Sinful Identification Required for Empowered Service

Now there's a title..

When Nehemiah prays - he needs to :

1st - know exactly who God is - i.e. faithful, loving according to covenant, that the 70 years are up, etc...

2nd - identify completely with the church - he is utterly sinful in breaking covenant even though he himself as an individual has not done anything (or probably not even born before the exile)

3rd - then only can he be the solution to the problem

too frequently the people who think they can solve the church's problems think so because they are better than the rest - and as a result whatever they do at best does not last..

only when we know we are the problem (even though we are not), and acknowledge that before God, will God empower us to be the solution..

and of course Jesus is the fulfiller of all that ... and so we now imbibe a portion in our lives...

very interesting when you think about how God's call works...

Christ - the God Man

Glen's doing a great series on creation and new creation here:
http://christthetruth.wordpress.com/2010/06/28/creation-and-salvation-irenaeus-and-athanasius-1/

Here's a practical application for this kind of theology:

How do you do ministry ?

1. You become exactly like them in every way (except sin)
2. You lose nothing of yourself
3. You make them become exactly like you were and now are in every way (by bearing their sin - which is the reason you'll suffer)
4. You live in one-ness with them for eternity - in the 'new' way (which is the same as the old way, but different) - the third way

=)

Incarnational Ministry

There is a lot about how we need to be culturally relevant or acceptable to get the gospel across today

The main passage used for this is 1 Cor 9 - be all things to all men

To me though, the context for that passage hardly seems to be about worldly culture - rather I think Paul is talking about within the church
so there is the weak/strong faith, under and not under the law, Jew or Gentile
very much like Rom 14 - I do all things to all men so that I may not destroy the faith of anyone
- and Paul personifies this - he performs sacrifices for the Jews, he circumcises one guy for the Jews and not one guy for the Gentiles, he doesn't eat meat when they think it's wrong, etc

A term that I have read of recently is called 'incarnational ministry'
i.e. to come into a community and live amongst the people as one of the people
that's all well and good
until we actually look at the incarnation
Jesus did not come into our culture - He created His own culture, His own people, and the irony is that this 'God-culture' of people did not recognise Him
the most basic call to the people of God is to be holy - and the easiest definition of holy is 'different', i.e. not like the nations around you

The incarnation of Christ is the Word becoming flesh
Incarnational Ministry by all means - let the Word become your flesh
you too must become incarnate
'till Christ is formed in you' or the 'Day star rises in your heart'

Then will the world know Jesus - when you are like Jesus, holy like Jesus, wholly like Jesus

The Incarnation

Fantastic sermon on basically everything on the incarnation of Christ:

http://danhames.blogspot.com/2008/12/one-of-us.html

It's Christmas

Glen's done a few good posts on the Reason for the season:

Incarnation & Trinity

Incarnation & Creation

Incarnation & Salvation


And hopefully if Leon doesn't mind - I'll take a quote from his essay on Irenaeus's view of the incarnation:

“Original creation was not ‘perfect’ for Irenaeus. It is good, and even very good, but not perfect, though it can be perfected. For Irenaeus, salvation (and the incarnation) is not a consequence of the Fall of creation, but that creation is a consequence of “God’s project of salvation.” For Irenaeus, a created thing is intrinsically changeable, corruptible and subject to decay. Focusing on man, from the start he was “childish and immature and not yet fully trained for an adult way of life… so God could have offered perfection to man at the beginning, but man, being yet an infant, could not have taken it”, hence the Fall. In Irenaeus theology, the Fall seemed to have been unavoidable, because man is created and is not in himself filled by the Spirit to be enabled to fight decay and corruption. Man matures only as the Image (Spirit-filled Son) takes on the flesh of Adam so as to take Adam’s flesh into the Image, and thus fill Adam’s flesh with the Likeness of God(Spirit). In Irenaeus own words, “Now this is His Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, who in the last times was made a man among men, that He might join the end to the beginning, that is, man to God.” This, for Irenaeus, is “recapitulation”. It is not a return to Eden, for man to once again be immature and fall, but to perfection along with all creation where what is “mortal should be conquered and swallowed up by immortality, and corruptible by incorruptibility.””