The Mind Gets the Message, Eventually
From 1 Timothy 1 – 1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God our Savior and the Lord Jesus Christ, our hope,
2 Timothy, a true son in the faith: grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord.
3 As I urged you when I went into Macedonia – remain in Ephesus that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine, 4 nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which cause disputes rather than godly edification which is faith.
5 now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience,…
On the show Friday Night Lights, Brian "Smash" Williams is Dillon High School's overachieving, irrepressible running back, until he suffers a serious knee injury. The knee is repaired, but Brian's "Smash" persona is not. He says point-blank after the injury, "I'm slow." He can't find it within himself to trust the full extent of the new life the surgery has given him on the football field. His erstwhile teammates devise a full-contact scrimmage to allow him to rediscover his true identity, and in the course of it he takes a serious blow on the reconstructed knee. Silence ensues, but he bounces up jabbering in a way he hasn't since he was hurt.
The apostle Paul knows something of this pronouncement of wholeness which the beneficiary is slow to fully believe. As he speaks his blessing over Timothy that opens the first epistle between them, he bridges this gap. The pure heart in Timothy is God's gift initiated by His grace, just as Smash got a reconstructed knee while he was in surgery. But to actually see oneself as new, to run full speed, or to cut at sharp angles as a returning running back, or to retrain and restrain the misguided conscience accustomed to certain scripts of condemnation from the old, fallen heart, that, often, is the next step of faith. For a while, the heart or the knee is as good as new, better than new, only the brain doesn't know it yet.
To exercise this newness to the extent that we begin to believe it, we are placed in community. Smash is challenged by his teammates. Timothy is in Ephesus as the X factor to show the difference Christ makes. We are often in circumstances similar to those from which we were called in order to prove to ourselves and the world that Christ makes a difference no change of duty station could extract. With 10th Avenue North in "Open My Hands," we plead that the difference isn't evident enough fast enough. With a warped conscience, over-active in some areas and oblivious in others, at times we want to scream with the lyrics, "My heart's in constant chaos, and it keeps me so deceived."
They've got the remedy right, as does Paul if we revert to the certainty of calling. "Empty my hands, fill up my heart, capture my mind with You," the lyrics insist, and repeat all three again, understanding with the transformation in 1 Timothy that the old mindset must marinate in the new wine of grace before it will begin to change. As a good conscience is a gift, and an ongoing gift, we see aspects of Christ's righteousness playing out in and through us incrementally. When we do, we can pause for just a moment, breathe deeply, and worship, confident that His same power evident in us in this aspect of transformation will likewise take down the next stronghold in our thinking.
2 Timothy, a true son in the faith: grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord.
3 As I urged you when I went into Macedonia – remain in Ephesus that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine, 4 nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which cause disputes rather than godly edification which is faith.
5 now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience,…
On the show Friday Night Lights, Brian "Smash" Williams is Dillon High School's overachieving, irrepressible running back, until he suffers a serious knee injury. The knee is repaired, but Brian's "Smash" persona is not. He says point-blank after the injury, "I'm slow." He can't find it within himself to trust the full extent of the new life the surgery has given him on the football field. His erstwhile teammates devise a full-contact scrimmage to allow him to rediscover his true identity, and in the course of it he takes a serious blow on the reconstructed knee. Silence ensues, but he bounces up jabbering in a way he hasn't since he was hurt.
The apostle Paul knows something of this pronouncement of wholeness which the beneficiary is slow to fully believe. As he speaks his blessing over Timothy that opens the first epistle between them, he bridges this gap. The pure heart in Timothy is God's gift initiated by His grace, just as Smash got a reconstructed knee while he was in surgery. But to actually see oneself as new, to run full speed, or to cut at sharp angles as a returning running back, or to retrain and restrain the misguided conscience accustomed to certain scripts of condemnation from the old, fallen heart, that, often, is the next step of faith. For a while, the heart or the knee is as good as new, better than new, only the brain doesn't know it yet.
To exercise this newness to the extent that we begin to believe it, we are placed in community. Smash is challenged by his teammates. Timothy is in Ephesus as the X factor to show the difference Christ makes. We are often in circumstances similar to those from which we were called in order to prove to ourselves and the world that Christ makes a difference no change of duty station could extract. With 10th Avenue North in "Open My Hands," we plead that the difference isn't evident enough fast enough. With a warped conscience, over-active in some areas and oblivious in others, at times we want to scream with the lyrics, "My heart's in constant chaos, and it keeps me so deceived."
They've got the remedy right, as does Paul if we revert to the certainty of calling. "Empty my hands, fill up my heart, capture my mind with You," the lyrics insist, and repeat all three again, understanding with the transformation in 1 Timothy that the old mindset must marinate in the new wine of grace before it will begin to change. As a good conscience is a gift, and an ongoing gift, we see aspects of Christ's righteousness playing out in and through us incrementally. When we do, we can pause for just a moment, breathe deeply, and worship, confident that His same power evident in us in this aspect of transformation will likewise take down the next stronghold in our thinking.
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