Author Archives: Maxie Dunnam

Core Convictions IV: Look To Jesus And Be Saved by Maxie Dunnam

Core Convictions IV: Look To Jesus And Be Saved by Maxie Dunnam

This is part III of Maxie’s series on Core Convictions, you can find his prior articles here, here, and here.

 

I have long admired the great evangelist, Charles Spurgeon. I often wonder what it would have been like to hear him preach, He is high on any list of renowned preachers. People had to stand in line to get into worship in his church in London. The crowds were so great that sometimes he would urge the membership of his own church not to come to worship the next Sunday in order that there would be room for seekers, those who had not yet received the gospel for their salvation.

The Story of Spurgeon’s Salvation

It was only recently that I heard the story of Spurgeon’s salvation experience. As a young man, he was deeply convicted of his sin, but did not really know how to get his sins forgiven. He began to go to different churches, seeking salvation. He later shared that he heard some fine sermons on doing good and living right, but he never really heard anybody fully preach the gospel of salvation.

One Sunday, he had planned to attend a particular church but it had snowed so much he could not get there. He was walking on an obscure street in London and came upon a little Primitive Methodist chapel he had never seen before.

He went in and sat down. Only a few people were present, without the pastor. As Spurgeon started to get up to leave, a very thin looking man, a layperson, deacon in that church, walked into the pulpit, opened his Bible and read Isaiah 45:22: “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else” (KJV).

Spurgeon said that when the deacon finished reading the text, he lifted up both of his hands and cried out, “Look, look, look! It is only look” At that moment, after all his seeking, Spurgeon said, he finally saw the way of salvation. All he had to do was look, by faith, to Jesus Christ and he was gloriously saved.

Spurgeon’s experience suggests two critical considerations. One, all people need and many are seeking salvation. Two, the gospel is far more than “doing good and living right.” What is that “far more”?  

Justification: The Miracle of a Moment

The two pivotal dynamics of full salvation are justification and sanctification. Both are works of grace. In justification, we are pardoned and reconciled to God; the restoration of the image of God in us is begun, which is the beginning of sanctification.

Justification may be the miracle of a moment but sanctification is the process of a lifetime. As I suggested in my last article, “the dynamic process of sanctification is to work out in fact what is already true in principle. In position, in our relationship to God in Jesus Christ, we are new persons; that is justification and new birth. Now our condition, the actual life we live, must be brought into harmony with our new position. That is the process of sanctification.”

Sanctification: The Journey of a Lifetime

Justification comes when we recognize ourselves as sinners, separated from God, then repent and in faith receive his forgiveness. This is also the starting point of sanctification. As Wesley said, “It is the gate to it, the entrance to it.”

Sanctification is a continuation of our trusting God’s grace that has saved us, trusting him to shape our lives completely into the likeness of Christ.

Why not take some time now to reflect and identify the time, process, conviction, decision—whatever was involved—when, like Spurgeon, you knew and, by faith, you made some claim on Jesus Christ for your salvation.

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Core Convictions III: You Can Be Saved To The Uttermost by Maxie Dunnam

Core Convictions III: You Can Be Saved To The Uttermost by Maxie Dunnam

This is part III of Maxie’s series on Core Convictions, you can find his prior articles here and here

 

In his introductory comment to Wesley’s sermon “Christian Perfection,” Albert Outler wrote, “If, for Wesley, salvation was the total restoration of the deformed image of God in us, and if its fullness was the recovery of our negative power not to sin and our positive power to love God supremely, this denotes that furthest reach of grace and its triumphs in this life that Wesley chose to call ‘Christian Perfection.”

Wesley’s Call to Love

Wesley was avidly attentive to Scripture. I’m sure he wrestled with Jesus’ word,

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:43-48)/p>

In my last article we reflected on the third portion of what is considered the “four alls” of Methodist Wesleyan thought: all can know they are saved. The third, along with the fourth are the most distinctive of the “alls” in Wesley’s understanding of salvation, all can be saved to the uttermost. For Wesley, this meant Christian perfection.

Christian Perfection and Sanctification

Christian perfection is another term for sanctification, which is a core conviction of the Methodist Wesleyan way.  We accept justification and regeneration as ‘what God does for us’– our entry to our Christian way. Sanctification is what God does in us, to mature and fulfill the human potential according to his design for persons in Christ.

Wesley particularly emphasized this idea that “all can be saved to the uttermost”; he called it “going on to perfection,” drawing on Hebrews 6:1. By this he didn’t mean a sinless kind of moral perfection, nor a perfection in knowledge, but a perfection in love. The single identifying mark of the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives is love. Do we love God, and do we love one another? That’s the test of our sanctification.

Wesley’s Critique of Pharisaical Righteousness

Wesley was always deeply disturbed when he saw Christians who were more like the Pharisees– people who trusted in their own righteousness, and consequently, showed little evidence of the growing presence of God’s love in their lives. He spoke of this often.

I don’t know where I heard the story, and it could be apocryphal, but it illustrates Wesley’s passion about the issue: 

Once while he was preaching, he noticed a lady in the congregation who was known for her critical attitudes toward others. All through the service she stared at his tie, with a frown on her face. At the end of the service, she came up to him and said very sharply, “Mr. Wesley, the strings on your bow tie are much too long. It offends me.” Wesley immediately asked for a pair of scissors, and when someone handed them to him, he gave them to the woman and said, “Then by all means, trim it to your satisfaction.” She did so, clipping off an inch or so from each side. “Are you sure they’re all right now?” he asked, and she replied, “Yes, that’s much better:”

“Then.” Wesley said, “let me have the scissors for a moment, for I’m sure you won’t mind a bit of correction either. I do not wish to be cruel, madam, but your tongue offends me; it is too long. Please stick it out so that I may trim some of it off.” 

Needless to say, this critic got the point.

The Role of Believers in Sanctification

The work of the Holy Spirit is transformative. We can better understand the full impact of that transformation by reflecting on the distinction between God’s action for the sinner–pardon and justification–and God’s action in the pardoned sinner’s heart–restoration of the broken image of God and of the human power to avoid and resist intentional sin. Again, Albert Outler expresses it clearly: “We have no part in our justification before God, save the passive act of accepting and trusting the merits of Christ. But we have a crucial part to play in the further business of ‘growing up into Christ, into the stature of the perfect man.’” 

In the dynamic process of sanctification, “Christian perfection,” we work out in fact what is already true in principle. In justification, our position in relation to God is that we are new persons; now, in sanctification, our condition, the actual life we live, is brought into harmony with our position.

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Core Convictions II: We Can Know We Are Saved by Maxie Dunnam

Core Convictions II: We Can Know We Are Saved by Maxie Dunnam

In my last article, I sought to make the case that the Christian faith is all about salvation. John Wesley summarized the goal of Christian religion: The end is, in one word, salvation.

The British Methodist historian, William B. Fitzgerald, summarized Wesley’s theology of salvation with this fourfold dictum: All people need to be saved from sin, all people may be saved from sin, all people may know they are saved from sin, and all people may be saved to the uttermost.

I will refer to these assertions as we continue our reflection on Methodist Wesleyan Core Convictions. Consider now the claim: all people may know they are saved from sin.

Wrestling with Assurance of Salvation

Early in my Christian walk, I often fell into a chasm of doubt about my personal salvation. In all my years as a pastor, this has been one of the spiritual issues with which I have seen people wrestling most: knowing they are saved from sin.

The apostle Paul knew Christians struggled with this. He wrote to them:

The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. (Romans 8:15-17 NIV)

John Wesley’s Struggle for Assurance

The founder of our Methodist Wesleyan tradition of the Christian faith, John Wesley, is a dramatic witness to this struggle of knowing and claiming salvation.

John Wesley was nurtured by his mother, Susanna, and his father, Samuel, a priest in the Church of England. In 1725, while a student at Oxford University, he had a conversion to the ideal of holy living. Few examples in history show a more disciplined religious person: he rose at 4 a.m., read the New Testament in Greek for an hour, then prayed with his brother Charles and others in what was derisively called the “Holy Club.”

He spent time visiting prisons and gave to the poor all money he received except for what was absolutely necessary for his own living. Wesley was relentlessly driven to achieve salvation and assurance, yet he remained haunted by doubt.

The Aldersgate Experience: Wesley’s Breakthrough

After much religious striving, even going to the American colonies as a missionary and feeling like a failure, Wesley experienced a breakthrough. On May 24, 1738, during a prayer meeting on Aldersgate Street in London, a layperson read Martin Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. Wesley later described the moment:

“I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for my salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”

This was the turning point for Wesley, giving him the assurance of salvation he had long sought. No wonder this became one of the four “alls” in Fitzgerald’s summary of Wesley’s understanding of salvation: all can know they are saved.

The Aldersgate experience transformed Wesley from a slave to a son. He knew that, in his words, “Christ had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.” The apostle Paul might say that Wesley “did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but the spirit of sonship that would enable him to cry, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Romans 8:15).

How Christians Can Know They Are Saved

Assurance is the privilege of all Christians. It is a gift that we must accept and embrace. This witness of assurance is continually verified in at least four ways:

  1. Repentance: We know that we’ve repented of our sins and continue to repent daily.
  2. Spiritual Growth: Assurance grows within us as we see continual changes in our lives.
  3. Character Development: Assurance is ours if we are aware of a new character being produced in us, as the fruits of the Spirit grow in our lives.
  4. Joy in Service: We find joy in the service of God, and this joy confirms our assurance.

Two Challenges to Keep Your Assurance Alive

I close with two challenges to keep your assurance alive:

  • Rejoice Daily: This day, and every day, rejoice in the salvation that is yours.
  • Repent Continually: This day, and every day, repent of every sin and renew your faith commitment to Christ.

And the Holy Spirit of peace “will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7).

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Core Convictions I: It’s All About Salvation by Maxie Dunnam

Core Convictions I: It’s All About Salvation by Maxie Dunnam

Statistics show that by 2034, many of the mainline denominations may cease to exist. The Presbyterian Church USA, Episcopal Church, Lutheran Church, and United Methodist Church have been in a kind of “free fall” in membership.

It is obvious; the Day of the mainline expression of Christianity in North America is coming to a close. 

It is clear, maybe condemningly clear, that these days call us to be certain about who we are and what are the core convictions that shape us in the Methodist/Wesleyan tradition of the Christian faith. That’s what I’ll be thinking and writing about in the next few weeks. We begin where the faith begins: it’s all about salvation.

A Return to the Foundation: Salvation

We can’t think and talk long about Christianity before salvation becomes the focus. It is at the center of one of the most familiar stories in the New Testament, Zacchaeus. We sing about him with our children,

Zacchaeus was a wee little man,

a wee little man was he

He climbed up in the sycamore tree,

For the Lord he wanted to see.

When Jesus called him by name, to come down, he responded immediately. Without hesitation he made his confession, to which Jesus made an immediate response, 

“Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

Salvation! 

It’s all about salvation. For Zachaeus, and the people of Jericho, that day was something the prophet Isaiah had spoken of more than five hundred years before. For Zacchaeus, this was the moment God fulfilled a promise that was proclaimed over and over again: salvation.

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,

because the Lord has anointed me

to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,

to proclaim freedom for the captives

and release from darkness for the prisoners,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor

and the day of vengeance of our God,

to comfort all who mourn,

I delight greatly in the Lord;

my soul rejoices in my God.

For he has clothed me with garments of salvation

and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness,

as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest,

and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels (Isa. 61:1-2, 10)

John Wesley’s Vision: Salvation from Beginning to End

It’s all about salvation.

In his sermon “The Scripture Way of Salvation,” John Wesley summarized the goal of genuine Christian religion: “The end is, in one word, salvation.” In its broadest sense, Wesley understood salvation as the entire redeeming work of God in a human life, “from the first dawning of grace in the soul, till it is consummated in glory.” Indeed, Wesley includes within his concept of salvation “all the drawings of the Father”-which he terms “preventing grace-in the heart of a person as yet uncommitted to God. Whether or not it is ultimately embraced, this preventing grace is part of salvation in its broadest sense.”

The transforming work of the Holy Spirit in the life of a believer was the chief theme of  Wesley’s life and work, and still is a distinctive contribution the Methodists make to the rest of the church. The British theologian, William B. Fitzgerald, summarized Wesley’s theology of salvation with this fourfold dictum: All people need to be saved from sin, all people may be saved from sin, all people may know they are saved from sin, and all people may be saved to the uttermost.

The Need for Salvation: From Genesis to Today

We don’t get far into the Bible before we are confronted with the fact of sin, and that all need to be saved. It began in the garden of Eden. The way the story is told doesn’t give a timeline, underscoring the fact that Adam and Eve didn’t live very long before they gave in to the serpent of temptation.

Chapters l and 2 of Genesis tell the story of Creation that is climaxed with God creating humans. All other dimensions of creation were described as good, but after creating humankind, God recognizes creation as “very good.” Chapter 2 closes with the beautiful expression of the marriage covenant. The last verse of the chapter is a superbly simple expression of innocence. “Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame” (Genesis 2:25).

In this fast-moving drama, chapter 3 opens with the serpent convincing Adam and Eve that they didn’t have to pay attention to God’s instruction –  that they were not to eat the fruit of one particular tree in the garden of Eden. From that point on, sin in human life has been a universal fact; and sin is like quicksand. When we get ourselves into quicksand and try to get ourselves out, we only end up getting in deeper. We are not capable of extricating ourselves from the messes we get into. And since we have violated God’s way for us, we are helplessly estranged from him. We need a rescue, a savior. There is hope. Not only do all need to be saved, all can be saved. That’s the clear message of Scripture. Yes, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” but they can be “justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:23-24).

It’s all about salvation! Do you know, or have you known, that you need to be saved?

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A Foretaste of Glory Divine by Maxie Dunnam

A Foretaste of Glory Divine by Maxie Dunnam

Singing is one of our greatest expressions in the Christian faith and way, especially in the Wesleyan/Methodist tradition. We sing our faith. 

One of the hymns we sing often is Blessed Assurance. The hymn is emotionally overwhelming when we know about the author, Fanny Crosby. From six weeks of age until her death shortly before her 95th birthday… Fanny was blind. Sadly, the blindness was caused by a medical error when a doctor put mustard poultice on her inflamed eyes from a cold infection… resulting in immediate blindness.

Her widowed mother and grandmother even took her to the famous New York surgeon, Dr. Valentine Mott, but it was too late…the damage was permanent. He was heard to lament as they left the examining room, “Poor little blind girl.” However, Fanny never saw her affliction as anything but a blessing. When she was eight years old she wrote this simple little verse:

Oh, what a happy child I am

Although I cannot see

I am resolved that in this world

Contented I will be.

No wonder the first stanza of her hymn, Blessed Assurance, underscores assurance as “a foretaste of glory divine.” She had only words, but I don’t know anyone who has used words with greater depth of feeling. Pause a moment to relish it: a foretaste of glory divine. 

In our Methodist/Wesleyan tradition, assurance of salvation is one of the four “all” convictions about salvation: all need to be saved; all can be saved; all can know they are saved; all can be saved to the uttermost.

It may be my age, but let’s not lodge it there. The third “all” is life giving: all can know they are saved. There are few experiences that can provide more power in our lives than to have assurance of our salvation. Think what it could do for any one of us:

  • Our timidity and uncertainty about witnessing would be dissolved.  We would not be intimidated by those “buttonhole” witnesses who come on like gangbusters. We would know that tenderness, patience, and understanding are authentic testimonies, as well as words.
  • We would not get overwrought with our Christian friends who insist on future security, for we would be assured of our present relationship with Christ.  
  • We would be joyous in our service for God, but not in our works, or mistaken in the notion that our works save us. 
  • We would be delivered from frantic preoccupation with minute by minute temperature taking because we could relax in our trust in the Lord.

And all of that would help every one of us, wouldn’t it? 

Blessed Assurance …Oh what “a foretaste of glory divine.” 

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Loving God With An Undivided Heart by Maxie Dunnam

Loving God With An Undivided Heart by Maxie Dunnam

In the questions Jesus was often asked, two stand out. A young man of great wealth asked him, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?” (Matthew 19:16). In another setting an expert of the law questioned, “Teacher, which one was the greatest commandment in the Law?”

The first question, often phrased “What must I do to be saved?” has to do with how we get into the life Christ offers us. Justification is the heart of the answer. The second has to do with sanctification, living the life we have been saved to live. 

The Greatest Commandment: Love God with All Your Heart

It is difficult to believe the person who inquired about the “greatest commandment” was sincere. The answer would have been “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5)  It is the first Scripture that every Jewish child commits to memory. Worship for Jews begins with this affirmation. It is the phrase that the devout Jew wore on a leather bracelet when he went to prayers. When Jesus quoted this phrase as the greatest commandment, the Jews were nodding their heads in agreement. They knew these words meant that we must give our total love to God.

The burden of Scripture is that the God we are called to love with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength loves us to the point of sacrificing his Son for us. There is a God, and he is a loving God.

Jesus’s answer expresses the nutshell of his teaching. Wesley had only words, but he used them as best he could. He talked about loving God with an undivided heart and loving our neighbor as we love ourselves.

Though Jesus named love of God and love of neighbor as two commandments, there is no division of the two. Love of God is necessarily named first because we can’t truly love God without loving our neighbor. The ongoing dynamic of our faith expression is keeping the two together.

Inward and Outward Holiness

Wesley spoke of “inward holiness,” that is, love of God and the assurance of God’s love of us. And he spoke of “outward holiness,” that is, love of neighbor and deeds of kindness. But never was it personal alone. In his extravagant way of saying things, Wesley made clear the unity of faith and action: “Christianity is essentially a social religion; and that to turn it into a solitary one is to destroy it.”

Though we must stay keenly aware of the connection between holiness and social justice, we do not equate the two. What Wesley meant by social holiness was that we can’t grow in holiness apart from community. That’s the reason the class meeting and accountability was so important; other people are essential for our growing in holiness.

However, we must also be just as clear, holiness and becoming Christlike entail concern about social injustice and the systems and structures that threaten human life and community. Dag Hammarskjöld echoed this when he said, “The road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action.”11

The Challenge of Holiness in Today’s World

We need a recovery of holiness, for holiness, by its very nature, is an enemy of the relativism that is the operative dynamic of our culture. Francis Schaeffer has spoken a challenging word on his point: “If our reflex action is always accommodation regardless of the centrality of the truth involved, then something is profoundly wrong… Just as what we may call holiness without love is not God’s kind of holiness, so also what we call love without holiness…is not God’s kind of love.”

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A Fragrant Offering by Maxie Dunnam

A Fragrant Offering by Maxie Dunnam

In my last article I reflected on Paul’s emotional struggle as he wrote his letter to the Ephesians.

He was filled with emotion as he thought of these new Christians, and in his mind, probably rehearsing his own Damascus Road experience. How could he say what he was feeling and thinking? What did he need to say? All he had was words and words are never enough. He sounded his deep prayerful desires for them: So may you attain to fullness of being, the fullness of God himself.

The Call to Walk in Love

That struggle continues as he continues his letter to these new Christians. Paul calls them and us to our Christian walk in an unforgettable way: “Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” (Ephesians 5:1-2)

Going on to salvation means living a life of love that was expressed in its ultimate meaning in Christ’s giving of himself for us. Paul called that “a fragrant offering.”

Living in Christ Means Living in Love

We need to keep reminding ourselves of the overarching gospel principle for our Christian Walk: we are persons in Christ. If we are in Christ, we exist in love. God is love and manifested his love to us in that he sent Jesus into the world, “that we might live through him” (1 John 4:9). And what is the sign that we live through him? “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:11 ESV). And then there’s that remarkable message, “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us” (1 John 4:12).

Love that Hangs Tough

To walk in love as Christians, to be that fragrant offering to others that Christ would have us be, is to practice a love that hangs tough.

Two scripture passages related to love standing strong are, first, John 3:16: “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” That’s tough, demanding, serious business. God’s love is deep enough that God is willing to die for us. It is described in Paul’s marvelous hymn of love: “Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres” (1Cor: 13:7). That’s tough love, demanding an almost slavish perseverance.

Love hangs tough because it wills the well-being and the wholeness of the person loved.

When Love Must Do the Painful Thing

Because love hangs tough, sometimes it has to do the painful thing. It may have to speak the painful truth in order to save a person from living a lie and betraying himself or herself.

We also need to remember this: when love doesn’t hang tough, all sorts of destructive things happen:

  • Marriage vows are trivialized and made the brunt of humor.
  • Respect for individual worth and strength of character that Jesus honored are quickly traded for the limelight or the next pleasure.
  • Many persons who have great promise are never called to maturity and fulfillment because they are betrayed by a love that has no demanding edge to it.

The Fragrance of Understanding

But not only does Christian love hang tough, it expresses itself in understanding. Is there a more fragrant offering of ourselves than to make the effort to understand others?

Martin Buber, the renowned Jewish philosopher, talked about the I and Thou relationship to express the meaning of being human and the meaning of human relationships. He says that secretly and bashfully, we watch for a yes which allows us to be, and which can come to us only from one person to another: To understand another is to say yes to the other, confirming that person in their very being.

I don’t know why it is so, but our being and living as full human beings depends upon our being accepted by others. That acceptance requires understanding and trust.

Isn’t it true that one of the surest experiences of God’s presence is the love of another person? We become a fragrant offering to another when we love them enough to accept them nonjudgmentally and seek to understand them.

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The Fullness Of Being by Maxie Dunnam

The Fullness Of Being by Maxie Dunnam

Join me in your imagination. We are a part of a Christian congregation in Ephesus. At one of our gatherings, a fellow member reads a letter written by the great apostle, Paul. He is seeking to shepherd the new emerging Christian movement and he is praying for us. Hear him, now.

I kneel in prayer to the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name, that out of the treasures of his glory he may grant you strength and power through his Spirit in your inner being, that through faith Christ may dwell in your hearts in love. With deep roots and firm foundations, may you be strong to grasp, with all God’s people, what is the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Christ, and to know it, though it is beyond knowledge. So may you attain to fullness of being, the fullness of God himself. (Ephesians 3:14-19) 

The Essence of Paul’s Prayer for the Ephesians

The prayer is packed with meaning that should leave us somewhat breathless. Paul was filled with emotion as he thought of these new Christians, in his mind probably rehearsing  his own Damascus Road experience. How could he say what he was feeling and thinking? What did he need to say?  All he had was words and words are never enough.

He sounded his deep prayerful desires for them: So may you attain the fullness of being, the fullness of God himself.  Take a moment to ponder some of his words leading up to that blurt of deep passion:

  • “strength and power …in your inner being”
  • “grasp… the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Christ”
  • “through faith Christ may dwell in your hearts in love”

Then what feels climatic: So may you attain to fullness of being, the fullness of God himself.

Personal Reflections on Spiritual Formation

I recall a particularly trying time early in my ministry which led me to passionately pursue being alive in Christ. I discovered that the indwelling Christ, along with justification by grace through faith, were Paul’s two major themes, and that the indwelling Christ is as prominent in his writing as justification. No theme has occupied my thinking and ministry more. Fullness of being, the fullness of God himself, is ours through Christ who dwells in us. It was in this reality of the indwelling Christ that prayer as a specific act and prayerful living took on vibrant and powerful meaning for me. It is in this reality of the indwelling Christ that my understanding of spiritual formation and growing on in full salvation is rooted.

Early on, as I immersed myself in the dynamic of the indwelling Christ, abiding in him, I developed a working definition of spiritual formation: that dynamic process of receiving through faith and appropriating through commitment, discipline, and action the living Christ into our own life to the end that our life will conform to and manifest the reality of Christ’s presence in the world.

The definition encompasses the full measure of prevenient, justifying, and sanctifying grace. It also calls for discipline and witness. Three disciplines are essential for recognizing, cultivating awareness of, and giving expression to the indwelling Christ. One, not only is the presence of God in Jesus Christ to be experienced on occasion, but the indwelling Christ is also to become the shaping power of our lives.  Two, what Christ has been and done in our lives we must be and do for others. Three, we allow the working power of God in the past to be brought into the present. 

In my study, reflection, and experience, this has been made clear to me: the indwelling Christ in an affirming presence, a forgiving and healing presence, a guiding and creating presence, and a converting presence.1 

The indwelling Christ as a converting presence is the dynamic we claim for going on and growing on to full salvation.

Reclaiming the Concept of Conversion

When I was writing the book Alive in Christ, I struggled with the word that best communicated the shaping dynamic of the indwelling Christ. I confessed that though converting and conversion are common words in religious language, I hesitated using those words because of how narrow fundamentalists had distorted their meaning. I confessed, “Not being willing to be squeezed into that mold we have given up one of our powerful and descriptive words: conversion.” 

We have gone even further in many quarters of the church. Not only have we given up the word, we have diminished a cardinal principle of the gospel which the words describe. We simply do not think much about conversion.

But think! In our Wesley understanding, we are “going on’ to salvation.” We are not finished, but you could say we are “under construction,” maturing into the measure of the fullness of Christ, believing the extravagant possibility of attaining to fullness of being, the fullness of God himself.

The purpose of spiritual disciplines is to keep alive the conversion process, Paul’s prayer being answered in us: So may you attain to fullness of being, the fullness of God himself.

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Will There Be Any One To Replace Me? by Maxie Dunnam

Will There Be Any One To Replace Me? by Maxie Dunnam

Two-thirds of the world’s population now lives in countries where the birth rate has dropped to or below 2.1 babies per woman, the number needed to keep the population constant.

When I first read that I was shocked by the language: 2.1 babies per woman.  However, it was the concern that really got my attention. Experts are concerned that the fertility rate has dropped below the so-called “replacement rate” of the population. Persons who study issues like this are concerned about what is described as the “coming demographic winter.”

Maybe because I will soon be 90 years old, all sorts of questions began to whirl in my mind. Who is going to replace me? Can I be replaced? But the important personal question is, do I need to be replaced?

The experts are concerned because shrinking population means more jobs will go unfilled, economic growth will slow, programs like Social Security—which depend upon the working-aged to pay in and support the growing ranks of the aged – may become bankrupt.

As one who seeks to be a responsible citizen, I’m happy “experts” are working on those issues, but there are questions and concerns we all need to personally consider.

  • Am I sharing and caring for others in ways that need to be replaced?
  • Am I filling a place in my family or community which someone else will need to be charged and equipped to fill?
  • Is there a person that I am allowing to be dependent on me that I need to “set free”?
  • Who are persons I consider “irreplaceable” that I need to thank and offer support?

The question presses, Who is going to replace me? As a minister,  I remember a word Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, “I might have entered the ministry if certain clergymen I knew had not looked and acted so much like undertakers.” What kind of image have I communicated?  

Will anyone who looks at my years, my efforts, and my call recognize a life which needs to be replaced?

The same can be asked of our communities. Will the next generation want to replace them or rid themselves of them?  A question many church consultants often ask is, “What impact would there be in this community if this church closed up today?” How we wrestle with that question sheds a remarkable light on how we each reflect God’s image.

There remains time for us all to address these questions, to alter the perceptions others have of us – to answer the God has for us.  For we all have a call on our lives.

Christ ordained his church to carry the good news of Jesus to all the nations, and by extension, all the generations.  My time is passing on and another’s will come. My prayer is that I have done well to live into the psalmist’s cry, 

We will not hide them from their descendants;

we will tell the next generation

the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord,

his power, and the wonders he has done.

Psalm 78:4

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. May we never forget that claim.  Every generation which replaces the prior has a right to hear the good news and see God’s people making shalom in the communities where they gather.  And if we do that faithfully, we can trust in the Holy Spirit’s continued movement rather than our own deeds as we answer the pressing question, ‘will there be anyone to replace me?’

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Faith Working In Love by Maxie Dunnam

Faith Working In Love by Maxie Dunnam

In my last article I focused on the notion of mission as “making disciples who make disciples.” I introduced the term “discipleship evangelism”, as the essence of evangelism. I hinted at the claim that there is “no great commission without the great commandment”. We must nurture and cherish the bond between word and deed, ideas and consequences, beliefs and actions. Good works do not save us but are the evidence of the transforming work of the Holy Spirit and the fundamental nature of practical Christianity.

Faith Working Through Love

One of the best definitions of practical Christianity that you will find comes from the apostle Paul. It is this: faith working through love. In Galatians 5:6, Paul makes the case for the essentials of the Christian life, over and against the superficial claims of religious preference: “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working through love.” J. B. Phillips translates this “faith which expresses itself in love.” The New English Bible reads “faith active in love.” Paul is saying that, in God’s judgment according to Christ, the question is not whether we are obedient to the law, whether we are circumcised or uncircumcised, whether we are Methodist or Baptist. The question is whether in faith we have been shaped according to the reality of God’s love expressed ultimately in his crucified Son. And when there is a testing of that faith, it will involve not the doctrinal positions to which we have given intellectual ascent, not even the doctrine of the uniqueness of Christ, but whether our faith has expressed itself in love.

The goal of every church should be to have a congregation of disciples who are on a mission of discipleship. Disciples making disciples, that is the essence of evangelism.

An Example to Follow: Pauline Hord

At the last congregation I served as lead pastor, we didn’t have a church-full of disciples making disciples but we had some, and the number was growing.

Let me tell you about one of our prize examples, Pauline Hord. She has now passed on to glory. What a remarkable woman. She is the most unique blending of prayer and personal piety, with servant ministry and social concern, I know. When grave needs arose in my life, Pauline was one of the first persons I called, inviting her to pray with me.

Pauline was always going to someone or some group to give herself in prayer. Hardly a week passed that I did not receive a call from Pauline, telling me about some particular need in our congregation or in our city – a need that may call for emergency housing, or transportation, or medical attention. I don’t know how she was in touch with all of this, but she was.

Pauline’s primary passion was literacy and prison ministry. Our state, Tennessee, had and has a tremendous literacy problem. Thousands of people in our city can’t read and write well enough to function adequately in society. Pauline  worked with our public schools, training teachers in a new literacy method. She gave three days a week, four or five hours a day, to teaching this new method of literacy through model programs.

But, also, once a week she drove over a hundred miles one way to Parchman State Prison down in Mississippi, to teach prisoners how to read and write. Along with this, she ministered to them in a more encompassing way as she shared her love and faith, and witnessed to the power of the gospel. Think about this, She was eighty-five years old.

During those years, then President Geoge Bush started a program, called “Points of Light,” calling for citizens to exercise positive and creative influence and service in the communities where they lived. I nominated Pauline and she was chosen and written up in the daily newspaper. 

A few months later, President Bush came to Memphis and wanted to recognize the seven “Points of Light” there at a luncheon.

But he made a mistake. He set the luncheon on a Wednesday. That’s the day Pauline spent at Parchman Prison, teaching prisoners to read and write, and witnessing to them the love of Christ. She would not give that up to have lunch with the President.

That says it, doesn’t it? 

The Essence of Evangelism

Disciples making disciples: this is the essence of evangelism. Real evangelism cannot happen except where disciples are being made. And those who are growing in discipleship become bearers of real evangelism. As I have claimed, all this takes place primarily in the local congregation.

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