Making Your Theology Your Biography- Lifestyles of the Humble and Holy

There used to be a show on TV called, "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous."  People loved to watch it because it showed off all of the things the wealthy have that everyone else wanted.  We've fallen for this same ideology in the church as well.  We seek to have a lifestyle of the Rich and Famous rather than what Jesus called us to: Lifestyles of the Humble and Holy.

I received an e-mail last week that I think may sum up what we are talking about.  It was titled “The way we might sing some well-known hymns if we were being honest.

I surrender Some.   There shall be sprinkles of blessings.  Fill my...spoon, Lord.   Oh, how I like Jesus.   He’s quite a bit to me.   I love to talk about telling the story.   Take my life and let me be!   It is my   secret what God can do.   There is scattered cloudiness in my soul today.   Onward, Christian Reserves.   Where He leads me, I will consider following.   Just as I ...pretend to be.   When the Saints go Sneaking in.

When will the church get honest about its intentions?  When will we get honest about our individual intentions?   There comes a time when we must stop playing church and start praying, church!   When we must stop kidding ourselves into thinking that we are praying saints when we have never really stopped being selfish.   We still want what we want, when we want it, how we want it, why we want it, and who gives two full-blown hoots about what God is asking of us.   In short, we like the idea of being God too much to relinquish the throne.    He asks for our time...we’re too busy.  He asks for our money... can’t afford it, don’t want to give it, and  don’t agree with what they want to do with it anyway.   He asks for our talents...I can’t be bothered with that, I have to use mine in making sure that I have enough in my house.  Someone else can work on filling His house.

If your time, talents and money aren’t spent on leading others to the kingdom, you just wasted your time, talents and money.   If you can’t see past meeting your own wants to a see a world that is dying, you are more philosophically aligned with the Rich and Famous than with the Humble and Holy.   Can you not lift your sights above the here and now?  Is there no recognition that all of this stuff will burn? 

Many of us have a proper theology, but it has not yet become our biography.  Many of us know the texts, but we hold too tightly to the things of this earth for the texts to mean much to us.   Many of us know what we should be doing, but we have gotten good at holding on to wordly policy plans.  Think about this though: It isn’t a huge outbreaking of sin in our lives, but rather, the selfish, greedy spirit that takes possession of us, which will finally lead us, like Judas,  to sell out our Master.  How much are you willing to sell Him for?  Unfortunately, I have often sold Him out for far less than Judas.

So how do we turn our Theology into our Biography?  How do we take what we say we believe and live it out?  Well, there’s good news and bad news.  

First the bad news...We can’t.  There is no way that we can live out our theology. You may be able to accomplish a few things on the list by yourself, but Jesus said that apart from Him  we can do nothing.   So put away your how-to notebooks and forget about trying to be good.  You won’t be able to do it.   Bury the idea that you have a strong will and can do anything you put your mind to.  Sink the ship of self-sufficiency and recognize that you, nor I, have what it takes to make it across the ocean of life.   Try as hard as you will, you cannot  live out your theology.  You are doomed to failure!   Your theology is too demanding.  It is too formidable.  Too hard.  Anyone seeking to make it on their own will find themselves sinking into a sea of discouragement and hoplessness.   They will grow bitter over the disappointments in life.  Eventually, they will seek any other way, and end up selling their Master out.  So the bad news  is....you can’t live your theology.   So if we can’t do it, then why talk about it....

Because our theology must be lived!

But wait...remember, there's also good news!  Here it is.   While I can’t do it, Jesus already did.   And He has promised to ascribe His life to me if I will just accept it.  He has promised that He will come in and change me if I will let Him.   He has promised that He will work His theology into my biography.  Not because of what I do...but because of what He does in and through me.  

Jesus said in John 15:5    “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.

So what is my part?  I must let go of the world and allow myself to be grafted into the Vine.  Then his Spirit will flow through my branches and produce fruit.  Not because of me...but because I’m living in Him.  It is a natural progression.  I’m grafted in, the fresh sap of the Vine begins to give me nourishment.  I grow and change and produce fruit.   If your not growing, check out your connection to the Vine.   If you have a connection, your time, talents, money and everything else will be freely given to Him.   You can’t help it.   Jesus inspires us to grow outward, giving of what we have to help His kingdom grow.

If you find yourself struggling with selfishness, greed and gain in the material world with little thought of the eternal,  stop and check your connection to the Vine.   Recognize that all of this is just going to burn.  It won’t last.  When Jesus comes, all that you worked for in the material world will be gone.  You can’t take it with you.   Check out your connection to the Vine.  Make sure that you are grafted in.  Which brings me to my last point.

In order for the church to stay a part of the Vine, we must daily feed on Jesus.  Daily draw our source of life from Him.   This is vital if we are to survive.  How do we do that?  Through prayer and the ministry of the Word.   We must once again go back to His Word and find our nourishment there.  We must hold each other up in prayer as the devil attacks and tries to rip us away from the Vine.  We must become intercessors, not only for ourselves and our families, but for each other in the church family as well.   We must fight against our natural instinct to put self first, and instead, let Jesus replace us on the throne of our hearts. 

Prayer and the Word.  Imperative to the spiritual battle.  If we recognize that we must have a lifestyle of the Humble and Holy, we must also recognize that it must start with us.  No one else can make that choice for you or me.   If we remain in the Vine, and the Vine in us, we will find that, by and by, our Theology has grown very naturally, into our Biography.   Not because of what we do, but because we have fed from the True Vine.  We have lived in Him and allowed Him to live and work in us.

May you allow Him to live in you today.