My people will fax your people?

Synergy--What is it? Today it has become a common business buzz word. "Let's get our companies together and create some synergy. My people will fax your people. We'll do lunch." The word has come to represent the cooperation necessary to create bigger and better business and profits. The truth is, however, that synergy is not a product of multinational capitalism. The idea has been around for centuries, and synergy was originally used by some of the ancient Christian writers to describe the cooperation that must go on between a person and almighty God if that person is ever to be transformed into the image of Jesus Christ.

The amazing message of the Christian gospel continues to be that all people are called to perfect union with God which is accomplished in synergy, the cooperation of our created will with the perfect will of God. It seems rather simple: the more we learn to cooperate with God, the closer we get to him. We actually are able to come into union with the triune creator of the universe.

Undoubtedly, it is the grace of God that sends his Spirit and begins to stir our hearts toward belief, or repentance, or newness of thought and attitude, but we must be willing to walk in the Spirit, to cooperate with--and not insult--the Spirit of Grace. That synergy begins to manifest a greater sense of the presence and power of God in our lives.

Jesus said it like this: "On that day you will realise that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and obeys them will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him. ... If anybody love me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him" (John 14:20-23). Cooperation leads to obedience, and obedience leads to union -- "I am in my Father, you are in me, I am in you." Awesome! As we learn to cooperate with the Holy Spirit, we are actually called to participate in a life with the trinity. That's much bigger than just "getting saved to avoid eternal damnation."

Paul writes to the Philippians and says it this way: "...continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose." That's synergy: work out ... because God is working in. Learn to cooperate with him and watch him do marvelous things in and through you.

Much of the teaching in modern Christianity is very individualistic. We set out what we want to do, then ask God to bless it, or try to walk in his favour, so that things always turn out well for us. Jesus' example seems to be much more dependent on learning to move as the Father moved: "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son does also" (John 5:19).

This sounds a lot like the way that God led the people of Israel when they were in the wilderness. "On the day the tabernacle, the Tent of the Testimony, was set up, the cloud covered it. From evening till morning the cloud above the tabernacle looked like fire. That is how it continued to be; the cloud covered it, and at night it looked like fire. Whenever the cloud lifted from above the Tent, the Israelites set out; wherever the cloud settled, the Israelites encamped. At the Lord's command the Israelites set out, and at his command they encamped. As long as the cloud stayed over the tabernacle, they remained in camp. When the cloud remained over the tabernacle a long time, the Israelites obeyed the Lord's order and did not set out. Sometimes the cloud was over the tabernacle only a few days; at the Lord's command they would encamp, and then at his command they would set out. Sometimes the cloud stayed only from evening till morning, and when it lifted in the morning, they set out. Whether by day or by night, whenever the cloud lifted, they set out. Whether the cloud stayed over the tabernacle for two days or a month or a year, the Israelites would remain in camp and not set out; but when it lifted, they would set out. At the Lord's command they encamped, and at the Lord's command they set out. They obeyed the Lord's order, in accordance with his command through Moses" (Numbers 9:15-23).

Sometimes a day, sometimes a month -- the secret was staying in step with what God was doing. Not always the same way twice, not a sense of "this is the way we've always done it here". Learning that lesson doesn't happen in a few days, or through "seven easy steps". The life of spiritual synergy is the pursuit of a lifetime. It's an ever-deepening hunger for union with God and transformation into the image of Christ. I'm only just beginning to understand what it really means to cooperate with God in every aspect of life. But, like the apostle Paul, I am "forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead" (Philippians 3:13). Such a life surely must be worth the strain!