DownshoreDrift

Our Identity In Christ

I have been really thinking about spiritual formation over the past several months and how we can be formed into the image of Christ. The Church's main job is to make disciples of Jesus. We often focus most heavily on everything else and we leave the disciplemaking to parachurch organizations if we think about it at all. But, God wants each of us to reflect Christ.  This starts with knowing who God is and knowing our identity in Christ.  If we know who Jesus is and who He has made us to be, we have the start that we need in living for Him. Who we are dictates how we act. We must be transformed by the renewing of our minds and we must live from the life of Christ within us, not from our own resources.

Here is a list of verses that deal with our identity in Christ that I found HERE. Read over them and ask God to help you live from the reality that He provides us. This is also helpful to use in discipling others.

 The Word of God Says in Jesus Christ...

I am faithful (Ephesians 1:1)

I am God's child (John 1:12)

I have been justified (Romans 5:1)

I am Christ's friend (John 15:15)

I belong to God (1 Corinthians 6:20)

I am a member of Christ's Body (1 Corinthians 12:27)

I am assured all things work together for good (Romans 8:28)

I have been established, anointed and sealed by God (2 Corinthians 1:21-22)

I am confident that God will perfect the work He has begun in me (Philippians 1:6)

I am a citizen of heaven (Philippians 3:20)

I am hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3)

I have not been given a spirit of fear, but of power, love and self-discipline (2 Timothy 1:7)

I am born of God and the evil one cannot touch me (1 John 5:18)

I am blessed in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3)

I am chosen before the creation of the world (Ephesians 1:4, 11)

I am holy and blameless (Ephesians 1:4)

I am adopted as his child (Ephesians 1:5)

I am given God's glorious grace lavishly and without restriction (Ephesians 1:5,8)

I am in Him (Ephesians 1:7; 1 Corinthians 1:30)

I have redemption (Ephesians 1:8)

I am forgiven (Ephesians 1:8; Colossians 1:14)

I have purpose (Ephesians 1:9 & 3:11)

I have hope (Ephesians 1:12)

I am included (Ephesians 1:13)

I am sealed with the promised Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:13)

I am a saint (Ephesians 1:18)

I am salt and light of the earth (Matfthew 5:13-14)

I have been chosen and God desires me to bear fruit (John 15:1,5)

I am a personal witness of Jesus Christ (Acts 1:8)

I am God's coworker (2 Corinthians 6:1)

I am a minister of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:17-20)

I am alive with Christ (Ephesians 2:5)

I am raised up with Christ (Ephesians 2:6; Colossians 2:12)

I am seated with Christ in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 2:6)

I have been shown the incomparable riches of God's grace (Ephesians 2:7)

God has expressed His kindness to me (Ephesians 2:7)

I am God's workmanship (Ephesians 2:10)

I have been brought near to God through Christ's blood (Ephesians 2:13)

I have peace (Ephesians 2:14)

I have access to the Father (Ephesians 2:18)

I am a member of God's household (Ephesians 2:19)

I am secure (Ephesians 2:20)

I am a holy temple (Ephesians 2:21; 1 Corinthians 6:19)

I am a dwelling for the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 2:22)

I share in the promise of Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:6)

God's power works through me (Ephesians 3:7)

I can approach God with freedom and confidence (Ephesians 3:12)

I know there is a purpose for my sufferings (Ephesians 3:13)

I can grasp how wide, long, high and deep Christ's love is (Ephesians 3:18)

I am completed by God (Ephesians 3:19)

I can bring glory to God (Ephesians 3:21)

I have been called (Ephesians 4:1; 2 Timothy 1:9)

I can be humble, gentle, patient and lovingly tolerant of others (Ephesians 4:2)

I can mature spiritually (Ephesians 4:15)

I can be certain of God's truths and the lifestyle which He has called me to (Ephesians 4:17)

I can have a new attitude and a new lifestyle (Ephesians 4:21-32)

I can be kind and compassionate to others (Ephesians 4:32)

I can forgive others (Ephesians 4:32)

I am a light to others, and can exhibit goodness, righteousness and truth (Ephesians 5:8-9)

I can understand what God's will is (Ephesians 5:17)

I can give thanks for everything (Ephesians 5:20)

I don't have to always have my own agenda (Ephesians 5:21)

I can honor God through marriage (Ephesians 5:22-33)

I can parent my children with composure (Ephesians 6:4)

I can be strong (Ephesians 6:10)

I have God's power (Ephesians 6:10)

I can stand firm in the day of evil (Ephesians 6:13)

I am dead to sin (Romans 1:12)

I am not alone (Hebrews 13:5)

I am growing (Colossians 2:7)

I am His disciple (John 13:15)

I am prayed for by Jesus Christ (John 17:20-23)

I am united with other believers (John 17:20-23)

I am not in want (Philippians 4:19)

I possess the mind of Christ (I Corinthians 2:16)

I am promised eternal life (John 6:47)

I am promised a full life (John 10:10)

I am victorious (I John 5:4)

My heart and mind is protected with God's peace (Philippians 4:7)

I am chosen and dearly loved (Colossians 3:12)

I am blameless (I Corinthians 1:8)

I am set free (Romans 8:2; John 8:32)

I am crucified with Christ (Galatians 2:20)

I am a light in the world (Matthew 5:14)

I am more than a conqueror (Romans 8:37)

I am the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21)

I am safe (I John 5:18)

I am part of God's kingdom (Revelation 1:6)

I am healed from sin (I Peter 2:24)

I am no longer condemned (Romans 8:1, 2)

I am not helpless (Philippians 4:13)

I am overcoming (I John 4:4)

I am persevering (Philippians 3:14)

I am protected (John 10:28)

I am born again (I Peter 1:23)

I am a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17)

I am delivered (Colossians 1:13)

I am redeemed from the curse of the Law (Galatians 3:13)

I am qualified to share in His inheritance (Colossians 1:12)

I am victorious (1 Corinthians 15:57)

Here is another good teaching on this subject if you want to go deeper.

Michael Spencer on the Church

Michael Spencer just wrote a very interesting series on the Church. His last post on church membership really got me thinking. For so many, church attendance is preferred to actual participation in the life of the Body. I once knew a woman who came to our church for a few months. This was several years ago. She and her family moved on to a larger church in town and when I saw her at an event in our city, she went on and on about how great her new church was. This is what she said,

I love our new church. It is wonderful! You show up and you don't have to do ANYTHING. Everything is already taken care of because there are so many people there already. At other churches I've been in, I was expected to help out with the children or to do different things. But not here. I can just show up and relax.

Her words burned into my soul. What is so sad is that she came off like she was spiritual and mature because she was knowlegable about the Bible and had an attractive family.

No, Church is about real relationships with God and other people. It is not about "just showing up." I also don't think that a lot of the "work" that goes on in churches is necessary or godly, but that is another matter altogether. Our attitudes should be that we want to join our lives together with others so that we can serve God together.

The Power of a Yielded Life: Catherine Rohr and the Prison Entrepeneurship Program

Why would a 27 year old woman who was a Wall Street investor making six figures leave it all to work with prisoners in the Texas penal system?  Simply because she is a follower of Jesus and she saw prisoners through His eyes. She surrendered her life and talents to God and He is doing amazing things through her. Last week at the Willow Creek Leadership Summit, I heard Catherine Rohr's story. It is extraordinary. God is using her to radically change lives by seeing the potential that people have and by working with them to help them become what God created them to be. Through the Prison Entrepeneurship Program (PEP), inmates are exchanging the business skills that they have learned through illegitimate crime for training in developing legitimate businesses. And, business leaders from all over America are helping!  Here is an example of how one Christian with a vision from the Lord can work to change the world (click on the pictures to watch the video).

(After clicking on the picture to view the video, enlarge this video by clicking the little box in the bottom right corner when it begins playing)
Woman leaves Wall Street to teach convicts

1 Corinthians 5:14-19 says, "For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation."

I thought about that passage when I saw this next video.

Racial Diversity a Gospel Imperative: Thoughts From the Willow Creek Leadership Summit

Why don't Southern Baptists have conferences like this???  A group of about 10 of us are attending the Willow Creek Leadership Summit at a satellite location here in Montgomery. It has been really good so far, with excellent sessions led by Bill Hybels, Gary Haugen of the International Justice Mission (who said, "Leadership that matters to God involves issues that matter to God"), Wendy Kopp of Teach for America, John Burke of Gateway Community Church, and Bill George. All of the speakers were excellent and very challenging. They gave great foundations for leadership in the church and the world and told amazing stories of risk and adventure in creating new realities. The theme this year seems to be focusing on the issue of justice and social issues.

Probably the most poignant speaker of the day for me was Efrem Smith of  The Sanctuary Covenant Church in Minneapolis.  He spoke on the need for a racially diverse, multicultural church witness in America. Here are the notes that I took from his talk:

• The church should be a solution to the racial divide in our country, not a part of the problem.
• Culture should be engaged for Kingdom purposes, not necessarily fully embraced
• We live in a multi-cultural, technological, innovative, multi-racial, multi-ethnic, connected, global world.
• The more diverse that we as a nation get, the more divided we become. We are in need of leaders who will engage this world to bring about peace and prosperity to show that there is a God who brings hope, healing, justice, and transformation.
• 30 years ago, 1 in 100 children born in America were born of a mixed race. Today, it is 1 in 19. The next generation will not be under the rigid racial distinctions of the past.
• We must lead and be prophetic in a multicultural world.
• A leader in this world must be invaded by God to lead multiculturally and multiethnically.
• 1 John 4:7 - Love one another - In order to lead in a multicultural world, we must be a beloved leader. You become this way when you allow yourself to be taken by God and His purposes.
• We must be connected to God so that people can see God through us.
• It is not about qualification to lead multiculturally, it is about being picked up by God and being carried along by His purposes.
• When we have been filled by God, we will address issues of race, class, and ethnicity around the world. Does the church have an answer? Yes!
• If the church really wants to transform where the pain is, we will invest in and plant churches in the inner city and find dwelling places where the hurting people are.
• We must be able to confess where we've gotten in wrong.
• The reason why we've had racial and ethic storms in this world is because man's desire for comfort has come in conflict with God's desire for reconciliation and healing.
• What if we confronted the reasons for why churches are ethnically and racially divided and addressed those reasons? Our primary identity is not racial. We should not have white churches and black churches in cities that are racially and ethnically diverse. The church should represent the community and consist of all people. This is what the Gospel commands. Along these lines Smith says,

"The Church must wrestle with what it means to equip the saints to advance the Kingdom of God in an ever-increasing multi-ethnic and multicultural world. In order for this to happen, pastors and ministry leaders must begin by seeing reconciliation as theology and Christian formation. Reconciliation must be seen as spiritual discipline on the same level as prayer, fasting, and stewardship. One of the major issues with which we still struggle in the body of Christ is racial segregation. There still exists a belief among many church leaders that a homogenous church model is the best for church development and growth. Within an ever-increasing multi-ethnic and multicultural society, when sociologists want to prove that there is yet a racial divide, many look no further than the church to make this point."

Efrem Smith went on to say that the only proper response to a multi-cultural society is a multi-cultural church. I agree. Raffi Shahinian left a comment on my post from the other day on this issue pointing me to a post that he had written on the subject. Raffi said that the church has always had a problem with racial and cultural divisions. That is why Paul talked about it so much. But, the point was that they were not allowed to stay in those divisions. Paul prophetically called them out of their inward focus to a broader reality of the diverse Body of Christ. Raffi says that a great deal of Paul's writings dealt directly with this issue of prejudice between differing groups based on race, culture, background, and ethnicity. Romans should be read in this context because we are all equally sinners and justified by faith - whether Jew or Gentile. This is why Romans 1-8 sets up the rest of the letter in calling Jews and Gentiles (who are both reconciled to God the same way) to love one another and accept on another. Galatians deals with this, as does Ephesians, Colossians, 1 Corinthians, etc. It goes on and on. I have never thought about it that way, but he is right.  The Gospel is made up of both vertical reconciliation (between us and God) as well as horizontal reconciliation (between man and man).  For the Church not to display this in a racially divided land is to not display a holistic Gospel witness.

Here are thoughts from Efrem after he spoke at the Summit:

Compassion and mercy ministries lead to engaging in justice advocacy.  That is worth thinking about.

God continues to speak to me on this issue. I am working on a book on this subject with the Montgomery story as a background. I have come to believe that reconciliation is a gospel issue - it is not a preference issue. Our churches must deal with this to be able to effectively proclaim the gospel to the mission field of America. If we do not, any claim to be serious about reaching our country is just words.

UPDATE:  This is a great post on the detrimental nature of silence on the racial issue in our churches. Pretending like it is not a problem, or like if it ever was a problem it was dealt with in the past, is not a helpful take on the current issue within the church.   

Danny DeVito Gives Advice on Honesty, Character, and Evangelism

Probably one of the best things I've ever heard on how to relate to people honestly was from the movie, The Big Kahuna (1999) starring Kevin Spacey and Danny DeVito. I saw clips from the movie several years ago and they have stuck with me ever since. The movie takes place in a hotel room and involves three salesmen working in the Midwest. Spacey and DeVito are longtime friends and they have taken on a newcomer, "Bob." Bob is an idealistic Christian and he spends a good bit of his time trying to evangelize people. Spacey calls him on what he is doing and says that he lacks integrity for evangelizing on the job. After a blow-up between Spacey and Bob, DeVito confronts Bob about what honesty and character is.  It is insightful and really spoke to me about my motives in my interactions with people. Do I care for people because of who they are, or because of what I can get from them?

For my more sensitive readers, there is one inappropriate word in the clip spoken in context. Sorry to expose you to that, but I felt that the truth of what was said here far outweighed any offense that may be given.                                                                               

A few years ago, I travelled through Europe. I made a decision, thinking about what DeVito said, to not lay my hands on a conversation and try and steer it in a spiritual direction. I resolved to deal with people as people, not as evangelism projects. It was amazing. In spite of myself, I actually ended up getting into about 10 spiritual conversations with people. On several occasions, I ended up talking to people for hours about life and the conversation inevitably turned to God. I had determined to just be a human being, not a pastor or an evangelist. It was very freeing.

One time, I was hiking along the coast of Italy with a guy and he began comparing me to the guys that he had partied with the night before. He told me that I was much calmer and more peaceful than they were. Why? he asked. That was the perfect opportunity to tell him that my peace came from Christ. I actually decided not to. I just told him that I didn't feel the need to talk all the time - that I was pretty content as I was. I had nothing to prove. Instead of thinking that I had missed an opportunity, I trusted God to do with that conversation what he wanted. We ended up spending the entire day together and we talked a good deal about relationships, life, goals, and the future. He ended up asking me how I knew that my wife was the right one for me and I told him that I prayed and God told me. Intrigued, he asked me all about how I could receive guidance from God in issues like that and I was able to tell him what a relationship with God was like and how it worked. We talked a great deal about knowing God as he asked me question after question. Because I entered a relationship with this guy and saw him as a person instead of a project, God used the whole thing in the way that He wanted and far more came out of it than I ever could have created myself. I have continued to try and minister this way.

I've found it much harder to have relationships with people like this since I've been a pastor. There always seems to be this religious barrier up between me and those outside the church, like they think I'm going to assault them with Bibles or force them under the water against their will in some type of extreme baptism ritual. The fact that as soon as people find out I'm a pastor I see them visibly recoil has probably been the hardest part of being a pastor for me. It is not that I don't want to be rejected. It is that I hate the barriers that artificially seem to go up between me and other people. It takes a while to get them down as I have a lot of work to do to convince people that I am just a normal person desperately in need of God's grace and love just as they are.

When I think about it, DeVito was right on the character issue as well.  We don't really have character until we can admit that we've blown it and that we were wrong about things. It is the regret and the desire to change that puts us in touch with our weaknesses and hopefully, connects us with our true source of life and power, Jesus. IF we humble ourselves and look to Him. I think that so many of us as Christians feel like we have to maintain our own righteousness, so we can never admit a mistake or be real with people who are alienated from God. That makes us look pretty plastic because we aren't fooling anyone. Everyone can clearly see that we are not perfect. Why do we continue with the charade?

The times that God's life and power have flowed through me the most were times that I just cared about people and was myself. Religion always seems to get in the way. Religion teaches us to see people as projects to "win to Christ" or "reach" because religion is all about climbing the ladder to God. We have to show how we're further up the ladder than other people because our identity is based on where we are on the ladder. If we have our doctrine straight and we are in the club, so to speak, we feel better about ourselves, especially in relation to others. This kind of religion kills. But instead of falling into this trap, what if we got our identity from Christ and were free to just take an interest in people for who they were? What if we cared about people because they were made in God's image? All people have desires, dreams, hopes, and fears. They all have families, jobs, and most just want to live a good life and make some small difference in the world. I know that we are all born sinful, but our doctrine of original sin should not cause us to despise people to the point that we do not deal with them as the human beings that they are. Jesus was the holiest man that ever lived - He was God and Man. Yet, He caused prostitutes, tax collectors, and "sinners" to be at ease in His presence. How? I really believe that He treated people with respect and that love flowed through Him. He didn't have to rank Himself on the ladder in relation to others because He knew who His Father was and as a consequence, knew who He was as well. He brought the Kingdom of God with Him and people were drawn to the love and healing that He gave.

So, what I have found is that when I see people as people and not as commodities that I can use for my benefit, then I am much more likely to express the love of Christ to them in a way that speaks to their heart. Often, this happens more effectively when I do not have some grand plan, but rather, when I am just friends with people for the sake of being friends. God seems to move mightily through loving, respectful friendship. If you had to ask me, I never thought I'd get this kind of wisdom from Danny DeVito. He's not a very "religious" source, is he? Who knew? I guess that God teaches us in all kinds of ways if we would just be quiet long enough to listen.

Wilderness Leadership

The era of the “promised land” is over for the mainline church in America. Because we have not been faithful, we find ourselves again in the wilderness, or perhaps, in exile. In either case, the establishment is collapsing and with it, the predictability, security and comfort that has allowed us to be at ease in Zion for several generations. The model of the “king” is no longer appropriate for leadership in today’s church. We need leadership more akin to the “judges” of ancient Israel, who arose out of the community in crisis to lead by the consent of and in concert with the community. And those judges were selected not by caste or class, but by demonstrating the authenticity and therefore the authority that comes from having attended to the inward journey with God.

Edward A. White from "What Kind of Pastor Will Most Likely Empower Laity."

I think that the idea of the "Church in Exile" was intriguing to me in this quote. If we are really in exile, or the Wilderness in relation to our culture, then what does that mean for how we function? For leadership? For cultural engagement? Yes, it appears that Christendom has crumbled. What will replace it and how will we manage a post-Christian America? It is apparent that spiritual leadership in a post-Christian culture must be more focused on God and our walk with Him, than it is on success, results, power, and influence.

The Righteousness of Christ

I write a lot about social justice issues, missions, and reforming culture. But, it is only possible for the Christian to engage in any of that because we have first and foremost been set free from our sin, death, Satan, and Hell by the blood of Jesus and His sacrifice and victory on the Cross and through His resurrection. Because "it is finished" we no longer need to make striving for our own righteousness before God our all consuming focus. We are free to serve God and others!  We can entrust ourselves to God and truly believe that we are righteous with the imputed righteousness of Christ! What a great salvation!

I first ran across Dr. Rod Rosenbladt a few years ago when a friend of mine passed me a little booklet called Christ Alone. It was gold. I happened to see a link to a Dr. Rosenbladt mp3 on The Gospel for those Broken By the Church. I have not listened to this yet, but a couple of excerpts are printed that I found helpful:

If the Ten Commandments were not impossible enough, the preaching of Christian behavior, of Christian ethics, of Christian living, can drive a Christian into despairing unbelief. Not happy unbelief. Tragic, despairing, sad unbelief. (It is not unlike the [unhappy] Christian equivalent of "Jack Mormons" - those who finally admit to themselves and others that they can't live up to the demands of this non-Christian cult's laws, and excuse themselves from the whole sheebang.) A diet of this stuff from pulpit, from curriculum, from a Christian reading list, can do a work on a Christian that is (at least over the long haul) "faith destroying."

He goes on:

Learning Service Under a Better Master

The Christian is a person who recognizes that our real problem is not in achieving freedom but in learning service under a better master. The Christian realizes that every relationship that excludes God becomes oppressive. Recognizing and realizing that, we urgently want to live under the mastery of God.

                                          Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction 

Russell Moore on Spiritual Warfare, the Family, and the Rule of Appetites

Either the prophetic cry regarding our lifestyle choices and pursuit of the American Dream is getting louder, or I am just paying closer attention. As our economy tanks and our culture declines, I think that more and more Christians will begin to consider how we are living. Russell Moore from Southern Seminary takes aim at Southern Baptists' acquiesance to a culture run amok in materialism and hedonism. He hits this topic much harder than I have over the past few weeks as he talks to Southern Baptists about some timely issues. He says, "both left and right in the American mainstream are captive to the ideology that the appetites are to be indulged; the heart wants what it wants, by whatever system will do it most efficiently."  Moore is at his best in this article when he exposes the spiritual warfare that is taking place in our midst and how we have been deceived as we fall in line with the materialistic pursuit of our culture. He aptly points out that our enemy is not flesh and blood.

Moore's only weakness is that he is writing from a middle-class perspective as he critiques families where both parents are working. This is the reality for many families and there is really nothing that can be done about it. Instead of making families who HAVE to do this to survive feel bad, we should help them and support them as they provide for their families. His focus, however, is rightly placed on those families who could easily make it on one income, but choose to put children in day care to pursue a lifestyle of affluence. That action does require some analysis and alternatives need to be considered.

Overall, however, his take on this subject is timely - especially his comments on spiritual warfare. 

If We Want to Follow Jesus . . .

Americans are clustering more and more into cultural, social, economic, religious, and political enclaves according to Bill Bishop in his new book, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart. Basically, our affluence has led us to the place that most Americans want to live, work, and play with people just like them. The Homogenous Unit Principle that I spoke of a few posts ago, seems to be alive and well in an increasingly multicultural America. But, instead of becoming a melting pot, we look more like a salad bowl of Balkanized special interests. Of course, we have seen this for years with white-flight and the rise of the suburb, but it is now apparently happening across other areas of life and it has profound social, political, and religious implicatoins.