Another common theme in my life this year is dreams, or perhaps more accurately, aspirations. In the Christian sense, dreams connect well with ideas of justification, sanctification, and glorification. I received a real clear explanation of these areas of salvation from the City Church membership meeting last week.
From what I understand, salvation is past, present, and future.
Justification is in the past, and is solely provided by God.
Sanctification is the present and a partnership between God and us.
Glorification is the future, and will be provided by God.
So I talked with a Pastor a couple of months ago about dreams. I told him that I am a dreamer, that I’m very idealistic. We discussed the idea of dreams and aspirations ppl have for God, for the kingdom. When ppl are young, they dream more about what they want to do for the Lord. As people get older, especially if they get married, they dream less and so to speak, become more settled. Their lives become consumed with their career, marriage, house payments, children, etc. However, it is healthy to dream, to aspire for God throughout our lives in this world. It maintains an eternal perspective that refutes all that is wrong in this world and claims all that is right with God. We become far-sighted, that ours is not to live for the moment, but for the future.
Our loftiest dream ought not be motivated by what want to be, to subconsciously deserve our salvation. It doesn’t mean that we should not desire to be like the Lord and live the life he lived. Rather, it means we not subscribe to performance based culture, performance based Christianity; that our identity is somewhat derived by what we want to do or achieve, whether it means becoming a missionary, a pastor, or some great evangelist. Ironically, it means we become settled with a dream we can never achieve, one we vicariously find in Christ. Our ultimate dream, our greatest aspiration should be found at the cross and in the resurrection. If we were to do nothing more in this life, we need to come to state that it is still good - we are satisfied. In Christ, I cannot fail, and I cannot not be love. We become settled into the dream founded on Christ alone. I would say that is an understanding of justification.
When we draw closer to this state, we become better equipped to undertake the specific dreams for His kingdom. We are full and live according. We live a life not to achieve, but to surrender. We serve not to gain, but to gratefully give. We pursue these dreams not for ourselves, but for Him. Essentially, we live to worship. When we settle/take on the glory of God (Christ), we naturally aspire to dream and live for Him. In fact, we are compelled by gratitude and awe. I liked the title of Book by FF Bruce, “Paul, A heart set free”. Because of Christ, we are free to live because of what has already been lived for us.
This Easter season, I hope that I become more settled in order that I may become less settled. :) It is finished!
gear
PG&E blew out a transformer, and we are without power. I had to use a match to get the stove to function. Thank goodness for laptops.
I just got out of church. I must say, I am really beginning to love City Church. As many of know, I’ve been struggling to find a church that correlated with my understanding of the Lord and better fit my ministry direction/philosophy: that which upholds the authority of scripture, revealing the nature of God, and the implications of it to His people. City Church definitely resonates with me in terms of their approach to not only grow believers, but also be involved with social justice and the reaching the lost.
On another note, what really motivated me to blog this afternoon is the thought about emotions. Attending City Church for the last six months, I’m really grown accustomed to the deep and meditative worship atmosphere. The music is mostly hymns played in a less traditional manner. The style invokes a sense of reflection and meditation, and with it, calm and deep emotions.
Contrasting this response to contemporary styles of worship, I have this theory that emotions may come in two or more forms. There are the raw emotions you feel when listen to something like contemporary Christian worship (Usually reflected in the raising of hands and such), and there are the meditative emotions you feel when you listen to something like hymns. Hymns generally have deeper lyrics and are a bit more poetic. (All music is poetic, some more than others.)
So I was thinking today, that I really enjoy the worship at City Church. But I also enjoy other styles of worship like Passion or that found in a conference like WCC. Is one truer or better than the other? After thinking about it, I think both are valid and healthy. One is just raw and the other more synthesized, but neither one less valid than the other. I think emotions are like music (maybe more than the other way around J). Alternative and rap music are raw and “down to earth”, while classical music is serene and layered. Both forms simultaneously convey several dimensions and directions. Hmm…maybe it’s similar to the different ways to score in basketball, either with an in your face slam dunk or the sweet effortless all net shot. (I’m relegated to the latter since I can’t dunk) For the tennis enthusiast, maybe it’s the winner contrasted between a powerful forehand return and the graceful topspin lob. (Is it called a topspin lob?) Anyhow, I think both are needed to have perspective of life, a healthy of one with God. We need to be connected to the Lord both in the raw and layered sense - we need to “grunt” and the “depth”.
Just some thoughts I wanted to blog out.
gear
lunch:
entree 1
Tom-Yum Flavour Instant Noodles w/some thrown stew meat and dicons from another dish.
entree 2
frozen burrito
Yum, yum! Not! Ghetto! I have enough salt intake for the remainder of this week, and next. What was I thinking? Talk about regret.
Oh wells, the weekend is here :) Praise God! :)
gear