Tools of Freedom

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. (Romans 6:12–13)

As we study Roman’s we keep running into themes of reigning; of death and of live. Jesus came and announced, that through him and his reign, the Kingdom of God was available to anybody and everybody. His invitation: reorient your lives to this amazing reality - repent and believe the good news. 

The reality is that while there is a moment of repentance and belief, a moment of salvation known ultimately only to God, their are innumerable moments thereafter. Moments of choice. Moments where we choose whose reign we will be subject to. Moments where we choose to live as instruments of  God’s reign or as instruments of the defeated reign of death. When these moments of stress, insecurity, instability, fear, impatience, and the like appear we hear the familiar voice of the defeated reign asking if he might help us navigate these troubled waters. “Just allow me to take care of this for you?” “I’ve done it before, it’s what you know.” “Can I borrow a part of you?” And then we choose. Do we trust God and his goodness enough to say, “no, I will not lend any part of myself to you -- I don’t work for you anymore.” “I am a citizen of the reign of God, and only he has my best interests in mind, you do not.” 

Most of us can identify the situations where we face this conversation. Satan is not creative, he will come and come again to the same places of weakness. What is that place for you? When you allow him to “fix” things, how does that work out? Does he deliver what he promises or does he promise good but deliver greater brokenness? 

Take a moment to think through the one or two most frequent areas where you have loaned yourself to the old reign. When these come again, how might you respond differently? How do might you allow God more fully into this conversation? Plan it out, prepare ahead of time. Celebrate the victories, give yourself a break when you slip and allow God to increasingly transform you into the truer and fuller you in him. 

Peace, hope and love

Doug

Good News, More Good News & Even More Good News

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Romans 6:8-11

The words quoted above are good news, more good news and even more good news. When Paul implores us, “count yourself dead to sin but alive to God in Jesus Christ,” he gives us in a few words amazingly important good news. 

And so you rightly ask, what do these words mean, why are they good news, and if they are such good news how do what they say? 

What do these words mean?

To “count yourself” means essentially to look in the mirror and see the amazing reality so often missed. To count yourself means to consider, think, regard, and recon yourself. It means to rethink the way you think about yourself; to reconcile yourself to a new reality of you. Similar to those posters where if one looks at them long enough they see a different reality emerge, there is a new you that is different from what you might first think when you look in the mirror. And it is that new you is the more real, more free, more real you. That is good news.

Why are these words good news?

As followers of Jesus the “plan” is not that once you get your life straightened out, you will be good enough (holy enough, spiritual enough, acceptable enough) for God. No, as soon as you decide to follow him, to enter into His story, God sees you as all those things and more. The “plan” is that for you to step into that new reality, that you appropriate that reality into your life, that you count yourself dead to sin but alive to God, so that you can fully live as the person you already are. That more good news. 

How do we do that? 

The final three words of the verse tell us the answer, “in Christ Jesus.” So often we correctly believe that we are saved by grace and not by our works but then incorrectly believe that our sanctification is all on us. It is not. It is his power and his grace that both convinces us of the beauty that is our new self and that empowers us to live as that person. As we seek Jesus and find him in prayer, Bible, service, fasting, nature and the like, they both move us toward him and are done with him alongside us. That is even more good news. 

How are you personally effected by these pieces of good news? Your you "counting" them to yourself? What would it look like for you to do so? 

Peace, hope and love

Doug

Blame it on Cain, but don't blame it on me.

Just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous. Romans 5:18–19

Maybe you have never thought about original sin. Maybe you know the term but are confused by what it actually means. Perhaps you think of it as a theological concept not important to your life. Maybe you understand it well, but are offended by it. Maybe you are somewhere in the middle or off to either sides. I think it is important for people to wrestle with and discuss theological concepts -- it helps us both to connect into the history of the church and Biblical thought, and to flesh out what we believe the Bible says to us practically in the world and the culture we live everyday. 

The theological concept of original or inherited sin comes mostly from Paul’s writings, particularly from the end of Romans 5. In a nut shell, the idea is that when Adam sinned, every person who has been born since, is born personally guilty of sin. In the post enlightenment, increasingly individualistic world that we live, this is a hard pill to swallow; “I’ll take responsibility for what I have done (for the most part) but there is no way I am responsible for something that someone else did a long, long time ago.” Original sin is a difficult concept for our western minds to grasp. I say our western minds because for the non-western church (Asia, Africa and South America) the idea of a corporate or communal responsibility for things done in the past and by others is consistent with the general way of thought. The idea of original sin, consequently is generally not given a second look, “of course I would be guilty of wrong done by an ancestor.”  

Can a theological truth be correct or incorrect based upon where you are born? The answer to that question leads to the point I want to make with this passage and this e-mail. In order for theology to be correct it needs to be correct in all contexts and cultures. There is no such thing as a Biblical understanding that makes sense in America that is impossible or incongruent in the Congo. If we have trouble with a concept, could it be  that the concept is not the problem, but rather that our understanding of the concept been unknowingly filtered through the eyes of our culture? For our purposes, broader than the idea of original sin, trust me that we are far more individually focused than the Bible imagined. 

Most of us in some ways do not have a full understanding of the communal nature of the culture of the Bible -- not because we are not educated, but because we were not raised in that culture. The Bible is set in and speaks to a far greater level of interconnectedness than does our culture. Therefore, a part of the “counter cultural” nature of the Church is learning to live more inter-connectedly and then finding ways to live that out -- modeling it to the world.

Take some time to think through the questions below, I think you will find it helpful. Consider discussing them with a friend or in your family:

How is our individualism a strength?

How is our individualism a weakness? 

How does your individualism color your reading of the Bible or your understanding of what church looks like? 

Original sin as a theological concept is important. But perhaps equally important is what it shows us about our relationship to both those who went before us and those who will come after -- and to those around us in our world today. 

Let me know if you have any thoughts or questions. 

Peace, hope and love

Doug