Lent Day 17: A Spiritual Makeover (I)

On this seventeenth lenten morning, my journey brings me to a curious rest stop. I have come to realize that walking with Christ is akin to an extreme makeover. Indeed, the good news of Christ's message is that all human beings are in need of a do-over because of the presence of sin in us. 

He is God and we are not. 

He is holy and we are not. 

His compass points northward; ours steers our boat south. 

This difference—sin—creates a huge chasm between us and God.

The chasm manifests itself in all kinds of ways:

Feeling distant from God 

Some individuals feel distant from God. They may see or hear others talk about God and think that they are speaking in an obscure language. They simply have a hard time relating to the closeness others claim to have with God. They may feel isolated from, misunderstood by, neglected, or even rejected by God.

At times, the great community of faith insinuates or even promotes that a true believer in Christ could never have dry spells. Such a thought negates the truth of Psalm 13 in which David discloses his own sense of separation from God,

"How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever?

How long will You hide Your face from me?

How long must I wrestle with my thoughts

and every day have sorrow in my heart?

How long will my enemy triumph over me?

Look on me and answer, O Lord my God;

Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death."

Psalm 13:1-3, NIV 

I must admit that through my years of walking with Christ, I have had seasons when God seems far away. Many of those seasons have resulted from my lack of faith or the choice to live with willful sins. However, there have been ample moments when, despite the absence of known sins or faithlessness, God seems to have turned His back on me. It is in those times that only the grace of God can bridge the gap. Hence, I join David's voice in saying, " . . . I trust in Your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in Your salvation" (Psalm 13:5).

Feeling defiant against God

Some people feel defiant against God. They may think, “This is a different time; we can’t possibly follow the lunacy of archaic writings.” They may hear God's Word telling them to love their neighbor—the respectable teacher, the rapist, the homeless, the murderer, the movie star, and their best friend alike—but they refuse to obey. Their skepticism and cynicism may be at an all time high. They may want things “their way or the highway,” as the saying goes.

Lenten thought is showing me that there is some spring cleaning that needs to take place in the defiance department in my own life. Though I may not be quite as vocal as the people profiled above, I must admit that all too often I, the creature, take a disobedient stance toward God, the Creator. I, the finite child, often nurse an insubordinate outlook on the ways of God, the everlasting Father. I, the mere servant and soldier, grievously plan a mutiny and a coup, shamelessly seeking to overpower the Master of all.

Such defiance would deny me access to God. However, driven by faithful love, God chooses to extend grace to me. It is His grace that bridges the chasm, leading me to heed Paul's instructions to "demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and to take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5, NIV).

Feeling indifferent toward God

Some people feel indifferent toward God. They may face times when God seems to have no day-to-day impact on their lives—e.g., this “God-thing” is nice for Wednesday night and Sunday morning but in the real world, very little is gained by believing in God. They may not feel one specific way or another; they simply feel at times that this God thing is meaningless in their lives.

To be sure, such indifference towards God echoes the very chasm of which we speak -- God and mankind are utterly different. It only follows that there is an attitude of the human heart whereby the possibility of the presence or power of God is of no consequence (moral, spiritual, physical, etc.)

Again, Lenten thought is bringing me to confess that I sadly allow myself to go there. My heart is too often lukewarm, apathetic, indifferent, droopy, listless, lazy, bored, and insufficiently concerned about the Father's business. This indifference is a fatal disease. Only the grace of God can bridge the gap by drawing me to notice His voice, to care about Christ's heart, to love God and neighbor wholeheartedly, and to "seek first God's Kingdom and righteousness" (Matthew 6:33).

Feeling antagonistic with God

Some individuals feel antagonistic with God. They may reject the belief in the existence of God altogether (atheism), support the belief that the existence or non-existence of God is unknown and potentially unknowable (agnosticism), or feel total hatred when people mention God's name around them (satanism and the like). 

Others may not profess to be proponents of the above belief systems but they are essentially at war with God when they adamantly oppose His truth and fail to delight in His Word. And, there again, I find myself guilty in the privacy of my own heart. Too often, I find myself grumbling about a particular command that is particularly unsavory to my selfish bent. It is only by the grace of God that I can aspire to say, "I open my mouth and pant, longing for Your commands" (Psalm 119:131, NIV).

Where the Rubber Meets the Road

The fact is, one way or another, all human beings fall short of the standard set by God (Rom. 3:23). One way or another, all would suffer the consequence of sin, which is eternal death or separation from God (Rom. 6:23). 

Graciously, that is where our Savior comes in. Christ Jesus bridges the gap between God and mankind by fulfilling God's requirement of justice. 

"He paid a debt He did not owe;

I owed a debt I could not pay;

I needed someone to wash my sins away.

And, now, I sing a brand new song,

'Amazing Grace.'

Christ Jesus paid a debt that I could never pay.

He paid that debt at Calvary.

He cleansed my soul and set me free.

I'm glad that Jesus did all my sins erase.

I, now, can sing a brand new song,

'Amazing Grace.'

Christ Jesus paid a debt that I could never pay."

-- Extracted from He Paid A Debt He Did Not Owe, Ellis J. Crum

So, this Lenten season, would that we take the time to meditate on the gift of eternal life and this spiritual makeover that is ours in Christ! Let us pray that our ears and hearts would be open to the Holy Spirit as He teaches us to live as a new creature in Christ, as He reveals to us our current habits and thinking patterns that oppose God’s nature, and as He molds us in such a way that our transformation would be evident to those around us.