lion rebel

In the first chapter of his first letter, Peter’s whole premise lines up with the entirety of the word of God: our old life is distant from God, yet our new life has established a complete relationship with him for eternity. He describes the direct difference between being born of a physical seed (man’s sperm) and the spiritual seed of God’s Word of Life.

And it seems that he draws a line between the two with such distinction that it is a bit of a strange turn when he starts out the second chapter with this: So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. It’s obvious that though the work of God, by his Spirit and his Word and the sacrifice of his Son bring instantaneous effects, there also is a transition, a learning, a growing, a depth of change that comes with the continued choices we make and the constant movement toward Christ and his Word.

Like newborn infants long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation – if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. The pure spiritual milk of Christ – Eugene Peterson puts it like this: “like infants at the breast, drink of God’s pure kindness.” Desperate for that fix, for that touch, for that intimate exchange of sustenance and love from the God of all humankind – that is to be our constant state of mind, rather than the lazy betrayal of ourselves on absent thought at a time.

I shouldn’t be surprised, but I find myself mildly amazed when I read from scripture and discover once again how much about love and loving others it is all about [from 1 peter 1 - the last 3 verses]: Now that you’ve cleaned up your lives by following the truth, love one another as if your lives depended on it. The distinct decision we make to be obedient should signify a new start – a separation of our old life that comes from our parent’s earthly entanglement and our new life with comes from God’s holy entanglement with our own spirit. Your new life is not like your old life. Your old birth came from mortal sperm; your new birth comes from God’s living Word. Yet we succumb time and again to our old living, to the Resistance, to giving in or giving up the glory of the life God has called us to. We must conform to the living words of God, allowing his heart, passion, and Spirit to transform us.

The truth is it is a daily battle, something that we must pursue and choose every moment of every day because our old life is waiting at every step to enter back in and take control. The devil is waiting at every moment eager to regain his grip on our throats. But Peter’s promise for us is this: Just think: a life conceived by God himself! That’s why the prophet said, The old life is a grass life, its beauty as short-lived as wildflowers; Grass dries up, flowers droop, God’s Word goes on and on forever. This is the Word that conceived the new life in you. The love of God is far greater than any self-love we can afford for ourselves. It creates a new and holy lifestyle – that is the love of God as it takes the form of a wonderful disease that spreads from one converted fellow to the next and the world is transformed.

I had an epiphany this morning as I sat on the toilet twenty minutes after reading this post by Seth Godin: http://bit.ly/pZfssM. [If you're too lazy to click the link] Godin talks about success and whether or not one person’s success is more special than another’s. I read Godin daily because he usually has great things to say in not too many words and most days what he writes challenges me.

This morning I breezed through his writing – it was the same good stuff but I didn’t find it particularly applicable for my day today. But then, on the toilet, it hit me. I have been striving to be successful in the ways that other people have been successful. Set a schedule, read four books at a time, drink this vitamin water, take time to think, develop your passion and screw your day job, stick with your day job until your passion becomes profitable, spend time with your family, don’t spend time with your family, go to church, pray, take a weekend off, work your ass off 24-7. The methods of humankind’s success vary greatly and I’m quite certain I’ve tried at least 5% of their ways to increase my success.

And I’ve mostly been miserable. And truthfully [though if you think you know me you would not agree with this] I’ve mostly been unsuccessful. The “trouble” with me is I am an adapter. Throw anything my way and I can make it work. But the reason I have felt unsuccessful is because I don’t just want to make it work. I want it to explode in wonder and magnitude and grace. The dreams that are stored up inside me won’t settle for making it work – they want to soar and I want to release them to something greater than pitiful me.

But there’s nothing wrong with the methods of success of other people; obviously, because they’ve worked, some of them for thousands of years. And I won’t abandon them, but I need to learn to hold myself to a different standard – and I think, probably, so do you. It’s not about ignoring everyone else, but adapting their success stories to your own success story. We’re all responsible for our own success [except Katy Perry and Lady Gaga].