A Christian Worldview: How Is It Adopted?

The concept of worldview deals with the way a person or a group of people look at life and living. It can be applied to the impact of language, or culture, or ideology, or at the level of the individual which focuses it upon a very personal and unique space. For purposes of this series, it is that last consideration I will be addressing--the context of the individual. Together, we will explore what it means for the individual follower of Christ to have a thoroughly Christian worldview.

Worldview is really about the glasses one looks at life through. Glasses, because we are not speaking about seeing objectively through the native or natural lens that's part of the eye, but of something that is adopted by the seer or instilled by the environment, and through which one sees their all-compassing perspective of life. Belief in Christ is one such viewpoint, which when adopted is meant to impact the believer sufficiently to change, develop and instill an all-encompassing way of looking at life and living. The gospel is meant to cause us to see life, not through blue eyes or brown eyes, but through Jesus eyes.

So, it’s important to understand the means by which one adopts such a Christian worldview. Using a phrase like this may lead one to think that a believer merely accepts a series of propositions and endeavors, as best he or she can, to apply those precepts to their living. That is not at all the case, though I think sometimes Christians think that way and that teachers of the faith sometimes teach like that is the case. Whereas that certainly is the case in other ideologies, it is not at all the case in true faith in Christ.

Belief in Christ is about a quantum change in our nature. A metamorphosis so fundamental that the Christian, upon coming to sincere trust in Christ, becomes a new being--a creature different in its nature than it was before. That is not to say that the Christian decides this, or adopts this by choice and thereby makes it so, even if by remarkable effort. This change is the result of the introduction and infusion of a catalyst, a change agent, in this case a change person, namely, the Holy Spirit.

The simple truth is that no one can even come to Christ and believe in him unless that one is drawn by the Father (through auspices of the Holy Spirit, it seems to me). The conviction of heart and mind in regard to Christ which undergirds repentance, in my mind, comes through the Holy Spirit as well. It is the Holy Spirit interacting with humans that empowers them to have a faith which allows Christ to dwell in their hearts at all. It is that presence, power and action of the Holy Spirit which is the foundation of a Christian worldview.

The Holy Spirit is our lens. 

Christians do not see life in a Christian manner by mere choice, but through a lens actualized and activated by the Holy Spirit. The faith that responds to and partners with the Holy Spirit becomes an all-encompassing perspective on life for the one born again. If that is not present in one claiming the faith, there is no way that one can truly be in the faith. Actually being born again matters.

Are you born again? Do you have a Christian worldview?

The next part...

Rock Gardens & Weed Beds

Many folks think that there is something to recommend in being middle-of-the-road in perspective and attitude, and something bad about being extreme in the same. I can understand why in many situations that may be a wise course, but it's anything but wise when it comes to Christianity. In following Christ, the milquetoast middle is nothing but a muddle. And dangerous at that!

Offered for your consideration: the parable of the sower. The extremes were clear in their result whether for good or bad. The mucky middle, on the other hand, had the look, even the promise of fruitfulness, but not the reality. Why did the middle fail? Because only by selling out, getting extreme in focus, can we see achieved what was intended to be achieved by the scattering of the gospel seed in our lives. Only a single-minded vision of submitting to what Christ in us is attempting to grow can make our lives truly fruitful in God.

And as God sees life, fruitfulness is what counts. For the seed which is the Word to get anything done in us that He came to do, there has to be singularity in the soil of our hearts. Our soil must be set apart, exclusively, for the growth and fruitfulness of that one seed. It must yield no room, nor nutrient, nor anything else that anything else would need to grow. It must not yield to anything that would retard the growth of that one seed.

If our soil is a mixed bag, chunky with rocks, or infested with other kinds of seed, our appearance may seem fine for a time, but over time, our fruitlessness will reveal the unfortunate truth about our hearts. Like any farmer planting his fields with a crop, when God plants seed in us, he expects that kind of fruit out of us. God farms by the Christ-in-Christ-out method (CICO). When rocks and weeds compete for the soil with that seed, the seed's growth is stunted and it never comes to fruit.

God wants a harvest for what he's sown into our lives. How is it that we think we can we offer him rock gardens and weed beds instead? Jesus cursed a fig tree for not bearing fruit out of season. When God looks for fruit, fruit better be there, or there's going to be a reckoning. One fig would have done it for Jesus... at least some fruit will do it for us.