students of jesus

“Dad, why do some people disobey God?” My five year-old son genuinely wanted to know. He and I had been talking about loving God, and expressing that love through obedience.

My mind raced. Why do some people disobey God? What would he think if I told him his own father was one of those very people? Should I tell him some people live in constant rebellion against their personal, loving Father? How could I explain the crazy mixture of selfishness and insecurity that produces harmful choices? I knew I must choose my words carefully.

“Well, it’s kind of hard to explain,” I began.

“That’s OK,” he interrupted. “If you don’t know the answer, it’s alright.”

It was nice of him to let me off the hook, even if it came at the expense of my adult pride. And he was right--I didn’t know the answer. For the next few weeks I turned his question toward my own Father: “God, why do I disobey you?” In that season, my gentle Father began to reveal some of the roots of my own rebellious heart.

How do you answer a child? You may discover (as I did) that you really don’t know the answers as well as you thought you did. It’s both embarrassing and liberating: embarrassing because it bursts the bubble of presumption and exposes us for the posers we are; liberating because we become as children again before our Father, and ask of him these very same questions.

To ask yourself innocent, child-like questions is a kind of conversion. We abandon the false comfort of having an organized, consistent world view. We remind ourselves again an omniscient God is not impressed with the size of our intellect, but he is impressed with the size of our heart. We gain--perhaps for the first time--the realization that we can worship God with both wonder, innocence--and ignorance, all mixed together. We begin to discover the lesson my son gave me: if you don’t know the answer, it’s alright.

It’s not that the Heavenly Father is in favor of ignorance. Like any good parent, he delights in the discoveries we make. He rejoices as his children grow in knowledge and understanding. Yet he has also told us time and again the deepest understanding flows first from relationship: knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. Instinctively we know this is true. When we call the smartest guy in the room a know-it-all we do not mean it as a compliment.

Lately my nine year-old daughter has been exploring the depths of listening for God’s voice. She wants to know--exactly--how that works. She’s heard her Mom and Dad use phrases like “God spoke to me,” or “I think God wants us to . . . “  We’ve talked about reading the Bible, but she knows there’s more.

She wants specifics:
Have you ever heard God speak out loud? Why not?
What’s the difference between your thoughts and God’s voice inside your head?
How can you be sure it’s God speaking and not someone else?
What do you mean when you say you feel his presence? What does God feel like?

I’ve taken up her child-like challenge and together we are exploring these questions. In the process I’ve discovered that talking to your children can be dangerous. There’s even more danger in asking ourselves our children’s questions.

“Peace I leave with you,” Jesus told his friends at the Last Supper. “My peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” (John 14: 27)

Our day and age is characterized by activity, energy, and action. Peace is not an attribute of our times. When magazines and television broadcasts highlight the lives of celebrities, peace is not mentioned as one of the advantages of “the good life.”

Jesus, however, offered his disciples the yoke of discipleship, and under his instruction they would experience rest and peace. He spoke about peace often: peace is among the fruit of the Spirit. Peace is an attribute of believers even when they face persecution or violence. Peace is the fingerprint of Jesus upon the lives he has crafted. He can teach us how to live a life of peace.

The Apostle Paul, writing to a healthy group of believers in Philippi, gave these words as his final command:
"Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4: 6 – 7)

These are famous verses. Perhaps you have heard of this incredible promise of “the peace which transcends understanding.” But has anyone taught us how to receive the gift of God, this perfect peace? We can be free from fear and anxiety through prayer and thanksgiving.

For many followers of Jesus prayer is more a source of frustration than peace. We know that we are supposed to pray, but who has instructed us in how to pray? For some of us, our prayers are driven by need or fear. For others prayer is a duty and a mystery. One reason we do not experience the peace that passes understanding after we pray is that we have not learned how to pray as Jesus taught.

The passage in Philippians also reveals the key ingredient in prayer: thanksgiving. A thankful heart is the foundation for peace in God’s Kingdom. As we “present our requests to God,” we are instructed to do so with thanksgiving. It’s fine--natural--to have requests, we simply need to do so with thanksgiving. These need not be opposed to each other. Thanksgiving changes the atmosphere. Thanksgiving orders our world properly.

The Father does not demand thanksgiving: he is teaching us that a heart thankful toward him is a heart in right relationship with him. Do we need to petition God? Absolutely! But the life-giving way to bring our requests before him is with a genuinely thankful heart. Many of us pray from a place of worry and fear, and so we emerge from prayer even more anxious than when we started! We can learn to be thankful, and we must pursue this heart-quality if we are to follow him.

Finally, we need to see the connection between our understanding and peace. Many Christians are driven by the need to control our circumstances. Part of that control is the driving need to “understand” what is going on in our lives. We believe that if we can understand what is happening, we will somehow have the power to affect our situation. This is largely an illusion. We rarely are capable of the perspective needed to understand our complicated lives. Until we give up our right to understand we can’t have the peace that passes understanding.

We worry about so many things! We want to know: why have we been treated unfairly? Why did our loved one make such a foolish choices? The “why” questions reveal our inner desire to be in control, and when we are not in control we are filled with worry, grief, and care. God gives understanding, but it is a gift to the heart at rest in him.

The good news is that we can learn the things that make for peace. We can learn to pray the Jesus way. We can cultivate thankfulness that springs from the heart. We can experience transcendent peace. He calls us to learn from him. We can start there.

John Wimber, the founder of the Vineyard movement, had a saying: “The way in is the way on,” by which he meant the very actions and attitudes that empower the miracle of new birth in Jesus are the same actions and attitudes that empower spiritual growth. In much of the North American church, however, the saying could be changed the phrase, “the way in is all there is.”

I once attended a meeting of pastors who were planning a “city-wide revival.” The pastor of a respected and growing church opened the meeting with these words: “God is only going to ask each of us two questions when we get to heaven--’Do you know my Son?’ and ‘How many others did you bring with you?’” It was a memorable opening because it was short, dramatic, and wrong. The record of the first century church, preserved for us in the book of Acts and the letters written to newly-planted churches, reveals a profound concern for a spiritual transformation that flows from a decision to follow Jesus.

Consider the Apostle Paul’s prayer for the people of the church in Colosse:
Since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Colossians 1: 9 - 14)
Paul prayed for the spiritual transformation of people who already knew Jesus. This prayer lays out at least three priorities each follower of Jesus. Perhaps we can discover the way on through Paul’s prayer.

We need to be filled. Paul asked God to pour “the knowledge of his will” into the believers in Colosse. The next step after coming to Jesus as Lord is to be filled with the knowledge of his will. It requires something more than mere human intellect--it requires spiritual wisdom and understanding. I believe Paul prayed these words because he understood our tendency to apply the old way of living life to our new life in Christ. The problem is, we were “born again” into a new kingdom. How many babies know how to find their way around their new environment? If we take the image of the new birth seriously we should realize there’s a whole new life ahead. The new life ahead requires something beyond our old resources. It requires seeing things--and understanding them--from God’s perspective.

We can live a life worthy of God. We’ve heard the message of forgiveness so often we’re tempted to think forgiveness is all there is. Some people spend their lives yo-yoing between sin-forgiveness-sin. They consider this life normative for God’s children. Paul knew better. He understood there is a proper response to God’s initial grace. That response is a changed life--a life worthy of the Lord. A life where it’s possible to please God, bear fruit, and grow in new life. These first two aspects of Paul’s inspired prayer are beyond the grasp of many believers. Too many of God’s people despair of ever knowing God’s will for their lives and consider “pleasing God in every way” an impossibility. Paul’s expectation was completely the opposite:  forgiveness is a continuing reality for followers of Jesus, but the core of our life in Christ is a transformation that draws us ever closer to the likeness of our Lord.

The kingdom of God is at hand: Paul prays that we would each receive our inheritance--the kingdom of light. Jesus died to pay the price for our sin, and--like everyone who dies--he left an inheritance to his family: a new kind of life. This new life looks dramatically different from the old kind of life. Paul described this life as “righteousness, peace, and joy in he Holy Spirit.” (Romans 14:17). Here’s a bell-weather question for each follower of Jesus--does my life differ dramatically from my old kind of life? The in-breaking of God’s kingdom floods our lives with light, and light is necessary if we are going to move through this new kind of Kingdom-life. Yet how many believers stumble about in everyday life, unable to navigate the ordinary troubles of life? Paul envisioned a church filled with individuals able to receive the Kingdom-life God offers to everyone born from above. Paul had this confidence because he had heard the good news that “it’s the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” (Luke 12:32)

Paul prayed these words over a church filled with people he did not know. It’s what Paul prayed (and hoped) for each follower of Jesus. Can you hear him praying over you now?

“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” ~ Romans 12:1

Scripture presents a progressing revelation, one that finds its greatest expression in the revelation of Jesus Christ, the true Word of God. The revelation of the Old Testament--which is still God’s word of life to us today--is made complete by the revelation of the New Testament. Consider the Old Testament word “repent” (teshuvah). It means to away turn from sin and its consequences. It is an action word: turn around, restore, repair. The New Testament word, metanoia, refers to the mind: rethink your thoughts, or, transform your mind. One kind of repentance comes only after the fact, the other can prevent us from the wrong choice beforehand. Of course, both kinds of repentance are good: the Old Testament reveals an outer repentance--one of action, while the New Testament reveals an inner repentance--one of transformation. Old Testament repentance tells us to retrace our steps, the New leads us to rethink our thoughts. The old repentance can pick up the pieces, the new can hold us together.

When Jesus said that the one who looks after another with heart-lust has already committed adultery, he was not trying to widen the net of condemnation. He was trying to reveal the possibilities of a transformed mind. He was teaching us that when we think God’s thoughts, we will realize adultery is harmful to us, the other person involved, and indeed all those we love. The New Testament “repent” cries out within our thoughts, “If you’ll think God’s way you’ll see fidelity is really the best thing for you.” And so with every aspect of our lives: unforgiveness, bitterness, greed and all the rest. Jesus introduced the gospel of the Kingdom with the word repent because the Kingdom of God must take root within us. Worldly kings impose their rule from the outside, Jesus plants his rule and reign on the inside and causes it to grow.

The truest repentance is to think God’s thoughts with him. True repentance causes us to walk in holiness instead of living in a cycle of sin and cleansing. True repentance demonstrates the grace of God by keeping us clean. This week, why not consider the challenge of true repentance? It starts with facing the possibility that we really can learn to think God’s thoughts after Him.

BTW ~ You can check out my audio message, Lifesytle of Worship, which also deals with Romans 12: 1-2.

God does some of his best work at sunrise, and he never says a word about it. Each morning the heavens declare the glory of God without the benefit of advertising, hype, or self-promotion.

The heavens declare the glory of God;
       the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
 Day after day they pour forth speech;
       night after night they display knowledge.
There is no speech or language
       where their voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out into all the earth,
       their words to the ends of the world.
       In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun,
 which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion,
       like a champion rejoicing to run his course.
 It rises at one end of the heavens
       and makes its circuit to the other;
       nothing is hidden from its heat. (Psalm 19: 1-6)

There are those who say, "Good morning, Lord!" while others say, "Good Lord, it's morning!" His mercies are available to both groups. Only one group will see his glory.

I learned this from a friend: “In the past I loved his words, now I love his voice.” I’ve tried to go about the business of the day while still tuning my ear to hear his voice. I’ve discovered what Psalm 19 has been trying to say all along: it’s God’s nature to speak, and his voice fills the earth.

Daybreak is only one example: spectacular and quiet. Like resurrection. We are reminded each day that God delights in new possibilities. Each morning the message comes again: because of his great love we are not consumed, his mercies are new every morning. (Lamentations 3:22-23)

Dawn differs from daybreak, and his voice speaks again: the transition from night to day is subtle. It’s slow. Dawn is process, not an event. The hope of transformation is displayed each day, reminding us that coming alive in Jesus Christ is not like flipping a light switch, but rather like the coming of the sun. “The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter till the full light of day.” (Proverbs 4:18)

Nor does he stop speaking just because the day is begun. King David saw the sun trace across the sky, felt its warmth on his face, and heard the voice of God. His voice engages all the senses.  By his light we not only see, we can actually feel the warmth of his love. It can grow into a blaze of glory.

Once we come alive to the sound of his voice in the earth, we discover it everywhere. One of my friends heard the sound of the Spirit as he planted flowers. He stopped for just a moment, felt the breeze on his neck and heard the its sound in the leaves. To be aware of the breeze is to be aware of his presence. It's a matter of training ourselves to take notice.

The voice of God is available to everyone. The heavens encircle the earth. All of humankind is included. Each of us can see his works. Rich and poor alike can see the sunrise or sunset. Rich and poor alike can ignore the majesty as well. The heavens encircle the earth, enabling people of every tribe and tongue to discover his goodness. He speaks without language to the hearts of men. Children are attuned to the wonder; the busy-ness of adults drowns the still small voice.

Nor does he speak only in the day. Once my ear was attuned I found myself worshipping God under the night sky. I heard the silent speech of the stars. The still of the night is vibrant with his presence. There’s a difference between God’s greatness and his love. Some people are impressed by God’s power and might, the wise fall down in worship at the realization of his love. The sight of a single star in the evening is enough to provoke awe at God’s greatness. A sky filled with stars declares his unfailing love.

I went to bed that night, unaware his voice was even yet still speaking, “He gives to his beloved even in their sleep.”

My prayer the next morning became, “Lord, let me love your voice.”