If you have been following these posts, you know I’ve compared “dead” humans to dead cell phones that have lost their signal. (You can read all the posts in the right order HERE.)  In Isaiah 57:15, God said He wants to connect us to the signal of His Spirit and “revive us,” bring us to life.  (See “In a Nutshell”)  The problem with that analogy is that humans think and decide; cell phones are machines and only do what they are told.  God did not create us to be robots who blindly follow rules, but to be connected to Him by His Spirit in a harmonious way.  Here’s how He described the process of “reviving” us to Ezekiel:

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. Ezekiel 36:26-27

God’s plan is not to control us like machines, but to “move us,” from the inside out, by giving His Spirit in us to motivate our new, responsive hearts.  See that?  Here’s how Paul describes it:

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will,  Romans 12:2

The end result of this process of being “revived” by God’s Spirit, is not to become automatons who woodenly follow God’s rules, but living beings who, by being in tune with God, act in sympathy with His principles.

A shot from a 2006 performance by Peter Brötzmann, a key figure and doyen in European free jazz (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Time for a different analogy:  Beginning music students study and practice scales, because in music, scales are the “rules.”  Accomplished jazz musicians improvise in harmony with one another, not by playing scales, but by following the principles of the scales to make their music “work” together.  When a jazz musician plays a solo in a particularly harmonious and exciting way, the others say “That was righteous!”  God isn’t looking for robotic obedience to the rules, He’s looking for people who are in harmony with Him and with His principles, so much so that the way they improvise in life is “righteous.”

Chew on that…