Just One Thing

On January 6, 2023January 7, 2023 By Innermost BeingIn Spiritual GrowthLeave a comment

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Romans 12:2

Christians should not be like everyone else. Our values and priorities should be different. We should be so changed by salvation, people might even think we’re weird.

In Craig Groeschel’s book Weird: Because Normal Isn’t Working, he wrote about his weird approach to making New Year’s resolutions. He makes only one New Year’s resolution and that resolution is chosen by someone else. He prays constantly as the new year approaches asking how God wants his life to change.

Instead of having good intentions centered on the self, Groeschel says we should have God intentions centered on what God wants.

How do we know what God wants? We can ask God to reveal his intentions for us and listen for his response. Groeschel suggested some questions to help discern God’s will.

1. What one thing do you desire from God?
2. What one thing do you lack?
3. What one thing do you need to let go?
4. What one promise do you need to claim?

I reflected on these questions for a week and they helped clarify God’s intentions for me for the New Year.

The first question is easy for me to answer. More than anything else, I want my husband to have a relationship with Jesus. Last year, I became upset with him when he refused to go to a church dinner with me. I realized I have to let go and let God.

The second question is harder. The Lord is my shepherd. I lack nothing. But is there one thing that keeps me from whole-heartedly following The Good Shepherd? Is there one issue that God keeps putting on my heart?

I felt the Spirit’s conviction when I read what Groeschel had to say about being a people pleaser:

When we place the approval of other people ahead of doing what we know will please our Father, we’re creating a false idol. Not only does it impair our ability to know God, but it also sends us on a wild-goose chase for a golden egg that doesn’t exist.
Craig Groeschel

At times my desire for social approval keeps me from being myself, from freely sharing my faith. I compare myself to people who seem more successful, talented, or adventurous. I envy them. When I let other people define my worth, I conform to the ways of this world. Even worse, I am not being grateful for the unique talents God has given me.

What one thing do I need to let go to live with God-centered intentions? Groeschel suggested that it might be something from the past, perhaps hurts or failures. I think that measuring myself against other people is a sign of lingering self-esteem issues from my childhood.

Finally, what promise do I need to claim? There are so many promises in God’s word, it’s hard to choose one. I claim this promise:

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
Jeremiah 29:11:13

Heavenly Father, forgive me for envying others. This year, I resolve to please You, my Creator, above all others and to reject the world’s standards of worthiness. I am grateful that you gave me unique talents and experiences. I embrace my weirdness. How wonderful it is that you love me and that You have a plan for me!

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

Who do you say that I am?

On November 12, 2022November 25, 2022 By Innermost BeingIn Spiritual GrowthLeave a comment

My Bible study group just finished Becky Harling’s study Who Do You Say That I Am? Harling experienced a crisis of faith that led her to read the gospels with fresh eyes. She had been asking herself, where is Jesus? Why can’t I feel him? The study explores what she learned about who Jesus is based on what He said about himself. “Nothing describes Jesus’ identity as profoundly as His I Am statements.”

Harling noted that Jesus asked profound questions. He asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” (Matthew 16:13). After the disciples responded, Jesus asked an important follow-up question: “But what about you? Who do you say I am?”

What is so significant about Jesus’ I AM statements? When Moses asked God, what should I say to the people when they ask your name, God replied, I am.

Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”

God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”
Exodus 3:13-14

I remember feeling out of touch with Jesus many years ago and I also read the gospels with fresh eyes. I asked myself, why wasn’t Jesus more present in my thoughts? I wanted a deeper connection with Him.

Most of the I Am statements are recorded in the gospel of John.

I AM the Messiah. John 4:26
I AM the Bread of Life. John 6:35
I AM the Light of the world. John 8:12
I AM the Good Shepherd. John 10:11
I AM the resurrection and the life. John 11:25
I AM the way, the truth, and the life. John 14:6
I AM the true vine. John 15:1
I AM the first and the last. Revelation 1:17

One of my favorite I Am statements is “I am the good shepherd.” The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. I know my sheep and my sheep know me. Jesus is my good shepherd. I lack nothing. He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul! He guides me along the right paths. He is with me; his rod and his staff, they comfort me.

What about you? Who do you say that Jesus is?

The Shortest Sentence

On April 24, 2022April 24, 2022 By Innermost BeingIn Random2 Comments

The shortest sentence:

Go!
A two letter command…
The potential, immeasurable

Go ahead, go forward
Go in any direction
Go where no one has gone before

Go to the shop or go to work
Go to school or go to church
Go where you’re needed

Go on an adventure
Go on a mission
Go on a trip of a lifetime

Go with what you can carry
Go with the clothes on your back
Go with the Prince of Peace

Go it alone
Go with friends
Go with God

Go with purpose
Go with passion
Go with gusto

Go into a hungry world
Go proclaim Good News
Go make disciples

Get up and
Go!

Photo by LOGAN WEAVER | @LGNWVR on Unsplash

Struggling to Write

On December 23, 2021 By Innermost BeingIn IntroversionLeave a comment

As 2021 comes to a close, I regret not writing more. Last year, I coped with the pandemic by writing prayers. This year, I’ve really struggled to keep myself blogging. In writing about his own mentor, one of my favorite Christian writers wrote a sentence that resonated with me: I can hardly write if someone shares the same room with me. I also need solitude to write and I need a lot of time to compose my thoughts. If my husband walks into the room and starts talking to me, I can’t write. I become too self-conscious.

It helps to know I am not alone in needing to be alone.

C.S. Lewis has been a constant companion, a shadow mentor who sits beside me urging me to improve my writing style, my thinking, my vision, and also my life….
“[He] affirmed my calling as a writer who works out my faith in print. We live sequestered lives, those of us who make a living by herding words. I can hardly write if someone shares the same room with me. And the results of my work are both slippery and vicarious: when I write I am not actively caring for the poor, ministering to the suffering, feeding the hungry, or even conversing about spiritual matters. Lewis proved to me that this most isolated act can still make a difference.
“As one who was changed—literally, dramatically, permanently—by an Oxford don who often felt more at home with books than people, I trust that God may use my own feeble efforts to connect with readers out there somewhere, most of whom I will never meet.”
Philip Yancey, What Good is God? In Search of a Faith That Matters

Fortunately, I don’t make a living herding words. It’s much easier for me to herd numbers. But like Philip Yancey, I work out my faith by writing. My faith has been strengthened by writing about it. And like my mentor, Philip Yancey, I trust that God can use my feeble efforts to connect with readers I will never meet.

Thank you to everyone who reads Innermost Being!

The Sacrament of Living

On April 26, 2020 By Innermost BeingIn Pursuing GodLeave a comment

I finally finished rereading The Pursuit of God. In the last chapter, A.W. Tozer wrote about the way too many Christians divide their lives between the sacred and the secular. We have life in the Spirit but live in the natural world. The two parts of our lives may seem starkly different and separate. Tozer said that if we try to “walk the tightrope between two kingdoms,” we will not live a unified life. We will not experience internal peace.

All for the glory of God

Religious activities that Christians engage in – praying, worshiping, reading the Bible, singing songs of praise, etc. – are meaningful and satisfying because we know they are pleasing to God. As spiritual beings, we have our eyes on the kingdom of heaven and look forward to eternal life in a place where there is no evil and no suffering. But as human beings, we spend our days doing ordinary human things – working, eating, sleeping, cleaning, etc. The ordinary acts of living can seem tedious and frustrating in comparison to sacred acts of worship.

And yet, as the Apostle Paul wrote, we are to do everything – even the most ordinary acts of living – for the glory of God.

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
1 Corinthians 10:31, NIV

When Paul wrote to the Colossians, he told them to set your hearts and your minds on things above. He reminded them that as God’s chosen people, they should be kind, humble, gentle and patient. They should love and forgive others. When we work, we are to work at it as if we are working for the Lord. When we serve others, we are to serve as if we are serving Christ.

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.
Colossians 3:23-24

Sacramental Living

The dictionary says a sacrament is “a religious ceremony or ritual regarded as imparting divine grace, such as baptism, the Eucharist and (in the Roman Catholic and many Orthodox Churches) penance and the anointing of the sick.” Tozer described a sacrament as “an external expression of an inward grace.” If we accept this truth, then we can see the ordinary acts of our lives as sacred. We can consecrate our total selves to God.

Tozer addressed a couple of issues that get in the way of sacramental everyday living. One is “the sacred-secular antithesis as applied to places.” He asks, how can anyone who has read the New Testament still believe that there is something inherently sacred about a place? In the Old Testament, God taught the people of Israel the difference between what is holy and unholy. What they should have learned is that God is holy; things or places are not holy. In the New Testament, the woman at the well told Jesus, you Jews claim that the place we must worship is in Jerusalem. Jesus said, the time has come when true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth.

A second issue that may get in the way of sacramental living is the ritualism and religious observances in which many Christians engage. Here Tozer directed criticism specifically at the Roman Catholic Church. Christians started out with two sacraments, baptism and holy communion. The Catholic church eventually came to recognize seven. Tozer believed that in adding sacraments and in observing days and times, Catholics and fundamentalists artificially divide religion from everyday life.

Am I walking a tightrope?

When I first started reading what Tozer had to say about the way Christians mistakenly divide their lives between the sacred and the secular, I immediately felt convicted but not for the reasons he laid out. There was no social media when The Pursuit of God was published (1948). In an effort to not offend or alienate nonreligious friends and family on social media, I tend to hold back on expressions of my faith. In a way, this is dividing the sacred from the secular and I am left feeling divided.

While Tozer wrote about the important truth that even laypeople can do ordinary, everyday things for the glory of God, I struggled to get to the truth I was seeking. I already know that I can honor God when I work and do ordinary things. Something was missing from his discussion. My struggle with the sacred-secular dichotomy is not the struggle he described.

At one point, Tozer wrote about sins of the body – “perversions, misuse and abuse” – but then quickly moved on. He said:

Let us think of a Christian believer in whose life the twin wonders of repentance and the new birth have been wrought. He is now living according to the will of God, as he understands it from the written word.
A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God

What about those of us whose lives have the twin wonders of repentance and rebirth who still struggle with sins of the heart? It’s easy to be righteous when you’re sitting in church praising God or when you’re reading the Bible or praying. It is everyday, ordinary life that brings out the hard truth that I am still a sinner in need of God’s grace.

The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.
Romans 7:15-20, New Living Translation

I am all too human, a slave to sin. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature, I am a slave to sin. Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin? Jesus Christ.

While Tozer did not write about the fact that our very humanity separates the sacred from the secular, he acknowledged that old habits die hard. It takes practice to learn new habits. We must offer all our acts to God and pray “a thousand thought-prayers as we go about the job of living.” We must remind ourselves that Christ dwells in us. We cannot be fruitful unless we remain in Jesus and his words remain in us.

Let us believe that God is in all our simple deeds and learn to find Him there.
A.W. Tozer

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Photo by Loic Leray on Unsplash