The Most Natural of All

While working through Dallas Willard’s suggested resources, I found this quote from Horatius Bonar in God’s Way of Holiness.  He lived from 1808 to 1889, was from a long line of ministers that served in the Church of Scotland for a total of 364 years, and was best remembered as a poet and hymn writer.  He penned the words of one of my favorite hymns which my family arranged on a music CD: “I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say.” (Click to hear it.)

I think he does a good job of explaining discipleship as a holy life.  He walks beyond a consumer concept of Christianity and it’s counter-part, super-Christianity.  Discipleship does not move towards a mere “liberal sympathy” nor a “punctual devotion,” but something entirely natural.  It is based on an unbroken fellowship with Jesus, with the goal of “not copying a copy, but copying [Christ] Himself.” What a joy to anticipate learning from the Master Teacher who will bring us to a place where we can become “like the most natural of all creatures, a little child.”

A holy life in man’s estimation may be simply a life of benevolence, or of austerity, or of punctual devotion, or of kindly geniality, or noble uprightness, or liberal sympathy with all creeds, all sects, all truths, and all errors. But a holy life in God’s estimation, and according to Bible teaching, must be founded upon truth, must begin personally, in conscious peace with God through the blood of the everlasting covenant, must grow with the increase of truth and deliverance from error, must be maintained by fellowship with God, in Christ Jesus, through the indwelling of the “Spirit of holiness” (Rom 1:4). Error or imperfect truth must hinder holiness. Uncertainty as to our reconciliation with God must cloud us, straiten us, fetter us, and so prevent the true holiness, besides also fostering the false. Fellowship must be preserved unbroken, that the transmission of the heavenly electricity, in all its sanctifying, quickening power, may go on uninterrupted. Nothing must come between: not the world, nor self, nor the flesh, nor vanity, nor idols, nor the love of ease and pleasure.

The Word must be studied in all its fullness. Over its whole length and breadth we must spread ourselves. Above all theologies, creeds, catechisms, books and hymns, the Word must be meditated on, that we may grow in the knowledge of all its parts, and in assimilation to its models. Our souls must be steeped in it, not in certain favourite parts of it, but in the whole. We must know it, not from the report of others, but from our own experience and vision, else will our life be but an imitation, our religion second-hand, and therefore second-rate. Another cannot breathe the air for us, nor eat for us, nor drink for us. We must do these for ourselves. So no one can do our religion for us, nor infuse into us the life of truth which he may possess. These are not things of proxy or merchandise, or human impartation. Out of the Book of God and by the Spirit of God must each one of us be taught, else we learn in vain. Hence the exceeding danger of human influence or authority. A place of influence in such a case becomes perilous alike to the possessor of the influence and to those over whom that sway is wielded. Even when altogether on the side of truth, its issue may be but an unfruitful formalism, a correct petrifaction, an intelligent orthodoxy, and both they who possess the influence or are under its power ought to be greatly on their guard lest the human supplant the divine, and the fear of God be “taught by the precept of men” (Isa 29:13)—lest an artificial piety be the result, a mere facsimile religion, without vitality, without comfort, and without influence.

One who has “learned of Christ,” who “walks with God,” will not be an artificial man, not one playing a part or sustaining a character. He will be thoroughly natural in manners, words, looks, tones, and habits. He will be like that most natural of all creatures, a little child. Christianity becomes repulsive the moment that it is suspected to be fictitious. Religion must be ingenuous. No affectation, nor pedantry, nor conceit, nor set airs, nor what the world calls “whining,” can serve the cause of Christ, or give weight to character, or win an adversary of the Cross. The “epistle of Christ,” to be “known and read of all men” (2Co 3:2) must be transparent and natural. In living for Christ, we must follow Him fully, not copying a copy, but copying Himself; otherwise ours will be an imperfect testimony, a reflected and feeble religion, devoid of ease, and simplicity, and grace, bearing the marks of imitation and art, if not of forgery.

(Bonar, Horatius. God's Way of Holiness (Kindle Locations 1308-1334). Chapel Library. Kindle Edition.)

Coming In Out of the Wind - Renewing the Mind

Discipleship to Christ cannot be described in merely negative terms.  “Do not be conformed to this world” is a necessary component of discipleship, but not a complete description.  Paul also says, “Be transformed by the renewing of your minds” in his letter to the Romans. The movement away from the world and its distractions must be matched by a corresponding move to Christ and his way of living. C. S. Lewis describes this movement well in this excerpt from Mere Christianity. Moving away from a life that is impossible – a sort of compromise with our old life and the new one – we find we can live a life powered by grace. We turn from our usual mechanisms for dealing with life to find that the kingdom of God is close at hand, utterly available to us. As Lewis says, “We can only do it for moments at first.  But from these moments the new sort of life will be spreading through our systems.”  Also he describes so well that such transformation often comes where we least expect it: “the very moment you wake up.”


The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self – all your wishes, and precautions – to Christ.  But it is far easier than what we are trying to do instead.  For what we are trying to do is remain what we call “ourselves,” to keep personal happiness as our great aim in life, and yet at the same time be “good.” We are all trying to let our mind and heart go their own way – centered on money or pleasure or ambition – and hoping, in spite of this, to behave honestly and chastely and humbly.

And that is what Christ warned us you could not do.  As He said, a thistle cannot produce figs.  If I am a field that contains nothing but grass-seed, I cannot produce wheat. Cutting the grass may keep it short: but I shall still produce grass and no wheat. If I want to produce wheat, the change must go deeper than the surface. I must be ploughed up and resown.

That is why the real problem of the Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it. It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day. Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind.

We can only do it for moments at first. But from those moments the new sort of life will be spreading through our system: because now we are letting Him work at the right part of us. It is the difference between paint, which is merely laid on the surface, and a dye or stain which soaks right through.

He never talked vague, idealistic gas. When He said, “Be perfect,” He meant it. He meant that we must go in for the full treatment. It is hard; but the sort of compromise we are all hankering after is harder – in fact, it is impossible. It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird; it would be a jolly sight harder tor it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.

(Smith and Foster, Devotional Classics, p.9)

A Life That Does Not Work - Conforming to This World

Standing opposite to being “transformed by the renewal of your mind” is Paul’s instruction “do not be conformed to this world” in his letter to the Romans. As we have been studying discipleship in our small group, we have found that conforming to the world is more than just doing the bad things everyone else is doing. It is trying to live a life that does not work. In this excerpt from Dallas Willard’s book The Spirit of the Disciplines, we see that conformity to the world not only corners us into moral ambiguities, it strikes at the very heart of who we are and what we are called to be.  It makes life a march instead of a dance, black and white instead of color, bound up instead of loosened. Discipleship is for life in all of its fullness, not just for church or charity.

The English philosopher and critic John Ruskin. . . said this of the human:  

His true life is like that of lower organic beings, the independent force by which he moulds and governs external things; it is a force of assimilation which converts everything around him into food, or into instruments; and which, however humbly or obediently it may listen to or follow the guidance of superior intelligence, never forfeits its own authority as a judging principle and as a will capable of either obeying or rebelling.  

Ruskin proceeds to contrast this “true” life with the “false” life that is possible, and too often reality, for human beings: a false life of custom and accident “in which we do what we have not purposed, and speak what we do not mean, and assent to what we do not understand; that life which is overlaid by the weight of things external to it, and is moulded by them instead of assimilating them.” How often do we feel like this in our day-to-day life, doing and saying things we don’t mean just to get along with the world around us?

 Once I counseled a sensitive and intelligent young woman who was quite miserable in her job at a department store. She told me that on the weekends she felt as if she had been “dug up” from being “buried” during the week. This graphically expressed the sense that her activities at work were not really hers, that she therefore was dead (“buried”) during that time, only to come to life (be “dug up”) on the weekends when her activities originated from within herself.

What constitutes the individuality and uniqueness that make living things precious? It is their inner source of activity. One brick or board may be as good as another since it has no inner life. But to treat one person as replaceable by another is not to treat them as persons at all. It denies the inner source, the originative power that is a human life. And that is why doing so is regarded as dehumanizing.

Some persons may indeed try to abdicate their life, disown their spontaneity, seek security by “conforming” to what is outside of them. But they don’t actually escape life or their responsibility for it. They only succeed in appearing “wooden,” unlively. We may know what to expect from them, but we have as little delight in them as they do in themselves.

Ever wonder why we love the frankness, the audacity of the little child? It’s because a child presents life in an unblushing directness that permits no mistake about its originality and therefore its individuality.

 It’s the same reason we delight in the frolics of a puppy or the lollings about of a panda. These are so utterly gratuitous that they could, we think, only be evidences of an inward life completely unrestrained. And we love them for it.

(Willard, Dallas. The Spirit of the Disciplines (pp. 59-60). Harper Collins, Inc.. Kindle Edition.)

Living Holiness: Holy and at Peace

In one aspect, sanctification is an act, a thing done at once, like justification. The moment the blood touches us—that is, as soon as we believe God’s testimony to the blood—we are “clean” (Joh 15:3), “sanctified,” set apart for God. . . .  As the vessels of the sanctuary were at once separated to God and His service the moment the blood touched them, so are we. This did not imply that those vessels required no daily ablution afterwards, so neither does our consecration intimate that we need no daily sanctifying, no inward process for getting rid of sin. The initiatory consecration through the blood is one thing, and the continual sanctifying by the power of the Holy Ghost is another.  (Bonar, Horatius, God's Way of Holiness, Ch.1)

Signs of Life

Simply put, holiness is one of the qualities of new life in a person.  As we learned in biology, living things have certain qualities.  They eat and grow.  They move and seek.  Inanimate objects may have some similarities, but they do not live.  New life in Christ, like all other kinds of life, has one source: the Creator.  One of the qualities of this new life is holiness.

Holiness is not defined so much by what it does, but by the one who does it.  God does holy things because he is holy.  It does not work the other way.  Just because a rock can roll do a hill like a child, it doesn't make the rock alive.  In the same way, certain actions may look holy, but if life from above does not inhabit them, they may be as dead as a rock in the realm of holiness.

One way of determining the liveliness of our holiness is with another quality: peace.  Holiness without peace is dead.  (Peace without holiness is empty, but that is another thing.)  The lack of peace in a life that has "holy" actions is easy to see.  There will likely be grumbling and burnout.  This kind of holiness does not flow from the person as it should, but it must be forced out through direct effort.

Peace is in a close conversation with holiness in the new life of a Christ follower.  They are inseparable, like close companions.  But peace comes before holiness in a person's life.  Not so much in timing, but by necessity.  True holiness will not come without peace, yet true peace with God and other people always brings holiness along.

Holiness Starts with Peace

So it is a good idea to talk about peace first, but never without talking about holiness.  In a life with God, a person cannot accept peace with God without accepting holiness as well.  They come together and will not be separated.  Peace with God is what makes room for holiness in a person's life.  They move in together into your heart, but the conversation starts with peace.

The conversation about new life begins with the realization that we are dead.  We may have a certain sort of peace, but not peace with God.  When we ask peace why it seems so far from us, we may find the answer is that we do not have a life where peace can exist.  We are dead to peace.  Peace says, "I come with Jesus."  Jesus says, "My peace I leave with you.  I do not give as the world gives."  True peace comes when we stop resisting Jesus.

God chooses to overcome our resistance thorugh love.  He does not roll over us, but seeks to earn our trust.  The cross plainly shows our resistance to God both corporately and individually.  Whether we attack or abandon Jesus, we live in resistance to him.  The cross also plainly shows God's desire and ability to make peace.  In the cross our resistance is encountered and overcome.  Our resistance does not stop God or his plans, but it does leave us out in the cold, dead to him and his Son.

Trust is the acceptance of God's love as well as a realization of his place in the universe.  We can give up on our resistance now out of responce to his love.  We need not wait until our resistance is overcome by God's obvious presence and power.  Then it will be too late.  He does not make us trust him because trust cannot be earned in that way.  He wants our faith, not mere obedience.  That is why in Christ we find that God's way is to draw us near to him through love rather than force.

When we trust him with our lives, we have become alive to him.  Trust, or faith, is our end of the experience of being born from above, receiving new life.  Only in this faith can peace exist and grow.  We cannot contiually resist God and have peace with him.  We must come to trust him in all his ways as well as in all our ways.  When we open the door to Jesus and his Father, we will find peace in their company and, as we grow, also in the company of other people.

Holiness Completes Peace

In the company of such peace, holiness also makes an appearance.  Peace without holiness cannot make any sense of the cross.  Peace without holiness does not count the cost of following Jesus.  Peace with God means war with sin.  Our resistance to God does not disappear without a fight.  Actually we only discover the depth of our resistance when we go to war against it.  Resisting God shows up as our many sins with which we are familiar: anger, lust, lethargy, disinterest, etc..

You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.  Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us?  But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:“God opposes the proud, but shows favor to the humble."  Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.  Come near to God and he will come near to you.  (James 4:4-8)

Holiness begins with a preference for the things of God and resistance to the things of the world.  Holiness resists the works, words, and ways of people who resist God, starting with oneself.  It moves out into our relatiosnhips and finally out into the human institutions which are based on such resistance - the "world." In such resistance we begin to grasp the wonderful "otherness" of God.  "'My thoughts are not your thoughts.  Neither are my ways, your ways,' declares the Lord."  (Is. 55)

Peace begins with letting down our resistance in trust.  We embrace God.  In holiness we find a resistance to whatever is anti-God.  We embrace God, and no other.

Holy, Not Holier-than-Thou

Jesus came to a people who thought they were holy.  They looked to God and lived as his people in resistance to the world around them.  Jesus showed them that their holiness lacked peace with God.  They resisted the heresies of other pagan people, but did not bring peace to them.  Jesus showed them that their holiness was merely a religious exclusivism brought about by a religious preference.  Instead of being truly holy and beyond this worldand its ways, they were playing the same game as everyone else, seeking to be at the top of the ladder by condemning other people.  They were "holier-than-thou" rather than holy.

Jesus not only taught about the life from above, he lived it.  He is both Teacher and Lesson.  Jesus does not only teach us, though, he delivers us.  We are to be delivered from the world and its ways: being simply saints or "holy ones" rather than "holier-than-thou ones."  Holiness is our birthright and our inheritance.  Through Jesus we are accepted into God's holy company.  Through the Spirit of Jesus we are taught and enabled to become holy.  Holiness is both our identity and calling.

All of our hope for deliverance from this present evil age lays with Christ.  He is the one solid place on which we can stand.  Our trust in Christ himself is not work, but rest.  As Martin Luther wrote to his friend:

I am accustomed, my Brentius, for the better understanding of this point, to conceive this idea, that there is no quality in my heart at all, call it either faith or charity; but instead of these I set Christ Himself, and I say this is my righteousness. He is my quality and my formal righteousness, as they call it, so as to free myself from looking unto Law or works; nay, from looking at Christ Himself as a teacher or a giver. But I look at Him as gift and as doctrine to me, in Himself, so that in Him I have all things. He says, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life.’ He says not, ‘I give thee the way, and the truth, and the life,’ as if He were working on me from without. All these things He must be in me, abiding, living, and speaking in me, not through me or to me, that we may be ‘the righteousness of God in him’ (2Co 5:21); not in love, nor in the gifts and graces which follow.  (Luther, in Bonar, Horatius, God's Way of Holiness, Ch. 2)

In this way, holiness is our identity as we have faith in Christ.  Holiness is not a gift from him, but what he is in us.  Just as Jesus says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life", he also says, "I am your holiness."  We stand nowhere else.  We go nowhere else.  This resting place in Christ does not move us into sleep or lethargy, but into the work of the Holy Spirit.

Holiness from Resting in Christ

The Gospel does not command us to do anything in order to obtain life, but bids us live by that which another has done; and the knowledge of its life-giving truth is not labour but rest—rest of soul—rest which is the root of all true labour; for in receiving Christ we do not work in order to rest, but we rest in order to work. In believing, we cease to work for pardon, in order that we may work from it; and what incentive to work, as well as joy in working, can be greater than an ascertained and realized forgiveness?

That there are works done before faith we know, but regarding them we know that they profit nothing, “for without faith it is impossible to please God.” That there are works done after faith we also know, and they are well pleasing to God, for they are the works of believing men. But, as to any work intermediate between these two, Scripture is silent; and against transforming faith into a work the whole theology of the Reformation protested.  (Bonar, ibid, Ch. 2)

Just as rest comes before work and supports all good work, so peace comes before holiness and supports all true holiness.  With new life, we have inherited holiness through Christ in us.  It is ours as surely as Christ is ours.  Just as any inheritance whether of wealth or ability can be squandered, so can the inheritance of holiness be wasted on us.  Such squandering would beg the question of whether or not we ever received the Holy One at all.  Our work in holiness speaks to us about our faith in the Holy One who has made his home in us.

The goal of such examination is not doubt, but certainty.  If our work in holiness is nothing but trouble, we may need to seek a proper resting place first.  If we are trying to build our holiness on sand, it would be better to know before the storms come.  The sure foundation is in Christ.  Not his work, his cross, his teaching, or his gifts.  In Christ himself and nowhere else, "abiding, living, and speaking in me, not through me or to me," as Luther says.

So we find ourselves to be temples of the Holy One, both individually and corporately.  We are made holy by his presence in us.  By resting in him, we find that his presence is not a passive thing, but active.  Jesus, unlike the Law, does not remain in a box behind a curtain.  Through his Spirit, he works out his holiness through the members of his body, which is both our bodies (1 Cor. 6) and our gathering of bodies as a church (1 Cor 3).  Both kinds of bodies belong to him.  We have been purchased and redeemed.  "The body is for the Lord and the Lord for the body."

Holiness is one of the traits of a body that is inhabited with the new life of Christ.  It is one of the ways we come to recognize what this life really looks like.  It is obvious to those who seek it and confusing or repulsive to those who are passing it by.  Holiness will grow where it is planted.  Through trust the resistant ground is broken up and receives the peace and rest of Christ, the One who has done all the hard work and left us to reap the benefits.  We are disciples of holiness as we follow the Holy One, the Christ.

May Christ be our righteousness and holiness, making his home in us and with us.  May we rest in him through complete trust.  May his Holy Spirit inhabit our bodies teaching us the steps of holiness from the inside out.  We will be clumsy and fall, but may he give us the grace to get up and never give up.  Amen.

The God Who Wants to Be Heard

Jesus Christ is the Eternal Word.  He, and He alone, is the source of new life to you.For you to have new life, he must be communicated to you.  (Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ, Jeanne Guyon, Chapter 14 Silence.)

Here I see a strong basis for practicing silence before God.  I have not really thought about this particular significance of Jesus being called the Word in John 1.  Perhaps above all things, Jesus needs to be heard to be received.

Hearing has a strong place in the Bible.  The creation is spoken into existence.  Could it be that such communication from God was meant most of all to be heard?  Psalm 19 says, "The heavens declare the glory of God!"

The Shema of Israel begins with "Hear, O Israel!"  The word is also translated "obey."  Is it possible we find ourselves trying to obey without first hearing?  Perhaps this is what Jesus was driving at when he said, "Why do you call me 'Lord,' and do not do what I command?"  Perhaps the first command is listening more than professing.

If we are to be saved by the Word made flesh, it may be the first thing we need is a listening ear.  If we are going to hear him, we may need enough silence to do so.  Perhaps regeneration or new life comes through silence before God.  In order to confess with our mouths and believe in our hearts in the Word, we need to be able to hear him first, even if only faintly.

SILENCE THAT HEARS

Here is how to acquire this habit of silence.  First of all, forget yourself.

 Perhaps I will lose some people at this point.  The idea that any person could actually do anything to effect or further their own salvation is unthinkable to some people.  If it is the idea that silence itself has such an effect, I would agree wholeheartedly.  But to say that God will deliver us apart from our cooperation is to deny the one who calls out, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!"

Silence that hears is first a form of self-denial.  It is not a form of self-abuse!  It is laying aside the voice that chatters incessantly about me.  It begins when my attention shifts.  That shift must first be away from myself if I am to truly hear.

This is not surprising.  Any person who has practiced silence for the sake of careful listening knows that one of the greatest barriers to hearing is planning a reply even as someone is speaking to you.  With this kind of anticipation is the judgment that you already understand what the person is saying before they have said it.  Not only does this leave out important details and information, it signals to the person that you do not really care what they are saying, only what you will be replying.

Perhaps this is how we are with God.  Silence can help us to escape our tendency to answer God before we know what he is saying.  Perhaps we may find ourselves able to hear him out instead of putting words into his mouth.

WAIT ON GOD

Second, listen attentively to God.

This is the other side of the coin of listening.  I do not stop by merely forgetting myself.  I must continue on into attention to God.  We are given this assurance: "Wait upon the Lord and he will renew your strength."  Within the attentiveness to God is the grace he gives for us to hear him.  Sometimes it is in the raw sense of his presence.  Sometimes it is in a special circumstance that reassures us of his care.  Others have been assured through visions, dreams, and angels.  His strength will come to us.

When we can forget ourselves for a while, we find he is not far from us.  What keeps God distant is our continuous plague of self-absorption.  It is not enough to remove attention from ourselves, though.  We must wait on God.

The mind is a slippery thing.  You think you have a hold on it and it slides away into another stream of thoughts and anxieties.  The streams of the mind are formed, like trenches dug and used.  If the prevailing stream is of what I want, the mind continually slips down that trench.  The good news is that this stream is not very deep or strong.  There are much greater torrents that can capture the mind.

THE GOD I WANT TO HEAR

This is one of the ways the Bible can help us.  It is a great torrent of grace for the tranformation of the mind.  It blocks fruitless thoughts and pours out new springs of thought and hope.  Through reading, study, and praying the Bible I find myself in awe of God.  Often awe is accompanied by profound silence.

At the heart of silence is a God who wants to be heard and a God whom I want to hear.  Without this knowledge firmly planted in my belief, silence will only be a strain and an exercise rather than a doorway to a life-giving, deeply loving relationship.  Without this knowledge the Eternal Word will remain a nice idea rather than the source of life.

The Sacred and Supernatural Way of Jesus

It is to the Lord Jesus you abandon yourself.  It is also the Lord whom you will follow as the Way; it is the Lord you will hear as the Truth, and it is from the Lord that you will receive Life.  (John 14:6)  If you follow Him as the Way, you will hear Him as the Truth, and He will bring life to you as the Life.  (Guyon, Jeanne; Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ)

I had always thought that when Jesus explained himself as the Way, the Truth, and the Life, he was stacking metaphors to emphasize what he said next: "No one comes to the Father but by me."  What Jeanne Guyon wrote made me take another look at this verse.  I began to think that Jesus may have given these metaphors in order to give his disciples a path to follow him while he was not physically present.

Jesus is the Way.  He turned away people who would not follow his way, calling them to humble trust (Matthew 8:18-22).  Although Jesus told his disciples to respect the authority of the teachers of Israel by doing what they said, he warned them carefully not to do what they did (Matthew 23:2-3).

The Sacred Way of Humility

The humility of Jesus is best described in Philippians 2 as one "who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness."  Just as Jesus entered human life, bringing God into every corner of human existence, so each disciple brings Jesus and his Father into each part of their own human existence.  We must not stand above or apart from our own lives, trying to grasp at something other than what we are given.

Within the stream of Christian tradition, we begin the way of humility with the call to Sacramental Living.  It starts small, perhaps with church attendance or Bible reading or habitually helping others for Jesus' sake, but like yeast in a lump of dough, it spreads and has effects far beyond its apparent quantity.  Sacramental living uses ritual and everyday life to grow in Christ.  Humble means for the humble way.

The Supernatural Way of the Spirit

The faith of Jesus, his utter trust in his Father, seems most amazingly obvious in his statement, "Whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father." (John 14:12)  Human beings we intended to act with power far beyond themselves.  With a trust like Jesus, we find that the finger of God comes to lift burdens, cast out demons, and heal the sick in ways that are not explainable by normal human activity.


Within the stream of Christian tradition, true humility leads to deep trust and power.  This is life directed and empowered by the Spirit of Christ.  Those who follow Jesus must follow him in the Spirit.  We begin and finish with the Spirit.  Jesus explained how in the life of his disciples the filling of the Spirit would cause many things to happen, like seeds growing into plants all by themselves (Mark 4:27-28)  We are meant to do all things far beyond our own capability.

Wide and Deep and High

Sacramental living spreads the presence and work of Christ horizontally through one's life - wide.  The way of Christ may start in church, but it will spread into family and work.  The rituals and everyday practices become doors through which Jesus can enter life.  If they become too important in themselves, however, such practices lead to a constricted and dry life.  They must be jars to be filled and used instead of bricks to be labored over and made into walls.

Spirit-empowered living expands each part of life higher and deeper, giving it a vertical dimension.  At first it may seem life lightning striking out of nowhere, but then as trust deepens, so the higher ways of the Spirit become more evident and understandable.  Although disciples of Jesus follow him in the Spirit, they must never lose their grounding in everyday life.  Power without humility intoxicates the mind.  Daily living with rituals and practices keep power from overwhelming us.

The way of Jesus is a way of humble trust.  It is grounded in daily life and meaningful practices, where human life exists.  It also expands and explodes all human definitions through a dynamic life in the Spirit, who deepens our trust in God by his every action.  The way of Jesus is both sacred and supernatural.