Larger Story 7

Don't look down further on the page! Don't look! Don't look! Can you remember ANYTHING about the first 5 questions of the Larger Story as shared by my friends Larry and Buddy? Say anything you remember out loud right where you are:) It's fun to think about whether anyone is actually doing that. You can stare at the opening picture while you try to remember. Something about "new". New start, new heart, new identity, new power. Something about slither lips. Something about a community of 3 loving each other. Something about heritage. Something about female and male. Something about glory and beauty. Something about NOW!

The Seven Questions.

1.Who is God?

A perfectly happy community of 3 Persons whose nature is holiness and way of relating is love.

2. What's He up to?

Glorifying Himself by beautifying us.

3. Who are we?

Gender unique image-bearers of God who....

4.What's gone wrong?

...gave away the capacity to desire, know, love and enjoy God. This disconnect is the deepest source of all that is wrong.

5.How did God remedy the problem?

He implemented a New Covenant by giving us a new Start (forgiveness), a new Heart (real life), a new Identity (adoption) and a new Power (the Holy Spirit) through the death and resurrection of Jesus.

6.What's the Spirit doing now?

Making us into "little Christs" through detaching us from second things and attaching us to first things.

Little Christs.

C.S. Lewis.

“Now the whole offer which Christianity makes is this: that we can, if we let God have His way, come to share in the life of Christ. If we do, we shall then be sharing a life which was begotten, not made, which always existed and always will exist. Christ is the Son of God. If we share in this kind of life we also shall be sons of God. We shall love the Father as He does and the Holy Ghost will arise in us. He came to this world and became a man in order to spread to other men the kind of life He has — by what I call "good infection." Every Christian is to become a little Christ. The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nothing else.” CS Lewis

Interesting on a day like today in the midst of a pandemic to read the words "good infection". What is this good infection? It is Him forming Himself in us. What a wonder. How can it be? Go to the Word. Please, Damon, go to the Word.

Bible book of Colossians, chapter 3, verse 4.

"When Christ, WHO IS YOUR LIFE, appears, then you will also appear with Him in glory."

HE IS YOUR LIFE! Not the vaccine. Not sexual intercourse. Not good church. Not the ball dropping at midnight. Not all the pathetic systems of coping that I have in place for a happy life. IT'S HIM! IT'S HIM! IT'S HIM! I'm just reminding myself.

Bible book of Romans, chapter 8, verse 29.

"For those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son..."

If ever there was someone to be conformed to the likeness of......Jesus.

Bible book of Galatians, chapter 4, verse 19.

"My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you..."

Paul, the writer of this bible book says that Christ is formed in us! And He is expressing somehow that God is letting him be a part of that process in the lives of his readers....and you and I today as we read it. That 's what Larry Crabb and Buddy Odom are doing as they invest the words of these questions in me. They are laboring like in childbirth to contribute to the forming of Jesus in me. Thank you men. Thank you for laboring. Can that even be real? It's real. I want it for you too. Co-laboring with Jesus for Jesus to be formed in a human life.

Keep going.

How does it happen?

I don't know. I can't take it in logically. How and why would the perfectly happy community of 3 waste a heavenly breath on one like me, ones like us? We're not that great. And He is magnificent. What a joyful explosion of wonder. You know what you know about yourself in your gutsiest assessment. You're a mess. I'm a mess. And He loves.

So, I don't know really, it's so big and beyond the scope of my heart and mind. But this is what I'm learning from Him. The way He is formed in us is we die. We die. And what does that dying look like?

He is detaching us from second things. Things that are not of utmost, eternal significance. Things that are not linked to my soul's health and redemption. Things, honestly that are the ones I'm most often drawn to to try to medicate the mess of my heart. And thank God it doesn't stop there. He is detaching my heart from these second thing realities and He is also attaching me to first thing realities. His heart, His ways, His Word, His life, His path, His mind, His humility, His sacrifice, His suffering, His glorious detonation of love. HE IS FORMING HIMSELF IN YOU!

It is so lopsided, His first things and our second things. And He is gracious. Oh, He is so gracious because He says HE WILL FORM HIMSELF IN US. HE'S NOT LEAVING US ALONE. He is WITH US! That's the incarnation that we are celebrating in these 12 days of Christmas. He came! He's here! And He is pleasurably at work killing us and forming Himself in us. It's not murder. It's compassion.

And it's painful.

Really, really painful.

If you know, you know.

There is pain.

He knows. He knows.

He knows.

Detach, attach. Little Christs.

1.Who is God?

A perfectly happy community of 3 Persons whose nature is holiness and way of relating is love.

2. What's He up to?

Glorifying Himself by beautifying us.

3. Who are we?

Gender unique image-bearers of God who....

4.What's gone wrong?

...gave away the capacity to desire, know, love and enjoy God. This disconnect is the deepest source of all that is wrong.

5.How did God remedy the problem?

He implemented a New Covenant by giving us a new Start (forgiveness), a new Heart (real life), a new Identity (adoption) and a new Power (the Holy Spirit) through the death and resurrection of Jesus.

6.What's the Spirit doing now?

Making us into "little Christs" through detaching us from second things and attaching us to first things.

There's more.