities which form his visible life. On the other hand, as a man succeeds, in governing himself he rises to higher and higher levels of power and usefulness and success in the world.
As some of you know, my health has been a major life issue for some time now. I am afflicted with Severe Cardiovascular Disease and also Congestive Heart Failure. I had a quadruple bypass at age 47, back in 1996. Since that time, two of the grafts have closed and cannot be opened or stented. A third graft has a stent and the fourth one is fine. Over the last few months my angina has become more frequent. My systolic blood pressure in my right arm is some fifty points higher than in my left.
Yesterday, I underwent an angiogram and a blockage was found in my clavicular area, just below the left shoulder near the collar bone. Due to its location, which the doctor described as “tricky,” it was decided that a consult with a heart surgeon was needed. The doctors told me that they will either attempt to put a stent in the artery or a bypass graft around the blocked area. Much depends on what the surgeon suggests. Next Tuesday I am also scheduled for an ultrasound on my carotid artery, I suppose to see if there is any further complications in that area.
I mention all this to let my readers know what is going on and to request prayer. I am optimistic as to the outcome and in any case, I am at peace in the care of the God of All Comfort. I will try to keep up the blog as best I can through the next month, but if things are a little less regular, it is because I am dealing with these issues.
LifeBrook 