Tag: Spirituality

To Be Like Him

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And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man.

1 Corinthians 15:49 (NIV)

We believers are being conformed to the image of Jesus. This means far more than having our behavior conformed to the image of Jesus’ behavior. It means having all that we are conformed to all that he is. He is changing the inside of us. He is making us like him in every way. He is drawing us as close to the Father as he is. He is making us as full of mercy as he is. He is changing our thoughts and motivations, not just our actions.

This may seem obvious, but it is surprising to me how many times sermons are preached that assume God wants us to do things differently, not be different. Or the prevailing idea that in light of what Jesus has done for us, we should do this or that. As if Jesus’ main goal in our lives is to have us hold up our end of the bargain. Which would be fine, if this were the case. But the truth is, such thinking is still stuck within a Law-based mindset in which we are still trying to earn what Jesus already paid for. Which, by the way, is one of the many things Jesus is in the process of transforming in us. He is delivering us from any thought or motivation that suggests His work was not enough and therefore we are deficient in some way and must make up the difference through good behavior.

Others are under the impression we are being conformed to the image of Jesus only as far as his material blessings are concerned. We believe Jesus went to the Cross to deliver us from sickness and disease and poverty, only. I personally believe he went to the Cross for these things, along with every other effect of sin. But if we stop there, we will be puzzled when God begins to go after deeper things in us. We won’t understand why He doesn’t just deliver us from the circumstance as if that were His main objective. It is not that Jesus does not delight in delivering us from difficult circumstances. But the gold He is after runs far deeper and is far more precious than any favorable circumstance.

But what is the endgame here? What image are we being conformed to? It is the image of Jesus, of course. But who is He exactly? Is he nothing more than Someone who is well-behaved and very nice in every situation? Again, is the goal nothing more than perfect behavior? No, the goal is perfect humanity. Jesus is delivering us from everything in this life that has distorted and compromised what it means to be fully human. He is restoring in us all we were created to be and are destined to be.

And he is doing so by honoring our humanity in the process. Some of our prayers to be delivered from circumstances are really prayers to be delivered from our humanity. We are asking not to feel the pain of loss, for example, when our true path through loss is to allow ourselves to feel the pain of it. He delivers us through grief, not out of it. God does as he pleases, of course. But our paths of deliverance often follow the lines that preserve and perfect our humanity. For to be like Him is to be fully human.

Resting in His Goodness

Published on by dpatrickcollins1 Comment

Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations.

Psalms 46:10 (NKJV)

If you are following me, you will hear a lot about rest. It is presently what God is doing with me in this season. He is quieting my soul as a mother a child who, having felt the hardship of life in some way, finds himself in tears.

In the Christian life, there are times we are called to act, to step out of the place of idleness or timidity and conquer whatever needs to be conquered. But sometimes the hardships of life jar us in a way that puts our soul in a state of distress, and in those moments what is needed is rest. In those moments, it may feel like God is bringing us to a place of inactivity, even idleness. But what He is doing is bringing our souls back to center. He is allowing the trauma, for lack of better words, to come up, instead of allowing it to drive us.

Six years ago my wife of twenty-five years died suddenly. That was a shock to the system, but in the wake of my loss, I felt like God saying to me, “You have been grieving for a long time.” And by that, he meant what I am describing: life had jarred my soul early on in life, long before my recent loss, and I had been in a state of distress ever sense. I had been going through life on high alert without even knowing it, and God was now bringing me into a place of deep rest.

I am a high achiever by nature. But sometimes the only thing we can do is be still. For it is in the stillness that God does his best work. Many of us think we are not doing enough; the truth is we are doing too much. Again, it depends on the season, but many of us are operating from a place of high alert in the wake of some moment where life jarred us.

Rest is not idleness. It is giving the soul and God a chance to quiet our souls long enough to align us with the rhythm of the Spirit. This is what we were created for, and this is why having a proper theology about the Christian life is so necessary. There are so many opportunities in modern culture to keep your soul in a state of distress. Or if it is already in distress, to indulge its tendency to remain that way. But God is calling us deeper.

Be still today and know that he is God. He will be exalted among the nations, and that means he will be exalted in your life as well as you come to a place of stillness in Him.

Faith in the Suffering

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Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.

2 Corinthians 12:7-9 (NIV)

A few weeks ago, this verse came to mind. It is a difficult verse for many who believe in supernatural healing1 because it would suggest God’s will is not always to heal. That in fact God’s will, from time to time, is to not deliver us from our suffering.

Now the reason this is difficult for many of us is not because this might be true, but because we have been taught the means by which healing is achieved in our lives is faith. Our belief in God’s willingness to heal is what brings about our healing. But if God’s will is not to heal from time to time, how then can we have faith and not doubt according to Scripture?

The answer, I believe, is by understanding how faith works in the Christian life, namely that faith is the beginning of the journey with God. Paul clearly believed it was God’s will to heal; otherwise he would not have pleaded with God three times. But his faith alone, though necessary, was not sufficient to bring about his healing. What was also required was something else, namely the tendency of his heart toward conceit to be removed. We know this was the reason God chose not to heal Paul because he tells us so. So Paul found himself in extenuating circumstances: God chose to refrain from doing the very thing that was his will to do in order to prevent a condition that could destroy him.

On that note, I wish to point out there is no reason to believe Paul’s situation was permanent. Neither Paul nor God suggest his tendency toward conceit was a character flaw God could do nothing about. And once God did, there is every reason to believe the artificial restraint keeping him in a place of humility would be removed. I say this because some try to elevate this verse to a place of defining whether it is God’s will to heal or not in the absolute sense. But this very passage, by clearly defining the extenuating circumstances taking place in Paul’s life, prove otherwise.2

But what are we to do as far as believing it is always God’s will to heal? The answer is: continue believing it is always God’s will to heal. Press into God in every area where you are not seeing his kingdom come and will be done in your life, just as it is in heaven. And if in the process God reveals to you extenuating circumstances that cause him to refrain temporarily from doing what is otherwise in his heart to do (and only because he wants what is best for you), be patient, allowing the fullness of his kingdom to be established in your life.

  1. That is: God’s desire to heal all our diseases ↩︎
  2. Otherwise, Paul would have said God does not always heal and left it at that. ↩︎

Morning Star

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This poem took some time and comes from my recent season of walking through grief to new hope, which I have written about here and here.

A word about the imagery: For those familiar with the Bible, you should know the morning star depicted in this poem is not necessarily Jesus. Instead, it is something that comes to us in our lives that reflects God’s providence.

Scientifically, a morning star is usually the planet Venus, which literally is reflecting the light of the sun which is about to rise. So the morning star here is the thing in our lives that represents a promise God has given to us, and also the fingerprints of God throughout our lives which reflect a Kingdom “whose increase has no end” like the morning daylight.

But in a sense God’s fingerprints are not mere reflections; they are first fruits, representing the fact that the veil between us and God, and Heaven and Earth, is now torn asunder, and we are now (not one day) partakers of the divine.

P.S. I am in Ireland at the present moment. Pictures to follow 🙂

Morning Star

In the early hours after a dark night
while blackness still clung to silhouettes
and I could still see my breath
I saw it from afar

just above the horizon glistening,
with all the silent morning listening,
with hope the newborn daylight christening:
A bright and morning star.

My heart stirred
and whatever loss of light
had met those darkest hours of night
Was lost upon that heavenly body before me, burning bright.

But knowing well how lines get blurred
in the early hours of twilight
where thin is the celestial veil
and ordinary things take on divine reflection

And the night upon my heart still clinging
in those early hours of dawn
with all the hope that solitary star was bringing
I feared I could not go on.

But then that lonely wanderer on its course
with a glimmer showed me it derived its source
not from itself but from a greater Light reflected:
One veiled by momentary night now being resurrected.

And so I watched in silent admiration
among the shadows already shifting
my twilight companion toward its final destination
Foretell an end to darkness already lifting.

Most days now when I feel I can’t go on
I arise from sleep and darkness deep
and put one foot before the other
toward the coming dawn.

Photo by Josh Felise on Unsplash

White Space

Published on by dpatrickcollins3 Comments

 

The other day, someone at church shared with me a picture they felt the Lord gave them. The saw a well-tended beautiful orchard that was vast, sprawling over hillsides, and producing much fruit. What particularly caught the person’s attention was how well the orchard was organized: The trees were in rows, and with perfect space between each row.

The space between the rows, they said, was particularly significant. On the East Coast where they grew up, they explained fruit trees grow, but there is no space between the trees. The trees just crowd out one another and prevent growth, similar to what happens when a tree is not pruned properly: The production of fruit is inconsistent at best.

I want to reflect today upon the space in our lives. Space has an interesting quality. It is both nothing and something at the same time. On the surface it is  useless, and yet it is indispensable. As one article on graphic design explains, “white space should not be considered merely “blank” space — it is an important element of design which enables the objects in it to exist at all; the balance between positive (or non-white) and the use of negative spaces is key to aesthetic composition.” So it is also in God’s artwork, our lives.

[White] space should not be considered merely “blank” space — it is an important element of design which enables objects in it to exist at all. So it is also in God’s artwork, our very lives.

As my friend shared with me his vision, I realized for me that space is the time of waiting. During this season God has given to me some promises that are deeply personal, and He has encouraged me to set my heart on them coming to fulfillment. Space is the time between us, like Abraham, receiving the promise and having it come to fulfillment.

Space is not only a period of time but a quality in the human heart. My children and I were talking the other day about the tendency in revival worship services for us to fake our worship: To act as though we are excited even when we aren’t. Now I am a big proponent of breaking through barriers of discouragement and worry and other things in order to worship authentically. There is good in that form of intentional worship. But in whatever environment we find ourselves, there is a tendency to act as though we are full when in fact we are empty. We want to give the appearance of fruit when in fact we are presently in the space between.

My wife often quoted a saying about the twelve-step program: “Those who progress in this program are those willing to sit with their uncomfortable feelings and take them to God.” In other words, those who progress are those who learn to be comfortable with space. And this pertains to the spiritual life in Christ as a whole.

We are a tapestry of fruitfulness and space, but if we seek to fill the space with other things — fakeness, striving, addiction, escape, busyness and so forth — we end up affecting the fruit we now possess. We prevent future fruitfulness.

My encouragement to you and me this morning, this Labor Day weekend in the States, is to be comfortable with the space in your life. Allow God to meet you in that place. Rest in His presence; rest in His promise. God does not waste a single moment in our lives. In the space where nothing seems to be happening, God is reaching down to bring healing and to bring forth something beautiful.

Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash