The true indicator of spiritual well-being is growth in the ability to love God and people. If we can do this without the practice of any particular spiritual disciplines, then we should by all means skip them … It is possible to spend every waking moment “practicing spiritual disciplines” but doing them in such a way as to make us less rather than more loving. In that case, of course, we would be better off if we did none at all.What are your thoughts?
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Jesus' Spiritual Barometer
During our Winter Sermon Series, Disciple, we are exploring Jesus' definition of what means to be a Christian. And according to Christ, a Christian is one who follows Jesus. Salvation is about transformation and Jesus' call to salvation is something like this: "Repent and believe in Me (Who I am and what I am doing) and be thereby graciously transformed through following me." Each week, then, we examine a word - a theme that Jesus said would characterize His followers. So we have been exploring topics like Repentance, Kingdom, Justice, etc. and what Jesus has to say about these ideas. This week our word is "Love." Jesus said, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13.34-35, NASB). Jesus also upped the love ante when He said the whole OT hangs on the two commandments to love God and to love people (Matthew 22.34-40). So for Jesus, the defining quality for a disciple - that "thing" for which Christians should have a reputation is love. Furthermore, according to Jesus, spiritual formation is about being graciously transformed into a better lover of God and others. Today I read this quote by John Ortberg in his book, The Life You've Always Wanted.
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Hey David, are you familiar at all with the BASIC series that is being produced? My in-laws bought the first one "Fear God" for me at Christmas, and I'm probably going to buy the rest as they are released. Here is the link to the most recent one entitled "Follow Jesus":
ReplyDeletehttp://store.flannel.org/follow-jesus.html
Peter,
ReplyDeleteI knew the Francis Chan had a DVD series coming out, but was not aware of the "Follow Jesus" set. Might be helpful for our Disciple series. Interesting that "Flannel" is distributing it.
I don't know much about "Flannel," but I think I will really enjoy the BASIC series. Additionally, I think something like this can work well alongside of your "Disciple" series on what it means/what it looks like to be a Christian.
ReplyDeleteI think you draw out 2 things well: Jesus "upping" the love ante, and part of spiritual formation is becoming a "better lover of God and others." One aspect that I have been pondering is not only the individual responsibility of that (others know me, Peter, as one characterized by love) but also of my church's reputation in our community. Not that I want a hard and fast line between those things, but ways I can connect church to community.
"Flannel" is most known for producing Rob Bell's Nooma series. Seems to me there is a bit of a disparity between Bell's and Chan's messages. Not necessarily negative about either, they're just different.
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