I can’t help it. I don’t even want to do it, but I need the nicotine. I know it’s smelly, my friends think it’s revolting, and there’s every chance I’ll die from it, but it’s beyond my control.
Paul: Then make a complete break. Throw away your ashtrays, get rid of your lighter, snip your leftovers in two, and never have another puff.
Me: That’s not being set free; that’s being imprisoned. I’ve lost my freedom ever to enjoy a cigarette again.
Paul: Yes. Welcome to prison! Welcome to breathing clean air. Welcome to food that tastes fabulous. Welcome to clothes that don’t smell. Welcome to good health. You’re going to have a new addiction now – addiction to never smoking again. You don’t want to go back to old habits do you?
This illustrates what Paul meant when he wrote: ‘What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness.’
| Be both a servant and free: a servant in that you are subject to God, but free in that you are not enslaved to anything – either to empty praise or to any of the passions. John of Apamea, monk, circa 400–50 |
As a Christian, do you miss any of the things that the rest of society seems to do without restraint? Welcome to clean air. Welcome to living without shame. Welcome to knowing that God is delighted by holiness. Welcome to life.
You don’t want to go back to the way the rest of the world lives! Don’t dabble with it. Make a clean break. Throw out anything that has tempting, ashen traces of wrongdoing on it. Don’t go near where old habits led you. Have a new way of life. A new addiction. Addicted to good. Addicted to God.
| Detox: Break a habit! Analyse the things you do regularly and ask whether any of them are in control of you, rather than being things you choose. Even if it is only for a specific length of time, overcome the habit to demonstrate your freedom. And thank God too for the freedom to worship him. |
Lord Jesus, free me from all that holds me back in my desire to be wholly yours. Let nothing but you demand my undivided loyalty. Amen.
Detox your standards
Day 8 Open a door
| Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature. Colossians 3.1–5 |
Just after my fortieth birthday I did something that changed my life forever. I let a homeless teenager come and live in my home. I am sure that most families would have dealt with this by making a few well-considered adjustments. However, I had been living by myself for 16 years, so to share my house with anyone required a revolution, let alone sharing it with someone whose behaviour had become entirely unpredictable as relationships with his family deteriorated over several years.
The best way to describe the new situation is by comparing it with fireworks – both glorious and explosive! It has certainly made me a different person and, I hope, a better one. Singleness shapes some people into generous and loving maturity; others grow self-centred and crotchety in old age. I could not bear to become a self-centred person. But if you live by yourself you are simply not aware of whether you are selfish or not. You do what you do without having to make reference to anyone else – the question of whether it might be seen as selfish never needs to enter your mind. But sharing your life with someone forces you to see the space around yourself quite differently.
An example! My bedroom door doesn’t close. I don’t know why it won’t close – it never has done! It’s only the last inch that doesn’t shut, so when I lived by myself it didn’t bother me in the slightest. Well, why would it? But as soon as Paul moved in, I could think of nothing else but that inch of open door. Not only had his Playstation taken over my TV, his heavy metal music taken residence in my CD player, his beer run rampant in my fridge, and his chaotic roguishness charmed its way into every part of the house that we share, but I couldn’t even close my own bedroom door!
I am not sure why it irritated me so much. It’s not as if I keep a stash of drugs hidden in my bedroom, or pornography on top of the wardrobe! But the one inch of my life that I could no longer keep secret really unsettled me.
| [The Spirit says:] ‘These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open. I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.’ Revelation 3.7–8 |
So I drove to my parents to borrow a plane, but I forgot to take it away with me. I tried someone from my church, but they were on holiday, and someone else had the right tool but the wrong attachment. For one reason or another time went by and I couldn’t get hold of what I needed. And an unexpected thing happened – I got used to living with the door open. Instead of changing the door, so that I could live in the way I used to, I found that I had changed my behaviour so that it didn’t matter whether the door was open or shut.
It strikes me that this is a powerful picture of how I want to lead the whole of my Christian life. I want to come to the point at which people could peep through the door at anything I do, hear anything I say, tune into anything I think, and I could display it all with complete integrity. I would not be ashamed or embarrassed, even slightly, by the difference between the standards Jesus has set me and the standards I actually keep.
Oh boy! That is what I want in theory, but there is a daunting amount that needs to be dealt with if I am ever going to live my whole life with the door open. If I am to live with God’s will done on earth as it is in heaven, as I have prayed thousands of times over the years, I need a total change of attitude.
| Open wide the windows of our spirits and fill us full of light. Open wide the doors of our hearts, that we may receive and entertain thee with all our powers of adoration. Christina Rossetti, poet, 1830–94 |
And heaven is where that change of attitude begins. If Jesus is raised from the dead, as Christians proclaim, then there is a real sense in which we who have joined ourselves to him in our Christian faith are also raised from the dead with him. Not in the future, but in the present! A person who has allied himself or herself to Christ has, in a sense, already died to what went before and is raised with Jesus to become part of the heavenly community. Jesus sees us spiritually as already with him in heaven. All we are doing is waiting for our bodies to catch up with the reality.
If the fact of the matter is that our home is with God in heaven, then that ought to make a noticeable difference. The only logical response is for our behaviour from day to day to be godly. Heavenly! If we really believe that what Jesus has done for us has opened the door between heaven and earth, then we need to live our Christian lives with the door open.
The Bible’s challenge is this: Be what you are. There are things in our lives that we don’t want other Christians to find out about. If it were possible, we would prefer that God didn’t find out about them either. We would rather keep them hidden. They are the things for which we need a fully functional door.
| Value the silent power of a consistent life. Florence Nightingale, nurse, 1820–1910 |
So how do you know what to do when you are living with the door open? Imagine what standards will feel natural, easy, comfortable, joyful to everyone in heaven, and set your heart on living them out on earth. They won’t feel so easy and probably