Radical Tansformation

There are a lot of self-help videos, books and seminars that are available that provide some assistance when it comes to enabling change.

We all want to change whether it is losing weight, spending less money, getting out of debt, being a better father or mother or simply waking up on time.  Almost any advice will work if the advice is followed and a person is truly earnest and determined to make the change.

The problem with most of these self-help techniques however is that they never get to the heart of the issue.  Our very nature needs to change.  We need more than a tune-up; we need to be transformed. 

Some theologians and even some famous philosophers like Rousseau and more contemporary philosophers like Abraham Maslow teach that man is inherently ‘good’ and that if we are bad it must because of some societal cause or perhaps a mental illness.

I've read these philosophies and often thought they may be well-meaning but actually quite nieve.  Instead of looking at the obvious they search for some other explanation. 

Most of us that are parents know from experience that the nature our children are born with is not altogether good.  My children, no matter how cute (and they were) didn’t need to learn selfishness or how to easily become jealous when attention was directed anywhere other than them.  They didn't need to learn it because they were born with it like every other little baby that cries for their mother or takes shiny toys away from siblings. 

The Bible is truth, not philosophy and is actually quite clear.  The Apostle Paul speaks eloquently of a ‘sin nature’.  The Bible says that there is a propensity for men and women to follow their heart that the Prophet Jeremiah called “deceitfully wicked”.

At the core of our issues and our need for change is that we need a radical transformation. The Bible calls this a ‘new birth’.  Jesus said that we needed to be “born again” no matter how religious or how good we may think we are.  Fortunately for us, it’s the work of the Holy Spirit that causes this radical transformation.  

We however do get to participate.  When God offers His grace we simply respond.   We embrace the forgiveness that Jesus provides and lean towards this new relationship that has reconciled us back with our God.    As we have been changed, we no longer conform any longer to the world as we no longer belong to this world. 

The Apostle Paul encourages us to “be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:2)

Leading Through Encouraging

A few years ago, I met the head of a successful software company at a conference in Los Angeles.  His business card had his name and his title, “Chief Encouragement Officer”.  This was a man who understood a lot about leadership and what it meant to become an encourager.

Studies have shown that people are naturally attracted to positive people.  When we have the opportunity to encourage and speak words of affirmation and praise, we draw people into our circle of influence.  Leadership is all about influence and we earn it when people are drawn to us.

Leaders also know that in order to be able to coach and provide correction, it’s important to earn trust and support.   By accentuating the positive and encouraging people we earn the right as well to identify course corrections and improvements in task and process.  Leading through encouraging means that we always find the positive, we always affirm, we always bless.  

Ephesians 4:29 gives us some great advice, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”

Character Development

Child development is a major focus of our society; so much so that the term “child development’ returns over 226 million articles on the web.    Even in the church, much of our efforts are directed to our children and students in developing moral character, teaching the ethics, Christian principles and values that are so important as children move into adolescence and early adulthood.

However, character development is not supposed to stop in our 20s.  Quite the contrary, almost everyone I know understands how much of their character has been continuously developing as they continue to grow and learn and mature.

Every day we make choices.  Character can be defined as the decisions that have been formulated and secured long before the choice is presented.   Joseph showed that in the decision that he had made not to violate himself and offend the Lord and his earthly master when Potiphar’s wife came to tempt him.   In the same way, Daniel “resolved not to defile himself” by eating at the King’s table.

It’s our mission in life to continually develop our character.   The Apostles and disciples of Jesus were merely human.  Their character was flawed, they argued over who was greater and were jealous of each other.   However over time, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, these men and women became strong and victorious.  The Lord had built their character through example and through experiences including suffering.  In Romans chapter 5, the Apostle Paul explains the process starting with our coming to faith:

 “ Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

When we realize how much we have to learn, how much our character needs to be developed we can resolve to keep our eyes and our heart on our personal character development.  In the Book of Hebrews we are encouraged, “Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith"

Greater Works

One of the most important things that Jesus did was delegate the responsibility and authority of His ministry to his disciples

Jesus knew that the disciples would do their greatest work only after He left them.  He said, "He who believes in Me the works that I do will he do and greater works than these will He do because I go to intercede at the right hand of my Father." (John 14:12)

We need to empower those who work with us in ministry, those who we lead and encourage and instruct to have the desire and the authority to trust God for greater works without having to constantly supervise or control them.

Jesus knew that it would be for the disciples’ benefit for Him to ascend to heaven Jesus said, "It is for your benefit that I leave you, for after I leave I will send you the Holy Spirit, who will guide and teach you and empower you." (John 16:6) 

It’s not that human leaders can fail you but that they will.  When we allow the Lord to work through our gifts and callings and we allow the Holy Spirit to have control of our lives we can do these ‘Greater works'.

When we hold on to control, when we refuse to release people and give them authority to do the work that God has for them, we actually limit what God can and will do through them.    Authority is to be delegated.  When authority is delegated it is released and multiplied. 

Submission as Discipline

So often today we find that people are quick to try to redefine words in order to make them more palatable or acceptable. One of the words is submission.   In a world that is constantly trying to encourage people to be assertive and express their point of view and even demand their rights, submission is often overlooked as a more appropriate option.

The Bible has a number of direct references to the word, submit and submission.  According to Strong’s Lexicon, the original Greek word was a military term referring to the arrangement of troops but also in a voluntary, non-military manner of  yielding, providing support and cooperation.

In the world submission is thought of as a weakness.  As a result, we are encouraged to not submit but rather to compete.  We compete for attention, for an audience and for our ideas, whether right or wrong, to be recognized.

However practically every way, despite the culture’s instances on being assertive and the distaste for submission, we actually submit to each other everyday.   At a four-way stop, you submit to the person on the right.   Getting on an elevator, we submit to those getting off.   When we go shopping we submit to their lines and queues, even counting the number of items we have in our baskets in order to submit to a small sign that says, “Express Check-out, 12 items or less”.

Jesus provided the best example of submission by His submission to the plan of salvation.  Jesus was not only the incarnation of God but He was born in order to die.   He submitted to His Father in Gethsemane when He said, “Not my will Father, but yours”.  He also modeled for us the appropriate  path of submission in serving his disciples  in washing their feet and in His submission to Pilot and the religious authorities. 

Practicing submission is actually a spiritual discipline.   When we serve each other, we submit to each other.   Wives are not the only ones that are to submit but we are to submit to one another  (Eph 5:21).

When we live in submission to God and each other, we are practicing the principles that Jesus showed us as He loved his disciples and showed them how to serve each other.   Biblical submission is not living according to what the world expects or defines as ‘success’ but by the principles and calling of Jesus. As a spiritual discipline it provides freedom, an alignment with the Gospel and true peace.   Richard Foster writes in Celebration of Discipline that submission is “the ability to lay down the terrible burden of always needing to get our own way".  

When we understand submission as discipline we can practice the discipline by serving God, by serving each other and contributing greatly through the plan that God has established for us.