Letting the gospel go deep

Tags

"false dilemma", "losing perspective", "Scott Peck", "spiritual growth", "The Road Less Traveled", balance, causation, mind, truth

In his sermon, the pastor referred to letting the gospel get deep into us.  His statement triggered some reflection on my part.  I asked myself, “Where does the gospel go when it goes ‘deep’ into us?

I assume that “deep” encapsulates our psychological states of mind, our set of first principles that we rationally accept, our goals and purposes, our expectations, fears, and dreams – “Deep” refers to all those causes that determine our specific actions.

These first principles, psychological states, spiritual loyalties, hopes and fears, could go back as far as very early in our life.  They could go back to as recently as yesterday.  They easily could be linked to specific socialization and acculturation processes we individually experienced.  They could be linked to being insulted yesterday or abused the day before.

For the gospel to go deep in the way I have mentioned, we have to consciously visit this past, to the degree it is possible, and study the degree that those inherited items conform to the gospel.

It takes my mind back to when I read Scott Peck’s The Road Less Traveled, and I considered like never before how spiritual maturity and depth involves our righteously revisiting our past.  We may not want to do that.  We may want to let the sleeping dogs lie.  But, can the gospel get deep into us without our consent??

This issue also takes me to the issue of sanctification.  Some put their focus on sanctification being a process.  Others focus on the need for a crisis experience when we consciously recognize how sinful we really are even as Christians.  It is unfortunate that some people want it to be either crisis or process.  It is that either-or reductionism that I have mentioned before in different contexts.  But, letting the gospel “go deep” into us needs to be understood as both a crisis moment and a process of getting coming to grips with why we do what we do.

Any comments or reactions??  – Use the comment box.  I will appreciate your feedback.

 

Generosity as a case in point

Tags

"spiritual growth", causation, consequence, generosity, grace, habit

As we grow spiritually as Christians, will we become more generous?  The question seems forthright, doesn’t it?  The implication is that generosity is a result, or a consequence, of spiritual growth.   And, we all, if we are Christians, are in an inevitable process of growth, aren’t we?

Let’s look at it in another way, rephrasing the question as follows.  Do we grow by becoming more generous?  Or at least, is being generous one of the causes, rather than one of the results, of spiritual maturity?

I opt for the latter way of stating the question.  It focuses on understanding “doing good” (with being generous as one of various good things to do) not merely as an automatic expression, or an automatic consequence of spiritual growth but as being either a cause, or at least a condition of said growth.

It can be taken as a truism that we don’t grow spiritually simply due to a desire to grow spiritually, but by doing the things that contribute to spiritual growth.  A child doesn’t grow taller by desiring to be taller, but by doing the things that contribute to the organism growing, and desiring to grow is not one of those conditions!!

The Christian life is rooted in an act of God’s grace.  Whether or not we are responsible for any of the conditions necessary for that grace to take root in us is debated, and this is not the place to offer a solution to that question.  But, there is no dispute about all the causation belonging to God.  We don’t do anything causative for which we can take credit.

But, from that point on, spiritual growth is not involuntary on our part.  We become what we do, clearly with the involvement of the Holy Spirit.  Back to our case in point – we will not become generous without giving generously long enough that it becomes part of who we are.  Until it becomes part of who we are, we will be going against our nature, but doing so because we know it is the right thing to do.  But, if we don’t fight our nature by doing what is right, we will never become generous people.  We unconsciously don’t grow into generous people.  If we don’t consciously do generous acts, we have no reason to expect that some day we will wake up to find ourselves generous people.

Spiritual growth is not magic!

 

0040208