New Year's Lions

The Chinese New Year will be January 26. Have you ever seen the celebrations and parades for the Chinese New Year? The things I remember most are the dancing dragons and lions. The lion dance is done by two people in the lion costume with that big head and is meant to symbolize and invite blessing and joy for the new year.

When I think about lions, I think about Aslan from Narnia and I also think about Daniel in the lion's den from the Bible. As most people know, the Aslan character by C.S. Lewis is actually a biblical image representing Jesus the Christ. He is the King who sacrifices his life for his kingdom and returns from death to win victory over the enemy.

For Daniel, the lions were the punishment he received for praying to his God in direct defiance of an order from King Nebuchadnezzer. The punishment was a death sentence by way of being thrown into the den of hungry lions.

I appreciate this painting by Briton Riviere depicting Daniel in the lion's den because it causes me to see that even when Daniel was faced with imminent death, instead of being focused on the lions, he had his eyes and his heart turned toward heaven. Toward God.

I wonder if there are any lions prowling in your life right now? Economic uncertainly? Job in jeapordy? A relationship that keeps getting worse rather than better? Undeserved persecution? A habit or addiction that you can't overcome?

And this is where that other lion image I mentioned comes in to play. The victorious King. The Savior. There is one who is at work in the world and in all of our lives who has already won the battle against evil, oppression, persecution, and sin. His name is Jesus and he is the Son of God.

I encourage you to join me as we turn our eyes and hearts toward God, in the midst of the prowling lions, and see what God will do in us and through us. Remember how the story of Daniel and the lions ends? Read it again and be blessed: Daniel 6:19-28.

May you have a blessed 2009!

Costly Grace

I had a conversation with a friend today and we talked a bit about the concept of grace as it applies to the Christian faith. We agreed that there is a temptation within the faith to misinterpret God's grace as permission to live and act and think however we please because we are forgiven and loved by God (i.e. grace).

We also agreed that such a perspective is not at all consistent with the biblical picture of grace. In fact, God's grace, when applied to our lives and active in our lives, actually changes us from the inside out. We are no longer interested in, or motivated by, living our lives the way we want to and catering to our own desires and pleasures.

God's grace produces in us a love for God and a desire to live the way God designed us to live. Living the way God intended is a concept that is found throughout the Bible and is often referred to with terms like righteousness and holiness.

Instead of considering your life your own to live and God's grace as your permission to do so; how would your life be different today if you saw God's grace in your life as the inspiration and empowerment to live the life for which God created you?

For further reading on this subject, I recommend Dietrich Bonhoeffer's book The Cost of Discipleship. Bonhoeffer was a German theologian, born in 1906, who openly opposed Hitler and the Nazi's until his execution in 1945.

Walking by the Spirit

Sunday night we looked at some particular writings of Paul in the Bible that deal with life from the spiritual perspective. In particular, we read about the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5) and also the spiritual battle in which we live (Ephesians 6).

Paul's admonition to people who follow Jesus was to recognize that life is lived in spirit and our spirits are empowered by the Holy Spirit of God. So then, joy and peace and love and all good things like these are the product, the fruit, of God's Spirit at work in us and in conjunction with our spirits.

The struggle of life then becomes the spiritual battle of surrender: the willingness to surrender our spirit to the Spirit of God and be transformed into the completeness of who we were created to be, spiritually.

In Ephesians, Paul says we are in a spiritual battle against powers of darkness. In Galatians, he describes the struggle as being between the Spirit and our own self-serving nature. With both of these images in mind, we are able to more fully feel and understand the internal tug-of-war that works on each one of us.

Paul encourages the Christ followers to live by the Spirit and also then to walk by the Spirit. Do not give way to our own self-serving nature or to similar tempting forces that come from around us. Rather, give way completely to the Holy Spirit of the One True God who is nudging, whispering, or otherwise calling us all to know and to love God and then to offer that same love to the world and the people around us.

Do you have any such internal tug-of-war? God may just be at work in your life.
Is there any self-serving, or possibly detrimental, characteristic about you that really doesn't belong? You have an invitation to live and walk by the Holy Spirit of God and see the fruit of your life improve.

Galatians 5:16-25 (The Message Paraphrase)
My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God's Spirit. Then you won't feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. Why don't you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence.

It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on.

This isn't the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God's kingdom.

But what happens when we live God's way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.

Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good—crucified.

Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives.