The Ancient Future Church

Kristen gave me a Garmin 405 for my birthday. It is every serious runner’s dream. I get elevation (gain and loss), heart rate (high and average), and a mile by mile breakdown as to pace. These are things my pedometer could never give. All would be joy but the Garmin comes with one rather unhappy element, the truth.

It seems that my pedometer is amiss. Now I have calibrated it on a number of occasions and by various methods. I have actually measured routes by car and Google maps. I have worn the watch to see how it compared to races, a number of 10Ks and one half-marathon. I have worn it on treadmills. Unless I misread the pedometer in the last half-marathon, it was accurate within two tenths of a mile on a 13.1 mile run (I convinced myself it read 13.3). But now I am beginning to doubt even that as either an aberation or me reading what I wanted because I was in denial. The culprit was probably a battery change some 14 months ago that caused me to reenter my profile. Stride must be off. Way off.

So here is the truth. My 8:45 miles in my 21 mile run were probably closer to 9:15 in a 19.5 mile run. The distance would not have adversely impacted my last marathon. The longest training run is 20 miles anyway. However, trying to run an 8:45 pace when you have trained for 9:15 or more is extremely difficult for a novice. And when you run the first two miles at 8:00 you have probably doomed the outcome.

Consolation? The result wasn’t that far off my actual training pace. Heat and hills easily account for the difference. But it is little consolation. Very little. Darn Garmin tells the truth. T.S. Eliot once said (as did the probably better known Col. Nathan R. Jessup) that we can only handle so much of the truth. Thanks to Garmin I have had my fill.

Romans 8:26-30

“For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.”

God is making good on the original plan, of transforming us into the likeness of his Son. The “good” he is working together is toward that end. Life is molding and shaping us in the image of Jesus (see Romans 12:1-2 and 2 Cor. 3:7ff).

This is particularly good news when the journey seems shaky and the destination uncertain. Regardless, I am still being shaped. I remain clay in the potter’s hands. The same is true for you.

This warms my heart as I plant Grace Community. Will it get off the ground? Finally only the Lord knows. But he is changing me in the process. He is causing me to lean more on Him than my own strength. But he is also calling me to use the gifts he has given me without reservation when they are offered to His glory and not mine.

He is healing me of wounds, ironically largely inflicted by the church. As I preached yesterday, according to the plan we will be rejected. It is a foregone conclusion. But so many grace-filled evangelicals are routinely taking friendly fire (actually quite hostile and intentional on occasion). Perhaps some of us are too far out in front? Perhaps the church is lagging beyond reason?

A dear man and friend took a bold and public stand years ago. He sent out the last signal to the Carpathia for a sinking church. It was a slow bleed but it killed, at least seriously crippled, his opportunity for parish ministry. The Institutional Church does not appreciate being compared to the Titanic easily overlooking what an understatement it was. This pastor has a great ministry and following otherwise but he was a great parish pastor and that is largely gone. But this beloved man is still being shaped into the likeness of Jesus even if without the help of the church.  He remains clay in the potter’s hands. It is true for me. However, shaky the journey and unclear the destination, the same is true for you.

Yesterday, the 4^th of July 2012, was memorable in a variety of ways. Years ago my sweet sister, Saint Crystal, gave me a handmade smoker, the Little Drum Roaster (LDR). It was used yesterday for the first time and I hasten to add most humbly with great success. The pork of that three and a half pound Boston Butt fell right off the bone. We also managed to keep the boys up till 9:20 without too many meltdowns for a spectacular display of fireworks at Keswick Park here in Chamblee. All of us enjoyed them greatly but Dow especially.

At lunch we had a challenging but rewarding conversation about the difference in bondage and freedom. With three of our children under four it is necessary to find clever ways in and out of deep thinking particularly when the two words are you trying to explain have no immediate meaning in and of themselves like say “no” and “mine.” I said to Dow, who is almost four, you know how Captain Hook sometimes tries to capture Jake and Izzy and Cubby (of Disney’s “Jake and the Never Land Pirates” fame if you are not raising kids at the moment)? Well Captain Hook is trying to keep them from doing the things they want to do (as in pursue life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness).  “He wants to rob them of freedom and place them in bondage,” I said. Dow was beginning to understand. Kristen reminded him of how Captain Hook had tied up Peter Pan. That launched Dow into lots of thoughts and not necessarily on topic. Tinker Bell got in there somehow. But he finally understood bondage (or at least captivity) and freedom.

Anyway, I went on to explain that many years ago a King and another country wanted to rob us in America of our freedom (self-determination). Because of that, men and women of bravery and valor had to fight, even die, to insure our freedoms survived. And ever since, I told Dow, others like your grandfathers have had to defend the same freedoms to make sure no Captain Hook or King could take them away.

I would say the explanation went as well as one could with children that age. But the conversation did not include my deepest thoughts or growing lament. Early in the morning I had made my Facebook status “Grateful for the freedoms we still enjoy!” “Still” is the operative word. We are increasingly celebrating less and less liberty apparent to some and seemingly hidden from many.

There is the inane – no more Big Gulps in New York. Can’t help but mention the irony of the all-knowing mayor simultaneously wanting to decriminalize pot. Perhaps he’s forgotten that the substance usually creates what people in the seventies and eighties called the munchies which inevitably lead to the consumption of many pizzas and unending Big Gulps. Just yesterday he honored a hot dog eating contest with his presence and a speech. Is there no end to the inconsistency? Add to the inane limits on salt, insistence on forever light bulbs that have their own safety issues and disposal costs, and the subsidized solar energy which manages to produce a job for every million or two expended.

Then there is the serious – health insurance or pay the piper. Then there is the grave. The greater risk of the serious is to religious liberty. It’s grave. The Roman Catholic Church should not have to provide contraception or abortion counseling to any employees. It violates their theological conscience. And believers of all stripes should be equally concerned. If I am searching for a youth pastor must I consider an atheist or a Muslim as if the rights of the potential employee exceed the rights of the church to protect its beliefs and morals? By fiat the free exercise of religion is under attack by the government meant to protect and preserve it.

And the concept of universal health (which exists already but in a very inefficient form) is freedom robbing across the board. If all have to pay, depravity will dictate that you demand an interest in what I eat or don’t eat, drink or don’t drink, exercise or don’t exercise. And believe me I will have an equal if not more fervent interest in all of that for you. We won’t have one master but 300 million.

And while it may be obvious I am no progressive, this is not ideological.  The size of government alone can be freedom stifling if not liberty robbing. My gut tells me that there has been no sustained period of “no growth” even if there have been some periods of cuts to the rate of growth in my lifetime or even the last hundred years (whichever comes first).  Measured by experience, liberal and conservative regimes are responsible for the growth of government even if only one proactively commends it.

It seems to me at its core America is a continuation of the Magna Carta, an experiment of free individuals with limited government and no divine right of Kings. We are far from there. To be sure, like humans in every age, we have abused our freedom. Whitewashing or selective memory will not erase the truth. But our ever expanding government has not corrected nor even curtailed such abuse. So it does not restrain any better whether small or large. Where the experiment has failed is in our inability to resist tyranny. In the end we are like the Israelites of old, we insist on a king whether in a single man or an oppressive government.

There is hope for renewal. It is in a Gospel spirituality and morality necessary to the exercise of our constitutional republic.  When these are thriving, we demand governance only with the consent of the governed. Without them, we abdicate and passively grant our consent to a would-be enemy of freedom which always stands at the door and is always on the prowl. There is hope. But is there time? I pray my grandchildren, when they come of age, will celebrate more freedom than the paltry amount by comparison to that which we had at our birth that we celebrated last night.

While staunchly opposed to nationalism and everything that elevates the nation above the Kingdom, I energetically celebrate the experiment we have attempted and the lives given to sustain it. It grieves me that the sun now sets upon founding principles for which many have died. May it rise again in our day!

Matthew 22:15-22

“Show me the money.”

This a simple story with a most demanding outcome. Those trying to ensnare Jesus use one of the most reviled subjects in their ruse, taxes. The word itself raises blood pressure. When you add the power of the agency authorized to collect the taxes, it is enough to undo the best and strongest among us.

Jesus says. “Show me the money!” He wants to know who image or likeness is upon the coinage. In this case the likeness upon the money is Caesar. It must be Caesar’s so give it back to him. That must be lawful. That is obvious, right? Easy enough, huh?

Yep, until he adds and give “to God the things that are God’s! Subtly, and therefore masterfully, Jesus ups the ante. If ownership is measure by the image impressed upon something, what belongs to God? Hmm, us? Yep, right again. You and me! Taxes and tithes are always a percentage of the whole. We should count our blessings. Because Jesus is suggesting we, all those created in the image of God, should give ourselves, including our tithes and taxes to God. It is not a percentage of the whole that is being sought but the whole itself. We are to give 100% and nothing less.

Pony up. It is a Jerry McGuire moment.

Romans 8:1-11

“For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do.”

You have read it here before though not original to me. “The law has no power to achieve in us what it demands of us.” But what does that mean.

It means that the law of God, even a commandment, has no power to achieve in us what it expects of us. Forbidding us to commit adultery has no power to make us faithful in marriage. Forbidding us to bear false witness has no power to compel us to tell the truth. Due to the weakness of our flesh it actually works to the contrary. Forbidding fruit makes me, the sinner, want it all the more.

Now do not hear that the law is not good and that it cannot be achieved. It is good as it represents the thinking of a Holy God. And it can be achieved but not by us, at least not alone. First, the “just requirement” is satisfied in Jesus. Next, it is only achieved in us to the extent we walk in and “according to the Spirit.”

So let’s bring it home. “Love you neighbor as yourself.” Simple enough unless you rebel immediately and raise the conversation stopping wall, “who is my neighbor?” Can you love your neighbor as yourself? The command equips you no more than civil rights legislation equips you to love a minority (note: “weakened by the flesh” means minorities are just as capable of not loving are appreciating the equality of majorities. Sorry, no easy out!). You might love the neighbor on your right. But the one on your left? She is a curmudgeon on a binge. Get real. None of us, including you, love all neighbors equally.

However, the transforming power of the Spirit does have the power to cause us/you to meet the demands of the law. And that brings us back to the core of things. The whole story is about the power of God. When we make it about our strength (I’ll work harder, I’ll strive more), we’ve let go of grace and resumed fleshly living. Any time we do an inventory of the change in us, we’ve forgotten who brought it about. The law has no power except to show with a brilliant light where we are walking in darkness. But where the law fails, the Spirit excels.

Matthew 21:23-32

“Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you.”

The longer I live the more I believe hubris is our greatest challenge, a challenge for which I am chief among those not exempt. Few of us are humble. And wherever we are on the scale, pride eventually creeps in. We want to be at the top of our heap whatever that heap is. It is our heap after all. Pride creeps in and unfortunately pride goes before the fall.

The “chief priests and elders” were resting on laurels and tradition rather than on the mercy of God. Jesus himself calls us to repent and believe as does John the Baptist in preparing the way for him. Commoners, even the morally doubtful, repented and believed. The appeal fell on deaf ears for those who felt they had an in with God. The religious did not repent and believe. To the contrary they are now trying to trip Jesus up. They are in charge. They make the rules. There may be room for tax collectors and harlots but not ahead of them.

I sing the song often but it is worthy of yet another hearing. Our need of God is a great leveler. It makes level the playing field. It renders all hierarchy, other than God Creator vs. Man Created, pointless from an eternal perspective.

Pride resists this like the plague. Humility laps it up. It is annoying to the former and a sweet melody to the latter.

What kind of music are you hearing today?

Romans 5:1-11

“But God shows his love for us in that while we yet sinners Christ died for us.”

Paul brilliantly highlights the capacity of God by highlighting the capacity or incapacity of man.

The exception to the rule is that we humans might die for a righteous person. We might. “Perhaps,” Paul says. By implication we certainly don’t routinely, if ever, choose to sacrifice for the unrighteous, the unworthy.

God is however, wholly different than man. He does what we won’t do or what we might do rarely. He sacrifices himself for the unrighteous, ungodly and unworthy. It is as if God has been shot by a home invader then he himself falls upon the grenade he rightfully lobbed at the perp. This is love. But what kind? Love unknown to be sure. And love deep, broad and high:

O love, how deep, how broad, how high

it fills the heart with ecstasy,

that God, the Son of God, should take

our mortal form for mortals’ sake!

For us baptized, for us he bore

his holy fast and hungered sore,

for us temptation sharp he knew;

for us the tempter overthrew.

For us he prayed; for us he taught;

for us his daily works he wrought;

by words and signs and actions thus

still seeking not himself, but us.

For us to evil power betrayed,

scourged, mocked, in purple robe arrayed,

he bore the shameful cross and death,

for us gave up his dying breath.

For us he rose from death again;

for us he went on high to reign;

for us he sent his Spirit here,

to guide, to strengthen, and to cheer.

All glory to our Lord and God

for love so deep, so high, so broad:

the Trinity whom we adore,

forever and forevermore.

Matthew 20:1-16

“Or do you begrudge my generosity?”

My friend Richard is the proverbial “older brother.” He isn’t really any longer but he allows me to maintain the notion because it helps me with sermons and articles like this. And the martyr in Richard likes being the foil if not a whipping boy. It works for him on a lot of levels. Anyway, so he is the older brother. He says, “Grace for me, justice for everyone else.” He hates that he has done all the rights things in life but father killed the fatted calf for the slacker younger brother. He really doesn’t mind not having the fatted calf. He is not gluttonous or covetous. But it grates terribly on Richard when the “less” deserving gets “more” unmerited favor. In a modern day analogy it unnerves Richard when he gets a ticket for doing 80 when the guy who blew by him at 90 speeds right along. It’s so unjust!

Poor Richard is ensnared by the story of the prodigal or lost son. Unfortunately he gets no relief in the parable of the householder. Some labor 12 hours, others 9, 6 and 3 hours, and some just 1. At the end of the day the householder paid all a denarius which was the amount he contracted for with those who worked the full 12 hours (apparently everyone else went into the field without an agreement seemingly grateful to have a job).  All were paid the same though some worked just 1/12 the time of others. It’s so unjust!

Yep. Grace (“my generosity”) is unjust. And for that I am eternally grateful. What is required of us is to remember that we are never always the older brother or the laborer who works a 12 hour day. At some point or on some matter we come to our senses late. One man learns fidelity early in life and practices it faithfully only to find at age fifty he has let the sun go down on his anger for forty years. He is the older brother on the former and the slacker on the latter. That is the story of man. And God’s response is to give each what is required to enter the kingdom heaven, a denarius. I don’t get in because I am better. I just get in.

This is sobering. It should be humbling. The truth is we all are inclined on occasion to make ourselves the older brother. But when all is said and done we cannot afford justice. We all need grace and should begrudge it not.

Below is the long overdue third and final installment in a three part series entitled “Life in Three Movements: Bound, Released, Transformed.” The first, “Bound,” and the second, “Released,” are reposted again just below this article.

Transformed

We are utterly bound by sin and death. We are powerless ourselves to escape their shackles. But God had the last word in Jesus Christ. He achieves a moral perfection as measured by the law that is not remotely possible in us. The law is satisfied. And His Father raised him from the dead overcoming the penalty for our sin that the Son himself bore. Death destroyed.

Our predicament: BOUND by our inability to achieve what the law of God demands. Our redemption: RELEASED in Christ Jesus. So where do we go from here? We are released but are we any more capable of achieving the law, achieving in and of ourselves what the law demands of us? No! Not just no.  Absolutely “No!” Without exception “No!” So what is the point? Where is our hope? To whom shall we now turn?

From Released: Our job is now to yield to the perfecter. We yield to the Holy Spirit who is transforming us into the likeness of the Son (2 Cor. 3). Then we live into the law not by striving to be more like Jesus, but by being more like Jesus having been made that way by a power much greater than ourselves.

It is the Holy Spirit that convicts of our being BOUND. It is the Holy Spirit that helps us appreciate what it is God is doing for us in Jesus and then empowers us to say ‘Jesus is Lord” and avail ourselves of  being RELEASED. And the Holy Spirit is not done with us yet. Among his many works the chief work of the Holy Spirit is to make us TRANSFORMED into “his likeness with ever-increasing glory.”

Let’s look at 2 Corinthians 3:7-18. Here Paul is explaining what has changed between the old covenant and the new covenant. In his explanation is the answer to what has changed for us in admitting we are BOUND and in saying “Jesus is Lord” and availing ourselves of being RELEASED. In his explanation is what we should expect, a lifelong process of being transformed into the like of the Son who saves us.

First, by way explanation Paul explains that the Law brings with it a ministry of condemnation and death. He wholeheartedly affirms our BOUNDness. The ministry of the law is great. How much greater is the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Here Paul identifies the major player. It is still God in the third person of the Trinity.

We immediately resist and would like to make it about us again. I’ll read more. I’ll pray more. I’ll strive more. All this is in order to do what I could never do before realizing I was BOUND and before having been RELEASED. This is the perennial challenge to Christianity, making it about us. It is no surprise that Rick Warren begins “The Purpose Driven Life” with these words: “It’s not about you!” The Bible is at its core a story about God being at work among His people. Our faith is first and foremost about what He is doing in, to and through us. In this chapter of life, the God Holy Spirit has the leading role.

And what will the Holy Spirit do? He will act upon us to transform us in to the likeness of the Son who saves us.  Now this word “transform” is not to be treated lightly. It is used sparingly in the New Testament. We find it first in the Gospels. Jesus is atop a mountain with Peter, James and John, when Moses and Elijah appear with him. Before their eyes, Jesus was transformed. His clothes “became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them.” The change was out of this world. Peter comments on the transformation (commonly known as “the transfiguration”) in 2 Peter 1:16-21. These instances account for two of the four times the word is used.

The remaining two uses come from Paul and apply to us. One use is found in 2 Corinthians 3. The other is found in Romans 12. In both cases they describe what is to happen to us in light of the mercies of God, having found ourselves BOUND and eventually RELEASED.

The word is metamorphosis. Caterpillar to butterfly and tadpole to frog capture the depth and radical nature of the change God intends to bring about in us. The butterfly to the naked eye could not have had its beginning in a caterpillar. I saw a cartoon once. It was remarkable. “The caterpillar says to the butterfly, I hardly recognized you after the extreme makeover.” Extreme makeover is the Holy Spirit’s goal. Remember, He is the player. We are being acted upon.

What are we being “morphed” into? The likeness of Jesus! Here the word is image as in whose image we were originally made and whose image is upon a Roman coin. That which bears the image of Caesar is to be rendered to Caesar.  That which bears the image of God should be rendered to him.

We are not being made to look like Jesus physically. We are being made to act like Jesus morally and reason like Jesus intellectually.  And this is so comforting because we cannot, by our own strength, get there from here.

What might that entail for us? Jesus didn’t fight but rather suffered without complaint for the welfare of others. Silent he was like a lamb before the shearers. He believed we should forgive not just seven times but seventy times seven (of infinitely the law wants to see the limit of 490 thus free to return our values on the 491^st occasion). He thought more highly of marriage than Moses and subsequent rabbis and exhorted God’s people to return to the plan as God established it in the beginning (literally Genesis).

Wow that is how Jesus acted? Wow that is how Jesus thought? Despair overwhelms us because we have not forgotten that we cannot be that person. That is what bound us in the first place. But let hope reign! Because by the power of the Holy Spirit we can hit the mark as we yield to His transforming power.

And this transformation is with ever increasing glory. When we ask where is the fruit we are told more is available to us. This suggests a process, not a destination. For all our days He is working upon us to make a butterfly out of a caterpillar.

Now the transformation comes in the discipleship. It comes in knowing, loving and following the Jesus of Scripture.

We were BOUND. We have been RELEASED. We are being TRANSFORMED. This is our life in Christ in Three Movements.

Below is the second installment in a three part series entitled “Life in Three Movements: Bound, Released, Transformed.”

RELEASED

The law does not have the power to achieve IN US what it demands of us. We get it. We just can’t do it.

Alone we can’t achieve what civil rights legislation OR ANY LEGISLATION promotes. Nor can we observe the commandments of God. Remember, fail in one part and we have failed in it all. More than a means of escaping our situation, the law highlights our situation, “through the law we become conscious of sin.” It shines a spotlight on how far we check up short or miss the mark.

Depressing? It should be. And it is made worse by our context. Americans are deeply troubled by any notion that we are enslaved when we so boldly and routinely proclaim we are the land of the free and home of the brave. This situation is seemingly hopeless. And it is . . . apart from release or Movement 2.

Our reality, the truth of our situation, would be hopelessly depressing if it were not for a far more powerful truth: “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Let’s unpack that. “For even the Son of Man” means the extraordinary being who is the Son of Man, indeed the Son of God, who is worthy of praise and entitled to our service, even he, serves and gives his life. God tops the parting of the Red Sea, the last great image of massive release, in that he himself achieves the release by himself and at great cost to himself, unthinkable of any Sovereign much less the Creator of the World.

“Did not come to be served, but to serve” He abandons service due him but instead serves us. We forget at times that Christianity is first and foremost about and always begins with what God is doing for us and not what we are doing for him (particularly religious observance). He has chosen to roll up his sleeves and enter our filthy and broken existence to release us from the hopelessly depressing situation in which we find ourselves.

By what means? Just what kind of service does he provide? “To give his life as a ransom for many!” As I ponder contemporary images that illustrate this truth, I am immediately drawn to the movie Gran Torino. In it Clint Eastwood plays a Korean War veteran who did horrific things to the enemy in defense of liberty and freedom of another people. His life is now drawing to a close, and he finds himself living in his Detroit neighborhood among Koreans who were once his mortal enemies. He comes to identify them not as the oppressors but the oppressed. Gangs hold them hostage making life a living hell. This time he chooses not to kill but to instead die to set people free. Everyone thinks and conventional wisdom says Eastwood will take on the gang members removing them one by one at the end of a barrel. But he chooses instead to draw the enemy’s fire under the pretense of being armed. Fully aware of the outcome, Eastwood sacrifices himself. He dies .The gang members are legally imprisoned (the strong men are bound up). His Korean neighbors are liberated from what held them hostage.  Life begins again.

This account is utterly and completely Gospel. Sin is our jailer, Death our prison. Jesus takes on the enemy allowing it to destroy him that we might be set free. He satisfies the law and the consequences of breaking it. He suffers our fate only to overcome it in being raised from the dead. Vicariously he suffers for us by paying the price and consequently we vicariously benefit from the satchel of cash in the broken body of Jesus.

The ransom is mentioned numerous times in the New Testament. Ransom is the “instead of price.” Instead of who? Instead of us! “For the wages of sin is death.” “But the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” He died so we don’t have to. “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” Gone. Gone. Gone.

Have you ever pondered the practical implications of being released from death? We often focus on what is to come, that this more glorious future awaits us. And it does. But the truth of “eternal life” impacts life now.

So much pain is heaped upon the world in the interest of avoiding death. With that on the horizon, we spend much of life trying to figure out what will survive it. We amass possessions while others starve. We build decaying monuments that bear our name while souls are lost eternally. We create empires trampling upon nations and people in the process.

As a pastor I’ve experienced this on a smaller scale and at a personal level. Driven men, desiring to create something that cannot go unnoticed and will survive the test of time, labor night and day without end. After all, they have only this life in which to do it. Consequently their wives and children hardly know them. And the sins of the fathers are visited upon the future generations.

Eternal life sets our legacy in perspective. Eternal life means our contribution to the temporal, the fruit of a productive 50 or 60 years, will be small regardless. But positively it means we will be both loved and remembered beyond the number of our days. WE ALREADY HAVE A LEGACY. Our names are written in the Lamb’s book of life. Instead of pouring in to decaying monuments, we can spend our lives alternatively, pouring into men, our spouses, our sons and daughters, indeed all those God sets in our path.

Once in 1988 I found myself on the Pan American highway, between the major city of Cochabamba and the then tiniest of villages called Aramasi, along with others in a precarious situation. We came to a rather sudden stop at a makeshift checkpoint. It was not manned by local police as often was the case but rather by regular army which rightly or wrongly were thought of as thugs in camo. A couple of them boarded the hired bus, machine guns in hand. That had never happened before. They were intense and spoke tersely. I don’t want to overstate the case but missionaries had been “taken out” before. They were considered seditious. My life flashed before me. At 26 I was too young to die. As quickly as the fear welled up so did an unexpected calm. Your legacy is established John. Your future is secure. I didn’t know it immediately but I had been liberated from death.

But we are not only liberated from our prison (death). We are also liberated from our jailer (sin). There can be more fruit in our lives. Sin need not define our future.

First, we must abandon our striving to be perfect and yield to the one who can perfect us. So many of us spend our lives reading the bible for the ultimate list of rules. Compliance with them assures us of favor with God. But here is where our paradigm is often amiss. As previously argued (definitively in my humble opinion), we cannot comply with the law. The law has no power to achieve in us what it demands of us. Nor is the power within us personally. We can only modify our behavior for so long. Regardless we strive in vain for what we have before us. We have already found favor with God. Not out of compulsion but rather out of love, mercy and grace, he came to see us. He remembers us.

Our job is now to yield to the perfecter. We yield to the Holy Spirit who is transforming us into the likeness of the Son (2 Cor. 3). Then we live into the law not by striving to be more like Jesus, but by being more like Jesus having been made that way by a power much greater than ourselves.

We were bound. Now we are released. Ahead we are transformed. On to Movement 3.