I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the [life] which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
What a wonderful verse Galatians 2:20 is. Really, all of Galatians is wonderful and i can understand much of the book from a very personal standpoint. i have all of chapter 3 underlined in my bible. "O foolish Galatians!", Paul writes. I know many people who have taken God's word and impersonalized it to the point that it is just a book of rules. Such a tragedy! What Galatians says to me is, "Troy, you are to live free from the bondage of the law." I know that in me no good thing dwells (Rom 7:18) but that by faith in the Son of God, Christ lives in and through me. What an amazing thing! Praise the Lord! Now i can stop striving and pursueing some kind of a higher plain of conciousness with my vain works for God. I know people that are striving right now to out-do the wrongs they have committed in their life so that, just in case there is a God, they can appeal to His good nature. As if to say, "I at least lived 51% of my life good...right?" Scripture makes it clear that it is not about what good we do but what God does in us.
"Ah ha!", you say. "So are you saying that there is no right or wrong then, only what we do in the eyes of God?" No because both grace and works exist in scripture. On one hand you have Jesus saying, "No man comes to the father but by me." (Jn 14:6), but on the other hand Jesus cried out against the religious leaders of the day, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness." (Matt 23:27-28). Jesus believed in right (people believing in Him) and cried out against wrong (too many rules that had nothing to do with the spirit of God).
i could continue but i will close with this; i choose not to get bogged down with rules of the faith. Far be it from me to add a yoke of bondage to a new believer that even i could not deal with. Therefore i dish out a portion of the grace i was given. At the same time, if i see a believer who is not walking according to the spirit and i have an opportunity to give council i do so. Case in point, in the college age bible study that i have lead for some time now we have have a very "open floor" philosophy that allows people to speak their mind about what a partiticular scripture might say. In the past six years there have been many opportunities for me to say, "Hey that is great!" but there are some things that people bring up that are not ok. My goal is to keep directing people to scripture for in there they will find the words of life. The pastor won't change your life. I won't change your life. A new boyfriend/girlfriend won't change your life. Only having the true living God "tabernacle" in your life with change your life. It is not you who lives, but Christ who lives in you.
9 comments:
So, I was reading this book the other day, it was called "Wild at Heart" and it told me that I was created to 'slay dragons', in the metaphorical sense of course, a lot like William Wallace metaphorically killed people.(by the way, is Scotland a free land? or is it controlled by the British?) I was curious to know since you also have read the book; how does that relate to the message of Christ?
Ever since you were a little boy, you wanted to do great things. You may have wanted to be an astronaut, a fireman, or a policeman but what all of those things hold in common is that they are an adventure. Somewhere between boyhood and manhood, many young men are told that the adventure is a myth, your imagination needs medication and/or God did not create you with a heart for adventure.
What i believe the author of Wild at Heart is trying to relate is that God gave you that spirit for a reason. Channel that energy towards His service. Don't sit on your hands and think that you can't because you can! I think that our culture as a whole has taught us that it is better to do nothing at all then to do something and be wrong. There was once a time in each boy's life where he was unafraid. Where he would "boldly go where no man has gone before". What happened to that heart? Weren't you at one time, Wild at Heart? Don't you think that God could use that fearless spirit "fighting" for His side?
It is sad that Scotland did not secure it's freedom but it is controlled by the British. They had a hero that they could have rallied around and been fearless like him. Likewise, it is sad that so many Christians today are held by the bondage of porn, of greed, and of discontentedness that they don't realize that they were to be fearless like Jesus was. Jesus was fearless in doing what the Father told him to do, even to the death, and we should be as well.
I thought that your explanation was very well said. Although I do not agree with the premise that through violence can I obtain the promise of freedom, that is not an anti-war thought, but I do completely agree that our societal life, our addictions, as you mentioned, (porn, greed, power) thwart and subvert the "true power of God in our lives."
You also know from talking with me that I agree with a lot of what John Eldredge say's, but I disagree also, because it is also in the heart of women to grab hold of the adventure, which is life, and they do not "need a man" to do so. (That last statement was free)LOL.
I love this blogging thing, it is fun.
In all honesty, I actually feel as if I am doing, and going were I had never been before, which is against the grain, because it is soooo important for us to know Jesus in the way he intended.
You know, if there are no other responses, it makes blogging boring. :)
Don't worry, i'll get to it when i have time.
John Eldridge says something very good about women and adventure. He does not say that a woman needs a man to go after adventure, as you inferred. Rather, he says that a woman does not want to be the adventure. He says that too often (and my wife agreed with this statement) men make the woman the adventure he is going after. Some women go for this and are sorely dissapointed when they get married because now the adventure is over. There are a lot of women that don't fall for this, though, because they are smart enough to see that the adventure needs to be something much bigger than themselves. What John Eldridge points out is that a woman wants to have the same adventure as you when you meet and subsequently start courting. Another idea i have heard on this which i think paralells what John is saying is that if you are looking for a wife start running after a ministry and while you are running look around you to see who is running with you. That tells me that the woman must have been told the same thing, that she needs to run towards a ministry that God is calling her to, independently of a man (gasp!) and then look around to see who is keeping pace with her.
I have to wonder, Paul, why it is that conversations always come back to "injustices towards women in the church". Do you believe that it is possible to have a topic that is independent from "how Christian men oppress women"? Is it possible that there are some Christian men that are getting it right in how they treat their wives? If you feel that there are Christian men that are treating their wives well, as Christ loved the church, is it possible to give those men kudos or should Christian men continue to hang their heads because of how poorly we have treated women in the past?
I posted, but it was deleted, so now I have to write it again. I am in class right now, so I have some time. LOL.
The reason that I speak about the women and men situation, is because it is important, but secondly it is most of the time, unintentional. I am not intending to speak about it when we talk, but it just begs to be spoken of sometimes.
The reason I find it important is because I do not need the bible, or a book to tell me that "I am it, that I am in control", it is who I am. Culture has told me that from the beginning. It has shaped the way I think. Men are strong, drive trucks, fight, demand respect, etc. Women are beautiful, fragile, wear dresses, serve men, and gain attention by making themselves look pretty. What does it mean though in Ephesians when the "dividing wall" is broken down? Is that only contextial, meaning Jews and Gentiles, or is it also women and men, slaves and free, illegal immigrants and American born?
I think that it is important to reflect upon the practices of our culture so that we don't assimilate it naturally into Christianity, because slavery was justified by Christianity, and was not spoken against by Christians, because they just thought it was "part of life, i.e. normal existence." So while I may over-emphasize things sometimes, I think that overall we have tended to 'spiritualize' things involved in Christianity, so that the physical aspects of life are not talked about, or reflected upon, unless it directly affects Christians.
I do not want to criticize Wild at Heart. I was trying to be funny with my first comment about it. It has talked about some wonderful things, such as woundedness in humans and facing the painful experiences in order to be healed. Those are important things for us to know.
On a postitive note, thanks for not criticizing Wild at Heart too much. It does have flaws, don't get me wrong, but overall it is a very freeing book.
In regards to the rest of your blog, so many disagreements, so little time.
1. "You don't need the bible to tell you that you are in control". Where in the Bible does it say that you are in control? If you had just said that some book or popular culture said that you are in control i would have agreed with you 100% but throwing the Bible in there throws me off.
2. The "dividing wall" is in Galatians, not Ephesians and what is the deal with throwing illegal immigrants into the mix? Doesn't the apostle Paul's use of "slaves and free" encompass that or is this a political statement? Immigration is a good thing. If i was against immigration then i should go back to England or wherever my forefathers came from. All i want is for immigrants to knock on the front door like my forefathers did. We are a society that values people who keep the law so that we are all safer as we sleep at night. Encouraging something like illegal immigration is not something that we should be endorsing. What would Jesus do about illegal immigration if he were in America today? I don't believe he would do anything. Look at what he said about the Roman government and about the atrocities that they carried out upon His own people. He said nothing because that is not where the battle is fought. The battle is fought in the hearts and minds of men and women. You could probably re-write the parable of the good Samaritan for today by replacing the Samaritan with a Guatemalan immigrant. There are a lot of social prejudices against immigrants from south of the border that i would agree with you we should fight against but as long as illegal immigration is called illegal, i will not support it.
3. Christians supported slavery? That is kind of a broad statement don't you think? It may be better to say, "Too many Christians justified slavery by taking Bible verses out of context and the Christians that opposed it were not vocal enough." i could be mistaken here, but i am going to go out on a limb and say that the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Christian. As i recall from history, a lot of black churches spoke out against segregation and for civil rights in peaceful protests. Furthermore, i seem to recall a lot of white Christians walking with Dr. King on many of his peace marches. Not all Christians get it wrong, Paul. Christians have and should continue to lead the way to Christ.
Hey, it's me again. :) Excited, eh?
That eh was for the Canadian in you.
So, when I mention illegal immigration, what is the first thought that comes into your mind, Mexicans, probably?
Do any other countries have people moving to this country?
The reason that I believe what it is that I do, is because I think that there is only One True Church, i.e. the body of Messiah Jesus. There are illegal immigrants who are Christians. Southern California is full of true Christians who are in this country illegally.
That is not just an easy, "Well, send them back." This country has incredible opportunities, which is one of the aspects of why it is a country with some benefits. I hesitate to call a country, "good" or "great", because scripture does not necessarily allow me to do so. God is good and great, to him do I only "pledge allegiance". Nations are a "tool" of God's righteousness, but we only look around to see how sometimes those "tools" become dull and lifeless.
In Nazi Germany, the German Lutheran Church did not say much about Hitler's motto for the nation.
"Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer"
"One people, one empire, one leader"
When the nation becomes that corrupt, what does Jesus say? Jesus wants to transform humans' heart and minds, so that they can stand against that type of evil? Unless Jesus is leading us, we will become as evil as that which we stand against. When we stand up, our safety and security are gone.
I stood against some of the policies and practices of the Police Department, because they were corrupt, and I "paid dearly" for that choice.
Firstly, because I fought the system with force, and the system was much stronger than I.
Secondly, other Christians were not standing with me. It is impossible to do it from our own stance. I speak of these issues, because I have lived through them, not because I want to be in opposition.
They are as real as me typing this right now.
Thanks for your thoughts Troy, I deeply appreciate your friendship.
One more thing, which I don't think I mentioned, is that I was referring to Ephesians 2:14-20, "in Christ" the dividing wall of hostility is broken down. Mainly Paul is referencing Jew and Gentile, but I believe that it encompassed those practices, social structures, which prohibited people from truly knowing God. Paul was attempting to unify, "one new human race of people around the Messiah."
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