Transformation

Kids are known for telling it like it is, and Sunday’s baptisms were no exception. There seemed to be a common theme in their transparent testimonies: “Before I came to Christ, I was a troublemaker…” “I used to be mean to my sister…” “I didn’t have self-control…”

The common thread was change. And it’s not just unique to those kids. The other day, a friend of mine commented on the transformation in her recently-converted father. “It’s not just that he is a better person. He is a completely different person. He’s just not the same man he was.”

Some of us, though, are asking a silent question deep down inside. Why not me? Why haven’t I had a night-to-day transformation? Why am I still struggling with the issues I battled before coming to Christ? Why them… but not me? What am I doing wrong? Am I not truly saved?

Salvation experiences are unique to each individual. Sure, they all involve repentance and confession and forgiveness and surrender. But haven’t you seen some delivered immediately from physical addictions… while others struggle for years in that area? Some begin at once to exercise God-given gifts, while others have great difficulty finding where they can contribute to the Kingdom. Some forge ahead, exercising ever-strengthening faith, while others constantly battle fear and distrust.

But think about new life. Some babies arrive hale and hearty; others are scrawny and pitiful. Some advance rapidly; others develop slowly. Some enter the world voicing clear instructions to the doctors; others have a hard time figuring out how to breathe.

Similarly, some newborn Christians look fresh, healthy, and full of promise. They arrive almost on their feet, nearly ready to begin serving the Body of Christ. Others are candidates for the neonatal unit. They may need a counselor to help them deal with the trauma of their past lives, and a mentor to show them how this new life is walked. Transformation comes slowly. Godly character is acquired in increments.

The point is this: those who went down into the waters of baptism Sunday did not all look the same. They hadn’t each come to Christ with the same personalities or problems or inner workings or past experiences, and the same sins weren’t washed away. Furthermore, the squeaky-clean souls who came up out of those waters of baptism were not transformed into cookie-cutter Christians. They’re still unique individuals and they will work out the salvation they’ve received in unique ways. They each have different needs and they’ve each set out on a different path, at a different pace, as the Spirit leads them.

It applies to us, too. So let’s not waste our energy lamenting our slowness and our struggles. Let’s just be certain we’re doing our part – cooperating with the Spirit as best we understand, doing all we know to grow more like Christ. Beyond that, take comfort in this paraphrase of Ps. 103:

As a father’s heart goes out to his son or daughter,
So the Father’s heart goes out to each of us who have been reborn into His family.
For He knows all that is going on inside each mind and body,
And He remembers that we were formed from the dust of the ground.

Be reminded today that He’s far more patient and compassionate than we can ever know... Yet another thing to be thankful for this week!

The Initiator

Initiative.

It’s a concept so close to our hearts we scarcely realize it’s there, so ingrained in our lifestyle we don’t see it for what it is. And it’s so valued by our culture we look down on those without it. What, in fact, is initiative? Webster tells us it’s “the action of taking the first step or move, responsibility for beginning or originating.”

Ah, that’s the American way! We value those who create from scratch, or take up a worthy cause and rally the troops, or see a need and construct a plan and get the ball rolling. We set those people up as useful and devoutly to be imitated. They are worth something! They are contributing! - unlike the riffraff who loll about taking life as it comes. (And have you noticed that it seems the further north you travel in our great land, the more highly drive and industry seem to be valued? If that’s true, we live in a hotbed of initiative!)

Unfortunately, this lopsided value system permeates our spiritual life as well. As we learned Sunday, too often we go into a relationship with God under the assumption that we have originated the idea of reconciliation with Him. We took the first step, and God responded. That mindset continues to permeate our walk with Christ: we plan great things for Him, and ask Him to respond by blessing it all. We set about reforming our attitudes and actions, and beg His assistance. And when we fail repeatedly, we blame ourselves and muster initiative for yet another attack on the world, the flesh, or the devil.

Theologians have a term that sets us straight and comforts at the same time: prevenient grace. God wants us; God calls us; God softens our hearts; God draws us to Himself; God keeps us there; God changes us into the image of His Son; God will lead us Home. We have to choose to respond and to cooperate… but He initiates and enables everything.

If we are proud and self-reliant (Luciferian qualities, by the way), this truth will humiliate us, will stir up angry resistance within us. But if we are humble (is that why He said we must become as little children?), it will comfort and encourage us. Why? Because salvation and sanctification and glorification no longer rests on our puny shoulders, no longer depends on our trying hard enough or being persistent enough.

Arms exhausted from trying to fan the spiritual flame can relax. Feet aching from frantic service to God can rest. We are not initiators. We are responders. We don’t need to think up a plan to save ourselves or the world. We can’t produce spiritual fruit by our own efforts. And we don’t get extra credit for expending extra energy on self-generated projects for the Kingdom.

We can lay it all down, along with our pride, and wait on the Lord. Wait on His initiative. Listen for the still, small voice of His Spirit.

Then, “whatever He says to you, do it.”

Giving Thanks

Pastor Rick noted Sunday that he only has a limited number of sermons left; therefore my opportunities to respond to them are also limited. I’d like to take this blog, then, to speak for us all and say that (at the risk of sounding like a mutual admiration society) FAC will “thank their God upon every remembrance of you,” too, Pastor Rick and Kathy. In this season of thanksgiving, we want to express our gratitude not only to God but also to both of you:

Thank you.

Thank you for setting a high standard for us all in your conduct and speech and attitudes. Your example has called us higher in all these areas. And when we’ve chosen the low road, we’ve never been able to excuse it away, saying, “I’m just following the leader here.”

Thank you for shepherding all the flock, not just a favorite few or an influential circle. Thank you for genuinely caring about not just the elders and the members with large pockets, but also the seeker on the fringes and the children and the elderly whose years of ministry involvement are largely behind them.

Thank you for your transparency and honesty. We learned you weren’t perfect. We saw you were sometimes struggling. We were thereby able to identify with your various situations, and were comforted in our own troubles with the comfort that you received from God, and passed on to us.

Thank you for your patience. For not becoming totally and irreparably disillusioned with us when we listened to your advice and nodded our heads and went right back out of your office or home and did exactly the opposite. Thank you for not throwing up your hands in despair (or, if you did, Pastor Rick, thank you for not locking your office door and telling Ruth, “No more! I will see no more wayward, balking sheep ever!”).

Thank you for your sermons. For all those hours you researched and prayed and wrote and rewrote and prayed again and wondered if we would get it and if we would remember it and if we would do anything with the truth God was speaking through you. We have remembered, by the way, far more than you realize. And those sermons have made a far greater difference in our individual worlds than you can imagine.

And thank you for your music. For your faithful and excellent ministry on the organ and piano and at the mike. For bringing the sounds of heaven to earth, and directing our praises from earth to heaven.

For some reason, God seldom allows us to see the extent of our influence on others and our fruitfulness for Him. But one day, to be sure, God will show you both. And then I know you will be truly astonished to see how even the dullest days and the smallest acts and the most pointless-seeming steps of obedience were fraught with eternal significance. You will have “an embarrassment of reward.”

That will be true of your years here at FAC – and it will continue as you serve the Erie City Mission. Know that we are sad to see you go, and proud of where you are going. And behind your backs, after you have left the halls of FAC, we will be saying what was said of Oswald Chambers by his wife, Biddy:

For they
So shadowed forth in every look and act
Our Lord, without Whose name they seldom spoke,
One could not live beside them and forget.

The King of Nineveh

It’s been suggested that the real hero in the book of Jonah is… the king of Nineveh. That’s right – the top Ninny himself.

Of course I think honorable mentions should be awarded, first to the sailors who threw Jonah overboard and offered sacrifices and vows to Yahweh. And also to the great fish who apparently endured significant gastrointestinal distress resulting in the upheaval of Jonah’s undigestable carcass. Perhaps even to the worm, who was given the unenviable task of snatching the last remaining comfort from an easily-ticked prophet. I’ll bet that worm snuck out at the crack of dawn, hurriedly assessed the vine at its weakest point, chomped at top speed, and was outta there before Jonah could plant a sandal on him. Courage.

But the king of Nineveh deserves hero status because, as the Bible says, those who humble themselves will be exalted (Lk. 18:14). And the king, when confronted with Jonah’s dire pronouncement of doom, didn’t try to shut Jonah up, call for his arrest, or throw him out of the city. Neither did he try to justify himself and his people or argue with the prophet’s message – or with this God he’d never worshipped and couldn’t even see.

Instead, he got down from his throne and laid aside his kingly robe. He put on sackcloth and sat down in ashes. He refused food and drink, turned from violence and evil, and cried out to God in the hope that He might relent and spare them in His mercy.

Not bad for a Ninny. In fact, he ends up looking a lot better than the prophet who sat down and cried over his success. Who, while the city wailed and repented under the torturous sackcloth, waited in the comfortable shade and hoped desperately that God wouldn’t hear their cries.

Oh that more of us would be ninny-heroes. Would just humbly accept God’s correction and crawl down off our high-horses, forget our own comfort, forsake our wrong pursuits, and bank wholly on God being forgiving and merciful yet again. And oh that we would recognize our responsibility to lead others in the same decision.

Not just once, when we bow to accept Christ as Savior. But again and again, every time the Spirit convicts us of a wrong we ought to make right or a course correction that’s needed. Every time we are confronted with the unpleasant realization that we are not what God wants us to be.

In those moments, the ball is in our kingly court. And we must decide whether dismiss it with a wave of our hand, or go to our knees in repentance and choose to be heroes of God’s grace.