Lessons in Spiritual Potential: Releasing False Limitations (Part One)

Cover of The Greatest Secret

L.D. Turner

As new creations in Christ, one of our first tasks is to face ourselves honestly and assess the level of our current functioning. I have discovered that when most people do this, they come to the stark realization that they are generally living far beneath the level they are capable of. In fact, most studies show that the vast majority of us a easing along through life like a six-cylinder car running on four.
Sputtering and gasping, we are capable of a lot more. As followers of Christ, it is imperative that we come to an understanding early in our walk of faith that the Master calls us to a much higher standard.
Ron McIntosh opens a chapter in his book, The Greatest Secret, by telling a great story that makes the point that to a large degree, we are controlled by the limitations we set for ourselves. In essence, our own thoughts impact what we can and cannot do to a far greater extent than we may realize.

In 1983, Australian Cliff Young set a new world record for the ultra-marathon distance race of 600 km. Three factors make this feat so incredible it almost seems beyond belief. First, Young not only broke the record, he demolished it by topping the old record by 36 hours. Second, Young was 61 years old when he did it. And finally, Young was not a trained athlete or world class runner. He was a local farmer who liked to run.

Ironically, Young was able to shatter the world’s record primarily because he did not realize that what he was doing was impossible.
The accepted strategy among ultra-marathon runners for the 600 km run is to run for 18 hours, rest for six hours, then repeat these same intervals until the race is completed.

Someone forgot to tell Cliff Young.

Young began the race with the mistaken notion that you were supposed to run the distance straight through and that is exactly what he did. The 61 year old farmer set a new world’s record in the process. Because he did not grasp the fact that running straight through was impossible, Cliff Young was not limited by the accepted standard. In the end, he set the standard.

From a biblical perspective, we begin to remove the limitations set on us by coming to fully grasp and accept our new identity in Christ. Until we accomplish this task, our efforts will remain limited. In Christ we are indeed new creations (2 Cor. 5:17), with a new power, energy, and presence at our disposal. We have been blessed by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and further, as we are told in Ephesians 4:10, Christ, by rising higher than the highest heaven, has filled everything in the universe with himself. Add to this the fact that we have within us the same power that raised Christ from the dead, and you can begin to see just how powerful we are now that we are “in Christ.” McIntosh describes the process of our new nature as declared in 2 Cor. 5:17 this way:

This verse shows the key difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. It isn’t about people trying to live for God, but living through Christ (Galatians 2:20), who now indwells you by His Holy Spirit. This personal encounter with God gives people a new spirit, a new nature, and a new identity. Once you are born again, God creates a new nature in you. You now have new inherent tendencies, new instincts, and an inborn character that comes from God. You spirit is brand new, but your mind has to be renewed.


I would add that in addition to the new spirit, new nature, and new identity described by McIntosh, we also are operating in a new universal milieu. By infusing himself into everything, Christ has vivified all that is, seen and unseen. He has given all things new life and part of that new life is a heightened sensitivity and responsiveness. This especially is true of the subconscious mind, which is the divine matrix through which our thoughts manifest things according to their nature, positive or negative.

Let me pause here for a moment to deal with an issue that must have arisen in your mind by now. Does this mean that Christ has infused everything and everyone with his nature? Yes, that is exactly what scripture tells us in Ephesians 4:10. Does this mean that all people have access to being a new creation, with the power that raised Christ from the dead? Yes it does.
Does this mean that everyone, including atheists and those that deny Christ has the same inner power stemming from Christ’s actions? No, it does not. It would seem that there is something required to activate this new identity, new power, and new nature. I am thinking that what is needed to activate these things is “faith.” In addition to faith, we also must connect with – align with – and abide with Christ. Another way we activate these blessings is through obedience to Christ’s principles and yet another way is through proactive service to others.

To be continued......

(c) L.D. Turner 2011/All Rights Reserved

Spiritual Transformation and a Deeper Walk of Faith

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L.D. Turner

Gradually, through my personal experience, I have at last come to the conclusion that perhaps the most significant aspect of the process of personal change occurs right at the beginning. We may have many fits and starts, take a step forward and two backwards, but real progress only starts when we, deep in our spiritual heart, come to truly believe and accept that in Christ, we are new creations. Once we fully take this truth on board, real miracles can begin to occur. Until we do, our progress will be at best, tenuous.

One vital aspect of our new identity in Christ is that the Holy Spirit lives in us, shines in us, and reveals to us things of which we were previously unaware. In addition, we are also empowered to make the positive changes necessary to make our lives more fulfilling, rewarding, and aligned with God’s will and purpose. This does not mean that we will no longer have struggles, trials, and difficulties dealing with our old, habitual way of living. We will. However, by truly accepting our status as new creations we are assured of victory.

Lying dormant inside of every man, woman, and child is a power that is more potent than you might imagine – a power that can literally change your life in many ways. In order to activate that dormant power, you first must come to believe, really believe, that it exists. To some extent, this divine power works whether you believe it or not and even if you are not conscious of its existence. But when you become aware of it and believe in it, it is like a turbo charger has been placed on your ability to effect positive change in your life, so long as this change is in keeping with God’s principles.

Please understand that God did not create you to grovel in the dirt like some miserable worm. In the past, some Christian sects have taught that you must always keep before you the fact that you are a lowly, miserable sinner and that nothing in you is worthy of even a second glance from our Holy God.

Unfortunately, this kind of teaching has run rampant in the Body of Christ and, like a sick, festering tumor, it has reached rather deep into the collective Christian psyche. It is a shame and a tragedy beyond belief and I am sure that somewhere in the bowels of Hell, Satan is chuckling that he didn’t even have to lift a finger to cause this state of affairs. We gave up our power voluntarily, due to our own faulty theology.
Those who believe that humankind consists of a collection of miserable, sinner-worms do a great dishonor to Christ. Through this negative theology they discount the great work accomplished by Christ on the cross and only pay lip service to the sanctification granted by the Resurrection of the Master. Again, it is a shame and a slap in the fact of Christ who gave so very, very much for us.

The reality is that as Christians, we are part of a holy, powerful family of which Jesus was the “first of many.” No, we are not what Jesus was, an incarnation of God. But, through the gift of his life, mission, death, resurrection, and ascension, we have become powerful beings with the divine potential to be like he was. Jesus was our divine prototype and he gave us the authorization and the power source (the Holy Spirit) to do “even greater works.” No my friend, you are no sniveling little legless piece of flesh, living in the dirt. You are, instead, a new creation in Christ and a child of God.

If you don’t understand, accept, and apply this divine fact, your life will be much more difficult. The question before you involves a matter of choice. Will you be a sluggish believer, slogging your way through life satisfied with mediocrity and the status quo? Or, will you choose to reach out with an open hand and an open mind and accept the gifts the Master has already arranged for you? Will you settle for a life of “just enough” to get by? Or, will you seize your divine power and authority as a child of the Living God and realize the great potential placed in you before you were even conceived?

It’s your choice and no one, absolutely no one else’s.

With these thoughts in mind, I encourage you to spend the next 21 days (you can do more if you wish, but try not to do less) making the following positive, declarative prayer over your life. It is entitled, A Prayer for Deeper Belief:

Lord, I trust your word and your word tells me that if I have faith, even faith as small as a mustard seed, then what I speak in that faith will come to pass. I thank you Lord for giving me this power and this privilege and I pray that you increase my faith day by day, hour by hour, and minute by minute.

I declare and proclaim in faith right now, at this very moment, that in Christ I am a new creation. The old has gone and the new has come. I also proclaim that I am single-minded and that any vestiges of doubt, known and unknown, are removed from my heart and I go forth in confidence as a child of the Living God, declaring blessing over my life and that of my family. I trust in the power of faith that fills my spoken word and, just as the Father’s word does not return empty, neither does mine.

I firmly believe in these divine principles because they have been laid down by the Master, the very matrix through which the world and all that is in it was created.

In the name of Jesus I pray…

© L.D. Turner 2011/All Rights Reserved

Spiritual Formation: Align and Abide

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L.D. Turner

If a person is discerning enough to see beneath the sea of “Sunday smiles” and outward displays of spiritual satisfaction, it would quickly become apparent that many Christians seem to be living, in the words of Thoreau, lives of "quiet desperation.” It is as if many sincere believers are staggering about under a dark cloud of disappointment and, deep in their inner core, asking themselves, “Is this all there is?” Although Jesus came to give abundant life, it is quite commonplace to see depression, anxiety, fear, and a host of other negative emotional states ride on the backs of sincere Christians and, to make matters worse, most have no clue as to why.

Even the most superficial scan of scripture will reveal that this is not the way things were intended to be. We are, in fact, promised to "have life more abundantly". So what is the basic issue here? Why are so many within the Body of Christ so beset?

The basic issue here seems to be one of misalignment. Let me explain this in brief. Scripture reveals that we are composed of three aspects, Body, Psyche, and Spirit. Space does not permit a detailed description of this tripartite makeup of our being, but a few words of explanation or in order.

1. Our body is the home of our being while here on earth. God created us primarily as spirit beings, but in order to dwell in the physical world, we need a physical home, thus our physical bodies.

2. Things become a bit more complicated when discussing our mind. The biblical term most often used to describe this aspect of our being is “soul” and the Greek word is “psuche.” It is obvious that our English term “psyche” is derived from this word. Our psyche includes our cognitive life (thoughts), our emotions, our will and our habituated responses to life (our habits). Since the Fall, our Spirit has been inactive and our soul or psyche has been in charge. This was not what God intended and the results of this usurpation of power have been dismal.


3. Our Spirit is the key to living a life in accordance with God’s will and plan. As mentioned, our human spirit became inactive at the Fall, and was dethroned by our psyche. Yet, God intended for our human spirit to be the vehicle whereby the Holy Spirit could communicate with each of us. It is interesting to note that the Greek word for the human “spirit” is “pneuma” and is the same word as the one used in Holy “Spirit.” Obviously, God intended a strong connection between our spirits and the Holy Spirit. Further, it was our human spirit that God intended to be used when we communicated with the spiritual world.


Once our spirit is reactivated through conversion, we are supposed to live a life where the Spirit is in the pilot's seat so to speak, directing the thoughts and actions of the mind and body. But here is the rub. Just because we become Christians, the mind doesn't just go away. The old mind remains strong and active. Here perhaps a better word is psyche. The psyche is composed of our thoughts, feelings, temperament, and affections.

It is important to understand that the psyche has a life of its own and, more importantly, it has its own agenda. All of our life, the psyche has been in charge. The psyche has called the shots and it isn't about to give up this role without a fight. So the fact of the matter is that as soon as we enter the Christian walk, a battle is set up inside between the psyche and the spirit. This battle is basically between our old self and our new self or, as Paul puts it, between our flesh and our spirit.

As Christians, we are called to walk in the Spirit. What does this mean? It means the Spirit is supposed to take precedent in our lives. The Spirit is the presence of God within us. This is our new command center. But, as stated earlier, there is an internal war in progress and the fact is, our enemy in this sense is our psyche. It is our psyche that has to be put under control of the spirit. This process is never easy and we can never accomplish it on our own. But we are not left alone to fight this battle. God has promised to empower us to emerge victorious. He has said in Ezekiel that He will remove our heart of stone and give us a heart of flesh; a new and living heart, controlled and directed by the Holy Spirit.

The problem is most Christians lose this battle on a daily basis because they have not been taught, or if they have been taught, they have resisted, the methodology of how to procure the necessary tools to fight the enemy and ultimately gain victory over their old self.

The solution to this problem is complicated on some levels perhaps, but basically it is quite simple. We have to undergo a realignment whereby our bodies, psyche, and spirit become a functioning whole with a unified purpose. This new alignment is under the direction of the Spirit. As we go through the process of this alignment, we are also told by Christ that we are to abide. "Abide in me.." he tells us. So we can say that what we are called to do is to align and abide. The problem is that most Christians never learn how to do this. There are many reasons for this but space does not allow for a discussion of that here. At its core, this problem I think has resulted from the ongoing faith/works controversy and has placed much of the church in a position of being dis-empowered and paralyzed spiritually. What the church must now do is to rediscover how to align and abide. I say rediscover because the methodology for this process has been around since the beginning of the church.

One other note here. Any discussion of alignment should include the fact that this process has an inner dimension and an outer dimension. Actually, there is no real distinction in essence, but to define it in these terms seems more comprehensive. The inner dimension involves achieving an alignment as follows:

Spirit
Psyche
Body

The outer dimension involves the alignment spoken of by Christ in the Gospel of John when he prays that we are in Him as he is in the Father. So the outer dimension looks like this:

God
Christ
Human

Looked at from this perspective, the inner dimension reflects the reality that the mind, when controlled by the Spirit in proper alignment, is the mediator between the Spirit and the body and thus, the mediator between the Spirit and our actions in the world. That is why we have to "renew our minds" or, again in the words of Paul, "have the mind of Christ". Only by doing so can we then effectively incarnate the Spirit through us and into the world. The outer dimension reflects the reality of the Gospel in its essence. It is only through Christ that we can connect with the Father and this awareness sheds light on Jesus' statement that he who has seen me has seen the Father. It is also scripturally sound in that it reflects the words of Paul that alludes to the fact that there is one mediator between God and man, and that is Jesus Christ.

How then are we supposed to bring the needed realignment about? The process is quite simple to understand, but sometimes difficult to apply. What we have to do is:

1. Trust God to do what He says he will do. We have to trust in and rely on the Holy Spirit.

2. We have to look to Christ as our model of how to walk in faith.


3. We have to rediscover the value and the power of "Spiritual Disciplines"

4. We have to directly confront and, with the help of the Spirit, deal with the psyche in all its subtle ramifications and retrain it to be subordinate to and in line with the directions of the Spirit. This is accomplished by following the Spirits lead as it "convicts of sin.” Many times what we call "sin" is a direct result of "misalignment". I think it can also be said that our problem with misalignment began with the Fall, when the original couple tried to “be as god” and wound up putting the soul (psyche) on the throne where Spirit should rule. That is where all behavior that we call sin comes from.

5. At LifeBrook, we often stress what we call “conscious cognition” as a vital part in abiding. Basically, this refers to the process of renewing the mind in general and dealing with our thought life in particular. Conscious Cognition involves directly dealing with our thoughts, taking thoughts captive for Christ, tearing down strongholds, and learning to think in more positive, optimistic, and constructive ways.

6. Perhaps the most significant aspect of establishing a life that is aligned with God and continues to abide in His will is obedience. More than anything else, obedience allows us to abide in God’s will more continuously and to manifest that will in proactive ways.

A misalignment where the psyche is dominant and the Spirit negated, even if it accomplishes much, can accomplish nothing that does not, at least at a subtle level, bear the taint of selfishness. Secondly, in order to accomplish this we must "renew our minds" and I can think of no better way to do this than by actively sowing the seed of the Word of God into our hearts. Remember, “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.”

The sequence is important: first we align, and then we abide. Abiding is nothing more or less than maintaining our connection with the life giving Spirit of Christ. We align by initiating a practice of spiritual disciplines that have been used for centuries in the church; practices such as prayer in its various forms, meditation (sacred silence and listening to God), study of and reflection upon Scripture, submission, service, and any other practice that is biblical, places Christ at the center, and seeks to discern God’s will and carry it out.

Again, proper alignment is central to every aspect of the Christian life. Without proper alignment we are more prone to walking in our own illusions and making mistakes, sometimes big and sometimes small. And what is it we are to align with? The answer is a simple one. We are to align with the Spirit of God that has been placed within us by the loving hand of the Father. At conversion our human spirit again became what it was in Genesis, alive. The Hebrew word for this is chay and the Greek is Zoe. New Testament writers almost always used this word, zoe, to describe life.

As we are able align and abide, our zoe, our very life, becomes more vital and spirit-filled. More importantly, with proper alignment it is spirit-controlled. We then abide and, in the words of Paul, walk in the Spirit.

When we are able to arrive at this point where we are able to truly walk in the spirit, with our renewed minds and our spirit-controlled body in proper alignment, we tend to experience the polar opposite of those harshly negative mental and emotional states discussed early in this post. Instead, Paul speaks clearly to us, saying that if we walk in the Spirit we will experience such blessed states as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

© L.D. Turner 2010/All Rights Reserved

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The Divine Hologram: Christ's Cosmic Nature (Part One)

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L.D. Turner

From time to time a passage of scripture, sometimes a single verse, will seem to leap of the page of my Bible filled with fresh meaning and personal application. I am sure this is a fairly common experience among those who take the time to form a more intimate relationship with scripture. In my own experience, it is as if the Bible is less paper and ink and more like a living organism.

I suspect I should not find this surprising. In the beginning, God breathed into Adam and he became a living being.
He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils and the man became a living person. (Genesis 2:7).

Later on, in 2 Timothy 3:16 Paul tells us that all scripture is “inspired” or “God-breathed.” Is it any wonder that the Bible has a tendency to become a living being when it is read with reverence, wonder, and in the Spirit.

Recently, one verse of scripture has been churning around in my mind and heart with regularity. It is one of those seemingly minor verses that we often tend to gloss over rather than spend time ruminating on. But recently, while reading Ephesians, this little verse got my attention and kept it. Like a speed bump in a parking lot, it slowed me down. In Ephesians 4:10 Paul, speaking of Christ says:

And the same one who descended is the one who ascended higher than all the heavens, so that he might fill the entire universe with himself. (NLT)


In this passage, Paul is making a statement that is actually quite profound. What he is saying is that after Christ left his heavenly abode, he descended to earth and once his mission down here was finished, he not only returned to heaven, but ascended higher than the heavens. And according to Paul, once Christ did this something was radically different in the entire universe. Everything in the universe, from the greatest galaxy to the smallest quark, was filled with Christ. Pause and let that sink in for a few moments.

What this means is that after Jesus’ earthly mission ended, everything changed. In some metaphysical manner that is beyond human understanding, every aspect of the universe was filled with a new vivifying, animating potential – and this potential was Christ in his cosmic incarnation. After the ascension of Christ, the very fabric of the universe and everything in it was altered. I am the first to admit that I don’t understand the physics of what took place, but it is helpful for me to think of it in terms of what in scripture is called the “Transfiguration.” Just as Christ’s body was altered in some fundamental way that night on the mountain as three of his disciples looked on, with his ascension the entire universe underwent a type of transfiguration.

In some new and life-giving way, humankind, after Christ, began to live in a renewed and participatory universe that is both alive and purposeful. By infusing himself into all things, Christ also infused all things with his life and his purpose.

It is usually right after saying such things that writers will now have to pause and waste time and words telling readers that he or she is not talking about pantheism. I am not going to waste much space doing that because anyone with half a brain can deduce that I am not speaking of pantheism here. If I had said, “All things are Christ,” that would be pantheistic. I am not even saying “all things are in Christ.” What I am saying is that “Christ is in all things.” If you disagree with that statement, don’t argue with me – argue with scripture because that is what it plainly says in Ephesians 4:10. This is not New Age metaphysics or mumbo jumbo. It is a fundamental biblical principle.

....to be continued.....

(c) L.D. Turner 2010/ All Rights Reserved

Commitment to Christ: A Dangerous Proposition

Mick Turner

As the Body of Christ we are now in a similar cultural milieu as existed at the time Jesus walked the earth. Granted, times are different, but the themes are much the same. Like it or not, the Church now lives in a post-Christian culture. America is Christian in name only, certainly not in practice. Over the past 50 years the dominant worldview and subsequent value system has undergone marked change. Post-modernism and situational ethics now hold sway. It is within this mix that the Church must now carry out the essentials of its mission. The question at hand is: How will we reintroduce Jesus to the world, given the realities of the culture we now live in?

Answering this overriding question is a complicated affair, certainly beyond the scope of this short article. Additionally, we, as the Body of Christ, need to reflect deeply on how we may best go about meeting this aspect of our calling. Much prayer is called for. One thing is certain, however. We must present a more realistic portrait of who this man Jesus was, and still is. When he enters a person’s life, things are not always meek and mild. In fact, taking on Christ often results in an inner revolution. The Revolutionaries fully understand this and also understand that Jesus calls for a radical change that fuses the personal with the social and the spiritual with the political.

As we take Jesus on board we must recognize we are giving accommodation to what can be a dangerous entity; one capable of challenging our own conventions, our own preferences, our own habits, and ultimately, our own character. Jesus does not come into a person in order to affirm the status quo. Quite the opposite, this dangerous being takes up residence within your inner kingdom with the stated aim of revolution. Yet for most of us this inner revolt is sorely needed. It can, in fact, change us from wandering, confused, and empty vessels into vibrant, vital, world changers. David Foster gives us a glimpse of just what Jesus is up to:

Jesus is like air to the lungs and water to a desert dweller. He is not a religious artifact. He’s not dead. He is alive. He is engaged and engaging. He is here now, changing lives all over this world this very moment. When He walked on earth He changed everything for everyday, for all time. What started then continues today. It can’t be stopped though many have tried. Jesus is the rock of redemption and His church will prevail. He is here in this moment with you, doing what He always does, calling you to a higher place, calling you to break free from convention and stop going to church and start being the church everywhere you go. Let’s be “Jesus people” again. Let’s be men and women whose hearts are captured, redeemed, renewed, enlivened, ignited, set fee! Let’s return to the revolution to be the change we want to see in the world!


If you decide that you are fully ready to commit to this deep calling deep brand of Christian spirituality, recognize that you may very well experience responses that are less than positive. These negative reactions to your commitment to Christ may come from people important to you, like your friends, your family, and especially from other believers. It is for this reason that each of us must individually and prayerfully follow the advice of the Master who told us to simply “count the costs.”

I think one of the reasons that Christians as a whole are at best lukewarm in their commitment to following Christ stems from the church’s long-standing efforts to tame the Master. Instead of the subversive revolutionary that he was, Jesus has long been presented as a non-threatening cardboard figurine on burlap bulletin boards, either holding a lamb in his lap or rubbing children on the head. Rarely have we seen him for the rebel that he really was and as a result, the church has given a false impression of Jesus “meek and mild” and by proxy, turned God the Father into a distant and kindly Daddy who expects little from us other than a modicum of worship and a check in the collection plate.

This is not the Jesus nor the God revealed in scripture.

Annie Dillard, one of my very favorite writers, talks about how Christians ought to be a bit more reverent in the presence of God. In her provocative yet compelling style she says:

On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have any idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does not one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares: they should lash us to our pews.

Dillard’s point is clear and to a large extent, irrefutable. Far too many of us who claim to follow Christ either don’t really believe what we profess or we have never taken the time to truly consider what it is we signed on for. I personally think it is high time that we became more honest with ourselves. Here is a diagnostic indicator: If you faith has yet to make you very uncomfortable, you might want to spend some time in prayer and reflection trying to discover what is amiss.

When we fail to understand what the Christian faith is all about, we wind up with a church that misses the boat in terms of its vital functions of worship and teaching. Pastor Robin Meyers gives this biting but wholly accurate assessment of what we often find in sanctuaries today:

Worship consists of high-tech, high-volume, effusive praise and tearful thanksgiving for what God has done on behalf of each and every one of us – followed by preaching that circles the wagons of what is falsely assumed to be a besieged and righteous minority doing battle against the forces of secular humanism. The rhetoric is that of a western movie, the “last stand” between the chosen but misunderstood and legions of depraved liberal heathens whose worldly logic has led them to worship false gods (mostly in the temple of the flesh) and who are out to destroy the only true religion by removing it from the public square……For those who would never think to raise their hands in worship (because they sit on them), mainline and liberal churches offer something as tedious as many evangelical services are self-centered: a dull and droning list of politically correct announcements that go on interminably. No detail is too minor and no story too trivial to escape the sentimental displays of communal therapy. The hymns are often contorted by a preoccupation with inclusion at the expense of meter and particular power, and the sermon continues in the same vein – offering enlightened ways to cope with the aches and pains of daily life, instead of submitting to a vision so compelling as to redeem suffering and death itself.

No matter which side of the theological aisle you find your pew, you ought to be sweating bullets by now. In case you are among the especially insensitive, however, rest assured that Meyers is not quite finished:

In a world that is desperate for something real, many mega-churches today are like Disney World plus God, while too many mainline churches are serving up bits and pieces of the Great Books Club. One wonders which fiction is most cruel, that all your dreams come true if you pray the “Prayer of Jabez” or that discipleship is the same thing as enlightenment. Odd as it may sound, we need to recover something as old and dangerous as it is transformative: following Jesus.

For many Christians, whether Evangelical or Mainline, such a shrill indictment is hard to swallow. Surely there are exceptions, but what Meyers is describing here is not those few. Instead, he is taking direct aim at those of us who find way too much comfort in the status quo; those of us who start accumulating sweat on our upper lips at just the mention of thinking out of the box. Meyers, in very direct terms, is talking about the frozen chosen.

In juxtaposition to these lukewarm pew-fillers stand the renegades, rascals, and revolutionaries mentioned earlier. These sincere Christ-followers understand that if the church is not only to survive, but thrive, it must get back to its roots in obedience to Jesus. We need to imitate Christ, not “believe in” him. With the aid of the indwelling Holy Spirit, we need to push forward with every effort to become more like the one we profess to serve. Many of this new breed of Christ-followers understand this and apply this wisdom to their daily living. Robin Meyers speaks clearly about what we must rediscover if we, as a faith tradition, hope to survive:

If the church is to survive as a place where head and heart are equal partners in faith, then we will need to commit ourselves once again not to the worship of Christ, but to the imitation of Jesus. His invitation was not believe, but to follow. Since it was once dangerous to be a follower of The Way, the church can rightly assume that it will never be on the right track again until the risks associated with being a follower of Jesus outnumber the comforts of being a fan of Christ. Until we experience Jesus as a “radically disturbing presence,” instead of a cosmic comforter, we will not experience him as true disciples.

Meyers concludes by stating that churchgoers need to answer one basic question before all else:

What am I willing to give up to follow Jesus?

Sociologist and researcher George Barna speaks at length about the movement of committed Christ followers that he calls “Revolutionaries.” Barna speaks particularly well to the issue of sacrifice that is so often part of the life of the “Deep Calling Deep Christian.” If you are seriously considering this path of consecrated endeavor, then pay attention to Barna’s words:

Know this: just as the prophets of old were unwelcome in their own hometown, so are Revolutionaries looked at askance by even their closest friends and family members. The skepticism of those who lead conventional spiritual lives is a palpable reminder that growth always comes with a price tag.

Be forewarned: just as Jesus Christ, the ultimate lover of humanity, was scorned, misunderstood, persecuted, and eventually murdered for His extreme love, goodness, compassion, humility, wisdom, and grace, so are Revolutionaries abused by a culture in crisis. The mere presence of Revolutionaries makes the typical American citizen – yes, even the typical churchgoer – uncomfortable. It is not uncommon for Revolutionaries to meet with rejection – verbal, intellectual, relational, or experiential – simply because of their determination to honor the God they love…..Like their role model, Jesus Christ, they ignite fierce resistance merely by being present and holy. It is perhaps that holy presence that will get Revolutionaries in the deepest trouble they will face – and that will bring lasting healing to a culture that has rebelled for too long against its loving Creator. These Christian zealots are radically reshaping both American society and the Christian Church. Their legacy is likely to be a spiritual reformation of unprecedented proportions in the United States and perhaps the world.

These ideas that Barna discusses and more cogently, that are lived out in the daily lives of countless “Revolutionaries,” bring to mind the spiritual philosophy and practical tactics used by Doctor Martin Luther King in the Civil Rights Movement. Basing his own methods on those of Gandhi, Dr. King used radical non-violence to expose the injustice, brutality, and prejudice of the existing social order. The more the powers that be reacted to those involved in the movement, the deeper the darkness of their hearts appeared to all whom witnessed what was happening. Perhaps in a similar way, the commitment, sincerity, and Christian love exhibited by these Revolutionaries may well shed light on how far many in the status quo church are from the true example set by the Master.

Describing David, an example of this new breed of Revolutionary Christian, Barna writes:

His life reflects the very ideals and principles that characterized the life and purpose of Jesus Christ and that advance the Kingdom of God – despite the fact that David rarely attends church services. He is typical of a new breed of disciples of Jesus Christ. They are not willing to play religious games and aren’t interested in being a part of a religious community that is not intentionally and aggressively advancing God’s Kingdom. They are people who want more of God – much more – in their lives. And they are doing whatever it takes to get it.

Two questions are immediately relevant, my friend. Do you want more – much more – of God in your life? Are you willing to do whatever it takes to get it?

Listen closely. In your inner sanctuary, your heart of hearts, can you hear him calling you? Will you go with him, even if it means breaking free of convention? Will you follow him, even if it means you stop going to church and start being the church? Are you ready to be counted among the Jesus people? Are you ready to join the revolution?

If so, welcome aboard!

© L.D. Turner 2010/ All Rights Reserved

Kingdom Principles: Growth and Interdependence

L.D. Turner

When God places his call on our lives, it is at that point we have a critical decision to make. Are we going to answer his call, or are we going to refuse? No matter how we may try to complicate the issue, it really remains that simple. Just as Jonah had a choice to follow God’s call and go to Nineveh, we have the same choice. Hopefully, we answer in the affirmative and avoid much of the trouble that Jonah encountered.

I have grown to believe that it is essential that we see our own personal calling or mission in the context of a much larger picture. For Christians, the “big picture” context through which we must come to view our calling is “Kingdom Manifestation.” God’s great story of restoration, renewal, and redemption involves the establishment of his kingdom here on earth. It is precisely this big picture that Jesus alluded to in his model prayer for us:

Your kingdom come,

Your will be done,

On earth, as it is in heaven.

As new creations “in Christ,” we are called to help manifest God’s kingdom here on earth and, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we are empowered to meet this challenge. The Kingdom of God is a multi-faceted phenomenon and requires knowledge of the principles of manifestation if it is ever to be established. These principles are God’s eternal laws, built right into the fabric of the universe and it is part of our task to discern these laws and find ways to apply them in our daily living. This process enables us to become more effective as disciples of Christ and more productive in our lives.

A key aspect of God’s universal plan for humankind is that each of us should do all that we can to realize our divine potential and become the optimal version of who and what we are. Even the most cursory look at God’s creation reveals a universal principle of dynamic growth. Simple observation reveals that when something ceases to grow, decay sets in. As Christians, this principle certainly applies to our walk of faith. With the help of the Holy Spirit, we are to continue to grow and evolve as members of the Body of Christ.

Scripture reveals that we are expected to become more and more like Christ. For many of us, we think this an impossible goal. However, if Scripture does tell us that we are to grow into Christ-like beings, then chances are that is exactly what it means. Some scholars think that Paul was merely engaging in a bit of literary hyperbole when he asserted this, but careful reading of the text does not support this idea. Instead, we are to manifest the fullness of Christ.

Over the years, I have come to view our life “in Christ,” as being analogous to that of being in the womb. Just as a fetus spends its time in the womb being worked upon by forces that enable it to grow into a being that will be capable of surviving within the parameters of the world it will eventually live in, so it is with our life “in Christ.” As we grow in the Christian life, we are being acted upon by divine forces that will eventually transform us into beings that can prosper in the spiritual world, which will be our next home.

There is one huge difference between our being in the physical womb of our mother and being in the spiritual womb in Christ, however. In the spiritual womb, we also have a major part to play in the growth process. Granted, we cannot save ourselves and, if I can use myself as an example, we cannot sanctify ourselves, either. But we can and must do all that we can. We need to engage in consistent and committed spiritual disciplines such as prayer, fasting, meditation, and especially, sacred service. By engaging in these time-honored practices, we place ourselves in a position of receptivity whereby these spiritual forces, namely the Holy Spirit, can carry out our proper gestation in preparation for our birth into the spiritual realm.

I have come to firmly believe that gaining knowledge of these principles of Kingdom Manifestation and how to apply them in service to God and others is one of the major revelations the Master is giving to humankind in this age. We are now in a period of intense spiritual activity in the unseen realms and this activity is having a very notable impact on our physical world. We are in a period of accelerated activity and the pace of change is rapid. The time is ripe for greater application of Kingdom Principles, with the goal of establishing God’s Kingdom on earth.

Closely related to this phenomenon of the revelation of Kingdom Principles is another teaching the Spirit is imparting to humankind in this age. I am referring to what I call the Principle of Interdependence, which implies that all aspects of creation are interrelated and what impacts one part impacts all other parts. Perhaps we need to look at this a bit more closely.

The idea of interconnectivity, now confirmed by the field of quantum physics, has been around for many centuries and is at the core of interspiritual mysticism, that one aspect of world religion that seems to transcend culture, time, and especially theology. It is a mystical connectedness that promotes compassion and engaged action to make the world a better place for all who dwell here. In essence, it is a deep wisdom that gives flesh to grace. The great spiritual writer Kahil Gibran spoke of this interconnected reality when he said:

Your neighbor is your other self dwelling behind a wall. In understanding, all walls shall fall down. Who knows but that your neighbor is your better self wearing another body? See that you love him as you would yourself. He too is a manifestation of the Most High.
In India, for example, we have the story of Indra’s Net, which is strung throughout the universe with a precious jewel at the places where the cords of the net intersect. These jewels, in turn, reflect all of the other jewels. Similar to the modern discovery of the hologram, the image of Indra’s Net is filled with symbolic wisdom depicting the interconnectivity of all that is. Gary Zukav, in his groundbreaking book entitled, The Dancing Wu Li Masters tell us:

…the philosophical implications of quantum mechanics is that all things in our universe (including us) that appears to exist independently are actually parts of one all-encompassing organic pattern, and that no parts of that pattern are ever really separate from it or from each other.

In the Christian tradition, the writings of the great mystic teachers echo these same truths, often in symbolic and metaphorical ways. Julian of Norwich especially comes to mind as well as Hildegard of Bingen and Madame Guyon. The writings of Saint Theresa of Avila and the life and work of St. Francis also point to the interconnectivity of all life and the necessity of having a heart of radical compassion.

The great Romantic poets like William Wordsworth and Percy B. Shelley have voices that ring loudly with the sense of the interrelated aspects of the natural world and their American counterparts, the Transcendentalists, in the writings of Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman, also echo this theme of divine connectivity. And then there is the work of that master of the arcane, William Blake who spoke of the mystic’s ability:

To see a World in a grain of sand,
And Heaven in a wild flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,
And Eternity in an hour.

The world that we interact with each day only appears to be solid. In point of fact, it is an intricate dance of sub-atomic waves and particles that obey none of the traditional or expected moves of predictable choreography. At its core level, our apparently solid, material world is less like classical music and more like jazz. Just when we think we have a handle on how things are, these very things change, morphing into something totally unexpected and often totally mysterious. Someone wise, I forget who, once said the life is not a riddle to be solved but a mystery to be lived. How true, and the sooner a person grasps this fundamental truth, the less frustration will appear in his or her life.

In teaching about the interrelated aspect of the universe, I often use a simple analogy that explains these principles in a basic way. I use the example of raisin Jell-o. Imagine you have concocted a delicious tub or raisin Jell-o. Choose your favorite flavor if you like. The raisins are the important thing, here. Now, what happens when you take your index finger and thump one of the raisins? All the raisins move. Crude as this metaphor is, it makes the point that all the raisins in the bowl are connected and if one raisin moves, they all move. This is what the mystics, and the quantum physicists, are talking about when they speak of interconnectivity.

Christian writer and teacher Elizabeth Elliot, looking at God’s wondrous creation with both attentiveness and wisdom, grasps the profundity of this theme of interconnectedness and how it illustrates a foundation of commonality between humans and other species in God’s creation:

The closer one comes to the center of things, the better able he is to observe the connections. Everything created is connected, for everything is produced by the same mind, the same love, and is dependent on the same Creator. He who masterminded the universe, the Lord God Omnipotent, is the One who called the stars into being, commanded light, spoke the Word that brought about the existence of time and space and every form of matter: salt and stone, rose and redwood, feather and fur and fin and flesh. The titmouse and the turkey answer to Him. The sheep, the pig, and the finch are His, at His disposal, possessed and known by Him…We too are created, owned, possessed, known.

As we have seen, God’s purposes for humankind must be seen through a larger lens than our own myopic concerns and needs. As individual parts of a much larger organism (The Body of Christ), we must now view our need for growth in Christ within the framework of a much broader network. The Principle of Interdependence reveals that our actions are never completely isolated from others. In conclusion, let’s take a look at how the principle of becoming the optimal version of ourselves for the sake of others dances with the Principle of Interdependence.

This vital perspective should be obvious by now. If we fail to grow and evolve as spiritual beings in Christ, we will not only effect ourselves in a negative way, but we will be like a weight or drag on the progress of the Body of Christ as a whole. Further, it should also be apparent by now that part of our function as agents for Christ is to create conditions in which others can also grow. We are to do all that we can to become the optimal versions of who and what we are, and, as committed members of the Body of Christ, we are to also help others to grow.

When we operate from our Spirit, we naturally understand this. I am convinced our Sacred Mind, which is the Mind of Christ, understands these principles and how to apply them to their best advantage. The more we come to live and move from our Sacred Mind, the more skillful we become at accomplishing this universal task of growing and helping others to grow.

Conversely, when we live from our flesh or our “lower mind,” we cannot see the forest for the trees, nor can we overcome our egocentric myopia long enough to understand and apply these principles.

I encourage you to start today. Practice the classic spiritual disciplines and place yourself in a more centered and receptive state of being. Pray consistently for wisdom, discernment, and empowerment to carry forward your part in God’s overall process of restoration and renewal. And always remember, when you help yourself to grow, you are helping others and, when they end up helping as well, it comes back to you one hundred fold.

© L.D. Turner 2009/ All Rights Reserved

It's Time to Become Who You Really Are

L. Dwight Turner

In the Christian’s journey of faith it is foundational to understand the following biblical principles before we travel very far down the road of spiritual formation:

God has provided everything we need in order to develop and evolve spiritually. It seems he has done this in ways that are highly mysterious but also highly effective. One way of looking at it is that he has provided all that we will ever need on the spiritual level and also he has provided, through the person of the Holy Spirit, the power we need in order to contact these spiritual blessings and bring them down from the spiritual world and into manifestation in our daily lives.

Once we understand this fundamental reality, the logical questions now center on what our responsibilities are in this process. Some advocates of the “everything is by grace” school would insist there is nothing we can do to grow in the spiritual life, but even a minimal check of the reality of the situation would prove that position untenable. There is plenty for us to do as the process of our spiritual development, what is called our “sanctification,” is a joint venture.

Our part in this is first, to place ourselves into a position of receptivity and obedience. We can increase receptivity by practicing the classical spiritual disciplines, especially meditation, prayer, lectio divina, and contemplation. In terms of obedience, we do not need to make this process overly complicated. Most of God’s will for our lives in revealed in Sacred Scripture, but many of us ignore this aspect of obedience by looking for God’s “specific will,” which is fine, but can also be an exercise in self-absorption.

The other aspect of practical Christianity involves advancing God’s kingdom through service to others. That service, motivated by compassion and fueled by kindness is our main task. If we are to be truly obedient, we start right here.

So you see, here we have three aspects of practical faith before us:

Receptivity
Obedience
Service

The fourth element I might add to this is Sacred Character. The formation of sacred character is the goal of any path of spiritual formation. Sacred Scripture informs us that we have the mind of Christ and few of us it seems realizes just what a blessing this is. In addition to our own mind, we have operating in us the same mind that operated in Jesus when he walked the earth. We find that mind through quieting our own internal chatter enough to encounter Sacred Silence. The disciplines of meditation and especially contemplation are highly important here. It is through the transformative encounters we have with Sacred Silence and our Inner Light that the foundation stones for our journey of spiritual formation are laid. Encouraged by our increasing contact with the Divine Source, we are better equipped to walk boldly in the world and deal with the vicissitudes of life.

Sacred Character is synonymous with moral integrity. We know who we are, how we are supposed to live, and with the power of the Holy Spirit, we live consistently with those values. Sacred Character means that we have a highly developed, internalized worldview and concomitant value system and that we live accordingly. In this way, Sacred Character becomes a bridge that connects our receptivity and our obedience with our service to the world. Here, then, we have the dynamic of our four responses to God’s grace and equipping:

Receptivity
Obedience
Character
Service

If we seek a workable model of a person who integrated these four aspects of a dynamic relationship with the Father, we need look no further than Jesus. If ever a person was receptive and obedient to God, it was the Master. A deep, abiding sacred character was also evident in all Jesus said and did. And as far as service is concerned, Jesus gave us a great example in the 13th chapter of John when he introduced the disciples (and us) to the ministry of the towel.

I am certain you are aware of Paul's idea, repeated in one way or another throughout his correspondence with the fledgling churches, of the relationship between Jesus and God. Paul tells us that all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell in Christ, which meant that God and Jesus were in some mysterious way the same being. In the Jewish culture of his day, Paul was making an incredible claim here. Jews were not supposed to make any image of God and even to speak his name was considered a capital offense. Now, here was Paul echoing Jesus by implying that the great and mighty Jehovah was in essence a loving, creator who was not only the Father of Jesus, but was also Jesus himself. And the reverse was true. Jesus was not only a great teacher and a skilled Rabbi; He was not only a great healer and the leader of a band of shady-looking disciples; Jesus, according to Paul, was Jehovah Himself.
Standing alone, that sort of statement was enough to give the High Priest a major migraine.

Paul, however, wasn't finished. In fact, he was just getting started. If you take a look at Ephesians 3:19, the Apostle tells the early church members that he prays "that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." (NSRV) Here Paul was pulling no punches; instead, he went straight for the knockout. Paul basically was saying that he prayed for and believed that, as Christians, the new believers were expected to become like Jesus.

No wonder the religious establishment saw Paul as a dangerous, if not demented, man. Equating Jesus with God was a reach. Saying that a human being could become like Jesus was beyond the pale of comprehension and acceptability.

Yet is precisely the character of Christ that we are charged to develop within ourselves. In order to accomplish this great mission we have a divine partner in the Holy Spirit and our Christian brothers and sisters for power, guidance, and support. An open, honest relationship with the Holy Spirit is where we must place our energies at this time, even though much confusion and lack of knowledge about the Holy Spirit exists. We are told by Jesus that the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, is where we are to focus our efforts for learning and guidance. Unfortunately, many of us refuse to get too close to the Spirit, as we operate primarily out of fear and ignorance.

Part of our process of appropriating the divine gifts already provided by God in the spiritual realm involves claiming them. This process is not so much “name it and claim it” as often espoused in the so-called “Prosperity Gospel,” but does involve a similar principle. We are not claiming something that is not rightfully ours, but instead, we are claiming the free gifts of grace provided to us and for us as joint heirs with Christ. In this sense, we do “name and claim,” – we name and claim what scripture tells us we should name and claim. In fact, if we fail to claim these free gifts of God’s grace we are, in essence, rejecting much of what Christ achieved on our behalf.

One other aspect of this also needs to be mentioned. By naming and claiming the gifts of character that are rightfully ours by virtue of our new status of being “in Christ,” we are not pushing God to act in our behalf and do our bidding. Instead, we are recognizing, accepting, and appropriating what God has already done through Christ. This may seem to be a subtle distinction, but it makes all the difference in the world. By recognizing and claiming our scriptural status as new creations in Christ, we are exercising our faith in God and praising him for what he has already accomplished.

Unlike the prosperity preachers, we are not turning God into some sort of cosmic bellhop who fetches at our command. Instead, by claiming his free gift of a new heart, a renewed mind, and a transformed character, we are recognizing God for what he is, a loving Father who has provided everything we will ever need to live the kind of life he desires for us.

As new creations in Christ, we are blessed indeed.

© L.D. Turner 2009/All Rights Reserved

Formation in Christ: Align and Abide

L.Dwight Turner

If a person is discerning enough to see beneath the sea of “Sunday smiles” and outward displays of spiritual satisfaction, it would quickly become apparent that many Christians seem to be living, in the words of Thoreau, lives of "quiet desperation.” It is as if many sincere believers are staggering about under a dark cloud of disappointment and, deep in their inner core, asking themselves, “Is this all there is?” Although Jesus came to give abundant life, it is quite commonplace to see depression, anxiety, fear, and a host of other negative emotional states ride on the backs of sincere Christians and, to make matters worse, most have no clue as to why.

Even the most superficial scan of scripture will reveal that this is not the way things were intended to be. We are, in fact, promised to "have life more abundantly" (John 10:10). So what is the basic issue here? Why are so many within the Body of Christ so beset?

The basic issue here seems to be one of misalignment. Let me explain this in brief. Scripture reveals that we are composed of three aspects, Body, Psyche, and Spirit. Space does not permit a detailed description of this tripartite makeup of our being, but a few words of explanation or in order.

1. Our body is the home of our being while here on earth. God created us primarily as spirit beings, but in order to dwell in the physical world, we need a physical home, thus our physical bodies.

2. Things become a bit more complicated when discussing our mind. The biblical term most often used to describe this aspect of our being is “soul” and the Greek word is “psuche.” It is obvious that our English term “psyche” is derived from this word. Our psyche includes our cognitive life (thoughts), our emotions, our will and our habituated responses to life (our habits). Since the Fall, our Spirit has been inactive and our soul or psyche has been in charge. This was not what God intended and the results of this usurpation of power have been dismal.


3. Our Spirit is the key to living a life in accordance with God’s will and plan. Our human spirit became inactive at the Fall, and was dethroned by our psyche. Yet, God intended for our human spirit to be the vehicle whereby the Holy Spirit could communicate with each of us. It is interesting to note that the Greek word for the human “spirit” is “pneuma” and is the same word as the one used in Holy “Spirit.” Obviously, God intended a strong connection between our spirits and the Holy Spirit. Further, it was our human spirit that God intended to be used when we communicated with the spiritual world.


Once our spirit is reactivated through conversion, we are supposed to live a life where the Spirit is in the pilot's seat so to speak, directing the thoughts and actions of the mind and body. But here is the rub. Just because we become Christians, the mind doesn't just go away. The old mind remains strong and active. Here perhaps a better word is psyche. The psyche is composed of our thoughts, feelings, temperament, and affections.

It is important to understand that the psyche has a life of its own and, more importantly, it has its own agenda. All of our life, the psyche has been in charge. The psyche has called the shots and it isn't about to give up this role without a fight. So the fact of the matter is that as soon as we enter the Christian walk, a battle is set up inside between the psyche and the spirit. This battle is basically between our old self and our new self or, as Paul puts it, between our flesh and our spirit.

As Christians, we are called to walk in the Spirit. What does this mean? It means the Spirit is supposed to take precedent in our lives. The Spirit is the presence of God within us. This is our new command center. But, as stated earlier, there is an internal war in progress and the fact is, our enemy in this sense is our psyche. It is our psyche that has to be put under control of the spirit. This process is never easy and we can never accomplish it on our own. But we are not left alone to fight this battle. God has promised to empower us to emerge victorious. He has said in Ezekiel that He will remove our heart of stone and give us a heart of flesh; a new and living heart, controlled and directed by the Holy Spirit.

The problem is most Christians lose this battle on a daily basis because they have not been taught, or if they have been taught, they have resisted, the methodology of how to procure the necessary tools to fight the enemy and ultimately gain victory over their old self.

The solution to this problem is complicated on some levels perhaps, but basically it is quite simple. We have to undergo a realignment whereby our bodies, psyche, and spirit become a functioning whole with a unified purpose. This new alignment is under the direction of the Spirit. As we go through the process of this alignment, we are also told by Christ that we are to abide. "Abide in me.." he tells us. So we can say that what we are called to do is to align and abide. The problem is that most Christians never learn how to do this. There are many reasons for this but space does not allow for a discussion of that here. At its core, this problem I think has resulted from the ongoing faith/works controversy and has placed much of the church in a position of being dis-empowered and paralyzed spiritually. What the church must now do is to rediscover how to align and abide. I say rediscover because the methodology for this process has been around since the beginning of the church.

One other note here. Any discussion of alignment should include the fact that this process has an inner dimension and an outer dimension. Actually, there is no real distinction in essence, but to define it in these terms seems more comprehensive. The inner dimension involves achieving an alignment as follows:

Spirit
Psyche
Body

The outer dimension involves the alignment spoken of by Christ in the Gospel of John when he prays that we are in Him as he is in the Father. So the outer dimension looks like this:

God
Christ
Human

Looked at from this perspective, the inner dimension reflects the reality that the mind, when controlled by the Spirit in proper alignment, is the mediator between the Spirit and the body and thus, the mediator between the Spirit and our actions in the world. That is why we have to "renew our minds" or, again in the words of Paul, "have the mind of Christ". Only by doing so can we then effectively incarnate the Spirit through us and into the world. The outer dimension reflects the reality of the Gospel in its essence. It is only through Christ that we can connect with the Father and this awareness sheds light on Jesus' statement that he who has seen me has seen the Father. It is also scripturally sound in that it reflects the words of Paul that alludes to the fact that there is one mediator between God and man, and that is Jesus Christ.

How then are we supposed to bring the needed realignment about? The process is quite simple to understand, but sometimes difficult to apply. What we have to do is:

1. Trust God to do what He says he will do. We have to trust in and rely on the Holy Spirit.

2. We have to look to Christ as our model of how to walk in faith.


3. We have to rediscover the value and the power of "Spiritual Disciplines"

4. We have to directly confront and, with the help of the Spirit, deal with the psyche in all its subtle ramifications and retrain it to be subordinate to and in line with the directions of the Spirit. This is accomplished by following the Spirits lead as it "convicts of sin.” Many times what we call "sin" is a direct result of "misalignment". I think it can also be said that our problem with misalignment began with the Fall, when the original couple tried to “be as god” and wound up putting the soul (psyche) on the throne where Spirit should rule. That is where all behavior that we call sin comes from.

5. At LifeBrook, we often stress what we call “conscious cognition” as a vital part in abiding. Basically, this refers to the process of renewing the mind in general and dealing with our thought life in particular. Conscious Cognition involves directly dealing with our thoughts, taking thoughts captive for Christ, tearing down strongholds, and learning to think in more positive, optimistic, and constructive ways.

6. Perhaps the most significant aspect of establishing a life that is aligned with God and continues to abide in His will is obedience. More than anything else, obedience allows us to abide in God’s will more continuously and to manifest that will in proactive ways.

A misalignment where the psyche is dominant and the Spirit negated, even if it accomplishes much, can accomplish nothing that does not, at least at a subtle level, bear the taint of selfishness. Secondly, in order to accomplish this realignment we must "renew our minds" and I can think of no better way to do this than by actively sowing the seed of the Word of God into our hearts. Remember, “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.”

The sequence is important: first we align, and then we abide. Abiding is nothing more or less than maintaining our connection with the life giving Spirit of Christ. We must ever keep before us the words of the Master:

Apart from me, you can do nothing. (John 15:5)

We align by initiating a practice of spiritual disciplines that have been used for centuries in the church; practices such as prayer in its various forms, meditation (sacred silence and listening to God), study of and reflection upon Scripture, submission, service, and any other practice that is biblical, places Christ at the center, and seeks to discern God’s will and carry it out.

Again, proper alignment is central to every aspect of the Christian life. Without proper alignment we are more prone to walking in our own illusions and making mistakes, sometimes big and sometimes small. And what is it we are to align with? The answer is a simple one. We are to align with the Spirit of God that has been placed within us by the loving hand of the Father. At conversion our human spirit again became what it was in Genesis, alive. The Hebrew word for this is chay and the Greek is Zoe. New Testament writers almost always used this word, zoe, to describe life. Zoe is not ordinary life – the Greek word for that is bios – the root of our English word biology, which refers to the study of life. No, zoe was something far more significant. Zoe referred to “the life of God.”

This life, which God breathed into humanity at creation, was the animating force that gave life to our human spirit. With the Fall, this “zoe” or “chay” departed and in a way that was both real and symbolic, the human race became spiritual dead. Why? Because we no longer existed in union with God and, more to the point, we no longer had communion with God. Making matters worse, there was absolutely nothing that we humans could do about it. In and of ourselves, we were powerless to fix it. If a solution came, it would have to be from God.

Fortunately, God did provide a solution. We read about that solution in the famous Prologue to John’s Gospel. In the 18 verses that introduce his gospel, John paints a vivid picture of creation, the Fall, and God’s creative intervention to re-establish communion with his creation and restore life to the human Spirit. The whole drama centers of the person of Jesus Christ and provides us with a very clear picture of who and what Christ was (and still is). In a verse most telling, John tells us in regards to the Master:

In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.

Sometimes what an author doesn’t say is as important as what he does say. In his prologue, John doesn’t say “In Him was bios,” which is the Greek word for physical life and the root where we get our English word biology. No, John instead chooses to say “In Him was zoe,” which implies “God’s life.” In essence, John is saying that in Christ the same life, God’s life, that existed in the Garden, was once again returning to earth. Something that had departed eons before with a bite out of a piece of fruit, was now returning with a birth in a stable.

As we are able align and abide, our zoe, our very life, becomes more vital and spirit-filled. More importantly, with proper alignment it is spirit-controlled. We then abide and, in the words of Paul, by abiding we are able to walk in the Spirit.

When we arrive at this point where we are able to truly walk in the spirit, with our renewed minds and our spirit-controlled body in proper alignment, we tend to experience the polar opposite of those harshly negative mental and emotional states discussed early in this post. Instead, Paul speaks clearly to us, saying that if we walk in the Spirit we will experience such blessed states as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

© L.D. Turner 2009/All Rights Reserved

The Seven Mirrors of Sacred Living

L. Dwight Turner


Recently Sacred Mind Ministries has been conducting several two-day workshops using the curriculum entitled, “The Seven Mirrors of Sacred Living.” Below is a brief description of each mirror and what is covered in the work associated with each one. It is important to understand that we used the term “mirror” for a reason. Put simply, each component reflects the other components, thus forming a kind of “reflective hologram.”

Participants in the program are educated first about the fact that each mirror is defined accurately only when it is seen in connection with the other six. In this sense, no mirror stands alone. Instead, each mirror is engaged in a interactive choreography with the others. Further, the training and subsequent application of the mirrors to one’s daily life is less like a sequential ladder and more like a spiraling dance in which the mirrors sort of circle back on each other.

The Seven Mirrors of Sacred Living, briefly explained, are as follows:

Sacred Consecration

Consecration is a sacred act in which we formally proclaim our intention to do whatever it takes to tread the path of becoming all that we were designed to be. It involves a firm and consistent commitment to excellence.

Sacred Connection

Connecting with our Divine Source is foundational if we are to become the optimal version of ourselves. From the outset we must understand that:

We cannot do this alone

The Divine Source is there and wants to help

Our task is to establish and deepen our connection to the Divine Source

Fostering this vital and positive connection involves prayer, meditation, contemplation, and contact with others.

Sacred Comprehension

The universe operates according to basic laws that hold all things together and move them toward the Creator’s ultimate purpose for his creation. There are not only physical laws, but mental and spiritual laws that are equally inalterable. If we expect to move forward on the spiritual path, a practical, workable understanding of these laws and principles is indispensable. This also involves a basic comprehension of who and what we are, especially our psycho-energetic anatomy.

Sacred Cognition

Taking the principles we learned in the previous mirror, we now apply these fundamental laws and principles to our thought life. Recognizing that our thought in large part creates our reality, we begin to work diligently to take control of our thinking, however much a challenge this may be. We understand basically that positive thoughts create positive results and negative thoughts also create their own brand of negative reality.

It is here, in the mirror of Sacred Cognition, that we begin to apply the technology that will help us to get control of our thought life and its associated issues. This technology includes, but is not limited to:

Positive thinking
Positive imaging
Positive speaking
Positive action (act as if)
Positive Expectancy


We must ever keep before us the ideal of Sacred Character. Our world today needs more people of sound character and this entire program of endeavor is designed to cultivate what we at Sacred Mind Ministries call “Sacred Character.” It is the character exhibited by Christ and is marked by a foundation of integrity, love, and compassion.

Sacred Calling

The Creator planted a divine purpose within each of us prior to our birth on this planet and it is vital that we discover that purpose and bring it to fruition in our lives. Discovering and manifesting our Sacred Purpose is our “calling” in life and we cannot hope to become the optimal version of who we are without walking in our divine purpose. We also must understand that our individual purpose (our personal mission) is a component in the Creator’s universal mission.

Sacred Companions

We do not walk this journey alone. Instead, we need to form spiritual bonds with those who share a similar sense of mission and purpose. The development and establishment of healthy, vital, and committed spiritual communities is a fundamental component of the universal purpose for this age in which we live. These communities share common values, goals, and ideals and have a unified vision that fosters group cohesiveness and enhances community effectiveness. These groups may consist of as few as two members or can number in the thousands. It should also be mentioned that each member’s individual calling is enhanced and achieved within the milieu of the community’s overall vision.


Sacred Contribution

Through walking in our manifest Sacred Character we are better able to realize our Sacred Calling. In doing so we also are able to give flesh to grace. Just as Jesus did his Father’s work while on earth, we, too, are to embody God’s grace by making a positive contribution to the world in which we live. We do this in many ways, all of which flow out of our compassion and a sacred heart of service to others. By realizing our personal mission, we become the optimal version of ourselves and by doing so, we work toward being optimal benefit to others. Put simply, we incarnate God’s love and God’s light in this world.

© L.D. Turner 2009/All Rights Reserved

From Potential to Glory: Our Journey Into Spiritual Excellence

L. Dwight Turner

At Sacred Mind Ministries and LifeBrook International we have a corporate mission to provide programs and materials that assist individuals and organizations to become the optimal version of themselves for the benefit of others. This has been our mission since the founding of our ministry and we have never wavered in our pursuit of creating opportunities for people to grasp a real sense of who and what they are, what their God-given potential is, and that to which they are called. Once this happens, we feel a person is then ready to find a vital, living personal vision and, when this vision is fully realized, to walk in the full harvest of their personal glory.

Let’s take a little time a look at the how this flow normally takes place. Briefly, we can say that our growth into Christ-like character and into the optional version of ourselves moves through seven interrelated phases.

• Acknowledging and accepting our new identity “in Christ.”
• Understanding our “Seed Potential.”
• Discovering our “Call to Purpose”
• Living with “Vital Vision.”
• Our “Harvest of Glory.”
• Walking in “Spiritual Excellence.”
• Serving through Radical Compassion

Our New Identity in Christ

It begins with the acknowledgement that we are not functioning anywhere near our true potential and, at least initially, this stems from the fact that we believers have little idea of who and what we are “in Christ.” For many reason, the church has jettisoned the vital half of the gospel, choosing instead to focus on the blood and forgiveness at the expense of the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.

It is as if you own a house with an exquisite, one-of-a-kind door. You fell in love with this door and worship it so much that you never cross the threshold and go inside the house, which is even more beautiful. Likewise, many Christians become so immersed in Christ’s atoning work on the Cross and the cleansing of his blood they never grasp why he did this in the first place. He didn’t go through what he did so we could live life half-way, filled with doubt, inadequacy, and spiritual instability. Christ did not die just to get us into heaven my friend; he died in order to get heaven into us. Christ rose, met the disciples, breathed the Holy Spirit into them, gave them a Great Commission, and ascended into heaven, thus making the Pentecost possible.

In light of these realities, our first task is to understand and accept just what Christ accomplished with his death, resurrection, and ascension. We have a new identity and in the words of Paul, the old has passed away and the new has come. We are new creations in Christ and what’s more amazing, we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.

Until we grasp the character and the ramifications of our new identity, we will only grow in fits and starts, if at all. It’s time to walk on through the door, grand as it is, and see what blessings have been placed inside.

Understanding Our Seed Potential

God has placed a potential on the inside of each of us and I am convinced this occurred before we were ever born. This seed has the fulfillment of our calling, purpose, and vision in its core, just as an acorn has a mighty oak hidden within its fibers. God-given potential is like a seed and, with the proper environment, that seed can develop, grow, and manifest those things hidden within its hull.

You potential is like a seed and, until you allow that seed to grow, your dream will remain just that – a dream. God gave you this potential and, with the right environment, that seed potential will grow and develop into something quite magnificent. Dr. Myles Munroe speaks of these issues cogently:

“The entire creation possesses this principle of potential. Everything has the natural instinct to release its ability. The plant and animal kingdoms abound with evidences of this fact. The Creator designed everything with this principle of potential, which can be simplified to the concept of a seed. The biblical document states that God created everything with ‘seed in it according to their kinds’ (Genesis 1:12). In essence, hidden within everything is the potential to fulfill itself and produce much more than we see.”

It is vital that every person understand that we are responsible for developing the potential stored within us. We must deepen our contact with our divine potential and do all that we can to nurture, feed, and actualize our true mission and purpose. Further, we must recognize that as we move forward in developing our optimal potential, we can never afford to stop. In essence, when we travel the spiritual journey, we are either moving forward or backward. There is truly no place to stand on the spiritual path.

Our journey of discovering and developing our divine potential must begin with a commitment to excellence – an agreement with our Creator that we will walk in cooperation with the Spirit to become the best version of ourselves.

Necessarily, this commitment will involve personal challenges and, at times, a degree of personal discomfort. Spiritual growth involves change and change always requires stepping out of our comfort zone. Still, the process of realizing and manifesting our divine potential is one of the greatest adventures we will ever undertake.

Discovering Our Call To Purpose

Three terms that are often heard when discussing our “purpose” in life are purpose, mission, and calling. These words often used interchangeably and can mean basically the same thing. I think the confusion comes in when an author or speaker uses these three expressions to mean different things. With that thought in mind, whenever I use these words, I take them to mean basically the same thing. Our mission, our purpose, and our calling refer to our God-given reason for being here on this planet at this time. In addition, I firmly believe that God has a highly specific calling for each of us that has three primary aspects:

• It is personal and specific to us;
• It is related to our spiritual gifts
• The realization and actualization of this mission is a major part of our spiritual formation and helps grow into the optimal version of ourselves.

In the next section we will talk about vision and it is important to understand how mission and vision are different. Our mission or purpose is far more general than our vision. Basically, you can say our vision is the specific way in which we will realize our mission.

We can say that your mission is your life calling, your reason for being here. It is not so much specific activities as it is the reason you perform those activities. Your mission gives your life meaning and gives you positive motivation to get out of bed each morning and, in positive faith, face the challenges that may come your way. Your true mission is a major motivator, something you enjoy doing, and something for which you have passion and enthusiasm.

Living With Vital Vision

As mentioned earlier, vision is intimately related to purpose but more specific. Put simply, vision is the method whereby you see yourself living out your mission to completion. Living with vital vision involves every area of your life and how those aspects of your life related to your personal mission. Your vision involves your family, friends, associates, and especially your choice of career. Ideally, all of these things come together in a harmonious orbit around the specific vision you develop for carrying forward your mission.

Arriving at your vision is a process, not an event. It requires much planning, organization, and flexibility. Most significantly, developing your vision involves deep, focused, and above all, consistent prayer. You cannot expect to discover what God wants you to do and the best way to do it without communing with Him on a regular basis. Pray that the Holy Spirit walks with you, guiding you, and challenging you to move forward with your vision, even if it means stepping out of your comfort zone. More than anywhere else in the process of growth into excellence, the phase of vital vision may require you to think out of the box.

A simple way to look at the relationship of vision and mission is as follows. Let’s suppose that three friends all have a mission to provide convenient, quality, fast-food to busy workers. One may decide to open a Burger King franchise, another a Pizza Hut. The third may have a vision of a Taco Bell. You see, the mission of quality fast-food is the same; the vision of each friend is different. I realize this example is overly simplistic, but I do think it serves our purposes of demonstrating how a vision is a specific plan for carrying forward a more general mission or calling.

Your Harvest of Glory

Your God-given potential began as a seed planted in you by the Creator before your birth. Further, he not only planted this great potential within you but also gave you all the talent you needed to discover this potential and, in concert with the Holy Spirit, connect your potential to a divine personal purpose – a call to a specific mission that was yours to carry forward. Once discovered, this mission hopefully gave you sufficient passion and motivation to develop and carry out a specific personal vision that allowed your talents and gifts to blossom and your personal vision to become a vital, living reality.

By realizing the manifestation of your mission you necessarily had to hone and develop your God-given talents and gifts and, in so doing, became more and more the optimal version of yourself. Now, walking in your personal excellence, creativity, and commitment, you are harvesting your personal glory.

We can see hints of this process in the Master’s great prayer in the 17th Chapter of John’s gospel when he expresses that as he is glorified, the Father is glorified. And the reality is my friends, when we walk in our excellence – when we manifest and live as the optimal version of who we are, we glorify the Master.

Walking in Spiritual Excellence

As a result of reaping our harvest, we are now able to manifest our true potential, realize our vital vision and in the process, become the optimal version of ourselves. We consistently walk in the Spirit and not in the flesh and in so doing, we are able to become more effective servants of the Light.

As you see, we move from our seed potential to walking in our manifest glory. We do this not to glorify ourselves, but to glorify our Master, our Father in heaven, and the Holy Spirit that has dwelled within us, walked along side us, empowered us, and made all this possible. When we come to walk in our personal glory, we are then able to be of true, selfless benefit to others while bringing glory to God.

This is our true aim and our ultimate calling – to be all that we can be; to give glory to our Creator; and to serve others with love. In the final analysis, we can ask for no greater destiny than this.


Serving With Radical Compassion

When the Master walked this earth, he did so as the prototype of a person who consistently walks in spiritual excellence. Jesus was the optimal version of who and what he was and it is to that goal we all aspire. Granted, we cannot walk as God’s Son walked – scripture tells us Jesus was the only one. However, we can walk as the optimal version of who we are.

Jesus gave himself completely to the Father so that he could do the Father’s will completely. And what was the ultimate will of the Father for his Son? The answer is simple: serve others!

Like Christ, we, too, are to give ourselves completely to God so that we can do His will completely. And what is God’s ultimate will for us? It should be obvious by now: we are to serve others.

Our service is the offspring of a heart of compassion, built upon our deep recognition of the pain and suffering inherent in this world and our interconnected unity with all people. You may not know it yet, but every man on this planet is your brother and every woman is your sister. You are made of the same combination of earth and divine breath. When one person suffers, at some level, we all suffer. This is not some New Age airy fairy fantasy; instead, it is scientific fact and theological truth.

From his opening salvo quoting Isaiah about bringing release to the captives and good news to the poor, to his dying plea of, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do,” Jesus exemplified a compassion far beyond what the world had seen before.


Indeed, it was and is a radical compassion.

Jesus’ stories about the Prodigal, the Good Samaritan, and his treatment of the woman caught in adultery all point to the need for a compassion that transcends the normal boundaries defined by contemporary culture, then and now.

Indeed, it was and is a radical compassion.

Friends, no matter what our station in life might be – no matter our race, our color, our culture, or our economic stature – we are called to the same.

Indeed, it is and will always be a radical compassion.

© L.D. Turner 2009/All Rights Reserved

Keep It Simple, Sherlock!

L. Dwight Turner

Some of us have a tendency to over-complicate even the most simple truths in life and I plead guilty in the first-degree when it comes to taking an issue that is fairly basic and turning it into an exercise in speculative philosophy. By God’s grace, I have become somewhat less inclined to do this as I have grown older, but I full well recognize the tendency to over-analyze a situation is still there. If Paul were here, he would more than likely say that this is one of my “strongholds” and he would be correct.

One of the silver linings that emerged out of my confrontation with this problematic aspect of my character, however, has proved quite useful. In a number of ways, this point of light in an otherwise dark encounter with my own defects of character is the opposite of my tendency to turn placing postage stamp in the correct location an exercise in higher calculus. In fact, it involves making things less complicated.

Allow me to give you an example.

Whenever we take even a minimal view of the scope of issues involved in living a spiritually meaningful life in today’s world, it can surely be overwhelming. The fact is the world in which we live and move and have our being is far more complex and multi-faceted than the one where Buddha, Krishna, or Jesus operated. Granted, as limited humans we are dealing with most of the fundamental problems that the contemporaries of these great spiritual figures dealt with many years ago, but those problems surface in many ways and in numerous contexts that were unheard of in ancient times. To make matters more complicated, we have to find ways in which we can filter our faith experiences, especially as related to our growth or lack thereof, so that they make at least a modicum of sense. In other words, we need to find ways in which we can make our spiritual journey more comprehensible, particularly to ourselves.

This process is the opposite of my tendency to over-complicate things. Here we are talking about simplifying complex things, rather than complicating basically sensible things. Of course, it can be argued that any path of spiritual formation is a simple at its core, but I, for one, don’t buy that argument. As they say down here in the South, “…that dog won’t hunt.” The reality is, the spiritual path can be very confusing at times, particularly when it comes to personal ethics, making proper decisions, and engaging in spiritual disciplines. Making the situation more complicated is the cacophony of conflicting opinions on just about any issue on might raise. The need for something a bit simpler is critical, especially for the new believer.

At Sacred Mind Alliance we have explored numerous ways of mapping out the process of spiritual growth in a contemporary context and most have been genuinely effective. What I want to share here, however, is a map I developed for my own use. It has been modified somewhat over the years, but I still go back to these basic themes whenever I find I need more clarity and less confusion in my daily walk of faith. What I am about to share is in no way comprehensive, but it does work as a pragmatic outline of the faith, boiled down to four workable divisions. This particular way of looking at the faith has been effective for me, and it may be for you. Please keep in mind, however, I am not suggesting what follows is the best way, the only way, or that it will work for everyone. At the end of the day, I think each of us has to find our own way of making complex issues simple and more easily addressed.

The method I used for breaking the path of what I came to call “Faith Formation” into manageable units involved four divisions. In my personal journal I called these divisions “The Four Mirrors of Faith Formation” and came to see that this title fit perfectly for what I was doing. I used the word “mirrors” for several important reasons. First of all, this approach was not like a ladder, where you take one step after another. When put into actual practice, each division proved to be intimately connected with the other three. It was as if, like four mirrors on each side of an object, each mirror reflected not only the object, but the reflections in the other mirrors as well.

In order to deepen this analogy, I placed a small sculpture of Guan Yin, a Buddhist Bodhisattva of Compassion on a table and placed four identical mirrors on each side. Amazingly, as I looked in each mirror I did not see one dove, but many as each primary reflection contained the other reflections. I had the awareness that these four mirrors were like a spiritual hologram, with each part containing within it the perfect totality of every other part.

The Four Mirrors of Faith Formation, which I continue to use as my own personal model for applying the faith to my own life, are:

The Mirror of Connection

The Mirror of Comprehension

The Mirror of Cultivation

The Mirror of Contribution

As stated earlier, I could have come up with more divisions, many more. Further, with my propensity for alliteration, I most likely could have started all of them with the letter “C.” However, my goal was to keep this process as simple as possible and still have a workable, comprehensive matrix through which I could process my faith.

The Mirror of Connection is just that, connection with the Divine. In this mirror, I seek to deepen my connection with God through several practices. First, it involves prayer, the practice of meditation, spiritual reading, and contact with the natural world. This last practice has revealed itself to be one of the most powerful ways I have found to deepen the level of my contact with and experience of God’s presence.

The Mirror of Comprehension is concerned with the garnering of practical wisdom, particularly in regards to spiritual laws and principles in general and the pragmatic application of these laws to daily living. The primary aim in this mirror is gaining knowledge of the interface between the spiritual world and this physical world. Also central is deepening not only our understanding, but also our practical experience of the interconnectivity of all life and the birth of a transformational compassion in the heart.

In working with the Mirror of Cultivation my primary objective is to put myself into a spiritual posture of openness and receptivity to the work of Sacred Spirit. This particular mirror is aimed at the cultivation of what I have come to call “Sacred Character,” which in turn is built on the foundation of “Noble Integrity.” In addition, the formation of character and integrity is further made possible by the clarification and development of a comprehensive worldview and an internalized system of values based on that worldview.

As I work with these mirrors, I understand on an experiential level that my primary purpose in life becomes making a positive, spiritual contribution to the world in which I live. In brief, the Mirror of Contribution is concerned with the use of my talents, spiritual gifts, and whatever else God has placed at my disposal in order to make the world a better place. This does not necessarily mean some great, Noble Peace Prize winning contribution, although for a select few, this may be true. For most of us, the Mirror of Contribution is concerned with doing whatever we can to bring a high level of functioning to whatever setting we may be placed. This process could involve family, work, the environment, or any number of things.

Earlier, I mentioned that the spiritual journey can be explained in many ways and certainly in ways that are deeper and more complex than the four-mirrored approach I have just described. What I have attempted to do in this brief article is to present a model and matrix that has worked well for me. I am a person who thrives on exploring highly complex, difficult to comprehend models so things and, for this very reason, I have learned that it is precisely those things that I need to avoid. In an overworked but accurate slogan, I need to keep it simple.

© L. D. Turner 2009/ All Rights Reserved