:: in.a.mirror.dimly ::

We continue to look at how Christians can stop sinning. Previously we identified persistent sin as a problem and then talked about the information we need and the desires that drive us. Today we’ll talk about the spiritual battle of sin.

If that sounds a little far out or unnecessary to you, then you really need to keep reading and give this some thought and prayer…

Solving The Enforcement Problem with Sin

So, if you’re following me now and you have your facts and desires straight, perhaps you still feel like sin has you under its dark, smudgy thumb. I’m with you on that. It’s nice that God wants you to be free and that God is able to offer us greater intimacy and joy than anything we can find here on earth, but don’t you wish it was easier to wipe the power and effects of sin from our lives?

He’s given us everything we need for godly living and we love him deeply, but somehow we still can’t connect our facts and desires with reality. Sin is a tricky little bugger.

This is where we need to get spiritual. We are in a spiritual struggle with evil spirits that want to wreck us, as in that guy prowling like a roaring lion seeking to devour us. Peter knew a thing or two about that when Jesus warned him that Satan wanted to tear him apart. There are spiritual forces in this world who desire to control us, who want nothing more than to become idols who receive worship and loyalty.

Now, in moving forward we can make two mistakes. One is the intellectual mistake of ignoring this spiritual warfare business because we once saw a preacher on the television wearing a snappy suit who hit a lady over the head with her crutch to heal her.

I’m from the intellectual tribe, and I’ve been in churches where I’ve had to dodge flailing plastic swords and waving flags while people shook and wept—stuff that has left me suspicious of this spiritual warfare business at times. However, whether we encounter the fraudulent or the odd, the scriptures make it abundantly clear that we are engaged in spiritual warfare that requires God’s spiritual resources if we want to win.

You do want to live a holy life in intimacy with God, don’t you?

The other extreme leaves the intellectual behind and moves more according to emotion, feelings, and finds spiritual significance in things like rocks, a word from God, and, if you’re really a lost cause, toast. That isn’t to say that God can’t speak through prophetic words or through unusual means. A charismatic friend of mine once said that God used a donkey to speak his message and he’s been using asses ever since.

Speaking of which, God has even used to share specific messages with folks.

However, we can lose our grip when delving into the spiritual. Some have clung to a supposed “word from God,” that only ruined their lives completely. We have scripture and fellow believers to keep us grounded, and while we should fight sin by spiritual means, we should not forget the teachings of scripture and the church when we engage in these spiritual struggles.

And so, keeping these extremes in mind, we can engage in the enforcement of God’s will and power with the sin that plagues us. Christ has broken the power of sin with his Resurrection, and so we have his power at our disposal because the Spirit is in our lives. So, for starters, we can claim the power of the cross and Resurrection. And even more than that, we are free from the dragging influence of sin when seeking out God. And this is where we will find the victory over sin.

We don’t defeat sin by fighting it ourselves. We defeat sin by letting God defeat it as we cling to him. Sin cannot touch us when we our heavenly father is residing in our bodies, his new temple. Therefore, the trick to living in holiness is to seek God with stubborn tenacity whether or not we feel like it.

We have the information at hand: he loves us and desires that all people should know him. There are no caveats, no loop holes that exclude you or me. And therefore, we are welcome into his presence because of his Son’s work and the Spirit’s ongoing influence.

As we enjoy intimacy with God, we can ask him to expose sin for what it is. In other words, as I’ve prayed about my own struggles with lust and anxiety, they have been revealed as spirits of adultery and fear. Claiming the biblical truth of Christ’s victory as my own, I told the spirit of fear and the spirit of adultery to leave.

While they pester me from time to time, in the years that followed those decisive moments of revelation I have experienced new-found freedom from these sins that nagged me for years because I’m entrusting the spiritual battle against sin with God. My time with God that resulted in renewed spiritual insight into my sin struggles brought about a decisive breaking of sin’s hold in my life.

Now we know the facts about holiness and sin, the emotional end of things, and the way we fight sin, but must sin always be an ongoing struggle? Can’t we move beyond this daily fight against sin? I’d suggest that we can, and that’s what we’ll discuss tomorrow…

Yesterday I began a new series addressing common problems that Christians face. I’m beginning my survival guide series with a series of posts address the problem of not being able to stop sinning. My last post framed the discussion, and today we’ll take our first step toward overcoming the problem of pervasive sin.

Let’s have a look…

Sin and the Information Problem

Sin can be credited in part, but not as a whole, to an information problem. If sinless perfection rested on knowing the right stuff, then we could all get seminary degrees and be set. Having passed through seminary myself and knowing many others who have, I can assure you that seminary is not the silver bullet required for sin. However, it is good to orient and resource ourselves with the facts of our situation.

God is not a kill-joy handing down a list of restricted activities like some kind of micro-managing boss who wants nothing more than to control the minutiae of our lives. He’s not sitting up in heaven laughing at those silly Christians who are missing out on all of the fun to be had with unrestrained sexual exploits, excessive drinking, and raging anger. We may be a bit naïve and silly at times, perhaps we’re even suckers, but we’re not suckers because we miss out on catching venereal disease, vomiting on someone’s front lawn after a binge, or punching through sheetrock.

God declared creation good and then part of his creation became greedy and obsessed with its own glory. Our ancestors allowed their evil desires to rule them and these desires took shape as sin.

We have followed in their footsteps ever since. We are tempted by evil desires, we give in to them, and we sin.

The information we need concerns the nature of sin, temptation, and our evil desires. These are not the norm for God’s good creation. And more than that, God has done something about them. When dreaming up a sin solution, we tend to think in terms of the nuclear option that blasts sin out of our world once and for all, burning every bit of sin from each person. God doesn’t work like a nuclear weapon, and like petulant teenagers who can’t go to the dance, we resent him for it.

If you’re an American like me who operates on a grand, industrial scale, you’re probably disturbed by God’s “uncaring” way of dealing with sin in an “inefficient” way.

The metaphors have changed over time, an invasion, a virus, a rebellion, but the core information we need remains the same. We need to know that God has not made his world to be ruled by evil desires, openly indulging in the destructive, self-serving powers of sin.

We need to see things for what they are: we are beings shaped in the divine image of God who were made to live in loving relationship with our creator and our fellow beings. When we resist this calling, we fall away from the good world that God intended for us. Sin turns us into hideous creatures who are alienated from God and others.

Far from being free to do as we like, sin becomes a cruel master that will rule our lives, alienate us from God, and prevent us from the true joy of our calling. We find moments of pleasure by indulging in sin, but part of our problem is a lack of information.

Letting sin have its way cripples us in ways that have long-term consequences we cannot even imagine. We have been made in the image of God to perform good works, to enjoy a saving relationship with him through the work of Jesus and the Spirit, and to testify to that love by word and deed.

The scriptures tell us that sin is not the norm, and that God has in fact given us everything we need to live godly lives. Christ has born sin on his body while on the cross, defeated it by rising from the dead, and imparted his life-giving power through the Holy Spirit.

Sin is a defeated foe. We don’t have to submit to it. In fact, we can live with God in such a way that sin becomes the furthest thing from our minds since we’re consumed with the love of God. Who would knowingly seek out a cruel, evil witch/warlock when the most beautiful and kind woman/man in the world desires to be with you?

Our problems with require more than an information fix, and that’s what we’ll address next…

A New Series…

You know how most Christians tend to have the same problems and many of them sort of persist?

They’re the elephants in the room when we get together. Even if we don’t struggle with particular sins or Christian disciplines, we may counsel plenty of friends who have these struggles.

A few months back I decided to write up a kind of survival guide for overcoming these common threats to our Christian walks. These sins, doubts, fears, and short-comings can nibble away out our faith and keep us from intimacy with God, following Jesus daily, and completing the mission he has given us here on earth to proclaim his Kingdom.

The solutions are there. God’s power is available for us. So it’s time to challenge our doubts, short-comings, and fears. It’s time to lay hold of his power for us and to embrace the fullness of life Jesus promised us.

Let’s begin…

Part of One of “You Can’t Stop Sinning”

You know that guy at work who rarely does his job. He mocks you and the other peons who slave away while he plays games on his computer and shuffles papers, somehow convincing your boss that he’s a valuable asset. And so you get together with your colleagues while the coffee is brewing and talk about that sniveling, lazy jerk and his long, crooked nose.

Talk is too sedate a word for it. You slam him. You roast him alive like a fat pig. You make him the butt of your jokes and the target of your slander. He’s the worst kind of person and you always feel better about yourself whenever you’re done tearing into him.

And yet, you know deep down that a Christian shouldn’t mock this man’s character, lacking though it may be. And perhaps you shouldn’t make fun of the way he eats his hard-boiled eggs, the way he slurps his coffee, or the way he shoves his wispy black hair away from his forehead with a brush of his hand. No, the Christian way is to love this man rather than insulting him behind his back.

The tongue being a restless evil aside, you still think he kind of deserves it. It’s just words after all. Really, you haven’t done anything all that terrible. And as you hide behind justifications, you arrive at the real truth of the matter. You don’t want to stop slandering him. In fact, you can’t stop. It’s natural, easy, and feels good, as if you can undo his grievances against you by the power of your words.

But perhaps you haven’t struggled with words. Perhaps your struggle is with lusting after a neighbor along your block. He or she often walks past your house in the evening, and you find yourself thinking about this person in very inappropriate ways. It may be the scent of his cologne that lingers or that titillating blouse she wears that sparks your imagination and leaves you burning.

While you’re alone at home he sneaks into your thoughts with a seductive look or when you’re driving home from work your heart beats a little faster at the thought of seeing her today. This infatuation is both terrifying and wonderful, fulfilling some deep-seated desires that crave to be fulfilled even if they seem endless in their demands. You can’t help but give in to them because you’re not really hurting anyone, and worse than that, you don’t feel like you can resist them. The urges are too strong, your will too weak, and those exciting moments of surrender to lust are too exciting.

In either scenario, sin has taken hold and become a master of sorts. It isn’t that slander and lust are harmless sources of fun and fulfillment that God doesn’t want you to have. It’s that you’re actually enslaved to them, letting them control you, shape you into a different sort of person, and keeping you from the good things God has planned for you. When sin becomes an irresistible force that we cannot fight, we have a tremendous problem that must be addressed without delay.

The next post in this series will deal with sin and our information problem…

Readers are attracted to writers who can tell a good story. I mean, who isn’t?  Personal stories are the very life-blood of blogs, with the best story tellers rising to the top with their tales of raising children, suffering impossible colleagues, and overcoming struggles.

For many Christian writers, their blogs are places to share what they are learning, how they have seen God at work, and what they believe. From blogs to books on Christian living to spiritual memoirs, the personal angle is important with Christianity because our faith is based on the incarnation of Jesus and the Spirit-empowered embodiment of his life among us.

If we aren’t living the truth, then the game is over for Christianity.

The Pitfalls of Personal Stories

Unfortunately, personal stories of faith can lead to the drawback of becoming too, well, personal. While we may aim to share how God is working in our lives, our stories can turn into trite little triumphs of our cleverness or insight.

I often feel this tension when sharing anything personal.  I don’t want to slip into a celebration of my perceived virtues.

Personal stories also fall short when we use excessive private details to draw in readers who are curious to learn more about our lives. In other words, we can encourage voyeurism, rather than sharing what God is doing in us. The former prompts readers to desire information about us, and the latter prompts readers to desire what God is up to, with our lives as more of side detail.

Perhaps we can ask ourselves, “Are readers walking away from this piece impressed with me or with what God is doing?”

The Benefits of Personal Stories

Besides keeping us focused on living the truth we profess, personal stories serve an important role as written testimonies that can encourage fellow readers. In fact, as a seminary student who has posted his fair share of abstract and generally useless posts on theology, philosophy, and Christianity, I think personal stories are more important than ever.

As we pray, study scripture, and live out of God’s empowering Spirit, we should have stories to share. That’s part of the fun of being a Christian—God works and we get to share that with others as witnesses. Do a search of the word “witnesses” in the book of Acts sometime. It’s startling to see how often that comes up.

We are witnesses, which is another way to say, we share personal stories of our faith. That’s how this is supposed to work.

When We Don’t Have Stories to Tell

Lately I was in the midst of a dry spell where I could hardly sit still to pray or read scripture for about a week or two. It was tough. I tried, but I couldn’t focus. If I had any stories to tell, they were in the past tense.

Finally, one morning I put off everything else I planned to do, and kneeled down to pray. In a rush God broke through, teaching me that I’d been too driven by lists and schedules, and that these means of organizing my career had taken over my spiritual life.

If you’re at a place where Christianity isn’t all that exciting or you don’t feel like you have anything to share, I encourage you to stop, relax a bit, and sit before God. Don’t expect anything. Just worship him for who he is, accept that he loves you, and ask him, “Now what?”

I can’t guarantee anything about what will happen next, but we were created to live in relationship with him. He will meet with us if we seek him. And when he meets with us, stories will soon follow.

During my senior seminar in biblical studies I gave a presentation on Matthew 12, and addressed the sin known as blaspheming the Holy Spirit. I had a pretty good guess at what it meant, but I wasn’t certain.

I explained the passage based on my best understanding of the context and the commentaries, and almost everyone seemed satisfied except for one student. She sat in the back row and kept saying that I hadn’t said enough, that I wasn’t clear, or that I hadn’t interpreted the passage correctly.

I can’t remember the exact substance of her comments, but no matter what I said in reply, it wasn’t good enough. She kept pressing her point, and I started to feel attacked. Standing in front of my peers, I’d taken a solid whack at a difficult passage that didn’t have a scholarly consensus.

Give it a rest!

Though I was pretty confident in my answers to her questions, digging in to slug it out wouldn’t do either of us much good. Instead, I briefly explained the interpretive options one last time, summed up why I liked one of them best, and sat down.

After class a friend said she appreciated my approach to this passage. I didn’t belittle other perspectives. I didn’t attack the other student who challenged me. My friend said she now had a clear idea of what the passage could mean and that I’d helped her sort through it all by sharing everything I’d learned.

That conversation was a life-changing moment. Truth-be-told, I was quite flustered after the presentation. However, my friend taught me that having the right information wasn’t enough. I needed to remain humble, offering what I’d learned to others without becoming combative. By backing down instead of defending myself as the know-it-all authority, I’d created an environment where others could learn and think for themselves.

A writing ministry should aim to address the main concerns of readers and to raise awareness of important topics that may not be noticed, but the tone and attitude of a writer can make all of the difference in the world when it comes to ministering to others.

If we want to bring insight and clarity, humility and cooperation will serve us well in our writing ministries.

Next week I’ll look at writing as a ministry. Many Christians have blogs where they hope to share their own stories of faith, reflections on scripture, and responses to current events.

However, in my opinion, writing about Christianity does not automatically qualify as a ministry. What are the marks of writing that is also a ministry?

Starting on Monday, I’ll examine some pitfalls in writing, especially online writing, as a ministry, and then move on to some goals worth pursuing. I hope to provide some warning signs against common writing pitfalls and encouragement to continue writing material that is encouraging and beneficial for fellow believers.

In fact, if we are not bringing benefits to others, then we need to think about why we are writing and what we are writing. See you on Monday!

And if you’re interested in learning a little more about the publishing end of writing, I have published the first three chapters of my book, A Path to Publishing: What I Learned by Publishing a Nonfiction Book, at the Scribd web site. You can also find other chapters and resources at www.pathtopublishing.com.

While I believe that the Holy Spirit should be quite noticeable and active in the lives of Christians today, the role of the Holy Spirit in our salvation is something that we may not notice at first. I know I can’t say why exactly I believed the words of scripture and began to follow Jesus in the first place.

However, in retrospect, I can see that somehow God’s Spirit was at work, guiding me to him. When I look back at the times I took significant steps forward, I can hardly take any credit because the Holy Spirit taught me something or brought a particular healing to my life.

If we are saved by God’s grace, and we are dependent on him to one degree or another (no Calvinist/Arminian debates please), then at rock bottom we can agree that the Holy Spirit must be integrally involved in the process. The Holy Spirit is how God imparts life to us (see John 3:3,6; 6:63).

In addition, when we speak of Jesus as Lord, we can be confident that this is only possible because of the Holy Spirit (see Matthew 22:43). Any devotion we may feel toward God is the work of the Holy Spirit who is given generously to all who repent (see Acts 2:38).

When we speak of being saved, or brought into God’s family by the Holy Spirit, we can trust that the means by which we have entered will continue to be the means by which we continue. If we couldn’t come to God without the work of the Holy Spirit in the first place, what makes us think we can add anything to our relationship with him now?

In continuing to grow as believers, we continue to rely on the Spirit who brought salvation to us and enabled us to become God’s children. Next week we’ll discuss some of the ways we continue to follow the Spirit in our lives as disciples of Jesus.

As I look at where I’ve come from as an evangelical Christian the vast majority of evangelicals I read and interact with, I’ve been realizing that I generally lack a functional vocabulary of the Holy Spirit.

While I’m very much aware of the Holy Spirit’s presence, and I mention the Spirit at times, I lack the tools to speak of the Spirit’s work with other evangelicals. I’ve seen this among many colleagues online as well.

In a blog post I once critiqued one well-known speaker and author among the missional gang of Christians for his dearth of references to the Holy Spirit. A friend who knew this author shared that he knew from personal interaction with this man that he was fully committed to relying on the Holy Spirit for Christian mission.

However, we would never know this from his writings.

From blogs to sermons to books, in my travels and readings I repeatedly run into Christians who merely assume the Holy Spirit’s work or take his/her/its presence for granted. The teachings generally end with some kind of call to action, Do this. Period

If we challenge such teachers, even if I challenged myself sometimes, the reply would be something like, “Well of course the Holy Spirit is in the mix.” Somewhere. We don’t quite know how to verbally express how the Holy Spirit empowers us to holy living and generally makes the whole salvation, Christianity thing possible.

There are a few reasons for this verbal disconnect. In examining my own struggles with speaking of the Spirit there are reasons that range from the evangelical fear of sounding too “Pentecostal” and a failure to seek out the Spirit’s influence in our daily lives. I’ll touch on these reasons tomorrow.

After participating in a variety of church meetings over the years, I wanted to share a little theory I’ve been working on based on some experiences, some ongoing thoughts, and some conversations. I don’t want this to devolve into whining or castigating everyone who doesn’t meet whatever my standard may be.

I’d like to offer these thoughts as four goals for every church, not as judgments of what we are or are not doing. These are things that are worth pursuing. I’d like to know what you think of this and whether it may help us sharpen our focus as we gather together.

I think if a church can do these four things, then it’s on track with the Kingdom of God and the general trajectory of scripture:

Worship

Worship is the one thing that we know churches should do. Sometimes our worship veers a little too much toward our own experiences of God, but it is important for Christians gathered together to worship God first and foremost. Jesus is the head of the church, and therefore we enter his presence with the praise and thanks that he is due. Worship can take place in music, spoken word, prayer, or other acts in community.

Fellowship

Whether fellowship with God and fellowship with one another, churches should be drawing near to God and in the process of meeting God they will find their unity with one another. Not every church that worships God authentically moves into fellowship with God, but it is often the aim of most churches to both worship and to meet with God when they gather.

Transformation

While it’s wonderful to have fellowship with God and one another, meeting God should push us toward the next step of allowing God to transform our lives, to free us from sin, and to empower us to live holy lives. Fellow believers have the important role of building one another up and making sure that we leave our gatherings with greater freedom and in deeper commitment to God.

Service

When we meet our God who transforms and empowers us, the next logical step is to join him in his work among others. This could include serving fellow believers, but should not be limited to that. The church that meets God and experiences his healing power needs to be willing to share it with others. If that’s not happening, then we need to ask why.

Final Thoughts

I think most churches try to do at least two or three of these things well, but all four are necessary for our communities to become outposts for God’s Kingdom. When we talk about why we gather together as Christian communities, I think these are the four categories that should drive our prayers, thoughts, and plans.

Each piece flows from the other. If we’re missing one piece of this, we aren’t fully embodying the Kingdom of God in our churches.

Continuing my meditations on the book of Romans…

At the end of this epistle Paul gives a fascinating role call of his friends and partners in ministry who supported him financially and spiritually. There are accounts of financial gifts, friends who risked their lives for each other, those who worked hard, and those who shared their homes. Many suffered for Christ in prison or through material loss.

In this microcosm of the early church we see models of Christian discipleship at work, the practical unity of the church in daily life, and the costs of following Christ. Whatever the problems addressed in this epistle, we can see that God’s Spirit prompted many to live extraordinary lives as disciples.

As a final word, Paul warned them about those who cause divisions or diverge from apostolic teaching. The divisive and incorrect are serving their own agendas for their own glory. Paul knows the Romans are on the right track, but desires to keep them pure and innocent.

There is a stark contrast that we should notice between those honored by Paul and those who serve themselves. Paul notes those who have risked their money, reputation, and safety for the sake of the Gospel and for fellow believers.

Even so, God will soon crush Satan as they struggle through hard times. They are reminded that Paul and his many friends stand united with them in both suffering and in the power of God.

Paul ends with a massive theological statement that essentially sums up God saving and sanctifying power and plan. In God’s wisdom the Jews and Gentiles have been saved in Christ according to God’s plan that was hidden and mysterious for many generations. This plan that was first mentioned by the prophets has now been fully revealed in Christ.