The Church and the Holy Spirit

“‘Edith, I wonder what would happen to most churches and Christian work if we awakened tomorrow, and everything concerning the reality and work of the Holy Spirit, and everything concerning prayer, were removed from the Bible.  I don’t mean just ignored, but actually cut out – disappeared.  I wonder how much difference it would make?’  We concluded it would not make much difference in many board meetings, committee meetings, decisions and activities.” – Edith Schaeffer, The Tapestry, page 356.

“If the Holy Spirit was withdrawn from the church today, 95 percent of what we do would go on and no one would know the difference. If the Holy Spirit had been withdrawn from the New Testament church, 95 percent of they did would stop and everyone would know the difference.” – A.W. Tozer

What the spiritual life really is

“Then we discover what the spiritual life really is. It is not a matter of doing one good thing rather than another, of praying in one way rather than in another. It is not a matter of any special psychological effect in our own soul. It is the silence of our whole being in compunction and adoration before God, in the habitual realization that He is everything and we are nothing, that He is the Center to which all things tend, and to Whom all our actions must be directed. That our life and strength proceed from Him, that both in life and in death we depend entirely on Him, that the whole course of our life is foreknown by Him and falls into the plan of His wise and merciful Providence; that it is absurd to live as though without Him, for ourselves, by ourselves; that all our plans and spiritual ambitions are useless unless they come from Him and that, in the end, the only thing that matters is His glory.” -Thomas Merton

Tomatoes

One of the things I’ve done with the boys this year is grown tomatoes. Just a couple of plants, but I wanted them to see how things grow, to understand the process growth a little better. Personally, I consider this a spiritual discipline, although I’ve not seen it formally listed as such.

I wanted them to learn about planting, how deep do you plant them?, how important is soil preparation? Watering, weeding, feeding, diseases, and bugs, all need to be watched and tended to. How the cages that seem so big and useless at first, but later become the framework that allows the plant to flourish.

Neither of them like tomatoes, unless you first make them into ketchup, but they really like to go check on the plants. They spend most of the time looking at how big the plant is, and how many tomatoes are on them.

I don’t know how much time they think about the roots. My guess is not much. I’m a lot like that.

I’ve been pondering this article from A.W. Tozer in The Root of the Righteous . Tending to the root of anything is, by and large, hidden. It’s aim is for soundness for the long haul. It requires regular maintenance, knowledge of what you’re doing. 

ONE MARKED DIFFERENCE between the faith of our fathers as conceived by the fathers and the same faith as understood and lived by their children is that the fathers were concerned with the root of the matter, while their present-day descendants seem concerned only with the fruit.

This appears in our attitude toward certain great Christian souls whose names are honored among the churches, as, for instance, Augustine and Bernard in earlier times, or Luther and Wesley in times more recent. Today we write the biographies of such as these and celebrate their fruit, but the tendency is to ignore the root out of which the fruit sprang. “The root of the righteous yieldeth fruit,” said the wise man in the Proverbs.

Our fathers looked well to the root of the tree and were willing to wait with patience for the fruit to appear. We demand the fruit immediately even though the root may be weak and knobby or missing altogether. Impatient Christians today explain away the simple beliefs of the saints of other days and smile off their serious-minded approach to God and sacred things. They were victims of their own limited religious outlook, but great and sturdy souls withal who managed to achieve a satisfying spiritual experience and do a lot of good in the world in spite of their handicaps. So we’ll imitate their fruit without accepting their theology or inconveniencing ourselves too greatly by adopting their all-or-nothing attitude toward religion.

So we say (or more likely think without saying), and every voice of wisdom, every datum of religious experience, every law of nature tells us how wrong we are. The bough that breaks off from the tree in a storm may bloom briefly and give to the unthinking passer-by the impression that it is a healthy and fruitful branch, but its tender blossoms will soon perish and the bough itself wither and die. There is no lasting life apart from the root.

Much that passes for Christianity today is the brief bright effort of the severed branch to bring forth its fruit in its season. But the deep laws of life are against it. Preoccupation with appearances and a corresponding neglect of the out-of-sight root of the true spiritual life are prophetic signs which go unheeded.

Immediate “results” are all that matter, quick proofs of present success without a thought of next week or next year. Religious pragmatism is running wild among the orthodox. Truth is whatever works. If it gets results it is good. There is but one test for the religious leader: success. Everything is forgiven him except failure.

A tree can weather almost any storm if its root is sound, but when the fig tree which our Lord cursed “dried up from the roots” it immediately “withered away.” A church that is soundly rooted cannot be destroyed, but nothing can save a church whose root is dried up. No stimulation, no advertising campaigns, no gifts of money and no beautiful edifice can bring back life to the rootless tree.

With a happy disregard for consistency of metaphor the Apostle Paul exhorts us to look to our sources. “Rooted and grounded in love,” he says in what is obviously a confusion of figure; and again he urges his readers to be “rooted and built up in him,” which envisages the Christian both as a tree to be well rooted and as a temple to rise on a solid foundation.

The whole Bible and all the great saints of the past join to tell us the same thing. “Take nothing for granted,” they say to us. “Go back to the grass roots. Open your hearts and search the Scriptures. Bear your cross, follow your Lord and pay no heed to the passing religious vogue. The masses are always wrong. In every generation the number of the righteous is small. Be sure you are among them.” “A man shall not be established by wickedness: but the root of the righteous shall not be moved.” ( Article taken from The Root of the Righteous, Chapter 1 )

 

 

A Letter Worth Reading

I’m going to post this today instead of a follow-up to the “King and His Kingdom” because, 1) I just found it today, and 2) it’s really good.

Here’s a letter written by Evelyn Underhill that I think is as timely today as it was when it was written.

(HT- Brother Maynard)

A letter from Evelyn Underhill to Archbishop Lang of Canterbury  

(Found among her papers. c.1930)  

MAY it please your Grace:  

I desire very humbly to suggest with bishops assembled at Lambeth that the greatest and most necessary work they could do at the present time for the spiritual renewal of the Anglican Church would be to call the clergy as a whole, solemnly and insistently to a greater interiority and cultivation of the personal life of prayer. This was the original aim of the founders of the Jerusalem Chamber Fellowship, of whom I am one. We were convinced that the real failures, difficulties and weaknesses of the Church are spiritual and can only be remedied by spiritual effort and sacrifice, and that her deepest need is a renewal, first in the clergy and through them in the laity; of the great Christian tradition of the inner life. The Church wants not more consecrated philanthropists, but a disciplined priesthood of theocentric souls who shall be tools and channels of the Spirit of God: and this she cannot have until Communion with God is recognized as the first duty of the priest. But under modern conditions this is so difficult that unless our fathers in God solemnly require it of us, the necessary efforts and readjustments will not be made. With the development of that which is now called “The Way of Renewal” more and more emphasis has been placed on the nurture and improvement of the intellect, less and less, on that of the soul. I do not underrate the importance of the intellectual side of religion. But all who do personal religious work know that the real hunger among the laity is not for halting attempts to reconcile theology and physical science, but for the deep things of the Spirit.  

We look to the Church to give us an experience of God, mystery, holiness and prayer which, though it may not solve the antinomies of the natural world, shall lift us to contact with the supernatural world and minister eternal life. We look to the clergy to help and direct our spiritual growth. We are seldom satisfied because with a few noble exceptions they are so lacking in spiritual realism, so ignorant of the laws and experiences of the life of prayer. Their Christianity as a whole is humanitarian rather than theocentric. So their dealings with souls are often vague and amateurish. Those needing spiritual help may find much kindliness, but seldom that firm touch of firsthand knowledge of interior ways which comes only from a disciplined personal life of prayer. In public worship they often fail to evoke the spirit of adoration because they do not possess it themselves. Hence the dreary character of many church services and the result in the increasing alienation of the laity from institutional forms.  

God is the interesting thing about religion, and people are hungry for God. But only a priest whose life is soaked in prayer, sacrifice, and love can, by his own spirit of adoring worship, help us to apprehend Him. We ask the bishops . . . to declare to the Church and especially its ministers, that the future of organized Christianity hinges not on the triumph of this or that type of churchman’s theology or doctrine, but on the interior spirit of poverty, chastity and obedience of the ordained. However difficult and apparently unrewarding, care for the interior spirit is the first duty of every priest. Divine renewal can only come through those whose roots are in the world of prayer.  

THE TWO things that the laity want from the priesthood are spiritual realism and genuine love of souls. It is by these that all Christian successes have been won in the past and it is to these that men always respond. We instantly recognize those services and sermons that are the outward expression of the priest’s interior adherence to God and the selfless love of souls. These always give us a religious experience. On the other hand, every perfunctory service, every cold and slovenly celebration (for these are more frequent than the bishops realize because when they are present, everything is at its best), is a lost opportunity which discredits corporate worship and again reflects back to the poor and shallow quality of the Priest’s inner life… It is perhaps worthwhile to recall the humbling fact that recent notable secessions to the Roman Catholic communion have been caused by declaration by a felt need of the supernatural which the Church of England failed to satisfy, while the astonishing success of the Oxford Group Movement among young people of the educated class witnesses to the widespread desire for an experience of God unmet by the ordinary ministrations of the Church. History shows that these quasi-mystical movements among the laity do not flourish where the invisible side of institutional religion is vigorously maintained.  

I know that recovering the ordered interior life of prayer and meditation will be very difficult for clergy immersed increasingly in routine work. It will mean for many a complete rearrangement of values and a reduction of social activities. They will not do it unless they are made to feel its crucial importance. This will not be achieved through “schools of prayer” which stimulate the mind rather than the spirit. But the solemn voice of the united episcopate, recalling the Church to that personal, realistic contact with the which has been since Pentecost the one source of her power, will give authoritative support to those who already feel the need of a deeper spirituality and will remind the others that the renewal of a spiritual society must depend on giving absolute priority to the spiritual life.  

I venture to put before the conference the following practical recommendations: (1) Education of Ordinands— That the bishops shall emphasize the need and importance of a far more thorough, varied, interesting and expert devotional training in our theological colleges which, with a few striking exceptions, seem to me to give insufficient attention to this vital part of their work. (2) The Clergy— That they should call upon every ordained clergyman, as an essential part of his pastoral duty and not merely for his own sake: (a) To adopt a rule of life which shall include a fixed daily period of prayer and reading of a type that feeds, pacifies and expands his soul, and deepens his communion with God; b) To make an annual retreat; (c) To use every endeavour to make his church into a real home of prayer and teach his people, both by exhortation and example so to use it.  

 

(Courtesy of the Austin Fellowship) 

Sinclair Ferguson on the church

From a sermon delivered to the EPC General Assembly last week. (HT- Jimmy Davis)

“When the church fails to be the church, individual Christians need to learn how to ask questions that will make ungodly people think about godly things. But when the church is the church, the people of God simply need to answer the questions that the very character of the church is prompting the world to ask.”

Go here to read Jimmy’s longer quote. Great stuff.

A Good Life

I’m re-reading a little book that has a curious draw for me.  

I’m not a very disciplined person. Never have been. Long term good habits are pretty hard to come by for me.

Why then would a book about a strict monastic rule of life be so attractive that I‘d want to re-read, and even try to implement some form of it in my day to day living?

I’m sure psychological explanations abound (And psychological examination is probably warranted in my case), but the best reasons I can come up with are balance, and Robert Benson.

I’ll start with Robert Benson. I really like him. I like the way he writes, clear, simple, honest prose (not an easy thing, by the way) that obviously comes from long hours of experience with a subject. You know how some people come across as very knowledgeable in a particular subject, but you can tell it’s still theoretical and not lived? I never get that feeling with Robert. Everything seems to have been lived for a long time before he puts it on paper.

But I don’t just like him as an author, I really like him. I spent a weekend with him on retreat and got to know him a little bit. He’s very unassuming, honest about his past and present, quick to laugh, and I wish he lived in my town so I could hang out with him.

—

Now the balance part.

When I think about a “rule of life” the feeling that immediately comes over me is one of wearing wool pants and neck ties that are a little too tight. Constricting legalism that “builds character”. Ugh. No fun, all serious, all the time. Gruel for breakfast lunch and dinner.

Benedict, on the other hand begins his rule this way,

Seeking his workers in a multitude of people, the Lord calls out and lifts his voice again: Is there anyone here who yearns for life and desires to see good days?

Oh yeah, I yearn for life and good days. You’ve got my attention now. How do I get there from here?

We intend to establish a school for the Lord’s service…

The wool pants are itching again.

In drawing up its regulations, we hope to set down nothing harsh, nothing burdensome. The good of all concerned, however may prompt us to a little strictness in order to amend faults and to safeguard love.

Ok. I ‘m still a little wary, but I’m old enough to know that a little strictness is needed to amend faults, after all I’ve got two boys. And if we really are safeguarding love, I can deal with a tie from time to time.

I’m hooked. 

The book has seven chapters-

1. Longing
2. Prayer
3. Rest
4. Community
5. Work
6. Living
7. Authors notes- technically not a chapter, but functionally it is.

I’m not going summarize them though. The book’s short enough, and a good enough read that I’ll leave that to you. But I will give you my overall thoughts. 

Benedict was unusually balanced in his approach to the spiritual life. The idea being that all of life is spiritual and can be categorized under four headings- prayer, rest, community and work. Each of these areas needs to be nurtured, and balanced, recognizing their essential part in a life well lived, with prayer being the framework around which each day’s rest, work and community takes shape. *Disclaimer*-This is my very simplistic summary of the rule, but it will do for my purposes here. 

Robert’s writing on the rule makes it both inviting and accessible to folks like me- tired, busy, overcommitted, suburban, mini-van drivers looking for some way to live out life following Jesus. At the same time it’s not a pie in the sky promise that it’ll all be quick and easy either. He’s clear that this way of life is a radical departure from the good life as advertised on TV. It’s gonna take some real work and commitment. Decisions have to be made, schedules reworked, patterns of living changed. But the end result is (hopefully) what the subtitle holds out, “Everyday Joy”. And that’s too good to pass up.  

My suggestion to you? Buy it, read it, let it grow in you. Let the poet-author, and an old monk teach you about the possibility of living a good life.  

Revival?

Update: I just about finished this and realized that I wasn’t writing in the first person. BIG mistake. If you read this, realize that it applies to me first. Then anyone else that wants to join up, feel free. 

“It is my considered opinion that under the present circumstances we do not want revival at all. A widespread revival of the kind of Christianity we know today in America might prove to be a moral tragedy from which we would not recover in a hundred years.”- A.W. Tozer

Don’t tell me about Lakeland. Don’t tell me about emotional “worship experiences”. Don’t tell me about spiritual gifts. Don’t tell me about programs, projects, and long term strategies. Don’t tell me about good preaching or sound theology. Don’t tell me about looking at the “fruit” of a church’s (or a preacher’s) ministry if you mean numbers in attendance, or even converts (remembering the parable of the sower). God may be at work in all these.

Then again, he may not be.

The fruit we should be looking for is found in the letter to the Galatians.

We’re called to discern the spirits. Well?

Do you see evidence of this, “… enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy,…” in yourself, or the people in your congregation? Remember, this comes next, “I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”

Are your people, are you, more loving? Is this your aim, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.” (Phil. 2)

Are you increasingly more joyful? Does the joy set before you cause you to endure the cross and its shame? Is that joy your strength? Do newcomers to your group notice a deep seated joy that transcends circumstances?

What about peace? Are you a peacemaker? Are you known as an ambassador of reconciliation? Or does your proclamation of the gospel of the kingdom mostly convey strife and division? The Gospel will always have an unpopular, prophetic edge to those who smell death instead of life, but which direction are you headed as a people?

Patience? Are you content? When people interrupt your plans how do you react? Is the desire for your vision of ministry frustrated by the very people you are shepherding? How do you react to those weaker brothers?

Kindness?… anyone?… anyone?… kindness?” (read in your best Ben Stein voice) How do you measure yourself and your folks when you read this from Henry Drummond?

“‘The greatest thing,’ says someone, ‘a man can do for his Heavenly Father is to be kind to some of His other children.’ I wonder why it is that we are not all kinder than we are? How much the world needs it. How easily it is done. How instantaneously it acts. How infallibly it is remembered.” (The Greatest Thing In The World)

What about goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control?

(*crickets*?)

What about the first things that history tells us happened in almost all, if not all, real revivals. Prayer, and Godly sorrow leading to repentance?

Ruthlessly look at your own heart, see if you are at least moving the right direction, then I’m pretty sure you’ll know what real revival would look like.

A Friend of a Friend

Here’s a quote from a friend of mine, as quoted by another friend of mine.

“We’ve been seeking crowds, not disciples. We’ve considered every possible means of getting the most people into our buildings and keeping them there, and we’ve attracted people on the basis of mere self-interest, so that what we have are congregations ecstatic to belong to some place that, in the name of the Lord, takes their self-interest as seriously as they do.”

Read the whole article here

(HT: Jimmy)

“A 20th Century Prophet”

For those who don’t know, I’m an A. W. Tozer fan. Apart from scripture no book has had a bigger influence on my formation than
The Pursuit of God.

If you haven’t read it, stop whatever you’re doing (after reading this post) and go get it. If you need more than my recommendation here’s the preface. If you’ve read it before, read it again and feel that heartache, that longing again.

The Pursuit of God

A. W. Tozer

 

 

Preface

In this hour of all-but-universal darkness one cheering gleam appears: within the fold of conservative Christianity there are to be found increasing numbers of persons whose religious lives are marked by a growing hunger after God Himself. They are eager for spiritual realities and will not be put off with words, nor will they be content with correct `interpretations’ of truth. They are athirst for God, and they will not be satisfied till they have drunk deep at the Fountain of Living Water. This is the only real harbinger of revival which I have been able to detect anywhere on the religious horizon. It may be the cloud the size of a man’s hand for which a few saints here and there have been looking. It can result in a resurrection of life for many souls and a recapture of that radiant wonder which should accompany faith in Christ, that wonder which has all but fled the Church of God in our day. But this hunger must be recognized by our religious leaders.

Current evangelicalism has (to change the figure) laid the altar and divided the sacrifice into parts, but now seems satisfied to count the stones and rearrange the pieces with never a care that there is not a sign of fire upon the top of lofty Carmel. [See 1 Kings 18 for the allusions.-ccp] But God be thanked that there are a few who care. They are those who, while they love the altar and delight in the sacrifice, are yet unable to reconcile themselves to the continued absence of fire. They desire God above all. They are athirst to taste for themselves the `piercing sweetness’ of the love of Christ about Whom all the holy prophets did write and the psalmists did sing.

There is today no lack of Bible teachers to set forth correctly the principles of the doctrines of Christ, but too many of these seem satisfied to teach the fundamentals oft he faith year after year, strangely unaware that there is in their ministry no manifest Presence, nor anything unusual in their personal lives. They minister constantly to believers who feel within their breasts a longing which their teaching simply does not satisfy. I trust I speak in charity, but the lack in our pulpits is real. Milton’s terrible sentence applies to our day as accurately as it did to his: `The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed.’

It is a solemn thing, and no small scandal in the Kingdom, to see God’s children starving while actually seated at the Father’s table. The truth of Wesley’s words is established before our eyes: `Orthodoxy, or right opinion, is, at best, a very slender part of religion. Though right tempers cannot subsist without right opinions,yet right opinions may subsist without right tempers. There may be a right opinion of God without either love or one right temper toward Him. Satan is proof of this.’

Thanks to our splendid Bible societies and to other effective agencies for the dissemination of the Word, there are today many millions of people who hold `right opinions,’ probably more than ever before in the history of the Church.Yet I wonder if there was ever a time when true spiritual worship was ever a time when true spiritual worship was at a lower ebb. To great sections of the Church the art of worship has been lost entirely, and in its place has come that strange and foreign thing called the `program.’ This word has been borrowed from the stage and applied with sad wisdom to the type of public service which now passes for worship among us.

Sound Bible exposition is an imperative must in the Church of the living God. Without it no church can be a New Testament church in any strict meaning of that term. But exposition may be carried on in such way as to leave the hearers devoid of any true spiritual nourishment whatever. For it is not mere words that nourish the soul, but God Himself, and unless and until the hearers find God in personal experience, they are not the better for having heard the truth. The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means to bring men to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of God, that they may enter into Him, that they may delight in His Presence, may taste and know the inner sweetness of the very God Himself in the core and center of their hearts.

This book is a modest attempt to aid God’s hungry children so to find Him. Nothing here is new except in the sense that it is a discovery which my own heart has made of spiritual realities most delightful and wonderful to me. Others before me have gone much farther into these holy mysteries than I have done, but if my fire is not large it is yet real, and there may be those who can light their candle at its flame.

A. W. Tozer Chicago, Ill. June 16, 1948.

What Are We Afraid Of?

Brant Hansen has a list of the Most Influential People in American Christianity, the ones who have most influenced the way we think and act as Christians. Check it out, and the comments too. Very interesting reading, at least to me.

Jesus came in tenth (tied with one of the Wesley brothers).

His point is that we seem to want to follow someone else rather than Jesus, to hear about Jesus from others, instead of from Jesus himself. While I think we desperately need to hear this in Evangelical America, it’s not a new distortion. Paul knew the same thing with some claiming to follow him, some following Peter, some Apollos. But why is that?

I’m sure there are lots of reasons, but I think mainly we’re afraid.

When I ask God to speak to me I run two risks.

The first risk is that He won’t show up. At all. That the god (little “g”) I’ve been praying to doesn’t exist. It’s likely to be true, at least to some extent, because the god we imagine and the God of the universe are, in fact, different beings. Rousseau hit upon a truth when he said, “God created man in his image. And man, being a gentleman, returned the favor.” The God of the universe doesn’t often act the way I want him to, or show himself just because I want him to. His ways and thoughts are far above and beyond us. “What can be known about God has been made plain”… the rest we try to fill in ourselves. 

The second risk is that he actually will show up. Things (people) are never the same after he shows himself, and that’s pretty scary. The Israelites pleaded with Moses to speak to God and then report back, for fear they would die if He spoke directly to them. Isaiah fell down as though dead when he realized he was in the presence of God. Paul’s life was a little different after his trip to Damascus, and I don’t think Peter went back to being a fisherman after pentecost. 

We’re afraid that he won’t show up, and we’re afraid he will show up. 

—

When Jesus showed up, scripture says that the people were amazed at his teaching because it had authority, unlike the teaching from their leaders. When he said, “I am”, on at least one occasion, people were knocked to the ground.

But it wasn’t just authority and power that got him in trouble, it was what he said that was dangerous. Just try to do what he said to do and see what happens.

Turn the other cheek, go with your oppressor two miles instead of one, and give him your coat as well as your shirt and while you’re at it pray for him. Those are hard enough, but offer forgiveness to the “wrong” person, and you’ve got enemies. Challenge “the way things are” and see how quickly it gets ugly. Be a peacemaker and see who gets chewed up and spit out. 

Kingdom talk gets you killed.

But once you’ve heard it and it takes root, it captivates you, it changes everything. Suddenly you live in a much bigger world, one that centers around a throne where songs of praise are sung day and night, where the One who sits on that throne laughs at the scheming kings of this world, one where you pledge your life to a King who is always faithful to you.  It’s no longer about you and what you want, it’s about the King and what He wants this day, not in the sweet by and by. It means you have to re-think everything. Things (people) can never be the same again. Eugene Peterson, speaking of this truth of the Kingdom says this;

“If Christ is the King, everything, quite literally, every thing and every one, has to be re-imagined, re-configured, re-oriented to a way of life that consists in an obedient following of Jesus…A total renovation of our imagination, our way of looking at things–what Jesus commanded in his no-nonsense imperative, ‘Repent!’–is required.” ~ From The Jesus Way

That’s what scares us most, “an obedient following of Jesus… is required.”