“Increase Your Faith” by Raj Ashok

Sometimes you have to look at the piles of theology books, Christian self-help books, Christian memoirs, Christian history books – and go back to where it all started.

Raj Ashok was 45 when he came to faith. He was born and raised in the Hindu religion, and he considered himself a Hindu. At 45, he became reborn in the Christian faith, and he now considers himself a Christian servant-leader fulfilling God’s mission.

He begins with the basics. Increase Your Faith: 75 Powerful Teachings of Jesus Christ for Your Spiritual Growth is a series of short, concise messages straight from the teachings of Jesus in the Bible. You can read them all at one sitting, but Ashok advises against it. Instead, he suggests, read them slowly, because that’s how faith and understanding develop – slowly.

He includes the seven “I am” statements from the Gospel of John; 43 statements from the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew (chapters 5 to 7); and 25 other powerful statements from all four of the Gospels. 

Raj Ashok

The example of the “do not judge” statement from the Sermon on the Mount shows how Ashok discusses each statement. In Matthew 7:1-2, Jesus says not to judge, “that you be not judged,” because the standard you use to judge will be the standard applied to you. Ashok first discusses how the verse is misunderstood and misapplied, especially how we misapply it when we’re confronted with questionable behavior – we use that verse as a shield. What Jesus was actually aiming at here, he writes, was the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, who were so quick to point out the sins of others while not holding themselves accountable under the same standard.

So, do we ignore questionable or sinful behavior? For that answer, Ashok turns to Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians (6:1-2), which addresses how to reach out and restore in a spirit of gentleness and bearing one another’s burdens. Motive and attitude matter.

The 75 selections of Increase Your Faith can easily be used as a daily devotional series. The first two groupings of the “I am” statements from John and the statements in the Sermon on the Mount are particularly helpful for thematic study as well. 

Top photograph by Ben White via Unsplash. Used with permission.

The vine

Father: vine dresser

pruning the true vine

dressing the vines

paring back

cutting back

Child: vine

from the vine I tumbled

stumbled away

I turned back

to burn back

the vine

unlike the burning  bush

unconsumed

the vine is burned, trimmed,

pruned, dressed

to produce more

to produce better

to grow

Photograph by Alex Grichenko via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Body and Spirit – Aspects of the Same Thing?

We’re starting a new book discussion over at TheHigh Calling today, reading The Life of the Body: Physical Well-Being and Spiritual Formation by Valerie Hess and Lane Arnold.

As I read the introduction, my first reaction was something close to dismay. It almost seemed that the book was going to be a spiritually correct (translation: political correctness with a veneer of theology) approach to obesity, slow food, and other aspects of the current food movement.

But I trust Laura Boggess, our discussion leader, and I kept reading today’s assignment – the introduction and first two chapters. So far, my first impressions were incorrect.

The Life of the Body is focused on the connection between the physical and the spiritual – our spiritual life and our physical (bodily) life. And there is a connection – Jesus took on the physical body of a human being from conception to death. And we are part of the body of Christ in both physical and spiritual senses.

We’re told that the body is a temple, a picture of the the body of Christ. Paul uses the metaphor of the body to describe the church, with Christ as the head. We know we will have redeened bodies in heaven.

The point of Hess and Arnold is that there’s a strong connection between our physical and spiritual selves. They’re not identical, but they are strongly connected, and perhaps to the point of being interwoven.

Outside of scripture, we know that regular exercise is a good thing, not only for our physical well-being but for our mental and emotional well-being, too. We know emotions can wreak havoc on our physical bodies – anger, stress, and upset can affect is in powerfully physical ways.

Our physical and spiritual well-being is not an either/or proposition but a both/and reality. We can’t neglect either one.

One of the exercises the authors suggest at the end of Chapter 2 is to look at yourself in the mirror and note what you see – and critically examine what the physical might say about the spiritual.

So this is what I see when I do that,

I see someone who needs to get back on his bike, if he could inspire himself enough and if it would stop raining on weekends. About 15 to 20 pounds need to be shed.

I see someone who is physically stronger than he was a year ago, helped by twice-a-week appointments with a personal trainer.

I see someone whose eyes reflect almost three months of non-stop stress at work, who’s doing way too much and needs to let even more things go.

I see someone who is very tired.

We’ll see where The Life of the Body takes us. So far, the journey looks hard and soul-searching. It also looks necessary.

To see the discussion and posts by others, please visit The High Calling.

Photograph by George Hodan via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Goodbye and Good Luck?

The night I became a Christian – Jan, 26, 1973 – the man who led me to Christ gave me a copy of The Living Bible. He scribbled a note in the inside cover (and “scribbled” is the correct word) and added a verse – Philippians 1:6, “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

It’s a not uncommon verse to give or inscribe to new believers, but I believed then, and I believe now, that it is “my verse.” I was told to go home, read the first chapter of the Gospel of John, and then we set a time to meet the next day to discuss what I had read.

This discussion went on for several weeks, and then his schedule became so hectic that he had me join a student-led Bible study – and the student leader was one of my fraternity brothers. The group was far more advanced than I was – they were studying the building of the temple in Jerusalem and my fraternity brother had drawn a rather elaborate drawing of the floor plan. This, too went on for a few weeks, and then final exams and graduation approached, and the discipleship process seemed to stop.

It resumed almost two years later, after we (I was married by this time) moved to Houston and joined an independent church called Spring Branch Community Church. This is where I was baptized as an adult, where we became involved in a young marrieds group, and I eventually started a series of extension classes taught by one of the pastors (for college credit). The course included surveys of the Old and New Testaments, Bible study methods, and topical subjects. The teachers were good – the night classes were always crowded.

This is where the serious learning and discipleship began. The world of the Bible opened up for me – and we learned history, theology, eschatology and other things I had only been vaguely aware of. Friendships developed among the classmates. We often prayed in small groups before the start of each class.

What I learned was beyond the intellectual – I learned that this Christian life I was embarked upon was one that would be marked by discipline, learning, service and sacrifice. Those simple little words I had prayed that cool January night in the basement of a college lecture hall had led to a transformation of my life. I had never been abandoned; God never said “Goodbye and Good Luck!” I was never left to fend for myself.

“The grace that brings salvation to us also disciplines us,” says Jerry Bridges in The Discipline of Grace. “God never saves people and leaves them alone to continue in their immaturity and sinful lifestyle. Those who He saves, He disciplines…Our spiritual growth is not left to our initiative, nor is it dependent upon our wisdom to know in which areas and in which direction we need to grow.”

It’s never been smooth and predictable, but that path of growth has been and continues to be marked by discipline.

Tom Challies is leading the discussion of The Discipline of Grace over at Informing the Reforming. Please visit his site for additional thoughts and links.