Category: Spiritual Formation (Page 2 of 3)

Our Deepest Fear

I want to share with you a passage from Marianne Williamson’s A Return to Love. Barry Thomas sent this to me immediately following Sunday’s sermon about God’s covenant of presence and partnership with his people. I hope you find this as inspiring as I do.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, “Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?” Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God!

Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us – it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

The basic truth about you is that you are created by God in the divine image of God. Don’t ever lose that foundational fact about you. Sin distorts that fact, the devil twists that truth. Sin corrupts it and contradicts it. But it does not change you into anyone other than who God created you to be. You are a beloved child of God, created and saved and called by him to reflect his glory.

Peace,

Allan

Transformed on Mission

When we decide to get involved with what God is doing and the ways God is doing it, he changes us. Our Lord transforms us when we personally engage the mission.

“…to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the Body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” ~Ephesians 4:12-14

Being changed by God into the image of Jesus with ever-increasing glory is a result of increasingly doing for others. Sacrificing and serving others. Philippians 2 says we should pursue the mind of Christ or the attitude of Christ, and ties it directly to considering the needs of others more important than our own. This is Jesus! He said it: “I did not come to be served, but to serve and to give my life.” That’s the mission. And when you engage, you’ll be changed.

Actually doing ministry, having a mission – not just talking about it, studying it, or agreeing it’s good – changes you. The fastest way to get out of your spiritual rut is to dive head-first into our Lord’s mission.

New experiences challenge our beliefs and assumptions. Ministry, when you’re in over your head, forces you to face your fears and it surprises you with resources and strength from God you didn’t know you had. Hearing the stories first-hand, seeing the places, and meeting the people makes the needs and the opportunities more real. The Scriptures become more alive when you connect them to real ministry. Being on mission pushes us out of our comfort zones and into the places where God is really changing the world. And it’ll change you.

To empty yourself for the mission of Christ like that feels good. You know it feels good to serve others because you’ve done it. And the reason it feels so good is because it’s our God-created and God-ordained purpose. He made us to serve others. And when we do that, we are becoming like Christ. That’s why it’s so powerful. When we serve others, we live better, we worship better, we pray better, we love better – everything’s better. It changes you.

“As each part does its work, we will in all things grow up into Christ.” ~Ephesians 4:16

Peace,

Allan

Christian Practices

A word to our Golf Course Road congregation here in Midland as we commit to more of the ancient traditions like dwelling in the word, lectio divina, praying Scripture, borrowed prayers, imaginative reading, and memorizing and reciting the Bible. These spiritual disciplines give us a variety of tried and true ways to engage our God through Word and Prayer. These are the well-worn paths to experiencing Scripture and prayer with all our senses, not just our brains and intellect. I’m excited for us to read and pray together with our hearts and emotions, too.

As we get into this, be aware that a lot of people who talk and write about spirituality and being spiritual do so in terms of silence and solitude. That’s the focus, the general theme that runs through all of it. Some people who talk about Christian practices and write about spiritual disciplines seem to value silence and solitude above all other practices. They value silence over sound. They value solitude over community. They prioritize the authority of tradition over the challenge of freedom and prize predictability and rule over spontaneity and experiments.

I would suggest a balance.

I would invite you to try all of it, to experiment with a variety of ancient Christian practices and new Christian ways of paying attention to what God is doing in your life. You don’t have to be an expert in any of them or in all of them. I would only suggest that we value all of these practices and explore them together as important places where God is at work.

Peace,

Allan

Formed in Community

I was looking through my closet this week for a 56-year-old piece of paper I want to read to our church this Sunday when I came across the first Bible I ever owned. My parents gave it to me on my sixth birthday, almost fifty years ago. This is the Bible I had when I was a kid growing up in the Pleasant Grove Church of Christ in Dallas. I wrote a lot of notes in the margins of this Bible. Back then it was two Bible classes and three sermons per week – no children’s worship. We sat through all of it. And I looked up every Scripture and I wrote a lot of notes. You can read the notes in my Bible and tell how I was raised.

Next to Psalm 51 I wrote, “This is not original sin.” In a couple of places that describe the musical instruments in the tabernacle and the temple I wrote, “Doesn’t mean we can use them now.” Every single page of the New Testament in this Bible is highlighted, marked up, or underlined. There are also lots of handwritten notes.

“When we work God’s plan, God’s plan will work.”
“You can’t kill time without injuring eternity.”
“You can’t die in Christ unless you live in Christ.”
“A fellow wrapped up in himself makes a very small package.”

There’s a picture of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet and I’ve circled the Lord’s long blondeĀ  hair. On the other side of the page is a picture of Jesus standing before Pilate. I’ve circled his long hair there, too, and written, “I Cor. 11:14 – God wouldn’t go against his own writings so Jesus must have had short hair.”

I don’t make fun of the notes in my first Bible. I’m not ashamed of them. Everything in this first Bible reminds me of growing up in that Pleasant Grove church and brings to mind really happy memories for me. This Bible reminds me that I was raised by people who loved me and taught me and cared about me and passed the Christian faith on to me.

This excellent reproduction of a Joe Malone sermon illustration, drawn when I was fourteen, reminds me of the sayings he would repeat on rotation at least every four or five sermons. Little ditties like, “Let one drop the sidewalk smirch, and it’s too wet to go to church.” I also remember the good-natured teasing he gave me when I wore that arrowhead necklace from Avon when I was eleven or twelve. I remember bugging him in his office during those summer days while my mom was working as the church secretary. I don’t remember him ever being annoyed.

I wrote, “Mike made me mess up” next to a really crooked underlining. That reminds me of my friend Mike Cunningham. His dad, Chuck. They hosted our youth devos. I traded a magic kit to Mike for his ELO “Time” album in 1981.

I remember Aaron Welch. He’s the guy who picked people to pass the Lord’s Supper trays. He always did it the same way. He’d come up to you before church started and say, “Old man, you wanna help us with the Lord’s Supper?” It didn’t matter that I was twelve. He thought it was funny to call Todd and Mike and me old men.

Jim Martin was one of our regular song leaders and I can still see him leading “Trust and Obey” as I walked down the aisle to be baptized when I was eleven. His middle finger was always oddly set a little lower than the rest of his hand.

Tillie Prosser was a high school music teacher who taught us boys how to lead singing in an upstairs classroom at 5:00 on Sunday afternoons. Her favorite song was “He Keeps Me Singing” and we all led it together at the start of every class. When we sing it today, I still hear Sister Prosser’s voice, counting the beats, reminding us to hold it out, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, sweetest name I know, two, three, four.”

Kayla Casebolt was the Sunday School teacher who had a giant sandbox in her room where she used little plastic people and animals to tell the stories.

Van and Laura Simpson drove us to youth rallies and Summer Youth Series.

Glen Burroughs taught our high school class and taught me how to drive a stick.

The first time I ever led a prayer during Sunday night church I had to stand on my tiptoes to reach the microphone. It was the closing prayer and I was extremely nervous. I must have been eleven or twelve. I couldn’t see anything over the massive podium. When it was over, Johnny Cobbler approached me in the long hallway from the worship center to the south parking lot doors. Johnny Cobbler was one of the cool teenagers. He had a car and I perceived him to be the alpha leader of the youth group. I was both obsessed with him and frightened of him. He laughed at me and said, “Did you lead the closing prayer? Somebody said you led the prayer, but I couldn’t see anybody up there!” And then he shook my hand and said, “It was a good prayer.” There must have been four dozen people who told me I led a good prayer that night. But I remember Johnny Cobbler.

I remember one Sunday night during my senior year of high school when I accidentally wore a Huey Lewis and the News t-shirt to serve the Lord’s Supper to the reprobates who had been providentially hindered that morning. One of the elders, Kenneth Lybrand, told me after church that it wasn’t right. I shouldn’t wear a shirt like that to serve the Lord’s Table. And I remember Elaine Titus overhearing Brother Lybrand and telling me a few minutes later that it was fine. She told me she could tell I was up there to serve the Lord and it didn’t matter what I was wearing. That meant so much to me. I also remember that Brother Lybrand is the one who gave my parents the money to adopt my little sister Sharon. I can’t tell you how much that means to me.

That church raised me. Those people shaped me. A lot of my ideas about God and Christ, a lot of my understandings about salvation and love, a lot of what I believe and some of what I push back against goes back to the Pleasant Grove Church of Christ. A lot of who I am in Christ today goes back to that community of faith at P-Grove that raised me and shaped me in Jesus.

You’ve got a lot of little kids in your church. I know you do. Lots of boys and girls between the ages of five and fifteen who will never forget the things you say to them. The attention you pay to them. The way you make them feel. The time you went out of your way to assure them they are an important part of your church family. Or those other times. Those other things you said.

They’re all paying attention this Sunday. And they remember.

Peace,

Allan

Far Easier

“The almost impossibly hard thing is to hand over your whole self to Christ.
But it is far easier than what we are all trying to do instead.”

~C.S. Lewis

Taking Hold

“I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.” ~Philippians 3:12

The holy Son of God came to this earth and put on your flesh and blood. He put on your humanity and he took on your sins. He became your sin for you. He lived here just like you so he could suffer and die for you. He gave up everything to save you and reconcile you back to God. He set aside his glory, his position, his power – he gave up everything because he loves you.

He did all of that for you. He loves you that much. Doesn’t that grab you?

If you’re just showing up at church on Sundays to sing the songs and say the ‘amens’ and eat and drink the Lord’s Supper and then you’re out the door and in your car and back home and nothing changes… If you come to church “just as I am” and you leave “just as you were” and nothing changes…

That is NOT the life Jesus died on the cross to give you. Christ Jesus did not leave his home in glory and die on Calvary to influence a couple of hours of your week. He gave himself to change your whole life. He died and lives now and forever to radically and dramatically alter every minute of every hour of your existence.

The love of Christ takes hold of you. It grabs you. It seizes you. It grips you and controls you. It squeezes you and shakes you and it will not let you go. So, yes, you want to know Christ. You want to become Christ-like. You want to be so much like Jesus that when a mosquito bites you, he flies away singing, “There is Power in the Blood!”

The love of Jesus rules us. It completely controls us. We’re held by his love like we’re in a vice. We can’t break free. So we don’t live for ourselves, we live for the Lord and for others. We conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of the Gospel of Christ. We consider others better than ourselves. We look to the interests of others. We work diligently to make our attitudes the same as that of Christ Jesus. We work out this salvation with fear and trembling, we demonstrate it, we make it real. And we recognize in all humility and gratitude that it is God who works in us, God who is shaping our will and renewing our minds, and transforming our image according to his good purpose.

Christ Jesus did not take hold of you so you could improve your golf game. Jesus did not take hold of you so you could buy a second home or win a soccer scholarship or become the president of your company. He took hold of you to transform you. He did it so you could live in a righteous relationship with him and in sacrificial service to others. His love for you compels you to take hold of it, too.

Peace,

Allan

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