Musings on True Spirituality by Francis Schaeffer
June 11, 2010
francis schaeffer opens True Spirituality with a recounting of a time of stuggle in his life…he says that within that time, a problem came to him: the problem of reality. “This had two parts: first, it seemed to me that among many of those who held the orthodox position, one saw little reality in the things that the Bible so clearly says should be the result of Christianity. Second, it gradually grew on me that my own reality was less than it had been in the early days after I had become a Christian. I realized that in honesty I had to go back and rethink my whole position.” …I think that Schaeffer dug down to the problem that we spend most of our time dealing with…”God, are you really real? Is this a sick joke, is this too good to be true?”…
he spends most of the first half of the book thinking through the historical reality of Christianity as well as the personal nature of it…he opens the book with a discussion of gratitude for all things…he says that a lack of gratitude for all things is the beginning of men’s rebellion against God, for it denies the the infinite, personal God is actively working all things together for the good of his people…by responding to the day-in, day-out events of life with ingratitude, or even a-gratitude, we forget both that God is God and that He is our God…
he goes on later to talk about if we want to bring forth fruit in the Christian life, then “there must be a constant act of faith, of thinking: Upon the basis of Your promises I am looking for You to fulfill them, O my Jesus Christ; bring forth Your fruit through me into this poor world”…this is what He refers to as “active-passivity”…we are attentively and implicitly trusting explicit promises of God as we seek to be faithful to Him…but more than anything our lives are oriented around His reality…this is conscious and not just assumed…it seems that the more we consciously live before God, actively waiting on Him (i.e. doing what He says, trusting that He will meet our weak faithfulness with His own), the more we will come to know Him…see Jn 14:21 and also this quote from James Houston, “…the ultimate truth about creation is not discovered by the exercise of the intellect, but by the submission of the will to God. The Christian faith in the Word is, therefore, not a philosophy but a personal relationship with God in Christ”…
schaeffer was seeking something far beyond sporadic miracles or emotional highs…he was seeking the true reality of an interactive, personal relationship with the Triune God…that, to me is the call of Christian discipleship as well as evangelism: to live in this relationship and call others to do the same…this is about LIFE, not isolated ideas, acts or experiences…life with the living God…
I think that the correspondence between the historical and personal is of the utmost importance. This is why the incarnation, death, and resurrection is both the eschatological climax of the cosmos, and most intimate moment for the believer. Appropriating this reality is what enables us to embrace the relationship with the Triune God…
The incarnation, death and resurrection (and ascension!) as both the eschatological climax of the cosmos, and the most intimate moment for the believer…Beautiful!