Of the Glorious Renovations underway in us

Where do I begin?  Momentous themes have been rolling around in my mind this week—SIN, Glory!, Desire, Faith.  The new nature. The ‘old man’.  And  the Holy Spirit’s role in all of these.

Let me start with sin, but don’t worry I won’t end here! I promise.  I’ve been thinking a lot lately about sin and what to do about it (likely due to the book I’m studying). The Bible clearly teaches that we have a practical role to play in sin’s demise in our lives.  It’s power has been broken by Jesus’ once-for-all-time death on the Cross.  And by faith in Christ’s death and resurrection on our behalf we are freed from its damning penalty.  We are made alive in our spirits, made to share the very life of Christ.  But while we inhabit these earth-bound bodies we are subject to sin’s temptation.  We no longer have to sin.  We aren’t its slaves.  We have a new Master. But we can still choose to sin.  Here’s where ‘our part’ comes in. 

Desires rage within us.  Paul depicted it perfectly: “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.” (Rom.7:19) There’s clearly a draw to sin that didn’t move out when the New Man moved in. I’m reminded of the renovations that have been in the backdrop of my week.  We’re mostly done now.  Clearing, cleaning, painting, replacing, upgrading, and organizing anew is a little like the process of Sanctification.  There’s a new owner.  The rooms of my heart are being re-purposed to suit His desires.  Everything’s being made fresh and new to serve His purposes.  But there’s still a bunch of clutter that has to go, some scrubbing and sanding, some rearranging. It’s the ‘putting off of the old man with its practices, and the putting on of the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator’ Col.3:9,10

Seasons of renovation can be uncomfortable. They’re messy. We want the process to end.  But the ‘sin which clings so closely’ (Heb. 12:1) is not always easily discerned or dislodged.  After all, we’ve lived with it for a long time.  It feels like a part of us.  And all the decisions—this is the hardest part for me.  Envisioning what would be best is where I get stuck. It’s hard for me to know what I want until I’ve seen it in place. My desires are conflicted.  I’m not a designer. And I guess I don’t have a very good imagination. I get frustrated and tired of the project dragging on demanding more of me than I can give.

But here’s where the analogy inspires me!  The best part about the renovations going on in my Heart is that I’m not in charge!  I get to participate: ‘Haul that carpet out’.  ‘Paint that wall with this’.  ‘Throw out that box.’  ‘Stand back and have a look at this picture.’  But the One Masterminding the operation has an eye for design and He’s fitting me (us, His people) for a glory beyond our greatest imaginings. For we are His Inheritance.  He’s bound and determined to perfect this make-over.  This is wonderful to be the object of such care.  Why then is the process so uncomfortable?

Sometimes  I doubt that He knows best.  After all, I do have desires; there are things I’d like to keep, colors I’d like to try on the walls, ways of doing things I have in mind.  On the one hand I’m glad not to be in charge of this project.  On the other, I want some control!  This is the struggle of sin vs. faith, of flesh vs. Spirit.  It will be with us till we die.  But I have wearied this week of thinking about sin. As a friend said:

“Sin is overwhelming. Thinking about sin and the havoc it causes…makes me feel like falling on my face and giving up.”

I agree.(Paul apparently did too: “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom.7:24) Sin is not something we were made to dwell on,  but to acknowledge,  to agree with God about  and to turn from. We don’t overcome sin by focusing on it but by fixing our eyes on Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith (Heb.12:2).  His designs for us go infinitely beyond the most dazzling designs of sin.

I’ve been reading C.S. Lewis’ essay “The Weight of Glory” this week. In it he talks about our desires and the glory God has prepared us for.  He suggests that our desires are not too strong, but too weak.  We haven’t got a clue what we really want.

“We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

We are creatures of earth invited to share the very glory of God which necessitates our being holy (Heb.12:14).  But we get side-tracked with such paltry desires. Among Jesus’ last expressed desires are: “I want them to be with me so they can see my glory”. Jn.17:24  Meanwhile, we  want Him  to be with us to enhance our own glory in the here and now.

Paul quotes from the prophets: “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him…”  (I Cor.2:10)
And irrespective of the context, our imaginations roam to wedding feasts, mansions, streets of gold and all things material.

We are such earthlings were it not for the Spirit of God who lives in us to renew our hearts and minds to imagine the glory we are designed for. [ Have a look at the whole passage some time.  Paul has updated the Old Testament quote to include the revelation of God’s heart that we have in the Gospel, namely that His Spirit has come to live in us and reveal to us the very mind of God! This is beyond anything we could imagine]

The Spirit makes all the difference. He it is who conducts the renovations we must undergo—and gives joy in the process!  He empowers us to say ‘no’ to sin and ‘yes’ to God’s designs for us.  All His virtues parade through the verses of Romans eight dragging me away from my fixation on Sin and What to Do About It, and making me see this Power that works in me to enable me to ‘put to death the misdeeds of the body’ (Rom.8:13),  to lead me to cry ‘Daddy! to my heavenly Father, to reveal to me the inheritance that is mine as an heir of God! and to enable me to endure suffering by the power of hope in what is just beyond it.  Romans eight is replete with the glorious reality of what the Spirit is up to in us.  We are truly more than conquerors through Him who loved us and gave His Spirit as the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire full possession of it!

And so I’ve gone from thinking about sin to thinking about the glory that will be revealed in us through the energies of God’s Spirit at work in us to will and to work for His good pleasure.  Whew.

I’ll close with these thoughts on what glory will be, from C.S.Lewis’
The Weight of Glory:

In the end that Face which is the delight or the terror of the universe must be turned upon each of us either with one expression or with the other, either conferring glory inexpressible or inflicting shame that can never be cured or disguised…

It is written that we shall “stand before” Him, shall appear, shall be
inspected. The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ, that some of us, that any of us who really chooses, shall actually survive that examination, shall find approval, shall please God. To please God...to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness...to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son—it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is.

 [Better yet, read the whole thing here!]

And as I wrap this up, the words of It is Well with my Soul echo in my mind:

“My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!” 

and the preceding verse as well,

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul

And that seems a good note to end on!
Thanks for joining me here. 

--LS

“…to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.” Rom.8:6

May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places… Eph.1:17-20

(And if you’ve been just a little curious, here are some before and after pics from our entryway renovations…)

 

 

 

 

“For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.  When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”(Col.3:4)

And glory shone around!

The music, the light, the glory of the Christmas season—I love it! Snatches of lyrics trot through my mind in endless succession like that illusive horse pulling the ‘one-horse open sleigh’ --a song that threatens to undue me if I hear it one more time!! I’ve never taken such a sleigh ride and I suspect I would be freezing and opt to stay home and have hot chocolate or perhaps linger under the mistletoe…while the chestnuts roast on our open fire. Ha! that’s another set of lyrics I’ve had more than enough of for a whole year! But while ‘Silver Bells’ and ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ and such modern ‘classics’ vie for airtime, it’s the old ones that hold the glory of the Season.

They tell the story of what happens when God appears on the human landscape— to ”certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay”-- when a long dark night is punctuated by stunning lights and angels and an earth-shattering birth announcement!  The glory of the Lord shone around them and their world would never be the same.  They hightailed it to Bethlehem to find this living, breathing, swaddled-in-cloth Savior and spread the word.  “Veiled in flesh, the God-head see.  Hail the Incarnate Deity.  Pleased as man with men to dwell, Jesus, our Emmanuel!”

If the folks asleep in Bethlehem that night ‘sprang from their beds to see what was the matter’ the news went way beyond a reindeer-drawn sleigh driven by Saint Nick out doing last-minute parcel deliveries.

“Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee!!!”  Age-old prophecies were being fulfilled this night on their very doorsteps, if only they had ears to hear the news. “For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the LORD shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen  upon thee.” (Is.60:1,2)

But ‘how silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given…’ (O Little Town of Bethlehem)  How many local residents even knew what was happening that night?  It would be years before Jesus’ glory would begin to be unveiled…and His neighbors were the ones most likely not to recognize it.  And as for the rest of the world?  Only a few ‘wisemen came from country far; to seek for a king was their intent, and to follow the star wherever it went’(The First Noel)….It would be years yet before the significance of this night’s glory would be flung to the far reaches of the world.

And who would believe it?  Isaiah predicted the whole situation: “Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, And as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him.” (Is.53)

Here, the glory of the Lord was all wrapped up in swaddling clothes…then in a carpenter’s apparel, then in the garb of an itinerate teacher…then hanging naked on a wooden cross…who would see it?  It was announced with great fanfare and drama in the beginning: “GLO………RI-A   IN EXCELSIS DEO…” by ‘angels from the realms of glory, wing[ing] their flight o’er all the earth’ [Angels from the Realms of Glory] but what of the glory now?  ”how silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given.  So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His heaven, no ear may hear his coming, but in this world of sin, where meek souls will receive Him still, the dear Christ enters in” [O Little Town of Bethlehem]…inviting all who would follow:

“I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” (Jn.8:12)

This God-man came into the world with his glory largely veiled, or I suppose we’d all be dead.  After all, the shepherds were left quaking and ‘sore afraid’  at the mere announcement of his coming when ‘the glory of the Lord shone around them’. (Lk.2)  No, the glory of Jesus was of a more subtle sort.  John described it this way: ”And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Jn.1:14  Before His coming there was the Law, impossible to keep, bringing condemnation, showing the gulf that existed between man and God.  But with Jesus, there came grace, God’s unlikely, untimely, unbidden favor---peace on earth and good-will toward man.  A perfect melding of grace and truth was the glory Jesus shone with ‘and from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.’ (Jn.1:16)

And every Christmas we again string lights and light candles and listen to music that celebrates the glorious reality that “God with man is now residing.”  Where is He?  Lo, the star over Bethlehem has given way to a Body of Christ-followers who ‘shine like stars in the universe.’  It is in the likes of you and me ‘in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation’ (Phil..2:15) that His glory is now seen, in these earthen vessels shining with a glory not their own, revealing the Light of the World!  And as we shine, wise men are drawn to come and see this great King who has been born to us--the Light of the World and the Glory we long to see.

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. 2Cor.3:18

“The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.  Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.”.Jn.17:22-24

--LS

May His glory shine in and around you this Christmas season!

---and some final thoughts on this great glory---

“…the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” 2Cor4:4

“For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” II Cor 4:17,18