"...and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God." Romans 5:2b

A few years ago, I was a really proud man.  I thought I had everything together.  I had married a wonderful woman who was deeply in love with me and for whom I would do anything.  At the time, we had two beautiful daughters and we were living in a nice home.  In all actuality, we had everything that any young family could ever want.  I remember reading this particular Scripture one night, "Do not be deceived!  Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers--none of these will inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Cor. 6:9-10).  I remember thinking, "I sure am glad I'm not one of those people.  They sure will be in a heap of trouble when Jesus comes again and they are cast into hell."  I also remember feeling my heart swell with pride that I had nothing to worry about and that as long as I followed the rules, went to church on Sunday, and did nothing that was terribly wrong, everything would turn out just fine.


Boy was I wrong!  After Jesus intersected my life, showed me my puffed up and prideful heart I began to realize that I had a long way to go in order to be humble, meek, and self-giving.  Over the last several years I have really tried to remember to ask God in my prayer time to change my heart and to help me to think less of myself and to place others ahead of myself.  That's really a tall order, but I do believe that this is part of the salvation process.  God takes a lump of clay and begins to mold it and shape it into the image of his only begotten Son.  Every so often he shows us that we are changing.  Much like raising kids, the day by day growth is not always noticeable.  However, ask almost any parent at the beginning of the school year and the kid's growth becomes obvious.  I think that sometimes God reveals to us how much we have grown just so we see that we are not the same as we were when we started out on this journey of faith.


I was blessed enough to experience such a revelation this past Sunday.  This time the reading came from Romans 1.  At the end of the Scripture reading of the morning, these words were read by the liturgist, "God gave them up to a debased mind and to things that should not be done.  They were filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice.  Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless" (Romans 11:29-30).  This time, instead of my heart swelling up in pride, it was broken.  Tears literally swelled up in my eyes as I thought about these people and what they are missing out by rejecting God and the peace, grace, and love that he offers to humankind.  As I have reflected on what happened on Sunday, I realize that by the grace of God, I have grown.


Now I hope that no one misreads this and thinks that my heart is completely filled with love and grace.  Unfortunately, that is not the case.  There are still plenty of people in this world who drive me crazy.  I still get irritated at people and don't want to deal with them.  I still find myself being on the side of rejecting the gospel message of love instead of embracing it.  However, maybe this doesn't happen as often as it used to.


This week, I was reminded to continue to pray and to expect transformation into the likeness of Christ.  John Wesley once said "The perfection I teach, is perfect love; loving God with all the heart, receiving Christ as Prophet, Priest, and King, to reign alone over all our thoughts, words and actions. That we are to expect it, not at death, but every moment; that now is the accepted time, now is the day of this salvation" (Wesley's Works, Vol. VI, p. 500).  As hard as it is to expect this transformation to take place now, I think he is right on target.  I do believe that we continue to grow day by day, but since we serve a mighty God, he can also do an amazing act all at once too.  I'm going to continue to expect God to act in my life, change me, and mold me into the perfect shape of his Son and our Savior.


+ May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you--Amen+

Proverbs 27:17--As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.

The more I grow in my own faith, the more I recognize the immense importance of the community of Christians (the Communion of Saints).  We recently celebrated in the church calendar the feast day of All Saints.  It is one of my favorite feast days of the calendar and I always look forward to it as a day of remembrance and hope.  A couple of weeks ago, for one of my classes, we visited a Lutheran Church in Lexington.  After we had toured the nave and looked at the sanctuary, the pastor invited us to another room for a talk and discussion.  Much of what he said I had heard or read before, but it was still nice to be reminded of things that I had already learned.  However, as he was talking about the way their church takes Holy Communion he pointed out the altar rail that is located near their altar.  The altar is located in the center of the sanctuary and is surrounded on three sides by the altar rail.  The fourth side is left open so that the pastor can pass through to the altar.  He told a story of a boy who was in the early stages of confirmation.  The young boy told him one day that he now understood why the church had left that open space near the altar.  Intrigued, the pastor asked him what his thoughts were.  The young man replied, "That is where my grandmother comes to kneel when she takes communion."  The pastor was blown away by the statement.  The little one's grandmother had passed away over a year prior to this event.  As the pastor reflected on this statement, the more he came to grips with its truth.  Simply because we no longer see someone at the communion rail does not mean that that person is not a part of the body of Christ.  

Another aspect of community that is becoming more real to me is how important it is to develop and grow a person into a faithful and strong person of the faith.  I'm not sure about the rest of you, but in my household we have to continually remind, reprimand, and point our children in the right direction.  We have to model mature behavior and live a life of honor in order for our children to come to understand what mature adults look like.  Sometimes we succeed as parents; sometimes we fail.  However, we always are being watched and emulated by our children.  The church is the same way.  As an individual believer you can only grow spiritually so far all by yourself.  If you do not attend church, belong to a small group or two, or make the time to truly fellowship with other believers, your spiritual formation AND the spiritual formation of others will be grossly hindered.  

One thing we have never had to teach any of our children is to be selfish and self-centered.  They were born with that desire.  What we have had to instill in them is to think about the rest of the family too.  Will my action help, harm, or have a neutral effect on others?  For example, we have finally got it across to the older three that if there is one item left on the supper table that they should ask others before they take it for themselves.  That is the benefit of living in community.  I believe the life and growth of our spirits is the same way.  N.T. Wright puts it this way, "Christian leaders have been warned from the beginning that they were to act as examples (1 Tim. 4:12, Titus 2:7, Hebrews 13:7, 1 Peter 5:3.), and whether we like it or not (and many of us leaders are anxious about it), Christian folk--like our own blood-children--will tend to copy us."  For better or worse we are placed together in this walk of faith.  What are you doing to enhance others and their walk?  What are you doing to imitate those who are deeply spiritual so that we too can imitate Christ?  These questions are two sides of the same coin.  As we are going we should make disciples.  We should be doing both, learning and teaching, growing and planting, imitating and modeling.  That is one of the reasons we are placed in a community of faith.