TRANSFORMERS

(Ephesians 4:22-24) that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.

In the last couple of weeks, I have had several great conversations that all led to the same place; a discussion of the way God can and does change the way we think. The Bible has a lot to say about our thoughts, and our patterns of thinking. We are told that the way a person thinks in his heart so is he. The phrase “thinks in his heart” clearly refers to more than just the thoughts that we think; it refers to habitual ways of processing thoughts coupled with an overall context in which we think. This context through which we filter all the input that comes into our lives is called a worldview.

Jesus directly linked our thoughts and our actions by clarifying for us the correlation between sinful thoughts and sinful actions. He said that thinking about adultery is committing adultery. And of course, the Bible tells us that our lives are transformed to reflect greater and greater degrees of Godliness by the renovation of our minds.

What continually amazes me though is the degree to which a genuine encounter with the presence of God not only affects what I think about, but the way I think. That, my friends, is a real miracle. I can, to a degree, change the things I think about by sheer will power. But only God can change the way I think. Only He can transform the very way I process information and the way I see life. Only revelation from God can change my perspective of things to the degree that I relate to them on a brand new level.

The other day we were out at the lake getting ready to put the sailboat in the water. We had the 27’ mast raised on a boat that sits about 6’ off the ground on a trailer, and we were driving up to the Zebra Mussel Inspection point. To get the boat inspected you drive through the inspection area and then follow the road around a little building to go back down toward the lake. Just beyond the building is a set of powerlines. It looked from where we were sitting in the car as though the mast would not make it under the wires. But from 50’ away, outside the car, it was clear that the lines were much higher than they looked. The point is that in order to see the truth of the matter, our perspective needed to change. When we interact with God, and draw nearer to Him, we begin to see elements of life from a totally new perspective–His perspective. This new perspective transforms our thinking and therefore our actions.

This process of transformation of, not only the things we think, but the way we think, that leads to new behavior has a name–it is called repentance. While we usually think of repentance in terms of sin, and certainly that is a legitimate use of the word. However, repentance describes a process where the way we think is transformed to reflect the way God thinks. That transformation leads to new, Godly, behavior.

I’ll close with one more example. When I was young, before I came to Christ, I thought that if you “loved” a girl, it was fine to have a sexual relationship with her. I could see where one-night stands were probably immoral, but if you “loved” someone, why not sleep together? All the commandments and morality lessons in the world couldn’t shake that belief. Even after I became a Christian, and mentally assented to the fact that the Bible said sex was reserved for marriage, I could obey the commandment, but I didn’t understand it, I couldn’t live it from my own heart-conviction.

Then one day it hit me. I had completely misunderstood what the word love meant. I thought love was an emotion that I felt, any sense of endearment and passion for this other person. When I realized that loving someone means that you are willing to lay down your life for the other person’s highest good, it all became clear. If indeed sex outside of marriage is sin, which I accepted that it was since the Scripture says so, and if sin hinders a person’s relationship with God and produces death in their lives, which the Bible says it does, how could I be loving someone and drawing them into sin? No way, not possible. Once my perspective of love changed, then my behavior toward those that I loved changed.

This particular revelation influenced many areas of my life. How could I continue to go to the bars, or drink socially if I might be causing my brothers and sisters to stumble? The Bible didn’t say I couldn’t drink, but if drinking meant so much to me that I was willing to do it at the risk of hurting other people, maybe I needed to think about how much of a hold alcohol really had on me.

What about criticism, anger, cynical thinking? How could I have negative conversations about people, expect the worst from life, hold grudges and still pray with a clean heart – wouldn’t work. Love said pray, so I had to give up the negativity. I could go on and on. One revelation of God’s character will change the way you think, and many of your actions will change in turn. So, the key to Godliness is repentance, and the key to repentance is seeking God’s face. As we see Him as He really is, we are transformed. Be a transformer – seek His face.

WEDNESDAY NIGHT BIBLE STUDY STARTING AGAIN

I am excited about our midweek Bible study starting up again tonight. We took a break for several months while we prayed about what God wanted to do with it. Karen and I both felt that we still need to have a mid-week study, but we were not sure about the format of it. Starting tonight, and for the rest of the summer, we will be meeting outdoors for a shorter study and plenty of fellowship. We will also have some evenings of worship around the camp fire later in the summer.

We have found over the years that summers in Gunnison are a perfect time for building strong friendships that serve to keep our lives strong through good times and bad. We have seen countless examples of Christian people that do not value connecting with other members of the body of Christ, and in most cases, they feel that they simply don't need those relationships. They feel fine, until a storm strikes their life. At that point they have no one to help them through, or hold them accountable, or encourage them with the Word of God.

There are just no two ways about it, God intends for all of us to be joined to some other believers in our lives and to serve other people with the gifts that He has placed in us. Disconnected people are vulnerable to attack, and often fall where they could have stood strong. So, we need to be intentional about building and maintaining genuine Christian friendships. Believe it or not, as unspiritual as it may sound, coming out consistently on Wednesday nights, studying the Scripture for a while, then walking, or fishing, or roasting a marshmallow with a friend or two, might be one of the most powerful decisions you ever make.

For weekly information on the location of our mid-week Bible Study, please see the summerlife blog link to the left.

LIGHTING IS EVERYTHING!

The first point in the Westminster Shorter Catechism reads: “What is the chief end of man? The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I am not much of a catechism guy. That’s because the word catechism in my life meant you had to get dressed up on a perfectly good Saturday morning, go into town, sit in a hot old building, and listen to the nuns teaching things you didn’t understand or care about. It turns out that the word catechism is a Greek word that basically describes a question and answer format for learning Biblical truths. A question is asked, an answer is given; another question that builds upon the lesson of the first question is asked, another answer given and so on. Huh. Not so bad after all – who knew.

Anyway, I love the first idea that is brought out in the Westminster Catechism. “The chief end of man, meaning the primary reason for which we were created, is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Let me ask you a question, what kind of picture comes into your heart when you think about glorifying God? Most of us will think of things like obedience, devotion, or maybe good behavior. While these are all good things, I think they miss the real heart of the matter. We need to get these two ideas inseparably united in our thinking–glorifying God, and enjoying Him forever. It doesn’t say just obeying Him although obeying Him is a wonderful and powerful thing. It doesn’t say just enjoying ourselves, or enjoying church, or enjoying worship, or the Bible. Again, all wonderful things, but it says enjoying HIM. That is pretty personal and relational. Glorifying God and enjoying God go hand in hand.

Here is another idea that I have been pondering lately. The primary driving force of the Christian life is not performing for God, but communing with God. I know a lot of Christians that think of “glorifying” God only in terms of performance. If I do all the right things, I glorify God, and God is happy with me. OK, well, one problem with that is that none of us can do all the right things. So given that definition of glorifying God, every time we fail we would “unglorify” Him wouldn’t we? If the chief creational purpose for man is to glorify God, there must be some way for us to do that consistently, don’t you think?

The key is that the word “glory” means the revealed essence of a thing. In other words, something, or someone’s essential core nature put on display is its glory. The Bible says that there are all kinds of glory. Created things have a certain glory while divine things have another. The mountains around Gunnison are glorious in their own way. They emanate a sense of power and stability that makes us stop and look on in wonder from time to time. There is something about that natural glory that points the human heart to the Creator. That’s because there is some degree of the glory of God in evidence there in those big piles of granite.

God’s glory is His essential nature–the core things that make God, God. His eternal life, His power, His wisdom, His Love, His kindness, His justice are all aspects of His essential nature. We believers glorify God when those attributes flow through us and become visible to people through our words and actions. But, if those attributes are coming through us only because we are duplicating them to the best of our ability, and in our own ability, it is not the glory of God that is seen but the glory of our religious works. On the other hand, if we are communing with God, and we come away with a part of Him shining through us, then it is God who is really being glorified. Let me try to give an example here.

Now, I am not any kind of artist, nor am I an art fan. In fact, there is a lot of “art” that I just don’t get at all. If you have to stand back and look at it, and 12 people can give 12 opinions about what it is supposed to be, count me out. I’m just way too literal for that. But on a couple of rare occasions, Karen has dragged, er, invited me to join her in an art gallery in Durango. We walked through and looked at all the pretty pictures and freaked at the price tags. But one thing I do find so fascinating is the way a painting, when properly lit, can look like the colors are glowing from inside it. I love that! Of course I don’t care so much about the piece, or about what goofy statement the artist might have been trying to make, but I am fascinated by the fact that someone can have that picture inside them, and then know how to put it out there on the canvas in such a way that it can look like that.

But if you take that piece out, and put it in your home without the proper lighting, it may look very drab in comparison to what you saw in the gallery. Besides that, you will probably be in debt for years because of what you paid for the thing, but that’s a different subject. My point is that it is only when we Christians spend time in the light of God’s presence that His glory can be seen shining out of us like the rich colors in those paintings. It is that time communing with Him that orients our lives toward Him, ignites the God-given dreams in our hearts, and stirs up His gifts in us. It is His presence that transforms our heart attitudes so that our actions put Him on display without our forcing it to happen. It is His light that is then reflected in genuine living color to the world.

Actually, when His life is impacting us, everything we see looks different too. We see possibilities and opportunities where others only see challenges. We see hope where others find only discouragement. That is because the light of His presence brings out the life-colors that He built into this natural life that we live day to day. So I encourage you to develop a consistent time of communing with the lord. Let Him breath His life into you, glorify Him, and enjoy Him Forever.