Is Christianity About Working On Yourself?

Did you know that Christianity is not a self-help system? Most Christians will tell you that they know that. They will tell you that salvation is by grace and our transformation is a process of the Spirit. But what most Christians tell you and what they actually teach and live don't always match up.

Let's face it, most of humanity is made up of doers. We like to feel in control, powerful, in charge of problems and able to find solutions. This is so true and we are all that. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. Yet, our relationship with Father is one of dependence, trust, rest, and obedience to instruction. We are capable of finding solutions but the solutions the Lord wants to guide us to are eternal not quick fixes.

We like to work on ourselves. We like to see areas that need improvement and come up with a plan to do it. But the areas that need improvement are not areas that we can improve. It is beyond us. Instead, we are told to cooperate with the Spirit who will convict us according to righteousness. The work of change is his responsibility and we learn to submit and cooperate. That fact is, everything we need has already been planted in us when we received Spirit and Spirit teaches us how to let these seeds grow and to walk according to this new nature.

So what does that look like?

Let's use an example from James. In chapter two James teaches that our entire responsibility is summed up by the royal law, "To love and respect our neighbour as we love and respect ourselves". Of course this is not a love we are capable of but a love that comes from Jesus living through us. Paul describes this love for us in 1 Corinthians 13 and it is very radical compared to our watered down and limited version.

James goes on to talk about how this love is demonstrated in our faith-works. This is not a faith that remains a theory or talking point but a thing that operates in us, provoking us to action, every moment of our day for the rest of our lives. This is a powerful thing that has been seeded into us. It is not limited to kindness, but has kindness in it. It is actions we are provoked by love to take that goes beyond what we have resources to accomplish but still we do it trusting that Dad has us covered because this action is his righteousness. I hope you can understand the mumble jumble.

This is great in and of itself but the point I want to make is found in the third chapter. Here James addresses the issue of the words we use. He describes the power of the tongue, comparing it to a ship's rudder, the bit that controls the horse and the flame that starts a forest fire. I have heard many sermons from this passage and most teach that we need to learn to control our tongues. But the thing is James says we can't. He says that humanity has tamed everything in the world but we will never learn to tame the tongue. Still we persist in teaching that by our effort we can change.

What is the solution? James says consider the source. He says bitter and sweet water cannot come from the same source. So it is not a matter of taming the power of the tongue because if the source is good then the power will be used for good. Instead of tearing down it will build up. Instead of cursing it will declare blessing. Now, we do have something to do with the source.

The problem with the tongue is the same problem as our actions. Everything rests on what James says is our purpose : "To love and respect our neighbour as we love and respect ourselves". Jesus told us we would not be able to do anything outside of him and that we need to remain attached to the vine. The vine, Jesus, is the source. He constantly renews our heart. He constantly refreshes us. His joy is our strength. 

It is never about self-improvement. It is always about keeping step with the Spirit, being attached to Jesus, being renewed in him every day, being dependent on him, taking direction from him, living for his purpose and his glory.  James says the royal law sums all of this up and, to be honest, is a lot easier than being careful with our words. If I concentrate on my relationship with Jesus, my source of all things, then the powerful tongue will only ever speak words that love, respect and honour other people. Because the Source is sweet the water will be sweet.

Is There A Place For Jesus In Christianity?

If there was something that I could point out to our believing youth of today it would be that there is too much "us" in Christianity and not enough Jesus. It is sometimes a hard thing for us to understand how it is that we are suppose to live and operate under grace. We are a people who are fiercely independent and prefer to do things for ourselves. It is so ingrained in us that we do not even realize we are doing it and it permeates the Church of this age. Our attitude is Jesus, Jesus, Jesus in word and song but it is me, me, me in action.

As a young person, how do you stop the habit of sin? Is it any different when one get's older? Too often we do not know how to allow the Spirit to work in us so we treat sin like a bad habit. We change our behaviour, turn our back on our action, clean house and think we are okay. But in truth, if it were possible to do this, to turn our back on sin, Jesus would not have had to go to the cross for us. It is the difference between every self-help book on the shelf and the work of the cross.

A powerful thing happened on that cross. The slavery to sin came to an end. Where there was no way, Jesus made a way. What Jesus did on the cross enabled God to enter in and transform us and by returning to the Father, Jesus was able to send the Spirit to enter into the children of God, allowing for the work of transformation. The whole thing is the work of God, and all we do is receive. It is a powerful work of grace, done by the love of the Father.

When we treat sin as a bad habit we are saying to our Father, "It's okay, I've got this one". We are telling him we don't need his help. We may pray the prayer and sing the songs but we are still trying to do the work. There is a big problem with this and Jesus warned us about it:

When an evil spirit leaves a person, it travels through the desert, looking for a place to rest. But when the demon doesn’t find a place, it says, “I will go back to the home I left.” When it gets there and finds the place empty, clean, and fixed up, it goes off and finds seven other evil spirits even worse than itself. They all come and make their home there, and the person ends up in worse shape than before. (Matthew 12:43-45)

Sin is not a bad habit; it is a very powerful, destructive nature that we have no power over except through Jesus Christ. If we treat it as a habit we will see no need for any help against it. The fact is that sin no longer has any power over us due to the power of Jesus in us but we need to allow that power to fully transform our hearts in order to see sin destroyed in us.

The way to beat sin is to allow Jesus to have full occupancy. Don't clean house, leave it empty and allow it to return with friends. Every day surrender all of the control to Jesus. Make it your heart's desire to know him more, to love him more, to walk in obedience more. As you do there is a displacement that happens. Because of the cross sin has no power over us and as we allow God to fill our house with the Spirit there is no place for that sin to remain or to move back in.

Getting rid of sin is often treated like how we try to get rid of fat. We try the latest diet and at first it works but our old habits are hard to break. The only way to deal with our health is a complete transformation of our lifestyle. It doesn't mean diet but a complete change of eating habits. It also includes a healthy, active lifestyle, less television and video games and more walking, cycling, hiking and any other activity we enjoy. Our spiritual transformation is the same way. It is not a conforming of behaviour that flip flops but a complete re-birth transformation into something new.

You speak to anyone of any maturity and they will tell you that the times they have failed are the times when they became selfish and self-centered, when they returned to the old nature. We cannot afford to be self-centered because, as followers of Jesus, warriors of the Kingdom, servant's of the King of glory, all we can afford to be is Christ-centered.

That is what it comes down to as a young person or a person of many years; what do I want today? Do I want to feed myself on my selfish desires or do I want to love the Lord my God with all my heart, all my soul and all my strength? Do we hear Jesus' words when he said, "If you love me you will do what I have asked"? It is hard every day, no matter your age, to set aside the attractive desires of this world and to choose Jesus over everything else, but that is how you beat sin, by loving Jesus more than everything else in your life. Then there is no room for sin.

Recognize that you have no power in yourself and that you are totally dependent on the power of God in you. It doesn't mean you are powerless; far from it. It means you are more powerful than you can possibly understand at this moment. When you are operating in the power God has given you, his power, nothing is impossible. It is why you are more than a conqueror; you are an overcomer, because Jesus has overcome. Let's set aside our feeble attempts at self-improvement and allow Jesus to complete the work he has begun in us. Let's get Jesus back into everything to do with Christianity. To God be the glory!

It's All Or Nothing

You can't serve two masters. You can't be double-minded. You can't have a divided heart. It is either all or nothing.

There is nothing "normal" to being a follower of Jesus Christ. There is nothing about it that the world can accept and reconcile it's thinking toward the Church. Jesus was totally radical in everything he did which was contrary to the heart of man. Love your enemy? Pray for those who persecute you? Those who are last will be first and the first last? Those who try to hold on to their life will lose it but those who give it up will save it? Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow him? If you are luke warm he will spit you out?

This is not the foundation of some new humanity make over. It is not some new world order. It is the Kingdom of God in the hearts of man. It is the visible outward sign of an incredible inward transformation. A transformation not achieved by good thoughts and good deeds but brought about by the transforming power of the blood of Jesus Christ applied to those who make the decision to give up their lives for Jesus.

I hope you heard that: Who give up their lives. Repeat: give up .

There are no half measures with Jesus. He said we are either with him or against him. To make a decision not to make a decision is to have made a decision against him.

There can be no mistaking what the Word of God clearly tells us. We cannot serve two masters. We cannot have the world and Jesus. We have to decide which master we will follow and obey. If you say to yourself, "I will serve no one. I serve myself and humanity", then you have chosen the world; you have chosen rebellion; you have chosen death. If you choose Jesus then you have chosen light, life, and love. You have chosen a new birth, a transformation, a radical change:

You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. (Ephesians 4:22-24)

It is a decision.

It has always been a decision.

We make the decision to accept Jesus' invitation to follow. We make the decision to step into his love which gives us the power to decide to put off our old self and to put on the new self. It is nothing we can do but it is a decision we make. A work of art cannot create itself. It is our Father who transforms us through the blood of Jesus but we have to allow the transformation. We have to make the decision. We have to deny ourself to take up the cross to follow Jesus.

We can try to serve two masters but we are only lying to ourselves because the Son of God has told us that we can't do it. We can try to have both Jesus and our desires but we will be total failures because Jesus told us that it can't be done. He told us plainly and simply, it is all of us or nothing. Either everything is surrendered or nothing is. Either he has all of our heart or none of it. There are no half measures. There are no moments of our day that belong only to us. Jesus cannot accept a portion of our life, he has to have the whole thing.

And when you truly know his love, you wouldn't want it any other way.

A Life Worthy Of The Calling

When I was in High School I won a national poetry contest. Not exactly the same as winning the hockey league championship or the regional football trophy. So I was a bit surprised when the school announced my achievement and had the local paper out to take a photo for an article. What I didn't understand at that time is that whatever you achieved as a student was achieved for the school. It wasn't that the school was robbing me of my glory but it saw me as part of what made up the school so whatever I did also reflected on the school.

Makes sense. The school is not a building but instead is made up of the students and the staff. A company may produce a certain product but it is often also judged by its employees. Consider Walmart, as much as you may judge the store on its products what will impact you most is how you are treated by the cashier. When the cashier shines, the company shines. When the cashier fails, the company fails.

The same could be said for the Church and God. We are the Body of Jesus and what we do and say either adds to or takes away from the glory of the Father. The difference is, we are not talking about our ability, strengths and weaknesses. Nothing we can do in ourselves can add any glory to our Father. What adds to it is when we allow the Father to shine through us.

Each of us is capable of great and small things, significant to the Kingdom, of far greater worth than we can imagine, and we are capable of these things because of Jesus in us. That is our potential, our responsibility to be filled to the measure of the fullness of God. Our achievement is not measured in what we can do. Instead it is measured in how little we do and how much we allow God to do through us. As long as we live by our dreams, ideas and opinions, God cannot use us. The more we surrender and allow the Spirit to have control, trusting Jesus with our life and our days, the greater glory our Father will receive.

This is what Paul was saying to the Ephesians when we wrote:

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. (Ephesians 4:1)

Often these words have stirred my desire to do great things and just as often I designed the blue prints of those things. A life worthy of the calling is a completely surrendered life where we are heard to say, "not my will but yours be done". Not what I want but what you want Lord. Not my blue prints Lord but whatever you have designed. Wherever, however, whatever you desire with me Lord. Here am I, send me. A messenger dispatched by the King goes where the King says to go, he does what the king says to do, he says exactly what the king said to say. His life is not his own.

You have received a calling from Jesus. It is a calling that brings glory to the Father. It is a calling that requires you to allow the power of God in you freedom from your limitations to operate. It is a calling that asks you to be a vessel of God's glory, to allow him to shine through you, to allow the world to see and know him. It is a calling that requires you to be a temple of the Holy Spirit and to do what Jesus did. Now ask yourself, are you living a life worthy of such a calling? Don't run the risk of being ashamed of this life you are living when the King returns and demands an accounting for how you have spent this it. Live for the glory of our King. Let the world see Jesus not you.

Making Jesus Our Everything

I think many of us want to live a life that glorifies God. It is our desire to know each day that our Father is pleased with us. We long to hear from our King  "Well done good and faithful servant". The only real question is, how do we do it?

It's not as hard or complicated as we make it seem.

There are many lists in the Bible, a number of does and don'ts, a few things that look like we can put them into practical use. You have even probably tried to follow a few of these as most of us have, and failed in doing it, as all of us have. This is the thing to keep in mind: Jesus came to free us from a law we could not live, not to set up another one to replace it.

Jesus took the law and fulfilled it because we couldn't. Then he had the Holy Spirit take the law and write it on our hearts, empowering us through the Spirit to live the law in our new life, not from a list but from our heart. The law is in us, but in a friendly, practical way. As Jesus said it is summed up in two things: Love God with your entire being and love others. If we live this then we will fulfil the law and every list we find in the Bible.

But that brings us back to the "how" question. How do I live this "law"?

Without a doubt we have a part to play in this but the biggest part is God's as he shapes us into the character of Jesus. Our part is to let him to do it and we do this by making sure that Jesus comes first. Well, let's go beyond that. We do this by making sure Jesus is our everything. The only way he becomes our everything is when we make our life and everything in it about him. Let's go beyond that: he becomes everything when we recognize that our life and everything in it is from him and for him.

In Colossians 3 Apostle Paul gives us a few lists concerning holy living. They are important lists but not ones that were intended for us to live up to. That is how the world would perceive them. They are not a list of things for us to do but instead to allow the Holy Spirit to do in us. He is able to do this when we allow him to do it and we allow him when your heart and mind are possessed by Jesus as they must be. Paul starts this section off by the single most important thing we must do (our part) every day. Let's break it into two sections. The first:

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. (Colossians 3:1)

The heart is a deceiving thing. Our emotions trip us up every day. From the heart comes jealousy, anger, hatred and many negative things. If we keep our heart focused on how things effect us, how peoples actions harm us, and make everything about us, our emotions will continue to trip us up. But we are instructed here to not make it about us. We are told to set our heart on things above and as we do this the Holy Spirit is able to do his thing in us; the love of God flows through; all the incredible things of God are let loose, and we find ourselves forgiving, having compassion, being tender, understanding other people's actions. The more we set our heart on things above the more capacity we have to love God and others

The second thing:

Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. (v. 2)

It's not just emotions, perspective matters as well. During Paul's day the heart was the symbol of everything that made us human, including intelligence. The mind was seen as the place where we perceive things. In this case if we set our mind on things above then we will have the right perspective. As long as we are only perceiving in the natural the Spirit will not have the freedom to show us what God is doing. When we get our mind set on Jesus, everything in this world looks different. We can see the ugliness and why the world needs Jesus. As long as we are perceiving with our mind with the perspective of the world we will never fully understand the importance of Jesus to this world or God's will in our life. We will not be able to love God and others, at least not as God defines love.

Paul also reminds us why our heart and mind should be set on thingss above:

For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears,then you also will appear with him in glory. (vv. 3-4)

Our life is no longer made up of things of this world but instead we are hidden with Jesus. We died. We keep forgetting that. When we accepted Jesus we died to what we were, how we felt and what we perceived, to our opinions. That is how it must be but often today it is more like Jesus just becomes part of our life instead of BEING our life. That's what Paul is saying here: "When Christ, who is your life ..." You died and the only way you can live is in and through Jesus just as he lives in and through us. This is the only way to live a life that glorifies God.

Tomorrow we will look at how this translates in our daily living.

Trying To Live For Jesus Without The Spirit Messes Everything Up

There is a message that burns deep within me that I wish I could impart to everyone who calls on the name of Jesus. Too many Christians are dead to the Spirit because they fell out of fellowship with Jesus before they really even started. It's like they fell out of bed because they fell asleep too close where they got in. They didn't go far enough with Jesus. They stayed on the surface. They went no further than salvation, the cross of Christ. They did not seek the deeper things. They became satisfied too early and relied on nothing more than the baptism of repentance. But Jesus offers us more than forgiveness; he gives us life to the fullest through the Holy Spirit.

I cannot stress enough the importance of growing in our faith through the Spirit of God. Faith and the Spirit go hand in hand, and I am talking about the faith that provokes you to act on the promises of God.

"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." (Galatians 2:20)

Too many of us live without the power of God. The life we live in this body we are living by our flesh instead of by faith. It is like what Paul warned, that in the last days there would be a form of godliness without the power of God. Look around my friends, where do you see the power of God? Too many of us have created our own little god with our own little law. We still use the same names but the god we worship is not the Jesus we read about in the Bible. Paul asked this question:

"Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?" (Galatians 3:5)

The problem is that many of us have not received the baptism of the Spirit and miracles do not happen because we don't believe what we read. We are too busy limiting God with our limitations because we don't know how to live by the Spirit and try to serve God by our flesh, which is impossible. Allow me to share a little known verse:

"He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit." (Galatians 3:14)

It's all about us receiving the Spirit so we can live a life of faith as big as our God. The blessing given to Abraham was righteousness by faith and it is by this same faith that we receive the Holy Spirit who enables us to live by God's righteousness. The Holy Spirit is the great enabler. Without him we can't see God. Without him we do not have Jesus.

"So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are no longer under law." (Galatians 5:16-18)

You cannot live for Jesus without being possessed by the Holy Spirit. You cannot operate in the power of God without the Holy Spirit. You cannot live a life that glorifies God without the Holy Spirit. You cannot see God without the Holy Spirit. You cannot know the will of God, the mind of Christ without the Holy Spirit. You cannot even begin to imagine the love of Christ and its power to transform without the Holy Spirit.

"Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit." (Galatians 5:25)

So in order to keep in step with the Spirit we need to first be living by the Spirit. Too many Christians know nothing about the Holy Spirit yet he is the reason Jesus left this place. Jesus said he had to go so he could send the Spirit, who would then live in us. It is a question of surrender and obedience. Will you receive, surrender to and then obey the Spirit of God to allow Jesus to live through you? The Word tells us that all we have to do is ask:

"If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" (Luke 11:13)

So, in faith, ask!