Monday, January 26, 2015
428 - Keep Growing
Spirituality Column #428
January 27, 2015
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville
“…when you walk with God, every day is an adventure.” – Ray Stedmen, preacher
We are pretty much stuck here in the world.
Not stuck in the same perpetual place, mind you, but stuck in the realm of the world. We can work hard and change our circumstances for the better. We can falter and experience hardship. We can succeed or fail and, quite possibly, not know why.
“Luck of the draw,” we might surmise. Que sera, sera. Whatever will be, will be.
The radically different perspective of living a life in Christ is how “unstuck” we can become if we stop keeping score of this life’s ups and downs. A worldly life is life with a scorecard, a personal scorecard that tells “me” how “I’m” doing. Whether one measures faith, family, friends, career, education, citizenship, service, honors, fame or – of course – money, we remain stuck in the metrics of worldly results.
Whether we’re talking about a billionaire on a yacht or a tribesman in a hut, that’s still a mighty tight, insignificant range of “different” on the infinite, eternal, cosmic, divine scale of God’s measuring stick, because God doesn’t have a measuring stick. God has glory, and love, and it’s our joy and really our purpose to participate in that on God’s great big terms, not our finite earthly terms. When it comes to our relationship with God, we have to re-imagine the whole idea of “growth.”
Growth is especially crippled when we prioritize “measuring” our faith. Measurement as the goal itself takes the fun, sincerity, freedom and love out of a relationship with Jesus because one’s relationship here is with the measurement, not with Jesus. If we think we are more holy, or have grown, because we can check off more things we’ve done – went to church twice in one week, spent time reading the Bible three times in a week instead of two, worked in a soup kitchen two nights instead of one, etc. – that’s not a sign of growth; that’s a sign that we are measuring the wrong things.
The radically transformed, changed-heart Christian life – a life focused on deep relationship with the One True Almighty God through the love of His Son Jesus Christ animated by the wisdom, security and peace of the Holy Spirit – frees us from worldly scorecards.
Jesus’s own disciples wanted to “grow” in stature by being the “greatest” disciple (Luke 9:46). They wanted a metric for how they could know they were greatest. Jesus corrected them. His radical message was that to be the greatest, you have to love “being the least.”
Growing in Christ means becoming less in – and more unstuck on – yourself.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) enjoys Ray Stedman’s daily Bible study.
January 27, 2015
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville
Keep Growing
By Bob Walters“…when you walk with God, every day is an adventure.” – Ray Stedmen, preacher
We are pretty much stuck here in the world.
Not stuck in the same perpetual place, mind you, but stuck in the realm of the world. We can work hard and change our circumstances for the better. We can falter and experience hardship. We can succeed or fail and, quite possibly, not know why.
“Luck of the draw,” we might surmise. Que sera, sera. Whatever will be, will be.
The radically different perspective of living a life in Christ is how “unstuck” we can become if we stop keeping score of this life’s ups and downs. A worldly life is life with a scorecard, a personal scorecard that tells “me” how “I’m” doing. Whether one measures faith, family, friends, career, education, citizenship, service, honors, fame or – of course – money, we remain stuck in the metrics of worldly results.
Whether we’re talking about a billionaire on a yacht or a tribesman in a hut, that’s still a mighty tight, insignificant range of “different” on the infinite, eternal, cosmic, divine scale of God’s measuring stick, because God doesn’t have a measuring stick. God has glory, and love, and it’s our joy and really our purpose to participate in that on God’s great big terms, not our finite earthly terms. When it comes to our relationship with God, we have to re-imagine the whole idea of “growth.”
Growth is especially crippled when we prioritize “measuring” our faith. Measurement as the goal itself takes the fun, sincerity, freedom and love out of a relationship with Jesus because one’s relationship here is with the measurement, not with Jesus. If we think we are more holy, or have grown, because we can check off more things we’ve done – went to church twice in one week, spent time reading the Bible three times in a week instead of two, worked in a soup kitchen two nights instead of one, etc. – that’s not a sign of growth; that’s a sign that we are measuring the wrong things.
The radically transformed, changed-heart Christian life – a life focused on deep relationship with the One True Almighty God through the love of His Son Jesus Christ animated by the wisdom, security and peace of the Holy Spirit – frees us from worldly scorecards.
Jesus’s own disciples wanted to “grow” in stature by being the “greatest” disciple (Luke 9:46). They wanted a metric for how they could know they were greatest. Jesus corrected them. His radical message was that to be the greatest, you have to love “being the least.”
Growing in Christ means becoming less in – and more unstuck on – yourself.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) enjoys Ray Stedman’s daily Bible study.
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