"If something is true, it will change you." Soren Kierkegaard
If "Jesus is Lord" is true, it will change everything about you.
If "Jesus is Lord" is true, Open Door, it will change everything about us.
If everything about you is not changing, then "Jesus is Lord" is not truth to you.
If everything about us is not changing, then "Jesus is Lord" is not truth to us.
Yowser!
10 comments:
Unconventional,
This thought reminds me of Thomas Kelly's idea of the decided Christian:
"True decidedness is not of doctrine, but of life orientation. It is a commitment of life, thoroughly, wholly, in every department and without reserve, to the Inner Guide [Quaker for Holy Spirit]. It is not a tense and reluctant decideness, an hysterical assertiveness. It is a joyful and quiet displacement of life from its old center in the self, and a glad and irrevocable replacement of the whole of life in a new and divine Center. It is a life lived out from an all-embracing center of motivation, which in glad readiness wills to do the will of the Father, so far as that will can be discerned. It is a life of integration, of peace, of final coordination of all one's powers, within a singleness of commitment. It is the final elimination of all TOLERATED double-mindedness, and the discovery of the power which comes from being 'in the unity.'
Such decidedness is not forced upon us by external circumstances. It cannot be whipped up as an artificial intensity, for the purpose of opposing the secular gospels of our day. It is of the essence of Christianity to be totalitarian in its claims."
Thomas Kelly, "The Eternal Promise" p. 4
Rick Warren says, "Changed lives always attract others who want to be changed."
Dear God, please change more than what I confess to believe. Change my thinking, my actions, my whole being. Change me to be faithful in small things right where I am right now. Thank you Lord.
Unconventional,
I think you are right that the statement "Jesus is Lord" will prompt change--both individually and corporately. I wonder if I could add a thought about the statement "Jesus is Lord"?
Often times I feel the statement "Jesus is Lord" is used predominantly in spiritual ways. I have heard it said, for example, "I believed in Jesus, but had not yet made him Lord of my life"...while the statement "Jesus is Lord" undoubtedly carries spiritual implications, I wonder if we (myself included) sometimes forget that for the implied reader of the 1st century that statement would have been profoundly political. To say that "Jesus is Lord" is to say that Caesar is not.
I wonder if the political significance of such a statement has largely been buried since Constantine. Is it the case that after 313 CE the statement "Jesus is Lord" was reduced to the realm of hidden spirituality? What might it look like to reclaim sole allegience to Jesus in our post-Constantian culture? Although I have never seen the Open Door, what might it be like for the Open Door community to declare Jesus is Lord in all of its dimensions?
I must preface this by saying that I really believe what you're saying - "Jesus is Lord" inherently changes everything. So what I'm about to say is me truly just exploring the other side of the coin, playing devil's advocate, etc.
Is there ever a time when saying "Jesus is Lord" prompts us to fight to maintain a truth, a system, a principle against unhealthy change in the world? I tend to react negatively sometimes to conservative Christian groups that are fighting so hard to protect America from the evil winds of change that blow in abortion, gay marriage, evolution, etc. But is there ever a time to say "The world is changing, and not in a good way - my faith that Jesus is Lord compels me to stand firm against the change"? Should I always be constantly having everything about me changed?
I think that whenever I read statements such as Kierkegaard's, my mind first jumps to definition of terms. What does it mean for someone or something to be Lord? As someone else mentioned, this term was highly political pre-Constantine. Do we infuse that into our current understanding of "Lord" and if so, what are the implications? Should place and culture inform our definition?
So, that's what I first think about. What does "Jesus as Lord" really mean and what does this actually look like in our lives? How is it expressed?
To look further at the statement, if something is "true," will it always change us? I believe that Truth is truth regardless of whether or not it changes us. Why? Because "Truth" by its very essence is not contingent upon anything else. In addition, I also believe in the profoundly powerful role of volition. Thus, Jesus can be Truth and we, with our own wills, can choose not to be open to Him and His transformation or change in our hearts and lives. In other words, I believe that Jesus' Truth (notice capital "t") is in no way contingent upon whether or not change occurs in an individual-- again, due to the role of volition.
Suffice it to say, when things and people aren't changing, I say that we really need to look at who we know Jesus to be and what "Jesus as LORD" might mean. And not that we can make these things happen, but that we can soften our hearts and pray for more of His Lordship in our lives--however HE wants that to happen and to look--individually and corporately.
Mac--
Isn't interesting that Jesus Himself says, "Many will say to me, Lord, Lord! And I will say, I never knew you."
One of the diseases that is rotting the American church is that we have given people permission to say, "Lord Lord" without helping them to discover what that means tangibly. Seems like this is a discipleship issue...
Mike--
Maybe we need to stop defending "Jesus is Lord" or using it as some sort of weird slapping device.
Perhaps as discipleship is happening, "Jesus is Lord" continues to become truer and truer. Maybe we are constantly discovering what that means which, in turn, continues to adapt our living.
What do you think?
Corr--
Welcome to the conversation. It made me think about the radical existential monotheism that is introduced in such a statement. In other words, when God writes in Deuteronomy 6:4, "Hear o Israel, the Lord is ONE." it was a completely revolutionary concept even to them. That statement alone would have drastically changed everything about every day living.
Consider...
The world that the Israelites knew was one filled with a plethora of gods and goddesses over everything. To go from your home in your village out to the river, you would have to bend the knee and offer some sort of sacrifices to the gods of commerce and goddesses of fertility. It would be quite an arduous process.
When God says--I am ONE--He takes all of life and places it under His authority, dramatically changing not just the mindset--but the very way of existing for these people.
Interesting huh?
Unfortunately I don't have a lot of time to play today... so may be the only bit to add to the convo...
A dear friend of mine once said this to me, "whatever is the one thing you can't have or get enough of, that becomes your 'god'." He's done a lot of work around the 12 step program world.
The other thought is this: be the change you want to see in the world. That one was inspired by a lyric some guy from Ireland wrote.
Have fun, I gotta go to a pool party!!!
Watching "Pay it Forward" right now. The challenge that the teacher offers in the beginning of the movie is this:
"Think of an Idea to change the world and put it into action. It is POSSIBLE.
Let's get rid of the poverty of imagination when it comes to being the church.
Post a Comment