students of jesus

Here’s a spiritual formation exercise in three steps:

PART ONE: write down your hopes for the next ten years. (Go ahead, I’ll wait.)

When you review the list you are likely to see a page full of wishful thinking. As in, “hopes and dreams.” I recently asked a group of senior citizens (that’s my tribe) to engage in this very exercise: “What are your hopes for the future?”

Since this group was significantly north of 60 years of old, you won’t be surprised by the answers:

I hope to have continued good health.

I hope to have enough money to last through retirement.

I hope to be able to sell my house and move closer to the grandkids.

I hope I’ll live to attend my grandkids’ weddings.

And so on. Each item on the list was predictable, safe, good, and perhaps even godly. This is how we understand hope. Our desires for peace, safety, and ease are understandable. But these things are earth-bound hopes. They are the hopes of all humanity.

Most of us consider hope to be a soft idea, the squishy expression of wishful thinking. "I hope it doesn't rain." Or, "I hope I'll stay healthy." In this modern sense "hope" is not a plan, not a strategy, it’s not even contingency planning. But what if hope was something substantial, lasting--even eternal? What if we have traded the strong, solid, lasting idea of hope—real hope, Godly hope for the timid, soft, and malleable oatmeal of wishful thinking?

There is another kind of hope. It does not start with us. Nor is it only about us—although it is very personal. Godly hope is an abiding thing. It is capable of changing who we are right now, and it also is capable outlasting this world.

So set your first list aside; it’s time for PART TWO of the spiritual formation exercise:

How many promises do you think there are in the scripture? (Google isn’t much help: you’ll find answers that vary between 3,000 and 8,000.) Implied promises, conditional promises, fantastic promises, whatever the number actually is, there are too many to deal with. So let’s generate a second list you can write down next to the original hopes you recorded. Here’s the question: “Out of all the biblical promises you’ve heard or read, which one (which ones) have moved your heart? Which ones are felt like they were specifically for you?” Have you ever read something in the scripture and thought, “Yes! This is just for me!”

In this second step of the exercise I’m asking you to take the bold step of hearing and receiving a few of the generalized biblical promises and putting them into your hope chest. “Yes,” you should say, “I know this wasn’t written to me personally, but this particular promise feels like God has spoken it to me.”

Let me be clear, I’m not asking you to do witchcraft with the scripture. God’s word is never an incantation or a formula; it’s neither magic nor math. But I am asking you to listen to the voice of the Spirit and awaken to whatever promises God wants to quicken in your life. That’s step two, but beware! Step three is just plain crazy:

In STEP THREE you should write down a promise God has made to you, personally.

Not from the Bible, but to you. Has God ever whispered a sentence in your ear? “The story of your life will change other people’s lives someday.” Or, “I will open up a door for your work to have eternal meaning.” Or whatever. God’s promises to each of us will be as different as one person is from another.

Here’s one example:

Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. (Luke 2:25-26)

Now, Simeon, righteous and devout as he was, could’ve have read the Old Testament from start to finish and never seen this promise. But nonetheless, God had whispered it to him. It was for him, not his neighbor. It was for his ears only. Pointing to a chapter or verse could not prove it. It was also just a bit crazy, just a bit exalted, and just powerful enough to shape his life—if he believed it (which he did).

Part three of this exercise asks whether God ever whispered something to you. I’m willing to bet you’ve received more than one. The only questions are whether you’ve been receptive enough to hear it, and crazy enough to believe it.

These three steps have the power to be formative in your life:

Have you dared to hope?

Have you received any of his biblical promises?

Have you ever heard his personal promise?

Finish off the exercise by meditating on the words of Peter,

“His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.” ~ 2 Peter 1:3-4

Right in the middle of this passage is a revelation: God’s promises, both general and personal, power our hope and change our lives. What has God promised you?

Take a month and hold these three steps before your Creator. Odds are you’ll never be the same again. (Honestly, take a month.)

It’s confession time: I've been working on a book about repentance. But the more I prepared to write this book the more I had to admit I knew little to nothing of repentance. I understood that in order to “become a Christian” I needed to admit that I was a sinner and rely on Jesus’s sacrifice to take away my sins. As I studied about repentance I learned the Old and New Testament concepts of repentance (retrace and rethink). But even after months of reading and study I knew nothing of howto repent as a regular part of life with God.

Then one morning, in my daily reading of scripture, a thunderbolt from heaven leaped from the pages of Matthew’s gospel! I looked at the page again, just to be sure the paper had not been singed by the lightning (It hadn’t been burned, but I was on fire from the spark.) Be careful now before reading these verses; they are capable of changing your life:

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. (Mathew 16:24-25)

I know. The word repentance doesn’t appear in the text, but believe me: it’s there—especially for those of us who long to learn repentance as a lifestyle of walking with Jesus.

Perhaps you’ve thought of repentance as an after-the-fact maneuver, something you do when you realize you’ve messed up. Indeed, this is true: we should repent whenever we realize our failures. But what if repentance could keep us from sin? What if there was a daily habit could help us continually by keeping us from foolish choices and errors? If you have thought of repentance as a bedtime exercise, there’s good news: repentance can also be morning devotion.

Jesus provides three daily choices; morning-time choices that help us repent of the illusion that our life is our own. Every follower of Jesus must choose the way of Christ again and again. Indulge me in some foolishness:

Each morning Lydia opens her eyes to see the same ceiling, the same room, hearing the same sounds, and immediately her mind runs toward the new day: there are tasks to be done and appointments to be kept. But before her feet swing over the side of the bed and touch the floor there is a struggle to be met—and won: does this day belong to her, or Someone else? Lydia fights the most important battle of the day before any action is ever taken. Every single morning she rethinks her life in light of God’s kingdom. She is reminded of the three choices facing every disciple, every day:

            Deny ourselves.

            Take up our cross.

            Follow Jesus.

Is Lydia really willing to yield her priorities, tasks, and schedule? For her (and us) it’s not a matter of doing different tasks or changing careers—it’s a matter of deciding who is boss again today, of repenting from the universal tendency to think we are the masters of our fate.

To settle these questions each morning is a way of repentance, of rethinking our life in light of the King and his kingdom. Three choices, made each morning, can grow us into mature disciples, capable of experiencing the with-God kind of life.

Have you ever wondered—in practical terms—what it means to deny yourself? J.B. Phillips renders the first choice “give up all right to himself.” To deny yourself does not mean torture or self-abuse. It does not mean to despise yourself. It means you make the ongoing choice that your life is not your own, that it is in fact God’s, and God is a better manager of your life than you are! To deny yourself means recognizing who holds the “rights” to your life.

Secondly, to take up your cross means to receive again the sacrificial posture modeled by Jesus, who did not consider his life his own, but instead thought of his life in terms of the mission he received from his Father. The cross was a part of that mission. Jesus went to Jerusalem, where he knew death awaited. He picked up the cross and carried it to death’s hill. He laid himself down in accordance with the Father’s wishes and gave his life up willingly. This, too, is our invitation.

God has a cross for each of his children, according to his highest hopes and best plan for each one of us. Our mission—our cross—will not be identical to Jesus’s. Only he was capable of shedding his blood for the sins of all humankind. But our cross will involve the same elements: understanding God’s plan for us, going where God leads, working through our own fears, and embracing the means of sacrifice he has chosen for each of us. “The cross” is no mere metaphor—we are, each of us, called to die to our self, die to our priorities, and place ourselves completely in the hands of the resurrection God.

Finally, we follow. To follow Jesus is to walk in the manner he walked. Have you thought about how Jesus conducted himself each day? Do you believe it’s possible for you conduct yourself in the same radical obedience as Jesus? To display the same grace he showed toward each person he met? To welcome whomever the Father brings into our path throughout the day?

His life was unique, and so is yours! What he said and did was his mission, fully submitted to the Father day by day. Imagine the possibilities of his lifestyle reproduced in you, in your setting, among your family and community, in your culture and country. It’s possible, especially when you embrace these three repentance choices each morning.