Rick left a thought-provoking comment down on See The Difference. I started to respond, but it turned into an epic so I've set it up here as a new post. Make sure you read the original and comments first.
"I think this focus on transformation is... bondage..."
Hey Rick - I can see how we could think that way; the works thing, I mean. I had to get over that hump myself when I started down this path. (Although, rumour has it faith without works is dead.)
Let me start be saying I don't pretend to have all the answers. In fact, the longer I live the fewer answers I have. The questions, of course, keep piling up. That's OK, though. I prefer questions to answers now anyway. Answers end conversations; questions start them.
At this stage of my journey here is where my questions have led me (WARNING: Late-night random thoughts ahead):
The last part of the last point is the key: We do not do the work. On that I agree with you. I do think we have the responsibility to "prepare the soil". In our little tribe we talk about doing our part so God can do His part. He makes all this available to us, but we are responsible for working with God in this formation.
Why do I think this is the case? Well, most Christ followers I know, myself included, do not exhibit this transformation. They spend their lives regretting the things they do, and their failure to take on just a little bit of Christ's character.
Well then, you say, there's your proof. We're obviously not meant to live that way because none of us can do it. First of all, that's not true. I know some Christ followers who are inching their way along this journey. They are great examples of love and grace, and I want to be like them. I want what they have. And many have shared how the disciplines have aided in this formation, but I digress.
Second, Christ Himself tells us this is the way it should be. As believers we love to get all hot and bothered about the first half of the Great Commission.
Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 19:20)
Yes, I said the first half. The second half we as the church have conveniently neglected until it has completely slipped from our consciousness, and our definition of the Gospel.
Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. (Matthew 19:21a)
What commands?
Well, guess what? I can't repay evil with kindness - at least not of my own accord. It ain't natural!
Just this Sunday I heard a sermon that talked about how all our problems would be solved if we could just love people more. of course, there was no indication of just how to accomplish this feat, and the whole presentation hinged on the closing prayer where the speaker exhorted God to teach us to love more. Then we went home.
We can't "try harder" to love more. Our ability to love grows as we spend more time in Love's presence. And as we do so we are transformed, continuously, into beings that are just a little more like Christ. As Dallas Willard puts it, I can't learn to keep the law, but I can learn to become someone who would keep the law. Personally I think that is how we go about assisting with the building of the Kingdom.
Anyway, that's enough for now - I'm starting to ramble.
Peace.
Posted by mike at June 8, 2004 08:58 PM | TrackBackwhew - ramble on man! good stuff mike! btw - i'm glad you got a good chuckle about paul. i thought everyone thought that!?!?! :) off to spend some time in 'love's presence' (i really like that!)
Posted by: bobbie on June 9, 2004 03:23 AMOh but this is so hard. Life is so much less painful when I live it unconcious. It's kind of like pumbing your deep isn't it? I get closer and closer to a real desire to love better and to be loved, which comes from "spend(ing) more time in Love's presence". Wow - you found great words to describe that. Trying to love harder just leads me to bondage, which is not love to those I interact with. Loving from "love's presence" now that is good stuff. Thanks Mike.
Posted by: anj on June 9, 2004 05:23 AMlol.. that reminds me of what people were all saying when I first got sick (sorry - everything relates to this at the moment, but at least it's productive!). Everyone seemed to be saying things like, "trust in God, lean not on your own understanding" or "just lean into him" or "just hang on, something will happen, I know it!" or something like that. My question always was, HOW???
Don't you just hate it when you hear some great teaching or nugget of the Bible that somehow comes without instructions? I've grown to assume that if they come without instructions, then God must have them and he's supposed to do the working of that part, i.e. He will grow my trust in him, He will show me how to hang on a little bit longer - or he will show me how to love.
Mike this is where pelagius should have one the day and augustine ahould have lost. The laxity of our lifes is sickening. And saying stuff like this is accomplished on the cross and covered by the blood cheapens the life of Jesus as our example. Our life and how we live it matters. The gap between our practices and our faith comittments for most of the church is not an issue. We must be formed at the deepest level of our character which takes time and sweat.
Posted by: scott on June 9, 2004 10:03 PMI'm curious ... Was that a freudian slip? Conversation, instead of conversion? (Your comment in parenthesis made me wonder...)
I really liked that!
Posted by: Idelette on June 10, 2004 02:46 AMOoops! Yes, a slip. I must have proofed it 5 times! Thanks Idelette - for the editor's eye.
Posted by: Mike on June 10, 2004 05:25 AMWe talked about this very thing on Sunday. I'm going to butcher this completely i know - but how it says in the bible the harvest is plenty but the workers are few .....well if we pray that God will send people to do His work that we are essentially answering our own prayers because then we are doing Gods work - make sense. He said it much better on Sunday really.
Posted by: Heather Field on June 10, 2004 09:03 AMRick - I'm interested in your response to Mike's post. Any thoughts?
Posted by: Lisa on June 10, 2004 10:02 AMHey Mike
I actually like conversation SO much better than conversion. The point of starting the conversation with God... mmm.
Mike,
Thoughtful post. And I don't have much to add to or subtract from it.
I simply have my perspective, one in reality that is somewhat recent in it's formation (if I'm allowed to define recent as the last year or so).
The truth is I've become disillusioned with organized christianity. Conservative churches seem focused on getting people saved from hell to the exclusion of all else. Liberal churches seem focused on saving people from themselves, to the exclusion of God's personal intervention. I see little of what I think God is about in either although I confess to seeing glimpses of Him in both camps.
What do I think God is about?
I'm no longer as sure as I thought I used to be.
I'm enamored now with concepts of grace. With notions that God is so much more forgiving than I previously thought. Enamored with a God who I think shakes his head at what so many of us do in His name. Yet I find myself clinging to the idea that good and evil are still simply defined and that He shakes His head as well at how we attempt to complicate the simple.
Which I guess brings me back to your post.
Life is short. Far too short. Life needs to be lived and lived well. There was a time when I thought I had been chosen by Him to do great things, and I set out to try to do them.
I now simply bask in the hope that He has simply chosen me. Period. And if opportunities arise for me to be used in some way, great... I hope I can live up to that opportunity. If not, I think I trust Him enough to know that I live in His timing and not my own and that He's in control and I'm not, no matter how hard I try to convince myself or others that I am.
Am I perfectly content in this attitude? No...
Am I more content now than I've been in a long time? Yes...
If you believe and trust that God has you chasing after 'The Transformation', well... maybe He does...
But maybe He doesn't... I at one time thought that He did, and when I was in that state, it was real... so real I could just about taste it...
That taste is gone now... it's no longer real...
That's not to say that at times I don't miss the chase... I do... but more recently, I'm content with simply living...
It might be that I'm missing out as some have implied. My pastor, ex-pastor really, preached some time back that if you're not growing in Christ, you're drying up...
Something I can agree with as long as I can adequately measure growth... emphasis on my measuring it and not anyone else...
Christianity, to me, has become less about living that life that Christ lives through us and more about measuring. Setting standards that we measure each other against and that we, in one way or another, inevitably, use to decide who falls short of that measuring.
It takes on an aura of judgment.
Which takes on an aura of condemnation.
Which, to me, isn't what I think Christ is about.
I think He's about grace. And grace, in my view, has done away with those kinds of measurements.
I've rambled on a bit too much now so I'll close with this.
If transformation, more specifically the pursuit of the same, can be taught in a way that emphasizes grace, then I guess I can jump on the bandwagon. I just don't think I've come across that methodology yet.
Posted by: RickinVa on June 10, 2004 05:26 PMMan, Rick, your comments so totally match the thoughts in my head. I, too, get a bit worried when I read the faith/works thing. I've tried so long to escape from the works. I'm simply too tired. I believe in profound, gigantic grace - so much so that I probably come off as too liberal sometimes. In my head, if we remotely equate a relationship with Jesus with any behaviours, then we are on a slippery slope.
I think that some behaviour changes may be a natural result from interaction with the Divine, but then again maybe there won't be anything I can discern. Mike - is what you are talking about a sort of "sunflower" phenomenon? Eg, a sunflower is heliotropic: it always orients itself to the sun and tracks the sun's progress through the day by its movements. Are you talking about certain practices that allow us to be heliotropic?
Posted by: Lisa on June 10, 2004 05:47 PMRick - great comment. You had me at hello "The truth is I've become disillusioned with organized christianity." That, and an interest in dialogue is all you need to join this club.
I'm sure I butchered my attempt at explaining what I was thinking, but it is all about grace. Living out our lives in His story is being chosen to do great things.
There's no room for judgement here. It's through His grace that he wants to draw us closer to Him. Draw, not drag. It's a choice, a decision on our part to take Him up on His offer.
Lisa - I don't think that's what I meant. (At least I don't think so... I can't even spell it.) I'm talking about real change of character - the kind of change that comes through walking with Him more intentionally, knowingly, etc. I'm too tired to think of how else to say it.
More later, maybe.
Posted by: Mike on June 10, 2004 11:02 PMHi, Mike and Rick and all,
It's interesting to note that the language Paul uses in Romans regarding transformation suggests that the transformation has already occurred and merely needs to be recognized. "Be ye transformed" is as if Paul is pronouncing that by Jesus' death and return to life, we are already transformed, so be that way. Don't act as if you haven't been. It's not that we have to renew our minds, it is that our minds HAVE BEEN renewed with the mind of Christ and THAT is what has transformed us. Otherwise, why do we desire to do all these things that we don't seem to be able to do all the time?
On the one hand, we can work with the supposition that I am NOT a new creation. In this instance I find that I must now work to be something I am not and deal with the issues of my failures. On the other hand, if I AM a new creation, I can EXPECT that I will fulfill the character of the new creation. Not on my own efforts even, for as Paul said, "I no longer live, but the life I live, Christ lives in me..."
Okay, I'm new here and just threw out more than enough thoughts to chew on, or to get me chewed on. And you don't know me yet, except for Rick, and I could just go on about this stuff forever. But I've already overstepped the bounds of propriety in speaking in front of people you don't know...Just had that impulse to speak, you know? I like this conversation...very real!!
Posted by: HarryTick on June 15, 2004 12:04 AMFor those who might not know... Harry is, in many ways, largely responsible for my current frame of mind, spiritually speaking...
I want to think that ia a good thing Harry...
:)
Hope you folks check him out over at Walking the Dogma.
And pray for him... Harry is serving as a helicopter pilot in Iraq, as I chronicled some time ago here.
Posted by: RickinVa on June 15, 2004 08:41 AMHey Harry - so glad you dropped by!
I hear where you're coming from. I think this whole transformation discussion gets snagged on the "works" issue.
Here's some quick thoughts: I am indeed a new creature in Christ. However, I don't know about you, but this new creature still has trouble with the "turning the other cheek", "returning evil with kindness", "give him your cloak too" Jesus-thing. And I want to get better at those. I can't do it on my own, though, because I'm human... the Fall... all that stuff. As I spend more time in the Presence of Love, though, it starts to rub off. So, I maintain that becoming the new creature is still the start (or potential start), not the finish, of the journey.
I'm glad that Rick kept the conversation going, but the more I think about it the more I'm not comfortable with how he put it. "Transformation - is it Necessary?" Forgive the extreme oversimplification, but that's like me saying "ice cream - is it necessary?" The answer to the question as worded is obviously "no". But who wouldn't want it?! (Again, I'm not equating spiritual transformation with ice cream, but you get my point!)
So is transformation "necessary"? For salvation, no. But who wouldn't want it? (As I read this I'm aware that I'm making it sound like the offer of transformation is completely "optional". I don't think that's the case, but I won't dwell on that now, except to say that I think transformation is exactly what Christ was talking about for 3 years.)
I'll shut up now before I start talking in circles, which is a bad habit I have. Be assured you're in our prayers.
Posted by: Mike on June 15, 2004 11:32 AMI'm glad that Rick kept the conversation going, but the more I think about it the more I'm not comfortable with how he put it. "Transformation - is it Necessary?" Forgive the extreme oversimplification, but that's like me saying "ice cream - is it necessary?"
Yo Mike... I suck at titling my posts... cut me some slack...
If I wanted to talk about ice cream, I might just get us started by asking if it's necessary... it's meant to pull you into the conversation, it's not meant to convey a complete thought... it's gimmicky, I admit, but that was by design...
Anyway, if I was better at it, I dunno, I'd probably have a bigger audience.
:)
Posted by: RickinVa on June 15, 2004 06:23 PMPoint taken, Rick.
Pass the Rocky Road!
So, anyways...Mike sends me an email and I share with him a thought that I was gonna post here but had second thoughts about posting, and he says not to be afraid to post. Well, that's hard being that there is no relationship yet. You know, people tend to take you wrong until you figure out a little bit about how they work. So, again, anyways...here is that thought:
I'm not suggesting that it isn't available or that its necessary, I'm flat out suggesting that the transformation has already happened. I think that is a difficult concept for people to wrap their minds around, but then, most miracles are!
It is especially hard when we continue to evaluate the new creation by the standards of the old one. The flesh says that we are acceptable when we prove it by what we do. The spirit says we are acceptable NOW because we have been transformed from failures into the acceptable ones by Jesus himself.
I know the first one sounds a lot like what James was speaking of when he said, "Show me your faith without works and I will show you my faith by my works." On the one hand, with the perspective we are all familiar with, it seems that James is telling us to put our money where our mouth is and PROVE that we really believe what we say by what we do. Consider, though, that he might be saying a similar thing to Paul (in Romans 12), that if you believe, you can't help but be that way.
So, instead of being who we are, we continually look to be something else that we consider to be separate, apart, outside of us. Contrary to the very work of Christ that was to bring us into God, and the Spirit's work to draw us to him and bring him inside of us. He is in us, we are in him.
I'm telling you, you want to be that way! Why? Because you ARE that way! Because he MADE you that way. Because HE is that way.
Some good stuff, Harry... but I'm sticking with the "transformational journey" notion. I need to find a better way to articulate what I'm thinking. I believe there's a lot that God offers to us, or makes available to us, but we still need to step towards it - to "invoke" it, in a way.
Are you saying that since the miracle has already occured, we have no where to go as far as becoming (even) more like Christ?
Posted by: Mike on June 17, 2004 08:45 PM"Are you saying that since the miracle has already occured, we have no where to go as far as becoming (even) more like Christ?"
As much as you and others are likely to disagree with it based on your current results of trying to achieve it...Yes.
Posted by: HarryTick on June 17, 2004 11:06 PMOK Harry - that's a concise, clear answer! For my part I'll try to share my thoughts "along this road" and we can all see how it goes.
I'm curious as to what leads you to that conclusion. To be honest, most people give me a blank stare when I share with them - it's not that they agree or disagree, it's that they've never thought about it.
Posted by: Mike on June 18, 2004 06:26 AMMike,
Ummm, trying to transform, trying to be something I wasn't, until I gave up and was shown that I already was.
Posted by: HarryTick on June 19, 2004 02:42 AMI'm glad that's working for you, Harry. I'll keep you posted on how things go on this end.
Posted by: Mike on June 19, 2004 07:51 AMNo, not at all, Harry. We reached the real crux of our difference of opinion, that's all. And I'm going to resist the temptation to get you to come around to my way of thinking! All I can do is keep exploring and let you know what happens.
I appreciate your honesty, and the last thing I want is for our conversation to end! I have no doubt that there are all sorts of subjects we can talk about.
Posted by: Mike on June 25, 2004 07:15 AMMike,
I bet if we looked close, not even with a microscope, we could distinguish a lot of differences of opinions. The way you had said it, sounded like "goodbye" and that you didn't want to talk about it any more.
I knew we felt differently about it, which was another reason why I had not wanted to appear like I was trying to change your mind rather than sharing an alternate view. I appreciate your openness to dialogue, and look forward to sharing more with you!
Posted by: HarryTick on June 30, 2004 11:03 AMOh, man... Absolutely Harry. Sorry if it sounded like goodbye! In fact, one of the great lessons I'm learning right now is the fact that I learn more from those who think differently than I do. It's a lot easier to surround yourself with like-minded people... but nobody grows!
Posted by: Mike on July 1, 2004 08:37 AM