Integrating the Paradoxes

After twelve weeks of wrestling with the dynamic paradoxes that empower us to respond to God and his great love for us, and starting to practice your Life Plan, it's once again time to slow down, reflect, and intentionally pause our journey.

To deepen and refine your Life Plan by integrating insights from all twelve paradoxes with all the other wisdom you've gained from God, the Scriptures, and other brothers and sisters in Christ. This is more than an intellectual exercise. It is about encountering God, prayerful self-examination, deepening our friendships, and creating sustainable, life-giving rhythms that we might increasingly be like Jesus.

Your Journey So Far

As we've discussed each week, these paradoxes aren't theological puzzles to solve—they're lifelong tensions that God uses to form us into Christlikeness. So it's critical that we take the time to integrate what we've learned, share the best insights we've gained with one another, and encourage each other to experience our lives with God.

You've now encountered these twelve foundational paradoxes:

1. **The Riddle:** To know God is to know that God remains beyond our comprehension.
2. **The Gift That Costs Everything:** Salvation is a gift that costs everything.
3. **New and Needing Renewal:** We're new creations in Christ, but we need wisdom to keep being renewed by God.
4. **We Die To Live:** We find true life by taking up our cross and following Jesus.
5. **Revering and Loving God:** Spiritual growth requires knowing God's love and holiness.
6. **God's Fully in Control, Yet Our Choices Matter:** Understanding both God's sovereignty and our responsibility gives us the confidence we need to live boldly for Jesus.
7. **A Personal, Corporate Faith:** Our walk with God is both deeply personal and necessarily communal.
8. **Refusing the Feast:** What prevents us from enjoying the gift of God's Word?
9. **Authentic, Habitual Prayer:** God has spoken to us, but how should we respond?
10. **The Power of God Now and Later:** How the already-not-yet tension motivates us to live with purpose and hope.
11. **Real Feelings, Real Obedience:** How can we be obedient while maintaining emotional authenticity?
12. **God's Will and Our Will:** Getting connected to Spirit-filled communities that avoid both passive waiting and exhausting self-reliance.

From Starting to Deepening

When you first created your Life Plan, you were responding to the initial paradoxes. After more weeks of study, conversation, and following Jesus, you've gained important insights:

• Deeper understanding of your identity in Christ
• A clearer perspective on how God works through Christian community
• Practical experience from trying new spiritual disciplines
• Greater awareness of your growth areas
• Real-world testing of your initial commitments

There are usually a few areas where our good intentions were quickly forgotten, but also some surprising growth we didn't even try to accomplish. God works in us according to his grace, even as we attempt to respond in faith.

Whether you're excited or discouraged, now is the time to take stock of what you've learned about God, yourself, your community, and your life's purpose.

Refining Your Life Plan

Using your original Life Plan as a starting point, consider these refinements:

**Section 1: God Loves Me, So I Love God**

"As the Father has loved me, I have also loved you. Remain in my love" (John 15:9)

Reflection: - How has your experience of God's love deepened? - What practices have become essential versus optional? - How could you grow in emotional honesty with God? - What habits draw you close to God? Which ones push you away?

**Section 2: God Loves Me, So I Love Others**

"Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another" (1 John 4:11)

Reflection: - Where have you seen faith leading to faithfulness? - What relationships need more intentional investment? - In what ways are you relationally disconnected? - Would it be healthy to create more time for yourself, apart from your community?

**Section 3: Priority Areas**

"For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do" (Ephesians 2:10).

Reflection: - Sins you want to leave behind - Developing the fruit of the Spirit - Stewarding a gift God has entrusted to you - Prioritizing an important relationship - Trusting God's care for you in uncertain circumstances

Life Is Sustainable

As I read the Gospels, Jesus doesn't seem to burden his followers with three thousand rules. He keeps their focus on the main thing: loving God and loving their neighbors as they follow him. A Life Plan should be life-giving!

As you refine your Life Plan, remember these principles:

**Start Small, Stay Consistent:** It's far better to maintain three meaningful practices than abandon twelve ambitious ones.

**God's Grace Changes Us:** When a Life Plan reminds us of God's love, it motivates us to love others. When a Life Plan becomes a legalistic burden, it crushes us with guilt and shame.

**We're Made For Community:** In an individualistic age, we often try to implement self-help guidance on our own. God invites us to experience life with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

**Faithfulness Involves Wisdom:** The Life Plan I needed when I was a single campus minister is different from what I'm focusing on as a husband, father, and minister. What are the wise priorities in your current circumstances?

**Christ-Focused:** Ensure that every component points you toward a deeper love for God and others.

Concluding Scripture

"And I pray this: that your love will keep on growing in knowledge and every kind of discernment, so that you may approve the things that are superior and may be pure and blameless in the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God" (Philippians 1:9-11).