Ray Pritchard - Hes God and were not : the seven laws of the spiritual life

Sometimes a map is not enough.

Not long ago I made a visit to see a patient at a veterans' hospital in a Chicago suburb. Because I had never been there before, I checked the address and room number to make sure I wouldn't get lost. It turned out that the hospital itself is like an enormous college campus. In fact, it's larger than the college I attended. There were dozens of buildings more or less haphazardly attached to each other, with very few signs, and a road system that seemed to meander hither and yon. It was easily the most confusing hospital complex I had ever visited. After a fruitless attempt to find the man I came to see, I finally (after several attempts) found someone who could help me. But of course, she couldn't find the man either. It was as if he had been stowed away in some remote corner, and the paperwork had been lost. Eventually, she determined that he was in an auxiliary unit far to the back of the property. "Just follow the road for about a mile, turn right, go past the Ronald McDonald House. You'll pass two or three buildings; just keep going and you'll find it on the corner." Once I got to the building, there was no one at the desk. In fact, the whole building seemed deserted. I eventually found the patient by trial and error, just going into one room after another.

Life can be like that sometimes. To be accurate, life is often like that. We have a map that gives us a general idea of where to go, but we need specific directions; and still we have to make the search on our own. Every person who reads this book is on a spiritual journey of one kind or another. The truth we need to know is in the Bible. This book is meant to help you focus on those things that matter most. Writing it has been an adventure that started a few years ago when I stumbled upon the First Law of the Spiritual Life: He's God and We're Not. All spiritual reality begins with this principle. Until you believe this and accept it, you cannot become a Christian and you cannot grow if you are a Christian. In the ultimate sense, all sin begins with the denial of this truth. Sometime later after discovering the First Law, I began thinking about putting together a short list of the basic truths of the spiritual life that undergird everything we believe, teach, and practice. Eventually I ended up with a list of Seven Laws. As you read this book, please note that the Seven Laws begin and end with God. This is crucial because he is the source and end of all things ("For from him and through him and to him are all things." Rom. 11:36). True spirituality is always God-centered.

In my real life, the life that occupies my time during the week, I pastor Calvary Memorial Church in Oak Park, Illinois. The fact that I am a pastor and that I live in the Chicago area doesn't matter except for this: Every day of my life I am trying to explain Christianity to men and women who want to know God better. This is the third church I have pastored since starting in the ministry more than a quarter-century ago, and my task has been the same everywhere. When I have preached in other countriesHaiti, Belize, Switzerland, India, Russia, Columbia, NigeriaI have found that Christians are everywhere searching for the same thing. Centuries ago Augustine remarked that God made us for himself, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in him. That hunger to know God intimately, deeply, and personally can be found in every person sooner or later. We want to know the God who made us, and we want to know how to make life work the way God says it ought to work.

That's where the Seven Laws come in. As I study the Bible, I am amazed at a paradox that seems to jump out from almost every page. Though the message of the Bible is not difficult to discover, the Bible itself is not a simple book. As I write these words, I am in the final stages of reading through the Bible in a year, along with hundreds of people from my congregation. For me it has been an invigorating and humbling discipline. It is a discipline for me because I have tended, in the past, to read the Bible in fits and spurts, but this year I have diligently followed the suggested schedule. It is invigorating to reacquaint myself with the incredible richness of the biblical tapestry. And it is humbling to be reminded after all these years of preaching and teaching that there is much in the Bible that I still do not clearly understand.

But that is only one part of the story. As I have read through the Old and New Testaments, I have been struck again with how properly basic the message is. Our God is a wonderful summarizes From heaven he surveyed the vast expanse of human experience and distilled his requirements into the Ten Commandments (see Exod. 20:1-17). Think about that. Ten rules that cover the whole range of human behavior and apply equally to 6 billion people (far more than that, actually, if you consider every person who has ever lived on planet Earth). When Jesus wanted to teach his followers the essence of his message, he gave them eight beatitudes (see Matt. 5:1-12). And the transforming work of the Holy Spirit becomes, in the hands of the apostle Paul, the nine-fold fruit of the Spirit (see Gal. 5:22-23). But there is more. Micah 6:6-8 says that God requires three things of those who would please him: justice, mercy, and humility. And Jesus boiled the entire spiritual life down to this: Love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself (see Matt. 22:36-40). That's simple and clear, isn't it? You could take a lifetime to study and meditate and still not come to the end of those two commands.

With that in mind, I offer Seven Laws of the Spiritual Life that every Christian should know. I do not claim infallibility for this list. Obviously some things could be added, and the wording could be changed. But I am convinced that all the core truths of the Christian faith fit within these seven basic "laws" of life. This book, then, will benefit anyone desiring true spiritual growth. Although it is not evangelistic, seekers will find real value because it begins where the gospel beginswith God. Perhaps its greatest use will be to spur individual believers to grow in Christ.