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Friday, September 09, 2005
The Works of the Flesh
I came to know Christ as a 5-year-old. Church youth group. Good Chrisitian friends in college. Married a Christian girl. Started working for a youth ministry. Been in church circles pretty much all my life. When I think about it, it's truly been a blessing to have been surrounded by God and the people of God pretty much my whole life.
Since I work for a church to this day I get to meet people who didn't come from that background at all. I have friends who were bartenders and didn't get saved until 25. I have friends who never even went to a church until they were married and had kids. I had friends who married party girls who never really grew out of that stage. I have friends who can't understand Christian conversations because we use so many "God type words" that don't have meaning to somebody not in our circles.
Sometimes I wonder why I didn't have to go through a lot of the stuff that gives grownups something we now politely call...baggage.
But, see, I have my own baggage. It's just different baggage.
And it started me working on a theory...because I have the privilege of serving teenagers who by and large are having experiences spiritually speaking (and otherwise now that I think about it) very similar to my own. And that theory is that experiencing the grace of God is something the Holy Spirit has to stamp on our souls in order for us to "get it."
Here's what I mean: When you get saved at 5 you begin to think with a renewed mind. You generally are surrounded by people who are helping you grow and want you to learn more about Christ. You learn a behavior that gets rewarded by others and to a certain degree gives you personal joy. You stay out of trouble...you walk worthy...
...and you never really FEEL that bad. A "sinner" becomes a sliding scale because you never really did anything "that bad."
People who got saved later from lives of unwise choices almost experience the beauty of grace almost immediately. They know the rot from which they were pulled out of and are inherently thankful and appreciative of the work God did for them.
In my case, the Holy Spirit had to redefine things for me in order for me to experience the freedom and beauty and joy that grace can bring...and, no kidding, Galatians 5 is one of the place the living and active word of God became a reality for me: (from The Message):
"It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex, a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage, frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness, trinket gods, magic-show religion, pranoid lonliness, cutthroat competition, all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants, a brutal temper, an impotence to love and be loved, divided homes and divided lives, small minded and lopsided pursuits, the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival, uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions, ugly parodies of community. I could go on."
The NASB calls this list "works of the flesh." Even says they're "evident."
And, man is that list ugly.
And the Holy Spirit had to show me that I did them...a lot.
Okay, maybe not the cheap sex...
...but see that's the problem with lists. Immediately we go to making sure that we didn't or aren't doing those particular ones. It makes us feel better when we can say that we don't do half of them or whatever.
And Paul has a caveat on this one, too. The list isn't complete. He says, "I could go on." The NASB says, "and things like these." The list is simply the tip of the iceberg.
Ugh.
See, I maybe wasn't having cheap loveless sex, but that didn't mean I didn't WANT to. I cheated. I lied. I gossipped. I got angry. I won't bore you with the rest of the grocery list...but the Holy Spirit showed me quite clearly that I needed to live by the Spirit. That I needed His help to walk through life. That I need grace as much as the guy with the year-long heroin addiction who served as a male prostitute to support his habit. That the community I was in was full of redeemed people with different stories who each have their own baggage and experiences with God's grace.
It's what makes us a "living letter" to the world, too. Our story.
And, living in the flesh is evident...
...and so is walking in the Spirit. It has it's very own look to it, too, which we'll look at tomorrow.
But, for today, what do you think about my theory (which I have more evidence from Romans about, but it's only a theory and worthy of open discussion, I think)? Do you think that those who grow up in the church have to allow the Holy Spirit to show them the nature of their flesh while others who live life outside the family experience grace on a more experiential level? And, what do you think when you read the list of the works of the flesh? What thoughts go through your mind?
Brent 3:54 AM
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