students of jesus

Here’s a spiritual formation exercise in three steps:

PART ONE: write down your hopes for the next ten years. (Go ahead, I’ll wait.)

When you review the list you are likely to see a page full of wishful thinking. As in, “hopes and dreams.” I recently asked a group of senior citizens (that’s my tribe) to engage in this very exercise: “What are your hopes for the future?”

Since this group was significantly north of 60 years of old, you won’t be surprised by the answers:

I hope to have continued good health.

I hope to have enough money to last through retirement.

I hope to be able to sell my house and move closer to the grandkids.

I hope I’ll live to attend my grandkids’ weddings.

And so on. Each item on the list was predictable, safe, good, and perhaps even godly. This is how we understand hope. Our desires for peace, safety, and ease are understandable. But these things are earth-bound hopes. They are the hopes of all humanity.

Most of us consider hope to be a soft idea, the squishy expression of wishful thinking. "I hope it doesn't rain." Or, "I hope I'll stay healthy." In this modern sense "hope" is not a plan, not a strategy, it’s not even contingency planning. But what if hope was something substantial, lasting--even eternal? What if we have traded the strong, solid, lasting idea of hope—real hope, Godly hope for the timid, soft, and malleable oatmeal of wishful thinking?

There is another kind of hope. It does not start with us. Nor is it only about us—although it is very personal. Godly hope is an abiding thing. It is capable of changing who we are right now, and it also is capable outlasting this world.

So set your first list aside; it’s time for PART TWO of the spiritual formation exercise:

How many promises do you think there are in the scripture? (Google isn’t much help: you’ll find answers that vary between 3,000 and 8,000.) Implied promises, conditional promises, fantastic promises, whatever the number actually is, there are too many to deal with. So let’s generate a second list you can write down next to the original hopes you recorded. Here’s the question: “Out of all the biblical promises you’ve heard or read, which one (which ones) have moved your heart? Which ones are felt like they were specifically for you?” Have you ever read something in the scripture and thought, “Yes! This is just for me!”

In this second step of the exercise I’m asking you to take the bold step of hearing and receiving a few of the generalized biblical promises and putting them into your hope chest. “Yes,” you should say, “I know this wasn’t written to me personally, but this particular promise feels like God has spoken it to me.”

Let me be clear, I’m not asking you to do witchcraft with the scripture. God’s word is never an incantation or a formula; it’s neither magic nor math. But I am asking you to listen to the voice of the Spirit and awaken to whatever promises God wants to quicken in your life. That’s step two, but beware! Step three is just plain crazy:

In STEP THREE you should write down a promise God has made to you, personally.

Not from the Bible, but to you. Has God ever whispered a sentence in your ear? “The story of your life will change other people’s lives someday.” Or, “I will open up a door for your work to have eternal meaning.” Or whatever. God’s promises to each of us will be as different as one person is from another.

Here’s one example:

Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. (Luke 2:25-26)

Now, Simeon, righteous and devout as he was, could’ve have read the Old Testament from start to finish and never seen this promise. But nonetheless, God had whispered it to him. It was for him, not his neighbor. It was for his ears only. Pointing to a chapter or verse could not prove it. It was also just a bit crazy, just a bit exalted, and just powerful enough to shape his life—if he believed it (which he did).

Part three of this exercise asks whether God ever whispered something to you. I’m willing to bet you’ve received more than one. The only questions are whether you’ve been receptive enough to hear it, and crazy enough to believe it.

These three steps have the power to be formative in your life:

Have you dared to hope?

Have you received any of his biblical promises?

Have you ever heard his personal promise?

Finish off the exercise by meditating on the words of Peter,

“His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.” ~ 2 Peter 1:3-4

Right in the middle of this passage is a revelation: God’s promises, both general and personal, power our hope and change our lives. What has God promised you?

Take a month and hold these three steps before your Creator. Odds are you’ll never be the same again. (Honestly, take a month.)

“We know what God looks like; God looks like Jesus. We know what God sounds like; God sounds like Jesus. We know how God acts; God acts like Jesus.” Amen to all three. Huzzah for pointing our attention to Jesus, “the exact representation of God’s nature.” I’m all in with that.

It’s a popular idea these days. And who could disagree?

But from a corner of the parlour comes a polite “hem-hem” that sounds suspiciously like Delores Umbridge—except I take no umbrage with the sentences written. It’s just all the other sentences that come afterward that have me worried.

The danger of a Jesus-shaped spirituality is us: all of our preconceptions and values, deeply held and secretly directing our steps even as we announce we are “following Jesus.” When first encounter Jesus it is through the lenses have used all our lives: the lenses of our generation, our culture, our politics, our venerations, and our personal needs and hopes. We love the idea that Jesus looks like God even as we are unaware that we’ve spent our lives worshipping ourselves. One example: what good is it to say “God is love” if we know nothing of the love of God?

And so the danger: we make him our very own personal savior. Quietly, unwittingly, we absorb Jesus into ourselves. We co-opt Jesus when we see in him only those qualities and actions that already support our causes and ideas. We co-opt Jesus when we force fit him into the popular notions of our worldview, whatever it is: Jesus the patriot; Jesus the environmentalist; Jesus the socialist; Jesus the capitalist; Jesus the . . . well, the list is almost endless.

When we earnestly say we want a Jesus-shaped spirituality we’ve only taken the first step. Discovering what Jesus-shaped spirituality looks like requires every step we take after that. Jesus is not a subject to be studied and mastered. He’s not the stuff of our ideology or even our theology. He’s a living Being: infinite and wise, profound and joyful. We follow him because he is on the move, going somewhere new and mystifying.

Following Jesus is a perilous journey because he asks us to leave our home, our occupation, and our life-skills behind. Our understanding is part of the problem, which is one reason the Proverbs suggest we should not lean on it. He asks us to become little children set into a new Kingdom. He asks us to learn a new way to live. It’s his kingdom, not mine; nor should I require that your Jesus-quest fit mine.

And so, unlike Delores Umbridge, the Grand Inquisitor of Hogwarts, I have no desire to post regulations on the wall defining Jesus-shaped spirituality once and for all. I can suggest that the scriptures—all of them—reveal something of Jesus. I can point to his Last Supper words where he commends us to his great Helper, the Holy Spirit, who leads us into all truth. What I cannot do is insist that my faith expression has captured all of who Jesus is. The infinite, forever God-Man is at work forming me, and it would be wise of me to allow him to form you, too.

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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?

We have all met some really mean people in our lives. Take a moment and try to recall the meanest person you know. Perhaps it was your sixth-grade teacher. Or a neighbor who went beyond unfriendly all the way to downright nasty. The kind of mean person who still has the ability to raise your blood pressure even if you haven’t seen him or her in years.

Have you selected someone? Someone real? Good. Now imagine that person in Heaven. There they are, among the people of every tribe, tongue and nation, surrounded by the worshiping assembly drawn from all generations. Don’t try to clean them up, leave ‘em grumpy: critical, hard-hearted, stingy and sour--the same person in heaven as they are on earth. It doesn’t seem right, does it? How could an unhappy, miserable, mean person join the throng?

This exercise is not about God’s forgiveness. It’s about who we are after we turn to God. God forgives the deepest evil in our lives. Corrie TenBoom used to say, “there is no pit that God’s love is not deeper still.” I’m glad--aren’t you? But forgiveness is not the same thing as spiritual formation. Spiritual formation is about what happens to us after we receive the gracious gift of Jesus and his sacrifice. Spiritual formation is learning how to live in heaven right now.

What if we were forgiven by God but remained forever unable to change? What if our decision to accept Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross meant we were forever trapped in a cycle of sin and forgiveness, over and over again, unable to escape the kind of person we had become. How many of us want to come to God asking forgiveness for the same things year after year, decade after decade--always forgiven, never able to change?

The earliest followers of Jesus expected spiritual formation to follow hard after forgiveness. They took seriously the metaphor of the new birth. They expected that babies grow into children, and children grow into adults. They considered conversion the beginning, not the end.

Paul shared the gospel with people in Galatia, and later wrote to them because they began to embrace a grumpy spirituality:
“Now that you know God, how is it you are turning back to weak and miserable principles? . . . What has happened to all your joy? . . . I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you.” (Galatians 4: 9,15,19)
His concern was not only for correct doctrine but also for growth and health. He expected that Jesus could actually be formed in them. How many of us have the same expectation today?

He urged the believers in Rome to break free of the habits of the past and find not just eternal life, but the kind of life that could transform them into different people:
“For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” -And- “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” (Romans 8:29 & 12:2)
Don’t get bent out of shape over the word “predestination. I have no idea what it means, but Paul clearly indicated that followers of Jesus have a destiny become like Jesus. Did he think we would magically become different people when we got heaven? Or did he expect spiritual transformation to begin here and now?

How many of us turned to Jesus for something more than forgiveness? How many of us heard all of the good news--that right relationships, peace, and joy are possible in this life as we learn to drink deep of God’s presence here and now? (Romans 14:17) What if we can be transformed from the mean guy into the Christlike guy day by day? Did anyone tell us that the joys of heaven need not wait until the end of the age?

When we are born from above the beginning has just begun. The joys of heaven are available to us as we learn how to walk in the Spirit. The prison of our own anger, resentment, and yes--our own meanness--can drop away as we position ourselves to receive more and more of the grace of God. The Biblical ideal of spiritual transformation holds the promise of heaven on earth because we can join the heavenly host now. Wouldn’t it be a shame to get to heaven and be unable to enjoy the party?

I spent 10 years of my life living in Ft. Worth, Texas and working as a truly mediocre salesman. It’s a wonder I earned enough money to pay the bills. Sometimes I didn’t. I once attended a sales seminar where I learned that sales was a numbers game. The business-savvy masters of the seminar explained, “If you see enough people, you’ll make your quota every month.”

When I returned to work I bragged to my boss that I would spend the next day cold-calling for prospects. I headed out of the office into the Texas summer determined to make the numbers work for me. At the end of the day I returned a defeated man.

“I made 58 cold-calls today, but I didn’t get a single sale.”

“I suppose you could’ve made 59 calls,” he answered. “But someone probably slowed you down by asking a question about your product.”

His answer was a revelation. Although he was talking about business, I saw the difference between two kingdoms: worldly wisdom is obsessed with numbers, but God's kingdom depends upon eternal qualities like listening, trust, and relationship.

In the last 150 years much of the North American church has had an obsession with numbers. We count decisions for Christ. We keep track of average weekend attendance at our church. We certainly count the money in the offering. Like that mediocre salesman, God forbid anyone slow us down with a question. It’s not always been that way: as far as I know, the greatest evangelist in the New Testament didn’t keep track of numbers. He kept track growth. As he traveled from city to city, the Apostle Paul carried with him the memory of every church he planted. He was concerned for the health of each congregation. His heart for spiritual growth is the reason why we have his epistles preserved for us today in scripture. He wanted people to turn to Christ in order that Christ would be formed in them.

Here is a sampling of Paul’s concerns:

• When I could stand it no longer, I sent to find out about your faith. I was afraid that in some way the temper had tempted you and that our labors might have been in vain. (1 Thessalonians 3: 4-6)
• My little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you! (Galatians 4:19)
• Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. (Colossians 1: 28)
• . . . so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life. And then I will be able to boast on the day of Christ . . .  (Philippians 2: 15-16)

Paul understood that scattering gospel seed is not enough. The seed must be nurtured, protected and tended or it will never undergo the transformation from seed to son. From its first contact with the soil to the fruitfulness God longs for, it is the joint responsibility between the one who receives it and the one who plants it as well.

We can begin the week in full confidence that the Sower has done his part. What is ours?