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May 6 - June 1, 2019
In order for us to embrace the joy of “Christ … is your life” (Col. 3:4), we must face the terrifying vulnerability of our true condition—without him we can do nothing.
To embrace our union with Christ may feel like a most formidable attack because it will entail leaving behind the life we’ve known.
Like the Mickey Mouse costume my friend used to wear at Disneyland, this is a new identity we must choose to put on each day. “Put on the new self” (Eph. 4:24). But when we do, and as we go through life as one who is hidden in Christ, then those lists of “Who I Am in Christ” will cease to be abstract truths outside of us. These are not simply words on a page—these are realities rooted in our union with Christ. I am forgiven. I am loved. I am redeemed. I am a new creation. I am a new self.
But you can practice the truth that Christ has married his life to yours by including him as your constant conversation partner. What should we do? What are you trying to teach me? Instead of a running conversation with yourself, which only reinforces the broken idea that I … I … I am at the center of reality, choose instead to converse with Christ about what you see, what you hear and read, about what is happening and what you’re afraid of.
He learned from these men and women with disabilities, those for whom need was a constant and who were always dependent on others. While living with those who had to receive, he began to learn how to receive. He finally found the fulfillment he craved when he came to the end of placing any confidence in himself. Only then could he begin to rest in God’s love and care. That’s what his brothers and sisters with disabilities taught Henri Nouwen—that in receiving, in letting ourselves be loved and loving in return, only then are we becoming human. This posture of humility and vulnerability is not
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“If you have your why for your life, you can get by with almost any how.”
When you become a Christian, Christ unites his life to yours. “You are not your own” (1 Cor. 6:19); you gain a new identity. And along with your new self-understanding, union with Christ also tells you that you have a destiny that’s glorious and specific to you, one that gives new shape and purpose to each day. You have a horizon that can propel you through hardship and exhaustion. Any sacrifice will be worth it. But to get where you want to go, you may, like Henri Nouwen, have to go by a way you never expected.
every one of you is created to be royalty, walking images of the true God, all over the earth.
“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.”
Love is the seed in you of every virtue And of all acts deserving punishment.
We are lovers. We are creatures of desire. It’s simply a question of where that desire is directed.
Jesus not only shows us who God is; he shows us who we, as human beings, are meant to be. Jesus is the perfect image of God, not defaced by sin.
“Not only do we only know God through Jesus Christ, but we only know ourselves through Jesus Christ.”
Christ now sets you free to be your true self: the self you are by grace, not the self you are by nature. 19 The tarnished image of God in you has been fully redeemed (bought back out of bondage) and is now being fully restored. And one day, it will be finished.
But our self is not obliterated by our union with Christ; our self is fully realized. God the Creator clearly delights in our unique particularity. From sunsets to snowflakes, he makes endless variations of beautiful things for the sheer joy of it. He never repeats himself and never runs out of ideas. He is the master artist, an infinite creator, not a factory. We can see from looking around us in the world that his goal is not uniformity.
“The pain of having arrived at the utter end of any confidence in myself had brought me into the heaven of God’s love and care,”
Every ounce of suffering becomes a stepping-stone as God’s workmanship is being perfected in you.
It is natural for us to wish that God had designed for us a less glorious and less arduous destiny; but then we are wishing not for more love but for less.
The restoration work may be painful, but Christ, the master artist, is taking endless trouble to restore God’s image in you. “In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials”
When being conformed to Christ is your horizon, every accomplishment, every promotion, every trophy becomes a potential hurdle, something that might lead you away from that which is better—knowing Christ and being conformed to his image. Your win is to become a human being, to become more like Jesus: dependent and obedient, humble and compassionate. Above all, your win is becoming someone who loves.
“Now, with God’s help, I shall become myself.”
Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct,
Notice how Peter sets the horizon—the revelation of Jesus Christ and the grace of “When he appears you shall be like him.” But he also lays out the path for walking toward it: be holy in all your conduct. That’s what we should be doing, pursuing holiness as a way of life each day.
God commanded his people to be different: “Be holy, for I am holy”
A true and living faith rooted in Christ will always bear the fruit of Christ’s Spirit.
In rightly emphasizing what God has saved us from, too often we lose sight of what God has saved us for.
Holiness is not a no to happiness but a resounding yes.
As the beauty of the divine nature primarily consists in God’s holiness, so does the beauty of all divine things. Herein consists the beauty of the saints, that they are saints, or holy ones: it is the moral image of God in them, which is their beauty; and that is their holiness.
You’ll never want holiness until you are convinced that it’s not meant to be a burden. Rather, in light of our last chapter, this is what God has created you to be and has now re-created you to become.
How can holiness become not simply an ideal belonging to Jesus but a reality belonging to us? Once again, union with Christ is the answer to our riddle.
Unless you grasp and live out of your union with Christ, the call to holiness will be oppressive, unbearable, and impossible. No matter how earnest or committed you may be, you’ll keep falling in the same ditches, over and over. You’ll remain defeated by the same demons, be they alcohol or envy or greed or unkindness.
“Become what you are.”
No one can attain any degree of holiness without God working in his life, but just as surely no one will attain it without effort on his own part. God has made it possible for us to walk in holiness. But He has given to us the responsibility of doing the walking.
These commands are not burdens; they are the path to life. They are the means God has provided us to abide in his love, which is why Jesus says in John 15:10, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.”
“You are one with Christ,” he’s saying, “so then how can you unite yourself to another in a way that you know dishonors him?” (see vv. 15–17). He reminds them of their identity in Christ and then calls them to holiness. “That’s not who you are,” he’s saying in effect, “and that’s not how you need to live any longer.”
Use the presence of Christ to stand firm against anything that threatens you.
You can place this as the purpose over each new day: pursue holiness, not as a bar to live up to, but as an ennobling compliment to live into. Become a human being today.
Jesus is God’s promise to us that we are not alone on our journey. We have a loyal friend beside us each step of the way.
Your faith is absolutely necessary, but it is the object of your faith, not the strength of it, that matters most.
Not only did he stand in your place two thousand years ago; he now stands in your place before God the Father (Acts 7:55). That means God’s benevolence toward you is as sure as Christ being fixed at God’s right hand.
No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in.… A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength
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Even the best and most intimate human relationship has its limits. No relationship can cure our loneliness but the one we were made for, the one that is more central, more defining, and closer to you than any other relationship you could ever have: your relationship with Christ. Jesus offers you what no other partner could: unwavering and eternal fidelity—no sickness, not even death, will part you.
“We should labour to be continually growing in divine love.”
But if we passively wait for an experience of Christ’s presence to fall afresh on us each morning and it doesn’t, or if we don’t feel his presence, then we will complain of periods of being “dry.” We might be tempted to blame this dryness on someone else—our church, our friends, even on God himself. But perhaps the reason is because we are not laboring to be brought near. 6
The Bible captures the dynamic of this dual reality in one remarkable sentence in Philippians 2:12–13. The sentence begins, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,” which again sounds like we are responsible. But the verse continues, “For it is God who works in you,” which sounds like God is responsible and we depend on him. Exactly.
Whatever your heart seeks most—that is your real god.
The journey of choosing God will be a daily fight, a clash of wills, an inner conflict that will play out over and over, in a thousand little ways. Writer David Brooks says this road to character is “the most important thing,” about you: “whether you are willing to engage in this struggle.”
This turns out to be one of the most challenging aspects of the Christian life—the simple repetitiveness of it. Left, right, left, right. Again and again, over and over. All the way. Every day. Like a long walk uphill.
In that clash of wills—Jesus or you?—repentance is letting God’s quiet voice become louder, larger, and stronger in your life.
Oswald Chambers says this about abiding: In the initial stages it is a continual effort until it becomes so much the law of life that you abide in Him unconsciously. 11 This is the goal—that by a lifestyle of belief and repentance, by breathing in and breathing out, you’ve rehearsed this so often that you’re able to do it “without ceasing”
