Archive for the ‘Christianity’ Category

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Prevenient Grace

November 16, 2009

I’m still studying Ephesians, but business has taken me to China and then California during the past three weeks plus I had to get a magazine out (my paying job). While traveling, I have continued my studies and thinking.

While talking about what Paul’s saying in this letter, I skipped over Chapter 1 where he discusses “predestination.” Of course, he is not discussing John Calvin’s theory–he didn’t know Calvin. But the thought still is–why is it sometimes Paul talks of freedom and decision and other times he talks of being picked by God (predestined)?

Finally a memory of one of the talks during an Emmaus Walk popped up–the discussion of “prevenient grace.” The question that always comes up is “if God picked us to be saved before we were ever born, then what does it matter what we do with our lives.” When I studied the Puritans many years ago, I was taught that they got around that thorny issue by telling people that they should all behave as if they were saved so that no one would know. Today, it seems that we all behave as if we are not saved and then just trust that God will have picked us.

Another way to look at the situation is more like asking and responding. God’s grace is extended to you before you were ever born. It’s prevenient–pre-existing. God is always there, surrounding you, enveloping you in his Spirit. However, you have to respond. It’s as if someone asks you to a party, but you can’t celebrate with them unless you acknowledge the request and then say Yes. God is there, right now, and if you say yes, then you open yourself up to the gifts of God.

Of course, it’s not over yet. You must still grow in your relationship with God. That’s sort of what Paul’s talking about in the rest of Ephesians. How do you come to imitate God (what a disciple does in relation to his/her master). How you relate to others (husband/wife, parent children, master/slave–today’s terms probably employer/employee). How you fight the spirits of darkness. Every day you must “work out your salvation in fear and trembling,” but it all starts when you acknowledge that God is there before you asking you to come to relationship. That’s sort of what Paul’s saying in the beginning of the letter. God’s there. He “picked” you (actually, he picked everyone in the beginning). You just need to acknowledge and respond–then live with him.

Tags:,
Posted in Christianity | Leave a Comment »

Lead a Worth Life

October 22, 2009

Paul says in Ephesians, “I beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called.” There is a lot of meaning packed into a seemingly simple sentence.

First, you have been called. Did you know that? If not, maybe you haven’t been listening. So first comes listening for the voice of God (one major part of prayer, by the way). Then God speaks and you must discern the meaning and understand you’ve been called. Calling in this case is a noun, but it implies a verb–something  you do in response to God’s request.

Later in this section, Paul lists a bunch of callings to help his readers understand what he meant. The list is familiar including teachers, preachers, apostles and the like. That’s really sort of a guide. As society changes, types of jobs subtly change, too. We need all sorts of called people today.

I came to the conclusion years ago that the Bible as well as all great philosophers consistently teach how to live. The instructions are ancient–and they really haven’t changed much in over 5,000 years. But we still have trouble actually doing it–living a with-God life. Paul begs us to lead a life worthy of the calling. You can only do this by living a life (as Paul said in another place) where you pray without ceasing. It is so easy to get caught up in emotions, sticky situations, relationship problems, needs. That’s when you need to spiritually “step back” and look at yourself and your situation, ask God for help, and then return to the fray with the refreshed attitude and right-relationship with God. Then maybe we can approximate the worthy life.

Tags:,
Posted in Christianity | Leave a Comment »

Praying

October 19, 2009

Yesterday continuing the study of Ephesians, Barb spoke on prayer (the last part of Chapter 3). This is where Paul prays for the church in Ephesus. Thing is, when Paul “prays” in these letters, it’s still part of his message or argument. The one thing that always leaves me wanting more information is — what did all these spiritual heroes we read about do when they prayed? Jesus went off by himself and prayed. Daniel took time off from his busy days running an empire to pray three times daily.

I’ve spent a lifetime praying, learning about prayer, learning from my praying–and I still wish that the Christian church taught how to pray instead of telling you that you should pray.

I’m not going to write an essay on how to pray here, but maybe it’s something I should work on. I just remember when I tried to teach a class on prayer. The students seemed to want only to read and discuss the book. When I tried to have silent time to work on an aspect of prayer, it was awkward. Perhaps that’s part of the answer. Prayer begins in silence. There’s nothing wrong with calling it prayer time when you flood over with requests for God to handle for you. But let’s go back to the source. What did Paul pray for the Ephesians to experience? It was the deep dwelling of God in the inner lives of the people. Richard Foster of Renovare calls it the “with-God” life. Paul in another place calls upon us to “pray without ceasing.” The Russian peasant detailed in a lovely little book called “The Way of the Pilgrim” tries to live out that admonishment of Paul’s.

First, we need to become comfortable in silence. This is perhaps more difficult for us in the twenty-first Century than at any other time in human history. In silence, you can hear God and converse with God. There are techniques to become silent. But these require work. Perhaps that’s it. Prayer is work. And often we take the easy way out to just demand things of God rather than living continually with Him. Are you “with God” right now? Do you need to work on that experience? I’ve done this for years and my answer to the second question is still “yes.”

Tags:,
Posted in Christianity, Spirituality | Leave a Comment »

Every Blessing

October 13, 2009

One of my commentaries says Paul’s opening in Ephesians that includes God providing every spiritual blessing is derived from a common synagogue prayer in his time that his readers would have understood. However, a joy of reading with fresh eyes includes gaining new understanding. What would it mean to live as if you had every spiritual blessing? I recently heard a talk by noted management writer Gary Hamel where he quoted survey respondents saying that they saw no difference in the way their Christian friends lived and anyone else. Does that apply to you? Are you living as if you have received every spiritual blessing from God?

OK, that’s probably not something you attain as final during your life. Rather, it’s more like a guide during the journey. Few of us are perfect, but all of us can show something of the indwelling of the Spirit. Right?

Tags:, , ,
Posted in Christianity, Spirituality | 1 Comment »

Every Spiritual Blessing

October 10, 2009

In the first chapter of Ephesians, Paul says God gives every spiritual blessing. While pondering this passage, I heard a talk by Kevin Kim at the Menlo Park Presbyterian Church. He talked about the story of Adam and Eve living in the Garden. They lived in a state of grace–their lives were a relationship with God, they walked with God, had no shame and there were no rules. Well, except one. They were not to pursue the knowledge of good and evil. God decided what was good.

Eve one day ponders “why does God  get to decide what’s good for us?” So they decide to “eat the fruit” that is decide for themselves what’s good for them. The result was loss of intimate relationship with God, shame and sin. Jesus came to restore that natural order of God–relationship with God and life in grace. That would be every spiritual blessing

Tags:, ,
Posted in Christianity | Leave a Comment »

Believing is Seeing

September 8, 2009

Well, actually, I should say “believing leads to seeing.” Steve Leveen, founder and owner of the mail-order “tools for readers” company Levenger, tells a story of not being able to see something because “we see what we look for.” I have a T-shirt from a conference with the quote “some things must be believed to be seen.”

Have you seen God alive and at work in the world? Have you looked for it? I was talking with someone this weekend who has come to the conclusion that there is nothing wrong with his hearing–it’s his focus. I think that this affliction hits all of us at times. Where is your attention? Your focus? Are you looking for God? Careful, you might just experience Him.

Tags:, ,
Posted in Christianity, Spirituality | Leave a Comment »

Where do you lead from

August 25, 2009

More from the Willow Creek Leadership Summit. Tim Keller (“The Prodigal God”) added more insights about the lack of spiritual vitality that rests in so many churches. His telling of the parable of the Prodigal Son is that both brothers were alienated from their Father, and that both brothers wanted his money. But one eventually was saved through his badness; the other was lost through his “goodness.”

His takeaways–get it in your heart that you don’t do ministry to save yourself; when you teach or preach, move beyond Biblical principles to teach the Gospel.

David Gibbons leads a “Third Culture” (that is, multi-cultural) church. One of his teachings is that it’s the people. Not their skills, ambition, but their story. Do you take the time to know a person’s story? We all have a story of our life, and we all want to share it. Listen to the people. Therefore, it’s all about relationships. “We don’t need more visionaries. We need more relaters,” he said. He now spend 70% of his time on leadership development (equipping leaders) where he used to spend at least that amount of time on sermon and Sunday morning program development.

Where do you go to develop spiritual vitality within yourself? Can it be developed in your church? Are you equipping people for the journey–or loading them down with rules?

Tags:, ,
Posted in Christianity, Leadership | Leave a Comment »

Leadership Summit

August 10, 2009

I’ve been off the proverbial grid for most of the past two weeks. Two of those days were invested in the Willow Creek Association Leadership Summit. These were intense days of high profile leaders and scholars speaking on a variety of subjects applicable to both church leaders and business (and NGO) leaders as well. Considering I used Marriott points from my business travels, the $99 I paid (discounted because of an affiliation with Compassion International) plus meals and the drive to and from Chicago generated huge return on investment.

As I break down my notes and compile themes, I’ll have a series of posts reflecting on the teaching. From a personal leadership view, Bill Hybels talked about starting his day off right. Instead of being in a rush to be the first one in the office every day, he invests the time in reading (the Bible and thoughtful literature), meditating and journaling. Now when he arrives at the office, he’s refreshed and ready to tackle the meetings and tasks of running a huge operation.

I’ve written on the impact the study of Luke 12 has had on me, and I’m obviously not alone. Many speakers cited the stories–especially of the “Prodigal Son.” Jesus tells the three stories gathered in that chapter to illustrate who is a neighbor when he says the second commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. Much of the teaching of the summit for church leaders pointed to examples of how people of faith are responding to this commandment.

As Hybels put it in his opening remarks, there is nothing like the local church when the church is doing it right. In these stormy economic times when people are losing jobs and even their houses, he challenged his members who are still working to be generous to their brothers and sisters. The response was overwhelming.

Tags:, ,
Posted in Christianity, Ethics | Leave a Comment »

Make a list

July 16, 2009

I was doing some quick browsing through some of Paul’s letters looking for something when I noticed a pattern. Much as Paul preaches the gospel of God’s grace and living in the Spirit, he also gets trapped into making lists. Much of the first letter to the Corinthians is in that vein. Even the first Christians said, “It’s great to talk about living in relationship to Jesus, but just give me a list–a  check-off guide. In that way I know what to do and can measure how good I am versus others.” And Paul would play that game. I know he was just trying to be helpful, but his writings in that regard have led to endless speculation and argument.

This leads to another game that too many Christians love playing–arguing about the small points in Paul’s lists. There’s an old English saying, “Penny wise, pound foolish.” Some pay close attention to little things in life (for example the speck of sawdust in other people’s eyes) and miss the big picture (that is, living in relationship with Jesus).

There was a time when I lived to argue. Then one day I saw that arguing gets you nowhere. I just try hard (and often fail) to live in relationship with God and let the arguers argue. That’s the truth of simplicity. Live in relationship with God and serve others.

Gary Mintchell

Tags:,
Posted in Christianity, Ethics | Leave a Comment »

How do you know you’ve sinned

July 5, 2009

Why didn’t God make it easy for us to know everything? This question from my wife as we discussed some contentious issues that people in the church love to fight over sounds like the makings of a series.

I’ve been studying sin–and God’s response–while my Bible study group reads Romans. So first, what is sin? Well, Paul gives us one of his many lists in the introduction to the letter. People love lists. We can take these as a checklist. Hmm, I don’t do that one, or that one, oh, let’s skip that one, I don’t do that one–and so on. Meanwhile what we’re really thinking is — other people do that one, she does the next one, he does that one — so I must be better than they.

I think that the real question lies not in looking at others (remember Jesus’ story about checking out the piece of sawdust in someone else’s eye when we have a plank in ours?), the real question as we read Romans and the rest of the New Testament is “Really, no dodging the issue, what sins have I done lately, the last hour, the last day, the last week?” My new crusade is to get people away from the theoretical, from looking at others. The real issue is within me, and you.

If I come to realistic grips with my sins, my straying from a relationship with God, then perhaps my life and witness will help others look at the mess they’ve made with their lives and also seek a relationship with God. Note, I didn’t say the observance of a list of rules–I said a relationship. Living with Jesus is the key. How can I worry about others when I’m such a mess? That’s the issue.

Gary Mintchell

Tags:, ,
Posted in Christianity, Spirituality | Leave a Comment »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »