OUR IMAGE OF GOD

What comes into your mind when you think about God?  The great preacher A.W. Tozer wrote that "we tend, by a secret law of the soul, to move toward our mental image of God."  So it's crucial that our idea of God correspond as nearly as is possible to the true being of God.

Certainly, in our limited human condition, we cannot think of God as He really is.  But if we are drawing our image of God from the wrong sources, then He'll be too small.

Today, since "spirituality" is so big in our culture, celebrities and people of influence often talk about their relationship with God... but for many, God seems to be a vague deity they've made up, a personalized edition of a spiritual force who exists to make people feel good about themselves.

We need to take care not to be squeezed into the mindset of the culture around us.  In every situation of each day, we have a choice.  We can fix our attention on ourselves, and recast God in our own image.  Or we can fix our attention on God, as the Scriptures really reveal Him to be. 

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of His glory.” (Isaiah 6:3)

“The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.” (Exodus 34:6)

-- Ellen Vaughn in “Daily Seeds from Women Who Walk in Faith” 

#6473

JESUS – THE MOST APPROACHABLE PERSON

“Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” (Luke 15:1-2 NIV)

In Jesus' day, lepers and prostitutes and tax collectors were especially careful to steer clear of the rabbis, who were considered especially close to God. The rabbis' had the mistaken notion that their spirituality required them to distance themselves from people. The irony is that the only rabbi the outcasts could touch turned out to be God Himself.

Jesus was the most approachable person they had ever seen. The religious leaders had a kind of differentness that pushed people away. Jesus had a kind of differentness that drew people to Him. True spirituality is that way.

-- John Ortberg in “The Life You've Always Wanted”

#6397

A BAROMETER OF SPIRITUAL MATURITY

Jesus said, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  (Matthew 6:21 NIV)

I think it’s easy to talk about things like faith and obedience and compassion in abstract terms.  The more abstract, the less convicting the truth is.  So let me get concrete.  Faith equals God-ordained risks in the face of fear.  Obedience equals God-honoring decisions in the face of temptation.  And compassion equals Spirit-prompted generosity in the face of greed.

If you really want to know how I‘m doing spiritually, all you need to do is look at my checkbook.  It doesn’t lie.  It reveals my priorities.  It reveals my passions.  And it doesn’t just reveal how I’m doing financially; it reveals how I’m doing spiritually.  It’s one of the best barometers of spiritual maturity I know of.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m certainly not reducing compassion to a financial transaction.  I think generosity has as much to do with time and energy as it does with money.  But sometimes love is measured in dollars. 

-- Mark Batterson in “PRIMAL: A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity”

#5686

THY KINGDOM COME

"Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.”  (Matthew 6:9b-10 KJV)

When we pray “Thy kingdom come,” it is an engagement of our will to act in ways that can bring the Kingdom to pass on the earth. Christianity is not a spectator sport. Our thoughts, words and deeds are the means through which the Kingdom comes.  A spirituality which expects God to do it all while we watch passively from the sidelines is a false spirituality. We only pray “Thy kingdom come” correctly when we are in the game. 

-- Steve Harper

#4857

AFFECTING EVERYDAY DECISIONS

“Whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.”  (Colossians 3:17 NLT)

Spirituality encompasses all of life. It is not something that belongs in a special compartment, separated from the rest of life -- work, school, family, and so on. Instead, one's beliefs, values, and actions should compose a single fabric. Spirituality has to do with one's basic sense of what life is all about. If life is more than just a futile exercise that leads to death and decay in the grave, then faith in God must affect everyday decisions and, most important, relationships.

-- Craig Kennet Miller in “Encounters with Jesus”


#4647

SPIRITUAL QUIETNESS

"Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."  (Psalm 46:10 NIV)

Profound silence is not something we fall into casually. This may indeed happen, and a blessed happening it is, but normally we choose to set aside a time and place to enter into spiritual quietness. Those who never do this, or shrink from it, run a very grave risk of remaining half-fulfilled as humans.

-- Sister Wendy Beckett in “Meditations on Silence”


#4580

THE MIND OF CHRIST

“Those who are spiritual discern all things, and they are themselves subject to no one else’s scrutiny. ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct Him?’ But we have the mind of Christ.”  (1 Corinthians 2:15-16 NRSV)

God is at work around us, and to accomplish this work God personally communicates His will to His people, inviting each church to join in His activity in specific ways. It is not for us to dream our own dreams of what we want to do for God. This is never the pattern in the Scriptures. God already knows what He is purposing to do through those He calls to Himself. And God is waiting for us to adjust our lives to His purposes so He can work powerfully through us to redeem our lost world.

When we hear God’s call and respond appropriately, there will be no limit to what God can and will do through His people. But if we do not even recognize when God is speaking, we are in trouble at the very heart of our relationship with Him.

This is true in all levels of our walk with God and with each other. If we in our churches cannot sense what God is telling us, then in moments of crucial decisions we’ll continue to have only opinions of people, not the mind of Christ, to direct us. Our entire mission will be in peril. 

-- Henry Blackaby in “What the Spirit Is Saying to the Churches”


#4521

A STRONG AND POWERFUL EXPERIENCE IN WORSHIP

Jesus said, “For where two or three are gathered in My name, I am there among them.” (Matthew 18:20 NRSV)

We come into worship in a variety of mental and emotional states and with a myriad of things on our minds. It is impossible for us to check our brains at the door when we enter the sanctuary, and ill-advised even if we could. What we can do is acknowledge our state before God, whatever it is, then offer to God whatever concerns and distractions may keep us from worshipping God in this hour. Then we can pray for a strong and powerful experience in the service.

Because we bring to worship our different types of spirituality, those acts and experiences of worship that will aid us in our search for God in worship will vary from person to person. However, Christ has promised to be here among us “where two or three are gathered in My name.” Our prayer is not that God will come and be present, for we trust in God’s promise. Rather, our prayer is that we may be open to God’s expression in this particular service on this particular day.

-- M. Anne Burnette Hook in “Grace Notes: Spirituality and the Choir”


#4256

TRUE WORSHIP

“So have you heard of the difference between religion and spirituality?” [a friend] threw out as we were chatting next to the cappuccino machine. “No. Tell me,” I replied.

“Religion is a guy in church thinking about fishing. Spirituality is a guy out fishing thinking about God.”

…True worship is not going to church and getting worship points. It is thinking about God in relation to everything else. Worship is not what you go to once a week, but what goes on in your head and your heart all the time.

“The Lord says: 'These people come near to Me with their mouth and honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. Their worship of Me is made up only of rules taught by men.'” (Isaiah 29:13)

-- John Fisher in "Purpose Driven Life Daily Devotional"


#4146

STEWARDSHIP IS RESPONSE

Stewardship is what we do with all we have, all we are, and all we can become. It is a spiritual journey in life, responding to what God has done for us in Jesus Christ.

-- Douglas M. Lawson


#3529

SPIRITUALITY BY COMPARISON

Comparison kills spiritual growth.  A mother with three preschool–age children hears her pastor talk about loving God so much that he is up very early every morning to spend an hour of quiet with him.  She would love an hour of quiet at any time, but her children simply will not cooperate.  What she takes away is that she ought to be doing the same thing, and so she does spirituality by comparison, living under a cloud of guilt.  It never occurs to her that the love she expresses to her children might “count” as a spiritual activity.  It never occurs to her that perhaps she is serving God more faithfully than the very pastor who may be neglecting his wife and children in the morning so he can have that hour of quiet.

A gregarious, spontaneous husband is married to a woman who loves to be alone.  Solitude comes easily for her: she would have to become more extroverted just to be a hermit.  He feels he is a failure at prayer because he cannot be alone the way she can.  It never occurs to him that his ability to love people “counts,” that the way he loves people is shaping his soul and delighting God.

Henri Nouwen wrote, “Spiritual greatness has nothing to do with being greater than others.  It has everything to do with being as great as each of us can be.”

Each of us has a me that we think we should be, which is at odds with the me that God made us to be.

-- John Ortberg in The Me I Want to Be


#3479

YOUR SPIRITUAL PATHWAY

A spiritual pathway has to do with the way we most naturally sense God's presence and experience spiritual growth.  We all have at least one pathway that comes most easily to us.  We also have one or two that are the most unnatural and require a lot of stretching for us to pursue.

There is enormous freedom in identifying and embracing your spiritual pathway.  It is a little like realizing that if you're an introvert, you don't have to work as a salesman; you could get a job in a library.  You don't have to beat yourself up or feel guilty because of what is not your pathway.  You can focus on relating to God in that way for which you were made, while at the same time recognizing your need to stretch in certain areas that don't come as naturally.

-- John Ortberg in God Is Closer Than You Think


#3383

IN THE TANGLEDNESS

Spirituality is not about perfection; it is about connection. The way of the spiritual life begins where we are now in the mess of our lives. Accepting the reality of our broken, flawed lives is the beginning of spirituality not because the spiritual life will remove our flaws but because we let go of seeking perfection and, instead, seek God, the one who is present in the tangledness of our lives.

-- Mike Yaconelli


#3278

GOD MANIFEST IN CHRIST

We preachers cannot get around the central Christian claim that, when we look at the life and teachings of this Jew from Nazareth who was born of a woman, lived briefly, died violently, and rose unexpectedly, we have seen as much of God as we ever hope to see.

The current age is a particular challenge for preaching a particular God who is manifest to us in Jesus the Christ. For some time now, we have been in the mire of something called "spirituality," which in my experience tends to be decidedly anti-traditionalist, anti-institutional, amorphous, vague and therefore undemanding…

Spirituality is what I feel when I feel better than I did before I felt it. It is a big, accommodating basket into which I can put almost anything I want to feel about the "higher power," or "spiritual force," or "my own little voice," or whatever I call whatever it is that makes me feel better.

The trouble is, Jesus is demanding. He is not infinitely pliable.

-- Will Willimon in Leadership Journal, Winter 2002


#3202

SPIRITUALITY AND GEOGRAPHY

Christ coming among us in flesh and blood at a specific locale in first-century Judea roots the eternal message of Christianity in a context.  Christian experience must always be contextual.  The Bible itself has to be read with map in hand because God's revelation doesn't just come out the blue.  It occurs in Jerusalem, Shechem, Bethel, Galilee -- concrete places where people live and where God meets them in their place.  That's why Christianity continually resists a dualism which separates spirit from matter.  Spirituality and geography have to be joined. 

Take conversion experiences in the church's history, for example.  They're invariably place-specific.  You think of Paul on the Damascus Road; Augustine in the garden in Milan where he hears children playing, saying "Take and read"; Luther on the toilet at Wittenburg Monastery; [John Wesley at a society meeting on Aldersgate Street in London]; Thomas Merton on the corner of 4th Street and Walnut in downtown Louisville.  When each of them experiences a profound insight in the life of faith, they remember it in connection with the place where it happened.  We've not given that the attention it deserves.  In the past we've concentrated almost exclusively on time and history in biblical and theological studies.  Only in the last generation have we begun to turn to geography and place and to recognize the profound importance of that as well. 

-- Dr. Belden C. Lane in Leading from the Center, Winter 2003


#3136

TRUSTING WHAT GOD CAN DO

One of the things that many great artists will tell you is that they often believe their art comes from some place other than themself. Painters will talk of how the painting somehow seems to paint itself. Sculptors talk of freeing the sculpture from within the rock where it's been imprisoned. Writers talk of being surprised at how a story turns out, at where the characters end up going. And many, many artists are certain that it is God's Spirit that guides their hands as they work. Great art, like great spirituality, involves trusting what God can do, not just what we can.

-- Eric Folkerth, Copyright 2000. All Rights Reserved. (Used with Permission)


#3115

PERMEATED WITH THE SPIRIT

The sum of the whole matter is this, that our civilization cannot survive materially unless it is redeemed spiritually.  It can be saved only by becoming permeated with the Spirit of Christ and being made free and happy by the practices which spring out of that Spirit.  Only thus can discontent be driven out and all the shadows lifted from the road ahead. 

 -- Woodrow Wilson

 

 

#3057

THE GOD WHO IS THERE

In saying God is there, we are saying God exists, and not just talking about the word God, or the idea God. We are speaking of the proper relationship to the living God who exists.  In order to understand the problems of our generation, we should be very alive to this distinction.  Semantics (linguistic analysis) makes up the heart of modern philosophical study in the Anglo-Saxon world.  Though the Christian cannot accept this study as a total philosophy, there is no reason why he should not be glad for the concept that words need to be defined before they can be used in communication.  As Christians, we must understand that there is no word so meaningless as the word "god" until it is defined. No word has been used to reach absolutely opposite concepts as much as the word "god".  Consequently, let us not be confused. There is much "spirituality" about us today that would relate itself to the word god or to the idea god; but this is not what we are talking about.  Biblical truth and spirituality is not a relationship to the word god, or to the idea god.  It is a relationship to the One who is there, which is an entirely different concept.

-- Francis A. Schaeffer in The God Who is There


#3036

OPENING OURSELVES TO GOD

God is in the depth, and we lose touch with God when we focus only on surface things. God is in the silence which we neglect and fear, and we close ourselves to the whisperings of the Spirit when we constantly surround ourselves with artificial sounds. God is in the questions that arise when we break free of the distractions, and we cut God off when we avoid contemplations of purpose, value and priority. God is in the mystery, and we turn God away when we live as if the only things that matter are those we can see, touch, explain, or possess. God is in the love of others, and we drive God out when we neglect the deepening of relationships. God is in the feeling of being still, and we overlook attempts by God to reach us when we run constantly from one activity to another. God is in the discovery and exploration of the interior life, and we say No to God when we deny there is a spiritual side to our own lives. There are elements to existence that we only discover when we open ourselves to God.
-- Robert Schnase in Five Practices of Fruitful Living

 
#2912

SACRED AND SECULAR

e tend to confine the sacred to a fenced-in area, the "spiritual," reserved for church activities. Many people rarely give God a thought apart from an hour on Sunday morning, when they sing songs of praise, listen to a sermon, and then reenter the secular world as if passing through an air lock. My pastor tells me that church members tell off-color jokes in the parking lot that they would never repeat in the sanctuary. When the doors close behind them, they believe they leave sacred space, as if the world neatly divides between secular and sacred.

-- Philip Yancey in Rumors of Another World

 
#2874