July 30, 2010
A Simple Remodel
My house is getting all new windows and siding, which means that every room in the house is torn up. Dry wall must be patched and painted, interior window casings painted and new draperies hung…and the mess cleaned up. To add to the confusion one section of an electrical circuit in the kitchen died and had to be rewired. The garbage disposal bit the dust went a nail fell into it. To top it off a newly discovered leak in the shower wasn’t new after all and the drywall in the shower is ruined. The whole shower is now gutted and getting a facelift. It sort of reminds me of becoming a Christian. You think you’re coming to the Lord just to be saved and then the Spirit moves in and starts remodeling His new digs. Every time you turn around there’s another character issue that needs to be dealt with. And the remodel doesn’t stop just because you’re a seasoned Christian.
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Gail;
-----I don’t get down your road too often. I must make some excursions from my normal routes and see your project progress. I love a good project, especially one as different as rusty, corrugated tin siding. Not that I would put it on my house.
-----But that is just what is so special about your remodel. It fits the tastes and sensibilities of the house owners. Although the Holy Spirit moves into the rooms of our hearts and begins remodeling them, He does not work in the rooms of your heart according to the tastes of mine. This evidences two aspects of God’s love. He is personally involved with His people to improve them by His nature. That is love. But He is also mindful of the character, personality, and tastes of each believer by carefully retaining each one’s uniqueness. That is love.
-----And your project holds another useful analogy. I have not read about your sitting around waiting for God to do it. To an extensive degree, it is you and Bill making the decisions and providing the elbow grease according to what you know. Neither can we just sit around and wait for the Spirit to extensively remodel the rooms of our hearts with no effort of our own. Proverbs 2:1-5 acknowledges the struggle one must himself invest in finding the understanding and knowledge of God. Of course, we do nothing without His participation. But that is just my point. Neither does He do anything through us without ours.
-----This is the danger of the fancy expression, “It is not about you.” Of course He does not teach me to make my life or its remodeling about myself. But His part in renewing my heart considers my uniqueness, while my part in it considers who He is. The leaders at XYZ Church failed to understand this relational point between God and each of His servants. In a very real way they attempted to effect their own influence and control over the remodeling being done in the hearts of others by duping them with this fancy expression. Consequently, they tried to make fellowship about a group of “you” who perceived things like they did and against another group of “you” who did not. They ignored the fact that no one of us innately knows God, clearly sees Him, or can accurately expound upon His every detail. Each of us can only perceive Him through our own experiences with Him and others. So God is more fully known in the collection of all the mundane knowledge of Him held amongst everyone than He is known by any one “expert” individually.
-----Then God’s renewing of your heart must be about you, because your uniqueness supplies a part of that mundane knowledge which would not be there without you. Since you are important to God, and your unique knowledge of Him is important to others, then what you become must be important enough to you for allowing the testing of its truth. This is about you. God needs the renewing of your heart, not its vanishing, nor its replacement with anyone else‘s, matter not how expert they might be.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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