Category Archives: Dan’s Blog

Obedience through Serving

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Our walk with Jesus was never meant to be stagnant. He wants us to be continually moving forward with Him. And moving forward means not sitting idly by waiting for black and white instructions, but rather serving God to the best of our ability with what we know of His will right now.

The Bible is full of very explicit instructions concerning God’s will—not necessarily His unique purpose for us individually, but His bidding for each and every one of us as believers in more general terms. So we need to be about obediently implementing these responsibilities. At its most basic level, serving God means serving others. We know from Scripture that at the very least God wants this. So why not start there?

Created for God’s Use

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Everything we were ever created to be is wrapped up in Jesus Christ. Coming to the realization of who we truly are in Christ is the first step toward discovering His purpose for us because it lays in us the sense of self-worth needed to confidently step out in serving Him. And the better we get to know Him personally, the more He can impart His will to us.

So first and foremost is the need to develop a lifestyle of communing with God, because the intimacy essential to discovering His will can be achieved in no other way. But I want to emphasize that prayer is a two-way street—we speak and we listen.

Doesn’t it stand to reason that if God has in fact prepared good works for us to walk in He would need to let us know in some way what they are? Look at all those people in the Bible whom God chose to use in one way or another. Not only did they hear from God, but they clearly discerned what He was saying to them. Even if their revelation might have been a bit murky in the beginning, what He wanted eventually came to light as they went about trying to obey Him.

My Purpose?

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Paul tells us that we’ve been “created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we would walk in them.”(Ephesians 2:10) God has created and redeemed each one of us with an individual purpose in mind, often thought of as a personal calling.

We all share this inward tug as believers. So letting life move us forward without any real sense of direction can’t help but lead to a sense of confusion and frustration. “What am I doing for God? I just don’t know what my purpose is. Why can’t I be more like what’s-his-name over there?”

This is by no means an uncommon problem. In talking with others over the years, I’ve come to the conclusion that the majority of Christians find themselves stuck in the disappointing position of not understanding what God’s intent is for their life. I often sense it myself. And even those who have been used by God in some unique way sometimes share this frustration, since falling back into that familiar holding pattern is easy to do once a job is completed.

Apparently we can’t just lean back and rest on our laurels, since that merely serves to produce the same sense of dissatisfaction as if we’d never experienced the fulfillment of walking in God’s calling at all.     

We Need Purpose

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Do you ever feel like you’re in some sort of holding pattern as a Christian? Even though you may be pursuing relationship with Christ—faithfully fulfilling your sense of duty by going to church, loving God, your family and others, and just being a good person in general—there’s a good chance that you’re still left with a sense of emptiness.

The reason for this is that along with being born as a child of God into Christ’s kingdom there comes an innate sense of destiny. So if we’re living life simply biding our time, more or less going through the motions of our faith, we shouldn’t be surprised to find ourselves not entirely satisfied.

The issue is purpose. not necessarily our eternal purpose in Christ, but rather the purpose for our life while on earth. One very perplexing problem for the Christian is that it’s possible to have a good understanding of God’s heavenly purpose and still be quite bewildered as to His earthly purpose for us.

Gone to Flying!

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In the New Testament, the term used for transformed is a Greek word from which our English word metamorphosis comes. It means radical change from one form to another. Probably the most common example of such change in the natural world is the striking metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly—a transformation so radical that it is entirely inexplicable. The caterpillar takes on an amazing new form as the result of metamorphosis. Not only is the butterfly a much more beautiful creature, but it also behaves differently. No longer is it confined to merely crawling around; now it can fly!

Well, it’s not too hard to see how such a dramatic transformation might apply to our initiation as that “new creature” in Christ.(2 Corinthians 5:17) But it’s a little more difficult to understand how the concept of metamorphosis might apply to a change in our character. Just how are we “transformed by the renewing of our mind?” And more puzzling yet, how is it that our old self can co-exist right alongside our dynamic new self? Yet this is nothing more than the core question we’ve been grappling with right along, isn’t it?

Our old self doesn’t simply evaporate once we’re saved. It hangs on, not only as an ever-present reminder of our humanity but as an impediment to our spiritual growth as well. So this can’t help but raise a legitimate question: if we can never altogether get rid of the old self, how can we ever claim to be genuinely transformed?

Interestingly, the metamorphosis of the caterpillar into the butterfly sheds some light here. You see, though radically changed, the genetic make-up of the butterfly hasn’t changed at all; it still retains the DNA of the caterpillar. In like manner, our life now rooted in the new self maintains the stamp of our humanity. But we’ve gone to flying instead of merely being limited to crawling around!

Excerpted from: Free from the Power of Sin: The Keys to Growing in God in Spite of Yourself

Proven Character

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When the topic of transformation in our life comes up, we typically think in terms of something much less extreme than what God has in mind. In our humanity we resist genuine change, simply as a matter of course. We cling to doing things our own way because the crux of the matter is our self-will. So when sin crops up, we react by trying to patch it up in one way or another, rather than taking the time and effort to get to the root of the problem.

We behave this way because it’s painful to root sin out. Yes, we want to change; at least we give lip-service to it. But when it comes right down to it, we usually are more comfy staying right where we are—superficial change, yes; genuine transformation, no.

 

 

 

Scripture makes it very clear that God is interested in something a whole lot deeper. He wants to live His life in and through us, to bring us to a place of spiritual health and maturity where He can use our life to radically impact the world. And it’s impossible for Him to do this without first transforming our character through the renewing of our mind.

What  character have to do with it? Well, the definition of character largely answers that question. Character in the Greek means proof of genuineness, trustworthiness. It’s not surprising, then, to find it translated in at least one place as “proven character.” (Romans 5:3-4)

Character Formation

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A common byproduct of redemption is the supernatural healing of oppression or addiction. In one form or another, many of us have experienced such deliverance (as we often call it) from the ways of our old life. And deliverance is not limited to our new-birth experience alone; it can happen even long after we’re saved. So we shouldn’t ever stop seeking such miraculous intervention by God.

But what’s frustrating is the fact that we can’t pick and choose which of our weaknesses will be healed in this manner. That’s because God has a plan—a plan revolving around His purpose for us. It’s a plan that is not only a whole lot different but also far less comfortable than what we might choose if we had the chance.

What I’m referring to here is actually an entirely different kind of change in us; it’s what Paul is referring to when he says, “do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”(Romans 12:2) To better understand what he means by this, we need to remember that the mind (and thus the renewal of our mind) doesn’t merely mean the physical mind, but rather the inner man—the immaterial part of our nature as it interacts with the physical mind.

What he’s describing here is a type of change that God employs far more commonly than the instantaneous kind. It’s a transformational change in our character, change which invariably is a more prolonged, arduous and painful solution to the problem of our weaknesses. Yet as annoying as this approach might seem, it is ultimately far more productive when the entire scope of God’s purpose is taken into account.

Seeds of Transformation

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Isn’t God’s plan of redemption incredible? In Him we enjoy all the advantages of absolute security. As the old hymn says, He is our refuge and our strength. But even so, we must not let it stop there, for the Lord has called us to even greater purpose—wholehearted submission to His will.

Such intentional commitment to Him demands that our life be squarely aimed at two very important targets: to serve Him in whatever capacity He desires, and to embrace spiritual growth through personal transformation. Dedication toward the pursuit of these goals provides the catalyst for bearing “much fruit.” And because these objectives are intended to compliment each other, we can’t be truly effective in one without the other.

Yet personal transformation is the key to serving God with a whole heart, so we must ask a very important question: What does it mean to be transformed? Is this the change that takes place instantaneously when we’re saved? Yes, in one very real sense it is, since being born again results in a dynamic transformation of our life. How could being brought from death to life—from the domain of darkness to being firmly planted in Christ’s kingdom—be anything but utterly transformational? Still, there’s a whole lot more to it than that.

Law of the Spirit

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“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2) is an unalterable spiritual law. In Christ we are no longer condemned for sin. Rather, sin itself has become the culprit worthy of condemnation

The bottom line is that we need to start behaving like dead men—dead to law, that is (and as a consequence, dead to sin). This extraordinary life as believers is all about faith in what Jesus has done, regardless of the weakness of our flesh. Paul’s admonition in Colossians 2:6 says it all: “As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.”

When we were steeped in sin, we freely received God’s gift of grace. Now that we are saved, our job is not to try to appease Him by attempting once again to keep the law, but to live out our lives daily walking in the grace He has so abundantly provided. Only then can we enjoy the confidence that we are truly living a life of godliness.

Excerpted from: Free from the Power of Sin: The Keys to Growing in God in Spite of Yourself

Take Care with Gifts

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Freedom from the power of sin is a phenomenal gift of God. But we need to be careful as we revel in it. Our death to sin, brought about by our freedom from law, has one purpose and one purpose only: that we might be endowed with the ability to pursue unfettered relationship with God—in spite of the weakness of our sinful nature.

Never is this freedom to be thought of as a license to sin. Rather, we have been joined to Christ “in order that we might bear fruit for God.”(Romans 7:4) The byproduct of being given this amazing privilege is that we now have the capacity to make good choices, whereas formerly we did not. We have freely and gloriously been given everything we need for our pursuit of Him.(2 Peter 1:3)