Calling for Perseverance

                                                             (Cross, in our backyard)

Linda and I have several friends who became followers of Jesus in the Jesus Revolution, and have stayed with Him. 

I'm one of those. I am 77 years old. I became a Jesus-follower in 1970, when I was twenty-one. I have been following Jesus for fifty-six years!

There are many like me. We have persevered. Through many dangers, toils, and snares. 

We are not perfect. We continue to grow into greater and greater Christlikeness. 

I am more convinced today than ever that Jesus is the Way. And that there is, as Eugene Peterson calls it, The Jesus Way.

For my devotional times I am re-reading Peterson's A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship In an Instant Society. Although Peterson does not self-refer as a prophet, I think he is. His words and thoughts and insights are prescient. To me, Peterson remains more a prophet than some who think they are prophets, and some who love to be seen as a 'prophet'.

Peterson begins his book by quoting the atheist Nietzsche. {FYI - In his recent book Carl Trueman builds on Nietzsche's famous "Parable of the Madman.")

Nietzsche says, "The essential thing 'in heaven and earth' is that there should be a long obedience in the same direction; there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living." 

Peterson adds, "It is this "long obedience in the same direction" which the mood of the world does so much to discourage."

How does our culture discourage persevering in Christ? Peterson writes:

"There is a great market for religious experience in our world; there is little enthusiasm for the patient acquisition of virtue, little inclination to sign up for a long apprenticeship in what earlier generations of Christians called holiness." (Long Obedience, 12)

"In" and "With" as Keys to Living the Jesus-Life

 

(Monroe County Community College)

 

A key to living the Jesus Life is found in two little words - "in," and "with."

Paul, in his letters to the various Jesus-communities, uses the phrases "in Christ" and "with Christ," and their variations, over 200 times (e.g. "in him," Christ "in us," and so on).

"In" is a container metaphor. When I am "in" the room, I share in the room's environment. When "out" of the room, I do not experience what is happening in the room.

Every Jesus-follower is "in Christ." This means union with Christ. I am in Christ and Christ is in me. Just as the resources of a vine flow into its branches, so do Trinitarian resources flow into every branch who abides in Jesus. 

Consider "with Christ." 

• Jesus-followers have died with Christ, 
• have risen with Christ, 
• and will appear in glory with Christ on his return. 
• When Christ died sin was defeated; 
• Therefore I, in Christ, am dead to the rule and reign of sin. 
• Sin has, for Christ and therefore for me, lost its power. 
• When Christ was raised death was defeated; 
• therefore, because he lives, I also live and am alive in Christ. 
• Where he moves I move; 
• where he goes I go. 
• I am a new creation, living out of a new ontological status. 

Sadly, the default, flesh-system of "religion," is to ignore this core Gospel reality, and instead preach the Moral Code and the utilization of human flesh-power to keep it (what Richard Foster has called "will worship"). Craig Keener says the best imitations of Christ are just “flesh.”" (Keener, here)

"In," and "with," tell us that living the Jesus life is not about trying harder. N.T. Wright writes:

“One aspect of Christian maturity, and certainly one of the road signs on the road to Christian holiness, is that the mind must grasp the truth: ‘you died, and your life has been hidden with the king, in God!” Once the mind has grasped it, the heart and will start to come on board. And once that happens the way lies open to joyful Christian holiness. Don’t settle for short cuts.” (NTW, C for E, 176; emphasis mine)

It's not imitating Christ, but union with Christ that makes the difference. It's about Christ, living in me and doing his transforming work in me, and I in him, rather than striving to copy him by using will power. (Think of the guilt and shame this produces in the church.)

Wright says: 

"The possibility is staggering: that I, a creature, might have my life linked—actually, organically, eternally linked—to the Son of God himself. Like a freight car coupled with an engine, where Jesus goes, I go. What happens to him, happens to me. I follow him and share his life, his character, his suffering, his future, his inheritance, even his reign with the Father.

While this reality, known as the doctrine of "union with Christ," has received a lot of attention throughout Christian history, it is often ignored in the modern church. But it is incredibly good news for those of us who wrestle with the uncertainty and disappointment of life on earth. Because we are "in Christ," because his life is ours, our fundamental life story has already been written."

Orient your heart and mind to things above, to Christ. Set your hearts and minds on who you are, by faith and through grace, in Christ.

In.

With.

Christ in you, the hope of glory. The actuality is staggering.

***

For more, check out former Fuller Theological Seminary professor Lewis Smedes, Union with Christ: A Biblical View of the New Life in Christ.

Biblical Metaphors of Spiritual Transformation

Only God can transform us into increasing Christlikeness. 

To be transformed by God we must enter and live in his
presence. 

But what is it in us that gets transformed? 

The biblical answer is: “spirit.” (Or “heart.”) 

I will present an understanding of “spirit” by using some
of the biblical metaphors of spiritual transformation.

          

If persons are essentially soul + body spiritual creations, what is "spirit"? The Bible provides us with many "metaphors of spirit." These metaphors do not give definitions, or point-for-point descriptions of "spirit," but rather gesture towards the nature of persons as spiritual creations. 

A "metaphor" is the use of a word, phrase, image, or object to create a framework through which we express or view some aspect of reality or experience.[1] Metaphorical description is necessary because most, if not all, of our common experience cannot be captured in the steel nets of literal language.[2]

          To refer to spiritual experience we must often speak metaphorically. Consider, as an example, this metaphorical description of the spiritual life from Thomas Merton: “I consider that the spiritual life is the life of man's real self, the life of that interior self whose flame is so often allowed to be smothered under the ashes of anxiety and futile concern.”[3]

          Here Merton uses three biblical metaphors:

          1) The spiritual life is that which is most real about persons.

          2) The spiritual life is something interior ("below the surface"; "deep inside"; see, e.g., Proverbs 20:5).

          3) Spirit is "energy," "fire." Thus it can be "smothered" or "quenched."

This brief metaphorical description of the spiritual life issues an invitation to consider viewing one's life through its lens.

          The biblical metaphors of spirit, while not providing exact definitions, gesture towards the life of the spirit and invite us to participate in this life. They are all grounded in a common understanding of spirituality, which is: To be "spiritual" is to be in God's presence; to be "unspiritual" is to be apart from God.[4]

          The biblical metaphors of spirit into types. Our first example is a type of volitional metaphor and is found in Psalm 46:10: "Be still, and know that I am God." To "be still" means, literally, to "cease struggling." This means that if we are to be transformed we must stop struggling and resisting God and surrender to God. Therefore, spirit is something that can either surrender to God or resist God. 

When we are surrendered to God then we are, in the best sense, “spiritual.” To be wholly surrendered to God is a way of being in the presence of God. It is in the place of non-striving that we know God. And “knowing God” is not, for the psalmist, theoretical knowledge where God is the object of knowledge, but rather experiential knowledge. Because knowing God is experiential it is transformational. To know God truly is to be changed.

          Our second metaphor of the spiritual life is a type of activity metaphor: "Rest in the Lord, O my soul." As Hebrews 6:19 says, "We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure." To be in God's presence means to cease from certain activities so our spirit, like a ship, might be anchored to God who is the dock. To be spiritual is to live securely anchored to God's Holy Spirit. Conversely, our spirit is lost when it becomes a "restless, drifting, wandering soul." This is spiritual insecurity. Therefore,  spirit is something that can be either securely anchored or drift. To be anchored to God is a way of being in God’s presence. And it is in God’s presence that we are transformed.

          Our third metaphorical description is a type of part/whole metaphor, and speaks of having an "undivided heart" or a "whole heart" (Psalm 86:11). The implication is that we cannot both be in God's presence and simultaneously attend to someone or something else. One can’t multi-task the God-relationship.

          Henri Nouwen has said that the basic question of the spiritual life is: Who do we belong to? To live out of God's presence is to be, as James 1:8 says, dipsuchos. It is to have "two psyches," or be "two-hearted." In such a condition the spirit is divided regarding its allegiance, and is said to be "fragmented." In such a state of spiritual dipsuchos the human spirit has two lovers. I have found it often happens that when we go alone to a quiet place to pray we are shown how divided our spirits are. Therefore, spirit is something that can be either whole or divided into parts. To be in God’s presence is to be whole-hearted towards God.

          Our fourth metaphor of spirit is the central biblical one of energy. "Spirit" is fire. When in God's presence there may come "tongues of flame." We can be "on fire" towards God. Nouwen often speaks of our need, therefore, to "tend the fire within." Conversely, spirit can be "quenched," or it can "burn out."[5] A colleague in ministry, speaking of his need for spiritual renewal, once said to me, "What I feel I now need in my life is a burning bush." Spirit burns, therefore we must tend it to keep it from burning out and guard it so it will not be quenched. To be in the presence of God is to have the fire burning inside one’s heart.

          Our fifth example is a type of cathartic (cleansing) metaphor: "Create in me a clean heart, O God." "Cleanse me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me and I shall be whiter than snow."[6] The implication is that we truly dwell in God's presence only with pure hearts. To have a pure heart, as Kierkegaard wrote, is "to will one thing." Conversely, our hearts can be "stained," "blemished, " and covered with "blots," thus "impure." The central biblical image of sin is "stain." Many agree that the first step to spiritual renewal always involves confession, repentance, and receiving forgiveness. Clean hands and pure hearts are necessary preconditions for loving God. Therefore, spirit is something that can be spotless or stained, clean or unclean, acceptable or unacceptable to God. If you want to ascend the hill of the Lord to stand in God’s holy presence clean hands and a pure heart are needed.[7]

          Our sixth and seventh examples are both types of dwelling metaphors. The first speaks of "remaining in" or "abiding in" Jesus: "Remain in me, and I will remain in you."[8] We can be said to dwell with Jesus if we are branches, connected to the True Vine. To be out of Jesus' influence is to become "disconnected" from the vine, possibly to attach oneself to other sources for sustenance. Therefore, spirit can attach itself to God or be detached from God. To be in the presence of God is to be attached to him and get one’s life-resources from him.

          Another dwelling metaphor speaks of God as "our fortress and strength." When we live within the walls of God's protective fortress, "what shall we fear?" Thus Nouwen asks the question, "Do you live in the house of God or the house of fear?"[9] It is in God's house that our spirits find comfort, encouragement, and strength for the journey. But when we dwell outside these protective walls and life's attacks come, fear and anxiety predominate. It is in this light that Nouwen offers his "proof" that prayer works. We know that prayer works because when we do not pray our lives are more filled with fears and anxieties.[10] Therefore, spirit has a home, and is endangered when it makes its home anything but God. To enter into the presence of God is to live in God’s fortress.

          Our last three metaphors of spiritual transformation are spatial, and indicate the "location" of spirit. The first concerns "creating a space in your heart" for God. Jesus said, "But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen" (Matt. 6:6). This "upper room" or "secret place" is a heart where Jesus is allowed to live. Our heart is allowed to be Christ's home. As an old hymn asks, "Have You Any Room for Jesus?" But our "rooms" can be "cluttered," with no space for God.  Therefore, spirit is a roomy space that can be cluttered with so many distractions that God has no opportunity to enter in. The heart has a resting place, a hiding place. Enter in, for God’s presence is there.

         A second spatial metaphor is found in the Quaker expression "to center down." In both the Old and New Testaments the heart is the "center" or "seat" of all that is unique to persons, to include the will, the passions, thought, and the religious center to which God turns.[11] We are to "love the Lord with all our heart." God, Who seeks out all things, "knows our hearts."[12] The movement of our spiritual life should be "centrifugal," proceeding from the center of our being, rather than a "centripetal" movement that begins with the surface things of life and attempts to move through them to the heart of life. Because we so easily stray from center it is no wonder we often find little meaning in our activity. Therefore, spirit concerns the central reality of persons, and determines all activity and desire. It is the source of being which, in the spiritual life, precedes doing. To live centered on God is to live in God’s presence.

          Our final metaphor of the spiritual life is also spatial, and speaks of there being "a temple within." Paul tells the Corinthians that, individually and corporately, they are temples of God's Holy Spirit.[13] Paul Tournier refers to this inner temple as "the holy sepulchre within." Tournier refers to this by asking, "What is there then within this sepulchre where all the repressed rubbish of all humanity as well as our own is rotting?"[14] One worship song says “Lord prepare me to be a sanctuary.” Another says “purify my heart.” Conversely, Jesus said we can "whitewash" this sanctuary. This would be to live a life of facade, pretense, what Merton called the "false self." Therefore, spirit is a holy place where God's Spirit dwells. To be "spiritual" is to allow God to reign in one's spirit, which is God's rightful dwelling place. To be "unspiritual" is to occupy that dwelling place with our own ego as king, while painting the outside so as to appear to be spiritual.

          There are many metaphors of spiritual transformation.[15] They figuratively define what it means to be in the presence of God, and tell us that spiritual transformation comes as we:

                   - Surrender to God.

                   - Anchor ourselves to God.

                   - Are whole-hearted towards God.

                   - Tend the fire within.

                   - Remain clean before God.

                   - Attach ourselves to God.

                   - Dwell in God's fortress.

                   - Make room in our heart for God.

                   - Center our life on God.

                   - Walk in holiness.[16]

---

[1] See Piippo, John Paul, Metaphor and Theology: A Multidisciplinary Approach. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Northwestern University, 1986. Here the nature of metaphor and its use in expressing and describing religious aspects of experience and reality is more fully explained.

[2] Much of our language is metaphorical in origin. For example, when we speak of the "leg" of the table we have forgotten that at some point somebody used the human "figure" to speak of the table's leg. Paul Ricoeur has shown in The Rule of Metaphor that "figurative language" is language which uses the human "figure" to speak of experience.

[3] Merton,

[4] See especially Gordon Fee’s commentary on 1 Corinthians. Fee says that Paul’s basic question for the Corinthian church is, “What does it mean to be “spiritual” or pneumatikos.”

[5] On spiritual "burnout" and ways to rekindle the flame, see Louis Savary and Patricia Berne, Prayerways.

[6] Psalm 51:7, 10.

[7] Psalm 24:3

[8]

[9] See Nouwen, Lifesigns; A Cry for Mercy. No one is better in articulating the emotion and spirit of fear than Henri Nouwen.

[10] See Nouwen, Gracias! A Latin American Journal, p. 44.

[11] See Geoffrey W. Bromily, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985), p. 416.

[12] Luke 16:15.

[13]

[14] Tournier, Paul,

[15] Another metaphor is: To be in God's presence one must have a "quiet heart." To be out of God's presence is to "have ears, but not really hear." When the human heart is filled with many voices and noises it is difficult to hear the single voice of God. Heart-stillness is the condition where only God's voice is attended to. "Spirit," therefore, is something that can be either quieted or chaotic.

[16] When we reverse the positive biblical metaphors of the spiritual life we see those spiritual conditions which will render prayer-as-relationship-with-God less effective. Relationship with God is blocked  when our spirits are...

                        ...noisy

                        ...restless

                        ...fragmented/divided

                        ...focused on life's peripheral issues

                        ...cluttered

                        ...white-washed

                        ...stained (by sin)

                        ...disconnected from the Vine

                        ...dwelling out God's fortress.

            ...and so on...

What I Do When the Conference is Over

 

(I am re-posting this for my conference-going friends.)

It's Thursday morning. 

The conference is over.

All the activity and worship and spiritual and mental intake...  today it is in the past. So, what now? What will I do in these post-event days? The answer is: what I am always doing. 

Which is:

1. I will Abide in Jesus today, tomorrow, and the next day. I'll be a branch connected to Jesus the Vine. "Conferences" are not what I am attached to. The same Jesus that spoke to you and me over the past few days will not stop speaking just because we're not at the conference. I have great hope and expectation... now! The God-encounter is a daily thing for me.  
2. I will Saturate myself in Scripture. God meets me in Scripture. I am more Scripture-focused than I have ever been in all my Jesus-days. I study it. I meditate on it. I ingest it and, by God's Spirit, it gets into me. I'll just keep doing this. The three-day conference has ignited new hope in me. But I do not need a conference to saturate myself in Scripture. This has become my habit. 
3. I will Listen for God's voice, speaking to me. When God speaks to me today, I'll write it down in my spiritual journal. God has so much to tell me! God is not thinking, "John's no longer participating in the big conference so I won't speak to him in his own home." My view is this. Today is the day of the Lord's activity in my life. Jesus is not the great "I was," he is not the great "I will be," he is the great "I am." Now. 
4. I will Obey when the Spirit directs. I am not God's perfect servant, as Jesus was. But I do obey God, and find it a delight. I am God's servant. Transform me, Lord, into greater obedient servanthood!

The conference is over. 

I continue doing four things. 

ABIDE
SATURATE
LISTEN
OBEY

A.S.L.O.

Thank God for inspiring conferences, the God-intent of each one being daily, inspirational, Jesus-loving, Jesus-following and life more abundantly. (John 10:10)  

The conference is over. But God is not gone. He is with me, his rod and staff, they comfort me. For me, life is all about abiding in him, being connected to him, and being where he wants me to be.

God is a good conference speaker, a very present help in trouble. And, meeting with God is free! (Except that it will cost you everything).  

Sit at God's feet today. 

Conference with God. 

Spiritually, it gets no better than that.

I Had a Religious Experience (A Few Thoughts)

Monroe, In the Country

Fifty-six years ago I had a religious experience. Someone said these words to me: "God loves you." Hearing them set off an inner revolution.

I had heard those words a bazillion times before, and they meant nothing to me, functioning at most as a kind of greeting, like "Have a nice day." I awarded them no intellectual assent. But on that day, in that moment, these three beautiful words kick-started a movement in me that has not stilled.

That was my beginning with Jesus. It was not phenomenally the same as what happened to C.S. Lewis, but qualitatively similar. Lewis wrote:

"As the dry bones shook and came together in that dreadful valley of Ezekiel's, so now a philosophical theorem, cerebrally entertained, began to stir and heave and throw off its grave cloths, and stood upright and became a living presence. I was to be allowed to play at philosophy no longer. It might, as I say, still be true that my "Spirit" differed in some way from "the God of popular religion." My Adversary waived the point. It sank into utter unimportance. He would not argue about it. He only said, "I am the Lord"; "I am that I am"; "I am." People who are naturally religious find difficulty in understanding the horror of such a revelation. Amiable agnostics will talk cheerfully about "man's search for God." To me, as I then was, they might as well have talked about the mouse's search for the cat." (From Surprised By Joy)

God found C.S. Lewis, and God found me. I was receptive. I was ready to hear that he existed, and he that loved me. 

This did not happen in a vacuum. The soil of my heart had been softening for some time. I had started to look for God. Then, it happened. What shall I make of this?

• If this event had not happened I cannot be sure I would have become a Jesus-follower. It was that important to me. I needed something palpable, tangible, experiential. I don't know if everyone needs such a thing. But I, and Lewis, did.
• The Day of Experience was not only the day God came to me, but it marked the last day of three years of constant drug and alcohol abuse. My pursuits of girls for sex came to a halt,except for one time in the first year as a Jesus-follower where I went back to Egypt and blew it. That failure hit me hard, raising deep questions about who I had become, and what God wanted for me.
• The fact that others in the world religions have religious experiences does not diminish the value of my own. I know, in my study and teaching of comparative religions, that persons in other religions claim religious experiences. I have lines of books on my shelves of comparative religion literature containing testimonies of people of other faiths. I've visited and taught in countries that are predominantly other-religious. But this does nothing to refute the experience I had and, BTW, still have, to the present day. I agree with William James who, in his Varieties of Religious Experience, writes: "A mystical experience is authoritative for the one who experiences it. But a mystical experience that happens to one person need not be authoritative for other people." I'm good with that. (With this exception: the mystical-religious experiences of certain other persons have carried authority with me because of their credibility. For example, my wife Linda has experienced many things, from God, that amaze me.)
• The initial religious experience ripped me out of non-reflective deism, weak agnosticism, and practical atheism into full-blown Christian theism. Historically, this is undoubtable. I now believed in God, and in Jesus. I changed my undergraduate major from music theory to philosophy (fortunately for me the philosophy department at Northern Illinois University was excellent!). I viewed Philosophy as the intellectual agora for addressing and discussing life's Big Questions. I now believed. This experiential belief had an evidential quality for me, and propelled me to go after an understanding of what had happened. Fifty-three years later, this has not stopped. Today I am a deeper believer in God and Jesus than ever. 
• I think true religion (not the jeans - they are way too expensive) necessarily includes experience. In my studies of world religions, experience is paramount. Hebrew-Christianity, for example, is essentially about a relationship with God, a mutual indwelling experiential reality. This includes praying-as-dialogue with God, the sense of God's presence, being-led by God, and so on. As well as worship. Worship is experiential and logical in the sense that: If God is love, and God is real, and love is about relationship (love has an "other"), then it follows that one will know and be known by God. ("Know," in Hebrew, means experiential intimacy, not Cartesian subject-object unfamiliarity.) (See Matthew Elliott, Faithful Feelings: Rethinking Emotion in the New Testament.)
• I realize certain atheists claim to have no religious experience at all. John Allen Paulos, for example, in his Irreligion, claims to not have a religious bone in his body. I don't doubt this. This fact does not rationally deter me, just as I am certain C.S. Lewis's religious experiences don't move Paulos from his atheism. (I'm now thinking of Antony Flew's recent conversion from atheism to deism. Flew was moved by the logic of the fine-tuning argument for God's existence. And the case of the famous and brilliant British atheist A.J. Ayer who had a vision and began to be interested in God.)
• I am often taken back to my initial God-encounter. It functions, for me, as a raison d-etre. Philosophically, it's one of a number of "properly basic" experiences I've had, and still have, and may quite well have tonight. See here philosophers like William P. Alston.
• Since that original encounter I've supplemented it with ongoing biblical, theological, and philosophical studies. These are important to me. For example, if I thought that Jesus did not actually exist, I would abandon Christianity. (About ten years ago a teacher at one of our local high schools told his students that Jesus did not actually exist. One of our church kids was in his class. She called me, crying. "The teacher told me that he would consider evidence to the contrary if I could come up with some and bring it to class." I told her: "Why not bring me in?" It happened. I spoke in the high school auditorium to 170 students. The word had spread, and some other teachers allowed me to make my presentation. I spoke for 90 minutes on the actual, historical existence of Jesus. That was so much fun! I had students come to me saying things like, "I saw someone on the internet claim that Jesus never existed, but now I see that their reasoning was wrong." For some stuff I've posted on this go here.)

My initial life-changing encounter with God has led to a lifetime of Jesus-following and God-knowing and seeking. I remain forever thankful that God did and continues to reveal himself to me. 

And that it's not sheerly logical and theoretical, but relational and experiential.

*****
For further reading check out I (Still) Believe: Leading Bible Scholars Share Their Stories of Faith and Scholarship, John Byron and Joel Lohr, eds. 

Linda and I are Now Reading...

 

Holier Than Thou: How God's Holiness Helps Us Trust Him

By Jackie Hill Perry

Linda recently finished Perry's recent book and loved it!

Upon Waking: 60 Daily Reflections to Discover Ourselves and the God We Were Made For 

Teaching Spiritual Formation at Payne Theological Seminary for Nine Weeks

 

Beginning July 27 and ending October 2, on Zoom, I will again teach my Spiritual Formation class to Payne Theological Seminary (A.M.E.) M.Div. students. 

Here are some photos of Payne and my former students. I love these people!