As we have
said before, the goal of our life on earth is to seek sanctification--the state of thinking, feeling, and acting like
Jesus in all things. While it is never completed in this life, it is what we
were created to seek. Our lives are a search to be as close as we can to
Jesus.
Paul says to
present our bodies as a living sacrifice to God. That means sacrificing
ourselves daily in the pursuit of Christian wholeness. It isn’t something we do
for a time and then give up, neither is it something that we must complete
before God loves us. He loves us and accepts us now, but He wants better for
us. Doing, thinking, feeling and betting more like Him is what it means to live
a better life.
The Holy
Spirit makes us better day by day. But the Holy Spirit cannot accomplish this
in us without effort on our part. You can buy someone a membership to a gym and
free lessons from a life coach, but they won’t get in shape unless they use
them. In the same way God can provide us with the means of becoming like Him,
but unless we exercise our Spirits, the Holy Spirit can do nothing to help. He
will not override our will by making us conform. We have to be willing to have
hearts renewed before any renewal will take place.
The means of
pursuing God’s perfection is through the practice of Spiritual exercises. Now we
all know what exercises are—we may not do them but at least we know the term. If
we want to get stronger and healthier physically, we must take walks, go to the
gym, use the treadmill, and so on. If we want to get stronger and healthier in
our relationship with God, then we must do our exercises. It is the only way.
There are
many kinds of spiritual exercises, just like there are many kinds of physical
exercises. Physical exercises are
divided into different categories—cardio-vascular exercises such as walking for
endurance, strength-building exercises such as weight lifting for strength, and
flexibility exercises such as yoga for balance and flexibility. Spiritual exercises can be divided into three
categories, too—exercises for the head (mind), heart (emotions), and hands
(actions).
Head, heart
and hands must be balanced. We may be strong in certain areas, but we need them
all, just as we should not use this as an excuse for being lazy in developing
any area. Spiritual health and overall improvement in our spiritual life
requires that we develop all three.
The first
place we start is with the mind. We
need to develop our minds for Christ. Paul states in Romans 12, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be
transformed by the renewing of your mind.” That means we should build
strong brains and fill them with God’s Word. We must do this because the mind
of the World is trying to squeeze us into its mold, to make us conform to the
world’s way of thinking and acting. To push back, we must have something strong
inside, and we must develop our minds to hold fiercely to God’s truth.
Unfortunately,
many Christians have no interest in the thinking. Modern Evangelical
Christianity has a history of anti-intellectualism. Mark Noll writes.
“The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is
not much of an evangelical mind. An extraordinary range of virtues is found
among the sprawling throngs of evangelical Protestants in North America,
including great sacrifice in spreading the message of salvation in Jesus
Christ, open-hearted generosity to the needy, heroic personal exertion on
behalf of troubled individuals, and the unheralded sustenance of countless churches
and parachurch communities.
Notwithstanding all their other virtues, however, American evangelicals
are not known to be exemplary for their thinking, and they have not been so for
several generations”
When Christians distrust
their minds, they try to substitute enthusiasm and mindless activity for
careful thought and reason. They become lazy and flabby in the brain. Even so
they are convinced there is nothing wrong with them, and go on in blissful
ignorance of what they are missing by not renewing their minds.
Compare this to physical
exercise. Suppose someone says, “Let’s all go on a hike.” Those who like physical activity would be
raring to go! But the rest would just make excuses or lay around the house. Some
would be too distracted by familiar forms of entertainment, such as television,
books, or video games. Some would find walking too boring. Others would refuse
because they didn’t think they could walk very far. But any walk is better than
no walk, if you want to have a healthy body.
The same thing is true of the
mind. Any thinking is better than none. When it comes to minds, we either use
them or lose them. If we are going to grow more like Jesus, then we’d better be
willing to use our brains.
One of the great myths about
thinking is that it’s boring. It’s a lie of the Devil! There is nothing more
exciting than the challenges of the mind. James Sire gave this definition of an
intellectual.
“An intellectual is one who loves ideas, is dedicated
to developing them, criticizing them, clarifying them, turning them over and
over, seeing their implications, stacking them atop one another, arranging
them, sitting silent while new ones pop up and old ones seem to rearrange
themselves, playing with them, punning them with their terminology, laughing at
them, watching them clash, picking up the pieces, starting over, judging them,
withholding judgment about them, changing them, bringing them into contact with
their counterparts in other systems of thought, inviting them to dine and have
a ball, but also suiting them for service in workaday life—A Christian
intellectual is all of the above to the glory of God.”
Let me let you in on a secret--thinking
is fun! It is playing with ideas. Many
people don’t want you to think, because they are afraid of what you might discover.
They are the ones who suggest that thinking is boring or hard, and that you
shouldn’t do it. They want to tell you what to think, so they do everything in
their power to keep you from thinking for yourself. C. S. Lewis once said that
the Devil doesn’t do so much by putting ideas in our heads as by keeping them
out. But thinking for God’s glory is one of the great blessings of life. It’s
not boring at all.
But what do we think about? That’s easy--think about the Word of God. Psalm
119: 11 says, “Your Word I have hid in
my heart that I might not sin against You.” The Word of God, when ingested into
our lives, provides the foundation for all Spiritual life and thought.
How do we ingest the Word of
God? First, we should read it. Make a commitment to read the whole Bible all
the way through. Most of us don’t know the Bible as well as we think we do. Even
if we knew it once, we’ve probably forgotten more than we know. Make a part of
your life to read the Bible through as often as you can, and to read it with
comprehension.
Second, Study it. Don’t just
read the Words, study the words. Take the time to know what they mean. That
means learning the background of the Bible—the names, dates, places, and
especially the stories of the Bible. It does no good to know the words, if you
don’t know the books and chapters. The mental exercise of Bible study will
sharpen your minds and transform your hearts. I am convinced that you cannot do
a thorough job of reading and knowing the Bible alone. You need a small group
of people with whom you can share, learn and even disagree. Hiding God’s word
in your heart requires that you struggle with the ideas and meaning, and not
just take it for granted.
If we are to use our minds to
glorify the Lord, then we should also develop a heathy skepticism. When someone says an idea is in the Bible, then
we should learn to seek evidence. Don’t think you or anyone else is right
unless you can produce evidence that supports it. Accepting everything that
others say about the Bible without seeking out the truth is not using our
brains. It is not faith—it is laziness.
Third, study about it. Theology
is not just studying the Bible but studying what we learn about the Bible. It
is taking the concepts of the Bible and arranging them in an understandable
way. It’s not just the words or concepts of the Bible that is important, but it
is also how those words and concepts come together, and how they apply to our
lives. An intellectual Christian will not just read the Bible, but will read
what people say about the Bible. He will study theology and the application of
theology to life. He will not just read one view, but will also read people who
disagree.
A friend once told me that he
believed in the “fried chicken” method of reading theology. When we eat fried
chicken, we throw out the bones and feast on the meat. When we read a Christian
book or commentary, we don’t have to swallow everything to learn. Learn to
question according to God’s word.
Fourth, memorize it. Psalm 1 says, “Blessed is the man who does not stand in the way of sinners or sits in
the seat of the scornful, or dwell in the place of the scornful, but his
delight is in the Law of the Lord and on that law he meditates day and night.” The
word for “meditate” in Hebrew can also be translated as “memorize.” When we
memorize something it stays in our brain. It becomes part of us, and can
interact with every other idea. Try to memorize at least one or two verses a
week. That may sound impossible, but in time you will find that it becomes
easier with practice. When you have the Word of God in your minds, it can
influence every thought, feeling, and behavior in ways you might never suspect.
One day it could just save your life.
A woman was in church when I
was preaching on Romans 8: 28, “All
things work together for good for those who love God and are called according
to His purposes.” That afternoon she was riding dirt bikes with her
husband. Halfway through the track, she lost control and went over an
embankment. She was lying in a ditch, paralyzed from the waist down for what
seemed like hours.
Later when I visited her in
the hospital, she told me that the only thing she could think about as she lay
there was Romans 8: 28, “All things work together for good for those who love
God.” She held on to that verse, believing God was going to let good come from
this. That verse kept her alive, she said.
Scripture can only help us if
we know it. Use your minds to study the Bible. It will pay off for you in the
end.
No comments:
Post a Comment