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.
No one can force this on you, nor can it be anyone else’s ambition for your life. It has to come from within you. Sometimes it takes a menagerie of different experiences to bring us to it. Some of us will insist on going through tremendous pain, disappointment, and failure before we come to it. Eventually we have to be able to look at ourselves in the mirror and decide there’s someone else that we want to see there. But everyone who’s going to make this particular trek has to pass through the same gauntlet that has brought me and so many others to that place where in the deafening silence we hear the cry of our own soul screaming, “I want to change!”
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.
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 17th 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.
Repentance, the kind that leads to conversion, comes in a simple way. You are serving one lord, believing what you think is truth. Then the Holy Spirit conspires with circumstances, or a word or message, to open your eyes to the truth that there is another way, a way that leads to an unimaginable life of fullness and wholeness. A message that lets you know, deep inside a place that always suspected the truth, that Jesus is the Lord of the universe and that it is your duty to serve Him. The message might come in a church service. It might come from a preacher on television. Perhaps it comes from the echoes of voices that still speak to you from long ago through the Scriptures. Somehow, someway, the Holy Spirit finds you and convinces you…In response, you stop serving whatever lord you were serving and start serving Jesus. That’s the kind of repentance that moves you from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light.
Repentance isn’t complicated. It begins when we respond with a simple yes to Jesus. In fact, that’s all we have to offer……the focus of repentance isn’t on generating an emotion. And it’s not about saying the “right” words. It’s about turning and changing. Turning from the idols and lords you’ve previously served – even the idol you may have made of yourself – to the Lord of the universe. Rejecting devotion to one lord and replacing it with devotion to Jesus. That turning begins with the simple response of “Yes, Lord.”….You may not have the power within you to change the conduct with which you are confronted. That’s fine. The repentance of conversion is not about making you complete all at once. It’s about making the turn to Jesus complete.
Scores of people have positioned their lives on a religious road that makes grandiose promises at minimal cost. We have been told all that is required is a one-time decision, maybe even mere intellectual assent to Jesus, but after that we need not worry about his commands, his standards, or his glory. We have a ticket to heaven and we can live however we want on earth. Our sin will be tolerated along the way. Much of modern evangelism today is built on leading people down this road, and crowds flock to it, but in the end it is a road built on sinking sand, and it risks disillusioning millions of souls. . . . . . . . . . . . Biblical proclamation of the gospel beckons us to a much different response and leads us down a much different road. Here the gospel demands and enables us to turn from our sin, to take up our cross, to die to ourselves, and to follow Jesus. These are the terms and phrases we see in the Bible. And salvation now consists of a deep wrestling in our souls with the sinfulness of our hearts, the depth of our depravity, and the desperation of our need for his grace. Jesus is no longer one to be accepted or invited in but one who is infinitely worthy of our immediate and total surrender.
Somewhere right this minute someone you don’t yet know needs you. Someone needs exactly what you are equipped to offer. Just as God has organized all of creation with a finely-tuned balance that is so incredible that it is beyond comprehension, He has also organized the great dance of spiritual life in such a way that we each have a part that only we can contribute. If we don’t realize our potential and live out our deepest dreams, we rob the world of something of immense value. We rob the world of the optimal version of who we are and when we do that, everyone loses and the Holy Spirit is grieved.
Be careful that you don’t take your talent to your grave. Leave your legacy, your gift here so that others can prosper from the simple fact that you lived and cared enough to live rightly.
It is highly important that you also realize that your dreams and your God-given potential are intimately related. God gave you your dream and He also blessed you with what you need to make that dream a reality right here in this hurting world. This doesn’t mean that manifesting your dream will be a piece of cake. No, most often those things that are truly significant are going to meet with a bit of resistance, from either other people, the world in general, and especially the enemy. Still, God has equipped you and given you authority to overcome and overwhelm all three of these areas of friction.
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.”
Over the years I have discovered that far too many otherwise sincere Christians become stalled in their walk of faith because they can’t seem to discern what it is that God wants them to do. Offer a weekend workshop on a topic like “Finding God’s Will for Your Life” and it will more than likely be packed to the rafters. People seem to be desperate to find the work God wants them to do, but for whatever reasons, most of them seem to be stuck. This is a major problem within the church because many otherwise talented and passionate people are suffering from a kind of spiritual paralysis. This issue is more complicated than it seems and may in fact be part of a larger theme. Christian author and researcher Gabe Lyons, in his book The Next Christians, cogently discusses the dilemma facing many of today’s genuine spiritual seekers:
People are longing for connection to a deeper purpose but struggle to find it. Beleaguered by too many options, we flip-flop on everything. Whether selecting a college major, or changing jobs every few years, or relocating from city to city, or trying to find a place to call home, many people are feeling more empty. Their search for significance ends each day at a bar, or alone in their bed, when all they really wanted was to find someone to listen and help them figure life out. They wake up just as alone the next morning, feeling discouraged, no closer to finding the magic answer and weary of living the rat race. On occasion, they spot someone who seems to have it all figured out, and it makes them utterly jealous. Deep down, they want someone else’s story to be their story. They just feel stuck.
This is the story line for many young Americans, and it’s not different for Christians. God created each one of us for a unique purpose, but most people never invest the time and energy to discover it. When they do, many are scared away by the changes a new direction might bring. But sometimes the issue isn’t a lack of courage; it’s a lack of clarity. Amid all the options, we just don’t know how to discern what it is we are supposed to do.
Space does not permit a detailed analysis of this issue and all of its individual and sociological ramifications. What I can say, however, is that the solution is not as difficult as one might think. Quite simply, if you indeed feel stuck regarding the discovery of your spiritual purpose, mission, and calling – if you lack a fundamental clarity on what it is that God has called you to do – get busy and do something!
Scripture is filled with clear descriptions of the kind of things God wants us to do. Our “big picture” mission is to continue Christ’s work of incarnating God’s love and grace in the world and to do whatever we can to further the establishment of his kingdom on earth. My advice to those struggling to discern God’s will is straightforward: find a need and fill it. There is plenty to be done while you are waiting to discover the particular thing the Master has called you to do.
In regards to gaining a degree of clarity regarding your personal mission, that specific calling that was placed in your heart perhaps even before you were born, I have found that the following formula is helpful. Look for that place where your talent and your passion engage one another. God has equipped you to be successful at that which he is calling you to do. It is also likely that you have a strong affinity for those things involved in carrying out that mission. In other words, if you love doing something and you have a definite knack for doing it, start sniffing around the base of that tree. Chances are your calling is close at hand.
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.
And where does this journey begin? It begins with the decision to become the optimal version of yourself for the glory of God and the benefit of others. It begins, my friend, with a firm commitment toexcellence.
When we make a commitment to excellence, we are basically telling God and ourselves that we are finally getting serious about our spiritual development. When we firmly dedicate ourselves to become who God intended us to be, we get honest with ourselves about where we are, where we are not, and where God wants us to go. We then make a personal commitment to, with God’s help, become all that we were created to be, all that we were intended to be, and, in the final analysis, all that we truly are.
One of the most amazing aspects of the Christian walk of faith often occurs at precisely this juncture, when an individual makes a deep, heartfelt, and earnest commitment to surrender their will to Christ and follow wherever he may lead. I can’t explain it exactly, but the very act of making this kind of covenant with God puts into motion a set of divine laws and principles that seem to work miracles at times, providing exactly what is needed exactly when it is needed. The great German author Goethe explains this far better than I can:
Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never have otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unseen incidents, meetings, and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can – begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.
When we encounter our consistent difficulties in living out the Christian life as Christ intended, one of the reasons is our lack of understanding of who and what we are “in Christ.” It often saddens me to the core to hear genuinely sincere followers of the Christ speak of themselves as “miserable sinners” or “totally depraved humans.” We speak of humanity as if we were some sort of low-grade pond scum without merit or moral fiber. What’s worse is the reality that this stilted, sinful (yes, I said sinful) view of our station as human beings has been foisted upon the church not by its enemies or other faith systems, but instead, by many of its own leaders and teachers. I find this especially shameful.
As redeemed and spiritually reborn persons, our humanity is our crowning glory. Born from above, we have been restored to the pristine glory that God originally intended for us. God has done this for us through the being, the mission, the death, the resurrection, and the ascension of Christ. Further, he has provided everything we need in order to lead a godly life (see 2 Peter 1:3) and for us to not claim this renewed life and all that it implies is sacrilege in its most rebellious form. In essence, through Christ God has restored us to righteousness and this gift of right standing with the Father is eternal. What we have to grasp is the fact that we are right now, at this very moment, as pure and as righteous as we are ever going to be. We have to be because the Father’s unfathomable holiness could not tolerate our presence at his right hand, where scripture tells us we now reside with Christ. Andrew Farley, in his great little book entitled The Naked Gospel tells us:
We find it difficult to grasp the idea that God calls us righteous because weactually are righteous. It feels more humble to believe we’re filthy worms awaiting a future change into beautiful butterflies…………..Jesus stated it best. He said that our righteousness must surpass that of the Pharisees in order to enter the kingdom (Matthew 5:20). So if we Christians don’t claim to possess perfect righteousness, we are lowering God’s standard. We are watering down the gospel. We insinuate that Jesus can unite himself with sin. And we insult the perfection of God.
The point Farley is driving at is what Paul tells us time and again in Romans: we have to come to a point where we live the reality, not just believe it, that our old self has been crucified with Christ. It is dead and gone. From a spiritual perspective, this is the only possible reality. As Christians, we are now united with God through Christ and further, the Holy Spirit has taken up residence within us. On top of all this, we are also filled with Christ (see Ephesians 4:10). As hard as it may be for us to fathom, we are now the “Temple of God.” In the old temple in Jerusalem, God dwelled in the inner most room of the temple, called the Holy of Holies. Nothing impure or imperfect could enter there and even the High Priest only ventured in once each year.
Friends, we are now the Holy of Holies. We may not feel like it. We may not understand it. We may look at other followers of Christ and, knowing their shortcomings, find it hard to believe that they are the Temple of God, the very Holy of Holies. I guess that is one reason we are told that trusting our feelings is a tenuous, risky business. Scripture affirms that we are now the dwelling place of God and if God lives in us, our true being cannot be imperfect. That is why the old self had to die with Christ. Andrew Farley continues:
The risen Christ doesn’t join himself to filthy worms. The Holy Spirit doesn’t dwell in dirty sinners. Christ only unites himself with those who are like him in spirit. The Holy Spirit doesn’t reside in someone who remains even 1 percent flawed by sin. . . . . . . .But we have been perfectly cleansed. We have been made perfectly righteous at our core through spiritual surgery. This is the way we can enjoy even a moment of relationship with Jesus Christ.
As we look at all this, again, some of us may find it hard to believe, especially those of us who struggle with chronic, long-standing strongholds and negative emotions. We need, however, to not only believe it but live it. By that I mean we must base our thoughts, decisions, and actions upon this reality. We must come to view ourselves in precisely the same way God sees us: pure, holy, whole, and righteous.
If we do not stop traveling down the road we are on, we will not just destroy the planet and everyone on it but continue to betray the heart of Christianity. Our task now is not just to demythologize Jesus. It is to let the breath of the Galilean sage fall on the neck of the church again. First we have to listen not to formulas of salvation but to a gospel that is all but forgotten. After centuries of being told that “Jesus saves,” the time has come to save Jesus from the church.
If the door is locked, we will break in through the windows. If anyone forbids us to approach the table, we will overturn it and serve communion on the floor. If any priest tells us we cannot sing this new song, we will sing it louder, invite others to sing it with us, and raise our voices in unison across all the boundaries of human contrivance – until this joyful chorus is heard in every corner of the world, and the church itself is raised from the dead.
As we begin the season of Advent, let us pause and give thanks for the reason for the season: The birth of light in darkness. It is my earnest prayer that the Light of Christ may be born in the manger of each and every heart as the Creator bathes the earth with new and vital energies. Today may we be aware of the prophecy of Isaiah:
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of great darkness — on them, light has shined. (Isaiah 9:2 NRSV)
I am also aware that in many cases these days, the “land of great darkness” has been the Body of Christ itself. May we who dare to take up the mantle of “Christian” become aware of what a truly magnificent being Jesus Christ was and is and further, may we become deeply aware of the blessed Light that shines on us and especially, shines within us. May our lives be that of living epistles, giving honor and glory to that Light.
LifeBrook 