Category: Interior Life

climbing

Why Should We Go Through Purification Now? – Part 2

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Last week we looked at the first three of five reasons we should make the effort to purify our lives now and submit to God’s shaping us, even though God will fully purify us after Jesus returns. Today we look at the last two. The purpose is to encourage and motivate us to do whatever we can to cooperate with God’s work even when it is painful. The fourth reason is that we are destined to live as perfected New Adams in an eternal community of love with God and his followers. This overlaps with the previous point about wanting to be our true self. If you “set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 1:13, ESV) then why would you spend any time avoiding foretastes of your hope even if it involved effort? If I were Continue Reading →

climbing

Why Should We Go Through Purification Now? – Part 1

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After Jesus returns God will complete our Christformation. “When Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2, NIV). “We shall also bear the image of the man of heaven” (1 Cor. 15:49, ESV). Therefore, we will not need more purification because we will be pure as Jesus is pure.   This brings us to a critical question. If God is going to complete our Christformation after Jesus returns, why should we go to all the trouble of letting God transform us now? Why should we “cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body” (2 Cor. 7:1, ESV), “put to death the deeds of the body” (Rom. 8:13, ESV) and try to reach “the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13, NIV)? This involves sacrifice and struggle. Why do this now when God is just going to instantly do it after Continue Reading →

fivefold way stages of growth

Our Fivefold Way of Growth – Part 2

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Last week we looked at the first two processes of the fivefold way of spiritual growth. First was God’s grace coming to us. Second was purification. The third way is infilling. As he takes the bad stuff out of us he also puts his good stuff inside us. And we are to actively engage in this process: Ephesians 4 teaches us to “to put off your old self” (v. 22, NIV) and “to put on the new self” (v. 24, NIV). As God brings us into communion with himself he wants to pour himself into us and expand his Spirit inside us.  Think of yourself as a dry riverbed downstream from a mighty river. God is a big wave of beautiful water coming down the river towards the mouth of your riverbed. You can either open up to his river with surrender in faith or you can dam it up. Continue Reading →

puzzled

How Can We Be Like Jesus If We Are Not Divine?

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When we talk about becoming like Jesus someone might object that Jesus was divine and we are not. How are we supposed to become like Jesus? How can we have all the love and faith and humility he had? I used to wonder this myself. But after carefully looking at Scripture I realized that Jesus did not depend on his divinity to live like he did. A key Scripture is Philippians 2:6-7 which explains that Jesus, “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (ESV). Thus, the second person of the Trinity, God the Son, chose to let go of his divine powers and be born as a human. He lived as a human and served his Father as a human – Continue Reading →

growth

God’s Glorious Mission In You

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Is it a burden or privilege that God wants us to become like Christ? Isn’t it is a privilege that he provides a way for us to become New Adams and New Eve’s in the image of the second Adam, Jesus? In fact, it is astonishing that we can start doing that now. As soon as we are born anew we can start progressing towards being someone fully governed by the Spirit, full of peace, harmony, light and love. Let’s look at some passages about becoming like Christ. In Galatians 4:19. Here Paul told the Galatians that he was “in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you” (ESV). Paul’s goal is that Christ would actually be formed in the readers. Christformation is his goal and he feels like he is in labor. It takes time and effort in order for Chrisformation to happen, it is a continuous process. Continue Reading →