No longer dreary, foot-dragging, but GLORIOUS surrender!

THE VIVID AND ETERNAL DRAMA OF GOD - In the progression toward complete identification of our will with God’s, first there is surrender. When we surrender our will to God, we consent to his supremacy in all things. We may not be able to do his will, but we are willing to will it. 

In this condition there is still much grumbling and complaining about our lives and about God. If grace and wisdom prevail in our surrendered life, we move on to abandonment. No part of us holds back from God’s will any longer. 

Typically, at this point, surrender now covers all the circumstances of life. We begin to live in this astonishing reality: Irredeemable harm does not befall those who willingly live in the hand of God. Beyond abandonment is contentment with the will of God, not only with his being who he is and ordaining what he has ordained in general but also with the lot that has fallen to us. 

At this point, gratitude and joy are the steady tone of our lives. We are now assured that God has done, and will always do, well by us—no matter what! Dreary, foot-dragging surrender to God looks like a far distant country. Duplicity looks like utter foolishness in which no sane person would be involved. Beyond contentment lies intelligent, energetic participation in accomplishing God’s will in our world. We are no longer spectators but are caught up in a vivid and eternal drama in which we play an essential part. 

We embrace our imposed circumstances, no matter how tragic they seem, and act for the good in a power beyond ourselves. “We are reigning—exercising dominion—in life by One, Christ Jesus” (Romans 5:17, PAR), looking toward an eternity of reigning with God through ages of ages (see Revelation 22:5). Our tiny willpower is not the source of our strength. Instead, we are carried along by the power of the divine drama within which we live actively engaged. This is the real meaning of “Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me” (Galatians 2:20, KJV). The strongest human will is always the one that is surrendered to God’s will and acts with it.

 

Overcoming the misery of a foot in 2 different worlds

One time I was quizzed about how some people supposedly choose Christ but don’t choose to be disciples of Jesus. I commented, “And how miserable they are.” 

My questioner was surprised, because playing around with sin isn’t miserable, is it? Yes, it is. You constantly battle with yourself. You fancy some cute man or woman at work but berate yourself for such thoughts. You waffle back and forth wondering if you should or shouldn’t help a needy person. You muddle over whether it’s so important to get the details exactly right on the tax form. Your life is lived with a foot in two different worlds. 

This torment is caused by duplicity. God lets us be miserable because he respects our ability to make choices. If we choose to live a life of fragmented purposes, God does not force us to get our heart right. Yet in the long run, keeping our heart right is much easier. Jesus’ yoke really is easier, and his burden is lighter. 

TODAY’S EXPERIMENT - Identify the issues you are sick and tired of muddling over: people you wish to control; making more money; acquiring a certain item; having more clout, respect, or admiration. Perhaps you’ve brooded so long over something that if you relinquished it you would feel as if a part of you died. 

In a certain sense, that’s true. Yet walking through this death to self (“becoming like him in his death”) holds the key for participating in a resurrected sort of life with Christ (“attaining to the resurrection from the dead”) (Philippians 3:10-11, NIV). Tell Jesus your fears about such a death to self. Ask him to show you how your life would actually be easier if you just gave up on all these things, how love and joy and peace would be at your right hand.

 

That creep! My true character "leaks"?

Character is what I feel or do without thinking. I may say, “I didn’t mean that,” but something in me did mean it. My true character “leaks” when I’m not trying to impress anyone or when I don’t carefully plot how I should act in order to reflect Christ. When someone cuts me off on the freeway, my true character is reflected by whether I say, “That creep!” or, “Bless you.” (Or the intermediate step: “Bless you—you certainly need it!”) 

As we “put on Christ,” we love people without trying. Compassion flows. How jarring Jesus must have been for his disciples. What flowed out of them was so different from what flowed out of Jesus. Consider these contrasts: ignoring kids to move on to important matters/blessing kids as an important matter (Matthew 19:13-15); sending people away to buy their food/checking to see if God had an adventurous idea for feeding them (Matthew 14:15-21); conniving about who will take charge in the future/simply serving the persons in front of him (Matthew 20:20-28); hurrying to heal an important person’s relative/pausing to speak to a woman who had already sneaked her healing from Jesus but needed his listening gaze (Matthew 9:18-22); running off with Greek-speaking Jews to stay out of harm from the Pharisees/staying in Jerusalem and facing death (John 12:20-33). 

If I’d been one of Jesus’ disciples, I would have rolled my eyes at him so many times. This people-focused, purpose-oriented way of life that simply flowed out of him would have baffled me—but intrigued me as well. 

TODAY’S EXPERIMENT - Ponder what you admire most about Jesus. (If needed, skim through one of the Gospels and recall the things he did.) What does it show about his character? Tell Jesus why you admire this quality about him. Ask him to show you what it would look like if this sort of character flowed from you as you decided to let the Trinitarian presence make its home in you (see John 14:23). Ask Jesus to help you become more intentional about having that sort of heart.

 

Just resolving not to do it again will be of little use

CHANGING THE CHARACTER - Transforming the will (heart, spirit) and character is also the task of spiritual formation. Thoughts and feelings depend on the will (choices), yet the will depends upon the contents of the mind (thoughts, feelings). They are an interlocking whole.

Our character is that internal structure of the self that is revealed by our longtime patterns of behavior. From it, our actions automatically arise. Credit reports, résumés, and letters of reference reveal what kinds of thoughts, feelings, and tendencies of will we habitually act from and, therefore, how we will act in the future. But character can be changed, which is what spiritual formation in Christlikeness is about.

If, for example, I have injured someone (possibly a loved one) by speaking or acting in anger, I may be remorseful and ask myself if I really want to be the kind of person who does such things. If I do not want that character, it will be necessary to change my thoughts and feelings. Just resolving not to do it again will be of little use. Will alone cannot bring about change.

But will implemented through changing my thoughts and feelings can result in my becoming the kind of person who doesn’t do such things anymore. In order to change, I must come to possess thoughts and feelings that enable me to choose to change those former thoughts and feelings that caused the anger. By choosing this, I come with “repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21). The human mind and will must be transformed through interaction with thoughts and feelings deriving from the Word and the Spirit.

Now we ask, What does a will or heart look like that has been transformed into Christlikeness? It is characterized by single-minded and joyous devotion to God and his will, to what God wants for us, and to service to him and to others because of him. This outcome of Christian spiritual formation becomes our character when it governs the responses of every dimension of our being. Then we have “put on Christ” (Galatians 3:27, KJV).

 

Love, joy, peace: focus on others & pay it forward

As we receive love, joy, and peace from God and people and then practice extending them to others, our destructive feelings will become apparent. When they do, it won’t help to deny them or to dwell on them. Neither pretending to have joy nor berating ourselves for not having it will help. Instead, we identify destructive feelings and abandon them and then go back to drenching ourselves further in God’s love, joy, and peace and passing them on to others by God’s empowering grace. 

TODAY’S EXPERIMENT -  Think about the possible images, ideas, and information of God’s love, joy, and peace that resonate with you. They might include something as simple as a hummingbird or as deep as the concept of atonement. 

Jot down some words or phrases that come to mind. In the midst of this, consider destructive feelings that have come up in you in the last week—perhaps fear, anger, unsatisfied desire, woundedness, or rejection. 

Don’t hurry. (If nothing comes to you, ask God to show you these things as you are adequately prepared to receive them.) Ask the Spirit to reveal the underlying settled conditions that keep these destructive feelings active (vengeance, contempt, self-pity, discouragement, inadequacy). Also ask the Spirit to reveal to you the ideas, images, or bits of information that nurture these feelings and that you keep in front of your mind (or in front of your eyes through media). 

Finally, ask the Spirit to replace destructive conditions and feelings with settled conditions of love, joy, and peace (as well as confidence and hope) that will dwell in you. Consider the thoughts you will need to dwell on to cultivate settled conditions of love, joy, and peace. Close by thanking God for being the essence of love and for willing your good today.

 

Wow! You & I have a "next-steps" formula-plan-map!

NEXT STEPS TOWARD LOVE, JOY, AND PEACE - Renovation of the heart in the dimension of feeling is a matter of opening ourselves up to cultivating love, joy, and peace, first by receiving them from God and those living in him and then by extending them to others. 

But we do not approach the change the other way around, trying first to root out the destructive feelings. That is the common mistake of worldly wisdom. Love, joy, and peace fostered in divine fellowship crowd out fear, anger, unsatisfied desire, woundedness, and rejection. There is no longer room for them—well, perhaps there is for a while, but increasingly less so. 

Belonging to Christ does not immediately eliminate bad feelings, but it does crucify them (see Galatians 5:24). Negative and destructive feelings are on their way to death in those who have put Christ on the throne of their life and have taken their place on his cross. This is the vision in our VIM (Vision-Intention-Means) pattern, but we must also intend this in all we are and do. 

Our thought life will be focused upon God, and so our walk with Jesus will show us the details of the means required to bring it to pass. For many of us, coming to honest terms with our real feelings will be a huge task. To “let love be without hypocrisy” requires serious effort (Romans 12:9). 

Ordinary life is so permeated with insincere expressions of love, alongside contempt and anger, that it is hard not to feel forced into hypocrisy in some situations. As we learn to avoid it, we shall begin to see what a huge difference that alone makes. 

As we recognize the reality of our feelings, we agree with the Lord to abandon those that are destructive and that lead us into doing or being what we know to be wrong. We may need to write out what those feelings are in a letter to the Lord or confer about them with a wise Christian friend who knows how to listen to us and God at the same time. The Lord will help us with this.

 

JOY & PEACE...come from ABANDONMENT?

Does it seem odd to you that abandonment to God should be mentioned in the same breath as joy? Isn’t abandonment a miserable thing? Maybe abandonment would go with peace, but certainly not joy. How can this be? 

Yet once we move below the surface, we see that peace and joy are based on confidence in God (faith). In this confidence, I can abandon myself to God, even die to myself. As I do these things, striving will cease and joy will naturally flow. I may even now and then “be anxious for nothing” and experience the peace of God as it guards my heart and mind in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:6-7). 

TODAY’S EXPERIMENT - As a means of knowing the joy and peace of God, consider praying a few of these prayers of release: “O God, I long for your perfect peace that is beyond my understanding. I now release to you the habit of: dwelling on certain past sins and failures, such as . . . looking forward at what might happen to me if . . . fixing my eyes inward at struggles with work, responsibilities, temptations, and deficiencies, such as . . . putting trust in myself to work things out with . . . having to make things come out right with . . . being mad at . . . whose actions I’ve had to resist. 

“Thou wilt keep me in perfect peace as my mind is stayed on thee, because I trust in thee” (Isaiah 26:3, PAR).

 

Transformed for constant joy and peace!

A PERSON OF JOY AND PEACE - Joy is natural in the presence of God, whose deepest essence is love. Joy is a pervasive sense of well-being that is deeper and broader than any pleasure. It is a basic element of inner transformation into Christlikeness and the outer life that flows from it. 

Thus Jesus could say to his closest friends on the night before his crucifixion: “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full” (John 15:11). Having your joy “full” is the first line of defense against weakness, failure, and disease of mind and body. 

But even when they break through into your life, “the joy of the LORD is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10). We must not be passive and allow joy to dissipate by looking backward at our sins and failures or forward at what might happen to us or inward at our struggles with work, responsibilities, temptations, and deficiencies. In doing this, we place our hopes in the wrong thing, namely ourselves. 

It is our option to look to the greatness and goodness of God and what he will do in our lives. Peace is the assurance that things will turn out well. We no longer strive, inwardly or outwardly, to create some outcome. To be at peace with God and others is a great attainment and depends on graces far beyond ourselves and our own efforts. 

When others do not extend the grace and mercy I need, I have to draw on the abundance of it in God. “Who is this that is condemning me?” I remind myself, “Jesus even died for me, was raised from the dead, and is now standing up for me before God” (Romans 8:34, PAR). Assurance of this allows me to “pursue peace with all men” (Hebrews 12:14). Even in cases where struggle exists between others and me, there does not have to be a struggle within me. I may have to resist others, but I do not have to make things come out right. I do not have to be mad at those whose course of action I resist. 

The secret to this peace, as great apprentices of Jesus have long known, is being abandoned to God. Since God is love and is so great, I live beyond harm in his hands. There is nothing that can happen to me that will not turn out for my good. Nothing. Because of this, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee” (Isaiah 26:3, KJV).

 

What if...you acted like Moses?

Sometimes faith, hope, and love seem so lofty that they must be beyond an ordinary person such as me. At that point, it helps to picture some of the people in Scripture as if they were folks next door. At eighty-plus years old (will I even live that long?), Moses “left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king” (Hebrews 11:27). (How could that be? I fear the IRS.) 

Moses didn’t pay attention to Pharaoh because he was only part of the realm of “the seen.” He stuck with his goal of delivering Israel because he saw the One who is invisible but nevertheless real. “For he endured, as seeing Him who is unseen” (11:27). Because of Moses’ hope and confidence in God (most of the time), this stunning, aged leader lived an adventurous, dramatic, and God-infused life without fear. 

When I picture myself interviewing him, I imagine him saying that the entire Exodus event was so obviously beyond him and in God’s power that he felt as if he were simply watching God do it (see Isaiah 63:11-13). 

No wonder Moses managed to be the most humble person on earth (see Numbers 12:3). He could lead and direct without pride. Could I live “as seeing Him who is unseen”? I imagine that if Moses heard me say that in the interview, he would probably wink at me and ask, “What if I’d stayed behind in Midian herding sheep? Look what I would have missed!” This picture (vision) of Moses inspires me to intend to live in confidence and hope and diligently look for the means. 

TODAY’S EXPERIMENT - If you sense that you lack the faith, hope, and love described above, reflect on the life of Moses, a real person (a former murderer hiding out in Midian). Imagine what it would be like to be Moses and genuinely not fear the most powerful person on earth. Imagine what it would be like to live with the hope of a promised land you’ve never seen but you know is real. How would such confidence and hope draw you into a deeper love of God? An overflowing desire to worship God? What would it make you want to say to God?

 

Love? Not what most people think it is!

FEELINGS OF THE SPIRITUALLY TRANSFORMED PERSON - What feelings will dominate a life that has been inwardly transformed to be like Christ’s? They are feelings associated with love, joy, peace, and their underlying conditions. Also, faith (confidence) and hope are important in properly structuring the feeling dimension of the mind and self. Hope is anticipation of “unseen” good not yet here.

Sometimes the good is deliverance from present evil, so we “rejoice in hope” (Romans 12:12, PAR). Closely related to hope, faith is confidence grounded in reality—not a wild, desperate “leap.” Faith sees the reality of the unseen, and it includes a readiness to act as if the anticipated good were already in hand because of the reality of God (compare 2 Corinthians 4:17-18). Faith and hope in Christ lead us to stand in the grace (the action) of God, which leads to a life full of love. Love is will-to-good. We love others when we promote their good. We wish them well. Love’s contrary is malice, and its simple absence is indifference.

Love is not the same as desire, for I may desire something without even wishing it well. I might desire chocolate ice cream, but I do not wish it well. I wish to eat it. This is the difference between lust (mere desire) and love.

Desire and love are compatible when desire is ruled by love, but many people today do not know the difference between them. Hence, love constantly falls prey to lust. That is a major part of the deep sickness of contemporary life. Pride and fear no longer rule our lives when love is primary. Pride is defined by desire. It presumes that my desires should be fulfilled and that it is a crying shame if they are not. Lust and pride inevitably result in fear, for they bring us into a world of little dictators where people use and abuse others instead of helping and caring for them. The opposite of love is pride. Love eliminates pride because it nullifies our arrogant presumption that we should get our way. With love, pride and fear fade.

 

How do I jettison ugliest feelings?

If it feels as though our feelings are bigger than we are (like a giant boogeyman hunching over us), it’s because they’re being fed by the ideas and images we cultivate, especially those we play over in our mind. Because my first freedom is where I put my mind, I can ask, What ideas and images am I giving airtime to? 

For example, I grew up as a lazy child, and now I sometimes struggle to get myself seated at my desk. Although I faithfully show up for work, I despair over these feelings of laziness. What ideas and images might contribute to this? One of several is that I live in a culture that does not value work but instead tries to get out of it. Most people I know would love to win the lottery and retire immediately. But when work is valued, it’s as a means to productivity, achievement, and good reputation. I have somehow bought into the idea that work is bad and I should be able to get out of it. 

On the other hand, I love my work. Once I get going, I never want to quit. How confusing! A replacement image that helps me is that of several older friends who genuinely love to work hard and be useful. They work fruitfully and cheerfully and often produce things of great beauty—a new barn door or an enchanting dessert. 

TODAY’S EXPERIMENT - Consider a feeling that plagues you—one you wish you didn’t have. Set aside a time to ponder this before God, perhaps writing about it in a journal. Ask God to reveal to you the ideas and images you have (perhaps unknowingly) chosen to maintain. Sit quietly and ask God what feelings might replace these (perhaps love, joy, peace, confidence, or hope). Finally, consider what ideas and images would foster that replacement feeling.

 

Moods: If you read nothing else, please read this!!!

THE POWER OF THE “MOOD” - In modern times, feelings exercise almost total mastery over the individual. When people must decide what they want to do, feelings are all they have to go on. This is why contemporary Western life is peculiarly prone to gross immoralities and addictions. 

People are overwhelmed with decisions and can make those decisions only on the basis of feelings. As a result, people cannot distinguish between their feelings and their will, and they confuse feelings with reasons. They lack self-control, which is the steady capacity to direct yourself to accomplish what you have chosen or decided to do and be, even though you “don’t feel like it.” 

Without self-control, people drift through the days and years using addictive behavior to endure. Ideas and images foster and sustain feelings. Hopelessness and rejection live on images—often of a specific scene of unkindness, brutality, or abuse—that have become permanent fixtures within our mind, radiating negativity and leaving a background of deadly ideas that take over how we think. 

Such images cultivate moods, which pervade our selves and everything around us. Denial and repression of destructive feelings are not the answer. But feelings can be transformed by discipleship to Christ and the power of the gospel and the Spirit, through which the corresponding ideas and images are changed to positive ones. The proper course of action is to replace destructive feelings with others that are good or to subordinate them—anger and sexual desire, for example—in a way that makes them constructive. 

We do not try first to root out these destructive feelings, but they are eliminated as we make the first move: going toward love, joy, and peace, based on faith and hope in God. Then we experience feelings and moods associated with confidence, being acceptable, belonging, purposefulness, love, hope, joy, and peace. Being “accepted in the beloved” (Ephesians 1:6, KJV) is the humanly indispensable foundation for the reconstruction of all these positive feelings, moods, and their underlying conditions.

 

Can we keep from shooting our mouth off in contempt?

 

We may congratulate ourselves for sailing through a disturbing experience without “shooting our mouth off” but overlook the fact that we were primed to do so because of our underlying condition of contempt for certain people or certain situations. In our mind, we concluded that this person didn’t really know what he was talking about—compared to us! 

We may have kept our arrogance and know-it-all attitude quiet, but anything could have happened. (And our attitude may have “leaked out” anyway in our body language.) These settled conditions that underlie our feelings don’t seem wrong because we’ve developed culturally acceptable, euphemistic ways to disguise them: I’m not exacting, just careful! 

Because having a settled attitude (underlying condition) of contempt is common today, it’s important to listen carefully to our thought patterns regarding certain people and observe how we speak to and about them. We need to pay special attention not only to the background noise in our head but also to our tone of voice (so revealing), to the hunch of our shoulders, and to the set of our lips. These can be telling symptoms of our underlying attitudes. 

TODAY’S EXPERIMENT - Reflect on what might be a common underlying condition for you, such as hurry or discouragement or contempt. Try to put some distance between yourself and the condition in order to examine it. When did it start? Why are you now convinced you must hurry (or live in discouragement or look down on others)? What underlying condition is God inviting you to adopt instead? Consider how it would make your life lighter and easier (see Matthew 11:30).

Feelings & reason

HIDDEN DYNAMICS OF FEELINGS - Many of the feelings that animate us are destructive to others and ourselves. James pointedly asked, “What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. . . . Where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing” (4:1-2; 3:16). 

This explains what happens in many homes and churches. The need is not just to remove the conflict but also to address underlying feelings. The underlying feelings are settled conditions that lie beneath feelings. For example, one can live in the underlying condition of hatred, contempt, hurry, or discouragement but not always have the accompanying feelings. 

We’ve managed the feelings, but we still live in that condition. (Or on the positive side, one can live with the underlying condition of peace but may or may not always have feelings of peacefulness.) Those negative underlying conditions of our character must be addressed. 

Feelings can creep into other areas of our lives, changing the overall tone. They may take over our entire being and so determine the outcome of our lives as a whole. This explains why it is hard to reason with some people. Their mind has been taken over by certain feelings and serves those feelings at all costs. Some people never escape this fearful condition. 

Feelings can be successfully “reasoned with” and corrected by reality only in those who have the habit and are given the grace of listening to reason even when they are expressing violent feelings or are in the grip of them. Otherwise, strong feelings may blot out all else for those who have not been trained to identify, be critical of, and have some distance from their own feelings. A wise person will carefully keep the pathway open to the house of reason and go there regularly to listen.

 

You CAN partner with God to change to be more Christlike

                                             
How would you finish this sentence: Who would I be if I weren’t____________? Perhaps you might say moody, passionate (often a euphemism for opinionated), particular (as in a perfectionist), or funny (which may take the form of a merciless tease or a sarcastic wit). 

We’ve known ourselves to be a certain way for so long. We’ve heard people say, “She’s just that way,” and it has become part of our identity. One man I knew didn’t feel really alive unless he was in a rage. 

TODAY’S EXPERIMENT - Picture an imaginary conversation with someone who knows you well. Ask this person what he or she would change about you if it were possible. Then put yourself in the presence of God and read these verses to God: Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other. Since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its creator. Colossians 3:5–10. 

Pray, asking God one of these questions: is it really possible to...
Put to death whatever belongs to my earthly nature?
Take off my old self with his practices?
Put on a new self which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of my Creator?

If you wish, continue going over that last phrase, asking God to give you a glimpse of what it would be like to be renewed in knowledge in the image of your Creator. This is part of what God wants for you.

Replacing unruly feelings

 

MASTERED BY FEELINGS - Feelings live in the front row of our lives like unruly children clamoring for attention. No one can succeed in mastering feelings who tries to take them head-on and resist or redirect them by willpower in the moment of choice. 

Those who continue to be mastered by their feelings—such as anger, fear, sexual attraction, desire for food, need for looking good, or the residues of woundedness—are typically persons who in their heart of hearts believe that their feelings must be satisfied. They have long chosen the strategy of resisting their feelings instead of changing or replacing them. This creates a ruined person who makes himself “god” in his world. 

By contrast, the person who happily lets God be God accepts that feelings do not have to be fulfilled. Achieving this new vision of oneself requires openness to radical change, careful instruction, and abundant supplies of divine grace. 

For most people this comes only after they hit bottom and discover the hopelessness of their path. They cannot envision who they would be without the fears, angers, lusts, power ploys, and woundedness they learned in the home, school, and playground. 

But with this new vision, they now see themselves as ones being transformed to characterize the inner being of Jesus Christ. Now they can stop being persons who spend hours fantasizing sensual indulgence or revenge or who try to dominate or injure others in attitude, word, or deed. Now they will not repay evil for evil—push for push, blow for blow, taunt for taunt, contempt for contempt. They will not be always on the hunt to satisfy their lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride of life (see 1 John 2:16). 

At first such persons have no idea who they will be if they “put off the old person” (involving the wrong feeling) and “put on the new person” (involving the good feeling). To long for the identity of a mere “apprentice of Jesus” is the starting point from which a new identity emerges.