Be not Do

We are concerned with what we need to do to be what God wants us to be. What we miss is concern about what we need to be to do what God has for us to do.

We readily reach for the latest Christian or Self-Help Book that offers the 6 Principles of This or the 7 Habits of that or the 9 steps to this. We are concerned with working our way through an issue. We want to compensate for our weakness and wrongdoing. We wish to “make up for lost time”. We want to recover by a process of steps. And the Lord knows we need recovery.

To paraphrase Steven Arteburn in TOXIC FAITH, recovery without God at its foundation is simply a form of compensation for wrongs committed.

We are trying to undo the damage done by actions of our will and choice by more actions of that same will and choice. This only leads to limited recovery (from an intensive care unit to a semi-private room). It does not address the cause of the illness. It just treats outward symptoms. Gordon Dalbey puts it this way in HEALING THE MASCULINE SOUL, “Godly counsel only hits its mark after an encounter with The Living God.”

Paul implores us in Romans 12:1-2 (THE MESSAGE)
“1 So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life - your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life - and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. 2 Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. “

PLACE-offer your whole life to him. This is an act of submission. It is not a physical ACTION but a state of the heart. This is not a DO it is a be. Be submitted. Allow your heart to be sacrificed on the altar.

EMBRACE-live with passion from the place God has you. Accept with pleasure the working of God in response to the state of your heart not what you do.

POORLY ADJUSTED-protect your heart from the cultural nurturing of the world away from your God-given, God-inspired passions. Do you remember that Christ likened the kingdom to little children? We are born into a lowly state with few rights and say-so in our lives. We are born completely dependent and fairly useless by our own power. The world teaches us to be independent and competent by our own power. This is what leads to us thinking something we can DO will get us where God wants us.

FIX-your passion and attention on what he is doing. Align the ear of your spirit (your heart) to him.

Proverbs 2:1-6 (NAS) lays it out like this
“1 My son, if you will receive my words And treasure my commandments within you, 2 Make your ear attentive to wisdom, Incline your heart to understanding; 3 For if you cry for discernment, Lift your voice for understanding; 4 If you seek her as silver and search for her as for hidden treasures; 5 Then you will discern the fear of the LORD And discover the knowledge of God. 6 For the LORD gives wisdom; From His mouth {come} knowledge and understanding”


(THE MESSAGE)
1 Good friend, take to heart what I'm telling you; collect my counsels and guard them with your life. 2 Tune your ears to the world of Wisdom; set your heart on a life of Understanding. 3 That's right - if you make Insight your priority, and won't take no for an answer, 4 Searching for it like a prospector panning for gold, like an adventurer on a treasure hunt, 5 Believe me, before you know it Fear-of-God will be yours; you'll have come upon the Knowledge of God. 6 And here's why: God gives out Wisdom free, is plainspoken in Knowledge and Understanding.

The verses that follow promise victory and upright steady walking from the decision to “tune your ears” or “make your ear attentive to wisdom and incline your heart to understanding”. In verse 4 he mentions seeking for her as silver. You might argue that seeking is a DO. I would answer that with this question “have you ever seen anyone seeking wisdom?” I know you might see someone whom you know is seeking, but his seeking is not evident by some physical action he is doing. It is evident by the state of his HEART.

BE CHANGED-from the inside out, the inner working of God’s transformation. Again suggesting that the change is about what HE is DOING in you, not what you are doing to become what he finds desirable. There is nothing in your flesh that you can do that makes you acceptable to God. You are not pleasing or presentable to him in your flesh. The accomplishment of your right and pleasing standing with God was sealed over 2000 years ago.

RECOGNIZE-what he wants from you. Because of the transformation of your heart, you will be able to see his desire for you. Your passions will align with his. This doesn’t necessarily mean you will become a good church worker, Sunday school teacher, or roadside evangelist. But the passions and desires of your heart will flow through their designed conduit, his agenda, to accomplish things beyond your imagination for HIS greater purposes.

RESPOND- to his leading. This is where the doing comes in. During the ongoing transformation in you at the hand of the Creator of the Universe, a new you with rightly directed passion emerges that can feel the leading of the Lord and respond to his directions. Maturity and deep faith develop. You will no longer be constantly burdened by the worries of this underdeveloped world and the culturally religious. God develops a big-picture-understanding of the world and his Kingdom design for your life in it.