Building church buildings is not the same as building the church body. One big difference: materials used.
Archive for September, 2010
Beware of the reality that without discipline, pride can transform legitimate satisfactions to careless complacencies ad wayward wanderings.
No, this ain’t a David Letterman style of list, but Daniel 6 does reveals some practical applications in living life from the example of the great prophet, Daniel. The way we live is an expression of the way and One we worship. We’ll start with #1 as we move through the passage sequentially.
Live in such as way that…
- (vs. 3) …those you work for will have no problem trusting you with greater responsibility.
- (vs. 4) …that those who hate you come up empty when they try to scrape up dirt on you.
- (vs. 5) …that you could easily be caught and convicted for flagrant devotion to God.
- (vs. 10) …that at certain times during the day, people would know exactly where to find you and what you were doing. (If you were surveillanced, your home were audio and video bugged, 24/7 for one month, what would people conclude about your devotion to God?)
- (vs. 14) …earns respect for you and for God from those around and above you.
- (vs. 16) …that even those who are not Christians would be open to the possibility in their life by what He’s done in yours.
- (vs. 17) Reveals an irreversible trust in God in what seems to be irreversible situations. (I love it when God sees fit to accomplish His non-negotiables without violating ours in ways that render ours as stepping stones for His glory!)
- (vs. 22) …that you would be judged as innocent of any wrong in the sight of God and man, especially those you work with and for.
- (vs. 24) …that when true justice comes it will reveal your enemies’ true motives and intent.
- (vs. 26) …that when other witness God in your life they will desire (and even decree) that same God around them and others.
Now, that’s the way to live!
Daniel’s interpretation of the vision of Belshazzar included these words,
“Tekel: You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting”. (Dan. 5:27 NIV)
Our culture is obsessed with losing weight (and rightly so…to a point). We diet and Super diet. We exercise and Extreme exercise…all to get to where our proper body weight should be but then, in some many cases, go beyond, transcend that healthy condition in an effort to attain near physical perfection and superior health. This is by far an admirable and worthy goal in most respects.
In terms of spiritual essentials and the corresponding character, I think we should shoot for “obesity” in such things as humility and righteousness before God. (Play on words, I know, but, hey, it’s a blog. Extra Grace Requested)
In the context of the passage cited above, the Babylonian king, Belshazzar, was confronted by God in a miraculous, frightening way, and judged on the basis of what he knew and saw in the example set by his father, Nebuchadnezzar. He abandoned the lessons learned by his famous and powerful father and refused to acknowledge God. Indeed, he went so far as to heinously ignore and disrespect God. Through Daniel, God told Belshazzar that he was judged and found lacking in character and that divine justice would more than make up the difference!
We will all be weighed on the scales of divine justice in the Great Hall of divine judgment by the Righteous God and King. Though those in Christ need not fear eternal punishment because of Christ as our shield, we will nonetheless face Christ and be held accountable for the quality of our life as it reflects His. Humility and righteousness are not areas we can afford to come anywhere near close to winning the award of being “The Biggest Loser”. Being underweight or found wanting/lacking has results in our spiritual life that correspond to the related problems associated with being overweight physically. To name a few…
- Clogged arteries: our heart is neither receiving nor pumping out the proper life force of God
- Labored respiration: we are not taking in and exhaling Spirit life properly
- Sleep apnea: the inability to rest well in and with Christ
- Eating disorders: addicted to the wrong kinds of moral influences
- Diabetes: the disability of the body to use spiritual nourishment properly
- Death: complete inability to interact meaningfully in this life and with God, the Author of life
To be “overweight” in spiritual virtue is really not about being too much of something since we cannot have too much in this life of the life of God in us. It is actually living life amply weighted with the character of God, being filled with the Spirit, insatiably hungry and thirsty for righteousness, and loaded with divine power and devotion.
Here’s another irony: exercising the life of God in deeds of righteousness, justice, and compassionate service will actually help us gain the right kind of weight. Muscle is not heavier than fat but it is more dense occupying less space than fat at the same weight (which is why pumping iron may not shed body weight but it will shrink body fat and shape the body). Working out the indwelling life of Christ will add mass to our character and is the kind of gain that glorifies God. (By the way, one of the definitions of glory is…ready for this…”weight” but that’s a whole other blogpost!)
Take a lesson from Belshazzar and the writing on his wall, when it comes to the glory of God, the bounty of Christ, fruit of the Spirit, a feast on righteousness, and the work of the kingdom, let’s live to be found “overweight”, lacking little vs. lacking much.
“Almighty God, I declare with my lips and my heart that You and You alone are my God. You are the apex of my affection, the object of my obsession, the sole target of my soul’s passionate search. In the midst of a place of desolation, deprivation, I am desperate for you. From the depths of my being to the shell of my being, I thirst and yearn and long for You, O my God!”
(Psalm 63:1 in my own words)
For me it is important to remember that such a statement is a response to truth and not the initiation of truth. The desperate soul in the Psalm (king David) is not making the fact, but stating it. This desperate soul (me) resonates with the significance in this passage as a response to the truth revealed by God who wired every human heart accordingly, (whether we acknowledge it or not) that He and He alone is (singular) the answer to the desperate cries (plural) of our heart, the groanings in our soul, the yearnings of our body, and the only harbor for our spirit’s rest.
That’s what makes statements like this transcultural, transcendent reflections and echoes of worship. It is the affirmation of a fact already revealed by God, and maybe even already known by the soul, when we are truly honest and when truth is allowed to reside at that deepest core of our being. Failure to acknowledge this reality impacts our lives with paralyzing, devastating consequences.
This ‘wilderness hymn’ reverberates with clarity on the canyon walls of deepest human need that there is only One hope for the human heart, and the choice by the singer here has been made. The rest of the song presents with crystal clear resonance and from personal experience the reason for such an assertion — an assertion so compelling that any honest heart must at least pause and consider the prospect offered. But such an assertion is made against the collective cacophony of pseudo-satisfiers, Sirens of the soul, seducing and then dragging our desperate ships further away from safety and closer to destruction.
For me, this morning, I made the choice to begin it giving in to the hunger of my soul to feed on, be with, and take from, the only hope of true satisfaction and fulfillment. The Living God! Ironically, I find that in the true taking, there is a greater and true awareness of the soul thirst. Like King Arthur in “Excalibur” after he had drunk from the Holy Grail, “I did not know how empty was my soul until it was filled!”, so also my soul acknowledges its thirst as God quenches it.
Today, I seek to live in the what my soul knows to be the truth, and I will search today in response to what God has already etched on it from the beginning of time — that He and only He is my resting place, my harbor, my only hope for lasting satisfaction. Today I will “obey my thirst” and seek to give it what it really needs: the Living God!
Selah!
"Imprinted" on Worship 