The Life Gauges through postures

Our understanding and discussion of the Life Gauges can be helped by practicing their associated postures.

HUMILITY
Fall to your knees. Bow before God. Raise your hands to the sky. This is a posture of humility. It’s a posture of surrender—we are thoroughly defeated by overwhelming love.
Confession: God is great. God is good. And God is near.

RESPONSIBILITY
Extend your arms forward with open hands, palms up, in a posture to receive. Now pull your arms toward your body and close your hands in a posture of grasping, taking hold.
Confession: Good stewards of God’s grace.

ACCLIMATION
Stand facing one direction, then turn 180 degrees and face the other direction. Reject what the world says about you (and others) and how the world wants you to live. Turn and accept what God says about you (and others) and the way of life he offers. This is a picture of ongoing repentance.
Confession: People like us do things like this.

IMITATION
Return to your ending posture of DISCIPLINE—grasping hands close to the body. Now reverse the DISCIPLINE posture, extending your arms forward, opening your hands and turning your palms upward. This is a posture of release, of generosity. Freely we have received. Now, we freely give.
Confession: We so love the world that we give.

MISSION
Extend your arms forward as if reaching around a barrel, about to give a bear hug. This is a posture of gathering—guiding people to the life they were created to live. It’s acting as a shepherd—corralling people into a place of acceptance and shalom.
Confession: Our story for God’s glory.

Cultural Literacy and Fluency

In our more interconnected world, cultural literacy is a valuable asset. Cultural literacy is an awareness of cultural differences—an awareness that hopefully leads to more understanding, better collaboration, and greater influence. Cultural literacy is essential in areas like healthcare, education, and business.

Since cultural literacy is knowing about other cultures, a person can grow in culturally literacy from outside a culture. But to be fluent in a culture, that person must move inside. Cultural fluency is about becoming part of a culture in such a way that the culture no longer seems foreign or strange. It’s assimilation; adaptation to the deepest levels.

““The measure of Christian discipleship is Kingdom cultural fluency.”

This is a good metaphor for Christian discipleship. When we commit to follow Jesus—to be governed by him—we are transferred from the world’s system into his kingdom. We are adopted into his family. We become participants in a new culture. The measure of Christian discipleship is Kingdom cultural fluency. What is God’s kingdom like? Who am I? How am I supposed to live? How successfully am I living this way? How normal are the ways of the Kingdom becoming to me?

But as Kingdom citizens, we’re also left in the world’s system to represent Kingdom culture here. We’re called ambassadors. And to do that well, we must maintain a cultural literacy of the world’s system. What is the world like? What drives people? What are their (and our) struggles, needs, and passions?

The essential thing for Christians is that we know the difference between literacy and fluency—and that we are firmly convinced of which culture we’re to become fluent and of which one we’re to remain literate.

The Word of God

The word of God is God’s logos¹. We can say it this way: God’s word is ‘what God has to say’. We can find his word in Nature (Psalm 19:1-6, Romans 1:19,20). We find his word in the Scriptures (2 Timothy 3:16,17). And Jesus is the Word of God (John 1:1-18).

“God’s word is ‘what God has to say’.”

Creation reveals what God has to say. The Scriptures reveal what God has to say. Jesus is our clearest revelation of what God has to say.

To encounter Nature, Scripture, and Jesus, is to have the opportunity to encounter ‘what God has to say’.

But this requires humble hearts.

Worshiping Nature misses what God has to say. Twisting Scripture to fit a human agenda defies what God has to say. And studying Jesus without being conformed to his image is a rejection of what God has to say.

When ‘God’s word’ fails to communicate ‘what God has to say’—his intent—it ceases to be God’s word (logos) altogether.

¹ Koine Greek for persuasive 'reason' or 'reasoning'. The same root as the English word 'logic'. The Greek word rhema refers to God's speech. God's rhema conveys his logos.