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Jan 06
2008
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Over the last couple months I've read some really good books. Well, good for me anyways. I've been on a bit of a quest...a reality check if you will. The question I have posed to myself is this...
There is no doubt that since becoming a Christian I have seen change in my life. I used to cuss like a trucker and while viewed by many peers as a "nice guy", I was deeply self-centered and manipulative. The question I posed to myself a short time back was this: Have I mostly been conformed to the expectations and social rules of the evangelical Christian culture, or am I becoming more like Jesus?
I beleive there is an important difference. Sociologically speaking, religion changes people. People convert from one religion (or non-religion) to another all the time and such conversions are always marked by an entrance into a new community. This new community has a certain "culture"--rules, expectations, etc. that these community members live by. Whether it be Islam, Mormonism, Jahovah's Witness, Zoroastianism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity or the local Rotary--all these communities have this in common.
So my question is this: have I, over the last (almost) two decades, been conformed more to the patterns of these communities, or to the image of Jesus?
On this recent journey, I have been helped by a few short, and good books.
I am in the middle of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. Two passages I marked I share here:
"A man may cry out against sin as a matter of policy, but he can't hate it unless he's been given a godly antipathy to it. I've heard many cry out against sin in the pulpit, who find it easy enough to live with in their heart, home, and life."
When Christian responds to a man named Obstinate, who is hesitant to convert for fear of leaving friends and his comforts, he says: "What you're leaving isn't worth half what I'm seeking to enjoy."
Another book is a little book by John Piper on perseverance called In Your Joy which you can read online. http://www.desiringgod.org/media/pdf/books_bioj/books_bioj.pdf
Chapters 4 & 5 are, to make a gross understatement, significant. In them, Piper addresses Jesus conditional commands to enter the kingdom, and the means by which we might do so. How do we STRIVE to enter the narrow door (Luke 13:24) and at the same time take up his EASY yoke (Matt 11:28-30)?
Another book is C.J. Mahaney's "Humilty" . It is short but piercing.
As of yet, I don't have a satisfactory answer for my question of conformity vs. transformation. I am learning that the life of a disciple is not an easy or costless journey and that at times, it is better to doubt what some might call rudimentary or obvious rather than aquiesce to subtle self-deception.
written by Bryan Hansen , January 07, 2008
Ah, indeed! This is at the crux of what I have been learning too. Dr. Tim Keller preached a sermon of the fruits of the spirit that is exceptional and was quite helpful to me in understanding what the fruit of faith will look like. (You can find this sermon at http://www.stevekmccoy.com/ref...arti.html. It is #3 of the "Changed People" series under AUDIO a little over half way down on the page.) Specifically, he notes (and this led to some of the questioning I have been doing) that there are a few characteristics of this fruit that are true.
1) It is inevitable. If the Spirit of God is in you, and he is working to conform you to the image of his Son, it WILL happen. Nothing can stop him.
2) It is gradual. This is especially important for we Westerners to grasp. You don't pick up spiritual fruit in a drive-thru.
3) It is measurable. You may not be able to watch growth happen in real-time. But if you look back (as you've pointed out Tim) and see more love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control, etc., then be encouraged: you are growing.
4) It is internal. Again, Tim, you mentioned this. Keller makes a differentiation between mechanical growth vs. organic growth. If the fruit is internal, it will work itself out in external things. This is perhaps at the heart of my searching right now.
5) There is a "concavenation". This is a word that basically means the gifts are linked, simultaneous and equal. That is, these are not fruits of the Spirit (plural) but fruit of the Spirit (singular). (See Gal 5:22.) The case that Keller makes (which he gets from Jonathan Edwards) is that you don't excel in one of the items on the list and not in another. If you do, that particular "fruit" is counterfeit.
I have also been thinking on the verse in Mathew 18:35, where Jesus commands us to forgive from our heart, and of 1 Cor 13, where Paul says we can do a bunch of things (surrender our bodies to the flames, give away all we have to the poor, etc) but miss the mark of love, and Jesus teaching that we will be forgiven if we forgive others, and in Eph 4:32 to forgive as Christ has forgiven us.
I don't sense that I hold bitterness toward people, but there are definitely people for whom it is easier for me to forgive than others--where my heart is actually in it more. So I am probing my heart in this, among other areas.
Thanks for your thoughts Tim.
written by Tim Quick , January 07, 2008
Good thoughts and questions my friend! I suppose I would add a couple observations in response.
While your lack of cussing certainly could be a simply matter of conforming to an external standard; I would submit that if there was NO external life change after your conversion, you could probably be assured that there was no internal change either. Our salvation does result in external changes which hopefully are a result of INTERNAL changes .
For me, part of the way I measure whether change is internal has to do with the fruits of the Spirit; which I think spring from an internal motivation. Do I respond with gentleness because I feel more gentle? Am I less impatient INSIDE than I used to be? Bunyan is right on; most of the time, the way we react and act at home with our loved ones is more revealing than how we act at church.
One of the big changes in my heart that I can only credit to God has been in the area of compassion for others. I used to look at a person's struggles and feel little compassion for them if they were dealing with the consequences of sinful choices. They "made their bed" and now they would have to lay in it, went my reasoning.
Through my own brokenness over my divorce about 13 years ago, God humbled me enough to help me actually FEEL compassion for those who are struggling through difficulty even if their struggles are a result of the consequences of their own sin.
Are these fruits a part of the way I FEEL on the inside?
"Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control" (Gal 5:22-23)
