Tag Archives: deep

Christian Apologetics, Christian Living, Inspirational, Motivational

SHALLOW, DEEP & PROFOUND

ShallowhalmovieposterHere is a list of “shallow” but profound statements:

  1. “Only the shallow know themselves.” – Oscar Wilde
  2. “Silence is as deep as eternity, speech as shallow as time.” – Thomas Carlyle
  3. “Either you decide to stay in the shallow end of the pool or you go out in the ocean.” – Christopher Reeve
  4. “Deep breaths are very helpful at shallow parties.” – Barbara Walters
  5. “Our culture is all about shallow relationships. But that doesn’t mean we should stop looking each other in the eye having deep conversations.” – Francis Chan

We live in a cosmetic world. Fast cards, fast people, quick glory, instant wealth and whatever you view through your social media begs to glorify the cosmetic exterior, of anything, without giving much thought to what is inside. Every morning I have the habit of scanning the overnight news and try to catch up on local and world events. Perhaps, not surprisingly, no matter where I go there will always be a variety of articles trying to draw my attention to an A-list movie star, new car, socialites divorce or cosmetic surgery just right for me. Truthfully we live and are surrounded by a shallow world. But, not everything that is of a shallow concern, in life, is unbeneficial; in fact I might even argue God uses the shallow just as much as He uses the profound.

In a teaching I shared with our community I addressed how we all live in a secular / spiritual paradox. On the one hand we are people who desire to express great devotion to God, through common grace works, sacrificial living and spiritual disciplines (like prayer, fasting and meditating on God’s Word). While on the other hand that very same person can be consumed wishing to impress other people with their “blessings” and the fact they are not shallow. As Shakespeare wrote, “The lady doth protest too much, me thinks.” (HAMLET) This is the paradox we all struggle with and I would suggest if we approached life with a Hebraic / Biblical holism we may find ourselves less tempted by the secular or spiritual trap.
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To be shallow is not a sign of being bad, evil or deceitful; nor is shallowness a sign that there are no depths within the person…after all even the ocean has a shore. Consider this…there are many shallow amenities of life, that are not terribly deep, such as eating, drinking, walking and talking (they are all ordained by God). But when we are not living in alignment, with Jesus, then the paradox kicks in and our eating becomes gluttonous and our drinking slides towards drunkenness. Even something as simple as walking, without Jesus, can lead down paths sown with the seeds of destruction and our beautiful language can be turned profane if we do not let Him mature us. However when we are living fully alive, in Him, the Holy Spirit safeguards our shallowness from being trapped by the paradox; and the secular / spiritual is replaced by a new creed: “To live is to worship and to worship is to live.”

I once picked up a good bit of advice I would like to pass along. In the shallow matters of life use your God-given commonsense in commonsense ways. There will be plenty of days ahead when deeper things will come; and I have learned God is the one who draws you deeper by opening the unseen and unknown. So, while you mature “in the shallow end of the pool” keep your entire life closely aligned with the Father (God), live in the Son (Jesus) and be led by the Spirit (the Holy Spirit). The time will come, for those who patiently wait on the Lord, and seek Him above all, when He will bring us deep diving. Until then determine to resist the secular / spiritual paradox, live and experience life in a true, open and trusting Biblical community and most of all be willing to have the deep the conversations that press us toward maturity in Jesus!

“Determinedly take no one seriously but God, and the first person you find you have to leave severely alone as being the greatest fraud you have ever known, is yourself.” (Chambers)

Grace and Peace

JOSHUA

Christian Apologetics, Christian Living, Inspirational, Motivational

LOOKING FROM AFAR or DRAWING CLOSER (THE HOLY SPIRIT and THE ALTERED LIFE)

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Before I began my ministry journey I was well on a personal voyage of self and faith. Growing up in a traditional middle-class family life was fairly predictable. But if I thought life was conventional then faith and religion was far more planned and unsurprising. Week after week I attended church knowing what to expect from any given Sunday worship experience. This was not to say my church was “dead” or boring; in fact that would be the farthest thing from the truth. The church of my childhood, and youth, was home to amazing families, weekly visitors, dynamic teachers, vibrant praise and worship and most of all a commitment to allow the Holy Spirit to move freely during the service. Still, despite this freestyle approach, week after week without any intentional planning Sunday more or less always felt the same. Consequently as the church marched on living in a steady expectation of what worked, felt and seemed right, I also found my spiritual appetite, more or less, mirroring the church. In a phrase, I became content to live spiritually predictable.

One Sunday morning, in the mid-90’s, a particular service forever changed the identity of my childhood church; and though there was no expectation for that service to unfold as it later did the events that followed led to many changed lives for years to come. For close to seven years, the Holy Spirit revolutionized the church from the pulpit to the pew and from the pew to the community; and what was once a place of worship with predictability became a center of praise, healing and ministry that knew few boundaries.  While lives were changed, marriages restored, people healed and ministries launched I still stayed on the sidelines and watched from afar, though remained faithfully present. With each life changing testimony I knew the people whose lives were changed. They were part of our spiritual family and the miraculous brought joy to us all.  Still, my joy for God’s gracious healing and outpouring never translated to my personal pursuit of such changes in my own life.

As the years have passed I have been able to reflect on those experiences and my unwillingness to personally encounter God’s outpouring. Once the Holy Spirit finished moving, as he did those seven years, I remained with many in my church. And while they had been set free, and delivered, from their trials I found myself beginning to wrestle with the personal issues of pride, rejection, insecurity and fear. I too wanted to be “set-free” but also remain at a distance. Why was I unwilling to upset my desire for spiritual predictability in favor of the supernatural unpredictability of God?

It came down to a simple truth: I was unwilling to change from the old comfortable “self” and embrace a new, rebuilt and redesigned man living in the new humanity of Jesus! When such a sobering reality set in I was shaken to the point where I even asked if I was really saved? Of course I knew, deep within, I had accepted and received Jesus’ gracious invitation but in my desire to maintain a spiritually predictable existence I had missed out on the intimate hunger for God’s supernatural to change my life. Not only had I witnessed the Holy Spirit but I did my best to avoid Him which resulted in my adoption of other-Biblical views on salvation, grace and mercy. Salvation, for me, became going to church, tithing, being the best moral person I could be, wearing a cross and identifying myself with fellow Christians. But when I began to wrestle with “self”, having avoided the Holy Spirit, I discovered that salvation, grace and mercy could only be understood with the Holy Spirit! So as I returned to the Bible, for my answers, it suddenly became very clear: THE MARK OF A SAVED LIFE IS THE ALTERED LIFE.

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One of the trademarks of God’s encounter, and visitation, is that He has altered you deep within. If you still hunger for the old life, or crave the old appetites it is illogical to talk about being born-again when you are still juggling yourself. This is not to say even the altered man will not face temptations however when we are born again the Spirit of God makes the alteration visible and livable in your ordinary of life. When we live life firmly rooted in His Holy Spirit we complete, through Him, the amazing adjustment that is the evidence we are truly a saved soul, redeemed person and transfigured life.

“Because of this decision we don’t evaluate people by what they have or how they look. We looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong, as you know. We certainly don’t look at him that way anymore. Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! Look at it! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. God put the world square with himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing. We’re Christ’s representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God’s work of making things right between them. We’re speaking for Christ himself now: Become friends with God; he’s already a friend with you.” (2 Cor. 5:17 MSG)

Grace and Peace

JOSHUA