The Pursuit of Holiness (Part 4)

Some wise words from J.I. Packer on the subject of holiness:

"Personal holiness is an issue for every believer without exception. I am really expected to be so much like Jesus Christ that others will know at once and unmistakably that I am a Christian."
p19, J.I. Packer, Great Joy.

"Believers are positionally holy (separated by God for himself) from the word "go." Their obligation to practice moral and spiritual holiness on a day-to-day basis is derived from that fact. Our setting ourselves apart for God, in purpose separation from the world, the flesh, and the devil, is our proper response—our only proper response—to the knowledge that God has already claimed us by right of redemption."
p19, J.I. Packer, Great Joy.

"Holiness of life is not precisely a human achievement, however much it demands of human effort. It is a work of the Holy Spirit, who prompts and energizes the human effort as part of it. We do not sanctify ourselves."
p19-20, J.I. Packer, Great Joy.

"Self-reliance is not the way of holiness, but the negation of it. Self-confidence in the face of temptation and conflicting pressures is a sure guarantee that some sort of moral failure will follow."
p20, J.I. Packer, Great Joy.

Joy Blocker

A couple of lines from J.I. Packer in his book 'Great Joy' that got me thinking:

"Fifth, the practice of joy means losing your inhibitions. Some of us are so emotionally frozen that we never get close to anyone, and feel paralyzed with embarrassment when urged to loosen up. Inner restraints of this kind block out joy in our relationships both with other people (even our nearest and dearest) and with God."
p10

It's very easy if you're a bit of an introvert and a bit reserved (like myself) to just think 'that's the way God made me' and sort of nullify any need to push through your inhibitions. But these lines of text do reveal their tendency to block out some very positive emotions. They can put a false ceiling in place, and a shallow foundation. The great heights and depths of joy are beyond our grasp when we let our inhibitions dominate. We should be seeking to push that ceiling up, dig that foundation down, even if it's just little by little.

Mostly Tired of Self?

"If you're a Christian mainly because you want to be changed, that's a problem. If you've given your life to God mostly because you are tired of yourself and want to be a different person—well, that may suggest you're merely using God to fix you. That's not faith. That's not love of God. That's love of self."

Mark Galli, 'Point of Crisis, Point of Grace' in Christianity Today, Jan 21, 2010.
Read in: Redemption by Mike Wilkerson, p79

"Just Stop It" Won't Do

"When you become entangled in habitual sins and addictions, "just stop it" just won't do. You may be able to exert your willpower for a short time, resisting urges to indulge your sinful desires. But trials and temptations always return to find you in a moment of weakness, often in the very moment of weakness where you have fallen to temptation hundreds or thousands of times before. To stand firm in that moment takes more than the chanting of Bible verses, more than willpower, more than disgust at the filthiness of the sin. For the Christian, these moments are tests of faith. Do you really believe God? Do you really trust him?"

Redemption by Mike Wilkerson, p153

The Gift of Forgiveness

"Forgiveness is a gift that God means for you to receive and then pass along to others. It may be the most costly gift you ever give; yet, precisely because it is so costly, it is also one of the clearest ways you can show God's love as his image bearer."
Redemption by Mike Wilkerson, p80

"Biblical forgiveness is a gift given to someone else, not a favour to oneself."
Redemption by Mike Wilkerson, p82

Absorption

"A helpful way to think about forgiveness is absorption. Imagine you're in traffic, and another driver swerves into your lane, cutting you off and forcing you to hit the brakes to keep from crashing into his bumper. What do you do? If you flip him off and slam on your horn (not for safety, mind you, but for payback), you offend everyone else around you. They have to tolerate your road rage on top of the usual stresses of commuting. Furthermore, maybe the guy who cut you off didn't mean anything personal by it—he just needed to move over quickly to make his exit. But you, in your swearing, definitely meant something personal against him. You have refused to absorb the offense and in the process have compounded the sin.
    Absorption, says Cheong, "is at the heart of forgiveness, since it involves the ability to deal with the pain in a way that it will not be passed on to anyone else." Or, as Tolsoy put it, to forgive is to "swallow" evil and prevent it from going further."

Redemption by Mike Wilkerson, p81
Quoted: Cheong, Towards an Explicitly Theocentric Model of Forgiveness; and Leo Tolstoy, The Complete Works

A Few Notes On Forgiveness

"When people say, I know God forgives me, but I can't forgive myself,' they mean that they have failed an idol, whose approval is more important to them than God's."
Original quote: Tim Keller, Counterfeit God's, p148
Read in: Redemption by Mike Wilkerson, p79

"As David Powlison says, "So often when people feel remorse for what they've done wrong, it is a remorse against their idealised self-image, a remorse in their own eyes, and a remorse against what other people think about them," not remorse for what they've done in God's eyes."
Read in: Redemption by Mike Wilkerson, p79

"It is the height of self-centredness to think your sin somehow offends you (or anyone else, even) more than it offends God."
Redemption by Mike Wilkerson, p79

"...you may feel unforgiven because you haven't honestly confessed your sin to God. In this case, you feel unforgiven because—in a sense—you are unforgiven. As Wolf says: "Without confession I will remain unforgiven—not because Gd doesn't forgive, but because a refusal to confess is a rejection of forgiveness. Refusing to confess, I refuse to make forgiveness my own through confession of wrongdoing and joyful gratitude over it not being counted against me."
Redemption by Mike Wilkerson, p79
Free of Charge by Volf, p154

Paying in Advance

I've recently be reading through the Lord's prayer and been thinking about the model of forgiveness that God gave us. One of the things that hit me is that for all of us alive in the present day, Jesus prepared for our sin thousands of years in advance. Before we had done anything good or bad, committed any offence against God, he was ready and able to forgive.

It struck me that we should perhaps attempt that same model of forgiveness. When sin is committed against us, it shouldn't be such a surprise sometimes. On some level it should be expected. We should know what's required and be ready to pay the price. It shouldn't take days, months, years before the penny drops and we realise what we've missed.

I guess it's another fine balance. Trying to avoid being cynical by expecting sin, and yet being ready and willing to forgive when it happens.

Love is...

"You know very well that love is, above all, the gift of oneself"

Quote from 'The Marriage Book', Nicky & Sila Lee
Original Quote: Jean Anouilh, Adela, 1949

Worldly Sorrow Vs Godly Sorrow

I've been provoked by several things I've read recently, in the Bible and in my 'Redemption' book. About the contrast between worldly sorrow and godly sorrow. A few thoughts on the ways you can distinguish worldly sorrow. One or all might apply:

     1. You're more worried about other people knowing what you've done than God knowing what you've done. You're more concerned about failing in the eyes of people, about their opinions, or knowledge of your short-comings than the actual offence committed against God.

     2. You can't forgive yourself. Although you might superficially accept that you're forgiven by God, you can't bring yourself to the same conclusion. To your mind, your standards, opinions and judgement has more weight than God's. You set yourself as a higher judge than Him. In a sense, your real god is yourself.

     3. You regret the consequences of your actions rather than the actual sin itself. The sin provides (or provided) you a payoff which you enjoy and don't regret. You might relive that experience, or continue to enjoy that specific part of the sin in a habitual cycle.

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted."
Matthew 5:4

"For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death."
2 Corinthians. 7:10

Love Your Wife

"Children, like adults, always learn far more from what they see than from what they are told. One father said to us recently, 'I have realised that the best way to love my children is by loving my wife'".

Nicky & Sila Lee, The Marriage Book, p14

The Feeling of Inadequacy

I've been thinking about the feeling of inadequacy that we can often get in many areas of our lives. The feeling of inadequacy, even if that feeling is just a product of our own mind, often seems to produce the very thing itself.

Like if you're not very confident in a certain area, such as social situations, job interviews or a particular skill in your profession, it's tempting to shrink back and withdraw. You can get nervous and clam up a bit every time you're faced with that challenge. And in turn you all your fears are realised as you inevitably end up being pretty rubbish at the thing you were worried about. A bit of a vicious circle.

It seems that unless you use the nerves to drive you to be better, to pray hard, to engage and work hard, you're very much on the back-foot, on the losing end of the spectrum. In certain areas of my life I definitely have to switch off my brain, silence all those thoughts, and just get on with things.

But on a positive note, it does make you Weak Enough for God to Use.

The Greatest Gift

I recently watched a documentary on Ayrton Senna. The day he died, he was praying, and said God spoke to him. God told him that 'today, he would receive the greatest gift, God himself'.

Apart from being fairly amazing that God spoke to him in that way, it throws things into perspective. Whatever you think would be really great gifts (experiences, possessions, security, relationships, family), by far the greatest of them all is knowing God himself. It's the one gift we should treasure and pursue more than any other.

Blood, Sweat and Innovation

Watching the Mars Hill documentary was great. Just seeing how they were all complete amateurs and totally winging it. They pretty much just made it up as they went along. And they were really bold in the way they did everything. They worked really hard, had day jobs, and were prepared to be totally flat broke. Very inspiring, and a reminder that doing God's work isn't always easy or well paid.

One of the points that jumped out at me was Mark explaining that having very little finances required them to innovate. For example, they couldn't afford tape duplicators so they put their sermons online as mp3 downloads, and were one of the first churches to do so. They were also one of the first churches to have a website. They thought up the video campus as a way of overcoming the boundaries of time and space. And it was quite an eye-opener as to how ropey it was in the early days. They just learnt as they went along. Sometimes we're prone to not trying new ideas because it won't be that slick to begin with. But you have to try new things to get that momentum going.