Space

Life doesn’t have enough space.

Have you ever traveled to another country where people have a different practice on personal space? Or maybe you had a friend who just seemed to get into your space… a friend with bad breath? I like space.

I don’t like my coffee filled to the top – I’m not coordinated enough for that. Plus, it gives me room for lots of cream. I like wide-margin Bibles – it gives me room for notes. I like wide aisles too. Those claustrophobic stores with things piled half way to heaven and narrow aisles I avoid.

If life doesn’t have enough space you’re stuck with what you’ve got. There’s no room for the creamer. The more fast food drive through’s I hit, the more my margins are filled with text. Even with fast food, 5 minute work-outs and 15 minute oil changes, my life doesn’t have enough space. Maybe it’s because of fast food, 5 minute…

Someone once defined discipline as, “Something that creates space in your life.” Spiritual disciplines (taking a Sabbath, reading Scripture, prayer, journaling, etc) aren’t for extra-credit. They are a means of creating space in our lives.

Paul wrote, Col 3:16 (NLT) “Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives.” Maybe Christ would fill my life - if He could just find the space.

Dan

Gold

I’ve been watching a bit of the Olympics this week with a thought, “What if we poured as much devotion into getting a gold medal from God as the athletes do from the Olympic committee?” We’d lose.

Here’s a fun question I read this week, “How do you chart spiritual growth so that the Pharisees don’t win?” Assuming someone is already a believer, we tend to chart growth as doing things - maybe baptism, church membership, time in prayer, bible study, memorization, journaling, etc. But I wonder, using that type of measure, if the Pharisees don’t win.

According to a recent Reveal (Willow Creek Association) study, at a certain point in our spiritual journey, “increased involvement in church activities ceases to correlate to spiritual growth.” A Barna study revealed that most people believe that “spiritual growth consists in trying hard to follow the rules of the Bible.” Trying hard - the Pharisees win again.

Here’s my thought: In the Olympics you receive gold medal as a result of your work. In the spiritual world you become gold because of the work Christ is doing in you. In the Olympic world you work harder to win. In the spiritual world you surrender to win.

Maybe this will help. My 8th grade Algebra teacher won “The Teacher of the Year” award (just for the state of Arizona I think). I remember it was a big deal, and I was glad, because without his help I wouldn’t have passed. I remember how surprised and humbled he was to receive the award - and all of us students were genuinely excited for him, and made a big deal out of it in class. It was extra special, as he was pretty old (probably about my age now, sigh), and he wasn’t going to be teaching much longer. However, what if he hadn’t helped me overcome my problem in Algebra? What if he had been a jerk snuggling up to the award committee for a decade, doing favors in order to one day get his award? The award then wouldn’t be special, it would be sick. As students we probably still would have done something in his class – but he wouldn’t have liked it.

Someone said, “Self-improvement is no more God’s plan than self-salvation.” Wish I had said it.

Dan

Dirty Clothes

What’s made the dirtiest you’ve ever been? Mud football? Transmission repairs? Planting with steer manure? Fixing the bathroom plumbing? Have you ever been so dirty the clothes didn’t want to come off? From maybe rain or sweat or something worse they stick to you like they are the outer layer of your skin. If you’ve really gotten down and dirty once you peal ‘em off they’re too disgusting to wash. Even Maytag has it limits. So, you trash the worthless clothes, shower, and put on something clean. The simple process feels great.

That’s the new life Paul describes in Col. 3:5-15. He talks about stripping off our “old sinful nature.” Sometimes our old sins seem as much as part of us as our own skin. Perhaps that’s why the sinful nature is often called our “flesh” (Eph 2:3 kjv). Our old sins stick to us like wet manure soaked Levis.

Jesus offers new clothes. The new life begins the process of trashing our selfishness, being washed clean through Christ (His blood actually washing our sins away- weird, eh?), and putting on His perfect, clean, sinless, unselfish life (actually lived through us – weirder, eh?). The simple process feels great.

I wonder then, why do I sometimes reach back into the trash and pull the muddy Levis back on?

So earthly minded, no heavenly good

"If the energy with which we pursue our own entertainment and appetites were deployed on behalf of the poor instead, then the world could be a much better place and we would find the life Jesus promised." That’s the last line in an email from Scott Todd, the leader of the Compassion.com medical team in Port-au-Prince. It got me thinking about the old quote (from an Oliver Wendell Holmes and Johnny Cash song –odd combination, eh?) “We’re so heavenly minded we’re no earthly good.”

I assume Oliver and Johnny were saying we can become so self-absorbed with religion the result is we become self-righteous hypocrites. This makes us no good to anybody, not even ourselves. But the opposite danger is just as fatal, and more likely to be in our mirror.

We become earthly minded we are also self-absorbed, self-righteous, and no good to anybody. That’s why Paul writes, “Set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. 2 Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth.” Col 3:1-2 nlt. That's heavenly minded, not religion minded.

Scott’s quote went out as part of a Haiti update from Cottonwood last week. One person wrote, “Wow! What a convicting statement. I highlighted it… because it really hit home."

The truth is we set our sights on plants for the back yard, fixing the car, finishing school, and eating our way through New Mexico. They aren’t bad things, but they aren’t the best things. Good is often the enemy of best. This world seems so real, so important, that it’s hard to keep our sights on the realities of heaven. We forget that we are only here for a bit, but in heaven forever. We forget how quickly that new car (with payments of $400.00 a month) will depreciate, but that the child we support in Haiti (for $40.00 a month) we will be able to hang with 10,000 years from now. We forget that we can send our investments ahead by investing in eternal things (people) rather than investing in stuff. We forget…