From
The Prayer of Christlikeness
Teachings that sugar coat the gospel message by telling self-absorbed
Christians what they want to hear, and ignore all those unpleasant
things like self-denial and putting others first, will always find
a receptive public. Of course people love such messages. Who wouldn't
rather be told that God wants us eating chocolate chip cookies and
cherry pie rather than broccoli and Brussels sprouts? Scarce wonder
that the most popular teachings that circulate today are those that
promise the greatest blessings and make us feel good about ourselves.
When I began praying the prayer of Christlikeness I knew that it was
a lifetime enterprise. But I did not really count the cost either.
I had no way of doing so.
Where it would lead, I had no idea. There have been occasional moments
since when I have faced such depths of discouragement, even despair,
in my walk, that I have come within a hair's breadth of taking it
back, of shouting, "God, forget it...I will always believe, but I
no longer want to be like Jesus. I no longer want to follow him to
the cross. Remove your hand from me!"
At such times I have been conscious of standing before a cliff, almost
ready to jump off, reminded of our Lord's third temptation. But each
time I step back and in tears of anguish reaffirmed the prayer, though
there have been times when it has been so difficult that my stomach
physically ached inside to do so.
The prayer of Christlikeness is no prayer for the spiritually fainthearted.
At such times, it has not been strength that has overcome the
urge to recant my commitment. When I say this prayer is not for the
spiritually fainthearted, I do not mean the strong and confident and
self-assured.
I am not strong. I am no great man of faith. Perhaps I am a little
stubborn. It has been my determination to see it through to the end
that has driven me time and again back to my knees in tears, again
to reaffirm-in my weakness, not my strength: "Father...whatever
it takes...I am willing...create in me the heart of a true son...and
make me like Jesus."
From
The Prayer of Childship
Jesus was not a Son because he could not help it. In the midst of
a fully human mortality, he chose to be a child. His every
breath, every thought, every action, was both a praying and a living
out of that prayer-Father, what would you have me do?
There are those who would make of Jesus an angel-a being without free
will. If most men and women were to analyze it, I think they would
find in their minds a sort of half-man, half-angel occupying the central
role in the gospel story.
But Jesus was born a complete man. No angel wings. No halo around
his head. His was a physical and mortal body. His was a human will.
He got tired. He sweat. He went to the bathroom. He had to wash his
hair and his hands and his feet. His brain possessed the capacity
to think. He had emotions that loved, got irritated at his disciples
and angry at the Pharisees, and became fearful for what he had to
face as the cross neared.
Most important of all, he was born with a fully developed free will
of humanity.
This was no glow in the dark Son of God whose Sonship came any other
way than ours must come. He was a Son because he chose to be
a Son.
From
The Prayer of Relinquishment
The progression of discipleship leads to nothing more nor less than
the cross.
How much are we willing to lay down? To what extent will we abandon
what we call ourselves into the discipleship of childness? How far
are we willing to follow?
What are the limits of the lordship we turn over to him? What will
we hold back? What pet lizards will we keep alive? How much of our
selves will we try to preserve intact?
The implication presented by the prayer of relinquishment is stark
and unyielding:
"Are you willing to give everything into the Father's hands...even
unto death?"
Therefore, the decisive question always arrives, What are you
ultimately going to do with the freedom of choice I gave you? Are
you willing to lay it all down, or just certain convenient parts of
it...are you going to put to death all claim to what this life has
to offer...abandon all thought of conducting your own affairs again...crucify
every attitude and motive of your own?
The singular importance of this moment of truth reveals why Jesus
rebuked Peter after his triumphant confession. Because the necessary
next step after that realization is self-denial and death. Peter's
will was not yet entirely given over to childship. He recognized who
Jesus was, but remained unseeing of what it meant.
"You are looking through man's eyes not God's, Peter," says Jesus.
"Things are different in God's kingdom. My Father will conquer sin
by invading the enemy's house, not with an army, but with Sonship,
by obedient abandonment of the will of a Son into the will of a Father.
Peter...we are going to die."
From
The Prayer of Death
When Jesus left the garden, his course was set. He left his self on
the stony ground that was his altar of relinquishment. Now all that
remained was for him to obey. In the obedience that followed was his
Sonship perfected and was won the salvation of the world.
One final test of his manhood awaited him.
To endure the agony of the cross, you say?
But no. It may be that the cross, in and of itself, as pure physical
torture, was not our Lord's greatest agony. Men possess in the flesh
a mighty capacity to endure suffering. Men before Jesus had endured
the cross. Many in his name would later be burned at the stake and
worse. Even had he not been the Son of God, Jesus could have endured
the cross as a mere man.
I mean to make no less of that suffering. It was a terrific, inconceivable
physical agony, invented by the Romans as the most cruel form of death
the twisted mind of depraved man could conjure up. Our imaginations
cannot even fathom what it must have been like. Nor can we think that
this torment was any less because he was the Son of God. His divinity
in no way reduced the pain.
Yet I say...that physical torment was not the Lord's greatest
test.
The suffering of Jesus Christ mounted to its most awful indeed when
his will that had triumphed in the garden began to sink into the despair
of darkness and felt itself...alone.
Every moment of his life till now Jesus had been aware of his Father's
presence. In the desert facing Satan, the presence of the Father was
with him. In the garden, strengthening him even as his will was crushed
by the weight of what was coming, that Presence was with him.
Perhaps in one respect, therefore, we might say that until now, there
remained one element of the human condition that Jesus had not yet
experienced. He had not felt what it was not to know if God was
there. He had never been filled with that universal human perplexity,
to look up and feel the heavens empty above him.
From
The Prayer of Life
I am no more an angel than Jesus was. Neither are you. We are men
and women. But unlike Jesus, we are weak, we are fallen, we are selfish,
we are cowardly, we are timid, we are full of self-will. Yet in the
midst of that humanity, we have been given the highest privilege of
creation-to graft ourselves onto the vine of his life by laying down
that self-will and entering into a life of abiding in his will.
When Jesus prayed that we would be one with himself, with the
Father, and with one another, he was praying that we would be enabled-through
our own willingness to take his garden-example as our own-to fall
on our knees in the solitude of childship and say, "What, Father,
would you have me to do? You are my Father, I am your obedient child.
Speak, and I will obey. My only will is to do your will," even to
the point of turning to that Father-will, when to all feeling and
appearance he is not even there, to still say, in the midst of dark
desolation, My God, you are still my God! and then go forth
and do his commands.
From
The Prayer of Joy
What did Jesus feel that night?
I believe he felt at-joy-ness. He felt peace in the state of being
one with his Father, peace with who he was as the Father's Son, and
at peace with what he had to do.
He was sorrowful. The emotion of joy was not proceeding out of his
heart. He felt no joy.
But he dwelt in joy. At-joy-ness was still his home. He was
at joy...at peace...content, serene, thankful to be the Son
of his Father.
As I prayerfully reflected on that night before his death, my thoughts
now turned to what Jesus was feeling, not about himself in anticipation
of his own sufferings to come, but toward his disciples...and toward
us.
One cannot read through John 13 - 17 without sensing a great tenderness
and love in his heart toward these men who had shared life with him.
The full dimension of his prayer, it seems to me, is revealed in his
earlier words to them, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to
you. Trust in God, trust also in me."
This is the house in which he desires for us to abide-a house of at-joy-ness,
serenity, and trust, a home of eternal joy which enabled his Sonship
to rest in his Father. His prayer was that we would dwell in the state
where the same peace that characterized his Sonship would also characterize
ours.
It is a place where the perspective of eternity reigns, the capacity
to look beyond this earth, beyond everything that is of this world,
knowing it to be temporary and passing.
Was not the Lord's own peace that night founded in eternity being
ever-present within him? He was not overwhelmed by what he was about
to suffer. Eternity lay just on the other side of the cross. His peace
transcended whatever this world could throw at him-the lash, the crown
of thorns, the nails, and the cross.
His trust was in God, his Father, a good Father who is sovereign over
all.
The perspective of eternity.
I say these things while I am still in the world, I now hear Jesus
praying for me, that they might live continually in the state of
being that sustained me in Sonship, serene in your will, Father, at-joy
in your care, content in your love, and at peace because they trust
you as I trust you.
