Easter 33 The Resurrection; Getting a Handle on Attitude

[HKHaugan]

Easter 33 The Resurrection; Getting a Handle on Attitude

You know, when you talk about attitude, as we just did in the last section, one thing leads to another and you have to pursue it. Especially when you might hear someone say, “Boy, does that person have an attitude.” It has come to be used negatively. Perfectly good words can have a double meaning. Think about words like passion, love, desire, birth, life, death, man, woman, marriage, sexuality and who really is able to define when life begins and when it ends. So much can be said about this subtle takeover. 'Attitude' is a victim of the same negative barrage. The fact is the devil is the one behind the distorted use of the word in our day to day culture. He works at the transfer of biblical words into secular words.

But let's stick to attitude. We want to be clear because it is so central to being human. Attitude is who we are and has everything to do with being a disciple of Jesus. If we are really honest about the attitude we bring as disciples, we need to have a sign in the back of our minds that reminds us we are, “Under Construction.” That doesn't mean we have to be so consumed with it that we don't get out into the world of people until we get it right. The great release from that kind of concern is the fact that embracing the attitude of Jesus means He lives in us by grace through faith and is functioning within us. It's Him being in us that gives us the foothold in the spiritual dimension. He frees us from what binds us, self absorption, and puts us on a growth regimen part of which is being called into the world of people. In one sense it's like driver's training where the teacher has a set of brakes on his side of the car letting Him be in control of the car while our hands are on the wheel. He alerts us to the turns, the caution signs and the resume speed zones. In other words, as we are obedient to Him in the presence of others His Holy Spirit nudges us to do and say what is necessary at any moment.

Something needs to be said about the word 'moment.' One thing has to be very clear in our minds about the meaning of 'moment.' Every next moment is not every next second or minute or hour. 'Moment' is not a matter of chronological time. It is a matter of events. We probably ought say 'every next event.' What is meant by 'moment' here is tasks and people. As we move in between waking and sleeping, the tasks we have and the people we meet are events with challenges and demands for choices and responses. In between these events are our personal growth opportunities. This is when we are called to pray, study the Word, meditate, be taught and share our personal ups and downs in a group of believers to prepare us for the next event. You might even call them events as well since they will involve meeting personally with the Lord and other disciples. Life in its eternal sense is an unfolding personal event, a living spiritual experience given us when we asked the Lord Jesus to be central in our earthly life.

If we look at the life of Jesus it was always a new event, a new happening, a different demand, and an unexpected challenge. His attitude was always the desire to please His Father, obey His will and meet every next event moment with grace and love, the Holy Spirit's expertise. No two events are ever the same, no two moments repeat themselves. Everything is new and that is how Jesus prepared His humanness to respond. He did it with that singular attitude, serving His Father.

Reading the life of Jesus in the Gospels is to read a human being whose first thought is spiritual and whose first action is Scripturally grounded. This shows how Jesus lived a perfect spiritual life as a human being. He was 100% God living a 100% human life. Eternal life and truth in the flesh. That was the goal He set for His disciples which He would enable them to experience personally through His indwelling Holy Spirit. “For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose (Php.2:13).” That's why Paul calls Jesus' disciples to have the same attitude and the same mindset in Php.2:5 as we cited in the previous section.

The expanded version of that calling is also from Paul to the Colossian disciples, “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory (3:1-4).”

What Paul is saying is filled with a promise that when we are obedient and seek to do Jesus' will His life through the Holy Spirit becomes our life and we rise with Him in every moment, every event in which we find our selves. That is attitude at the source of what it means to have an attitude, to be an attitude and to act attitudinally.