A Palace Fit for the King

 You were taught with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. (Eph. 4: 22-24)

 

The apostle Paul wrote those words to new believers in Ephesus nearly two thousand years ago, but when I first read them it was as if he was speaking directly to me.

 

 

Before I believed and received Christ into my heart the idea of an invisible God who has a plan for my life seemed like foolishness. I thought that sense perception and the reasoning we do from what we perceive is the only source of knowledge. I did not consider revelation from God to be a real way of knowing, I did not believe that all Scripture is God-breathed, I did not have the Spirit and “The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor.2: 14-15). This left me with a problem.

 

It was fashionable back in the ‘60s to try to “find your identity” or “be true to yourself,” and that meant there really is a “true you” to be found. But even with the help of a secular psychologist, who was no better than me at discerning spiritual things, I could not find my true self. All I could find was behavior patterns that were the product of my heredity and my environment as I was growing up. I was busy trying to be accepted and get the approval of significant others, but I had no idea who I really was!

 

All that changed when I received Christ into my heart and He gave me spiritual life. I began to accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, and the sweetest thing I learned was that I was created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness, yet uniquely me. Without Christ in my heart I was being corrupted by deceitful desires, both my own and those of others. I now know that I am God’s workmanship, I am fearfully and wonderfully made, my Creator knows what I was made for, other people do not. The Holy Spirit is my teacher and He is renovating my heart, making me into a palace fit for the King.

 

The same is true for every believer as we make room for Christ in our hearts and he continues his renovation project in each of us. As we take captive the thoughts and attitudes of our minds and hearts and make them obedient to Christ we are putting on our true self. Each of us is finding our unique identity in Christ, and that means finding our place in His kingdom.

 

 

Know God, Know Yourself

 

 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal. 2:20)

 

This verse has come to mean a lot to me in my “golden years” as a continuing overcomer of sin and death. It stands in sharp contrast to the years of my life prior to my conversion. As a willful young teenager the thought, "If it is to be it all depends on me," was the driving force that enabled me to break free from an abusive relationship. The “other” in that relationship was not willing to let go, so it was up to me to break the chains that bound me, and I did! That was an important first step in the process of my identity formation. I know now that God enabled that breakthrough, even though I didn’t know Him at the time. My roots had grown deep into the soil of backwoods Connecticut, but that yearning to be free of deadening influences was strong enough to uproot me and launch me into my first destiny which was to travel the world, and that was also what God had in mind for me at that time.

“Fly away magnificent bird, a world of unbounded freedom beckons” became my theme song. I was determined to never allow anyone to deceive and enslave me again. I was idealistic and concerned about the problem of “man’s inhumanity to man,” but was certain “religion” was not the answer.  I became “religious” about being unreligious. That attitude took me around the world to faraway places with strange sounding names like Katmandu, Kashmir, and Afghanistan. It finally drove me to the hallowed halls of academia, where I got a PhD in Philosophy, which you can read about in my last essay. There you can also learn how I finally surrendered to the love of Jesus Christ and yielded to Him the process of getting to know myself. My prayer life became mostly listening prayers as God helped me to grow in knowledge of Him, and also of myself. Calvin (and many others) said the two most important kinds of knowledge we can get are knowledge of God and knowledge of ourselves. I agree, and that process of getting to know God and ourselves might take us all the way back to the time when He was knitting us together in our mother's womb and generations beyond. We did not choose our parents or the time and place where we would be born, God did!

He is the ultimate writer of history. He is also the God of the present and the future. He knows all of us from the inside out, and in the crushing of growing up and throughout our lives, if we are open to him He is drawing out from each of us what He planned right from the beginning. He is putting together all the pieces to make us fruitful for the Kingdom that is to come starting right now! His Kingdom will be magnificent – a kaleidoscope of colors and sounds, with something new always breaking out, then returning to draw the old into the future, forever changed. That is how we can live in true freedom!

How to Live in True Freedom

I loved this topic from the Reframe series. True freedom is what I was seeking long ago as I worked for a graduate degree in Philosophy specializing in Ethics. I got the degree but knew I was not even close to learning how to live in true freedom! Back then I didn’t even believe in the God who is love and has revealed himself in scripture from Genesis to Revelation. As I look back even farther in the “rear view mirror,” I can remember seeing the movie The Ten Commandments and falling in love with Charlton Heston but he sure didn’t help me learn how to live in true freedom.

As I look back on that experience as an idealistic young adult just entering college I do think it may have been one of many events that stimulated me to try to figure out the best way, not only for living my own life, but for all mankind. I didn’t believe in God but was developing a keen interest in behavioral sciences such as psychology, which I believed would eventually figure out how to eliminate man’s inhumanity to man. I did not find what I was seeking in Psychology. That is why much later I switched to Philosophy. When I finally realized I had not found what I was looking for there either, I began to realize I would never know enough … not about myself and certainly not about the crazy mixed up world we live in … to make the best life choices even for myself, never mind the rest of mankind. I gave up my quest to become the savior of the world!

A few years after I received my Ph.D. in Philosophy, which I now call my “degree in atheism,” a godly pastor introduced me to Jesus Christ and I decided to believe in the God who created everything and knows everything, I even began to relish the idea that He knows me from the inside out and He is holy, I am not.  That thought would have crushed me if it weren’t for the fact that I also learned that He loves me and gave himself for me. He is a good good Father and has plans for me, plans to prosper me and not to harm me, plans to give me hope and a future. I chose to put my faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ, repented of my atheism and received Christ into my heart. He is the Savior of the world I am not. I don’t have to figure out how to live in true freedom because the Holy Spirit, who is the “personalized expression of the love between God the Father and God the Son,” now lives in me. I thank our Pastor Mike Plunket for that wonderful description of the One who indwells every believer. We are sons and daughters, accepted in the eternal community of our triune God, we are loved with the same love that raised Jesus from the dead.

So what now? I think everything I have written so far is good Biblical theology. It tells about our status in God’s eternal kingdom, but does it answer the question I was asking in my doctoral dissertation about how to live in true freedom here in this crazy mixed up world? Yes it does, the Holy Spirit living in all believers is the key. My next essay will focus on Gal. 2:20.