Tag: god with us

Becoming More Christlike Than American: Part 2

Part 2: Personal experience with God’s presence

“And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other languages…How can this be?” Acts 2:4,7 NLT

If you’ve never read Acts 2, or haven’t in a while, first go read it.

And then spend a moment simply reflecting on the power, importance, and personal nature of the story it tells.

God’s Spirit – His very presence – fills His disciples. This is “God with us” to a whole new level.

No longer is it Jesus – God as man – being with disciples and empowering them. Instead it is now God within them empowering them.

And the people witnessing this miraculous event are in awe: “How can this be?”

How can this be that a group of people who are not educated in our languages could be speaking our languages?

How can this be that they have flames of fire resting upon them as they speak?

How can this be that they are sharing the truths of God with us so directly (as if they are prophets or priests)?

But the power of the story in Acts 2 doesn’t actually lie in the miracle of speaking in tongues. It really lies in the extremely personal nature of God to inhabit – make his habitat – His disciples.

God isn’t merely “filling” them with His Spirit so they can prophesy (like He had done before with His people). God is making His dwelling among them in a whole new way. He is making them His very home. That is why the New Testament goes on to describe the believer individually and the believers together both as the Temple of God.

The deeply personal nature of this event should not surprise us. Nor should it be something we overlook in order to focus on other details. Too many times people are drawn to the speaking in tongues or later the 3,000 being added to the church that day. But the power and simplicity of this group of disciples (and then eventually all those who also were added later) receiving God Himself into their very being is the foundation for what then occurs for the rest of the entire book!

This brings to mind some other “How can it be?” questions for me. As I think about much of the American Church in light of this story I ask:

How can it be that there are those in the American Church who have never had this sort of a deeply personal, powerful experience with God’s Spirit in their life and yet call themselves Christian?

How can it be that we get so focused on the external workings of God (like speaking in tongues, healing, prosperity, numeric growth, etc.) rather than keeping our focus on the world-changing internal miracle of God to live within us?

How can it be that we’ve lost our sense of awe and dependence upon God to do what only He can do – fill people in ways only He can, add to the church those who are being saved in ways only He’s able, grow within us fruits of the Spirit that then display His very heart thru our very life, and so much more?

Other questions might come to your mind too as you reflect upon how these Acts 2 stories compare to many of the modern expressions of church in America…including questions like the one I asked in Part 1 concerning whether we’ve actually (unintentionally) “de-personalized” God thru how we “do church” today…

There are several stories I could share about how God has personally and powerfully shown up in my life:

  • On a mission trip where He stripped me of my emotionalism so I could know it was really Him there with me and not just my heightened feelings
  • At a concert with some friends and He sent an angel (that I visibly saw and physically felt near me) to heal one of my best friends, as we could feel the fullness of His presence around us
  • In the moment, after a church leader had brutally hurt my wife and I, when I wept during one of my seminary classes as I expressed my desire to leave the church while they surrounded me to embrace me and pray for me, showing me how God was so very near to me in my brokenness
  • As God has once again “put on flesh” thru my time this past year with a spiritual director and a small group of people who are journeying together with me in the area of spiritual direction, and has met me in such ways that I never really knew He could be oh so personal…and real…and tangible…

Maybe you have such stories as well. Maybe you don’t.

I actually don’t write any of this with any desire that my experience with this powerful God would be compared with yours. But rather that it would simply echo the story of Acts 2. That this deeply personal God desires to become very real to you, to each of us, if we will wait upon Him as the disciples did and live into the kind of community He forms us to be (that we see His disciples living out immediately).

A personal experience with God’s presence is the main foundation of a journey to becoming more Christlike than American.

As we begin to reflect upon our own experiences with God in relation to the stories in Acts we will hopefully begin to see similarities. And yet we will also see some distinctions – many times because as Americans we’ve added some things to what we see happening in Acts. Mostly out a cultural desire for more or better, or for uniqueness or modernity. And yet it will take identifying those things and stripping them away to really rediscover the simple core commonalities of what a personal relationship with God worked out in community really looks like today. Just as it did in the life of those disciples in Acts.

Becoming more Christlike means being in relationship with a deeply personal God as He sends His Spirit to dwell with us.

It transforms our lives.

And it forms our churches.

May this relationship with God, and these relationships as the church, be the basis of a re-formation of God’s people once again today.

Previous Posts:

Becoming More Christlike Than American: Part 1

Part 1: Questions about why

“Why are you standing here staring into heaven?” Acts 1:11 NLT

If you’ve read Acts 1, this is such a pointed and powerful question. [If you haven’t read Acts 1, go read it now]

The disciples have just finished 40 days with the resurrected Jesus, which concludes with one “final” recorded conversation with him about the kingdom of God. This is where he reminds them that they will be his witnesses [martyrs is the Greek word] all over the world after they receive the Holy Spirit.

And then he ascends. Right in front of them.

And there they are. Standing. Staring into heaven. When two “white-robed” messengers ask them this simple, and yet profound, question: Why?

This “Why?” question has always gripped my attention every time I’ve read the story. And it makes me wonder if I too have found myself staring up to heaven instead of looking to what’s right in front of me – to people right around me and most of all to God who is with me.

This “Why?” question centers me upon potentially the most important part of the Gospel: the incarnation – that God “took on flesh” in Jesus, and is still “taking on flesh” today thru His Spirit within His people. This truth of the Gospel really changes everything.

This “Why?” question sets the trajectory for the disciples living out this reality of incarnation in their day. And it can do the same for us today.

And it’s really less about answering the question (I’m sure we could psychoanalyze why we think the disciples were staring into heaven) than it is about that asking of it to bring about awareness – awareness to what we find ourselves doing.

If you haven’t noticed, there are a lot of questions being asked right now in our culture. Especially among the younger generation of Christians in America.

Questions about faith. Questions about life. Questions about how faith works itself out in the midst of life.

Questions about the church. Questions about society. Questions about how the church lives out it’s values in the midst of society.

And on we could go.

Almost everything is being questioned. And most of the questions are really “Why?” questions.

And that scares some people, or at least unsettles them. But I don’t think it does God. Jesus himself asked many questions. And God fields questions constantly from those we read about in the Bible.

Questions are important. Questions can bring awareness. Questions can cause self-reflection. Questions can set a trajectory for the journey ahead.

And the questions being asked right now – especially the “Why?” questions – will shape the way forward for many people.

And even more so, the posture of asking questions – and the journey to understanding that comes from asking them – is shaping the church for the next generation more than even the answers themselves will.

As I observe the questions that are being asked today, they all seem to be about identity.

Which really relates to what this question in Acts 1 is getting at.

Are we people who are standing and staring toward the heavens? If so, why?

For many of us, it feels like much of our lives have been shaped by a teaching that says God is personal (God is with us) but also by practices that depersonalize God (“staring into heaven”).

Does being invited into a “relationship with God” in a non-relational context where you “pray a prayer” during an “altar call” really connect us with a personal God?

Does prayer being treated as how we “talk at God” and Scripture being used for how we “receive a word from God” really connect us with a personal God?

Does the church being so concerned with attendance and attraction, with buildings and budgets, and with numbers and nomenclature, really connect us with a personal God?

As myself and others have been asking these kinds of questions, I’ve found myself returning consistently to the book of Acts. Which always brings me to this question: “Why?”

And as we look to the stories of Acts as our guide, we will find the answers to so many of the questions we’re asking.

But, even more so, as we look to the stories of Acts, we will rediscover the posture of disciples and of a church that concerns itself far more with “God with us” than the desires and scorecards of this world – or even just our staring up to heaven.

The simplicity of the question asked of the disciples in Acts 1 is only matched by the simplicity of the community we see God form throughout the rest of the book.

And it’s that simplicity – that clarity – that questions like “Why?” can bring to our lives, to our faith, and to our churches. 

If we let them.

If we don’t run from them.

And it’s those sorts of questions we will be exploring as we navigate thru the stories in Acts in this blog series.

Let’s become more Christlike than American together.

*This post is the beginning of a series of reflections I have written that focus on “Becoming more Christlike than American.” They are based specifically upon the examples of the disciples of Jesus we read about in Acts. It is a follow-up series to one I did previously asking the question: “Do we look more American than Christian?” [Click here to read the first blog in that series]

I’ve spent over 15 years with that question, and have also walked with people who have been asking similar questions as well. I’ve found that the “crisis” we are in is really about our definition of Christlikeness. Many of us grew up in a church culture that gave us a lot of information about Jesus, and taught us to live moral lives, but we were mostly formed by religious programming more than a personal relationship with Jesus. A relationship that works itself out in personal relationships with those around us.

In my own journey with the questions in this series, I’ve found that ultimately I had learned to depersonalize God. And I find many are struggling with the same experience – and thus, why they are “deconstructing” with their faith and “disconnecting” with the church. For them (and for me) too many times the church has not “put flesh on” Jesus, but has just been a “place” (a building or time during the week) of looking to the heavens.

I hope this series will help others, who are on the same path as I am, to see God be fully “incarnate” in our lives once again.

God is with us. May we have the eyes to see Him and the ears to hear Him.

Previous Posts:

In The Pain, God Is There

A reflection on how I’ve experienced God meeting with me, inspired by Elijah’s experience with God in 1 Kings 19:8-18.

I feel alone sometimes.

At times it feels like wandering.

Other times it feels like running for my life.

On the outside I can accomplish something big for God. People see it. God shows up. It proves my faith. Right?

Except on the inside I’m still not sure where He is when the big thing is over. Will I still be alone? Wandering? Running for my life?

And so I hide. From others. But mostly from God.

But then He comes and invites me to meet with Him.

And so I go to meet Him where I think He will be: in the big church event. The band. The choir. The singing. The preaching. The altar. It’s the place where people come to meet with God. Right?

But that’s not where He wants to meet with me.

And so I go to meet Him where I think He might be next: in the conference, the concert, the retreat. All the people. The unique setting. The exciting or heavy emotions. This is where big things happen in my life for God. Right?

But that’s not where He wants to meet with me.

And so I go to meet Him where He’s surely got to be: in the mission trip, the outreach, the doing. That’s where people need me. That’s where important things are accomplished. This is where God wants to work in big ways thru me. Right?

But that’s not where He wants to meet with me.

And so I’m unsure where He wants to meet with me.

Then the pain comes: death, sickness, loss, broken relationship, anger, anxiety, confusion, loneliness.

And in the pain. A voice. His voice. Quietly speaking:

You

are

not

alone,

I AM

here.

So this is where He wants to meet with me.

This is where He wants to speak to me.

This is where He wants to tune my heart to His.

In the stillness of my pain.

I was so busy looking to meet with Him in all the places I was told He would be. All the places I knew He should be. All the places outside of my pain.

But He was waiting. To meet with me. Right where I was. Right in the midst of my life. Right in the middle of my pain.

But He was waiting. To meet with me. Right where I was. Right in the midst of my life. Right in the middle of my pain.

Commentary:

I am not saying God has not “shown up” in my life, or doesn’t show up in people’s lives, at things like church events and retreats. I’m saying I never understood what truly being with God (and more accurate what God truly being with me) was like until I finally experienced Him meeting me right where I was at. It has been my experience that many of us go looking for God “out there,” instead of experiencing Him being with us “here” – right where we are.

I spent so much of my young adult life “looking for God in all the wrong places” (if I can play off a popular music lyric). I’m not sure it was taught to me more than caught. But I had grown up believing God was out there somewhere. In the religious experiences. In the displays of worship. Even in the miracles or on the “mission field.” I would have never said such a thing theologically. But practically it’s how I lived.

And then something shifted. Years ago really. But this COVID season has solidified it in a way that is actually changing my life.

It’s the very truth of the incarnation: He is not out there. He is right here.

With me. With us. Right where we are.

In our homes. In our workplaces. In our schools.

In the store. In the hospital. In the counseling session.

In our playing sports. In our vacations. In our gathering with friends.

And once I found Him here with me, it didn’t change the pain. The pain was still there. But I didn’t feel alone in the pain anymore. And I didn’t run from the pain anymore. Because God met with me in the pain.

You are not alone. God is with you.

He wants to meet with you in the pain.

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