10/19/21

 

Born Anew

            Therefore prepare your minds for action; discipline yourselves; set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you when he is revealed. Like obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance. Instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; for it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

                If you invoke as Father the one who judges all people impartially according to their deeds, live in reverent fear during the time of your exile. You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish. He was destined before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake. Through him you have come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are set on God.

                Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart. You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God.

1 Peter 1:13-23

             

            I grew up in a church tradition that put a large emphasis on being born again and speaking in tongues.  If you could not speak in tongues, you probably were not a Christian.  If you did not have a life-defining, emotional and clear moment where you were born again, you probably were not a Christian.  I tried really hard to do both of those things when I was young and never had any success.  I have literally been the only person left standing in a room when everyone else was slain in the spirit.  I have had a prophet call all the youth of the church to the front and speak blessings over everyone else only to come to me and shake her head while saying, “Too stubborn and hard-hearted.”

            Since it seemed that I could not be a Christian that followed the emotionally expressive path, I tried a different avenue and tried to be a Christian that followed the path of self-control and good deeds.  If God could not speak to my heart, at least He could look at my actions and see that I was doing my best to do the right things and not do the bad things of this life.  That worked all right until I started being called into actually loving people.  Peter describes it as a “genuine mutual love,” and calls his readers to “love one another deeply from the heart.”

            I couldn’t do that by just being dutiful.  I couldn’t do that by just giving and serving and trying to impress God with my spiritual resume.  I had to discipline myself, but in a different way.  I had to discipline myself to listen and share.  I had to discipline myself to both give and receive.  I had to become interruptible and more concerned about people than about resumes.

            Loving someone else deeply is only possible when you have been loved deeply.  We can only give what we have received.  I was transformed, I was born anew, not in a blinding flash of spiritual ecstasy and awareness…but through a slow, steady developmental curve of relationships and obedience. 

            That developmental curve took a sharp leap when I became a father.  There are ways that I love my children that they will never understand until they have little ones of their own.  I could try explaining it to them…I have tried explaining it to them…and they just look at me weird and tell me about how much better they understand the world than I do.

            God’s love of me is not based on whether I can speak in tongues.  It is not based on whether I fall over or whether a prophet can read me.  His love is based on the fact that I am His son.  From Him came me and that was all He needed.  Are there things that He wishes I would grow stronger in?  Of course.  Are there mistakes that I make over and over again that drive Him crazy?  I would bet on it.  Is there opportunity for me to grow in self-control and obedience and genuine love for His other children?  Yes. 

            Do I use my special-needs family as an excuse to avoid those changes and claim that I am stretched as far as I can go?  To my shame, yes.

            Do any of those things change God’s love and affection for me?  Speaking as a father with a challenging son myself, absolutely not.

            Let us continue to be born anew, allowing ourselves to be remade into who our Father has created us to be.

A moment to reflect:

How does God want to make you anew?  What excuses do you make to get out of it?