The movie, “The Way”, showed in Kearney for a brief period in the Fall of 2011. It was a stirring portrayal of a small group of back-packers, each bearing personal pain, but finding themselves banded together and headed for the same destination in the beautiful ancient countryside of Spain. The surprise is not that this unlikely group reach their destination but they reach it and are changed people - more real, more emotionally whole, and more focused. Down through the ages men and women have sought a deeper experience of spiritual transformation. Today we will consider one approach to achieving this goal.
Some goals seem too lofty and too high unless they are broken down into a series of steps. One ancient church writer encouraged four steps or phases that would help people achieve their goal of transformation into the image of Christ. Each step was designed to follow the other like mounting a stair. The first focuses on considering and living more fully in the great love God has for us who are sinners, the second centers on the life of Christ and the attractiveness of this life, the third on the necessity to die to our plans or the world’s agenda in order to really live to God, the fourth focuses on the joy of following the risen Savior in the power of the Spirit.
The four steps take us through God’s salvation plan, contemplating the life, death and resurrection of Christ our Savior in the context of letting God love us. In many ways these are the themes of the great spiritual revivals or awakenings down through history; but, like any great revival they must start with individuals prayerfully humbling themselves and considering the life of Christ.
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