In the likeness of God.

God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness" ... so God created them  - male and female. Gnesis 1:26a, 27 

Much debate has arisen through the ages of what it means to be "created in the image of God."  Even Adam and Eve struggled with their creatureliness being so likened to God that they desired to actually be "like" him.  People at the time of Babel wanted to reach heaven of their own accord.  Many rulers of modern times claimed that kingship gave them god-status.  Even today, people struggle with the same concept, idolizing themselves.  Yet, I have made a discovery:  There is a God and I am not him.

People have a dangerously limited understanding of themselves.  Embedded in us are disturbing contradictions of good and evil.  We can get hung up on seeing our fallen nature, giving up on the original intent of the image we bear.  What is the inherent nature of humanity given these dichotomies?

The thing that God gave us was free will, which is actually one of the features of His image that we hold.  The problem is that we often forget with freedom comes responsibility, and responsibility to act comes with consequences.  We cannot get rid of the consequences no matter how hard we try.  God will not let us.  

Free will is what has plundered nature and humanity into a spiraling degeneration that is disturbing and incomprehensible.  We even fail to see its criticalness to the salvation process.  Let's cut the crap.  Sin, free will leading away from God, is bad.  People have struggled against and danced with sin for all of human history.  Yet, God's intent was for us to participate and have responsibility to participate, changing the consequences of our lives and the world.

We are equipped and empowered to join with God in order to participate in his work.  It is not a passive, introspective relationship we have with Him, but an active and consequential relationship.  Like Jesus, who was Word and work, so we are called to blend truth and action.  Free will can cause us to do so enthusiastically.

We are called to preserve and care for nature (Genesis 1: 28, 29); to do justice and show compassion (Isaiah 56: 1, 2); to share in the suffering of others (Galatians 6:2); to use personal and divine power to fee the enslaved and oppressed (Isaiah 1:17) and to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:18-20).  There is no confusion on these themes, strewn throughout both testaments.

We have a chance to be "like" God when we embed ourselves in his truths about us.  When we finally realize that we can use our endowed characteristic of free will for good and not for evil. 

Pray without Ceasing

Rejoice always, pray continually, and give thanks in all circumstances.  For this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.  1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

I once struggled with "without ceasing" when it came to prayer.  One of the meanings in the Greek is "incessantly."  That seemed such a demand until I redefined and readdressed my prayer habits.  It was actually Brother Lawrence, a French religious "brother" (the monastery wouldn't allow him to become a monk) who wrote of the presence of God in his mundane work of leather-working and cooking for other monks.

Some people benefit from structure and a plan for prayer, but given my own over-structed and over-planned life, Brother Lawrence's "methodless" praying model melded into my hectic life.  Through prayer in moments caught throughout the day, I was able to capture more time with the Lord, which fed a need to create more opportunities for this communion.  Gradually, more time appeared in my life for prayer as I turned off the radio, took more pauses and sought Him on a deeper, continual level.  I could never ask, whether in busyness or calamity, "Where is God?" because I truly "became accustomed to His divine company." (as Brother Lawrence wrote)

Not only did my prayers become more frequent and internalized, but I also began to pray for others at the moment I interacted with them.  Whether I did that silently or voiced, I prayed in the moment.  The benefit was that I became better at intercession because it met needs at the point of contact and held me accountable to pray for people regularly, rather than put them on a prayer list that was sometimes forgotten.

It was at this point that my faith became more than believing, to which Brother Lawrence would concur: "For the soul...calls out to Him easily and effectively...until able to say, 'I no longer believe, for I see and experience.'"  Proof of a living God comes from interacting with Him and feeling His very presence.  This, most of all, is what I desire to have others know.  Only then will the Christian life come alive to where worship is vital, hope is real and obedience is a response to "that sacred fire of love," which lively interaction with God provides.

Divine Power

 [Jesus'] divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.  Through these, he has given us his great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature... 2 Peter 1:3, 4

This is a heady promise:  to participate in the divine nature of God.  Since Jesus was the divine manifested in the human, we now share those divine characteristics with him and not by being less human, but rather fully human. To think that the sanctity of the human person is embedded in my humanity is huge!  To know ourselves, our true calling, our ultimate and basic identity this way is intimate and demanding.

Do you know who you are?  Can you sense your status with Christ, joining in his divinity?  I think to explore this is to seek God and find God through our own personhood - body and soul.  When God's Spirit takes up residence in the soul, I can know Him and myself even better.  Thus, believers are inhabited in the divine as much as by the divine. Often, we speak of the God-shaped hole in our being that only God can fill.  (Is that bit confining of a definition for God?)  Is it also that there is a me-shaped hole in God and I enter his heart?

Could this be the "mirror that we now see dimly" to which Paul referred?  Could our own reflection be the very thing we need to see clearly so that we could see what of God is reflected in us?  Would I dare say I am partly divine?  That would be incredible!

To apply this incredulous line of thinking for myself draws me to a growing sense of love for others, who also hold the divine in them.  That would change my approach to all believers, if not all of humanity.  The sanctity of the human person is an idea that comes from God, made clear by Jesus embracing his role as human.

Be

Be still and know that I am God.

Be still and know that I am.

Be still and know.

Be still.

Be.

In but not Of

[As Jesus prays for his disciples] I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world.  My prayer, though, is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.  They are not of the world, even as I am not of it.  

Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.  As you sent me into the world I have sent them into the world, sanctified in the same way I was sanctified. John 17:14-19

Here is the task:  try to understand what it means to be in the world but not of the world.  In Christian history, many tried to remove themselves from worldly or secular activity by escaping to the desert, living separately from each other and world activity.  Given that the world offers so much suffering and temptation, it's easy to see why so many took this directive to not be of the world to be an escape clause. 

Clearly, though, Jesus does not ask his disciples to be removed, but rather to live in the world but not be of it.  In fact, in this prayer, Jesus names the way for this dichotomy existence:  sanctified in the truth.  Sanctification is to be made holy or consecrated...in the truth, especially in the truth of God and the realities and duties of being a person of God.  This is the ultimate exercise of our lives.

How does one stay out of this world when one is enmeshed in the daily struggle of the pressing conflicts and demands of a fallen world?  What corruption do we need to become aware of and avoid? 

Henry Nouwen, spiritual author and advisor, discusses this corruption by calling attention to what he calls "social compulsion:  "a dangerous network of domination and manipulation in which we easily get entangled and then lose our soul."  Those are strong words...dangerous...domination...entangled...and they described corruption very well.  To use a current metaphor of technology (phones and computers), when files are corrupted, they are inaccessible and unusable.

There it is!  We can't control the social construct, but we can do those things which preserve our soul, namely,  to stay connected and usable by God.

I admit that the world offers its domination as manipulation in order to birth success-laden lies which derail our effort to stay connected and usable by God.  Let me name some:

     when material goods and wealth no longer serve me or God, but rather I serve them.

     high-performance mentality that puts me first (above God) and fed by others' approval (instead of God).

      feeding my sensual mentality over my spiritual mentality

      suffering, by any cause, which interrupts my peace and patience

      blessing, which I seek with greater exuberance than I seek God.

When cares and pleasures, obstacles and challenges can entangle me like fishing lines, I tend to focus only on the knots created by them instead of the Lord.  Yet, I am called to live in this messy, entangled and stimulating world, ever present and available to the Lord.  Can I stay engaged and attached to the body of living:  my own and whole body of humanity and not lose my soul?

I propose that we discover to seek no more or less than God's offer of life in the world, learning how and then leading others in how to stay focused on God and sanctified by His truths - ever dependent upon his truths and not the world's.  

       

Grace is given

 [From John the Baptist]:  Out of his fulness we have received grace in place of grace already given.  For the law was given (first grace) through Moses; (second) grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.  John 1:16-17

Each form of grace had a purpose.  What form of grace is given through Jesus Christ?  There is saving grace (which the law could not do), but there comes more for the believer.  Then comes living grace.  Julian of Norwich describes what I think is living grace:  "...we, soul and body, are clad and enclosed in the goodness of God." Sometimes I fail to see that grace is expressed in goodness.  Some because, when I am unobservant and obsessive, I fail to look at life as grace-covered;  I look at the pain, suffering and failure instead of acknowledging the wholeness, healing, success and victory that has emerged.

I am challenged to think about resting in the wholeness, healing, success and victory in order that I may receive the full rest and sense of grace God has given me.  I do not usually wait around for the full effect of rest and grace.  I am usually three steps, time zones or projects ahead.  

Could staying in the moment be the very joy Jesus wants to experience WITH me such that He can have delight in my soul?  Could staying in the moment be that ultimate communion Jesus wants with me when we are not wrestling over some issue, but rather just looking together at what He has done?

Surely, this causes the devil sorrow to find us at peace and resting in Christ.  What was his sabotage, trickery or attack is instead turned into God's goodness and joy for us.  I could extend the devil's time of sorrow and frustration by staying in the moment of exultation over God's grace.

So, I will seek today's victory and celebrate what God has done!  I feel the surge of self-respect, knowing God has joined me in success.  I relax in areas of healing, thankful for God's touch.  I rest and am content in wholeness and contemplate good, knowing it is by God's grace that I can feel, that I can hold to happiness and love, and that He wants those things for me.

More than ever!  Praise the Lord!

#33

 

Though I have been strong

Though I have held on

Though I was the first “go to” for many

And the last one standing,

I know to nurture the child within.

 

She lays in the grass

Dances to music

Swings from the tree

Loves the sea

And chocolate

Laughs out loud

And tells long stories.

 

I replenish her.

I nurture her

And bow low in the care of the God who does.

I will not fail because God will never.

The Holy Spirit has history

 (Samarians) believed Philip as he proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ; they were baptized, both men and women....When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to Samaria.  When they arrived, they prayed for the new believers there to receive the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit had not yet come on any of them; they had "only" been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

When Peter and John placed their hands on them, the received the Holy Spirit.  Acts 8: 12, 14-17

(This scripture is part of the evangelizing story written in the midst of a person trying to monetize the new faith and its seeming success.  This I will not discuss, but I want to highlight the activity of the Holy Spirit.)

As a child who grew up on a farm where there were no city lights and older cousins told stories about ghosts in the graveyard and in the hills surround my grandparents' farm, I held a dim (or grim) view of interacting with any ghosts.  Thus, I had NO interest in ghosts, holy or otherwise.  Yet, seated in the heart of my Methodist upbringing was the Apostle's Creed.  Even if I did not know the books of the Bible very well, I did know the Apostle's Creed from memory.  I remember now being perplexed by the words "...and in the Holy Ghost."  Although I do not remember ever being taught about this Ghost, I did know he appeared in my King James Bible.  I understood things about Jesus my brother, God my Father, but I could not figure out how a faith could utilize Casper, since the Holy Ghost would have been friendly, given his favorable mention in the Bible.

By the time I was in college, I had come into contact with people who were using a different language about the Holy Ghost and I began to get an understanding that the Spirit of the Lord was very present for many and that some people insisted it was a mark of salvation.  Even though I had been saved at age fifteen, I know I had received no such thing and was not overly sure I wanted to.  I may have left my ghostly images of the Spirit behind, but the Holy Spirit was given further bad press by being connect with snake-handling, being "slain" in the Spirit and speaking in tongues, all pretty weird stuff to a small town, conservative Methodist.

Yet, I also knew that on some level my Christian walk was shallow and lacking.  I was disturbed by my faith's acceptance of "backsliding" in light of verses about perfection (Matthew 5:48), maturity (Hebrews 6:1) and holiness (Romans 6:22).  While I know that relapse is part of alcohol and other drug recovery, but I don't accept "backsliding" - as it was discussed then - as part of the process of sanctification.  The inconsistencies abounded between the biblical "new creature," my church's teaching, and my experience that seemed to create huge issues of hypocrisy that were obvious. 

Just as obvious was that the Holy Spirit deserved more attention than I had given because the New Testament writers seemed dependent upon the Holy Spirit in their walk and witness in ways than I ever was or had been taught.  I was determined to get in touch with this Spirit.  Surely, the Christian walk had to be something better than the crazy yo-yo life that had become acceptable to too many and was leaving me feeling inadequate and insecure in the faith.

It was the writings of Catherine Marshall that I found myself face-to-face with the person of the Holy Spirit.  Somewhere in Catherine's description of her husband's ministry (US Senate chaplain, Peter Marshall) and his dependence upon the Spirit, the Holy Spirit leaped out and caught me.  It was like the Holy Spirit was saying, "I'm right here!  I'm right here!"  My eyes and heart were opened for the first time.  It was then that I, too, began to trust in "God the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of Life." (from the Presbyterian confession)

Not everyone thinks the application or reception of the Holy Spirit is separate from becoming baptized or any initiating of the faith.  Maybe, it is when a newly formed faith becomes aware of the presence and possibility of life in the Spirit, that the relationship is claimed.  I just know this:  the Holy Spirit is a very present extension of Almighty God and my brother, Jesus.