Romans Chapter 8 cont'd
In the meantime, the Spirit helps us in our human frailty- we don't even know how to pray or what to pray for. But the Holy Spirit, living within us, prays through us with deeps sighs and longings that go beyond our ability to understand or articulate. And God, who is ever searching human hearts, picks up on the Spirit's signals because he is praying within us in perfect harmony with the Father's will.
Comments:
There is much spiritual resistance in this age to our experience of learning to pray well. First of all, there is our awareness of how small, powerless, uninformed and insecure we are compared to our Creator. (What could we really say to him that would matter in the least?) Then, there are facts like: he is invisible (which can challenge good communication!), our consciousness of our sins and the shame associated with them, the demands of our busy lives and our physical weariness. There is also the experience we've all had with seemingly unanswered prayers that can easily jade our zeal to pray again. Then, of course, there are the preemptive strikes upon us from every angle by a host of invisible evil powers who are actually threatened by the words we might speak into the heart of an all-powerful, living and responsive God.
Still, and indeed, the Scripture reveals throughout its pages that our Heavenly Father invites, commands, longs for, listens to and answers the prayers of children, women and men just like us. At times, we read about the great miracles that God performed in response to the prayers of ordinary people. We wonder if God might have us pray such prayers that evoke the display of his glorious power and might.
I take courage in that the disciples of Jesus asked him to teach them how to pray. It is an art that we must learn and there is effort and extensive practice that goes in to mastering any art. And...the beginning steps of learning an art are typically the most challenging for us. We do not know what heights we may attain in prayer (for anything is possible with God and to those who believe him), but we can definitely begin (or begin again) to pray. When I scan the Scriptures for insight on how to begin to pray, I land on two passages. This above verse, Romans 8:26, is one of them. The other is a few verses later in 8:34: "Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us."
As I consider the beginnings of prayer I think first about the two expert intercessors who have been assigned to me. This is not essentially different than Jesus inferring, in John 15:16, that he himself is our "advocate" (which John confirms in his first letter) by referring to the Holy Spirit as "another helper" or "advocate" who will be given to us. Actually, the first steps to an effective prayer life seem to be humbling myself to a point to which I am not ashamed to say that I do not know how to pray well and then receive the truth that Jesus is praying for me in heaven and the Holy Spirit is praying within me and for me here on earth. And they, I hear, pray quite well. Even my groans and sighs regarding the things within and around that weigh me down and burden my soul count as prayer, if I acknowledge the partnership I share with the Spirit of God within me.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Monday, March 16, 2009
The Romance of Romans-Part 53
Romans Chapter 8 cont'd
Hope, our expectation of a heavenly future, is an essential part of God's plan for our salvation. If we had a total fulfillment of our salvation here and now, then this hope would not be necessary. But as it is, we are called to wait patiently, with hope in our hearts, for the fullness yet to come. In the meantime, the Spirit helps us in our human frailty- we don't even know how to pray or what to pray for. But the Holy Spirit, living within us, prays through us with deeps sighs and longings that go beyond our ability to understand or articulate. And God, who is ever searching human hearts, picks up on the Spirit's signals because he is praying within us in perfect harmony with the Father's will.
Comments:
There are actually three "groans" mentioned in this part of Romans 8. The first two were referred to in the last installment...creation is groaning...we ourselves are groaning and here...the Holy Spirit is also groaning. So, at least, we are in good company. With all of the reality, assurance and in-breakings of God's presence and kingdom we can know in this world, it is still far from the perfection and beauty we will one day enjoy when the new creation swallows up the old one entirely. (Yes...all the troubles, pains, failures, tragedies, setbacks, injustices, sins, disappointments, burdens, sicknesses, heartbreaks and the like...are "digestible" by Resurrection Life.)
Our heavenly Father uses the pressures and imperfections of this life as constant reminders that this world, as we know it, is not what we have been essentially designed for. "We were made for so much more"...as Switchfoot reminded us in one of their popular songs. Try as we might to think and believe and work as though it were, we always come away with our inner groan intact. There are teachings, movements, cultural trends and fads and gurus of various sorts all about us that try to entice us to imagine that if we follow them and/or their advice, then this deep and pervasive groan will be lifted from us. But it is there by our Father's design and purpose and only the return of Jesus will see it's displacement. A healthy longing and expectation for his return is essential to a vibrant and biblical spirituality here and now. This kind of strong hope does not make us "so heavenly minded that we are of no earthly good", but rather, keeps us "so heavenly minded" that we are empowered to be of earthly good...day by day by day. In the midst of this emotional and spiritual tension, there is a mysterious power that may seep into our souls that may also motivate us to "seize the day". Today the only day we have to live within.
Let us not be afraid to face and embrace the groaning within us...it will lead us to a healthier frame of heart and mind. We may even discover that we're praying more often and better than we thought.
Hope, our expectation of a heavenly future, is an essential part of God's plan for our salvation. If we had a total fulfillment of our salvation here and now, then this hope would not be necessary. But as it is, we are called to wait patiently, with hope in our hearts, for the fullness yet to come. In the meantime, the Spirit helps us in our human frailty- we don't even know how to pray or what to pray for. But the Holy Spirit, living within us, prays through us with deeps sighs and longings that go beyond our ability to understand or articulate. And God, who is ever searching human hearts, picks up on the Spirit's signals because he is praying within us in perfect harmony with the Father's will.
Comments:
There are actually three "groans" mentioned in this part of Romans 8. The first two were referred to in the last installment...creation is groaning...we ourselves are groaning and here...the Holy Spirit is also groaning. So, at least, we are in good company. With all of the reality, assurance and in-breakings of God's presence and kingdom we can know in this world, it is still far from the perfection and beauty we will one day enjoy when the new creation swallows up the old one entirely. (Yes...all the troubles, pains, failures, tragedies, setbacks, injustices, sins, disappointments, burdens, sicknesses, heartbreaks and the like...are "digestible" by Resurrection Life.)
Our heavenly Father uses the pressures and imperfections of this life as constant reminders that this world, as we know it, is not what we have been essentially designed for. "We were made for so much more"...as Switchfoot reminded us in one of their popular songs. Try as we might to think and believe and work as though it were, we always come away with our inner groan intact. There are teachings, movements, cultural trends and fads and gurus of various sorts all about us that try to entice us to imagine that if we follow them and/or their advice, then this deep and pervasive groan will be lifted from us. But it is there by our Father's design and purpose and only the return of Jesus will see it's displacement. A healthy longing and expectation for his return is essential to a vibrant and biblical spirituality here and now. This kind of strong hope does not make us "so heavenly minded that we are of no earthly good", but rather, keeps us "so heavenly minded" that we are empowered to be of earthly good...day by day by day. In the midst of this emotional and spiritual tension, there is a mysterious power that may seep into our souls that may also motivate us to "seize the day". Today the only day we have to live within.
Let us not be afraid to face and embrace the groaning within us...it will lead us to a healthier frame of heart and mind. We may even discover that we're praying more often and better than we thought.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
The Romance of Romans-Part 52
Romans Chapter 8 cont'd
My evaluation is that our present sufferings are not even worthy to be compared with the beauty and perfection that will ultimately be produced in us. Actually, the whole created order is unconsciously longing and inaudibly crying out for the perfection of believers. All creation was cursed through Adam's fall, but not without the God-given promise that it would one day be liberated from its bondage to fully share in the uninhibited freedom of the children of God. The various kingdoms within creation, up to this present time, are groaning and travailing with spiritual labor pains. And, in fact, even though we have the hefty down payment of perfection through the gift of the Holy Spirit, we are similarly groaning within ourselves because we still have to wait for the fullness of our salvation- the resurrection. The kingdom of God is here, but not fully.
Comment:
The gospel of Jesus Christ is all about the climactic act of God that is wondrously and mysteriously introduced into the middle of the grand drama about heaven and earth that spans the ages. This unique plot line sets his-story apart from so many of the stories we have written for ourselves. Normally, the end comes at the end. But in this case, "The End" appears in the middle of the drama and secures the hope of a perfect outcome for God's good original creation. God himself, the author of the story, becomes the central character by taking on human flesh in the divine person of his Son and enters human history to deal conclusively...through his life, death, resurrection, ascension and subsequent gift of the Spirit to his followers...with the problem of evil and all its tragic effects upon the entire creation.
The "not worthy comparison" that Paul refers to in this passage reminds me of the words of Jesus in John 16:21: "When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world." All creation and we ourselves, are pregnant with the new creation inaugurated by the first coming of Christ and there are sorrows and pains associated with the tensions of our condition. In watching my wife, Terri, go through 5 pregnancies and deliveries, there is no doubt in my mind that there are both physical and emotional paradoxes of pregnancy at every stage. This is because there is a kind of strong hope and joyful expectation with pregnancy as well...to which few things can be compared. Even beyond the pregnancy...Paul pictures us and all creation in labor. (Admittedly, 2,000 years is a long gestation!) Eugene Peterson captures this so well in his Message translation of vs. 22-25:
All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.
My evaluation is that our present sufferings are not even worthy to be compared with the beauty and perfection that will ultimately be produced in us. Actually, the whole created order is unconsciously longing and inaudibly crying out for the perfection of believers. All creation was cursed through Adam's fall, but not without the God-given promise that it would one day be liberated from its bondage to fully share in the uninhibited freedom of the children of God. The various kingdoms within creation, up to this present time, are groaning and travailing with spiritual labor pains. And, in fact, even though we have the hefty down payment of perfection through the gift of the Holy Spirit, we are similarly groaning within ourselves because we still have to wait for the fullness of our salvation- the resurrection. The kingdom of God is here, but not fully.
Comment:
The gospel of Jesus Christ is all about the climactic act of God that is wondrously and mysteriously introduced into the middle of the grand drama about heaven and earth that spans the ages. This unique plot line sets his-story apart from so many of the stories we have written for ourselves. Normally, the end comes at the end. But in this case, "The End" appears in the middle of the drama and secures the hope of a perfect outcome for God's good original creation. God himself, the author of the story, becomes the central character by taking on human flesh in the divine person of his Son and enters human history to deal conclusively...through his life, death, resurrection, ascension and subsequent gift of the Spirit to his followers...with the problem of evil and all its tragic effects upon the entire creation.
The "not worthy comparison" that Paul refers to in this passage reminds me of the words of Jesus in John 16:21: "When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world." All creation and we ourselves, are pregnant with the new creation inaugurated by the first coming of Christ and there are sorrows and pains associated with the tensions of our condition. In watching my wife, Terri, go through 5 pregnancies and deliveries, there is no doubt in my mind that there are both physical and emotional paradoxes of pregnancy at every stage. This is because there is a kind of strong hope and joyful expectation with pregnancy as well...to which few things can be compared. Even beyond the pregnancy...Paul pictures us and all creation in labor. (Admittedly, 2,000 years is a long gestation!) Eugene Peterson captures this so well in his Message translation of vs. 22-25:
All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
The Romance of Romans-Part 51
Romans Chapter 8 cont'd
Genuine children of God are characterized by their commitment to following the leadership of the Holy Spirit. And this makes the Christian life a great adventure; not enslaving or intimidating, but an intimate association with God as a loving Papa. And it's our intimacy with the Holy Spirit that makes God's fatherhood real to us. Now if we are his children, then we have an inheritance from God; in fact, we share in the very same one that Christ has received. But don't forget of course, that we must endure our share of suffering for Christ if we expect to be exalted with Christ.
Comments:
The matter of knowing God as "Father" or "Papa" is very central to a healthy spiritual life. Most of us naturally project and transfer on to our conception and image of God aspects of the relationship we had/have (or didn't!) with our earthly fathers...kind, engaged, affectionate, wise, available, good, sensitive, firm, legalistic, tough, distracted, harsh, unjust, abusive, absent, negligent, unaffectionate...you can add to the lists. (It's a good exercise and discussion for a small group of friends.) Often, it is a combination of the good and the bad characteristics that become blended and imprinted on our souls in regard to our thoughts and feelings about "father". Dad's have great power in the lives of their kids.
Thankfully, much has been said and written over the last 25 years in the church world about how to process, pray and break through so that we can receive the good that our fathers gave us and yet not confuse, deep in our hearts, our heavenly Father's nature with that of our dads'. I find it interesting that, long ago, the writer of Hebrews was in touch with this very issue:
Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Hebrews 12:9-11
The main point that the author of Hebrews makes about God's fatherhood and our lives in this passage (and also the final sentence in the Romans 8 paragraph above) relates to how we process trials, adversities and sufferings. As a spiritual director, I have found that many of us have great difficulty holding on simultaneously to our image of God as a loving Papa and his allowance of difficulties and negative situation to intrude upon our lives. This seems to me like one of the greatest challenges in our spiritual lives that we must surmount...how well do we process legitimate sufferings in our hearts, emotions, minds and relationships? Are we able to hold on to our strong belief that God is good when life becomes a bear?
May the Holy Spirit, himself, help us all in the deep regions of our hearts to know God's loving fatherhood in the midst of our fallen world and challenging life circumstances.
Genuine children of God are characterized by their commitment to following the leadership of the Holy Spirit. And this makes the Christian life a great adventure; not enslaving or intimidating, but an intimate association with God as a loving Papa. And it's our intimacy with the Holy Spirit that makes God's fatherhood real to us. Now if we are his children, then we have an inheritance from God; in fact, we share in the very same one that Christ has received. But don't forget of course, that we must endure our share of suffering for Christ if we expect to be exalted with Christ.
Comments:
The matter of knowing God as "Father" or "Papa" is very central to a healthy spiritual life. Most of us naturally project and transfer on to our conception and image of God aspects of the relationship we had/have (or didn't!) with our earthly fathers...kind, engaged, affectionate, wise, available, good, sensitive, firm, legalistic, tough, distracted, harsh, unjust, abusive, absent, negligent, unaffectionate...you can add to the lists. (It's a good exercise and discussion for a small group of friends.) Often, it is a combination of the good and the bad characteristics that become blended and imprinted on our souls in regard to our thoughts and feelings about "father". Dad's have great power in the lives of their kids.
Thankfully, much has been said and written over the last 25 years in the church world about how to process, pray and break through so that we can receive the good that our fathers gave us and yet not confuse, deep in our hearts, our heavenly Father's nature with that of our dads'. I find it interesting that, long ago, the writer of Hebrews was in touch with this very issue:
Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Hebrews 12:9-11
The main point that the author of Hebrews makes about God's fatherhood and our lives in this passage (and also the final sentence in the Romans 8 paragraph above) relates to how we process trials, adversities and sufferings. As a spiritual director, I have found that many of us have great difficulty holding on simultaneously to our image of God as a loving Papa and his allowance of difficulties and negative situation to intrude upon our lives. This seems to me like one of the greatest challenges in our spiritual lives that we must surmount...how well do we process legitimate sufferings in our hearts, emotions, minds and relationships? Are we able to hold on to our strong belief that God is good when life becomes a bear?
May the Holy Spirit, himself, help us all in the deep regions of our hearts to know God's loving fatherhood in the midst of our fallen world and challenging life circumstances.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
The Romance of Romans-Part 50
Romans Chapter 8 cont'd
Genuine children of God are characterized by their commitment to following the leadership of the Holy Spirit. And this makes the Christian life a great adventure; not enslaving or intimidating, but an intimate association with God as a loving Papa. And it's our intimacy with the Holy Spirit that makes God's fatherhood real to us. Now if we are his children, then we have an inheritance from God; in fact, we share in the very same one that Christ has received. But don't forget of course, that we must endure our share of suffering for Christ if we expect to be exalted with Christ.
Comments:
An effective appetizer is meant to stimulate our hunger, not satisfy it. This is a good analogy for the tension we experience, by God's design, between the overlap of the old creation with the new. God allows us to experience enough reality of his presence and the "powers of the age to come" here and now, that we become extremely dissatisfied with the best that this age has to offer our souls. A genuine and undeniable kinship with the Trinity and the many blessings associated with a life of passionate worship and meaningful service deeply reorients our hearts so that we can persevere through the complications and setbacks of life in this fallen age in which not everything is going well and nothing is going perfectly. It also enables us to wait joyfully and patiently...with strong anticipation and longing...for the "full meal deal" that is yet to come. (How's that for a mouthful of paradoxical thoughts and feelings?)
We have a sure promise of a full future inheritance that instills spiritual hope into our hearts and minds and we also can experience a substantial down payment of that inheritance in our earthly journey. The New Testament teaches what has been called a "realized" eschatology (the doctrine of matters regarding "the end" of this age), without teaching...as many do today...an "over-realized" eschatology that leads to an unhealthy "triumphalism" and an idealization of the Church and the Christian life. This error by emphasis also leads many into a deep disappointment over the course of a "long obedience in the same direction"...as Eugene Peterson long ago described the life of a disciple of Jesus.
An "under-realized" eschatology will certainly not do either. This opposite error by emphasis has led to a denuded spirituality in church circles that is significantly stripped of joy, power, divine presence, purpose, hope, faith, love, zeal and the like...and that has left a dutiful religious drudgery and boredom in its wake...no expected divine responses to our responses to his divine initiatives. "He'p us Jesus!"
The properly blended eschatology of Romans 8 (the premier chapter in Scripture on the subject) is a framework for a spiritual life that can provide us with a divinely designed "vehicle" outfitted for riding the bumpy and curvy roads of this life's cross-country race...a powerful and reliable engine, an aerodynamic body (mostly!), tires that hug the road in all weather conditions, great shock absorbers and...filling stations strategically placed by our wise and loving Papa along the course.
Genuine children of God are characterized by their commitment to following the leadership of the Holy Spirit. And this makes the Christian life a great adventure; not enslaving or intimidating, but an intimate association with God as a loving Papa. And it's our intimacy with the Holy Spirit that makes God's fatherhood real to us. Now if we are his children, then we have an inheritance from God; in fact, we share in the very same one that Christ has received. But don't forget of course, that we must endure our share of suffering for Christ if we expect to be exalted with Christ.
Comments:
An effective appetizer is meant to stimulate our hunger, not satisfy it. This is a good analogy for the tension we experience, by God's design, between the overlap of the old creation with the new. God allows us to experience enough reality of his presence and the "powers of the age to come" here and now, that we become extremely dissatisfied with the best that this age has to offer our souls. A genuine and undeniable kinship with the Trinity and the many blessings associated with a life of passionate worship and meaningful service deeply reorients our hearts so that we can persevere through the complications and setbacks of life in this fallen age in which not everything is going well and nothing is going perfectly. It also enables us to wait joyfully and patiently...with strong anticipation and longing...for the "full meal deal" that is yet to come. (How's that for a mouthful of paradoxical thoughts and feelings?)
We have a sure promise of a full future inheritance that instills spiritual hope into our hearts and minds and we also can experience a substantial down payment of that inheritance in our earthly journey. The New Testament teaches what has been called a "realized" eschatology (the doctrine of matters regarding "the end" of this age), without teaching...as many do today...an "over-realized" eschatology that leads to an unhealthy "triumphalism" and an idealization of the Church and the Christian life. This error by emphasis also leads many into a deep disappointment over the course of a "long obedience in the same direction"...as Eugene Peterson long ago described the life of a disciple of Jesus.
An "under-realized" eschatology will certainly not do either. This opposite error by emphasis has led to a denuded spirituality in church circles that is significantly stripped of joy, power, divine presence, purpose, hope, faith, love, zeal and the like...and that has left a dutiful religious drudgery and boredom in its wake...no expected divine responses to our responses to his divine initiatives. "He'p us Jesus!"
The properly blended eschatology of Romans 8 (the premier chapter in Scripture on the subject) is a framework for a spiritual life that can provide us with a divinely designed "vehicle" outfitted for riding the bumpy and curvy roads of this life's cross-country race...a powerful and reliable engine, an aerodynamic body (mostly!), tires that hug the road in all weather conditions, great shock absorbers and...filling stations strategically placed by our wise and loving Papa along the course.
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