Following the road

This is a follow up to my last blog. My goal is to outline in detail what practices make a Christian. But first things first, a fitness story.

After my last blog I had a heavy lifting session. We did hang cleans to finding three repetition max, then a workout consisting of deadlifts, push-ups and box jumps. Because of the box jumps I decided to wear shoes. I thought I needed the cushioning. I should know better. The next day while walking to work I had a shooting pain on the inside of my left foot. Probing around my foot I located the tired muscles. They were alongside my inner arch. Basically my foot was rolling in during the workout. I wasn’t aware of it because of the cushioning of the shoes. Had my feet been in contact with the ground I could have corrected my form on the spot. I paid the price for my poor choice as my foot hurt for two days. On top of that I felt the effects run from my arch up through my calf, hip, lower back and shoulder. I could have prevented the pain if I had just taken my own advice and worn my minimalist shoes, but I thought it wouldn’t be a big deal to cheat just once. I was wrong.

This is often how our spiritual lives work. We know what we need to do, but then we fail to do it. We get distracted by life and cheat when it comes to the basics. The most important basic of the Christian walk is grace. Grace to forgive ourselves when screw things up. Grace to give ourselves a second chance, even when we’ve made a mess. Grace to forgive others, as we ourselves have been forgiven. It would be no small exaggeration to say that grace is a cornerstone of the Christian faith. While grace covers our sin, there is more to our walks with God than just accepting and giving grace. We, like any athlete, need to train in God’s ways, seeking to understand them through practice.

What is it that we should be practicing?

For a long time I’ve pondered this question. I know the core answers, and I could point to different parts of the Bible to justify my practices, but I don’t want to. I believe that if the central core answers of the Christian faith are so important, we can not only find them mentioned together in one place, but we could also find them in the Pentateuch: the first five books of the Bible. I’ve spent many years searching for the place where they are all explained or mentioned in one single place. I’ve been reading the Bible for more than twelve years: you think this would be an easy answer, but it’s not. Finding the answer meant exploring unpreachable texts: the areas of the Bible people don’t talk about. Why don’t they talk about these areas? Because they are dry and boring. When I found my answer, in the last chapters of Exodus (36, 37, and 38) it was a passage I remembered reading many years ago. My response all those years ago? “Dear God why is this part of the Bible important? It’s just a list of materials and blue-prints for how they built a place of worship in the Old Testament. I hate reading this, it puts me to sleep.” Yep, that was my response. I was a young teenager at the time. Even then I knew one day that boring list might be important, I just had no idea why. So I read it anyway. And I kept reading it every time it came around, believing one day it might make sense. And while I have zero claims to mastering this part of scripture, I can at least say it has taught me something incredibly valuable, answering my long held belief that the central practices are in the oldest parts of the Bible and are all mentioned together. Let me tell you how I arrived at my current position.

Moses received instruction from God on how to build the tabernacle and all of its surrounding items of worship. God told Moses what to do. God. Told. Moses. When that message finally sunk in I realized that boring blueprint had incredible significance. It was literally a message from God on how to worship Him. In order to make understand what God was saying, I had to take a step back and put my critical thinking hat on. God doesn’t always make his answers clear. What we first see is not always what God is trying to tell us. With this in mind I looked at the list not as a series of objects, but a series of symbols. My head almost exploded. The beautiful thing about Biblical writings is that they are often literal and symbolic. Not just one or the other, but both and the same. Here is what I read, and what I understood based on the order of construction in Exodus.

The Tabernacle: Our personal meeting space

The first thing the Israelites built was the Tabernacle. The tent where God would dwell among them. The place where only a select few could go and meet with God. The first step in our journey of faith is making room for God. Having a place where we go to find Him. A place to talk with Him. There are many places we can go, but the point is to have a personal space in our lives where we can go and meet with God.

The Ark: God in our lives

The Ark is where God dwelled among the Israelites. They knew where God was because He filled the Tabernacle with His presence. He filled the Tabernacle because the Ark was there. It’s not enough to make space for God in our lives, He has to come dwell within us. The Ark is the symbol of God’s presence. Following God means He is present in our lives, and we recognize His presence.

The Table: Communion with God

God calls upon each and every living person to enter into a relationship with him. He calls out to us before we enter into relationship. Once we have made space and he is present we need to respond to this calling and begin a relationship with him.

The Lamp: Reading Scripture and Understand Jesus

The Psalmist wrote, “your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.” Jesus is the light of the world. As such we should not worship God in darkness, but learn about who He is by studying his word: meaning both the study of Scripture and the life of Jesus.

The Altar of Incense: Prayer

As we study who God is, we need to talk with Him. Prayer is our communication with God. Our ability to pray grows the better we know Him. If we don’t know Him, our ability to pray is significantly hindered. Studying who He is teaches us how we should pray. Praying to God strengthens our relationship with Him and invites him to take a larger role in our lives. Prayer enables us to move from a personal relationship with God, to an external showing of His grace and presence in our lives.

The Altar of Burnt Offering: Dedication, sacrifice and forgiveness

The Altar of Burnt Offering is where the Israelites sacrificed offerings to God. The first of these offerings, which the altar is named after, is the Burnt Offering. This offering was entirely burned on the altar as an act of dedication. When we have a healthy internal relationship with God it manifests itself outside of our personal lives. We must act publically. As the Altar sat outside of the Tabernacle, so too does our external signs of faith. Faith is more than a private matter. Notice the first external sign of faith is sacrifice, something given before God. This is a sign of being forgiven. We willingly give up what is ours as part of dedication to God.

The Basin for Washing: Identification with God’s people

It’s not enough to have a private relationship with God that sometimes moves us to external acts of faith, we must identify ourselves alongside God’s people. This one off washing is called Baptism. It’s an external sign of being accepting into a Christian community. It’s also a public declaration of faith. This sign not only says we identify with the Christian community, but that we will stand alongside it and support it.

The Courtyard: Fellowship with other Christians

It’s not enough to get baptized and give occasionally to Christian causes. We must spend time with other Christians. We need to be with each other, to encourage one another and to lift each other up. We should also spend time with non-Christians, as the Christian community is not exclusive, but rather inclusive. It takes time to develop in our knowledge and relationship with God. One of the best ways to continue to grow as a Christian is to spend time with Christians in worship to God. It is not enough to be around other Christians as our only support in the faith, we must also read, pray and make individual sacrifices along the way.