Disciples of Christ

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Finding — again — our first love

The Spirit gave me ears to hear yesterday morning, and I heard the Scripture from Revelations 2:1-7: “You have left your first love. Repent.”

But how do I do that, Father, Jesus, Spirit?

If you live in the same area I do and you saw the early morning sky this morning, I would like you to know that God did that sky just for me. Yup. You might have been a spectator this morning as the sky-message unfolded, but it was meant for me. He was reminding me, “I can do everything and anything I want … ”

Because, you see, the sky this morning was a month of beautiful skies rolled into one. Like an autumn cornucopia spilling all kinds of bounty, the sky pageant this morning included every imaginable cloud touched with dawn color. High, wispy mare’s tails; a few billowing cumulus; ridges of clouds, like mountains in the distance; clouds that wash across the sky like sand scattered by the tide; and even a trail of those cloud dabs, the ones that look like a child’s fingerprints across the blue — All those clouds, touched with rose and gold and orange in the east, blues and grays and yellow and white in the west.

Such a morning!

And it came after I asked Christ, “How can I love you more, love you better, always keep you as my first love?”

I asked that question this morning, then stepped outside and saw the sky. God, reminding me who He is.

This week, I’m determined to find some answers to my question. I’m going to ask, seek, knock. I want to know.

The first answer came as I walked under that sky-message. As I went east, something prompted me to glance west … and I saw the sun glowing in the western sky.

A water tower climbs into the sky in the center of our town. Almost a blemish against the beauty of our hills, it’s a drab gray-blue orb that looks like a UFO hovering overhead.

But at that moment, it was glowing orange. And I know this might be hard to believe for those of you who know that tower. But … seriously … it was a fiery ball, another sun rising above the trees!

And there was my first answer. I learn to love Christ more, my love for Him comes alive, when I position myself directly in the rays of His love.

That tower caught the sun because it stretches above the trees, stretches high. Below, the houses wore their usual white and brick, the trees green, the fence gray, all untouched by the sun. But the tower was glowing.

Those places or positions where we stretch and expose ourselves fully to God might be different for you than for me. For all of us, surely it is in prayer and Scripture. But I have learned there are also other places that open me up to God, like early morning walks, quiet times in nature’s hideaways, reading certain authors. For you, it might be in music, on your knees in a chapel, fellowship in a Bible study group.

If repenting is key to returning to my first love, then repentance means I need to change what I am doing now. In this case, I want to consciously change how I position myself throughout the precious minutes and hours of every day. Too many days slide by, full, busy, thoughtless, without my once stretching to catch fully the rays of His love.

I believe our faith is a gift from God and belief is begun and perfected by the Spirit. I believe He holds His children securely. But I also believe we have a choice in whether or not we cling to the Life-Vine. I cannot explain how those two things work together. But I believe both statements are truth.

We do have a choice how we spend our days. We do have a choice whether or not we position ourselves in the rays of God’s love, whether we stretch toward Him, asking Him to set us aglow.

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Swallowed up by Life

Interesting.

Two incidents within one week. Both observing the same milestone. But one person looks at life ebbing away. The other looks at life lived even more abundantly.

At a birthday dinner for a friend celebrating 60, the talk naturally turned to retirement. With this group of friends, retirement is anything but “retiring”. Instead, it is more opportunities, another chapter to be written with vigor, new paths to follow in great anticipation.

Just a few days later, flipping through channels, I stopped at a movie and listened to one of the characters wailing about her upcoming 60th birthday; she felt she was shriveling up and her life was pretty much finished.

One saw death. The other sees life growing ever more abundant.

While we live in these earthly bodies, we groan and sigh, but it’s not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe us. Rather, we want to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by life. God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit.
2 Corinthians 5:4-5 (NLT)

(I suppose everyone over thirty groans and sighs sometimes because of a mortal body … )

This chapter is discussing the day when each one of us takes down her earthly tent and moves to an eternal body made by God to live in the eternal. In the NIV version, verse 5 reads:

So that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.

One of my favorite phrases in the Bible! Swallowed up by life. What an exciting description of what will happen at the end of my earthly days! Hmmm. Maybe I want that on my headstone … or on that little memory card you’ll get at the funeral home … oh … I digress.

Back to the subject for today. I know this passage is talking specifically about death, taking down our tents here and moving on to what Jesus has prepared for us. But this phrase is so powerful that it often comes back to me when I think about my living now. The word used here for “swallowed” is the same one used in 1 Corinthians 15:54, “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

This is what I want to happen, even while I’m still on this earth. I want all that is mortal in me to be swallowed up by Life.

And God has promised this will happen for those who come to Him. It begins as soon as we open ourselves to the work of the Holy Spirit. The life we live becomes the new life Christ gives us. It begins to happen Now.

My selfishness and limited ability to love swallowed up by His love
My brokenness swallowed up by His wholeness and healing
My weakness swallowed up by His strength
The acts of my sinful nature swallowed up by the fruits of the Spirit.

Lord Jesus, you are the Way, the Truth, the Life. Let my mortal be swallowed up by your Life.

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The Gift and the Glory – Part 2

Ever since 2 Corinthians 3 found me, I have been in awe of the truth that we who have turned to the Lord reflect the Lord’s glory [and] are being transformed into his likeness with ever increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

Did you catch that? He created us in His image to begin with, then we pretty much ruined it, and now His purpose is to restore us to that image of His own glory.

This has completely changed my former thoughts about glory. First, I always thought the attribute of glory belonged to God alone … but there’s a long list of Scriptures that say it’s meant for us to share, too.

My NLT Word Study System says the Greek word used here for “glory” is a noun meaning “radiance or splendor, with a strong association of importance or display of power. It refers to eye-catching, wondrous beauty, perhaps with a focus on the object shining or reflecting light. Glory means ascribing honor or praise, emphasizing that the person being honored is powerful, beautiful, important.”

Whew. Radiance, splendor, importance, power, wondrous beauty. All of those things, we know, find their ultimate expression in God.

But … all of those things in ME ?

Second, my idea of the glory awaiting followers of Jesus was that it was some reward in heaven, when we will be transformed and made perfect. But this is His plan NOW — He reclaimed and brought us back from the kingdom of darkness so that He can transform us into His glorious image once again. And He’s not waiting — He’s doing it NOW.

And this is the secret: Christ lives in you. This gives you assurance of sharing his glory.

The Spirit of Christ that brought you a new life is the One who is now transforming you into His image. Hebrews says the Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God. And the Son lives in us.

Isn’t that amazing?

Ann Voskamp, in her very poetic book, One Thousand Gifts, says:

          He means to rename us—to return us to our true names, our truest
          selves. He means to heal our soul holes … He means to fill us with glory
          again.

In 1 Corinthians, the apostle Paul quotes the Scriptures from Isaiah:

No eye has seen, no ear has heard,
    and no mind has imagined
what God has prepared
    for those who love him.

Yes! This is hard to imagine. I know me. I know what I once was. And now He is transforming me into the likeness of God, planting in ME the glory that shines in the Lord of the Universe?  This is astounding.

Yet, Paul goes on to say, because we have received God’s Spirit, we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us.

I want to understand. I want to know the wonderful gifts that He’s prepared for me.

Receiving a new life. Inheriting His riches, hope, and power. Transformed into His likeness. Created first in His glorious image … ruined … now being restored.

How can we ignore such a gift?

Spirit, help us believe and understand.

　

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Scripture: 2 Corinthians 3:18 (NIV); Colossians 1:27: Hebrews 1:3; 1 Corinthians 2:9,12 (all NLT)

More Scriptures about the glory planned for us: John 17:22; Romans 5:2; Romans 8:16-18; Romans 9:23; 1 Corinthians 2:7; 2 Corinthians 4:17; 1 Thessalonians 2:12; 2 Thessalonians 2:14; Hebrews 2:10; 1 Peter 4:14; 2 Peter 1:3-4

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Light for the Children of God

This lighting of the world that we’re to be part of is not just for the benefit of those living in the darkness. Let your light shine for other sons and daughters of the Father.

The children of God need to know each other. They need to encourage and strengthen those who walk the same path. They need to shine the light when the darkness sometimes seems too heavy.

I’m not talking about sermonizing or judging and condemning and “setting someone straight”. There’s too much of that already. We can never know each other’s hearts and journeys if we’re too busy preaching and judging and being self-righteous.

Instead, we must hold someone’s hand when his path is suddenly dark. Share our own journeys. Tell what God has done in our own lives to save us from darkness.

And then we must also let others know about the joyous victories and miracles. Recount God’s work and wonders. Celebrate together the work of the Spirit in Christ’s church. Share what we have seen of God’s presence on this earth.

I confess, both of these are difficult for me. I’m an introvert. Private. It’s hard to open my mouth and share things that affect me deeply.

Yet at the same time, these are the folks who have been the greatest light for me—those who are willing to talk with me about their own dark times and their times of great light, when they have seen God’s hand in their lives. Those people are beacons, lights set on candlesticks.

We are to be lights in this world, and that includes lights to each other.

Kevin Troyer is hiking the Appalachian Trail with his wife Carolyn and 12-year-old son Dylan. They sold their “stuff” and left another life behind to see where God might lead on a new path. This is from their trail journal, and the imagery has stayed with me for weeks. With Kevin’s permission, I’m sharing it here with you. —

I was reminded on Easter Evening of something I thought I would share with you. I stood on a rock on top of Trey Mountain, watching the dusk and mist roll over the mountains. As I watched, it seemed to me that we were the only humans for the miles and miles that I could see.

Suddenly in the distance out of the mist, a single light appeared, at first just one then another and another. I sat amazed, as what had looked like an isolated forest, became a friendly galaxy of winking lights. There were other humans out there. It reminded me how important it is to let my light shine so that some other lonely soul can see it and know that they are also not alone.

The Father does not intend for his children to feel like “lonely souls” here on this earth.

Yet there are those who sit in our churches every Sunday with a terrible loneliness. May our lights shine for each other, too, so we remember that we are not alone.

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The Troyers’ trail journal can be followed at http://www.trailjournals.com/x3　

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Light for the world, in a clay pot

It’s rainy and gray here today. AGAIN. And, I admit, that is sometimes how I feel spiritually, too. Not at all like a city on a hill that gives light to everyone around me. More like a fragile clay jar, with plenty of cracks.

Look back at that verse in 2 Corinthians 4 once again:

We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.

It is God’s power that makes us a light, even the light of the world! Any light that shines from me is his light, his alone.

Here’s a most amazing statement: We are being changed into the image of our Lord.

And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.

Read more about this in 2 Corinthians Chapter 3. We who have turned to the Lord have had the veil of unbelief ripped away. Satan no longer has the power to blind us. We are free to see and reflect God’s glory. And the Spirit is making us like him, transforming us into his image.

The Greek word that is translated here as “changed”  means “to change fundamentally and completely from one state to another.”  Wow.  He is changing Me to Him.

Does that change your picture of yourself?

We are not merely disciples of a great teacher, struggling along, trying to do the “right” things, trying (under our own steam) to be “good enough” and be like Jesus.

Change that picture to this: We have been claimed by God and are being transformed by his Spirit within us into the likeness of the Lord we follow.

Yes, these are bold claims, but we’re talking about the power and plan of the Lord of the Universe. He can do whatever he chooses, and He is not restricted by our humanness. He chooses to plant his Spirit within us, to show his power through us, and to shine his light into this world through his children.

Doesn’t that give you goose bumps?

　

Scripture: 2 Corinthians 4:7, 2 Corinthians 3:18 (both NLT)