Spiritual Post and Life Update

Matt. 5:13 – 14

¹³ “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.

¹⁴ “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. ¹⁵ No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. ¹⁶ In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

So what does it mean to be the light and the salt? I’ve been on a long quest to discover what that means for me, and I want to hand you this chunk of wisdom in the hopes that you get some mileage out of it. Then I want to give a fast update that’s closely related to this topic.

To be salt is to be grounded in the covenant God has with you. There is two parts to the covenant 1) the part that applies to every believer and 2) the part that is unique to you. The second part leads directly to the topic of light.

1)      The covenant refers to the Hebrews 9:15. Christ, who never sinned or disappointed the Father, wrote a will that in the event of his death we should inherit everything due to him. We live under the full favor of God toward his only son.

2)      Because God knew us before he made the world and we are made in his image, we know that God intended something unique and special when he designed us, and that’s what we are restored to in that inheritance. So part of this covenant—the life we’ve inherited—is restoration to something. (I know we’re usually told we just get to escape death, but that’s just Mercy, we also get Grace.)

Being the light refers to living in the truth. That also comes in two forms. 1) You can’t live in light if you aren’t being authentic to who you are. 2) Our woundedness is meant to be shared with a fellowship.

1)      So it’s important that we seek out the person inside that reflects who God see us as. Or put another way, its important that we live not only as a redeemed person, but as the unique version of redeemed person that God intended before sin entered the world.

2)      We can’t be vulnerable with everyone, or even most people, but there should be some people with whom we can let it all hang out. We need to humbly receive the input of that fellowship as part of the promised transformation from glory to glory.

So when we put all this together, being the salt and the light is about living in what Christ did for you, as the unique person God intended, in vulnerability with a fellowship. But it’s important to bring it full circle and say that the good work Christ began in you he will be faithful to complete it (Phil. 1:6). This transformation is not entirely our responsibility (Romans 4). The promise (covenant) to Abraham was given before his circumcision (obedience to the law).

So obviously there’s a lot to be explored there and it really doesn’t work to just give it all in one multi-vitamin. All of this is another approach to the concept of Glory and Calling. God meant something unique when he designed us, and it’s vital that we explore what that is. It’s equally important that we not take on responsibility for manifesting that new person. If we do that, we begin to strive, which only leads to pursuing the worldly (outword) reality of our glory. That path leads to frustration and takes our eyes off the source and example—Christ.

The inside person is more important to God and we’ve no perspective from which judge our inner progress. Even while we progress toward completeness we need to understand that we’ll never make it in this life, which is why Christ makes us complete.

I KNOW! Very confusing, but a vital concept. Even while we are learning to walk in completeness (and our unique glory) we depend on Christ’s mercy and must accept that we’ll not achieve it.

The reason I’m on about this is because I’m sick of all the focus going to mercy. As long as we frame the work of Christ in our life as a death on the cross to let us off the hook for being wicked sinners, we are missing the entire concept of Glory. Mercy is ever important, but it’s the insurance policy. LIFE comes from walking with Christ and a fellowship of believers in the inheritance of God’s favor and restoration of God’s plan for your life.

What gets the attention in most churches today, is how wicked we were and how good God is to kill Jesus instead of us. I want to shine a light onto the inheritance Christ died to give us.

So…Update

I’ve got some amazing opportunities coming in the next three to four months, and I’ve been knocking myself out to bring them about. I’ve been making some uncomfortable sacrifices too, and that’s often okay for a season. The challenge comes when things get pushed off or don’t come off as planned. Simple delays cause me to think, “just work a bit harder to catch up.” Of course anther delay follows, and another. Then interruptions happen and other plans become impacted. The next thing you know I’ve robbed time from my other values for too long and everything I’ve built evaporates.

This never used to be an issue for me. I had plenty of other challenges, but vainly chasing the American dream wasn’t one of them. It’s traditionally not been my heart of heart, but now that I have a wife and child my desires have changed. Now they look pretty middle-class American to the casual observer. So I’ve been dealing with a double whammy—pursuing things the world says I ought to want for what in my mind is somewhat nobler motives, and pursuing goals that don’t feed the man inside as directly as my former pursuits.

The journey/battle of merging my heart’s desires, old and new, has been rough. I confess to experiencing enormous stress, and I should know better. The reality is that I will receive what God has in store for me, and my limited attention span is best invested on things that feed and grow the inner man. So for weeks I’ve been probing the most authentic things that God and I discovered together. I’d be lying if I didn’t confess to near constant distractions by “real world” stuff, but I’ve been hugely blessed also.

The conclusion here is that I’m deciding not to stress about what I get accomplished or not. I’m not going to pressure myself to make things come about at all costs. I believe God is aware of my needs and my desires and will manifest the right things. I can still work toward goals, but I’m done striving. I can still practice doing things in the most efficient manner, but I’m done feeling bad when I end the day with more to do than I started the day with.

Also, I’m going to rebrand with all this in mind. I’m going to spend some time on the projects that feed the inner man so that I have more energy and focus for the “real world” stuff.

What that means for this blog, and those who follow it, is that I’ll be expanding and rebranding onto another platform and this blog will continue, but in a more focused roll.

God bless, and have a great day.

See also

Ephesians 5:8, 11

Colossians 4:6

Luke 14:34-35

Luke 15:1

John 8:12

Mark 16:15

Mark 9:35-50

1 Cor. 1:26

Romans 1:18-20