Shedding Spiritual Pounds

“Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” Hebrews 12:1

Somewhere along the line of approaching 50 I began buying clothes that were loose fitting.  I exchanged buttons and belt loops for elastic and loose shirts.  My focus went from style to comfort, and I even remember my excitement when I found an adorable sweater in the maternity section of Target!  (This was just this past fall.)  You can only imagine my shock to realize that I had some weight to lose.  I never realized the slow weight gain because my comfort was my focus, not my discipline. 

If not careful, we can do the same thing in our spiritual lives.  We buy into society’s complacency of selfishness, and we shop in the maternity shop of excess.  We dress ourselves in fear and wear it as a shroud of doom.  Slowly, we allow less than faithful attitudes to gain weight in our spirit and weigh us down.  The Greek scholar Rick Renner says the phrase throw off means to ‘lay something down and to push it far away and beyond reach.  It implies a deliberate decision to make a permanent change of attitude or behavior.’  The Hebrew translation for everything that hinders is simple – weight, the heavy things of life that weigh us down.  The only way to shed spiritual pounds is to exchange our burdens for God's wardrobe, dressing ourselves in His power, strength and attitudes. Once we put on the wardrobe of Christ, we are more equipped to accomplish His will for our lives.  We must make intentional efforts to push our self-defeating thoughts and attitudes far away and beyond reach.

Where is your spiritual weight gain?   Have you become comfortable in your attitudes to where you cannot even feel the tugging of the Holy Spirit?  Have you become weighted down with despair over a situation?  God has laid out a race before each of us which requires us to be in great spiritual condition to run that race.  He will help you shed the spiritual pounds that are presently hindering you if you will trust Him in the process.

Astonished!

“When they saw the courage of Peter and John…they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.” Acts 4:13

By whom are you astonished and who is astonished by you?  What does this look like in the life of a Christian?  Peter was a tax collector whose focus was on money, and John was a fisherman whose focus was on the ministry of another man, John the Baptist.  It was only when these men turned and followed Jesus that they began to be transformed.  It was when fellowship and intimacy were experienced that the character of Christ began taking over their inward condition.  Their choice of dying daily to themselves begun the slow resurrecting work to live in Christ.

When we turn our gaze to Jesus something in our hearts begin to stir.  Our lifetime of focus on worldly things no longer satisfy us,  command us and no longer master over us.  It takes time to die to ourselves and be resurrected with Christ.  It takes time for the outer self to catch up with the inner work but this process works.  Day by day, laying down our agenda, timing, dreams and expectations, is the process of dying to ourselves.  ‘But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.   What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.  I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him.’ Phil 3:7-9.

For every death in our inner self produces resurrected living in Him.  Like Peter and John, when we choose to ‘be with Jesus’ our lives will reflect Him instead of our own.  ‘Since, then, you have been raised with Christ…your life is now hidden with Christ in God…But now you must rid yourselves of all such things...anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language…since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed…Christ is all and is in all.’ Col 3:1,8, 10, 11.

…and all will be astonished!

Financing Our Imprisonment

“For two whole years Paul stayed there in his own rented house and welcomed all who came to see him.  Boldly and without hindrance he preached the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ.” Acts 28:30-31

During the time Paul wrote Philippians, he was in Rome under house arrest awaiting his trial.  This trial took two years and required an investment on Paul’s part.  Being under house arrest meant, ‘that he could receive visitors and write and receive letters.  Paul had to finance his imprisonment.  Acts 28:30 states that Paul had to pay for his own rented apartment…plus he had to pay for the guards as required by Rome.’ New Testament Life Application Commentary.

The words finance his imprisonment linger in the air this morning like an unattainable goal.  Not only did Paul embrace his imprisonment for the gospel but he invested in it.  My commentary states that his payment went towards a place to live and for the payment of those guards who ensured Paul’s imprisonment.  He had faith in his assignment for which God had placed him, and saw it as an opportunity to display unwavering faith in the face of enslavement.  To read the verse above we might be tempted to believe he was enjoying a place by the sea.  He welcomed…he was bold…without hindrance…preached and taught.  Without hindrance translates to me as full of freedom while in prison.

 How on this earth can we welcome our imprisonments and feel free in our trials?  True freedom is when we demote what masters over our lives, and promote the Master of our lives.   As long as we are on this earth, trials and suffering seem to arrest and confine us as we wait on their resolution.  We find ourselves imprisoned by situations which we cannot control.  We will be miserable and joyless in our trials if we cannot invest and embrace them, and focus on the kingdom of God.  In Paul’s arrested state, he still enjoyed the comforts of his home and the freedom of his testimony. 

What greater peace can we attain than by investing in our own imprisonment, that place where God has assigned us to teach us about His kingdom?  ‘Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.’ 2 Co. 3:17

Yes Lord, but...

“‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world,’ she replied… ‘But, Lord…’” John 11:27, 39.

 I find on the pages of the Bible a woman who did not waver when asked what she believed.  I am inspired by her unrelenting faith in Jesus as the Messiah sent to earth to give us everlasting life.  As inspired as I am by her proclamations of faith, I am equally as confused by the ‘But…’ that followed.  That is why getting into the word of God daily is essential in our lives.  It opens the communication in areas He wishes to speak.  It is the intersection where two spirits sit, renew and transform.

Martha did not question that Christ had the power to resurrect, but her doubt was in the process of the resurrection.  Most likely, she had concluded the way her miracle should look and it did not involve her touching rotting graveclothes.   Most likely, she pictured Jesus coming to the tomb, and bringing forth a beautifully healed and transformed brother…not the image of a dead man walking with strips of decaying linens and a decomposing body.  She believed in the end result…just doubted the process.

Although I claim eternal life in Him without question, sometimes my worries and anxieties seem to echo ‘Yes, Lord, I believe…But, Lord…’  Why is it that we completely trust God with our eternity  but doubt Him with our lives here on earth?  Why do we trust in the destination and fret in the journey?  We know the destination of our desires but seem spiritually illiterate in reading the roadmap to getting there.  With the absence of God’s direction on our journey we will continuously question His ways, His agenda and His timing… ‘I believe Lord, but…’

Christ did not come to earth just to pay our price for eternity, but also to bring us a deposit of heaven on earth in Him.  ‘I am the gate…I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.’ John 10:10.

 

Come Forth!

“Jesus cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come forth!’ And he who had died came out bound hand and foot with graveclothes, and his face was wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, [Mary and Martha]‘Loose him, and let him go.’” John 11:43-44.

There have been times in my life when a resurrection was badly needed. Life presented a tomb through its circumstances and I wrapped myself in graveclothes. One strip of linen that bound me was being judgmental towards others. Another strip that kept my hands from moving was the belief that I could be a hero for others. The binding around my ankles was wrapped with self-focus and a lack of setting boundaries when helping others. Thankfully, God will never allow any of His children to stay bound and dead in their self-made tombs. He will call for a resurrection and we must do our part to ‘come forth!’ Nobody is going to come in and get us and carry us out of the tomb. It is our responsibility to take that first step in faith even if we are still bound. We either believe God for whom He says He is or we do not. Even Jesus did not go into Lazarus’ tomb to carry Him out, but simply commanded him to take the first step. Our expectation that others will rescue us is as faulty as believing a drowning man can be saved by a person who cannot swim.  When Christ calls, we are each responsible for our own faith and responses to God.

Each session of Griefshare, I am amazed at the courage and strength these people possess to come forth out of their tombs of sadness and despair. They respond to the promptings of God to walk through that door at the church and present their graveclothes for unbinding. Through 13 weeks one strip of anger is removed one week, while another strip of guilt is removed another week. They respond to the desire to be resurrected in joy, healing and life when life seems to be cold and cruel. Although they are also bound, they tenderly reach out to help their fellow tomb dweller unwrap a strip through compassion. They wrap their arms around each other and peel back a strip of hopelessness. As they reach out to ‘loose’ each other, I see their own strips of linen fall away and drop to the floor.

The times I see the unwinding of grief in its purest form is when the person is reaching out to another allowing the Holy Spirit to do its work. They do not keep their eyes focused on their own graveclothes, but rather reach out their arms as Jesus instructed and ‘Loose each other and let each other go.’ We must respond to the pain of others to move us out of our own selfish focus. I love what Jerry Goebel says about our passage of Scripture as stated in Lazarus Awakening. ‘The work of Jesus is to bring life; the work of the congregation is to unbind people from the trappings of death…Unfortunately, most of us would rather observe a resurrection than actually participate in one.’

If Mr. Goebel would come to our Griefshare class on any given Sunday, he would witness this passage in its purest form.

This Stinketh!

“‘Take away the stone,’ he said. ‘But Lord,’ said Martha, the sister of the dead man, ‘by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.’ Then Jesus said, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?’” John 11:39-40.

Over the past week, I have been called by God to do something for which He gave me a glimpse of last year –putting on paper my journey through my sister’s cancer. Honestly, I have dreaded the call from the standpoint of removing the stone and peeling back the strips of linen from the graveclothes. The King James Version bluntly replaces the passage, ‘But, Lord…by this time there is a bad odor’ with ‘Lord, he stinketh!’ (Lazarus Awakening, Joanna Weaver) How I can relate to this call. When Beth was first diagnosed I began a Caring Bridge website which communicated the day by day update of her cancer journey. It also allowed guests who visited the website to sign her guestbook, and write prayers and daily encouragement. My dad, who also died of cancer a year after she died, signed her guestbook daily with hope and belief that she would get an earthly healing. Caring Bridge offers that all posts be converted into a soft bound book documenting the journey in which our family experienced. For me, these books felt like a graveyard with markers too painful to revisit.

When God called me to write this book (Take away the stone), He lay upon my heart that the outline would be in the Caring Bridge books. When my Mother brought them, I opened the first page two different times only to immediately close them as my pain arose. (Lord, it stinketh!). But God impressed upon me that if I was obedient in rolling the stone back, I would participate in seeing His glory. How could I say no?

As all of us are aware, God will call us to take away our stone and participate in what He is calling us to accomplish. We may be in a situation that leaves us feeling helpless, hopeless and quite frankly makes us cry out, ‘Lord, this stinketh!’ We stand on the other side of the stone wanting resolution but unwilling to invest in what stinks. How are we to see the glory of God without leaning against the Stone and cooperating with Christ? How is it that we ask God for a blessing, a reward, or a resolution but do not trust Him to remove the stench during the process?

‘For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life. And who is equal to such a task?’ 2 Co. 2:15-16.

I have finally taken away the stone and the aroma is not nearly as bad as I had anticipated…and I am seeing the glory of God!

Paying Respects

“Night and day among the tombs he would cry out.” Mark 2:5

Several generations of my family are buried at a beautiful cemetery in Charlotte. Throughout my life, I have visited that cemetery while cousins, uncles, aunts, and grandparents were laid to rest. The most recent tombstone was that of my dad’s a few years back. Many tears have flowed at that cemetery as I have reflected over past lives and past losses. Whenever I go to place flowers on my dad’s grave, I always visit the headstones of other family members. I move from one grave to the next, and my eyes fall upon the names engraved in stone as if I needed convincing of the reality.

In the Greek translation, the root word for tomb means ‘to recall or remember.’ We tend to live our lives in mental cemeteries, moving from one tombstone of remembrance to another. Our thoughts mark that this dream died so the marker says Failure. We lay flowers on the grave of Hope because after all, it died prematurely and was struck down in its youth. We allow Satan to lay down his flowers, cluttering our markers and giving him freedom in our minds. ‘His one goal is to contain and restrain…entomb so he can consume.’ Lazarus Awakening, Joanna Weaver, p. 73.

We cannot allow the enemy access into our mind, giving him opportunities to lay flowers upon our hopes and dreams. In Christ, we have engravings that reflect life instead of death. ‘I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.’ Isaiah 49:15-16.

We have a more beautiful tomb – an empty tomb! There is no need for flowers for Christ conquered this grave. Christ has set before us the freedom to walk out of our self-imposed tombs and choose life. ‘…that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life.’ Deut. 30:19-20.