Sooooo, I have a confession to make...yeah...
I am a Transformer.
No, not an Autobot. Definitely not a Decepticon! But I'm a Transformer nonetheless.
Let me start by clearing the air: I'm not a super-mech hero. In fact, I'm not even a perfect human being. I've walked with Christ for many years, but I've been plagued by carnality and penchants of the flesh throughout the years. I grew up thinking the reason I couldn't stop giving in to certain temptations was because I wasn't doing some Christian-y technique right...
maybe I wasn't praying enough?...
or I wasn't reading the Bible enough?...
or I didn't think about God enough?...
Little did I understand, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."
But over the years, I've drawn closer to God by my own hunger for His Spirit at work in my life. And whadya know! As a result, God's been faithful and has drawn close to me, maturing me little by little in His righteousness. Simple cause-and-effect. Over time, though, I realized something very discouraging, yet interesting: despite my intense hunger for righteous living, I still chose to sin and give in to my vice from time to time.
Can you relate? Now, by no means am I condoning double-dipping: being a Christian, but living in sin. God's got a beef with that. That's called "taking advantage of God's grace for your own selfish, sinful desires." That kind of lifestyle is described in Scripture (and by the author I mentioned last post, Neil T. Anderson) as living in "the flesh." You can't live an effective, fruit-bearing Christian life while bending at whim to "the flesh," the very mentality and behavior ruled by sinful desires. Paul outlines in Romans 6 how we who follow Christ are dead to sin. To me, dead sin sounds pretty...dead.
DEAD!!!
But when a believer in Christ chooses to willfully walk in "the flesh," all the while simultaneously trying to walk in "the Spirit," he is basically choosing to lay the paddles of the defibrillator to his old sinful nature. C'mon, let the dead rest in peace! Don't try to revive what will keep you from bearing fruit, and ultimately bring you death. Because like Jesus said in John 15, He will prune any branch that doesn't bear fruit.
I gave a little bit of a precursor of this in my last post, Hide and Seek, but if you are a believer in Christ, it is crucial to be assured of two things:
1. The Holy Spirit's very real and active work within you
2. Your very real and active identity IN Christ
Note: I highlight the word IN because every person on planet Earth is tailor-made for an identity given by our Creator - and that identity is only found in the Creator God's one-and-only master plan of redemption for the "human condition"...Jesus Christ. That's the Gospel, or in other words, the Good News! Thank God there is only ONE master plan and not a million different expectations to keep up with! And the great thing about the good news is that it's continuous as we live in and flourish in Christ. It's an ongoing process hinging on an active relationship with God. Choosing to walk away from that relationship is choosing to walk away from the process of redemption, i.e., choosing to not be IN Christ. Plain and simple.
If you believe in Christ's identity as Savior, it is necessary to believe your identity as The Saved. When Christ broke the bonds of sin in your life, you were freed from slavery to sin...but it's important to know, He didn't leave the shackles hanging from your wrists. "If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed" - direct words from Jesus, as written in John 8:36. A promise from Christ Himself. It's not a smoke-and-mirrors salvation, flimsily bending and swaying at the slightest mistake. It is set firm in Christ, anchored by His sovereign character and restorative work through His life, death, and resurrection as the ultimate sacrifice.
For so long, though, I didn't understand the Holy Spirit's work within me as someone freed from sin's slavery. When I was young, I thought the Holy Spirit was like a Parole Officer or something - mess up and you're outta here. As I grew older, I thought the Holy Spirit was more of a Nun - a pious figure who is a little more personal than a Parole Officer, but not much more forgiving, or even relate-able. A little while later, I thought the Holy Spirit was more of a Jiminy Cricket - a conscience of sorts, but kind of a tiny wimp who wouldn't really do much more than passively make suggestions, only to stand back and not put up much of a fight in my decision-making process.
Later on down the road, I came to understand the Holy Spirit for who He really is: He is the power of God made manifest in me through Christ's redeeming work. He is the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead, taking up residence in me. He is supernatural guidance, the Counselor as Jesus said. Another word that is used to describe Him is the Comforter - which is a whole 'nother blog post I'll write a whole 'nother time!
All in all, the Holy Spirit was sent for our benefit. He is the very Spirit of God Himself active in...transforming us. Ah, there it is! See? I told you! I realized, I am a Transformer!
But why? How do I know the Holy Spirit is transforming me? Is there evidence? Well, in addition to the fruit I bear, and the Fruit of the Spirit outlined in Galatians 5, I've encountered some awesome evidence of the Holy Spirit's work in my walk with God.
In fact, my years of growing in Christ culminated to this profound and life-changing realization just the other day: as I live by the Spirit of God, if I mess up and sin, I find the desire that was once so strong behind that sin has...deteriorated. That's the work of the Holy Spirit that God meant for each and every one of His children: transformation.
It's like an old fashioned balance scale: as you transform to become more and more like Christ, His Spirit continuously grows in you and holds more weight in your life (your decision making, your motives, etc.). The Spirit's weight grows as you transform more into His likeness. Conversely, your old sinful nature holds less and less weight in affecting your life (decision making, motives, etc.).
As I chose to walk more and more in the Spirit, sin lost its influence in my life. It lost weight. And I found that if the occasion arose when I slipped up and sinned, the weight of sin had strangely diminished over time - the burning desire of the flesh I once felt, the hunger to satiate my sinful longings, had been starved of their power over me. It's a give-and-take: the more you give to one side of the scale, it takes from the other side. And that, my friends, is a beautiful illustration of God's grace. I now know the hymn to be true: "Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of Earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace."
The ability to be a Transformer has been offered to all of us. Allow God's Spirit to transform your heart. Let Him tip your scales...walk in The Spirit and indeed, the scales will tip toward life.
"I came that [you] might have life, and life to the full." ~ Jesus Christ (John 10:10)
One thing I've realized over the past couple weeks is something I'm not so sure I fully believed, or at least fully understood in the past. It's something so many Christians are struggling with in their walk with God, and I think it's a huge key to owning who we are in Christ and becoming more like Him through His Spirit within us. Wanna know this profound truth that's waiting at your doorstep?...
God loves to play hide and seek.
"That's nice, Shane, you childish weirdo." I'm serious! God is a hide-and-seek fanatic, it's how He operates. Isn't that curious? It's a peculiar truth about how God transforms us to His character by His Spirit at work within every Christian. But you know what? Hide and seek, though a simple game, is not one fully understood by many Christians.
I'm reading a book right now called "Victory Over the Darkness" by Neil T. Anderson (thanks Jordan!). In the chapter I just finished, Anderson outlines the importance of understanding the concept of "the old self." Paul talks about the old self a bunch in Scripture, but let's draw from Romans 6:5-7. You see, when Christ died for our sins, He died once and for all. It is a finished work. A done deal. Those of us who believe this have grace beyond reason to live this life untethered from sin and "the old self." We are not who we once were, even though sin is still very much present in the world to try and trip us up. The difference is, greater is He that's within us than He that's within the world. We are more powerful living in Christ than we once were living in the old self. As Anderson states so well, we are not "sinners saved by grace;" in reality, we are "saints who sometimes sin." The Apostle Paul couldn't agree more.
But that saint thing is a whole 'nother blog post for a whole 'nother time!
Paul puts it this way: "Our old self was crucified." That's past tense, if you didn't notice. This is where the struggle for many resides - they don't believe what God has already said about them, that they are His child (John 1:12), an equal heir of God's Kingdom with Christ (Romans 8:17), a chosen race, a holy nation, a royal priesthood (1 Peter 2:9-10), the very righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).
They are maybe told or assume that Christ's work of salvation is ongoing, depending on their own efforts. Again and again, people try to beat the stuffing out of their "old self," wrestling with it as if it's still attached at their hip instead of living in who they already are in Christ. Little do they know, the old self is long-dead...it's been dead for two thousand years. They are beating a very, VERY dead horse.
So you may be asking then, "Shane, if my old self is dead, nailed to the cross with Christ, why do I still feel like I struggle with my old sinful nature?" This leads me to my point: Colossians 3:3 says, "For you died (past tense again), and your life is now hidden with Christ in God." Let's highlight this word "hidden." Many theological interpretations of this passage point to the word "hidden" as something to the effect of "safely nestled away in Christ." That's one meaning in this context, but I prefer the other, which is "concealed."
"What?! Shane, you mean God is concealing Himself from me, even though I'm a Christian?! That's mean!" Narrow is the way, and few there be that find it. Jesus wouldn't have said it if it weren't true. That's not saying Christianity is an exclusive club. It's not! What this concept of "concealment" means is that there is so much of God still to be found. God has so much buried treasure for the believer to discover. And not every treasure is unburied at the time of salvation. If it were, faith would come easy. It wouldn't be forged in us, and it wouldn't be very meaningful or poignant to us, would it?
Instead, the Spirit life is hidden in Christ. I'm not referring to the Holy Spirit, which God empowers every believer with through salvation; I'm talking about the Spirit life, meaning the transformative process of becoming like God through intimacy and relationship with Him. It's a hidden treasure. How exciting! Isn't that fun?! We already died to sin with Christ, but now there's treasure to discover! The Spirit life is not for couch-potato posers. It's for seekers. God hides, we seek!
Like I mentioned earlier, I always struggled with the concept that God often hides stuff from us. I never understood why the good Father, the same who would never give us a snake if we asked for a fish (according to Jesus), would hide stuff from us. It seemed kinda cloak-and-dagger to me for a time in my life. Then for a while it seemed really weird..."I found Jesus!" - like He was lost or oblivious or something. But now I realize the importance of God hiding stuff from us, of hiding Himself from us. There are lots of reasons, but here's a couple that come to mind:
1. To develop seekers - Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount to "seek and you will find." Like I said earlier, if God instantly revealed all the deep, profound, transformative things about Himself and the Kingdom at the moment of salvation, it would contradict His very nature. The concept of transformation (God's nature) and the desire for instant gratification (human nature) are not on the same page in the Kingdom dictionary - they clash at a fundamental level. He knew there would be many who tried to enter the Kingdom on Christ's coat tails instead of pressing into God's process through faith, and those are not the seekers. The Kingdom is hidden and set aside for the seekers. It's just how God works. Salvation is offered to everyone without prejudice, but His Spirit life is a process to be discovered, not a right or something to be earned. Which leads me to a second reason God hides stuff from us...
2. To protect us - there is so much bad theology and misleading out in the open, ripe for any Christian's picking. With the deeper things of God hidden in Christ, it secures a sure place for us to go to receive truth and affirmation every single time: the source of life itself, God Almighty. The mystery of the Gospel is Christ in all His fullness (Colossians 1:25-27), hidden from the wise and revealed to the simple, the hide-and-seekers (Matthew 11:25). God has secured this truth in a safe place in Christ, ripe for the seekers' picking. I love how The Message puts it in Matthew 11:27 - "This is a unique Father-Son operation, coming out of Father and Son intimacies and knowledge. No one knows the Son the way the Father does, nor the Father the way the Son does. But I'm not keeping it to myself; I'm ready to go over it line by line with anyone willing to listen."
Does this God of hide-and-seek make sense now? There are always deeper intimacies with the Father, deeper truths to discover about Christ's character, deeper waters of worship to wade into, deeper aspects of the Holy Spirit's leading within us. God still speaks today, and He wants to speak to you, even in this moment. There are many treasures to discover in Him, a wealth of resources in His Spirit. He's just waiting for you to stop counting, uncover your eyes, and come find Him.
"Seek the Lord while He may be found; call on Him while He is near." (Isaiah 55:6)
