Living a Transcendent Life

One of the more amazing technologies available to us today is GPS, which stands for Global Positioning System. Using signals from satellites, handheld devices enable a person to locate his place almost anywhere on the planet within a 6 ' square. Directional systems that combine GPS signals with computer programming can create driving directions as a person is on the move at 70 mph! Pilots of airplanes and watercraft not only can track their course with GPS, they can also determine actual ground speed with complete accuracy. In this morning's newspaper I read that a new hobby, a kind of high tech treasure hunt, is based around GPS. Small boxes are placed in parks or along hiking trails. Inexpensive items are put in the boxes and the location of the boxes are published on the Internet. Hobbyists, using their GPS devices, find the boxes, take an item, and leave something for the next trekker! Fun, eh?

Let me ask you some pointed questions today.

• Where are the reference points from which you gain direction and purpose for life?
  How do you determine where you are spiritually, if you're growing in character, and what your ultimate destination is?

In a course that Bev and I are teaching about developing Boundaries with Kids, Dr. Henry Cloud writes about the importance of parenting for character development. Children, he asserts, need to be 'oriented to transcendence,' meaning that we teach our children (hopefully from our own experience!) to seek their guidance, purpose, and meaning in life from a transcendent God, rather than from the material and temporal world. If we learn to tune our spiritual receivers to the beacon of the Holy Spirit, we gain, in Dr. Cloud's words, "the ability to transcend life, problems, our own limitations and mistakes, and even other people's sins against us. People who transcend self go beyond their own existence to the reality of God and live by virtues they hold more important than their own immediate happiness." That's heavy stuff, and a foreign concept for most minds, especially in our culture which is so powerfully captivated by materialism and sensuality.

We have only to read the headlines to see where our loss of reference to God and His will is taking us. From what roots did the Enron and WorldCom scandals come? From a philosophy that said that the ultimate good in the corporate world was producing profits, regardless of the methods used. Executives felt that they could justify any decisions, as long as they made the money flow increase. Their lack of integrity and greed combined to rot away the foundations of their companies which collapsed with terrible consequences for thousands of employees and share-holders.

It seems to be that sex crimes are on the increase. Some say that is only because more are being reported, but I think differently. I believe in time what is now just an intuitive guess will be confirmed. What is that guess? That our our reduction of the human race to the status of highly evolved animals rather than precious creations of a loving God has released many among us to express their basest predatory impulses. Where once even our sexuality was expressed within boundaries given us by God, now we are taught that sex is just an appetite to be satisfied. Without transcendent values, all kinds of sexual practices are made legitimate; including homosexual practice, rampant promiscuity, and prostitution. We are reaping the consequences of our worldview!

The Word teaches us that God has given us an internal spiritual GPS, a way of fixing our reference point for guidance outside of ourselves. Take a look...

"The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as he raised Christ from the dead, he will give life to your mortal body by this same Spirit living within you. So, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation whatsoever to do what your sinful nature urges you to do. For if you keep on following it, you will perish. But if through the power of the Holy Spirit you turn from it and its evil deeds, you will live." (Romans 8:11-13, NLT)

We need to invite Christ to 'turn on' the receiver that God built into our being so that we are able to tune into the Spirit's leading. Invite Jesus to make you fully alive! That will allow you to 'hear what the Spirit is saying,' to live a transcendent life. In this you will find a noble life, and more importantly, a life that ends here on earth with an arrival at the gate of Heaven, where a rich reward awaits the faithful!

Here's a word from the Word to take with you today....
"For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body." (Philippians 3:18-21, NIV)