Category Archives: Sanctification

God and Body Image!

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We are a body image conscious culture. We are bombarded everyday with images and ideas highlighting the importance of a persons image.

According to Sir Wiki, “Body image refers to a person’s perception of the aesthetics and sexual attractiveness of his or her own body.” The phrase was first created by Austrian psychoanalyst Paul Schilder in his seminal work in 1935. Our personal experiences, personality and cultural forces all contribute to shaping the way we think about ourselves.

Body image has become a god to many westerners, due to the sexualization of our culture. We go to extreme lengths to look a certain way and act a certain way for our sense of significance and for the notice of others or both.

As I read the bible, I don’t see God having a problem with people looking after their bodies or wearing fashionable clothing but I do see a problem when we have made our own image more important to us than being made in the image of God himself and thus worshipping him.

Romans 1:22-25 perfectly describes the current state of our culture.

“Claiming to be wise, they become fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God, for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator.”

How much of your time is taken up with thinking, dreaming and working towards the ideal image of yourself? Have you exchanged worship of God’s glory for your own glory? How is this working for you? Are you joy-filled or discontent?

A person’s identity must be found in Christ and Christ alone. Genesis 1-2 outlines that every male and female on the planet has been made in the image of God. We have been created to worship God and steward what God gives to us, which includes our bodies, clothing, possessions and money.

Jesus made himself of no reputation but abandoned himself to the Father’s pleasure and will. What image are you trying to portray to others? Leave the pretenses behind and just pursue God. God is more than capable of helping you find your identity in him and not in the cultural forces around you.

Grace!

Rethinking Christian Progress!

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The one thing the bible promises us regarding life in this world is that it will be hard and filled with trials, temptations and tribulations. Nowhere does the bible promise that we’ll have our best life now (as popularized by Joel Osteen). in 2 Timothy 3:12 Paul tells Timothy, “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”

This morning I tweeted an important phrase from pastor Tullian Tchividjian’s book Jesus + Nothing = Everything and it is the idea of an “over-realized eschatology”. I want to use this term to say, too many Christians live with an “over-realized eschatology” expecting  now on earth what God has promised only later for eternity. This causes us to live with unrealistic expectations for what we will and won’t face in this world.

In light of this how do we approach growth and progress in our faith?

The Gospel didn’t just ignite my faith but it’s the fuel that keeps it going and growing me everyday. The Gospel has “delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Col 1:13-14). Progress begins with understanding that in Christ, we’ve already been qualified, delivered, transferred, redeemed and forgiven. Working out your salvation with fear and trembling is focusing on working out what Christ has already given to us and worked into us by his will and for his pleasure.

Our natural instinct as believers is to almost exclusively measure Christian growth around behavioural improvement but the greater issue is what is behind the good or bad fruit of our behaviour? Bad behaviour happens when we fail to believe that everything we need, in Christ, we already have. On the other hand, good behaviour happens when we daily rest in and receive the finished work of Jesus in deeper and deeper ways, destroying any need to secure for ourselves anything beyond what Christ has already secured for us.

The hard work of growth we are called to is to believe again and again the gospel of God’s free justifying grace everyday and resting in what Christ has finished on our behalf. I think real spiritual progress happens when our natural understanding of progress is rooted out and it’s not about first behaving better but believing more fully what Jesus has already accomplished.

Gerhard Forde, in his work, Justification by Faith, once said, “It’s not our movement toward the goal but the movement of the goal on us” that helps us progress in the Christian life. Pastor Tullian (Pg173) says, “Sanctification involves God’s daily attack on our unbelief – our self-centered refusal to believe that God’s approval of us in Christ is full and final.”

When we stop narcissistically focusing on our need to get better, that is what it means to get better. The more we focus on our need to get better, the more neurotic and self-absorbed and worse we actually get. I have to admit that I’ve been too pre-occupied with myself for most of my life and my pre-occupation with my performance over Christ’s performance makes me increasingly self-centered and distant from God and others.

Christian progress is forgetting about yourself! So, aim for progress but remember what it isn’t, your personal improvement and moral progress. Progress is washing your hands of you and resting in Christ’s finished work for you, which will inevitably produce personal improvement and spiritual growth.

Grace! 

I’m not who I used to be…

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2 Corinthians 5:17 “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has passed away, behold the new has come.”

I have been a Christian for nearly 30 years. At 4 years of age I can remember confessing my sin and believing in Jesus Christ, as I was led to God through the influence of my parents and other older believers. I’m so grateful to God for his sovereign grace at work in my life and it has been an amazing adventure of discovery and growth, albeit painful at times.

Truth is, I cannot believe how far God has brought me in my own spiritual journey. Even as a Christian and pastor, just a few years ago, there were things I wrestled with in my heart, which manifested in my marriage and relationships with others. Now by God’s grace those same struggles are no longer on the dashboard of my life. Granted, there are other challenges that I must run to the Gospel with but God’s empowering grace has rescued me already. I think this is how it should be, if we are working out what God has already worked into our hearts. It does seem, though, that the closer you get to God, the more aware of our sinfulness we become. 

Sanctification is a key theological term which describes the process of a believer becoming more and more like Jesus. Regeneration is the initial act that gives birth to our spirit and begins the sanctification process, whereby the indwelling Holy Spirit transforms us to reflect the character of Christ. This is both a joyful privilege and painful process.

When Jesus saves us, he transforms what we find joy in. Our flesh finds joy in self but our regenerated spirit finds joy in Christ and others. Our flesh finds joy in lust but our regenerated spirit finds joy in purity. Our flesh finds joy in revenge but our regenerated spirit finds joy in forgiveness.

The cross where Jesus died to atone for our sin, is the place of the great exchange – our sin for God’s righteousness. The process of sanctification is the process of dying to self and coming alive to Christ. It’s the process of finding joy in a cross -centered life, rather than finding joy in a self-serving life.

As a Christ-follower, you should be changing. You cannot taste of the eternal gift and not be changed by it. Jesus does something in you by the work of the Holy Spirit and you too will wake up one day and say, “I’m not who I used to be…”

Grace!