Family Resemblance

From Jeff Clarke in The Church Jesus Style: The  Sights and Sounds of a Jesus Shaped Community-

The Church should always center its identity, activity and witness in Jesus who defines the life of the ecclesia (gathering). As a result, the gathered community of Jesus-followers are a people who reflect, imitate and live the life of Jesus wherever they are....

...Following after Jesus is a community-driven event. His teachings, example and entire life become the basis upon which we build our following. We are defined by him. He leads us and we follow him together as a community.

Jesus continues to live through his community by the grace, presence and enablement of the Spirit.

The only physical embodiment of Jesus that others will see will be in and through those who follow him. Without this embodied presence, Jesus will be invisible to them.

How tragic it is when those who claim to follow after Jesus look nothing like the one they claim to follow; when there is little too no family resemblance....

This is a great article - read it all at the link.

Shaped By Devotion

From A Lifestyle of Devotion by Paul Tripp:

If you were to outline the book of Hebrews, you would see that from 4:14 to 10:18, the author builds an extensive argument for the high priesthood of Jesus.

At the conclusion of that argument, he begins the next section with the words, “Therefore, brothers, since…” (10:19). In other words, here’s what the author is trying to communicate: “If everything I’ve said about Jesus is true, then you ought to live in the following ways.”

With that in mind, over the next four Wednesdays, we’re going to look at four different lifestyles described by the author of HebrewsA Lifestyle of Devotion bu . The first is a lifestyle of DEVOTION.

“Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” (Hebrews 10:22, ESV)

I’m very concerned with the way modern Christianity tends to think about our “devotional life.” It seems as if we’ve reduced these devotions down to five minutes of reading a Psalm and saying a quick prayer for the day, or, reading an e-mail devotional sent out by a pastor.

The Bible paints a much different picture of a devotional life. The author here uses the word “heart” twice in verse 22. For the Christian, a lifestyle of devotion shouldn’t be reduced to an activity or daily routine; a lifestyle of devotion is characterized by a heart that’s owned by Christ.

Your “devotional life” shouldn’t be slotted into your daily schedule after your morning workout and before you start your work for the day. No, your devotional life is meant to shape the way you think about your body, your job, your family, your social circle, your calendar, and your budget.

No one would admit this, but we try to cram Jesus into a heart already filled with selfish idols and personal hobbies. Even after 40 years in ministry, it’s tempting for me reduce my individual faith down to a daily routine instead of a heart captured by grace.

What’s the solution? It's not to restructure your schedule and free up 20 more minutes for Bible study, although that might be helpful. Rather, every morning, make a heartfelt confession that much of your devotion is still for the things of this world and not for the Lord.

God will give abundant grace to those who confess their desperate need for it. Lay down your pride; admit to the real devotion of your heart and watch the Spirit transform your soul.

We Need Our Brokenness

"Now we come to something very important. The constant emphasis on the victorious life or the good Christian life is the Antichrist as it pertains to the gospel. Here’s why. If I am _________ (fill in your favorite victorious-life terminology), then will I be in a position to be grateful for what Jesus did when he was executed on the cross? Perhaps at first I will be overwhelmed with gratitude toward Christ. But over time, as I find that I’m capable of maintaining victory in my life, I will need Jesus less and less. I still want him to meet me at the gate on the way into heaven, but right now I’m doing great without him. I’m a good Christian.

If you embrace this take on the Christian journey, it will kill you.

We need our brokenness. We need to admit it and know it is the real, true stuff of our earthly journey in a fallen world. It’s the cross on which Jesus meets us. It is the incarnation he takes up for us. It’s what his hands touch when he holds us.

…My humanity, my sin, it’s all me. And I need Jesus to love me like I really am: brokenness, wounds, sins, addictions, lies, death, fear…all of it. Take all of it, Lord Jesus. If I don’t present this broken, messed-up person to Jesus, my faith is dishonest, and my understanding of faith will become a way of continuing the ruse and pretense of being good.

I understand that Christians need — desperately — to hear experiential testimonies of the power of the gospel. I understand as well that it’s not pleasant to hear that we are broken and are going to stay that way. I know there will be little enthusiasm for saying sanctification consists, in large measure, in seeing our sin and acknowledging how deeply an extensively it has marred us. No triumphalist will agree that the fight of faith is not a victory party but a bloody war on a battlefield that resembles Omaha Beach.

But that’s the way it is. I’m right on this one.

Michael Spencer, Mere Churchianity: Finding Your Way Back to Jesus-Shaped Spirituality pp. 147-149

HT: Internet Monk

A Quiet Life

From a thought-provoking piece by "Chaplain Mike" at Internet Monk, commenting on 1 Thessalonians 4:10-12

...for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one. (1 Thessalonians 4:10-12 ESV)

...My life is the one I live with my family. My life is the one in which I do my daily work. My life is the one I live among my neighbors, my friends, in my community, with the people in my congregation and at the ball field. Because I’m a writer, the context of my life includes Internet Monk and the people I meet through participating in these daily discussions.

No matter how hard it is, I have to fight every day to keep the main thing the main thing, to recognize real life for what it is, and to let Christ live in and through me in that context. 

To help me, I have clear apostolic instruction. Paul’s words to me are:

Be a quiet person, a person of peace.
Don’t stick your nose in places where it doesn’t belong.
Work hard.
Focus on the people you know and excel in love toward them.
Local, quiet, pastoral.
It’s the apostolic way.
It’s Jesus-shaped.

How much healthier would I be, would you be, would the Church be if 1Thessalonians 4:9-12 defined our life and witness?

A Life Jesus Would Recognize

"We don't see that the powerful changes that happen in the life of a disciple never come from the disciple working hard at doing anything.  They come from arriving at a place where Jesus is everything, and we are simply overwhelmed with the gift.  Sometimes it seems as if God loves us too much.  His love goes far beyond our ability to stop being moral, religious, obedient, and victorious, and we just collapse in his arms.

Out of the gospel that Jesus is the only Mediator between God and humanity comes a Christian life that looks like Jesus, a life Jesus would recognize.  It's a life that looks like Jesus, because Jesus does everything, and all we do is accept his gift.  And to accept his gift, we have to give up trying to be Jesus."

Michael Spencer, Mere Churchianity: Finding Your Way Back to Jesus Shaped Spirituality, page 138

Wow.  Just wow.

Quotes on Jesus Shaped Spirituality

I'm looking forward to reading the late Michael Spencer's first (and only) book, Mere Churchianity.  Trevin Wax at Kingdom People just posted a review of the book, discussing (among many other things) the difficulty he felt in doing a critical review on the work of someone who has recently died and whose life work had been so helpful to him.

However, the part of his review that struck me the most was this list of "pithy quotes" from the book

• The life of faith is a battle fought in weakness and brokenness. The only soldiers are wounded ones.

• God is the Sun too bright for us to see. Jesus is the Prism who makes the colors beautiful and comprehensible.

• What speaks more loudly of grace: your theological definition of the word “grace” or the tip you leave at dinner?

• Some Christians claim biblical authority, while only telling you what they have decided in advance what the Bible has to say.

• Ask yourself this question: If I were to spend three years with Jesus, what kind of person would I be?

• Jesus-shaped spirituality is cross-centered and Christ-centered. The good news of the kingdom is that the King died to save us.

• Jesus isn’t looking for admirers. He’s enlisting followers.

• Evangelicals have invented a spirituality that has Jesus on the cover but not in the book.

Thoughts like this are why so many people loved Michael Spencer.  A life like this is what it means to follow Jesus.