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The War Within Our Heart

the war within our heart
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DOES IT EVER FEEL LIKE there’s a conflict that constantly takes place inside of yourself? As if there’s a “war” taking place in your heart between the part of you that wants to do the right thing and another part which wants to do the wrong or selfish thing? Right now there is constant battle inside over how we are to act, think and believe. When we have been wronged or even when people have done the right thing to us we can have many different thoughts on how to respond. Some thoughts are good, others bad, even if they appear good in our own eyes.

This is all important as we continue our growing understanding of not just the Holy Spirit but our daily life as believers of Jesus. When we declare that the Holy Spirit is a regular part of our lives we must accept that He is not just some abstract fragment of God far away somewhere. For Christians the Holy Spirit is the living part of God that is housed inside of us. When we learn to hear His voice over that of our own then we can truly have fellowship with Him and live among others as a good witness for Christ. When we learn to listen and trust His voices then we can have the advantage in this war for our hearts.

Where does this whole conflict come from?

In Galatians 5:16-17 Paul shows us the source of this struggle: it’s the war between our flesh, which is our fallen nature and our spirit, which is the part of us that has been made alive through Jesus.

Galatians 5:16-17 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. (NKJV)

We must first understand that we are a being of two realities, therefore we have two natures within us striving for control. One of these natures is the one that desires to please God and the other one that is in constant rebellion against God. This second nature is what was in control of us before we knew Christ, our old flesh/self focused sin nature. The nature that looks out for only me, myself and I, it is our physical needs, wants and desires. It takes the physical needs we require to survive and supercharges them and forces us to go above and beyond to satisfy every desire no matter the cost or consequences.

Our flesh takes the physical needs we require to survive and supercharges them.

However as Christians who have been made alive through the resurrection and have been adopted into the New Covenant we have both of these natures vying for control of our every thought and action. Now our spirit is alive and is trying to live according to God’s standards while the flesh is trying to lead us back to living according to our own standards.

A Heart Torn Between Two Masters

One of the best examples of this dual nature at work in the believer comes from Paul in Romans 7:14-24. Here Paul lays out one of the greatest struggles faced by a believer, that although we are saved, redeemed and made righteous
the flesh’s desire to sin and act selfishly does not automatically disappear. We see and know that we still have struggles to do the right thing at times and at others we have no will to do what we know God wants us to do in a given situation.

The good news for us is found in Romans 7:25 where we see that there is a hope for us through Christ.

Through Christ we have the ability to receive forgiveness of sins when we do follow after the will of the flesh. With Jesus and the Holy Spirit living inside of us we have hope to prevail, as long as we are aware of the battle between the flesh and spirit taking place. That is why prayer and taking moments to stop and wait on God is so crucial in many instances. When we don’t stop for a moment and bring God into the picture we are exceedingly more prone to following the will of our flesh, because it seeks instant gratification and can’t stand playing the waiting game.

When we don’t stop for a moment and bring God into the picture we are exceedingly more prone to following the will of our flesh

Turning The Page

When we come to Romans 8 the secret of winning this war for our heart is revealed. It’s interesting to note that in the original Greek manuscripts there is not a division between the end of Romans 7 and the beginning of Romans 8, it is the same paragraph. Far to often we create and artificial divide between chapters 7 and 8 and tell both others and ourselves that we live in either one of the two chapters. But the reality is that it’s the same thought in action, here Paul is painting not a picture of condemnation in chapter 7 but of one of victory for the believer. That while we still struggle with these issues we also have access to our daily victories through Christ.

Romans 8:5-6 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 6 For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

In Romans 8:5-6 we find our first key: what we set our minds to will determine how we act and respond. If we are only concerned about ourselves, our will and our feelings then we will inevitably turn towards acting in a fleshly way. On the other hand, if we are mindful of the Spirit of God living inside of us and thinking about His will and feelings first then we will walk according to the ways of the Spirit. We begin by making willful choices on how we are to live and interact with others and how we follow God.

We see the same truths spoken of by Paul also in Galatians 5:19-21 and Ephesians 2:1-7, in Galatians Paul describes several examples of living according to the flesh. While in Ephesians Paul highlights the spiritual influences which lead many to follow after those selfish ways of the flesh along with the solution to the problem, Jesus and our hope for eternity.

The Soul is the Heart of Our Being

We have talked about how the flesh tries to lead us to sin and how our spirit (and the Holy Spirit living in us) tries to lead us closer to God but there is a third power at work among all of this turmoil, the soul.

The soul is the combination of our mind, will and emotions, in Hebrew it is also called our heart, it is the center of our being here on earth and it is the one which both the spirit and the flesh are trying to dominate. Our spirit is eternal, it is how we communicate with God and this is the point of contact between the natural and supernatural realms. The flesh represents our bodily needs such as food, drink, sleep, sex, self preservation and so on. In its current state these are the only things that the flesh cares for and it does what ever it can to get as much of these things as it can.

The soul is left in the middle to pick and choose which other parts of our being it will submit to and follow.

This leaves the soul in the middle to pick and choose which of these parts of our being it will submit to and follow. Our soul is not just mind, but also our desires, memories, intellect, it’s the captain of our choices and it’s the part of our being that made the choice to accept Christ and receive salvation and forgiveness. Let’s go back to Romans 8 to see how this plays out.

Romans 8:5-8 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 6 For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. 7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. 8 So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Here in Romans 8 we see the interaction between the spirit, soul and flesh, Paul lays out how desires and urges begin in one place but are acted out in another.

Be it good thoughts, urges and desires from the spirit or from the flesh. It is the soul which casts the deciding vote on how and what we are to act upon. In Romans 8:6 we see clearly that a mind set on flesh will bring about death, be it spiritually, emotionally, intellectually or physically. On the other hand, the mind set on the spirit brings life and peace.

The Greek word for life here Zoe and doesn’t just mean natural life but also the kind of life which makes up the soul and the spirit. When we follow God’s will and ways and live a life under the control of our spirit it brings about life and peace not only in an intellectual sense but also in a spiritual and in a natural way.

On the other hand if we continue to allow our flesh and carnal nature to rule over our lives and thoughts Romans 8 shows us clearly that our mind becomes hostile towards God and will not allow itself to be subjected to the love, power and expectations of God (also Romans 2:5-11). Which is why Paul says in Romans 8:8 “So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God”. Paul can make a declaration like this because of what God spoke in Isaiah 55:8-9. Even Jesus eluded to this contrast between the ways of the spirit and the ways of flesh throughout His ministry when He spoke about the ways of the Kingdom, how He expected His followers to act and in nearly every parable.

The War Of Heart Choices

Seeing all of this we must accept that the ways of the flesh will never be in alignment with how God sees the world and how He wants us to live. If left unchecked our flesh  will always chose the exact opposite of what God would have us do (or at the very least corrupt our motives for doing the right thing), because the flesh is focused on itself, its true god.

Is our current situation hopeless? No for we have been given an unfair advantage in the war over the control of our heart. Our spirit is not alone for we are also in living communion with God and through the Baptism of the Holy Spirit we have the living God present in us to give strength to our spirit so that it can speak loud and clear to our soul (Romans 8:9-14, Galatians 2:20).

The spirit has the advantage over the flesh, but only if we allow it.

We must come at this war over the soul from a mindset that the spirit actually has the advantage over the flesh, but only if we allow it. Through patience we learn the ability to not act impulsively when situations arise, we must always give God opportunity to speak and intervene within our spirit and soul.

At every opportunity we should be in internal fellowship with God so that we will always be aware of how we are to act, speak and believe in any situation. Walking in the spirit requires effort, while walking in the flesh only requires inactivity. Our living everyday relationship with God and our ability to live out the call on our lives will not be decided by natural means but will be decided by the battle raging within ourselves.

Question: How would you act differently in your daily life if you were constantly aware of God’s presence all around you and how would that impact the war within you?

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Trusting the God of Hope When You Have None Left

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WITH ALL OF THE DIFFICULTIES, struggles, pains, losses, frustrations and general unjust craziness there is in this life it doesn’t take much to lose ones hope. We try our best to continue trusting the God of hope but so much in this world and in our individual lives tells us to give up the fight and settle into the lands of defeat. There is no fairy tale ending, so get a cozy chair and get yourself a nice view of the pit of despair.

We see bad things happen, or watch family members struggle with health issues, we struggle with finances, prayers don’t get answered so we are tempted to just give up trying to be optimistic or to cling to any sort of faith that God can change what is going on in our lives. Along with all of that we take the fallout from one unanswered prayer and use it to justify not having faith for God to do something next time. Or we allow one loss to cancel out dozens of previous victories, everything that God did years ago no longer matters because we feel that He wasn’t with us today.

These are difficult issues and hard questions to deal with and they can’t just be answered by telling someone that they just have to believer harder or that they should just read their Bible more. I’m not against faith or prayer or anything like that, I’ve personally witnessed the blind see, the deaf hear,  and the crippled walking out of wheel chairs. However, I have also watched people die from cancer, others struggle with issues from accidents, I’ve lost two friends to depression and suicide and I’ve had my own problems as well.

I have seen the greatness of God’s power in action and I’ve experienced the absence of it.

Hope in action vs. hope in the rear-view mirror

I have seen the greatness of God’s power in action and I’ve seen and experienced the absence of it, even with myself. For the past four years I have struggled with an ear issue that has left me with unending ringing in my ears, has cost me one third of my hearing ability and has made me unable to even worship along with the rest of the church I attend. Flashback ten years ago now and I was once in a market in Mexico City on a mission trip and we were praying for people. One day a woman came to get prayer for her ear. Me and another prayed for what we thought was an ear
infection and she was miraculously healed. What we found out after we prayed was that she didn’t have in infection but had actually ruptured her ear drum the day before and was totally deaf in the one side. After she said she could hear she pulled out the cotton ball from her no longer deaf ear that was stained with blood.

It’s not just a matter of going down to the Jesus store and picking up some joy with a side of milk.

This is where things get difficult when you know that God can and is able to move in power and He doesn’t. It’s not easy to keep hope alive, especially as the years go by, especially when those years bring more and more pain, frustration and loss. God is the God of hope according to Paul in Romans 15:13 and not only that but He is also supposed to be our source of joy and peace. The problem is though it’s not just a matter of going down to the Jesus store and picking up some joy with a side of milk. These are real matters of faith, not just superficial ones where we just try to whitewash what is going on inside of us.

What is real faith?

You see real faith is not yelling at the top of your lungs that you have faith; real faith involves being honest with what is in front of us. Faith is never absent from realty, it recognizes what is really going on and looks towards God to change that reality to something else. Pretending that there are no problems is not faith it is delusion. Does that mean we can’t pray for a change? Of course not. What I am saying is that our faith and hope are not dependant on our circumstances they are dependant on the nature and character of God.

It takes infinitely more faith to declare that God is good and loving when your world is upside down than it does when you’re sitting in an air-conditioned church and everything is rainbows and sunshine. Real faith is when you are able to honestly praise God even when you don’t get your prayers answered, not just when you do.

“It takes infinitely more faith to declare that God is good and loving when your world is upside down than it does when you’re sitting in an air-conditioned church and everything is rainbows and sunshine.”

Just look at what Jeremiah said after the darkest day in Judah’s history at that time in Lamentations 3:25-26 “The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; 26 it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord” (NKJV). Jeremiah didn’t write this after the people repented and had a great party, no he wrote this after the utter destruction of Jerusalem and the kingdom of Judah. How could he speak of hope after so much death and destruction? He could do it because He understood who God is.

That is where we find out great weakness, far too often we take the supposed and actual failures, shortcomings, and losses of our lives and place the blame squarely on God and we lash out against him like overly emotional teenagers in response. Everything bad was God’s fault and everything good is the result of my own hard work – is the lie we tell ourselves. You see God is good but we are temporary travelers in a world that is not good.

We live in a fallen and broken world and there are times when we don’t get our way, a prayer doesn’t get answered, a person dies, a job is lost or a life loses its purpose. Then rather than praise God for who He is and what else he has done for us we abandon hope because we believe it is better not to hope than it is to hope and be disappointed. We respond that way because it is all part of the plan, not God’s plan but Satan’s.

Why Satan comes to steal our hope

In Satan’s eyes a mute, broken and depressed Christian is the best one there is because he knows they will never do anything to weaken his kingdom. It is a campaign of disarmament where he and his forces go out and convince Christians that it is better to have never hoped than to have hoped and lost. It is a strategy where he convinces us that the weapons of our belief and warfare are too heavy to carry and actually do more harm than good. So we should throw them away and settle for a life under spiritual house arrest.

It is a campaign of disarmament where Satan and his forces convince Christians that it’s better to have never hoped than to have hoped and lost.

In Rick Renner’s devotional Sparkling Gems From The Greek (USA Canada) he talks about John 10:10-11 and unpacks the meaning of what Jesus meant warning us that Satan comes to kill, steal and destroy. Renner speaks of how the word kill does not mean to murder but has the understanding of a religious sacrifice such as when a lamb was killed on the altar. If Satan can’t destroy our hopes, dreams, purpose, life or anything else he’ll convince us to do it ourselves out of devotion or another reason. The same applies to our hope if he can’t crush it from within he’ll convince us to lay it down either for moral, cultural, religious, or emotional reasons. Or it could be as simple as feeling as if God is calling us to lay something down when in reality God is trying to awaken that thing you are about to kill.

What do we have to look forward to?

Proverbs 13:12 tells us that “hope deferred makes the heart sick” this is both a spiritual and a medical truth as the loss of hope has a tangible impact on our spirit, mind and body. However the verse continues and says that a “longing fulfilled is a tree of life.”

In our opening verse Romans 15:13 the hope Paul was looking towards was the culmination of both Jews and Gentiles coming into the Kingdom of God together through the New Covenant (Titus 2:13). This is what drove him from nation to nation and from prison to prison preaching the gospel despite the problems he encountered because he saw a light at the end of the tunnel.

We also need that long ranging hope to carry us to the end of our lives, but we also need hope for today. We need both hope for today and for the future because we live in two worlds one of earth and one of Heaven. So our hope must reflect that we can’t have a hope that is based only in the future, but we must also have a hope that sees its results today, although to a smaller degree.

It is just like opening a present on Christmas eve and getting the rest in the morning.  Or taking a long-awaited road trip but also taking time to make stops along the way. You don’t wait until you arrive to enjoy yourself even though your ultimate enjoyment is at the end of the trip (serendipity). At other times you may discover that you only enjoyed the final destination because of what happened along the way, so it is with our hope in God.

Are there times when God will answer our prayers, yes, and are there times when He won’t (at least as far as we can perceive) of course. What is important though is not how God answers but how we respond to God afterwards. If we can turn to God with the same love and hope no matter the outcome then we have passed the test of faith and our hope is not in God’s ability to please us but it is based on our love for Him.

If we can turn to God with the same love and hope no matter the outcome then we have passed the test of faith.

Romans 5:1-5 “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; 4 and perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” (NKJV)

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We Need An Outside Perspective

Winnie on the couch looking for perspective on life
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AS WE GO ABOUT OUR LIVES AT TIMES WE ARE VICTIMS OF A LACK OF PERSPECTIVE. You see as I was preparing to write this blog I was once again distracted by my dog Winnie, who jumped up beside me despite the unbearable heat in the house. I was trying to discover what it was that I should talk about this week but every couple of minutes my dog started gnawing on her back foot. I ignored it the first few times but then I leaned in to see if there was some grass or seeds stuck in there from an earlier trip to the park. The thing is that I couldn’t find more than a blade of grass or so, but Winnie just kept on gnawing and pulling at her foot. I also started to smell the familiar aroma of fake grapes, you know that smell from candy that is in no way related to the fruit its named after, yeah that smell.

So I flipped over her paw and saw a bunch of dead grass mixed in with some gum or some other kind of candy. Now that I knew what was going on I grabbed some paper towels and started to clean her but she wouldn’t cooperate. All of my attempts to clean her foot were met with headbutts and her nipping the top of her foot. I then unleashed the big gun one of her favorite snacks, a stick made out of sweet potato and bacon. Finally, I was able get to work cleaning her and getting all of the mess off of her foot.

She knew something was wrong but she was gnawing on the wrong place and wasn’t actually doing anything the make things better. My dog lacked the perspective to see what was really going on with her foot and she lacked the dexterity to see the sticky problem causing her irritation.

I wonder how often that happens to us as believers, we feel an irritation somewhere in our lives so we just blindly start gnawing in the general direction and hope that it makes things better. We don’t know exactly what is going on but we can narrow it down to a general area of our lives. Problems such as figuring out our purpose, general frustrations of life, bills unable to be paid, life feeling empty, prayers appearing as if they are unanswered, struggles with sin, and troubles at home, work, school and so on.

A Different Set of Rules

We feel something is out of place but we can’t see what is going on, we need help from someone with a better and a higher perspective. Just like Winnie needed my help to get the gum or what ever it was off of her foot so to do we need God to help us in our daily lives. God knows all and sees all and is a whole lot smarter than we are. God said through the prophet Isaiah that “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways” (Is 55:8).

This means that God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit see things from a different perspective than we do. It also means that He has different means to solve problems than what we would come up with on our own. Think of the story of Gideon, he was told to conquer the Midianites by waving around torches, pots and playing trumpets. Three hundred guys facing an army of untold thousands and all they were supposed to do was blow some trumpets and break some pots. That was far from a sound military strategy, but it worked.

We see the same expression of God’s higher and different ways through Jesus who at face value did everything that a Messiah was supposed to do wrong. He didn’t build a school, He didn’t fight the Romans. He didn’t set up a new Davidic Kingdom, He didn’t advocate for vengeance on Israel’s enemies, He constantly stood against the Pharisees and on and on. Jesus in the eyes of the people around Him was a failure, but in God’s eyes He was an astounding success.

Jesus in the eyes of the people around Him was a failure, but in God’s eyes He was an astounding success.

We have to imitate Jesus’ perspective

Jesus speaks about Heavenly things as one who calls Heaven His home, so He has a full perspective of the universe and all of creation. He knows us better than we know ourselves and He knows the end result of any course of action we take. This is why teachings such as the Beatitudes are so hard for us to apply, because it goes against our natural desires and calibrates us to God’s desires.

We must remember that we have been called to have the Mind of Christ, to act as He acted, to believe as He believed and to have our souls and bodies submitted to our spirit as He did.  To disconnect ourselves from how we lived before and to renew our minds to conform with His ways not our own. Paul calls this having our minds renewed (Romans 12:2) and He encourages us to set our minds on things that are higher than ourselves and our world (Colossians3:1-3). Otherwise we are doing nothing more than getting our feet covered in mud, gum, twigs and rocks which not only slow us down but cause endless frustration and pain.

Did you know that Jesus watches and judges us by our thoughts and motives (Matt 5:28), as opposed to people who watch and judge us by our actions? This can be hard for us to grasp at times, but it is critical to our walk with God. You see when we filter our hearts through Matthew 5, Galatians 5 and 1 Corinthians 13 eventually we will be changed for the better.  It won’t happen overnight but over time, through trials and temptations these pillars of life become the roots by which the fruits and gifts flow out of.   If someone expects that love will grow out of our miracles, or patience out of prophesying, they have no real roots and will wither away either from temptations, a dry season, or a lack of patience.

A two-part process

This is a two-part process, we are to look at the world, ourselves and others through the same lens that Jesus does. While the second part is a constant reminder for us to turn to God when we have trouble, irritations, frustrations, problems. Just like my dog Winnie she was unable to fix her foot without outside help, help that could see things she couldn’t and actually bring relief. When we make time for God and when we make Him the first place and we go to Him when we have problems then we are more likely to find relief. Or at the very least the strength to endure because God does not always bring an instantaneous remedy to our problems.

Jesus watches and judges us by our thoughts and motives, as opposed to people who watch and judge us by our actions.

With Winnie I spent about 30 minutes cleaning, combing and cleaning her back paw.  It wasn’t a band aid type clean up it took time and I had to keep her distracted with her chew stick the whole time, otherwise she would try to “help” and make things harder to deal with. Perhaps it is the same with us and God sometimes, as God uses His higher perspective to bring us relief, or answers to prayers. However often we are so focused on the problem that we are flailing around and making it harder for Him to finish His work. If only we had some sort of distraction like Winnie’s sweet potato and bacon chew to help us through the operation. If we think about it we do and it comes in the forms of worship, praise, the presence of the Holy Spirit and our faith in God’s role as our loving Father.

Philippians 2:5-11 “5 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, 7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. 9 Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (NKJV)

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Outsourcing God: How Good Sheep Get Lost by Cameron Conway is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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Outsourcing God: How Good Sheep Get Lost

outsourcing God by Cameron Conway
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GOD IS GOD AND I AM NOT, it’s an easy thing to say but it is entirely different to live out on a daily basis. We say that we pray and have faith in God but over and over again we seem to either grow impatient or deep down we believe that God won’t actually listen to our prayers. It feels as if our heart has outsourced God’s power, rulership, authority and holiness and replaced it with our own. This is especially true if you have had several prayers which have gone unanswered.

Have you ever wondered why some believers have a harder time trusting God for great things to happen? It’s not because of “backsliding” or sin, or unbelief but it is because they have over and over again faced this fork in the road and chosen the wrong path. The crossroads between what God wants and what we want. I’m not picking on certain believers, but this applies to all of us, myself included.

There are times when God moves mightily and then there are other times where it feels like He took a vacation in the Andromeda galaxy right when we needed Him the most. How we respond in each of those situations will determine how our heart reacts the next time there is a need for prayer.

Our Source of Strength

We can either look to our own strength or the strength of others to help and guide us or we can put our trust and obedience in God. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t ask for help in times of need but I am encouraging you to look inside yourself and see who your faith is in. Is it in a person, a group, a thing or even yourself instead of God? Jesus once told a parable about building a house either on sand or on the rock (Matthew 7:24-27) and the same principle applies to us here.

If your foundation is built on God and His rightful place in not just the universe as a whole but your own heart then you with withstand the storms of life. If however you have set yourself above God in your thoughts, actions, prayers or in any other way you will either find your house toppled over or you will slowly sink down in the sand until there is nothing left of you for anyone else to see.

We picture ourselves with rippling muscles moving whatever stands in our way but in reality from God’s perspective we are just silly sheep bashing our heads into a log.

A great test to see where your heart comes in this question: Do you even bother to pray in your daily lives when there isn’t even a crisis? This matter is critical, and not just because of some religious obligation but because of relationship. Without relationship we are just treating God like a genie or as a vending machine that is supposed to spit out whatever we ask for as long as we drop in a few quarters or our tithes. When we think and act like this God is no longer God in our hearts, but merely our servant.

Look at what it says in Psalm 100:2-3 “…Come before His presence with singing. 3 Know that the Lord, He is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.” (NKJV) Notice here that it doesn’t say come to God with your shopping list, or a work order we are to come before Him in joy. Not the joy we experience when we get what we want on Christmas morning, but something deeper and more wonderful.

I can do baaaaatter

Throughout the scriptures we are faced with this truth of God being the high and mighty one while we are the equivalent of sheep (Psalm 95:7, Isaiah 40:10-11). We at face value might be a little offended by that, sheep are not known for being the smartest of animals. They get stuck in ruts, overgraze if left alone, go on mad stampedes, drink tainted water if not forced to good streams and so on. Being called a sheep would be considered an insult to many and even in our culture someone who is seen as being a blind follower is often referred to as a mindless sheep. (For an in-depth and life changing view on this subject check out “A Shepherd Looks at Psalms 23” by W. Philip Keller. Click here: US Canada)

What we need here is perspective, when we compare ourselves to a sheep we hold up our intelligence, creativity, technology and ability to express and go “ha take that sheep, now into the oven with you.” We see ourselves high and above those natural sheep because in our world there is nothing higher than mankind. But now let’s flip the perspective lets compare ourselves to God, if we hold ourselves up against Him it is not wonder why God’s favorite nickname for people is sheep.

We are no where near as intelligent, powerful, caring, wise or highly exalted as God is. Compared to Him we are nothing more than dumb and stubborn sheep, who need constant guidance and supervision, so we don’t drink poison, fall off a cliff, get turned upside down or die of starvation because we ate all the grass and are too lazy to move on. If a sheep ran into an obstacle on the path do you expect it to muster the other sheep together so they can all lift it out of the way?

No, that would be ridiculous to expect, so why is it we think the same way about ourselves. We see obstacles in our lives and have these thoughts that we can just go over there and pick up the log or rock and hurl it out of the way. We picture ourselves with rippling muscles moving whatever stands in our way but in reality from God’s perspective we are just silly sheep bashing our heads into the log.

Jesus the sheep herder

Our help and redemption though comes from Jesus who said in John 10:14-16 “14 I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own. 15 As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. 16 And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd.” (NKJV) Jesus is the one who can come and move those logs and obstacles from our lives, well as long as we are on His path and not some dark forest trail we ran off into.

Jesus is the one who can come and move those logs and obstacles from our lives.

Jesus through his love and compassion sees us as these loveable, stubborn, and helpless sheep and He offers us the opportunity to join His flock and to be under His protection (Mark 6:34). No longer than are we to act as if we are king of the sheep or can we convince a fellow sheep bring over a trench coat and stand on our shoulders so we appear to be like the shepherd. No, no matter how hard we try to live our lives as the one in charge, or how cleverly we pray, or how independent of God we consider ourselves to be it will never change what we are.

We are created in God’s image but we are not independent from Him, we are not gods, or not the rulers of the universe, but we are children of God adopted into the family because of the sacrifice of the good and great Shepherd. When we follow (2 Peter 2:25) and depend on Him everything changes, yes there are still bad days, loss, pain but we know that we are following Him on a path which leads to better things. We are no longer alone, and we are no longer trying to solve God problems with the methods of a sheep.

John 10:14-16 “14 I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own. 15 As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. 16 And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd.” (NKJV)

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Are you looking to develop your relationship with God and better understand the Bible? Pick up a copy of one of my books today.

Understanding Who You Are: A Survey of 21st Century Christian Beliefs
Amazon.com paperback, eBook | Amazon.ca paperback, eBook
Indigo, iBook, Nook and more HERE

Six Minutes of Grace: The Key To Finding Happiness and Purpose
Amazon.com paperback, eBook | Amazon.ca paperback, eBook
Indigo, iBook, Nook and more HERE

Six Minutes of Grace Journal
Amazon.com paperback | Amazon.ca paperback

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Outsourcing God: How Good Sheep Get Lost by Cameron Conway is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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The Roots of our Identity as Christians

Roots of our identity as Christians - CCR dogwood forest 1
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EACH ONE OF US IS LIKE A SAPLING IN THE GARDEN OF GOD, we bask in the light of the sun and strive to grow higher and closer to the source of our nourishment. We push through the dirt of this world and continually look up higher, all the while we are trying to understand our identity and what we are supposed to look like. A plant has no idea what it looks like, it just knows it’s a plant. It’s identity is based on what it does, so it digs into the soil, baths in the light of the sun and produces seeds so that the area around it will be filled with more plants like it.

There is no striving or confusion, the plant doesn’t try to be like a rabbit or a rock it is living out the purpose God created for it. It is the same with us, God desires for us to be like this plant for us to grow, develop, reproduce and enjoy the life God has created for us to partake in. We are to follow after the nature and purpose God has created us to be like, for those who have been redeemed by Christ and were brought into the New Covenant our spiritual DNA has been transformed from that of a rock to a living plant. No longer cold and hard but alive and drawn to the light of the sun.

Our identity then doesn’t begin with our name or our personality it begins with something deeper, it begins with the roots we are all connected to, Jesus. In John 15:1-8 Jesus speaks of those who follow Him as being like branches which are connected to a grape vine which is Himself. He goes on to speak of how we cannot produce fruit without His presence and support and without Him our branch simply dries out and is thrown away. We see then that Jesus is our source, He is our battery, He is our wi-fi, He is our water and so much else.

Understanding who Jesus is becomes our first step in understanding who we are

Understanding who Jesus is becomes our first step in understanding who we are, before we were disciples we saw our identity according to our own accomplishments, hobbies, desires, talents, jobs, education and so on. However, something changed when we entered into that covenant through faith in Jesus, our identity is no longer grounded in who we are but in who Jesus is. I am not saying through that we all have to wear the same clothes, listen to the same types of music, have the same hair cut or anything else like that. No, what I am saying is that Jesus becomes our common language which we speak. Jesus becomes the air which we all breath, and Jesus is the roof which covers us all, when we understand this then and only then can we live out the revelation of Galatians 3:28.

With plants there is an infinite variety of types shapes, sizes, colors, and flavors, even with these differences they are still all plants. They all still live in the ground, absorb water and soak in the sun, they are still part of the same “family” despite their differences. So it is with all of us who are united in Christ, we were each created with infinite creativity and uniqueness and we are not destined to simply be clones of one another. We are individuals with varying interests, hobbies, cultures, languages and tastes but there is something deeper which unites us into one family.

Looking to Jesus for our Identity

When I speak about rooting our identity in Christ I’m not talking about walking around in a tunic with shoulder length hair and a beard (which would be extra awkward for women) I am talking about being reflections of Jesus’ words, compassion, justice, mercy, power and love. Jesus is the supreme prototype for how we are to live. We can see Him as the great tree which all other plants not only emerge from but are dependant for nourishment.

It is through our compassion and actions that we imitate Jesus in this world.

When we look at how Jesus lived in this world we see that He demonstrated compassion, love, frustration, emotion, grief, and a whole host of other expressions. He was merciful when mercy was needed but he was also firm in times of conflict. He offered grace to the woman caught in adultery but held the Pharisees to a standard beyond what they were used to. He rejoiced when the people came to him and he lamented when towns rejected Him, with these towns Jesus did not call down fire on them but spoke with a broken heart because He knew the consequences of their actions.

Jesus then becomes the gatekeeper, or firewall which determines what comes out of our mouth, what dwells in our minds and what we do with our hands. This is what Paul eluded 1 Corinthians 11:1 when he declared, “Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ” (NKJV).  In John 13:12-17 Jesus commands the disciples to follow His example of washing each others’ feet as an act of servitude and humility. Notice He doesn’t say to wear their clothes in a certain way, or to wear a custom bracelet to show the world they are Jesus’s followers, no it is through their compassion and actions that they imitate Jesus in this world.

I am who I am says I am

With this abundance of uniqueness which God has blessed each of us with it is no wonder why we have such and expansive list of spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 15, or it is why we have a five-fold ministry instead of just a singular priesthood. God made us all unique and so that we can fulfill the totality of the Great Commission, there are those of us created for compassion, some for teaching, some for artistry, some for business, others for evangelism.

There are those who are introverts others extroverts, some are exuberant while others are soft spoken and no one is better than the other. Each one was uniquely created to serve God and to have an impact in the place and time God created them to live in, because there are people both inside and outside of the church who can only be helped but someone just like you. For God crafted you to be unique, quirky, flawed, talented and so many other traits right from the beginning.

Psalm 139:15-17 “My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them. 17 How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them!” (NKJV)

What do we do next about our identity?

Going forward we have to first learn and understand who Jesus is and use that inspiration and foundation to build our own identity upon. We are to be holy, but not “holier than thou”, we are to be loving but not taken advantage of, we are to be firm in our biblical convictions but not judgmental, we are to live by faith but not by wishing, and we are to be ourselves but without the flaws of the flesh. At the end of the day you are to go out and live like a plant, be it a tree, flower, grain, bush, vine, grass it doesn’t matter what kind you are.

What is important is that you remain rooted deeply in the ground, your drink in the water of life, you bath in the light of the sun and your grow and grow so you can produce fruit and seeds so the great garden continues to spread throughout the earth.

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Are you looking to develop your relationship with God and better understand the Bible? Pick up a copy of one of my books today.

Understanding Who You Are: A Survey of 21st Century Christian Beliefs
Amazon.com paperback, eBook | Amazon.ca paperback, eBook
Indigo, iBook, Nook and more HERE

Six Minutes of Grace: The Key To Finding Happiness and Purpose
Amazon.com paperback, eBook | Amazon.ca paperback, eBook
Indigo, iBook, Nook and more HERE

Six Minutes of Grace Journal
Amazon.com paperback | Amazon.ca paperback

  
Creative Commons LicenseThe Roots of Our Identity as Christians Cameron Conway is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
 

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