Things I Think…
1.“And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.”
(Romans 12:1-2 NLT-SE)
The Christian life is a life transformed.
We are being transformed into the image of Christ and that transformation takes a lifetime.
The transformation seems to be dependent on whether or not we are willing to be transformed…in the way we think.
I would submit to you today that the end of spiritual growth or transformation comes at the point where we are unwilling to allow Jesus to change the way we think about something into the way He thinks about things.
Keeping in mind that the meaning of “repentance’ is changing your mind and actions to fit the mind and actions of Christ, I do not know what implications this truth brings…though I surmise they may be grave.
2. I began thinking about this after a conversation with a friend who told me (in abbreviated form) that he didn’t care what the Bible said about migrants and immigrants…he despised them and wanted to rid the country of them.
His defiance startled me…we weren’t talking about any specific policies, but what it meant to “welcome the stranger” and “love your neighbor as yourself”…both of which are clearly taught in Scripture. We weren’t discussing policy, but heart…and heart was a bridge too far and obedience to the imperatives unthinkable.
Without the intervention of the Holy Spirit, his spiritual growth will be stunted and in some way, his relationship to Jesus is as well…
3. My thesis is that we have an large segment of the church today to whom the words of Christ and the ethos of Scripture are denied because they oppose the political and societal desires of that group. Thus, they cannot be considered “Christian” at all…and they have not the Spirit of God…
4. Do not think for a moment that opposing gay marriage while hating the stranger among us makes you or the country any holier…
5. I’m into the Bible every day…and every day without fail, the Scriptures challenge me to change the way I think about something…often times something that’s deeply imbedded in my psyche. There are many times when I have to simply pray a prayer of resignation…declaring that though He is right and I am wrong, I’m helpless on my own to change…that I need him to change me. Loving your enemies is hard when there’s a damn good reason they’re an enemy…
6. I work on submitting myself to the Scriptures because I fear the consequences of what is actually rebellion against God…age, poverty, and infirmity are blessings because they force and reinforce your dependence on God…
7. I grow more and more convinced that the government response to Covid has changed the American psyche more than anything since the Vietnam war…we have to find ways to address this and find some way forward to healing…
8. What if we had leaders who brought out the best in us as much as the current leadership has validated the worst we can be?
9. As much as has been written about Larry Norman here, I’d never actually watched him perform… (CCM gives me hives)…saw him actually in concert on Youtube the other day…and I get why he was both so successful and so controversial…
10. I’m so tired of stuff that I’ve now found solace in watching clips from a beaver rehab…I think I want a wombat…seems like you have to go to wildlife rehabs to see love in action these days…
The transformed life begins with the heart and mind and extends to the behaviors and customs–as they are reshaped by the Spirit, the Word, and our faith & fellowship. Too many are ‘christian’ because they made a decision decades or years ago and that’s the extent of their ‘walk’ with Christ. They are thoroughly worldly in their behaviors, customs, thoughts and beliefs. Therefore, we get these ugly statements of hatred towards ______________ people (supply the adjective or nouns of your choice) and see nothing of the heart, mind, or actions of Jesus. At best, it’s a civil religion that’s being practiced (which isn’t very civil in its practice) verses a spiritual regeneration.
Saw Larry N once live in Kalamazoo and I was underwhelmed. He was good, but didn’t perform up to the hype. I know performers have off nights, but he kind of mailed it in and his ‘encouragement’ didn’t come across as very heartfelt or genuine. Perhaps I expected too much…
filbertz,
I do think it’s “civil” religion…but it is practiced by folks who have been deceived into thinking they are regenerate.,.the implications of which I’m not sure I’m courageous enough to explore…
filbertz,
The thing I noticed about Norman was that he really did have whatever it is that makes someone a star…I saw a couple other clips where it was also evident that he was an arse a great deal of the time…
I saw Larry Norman the summer of 1977 at Peninsula Bible Church in Palo Alto, CA. I knew who he was, but had never seen a photo of him. I was looking at the back of a person up on the platform who I thought was a young woman with beautiful long hair, and Larry turned around! The concert was quite good to my 20 year old self.
As to transformation, it is a process, and we all grow at different rates. I love the contrasts that are given in Scripture on Bible characters. For example, Paul has to apologize to the high priest for insulting him in the book of Acts, and then Peter who preached to the family of Cornelius and welcomed them into the household of faith is called out by Paul in Galatians for not being willing to eat with Gentiles. When I encounter someone that just doesn’t seem to budge on what I find to be a clearly biblical issue, I pray that they be transformed…and then I look at myself to make sure that I’m being transformed, too.
Linn,
Being willing to be transformed ourselves is key…and being honest about the places where that transformation is difficult…
Michael, perhaps ‘having a form of godliness but denying the power…’? I think sometimes the bar is so low it’s just lying on the ground.
filbertz,
It’s hard to understand…especially when people you were sure were the real deal seem to do a 180 in front of you…
Saw Larry at Explo 72. His “star power” was
evident by his manner and how he carried himself.
The guy was an enigma, for sure. I remember Duane on here said take worst thing you heard about him and the best and they were probably both true… I’m paraphrasing id course.
of course.
I don’t often see reference to my part of the world on this blog! I’m not into wildlife myself, but the wombat sanctuary is not far from where my brother once lived. My dad had a friend who looked after orphaned wombats, including one dangerous one (don’t go in that room!)
Eric,
I like wombats and Mike Bird…and Ridley College…
I don’t have anything wise to say, but good stuff.
The Covid response and the response to the Covid response, and my response to the response to the Covid response. I get some of the anger over the lockdowns and questions about the vaccine. But I’ll never understand why people were so angry about wearing a mask.
Larry had charisma and talent. Stonehill was a better writer; Keaggy a better player; Talbot Brothers better singers… but Larry, despite all his faults (which were many) got it…
” My thesis is that we have a large segment of the church today to whom the words of Christ and the ethos of Scripture are denied because they oppose the political and societal desires of that group. Thus, they cannot be considered “Christian” at all…and they have not the Spirit of God…”
That about sums it up. These people are far from anything that we can recognize as “Church”. Name your heroes of the last 50 years – Francis Schaeffer, J.I. Packer, Robert Webber, Michael Ramsey, N.T. Wright – all very different, but believers. Can we count the “cultural Christians” today as being reflective of the teaching we have received. I think not…
Terry,
The anger over the vaccine and people losing their jobs because of it is what fuels a lot of MAGA…
Duane,
I was thinking about that this morning…we both know people from a broad array of denominations who are true people of faith…none of them would tolerate what this mutant form of faith purports.
Terry,
Every generation seems to have its trauma. My parents had the Depression, mine the Vietnam War/Watergate, now it’s COVID. However, I think the previous generations expected things to be difficult, while we currently expect the government to fix everything as we complain about their actions. So, we. now have he Orange Julius who seems to be leaving chaos in his wake…I wonder if our next president will wear a purple tutu and a rainbow wig? And, will we keep being mad about COVID the rest of our lives?
“I began thinking about this after a conversation with a friend who told me (in abbreviated form) that he didn’t care what the Bible said…”.
Quite lamentable! It is the spirit of many churches today.
Covid was strange oppression.
We are all sinners and all sin is opposition to Christ.
Whenever we point a finger, three more are pointed back at us. Unless you lost all fingers on your hands save your index fingers and all you can do is point at people…
Paul was angry at Peter for shunning the gentiles at meat, but he didn’t ask James and the others to condemn him as non-christian…
Cultural redneck Xianity pulls at me when I remember MS-13, 18th Street gangmembers roaming my streets and intimidating my neighbors and my family. Yet to the left of my house were a large family of illegal immigrants just working and loving their kids. I worked with special needs migrant kids in Mecca, CA who were being affected by Big Farm practices and chemicals their parents had little choice but to work in. So they should get deported too?!?!
Across the street were a gang of Mongols running drugs, prostitutes, and guns.
(Really, in So Cal, east of the 215 and out into the deserts, it’s everywhere all the time)
Come to think of it, Mongols had interests converge with MS-13 and did quite well coexisting, probably cooperating. If only Christians did so well with each other.
Jesus speaks to me out of Deuteronomy, Change the way you think…
So much policy surrounding the poor and the alien in the last 40 years simply comes down to the laziness and apathy of voters and politicians. The other bits come down to anxiety, gossip and wagging tongues.
As the World gets smaller it brings the mean of living to a closer equal with the rest of the world. In two generations Americans have seen their standards of neighborhoods and living exponentially DEcreased.
Americans have a hard time seeing that they are just as expendable under our constitution as any other (in large part due to corporations enjoying individual freedoms). All terms are actually relative to the needs of the elite that converge on an issue, and everything is profitable.
I think Jesus says “What did you expect at the end of the world?? Let me change your mind…”
Terry,
I was glad to wear a mask for quite a long time, until it became evident that far after the pandemic, some demanded I wear a mask. It seemed to me that some people weren’t interested in a return to normal. To this day, when I see someone wearing a mask, I have no problem. That’s their choice. But I got tired of getting grief 3 years after the pandemic for not wearing a mask.