Can It Be?

April 5, 2010

We celebrated Easter Sunday yesterday. The churches were full. Unusually full. Many have done their duty nodding their allegiance by their twice a year obligatory attendance at church. How large a percentage of “Christians” is this worldwide is hard to estimate. Vestiges of Christ remain among many in Western “Christianized” societies. Now life can go back to its usual drabness in the midst of a chaotic dog-eat-dog world.

Knowing Christ is life. Life that is stamped eternal, in kind and content. Life that saves from drab existence. “Salvation is life,” says Dallas Willard. A life that God infuses in us by various instrumentalities the chief of which is the Holy Spirit of God. Eugene Peterson calls this life Practicing Resurrection.

Those who practice resurrection life have God’s life: self-initiating, self-directing, and self-sustaining. They don’t have this life from within. It comes from without, from God. But when life comes to humans from God (Regeneration, or Salvation as life) is takes on the characteristics of God-life. This God-life is the activity of God penetrating “the darkened world of the human soul and begins to act in it and around it” (from Spiritual Formation as a Natural Part of Salvation, quoted from D. Willard in Life in the Spirit: Spiritual Formation in Theological PErspective, ed. Jeffrey P. Greenman and George Kalantzis, IVP Academic). This life invasion is the stuff of poetry, and song. Charles Wesley wrote of it (Willard quotes this stanza from Can It Be That I Should Gain) to describe this salvific living:

“Long my imprisoned spirit lay fast bound in sin an nature’s night; thine eye diffused a quick’ning ray, I woke, the dungeon flamed with light; My chains fell off, my heart was free; I rose, went forth and followed Thee.”

Now that the resurrection celebration has taken its rightful place on the calendar, and the crowds have finished their Hosannas, I pray that resurrection life will take its rightful place every minute of our existence, who remain as church people. Let’s arise with Him, go forth, and follow Him, demonstrating that by loving God and loving others we are truly practicing resurrection.

Posted by georges boujakly | Filed Under Continuous Formation, Dallas Willard, Journaling, Spiritual Formation 

Comments

Got something to say?





Why A Missional Order?

This site exists for two big-picture reasons. On the one hand, we want to counteract some negative trends that are prevalent in society today. Call that our combative side. More important, we think that the missional approach will help us capture the positive dynamics that Jesus wants to be part of every life.
Continue reading »

What Is A Missional Order?

Think of it as a dispersed group of people who unite with each other to pursue three common commitments:

1) Punctuate each day with a rhythm that is sacred. 2) Exert ourselves in the continuous formation of character.

3) Participate in the missio Dei, the mission of God.
Continue reading »

Latest Blog Posts