Earlier this week, I had the privilege of speaking with a young man from Côte d'Ivoire. We spoke for awhile on the differences between Africa and America. When I asked him what he believed the spiritual stumbling blocks for America were, he scarcely had to think for a second. He told me that America lives too much by that which is material. We explain everything in terms of what we can see, hear, taste, touch, and smell - basically by things that are quantifiable. He told me that we are spiritually blind. I have been praying with my students at the beginning of class that we would not just know about God, but that we would know him - that we would have the spiritual eyes of our hearts opened to see him at work in our lives and to experience him.
I am praying for myself just as much as I am praying this for them. I am a perfect example of one who loves to mentally cherish an idea - I love to know about God - but I don't experience Him or know Him by experience nearly as much. I will cherish a truth - a precious truth - from Scripture, and that is where it will stop. I am a perfect Platonist with my faith. Plato believed that the real essence of anything was its ideal. Thus, when I look at my chair, I can know that it is a chair because it has some aspects of "chairness" to it. It isn't perfect "chairness" but it is close. Somehow, I can apply this Platonism to my faith. I cherish a truth - something the Lord has revealed to me through Scripture or through a song, a painting, a sermon, a movie clip, pulling a tick off of my dog (yes, that has happened before!), etc. - and yet in my cherishing, I keep that truth up in its isolated cubby-hole in my brain and heart. But I don't give it feet. I don't put it to action. I often don't even consider what it means for my daily life and my thinking patterns and how they should change.
This leaves me as a mental Christian. This is exactly where I found myself three years ago as a theology student - loving the beautiful, precious truths that I was learning, and yet I was not transformed by them. I loved to think about them - to pull them out of the closet, try them on, think about the many facets and aspects of their beauty - but I kept them contained in my brain. It wasn't until God started working on me that summer and showing me the Gospel that these things really began to trickle down into my heart and into my life.
What habitual creatures we humans are. This time I find myself longing to know this God through experience. This time, I have the head and heart knowledge, but I long to experience God. When I asked a wise friend who has experienced and witnessed countless healings, conversions, and miracles about this, I was given this advice: Ask God for more revelation about your identity in Christ, and walk in it. God gives us plenty of revelation about who we are in Christ in Scripture. But I am to ask Him to reveal to me what this means for my everyday life, and I am to walk in it.
This is, to an extent, embarrasingly new. I am a timid Christian. I don't walk in boldness. I remember being amazed by the quote of a persecuted Vietnamese pastor that exposed my timidity:
Sometimes Christians pray for more guidance before they testify for the Lord. We want God to send us a letter telling us what will happen if we obey Him. We want God to take out all the risk. But we know the way to God. We do not need guidance. The apostles prayed for boldness to speak the Word of God, not if they should speak. We need courage and faith. We need to go forward.
I have timidity because I am afraid that I will be let down. Oh me of little faith! And I suppose that I truly cherish my faith and my Lord, but I have resistance in my heart to living that out. Oh dear, I believe that puts me back at square one in the journey of faith! I am truly thankful that I have a God who never gives up on his children and who has promised to complete what he has begun in me!
From the advice my friend gave, I began to look into who I am in Christ. I have often read these encouraging articles, but rarely have I asked the question, "What does this truth look like lived out?" We teachers need to practice what we teach. This week my students learned about the Canaanite gods. One of them, Molech, is a brass statue with outstretched arms. The statue would be heated up (WARNING - this is horrifying!) and a live baby was placed into the arms of the statue. The priest would bang on drums so the father couldn't be too moved by the sound of the child's cries as the baby was burned and began to roll down the arms to the body of the statue. Utterly horrifying. Ironically, the Canaanites (and Israelites) who engaged in this practice made these sacrifices to receive "fatherly protection" from this god. It is sickening - the evil the human heart is capable of. My students then read a quote from a skeptic who compared the sacrifice of Jesus to the sacrifice of the innocent babies. Naturally, they were fired up and heartily disagreed. They then had to define what love is, and explain if there was a difference between the two sacrifices. Once they had their definitions of love, they had to come up with 5 ways to turn their "theory" of love into action. They came up with very loving and very practical ways of living their definitions out. If only I did the same every time I learned something from God's word!
So, application. My challenge for myself is to take the things that I treasure most about God, the gospel, and how God sees me, and ask myself, "what would my life look like if I actually believed this? If nobody knew my thoughts, how could my life explain this concept to him or her?" (Hmm...yet another assignment I had given to my students...) So here is my first one - the fact that my sin was FINISHED at the cross. Here is a beautiful song that the Lord used to minister to my heart. Here is a link to hear it sung with the lyrics below.
Hark! the voice of love and mercy
Sounds aloud from Calvary;
See, it rends the rocks asunder,
Shakes the earth, and veils the sky:
“It is finished!” “It is finished!”
“It is finished!” Hear the dying Savior cry;
Hear the dying Savior cry.
“It is finished!” O what pleasure
Do these precious words afford;
Heav’nly blessings, without measure,
Flow to us from Christ the Lord:
“It is finished!” “It is finished!”
“It is finished!” Saints the dying words record;
Saints the dying words record.
Finished all the types and shadows
Of the ceremonial law;
Finished all that God had promised;
Death and hell no more shall awe:
“It is finished!” “It is finished!”
“It is finished!” Saints, from hence your comfort draw;
Saints, from hence your comfort draw.
Tune your harps anew, ye seraphs,
Join to sing the glorious theme;
All in earth, and all in heaven,
Join to praise Emmanuel’s Name;
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Alleluia! Glory to the bleeding Lamb!
Glory to the bleeding Lamb!
So what does the fact that Christ's work on my behalf is finished mean for me? And what does life look like in light of those truths?
My sin has been 100% taken care of
- I don't have to fear that God is holding on to some anger or wrath towards me
- on the contrary, I actually have all the favor from God that Jesus had
- I also have the same Spirit that Jesus had
- I also have a light yoke and an easy burden
- There is a God who loves me as if I was his daughter who died to save the entire human race
- God takes intense delight in me and loves me beyond my comprehension
- I can have everlasting joy and delight in the most delightful thing in the world
This still sounds like a mental exercise - I am relishing the mental delight (being a Platonist again) that I have at these most beautiful truths, but I need to learn how to live as if they are true...because they ARE! :-) Pray for me as I move from theory to action. I will update soon with what these truths look like as they are fleshed-out.
