Follow the pattern

"Follow the pattern of sound words you heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus."
(2 Timothy 1:13)

I keep thinking of this as I reflect on both the story of Moses making the tabernacle, and with regard to this week's theme in the Spiritual Formation Class of "Redemption and Law", which was our beginning to grapple with grace and law. What is our relationship to the commandments, to the moral teaching of the New Testament. It seems we are undermined when we start to consider conforming our lives to Christ with specific actions because we hear in the background, "You'll become a legalist."

"Follow the pattern." That's what God told Moses to do. And when he finished the work God filled it with his presence and glory. There is something about following the pattern of sound words that we have received from the apostles and prophets.

If we pattern our lives according to these words, and do it in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus, then there will be a fullness of God in us and through us (Ephesians 3:19), and all that God has given us and all that God intends for us will come to fullness in him. There is something to the idea that fullness follows form. That there is a pattern of godly living, of Christlikeness, that we don't just make up as we go along. The sound words are, literally, "healthy" words. They are the words of wholeness and healing, of integrity and solidity.

We began this walk by obeying a call to follow. Let us continue wholeheartedly, step by step, following the pattern, and putting in place the substance and form in our lives to which the pattern instructs us. It's not that God is not with us if our lives are in disaray, and without healthy form; God was with Israel. But somehow his presence becomes more manifest, more readily displayed, even as our lives become more effective transmitters of the light, and less broken-down containers of precious treasure.