Thoughts Along The Journey

Yesterday, I received an encouraging note from Heidi (WT Canada) about what she is expecting God to do in her and through her in this coming year. One of her prayerful expectations is for the hearts of university students to be revived as to the need of the unreached around the world.

That prayer point made me think of a quote from Richard Lovelace’s book, Dynamics of Spiritual Life:

“Few know enough to start each day with a thoroughgoing stand upon Luther’s platform: you are accepted, looking outward in faith and claiming the wholly alien righteousness of Christ as the only ground for acceptance, relaxing in that quality of trust which will produce increasing sanctification as faith is active in love and gratitude. In order for a pure and lasting work of spiritual renewal to take place within the church, multitudes within it must be led to build their lives on this foundation.”

You can ‘translate’ this quote into many other cultural systems (such as honour/shame, for example), but the thrust remains that our life is first built on how God sees us.  Our life is not defined by what we do nor by what others think of us nor by how we are viewed by the community around us.  Our starting point is God, not ourselves.

For us as cross cultural workers, this is never an easy task.  We are by nature ‘activists’.  The idea that we must count on someone else for what we need, rubs us the wrong way.  Yet, that daily decision is where the greatest battle lies for us.

If we choose to find our value, our honour, our acceptance in what God says and has done for us, then the rest of our day will be focused away from us onto others and particularly onto God.

Filed under: Gospel, Grace, Value |