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| One thing I
often hear from people is their concern for the lack of change in
their life and circumstances. Their understanding of God's promise
and mine as well is that when we are in Christ the Spirit of God within
us somehow changes us as we begin to grow in faith. So if anyone
is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away.
2 Corinthians 5:17 There is no expectation of an instantaneous
change, but we have a clear understanding that as we engage in our
faith we will mature in Christ and be found presentable in the eyes
of God. So we look within ourselves or find ourselves in a situation
where we are disappointed with our words and behavior. The sad truth
for me at least is the older I grow the more I find myself falling
beneath what I understand as God's hopes and expectations for me.
It is difficult to reconcile the way I feel about myself with the fresh hope I felt when I first realized that God's promise of new life was part of my inheritance of a child of God. Part of this problem is our reduced expectations for ourselves and for God and time goes along. We accept our selves as we are and slowly loose any hope or expectations we had of God. This is not only true of us as individuals but of the church as a whole as well. In Martin Luther's time the church had moved being a gathering of the people of God engaged in doing the will of God to a bureaucracy where the direction was decided by a privileged few and often for their own purposes. When God stepped back in the whole world turned upside down. We celebrate this awakening on Reformation Sunday at the end of October. Personal reformation when it occurs can be this dramatic but it usually is not. It is this slow transition from the old to new that so often confuses us and makes us feel as if God is not working in our lives. As a result we can begin to doubt our own faith. So how do we see God's presence in our lives and the life of our church. First we need to realize that our inability to see God's presence is a not always spiritual blindness, usually it is a problem of perspective. We cannot see the forest for the trees. We experience our lives moment to moment. God however watches our world from eternity. Just as we don't grow from and infant to adult size overnight we should not expect to become spiritual giants overnight. |
We cannot like
God in an eternal perspective see both past and future. For us to
gain anything like God's eternal perspective we can only look backward.
In our memory if we are honest with ourselves we can see whether it
be progress or falling back that results from our relationship with
God whether positive or negative. We simply have to pray, and take
the time to truly examine ourselves and listen for the voice of God.
The main question we need to ask of ourselves is simple: Am I the
same person I was five or ten years ago? We can actually begin to
see the signs of God's presence in our lives revealed as it really
is. This is truly and exercise in hope, a vision of faith fulfilled.
For example consider the Reformation. how did the Reformation change
the church? I see the focus of the people of God changed from the
keepers of the law to a people who offer God's grace and forgiveness.
From a people are concerned primarily with tradition and ritual to
a people who grow in grace and faith as we return to the Christ revealed
in scripture and a worship based in spirit and truth. For me personally
the truth of God's presence in the Reformation is best shown by the
changes in the Catholic Church whose services are now in the language
spoken by the people allowing full access to the grace contained in
Scripture. Bibles are readily available and studied in their congregations
and in fact there are fewer and fewer differences in our understanding
of the faith as the years go by. And the one who was seated on the throne said, "See, I am making all things new." Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true." Then he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God and they will be my children. Revelation 21:5-7 Take the time, pray and reflect on how God has been present in your life, changing you and moving slowly toward the spiritual maturity that is the true inheritance of the children of God. Take heart God is with us, individually and in our church as well. It may take a slightly different perspective and God's help to see it but if we look back we can see just how God's presence continues to turn our faith into reality and fulfills the promise of God.
Pastor Jim Bliss | |||
