Get the Basket Out of the Way

...and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.
—Romans 1:4 NIV

...who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord.
—Romans 1:4 NASB

...and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.
—Romans 1:4 NKJV

Was the Holy Spirit the One who raised Jesus from the dead? That is at least the implication of the verse above. The act that fully and finally revealed Jesus Christ to be the Son of God was (it would seem) performed by the Holy Spirit. To be sure, other verses of scripture suggest that Jesus raised himself from the dead—see John 2:19-21 and John 10:17-18. With these latter verses, though, Jesus might have spoken from the Spirit’s perspective. I do not know. Suffice it to say: One possible picture painted by Romans 1:4 is that the Spirit released on the cross (John 19:30) turned right around and released Jesus from the tomb.

That picture is profound not just theologically, but also in a personal way. Most or all of the Holy Spirit’s roles in a human life are internal. The Spirit liberates, instructs, guides, intercedes, and so on—see this list. However, right here at the simultaneous low point and high point of Jesus’ mission, we see the Holy Spirit expressing its utmost impact on a human life. Here is the Holy Spirit physically, materially, and literally remaking the man. Accordingly, here is the reason why inviting more of the Holy Spirit into our lives presents a visceral challenge to every one of us.

A “visceral” challenge? Yes. Our resistance is bodily and instinctive, because we sense where this is going. The Spirit’s concern is not to exalt us personally. The Spirit’s concern is not to give us greater power for the sake of our own thrill in being powerful. Rather, the Spirit’s concern for each of us is to make us purer agents of God’s will. The spirit of a man is the lamp of the Lord, says Proverbs 20:27. That lamp is lit by our own spirit touching and getting filled with God’s Spirit. And the way of God, when a lamp is lit, is not to allow that lamp to be concealed. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, says Matthew 5:15. The way of God is to get the basket out of the way of the light.

The Spirit gave Jesus a new body. The process of transformation was not pleasant. It entailed a crucifixion. Our own suffering almost certainly will be tiny by comparison. But still: In the process of letting your light shine, in the work of revealing the fullness of who you might be, what if the Spirit transforms your “body” as well?

I put “body” in quotes here, because this body of yours might include any of your outward worldly aspects. It might be your flesh that is touched, or it might be your wealth or reputation. As Francis Chan wrote, “The Spirit may lead me into total sacrifice, or he may lead me toward humiliation in the opinions of other people around me.”

As I say, we sense where this is going. We resist and brace against the work of the Spirit in our lives because we still, all of us, succumb to the error of thinking that our passing earthly lives are really where life is located. Yet we only sense part of where the Spirit is going with us, the fearsome part, the brief part—the transition point along the way to something eternal. The aim of God is that your joy might be complete (John 15:11). The fruits of the Spirit’s work are abundant, and the list begins with love and joy (Galatians 5:22-23).

Yes, God will get the basket out of the way. But imagine this: Alongside that light that has been revealed there is now this basket—at last inverted, at turned up the right way, at last able to hold all of the fruits that remain eternally sweet.

The Heart is the Hard Part

....that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
—Romans 10:9

The famous verse above offers a one-sentence summary—actually, just a half-sentence summary—of two conditions that are necessary for obtaining the renewed and reawakened life that Jesus gives. Those conditions are: (1) confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and (2) believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead.

Which of these two conditions is harder to satisfy?

It would seem as though the second condition is easier to meet. The heart is (seemingly) a safe and secret place in which to entertain faith. Presumably, a person could just believe there, muttering the belief only to himself, whispering the belief in his thoughts. The first condition, confessing out loud, is different—that involves exposure. More, it involves almost certain humiliation. People will turn away, smirk, and judge you naïve.

However, the ordering of the verse above suggests that condition 2 must be something more significant than just an easy follow-on to condition 1. There is the sense of a progression here, a stairstep ascent toward “you will be saved.” What if condition 2 is actually the greater commitment?

Peter (portrayed by El Greco in the painting above) met condition 1. He confessed that Jesus is Lord. He confessed it aloud, just as the verse says. In a powerful moment, in fact, Peter was among the very first to perceive and proclaim the divinity of Jesus in an inspired and genuine way (see Luke 9:20). At this point, Peter had committed to following Jesus and he would soon find himself empowered to heal and drive out demons in Jesus’ name. But did he believe? As it turned out, not yet.

Of course, while Jesus was with him, Peter could not believe God raised Jesus from the dead—that hadn’t happened yet. Still: Jesus was with him. And Peter’s confession showed how he recognized who Jesus was. But in spite of this, when a crucial moment came, Peter denied his association with Jesus. He lied to cover it. He denied Jesus aloud—repeatedly. Luke 22:54-62 tells this story—the moment when Peter’s belief was revealed to be just skin-deep, just voice-deep. Belief had not yet fully entered his heart.

From time to time, I re-examine why it is that I believe. I ask why I made this choice.

Getting into heaven was not the reason. Life after death held no fear for me. Heaven must be an accepting and welcoming place, I assumed. If there really was some special requirement for getting into heaven, then I assumed God would understand why I didn’t meet that requirement—why I apparently got confused and missed it during this life. If God did exist, I reasoned, then I could talk to him when I saw him. I could learn the truth then. Indeed, scripture shows a picture of something like this very thing. A criminal appeals to Jesus with his few remaining breaths, and the criminal gets into to heaven on the basis of only this appeal (Luke 23:42-43). I didn’t know about that story back then, but still I assumed I’d have some similar chance to offer up my case—if and when it mattered. I didn’t give much thought to heaven then. And I still don’t.

Now, however, the reason why I don’t give much thought to heaven is different. The new life, the life after this world, has begun already. The adventure within freedom has begun. And the reason why I have chosen belief, why I chose to believe in the way of the resurrected Son, is because of this very adventure—the journey of stepping out, facing fears, and walking on the waves.

Yet first there is a choice. I met people who confessed God and I decided to join them—but still there was a choice.

I called out to God, to the Son, and I came to recognize the ways in which he answers—but still there was a choice.

Finally, I opened my heart to Jesus. I did this not upon discovering the reality of Jesus, but later than that—upon discovering the reality of my heart. There is a real and vital center to each of us that is more than just an abstraction. Rather than being unreal, the heart is hyper-real—because it has the potential to be bigger than this world.

A person could be forgiven for not knowing that—not knowing that he or she has such a heart. Unknowingly, I gave my heart to pride, approval, income, and other temporary comforts. These things left me cheap and starving and small. Setting my heart free entailed releasing it from the prison of such submission, the submission to tiny things. The only problem was: I was in love with this prison. I had fallen in love with walls and bars. My heart had become this prison. Each of our hearts, in fact, consists of many such prisons. And each time we lose one of the most confining and defining prisons that contain us, we initially experience this change in our lives with a feeling of pain or tragedy or loss. Indeed, the world often cannot see anything else, anything of value, in the sorts of changes that accompany faith.

Peter did not believe, not after all the time he spent with Jesus. He did not have faith. He did not find this faith until he came to the end of who he had imagined himself to be.

Peter lied to protect himself. He lied to deny Jesus. He failed publicly and profoundly—and he watched himself do it. He was shattered by a self-inflicted blow to the spirit, and when it was done, he fled back to his old life as a fisherman (John 21:3), not knowing what else he could do.

But the resurrected Jesus forgave him. And over time, Peter accepted the forgiveness. He lived the life of the Spirit. He stood up from the self-inflicted blow.

To believe is ultimately to know this transformation, and on some level, to choose it—to choose the rising up so completely that we also choose the fall that precedes it. There is, of necessity, a demolition that precedes rebuilding. I gave my heart to Jesus once I found this heart. And I made the discovery of my own heart—I began for the first time to feel my heart’s depth and fullness and potential—only after that heart had at last been sufficiently broken.

The Doormat

I wrote about how the man or woman who walks by faith in Christ still looks a little like this world—because we are called to treasure the value of people in this world, and called to continue to serve them.

Oswald Chambers said it even more starkly. We are “called to be the ‘doormat’ of other men,” he wrote.

Jesus was the doormat first, giving up his divine rights and divine nature for the sake of those who had yet to care at all for what he had done. If we are so attached to our own pride and our own privileges that we are not prepared to be doormats after the model of Jesus, then we are in the wrong faith. Or, at the very least, our hearts have not yet grown into the faith we have chosen.

Again: The Son was the doormat first. In your own life, consider how far you have been from Christ at some point. Consider the inattention or lack of regard you gave him during some past (or recent) time in your life.

Now, consider the fullness of who the Son is. Consider who he has been for you—whether you appreciated it or not. As the one through whom all things are made, the Son is and has always been the one who sustains you. This aspect of God, the one who became human for a time, is the one who fills you with thought, breath, and life. He is the provider of every blessing that has ever relieved, comforted, or enriched you, and he is even the one who measures out and tailors every suffering for you, giving you some of the insights you now know the most deeply and fully. What have you given him in return?

That is, how long do you go, or how long have you gone, without giving the Son—without giving the Lord—any more than your passing acknowledgement or thanks?

It is a loving part of our fleeting human life that we get to taste a little bit of the same humility that we presume to expect of our God. The world was made, and we did not make it. Therefore, the Son is always the one we have lived in and rested upon, whether we recognized it or not. When at last we do begin to see this, the recognition gives special significance to the fact that when Jesus healed the lame, he told them to carry their mats. He told them, in other words, to keep hold of the mat you sat upon for so long. Keep touching that which has always cushioned you, and do not let it go.