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Changed

Changed

Posted by on Jul 24, 2011 in Featured | 0 comments

What does it mean when Christ says that we would be “born again”?   What does it mean when Paul says that we would become “new creatures”?  I’ve always been raised to believe these were supernatural processes — ones to which I remained largely passive.  When I was baptized, I merely entered the water — the hand of the preacher dipped me under and lifted me up again within mere moments.  Was that a picture of the renewal process that made us suddenly into the new creatures Paul spoke about, or was there an ongoing regeneration process?

Theologians debate the idea of “sanctification,” as to whether this process is instant or progressive, permanent or reversible, attained or given.  I have no thoughts on these matters.  I only know that the promise of scripture is that we will (or already have) become new, and this newness is critical to the coming of the Kingdom of God.

Do you remember the WWJD campaign that was so prevalent a decade ago?   The entire idea behind asking myself “what would Jesus do” was to remind me to walk in that change.  By becoming a new creature — one that was no longer enslaved to the desires of the flesh –  I would need to think and act just like Jesus would if he were here today.  A wonderful thought, and one that we could still stand a bit of resurgence even now.   But what does that change look like in today’s world with Internet and mobile phones and secular humanism and rock music and science and moral relativism?

Jesus taught his disciples clearly that there would be a way to know if they were acting like him — by bearing fruit:

I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

- Jesus.   John 15:5-8

That makes sense.  The Father will be glorified if we show the fruit of being connected to Christ.  But what is that fruit exactly?   Converts?   More churches?   Certainly these are wonderful things.  Let’s keep reading to see if Christ clarifies:

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other.

- Jesus.   John 15:9-17

This change that Jesus spoke about, that Paul spoke about, that we continue to speak about today.  This change… is Love.

Not some sort of love that merely causes us to hear of injustice and simply shed a tear.  Or love that guilts us into our weekly tithe on Sunday morning.  True love, as Jesus described, is to lay down our very lives.

If we want to love as Jesus did.  If we ask ourselves “what would Jesus do” today, there is only one answer.  To Love.  Love extravagantly.  Love passionately.  Love until it hurts.

I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love.

- Mother Teresa

 



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