What is Real?

Reality:

Recently Essena O’Neill, a social media celebrity, made an outcry on behalf of the unauthentic and disingenuous portrayal of her own life displayed across the internet via instragram.  The confession was rot with tears and an objection against the fraudulent display of a high profile life succumbed to glitz and glamour coated with a consumeristic bent to exploit the capitalistic tendency of our age.  The societal pressures to maintain the mantra of an A-level type lifestyle became overwhelmingly difficult and unsatisfyingly dull to say the least.  My heart goes out to her as she battles through this identity-stricken season of life and commend her for acting upon her convictions to seek out truth and to become aware of her imperfections and blemishes.  I am not sure if she is a Christ-follower, but my prayer and hope is that she would, by the power of the Holy Spirit, find her way to true satisfaction in Christ. 

And yet this reality appeals to the Christian lifestyle that has, to a certain degree, assimilated itself to the consumeristic pattern of this world.  Many young believers (and old for that fact) have attributed this type of “success” to the spiritual progress of being an authentic Christ-follower.   There has been in recent years an over-glamorization, or what I like to call Hollywoodization, of spiritual growth.  The church seems to have fallen into what the first century would have called gnostic elitism.  This is a false sense of spirituality that cripples the church and does not allow the saints to see sanctity as a process, but rather as a club or fraternity for gifted individuals.  This broken lens into the self glamorizes the individual and pushes the redemptive work of Christ to the margins.  This ideology elevates the individual through a false facade and alludes the true nature of being a Christ-follower — surrender. 

Renewing the Mind:

I have had the privilege of working with young people for the last 10 years in student ministry and have found that many walk away from the faith because of their misunderstanding of sanctification, or rather their journey with Christ.  Many attend youth conferences like HLUB or SALT and become infatuated with the work and person of Christ, and yet when reality hits them 3 weeks later they find themselves unable to come to grips with the true notion of their self.  Their presupposition on the Christian walk is skewed due to biblical illiteracy and conformity to the societal norms, and they begin to place the yoke of the law back onto their shoulders.  What they have bought into is not the Gospel, but rather Hollywood’s gospel.  

What I hope to accomplish in this blog is to establish helpful truths rooted in Scripture that can assist the church to walk with people through the mundane journey called the Christian life.  Hopefully I have been able to deconstruct the false notion of the spiritual life, and will attempt to reconstruct a Gospel lens on sanctity.  This is what I like to called the grind.  This grind consist of two simple truths: the Christian life is meant to happen within the ordinary mundane things of life and the cross is not merely initiatory, but the sustaining source of the Christian life.

Spirit-filled Daily Living:

I think its extremely important to understand that whenever Paul gives the church an imperative, or command, it is intrinsically connected to the truth of the Gospel.  “The Law of Christ,” as the Apostle Paul would call them, is never given as a blanket statements to follow, but are statutes interwoven into the character of Christ.  And if we are “to be conformed to the image of His Son,” (Romans 8:29) then these commandments are to be imitated in reflecting His character, traits, and attitudes. 

Therefore, when the Spirit is sealed in us as the guarantee of our inheritance of God’s Kingdom (Ephesians 1:13 - 14), we are given the fruit of the Spirit which is “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law” (Galatians 5:22 - 23).  Yet one thing to notice about these character traits is that they are meant to function within community.  One can not be patient alone, or one can not express kindness by oneself.  Furthermore, sanctity is a process that is endured through community that sharpens our gaze not upon the self, but rather on the Lord Jesus Christ.  Sanctity takes time by living life on life through our ordinary daily routines and experiencing progress by His grace. 

For this reason the Apostle Paul commends the church to “be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18) and that filling is played out in the daily exchanges of wives submitting to husbands (Ephesians 5:22), husbands loving their wives (Ephesians 5:25), children obeying their parents (Ephesians 6:1), parents not provoking their children to anger (Ephesians 6:4), and slaves and masters exhibiting mutual honor (Ephesians 6:5 - 9).  There are other areas in Scripture where the saints are commended to bear “with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive” (Colossians 3:13).  Through these interactions the saints begin to engage in opportunities to sharpen themselves in Christ-likeness through the power of the Spirit and model a life for the glory of God.

This exchange of growth within community is hardly epic nor is it dramatic for a lack of a better word.  It is simply within the framework of life that growth occurs and sanctity finds its beauty.  Do not beat yourself up for not having an action packed fast paced life.  Social media has clouded our minds to think that progress is equated with theatrical "booms" and "awes."  Biblical growth, for the most part, is steady with a consistent pace (now granted there are season of great growth).

The Gospel is the Beginning and End of Life:

I am assured that throughout all these communal endeavors there will be individuals who annoy you and ones who you downright seek to avoid.  The bible does not paint a picture of reality that is based upon facades, but meets you where you are at in all the uncomfortable interactions of life.  And yet you can anticipate a great deal of failure in the midst of the Christian walk.  Though we are saved and created new, we still remain in a broken and fallen world, and the beauty of the Gospel is that He meets us there and does not allow those failures to define us.  The cross is not a place where we merely enter into God’s Kingdom, the cross is where the life of the Kingdom begins and is sustained. 

Therefore, the bible extends that we would “bear fruit in keeping with repentance” (Matthew 3:8).  Martin Luther understood this reality well when he conveyed “the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.”  This means that the Christian grind is cementing oneself at the foot of the cross and living life through the grace and mercy of Jesus.  And in doing that we do not merely hoard God’s mercy, but rather extend God’s grace to others because we have been extended grace by the Creator.  There will be failures and obstacle, but nothing that will hinder us from the love of God in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:31 - 39).  Growth is accumulated in small steps but His grace is sufficient in making sure that progress is continuous if we humbly come to the cross and dwell, because the cross reminds us that in our interactions with other (others who definitely annoy us) we have a power source of grace to extend mercy where we normally would not. 

When we begin to realize that the love of God was not achieved by our meriting it, but rather “in love, He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 1:5) we can be set free from trying to earn salvation and be set free to live in salvation through grace.  Meaning regardless of our filth, stitch, and corruption He set His affections on us.  God chose to love us.  Not because we are amazing, but because in His nature “God is love” (1 John 4:8).

Therefore, we can run to Him when we slip up.  When we drop the ball.  When we burst out at our children.  We can run to Him and the cross is ever present to restore us and guide us by grace to heal and reconcile those pieces within us that are broken and the individuals to whom we have wronged.  Progress is setting our gaze at "the founder and perfecter of our faith," (Hebrews 12:2) and walking with Him through the hurt to find healing and restoration.  And knowing that our hurts and pains are never wasted because He "comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction" (2 Corinthians 1:4).

God is Our Reality:

Living in a day and age where one’s identity is rooted in all the achievements, accolades, and degrees that can be mustered up, our God — the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob — is not impressed with such titles.  He longs for a people that will “humble themselves, and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14).  Sanctity is a slow and tedious process, and yet He remains ever faithful to renew His people in the knowledge to the image of the Creator (Colossians 3:10). 

We can buy into social media, but that too will fade.  The only eternal being that is faithful from beginning to end is God Himself.  Let us trust His means and rely on His process to do in us what we can not do for ourselves.  Let us throw away the ways of the world and let us walk in the newness of God in Christ Jesus.  The process may be slow and mundane, but the end result is 100% pure.