The Undriven Life—The Christian Difference, Part 9
It’s not uncommon for those birthed into the Kingdom of God to go back to practicing the external driven-life. The Galatian Christians tried to mix the driven-life with the following-life and Paul’s rebuke to them was the key to my own personal acceptance of the miraculous, Christian Gospel. He said, “You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh. Have you experienced so much in vain—if it really was in vain? So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard? So also Abraham “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Galatians 1:1-6
Your experiencing of the Christian difference is life’s greatest miracle. No other religion, philosophy or code of ethics transforms from the inside out.
To Jesus’ probing question about the current state of the disciples’ revelation of whom He was, Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the son of the living God.”
Peter understood what the Father had revealed to Him about Jesus’ divinity but he didn’t understand how Jesus would finish His work. Jesus knew this and began to mercifully prepare them by explaining:
“…that he (Jesus) must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.
Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”
Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.” Matt. 16:23-27
The Jewish people had long expected an external kingdom in which the Messiah would be crowned as an earthly king but that was never the Father’s will. Jesus was sent to establish an INTERNAL kingdom where His servants would live and follow Him through the indwelling Holy Spirit.
I didn’t yet have a grasp on what God was interested in when I started Bethesda Pregnancy Services. I thought only of the external manifestations of what Christianity might look like in a good vs. evil context. When my life got turned upside-down by the sudden onset of anxiety symptoms I began a journey that I hope will echo your own.
