The Significance of Obedience in Living the Christian Life

On August 4, 2018 By Mick TurnerIn Applied Spirituality, Christian Living, Christianity, Church, Discipleship, God's Kingdom, Jesus, Jesus' Teaching, Obedience, Positive Faith, Positive Living, Practical Spirituality, SpiritualityLeave a comment

L.D. Turner

Living the kind of life Christ called us to is at times complicated and at others, quite simple. At the bottom line, it involves obedience, pure and simple.

We are given a hint at this when the Master announces what he came to accomplish on a daily basis. Paraphrasing Isaiah, Jesus proclaims good news for the oppressed:

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor and to proclaim the captives will be released and prisoners will be freed,

Now that the Lord has given us at least a vague notion of his mission here on this planet, I think it is safe to assume he expects us to follow his lead. We can find this clearly delineated in Matthew 7, especially toward the end. What follows is an article I wrote on LifeBrook several years back.

Few sections of the New Testament have received as much attention as those chapters in the Gospel of Matthew that constitute what is traditionally known as the “Sermon on the Mount.” Containing what is generally considered as a synopsis of the most important teachings of the Master, much ink has been devoted to the early verses known as the Beatitudes, and considerable pages have also been written commenting on the other teachings that come later.

Perhaps the fewest words, however, have been devoted to the closing verses of the sermon. In particular I am speaking of the seventh chapter of Matthew, verses 13-28, where Jesus pretty much wraps things up by talking about how difficult these teachings really are and warning prospective followers about false teachers and even the dangers of self-deception. After prayerfully reflecting on these verses for some time now, I have arrived at the conclusion that these passages, often skimmed over in our haste to finish this section of scripture, contain critical teachings for not only prospective Christians, but also for those who think they are firmly entrenched in the faith.

Before proceeding any further, let’s take a look at what the Master says:

You can enter God’s kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.

Beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep but are really vicious wolves. You can identify them by their fruit, that is, the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit. A good tree can’t produce bad fruit and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit. So every tree that does not produce good fruit is chopped down and thrown into the fire. Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions.

Not everyone who calls out to me, “Lord! Lord!” will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter. On judgment day many will say to me, “Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.” But I will reply, “I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws.

Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock. But anyone who hears my teaching and ignores it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.

When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching. For he taught with real authority – quite unlike their teachers of religious law.

There is enough meat on these biblical bones to occupy us for page after page of reflection. It is a mystery to me why Bible teachers, pastors, and other commentators spend such little time on the closing verses of the Sermon on the Mount. Granted, the entire section of Matthew is worthy of much reflection, but that doesn’t minimize the importance of these concluding remarks. There is one part of the passage that has particularly far-reaching ramifications, eternal ramifications in fact, and it is to those verses that we now turn.

In verses 21-23 Jesus very clearly describes those that are his true disciples. He does this right after talking about false teachers and advising that we judge a person by the fruit they produce, not by what they say or how they appear. In doing things in this order, Jesus seems to be implying that it is important to judge the veracity of a person by how they live their lives and, at the same time, to examine how we are living as well. The implication here is that it is easy to deceive ourselves in terms of whether or not we are actually true disciples that will see the Kingdom of Heaven. Again, Jesus says in verses 21-23:

Not everyone who calls out to me, “Lord! Lord!” will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter. On judgment day many will say to me, “Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name. But I will reply, “I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws. (New Living Translation.)

Jesus wasn’t addressing these words to those outside the boundaries of contemporary religion, in this case those that were outsiders and not Jews. Instead, Christ was zeroing in on the very leaders of the Hebrew faith. David Platt describes it this way:

Jesus was not speaking here to irreligious people, atheists, or agnostics. He was not speaking to pagans or heretics. He was speaking to devoutly religious people who were deluded into thinking they were on the narrow road that leads to heaven when they were actually on the broad road that leads to hell. According to Jesus, one day not just a few but many will be shocked – eternally shocked – to find that they were not in the kingdom of God after all.

Let me share with you an experience I had with this passage of scripture, an experience that was, in retrospect, an epiphany of sorts. Several years ago I was reading through the Sermon on the Mount as a part of my devotional time. At the time I was working on an extended reflective essay on the Beatitudes so this quiet time studying and praying over these scriptures had been a part of my focus for several weeks. I slowly worked my way toward the end of the sermon, hoping for some sort of new insight or fresh angle from which to approach the scriptures.

Little did I know the Holy Spirit had prepared an ambush.

It is hard to put into words exactly what happened as the words of Matthew 7: 21-23 rocketed from the page, tore through my defenses, and stopped me stone cold in my tracks. I had read these verses many times before but on that particular morning, in some vivid yet inexplicable way, it was as if I were seeing them for the first time. Moreover, I was seeing quite clearly, with frightening clarity actually, exactly what the Master was getting at here.

Basically, he was saying that on the Day of Judgment many folks who think they have their ticket punched for the Promised Land are in for a rude awakening. Cry out as they may, these unfortunate souls who thought they were in the club of the chosen, who had even worked and served in the Lord’s name, were going to be told to hit the bricks.

After my initial shock, my next response was one of great sympathy for these folks. How awful it will be for these people, many of them perhaps well-meaning Christian professionals, maybe even pastors and teachers, will have their hopes dashed on that fateful day. How awful it will be for these believers to hear the Master tell them, “Depart, I never knew you.”

Then it finally hit me like a two-by-four in the back of the head:

What if he’s talking about me?

Part of the problem, a significant part it seems, stems from Christianity’s grace vs. works dichotomy. As an outgrowth of what I think is an over-emphasis on the grace side of the equation, coupled with the 19^th century evangelical anti-intellectual reaction to the Enlightenment, the faith has devolved into a shallow and largely hollow system of ideas, proscriptions, and prohibitions that bear little resemblance to the practices and principles espoused by and exhibited by Christ. This form of Christianity produces a cadre of “saints” who walk about acting as if they have all the answers, are the only ones privy to God’s master plan, and perhaps worst of all, sit in judgment of others by determining who is and isn’t a heretic, an apostate, or sibling of Beelzebub himself.

For lack of a better term, this form of Christianity has come to be known as “Decisional Christianity” and is based on a person making a “decision” to accept Christ as their personal savior. This decision, often made at the end of a service of some kind, constitutes a person’s entry ticket into the faith. At other times, the decision is made in more private, intimate settings, often after praying a short petition known far and wide as the “Sinner’s Prayer.”

Increasingly, critics both within and outside the faith have been reevaluating this sort of “ticket to ride” Christianity. Nowhere in scripture does it speak of saying some magic formula like the Sinner’s Prayer, nor is there any repeated emphasis in scripture about “accepting Christ as your personal savior.”

Jesus said that we would know the relative truth or falsity of a teaching based on the fruit produced and it is accurate to say that, outside of inflated numbers regarding the number of “saved souls,” this brand of decisional Christianity has produced little in the way of positive fruit. In fact, decisional Christianity tends to result in a highly superficial approach to the faith that requires little of the convert once the “decision” is made to “accept” Christ, as if for some reason this aspect of the Triune God, the matrix through which the entire universe was created and the force that holds all things together, pines away for our acceptance in the first place. It is really a ludicrous thought when you get right down to it. David Platt speaks succinctly and in a straightforward manner regarding this issue:

You will not find a verse in Scripture where people are told to “bow your heads, close your eyes, and repeat after me.” You will not find a place where a superstitious sinner’s prayer is even mentioned. And you will not find an emphasis on accepting Jesus. We have taken the infinitely glorious Son of God, who endured the infinitely terrible wrath of God who now reigns as the infinitely worthy Lord of all, and we have reduced him to a poor, puny Savior who is just begging for us to accept him.

Accept him? Do we really think Jesus needs our acceptance? Don’t we need him?

Platt minces no words in describing the unworthiness of such a response to the person and the mission of Jesus. And based on the teachings of Jesus, especially those we just looked at in the concluding section of the Sermon on the Mount, Christ expects a lot more as well. Platt continues:

I invite you to consider with me a proper response to this gospel. Surely more than praying a prayer is involved. Surely more than religious attendance is warranted. Surely this gospel evokes unconditional surrender of all that we are and all that we have to all that he is.

Platt zeroes in on the essential fabric of our proper response to the incredible God’s incredible compassion and love as exemplified by the content of the gospel when he says, “…unconditional surrender of all that we are and all that we have to all that he is.” In one word here, Platt is describing a response of abandonment.

God’s grace is given freely but it isn’t cheap. In fact, it cost all that we are. In this process of abandonment, we are bid to come and die. What this means is simply we are to step out of the cockpit and let the Master take over. Easier said than done but absolutely essential if we are to reap the full benefits of being a follower of Jesus.

Take up your cross and follow me.

He who loses his life shall gain it.

Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies…..

After that fateful morning when the Holy Spirit spoke to me about those concluding verses of the Sermon on the Mount, and particularly after I got around to personalizing its message by considering that Jesus might be talking about me when he said, “I never knew you,” I began to take stock of where I stood. In addition, I could not help but wonder how many other supposed followers of Jesus might be in more trouble than they think.

As I sat in the sanctuary the following Sunday, I couldn’t help but wonder how many of the decent folks sitting there might falsely believe they are true believers in the Master when, in actual fact, they are not. I wondered how many felt so smugly assured of their eternal future when in the Master’s eyes, they are total strangers. I fear more than a few are in this predicament whether they know it or not.

I say this not out of some self-righteous grandiosity on my part. Instead, I say it out of the humbling perspective of one who realized that he was not nearly as secure in his faith as he thought. I say it out of the experiential realization that I was not living anywhere close to the level of commitment and obedience that Christ was calling me to. Finally, I say it out of a genuine heart of compassion for those sincere believers who may be in a similar circumstance. Perhaps many of those folks were taught that reciting the Sinner’s Prayer, church attendance, and coughing up a few bucks for the collection plate was what this faith was all about.

As a Pastor, David Platt eventually became acutely aware of the implications of the closing verses of the Sermon on the Mount. In his remarkable little book, Platt describes what he frequently felt as he gazed out across the congregation on any given Sunday.

The danger of spiritual deception is real. As a pastor I shudder at the thought and lie awake at night when I consider the possibility that scores of people who sit before me on a Sunday morning might think they are saved when they are not. Scores of people have positioned their lives on a religious road that makes grandiose promises at minimal cost. We have been told all that is required is a one-time decision, maybe even mere intellectual assent to Jesus, but after that we need not worry about his commands, his standards, or his glory. We have a ticket to heaven, and we can live however we want on earth. Our sin will be tolerated along the way. Much of modern evangelism today is built on leading people down this road, and crowds flock to it, but in the end it is a road built on sinking sand, and it risks disillusioning millions of souls.

Jesus calls us to a life of far greater potential, filled with possibilities for service to others and positive work toward the establishment of his kingdom here on earth. The Master calls us to become the optimal version of ourselves, all for the sake of others and for the furtherance of his kingdom. Yet he directly tells us, and in so doing leaves no wiggle room, that there is indeed a price to pay for full status as his follower. Jesus, and the gospel that he authored and lived, requires a response from us and that response cannot be half-baked. If we reject Jesus, we do so outright, but if we accept him, then, we must accept him with totality. Again, in the words of David Platt:

Surely this gospel evokes unconditional surrender of all that we are and all that we have to all that he is.

Think about it.

The Significance of Living the Christian Life (Part One)

On January 7, 2018 By Mick TurnerIn Applied Spirituality, Christian Books, Christian Living, Christianity, Church, Discipleship, Personal Discipline, Personal Renewal, Positive Living, Practical Spirituality, SpiritualityLeave a comment

L.D. Turner

Living the kind of life Christ called us to is at times complicated and at others, quite simple. At the bottom line, it involves obedience, pure and simple.

We are given a hint at this when the Master announces what he came to accomplish on a daily basis. Paraphrasing Isaiah, Jesus proclaims good news for the oppressed:

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor and to proclaim the captives will be released and prisoners will be freed,

Before proceeding any further, let’s take a look at what the Master says:

When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching. For he taught with real authority – quite unlike their teachers of religious law.

Not everyone who calls out to me, “Lord! Lord!” will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter. On judgment day many will say to me, “Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name. But I will reply, “I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws. (New Living Translation.)

Let me share with you an experience I had with this passage of scripture, an experience which was, in retrospect, an epiphany of sorts. Several years ago I was reading through the Sermon on the Mount as a part of my devotional time. At the time I was working on an extended reflective essay on the Beatitudes so this quiet time studying and praying over these scriptures had been a part of my focus for several weeks. I slowly worked my way toward the end of the sermon, hoping for some sort of new insight or fresh angle from which to approach the scriptures.

Little did I know the Holy Spirit had prepared an ambush.

Then it finally hit me like a two-by-four in the back of the head:

What if he’s talking about me?

To be continued . . . . .

And The Truth Shall Set You Free

On September 15, 2016 By Mick TurnerIn Applied Spirituality, Bible Study, Christian Education, Christian Living, Christianity, Church, Discipleship, God's Kingdom, Issues in Transformation, Jesus, Jesus' Teaching, Personal Discipline, Positive Faith, Practical Spirituality, SpiritualityLeave a comment

L.D. Turner

Have you ever been to a modern zoo, the type where the animals are not caged? Instead, they usually are separated from zoo patrons by large ditches, small canals, or non-descript fencing. I lived in Miami for 15 years and often visited the zoo, at least in the winter when the weather was not too hot. Whenever I went to the zoo, I could easily spot the animals that had been kept in cages for most of their lives. Now, even with the freedom to roam over a much larger territory, most of them just walked back and forth in an area the size of their former prison. Nothing held them in that confined space except the force of habit.

As Christians, we, too, often behave in ways similar to these zoo animals. When we accepted the lordship of Christ in our lives, we were given a new, liberating freedom from the power of sin in general and our habituated negative patterns of thinking, feeling, behaving, and relating in particular. Like the zoo animals, we are now free to choose new ways of living – and a fresh approach to life. Tragically, many of us keep walking in our old familiar ways, even though a new, exciting world awaits us through our freedom in Christ. We know we are saved, but we don’t act like it. Instead of exploring fresh and free ways to be salt and light in this world, we just pace back and forth within the confines of the ruts our negative, sinful past has created for us.

And keep in mind, my friend, a rut is nothing but a grave with the ends kicked out.

We can read all the right books, listen to all the right tapes, hear all the right sermons, and go to all the right seminars – but the fact remains that we often feel completely overwhelmed when a big problem hits us. Life’s storms can be terrifying at times and it is at just these times we need to apply the principles we have learned through all of our diligent study to the process of riding out the storm. The problem is, it is at just these critical times that we find ourselves least able to apply the truths that we have learned. As a result, we often make little headway toward finding a positive solution to our dilemma.

I wish I could tell you that there was a magic answer to this problem, but I can’t. Fact is, we have to gird up our loins and get to work. We must begin with getting the focus off our problem and onto God. Until we do this, we can at best expect to tread water. Progress, however, will be minimal.

Getting our focus onto the God is critical for another reason: Satan.

Our modern culture tells us that the supernatural doesn’t exist. Even many modern biblical scholars attest that demons and Satan do not exist and are only symbolic in nature. I can admit to you that at one time, I felt the same way. By the grace of God I now see this much differently. I know for a fact that a spirit world exists right along side this one and that dark entities indeed reside there. These entities are under the control of their Commander in Chief, the Enemy, and will do anything in their power to keep you from realizing you potential and achieving your purpose.

As I mentioned, there was a time when, even though I was a Christian and very involved in the faith, I didn’t see Satan as a living entity. I saw him more as some sort of metaphor for our dark human nature and our tendency to be self-absorbed to the extreme. Like many of the contemporary biblical scholars of a liberal bent, I explained Satan away with a flurry of reasonable sounding explanations.

One day, however, a significant question came to my mind. Why I had never thought to ask this question of myself is beyond me, as it seems to be so obvious. I wondered: If Satan does not exist, why does Jesus talk about him so often? And why does he not refer to him as some sort of psychological projection, if in fact that is what he is? Although it seems so basic, these questions literally stopped me in my tracks. Several friends, like the well-meaning buddies that tried to explain it all to Job, offered answers to my questions. Most of these answers basically implied that the disciples were such simpletons and Jesus was so highly developed, he had to dial back his explanations and put them in terms his followers could understand. To some extent, this answer sounds plausible but if you really think about it, it just doesn’t wash. Jesus spoke so clearly and frequently about who and what Satan was and is that he leaves little room for doubt as to the existence of this dark force in the spiritual world.

Over the following two months, the Spirit gave me wisdom and insight regarding the ever so real existence of the Enemy and his minions. It is my prayer that, if you don’t think he is as real as you, you come to understand that you are indeed mistaken.

As you work toward appropriating your new identity in Christ, be advised that you will not only be confronting your own habitual patterns of negativity, you will also be confronting powers and principalities as well. This is why scripture encourages you to “guard the heart,” (Proverbs 4:23).

It is important as well to keep in mind that your thought life is taking place in the realm of non-physical reality – the spirit world. You can take comfort in the fact that, as a Christian, God is already at work in your behalf in the spirit realm and has already won the victory. So, when beset with a flurry of negative thoughts, immediately replace them with God-soaked biblical thoughts.

Satan is not satisfied with just initiating minor skirmishes with you. No, friend, he is much more ambitious than that. His goal is all out domination and his primary target is your mind. Satan knows that by controlling your thinking, he can be reasonably assured of success. Why is this? Why is our enemy so confident? The reason is simple. Most everything we do starts in the mind with our thoughts and attitudes. Satan knows that if he can control our thoughts and attitudes he can control us, and, if he can control us, the war is won.

At least, that is what Satan thinks.

For this reason and many others, it is obvious that guarding your mind is of utmost importance. This is what Paul meant when he talked about “taking every thought captive for Christ.” I can’t stress this point enough. The battle for the mind is critical.

In attempting to discern why we keep living in negative, unproductive, and yes, even sinful ways in spite of the fact that we are “new creations” in Christ, we can now see that we war on two battlefields: our habitual behaviors and the schemes of the enemy. In reality, these two fronts of engagement are not totally separate and distinct. Satan often attacks us right where we are most vulnerable – our habitually negative thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

Certainly there is much we can do to deal with this issue. I have found that practicing the classical spiritual disciplines of prayer, fasting, sacred study, worship, and so on to be of great value. Further, Paul gives us a detailed delineation of what we need to do in the sixth chapter of the Book of Ephesians. I suggest that you go to this passage of scripture and spend several weeks prayerfully pondering Paul’s advice. As you do so, make every effort to put on the equipment he speaks of. In addition, there is one other thing you can do and it is most crucial:

Trust God!

One of the main reasons people keep living in the same old unproductive ruts is that they focus on the rut and not on the solution; they focus on the problem and not on God. The problem cannot and will not solve itself, but God can and will. Keep in mind also that if we trust God, turn our problem over to him, and let him control the outcome, we may not only find our problem solved – we may also be surprised. God’s ways are not our ways and he is not limited in what he can do. As a result, your problem may get resolved in a way that you never could have predicted. The key, of course, is to trust God and turn your problem over to him.

Wise Words for Today

On February 28, 2015 By Mick TurnerIn Applied Spirituality, Attitudes of Blessing, Christian Books, Christian Living, Christian Optimism, Christianity, Discipleship, Personal Discipline, Positive Faith, Positive Living, Practical Spirituality, Sacred Mind, Spiritual Disciplines, Spiritual Formation, Spiritual Gifts, Spiritual Laws, Spiritual Practices, Spiritual Quotations, SpiritualityLeave a comment

Releasing your potential requires a willingness to move beyond the familiar into the realm of possibilities. . . . .If you attempt new things and make choices that stretch your horizons, you will embark on an exciting journey. You will begin to see the marvelous being God created you to be – a being filled with more capabilities than you ever dreamed possible. The journey begins when you gain an understanding of what potential is and how you can release it. For once you understand the magnitude of the wealth God gave you, to turn from consciously and conscientiously unwrapping God’s gift is to abort your potential and refuse to fulfill the purpose for which He gave you life. The knowledge of what you have failed to use to benefit yourself, your contemporaries, and the generations to follow will judge you on the great day of accountability. Potential is given to be released, not wasted.

Dr. Myles Munroe

(from Releasing Your Potential)

Lenten Practice

On February 19, 2015 By Mick TurnerIn Applied Spirituality, Christian History, Christianity, Church, Discipleship, Discipline of Watchfulness, Goal Setting, Issues in Transformation, Jesus, Morality and Values, Positive Faith, Positive Living, Positive Thinking, Practical Spirituality, Renewal of the Mind, United Methodist ChurchLeave a comment

I noted here on LifeBrook back in 2009 that I was undertaking the Lenten tradition of giving up something for the season leading up to Easter, albeit with a bit of an intangible bent. That year I vowed to give up something that fed a longstanding stronghold in my life: negative thinking. As I look back on my journals from that period of time, I saw that this was quite a struggle. There were more than a few days that this chronic negativity had a life and a momentum of its own. Yet, at the same time, I did see that there were also more than a few days that I became less prone to negative cognition and even when I did have a pessimistic thought, I immediately became aware of it and was able to, as that wise sage Barney Fife told his friend Sheriff Andy:”Nip it in the bud.”

I mention all this because this year I have once again taken on this anti-negativity challenge as part of my Lenten practice. It is not so much that I have slid back into chronic negative thinking – no – in fact, the Holy Spirit has helped me immensely in this area. It’s just that I realize that this issue is one that has been a powerful force in my life and I want to take yet another step in getting on top of it. I will let you know from time to time how things are going.

I would be most interested in hearing what sort of things you folks are considering dealing with this Lenten season.

Blessings,

Mick

Father of Lights – A Prayer of Praise and Gratitude

On February 9, 2015 By Mick TurnerIn Affirmative Prayer, Applied Spirituality, Christian Living, Christianity, Discipleship, Inner Light, Meditation, Personal Renewal, Positive Faith, Practical Spirituality, Prayer, Praying With Scripture, Scripture Meditation, Spiritual PracticesLeave a comment

“Father of Lights” is a prayer I composed and prayed daily for months a number of years back. From time to time, I go back to it and use it as a part of my own personal daily litany. Whenever I have shared it here on LifeBrook, readers seem to appreciate it. As readership is consistently changing, I publish it at least once each year, sometimes more often. I find it a positive, declarative prayer of praise and thankfulness. It is my sincere hope that you find it as helpful as I have.

Father of Lights

Father of Lights, you have said that in aligning with you I am a Child of the Light. I thank you for that honor and privilege and also thank you that you have made me a new creation. Today, I seek to take possession of my reborn identity in you and I thank you for providing me with the ability to do so, through the blessed work of the Holy Spirit.

Father, I know you have placed in me from birth a right, preserving and steadfast spirit and I know that the Holy Spirit will empower me to contact, develop, embrace and enhance those divine qualities, all to your glory and for the sake of others as well as for the purpose of growing in sacred character.

I know Father that above all, you are a God of restoration and a God of renewal. I know that according to your holy Word, that you are, at this very moment, renewing in me the mind of Christ – the most sacred mind. Your Spirit is at work in me today, enabling me to live a life of integrity, enthusiasm and empowering me to maintain a commitment to excellence. I thank you Father for your faithfulness and the blessings you are bestowing on me today, both seen and unseen.

Father, thank you for your unfailing faithfulness. You have proven time and time again that you are there, walking as my companion, even when I don’t see you and even more when I don’t acknowledge your presence. I know that you have said that you desire my best and that all things, whether I can understand them or not, work together for my greatest good. Therefore, looking to you, I expect good and good alone.

Father of Lights:

I thank you for your presence with me;

I thank you for your presence in me;

I thank you for protecting me;

I thank you for providing for me;

I thank you for empowering me.

I am grateful my Lord, knowing that I will find in you all I will ever need.

(In the name of Jesus, the Alpha and the Omega – the name at which every knee shall

bow – Amen)

Spiritual Complacency and Quiet Desperation (Part One)

On February 4, 2015 By Mick TurnerIn Applied Spirituality, Christian Living, Christianity, Church, Church Renewal, Discipleship, Global Church, God's Kingdom, Issues in Transformation, Jesus, Jesus' Teaching, Obedience, Paul's Teachings, Personal Discipline, Personal Renewal, Positive Faith, Positive Living, Practical Spirituality, SpiritualityLeave a comment

Mick Turner

Even a cursory exploration of Scriptures from many faith traditions will reveal that Universal Intelligence, by whatever name we choose to call it, wants us to be successful. It is to no one’s benefit if we allow ourselves to wallow through life in the muck and mire of mediocrity. No, experience reveals that what we here at LifeBrook often refer to as Sacred Light wants us to succeed in achieving our dreams, provided those dreams and desires are in accordance with positive universal principles and spiritual laws. In addition, we live in a universe that is limitless and fill with everything we need in order to lead rewarding, fulfilling, and successful lives

Yes, scriptures from the whole range of faith traditions point to the reality that we are called to lives of success. Here I am not speaking necessarily of financial abundance, the prosperity gospel, or teachings related to money, although success can be manifested in that way. What I am talking about is being a success in the spiritual sense and the best way to do that is to become the absolute best that you can be. God did not create us and give us a mandate to slog our way through a life of mediocrity.

The problem arises, however, when one takes an honest look at what seems to be going on in the daily lives of most people. The vast majority of sincere, earnest, and spiritual people are not particularly happy. Even those that do profess a degree of happiness, when pressed, admit to a vague sense of dissatisfaction with life. Many exist rather than live. Thoreau had it right many years ago when he mused that most people “lead lives of quiet desperation.

What causes such a tragedy?

Obviously, the issues that contribute to such a widespread, complex phenomenon are many. To make our task in this particular writing a bit more manageable, I want to emphasize two problems areas that seem to beset many folks, especially those who consider themselves spiritual individuals. This pair of problematic obstacles to our God-given drive for success consists of: lack of focus and complacency.

I have a confession to make. In my life I have wasted a significant amount of time and energy, running here and speeding there, chasing what I thought was brooks living water but turned out to be a series of dust-filled wells. Putting it in honest terms, I was busy but not effective.

As I look around me now, I can see that I am not the only person who is engaged in these fruitless races. On a near daily basis I encounter sincere people who have convinced themselves they are diligently racing toward a meaningful goal, only to find that like Solomon, they are chasing after the wind. These individuals, like myself, expend time, energy, and other resources in pursuit of self-defined visions that, in the end, are empty and unsatisfying. Others never quite reach the intended goal, but instead, waste valuable efforts chasing their own, self-designed greased pigs.

I vividly recall when this issue came to a head for me. One Sunday morning, as is my habit, I arose early. I spent time asking Sacred Light to speak to me regarding an issue I had been struggling with for some time. As is often the case, my tampering with this problem eventually led me to a state of perplexed paralysis. It was an issue related to how I was to proceed with one aspect of my professional life.

After praying, I sat quietly and gradually began to feel the peace of Sacred Light fall over me. It was nothing earth shattering and no burning bushes spoke to me, nor did any donkeys give utterance, but I had a palatable sense of the Sacred Light’s presence. This is significant in that it had been months since I had felt any sense of light in my life. It seemed that in my busyness, God had somehow gone on sabbatical. I longed for Light’s touch, even if only brief and subtle. I was, in essence, in a stark period of spiritual dryness.

I had several books at my side that I had been reading prior to my prayer time. I opened one of the books and soon came across these words by the French mystic Francois Fenelon:

Be silent and listen to God. Let your heart be in such a state of preparation that His Spirit may impress upon you such virtues that will please Him. Let all within you listen to Him….

Now comes the good part!

Don’t spend your time making plans that are just cobwebs – a breath of wind will come and blow them away. You have withdrawn from God and now you find that God has withdrawn the sense of His presence from you. Return to Him and give Him everything without reservation. There will be no peace otherwise. Let go of all you plans – God will do what He sees best for you.

Fenelon’s words hit me between the eyes like a Louisville Slugger. I knew immediately what I needed to do, even if it was going to be difficult. Like the Old Testament story about Abraham and Sarah, I had grown impatient waiting on God’s timing and gave birth to an Ishmael. I needed to return to God, wait in silence, and trust his promise of an Isaac. Basically, in my own anxiety and uncertainty of potential outcomes, I took charge of the situation and ended up at what seemed a dead end.

Trusting God to guide us and lead us to the place we need to go is not an easy proposition. This is especially true for those of us who are used to “making things happen.” I made the decision that Sunday morning to let the entire project go. I put it in God’s hands and, in his time, not mine, the situation worked out better than I could have ever manipulated on my own.

In practical terms, I discovered how important it was to be patient and wait on God’s benediction before I moved too far down a particular path of endeavor, be it spiritual or otherwise. In short, I learned the value of focus.

Recall for moment the adventure Peter had when he saw Jesus walking toward the disciples’ boat during a raging storm. Noted for his impulsive, impetuous nature, Peter jumped in and, with his attention riveted on Jesus, he, just as his Master, walked on water. Things were going swimmingly (I couldn’t resist that pun) until, for whatever reason, Peter took his focus off Jesus. Perhaps the howling of the wind or the high waves crashing over him distracted the lead disciple for a moment. For reasons really known only to Peter and Jesus, this loss of focus was an unmitigated disaster. Peter began to sink fast.

One of my favorite Christian authors, Erwin Raphael McManus, discusses this very scene from the gospel narrative and relates it to the issue of having a personal focus. McManus goes on to make the following insightful comments:

Part of what costs us the life we were created to live is that we don’t lock in. We lose focus because we become distracted by our circumstances. We get pulled out of the direction we’re supposed to be walking because we start looking in the wrong direction…..It’s so easy to get distracted by all the things going on around you. If you resolve to live the life of your dreams, if you refuse to settle for a life other than the one God created you to live, you’re going to see the waves and the wind. And it’s going to terrify you and you’re going to begin to sink. You have to decide to focus and lock in on the direction God has called you to live your life.

I wish I had been able to read these words from McManus’ excellent book Wide Awake years ago when I was struggling with the issue of focus. Chances are I might well have saved valuable time. Still, by God’s grace, I was able to become more zeroed in on the mission God had for me. It took a major health issue to accomplish this lesson in priorities and being sensitive to the leadings of the Holy Spirit. Yet once I followed the directions of the Spirit, I was better able to create an environment where the spiritual gifts and talents that lay within me could be manifested, honed, and utilized. McManus speaks to this aspect of focus as well:

Your potential becomes talent only when it is harnessed and developed. Your talents become strengths when they are focused and directed. It is here where you begin to discover who you are and the potential God has placed within you. A destiny is not something waiting for you but something waiting within you.

As we have seen, lack of proper focus can be a major stumbling block when it comes to realizing our potential and making our personal vision a reality. It is, however, not the only obstacle we face.

From consistent observation, I have found that one of the most fundamental problems confronting genuine spiritual seekers in these admittedly challenging times has little to do with external forces and factors. It is easy enough for us to sit back a distance from the “heathen culture” that surrounds us and wag our fingers at a society that by just about all indicators, appears to be heading toward moral and ethical bankruptcy at breakneck speed.

Indeed, it is not a difficult task to define and identify those aspects of the world around us that we find falling far short of the standards set forth by the Bible in general and Jesus in particular. Easy as these options may be, my observations have led me to the inescapable conclusion that our most significant problems as the church universal do not exist “out there.” Our weightiest issues rest within the parameters of our own walls.

We have met the enemy, and it is us.

I don’t mean to be trite or sarcastic here. Instead, with a heart of sincerity and sadness I want to confront at least one of these problems that seem to be draining the Body of Christ of its vitality and its power. I am not speaking of some sinister or deep rooted problem that will take great energy and countless committees to “study and investigate” the issue at hand. I am not talking about some vague, wispy metaphysical or doctrinal dilemma that, like a parasite, is eating away at the very fabric of our faith. I am talking about something far more simple in concept and personal in terms of solution.

I am talking about Christian complacency.

Far too many of our churches are experiencing a decline in vitality due to a creeping, insidious blight that normally goes unnoticed until the congregation is on the cusp of a suffocating death, vainly gasping for even a drop of breath, a touch of the Spirit to restore a chance at life and a rebirth of hope. This metaphor of life and death and breath and spirit may seem a bit dramatic and perhaps it is. It is highly appropriate, however. Many churches are dealing with issues of life and death as a result of decades of settling for maintaining the status quo. Further, the absence of breath and the absence of Spirit are synonymous. Man did not become a living being until God breathed life into him. Even more relevant is the fact that in many languages, the words for breath and spirit are the same.

The implications of this are readily apparent. Where there is no Spirit, there is no life. And where there is no life, there is death and disintegration. What is more tragic is the fact that much of this could have been avoided had it not been for that demon we are speaking of: complacency.

To Be Continued. . . . .

Wise Words for Today

On November 21, 2014 By Mick TurnerIn Applied Spirituality, Christian Living, Christianity, Discipleship, God's Kingdom, Inner Light, Personal Renewal, Positive Faith, Positive Living, Practical Spirituality, Spiritual Quotations, SpiritualityLeave a comment

From beginning to end, we will be called to make courageous decisions even while we find ourselves gripped with fear. There are no exemptions. Any claims that you should be exempt from having to walk this path are rejected. Any attempt to create an elitist category for those who live heroic lives while placing yourself outside of it is unacceptable. If your argument is that you just aren’t cut out for this kind of adventure, you can rest in the comfort that you are absolutely right, which is exactly why Jesus is calling you out. He calls you to begin a quest for honor. Courage is not an issue of birth. It is an expression of the heart. To be courageous is literally to be strong of heart. Both fear and courage are heart conditions. If you are weak of heart, fear not. Everyone who chooses to follow Jesus Christ receives a heart transplant. This new heart comes fully equipped with the spirit and courage of God ready to be pumped right into your timid soul.

To follow Jesus is to choose to live in His adventure. How in the world could you ever imagine a life of faith that does not require risk? Faith and risk are inseparable. It should not come as a surprise to us then that a life of faith is a life of courage. ….You cannot walk by faith and live in fear. You cannot walk with God and not face your fears. God calls you to dream great dreams and to have the courage to live them. Great dreams require great courage.

Erwin Raphael McManus

Wise Words for Today

On November 6, 2013 By Mick TurnerIn Applied Spirituality, Christianity, Church, Church Renewal, Compassion, Creation Centered Spirituality, Discipleship, Mission and Calling, Practical Spirituality, Service, Spiritual Quotations, Spirituality, Wise Words for TodayLeave a comment

I am convinced that as Christians we’re not about programs. We’re not about bigger or better blessings. We’re about responding to people who call for help because their world is falling apart. These individuals aren’t looking to be converted – – they’re looking for help! Being their help – – by being the presence of Christ in their lives – – is the only thing we’re about. Everything else we do is secondary and can even detour us from carrying out the true purpose of the church.

Jerry Cook

(from The Monday Morning Church)

Commitment to Christ: A Dangerous Proposition

On October 17, 2013 By Mick TurnerIn Applied Spirituality, Christian Living, Christianity, Church, Culture, Discipleship, God's Kingdom, God's Story, Gospel, Issues in Transformation, Jesus, Jesus' Teaching, Obedience, Personal Discipline, Personal Renewal, Practical Spirituality, Spiritual Disciplines, Spiritual Formation, SpiritualityLeave a comment

English: Tomb of Jesus, inside the Edicule. Ch... — English: Tomb of Jesus, inside the Edicule. Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem. Français : La tombe du Christ, église du Saint-Sépulcre, Jérusalem. Română: Mormântul Domnului (Sfântul Mormânt), Ierusalim. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Mick Turner

As the Body of Christ we are now in a similar cultural milieu as existed at the time Jesus walked the earth. Granted, times are different, but the themes are much the same. Like it or not, the Church now lives in a post-Christian culture. America is Christian in name only, certainly not in practice. Over the past 50 years the dominant worldview and subsequent value system has undergone marked change. Post-modernism and situational ethics now hold sway. It is within this mix that the Church must now carry out the essentials of its mission. The question at hand is: How will we reintroduce Jesus to the world, given the realities of the culture we now live in?

Answering this overriding question is a complicated affair, certainly beyond the scope of this short article. Additionally, we, as the Body of Christ, need to reflect deeply on how we may best go about meeting this aspect of our calling. Much prayer is called for. One thing is certain, however. We must present a more realistic portrait of who this man Jesus was, and still is. When he enters a person’s life, things are not always meek and mild. In fact, taking on Christ often results in an inner revolution. The Revolutionaries fully understand this and also understand that Jesus calls for a radical change that fuses the personal with the social and the spiritual with the political.

As we take Jesus on board we must recognize we are giving accommodation to what can be a dangerous entity; one capable of challenging our conventions, our preferences, our habits, and ultimately, our character. Jesus does not come into a person’s life in order to affirm the status quo. Quite the opposite, this dangerous being takes up residence within your inner kingdom with the stated aim of fomenting revolution. Yet for most of us this inner revolt is sorely needed. It can, in fact, change us from wandering, confused, and empty vessels into vibrant, vital, world changers. David Foster gives us a glimpse of just what Jesus is up to:

Jesus is like air to the lungs and water to a desert dweller. He is not a religious artifact. He’s not dead. He is alive. He is engaged and engaging. He is here now, changing lives all over this world this very moment. When He walked on earth He changed everything for everyday, for all time. What started then continues today. It can’t be stopped though many have tried. Jesus is the rock of redemption and His church will prevail. He is here in this moment with you, doing what He always does, calling you to a higher place, calling you to break free from convention and stop going to church and start being the church everywhere you go. Let’s be “Jesus people” again. Let’s be men and women whose hearts are captured, redeemed, renewed, enlivened, ignited, set fee! Let’s return to the revolution to be the change we want to see in the world!

If you decide that you are fully ready to commit to this deep calling deep brand of Christian spirituality, recognize that you may very well experience responses that are less than positive. These negative reactions to your commitment to Christ may come from people important to you, like your friends, your family, and especially from other believers. It is for this reason that each of us must individually and prayerfully follow the advice of the Master who told us to simply “count the costs.”

I think one of the reasons that Christians as a whole are at best lukewarm in their commitment to following Christ stems from the church’s long-standing efforts to tame the Master. Instead of the subversive revolutionary that he was, Jesus has long been presented as a non-threatening cardboard figurine on burlap bulletin boards, either holding a lamb in his lap or rubbing children on the head. Rarely have we seen him for the rebel that he really was and as a result, the church has given a false impression of Jesus “meek and mild” and by proxy, turned God the Father into a distant and kindly Daddy who expects little from us other than a modicum of worship and a check in the collection plate.

This is not the Jesus nor the God revealed in scripture.

Annie Dillard, one of my very favorite writers, talks about how Christians ought to be a bit more reverent in the presence of God. In her provocative yet compelling style she says:

On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have any idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does not one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares: they should lash us to our pews.

Dillard’s point is clear and to a large extent, irrefutable. Far too many of us who claim to follow Christ either don’t really believe what we profess or we have never taken the time to truly consider what it is we signed on for. I personally think it is high time that we became more honest with ourselves. Here is a diagnostic indicator: If you faith has yet to make you very uncomfortable, you might want to spend some time in prayer and reflection trying to discover what is amiss.

When we fail to understand what the Christian faith is all about, we wind up with a church that misses the boat in terms of its vital functions of worship and teaching. Pastor Robin Meyers gives this biting but wholly accurate assessment of what we often find in sanctuaries today:

Worship consists of high-tech, high-volume, effusive praise and tearful thanksgiving for what God has done on behalf of each and every one of us – followed by preaching that circles the wagons of what is falsely assumed to be a besieged and righteous minority doing battle against the forces of secular humanism. The rhetoric is that of a western movie, the “last stand” between the chosen but misunderstood and legions of depraved liberal heathens whose worldly logic has led them to worship false gods (mostly in the temple of the flesh) and who are out to destroy the only true religion by removing it from the public square……For those who would never think to raise their hands in worship (because they sit on them), mainline and liberal churches offer something as tedious as many evangelical services are self-centered: a dull and droning list of politically correct announcements that go on interminably. No detail is too minor and no story too trivial to escape the sentimental displays of communal therapy. The hymns are often contorted by a preoccupation with inclusion at the expense of meter and particular power, and the sermon continues in the same vein – offering enlightened ways to cope with the aches and pains of daily life, instead of submitting to a vision so compelling as to redeem suffering and death itself.

No matter which side of the theological aisle you find your pew, you ought to be sweating bullets by now. In case you are among the especially insensitive, however, rest assured that Meyers is not quite finished:

In a world that is desperate for something real, many mega-churches today are like Disney World plus God, while too many mainline churches are serving up bits and pieces of the Great Books Club. One wonders which fiction is most cruel, that all your dreams come true if you pray the “Prayer of Jabez” or that discipleship is the same thing as enlightenment. Odd as it may sound, we need to recover something as old and dangerous as it is transformative: following Jesus.

For many Christians, whether Evangelical or Mainline, such a shrill indictment is hard to swallow. Surely there are exceptions, but what Meyers is describing here is not those few. Instead, he is taking direct aim at those of us who find way too much comfort in the status quo; those of us who start accumulating sweat on our upper lips at just the mention of thinking out of the box. Meyers, in very direct terms, is talking about the frozen chosen.

In juxtaposition to these lukewarm pew-fillers stand the renegades, rascals, and revolutionaries mentioned earlier. These sincere Christ-followers understand that if the church is not only to survive, but thrive, it must get back to its roots in obedience to Jesus. We need to imitate Christ, not “believe in” him. With the aid of the indwelling Holy Spirit, we need to push forward with every effort to become more like the one we profess to serve. Many of this new breed of Christ-followers understand this and apply this wisdom to their daily living. Robin Meyers speaks clearly about what we must rediscover if we, as a faith tradition, hope to survive:

If the church is to survive as a place where head and heart are equal partners in faith, then we will need to commit ourselves once again not to the worship of Christ, but to the imitation of Jesus. His invitation was not believe, but to follow. Since it was once dangerous to be a follower of The Way, the church can rightly assume that it will never be on the right track again until the risks associated with being a follower of Jesus outnumber the comforts of being a fan of Christ. Until we experience Jesus as a “radically disturbing presence,” instead of a cosmic comforter, we will not experience him as true disciples.

Meyers concludes by stating that churchgoers need to answer one basic question before all else:

What am I willing to give up to follow Jesus?

Sociologist and researcher George Barna speaks at length about the movement of committed Christ followers that he calls “Revolutionaries.” Barna speaks particularly well to the issue of sacrifice that is so often part of the life of the “Deep Calling Deep Christian.” If you are seriously considering this path of consecrated endeavor, then pay attention to Barna’s words:

Know this: just as the prophets of old were unwelcome in their own hometown, so are Revolutionaries looked at askance by even their closest friends and family members. The skepticism of those who lead conventional spiritual lives is a palpable reminder that growth always comes with a price tag.

Be forewarned: just as Jesus Christ, the ultimate lover of humanity, was scorned, misunderstood, persecuted, and eventually murdered for His extreme love, goodness, compassion, humility, wisdom, and grace, so are Revolutionaries abused by a culture in crisis. The mere presence of Revolutionaries makes the typical American citizen – yes, even the typical churchgoer – uncomfortable. It is not uncommon for Revolutionaries to meet with rejection – verbal, intellectual, relational, or experiential – simply because of their determination to honor the God they love…..Like their role model, Jesus Christ, they ignite fierce resistance merely by being present and holy. It is perhaps that holy presence that will get Revolutionaries in the deepest trouble they will face – and that will bring lasting healing to a culture that has rebelled for too long against its loving Creator. These Christian zealots are radically reshaping both American society and the Christian Church. Their legacy is likely to be a spiritual reformation of unprecedented proportions in the United States and perhaps the world.

These ideas that Barna discusses and more cogently, that are lived out in the daily lives of countless “Revolutionaries,” bring to mind the spiritual philosophy and practical tactics used by Doctor Martin Luther King in the Civil Rights Movement. Basing his own methods on those of Gandhi, Dr. King used radical non-violence to expose the injustice, brutality, and prejudice of the existing social order. The more the powers that be reacted to those involved in the movement, the deeper the darkness of their hearts appeared to all whom witnessed what was happening. Perhaps in a similar way, the commitment, sincerity, and Christian love exhibited by these Revolutionaries may well shed light on how far many in the status quo church are from the true example set by the Master.

Describing David, an example of this new breed of Revolutionary Christian, Barna writes:

His life reflects the very ideals and principles that characterized the life and purpose of Jesus Christ and that advance the Kingdom of God – despite the fact that David rarely attends church services. He is typical of a new breed of disciples of Jesus Christ. They are not willing to play religious games and aren’t interested in being a part of a religious community that is not intentionally and aggressively advancing God’s Kingdom. They are people who want more of God – much more – in their lives. And they are doing whatever it takes to get it.

Two questions are immediately relevant, my friend. Do you want more – much more – of God in your life? Are you willing to do whatever it takes to get it?

Listen closely. In your inner sanctuary, your heart of hearts, can you hear him calling you? Will you go with him, even if it means breaking free of convention? Will you follow him, even if it means you stop going to church and start being the church? Are you ready to be counted among the Jesus people? Are you ready to join the revolution?

If so, welcome aboard!

The Death of Sunday Christianity (lifebrook.wordpress.com)
Lazarus, Come Forth (Part Two) (lifebrook.wordpress.com)

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