Rob Des Cotes

Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it.   Heb. 4:1

There are forces in and around us that would prevent us from reaching the goal of our faith and we are cautioned by the writer of Hebrews to take them seriously.  The more I meet with Christians in spiritual direction, the more convinced I am that the greatest of these is simply our lack of vision for the spiritual life.  We either don’t know or else we keep forgetting the goals of our faith.

It is clear from the New Testament that Christian conversion has a very particular goal or objective.  In Biblical terms, that goal is nothing short of our becoming saints.  As Paul tells the Thessalonians “It is God’s will that you be sanctified” (1Thes. 4:3).  If this is God’s desire, it should certainly be ours as well.  Through increasing surrender to the Holy Spirit, we are called to mirror the sanctity of Christ.  As Peter affirms in such Trinitarian terms, “we have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ” (1Pet 1:2).

In his recent book,”Transforming Conversion,” Gordon Smith reiterates this exalted goal of our Christian life when he writes,

The one thing that counts is to be a saint. This is the fundamental purpose of life. This is what it means to be a Christian, and to mature in faith, hope and love.  One might well say that the only tragedy in a Christian life is the failure to be a saint.

In light of this objective the book of Hebrews tells us to “be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it.”  And by simply cultivating our desire to live the sanctified life that God is calling us to we can ensure that we don’t.

We become saints by no other means than that of a life-long response to the invitation of the Holy Spirit to surrender to the vocation of sanctity.  As A.W. Tozer taught,

The vital quality that the saints have in common is spiritual receptivity, urging them Godward.  They have a spiritual awareness and they go on to cultivate it until it becomes the biggest thing in their lives.  They are saints because, when they felt the inward longing of the Spirit, they did something about it.  They acquired the lifelong habit of spiritual response.

God’s invitation to holiness encourages us to “lay hold of that for which Christ laid hold of us” (Phil. 3:12).  The one thing that counts is to be a saint.  Without such a far-reaching vision we will lose momentum and our motivation for the high calling of our faith.  We will reset our goals to what is more humanly possible, and we will drastically short-change our lives.

Though we are right to anticipate sanctity in our lives, theology recognizes that it is not in our power to achieve it.  Only by participation with the active life of Christ’s Spirit within us do we, in any way, partake in holiness.  It is a vicarious holiness but nevertheless ours to enjoy as the fruit of the Spirit’s sanctifying work within us.  As Smith writes,

The New Testament vision of the Christian life cannot be spoken of without reference to the vital dynamic of life in Christ.  It is also vital for us to recognize that without union in Christ, the goal of the Christian is simply impossible.

Apart from union with Christ, holiness is not only an impossible objective, it’s an oppressive one.  No wonder we are tempted to settle for alternatives that are more in reach of our grasp.  Only God can sanctify us.  But our part, which is to consecrate our lives to God’s desire that we be saints, will ensure that we not fall short of this objective.

Encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.  We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end.

Heb. 3:14-15

We have much to say about this, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand.    Heb. 5:11

As a kid I was always fascinated with stories of the north.  Many of these had to do with the Klondike gold rush.  One story often told is of people who would leave everything to go prospecting for gold, discover a vein of gold, stake a claim, and proceed to get down to the business of getting the ore out of the mine.  All would go well at first, but then the vein of gold they had been following would disappear. They had come to the end of the rainbow, or so they thought, and the pot of gold was no longer there.  Giving up in discouragement, they would sell their claim for a few hundred dollars, and take the next train back home.  But then the person who bought the claim would continue digging in the same spot where the former owners had left off.  And often, just a few feet deeper, the new owner would strike gold.

So it is with our growth as Christians.  Like the prospector who lacks tenacity, we can easily assume that there is no more gold left in this claim when really there is a rich vein of ore just a few feet deeper than where we are.  We too need to find motivation to keep growing in our response to God so that we don’t give up prematurely on the promised gold.  Such is the risk we face the longer we’ve been a Christian—that we will stop responding to God’s invitation and settle for something less.

We know very little about the recipients of the letter to the Hebrews other than that, having taken the first steps towards maturity in Christ, they’ve now taken a step back.  According Heb. 5:11, they “no longer try to understand.”   Another way to translate the Greek phrase used here is that they have become “dull with respect to what is heard.”  In other words they hear without effect, without enthusiasm or response.  Immune to the word of God, they no longer feel the same need for conversion as they once did.  No longer do they expect any real challenge or motivation from the Holy Spirit’s prompting, and the writer rebukes them for this when he says, “though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again” (Heb. 5:12).  He compares their immaturity to a baby who drinks only milk.

A baby can’t handle solid foods.  But to continue with milk once it is old enough for a solid diet would not be good.  Not only would it stunt its growth but the baby would always be hungry and unsatisfied as its body craved for something more substantial.  So it is with the recipients of this letter.  They have not progressed to the solid food they should be enjoying by now, and they risk spiritual anemia because of their impoverished diet.

Unfortunately this is what we see in too many Christians these days.  There is a malaise or discouragement among many who grieve that they no longer feel what they used to feel when they were young in the faith. They no longer enjoy the same enthusiasm for worship, preaching, prayer or Scripture as they once did.  And though they grieve their loss of passion, they are no longer sure what to hope for other than an impossible return to where they once were. They are hungry for something more and often feel guilty, believing that this hunger is a sign of their failure to secure the promises they once believed were possible.   And so they find themselves either living with a constant sense of incompletion, or else eventually lowering their expectations of the spiritual life to something more manageable.  Either way they remain unsatisfied because they know they are no longer thriving as they once were.

The writer of Hebrews warns us of such pitfalls if we do not “hold firmly to the end the confidence we had at first” (Heb. 3:14).  If we prematurely stop digging for gold before we have found it, we too will risk similar disappointment.  We are exhorted instead to show diligence in seeking God so that none of us miss out on the promises that still lay ahead of us.  We are assured that there is more gold in the ground, and encouraged to keep digging until we find it.

He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.  He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”                           Mark 4:39-40

The apostle Paul tells us that we are to be transformed by the renewing of our mind (Rom 12:2).  This is the invitation of the gospel—to be converted, in mind and spirit, from what we once were to that which we can only become through faith in Christ.  To the Catholic theologian Robert Barron, this conversion represents a transformation from a mindset of fear to one of faith.  In his book And Now I See, he explains how this exchange more properly defines the word “repentance.”

The word so often used and so misleadingly translated as “repent” is metanoite. The English word “repent” has a moralizing overtone, suggesting a change in behaviour or action, whereas Jesus’ term speaks of change at a far more fundamental level of one’s being. This Greek term, metanoite, that we translate as “repent” is based on two words, meta (beyond) and nous (mind or spirit).  In its most basic form it means to “go beyond the mind that you have.”

For Barron, to go “beyond the mind that you have” is to exchange an orientation of fear for one more rooted in faith.  He describes some of the conditions of fear that we shed as part of this conversion.

When the trials and anxieties of life confront the ego, the first reaction is fear, since the ego is fundamentally persuaded that there is nothing “under” it or “behind” it, no power beyond itself upon which it can rely.  Fear is a function of our lives at the surface level. When we fear, we cling to who we are and what we have; when we are afraid, we see ourselves as the threatened center of a hostile universe, and thus we strive to defend ourselves as we lash out at potential adversaries, real or imagined.

The opposite of fear, of course, is faith—the disposition that we assume only as we align ourselves more securely to the fact that it is God who undergirds life.  Barron writes,

At the foundation of our existence, we are one with the divine power which continually creates and sustains the universe, held and cherished by the infinite love of God.  When we rest in this center and realize its power, we know that, in an ultimate sense, we are safe, or in a more theological term, we are “saved.”  And therefore we can let go of fear and begin to live in radical trust.  But when we lose sight of this rootedness in God, our lives are more dominated by fear and we live more exclusively on the tiny island of the ego.

Jesus’ promise of abundant life is directly related to His command for us to exercise faith.  Faith expands our sense of freedom and therefore our experience of life.  Barron comments on this increase when he writes,

To overcome fear is to move from the pusilla anima (the small soul) to the magna anima (the great soul).  When we are dominated by our egos, we live in a very narrow space of fear.  But when we surrender in faith to God our souls become great, roomy and expansive.

The story of Jesus calming the storm contrasts the fact that the Lord is “asleep on a cushion” while the disciples are panicking in fear.  To Barron, this disposition of rest symbolizes faith, unaffected by the fear-storms that would otherwise dictate our experience of life.  Faith turns the tables on our fears.  It calms the waves and stills the storms that otherwise cause us to shrink back to our smaller state of soul.  Instead, we get to approach all things with the more expansive soul of faith.

God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance.                   Rom. 2:4

It’s often been said that God accepts you just the way you are, but loves you too much to leave you there.  Because of such love, we are constantly inspired to make changes in our lives.  Through the Holy Spirit, the Lord also sustains our hope that change is actually possible for us.  And this is good news as there is nothing more discouraging than to feel you are stuck where, or with who, you are.

Everybody wants to change.  It is one of the primary themes of our Christian hope—that  change is not only possible, but that it is God-ordained and God-empowered.  A sustained desire for change expresses the living hope that we can actually become the people we feel called to be.   And our participation with such change is one of the ways we honour God—by submitting to the transforming action of His love in our lives.

Change, for any of us, begins with a deep and honest desire for renewal, which the Bible calls repentance.  It is the spirit by which we recognize that what we are is less than we should be, and by which we welcome the transformation that God invites us to.  One of the truths that motivates us in our desire to change is, of course, God’s goodness.  We recognize the gracious gift of salvation that God has given us through Jesus, and we respond by consecrating our lives out of love, worship, and gratitude for what He has done.

We are also motivated to change by a growing awareness of our need for healing.  As we recognize the many ways we are trapped and hindered by habitual behaviours and addictions, we find ourselves desperately seeking alternatives.  We come to God in the hope of being freed from whatever keeps us captive to life.  Recognizing the disorder within, we welcome the ministry of the Great Physician in faith that He not only has the power, but also the desire to heal us.  The confidence by which we embrace such faith is evidence of the Holy Spirit within us, actively drawing us to Jesus for healing.

Repentance, then, is ultimately an act of hope that lies at the heart of spiritual growth.  We welcome with gratitude the desire for transformation that the Holy Spirit inspires in us, as well as the God-given faith that such change is actually possible for us.  We marvel that this hope continually resurrects in us, and that we do not, more naturally, succumb to despair.  We watch ourselves rise, again and again, in the assurance that “He who began a good work in us will carry it on to completion” (Phil. 1:6).

Because we believe in the promise of God, we confidently anticipate the gift of a transformed life. Through the same Spirit who empowers us to seek purity, we celebrate the realistic hope that change is not only possible, but inevitable as long as we remain attached to the vine of Christ.

Wisdom’s instruction is to fear the LORD, and humility comes before honor.
Prov. 15:33

In his book, Heaven Begins Within You, Fr. Anselm Gruen describes the wisdom of the desert fathers as a “spirituality from below.”  It’s a wonderful term that speaks of one of the more counter-intuitive paradoxes of Christian spiritual direction—that in order to rise, we must first descend.  And descent, for the Christian, is always a matter of more fully embracing the humble poverty of our being.

For the desert fathers, the way to God naturally leads to deeper self-knowledge, which will always produce humility in us.  In other words, we ascend to God by descending more honestly into our own reality. To grow in humility then is to have the courage to face this truth, to accept the humus of our humanity.  Only those who fully embrace their earth-bound condition can experience a true relationship with God.  As Gruen writes,

Humility is the test of whether one is truly living with the spirit of God or not.  Without humility we always risk taking over God for our own purposes.  Humility is the prerequisite for letting God be God, for developing a true sense of God as the wholly Other.

A maturing relationship with truth inevitably produces humility in us.  It unveils our false self as God’s light reveals to us the untruths we have otherwise been living under.  As Gruen observes,

Humility is the appropriate human response to a true experience of God. The closer people come to God, the humbler they get.  They recognize how far removed they are from God’s holiness.

Humility, then, is both the path that leads to God as well as the disposition by which the ultimate goal of our faith—unity with God—is arrived at.  It is the means as well as the end of spiritual maturity.  Gruen writes,

The place where we meet our own powerlessness is precisely where we become most open to God.  For it is only when we are stripped of our own sense of sufficiency that we discover what God has in mind for us, and what divine grace can make of us.

Though we are often tempted to believe that poverty of spirit is something that must be overcome on our path to fulfillment, Jesus counters this with the opposite assurance—that our poverty of spirit, far from hindering us, is actually the place where we most directly encounter the blessing of intimate fellowship with God (Mt. 5:3).

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

Mat. 11:29