CORAM DEO MONDAYS with MARISA

“Think often on God, by day, by night, in your business, and even in your diversions.  He is always near you and with you; leave Him not alone.  You would think it rude to leave a friend alone who came to visit you; why, then, must God be neglected?  Do not, then, forget Him, but think on Him often, adore Him continually, live and die with Him; this is the glorious employment of a Christian.  In a word, this is our profession; if we do not know it, we must learn it.”                       
-Brother Lawrence, 17th Century Monk

God never intended for us to emulate Christ’s walk without first imitating Christ’s continual focus.  Christ’s heart and mind were simply not centered on His walk.  They were constantly trained upon His Father.  He lived coram Deo—before the face of God.  Living coram Deo is not about self-control, heart-control, and mind-control.  It’s all about where our heart, mind, soul, and strength are focused.  It’s not about self at all.  It’s all about self being buried, hidden, and fully occupied by Christ Who is in us.  It’s not about reaching inside to find what it takes to live more like Christ.  It’s about pouring out every last drop of self so that Christ Himself can fill us with an endless overflow of all that He has and is.

Jesus was completely coram Deo all the time.  Indeed, His ‘self’ was crucified long before His body was.  That’s because the eyes of His heart were not on self but on the Father.  That was the key to His walk, and it is the key to our walk, also.  We see this truth in the key verse for this book that we will be referring to often, Colossians 3:1-3.  The very thing we are told to do in this verse is the very thing that Christ did while He walked on this earth.  He set His heart and mind on things above:

“Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.  Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.  For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.”

Adapted from the Coram Deo Secret
http://www.marisarickerson.com/coram-deo.html

CORAM DEO MONDAYS with MARISA

“Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.” 
1 Jn. 2:6

How in the world are we to walk as Jesus did?  To what extent are we to fulfill this instruction found in today’s key verse?  Has God really said, “Walk like Jesus?”  Surely He did not really expect us to do it?! Many of us have labored much of our Christian lives to achieve a watered down version of Christ’s walk.  We do good deeds and set a good Christian example, yet fizzle out and fall short. 

When we consider the life of Christ, we see that out of all the men in history, He has been the only One who lived coram Deo every minute of every day.  And now that same Jesus lives in us, empowering us toward the same kind of coram Deo walk that He had. Let’s read Christ’s very own statements: 

“It is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work…I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me…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 also does…I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent me…By myself I can do nothing.” Jn 14:10b, Jn. 14:31, Jn. 5:19, Jn. 5:30 (NASB)

If Jesus, the One through whom all things were created, declared, “By myself I can do nothing,” how much more so should we declare this?  If Jesus, the very image of the invisible God, watched the Father intently to see what He was doing because He could “do nothing by himself,” how much more should we?! (Col. 1:15)  If Jesus, God in the flesh, did nothing on His own will, how much more so should we?  We were re-created to walk this way.  We can do it; to walk any other way is contrary to our new nature. (Joyner Message to Glorious Church 2004) 

Adapted from the Coram Deo Secret
http://www.marisarickerson.com/coram-deo.html

CORAM DEO MONDAYS with MARISA


The phrase, “Carpe Diem” was popular during the 80’s and 90’s. It was Latin for “live for the moment.” I remember trying to live this way, but after consistently falling short, I decided this goal was just too lofty. If I thought living carpe diem was too lofty of a goal, then what am I doing writing about the exponentially loftier goal of living coram Deo—before the face of God— each moment?! This time the power source is different: it’s God, not self. The focus is different: it’s God, not self.

Carpe diem meant to live in the moment by basking in life’s goodness. Coram Deo means to live each moment basking in the goodness and Presence of our Lord.

Carpe diem meant to live our own life to the fullest each moment. Coram Deo means to fully bury our life in Christ each moment so that we might have His life to the full.

Carpe diem meant to pursue our dreams moment by moment. Coram Deo means to pursue God’s desires moment by moment by keeping in step with His Spirit who lives in us.

Carpe diem’s beginning and end was self. Coram Deo not only originates with God, but is perpetuated by God’s power as well. Living coram Deo is about taking our heart’s eyes off self and setting them only on Him.

Understanding and applying truth from God does not take place “with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.” (1 Co. 2:4, 5) We activate God’s power in our lives simply through faith—faith that continually yields to Him. If we try to attain such an impossible goal of living coram Deo through human effort, His Word says we are foolish. ( Gal. 3:3) It simply cannot be done. All our labor will be in vain.


Adapted from the Coram Deo Secret
http://www.marisarickerson.com/coram-deo.html

CORAM DEO MONDAYS with MARISA

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  “One is pronounced blessed when God is present and involved in his life. The hand of God is at work, directing all of his affairs for a divine purpose and thus, in a sense, such a person lives coram Deo, before the face of God.”  – 16th century reformer



Why is it so easy to be so centered on God while we are worshiping or praying or attending a conference, but so hard to keep that same focus when we leave to go about our daily business? Most concede that because of our humanity, our sin nature, and this fallen world, we just can't possibly live focused on God like that.

The Lord had taken me through a 40-day fast. This had required my heart’s eyes to be trained on God nearly every moment in order to make it. So for months after the fast my heart had not been satisfied with that concession. If it was possible to have a heart wholly focused on Christ now that the fast was over I wanted like nothing else to find out how to do it.

I was not expecting God to reveal it all at once, in one simple 2-word phrase. But He did. The simple phrase was coram Deo, Latin for “before the face of God.”

The whisper of God’s Spirit was like a deafening, consuming roar as He made it plain that living before the face of God moment by moment, thought by thought, action by action, was the way we were born again in Christ to live. At that very moment I resolved to live coram Deo with all my heart, all my mind, all my soul, and all my strength. Every minute. Every breath. Coram Deo!