Category: Spiritual Formation

Psalm 18 Pt 3 ~ The Lord is My Rock

The Lord lives! Praise be to my Rock!

Exalted be God my Savior!

He is the God who avenges me, who subdues nations under me, who saves me from my enemies.

You exalted me above my foes; from violent men you rescued me.

Therefore I will praise you among the nations, O Lord; I will sing praises to your name. (vv 46-49)

This psalm of praise ends as it began, with the psalmist proclaiming the greatness of God and the firmness of the foundation which He provides to those whom He loves. In the mid section of the psalm, we read David comparing his righteousness to that of his enemies and and anointing this right relationship with Yahweh as the true source of his victories. This last section turns back to God and offers praise for who He is,

As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the Lord is flawless.

He is a shield for all who take refuge in him.

For who is God besides the Lord?

And who is The Rock except our God? (vv 30-31)

Humility is discovered in that moment when we discover who we are not. It may come when we fail at some task that we thought we had mastered. That clarity may arrive also when we discover that we are not God and that all we have or do comes from Him. At that moment, these words of praise become our words. Sing them to Him this morning.

Psalm 18 Pt 2 ~ The Lord is My Rock

The Lord has dealt with me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he has rewarded me.

For I have kept the ways of the Lord; I have not done evil by turning from my God. (vv 20 – 21)

Reading the psalmists words in the second segment of Psalm 18 often leads us in a couple of different directions. First, we ask if David is boasting, proclaiming a righteousness that we find incredible. Is his blessing truly the direct result of his works or behaviors? If we were to pull these verses out of context it could certainly be understood that way but we don’t read that way. We read these statements in contrast to the wickedness of David’s enemies. He has devoted himself to the worship and the service of the Lord and is simply saying that any peace and prosperity that he enjoys is the result of this faithful service.

The second thing that jumps out at modern followers of Christ is the idea of possessing any righteousness of our own. You see, we enjoy a righteousness far in excess of what was available to David, we have the perfect imputed righteousness of our Savior.  We are no longer under the law, laboring for a perfection that cannot be attained by mortal man and always at risk of our personal Bathsheba. Our righteousness is fixed in the final work of the Lord on the cross. We too can claim the joy and benefit of the righteousness we have received.

You, O Lord, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light.

With your help I can advance against a troop; with my God I can scale a wall. (vv 28-29)

Life With God 9

And so we conclude our weekly foray into Richard Foster’s fine book as we started by rehearsing the the Immanuel principle means to us as we attempt to live it out. Life With God began by reminding us of a truth that we all know on the periphery of our consciousness but often fail to bring to the center of our lives; God is with us. In that intimate presence he extends a hand and asks, ‘will you be with me?’ Our choice is to partake of the stream of grace that is offered, to imbibe of it, to allow it to infuse our core and transform us such that we love God and love others more than we are ever able to comprehend on our own.

Or we can ignore it and spend the precious currency of our lives living on the edges of the grace. We can acknowledge that God is near but never truly see him as present and thereby lose out on the power of a grace filled life. This is biological life … it is not life in full!

The central theme of LWG is that we read the Bible not just for information but to discover the relationship with God that we can have. Our hearts and minds are stretched to greater realization as we see how the relationship has touched other humans for the centuries before we arrived on the scene. We read to know God, not just know of Him. In return, God speaks to us individually through His Word. He offers comfort, guidance, instruction, wisdom – anything we need so long as we hear his voice as we read His story.

There is a risk in exploring spiritual formation through the Bible that derives from our brokenness. The risk is that we try to do something rather than resting in the grace offered. Jesus pointed this out to the Pharisees:

You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life. (Jn 5:39-40)

The Bible is not the source of life, its author is. When we read for spiritual growth, we read to know the author the words. May He bless us in our efforts and help us to understand it is not for our efforts.

The Blue Parakeet 6

BPkeetDo not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. (James 1:22)

The Lord’s brother reminds us that although having a correct view of the Bible regarding its inspiration, inerrancy, and authority are essential, because the Bible is God’s personal word to each of us we must also be doers of that word. Our training in reading the Bible has a goal of developing our listening skills. We want to be more than information gatherers. We want to approach the words in love, with attentiveness and intention so that our thoughts and behaviors become naturally driven by the voice that we hear emanating from those words. In this week’s chapter of  The Blue Parakeet, Scot McKnight devotes a short chapter to the importance of listening intentionally.

God speaks to us through His bible for a reason. He speaks so that we might know Him and enter fully into relationship with Him. In the context of that relationship we tend to listen differently. If we were to happen upon a cache of love letters between two strangers, we might sit and read them marveling at the turn of a phrase or the depth of emotion expressed but they would not necessarily speak to us as an outsider. On the other hand, finding the letters that we received from our husbands or wives early on in our relationship we hear a different voice. It is no longer our own voice reciting the words but the soft, gentle voice of our wives telling the story of the letter. It speaks directly to us because we know and love the person who put the words to paper.

The Bible is intended to be read the same way, in the context of a love relationship. God speaks through the story directly to you and I in order to move us. It may be for the purposes of mission or it may be to put up a guardrail in our lives by hearing Him tell the story of others who failed to do His word. Either way, the voice we hear is personal and loving, not the technically disconnected voice of the Greek interpretation of Paul. We aren’t moved by Paul or John or Micah, we are moved by the story that God tells through them.

This concept is amongst the easiest to understand when we ask ourselves what our significant others want from us more than anything else…to be heard. Listening is loving (thank you Alan Jacobs.)

Psalm 18 Pt 1 ~ The Lord is My Rock

I love you, O Lord, my strength.

The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge.He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

I call to the Lord, who is worthy of praise, and I am saved from my enemies. ( vv 1 – 3 )

Such effusive praise is easily expressed in our moments of gratitude and joy as we revel in the grace that God has granted us in life. What of the more challenging times? Are we as able as David to continue to bless the Lord when it seems as though His hand has been withdrawn? The psalmist challenges our modern travails as he recounts his long running struggle with Saul.

There are three divisions to Psalm 18 and in the first David recounts the blessing of deliverance that God granted him from the hands of his enemies. He found himself as close to death as a human can be;

The cords of death entangled me; the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me.

The cords of the grave coiled around me; the snares of death confronted me. (vv 4-5)

but still his reaction, born of spiritual strength was to seek his redeemer;

In my distress I called to the Lord; I cried to my God for help.

From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before his ears. (v 6)

Yahweh’s thunderous response is not measured and meek; he storms from heaven on the wings of the cherubim and whirling of the wind. Accompanied by lightning and the quaking of the mountains, God reaches down with his fist and scatters the enemies of His king. That same hand reaches out and pulls His beloved from the depths of his despair.

He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters.

He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes who were too strong for me.

They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the Lord was my support.

He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me. (vv 16 – 19)

You and I must trust that God would rush across the heavens to preserve us as well. This is one of the great challenges that we face but to continue to soak our souls in these words develops our David like confidence.

Psalm 16 ~ My Portion and My Cup

How many times do our prayers drift toward our needs or even our desires? We may be enjoying a perfectly satisfactory life where needs can slide towards desires and still feel the need to make the request of the Lord. Or, our circumstances may be different as much of our waking time is spent pursuing the basic requirements of life. Our prayers of request take on a different tone at these moments. In either scenario, the psalmist shows us the proper approach to the throne.

Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure.

The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance. (vv 5-6)

You say, it would be easy to praise the Lord if my life was provisioned as such. I can envision very large boundaries that would remove the daily stress and concern from my life. On the other hand, when circumstances are dire, how am I to lift my voice in praise? We do it in trust. Trust that the portion assigned by the Lord is perfect for His purposes. Trust that the exact amount of security needed in order for us to serve His purposes has been provided. In trust that our labors and struggles in this kingdom will be rewarded in the new heavens and the new earth of eternity.

Trust comes from relationship. Relationship is born in the crucible of prayer.

I will praise the Lord, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me.

I have set the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. (vv 7-8)

Perhaps our time in prayer is better spent in learning the depth of our relationship with the Lord. Knowing how deeply we are loved puts our circumstances in perspective.

You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. (v 11)

Life With God 7

Richard Foster takes a turn now in Life with God: Reading the Bible for Spiritual Transformation’ target=_blank>Life With God to examine the means by which we immerse ourselves in the presence of God. If you are familiar with his earlier classic Celebration of Discipline, this chapter rehearses familiar territory. As each preceding chapter in LWG have led us to see how the mining of the scriptures contribute to an ever deepening acknowledgement of the presence of God, Foster now turns our attention to additional spiritual practices that contribute to strength and trust needed to wade into the deeper waters of a with God life.

For the Christian who has surrendered to the Lordship of Christ, whether it is realized or not, you are already given to life in the presence of God. As Peter wrote:

His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. (2 Peter 1:3)

we have life and tools to live it in full but it is required of us that we nurture the intention. Rather than simply applying the transformation that God intends, He expects us to know the struggle and joy of the process of transformation. This striving and participation in the process teaches us lessons in holiness that we could not garner from an immediate transformation.

Practicing the spiritual disciplines is not without risk. The narrow path of the disciplined walk is flanked on both sides by temptations which threaten the integrity of the exercises. On one side, we run the risk of turning the discipline we choose into an end rather than a means. The Pharisees and Sadducees were well known for distorting the Law in this fashion. On the other slope lies the danger of devaluing the disciplines based on the false argument that no work can earn our righteousness, it is freely given. As with most distortions, this argument contains a grain of truth; we cannot earn our righteousness. But grace requires something from us in order to do its transforming work. The spiritual disciplines are the means to this end.

The spiritual disciplines are not onerous or unattainable. They do not enslave us even the term discipline can often take this connotation. The spiritual disciplines lead us on the path to true liberty in Christ as we experience the transformation that he intends to be measured out especially for each one of us. You’re invited into the deep waters. God will be there, all around, supporting you while allowing you to build the muscles needed to swim.

Blue Parakeet 4

BPkeet

If you’re reading this, chances are you’re also familiar with Wikipedia. The title of the web sites come from the practice of publishing a data dump of your knowledge on a particular topic. It is a loosely constrained document that can take any number of shapes so long as it stays within the framework of the defined topic. Though the modern idea is credited to Ward Cunningham, the concept is centuries old and found in the Bible. Scot McKnight brings this concept to the discussion of reading the Bible as story in The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible’ target=_blank>The Blue Parakeet.

The Bible has a unique composition as we are all aware. Numerous authors writing over many, many years in a wide variety of environments and genres tell a single, continuous story. God superintended His story across this swatch of humanity and time to express His relationship with the world and His people. Rather than a systematic theology, He elected to tell the story as a series of ‘wikis.’ Each of the Bible’s authors is free to tell the story the way they see fit as long as it conforms to a consistent, sacred plot line. The authors may use poetry, history, or even a personal letter to tell the story but each remains based on the same plot.

Scot outlines the plot line as follows, using the Greek word Eikon. This becomes our anglicized ‘icon’ and means image, specifically in the Bible, the image of Christ into which we are being transformed. The storyline will be our creation as Eikons which become broken and finally restored. He suggests this order:

    • Creating Eikons – Genesis 1 and 2   (Oneness)
    • Cracked Eikons -  Genesis 3 to 11   ( Otherness )
    • Covenant Community -  Genesis 12 to Malachi  ( Otherness Expands )
    • Christ, The Perfect Eikon Redeems – Matthew to Revelation 20  ( One in Christ )
    • Consumation – Revelation 21-22

Each author works with this outline but does not necessarily have to use each one. When we view the Bible in this fashion, our understanding changes. Rather than sixty six different stories, we can understand the interaction of the authors as variations on the same story. This unity is missed when we use another approach to reading and can tempt us to pull books or passages out of the whole context, leading us to misinterpretations, something we should desire to avoid. Any impressions on this idea?

Life With God 6

And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another – and all the more as you see the Day approaching. Heb 10:24 – 25

The third component of the trio of intentional approaches to reading the Bible proposed by Richard Foster in Life With God is the practice of reading with the people of God. In tandem with reading the Bible with our hearts and minds, the fullness of spiritual formation is realized when we bring to bear the experiences of the whole of the Christian community on our reading practices. We do not stand alone as followers of Christ, we are members of an extended family who can be enriched by seeing the truths of the Bible through the passions and perspectives of others. We read through the experiences of others, knowing their stories and immersing ourselves in their lives.

The Christian community has recognized the value of reading together throughout its history. We have all benefitted from the lives of others as we are cognizant that we are all in this life together. Korean believers teach us about prayer, the persecuted church enriches our perspective on faithful endurance, and Africans offer their unique perspective reconciliation. These are among the experiences that contribute to our understanding of the kingdom message and aid in our spiritual transformation as their reality puts meat to the bones of the experiences in the pages of our bible. These experiences are conveyed through a number of traditions that are seen through the centuries.

The Contemplative Tradition

Christians have a long history of reaching into the deep well of God’s grace through a prayer filled life. The more time we spend in the presence of God in prayer the greater extent to which His grace and goodness will permeate our lives. Like the others, prayer is but one component of whole of Christian life and is not meant for most to be practiced to the detriment of our social justice calling.

The Holiness Tradition

Far from the impression of morality police that the title suggests, disciples of Christ are called to a holiness of heart. Jesus was rightly critical of God’s people who hearts had become darkened as they practiced and enforced moral scrupulousness as a measure of the spirituality. We are transformed from within and it is a changed heart that turns toward God, not simply ethical practices.

The Charismatic Tradition

Contrary to church divisions that diminished the whole of the gifts of the spirit depending on their outward expression, the life filled with the Spirit as Jesus describes in John 7:37-39. The streams which will emanate from the spirit-filled believer will take numerous forms from which we can learn and benefit. We know that the gifts are not evenly distributed but rather, given to specific members within the community for the good of the whole. To silence some gifts is to exclude some members from full participation in our community.

The Social Justice Tradition

He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8-9

Clearly God expects His agents to be active in the ways in which He chooses to right the wrongs of our broken world. We do well to consider that one of the reasons that the new heavens and new earth tarry is that God elects for us to serve His purposes of righting these things rather than simply applying His own supernatural intervention. Our purpose is to promote the Shalom that is only truly possible through Jesus, to be truly at peace with both God and man. This tradition helps us to temper the exclusivity that can be generated through holiness being translated as personal morality. That morality must also be measured by its impact on social justice.

The Evangelical Tradition

The evangelical tradition is more than a label, it is a mission statement. Prior to Christ, the good news of the kingdom was mediated through God’s chosen people. They fell into purely human traps that obscured the message. Jesus threw the doors open once again and invited all people into the kingdom to be a part of its life. The evangelical tradition contributes an emphasis on personal conversion, fidelity to the Word, and evangelism and discipleship. These bring structure to the Christian life but can never do so at the expense of the seeking of Shalom or the expression of the gifts.

The Incarnational Tradition

To be incarnational is to allow the life of God within to be seen in outward expression. Can you be seen by others to be a child of God without words? Transformation of our hearts changes our facade, tearing it down and restoring to other eyes the image of God that was a part of the original design.

Reading with others is much more than simply taking turns in our small group settings, it is inviting the experiences and ideas of others to contribute to our understanding of the kingdom message in the Bible. It shifts and sharpens our reading lens, giving us new perspectives on the ancient texts. God has formulated these experiences to contribute to the dynamic transformation of His people, transforming us into the image that he originally intended and preparing us for an eternity together. How have these experiences contributed to your spiritual transformation? Can you contribute something that will help a brother or sister grow today?

Psalm 12 ~ Purified Seven Times

Help, Lord, for the godly are no more; the faithful have vanished from among men. (v1)

Looking around in our modern day can reveal in us a similar sense of resignation. Our culture constantly pushes the boundaries of truth, ethics, and morality and proclaims each to be their own god who devises the appropriate framework for their lives. As we read the lament of Psalm 12 we find that not much has changed through the centuries.

The psalmist was not alone is lamenting the decadence of his society. The prophets spoke as boldly to these dangers in their time. Micah echoes the sentiments:

What misery is mine!

   I am like one who gathers summer fruit at the gleaning of the vineyard;

there is no cluster of grapes to eat, none of the early figs that I crave.

   The godly have been swept from the land; not one upright man remains.

All men lie in wait to shed blood; each hunts his brother with a net.

   Both hands are skilled in doing evil; the ruler demands gifts,

the judge accepts bribes, the powerful dictate what they desire— they all conspire together.

   The best of them is like a brier, the most upright worse than a thorn hedge.

The day of your watchmen has come, the day God visits you.  Now is the time of their confusion.

   Do not trust a neighbor; put no confidence in a friend.

Even with her who lies in your embrace be careful of your words.

   For a son dishonors his father, a daughter rises up against her mother,

a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law— a man’s enemies are the members of his own household.

  But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior;

my God will hear me. (Micah 7:1-7)

King David expressed the same trust – that God would restore the right balance, no matter how far the society tipped.

O Lord, you will keep us safe and protect us from such people forever,

The wicked freely strut about when what is vile is honored among men. (vv 7-8)

Our trust requires a long term perspective, an eternal kingdom perspective. How do you develop such a perspective? By learning and making your own the whole of scripture. A kingdom perspective is not formed from promise books and joyful passages alone, it must be refined in the furnace of reality. We may never escape the persecutors and deceivers that cross our path in this life but we can look forward to a new heaven and new earth in which they will not ‘strut about.’