Christian living

Galatians and Beyond

Lisa Spencer2 Comments

Every Sunday morning, I have a bible study with a small group of believers at my church, Fellowship Bible Church Dallas. The group emerged out of a 10 week class called Starting Point, that gives the basis of the Christian faith – the gospel – and a place to ask the hard questions that many seekers, returners and new believers have. Towards the end of the 10 weeks, some of the group members were hungry for more and I was eager to teach, so a new group was formed.

Compatible with my ministry philosophy of teaching Christians who God is and what he has provided, I like to focus on teaching the bible through this lens – the self-revelation of God. It fuels love for Him as we discover  his grace and mercy. So we spent the first few weeks discussing how the bible was put together, how it reveals God, his progressive revelation and culmination in the Son. This gives a parameter of how we consider the 66 books and read through them. We then spent several months plodding through the book of John, always connecting Jesus actions and his revealing of the Father. Next, we spent several weeks in the book of Acts to show how the apostles carried out the testimony of Christ and the establishment of the church. Both books were incredibly rich studies and brought many expressions of awe of our great God.

We started in Galatians today and I was reminded once again, of our tendency to trust in behavior of right and good, instead of placing faith in Christ. Grace is hard because there is something within us that makes us believe that we need to contribute something in order to be accepted by God. Faith in Christ is not enough, says our humanness that relies on human merit. And this was the problem with the disruption that was going on in the churches and why Paul was upset. Burdens were placed on belief. But faith plus some type of human endeavor for approval from God is a distorted gospel.  In fact, Paul says it is really no gospel at all. Continue reading →

Don’t Guard Your Heart

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In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul tells them

Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. (Ephesians 4:30-32)

The one word that jumped out at me in this passage was “tender-hearted”. The NIV translates it compassion. The word has the connotation of allowing yourself to feel for the other person, not necessarily pity but an openness. It’s taking the shield off that covers our heart that prevents us from seeking to understand where the other person is coming from and from showing mercy. Yes, compassion.

I tend to have selective compassion. For some, I am very tender-hearted – the abused, the dejected, the struggling, the ones with broken pasts. But for others I load up my heart with spiked armor and just wait for them to cross me – the proud, the self-righteous, the abusers.  When my buttons are pushed,  I put on my helmet and come out swinging. Continue reading →

Faith As Works

Lisa Spencer5 Comments

In Christianity, we put a lot of emphasis on faith. Jesus talked about faith and so did all the NT writers. Before the Law, their was faith and the necessary criteria for believing in God’s promises. That is why the righteousness of God was credited to Abraham, through his faith (Romans 4 anyone?). The writer of Hebrews says that without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:1). And how many times did Jesus meet the uncertainty of the disciples with the same retort to their unbelief – oh ye of little faith.

But we can use faith as a work. What do I mean by that? Putting faith in faith. Wielding the faith sword as an accomplishment of our spirituality. Proclaiming that blessings were received because of the mightiness of our faith. I have, can do, am accomplishing because of my faith.   If we say we have worked for what we have because of our faith, then we have put the emphasis on our faith instead of the object of it, which is the Lord. It is boasting in our own accomplishments. Continue reading →

Desires

Lisa Spencer6 Comments

There are a couple of ways this verse has been interpreted. The more common translation is in the vein of Matthew 6:33 – “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you”. Make him your focus and eventually the things you desire will materialize. That’s one possibility.

I have grown fond of the alternative perspective. If you delight yourself in the Lord, he will implant desires in you according to his will. This makes sense to me given the functioning of the Holy Spirit’s indwelling and the impact that should bear on our souls. It makes sense that the Holy Spirit, who transmits the will of the Father and bears the presence of the Son, will fuel us with desires that should be course of direction for our lives. Kind of in the vein of Romans 8:26-27 – the Holy Spirit will give us what to pray for.

But what if the two interpretations are meant to converge? What if they are actually two sides of the same coin? That things that gnaw at your soul, that won’t go away drives you to the Lord to delight in his presence if only to settle it down. Though it never goes away. And what if by delighting in him, to put him first in everything, the desires are only fueled. I’m beginning to think that a dichotomy between the two interpretations should not exist. If one informs the other it is a signal of future realities.

I hope so. I hope that the desires that have gnawed at my soul will materialize in tangible ways. Desires for love, for reversals, for restoration. Desires for transitions, for ministry, for impact, for influence. Desires for my children, their salvation, their lives. Desires for healing and experiencing abundant life.

Dear Lord, I know you have looked deep in my soul and know it’s condition, its waiting, its longing and its desires. I pray that you settle my soul and encourage me to delight in you. I pray for the day that desires are fulfilled.

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick. But a longing fulfilled is a tree of life” (Proverbs 13:12)

Sin and Brokenness

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The past couple of days I’ve been in off and on discussions over this post here by Kevin DeYoung.  He takes issue with the word brokenness citing an overuse that leads to an undermining of sin. Specifically he says

But as a metaphor for sin, “brokenness” is seriously limited. The term does not convey a strong sense of moral culpability. If anything, it suggests a helplessness in the face of external forces and circumstances. It gets nothing of the Godward direction of sin. In fact, the term “brokenness” sometimes feels like a safer, less-offensive euphemism for sin. Instead of confessing rebellion, disobedience, guilt, or moral evil, we only have to acknowledge that somethin’ ain’t right. We don’t work the way we should. We’ve been wounded before. We’ve had a hard go of it. I’m not suggesting those who use the term “brokenness” are trying to avoid their sins or the minimize the sins of others. But the language can have that effect.

First, I think its quite the projection on his part to assume that people are using it as a metaphor. People are basically speaking what they know – that they are broken. And we are broken because of sin. Sin leads to brokenness. They are two sides of the same coin. The impact of the fall has had much damaging consequences on God’s creation. It groans. It bites. It growls. It attacks.

Second, he starts the post indicating that in Christianity words matter. Now I am all for theological integrity and articulation. But in Christianity people also matter. Perhaps the average Joe Christian cannot articulate the doctrine of hamartiology with his precision, but anyone who has suffered the impact of sin knows its very real presence. That’s not undermining, that’s just truth.  Neither does it mean they are going soft on sin or translating brokenness into a lack of culpability. It just means they hurt because the wages of sin is death. To advocate dismissal of the word, also dismisses real human experience. And that is dishonest. I think the body of Christ is better served with honesty than an unnecessary wrangling of words and unfortunate exaggeration.

I also think this points to another issue also that I’m not necessarily projecting into DeYoung’s post but is pretty commonplace. People generally understand brokenness to the extent that they experience it and I often find a certain smugness exists with those who haven’t really experienced a great deal of it.  It then becomes kind of easy to be dismissive of deep expressions of life ache then accuse the sufferer of lack of Christian commitment.