Not too long ago I decided to jump in a pool of very cold water. The journey began with an examination of my own life and the basic dissatisfaction I felt internally. From there I took some action steps as I visited a spiritual healer at the "Spiritual Life Center" in Easton. I kept walking painfully toward health as I read through two books on emotionally healthy spirituality. One book dealt directly with some deficiencies in my own understanding of what it meant to be a disciple of Jesus and the other helped me to process what a emotionally healthy church would look like.
Along the way I saw my discipleship change from feeling like I had to constantly prove myself to God in order to earn His love or keep His love and I began to embrace the freedom of the gospel of grace. It was painful and at times like that cold pool of water - but I also have learned that discipleship as a process is not painless.
My hope in teaching a series on the gospel and our emotions is simple and straight forward - I want people to consider taking some action steps with their emotional health so that they have the kind of discipleship Jesus intended. Just as we hold on tight to reconciliation and redemption in Jesus, we should also embrace restoration as a critical part of our reconciliation and redemption in Jesus.
One thing that I'm now reverting my focus on is the way our natural, weak, slave-mentality affects our perspective on life. So many Christians have this inherent paranoia that they can't just cast aside momentarily and see what things look like. For some reason, people think of discipleship/submissiveness in relation to God the same way they do about the human form. They don't get a real sense of liberality from the Bible. It makes me wonder if they really want to know love. It reminds me of an obviously weak, broken-down person eager to hear "nice" things, no matter how transparent or meaningless. They clearly haven't sacrificed preference for a taste of perspective. They're still waiting for a guide to come and take them by the hand, no matter how much they LISTEN to scripture. I read so much less of the Bible than I ought to. But, when I do read it, in inspires me and brings up so many ideas to try in my life. I presume most Christians read much more than I do, yet, still come away afraid. They're afraid because they haven't shed their skin. Are they Christians? Or, just a socially more pleasant of their natural self? Again, is the road narrower than I like to think?
ReplyDeleteActually, after having been to the bathroom(my intellectual center), I've realized it's cowardice. They're like people who are afraid to try anything in a game because they truly have no perspective and worry about everything, though they've never been bold enough to encounter it. Ever played sports with people who constantly panic, because their head's not in the game? They haven't shed their skin to figure out how to play the game. That's how "Christians" are...
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