I used to buy into the idea that freedom was about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I thought freedom was primarily the ability the make my own choices.

Then I realized that while that’s part of it, the ability to make my own choices was never enough for true spiritual freedom, because I tend to make selfish choices that keep me enslaved to sin.

In the Bible freedom is more about identity (who we are) than choice (doing what we want), and that identity is always connected to Jesus through the Holy Spirit.

In a letter to the church at Corinth, St. Paul wrote:

Where the spirit of the Lord is there is freedom (2 Corinthians 3:17)

And what does the Spirit do? He changes our hearts to be more like Christ, because Christ perfectly shows us the Father, and as image-bearers of God, this was our original design as human beings!

We are set free, Paul says in Romans 8:4, “in order to fulfill the righteous requirement of the law.” What’s the righteous requirement?

At the most basic level it’s to do good works, to worship God. It is to show forth, to demonstrate, to radiate the beauty and goodness and love of God.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that when we are doing these things we are displaying the image of God to the world.

Here’s a way think about this idea of identity being the crucial aspect of freedom: Imagine a fish. Regardless of the set of choices in front of him, freedom for the fish is to swim! He was created for it!

Freedom for a bird is to fly. Freedom for trees is to grow. Freedom for you and I is to give glory to God by living in a loving relationship with him!

In his first letter to the church at Corinth, the Apostle Paul describes what he calls “spiritual gifts.” These charisms are special abilities given in grace to the believer by the Holy Spirit. The gifts that Paul describes enable spiritual growth and help Christians to live out God’s purpose for them in love.

How to develop and discover your spiritual gifts

The spiritual gifts are important to spiritual formation, because identifying how we are gifted (or perhaps not gifted) can help Christians know where to concentrate our disciplines. If your spiritual gift is teaching, for example, you may recognize this and emphasize the importance of the discipline of study. Or, you may find that edification or encouragement is an area where you have room to grow, so you may consider spending time in meditation on passages about God’s promises and faithfulness.

If you sense a faltering in your faith, you might fast as a reminder of God’s provision and faithfulness. Developing our spiritual gifts helps us to conform to God’s will for our life—the very definition of spiritual formation.

Acts of spiritual formation and discipline like prayer, fasting, meditation, and study can also help you figure out what your spiritual gifts should be. Submission to the will of God opens the door for blessings in the form of gifts that, in our natural state, we were resisting.

Since spiritual formation is key to both discerning and developing spiritual gifts, and since spiritual gifts are clearly a God-ordained part of how we minister to the entire Body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:5), it becomes clear that spiritual formation itself is an absolutely indispensable part of the Christian journey.

Differentiated or divided?

Although it is easy to confuse differentiation with division, this is not the purpose of the spiritual gifts!

It certainly wasn’t what St. Paul had in mind as he laid out his letter to the Corinthian church. Instead of dividing the Body of Christ, the spiritual gifts unify believers by allowing each individual to fulfill their unique purpose in the community of faith.

When the gifts are practiced correctly, they always function to edify the Church and spread the Gospel (Palma, 1979, p. 19). The focus that brings these diverse abilities in sync is the person of Jesus, who functions as the Head of the Church and through the Holy Spirit is ultimately directing each and every gift given.¹

St. Paul describes it this way,:

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. (1 Cor. 12:12 ESV)

The gifts, although distributed in different kinds and quantities among the entire Body, are still part of the unified whole as result of the person of Jesus. In this way these distinctions are quite different from the worldly divisions that were plaguing the church at Corinth when St. Paul wrote this letter.²

Your calling and the gifts of the Spirit

Many thinkers have linked the spiritual gifts with various offices in the institutional church, but taking this too far misses the point.³

Paul isn’t so much highlighting how the gifts are different, but rather their unifying threads: the common source of the Holy Spirit’s power, Jesus’ service, and God’s direction.⁴

That said, there’s no doubt the spiritual gifts are necessary for you to carry out your mission and purpose because they all directly correspond to real actions:

• Teachers teach.
• Prophets prophecy.
• Those with the gifts of tongues speak.

The list, of course, goes on. As gifts from God (not necessarily natural abilities) these deposits of grace also confirm you’re doing the will the God when you’re exercising your gift faithfully.[^5]

When you are faithfully and obediently exercising your God-given gift by the power of the Holy Spirit, you are functioning correctly in your capacity as an “organ” in the Body of Jesus.⁵ The spiritual gifts confirm that all good things come from God, and that as believers we can only truly and completely fulfill our purpose when we are conformed to his will, living in obedience, and practicing his commandments to us in love.

What are your spiritual gifts, and how has God worked through them? Let me know in the comments.

The doctrine of the Triune nature of God is a core, essential teaching for historic, orthodox Christianity. This concept, officially formulated very early in the history of the faith, is part of what makes Christianity unique among world religions. Heretical challenges in the first centuries of the Church prompted leaders to join together in order to articulate an “official” doctrine. Examples of these proclamations include the Nicene Creed and of course the Athanasian creed (commonly read on Trinity Sunday in liturgical traditions).

Over time theologians have sought to explain and express this paradoxical concept in terms that make sense in their context. Interestingly enough, three primary ways of thinking about the Trinity emerged: the economic Trinity, the essential Trinity, and most recently the social Trinity. (more…)

It seems to me American Evangelical culture in general is guilty of trying to sort of domesticate God. There’s an emphasis on the love of God that often overshadows (or better: glosses over) the fact that he is wholly other, that he is a God of justice, the truth that simply standing in his presence would kill us. (more…)

I just took my family on camping trip in the woods of northern Arizona. I barely had cell service, so I couldn’t be on Twitter or Facebook or check my website stats. I went for walks, played with my kids, laughed with my friends, and enjoyed the cool weather.

I was reminded of how great it is to get a digital “reset,” a rest, a sabbatical. It’s really one of the most refreshing habits you can have in today’s world. Trust me, you need to do this if you don’t already. Here are 5 surprising benefits of taking a digital sabbatical for a day for a day or two–or longer. (more…)

“There are things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind.” ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

I mean, I usually tell the truth to other people, about events and whether I like their haircut and all that.

I don’t willfully misrepresent the Gospel or the Scriptures.

I don’t use bait and switch tactics or advertise falsely in my business.

No, most of my lies are to myself. In my mind my motivations are pure and my actions righteous. If I endure the pain of inner honesty, though, there’s a lot of selfishness. A lot of choices I convinced myself were ok, but aren’t.

If I pry back a few grimy layers of self-deception it becomes obvious that most of the time I care more about how others perceive me than how they are hurting when I apologize.

I’m quick to verbally offer forgiveness, but so slow to actually let go in my heart.

I believe in holiness and real sanctification. God is making me new. But there’s a whole lot of work yet to be done. That’s why I know I still have to cling to grace for every fleeting choice and passing thought.

I can’t do without God’s gifts. Some days it’s hard for me to remember they’re even there…times like that make me so thankful to be explicitly invited to Jesus’ table every week for bread and wine, forgiveness and promises, a renewed awareness of the Spirit inside me.

I’m grateful that when my heart condemns me, God is greater than my heart. Because when I’m real with myself, my heart is both condemning and condemnable.

So…I’d like to say I’m not a liar, but that just wouldn’t be honest.

This song pretty much sums it up, way better than I can do in writing.

Did you know that 90% of pastors feel fatigued and worn out every week?

That’s not okay.

The same percentage works well over 50 hours a week. Do a quick Google on issues contributing to ministry burnout and you’ll find overwork, stress and enough time for family near the top of the lists. (more…)