I left Acton for a
very conservative Bible school in the fall of 1985. It was there that for the young men who
attended like myself, our hair couldn’t touch our collar or ears. We wore ties and dress shirts each day to
class. We all woke up at 6am and by
6:25am needed to be in our room doing our devotions by 6:30am. A bell would
ring at 6:55am and we would all head down to the dining hall for breakfast, but
for another devotion. We would have
assigned seating with men on one side of the table and ladies on the other
side, and a female server who would bring us more juice, milk, toast etc. There was also mandatory study hall in the evenings
and don’t even think about playing music on your Sony Walkman with headphones as I found out
because the demerit points would rack up.
If you had 10 points in a week, it meant you were ‘campused’ for the weekend. This meant that you were to stay in your dorm
room and only allowed for meals!
The thought process I
believe was that self-discipline and a Spirit-controlled life would happen
through external modes of discipline and control. However, here is the crazy thing that
happened in me. As I began to
participate in that culture, it produced in me an incentive to rebel. I got’ campused ‘ a lot! For others it
produced a form of self-righteousness.
In my dorm, we had
Tony, an older man, who, no word of a lie, created his spiritual top 50 list
based on our behaviors around the school from time spent in prayer, devotion,
ministry opportunities etc… Tony’s
approach wasn’t very well received and he became the target of many
pranks. As you can imagine it didn’t help
our standing on his spiritual top 50.
Let’s look at Romans
7:8 where Paul was describing this very thing. He is struggling with this very
issue with his desire to do things that are pleasing to God and yet doing the
opposite.
For I would not have
known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”8
But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me
every kind of coveting.
The ugliness of human
nature is such that being told not to do something actually creates in you the
desire to do it.
And on the flipside,
we see from the life of Paul that the attempt to observe the law unfortunately
produced in him a self-righteousness that was quite ugly as well.
He made it clear in
Philippians 3:4-9
though I myself have reasons for such
confidence.
If someone else thinks
they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on
the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a
Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as
for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the
law, faultless.
And as Sharon
mentioned last week, he considered that all “crap” compared to knowing the
freedom of being in Christ.
So, why do we
gravitate towards creating rules for ourselves and others when it comes to
knowing God?
Rules are safe, they
create boundaries to know whether you are in or out.
Rules allow you to
create a measuring stick to know how well you are doing.
“We choose rules because they are a nicely
packaged alternative to a relationship with God.” Duane McLean shared in my service on Sunday….so
true!
What is the danger
in removing rules?
People will become
lazy in following Jesus, they may end up just living in sin longer.
Let’s MOVE from following RULES to a deep love
relationship with our FATHER
Sometimes when we live by the rules we qualify
that as relationship and we love our spiritual habits more than the person who
we are supposed to fall in love with.
The Scriptures were
never an end in themselves. They are
intended to lead us to Jesus and greater intimacy with Him.
John 5:39 You study the
Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life.
These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, 40 yet you refuse to come
to me to have life.
I had a professor in
Bible School who knew entire books of the Bible by memory and was a walking
commentary; however what I remember most wasn’t his Bible knowledge. I remember an embarrassing moment for a
student in his class. All of us as
students had 6hrs of mandatory work to complete in the week to keep our room
and board costs down. Unfortunately for
a student by the name of Jared, his job
was to milk the cows at 4am! One day he
fell asleep in class and the professor decided to shame and belittle him
instead of really understanding his situation.
So, the point of knowing
and reading Scripture, the point of prayer, the point of journaling, the point
of any spiritual exercise is not to feel superior or boast, but it is to draw
you into a closer walk and deeper intimacy and love for Jesus.
Here’s an
example. If you are disciplined to wake
up at 6am to do your devotions, but you are yelling at your kids at supper
time… maybe that’s not working for you.
Let’s talk real,
practical, out of the box…
What are some simple
examples or spiritual exercises that have helped nurture your relationship with
God to a deeper level of faith and trust.
Let’s look again at
what the Bible says about rules and the law.
Hebrews 10:15The Holy
Spirit also testifies to us about this. First He says: 16“This is the covenant
I will make with them after those days, says the Lord. I will put My Laws in
their hearts and inscribe them on Ttheir minds.” 17Then he adds: “Their sins
and lawless acts I will remember no more.”…
This verse is a direct
fulfillment of a prophecy that was given in the book of Jeremiah. It was to be so much a very living and vital
part of us.
Jeremiah 3133"But
this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those
days," declares the LORD, "I will put My law within them and on their
heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
Let’s MOVE from an ACHIEVING SYSTEM to
RECEIVING all He has for us in Christ
All of our life, from
school to the workplace, there is evaluation and constant correction, approval
and disapproval, promotion and demotion.
We live in an achieving system so it is so easy to stay there when it
comes to defining our spiritual life by some of the more common objectives.
·
How much
time to do you spend in prayer daily?
·
How much
time do you spend reading Scripture?
·
How much time
do you spend serving in the church?
·
How many
people have you witnessed to this week?
Colossians 2:6
So then, just as you
received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, 7 rooted and
built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing
with thankfulness.
We continue on in
Christ the same way that we received Christ and that has nothing to do with
us. It has everything to do with
Him. It is all about being IN HIM, abiding IN HIM, resting In Him, HIS words abiding in us. It is His enabling strength, it is His teaching, it is out of HIS
overflow.
We have nothing to
give apart from what He has done in us.
There will be fruit in
your life, but is it coming from overflow or rules?
Here is a way to know.
When it is from
overflow, it really is easy, it’s natural, it’s a way of life. It isn’t forced, it wells up inside you.
Let’s MOVE from SELF reliance on our own to
LISTENING to the Holy Spirit
Ephesians 2:8-10
8 For it is by grace
you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the
gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s
handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in
advance for us to do. (before ordained
in the KJV)
This is incredible
strong language. The word ordained is
the same here to the words used to describe our justification and regeneration
in Romans 8. It is all about the
foreknowledge of God!
I like to say that God
sets us up for divine appointments.
He puts us in certain
situations around specific people for the purpose of sharing His love.
When I want to share
with you the most beautiful and amazing story of a friend of ours who seeks to
do all things by listening to the Spirit and by the power of the Spirit.
I remember one
afternoon being in Costco with Sharon when we got this message from Maggie B.
who leads the Father’s Heart Healing Rooms ministry. She told us she felt led by the HS to ask us
to invite Roger C., the owner of the Manor to her “Healing and Prophetic”
service. I didn’t really think she was
hearing right. It really did seem absurd
to me in the moment and so I had a choice.
Do I act or “sluff it off” so to speak.
However, I believe
that Maggie was hearing from the Holy Spirit, I took a risk to follow through.
Roger has not even
stepped into a ‘regular’ church service.
However, I was obedient and simply texted him. He replied, “Yes, I’ll come…what is the dress
code” Of course I said it was casual,
but here is a small example of God’s goodness.
Maggie wrapped a
Canadian flag around her to share about her burden for the nation. When Roger showed up, he had a Canadian flag on his belt buckle It was then that I knew this wasn’t a fluke,
Roger was meant to be here.
At
one point during the 3 hour service, he leans over and asks, “Is
there going to be an intermission?”
lol
Can you identify a
time when you recognized that God had prepared you in advance for a connection
or meeting with someone?
The TAKEAWAY
Here’s YOUR TEST, this
week move
from rules to
relationship!
from achieving to
receiving!
from self reliance to
listening!
Ask the Holy Spirit to
teach you in one of these areas.
Remember He is our teacher.
No comments:
Post a Comment