Sameness

"The steadfast love of the lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end." Lam. 3:22
During a time of major change in my life where nothing is the same, it has been comforting to know that I serve a God who is unchanging. He is the Great "I Am" Who within His name has the meaning of no beginning and no end. The fact that God attributes a name to Himself is so we can understand that He may be known; that we can know His character and that we can have not only relationship, but one of total communion whereby we may abide in Him as He also will abide in us. (Jn.15:5) He who, even now, is at work in those of us who believe; having been transformed from our hopeless state, separated from the life that is in Him, are now, by His great mercy and grace, daily recipients of His love and energizing power so as to be sons and daughters who are led by His Spirit.

"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever." ( Heb. 13:8 ) In the New Testament we see the same character of God in Christ revealed to us. This wonderful consistency gives us confidence that in relationship with Christ, our faith, our trust and our hope is always steadfast. He will always be faithful, He will never leave us or forsake us and His word unto us is always true. He says "come unto me all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest." That was true yesterday, its true today and it will be true tomorrow.

Even though I serve an unchanging God, my own life must be changing everyday for it is the purpose of God to make us new creatures in Christ. Sometimes that requires us to let go of things which were good, to embrace those things which are better. One picture of this in the New Testament is that you can't put new wine in old wineskins. The new wine will burst the old and inflexible skin. Sometimes we would rather hold on to the way we have always done things because we find security in that, even when there is no generated life observed. Moving into a new culture can be a shock on our familiar system of doing things. I once heard, while visiting in Southeast Asia, "Its not that different is bad, its just different." Something C.S. Lewis wrote addresses this dilemma. He explained how we love to treat life like a movie in which we can rewind and relive the best moments in the film. Honestly, I don't like change any more than the next person, but I also realize that traditions and routines may hold me back and fog my vision for the future if I am constantly trying to relive and hold onto meaningful or valued life experiences. Our lives must be open to change if we are to develop into mature, functional followers of Jesus Christ.

Chapter 5 in the book of Hebrews, says, "by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you" In this chapter, having to be taught is pictured as an infant needing milk. An infant is one who needs to grow, but those who are mature are grown already and they need meat in order to work. They have become mature and have taken on the responsibility of not only themselves, but the weak who have need of discipleship. In the great commission, Christ did not leave us with instruction to evangelize, but to make disciples of all nations. That requires investment of our lives into others with our own authentic relationship to Jesus. Our lives are then the sermon that backs our words. In the U.S. gold used to back our currency, now we have nothing, but empty promises and cheap words of little consolation.

Babies are cute, but not when they are older. Babies who refuse to grow up, thinking only of themselves all the time,  become a hindrance to the work of God and a stumbling block to those in and outside the body of believers.  Lewis said it best when he said " its not that we should think less or more of ourselves, but that we should think of ourselves less." If we choose to live out our lives dominated with a consumerist mentality; satisfied with being spiritually spoon fed and never attending to our own relationship with Jesus Christ, then we will not only become dull of hearing the truth, but ultimately, we will become deaf and dumb to its impact. There is no better way to learn the word of God than by doing it and so prove to be His disciples. Reaching maturity, then becomes one of intentional growth and application rather than only hearing and reading all the best spiritual teachings.

Pushing the envelope

The phrase "pushing the envelope" became popular in the 80's when Tom Wolfe used it in his book, The Right Stuff, in which he described how the test pilots would test the upper and lower limits of speed and maneuverability in new types of experimental aircraft. Chuck Yeager was one of those pilots who was the first to officially fly faster than the speed of sound. In 1947 they dubbed him the fastest man on earth. Chuck Yeager, a man who came from a back woods farm in West Virginia, would literally push aviation into a new era because of his willingness to go beyond the pale of what was safe and secure.

In 1946 Michael Howe, a cognitive psychologist, who did extensive research in the area of environmental influences on the human psyche, explained that for a person to feel secure, they must not have any aspirations or desires for anything in which they might be disappointed. To live within the pale, so to speak, is not only about being safe from disappointment, but it is a result of ones own effort to be protected from fearful circumstances which might alter the course of ones life in a negative way. Living that way becomes a prison of the soul.

In the movie, Legend of 1900, a story is told about a talented musician who spent his life on a cruise ship. When once, for the sake of love, he was challenged to leave the ship for the first time in his life, he came face to face with his most dreaded fear. He would be stepping off the ship and embracing an ominous and unpredictable world which he had never known. In the moment that he descends the platform, your hoping he will make it to the end, step off onto solid ground and be free of his metal cell forever. Unfortunately he never makes it. Midway he turns around only to return to what he has always known, even if it meant sacrificing an opportunity for true love and fulfillment. Fear was the invisible shackle which would hold him fast; a prisoner to the Virginia, which was soon to be permanently harbored as relic of the past.  Consequently he finds himself alone in the empty hull of the ship hiding and unwilling to come out even though it was soon to be demolished. While still on board, the movie ends, as does his life, with the ship blowing up and sinking.

Safety and security promise us peace, but it is an illusive and unattainable goal outside of ourselves because the lack of it is rooted within our inability to face fear and live with circumstances beyond the small confines of our own control.

Joni Eareckson Tada, as a young teenage girl, dove into the shallow waters of the Chesapeake Bay and suffered a spinal fracture which left her a quadriplegic; paralyzed from the shoulders down. She went through a period of major adjustment in her life, which threatened to destroy her with depression and suicide as the only means of escape from this new dark and horrific world of confinement and loss of self-control. Over the next several years, she found her faith in God and her relationship to Jesus Christ, to be her continual source of strength. She was then in a position to make a choice either to stay within that prison or stretch forth the wings of faith and fly beyond her severely limited physical boundaries. She discovered in that the liberating power that faith could bring, and so presently brings a message of hope and a ministry of help, not only to the crippled of body, but to those of the mind and soul all across our globe.

The message to the church today is not to focus on numbers or the embellishment of a personal lifestyle of comfortable entertainment, but one of challenging one another in living out the true message of Jesus Christ. His Spirit working within us will not leave us content to live for ourselves, but for those whom Christ died.  Those who profess faith in Jesus Christ have the resources for living a life that resembles His character. Instead of "living safely" within the confines of our own small world we can become explorers going beyond boundaries with the faith that has been entrusted to us. By engaging it or should I say pushing the envelope we can go beyond our fears and self-imposed limitations. Active faith reveals God's faithfulness, which builds trust and reinforces our hope, but it also encourages others when we live courageously in our relationship with Jesus Christ. It is in this we soon discover the liberating power of God who longs to take us high above the limitations of human talent or effort so that we might see Him, touch the hem of His garment; know Him and make Him known by the way we live outside the pale of popular contentment.