Axis for Organizing Peace and Security

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(Romans 5:1) Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

O

Previously, Paul argued that all humanity was engaged in willful resistance against God, war against our Creator, the lover of our souls. Here, we see something far more--infinitely more--disturbing: God's angry resistance against us! It's too frightening to grasp. Our bellicose nature, our belligerent behaviors justified His own warfare against us. Our positioning God as our enemy has put humanity into a not very bright condition and an even worse future. But Jesus Christ--Himself--is our peace, having broken the wall of hostility between us and God, having reconciled us back to God through the cross. The war is over. We have peace (Ephesians 2:11-22; Romans 5:6-11).

A (Psychological)

Clinicians Prochaska and Norcross acknowledge their double bind of not expecting to find "absolute truth" in psychotherapy despite impressive advances in knowledge while on the other hand simultaneously holding a contrary need for a guiding theory or system of psychotherapy that "delimits the amount of relevant information, organizes that information, and integrates it all into a coherent body of knowledge that prioritizes our conceptualization and directs our treatment" (Systems of Psychotherapy, 2003, pp. 5,6). Similarly, on a universal human level, Daniel Siegel (Developing Mind, 1999, p 67-72) defined attachment as our brain's need to learn how to organize and respond to the input it receives: "attachment is an inborn system in the brain that evolves in ways that influence and organize motivational, emotional, and memory processes. [It organizes it] with respect to significant caregiving figures. This process of attachment to significant caregivers helps immature brains establish an interpersonal relationship that helps the immature brain use the mature functions of the parent's brain to organize its own processes." Attachments are ultimately seen as secure or insecure, from that, the brain defines the world a safe or unsafe. This "faith" of perception affects the literal development of the physical brain just as it organizes how it perceives and interacts with people and the world.

Through Jesus Christ, we have opportunity for forming a secure attachment to the ultimate caregiver. As we attach to Him (abide in Him), the Holy Spirit helps our brains reorganize our perceptions, aligning them with reality ("ultimate truth"). In the context of Paul's statement to the Romans, our world is insecure and unsafe because of its opposition to God. Through faith in Christ, because of His cross having reconciled us with God, we are justified before Him. We can now have a safe attachment to Him, and with that "abiding" our brains can be healed. The proof is us now living peacefully because of the mutual love between God and people.

A (Personal)

I've experienced the pain of having an enemy. Thankfully, Jesus showed me life beyond those dark designs. As painful as that experience was, it demonstrated how utterly inconceivably terrifying life would be for me if God were my enemy. In our world, with its abundant forms of warfare, both internal and relational, peace is a much sought but rarely secured treasure. But God ... God Himself arranged for us to have true and abiding peace. Even when we were warring against Him, He demonstrated His love and commitment to us by sending His own beloved Son to the cross so we could be reconciled. Having obtained that peace, all other conflicts are trivial and easily remedied.

P

Beloved Savior, because You justified me by Your cross, I get to spend this day in peace. Because You provided for my peace at such a great personal cost, I hold on to it tightly and I resist letting it slip away through this day's deceptive worries, distractions, and deceptions. I choose instead to enjoy Your peace, and I love it!

Axis of Fatherhood

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(Romans 3:21-24) But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law ... the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction ...

O

Paul, guided by the Holy Spirit, made it clear that all people have the same need for Jesus Christ--there is no distinction between people in this regard. For centuries, Jewish lovers of God had mistakenly erected walls between their "us" and "you" (non-Jews). These Jewish Christians did not use stone, turf, or timber like Hadrian used when building the great Roman wall across northern England. No, they contended that only Jews were God's people, regardless of whether they believed in Christ. In this letter to Romans, Paul argued for a different wall: it was the wall of sin that put all humans outside of God's embrace, but Jesus' cross tore down that barrier (Ephesians 2). Anyone, therefore, who "embraces" God's Son, Jesus, gains unhindered access to Jesus' Father, Jewish or not.

A (Psychological)

Miroslav Volf, in his book Exclusion and Embrace (1996, pp. 156-165), sketches a phenomenology of embrace, which he conceived by studying Jesus' story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15). Paralleling the wall metaphor that Paul used with the Ephesians and here with the Romans, Volf gives us insight into into God's common love for all people. Both sons in the prodigal story shattered their relationships by "un-sonning" themselves and "un-fathering" their father. The prodigal's departure from home wasn't an act of separation required for the formation of a distinct identity; it was an act of exclusion (like his brother's) of pulling out of relationship and subsequent responsibilities--creating a spacial and moral wall even more distancing than a stone wall.

Paradoxically, by pushing others out, the prodigal found himself away from himself and the elder brother found himself estranged (by his own doing) from his father. Both sons defined their identities along moral axis: worthy or unworthy, good or bad. The Father kept redefining their identities along relational lines: lost or found, dead (broken relationship with me) or alive (restored relationship). Although the father rejected the misrepresentations of his heart, he didn't deny the damaging effects of his sons' behaviors and views. He kept reconfiguring the home order without destroying it so they could maintain it as an order of embrace rather than exclusion. He refused to make moral rules the final authority regulating exclusion and embrace. His behavior was governed by one fundamental, unchanging rule: relationship has priority over all rules. Because of the cross, Heaven's gate is eternally open (Revelation 21:25).

A (Personal)

Do I see my "good works" merely as God's assignments for me as though I were a solitary laborer isolated from others? Instead, do I see my primary task as being in relationship with my Savior and my Heavenly Father? That changes everything! If I am Christ's ambassador (2 Corinthians 5), I'll see relationships in a whole new light, a whole new priority.

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O Lord, help me to reorder my world along relational lines. Help me to see myself and others from Your loving, relational perspective where every relationship is valuable, every soul is linked to mine and is worthy the price of reconciliation.

Ouch! Thank You!

S

(Romans 3:19-26) Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by the works of the law no human being will be justified in His sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and Prophets bear witness to it--the righteousness of God through Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in His Divine forbearance He had passed over former sins. It was to show His righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of one who has faith in Jesus.

O

Paul lumped into one category called "Law" all the Law and Prophets (i.e., Hebrew slang for what we now call the Old Testament). All God's Word, he said, was law that therefore defines our duty toward Him and relationship with Him, and it is a gracious gift. Without it, we wouldn't see the discrepancies between the motives that drive our conduct and the life-giving alternate motives and conduct that God designed for us to be guided by. However, as good as this law is, it doesn't solve our crises of regularly falling short of God's glory. It enlightened us, but that light increased our painful darkness because we still remained stuck with our guilt: some days we get up on the wrong side of the bed and sometimes we gripe or gossip or choose selfishness. And we learned from God's law that even this misconduct was called sin.

Our sin plus God's love for us explains the cross. Because God is just, He wouldn't ignore the appropriate judgment for our sins (Psalm 99:8)--both justice and mercy require judgment's full vengeance for all sin. Through the cross, God justified His forbearance for all evil anyone had done before the cross. In God's eternal present, the cross reveals the gold standard of righteousness (Galatians 2:20). In the eternal future, the justifies God's unending forbearance of everyone who trusts Jesus' blood as the price of redemption (Romans 3:25).

A (Personal)

My conscience colluded with the Holy Spirit to help me admit that I've not only failed God's law with my conduct, but even more seriously, as the Gospels revealed, my motives (my will and heart) had to be right, too (even when my outward goodness hid my bad attitude from people). Paul, by the Holy Spirit, revealed that I share that same condition with all humanity. Thankfully, God's law also revealed that by faith, I can receive God's gift of forgiving grace all because of Jesus' cross. Praise God: the reach of God's grace exceeds the reach of sin's contamination--it reached even to me!

A (Psychological)

Unfortunately, pain is impossible to remove from just about every aspect of sin, the cross, failure, redemption, or even love. Edwin Friedman, in his book Generation to Generation (pp. 47-51), provides great insight into the necessity of pain as a tool for growth: "If one family member can successfully increase his or her threshold for another's pain, the other's own threshold will also increase, thus expanding his or her range of functioning.... The more that family members are motivated to achieve goals, the less their pain will bother them; [however], where family members are too quick to spare another pain, the resulting dependency tends to make the other's threshold fall. In addition, he or she will become addicted to having pain relieved through someone else's functioning.... Those who focus only on comfort, on relieving pain, or on filling another's need, tend to forget that another's need may be not to have their needs fulfilled."

Here's where Friedman collaborates with the Holy Spirit's process: the Holy Spirit lovingly reveals to us the painful truths of our misconduct and our lost condition without God. The more honesty we learn to tolerate, the more options we discover that keep us from stumbling in darkness. Friedman continues: "The problem is that we cannot make another family member responsible by trying to make him or her responsible. The very act of trying to make others responsible preempts their own responsibility.... There is, however, a way to be our brother's keeper, to manifest responsibility for a fellow human being without getting stuck in a triangle between that person and his or her failure to be responsible. It is called "challenge," but it requires one to nonanxiously tolerate pain, and sometimes even to stimulate pain, thus forcing the other to increase his or her threshold.... Sticking someone with the pain of responsibility for his or her own destiny is far more "sobering" that giving the person black coffee after [getting drunk]." Is my threshold for truth large enough to invite the Words of the only one who could correctly say of Himself, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except by Me" (John 14:6).

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Lord, I encounter people fairly often who shock and sadden me by their resistance to even the concept that they might be wrong. I see foolishly stubborn people, perhaps because it's easier to see it in others than in myself. Help me to never get between another person and their necessary pain. Help me to discern, too, when I am to be their necessary comforter and Your hands in delivering them from their pain. It's just too difficult for me to discern--I need a miracle, and let it begin with the miracle of me being wholly honest with You.

Paul: The Message Carrier

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(Romans 1:16, 17) I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, "The righteous shall live by faith."

O

Who was this messenger? Paul, a seemingly powerless, vagabond Jew, a supposed criminal on death row chasing his final court appeal, wrote these sentences (which summarize his entire epistle). Ironically, he addressed these Latins in Greek to explain the life of Jesus of Nazareth, who had taught primarily in Aramaic--in this circuitous path of languages is an easily lost hint about the universality of this message. So, knowing the power of his message, Paul arranged his travel plans so he could take his presentation to Rome's imperial, terrifying throne of judgment. He knew he carried the indestructible idea that, in time, would pulverize all earthly kingdoms and establish an unshakable kingdom of true eternal glory. David's slingshot against Goliath and Luke Skywalker's longshot against the Imperial Starfleet are child stories in comparison.

How apparently arrogant this Jewish prisoner was to make this claim. Yet history has so far proved him right. Paul's life culminated in a Roman execution, but where would history have flowed without his lifework? While the Roman Empire collapsed under the barbarian sweeps of Franks, Goths, Visigoths, and Vandals, Europe--the West--would have risen only as high as the Vikings and Mongols had it not been for the power of Paul's message. There would not have been Bach or Beethoven, no Newton or Pascal, no Washington or Lincoln. The East would be equally unrecognizable because without Mohammad marrying a Christian as one of his wives, his "pro-Jesus, anti-Christ" cult could not have formed. Paul was right: the Gospel he proclaimed turned out to be more powerful, more influential, more enduring, more beautiful than either the idea or the institution of Rome (or any subsequent kingdoms, institutions, or religions).

Who were the Romans? It's not likely that we, today, can comprehend what Rome meant to people living in that chapter of history. Paul knew their power, and rather than allow it to intimidate or appall him, it quickened his step and desire to go to Rome. He anticipated the shame that Rome would level against him in defense of itself. Alexander Maclaren wrote: "What proud contempt would have curled their lips if they had been told that the travel-stained prisoner, trudging wearily up the Appian Way, had the mightiest thing in the world entrusted to his care. Romans did not believe much in ideas. Their notion of power was sharp swords and the iron yokes on the necks of subject peoples. But the history of Christianity, whatever else it has been, has been the history of the supremacy and the revolutionary force of ideas. Thought is mightier than all visible forces. Thought dissolves and reconstructs. Empires and institutions melt before it ... and the hillock of Calvary is higher than the Palatine with its regal homes and the Capitoline with its temples: 'I am not ashamed of the Gospel for it is the power of God for salvation.' "

What was this message, this good-news Gospel? It was not that Jesus died, was buried, and was then raised from the dead. Even with the shock of Jesus' resurrection, that message would have perished in foolishness, vanity, weakness, deception, and shame. The Gospel that Paul outlined to the Romans he also summarized in his first letter to the Corinthians (chapter 15). Jesus did not merely die; He died in accordance with the Scriptures. He was not merely buried and resurrected, but he rose from death in accordance with Scriptures. In the context of God's revealed plan from the beginning of His creation, we see an entirely different reality behind Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection.

Borrowing again from Maclaren's summary, we see how Paul explained the Gospel to the Romans: it included (1) the universality of sin; (2) the awful burden of guilt; (3) the tremendous outlook of penalty; (4) the impossibility of people rescuing themselves or of (5) living righteously; (6) the incarnation, life, and death of Jesus Christ as the sacrifice for the sins of the world; (7) the hand of faith grasping the offered blessing; (8) the indwelling in the believing souls of the Divine Spirit; (9) the consequent admission of believers into a life of adoption, power, peace, victory, and glory; and (10) the child-like place in the love of the Father from which nothing can separate. Negatively, salvation is the removal and sweeping away of all evil, both physical and moral. Positively, it's the inclusion of all good for every part of our composite nature--every good that we can receive and that God can bestow. And that is the task the Gospel sets for itself. For that to be accomplished, something more than man's power is essential. Only God can "trammel up" the consequences of my sins and prevent them from scourging me. Only God can bestow upon my death a new life that shall grow up into a complete righteousness and beauty that is related to His own. This Gospel is so much more than we realize!

A (Personal)

The direction that the current on which the Gospel river flowed is curious. It traveled to the Jew first, then it seemed to have forked to the Greeks and to the Romans. Using a different metaphor, the Jews would be the parents and the Greeks and Romans the offspring of this Jewish message. This is not unlike Jesus' parable of the Faithful Father, the Prodigal Son, and the Heartless, Perfectionist Elder Brother (Luke 15).

The elder brother created a false sense of safety by worshiping perfect order and uncompromising duty. Like Rome's, his was the worship of human power that sustained itself, that proved and justified itself by punishing the weak and the guilty. This path led to destructive power and rage, and unfortunately I've traveled that path before. To the Roman as with the elder brother, the Good News was the refreshing honesty of acknowledging that, "even though I'll never be good enough, God's grace is still available."

The prodigal brother created a false sense of satisfaction by chasing fantasies of sensual and selfish pleasures. Like the Greeks, he worshiped the endless chase of ideas, beauty, and perfected dreams. Toss rules aside! Abandon even the pretense of doing right. Perfectionism is too hard of work! Instead, explore the possibilities of absolute freedom. This path led to destructive destitution and despair, and I've traveled that path, too. The Good News to the Greeks as well as to prodigals is that Christ has a baptism for us that surpasses our private ambitions.

The Faithful Father was Jesus' description of His Heavenly Father. This "family of origin" was what both sons were fleeing from. Historically, the Greeks and Romans viewed the Hebrews as embarrassing vagabonds, weak and irrelevant. Scripturally, this family--those who have been adopted through Christ into God's family--would be the only branch of the human family tree that would survive God's judgment. The Father gave both sons freedom to choose their destinies, and interestingly, if the brothers in this parable were to reconcile--one with his love for righteousness and the other with his passion for freedom and untethered beauty--then both would have discovered the joys of living within God's kingdom.

How often I forget that my best dreams and ambitions can find their fulfillment only in seeking first God's kingdom and His righteousness? My pursuit of my own destiny--my own path apart from my Heavenly Father's will for me--leads only to the futilities found in God's "I told you so's."

A (Psychological)

Paul challenged Rome's intimidations and power plays by refusing to be shamed by them. I believe shame is universal, and psychologists have been studying shame, analyzing it, hoping to find its psychological and sociological cure. Shaw, Medes, and others have wisely distinguished shame from guilt and embarrassment: with embarrassment being essentially a social blunder that gets publicly exposed; guilt being a more technical distinction of having done a wrong or failed to do a right deed, one is either guilty or not guilty of that; and shame being an internal dislike, repulsion, or even rejection of self, more for what one is rather than for what one might have done or not done. Shame is more toxic and destructive, and seems to get most clinical attention.

Shame and guilt, too, seem to be the roots of addiction. Similar to sufferers of covert depression, addicts try to outrun their shame by chasing cures that promise to separate them from their unwanted and seemingly intolerable thoughts, feelings, and memories.

As helpful as these insights about shame have proven to be, I suggest that this might be a mistaken focus after all. Beneath shame, like a steaming volcanic spring that perpetually defies frosts and winter snows, shame is perpetually fueled by an inner realization of a deeper, darker reality--guilt. I can't be good enough. I can't atone for my wrong-doings. I can't make right all the wrongs that I have done. I can't keep myself from slipping back into wrong or destructive behaviors. I don't have what it takes, so I must run faster to hide from that shame and fear of guilt.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ severs the root of guilt. The Gospel alone is ultimately sufficient for eradicating the paralyzing shame of guilt. The Gospel doesn't sever guilt by cognitive restructuring or creative reframes. It doesn't provide insight about different goals or motives--although each of these might be part of the healing process. The Gospel, instead, provides a tangible, kinetic intervention from God: He personally atoned for each of our wrongs by dying on the cross, and His resurrection invites us into a vibrant new life that is constructed on a fault-free foundation.

Without helping people to be free of justified guilt, we can't really address shame. In relational and civic schemes, we can help people resolve minor infractions of guilt, but apart from Christ, we cannot help people with the merged guilt and shame for our dark, human propensities. Only the blood of the cross can eradicate the effectiveness of our sin nature (Hebrews 9, 10) and answer our deepest longings.

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Lord, thank You for revealing Your righteousness. It is my power for salvation and my freedom from being ashamed. By faith I see it, I receive it, and I live by it. I revel in the relief of Your love. Thank You!

The Good Debt

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(Romans 1:14,15) I am a debtor both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians [non-Greeks], both to the wise and the foolish [unwise]--hence my eagerness to preach the Gospel to you also who are in Rome (NRSV).

O

Paul rocks. Who else could have slingshot this truth between my eyes? What did he owe everyone?To the extent that it was possible for him (12:18), he owed everyone the preaching of the Gospel. Why? (1) Because he viewed us all as members of the same family: the word humanity was coined to acknowledge our common Heavenly Father and our common elder brother, Jesus Christ. (2) Because of the message of the cross provides universal salvation. (3) Because of the reality that all believers have access to all-sufficient grace. (4) Because Paul, like each of us, contributed to humanity's suffering in ways that he (we) couldn't recompense or pay restitution.

A (Personal)

Do I act like a debtor or a creditor? Do I think I owe others any obligation or do I think the world owes me? Does God see me as my brother and sister's keeper despite my denial or avoidance of that reality? Do I hold others responsible for bailing me out? The lifestyle of indebtedness is moral reality, while expecting service or even benefit from others is apparently an idiot's fantasy.

A (Psychological)

The people who work in domestic violence, whether with the abusers or victims, as well as the people who contend for gender and social justice have warned of the abuses of power and control. The mindset that seeks power over others or being "one up" on others (rather than seeking shared power and mutual service) has been statistically linked with abuse--obviously. We tend to divide people into haves or have nots, wise or unwise, ethnic insiders or outsiders, rich or poor, served or servants, included or excluded, worthy or unworthy. Whether a cultural victor or victim, both groups still tend to say of the other, "you owe me!" Paul turned that upside down, saying, "Regardless of what group you identify yourself with or even me with, I owe you the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ." Paul points us to a radical new social structure.

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Lord, until I realized the Truth of what Paul wrote, I thought I was fairly righteous, fairly clean morally. Now I see how far I have yet to go. But I'm not shrinking back! No, I'm pressing deeper. Help me grasp both my indebtedness as well as the riches of Your salvation and grace that You have asked me to share with others who are still in need.

Overt Humility

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(Romans 1:11,12) For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you--that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine.

O

Paul shifted his perspective midsentence--first describing his healthy longing to strengthen these Romans through the Holy Spirit's miraculous gifts. Then, perhaps to correct himself or more likely to include all believers into this abundant availability of God's gifts, Paul then described the benefits they would each enjoy as they walked in faith together. Paul knew that the Holy Spirit gives gifts in many sizes and shapes, and he didn't receive his so he could hoard them; he received them--like everyone else--so they could be shared for the Church's mutual benefit.

A (Personal)

I want to exercise my faith as Paul described. I want to mingle my faith with that of other believers' faith so we might both be strengthened and encouraged. The Lord seems to hold His greatest treasures until we decide to share our spiritual resources with each other. Then they seem to be multiplied miraculously. So how strong is my faith? What gifts am I longing to share with others? How open am I to receive of the gifts the Holy Spirit wants to give me through the faith of others?

A (Psychological)

Elijah, Paul wrestled with depression, as did leaders as strong as Charles Spurgeon. Alexander Maclaren said, "All earnest work has ever travelling with it as its shadow seasons of deep depression." In his book, I Don't Want to Talk about It (pp. 63, 75, 225), Terrence Real identified depression as being either covert (a hidden, defensive process or addiction--an obsessive disorder--that transforms one's state from shame to grandiosity, from less than to better than) or overt, a defensive process that confronts the emotional pain of one's thoughts, which is also the necessary way out of covert depression. What's the connection? Rather than a narcissistic view of "I want to give you a powerful, coveted gift that I have and that you need," Paul advocated a brave new world of honesty, humility, compassion, and faith. The Church, when operating this way, through the gifting of the Holy Spirit, is a community equipped for healing souls.

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Lord, I didn't realize how deep Your gifts are. Forgive me for neglecting them and for forgetting how generous You are with them. Please increase my faith so might be more significantly share the gifts You've given me, and equally important, please increase my faith so I might receive more significantly of the encouragement available to me through other people. Thank You for grace.

Embarrassing Grace

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(Romans 1:6,7) ... You are the called of Jesus Christ ... beloved of God, called [to be] saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

O

Although he'd not yet met these Roman men, women, or children, Paul clearly understood how God viewed them: Through Jesus, God had called (invited, welcomed, and appointed) them to be His own family. They were powerfully yet tenderly loved as only their creator could demonstrate. Despite their histories of shameful failures and varying degrees of moral maturity (and immaturity, as Paul eventually discovered once he got to know them), the Holy Spirit, nonetheless, called them saints--people perfectly clean, totally accepted, and completely dedicated to God.

A (Personal)

I'm overwhelmed by the effectiveness of Jesus' cross--that it could so alter God's view of me, too, that I, like these ancient Romans, could be not only accepted and but invited by God, but also called and embraced as His highly favored child. By discovering His love, I learn that I can safely trust Him. That trust turns into a rich and responsive love for Him. The more I love Him, and trust His love for me, the more naturally I delight in obeying Him, which leads to ever-expanding, inexhaustible discoveries of His love.

A (Psychological)

Our ability to love people, though unspeakably meager in contrast to God's ability, is still our most powerful aid for helping others. It's hard work. Dr. Huffine created Allies in Change, a program for working with society's most unlovable people--batterers of women, children (and men). This program is in contrast to shame-based models that merely use a larger hammer of power and abuse to effect behavioral changes. Allies in Change treats its clients with respect, while still holding them both responsible and accountable for their behaviors. It helps them develop moral honesty, as well as cognitive, emotional, and behavioral skills for stopping their abusive or violent behaviors. Over a century ago, theologian Alexander Maclaren was particularly insightful when he commented on this verse: "You cannot argue a man into loving God, any more than you can hammer a rosebud open... So a God who has only claims upon us will never be a God to whom we yield ourselves. A God who has love for us will be a God to whom it is blessed that we should be consecrated, and so saints."

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Lord, Your love for me is almost embarrassing--I have hope when others have none. I have joy in spite of my circumstances because I'm know that Your soon-to-be-revealed good purposes are at work for me even in tough circumstances. I have Your own peace available to me anytime simply by coming into Your presence to bask in Your love. Kings and emperors would have been jealous of all You do for me. I am so deeply grateful for You!

A Hilarious Conscience

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(Hebrews 13:18) Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a clear conscience, desiring to act honorably in all things.

O

Through the wonder of God's grace to us through the cross, it is possible to have a clear conscience. He defined it positively, not merely purged of his sinful history, but repositioned on the right path, facing the right direction. The real-time test is in the intent--the desire and the fully committed attempt--to act honorably in all things. In this request for prayer, Paul concluded his letter. He harmonized God's redemptive purposes of suffering and faith: In life's deep contradictions, convictions, and crises, God gives us freedom to define, even (to a degree) re-create ourselves.

A (Personal)

A clear conscience is almost frightening in its exhilaration. To be exhilarated is to be intensely gladdened, cheered; to the point of being hilarious. That's the result of receiving the Good News that Jesus' blood purges us of our sins. The frightening part of this is that after having been cleansed by Jesus' blood, I might move from that cleanness to mistakenly thinking that whatever I do, thereafter is right and good. No wonder Paul requested prayer support. Through prayer, we open the commerce between God's thoughts (reality) and ours (murky at best).

A (Psychological)

Narrative therapists tell us that we are interpreting beings: we constantly seek meaning in our daily experiences. We make sense of our lives by creating stories and plots that link particular events in particular sequences across a period of time. Life, then, becomes mediation between the dominant stories (sometimes these are imposed on us from outside influences) and the alternative, lesser appreciated stories of our lives (that might actually be more valid). To tell a particular story, certain events from the present and past are selected and explained so as to fit with the meanings that we hold. In doing this, certain events are selected and privileged; others that don't seem to fit are untold and unrecognized. These exceptions become less visible. All the complexities and contradictions of life become simplified into simple names and descriptions. Biographers of Chairman Mao and Hitler, for example, assert that these grossly destructive people believed they were altruistic. How crucial it is, therefore, for us to allow God's Word to "have free course" in our lives--to read us as we read it, as well as to be respectful of the people who speak into our lives so that we see more than just our stories of ourselves (2 Thessalonians 3:1-5).

P
Lord, I have walked in the ways of my heart and according to the sight of my eyes--but not always by a well-informed faith in You. I understand that You hold me accountable for what I do with my life (Ecclesiastes 11:9; 12:13,14; Isaiah 55; Hebrews 9:26-28). Thank You. Thank You, too, for purging my sins. Help me, today, to live cleanly and confidently before You, in Your grace.

Self-Presentation, Part 2

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(Romans 12:2) Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God--what is good and acceptable and perfect (NRSV).

O

Conforming (schema) to the world is like working hard to blend in with the cast of a theatrical play: you echo what you hear and try to adapt the the scene around you. Transformation (metamorphoo)is different. It means change, a change that is caused by becoming different, someone whose mind is reorganized by Heaven's insights. This happens as the Holy Spirit helps us understand God's Word.

A (Personal)

Sometimes, after blowing a scene with someone (misbehaving), I ask for a "do over" much like a movie director would require a scene to be reshot. When I value God's Word in my heart (Psalm 119: 9-11, 105-112), I see my world differently. I become more gracious, more courageous, more loving ... and these positive changes affect me and the world around me. I don't have to be like everyone else that I'm tempted to complain about.

A (Psychological)

Peter (1 Peter 1:14), like Paul, said our conformation to worldly schema is based on (1) our lusts (the desires that form from the pathos of our wounded, diseased soul) and (2) our ignorance. When describing basic behavioral-cognitive models of therapy, Becvar and Becvar (2003, p. 239) as "fundamental assumptions an individual has about the world that tend to be resistant to change and all-encompassing. They are the basis for coding, categorizing, and evaluating experiences during the course of one's life... Cognitive-behavioral therapists [believe schema] generally operate outside of conscious awareness [and] influence the way in which family members respond to one another." This underscores the importance of having a reliable means of testing and validating our assumptions.

P

Lord, I have defined my world and my inner rules for interacting with people--what's fair and what's not--and I've learned that whenever I adjust my values so the align better with Yours, that my thoughts and emotions get healthier. So do my relationships. Help me to continue to remap my schema so I transform my environment and my perspectives. Help me to do on earth as You do in Heaven.