The Clothers...

In or Out Feels Like the Wrong Question...

Do I have to be baptized to be saved?

What if I don't go to church regularly? Read my Bible? Pray? Love my neighbor? What if I still sin? What if it's a really bad sin?

I feel like often times we are trying to figure out where the line is so we are just inside of it rather than enjoying the fullness of the lives God has called us to.

Do we really want to follow Jesus, or are we trying to figure out just how close to the line we can get?

I love what my friend Phil Graf said the other day.

"I don't pray asking God to help me want to follow Him more. I ask Him to help me want to want to." Think about it...

Do we believe Jesus is who He said He was, and has that taken over who we are?

Are we talking about who Jesus is, or experiencing who Jesus is?

Is the world around us experiencing who Jesus is through us?

Paul wrote the following to the church at Corinth:

"For the love of Christ controls us...

... if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation...

...we are ambassadors for Christ..."

(2 Corinthians 5:14-21)

 How close to the line are you living?

Life Transformation. What is the cost?

I ran across the adjacent opportunity on Union Rescue Mission's web site. These guy do great work on LA's skid row. You can learn more here: URM

While the opportunity here is to sponsor someone's mission program journey to a new life, it got me to thinking. What is the cost of life transformation?

Ephesians 2:8-9 says " For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast."

We have been given a no cost invitation into God's family through His Son Jesus. You can't work your way into the family, only accept the invitation.

But what about life transformation? I suppose it depends on how you define it. "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" (2 Cor 5:17). So we become a new creation in Christ. That's certainly transformation...

But what about growth and development? Does it just happen when we accept the invitation into God's family?

Galatians 5:22-25 "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit."

And there it is. A wonderful description of a transformed life. And a simple explanation of the cost. "Keep in step with the Spirit."

Open and available to God's desires for us, not our own.

Open to the thought that a transformed life is not what we do, but what we allow God to do in and through us.

Ephesians 2:10 "For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."

What cost will we accept for a transformed life? Will we "crucify the flesh with its passions and desires?" or prefer to be tossed to and fro by the broken values of a fallen world?