Knowing and Cherishing Christ

The Springs Retreat is all about deepening our trust in Jesus and developing our relationship with Him. It is a time for letting all of our knowledge about God that we have learned in the Scripture lead us to knowing Christ richly, personally, lovingly with heart, soul, mind and strength.

Dr. Benner reminds us that our faith must be more than a trust in right beliefs. But what is the difference between having right beliefs and having a relationship with Christ? He writes:

"In Christianity, the shift from faith as trust, to faith as belief, was primarily a product of the Enlightenment...Faith as trust is personal and interpersonal. Trust is always placed in someone or something and our act of trust is an act of leaning into the object of trust with openness and expectant hopefulness. For Christians, trust in God, however, was slowly degraded into trust in certain thoughts about God. If these thoughts were judged to be true, one was judged to have faith. But the object of the faith in this debased expression of faith is, in actuality, thoughts, not God.

"Equating faith with beliefs truncates and trivializes spirituality by reducing it to a mental process. Thoughts are, quite simply, a poor substitute for relationship. Some Christians speak much of a personal relationship with God but assume that this is based on holding right beliefs. Is it any wonder that this attempt to reduce Ultimate Mystery to theological propositions so often results in the principal personal relationship being with their own thoughts? Cherishing thoughts about God replaces cherishing God, knowing about the Divine replaces knowing the Divine. Whenever the Wholly Other is thought to be contained in one’s beliefs and opinions Divine transcendence is seriously compromised and personal relationship with Spirit minimized." (Soulful Spirituality: Becoming Fully Alive and Deeply Human) 

As I've thought about this, no one had more thoughts about God than the Apostle Paul. And no one was more concerned about Christians having right beliefs. Yet he, too, seems to say that Christian faith is not a faith in right beliefs but a faith that trusts in Christ, a faith that leans into Christ in openness and hope, a faith that seeks to know Christ and desires to become like him in his death. Paul writes:

"But whatever was to my profit (all of his work) I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ--the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead." (Phil 3)

How can we make sure that our faith is focused on fully knowing Christ, as Paul's was, and not limited to having right facts about the Scripture and God?  It seems that this kind of knowing has to do with an intentional pursuit of imitating Christ -- we get to know him personally by trusting in the power of God (as Christ did), by sharing in suffering for the gospel (as Christ did)? We get to know him when we intentionally seek to become like him in his death (which I think is a call to obedient surrender and loving trust in the Father, NOT seeking to die a tortuous death). We have fellowship with him, by seeking to become like him, and share his struggle to further the kingdom of God.  This is all challenging me to really consider if I want to know Christ at all, or if I've settled for trusting in my right beliefs about Him and if I have substituted a lot of right beliefs for a deepening relationship.

I want to know him, not just have right beliefs about him. I think I pursue knowing him through deepening my faith, hope and love--taking my right beliefs and putting them into practice as I live my life with Christ. Trusting him, today. Hoping in Him, today. Loving him, today.

Retreating, where there is time for me to be quiet and alone with Christ, certainly gives me opportunity to deepen my personal relationship with him.

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Under a Spell

It's almost like we've been placed under a spell (like in the fairy tales) and we need to be wakened from our evil enchantment with this world.

All of our modern philosophies have been devised to convince us that our own good and highest enjoyment is to be found here, on this earth, now. In fact, "Almost our whole education has been directed to silencing the shy, persistent, inner voice" that calls our attention to the truth that this world is not all there is. The shy voice says, "There is more!"

The truth is, our real goal is elsewhere. Earth cannot be made into heaven. We are in exile on earth - our fatherland is not here and now. The sun will burn out. The universe will roll up like a scroll, and we will die. What hope is there here?

We remain aware of a longing which no natural happiness will satisfy. Our desire for Paradise does not prove that I will enjoy it (any more than my desire for bread proves I'll get some), but it does give us a good indication that Paradise exists and that some people will enjoy it.  Our secret longings (and the glimpse of their satisfaction we fleetingly experience) all point us to heaven. Our real desire is for heaven.

Reflection #10, on The Weight of Glory

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As in a mirror - dimly

There is another important idea to grasp regarding our reward. If we are made for heaven, the desire for our proper place will already be in us. And at times that desire is awakened, but we can have it attached to the wrong things.

Our desire for our far-off country, which we find in ourselves even now is so sweet, so intimate, so tender and precious to us, that we hesitate to even talk about it (for fear it will disappear, vaporize, and we won't know how to get it back). It is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. Yet our experience keeps suggesting it, inklings break through. We might call it "beauty" but it is more than that.

We cannot trust in what brought us the inkling of beauty (the sunrise, the flower) it only came to us through them.  What came through was longing. The beauty, the memory of a time in the past, are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols. It's not the music, the flower, the conversation, nostalgia, a sweetness in our chest -- they are not the thing itself. They are only the scent of the flower, not the flower. They are only the echo of the music we have not heard. They are only news from a country we have never yet visited. But they are inklings of our reward in heaven, a taste, a fleeting glance...but a glance no less.

To have that experience completely, forever, is the highest consummation of why we were created, what God has desired for us from eternity, and to desire it, long for it, live our whole lives to attain it, is a good thing, a pure motive, the "chief end of man."

Seeking my own good and the enjoyment of it forever is a good thing.

"For we know in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known."  I Cor. 13:9-12

Reflection #9 on C.S. Lewis, Weight of Glory 

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Inklings

Our desire for a heavenly reward will lose its sense of being a selfish desire as we experience inklings of it. As our desire for heaven's reward grows, our fear of it being a selfish, impure motive will die way. In fact, it will seem increasing absurd that our desire for heaven be anything other than the purest of motive. But this won't be our experience overnight; it won't happen in a day any more than "poetry replaces grammar, music replaces scales, grace replaces law, longing transforms obedience." It happens for most of us "gradually as the tide lifts a grounded ship."

"Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you will appear with him in glory" Col. 3:1-4

Do you long to appear with Christ in glory? Isn't that the purest of longing -- to know Christ and be known by Him in glory. A staggering promise of reward.

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Pressing for the Prize

Understanding heaven, comprehending the staggering nature of the promises of rewards, is not something that happens all at once. We don't simply read a verse of Scripture and now we've got it. Much like comprehending God's love, it takes time, minutes that add up to hours of contemplation, openness on our part to receive the truth and let it soak in. Because of the culture we live in, one that is dominated by instant gratification, being motivated by heavenly rewards doesn't come naturally. And we may have heard someone say that heavenly rewards are just God's bribe to get us to do what he wants -- or a concept developed by people in power to dominate others and keep them in line. Don't let the scoffers and ill-informed keep you from embracing the Truth.

"Those who have gone to heaven, who have attained eternal life and are in the presence of God, doubtless know very well that it is no mere bribe, but the very consummation of their earthly discipleship, but we who have not yet attained it cannot know this in the same way. In fact, we cannot even begin to know it at all except by reading the Scripture, and continuing to obey what the Spirit shows us, and finding the first reward of the sweetness we receive from our obedience. That inkling of reward will increase our desire for the ultimate reward. Much like learning any skill -- a foreign language, playing a musical instrument, taking photographs -- we seek to become good at it in hopes of receiving the reward of enjoying literature in its original language, or playing the music that is in our hearts, or capturing the beauty we see on film. And every once in a while it happens we experience what it will be like when we become proficient, and that fleeting experience of what we seek; that inkling of our reward increases our desire and motivates us to continue working on grammar, and musical scales, and lighting techniques.

"Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us who are mature should take such a view of things." Philippians 3:14-15

Reflection #8 on C.S. Lewis, Weight of Glory 

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The Weight of Glory

Our desire for the Lord's reward cannot be too strong. Jesus Himself lived for his reward: "who for the joy set before him endured the Cross, scorning its shame." (Heb 12:3). I'm afraid that we know so little of the joy, and actually feel embarrassed by the possibility that we would be seeking it, that we attempt to live our Christian lives without it.

We don't use our desire for the Lord's reward as a motivation...to our detriment.  Paul is always looking to his heavenly reward. He is always pointing our gaze there: "I consider that our present sufferings are not worthy comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us." (Rom. 8:18) Paul envisions the scales of justice. On one side he puts "all of the sufferings" we experience in this life. On the other side, "the glory that will be revealed in us." And when weighed on Justice's scale - our sufferings cannot be compared. The weight of the Glory to be revealed completely outweighs our sufferings.

But we do not know this! We don't know about this glory. We don't have a vision of heaven, or of the promises that await us, and so we "suffer" and having nothing to put on the other side of the scale, we think that it is unfair, not right. Our confidence that God is good and can be trusted is undermined. We think we need to satisfy ourselves, here and now.

Paul says that if this life is all there is, then we are to be the most pitied.

We live our lives, essentially, thinking only about this life, embarrassed by any true desire for the glory that will be revealed. What motivated Abraham and Moses and the great cloud of Old Testament witnesses, what motivated Jesus, what Paul and Peter and the writer of Hebrews declare, what theologians up until the 1800s held out as of central importance, has been lost on us. As a result, we are like ignorant children fooling around in mud puddles and think it is only right that we do so, think it would be wrong, in fact, to even let ourselves desire a "holiday at the sea." We are far too easily pleased!

Reflection #7 on C.S. Lewis, Weight of Glory

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