Barney Wiget's Blog, page 55

Demons and the Divided Soul (Part 1)

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I’ve experienced an uptick of spiritual assaults lately. It might not be more than usual. Maybe I’ve just been more aware of it or more vulnerable to it by token of my own divided heart. It’s well known that hell has committed a sizeable legion to my city, some are of Satan’s foot soldiers rage out in the open and others, more subtle, do their best work in more secretive ways. Since I doubt that San Francisco hosts the only satanic military base in America I thought I might share a few thoughts about spiritual battle from one particular passage that has appeared on my radar recently.

The point of these few posts is not to say everything you wanted to know about demons or to reveal some special prayer to pray to get rid of them. I don’t claim any sort of expertise on the matter of the mechanics of deliverance or taking down territorial spirits. Instead, I want to share about the danger of divided soul and how the adversary is skilled at taking advantage of a “house divided against itself.”

You would best served to take a moment and begin by reading Luke 11:14-28 on which my comments are based.

An onlooking crowd was amazed at Jesus’ demon-kicking power but some looked for an excuse to avoid having to admit that he was who he said he was. “He does it by Satan’s power!” they said. Jesus saw this as a teaching moment and coined the famous saying, quoted by the likes of Lincoln, “A house divided cannot stand!”

The “house” that Jesus was talking about is a person’s soul. In his unconverted state, the human soul is, at least in some way, Satan’s house. He was saying that if he were casting out the devil by the devil’s power it would mean that the devil’s house (his dark “kingdom”) was at odds with itself and therefore wouldn’t last. Their suggestion was nonsensical.

Then he expanded on the image. The devil, he said, is like a “strong man” who lives in the house, i.e., his subject’s soul. He “guards his house” with a full armory of weapons to keep his possessions safe. In order to keep his house from be overthrown, Satan employs whatever armaments he has at his disposal. Unless confronted by “someone stronger” than him he’s safely ensconced in his house. He and his demons appeal to their legal right to maintain control over their usurped property.

As long as the enemy is unopposed, his possessions in the house are “safe,” that is, safely under his control. He has eminent domain, squatter’s rights to the person’s soul, finders-keepers, so to speak. He is a “strong man” with a strong hold in his “stronghold.” Unless he is evicted from the premises by “Someone stronger” (guess Who that is!) he has the legal right, along with the strength to protect that right, to the souls of people. He defends his usurped position with a vengeance unless Jesus breaks through his fortified position with overpowering siege craft.

Jesus has infinitely more strength than the strong man and overpowers him. When he gains control of a previously demonized soul he “takes away the armor” in which that devil “trusted.” That is, he not only disarms him but he destroys the trusted defenses behind which the adversary lurks.

The armor in this passage seems to refer to the stronghold that the adversary constructed in the person’s soul in order to guarantee a place to reside as long as possible. His armor is made of any number of behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs, which might include unhealed soul wounds, unyielding bitterness, unrepented of sin, and/or unconfessed rebellion to name a few.

When Jesus takes possession of a soul, right away he begins demolishing these demonically constructed behaviors and beliefs. He incinerates some of them as soon as he takes over and gradually removes others one layer at a time as we yield more of ourselves to him. The degree to which we cooperate with him in the destruction of the evicted spirits’ protective armor is the degree to which Jesus can fill our soul with new and more impervious armor that serves to protect us from their return.

Jesus breaks into the devil’s former safehouse, kicks him out, and “divides up the plunder.” I take this to mean he shares the riches of his kingdom with those he’s set free. He takes all that the adversary controlled and puts it under our control again.

Solomon captured the concept when he wrote, “Whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down, without walls” Proverbs 25:28. What a vivid metaphor to describe Satan’s captivity of a person’s soul and how Jesus reverses his captivity into freedom! And he does it all without breaking a sweat, by simply using God’s “finger!”

So, done deal, right? He evicts the “strong man” and all is well! Well…

What happens to the spirit that he kicked out? Jesus went on to say:

“When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’

He forces the demon out of his place of control in the person’s soul and the homeless spirit wanders around for a while in uninhabitable places. The adversary requires a comfortable base of operation in order to be satisfied and effective. He can’t “rest” until he finds such a place––such a soul.

There’s an old saying: “Never give the devil a ride, because pretty soon he’ll want to drive!” I’d add to this: And once he gets behind the wheel it’s hard to get him to relinquish the keys!

The good news is that Jesus takes the keys, pushes him out from behind the wheel, and kicks him out of the car. The spirit then is left to wander in the hot desert sun!

The bad news is after he’s ejected, Satan tries to talk his way back into the car and make his way behind the wheel. The evicted spirit wanders in arid places seeking rest, and when he doesn’t find it, he determines to return to the soul from which he came.

In the meantime, in order to end on a positive and practical note we’ll skip over to the last verse of Jesus’ teaching:

“Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”

If you want to live free of fear and demonic bondage, listen to what God says and obey him!

I have a bunch more to say about that, but we’ll have to wait till next time to say it… Until then, in addition to the blessing that Jesus promises to obeyers, pray David’s prayer:

Teach me your way, Lord, that I may rely on your faithfulness; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name. Psalm 86:11

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In the meantime, may I recommend a book as a Christmas present for someone you love––or someone you don’t?

Speaking of which, I’m near publishing my next book called: Reaching Rahab: Joining God in His Quest for Friends. I would appreciate any help you could give me now by sharing the link of your favorite posts of mine with your friends and encouraging them to follow the blog and my Facebook. That way, when the book comes out they’ll be in the loop if they want to get it. Thanks!

The Deepening Quality of Suffering (Avoiding Superficial Spirituality Part 10)

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“No soul will ever grow deep in the spiritual life unless God works in that soul by means of the dark night.”

This is a line from the famous poem called, The Dark Night of the Soul, which Saint John of the Cross wrote from his ten-by-six feet prison cell in which he was imprisoned for his faith. They fed him bread, water and scraps of salt fish, and brought him out to lash him publicly at least once a week. Through his sufferings, instead of waning, his passion for Christ, grew deeper.

I offer this as another piece of advice about one may go deeper in their life in Jesus.

To go deeper we have to be willing to suffer well

Recently my forty-fifth spiritual birthday came and went. On August 20, 1972 I gave as much of what I knew of myself to as much of God as I knew of him. Frankly, at that point I knew very little about myself and much much less about him. Since then, with the Spirit’s help, I’ve learned a few more things about the both of us. Much of which has come kicking and screaming, put more subtly, through trial and error.

I just told someone the other day that I’ve probably learned and experienced more of the Lord in the last decade than in any other ten year period in my life. That’s not so much due to greater diligence or deeper desire on my part, but rather to experiencing my own dark night of the soul.

The 15th Century English mystic Julian of Norwich actually prayed for suffering, so that she would “afterwards live more to God’s glory.” She put a proviso on the prayer in case she was mistaken about what God wanted for her: “Lord, you know what I want. If it is your will that I have it, or if it is not, do not be displeased with my prayer, for I do not want anything that you do not want.” Some time later, when she did become deathly sick she wrote, “I felt a great reluctance to die, not because of any thing on earth which held me here or because or any fear or pain, for I trusted the mercy of God. But it was because I wanted to live to love God better and longer so that I might through the grace of that living have more knowledge and love of God than I might have even in heaven!” (The latter part about heaven I suppose she meant to be taken as hyperbole.)

Whatever you think of her experience, you have to admit that her spirit of love for Christ and her willingness to be closer to him is in contrast to the prevailing pursuit of health and wealth among many Christians today. Speaking of which, I know of few instances, if any at all, wherein an increase in abundance has created a greater depth in the spiritual life of a person. Suffering, on the other hand, though can make one bitter, has the capability of achieving the opposite and making us better––and deeper.

“We live in this deluded ‘therapeutic’ culture,” wrote Craig Greenfield, “where plenty of folks will tell you that you shouldn’t have to suffer. We’ve allowed a healthy doctrine of self-care to negate a theology of suffering. Self care is meant to sustain us in the battle, not become an excuse to avoid the battle.”

Don’t get me wrong, I love prosperity and success as much as the next guy. It just seems to me that adversity and struggle are usually more apt to yield a deeper life in God. Thought it’s not impossible to live a relatively charmed life and have a profound faith, from my observation some of the shallowest Christians are those who have managed to avoid any real suffering. Though I don’t recommend that we all go out and pray for pain like Julian did, I do advise that we embrace it when it comes, and see if there aren’t some gems to be found there, something that might deepen our walk with the Maker.

Jeanne Guyon wrote: “You who have given yourself to the Lord during some pleasant season, please take note of this: If you gave yourself to him to be blessed and to be loved, you cannot suddenly turn around and take back your life at another season … when you are being crucified!”

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This being the 10th post of the series, if you haven’t already read them, scroll down to browse the other pieces of advice I offer for a deeper life in Jesus. If this one inspires you toward that end, some or all of the others might also be helpful.

ps You might consider adding to your list of New Years resolutions a desire to share Christ with people more effectively in 2018. Keep an eye peeled for my book called, Reaching Rahab (Joining God in His Quest for Friends). It will be coming out soon and might help you with that. 

Opening to New Experiences (Avoiding Superficial Spirituality Part 9)

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“Do not measure yourself by how much road you have covered thus far; rather measure with your eyes set on how much more there is in front of you.” (Jeanne Guyon wrote this to her cousin François Fénelon)

For the last few weeks we’ve been talking about things that influence our spiritual depth: a sense of wonder, widening the parameters of what we believe, letting go of the familiar, assessing the actual “spiritual” nature of our faith as opposed to “soulish,” etc. Here I’d like to propose that…

To go deeper in God we have to be open to new experiences with God.

Fear is not a good reason to stay in the shallow end of your faith. Remember how you feared to even try the water at first? Thank God you overcame your fear and took the risk. Now I encourage you to venture out into deeper water and let the Spirit teach you how to swim.

Another reason we fail to dive deeper into God is we don’t have categories for what we might find there, no experiences to attach it to. Let me offer a few examples of what I mean.

What I might call “social justice” passages in the Bible were invisible to me for the first 35 years of some pretty avid study of the Scriptures. As a white middle class American male, I’ve experienced nothing that could be remotely considered prejudice or exploitation. Consequently, I inadvertently read past the thousands of justice-theme passages. Assuming they had little more than a remote relevance to my life, my eyes simply skimmed over them as I read. It wasn’t until I started spending lots of time with marginalized and poor folks that these passages began to come alive to me. My experiences helped me connect with a deeper understanding of God and his Word.

Something similar happened to me during my own “dark night of the soul” regarding Scriptural truth on suffering. As a pastor, I did my best to console hundreds of suffering church members over the years, but had very little to work with on a personal level. Yet when the lights temporarily went out in my life, the suffering theme in Scripture was highlighted as never before. It forced me to think through what I believe about God’s providence and sovereignty, about faith, and about what really matters in the short span of time we call life. A deeper revelation occurred when I had something personal to attach it to.

Here’s another example of what I’m talking about. A non-charismatic theologian heard a charismatic pastor friend of mine quote 1 Corinthians 14, “I speak in tongues more than you all.” Shockingly, he asked my friend, “Is that in the Bible?” Here was a man who could talk Scripture circles around the less-scholarly pastor, but because he hadn’t experienced “spiritual language” for himself he didn’t have a category for that verse that he had undoubtedly read past many times. If he were to experience it for himself all those passages where “tongues” is mentioned would undoubtedly come alive to him.

I have a young friend who had been warned all her life against those crazy charismatics and their so-called “gifts of the Spirit.” One day when she was praying with a friend the Spirit gave her a very specific mental image (you might call it a vision), that when she shared it he was dumfounded by its accuracy and relevance. Though she’d grown up in the church and knew the Bible quite well, she had no idea what this was. When she asked me about it we turned to the Word and concluded it was much more common than she realized.

In each case, the experience, whether sought or involuntarily imposed, came before understanding the Scripture on the topic.

I’m fully aware of the danger of interpreting the Word through our experiences. While, as a general rule of thumb hermeneutical principle has merit, it’s not necessarily always the best way to proceed. Sometimes we don’t have any context for an interpretation of Scripture until we have an experience to attach it to. You can read about salvation, for instance, but until you’re converted, you will have little-to-no understanding of it.

Earlier, we spoke about the disciples’ dullness in relation to Jesus’ predictions of his resurrection. Since they had no category for it they had no idea what he was talking about and were afraid to ask him about it. They couldn’t believe that he was literally going to rise from the dead, so they surmised he must have meant something else. After he rose, their hindsight gave them greater insight. But it wasn’t until their experience opened them up to a greater understanding and they were able to connect the dots.

Of course, if some so-called spiritual experience directly contradicts a sane reading of the Scriptures, we’re advised to reject it as something other than legitimately “spiritual.” But what I’m saying here is that if we require a proof text before we’ll take the Jesus’ hand and dive deeper with him into divine mysteries, we will probably continue to linger in the shallow end. Insisting on waiting till we understand all the Bible says on a subject before we allow ourselves to experience it is a recipe for shallow faith.

I tend to be one of those people that prefers, before venturing out on a road trip, everything to be planned out in advance––the route, every stop, and the location of each overnight stay. I’ve found though that traveling this way I miss a lot of things along the way and places I might have otherwise visited on unplanned detours. One or more of those places that weren’t on my itinerary might surprise me as better than those places in my original plan.

Problem is, a lot of us treat our salvation like a destination instead of a journey. “For far too many, conversion is seen as a birth certificate instead of a driver’s license,” says Scot McKnight.

For my part, Jesus came into my heart before he came into my head. I knew next to nothing about him when he first overwhelmed me with his presence and power. It wasn’t until after my dramatic conversion and baptism in the Spirit that I began to unravel what the Word said about what had happened to me. For others, knowledge and understanding come before the conversion experience, but it doesn’t always have to happen in that order.

Some are so experience-oriented that a well thought out theology gets neglected. Others are so stilted in their theological presuppositions that they recoil at the mention of any new spiritual experience, especially of the more ecstatic type. I long for what the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles had––a sound theology plus a no-holes-barred experience of God. Those two things are not mutually exclusive. If anything, they feed each other.

For a deeper relationship with God I encourage you to both open your mind to a greater understanding of him in his Word and a more profound experience of him in your daily life.

Just Wondering (Avoiding Superficial Spirituality Part 8)

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“God himself works in our souls, in their deepest depths, taking increasing control as we are progressively willing to be prepared for his wonder.” Thomas Kelly

Speaking of “wonder,” I wonder a lot––mostly about God. I used to wonder if he existed, but since I got that settled to my complete satisfaction forty-five years ago, my wonder is now of a different sort.

“Wonder” itself has a number of connotations. There’s the wonder that involves frustration, another is more of a curious sort, and then there’s the kind that connotes unreserved marvel. My wondering about God includes all three at different times.

Sometimes my wonder about him looks more like frustration than anything else. It happens sometimes when he acts in a way I don’t understand or don’t particularly appreciate in the immediate. I wonder about what’s going on in his head. I usually sort out the frustration after a while, but even when I don’t, I shelve it for the time being and try to keep trusting him in spite of how I feel.

At other times my wondering is more of a spiritual inquisitiveness. I’ve been known to be irksomely curious about God’s Word and his ways. I wonder what a certain passage of the Bible means or I’m curious about an action he took or decided not to take. I realize I should never underestimate my proclivity to be wrong about the ways of God and wouldn’t be too shocked to enter the eternal state only to spend at least the first thousand years or so modifying my theology.

The last sense in which I wonder about God has to do with how much he blows my mind! What a “Wonder” he is––infinitely beyond our grasp––whose path we cannot trace and whose mind we can never completely know! (Romans 11:33-34)

When I think about it, this last type of wonder might not be so different from the other two, and might, actually, include them both. Frustration, curiosity, and marvel are not necessarily natural enemies, at least not in matters of faith. Passionate, mature, and faithful Christians wonder in all three senses, maybe not always at the same time.

Bottom-line––he’s pretty “wonderful”––which is an ironic term when you think about it, since we’re the ones that are full of wonder.

“God is a Person,” wrote A.W. Tozer, “and can be known in increasing degrees of intimate acquaintance as we prepare our hearts for the wonder.” It’s this “increasing degrees of intimate acquaintance” for which we might consider re-upping if we do indeed deem wonder as something worthy.

It’s a superficial spirituality that has everything nailed down tight and has no room for wonder. Wonder is a necessary component to the deeper walk with Jesus that we’ve been talking about in this series of posts. Without it we’re stuck at whatever inadequate depth of revelation in which we currently reside. Many Christians suffer from a sort of spiritual agoraphobia. Whether it’s fear or apathy, they don’t venture out of their spiritually safe zone very much. They’ve lost or never had much of a wonder about what God has in store for them around the next corner.

Remember when Jesus told Peter at the foot washing? “You don’t realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” (John 13:7)

I suppose that part of the reason Peter had to wait till later was because then he’d be older and wiser. Then again, “older” doesn’t always equate to “wiser.” In fact, as time goes by, some people become less and less susceptible to the wisdom that comes from an increasing revelation of the Spirit. I guess they assume that since they’ve been in the faith for so long they’ve seen pretty much all there is to see, and all they’re trying to do now is not lose the ground they’ve already gained. Having lost the spirit of wonder, their default is more of a defensive, protectionist posture.

Maybe the “later” for Peter had to do with after Jesus’ resurrection and then the Spirit’s arrival at Pentecost. It’s true that the resurrection would open up a lot of things for Peter and the Spirit, who was to come, would reveal tons of truth and usher him into a whole new world of kingdom advance.

Even so, I think there was something more to Jesus’ “later.” Maybe it had something to do with Peter’s­­––and our––self-generated cement-hard certainty about how God is supposed to always act. It often takes time to unlearn what we think we already know about God and his ways. That may be the “later” that Peter needed in order to understand a foot-washing, as opposed to a sword-yielding, Roman-slaying, Messiah. Maybe it took him some time to develop the wonder necessary to “get” Jesus, and to get him more and more as he progressively revealed himself.

It’s the wonderers who seem to never stop burrowing deeper into the Almighty.

Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander

And my faith will be made stronger

In the presence of my Savior.

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In Part 1 “He’s Not Here” we looked at how easy it is to forget what Jesus says, especially when we didn’t hear or want to hear it in the first place.
In Part 2 “Who Is That Masked Man?” we reviewed the first prerequisite for deeper revelation is that we actually want it.
In Part 3 “Half Seeing” we talked about the inadequacy of a one-touch salvation.
In Part 4 “Too Deep To Cross” we mused about reveling in the River of God too deep to fathom.
In Part 5 “How Deep is Your Deep?” we discussed the differences between being a “soulish” Christian and a “spiritual” one.
In Part 6 “Releasing Our Attachment to the Familiar” we talked about how what we already know and have experienced in God sometimes gets in the way of what we could know and experience.
In Part 7 “Widening our Doctrinal Definitions” I suggested that we revisit the things we believe and ask ourselves if we love our beliefs about God more than we love God.

Widening our Doctrinal Definitions (Avoiding Superficial Spirituality Part 7)

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“Theological reflection is a pilgrimage in which change should be celebrated, not feared.” Clark Pinnock

We’ve been talking about deepening our walk with the Almighty, and certain attitudes we must cultivate if we want to explore “the deep things of God.” (See at the bottom of this post links to previous ones on the subject.) Here’s my next recommendation to that end:

To go deeper we have to be willing to expand our doctrinal definitions

I realize that considering making revisions about what they believe is frightening for some people. For many, their entire relationship with him is wrapped around their doctrinal statement, that list of irreducible minimum beliefs that identify them as “true Christians.”

Don’t get me wrong, there are non-negotiables in our faith, and I wouldn’t think of trying to wrest any of them out of your white-knuckle grip. I’m not recommending that you toss everything out and start over. What I propose is that if you haven’t ventured into deeper waters for quite a while, you might want to take a fresh look at the width, if not the length, of the things you believe. Is it possible that your list of givens is too short or too long or too narrow or too wide to take you to a more profound place in Jesus?

Could it be that what you believe is fundamentally correct in and of itself, yet you’re not flexible enough in your thinking to tweak it if the Spirit were to bring fresh revelation to light? If the very thought of adjusting your theology makes you hyperventilate, you probably suffer from a fixation, if not a mild addiction, to the strictures of your spiritual beliefs. If you wish to have a more profound experience with him, you might do well to ask yourself if you love your beliefs about God more than you love God!

For myself, the Spirit has been working with me in the last few years to consider some revisions to my previously held theological notions. The width of God’s redemptive parameters, for instance, and the prevalence of prevenient grace have been on my mind a lot lately. How I view providence and sovereignty, God’s love for the poor and vulnerable, the beauty of his image in every human, and the value of meditation are also things I’ve been giving more attention to lately. Some of these adjustments are minimal while others more substantial. Some come easily, while others are forged only after a good bit of heat and pressure.

I love the Bible and studying theology, but some people do theology as though it’s an end in itself. Rather than to increase their love and wonder at God’s beauty, they do it in a futile attempt to control him. They’re like lab assistants dissecting their rats and preserving the sliced up specimens in clearly labeled formaldehyde-filled jars. When we approach God with a scalpel, the mystery vanishes in the analysis.

We’re so concerned about being “right” in our analysis and proving those who disagree with us to be wrong that we bypass the actual goal of theology, which is to love and serve him. It’s pride that holds us back from seeing anything from a different vantage point than that to which we are accustomed. We’re afraid to change our views lest we have to admit we were wrong.

We know that God doesn’t change “like shifting shadows.” (James 1:17) Perfection doesn’t evolve, but our view of it does. We have stay on the move, so to speak, so we can, as far as one tiny lifetime allows us, circle his perimeter in order to take in as much of his glory as possible. But what we are able to observe will be woefully limited if we insist on standing still.

I do believe in the Scripture as the basis of my faith, but as Dan Kimball said, “Sometimes when someone says they believe in ‘Sola Scriptura’ (Scripture Alone), what they really mean is ‘Sola-the-way-I-interpret-the-Scriptura.’” And frankly my interpretation of it (and yours) is limited in so many ways and for so many reasons, not the least of which are my (and your) spiritual blind spots.

I know two things. One is that I have blind spots. And two, I don’t know what they are! This is why we check with God and his Word about what we believe and also have many mutually beneficial and respectful conversations with each other––especially with those who disagree with us. If not, our view of him will be doomed to the ceilings of our own intellect and prejudiced perspectives.

How else can we hope to “grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that [we] may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:17-19) We can’t discern the width and length and height and depth of God’s love apart from what an early teacher of theology of mine used to call “intellectual humility.” In order to gain a wider perspective we need to be humble enough to depend on the revelation of the Spirit and on the thoughts of those adjacent to us who see things we will never see unless they introduce them to us.

In his book, Benefit of the Doubt, Greg Boyd relates theology to the dictum, “The map is not the territory,” which means our interpretation of God is not God­­­­––it’s just a map. He says, “If we assume our map is the territory, then people who see things differently than we do are simply wrong.” And they assume that “our interpretation of a biblical verse is the meaning of the verse itself. So to disagree with our interpretation is to disagree with the verse itself.” This is why some people, who are unwilling to “modify their map,” have dubbed themselves God’s anointed theological police that jail anyone who disagree with them.

I confess that it’s been my tendency to hold clear-cut definitions for most spiritual realities and if something exceeds the boundaries of the definition, I am quick to suspect as renegade theology. Many of us have a hard time permitting ourselves to venture outside the box that we’ve built for God and us to live in. This sounds like fear to me.

We evangelicals tend to have a closed system, a settled mind where everything is pretty much defined. Our system is all sewn up and there’s simply no room for anything new. Don’t get me wrong; it’s a good thing to know what we believe, or at least to know what we believe now. But if we hold too tightly onto what we already know we might miss opportunities to expand, if not outright alter, some of our ideas. This fear leads to a stubborn stranglehold to the familiar and relegates us to the safety of the shallow end of our faith. Our paltry expectations of deeper experiences in God are tethered to this fear of change and consign us to wade forever near shore.

Boyd writes, “If our security is in our map about God rather than in God himself, as revealed on the cross, we simply cannot leave the safety of our own shore to embrace the untamed beauty of a God for whom no map is ever fully adequate.” “Be attached to nothing,” counsels Jeanne Guyon, “no matter how good it is or appears to be.”

Many fear their faith will fail if they venture beyond the parameters of their “map.” If they give a little slack to what moors them to shore they’re afraid they might drift into dangerous water, which is always a possibility I suppose. I’m not recommending throwing out the proverbial baby with the bath water. I am urging us to look in Scripture, delve into God’s heart, listen humbly to one another, and trust the Spirit to be our Guide into unknown waters.

Previous posts from this series:

In Part 1 “He’s Not Here” we looked at how easy it is to forget what Jesus says, especially when we didn’t hear or want to hear it in the first place.
In Part 2 “Who Was That Masked Man?” we reviewed the first prerequisite for deeper revelation is that we actually want it.
In Part 3 “Half Seeing” we talked about the inadequacy of a one-touch salvation.
In Part 4 “Too Deep To Cross” we mused about reveling in the River of God too deep to fathom.
In Part 5 “How Deep is Your Deep?” we discussed the differences between being a “soulish” Christian and a “spiritual” one.
In Part 6 “Releasing Our Attachment to the Familiar” we talked about how what we already know and have experienced in God sometimes gets in the way of what we could know and experience.

Releasing Our Attachment to the Familiar (Avoiding Superficial Spirituality Part 6)

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In Part 1 “He’s Not Here” we looked at how easy it is to forget what Jesus says, especially when we didn’t hear or want to hear it in the first place.
In Part 2 “Who Is That Masked Man?” we reviewed the first prerequisite for deeper revelation is that we actually want it.
In Part 3 “Half Seeing” we talked about the inadequacy of a one-touch salvation.
In Part 4 “Too Deep To Cross” we mused about reveling in the River of God too deep to fathom.
In Part 5 “How Deep is Your Deep?” we discussed the differences between being a “soulish” Christian and a “spiritual” one.

Last time I concluded with a promise to share some of the human factors involved for us to live more deeply in Jesus. I propose these neither as some sort of sure-fire formula or a bullet-point list in the order of importance. They’re just some of my own observations and aspirations about how to have a deeper walk with God.

I begin with a profound Thomas Merton quote:

“Contemplation does not simply “find” a clear idea of God and confine Him within the limits of that idea, and hold Him there as a prisoner to Whom it can always return. On the contrary, contemplation is being carried away by Him into His own realism, His own mystery and His own freedom. It is a pure and a virginal knowledge, poor in concepts, poorer still in reasoning, but able, by its very poverty and purity, to follow the Word “wherever He may go.”

How many of us hold God prisoner to our ideas of him rather than being carried away by him into profounder revelations? Do we come to him daily as little children with “virginal knowledge,” a knowledge not wedged in the past or addicted to reasoning, but content only to go wherever he goes?

On the Damascus road Jesus called Paul to share his encounter with the world: “the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you.” (Acts 26:16 ESV) As profound as was his initial revelation of Jesus that day, it was only the beginning! There would be much more to come. Jesus would show more of himself than he’d already revealed in his initial glorious encounter.

There’s a huge difference between knowing what God has done and what he is in the process of doing. The former requires only a minimum of biblical education, while the latter takes an ever-deepening spiritual revelation.

Consider this as a step in the right direction to acquire such revelation:

To go deeper we have to overcome our fierce attachment to the familiar.

Sometimes what we already know and have experienced in God gets in the way of what we could know and experience. Not that what we already know is wrong (though that may also be the case), it’s just not enough. Is it possible that it is just a shell of what God intends for us to peel back in order to discover the hidden fruit inside?

Jesus said the Spirit would teach us “all things.” (John 14:26) I’m sure you would agree that, even though we have the Spirit, we haven’t yet learned all things, and that so far we only understand some things. So we would be wise to posture ourselves to receive the next things the Spirit intends to teach us. It’s that receptive posture, that eyes-wide-open mien of expectation that connects us to increasingly deeper revelations of Jesus.

Has your mind ever dimmed when reading the Bible or while listening to your pastor’s sermon? “I’ve heard this before. There’s nothing new here,” and we check out. When that happens we might be missing what the Spirit is saying in the moment because we’re stuck on what we already knew or thought we knew. We miss out on something fresh the Spirit has in store for us because we don’t expect to know or experience anything beyond what we’ve already known or experienced.

It’s at that ill-fated point that we obstruct the revelation process. We thought we already “knew” all there was to know about that truth and experienced all there was to experience, so we close up shop to any further business on the matter. When we default to the familiar we tend to shut down the Spirit’s revelation process. He’s trying to take us deeper than our pedestrian piety but we can’t seem to venture past familiar territory.

Again, it’s not that what we already believed is necessarily faulty. It simply doesn’t represent all the riches to be mined from that particular repository.

Speaking of mining God’s riches, I wonder how much of what we know or think we know is what someone else mined for us. Paul’s metaphor of “milk” versus “meat” is about what has been predigested by someone else versus what we kill, cook, and chew for ourselves.

It might be your denominational or political party line, a Christian pop-culture trend, your pastor’s sermons, or your cultural predisposition that you feed on exclusively. God bless your pastor or favorite preacher but s/he can’t give you everything you need to enter the depths of God. That’s on you. Meat-eating Christians maintain a receptive posture and cultivate a direct interaction with the Spirit of revelation, the Spirit who constantly invites us to venture outside familiar territory.

Jesus said, “Consider carefully how you listen.” (Luke 8:18) He didn’t say, “Pray more,” or “Read the Bible more,” or “Serve more.” He said: Listen up, and listen carefully.

Those of us who have, for decades, practiced a static, shallow spirituality, especially need to heed Jesus’ counsel. We’ve experimented with any number of trends over the years that have promised to keep our faith in peak condition. Some have accomplished more to fill our shelves with more books and binders than to actually deepen our walk with Jesus. Having seen so many of these fads come and go we are suspicious of another “Try Harder” approach––and right so.

“Consider carefully how you listen.” Now doesn’t that have a different sound than some of those trends that guaranteed to mature us and make us good Christians? This isn’t another fad, another sweaty spiritual activity. It’s just, “Listen more carefully.”

Regarding careful listening, Jesus also said:

“You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes.” (Matthew 13:14-15)

If we want to understand deeper spiritual realities we have to deal with the calluses on our hearts. Callouses on the skin come from repeated friction or pressure on a particular area (fingers and feet, for instance). The pressure causes the skin to die and form a hard surface. Heart calluses occur when we come into contact with a spiritual reality over and over again and fail to apply it to our lifestyles. They develop when we assume that we already possess exhaustive knowledge of a divine truth and have experienced it to the fullest. If we aren’t “careful” we become insensitive to the Spirit’s invitations to deeper places.

So a deeper walk with Jesus takes a will to overcome our fierce attachment to the familiar even when what is familiar accurately represents the truth––just not all the truth.

We tend to want to claim expertise and forget we’re just children. Merton again:

“We do not want to be beginners. But let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be anything else but beginners.”

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Next time I’ll propose another thought or two on how we might counter spiritual insensitivity in order to mine deeper into God.

In the meantime, please share with us how you go about it.