It's Not About Us...but it is.

We must not allow false humility to cause us to shrink back from our calling as light, salt, and glory. We must take our place as the conductor of the brilliance of God to the darkness of the world. We must see ourselves as more like God than like the lost world, and therefore fit ambassadors, citizens of heaven and not of earth.

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"Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Your name be the glory, because of Your love and faithfulness.” Ps 115:1

As a worship leader, I suppose I'm especially sensitive to the things worship leaders say and sing. It is in our worship that I hear the most confusion and ignorance. It is in the words to our songs and the axioms of our corporate prayers that I sense the greatest darkness in the body of Christ today.

The verse above is certainly true, but shamefully abused in today's Christian culture. There is a pervading attitude in the worship movement that rejects the glory of God in an attempt to preserve humility, but the humility it preserves is false and ungodly. Of course, the glory is to God. That is not in question. The question is how God receives glory. The scriptures say it is from, or through, us.

We are the temples of the living God, the dwelling place of the Almighty, the carriers of His glory. He said He created us for His glory. Why do we believe the lie that reduces that truth to nothing more than a statement of God's sovereignty, and miss the power of its pronouncement over us as the centerpiece of all creation and the final key to His plan for the ultimate revelation of His glory?

Jesus said it was our light shining that would glorify the Father in heaven, that we are the light of the world and the salt of the earth. He predicted that our miracles would be even greater than His own would, and that the very gates of Hell would not withstand our power. Then, in His prayer for us, He proudly announced to the Father, "the same glory you gave to me, I have given them."

What was the warning with which Paul warned every man? It was that they take heed to the ancient mystery finally revealed, which is "Christ in you, the hope of glory.” We are the hope...the only hope for God's glory in the earth. He has chosen that it will be through us, and He will not do it independently of us. We will bear, display, demonstrate, and distribute the Glory of God to the world before Jesus returns.

How dare we stand cowering in the shade of our own malformed piety, fearing ourselves not worthy to move out into the glorious light that already shines from within us by God's perfect gift of righteousness? No, it is not about us, but it depends on us, and as long as we hold to our precious self-debasing, self-rejecting, self-excusing so-called humility, we will remain neutralized as carriers of God's glory.

Parenthetically, do not fear that word, "self" or confuse it with "flesh.” Self is no longer flesh for us. The new self is holy, complete, and ready. "If you walk in the Spirit, you will not carry out the desires of the flesh.” Self is now Spirit, temple, new creature, holy, righteous, participant in the divine nature.

Know who you are and you will not be confused. You see yourself as flesh, and your religion makes sense to you, but when you see that you are new, these weak and elemental doctrines will fall from you like the pseudo-spiritual fluff that they are. You will be free.

We must not allow false humility to cause us to shrink back from our calling as light, salt, and glory. We must take our place as the conductor of the brilliance of God to the darkness of the world. We must see ourselves as more like God than like the lost world, and therefore fit ambassadors, citizens of heaven and not of earth.

We must accept the gift of God's glory in given to us in Jesus, as well as the reality that we ourselves have been made glorious (thank you, David Crowder...I think you get it.). No, God did not make us glorious to glorify ourselves, but that is the unbelieving man's conflict, not ours. Our issue is not to whom the glory will go, but how much of the glory we now share with Him we will display and distribute to the world. It's not about us...but it is.

Just Like Jesus-part 1

What does it mean to be Christlike? To me, it's a rather silly term, so likely to be misunderstood as to be nearly meaningless. Almost no one who preaches Christ-likeness as a pursuit actually allows for the achievement of it, and those who do generally have reduced its meaning to matters of character only.

However, I believe not only is it possible to be like Jesus in every way, but it should be considered normal. John wrote that anyone who claimed to live in Jesus should walk exactly like Him. That's simple language. There's no room for interpretation--just like Jesus.

When you combine that statement with Jesus' prediction that anyone who believed in Him would do the same miracles He did and even bigger and better ones, the picture becomes clear--this is a standard of normality far above what most of us have heard. While it is clear, it also seems an impossible goal, and one from which I usually feel quite distant--just like Jesus

There's a lot to say on this subject, so it will take several posts to cover it. I will begin with this thought as a foundation: God has set a standard for us in Jesus that only Jesus in us can meet. I hear people talk about training for Christ-likeness, and I cringe at the terminology, because it makes it sound so humanly dependent.

The standard of life in Jesus is Jesus Himself...and more. Therefore, something supernatural, something super-human, something mystical or magical must occur in order for the standard to be met. Granted, renewing the mind plays a central role in that supernatural process, and that could be called a sort of training.

Nevertheless, let us not reduce the goal to a manageable one in order to try and reason a way to achieve it with human effort. To me, it's even more exciting to realize that all this is utterly insurmountable without divine interaction. The sheer impossibility of it is proof that another reality exists, and that this other reality is for me to experience now, on a daily basis, in the process of this earthly life.

God has set a standard for us in Jesus that only Jesus in us can meet. This should be normal: a supernatural, God-revealing life--Just like Jesus.

Christianity is an Eastern Religion

A friend of mine was talking with a devout Muslim about the claims of Jesus. The man expressed that he had no need for my friend's "Western God." Primarily for the sake of argument, my friend said, "Christianity is not Western, it's Eastern!" Later, he began to realize he was on to something.

Food for thought tonight: truth is, as a westerner, you're at a disadvantage to understand Jesus, Paul, Peter, John, and the rest. These men, like Moses and the prophets, came from cultures much more like what exists today in Iran, Turkey, Palestine, or Iraq than in the good ol' US of A.

Of course, understanding the Old Testament helps somewhat. My suspicion is, however, that most American or European Christians have understood the Hebrew culture revealed in the Old Testament with a severe western slant. Honestly, when I mentioned Moses, didn't you picture Charleton Heston?

Christianity is Eastern, and we need to take heed to that. I believe part of the necessary reformation of at least the American Church is the infusion of elements of eastern thought into the understanding and practice of the Bible. Please reserve judgment here. I am zealously opposed to goofiness. That is not what I mean.

I will give you one example, and I'd love to hear others. (shameless fishing for more comments!) The Jews did not study the scriptures in the analytical way we do. That is a western idea. The Jews memorized the scriptures, meditated on them, and did them. To them, that was study--to hide it in their hearts so that it would become reality in their lives.

Our methods of study are so analytical as to become critical. In other words, we tend to study to decide whether we believe what the scriptures say, or worse, to try and dismiss what they say. In our analytical approach, we also miss the precious intimacy of scripture, and the fact that primarily they reveal a person, rather than merely the answers to our questions.

What other western tendencies cloud our experience of Jesus? Hmmm...