You’ve Been Framed If you have ever shopped for the perfect frame to mount a painting in, you know what a task it can be – well at least for some of us. We seldom start with a frame and paint the picture after we get the frame. Or have a frame and then go out and buy a painting to go in it. But that is precisely what the New Testament does for us. It gives us a frame in which to paint – to live life - the freedom to express ourselves within the sovereignty of the frame. There is no tension between the sovereignty of God’s frame and the canvas in which we live out our lives freely. Unfortunately, western theology suggests that God’s sovereignty is the frame as well as the painting. In this frame God in his permissive will lets us hold the brush. So we end up arguing over who is actually guiding our hand – talk about tension. Unfortunately western theology also promotes a pagan frame and as a result has to see God in terms of both the frame and the painting, not to mention all that goes with that – paint colors, subject matter, location, style, medium, etc – as sovereignty issues. He has even predetermined the exact time at which you (or he – who actually knows in that frame) will stop painting in this frame according to western theology – for it is appointed unto man once to die and then the judgment. Hmm, what are we going to be judged for – how well we held the brush? This is some really sick stuff and paints God with a brush dipped into our own blindness and darkness. Furthermore, if we understand the Christian life in terms of window shopping, or as western theology describes it – becoming like Christ – which is even more tragic because we can never be satisfied with the painting or the painting process. We end up with things like the Character store and all the storefront windows displaying what that looks like. Or the disciplines storefront, the tithing and giving storefront, the holy storefront, the contemplative storefront, the praying and fasting storefront, etc. Each week we get to take a stroll through the mall corridor of storefronts as our guide – the pastor – describes the assorted fronts – or affronts as I like to call them. Could it be possible that the New Testament gives us a different picture? Consider that window shopping was never God’s intent for us – ie: striving to buy into whatever is required to become like Christ-well at least look the part. Consider the fact that we were created in the image and likeness of God and as a result of sin we became blind to our identity of being a new, distinct and unique expression of God – a dream come true that originated in the mind of God. This veil of darkness that blinds us prevents us from seeing our true nature. But God through the Holy Spirit was sent to open the eyes of the blind and he has included us in getting the word out about it. God’s intent in the New Testament is to do away with our window shopping, for instead it is a mirror that reveals to us our true identity. God desires for us to look into the mirror and see ourselves once again in terms of the image and likeness of God – but now not as created physical beings, but through Christ the mediator between God and man, as part of and partakers of the uncreated spirit nature of the Godhead. But we all, with our whole face point blank in front of the mirror now once again can behold the glory of God in us as a new and unique creation recognizing that we have now also been changed into the same image and likeness of God from the glory we had as created beings into the uncreated glory of the Godhead, coming to this realization and reality by the Spirit of the Lord opening our eyes to it – the reality of our inclusion in the uncreated spirit life of the Godhead through Christ( 2 Cor.3:18) Even while we were falling short of the glory in which we were created and still dead in the blindness and darkness of our fallen mind, Christ has already included us in the uncreated spirit life of the Godhead.(Eph 2:4-7) The Holy Spirit was sent to open our eyes to it so we could participate in the reality of our inclusion and our true identity. This is the frame in which we begin to paint – to participate in – to live life. God is way more excited about what you will paint into the canvas of your life than you will ever be. He cannot wait to see how you uniquely and distinctly express yourself as an image and likeness bearer of himself included in him and him in you. Sadly the institutional church has given us the counterfeit. They suggest that we must live toward something versus from something. We must pursue Christ-likeness when the mirror suggests we live from something – our true identity – as creatures who bear the image and likeness of God, now as part of the uncreated spirit realm of the Godhead. We are given the wrong frame from which to live. Church has become a mere stroll through the mall to see what always seems out of reach and we raise up window dressers instead of spirit realm dwellers and participants. The church’s mall is called the Conscience and Morality Mall and it promotes mall rules according to that non-relational frame with storefronts that promote them, which somehow translates to Christ-likeness – the corridors lined with examples of Christ-likeness with frames of morality and conscience – many Bible characters framed in them as well – even Jesus – tragically this is the very frame Christ came to free us from. A freedom to live in a relationship of CUDL – the relational truth and grace Jesus came in from the Father.
Posted on: Mon, 30 Sep 2013 19:22:38 +0000
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