Vol 2:26 Being in Mission: Living Centered in Jesus – Loving God with all our soul

As previously blogged, I stated that “to be missional is to have Christ Jesus as the center of our purpose, focus, and direction (heart), to have Jesus as the center of our spirituality and meaning making in our lives (soul), to have Jesus as the center for all our living and in all what we do (strength), and to have Jesus as the center for our thinking and speaking (mind).”

To be missional is to have Christ Jesus as the center of our spirituality and meaning making in our lives

I relate this perspective to loving God with all our soul.

For me the crux of the question of “soul work,” as some persons have expressed it, is who or what is at the center of the spiritual work we are trying to do in our lives. In conversations over the years I have discovered that Jesus is often seen as merely a resource for the work of spirituality and meaning making we are doing in our lives – indicating that in fact we are at the center of the work we are doing in our lives. Spirituality then becomes our work, rather than what God is accomplishing in our lives. Such a spirituality is shaped by our interests, is more rooted in psychology, in which we make the determination of what we open ourselves to in shaping who we are as people. Therefore, rather than being a spirituality that is rooted in God, it is in fact more rooted in ourselves.

What does it look like then for Jesus to be the center of our spirituality, for Jesus to be the center of our meaning making in our lives?

For one, it means that we enter into a relationship with Jesus Christ where Jesus shapes the spirituality of our lives, where Jesus shapes us. In being a follower of Christ, we seek to be shaped and oriented around ways of living that exemplify the purposes of God. I.e., we seek for our lives to be shaped by what is important to Christ, rather than merely what is important to us.

Second, it involves us participating in this relationship with Christ as his disciples – ones who learn from him, ones who are open to Christ setting the agenda in our lives, ones who seek to live in obedience to him and his ways, recognizing that in doing so we ultimately discover who we are more than any agenda we may develop for ourselves. When we are in charge of our own spirituality, we seek to discern on our own the meaning and direction of our lives – and I have discovered that I am my own worst master. There are too many things in my life that distract me from living into that which Christ desires for me.

Third, it involves learning to see myself the way God sees me. It is through serving God in Christ, in worshiping God through Christ, that I begin to catch glimpses of the meaning and purpose that God has for me in loving me. Rather than thinking that I am enslaved and less human in serving God, I indeed have discovered that I am more enslaved and less humane when I seek to serve myself and be the sole director of the direction of my life. In serving God, in worshiping God, I am indeed liberated, more so than I can ever imagine.

I once conversed with a friend who was going off for a few weeks to do some soul work in his life, to sort through some inner child issues, to come to grips with some relational problems he was struggling with. He named the kind of work that he needed to do in his life as spiritual work. Now I recognize that we cannot compartmentalize our lives and all the work we do in our lives is indeed spiritual work, but the question I raise is who is doing the work in us – is it work God doing in us, or work we are doing relying on God as a mere resource along with other resources? I asked him a question as he was describing the work he was seeking to do in his life – I asked, “where is the ‘I have been crucified with Christ’ self or soul work he was seeking to do?” or “where is the ‘it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me’ self work that he was purposing to embark upon?” We need to do psychological work in our lives, but it is not spiritual work unless it is work that we yield to Christ to do in us – for sure in partnership with us, but it is work that we the direction of over to Jesus.

When Paul talks about in Philippians 2 that we are to work out our own salvation, it is not meant to work out our salvation on our own – but to be intentionally in relationship and in discipleship with Jesus who is accomplishing the work of God in us.

There are probably more things I could say on this, but the point I want to get at is that immersing ourselves in Christ is probably the best soul work we can engage in – it is work which yields ourselves to the transforming work of the Spirit of God in us, and equips us to be active participants with God in God’s redemptive mission in the world.