October 10, 2014
Incubation
When I was raising my
children I knew the incubation periods for measles, mumps and chicken pox; and
what symptoms to watch out for. Today we are becoming acutely aware of the symptoms
and the 21 day incubation for Ebola. It strikes me that sin has some
similarities to a deadly virus — unfortunately we don’t take it as seriously. James
said, “… but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged
away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin;
and sin, when it is full–grown, gives birth to death” (James 1:14-15 NIV).
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Gail;
-----Good observation. Everything is a process. Then process will be fundamentally transformed on the Day of Judgment when all evil is separated from all righteousness and flees from God’s face (aka cast into the lake of fire.) But process doesn’t stop there. For all eternity everything will continue processing ever more and more glory to the Lord. Meanwhile, as processes go, good also incubates. “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” (II Cor 3:18)
-----The difference we ourselves make between these two processes is that whenever we recognize a component of evil’s incubator within us, we destroy it if we can, or pray for the Lord’s help if we can‘t. Whenever we see a missing or damaged component of goodness’ incubator, we pray for and seek it out, or repair what’s broken, if we can, or pray for the Lord’s help if we can‘t. “For man believes with his heart and so is justified, and he confesses with his lips and so is saved.” (Rom 10:10) I suppose this could be thought of as exposure, the beginning of incubation, “…seeing that you have put off the old nature with its practices and have put on the new nature, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.” (Col 3:10)
-----In fact, it is just that that is the incubator: practice. The Bible exhorts us to practice hospitality and the discernment of good from evil rather than practicing , jealousy, selfish ambition, and cunning. Our English “practice” is not as active as the Greek “dioko” used in these New Testament references. We think of athletes or musicians doing countless repetitions to train themselves into performance. That is only a piece of dioko. Dioko is also used to mean persecution, as in “…pray for those who persecute you.” (Matt 5:44). Well, ain’t that odd? So we are to persecute hospitality? At the core of the English “practice” is repetition of what is known until polished performance emerges. Dioko is broader. At its core is to pursue. Therefore the righteous are pursued for destruction by the evil, yet the righteous pursue hospitality for edification. It’s all dioko. Dioko involves seeking and learning the what which will be repeated unto polished performance. But English partitions the elements of dioko into the words “search“, “discover“, “learn“, “discern“, and “practice“. Dioko is them all: pursuit.
-----That is why we are to practice our righteousness before God rather than men. Whomever we practice before becomes the reflector for our noticing errors to be corrected. That is the process built into pride, not the pride of the practicer, but the pride of the reflector. For we do more of what makes others proud of us. Then, we should practice what makes God proud of us, not man. If we look into men’s pride in our practice, we will mistake men's flaws for righteousness and build those into our pursuit. Remember, everything’s a process. Witness the beheadings done at the great pride of those the beheader respects spouting, “Allah akbar! Allah akbar! Allah akbar!” Such a thing done by man would never reflect any sense of righteousness or pride off God. But hospitality and the discernment of good from evil does.
-----If you want to build an incubator of righteousness into your life, build dioko. In the meantime, the Holy Spirit somehow works our plain old doing good to one another without our even knowing we‘ve done it, for He’s a process in Himself.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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