Christian Life

Measuring Up?

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

Do you ever feel that you have to measure up? 

Do you wonder sometimes how  you are grading out in God’s eyes?  I suspect the answer for most people is “Yes”.    Our theology may tell us otherwise, but I think most people struggle with this from time to time – especially when we feel emotionally tired and as if we are coasting in neutral gear spiritually.   

I’m not sure many people are even aware they feel this way. We know our theology well enough, and so we remind ourselves of the truth of the Gospel: That we are declared righteous in Christ.  This is a wonderful truth.  But sometimes we don’t really live in the light of this truth.  This is the difference between our confessional theology and our functional theology.   

In other words there is sometimes (often?) a gap between what we know to be the facts and the way we allow those facts to impact our heart and emotions.  Put mathmatically, the difference between our confessional theology and our functional theology equals frustration.  (F – C = Frus)

A few months ago I posted an excellent article by Paula Rinehart, that had originally been written for The Navigators’ Discipleship Journal.  Because I know the tendency we have toward wandering onto what Jerry Bridges calls a Performance Treadmill, I wanted to post it again.   

If you ever find yourself tired of trying to measure up, or if know others around you who seem to fall into that trap, you will appreciate: 

Good Enough!

Prophets, Priests, and Kings

/ Dennis Griffith / 3 Comments

An important concept to explore and implement in the ministry of the local church is the reflection of the Offices of Christ: Prophet, Priest, and King.  This is known as Tri-Perspectivalism or Multi-Perspectivalism.  I have written and spoken a little about this, but I am still far more a student than an expert when it comes to the implications.

Richard Lovelace, author of Dynamics of Spiritual Life – a MUST READ for those charges with ministry leadership – offers this insight:

“Our union with the Messiah and his desire to continue his earthly ministry by living his life through us are so strong that we may be said to share his three offices of leadership.  We are priests as we pray for those near us and draw them into the sphere of God’s mercy and blessing.  We are prophets as we hold a biblical straightedge against whatever is crooked around us.  And we are kings as we use whatever powers we have to straighten what is crooked, reshaping whatever falls within the scope of our responsibility until it reflects the order of heaven.”  

6 Words Toward Open Hearts

/ Dennis Griffith / 2 Comments

From Donald Whitney:

Over and over I’ve seen one simple question open people’s hearts to hear the gospel. Until I asked this question, they showed no interest in spiritual matters. But then after six words—only seventeen letters in English—I’ve seen people suddenly begin to weep and their resistance fall. The question is, “How can I pray for you?” …

This question is similar to one that Jesus Himself sometimes asked: “What do you want me to do for you?” (Matthew 20:32). For what we are really asking is, “What do you want me to ask Jesus to do for you?” And by means of this question, we can show the love of Christ to people and open hearts previously closed to the gospel.

I had tried to talk about the things of God many times to a business-hardened, retired executive who lived next door. He was a pro at hiding his feelings and keeping conversations at a superficial level. But the day we stood between our homes and I asked, “How can I pray for you?” his eyes filled with tears as his façade of self-sufficiency melted. For the first time in seven years he let me speak with him about Jesus.

It’s a short, easily remembered question. You can use it with longtime friends or with people you’ve just met. It doesn’t seem too personal or pushy for those who’d rather give you a shallow answer just now, and yet it often leads to a full hearing of the gospel. You can ask it of people nearly every time you speak with them and it doesn’t get old. Just simply and sincerely ask, “How can I pray for you?” You’ll be surprised at the results.

How Can We Look Forward to Heaven?

/ Dennis Griffith / Leave a comment

Some time ago someone I encountered posed an interesting question: “How can we look forward to heaven when none of our favorite things are sure to be there?”

C. S. Lewis’ offers a breathtaking answer:

Let us construct a fable.

Let us picture a woman thrown into a dungeon. There she bears and rears a son. He grows up seeing nothing but the dungeon walls, the straw on the floor, and a little patch of the sky seen through the grating, which is too high up to show anything except sky.

This unfortunate woman was an artist, and when they imprisoned her she managed to bring with her a drawing pad and a box of pencils. As she never loses the hope of deliverance, she is constantly teaching her son about that outer world which he has never seen. She does it very largely by drawing him pictures. With her pencil she attempts to show him what fields, rivers, mountains, cities, and waves on a beach are like.

He is a dutiful boy and he does his best to believe her when she tells him that that outer world is far more interesting and glorious than anything in the dungeon. At times he succeeds. On the whole he gets on tolerably well until, one day, he says something that gives his mother pause. For a minute or two they are at cross-purposes. Finally it dawns on her that he has, all these years, lived under a misconception.

‘But’, she gasps, ‘you didn’t think that the real world was full of lines drawn in lead pencil?’

‘What?’ says the boy. ‘No pencil marks there?’

And instantly his whole notion of the outer world becomes a blank. For the lines, by which alone he was imagining it, have now been denied of it. He has no idea of that which will exclude and dispense with the lines, that of which the lines were merely a transposition–the waving treetops, the light dancing on the weir, the coloured three-dimensional realities which are not enclosed in lines but define their own shapes at every moment with a delicacy and multiplicity which no drawing could ever achieve. The child will get the idea that the real world is somehow less visible than his mother’s pictures. In reality it lacks lines because it is incomparably more visible.

So with us. ‘We know not what we shall be’; but we may be sure we shall be more, not less, than we were on earth. Our natural experiences (sensory, emotional, imaginative) are only like the drawing, like pencilled lines on flat paper. If they vanish in the risen life, they will vanish only as pencil lines from the real landscape, not as a candle flame that is put out but as a candle flame which becomes invisible because someone has pulled up the blind, thrown open the shutters, and let in the blaze of the risen sun.

– C. S. Lewis, ‘Transposition,’ in The Weight of Glory, 85-86

Christianity vs The Good Life

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

My friend Gerald Robison writes:

The goal of popular Christianity today is to live “the good life” – not “a good life”.  Much of 21st century preaching focuses on the blessings of God.  Only in the lives of “others” is hardship, trials, persecution, suffering and martyrdom mentioned.
 The focus of that popular teching is on the listeners, not the kingdom of Christ or the vast warfare taking place in the spiritual realms around us.  According to Scripture, what occurs in those realms can impact, influence and alter lives in this one.  Too often we act as if it doesn’t. 
To many Christians today “Onward Christian Soldiers” is only a song, not a mind-set.  Rarely do modern Christians think or act as if they truly are involved in a spiritual battle. 
These words introduce the theme of his new book: The Beginners Guide to Spiritual Warfare.
 

Human Flourishing

/ Dennis Griffith / Leave a comment

As my son goes off to college in a matter of weeks I am seeing my influence, in the form of authority and control, dissipate with each passing day. I hope I will always have some influence in his life. To have no influence is to have no relationship.  Further, I hope that over the years he has developed a level of respect rooted in my love for him and demonstrated by the life I live.  But the nature that influence expresses itself is changing as he assumes more responsibilty for himself, moves to a new city, where he will begin a life that I am a visitor to but not a resident in.

I find I ask myself what advice I want to offer that he might take with him. 

One important area, as he engages in study to prepare for the life God has in store for him, concerns a perspective on work itself.   Danielle Sallade has written a wonderfully insightful treatise titled Human Flourishing.

Here is how Sallade introduces her work:

This essay proposes that living as a Christian, an alternative to the prevailing culture, leads to flourishing. First, I briefly sketch what the worldly culture of busyness looks like. I then discuss how our modern notions about the nature of work and success create the culture of busyness and keep it going. Finally, I attempt to show how the Christian faith offers an alternative way to understand work and success that, when believed and lived out, results in joy, peace, and genuine flourishing instead of stress, anxiety, and exhaustion

I think this article will find fertile ground in the minds of a wider audience than merely college students.  We all have to deal with this issue.

Suffering Saints

/ Dennis Griffith / 3 Comments

I have begun a series of messages at Walnut Hill Church from the Seven Letters to the Churches in Revelation.  This past Sunday we looked at the Church at Smyrna, from Revelation 2.8-11.

The Church at Smyrna is most intriguing for a couple reasons. 

First, the name Smyrna litterally means “City of Myrh”.  If myrh sounds familiar it is probably because it is one of the three gifts the Magi brought to Jesus, the new-born king.  We sing about it at Christmas-time.  Myrh is an herb that when crushed emits a fragrant aroma.  This was an appropriate gift for the young Jesus, who was born to become a martyred prophet. It is also an appropriate name for this church since it endured incessant crushing and persecution.  

Second, the Church at Smyrna is one of only two of these churches that received no correction, only commendation. That alone ought to make us take note of them. They received only encouragement from Jesus, who commended them for faithfully enduring seasons of suffering and persecution.

As I considered the Church at Smyrna, and the message Jesus had for them, I could not help but contrast them from the television ministries today that proclaim, what they call, Prosperity Gospel.

The Propserity Gospel, in a nutshell, proclaims that God wants all his people to be Healthy, Wealthy, and Happy.  There are differnt versions of this.  The Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn disciples embrace this clear message.  The Robert Schuller, Norman Vincent Peale disciples embrace a tamer Positive Thinking version.  And Joel Osteen has created a hybrid version, proclaiming you can have the best life now (as opposed to what the Bible says – that the BEST life is yet to come). 

In my message Sunday I pointed out the erroneousness of this teaching.  I was pretty blunt pointing out that this message is unbiblical.  But there are words I did not use that now, in retrospect, I wish I had; I think I should have: Heresy, Lies, Dangerous.   That’s what this whole memvement is – no matter the sincerity of those behind it. 

See, here the issue: they proclaim that the faithful will not experience hardship on this earth. Jesus proclaims to a church that is in the midst of persecution (not prosperity) that they are being faithful by enduring hardship. Clearly there would be no room for Jesus in the Prosperity Gospel movement.

Further, Hebrews 2.10 says:

In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering.

In some sense, Jesus was made perfect through suffering.  So, the logic of the message of the Prosperity Gospel is:

Be more faithful, be LESS like Jesus. 

Continue reading →

Thinking Christianly

/ Dennis Griffith / Leave a comment

Thinking Christianly is not simply thinking by Christians, nor is it thinking by Christians about Christian things, nor is it thinking by Christians about or in order to develop a ‘Christian line’. Thinking Christianly is thinking by Christians about anything at all in a profoundly Christian way. Where their minds are so informed and influenced by the truth of God in terms of their principles, perspectives, and presuppositions that they begin to see as God sees, though it will be in an imperfect way.

                                                                –Os Guinness

7 Rules for Reconciliation

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

To live in community is to live with – at least – the potential for conflict. I have acted wrongly on too many occasions; I have wronged others; and I have been wronged by others. 

I find few things more emotionally taxing than living in conflict. But God calls us to live in community, where conflict will almost surely take place from time to time. I suspect this is because living in community is one of God’s chief tools for sanctifiying us.  But for God’s sanctifying process to have effect we must understand the principles for living in peace and for restoring peace.

The following “rules” are from a post by Ray Ortland, of Immanuel Church in Nashville:

  1. We can rejoice in one another, because the Lord rejoices in us.
  2. We can create an environment of trust rather than negative scrutiny.
  3. We can judge ourselves, even as we give each other the benefit of the doubt.
  4. If a problem must be addressed, we can talk to, not about.  Gossip destroys.
  5. If a problem must be addressed, we can avoid blanket statements but identify factual specifics, offer a positive path forward and preserve everyone’s dignity.
  6. We can always extend kindness.
  7. When we do wrong one another, we can say to the person harmed, “I was wrong.  I am sorry.  It won’t happen again.  Is there anything I could do now that might make a positive difference?”

To read Ray Ortand’s rationale and explanations for each Rule click: Guard & Repair

The Least We Can Do

/ Dennis Griffith / 2 Comments

If Jesus could rise from the dead, we can at least rise from our bed, get off our couches and pews, and respond to the Lord’s resurrection life within us, joining Jesus in what he’s up to in the world. We call on others to join us—not in removing ourselves from planet Earth, but to plant our feet more firmly on the Earth while our spirits soar in the heavens of God’s pleasure and purpose. We are not of this world, but we live in this world for the Lord’s rights and interests. We, collectively, as the ekklesia of God, are Christ in and to this world.

 -Leonard Sweet & Frank Viola, from A Jesus Manifesto

Sin Boldly

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

lutherwoodcut.jpgI’m going to start a new category: Graffiti. This categtory will offer some great quotes.   I don’t know many that would top the following from Luther:  

“If you are a preacher of grace, then preach a true and not a fictitious grace; if grace is true, you must bear a true and not a fictitious sin. God does not save people who are only fictitious sinners. Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly, for he is victorious over sin, death, and the world.

As long as we are here [in this world] we have to sin. This life is not the dwelling place of righteousness, but, as Peter says, we look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. It is enough that by the riches of God’s glory we have come to know the Lamb that takes away the sin of the world. No sin will separate us from the Lamb, even though we commit fornication and murder a thousand times a day. Do you think that the purchase price that was paid for the redemption of our sins by so great a Lamb is too small? Pray boldly—you too are a mighty sinner.”

 -Martin Luther, in a letter to Phillip Melancthon