Tag: Paul Nordman

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Our Regatta Regalia

When I was frequenting a bakery cafe on Ohio State’s campus, there would often sit just a few feet from me the university’s women’s crew coaching staff and key leaders from the school’s national powerhouse rowing team. They met there regularly, seemingly to keep communications wide open in both directions and to minimize potential disruptions to team unity, focus and success. It was good leadership.

One morning, my attention tacked to “headwinds” at the table on my left. A younger member of this select group was wearing a t-shirt of another university, and seeing this, the coach kindly, but firmly took issue with the matter, emphasizing the student’s identity as a team member and educating her on the impact of the individual on the solidarity of the whole. I can’t say whether the rower learned anything that day, but I came away with a deeper appreciation of responsibility and resolve.

To be fair, it is easy to lose perspective in life, and course-corrections are often necessary. For instance, though the believers in Ephesus now belonged to the ultimate championship crew, the body of Christ, some still sported their old t-shirts of darkness—greed, impurity, and obscenity, in their case—inconsistent for the individual and confusing to the team. So, Paul reminded them of their new identity in Him whose jersey they now wore: “You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light …”1

What do we wear in their place when we remove the uniforms of our past? Again, we look to Paul. Steering the Thessalonians also from the depths of darkness into the lanes of light, he emphasized self-control, embracing who they were in Christ and aligning their actions with their identity in Him. How? By “putting on faith and love … and the hope of salvation.”2 For when we really grasp what Jesus has done for us, when we openly accept for ourselves the deep love He has for us, we are overwhelmed to the point we eagerly discard the old and put on the new. Faith, hope and love—these are the team regalia that bind us together as we represent Christ in a watching world.

Father, thank you for saving me and giving me new and eternal life in Christ. Grace me to truly understand who He’s made me to be, and inspire me to live and to give in faith, hope and love. I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Christ in me is freedom.

1 Ephesians 5:8
2 1 Thessalonians 5:8

See today’s Scripture in 1 Thessalonians 5:4-11.

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Where You Look

The man was recalling the time he tried his hand at motorcycle racing. Before he took to the track for the first time, a friend shared with him this crucial piece of advice: “If you begin to lose control, do not look at the wall; look to the infield, because where you look is where you’ll go.” (“Thanks, I think.”) The same is said more generally with regard to influence of any sort—“We become what we behold.”

Life comes at us, fast and furious, and it changes in an instant. When our wheels of self-control go wobbly, we can easily find ourselves looking at the “walls” of this world, be they greed and gossip, lust and lies, or rules and religiosity. This is how Peter went from defending his Lord when among friends in the Garden to denying the Christ when on his own in the courtyard. It’s how he went from savoring dietary liberty amid the Gentiles to choking on dietary legalism among the Jews.

Where, then, do we look when temptations come our way? How do we avoid “crash and burn”? To the church, Paul reveals the reality of our race, “Your life is now hidden with Christ in God,” and there is no safer place in heaven or on earth than in Him. The apostle then coaches us with his own crucial piece of advice: look to Jesus. “Set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God,” he writes, “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” For Christ Jesus is our infield, and we look to Him always, because where we look is where we’ll go.

Father, thank you for saving me and giving me new and forever life in Christ. Transform me and strengthen me, so that I look to you — first, only and always. Be glorified in this life. I ask this in Jesus’ name and by the power of your Spirit. Amen.

Christ in me is life.

Read Colossians 3:1-4—Paul’s amazing declaration of our life in Christ.

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Inside and Out

I must admit, it was an unsettling experience for me. A group of us had gone to a nearby bar after work one evening to visit with out-of-town guests before heading home. For me, personally, it is safe to enjoy an occasional drink, so that wasn’t the problem. What I found disquieting was the fact that this bar had been built 100 years earlier as a church. There we were, sipping on whatever, surrounded by stained glass windows and in full view of an altar. Now, I know and even rejoice in that Jesus’ church is not a building but a “body”—the sum total of all His believers throughout the world. So, while I grieved in earnest at the thought of a once-vibrant, now-stagnant congregation closing its doors, the repurposed use of bricks and mortar, itself, was my little cognitive-dissonance problem to get over. (“Yeah, but still.”)

Not lost on me, however, was the fact that this scenario served as a heads-up for us, the true church, for God inhabits all who believe in Christ, bypassing even the loftiest of sanctuaries to do so. “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?” wrote Paul to the Corinthian Christians. Turning a church building into a bar creates its own little stir, but how deep and real the dissonance in others when we “repurpose” our bodies—these living, breathing temples of God—for anything less than His glory! People peer into us in hopes of seeing God inside to be true, so why do anything on the outside to obscure their view? Jesus has made us one with Himself in the Spirit; why then would we dishonor Him in our flesh? So, Paul continues, “You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore, honor God with your bodies.” For when we honor with our body the God who inhabits our soul, we open the door for all to see the vibrant church of His Son.

Father, thank you for choosing to live in me. Inspire me today, so that my outward actions flow from nothing less than your inner love and grace. I pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Christ in me is holiness.

See what 1 Corinthians 6:15-20 says about our oneness with Christ.