Building the Bond

[HKHaugan]

Principles 4

Actually more than principles, attitude, obedience and expectation are really the character forming capabilities we are given as images of God. How they are used depends on what and who a person trusts with them. When centered in Jesus they frame the movement from a heart conditioned by the secular world to a heart in the process of becoming Christ-like. The world centered in the religion of secularism eventually leads the heart to stagnation while a heart in Christ is always experiencing something new. For instance a heart conditioned by the world looks at the outward characteristics of another person in terms of their appearance, ethnic background, social position, religion and economic standing. These are not only the secular world’s principles; they are the laws that govern a non-believer’s survival. Notice how their nature insulates, isolates and finally desolates the heart by driving it into the attic of aloneness, despair and resignation.

A person in Christ is called to see every human being as an image of God with unlimited potential waiting to be brought to the surface. The secularized heart develops a closed mind and has everyone categorized thus closing the gates to rich and full personal as well as interpersonal pastures. The disciple of Jesus is always being led by the Spirit to anticipate and expect that there is more ready to surface in every person. The secularized heart becomes increasingly hardened with age and more internally centered with each passing day. The spiritually opened heart never ceases being amazed at the depth in others. The Pharisees are the biblical representation of the petrified heart and Jesus the perfect representation of an open and accepting heart. The Pharisees were stony in heart, lost in stony institutionalism, while Jesus offered the bonding power of the Holy Spirit to loosen the heart from sin’s petrifying process.

So what then are the principles that build attitude, obedience and expectation? Paul really helps us here with very specific directions. Chapter 3 in his letter to the Colossians he begins with the faith of those he was writing. “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ…” This is the foundation of all the principles he will shortly mention as bonding principles. The Resurrection of Jesus is the assurance that He is always spiritually available. It is our awareness of His presence that Paul follows with “set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.” That’s the first thing. Then after the heart comes the second thing, getting our mind straight. It is our mind which he tells us to set “on things above, not on earthly things [world principles]. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.”

What follows is a list of what generates world principles which belong to the ‘earthly nature’ common to all people. The list details those things which motivate the activity that the world calls success but which Paul rightly names idolatry. It is like he is urging us to make a written list we can post to check off each day’s experience. These spiritual impediments come from our past life before Jesus and still exist in our sinful nature, impediments that need to be “put to death.”

The question immediately rises, ‘How do we put to death evil motivations?’ It is the image of the Cross that is the image of Jesus neutralizing the power of sin. His death is the image of the Cross which we take up in our mind and crucify these offending pieces of our fallen nature. It is literally carrying the offending spiritual powers to the Cross and letting the Holy Spirit defeat them through faith. This is an ongoing process that builds a resistance to our sinful nature, eliminates strongholds and restores the image of God within us.

Next, we put the microscope on the principles.