Are You a Living Letter?

L.D. Turner

Paul stressed that in order to be effective witnesses for the gospel, we must become “living epistles.” We must become open letters that anyone can read and by reading, come to a deeper understanding of just who this radical Galilean was and is. It is a high calling, indeed and not one to be taken lightly. If we take Jesus’ words recorded in the 26^th Chapter of Matthew as true, then it should be obvious to even the most dense among us that the litmus test for defining a Christian is not belief in Christ, but in embodying Christ.

My experience has been that many sincere adherents of the Christian faith pay little attention to the magnitude and the importance of this calling to emulate Christ in thought, word, and deed. I don’t say this to judge, but only to record what I think is an accurate observation. I would also add that I, too, am guilty of taking this call too lightly.

I have, however, managed to take the Christ-calling a bit more seriously over the past few years. For this I am ever grateful and, at the same time, quite aware that I still have a long, long way to go in terms of character formation. Yet I press forward toward that goal, which as Michael Frost points out, is incumbent upon all who would claim Jesus as Master and Teacher:

Practicing the presence of Christ means being a living example of the life of Jesus. This raises the stakes enormously. It means that our lives need to become increasingly aligned with the example of Jesus. It doesn’t require sinless obedience – as if that’s possible anyway. It means, though, increasingly becoming people of justice, kindness, mercy, strength, hope, grace, generosity, and hospitality.

Yes, this divine calling is an invitation to a life of fulfillment and reward beyond our imagining, if we will only yield ourselves to it with complete abandon. Yet for many of us, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. Still, it is necessary to move forward as best we can, relying on the promises of God and the empowerment of the indwelling Holy Spirit. For many of us, we get better in spite of ourselves. I know that is often true in my case.

This call to emulate Christ is a call to give flesh to grace. The whole story-line of God’s Great Saga is one of proactive grace. God saw that we needed grace and gave us Christ and Christ saw that the world needed grace and gave the world us. Just pause and chew on that one for a minute. What a great honor and what a great responsibility.

The world in which Jesus carried out his grace-mission is far different than the one we live in. In some ways the world of the first century was far more difficult than our era, but in other ways, we face challenges Jesus never had to contend with. Still, if we take seriously the divine calling we have been speaking of we can’t let these challenges divert us from the task at hand. Michael Frost speaks clearly to the dilemma facing the contemporary church:

In our world today – post-Christendom and postmodern – we find ourselves a far cry from the simpler times during which Jesus lived…..we find ourselves up against challenges that we can’t imagine Jesus having to deal with. We stare vacantly at our WWJD (What would Jesus do?) wristbands, wondering just what Jesus would do when confronted with the befuddling complexities of contemporary culture. No wonder so many Christians opt to withdraw, to burrow deeper down inside their warrens in the hope that they can avoid contamination from the onslaught of the post-Christendom West. Likewise, the temptation to give in and be swept along by the prevailing mores is perfectly understandable. Swimming always against the constantly shifting flow of culture is exhausting, and it’s not incomprehensible when Christians throw their hands up and just stop swimming.

The pressing questions confronting those who are consecrated to the mission of vivifying the Body of Christ and mobilizing its resources in service of a world in great need revolve around both form and function. What kind of organization can best carry out the task of giving flesh to grace in highly varied circumstances? Once the shape is defined, how can the church best meet the needs of the community in which it finds itself?

As I have mentioned in other venues, my vision of the future church is of a body of highly committed Christians operating in groups that are creative, transformational, and incarnational. Michael Frost, writing with great promise and hope, cites six values that need to be embraced by the church of the future:

1. To seek an approach to spiritual growth that values inward transformation over external appearances.
2. To value a spirituality that seeks not to limit our God-given humanity, creativity, or individuality; to value diversity and difference over conformity and uniformity.
3. To enjoy from-the-heart, honest, dialogues and avoid relationships marked by superficiality and hidden agendas.
4. To strive to be completely honest with God and appropriately transparent with others about our inmost thoughts, hopes, dreams, emotions, shortcomings, failings, transgressions, struggles.
5. To seek to welcome back mystery and paradox over easy explanations; to live with questions that have no easy answers.
6. To work to honestly recalibrate our lifestyles, diets, spending patterns, and commitments to reflect our hope for a more just, equitable, and merciful society.

At first blush, these goals may seem overly idealistic and virtually impossible to bring into positive manifestation. As I study, reflect, and pray over these optimistic visions for the church, however, I find that they are not only highly pragmatic, but equally achievable if we consecrate ourselves to the task. We must also add to the equation a factor that many of us who hold a more liberal, progressive view of the faith seem to have either forgotten or cast into the dustbin of disbelief: With God, all things are possible.

Our work here at LifeBrook has demonstrated the reality that positive change is, indeed, possible. We have found that using a small group approach works best in bringing about spiritual transformation. Frost relates that in his church the formation of a small group ministry called “Life Transformation Groups” has worked quite well.

Robin R. Meyers, in discussing various aspects of the Sermon on the Mount, makes the cogent observation that Jesus says “blessed are those who hear the word of God and obey it.” Meyers goes on to say:

Notice that he did not say blessed are those who hear the word of God and believe it. Nor did he say blessed are those who hear the word of God and enshrine it as doctrine. Nor did he say blessed are those who hear the word of God and co-opt it for a particular religious or political agenda. He said blessed are those who hear the word of God and obey it. That is, blessed are those who give up their old way of being in the world and willingly surrender to a new way. Blessed are those who are willing to take new orders – by marching to the tune of a different drummer and taking the road less traveled.

As stated earlier, our calling is to emulate Christ and become living epistles for the faith we claim. Although we face challenges that are different and, at least in some ways, more difficult than those faced by Jesus, these are exciting times for the Body of Christ. Within the context of these challenges and changes, we have the opportunity to forge a great future for Christ’s church.

© L.D. Turner 2010/2018 All Rights Reserved

Lenten Practice

I noted here on LifeBrook back in 2009 that I was undertaking the Lenten tradition of giving up something for the season leading up to Easter, albeit with a bit of an intangible bent. That year I vowed to give up something that fed a longstanding stronghold in my life: negative thinking. As I look back on my journals from that period of time, I saw that this was quite a struggle. There were more than a few days that this chronic negativity had a life and a momentum of its own. Yet, at the same time, I did see that there were also more than a few days that I became less prone to negative cognition and even when I did have a pessimistic thought, I immediately became aware of it and was able to, as that wise sage Barney Fife told his friend Sheriff Andy:”Nip it in the bud.”

I mention all this because this year I have once again taken on this anti-negativity challenge as part of my Lenten practice. It is not so much that I have slid back into chronic negative thinking – no – in fact, the Holy Spirit has helped me immensely in this area. It’s just that I realize that this issue is one that has been a powerful force in my life and I want to take yet another step in getting on top of it. I will let you know from time to time how things are going.

I would be most interested in hearing what sort of things you folks are considering dealing with this Lenten season.

Blessings,

Mick

The Necessity of Obedience

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

Wise Words for Today

Ronald Reagan in Dixon, Illinois. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The character that takes command in moments of crucial choices has already been determined by a thousand other choices made earlier in seemingly unimportant moments. It has been determined by all the “little” choices of years past – by all those times when the voice of conscience was at war with the voice of temptation . . .whispering the lie that “it really doesn’t matter.” It has been determined by all the day-to-day decisions made when life seemed easy and crises seemed far away  – the decisions that, piece by piece, bit by bit, developed habits of discipline or of laziness; habits of self-sacrifice or self-indulgence; habits of duty and honor and integrity – or dishonor and shame. 

Ronald Reagan

(quotation from his speech at the Commencement exercises at The Citadel in 1993)

The Apologetics of Incarnational Living

Evangelistar von Speyer, um 1220 Manuscript in the Badische Landesbibliothek, Karlsruhe, Germany Cod. Bruchsal 1, Bl. 1v Shows Christ in vesica shape surrounded by the “animal” symbols of the four evangelists. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Mick Turner

Any thoughtful, observant Christian should be aware by now that the Western church is in crisis. Don’t be deceived by the growth of the so-called “mega-churches” and the various and sundry “evangelistic explosions” that we see taking place. The fact is, people are leaving the faith in droves and fewer new faces are coming through the doors. Moreover, these dwindling numbers, along with our culture’s increasing negative view of Christianity, have relegated the church to a position of peripheral social influence.

Once the bedrock upon which our culture’s value system was built, the church is now little more than marginal voice in the constantly shifting tides of post-modern America. Identified by most Americans as joined at the hip with Right-Wing Conservatism, the church is viewed with increasing disdain and animosity. Traditional attempts at evangelism and apologetics only seem to make the situation worse. Evangelism is seen as an attempt by elitist Christians to ram their faith down people’s throats and apologetics is viewed as an archaic attempt to make the unreasonable make sense.

If the church is to survive, drastic changes must take place. It should be obvious by now that the old ways of “doing church,” especially evangelism, is doomed to failure.

Personally, I have come to believe that the most effective form of Christianity involves being faithful to our calling to incarnate Christ to a hurting world. This is the essence of what is often called “Kingdom living.” It is a lifestyle which, if carried out with compassion and commitment, will in and of itself draw people to the faith. It involves a simple paradigm: find a pressing social need and address it.

Put simply, it means giving flesh to grace. This is what Christ did and we are called to no less.

When people of faith express the love of God through acts of service and kindness, people take notice. These simple acts of grace accomplish far more than reasoned arguments, stadium rallies, popular seminars, and best-selling books. These simple acts of grace, especially given the church’s increasingly negative image in our culture, are the most effective forms of evangelistic activity we can engage in. It was not so different in the early church, which can serve as a model for what we should be doing.

In the middle of the Third Century a terrible plague devastated the Mediterranean world, dealing death to large swaths of the population. Many of those stricken with the disease were sent out of the cities, destined to die agonizing deaths alone and terrified. The Christian faithful, however, responded in a much different fashion. Dionysius, the bishop of Alexandria, describes the acts of grace this way:

Most of our brother Christians showed unbounded love and loyalty, never sparing themselves and thinking only of one another. Heedless of danger, they took charge of the sick, attending to their every need and ministering to them in Christ, and with them departed this life serenely happy; for they were infected by others with the disease, drawing on themselves the sickness of their neighbors and cheerfully accepting t heir pains. Many, in nursing and curing others, transferred their death to themselves and died in their stead.

Many people were drawn to the fledgling church by the acts of service and sacrifice that so typified the early Christians. I am of the belief that it is here that the modern church can find its methodology of renewal. Crafting theological arguments is not the answer in today’s post-modern culture; nor is allying the church with a political party or ideology. Withdrawing into our own “Christian culture” is equally misguided. Instead, we need to immerse ourselves into the hurts of this world and find creative ways to bring God’s healing light to those hurts. Anything else misses the point.

Paul stressed that in order to be effective witnesses for the gospel, we must become “living epistles.” We must become open letters that anyone can read and by reading, come to a deeper understanding of just who this radical Galilean was and is. It is a high calling, indeed and not one to be taken lightly. If we take Jesus’ words about the final judgment as recorded in the 26^th Chapter of Matthew as true, then it should be obvious to even the most dense among us that the litmus test for defining a Christian is not belief in Christ, but in embodying Christ.

Michael Frost, in his excellent book Exiles, points out that this incarnational living is incumbent upon all who would claim Jesus as Master and Teacher:

Practicing the presence of Christ means being a living example of the life of Jesus. This raises the stakes enormously. It means that our lives need to become increasingly aligned with the example of Jesus. It doesn’t require sinless obedience – as if that’s possible anyway. It means, though, increasingly becoming people of justice, kindness, mercy, strength, hope, grace, generosity, and hospitality.

Yes, this divine calling is an invitation to a life of fulfillment and reward beyond our imagining, if we will only yield ourselves to it with complete abandon. Yet for many of us, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. Still, it is necessary to move forward as best we can, relying on the promises of God and the empowerment of the indwelling Holy Spirit. For many of us, we get better in spite of ourselves. I know that is often true in my case.

This call to emulate Christ is a call to give flesh to grace. The whole story-line of God’s Great Saga is one of proactive grace. God saw that we needed grace and gave us Christ and Christ saw that the world needed grace and gave the world us. Just pause and chew on that one for a minute. What a great honor and what a great responsibility.

As “living epistles” we have the opportunity to meet God in the divine moment, what Erwin Raphael McManus calls the “epicenter of God’s activity.” When we consistently engage in these acts of Christian kindness, we in essence become what Gary Thomas accurately calls “God Oases.” Thomas explains:

A holy man or woman is a spiritual force, a “God oasis,” in a world that needs spiritually strong people. When the winds of turmoil hit, such people become shelters; their faith provides a covering for all. By their words and actions, by the ways they listen and use their eyes to love instead of lust, to honor instead of hate, to build up instead of tear down, holy men and women are like streams of water in the desert, affirming what God values most. When the heat of temptation threatens to tear this world apart, godly men and women become like the shadow of a great rock. These God oases carry Christ to the hurting, to the ignorant, to those in need. They will be sought out, and they will have something to say.

I find this description of godly men and women highly inspirational, not to mention vivifying. Thomas’ words encourage us to sensitize ourselves more and more to God’s activity in this world and further, to take compassionate action in emulating Christ’s acts of grace and healing. In ways both great and small, we can locate that epicenter of God’s activity and get to work.

It is nothing less than our calling, our responsibility, and our honor. And in so doing, it is my earnest prayer that more and more of us can become living epistles – God oases – and give incarnation to the godly image described in Isaiah 32:2:

Each man will be like a shelter from the wind

and a shelter from the storm,

like streams of water in the desert

and the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land.

© L.D. Turner 2010/2013/All Rights Reserved

Encouraging and Prophecy: Divine Compatibility

English: Orthodox Church of Holy Spirit in Medzilaborce, Slovakia Polski: Cerkiew Świętego Ducha w Medzilaborce, Słowacja Slovenčina: Pravoslávny chrám Svätého Ducha v Medzilaborcach (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Mick Turner

During a recent quiet time in which I was praying about and reflecting on the book of 1 Corinthians, the Holy Spirit brought the following verse to my attention, along with an insight that I believe was significant.

But one who prophesies strengthens others, encourages them and comforts them. (1 Corinthians 14:3)

Paul makes this statement in the context of a discussion about the spiritual gifts in general and about the problems associated with undue preference for the gift of tongues. What the Apostle is telling us here is that prophesy, as a spiritual gift, is intimately connected with the gift of encouragement and brings both encouragement and comfort to the individual and to the church. The Greek word Paul uses here for encouragement is paraklesis, of the same root as Paraclete, the word most often used for the Holy Spirit. So in this one short verse, we see a divine triad consisting of the Holy Spirit, the gift of prophecy, and the gift of encouragement.

All of this may seem obvious to some of you and wonder what the big deal is and why I am writing about it. My reasons are also simple. When I read 1 Corinthians 14:3 that morning, it was the first time I had the insight of how the pairing of the gifts of prophecy and encouragement could work together. Perhaps due to the dullness of my mind I had not made this vital connection before and this fact may also explain why this new insight was such an epiphany moment for me.

The gift of encouragement seems to be one of my primary gifts. Both personal experiences over the years as well as multiple versions of spiritual gifts tests bear this out. The novelty of that morning’s insight was the pairing of this gift with prophecy. I had previously understood how the gift of encouragement connected will with my other primary areas of gifting from the Holy Spirit, principally teaching and wisdom. Armed with this new revelation, I was able to look at the issue of gifting by the Holy Spirit in a new perspective.

If you think about it, a person gifted with prophecy either needs to be additionally gifted with encouragement or, if that is not the case, have a partner who is a master of encouragement. Why? The answer is simple. If the prophet has a powerful word for the church or an individual, and especially if that word is either confrontational or requires much work from the recipient, without encouragement the church or individual is going to hear the word and feel overwhelmed and defeated. Unless there is a healthy dose of encouragement to go along with the word, the recipient may wind up in a worse situation than before receiving the word. Worse still, if the person receiving the word of prophecy is left without direction or an uplifting message that change is possible, said person may end up feeling quite hopeless.

When I think of these issues, I am reminded of the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. I worked for many years in the field of Alcoholism and Chemical Dependency, right in the middle of Dade County, Florida, an area noted for drug and alcohol abuse. The 12 Step Program was the most effective paradigm in dealing with problems of addiction and I believe there are three primary reasons for its success. First, the program has a spiritual heart. In fact, spirituality is the very cornerstone of recovery. Second, the 12 Step Program, like the Christian walk of faith, cannot be walked in isolation. Instead, it is group based and group facilitated. Finally, and this is most pertinent to the topic of discussion here, the program begins by defining the problem and then goes on to offer a solution. If the addicted person admits the problem but has no access to the solution, there is no hope.

The same is true with prophecy. Without encouragement the recipient of prophecy is in a dark place, indeed. So, where does all this lead us?

From a personal perspective, I have come to believe that if you have the give of prophecy you need to do one of two things. You can pray for the gift of encouragement and earnestly ask the Holy Spirit to gift you in this vital area. Having the gift of encouragement is a perfect counterbalance to your gift of prophecy. By having both gifts, you are in a position to offer a healthy word of prophecy to an individual, a group, a church or whatever and, at the same time, offer encouragement that a solution is also possible.

Secondly, if you resist this gifting of encouragement or if you find that God does not want to gift you in this area, then I believe it is vital to partner with someone who operates primarily out of the gift of encouragement. I think you can see why this is important based on what has been said in the preceding paragraphs.

I have additionally looked at the other Gifts of the Spirit and have discovered that most spiritual gifts exist in a harmonic partnership with at least one gift. If you have an interest in studying the topic of spiritual gifting, I encourage you to read the relevant portions of scripture and pray for insight into how these symbiotic relationships of spiritual gifting might operate. I trust you will find such an endeavor quite enlightening and well worth the time spent.

© L.D. Turner 2008/2013 All Rights Reserved

Wise Words for Today

Brian McLaren (Photo credit: stewartcutler)

In a wild world like ours, your character, left untended, will become a stale room, an obnoxious child, a vacant lot filled with thorns, weeds, broken bottles, raggedy grocery bags, and dog droppings. Your deepest channels will silt in, and you will feel yourself shallowing. You’ll become a presence neither you nor others will enjoy, and you and they will spend more and more time and energy trying to be somewhere else.

Well tended, your character will be a fragrant garden, an artist’s home, with walls and halls full of memories and beauty, a party with live music and good jokes and pleasant conversations in every corner. You’ll be good and deep company for others and yourself.

That’s why, through the ages, people have tried to find ways to tend themselves, to do for their souls what exercise does for their bodies and study does for their minds. Through these character exercises they give birth to a person they are proud of becoming, the person they are happy to be, the one who is trying to be born every day – a hero, a best friend, a loving beloved and a beloved lover. 

Brian McLaren

(from Finding Our Way Again: The Return of the Ancient Practices)

The Quest for Purpose: A God’s Eye View

Cover of Motovilov’s book Serafim Talk On the Purpose of the Christian Life shows how the event is usually depicted in the modern icon tradition (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Mick Turner

These days there is a near obsession on the part of people about discovering their purpose in life. All one has to do is take a trip to one of the big book store chains in order to verify this reality. Shelves are lined with books that have titles or sub-titles related to discovering and living one’s personal life mission or purpose.

Confusion over purpose and meaning in life is not limited to those people outside the church. Many Christians are also searching for purpose and meaning. Christian book titles also reflect this search and any workshop or seminar on people of faith finding their purpose is packed to the gills, often with a waiting list. The question that comes to my mind is: Why do so many people seem to be wandering through life without having a clear and defining purpose in life?

Answers to this question are complicated, especially when it comes to the Body of Christ. It is fairly easy to understand why many well-meaning persons outside the church are confused about ultimate meaning in life. After all, with the post-modern anthem that there is no ultimate truth, it should be apparent that logic would also dictate that there is no ultimate meaning. This is the unsightly afterbirth of our cultures preoccupation with existentialism, which stressed the ultimate lack of meaning as well as the absurdity of life.

But what gives with the church people?

I think there are myriad reasons why Christians also struggle with this dilemma along with everyone else. First of all, the focus of a large percentage of Christian preaching during the first 75 years of the century just ended was not on meaning or purpose, but instead, was on salvation and other worldly concerns. Many church leaders believed strongly in the fact that if folks got their ticket to heaven, that was all they needed. Little attention was paid to a person’s needs in this world and even less to higher order needs like a genuine sense of purpose in living. As the century wound toward a close, this focus began to change for the better, but in some quarters of Christianity, there is still a lot of ground to make up.

In light of this situation, here at LifeBrook we make it part of our mission to focus on assisting people in defining a personal mission in life and, beyond that, making positive, practical plans to pursue that purpose. Space here doesn’t allow for a full treatment of the subject; in fact, that would take an entire book and there are already plenty of those on the shelves. Still, let me offer a few guiding principles that we have found effective with both our coaching programs and our training sessions.

We encourage people in search of mission and purpose to consider, reflect on, and pray about the following realities.

God has a plan and a purpose for every believer

Your plan and purpose is unique to you and can only be realized by someone equipped with the spiritual gifts the Holy Spirit gifted you with.

You plan and purpose will be biblical in nature and will never contradict scriptural principles in any way.

No matter how bad you have messed up in the past, God can and will still use you.

In fact, God may use your past failures in creative ways that will enable you to be of great service in a particular area.

No one is born an accident in this world. Everyone is on this planet because God wanted them to be here. Accordingly, no one need wander adrift in life without a purpose and sense of mission. God planned for you to be here and has something important for you to accomplish.

Each day of your life provides experiences designed to help you grow and become better equipped to carry out your purpose.

In order to discover you mission, you need to understand God’s mission of restoration.

In order to discover your mission, you need to undergo a paradigm shift; you must stop seeing things from your perspective and begin to view things from God’s perspective.

Once you discover your mission, you have free choice to pursue it or decline it.

All of these are important factors in discovering and realizing success in terms of one’s mission in life, however, we don’t have space here to look at all of them. In light of this, let me just expand briefly on the last two points.

Let’s face a fundamental reality here. Most of us spend the majority of our time viewing life in general and our mission in living in particular through a somewhat self-absorbed perspective. We see things from our vantage point and treat whatever we see as if it is true reality. Unfortunately, our view of reality from a personal vantage point is both limited and tainted. It is limited because we are not omniscient and it is tainted because whatever we see is filtered through the matrix of our own limited knowledge. If we are to discover our God-given purpose, we must change our perspective; we have to start looking at things from God’s perspective.

In order to get a “God’s eye view” of meaning and purpose, we have to discover God’s purpose. We do this by looking to scripture to see the unfolding of God’s great story across the span of the ages. God’s story is one of creation, redemption, restoration, and return. Whatever our individual purpose might be, rest assured it will exist as a sub-story in God’s great story. Also, we should keep in mind that whatever our mission and purpose might be, it will be related somehow to the manifestation of God’s kingdom on earth.

Our two primary tools for discovering meaning, mission, and purpose are prayer and scripture. If we are indeed serious about discovering what it is God has planned for us to do, we have to discipline ourselves to spend time with him. He cannot, and will not, reveal his purpose to us if we are not even consecrated enough to seek him out and rest in his presence.

When we do discover his plans for us, we are faced with a choice. That choice is simple in terms of content: Do we accept his mission for us or do we reject it? Just as in salvation, God will not force a decision upon us. We can say yea or we can say nay. If we answer in the positive; if we say yes to God, we are in store for a grand adventure. We will continually be amazed at how God will arrange things so that we can succeed and even more amazed at how he will enable us to overcome obstacles that the world or the enemy places in our path. Will all of this require work on our part? Indeed it will my friend. Expect to work as hard as you ever have. Bringing whatever part of his kingdom he has entrusted to you into manifestation on earth will be no easy task.

However, you can bank on one eternal truth: If you do your part, God will do his.

© L.D. Turner 2013/All Rights Reserved

Foundations of Spiritual Formation: Personal Morality

Morality (Photo credit: dietmut)

Mick Turner 

All major spiritual traditions recognize the importance of ethical living. Unfortunately, in our post-modern culture the notion of morality and ethical conduct often is either downplayed or overlooked entirely. On the spiritual path, to do either is deadly. If one thinks clearly about the issue of personal morality, it can be easily seen that having an internal moral compass is a tremendous help in two important arenas of life: our character and our relations with others.

Spiritual formation is all about becoming the best version of ourselves for the glory of God and the sake of others. A major component of this growth toward wholeness in Christ is the development of what I like to call “Sacred Character.” The cultivation of Sacred Character is an essential part of the process of spiritual formation, although sometimes teachers, trainers, and spiritual directors only mention it as an afterthought. This trend is unfortunate in the sense that we cannot take our personal morality for granted nor can we afford to give it less than our full attention.

Sacred Character begins with our personal conduct flowing from an internalized value system that we view as important. We need to know just what we believe to be right and wrong. Again, this issue is often glossed over in our post-modern world and this is in many ways a tragedy. In today’s world truth is often relative and situational. What is true for one person and one situation is not true for another person and another situation. In the post-modern world, there is no ultimate truth. The result of this trend is a world populated by people who are many times confused, stressed, and uncertain as to how to respond to various situations. In short, these folks have no moral compass.

As Christians, we should not be vulnerable to this sort of ethical confusion. Although the Bible does not give us guidelines on how to respond to every situation we may encounter, scripture does give us sufficient moral direction to prevent uncertainty as to our response. In James A. Michner’s epic novel, Chesapeake, Edward Paxmore, a Quaker ship builder, repeatedly exemplifies the importance of possessing an internal moral compass. Listen as Michner describes Paxmore:

 In his personal life Edward Paxmore had discovered that a man lived best when he maintained some central belief upon which he could hang all action and to which he could refer all difficult moral problems; he was then vertebrate, with a backbone to sustain him, and he had observed that men and women who failed to develop this central belief wandered and made hideously wrong decisions because in time of crisis they had nothing to which they could refer instantaneously. He had found his backbone in obedience to God, in the simplest form possible and with the most direct access.

Don’t you just love the words Michner uses to describe Edward Paxmore? He was vertebrate and had a backbone to sustain him. And where did Edward Paxmore find his backbone? In obedience to God.

Here is the foundational truth to get down in the depth of your being: Your value system, your sense of personal ethics, is the foundation upon which your spiritual journey is constructed. Without a system of personal morality, you are building your house on sand. I firmly believe that personal morality is one of the strengths of the Christian path toward perfection.

© L.D. Turner 2008/2012 All Rights Reserved

Wise Words for Today

English: folio 11 recto of the codex with the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The church described in the book of Acts was a self-sacrificing church where believers were selling their private possessions and property and bringing them to the apostles to distribute to those in need. We don’t see a lot of that happening today. The people who had sacrificed personal comforts for the good of community were not focused on having nice buildings or fancy lights or comfortable chairs; they just wanted to take care of people’s needs.

Tyler Edwards

(from Zombie Church)