Spiritual Maxims - #2

"We must keep our eyes fixed on God in everything we say, do or undertake. Our goal is to be the most perfect adorers of God in this life as we hope to be throughout all eternity. We must make a firm resolution to overcome, with God's grace, all the difficulties inherent in the spiritual life."

Here is paragraph two of Brother Lawerence's Spiritual Maxims. Of all the various points he makes in this chapter, I think this one both makes the most sense, and best sums up all the others.

First, "We must keep our eyes fixed on God in everything..." I think a great scripture to illustrate this is Colossians 3:1-2. It reminds us to constantly be seeking those things which are above, instead of being constantly distracted by those things which are below. Here, Brother Lawrence, wisely, does not say that in doing this we should cease doing the earthly tasks we are charged with, but rather that in them, we should have our minds steadfastly fixed on God. Whether at work, at home, or whatever, we should maintain a constant awareness of God's very real presence with us.

Second (and my personal favorite), "Our goal is to be the most perfect adorers of God in this life as we hope to be throughout all eternity." Psalm 27. Psalm 84. David said that he only had one thing to ask of the Lord - that he could dwell in His courts forever and gaze upon His beauty. In other words, the one thing David craved more than anything, was Presence. He wanted to be WITH God always, face-to-face. I wish that my ONE desire was that. And yet, this is what Practicing the Presence of God is all about. It is about coming to a place where the awareness of God permeates your life in every area, from the mundane to the magnificent.

The thing that really catches me is that word "adorer." I want to be an "adorer" of God. I'm not sure I even know how exactly to adore anything! When I hear the word "adore," my mind immediately goes to ponytailed girls in circa 1950's poodle skirts, swooning over the High School quarterback as he walks by in his letter jacket...Why? I don't know. As bizarre as it may seem, I don't think that image is so far off the mark. Shouldn't we sort of "swoon," in a spiritual sense, in God's presence? Shouldn't we be so distracted when He "walks by" that everything else sort of fades away, and our eyes are fixated on Him? Weird, I know. I never want to become complacent about God's presence! I want to be awed by Him as often as possible. I want to "gaze upon His beauty all the days of my life."

The one last thing that stuck out to me in this was how he made reference to us being "the most perfect adorers of God in this life as we hope to be throughout all eternity." The idea is profound. Think about how you will worship God in heaven...Think about how fixated you will be. Think about how nothing will be able to distract you from His glory. Think of the love you will feel. That's how we ought to be now - or at least, it ought to be our goal to be like that now.

Let's be perfect adorers of God today!

The Conquest of the Soul

This is an old teaching that I came up with years ago, but was reminded of today in my Bible reading. The reminder came from Deut. 7:22, "The Lord your God will clear away these nations before you little by little. You may not make an end of them at once..."

The wandering nation of Israel has been traipsing through the wilderness for forty years, and here they gather, at the banks of the Jordan river ready to cross over and inherit the land which they have been hearing about since the day they left Egypt a generation ago. This land was God's promise to them. God has told them that He would give them this land, and yet here He tells them, essentially, that the fulfillment of this promise will be a long, arduous and difficult task. If God wanted to, He could just pull a "Sodom and Gomorrah" on these nations, and burn them up with fire and brimstone from heaven. But He doesn't. The Israelites will have to fight. They will have to obtain the promise "little by little." One victory at a time. Sounds a lot like life...


The Conquest of the Soul is a teaching I developed (but yet have never actually taught) that discusses, from a theological perspective, this very idea, using the Israelite's Conquest of Canaan as a backdrop. In a very real way, we are at war every day against the influences of the world, against the devil, and against ourselves to obtain the promise of God. We are "working out our own salvation," day by day, painstakingly, to obtain the fulness of the salvation which God has promised. Our victory is sure, so long as we keep our eyes on Jesus, so long as we do things God's way. But despite the "sureness" of our victory, we will still have to fight.

One of the more famous verses from the book of Joshua (the book that chronicles the Conquest of Canaan), is this: "Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses." (Josh. 1:3). We Christians love quoting this verse. It makes victory sound easy doesn't it. "Just walk on it, and it's yours!" However, looking at the Hebrew puts a new spin on it...

daw·rak is the Hebrew word which in many places is translated, "bend the bow," as in "bow-and-arrow." Thus the idea of "treading" here doesn't mean "walk," but more like "war march." Thus, "wherever your foot marches to war, I will give you," is a more complete interpretation.

So, God's command to Israel was not to "walk around" and "claim" the land, but rather to "go to war" and "conquer" the land. The first is passive, the second active. It is the same in our lives. It is foolishness to look at the defeated areas of our lives and assume that we can just "claim the victory." If there are "enemies in your land," you've got to "drive them out"! You've got to go to war!! You've got to do some treading!!

Okay, that's a good introduction. More to come!

Worship is like...sex?

I've been thinking a lot about worship lately. Mainly because I've been doing a lot more of it recently. I have been experiencing a wonderful closeness with God lately that I can hardly explain. It's like a switch got turned on, or something. I feel that sort of panting after God that Psalm 42 talks about. I've been reading my Bible a lot more, I've been praying more, and from my heart. I'm experiencing those random moments where I just have to stop for a second to praise Him under my breath for His goodness. It's truly wonderful.

Scott basically called me a girl because I suggested that he sing "Lovely Are Your Dwellingplaces" by Hillsong at church, in which the chorus just repeats, "I love You, I love You, I love You." He's right. It is sappy. But I feel sappy lately. I go before God and all I want to do is pour my heart out in love. I just want to be with Him.

So there's the backdrop. That's why I've been thinking about worship lately...

About a week ago I started thinking about how many churches have become unhealthy in their worship. The most obvious way that congregational worship becomes unhealthy, is with a loss of passion or zeal in worship (perhaps the church never had it in the first place!). But that one's obvious. I was more thinking about the churches that maintained a sense of passion, but a sort of false, or better, misplaced passion. I've been to many churches where the people saw the worship service as an opportunity to receive some blessing from God. This sounds alright on the surface, but is that really to be our focus in worship?? Should we sing and lift our hands in order to somehow persuade God to give us some blessing? Isn't worship supposed to be our response to God for the blessings He has already given?! This thought changed my worship. I began offering myself to God without any expectation of blessing or a sense of His presence. It was my offering to Him. It was a sacrifice. To be sure, I think this is a better approach to worship than a "gimme" approach. Then I read this blog...

In it, this worship leader talked about his distaste for the "Audience of One" theology, because he thought that the idea of God as a "passive recipient" of our worship was incorrect. I am inclined to agree. This of course challenged my thinking. As mature as I thought I was being in my "sacrificial" worship, I realized that it still placed God as being the "audience" of my worship. I was performing, He was spectating. Here is where he introduced the idea that the Bible shows worship to be more like...sex.

As risque as this may seem, he supported it with scripture.

1 Cor. 6:16-17 - "Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, 'The two shall become one flesh.' But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him."

Eph. 5:31-32 - " 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.' This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church."

These, the book of Hosea, Song of Solomon, as well as countless times in scripture where God refers to worshiping other gods as "adultery," or "whoring after other gods," show that there is some truth to the idea that worship is somehow symbolized in sex.

Obviously, sex is a physical act, and worship a spiritual one - so hopefully that clears up a lot of the potential weirdness for you right there. But think of the parallels. Sex is beautiful (when it is between married partners). It is as intimate an encounter as two humans could ever have. It is the ultimate expression of human love, for which there is no equal. Isn't our worship sort of like that? In what other act or expression is more love, devotion, passion, or intimacy toward God shown than when we surrender ourselves to Him in worship?? But here's the concept that really sold it for me...

If we view worship like sex (it's weird for me too, so relax), then the image of God as a spectator vanishes. God becomes a participant in our worship. We give, and God gives. We receive, and God receives. When we worship, we enjoy each other in an intimate spiritual exchange. It's beautiful. Thus worship is less like me preforming for God, and more like me inviting Him to an passionate encounter (or rather, I am responding to His invitation). It's wonderful.

My worship has changed again. Now I expect God to show up. I invite Him. I enjoy Him, and I delight in the knowledge that He is enjoying me as well.

It may be risque, but until a more perfect explanation comes around, I'm running with it.

Practice of the Presence of God - Spiritual Maxims

The first section of this book is titled, "Spiritual Maxims," and the paragraphs are numbered. I guess I'll just start with #1.

"1. Everything is possible for one who believes, still more for one who hopes, even more for one who loves, and most of all for one who practices and perseveres in these three virtues. All the baptized who are true believers have taken the first step along the way of perfection and will become perfect as long as they persevere in the practice of the following maxims."

The first phrase, "Everything is possible to one who believes," comes from Mark 9:23, where Jesus tells his disciples that if they would simply believe, they could move mountains. He then kind of melds 1Corinthians 13:13 into this idea - "So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love." It seems he must have thought something like this.

"Paul says that love is the greatest of these three virtues, and it stands to reason that the second in the list is second greatest. So if all things are possible to the one who practices faith, than it must also be true of the one who practices these greater virtues..."

First of all, Jesus is not saying in Mark 9:23, "If you have faith in the mountain, you can move it." Neither is Jesus saying, "If you have faith in yourself, you can move a mountain." Nor as many postmoderns would say, "If you have faith - in anything! OR IN NOTHING!" Jesus is obviously preaching faith in THE ONE TRUE GOD to perform the impossible. Thus, the one who completely trusts in the power of God, can with God, accomplish anything. If only we really believed that scripture!

Lawrence then ties this scripture with 1Cor. 13:13, with "faith" as the obvious pivot point. I'm not completely convinced that there is a clear logical connection between these two passages. I think that Lawrence's statement is true, only if you slightly modify the definition of "everything" for each of the individual virtues. I think that moving mountains is a thing which faith can accomplish, not so much love, or hope. Yet there are also things which only hope can accomplish, likewise love. I believe his emphasis is mostly on the fact that these three virtues are given the greatest preeminence in scripture, and thus we ought to strive to excel in these above all others. Perhaps he is trying to communicate that if the least of the three virtues can accomplish the moving of mountains, imagine what the greatest of the three could accomplish!

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The other thing that stood out to me was this: "All the baptized who are true believers..." Lawrence was Catholic, and it is interesting that he would acknowledge that some might be baptized who were not true believers. I think they just got the process backwards. We really shouldn't baptize people unless we are convinced that they are true believers.

That's paragraph one. The primary spiritual maxim herein contained:

Persevere in the practice of faith, of hope, and of love and all things will be possible for you, for God will smile upon you.

The "Younger Brother" Theme

Okay, so I finished reading Genesis yesterday using my "Intensive" Bible reading plan (which I am absolutely LOVING, by the way). An interesting pattern stood out to me. It is one I have seen before, but was reminded of again this time around.

Let me set this up just a little. As most Christians know, Hebrew culture places a large emphasis on the "firstborn son." The firstborn son is the heir, he is the head of the family once the patriarch dies, etc. However, despite this very clear cultural idiom, it seems that over and over, especially in Genesis, God by His sovereign will chooses the younger son over the elder. Some quick examples:

• Cain and Abel. Gen. 4:1-5
  
• Ishmael and Isaac. Gen. 17:15-19
  
• Esau and Jacob. Gen. 25:23
  
• Manasseh and Ephraim. Gen. 48 :12-14

All right, let's dig a little deeper. Another element that is fascinating about this, is that in none of these scenarios is the younger son somehow more worthy of God's favor, or of divine blessing. Though many have tried to explain it, I see nothing to indicate why Abel's sacrifice was accepted, and Cain's not, except for the fact that God simply decided that it would be so. Ishmael and Isaac are maybe a little easier to figure out, but still it had nothing to do with the virtue or worthiness of Isaac that he was chosen. Jacob was actually less worthy than Esau, since he tricked his older brother out of both his birthright and blessing by deceit (yet this outcome had been foretold before they were even born!). And again, with the story of Manasseh and Ephraim, Jacob, seemingly led by divine impulse, crossed his hands and blessed the younger with the "right hand" blessing instead of the elder . Thus, time and time again the younger brother receives the blessing that should have been given to the elder, and he receives it, not through his own merit, but by God's grace alone.

Paul deals with one of these stories in Galatians 4:21-31 (you should read it on your own). In it, he essentially presents an allegorical/typological interpretation of the story, comparing these two mothers and their children with the two covenants. God made a promise to Abraham that he would have a son by Sarah. When the promise lingered, Abraham attempted to fulfill the promise with Hagar. A son was indeed born, but not according to the promise. In this allegorical sense, Ismael was a child of the flesh, a child begotten by human works. Whereas Isaac was simply a gift received through grace. Do you catch the parallel?

The first covenant was a covenant of Law - of works. The second a covenant of grace - of Promise. There is not one thing that a person can do to earn Christ's salvation or to procure it for himself; he must simply receive it as a gift from God's hand. He must believe the Promise of God - as Abraham did - if he is to be made righteous.

So I've come to recognize that any time there is a clear pattern in scripture, there is usually some sort of prophetic message that God is trying to communicate through it. With this younger-over-elder-son pattern, I believe that God is communicating a truth about the two covenants he has made with man. The covenants are like two brothers, and the younger is the accepted brother.

Like Cain and Abel, the sacrifices of the younger brother are accepted over that of the elder. And the elder despises and persecutes the younger.

Like Ishmael and Isaac, the younger brother was begotten by promise, not by works.

Like Esau and Jacob, the younger brother, by grace, receives the favor of God, despite the fact that he is far more sinful and far less deserving of it. Again the older brother despises the younger because he is favored (but they ultimately experience reconciliation - another prophetic message?).

Like Manasseh and Ephraim, God disrupted the natural course and "crossed his hands," so-to-speak, to bless the younger over the elder.

What an awesome God we serve! How awesome is His word! How grateful we should be day-by-day that He has saved us by His grace!!!


Well, I'm off to church...

The Practice of the Presence of God

This is a fantastic book, and I'm finding that it is difficult to read more than a few paragraphs before my mind is racing with thoughts. I figured this would be a good outlet.

However, before I even get into it, I'm going to criticize it (but only sort of). Coming from a Pentecostal background, I have seen first hand how easy it is to get so focused on a certain aspect of the Christian faith to where you begin to think it is the ONLY aspect of the Christian faith, or at least the most important. Pentecostals get caught up in "supernatural experiences." Visions, dreams, healings, speaking in tongues, prophecies, hearing the voice of God, the "anointing," and various "manifestations of the Spirit" (which may or may not be 'of the Spirit' at all).

This Practice of the Presence of God could potentially produce the same unbalanced response. Why? Because is sounds so wonderful (just like seeing an angel, or laying your hands on a sick person and seeing them recover). All of these things are wonderful things, and should any of us experience them, we should feel supremely blessed and thankful. But what if our times of prayer began to be overtaken by requests to heal others? What if we started focusing on the scriptures that talk about healing to the neglect of the rest of Scripture? What if we became obsessed with people like Benny Hinn, or others like him? What if we started gauging our level of spiritual maturity (or worse, others) by our ability to heal the sick?! "People who are really close to God will heal the sick. Thus, people who don't heal the sick must not be close to God." You get the point.

Second, I think it is easy to misinterpret what Brother Lawrence means by "the Presence of God." In American church culture, the presence of God is really more like a feeling than anything else. Most Christians will acknowledge the theological reality of God's abiding presence with us, but still will say things like, "God's presence is here!" when they start to get goosebumps, or whatever. I once heard my friend say, "I feel the presence of God all over my arms!" What he meant was, "I have goosebumps." Did he really mean that God's presence was on His arms only?? I doubt it, but that is how we've interpreted "God's Presence." Brother Lawrence has a slightly different idea. I believe that when he speaks of "the Presence of God," he is speaking more of an acute awareness of the reality of God in our lives. An awareness of the God who dwells within us. I mean, think about it. God lives inside you! (That is, if you trust in Christ). He is with you always! He is with you right now as you are reading this. He fills the room where you are sitting. He has you wrapped in His presence as we speak. He is there, and His plans for you are in His thoughts. He is loving you, guiding you, jealous for you RIGHT NOW. You don't need Him to "send" His presence, you simply need to enter into it.

Perhaps in pondering those few thoughts, your awareness of God increased for a moment. Perhaps you were filled to some extent with an increased level of awe. Peace. Contentment. Love. THAT'S what brother Lawrence is talking about. Sometimes that will translate into an "experience." Sometimes it won't. But can't we all agree that a more constant awareness of God's presence is a good thing? Now THERE is something you can PRACTICE. Maintaining a constant awareness of God's presence in your life, from the most mundane chore to the most sublime pleasure.

There's my intro...