Do you want to spend the
rest of your life learning to become just like Jesus? The Apostle Paul's
perspective for God's answer to this question is found in Galatians 4:19, "My dear children, for whom I am again in the
pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you."
The idea that "Christ
is formed in you" is either doctrine, reproof, or correction depending on
the stage of a Christian's walk in Christ. What does it mean to have Christ
formed in you? There is a book by Richard Foster called “Celebrate
Discipline.” One chapter is "Celebrate Submission." This verse
about Christ's formation in you has a diagram that begins with me as the
priority of my own life. As we progress over time as Christians and as people
of God, we decrease as Christ increases. Prior to the point of salvation,
it's all of me and none of Thee. At the end of a Christian's life, it's
all of Thee Lord and none of me.
When we're first “born again”
of God's spirit of life in Christ, even though we receive the gift of the Holy
Spirit, this side of eternity we still need to contend with the flesh that we
inherited from Adam's original sin. After we're saved, we are God's works in
progress, for we are his workmanship
created in Christ Jesus unto good works which he has foreordained that we
should walk in them. In this journey of life, He progressively increases
while we progressively decrease.
Every man and woman has their
own story. In one such story, Brent was a teacher and assistant principal. He was appointed
by his church to teach a Sunday School class. As he sat down to prepare for the
first lesson, he experienced the "fear of God." How dare he teach God's word, if he didn't know a thing about it. From that day on Brent began
to get up early to read the Word to prepare to teach. He learned to
treasure this special time in the Word and meditate on what God was teaching
him so that he could teach others.
Shortly after he began
teaching Sunday School, Brent was invited to hear Dallas Willard at a church
conference. The message was about preparing to teach the Word. Willard
quoted from John 15 where Jesus
said, "I am the vine and ye are the
branches. Without me, you can do nothing." Willard explained
that abiding in Christ is like a tree with branches. On Sunday, the branches
are the people who attach themselves to the trunk of the tree, which is Jesus
Christ. On Monday, many of the branches detach themselves from the tree and
they flop around on their own for the rest of the week. Then on Sunday,
the branches wonder why they aren't bearing any fruit. The point of the story
is that the responsibility of the branches is to keep themselves attached to
the vine in order to bear fruit. Jesus said, "If you abide in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit."
Like most men, Brent
struggled with the "lust of the flesh." Biblically speaking, lust
means over-desire. The sin of lust is anything that we desire over our
relationship with God. After he taught Sunday School, the most tempting
time each week was Sunday afternoon and Monday. His weekly willful sin haunted
him. Brent became a part time Pastor at a small church of about a hundred
people who met in the school where he was a full time teacher and assistant
principal. He was later appointed Principle to a school for “at risk” children.
Because of God's grace, he turned the school around and it became a model of
success for dealing with “at risk” kids. When he was fifty, one of his
co-workers passed out and he intervened medically to help her. This woman had a
reputation for seducing men and breaking up marriages. Brent later found out
that she had a deep-seated resentment for her father who had sexually abused
her when she was a child. In her own twisted mind, to get back at her
father for abusing her she sought out illicit affairs with any man who had
befriended her father.
Once when Brent was alone
with this woman, she approached him sexually, tempting him. He saw the face of
a demon as she threw herself at him. Brent prayed with some of his Elders. Later
this woman confessed that she had nightmares of being raped by a
demon. She began attending Brent's church and she and her husband came to
salvation. At church, a devout Christian woman agreed to mentor her. At
one point, she resumed pursuing Brent. He said, "If we do this, it
will ruin both of our lives." She continued to seduce him and Brent
finally gave in to his lust for her. After Brent preached a sermon that
Sunday morning, he confessed to his board of Elders and to his wife. They
helped him write a letter of resignation and he agreed to enter a twelve step recovery
program.
In the program Brent learned
that whatever makes you most angry in another person, is the sin that you're
most tempted with. Even though he regularly attended the twelve step program,
Brent's personal life deteriorated as he continued to indulge in inappropriate
and sinful behavior with his subordinate. To have the Word of God formed in you, you have to fight the
evil in your own nature of the flesh. The secular world celebrates the sin
nature of the flesh that is deviant from the Word of God. However, when Christ
was crucified, our redemption from the world was completed spiritually.
In the midst of the
spiritual battle, Brent could see the hook baited with his favorite food (the
lust) that he craved in his heart. Even though he could see the hook, he
took the bait anyway. As God said to Cain, "sin is crouching at the door and it desires to have you, but you must
master it." The twelve step program calls it the "slippery
slope." They say that you need to get as far away from the temptation as
possible.
Let's continue Michael message on elevating the Lord in our life in the next post.
In Christ, Brian
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