WHAT IS YOUR ADDICTION? HERE IS MINE.

True or False...

1.  I have blind spots.

2.  It is not good for me to have them.

3.  Blind spots lead me into confusion.

4.  It is not good for me to be apathetic about my blind spots.

5.  I can't see them and need your help.

6.  It is good for me to be glad for your help.

7.  It is good for me to want, welcome, invite and pray for this help.

8.  I am addicted to minimizing the seriousness of my blind spots.

9.  All humans are like I am on the above 8 points.

10. I am on a high energy search to discover my blind spots.

Are you with me on number 10?

Do you want to be honest about your addiction?

If you are interested in being honest about your blind spots, and becoming sensitive to your addiction to minimizing them, then I suggest a simple starting point for application. This will be painful to your pride but a real blessing to the people around you. Pray regularly variations of the following. The following is a bit long for effect, but short pieces of conversation with God are good. There is no need to be formal; simply talk to God as if he were right next to you. The point is to learn to become sensitive to you weakness and need for community--for God and others. Notice as you read the following if you hear a voice telling you that you don't really need this. 

"Father, thank you that Jesus is all my righteousness, holiness and wisdom. Thank you that Jesus has carried all my condemnation, shame and guilt. Thank you that my weakness is the place where your strength is made perfect. Thank you that Jesus is my new identity and that I don't need to pretend to be someone that I am not.  Thank you for helping me realize that it is not good for me to have blind spots because they lead me into confusion. Thank you that you are always with me even when I get tricked by my pride into confusion. Thank you for giving me other people to remind me of your goodness and to help me notice my blind spots. Thank you that critics are always good for me to help me discover more of my blind spots or to reveal my defensiveness or other character flaws. Thank you that critics are good for me even when they have a bad attitude or are completely wrong. 

"Thank you that you are my defender and you don't need my help. Thank you for declaring in the scriptures that a wise person always responds in love toward critics, even harsh ones, and that it is fools who have bad reactions. I admit that I am addicted to minimizing the seriousness of my blind spots. It seems that I often would rather be a fool than a wise person and would rather mistreat a person Christ died for than to doubt my own virtue or rightness. You have sent me saints to help me grow in wisdom and I have many times mocked them in telling them that they didn't need to remind me. I have many times been irritated or angry at your dear saints for criticizing me, even the ones I realized later had valid criticism. This is not good and is a huge blind spot. Thank you that even when I mistreat people you value highly, you never condemn me, shake your finger at me or stop rejoicing over me in Christ. Even when the critic is wrong, a wise person would have listened closely and been glad and thankful that the person cared enough to offer help, and risk getting rejected. Thank you for being patient with me and not treating me like I treat others. Thank you that you don't keep score on my critics even though I too often do. I wonder if some people have given up on offering me insight because I have been so dismissive or irritated toward them in the past. I am concerned about the blind spots of other people, and get critical that they don't seem to want to be honest about them. So why am I so insensitive about my own blind spots? Do I think I am above correction, or am I just afraid of admitting that I am weak and need other people? This is a big problem in my life and is hindering my relationship with others. 

"Please bring me some critics to help me notice some blind spots and especially to help me become sensitive to my prideful defensiveness about my blind spots. And please bring me one friend whom I can trust to be gentle so that I can invite that person to point out my blind spots. I would like to start slow, so please be gentle with me. But if I am so prideful that gentleness won't work, then please do whatever it takes to soften my heart. Thank you that your ways are always good. In Jesus Christ I pray. Amen."  

Questions for reflection

• Can you remember a time when you attempted to offer someone a gentle suggestion and the person responded in a defensive way?
• Did you appreciate that defensive reaction? Did you think it was good?
• How did it affect you?
• Think back to a recent time that someone criticized you. Did you welcome the criticism as an opportunity to grow in understanding? Or did you react defensively as if it were a threat to your security or rightness?
• Would that critic tell me that he felt warmly welcomed when offering you his criticism?
• Would that critic tell me that you made it easy or difficult for him to offer his insight?
• Think back again, but this time as long ago as it takes to a time when you invited someone to offer you an insight or an opinion. Notice if you can even remember having this experience.
• Can you remember asking a person for their criticism, insight or opinion when you were confident the person was going to disagree with you or point out your weakness?

Self-honesty is the point of these questions. Likely only God heard your answers. We all have room to grow in this area, but I suggest we each need to come to a place of embracing our need to grow rather than remaining unaware or apathetic about that need. It is obvious that we all do need to grow, and all do grow at some pace, even if we are unaware of it. The point of this writing is that it is good to actively embrace that need and become aware of our addiction to suppressing, resisting and hindering growth in this area.

Certainly those who are close to me would appreciate me gladly inviting their suggestions, insights, and criticism and asking clarifying questions instead of resisting and hindering such conversations. As mature adults we should be able to thrive on criticism. I read somewhere recently that only children take offense; mature adults don't. What does that say about your maturity level?

HOLINESS AND WORLDLINESS - WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE?

Holiness simply means to be set apart or to be different. Different from what? Different from the world. Both holiness and worldliness are about focus. Worldliness is about focusing on imperfect human effort. Holiness is different in that it is about focusing on perfection which is embodied only in Jesus. Jesus is enough for all of life.

Holiness is about the experience of being aware that Jesus is enough--that both 1) his perfection is the only good measuring stick and 2) his death is the only good resolution for the problem of human failure. This easily and naturally applies to all human relationships in all circumstances. Life flows freely from a heart while it is satisfied with goodness. A satisfied heart doesn't struggle, but rather responds to others as valuable people. This is what it means to be human.

Worldliness is the distortion of what it means to be human. It is a focus that doesn't see the whole picture of life, that only perfection is good. Life becomes a check list of good and bad thoughts and actions. I doubt that  you appreciate people seeing you as part of their check list. No one does, but there is no other way to function when perfection is not in view. Goodness is shattered and the only way forward is to try to pick up the pieces one by one. Trying mocks doing, mocks our humanity, and mocks goodness. It bears the ugly fruit of the works of the flesh (Gal 5:19-21). Worldliness denies goodness as a real experience.

Humans live only in the current moment. Therefore, in the current moment we either see life as a check list of ideals (kindness, patience, self-control, love) to strive for, or as perfect goodness to experience now. As you notice human behavior, do you occasionally get distracted into forgetting the big picture that goodness includes perfection, or do you always maintain awareness that only perfection is good? Where is your focus? You can't do perfection, nor can anybody around you. But Jesus did, and his life flows out of you when you simply focus on His goodness (His perfection and His sacrifice for sin). Trying is like a hamster wheel. Only the hamster thinks he is getting somewhere.

Note: In a recent sermon (listen here) in Hebrews 10, I explained how the world is all about trying and how trying is a lie. The sermon visual aid (white board photo) can be seen here by scrolling down to Hebrews#35.

CAN YOU DRIFT AWAY FROM GRACE? SOME SURPRISES

"Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it." -Hebrews 2:1

I have had true Christians tell me that reading the Letter to the Hebrews troubles them. Some have called it scary. If I remember correctly, some have even admitted to avoiding it. Have you ever had these thoughts or heard others say such things? If the gospel is so beautiful and so powerful, then why do true Christians have this response to reading this inspired letter? I have heard this about the letter of First John as well.

Who is the Audience?

The Letter to the Hebrews was written to the community of Jewish Christians living around Jerusalem between Pentecost and the destruction of the Jewish temple and its rituals. That community had been previously under the law of Moses for centuries and had recently been freed by Jesus to live in unmerited favor. They were surrounded by pressure to go back to the old ways. 

Which Message is Superior?

The message of Jesus is about His faithfulness and His work of "putting away sin by the sacrifice of Himself." The message given by angels to Moses at Mt Sinai was of personal faithfulness and the work of the temple system to take away sin. Jesus sits in authority and the angels are merely servants. Therefore since Jesus is greater, His message overrides the old message. 

Is it Good to Get Confused about the Two Messages?

It is never good to be confused about anything, but since Satan is the author of confusion, it certainly is possible to get muddleheaded about what is good. It is easy to get fooled about how law and gospel fit together. It would have been especially easy if one lived in the neighborhood of the beautiful Jewish Temple with its old, respected, and inspired system of sacrifices and rituals.

Confusion in the Word Must

The little word must has two general senses. It is commonly used as some form of threat. "You must give me your money or I will shoot you." "You must clean your plate or you won't get ice cream." "You must give that back because I had it first." "You must change or I won't forgive you." Do you hear the threat in these statements. Another common meaning, that isn't so noticeable, relates to what is natural, fitting, or proper. "You must get here before noon if you want to see your grandmother, as her ride to the airport leaves at noon." There is no threat in this kind of statement. It is simply a declaration of how consequences naturally follow actions. The latter is the true sense in our verse. Those who unwittingly read this verse in the threat sense, can easily turn this verse into a command from God. But this verse is simply helping to set the stage for the first command (3:1). That command naturally follows chapters one and two.

Is it Possible to Drift Away?

 Is it possible to drift away? How confident are of your answer? Let me paraphrase this verse, but set it in the negative for emphasis and clarity. "In light of the above reasons, it is not good, fitting or right for us to not give more careful attention to the message of Jesus, that He has put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, lest we drift away." I suggest that drifting away is a far greater and more common problem than we think. Have you ever wondered if you or someone else might be guilty of drifting away? Have you ever thought that you need to be careful to not drift away? Have you ever thought that you can't drift away? The surprise is that it is not something that we do but rather something that happens to us naturally.  

Notice that the verse states that drifting away is the fruit of neglecting to do something else. That something is to give careful attention to the message of grace. In short, drifting away is the natural consequence of not considering the work of Christ. To be even more blunt, you do drift away when you don't consider grace. I drift away often every day. I don't intend to drift away, but it is the natural result of forgetting to see in the moment through the lens of grace. It takes practice to notice that it is this simple.

Here are some examples. When a preacher declares that people must be careful to not drift away, he has already drifted away himself, because he has unwittingly not considered that it is Jesus' job to keep a person from drifting away. When you sin in any way, you have already drifted away from grace. When you are looking at life through the telescope of grace, it is impossible for you to sin. You can't keep yourself from sinning or drifting away, but God can—WHILE you are considering grace properly.

Where Does Salvation Fit?

Salvation is like marriage. Marriage doesn't end with the ceremony; it begins there. In the same way salvation is a new kind of life, relationship, or identity with God—one of unmerited favor. It begins in the moment of conversion and continues on forever. It begins when one for the first time finds satisfaction in God's goodness or faithfulness without holding in reserve any satisfaction in one's own faithfulness. We are all born with our faithfulness in the equation of life. After conversion, only Jesus' faithfulness is in the equation. Thus Christianity is life in the faithfulness of Christ free from the pressure of pretended personal faithfulness. No one is faithful when compared to Christ, so let's get over ourselves. 

Since all Christians have their identity purely in Christ's faithfulness, it is impossible to drift away from one's own identity in grace. Period. If you think otherwise then you have been tricked into thinking that there is some merited favor in the Christian life. It is Jesus' job to keep you from drifting away and, unlike you, He handles His job perfectly. Satan has created many counterfeits and many of God's dear children have been tricked to see counterfeits where there is pure grace. I am currently preaching through Hebrews and in my first sermon declared that I plan to shine the bright light of the gospel on every scary verse so as to reveal the glory of the cross and remove all scariness for the Christian, all the while maintaining that God is a consuming fire. This includes chapters 3, 4, 10, 12, and especially 6:4-6. An article on the last one is almost finished and should appear here soon. Counterfeits, counterfeits, counterfeits. Let's put the blame where it belongs: on us for being fooled by the counterfeits. I have much experience here. Do you?

Whose Faithfulness Do You Consider?

Let's get real. Whose faithfulness are you considering right now? It is never good to be unfaithful. Therefore only perfect faithfulness is good. It is not good to have expectations that are not good. Therefore goodness includes expectation of perfect faithfulness. This makes it simple to realize that 1) only God's faithfulness counts, and 2) it is a deception to expect flawed human faithfulness to count. But the spiritual battle rages—the flesh versus the spirit—flawed human faithfulness versus God's faithfulness—trying to do good versus success at doing good. In the heat of the moment the pressure is on to drift from a vision of perfect faithfulness into Satan's counterfeit of flawed human faithfulness. We need to retrain our minds to what is good if we are to stand firm in God's faithfulness and not drift away into valuing counterfeit faithfulness. If you want to prepare your mind for battle, I would suggest frequent prayer of thankfulness for what God declares to be good, for example:

"Father in heaven, thank you for calling me to always value what is good. Thank you for making your faithfulness is to be all my satisfaction even when I fail or other people fail. Thank you for calling me to remember your faithfulness and to remind others of your faithfulness. Thank you for making Christianity to be the community of satisfaction in your goodness. Thank you that it is your job to keep me from drifting away. Thank you that your Son fully put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, and that he did this without my help. Thank you for making sin to be overcome easily by a vision that only perfect faithfulness counts. Thank you for making my job to be simple—to consider your Son's faithfulness at the cross as the only hope for anyone in any situation."   

Consider Jesus the high priest of our confession, that "He has put away sin by the sacrifice of himself."

A LIE ABOUT GRACE: SIN DOESN'T MATTER ANYMORE

The Lie: Grace Means That Sin Doesn't Matter Anymore

Have you ever heard the accusation something like, "So you are telling me that because of grace sin doesn't matter anymore?" I hear this commonly when witnessing in my openly religious culture. What is interesting is that I have heard it many times from true Christians. Why would a Christian say this? I suggest that Satan is real. He continually slanders God's character, seeking to get people (like me) to swallow his slander. Once I swallow it, I become confused. I then easily and unwittingly speak that confusion about God to others. I suggest that we Christians do this far more than we admit. The above lie is simply the fruit of a much bigger lie. That lie concerns the meaning of the word grace. God is full of grace. My religious culture declares this but then quickly adds two restrictions: (1) but you can't just do what you want, and (2) it is important to realize that God doesn't require a person to be flawless now. What is meant by these two limitations on grace is that God's grace doesn't actually free a person from the authority of the law [the obligation to keep it], and that God is lenient and the giver of many chances for a person to become a law keeper by personal righteousness. This attitude surrounds me.

The Foundational Lie: Grace Equals Leniency

Leniency is the lowering of standards. It keeps the possibility of success still within reach. Expectations remain manageable and control remains in human hands. Motivation to do good retains an aspect of pressure to perform—the obligation of some form of law. And some kind of judgment still hangs in the air in case of failure—even just the possibility that God will be displeased with you as a person. My jail bird friends never want grace from the judge; they want leniency. They don't want the judge to be fully honest about their failings and what their failings deserve. They want the judge to cut them some slack, to lessen the seriousness of their wrongs, and minimize their punishment—five months of probation instead of five years in prison. They don't really like probation as it isn't freedom, but they do prefer it to prison. Satan and human religion both preach leniency. They hate true grace and so counterfeit it with leniency which results in manageability. So, what is true grace?

The Foundational Truth: Grace Always Honors Perfect Love

God is love. To declare this doesn't mean that God compromises His standards of flawlessness in order to honor the prideful human desire to find hope in human performance. God is perfect love and "is well pleased for His righteousness sake to exalt the law and make it glorious." (Isaiah 42:21) God thinks in terms of goodness, which includes flawless law and perfect love. He can compromise neither. Earthly judges may compromise, but God cannot. He always thinks and acts in a way that honors the perfection of both law and love. To compromise perfect love is not grace but rather leniency. In the Old Testament this is called idolatry and spiritual prostitution. God is not an idol. He is not a prostitute. From the beginning people have perverted their understanding of God's goodness and sought to relate to Him as if He were an idol or a spiritual prostitute. They sought to manage their relationship with Him by cheapening standards. Freedom with God comes with seeing perfect love clearly. This includes seeing that both grace and sin are unmanageable and out of our control.

Honesty About Grace

Grace always says several things. First, that only perfect love counts with God. Second, that sin is so serious that no human can manage it. Third, that Jesus is the only good sin manager and He managed it fully at the cross. And fourth, that a vision of perfect love is a more than sufficient motivation to good works. I suggest that if you are seeing grace as a relationship of total freedom from merit because of the work of Christ, then you will also speak these things. Since Jesus declared that out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks, we can trust that what comes out of any of us flows from the set of our heart in the moment. Sinful words or behavior as well as words of leniency overflow from a heart distracted from true grace.

Grace in Practice: An Example

Let's say that you sin against me and that I notice it. Let's now add to the mix that in the moment you mistreat me I happen to be meditating on grace as explained above. It is also important to assume that in that moment I don't get distracted from grace by the voice of the world (James 1:14, 25). What will be my reaction when my mind is on true grace? I suggest that my response will be quick and multi-faceted. I will notice your specific failure and that you didn't love perfectly. I will notice it with compassion rather than self-protectiveness, being aware that I am also a failure who doesn't love perfectly. I will be at peace realizing that Christ has taken care of your sin fully at the cross. In not having a plank in my eye (Matthew 7:1ff), I will be able to see clearly to help you with the speck in your eye. I will know that the speck is forgetfulness of perfect love (required and given freely by Christ). Any words that I speak will gently point you back to perfect love revealed in the finished work of Christ. You may embrace those words or resist them. My role is to see you as a brother and not lose focus myself, remembering together grace, with the goal of restoring your vision—as long as it takes. Restoration to a vision of grace (perfect love and flawless law revealed in the finished work of Christ) will bear the fruit of the Spirit and free flowing admissions of failure.

Seeing Past a False Impression of Grace

Sometimes a Christian can give the impression that since grace is true, sin doesn't matter anymore. But this is a false impression. Here is the cause. The world is all about being the sin manager for self and all others. Some people are simply more lenient than others at their scorekeeping and don't appear to be keeping score, but they are. A vision of perfect love takes the scorecard out of human hands. For some saints it is a huge relief—a real burden lifted—to be free from being the sin manager of self and others. Sometimes their expressions of grace flow from that sense of relief and they want to communicate that sense of relief not realizing that their words can be misunderstood by hearers who don't yet appreciate that grace includes the understanding that nothing but perfect love is acceptable to God. Such a hearer can get the false impression that the person is saying that sin is no big deal, all the while the speaker is actually thinking (1) that sin is such a big deal that only Christ can handle it, (2) that He handled it completely at the cross and doesn't need our help, (3) that only flawless obedience counts with God, and (4) it is wonderful freedom to not need to pressure self and others to try to stop sinning. The speaker may also be thinking that sin is caused by being distracted from grace. The speaker is feeling such relief at number 4 that that may be all that is mentioned. The speaker has rightly maximized sin, but the hearer may judge wrongly that the speaker is minimizing sin—being lenient. In drawing this conclusion, the hearer is being lenient himself, because if he had maximized sin by thinking perfect love, he would have realized the first three points and gladly requested clarification rather than jumping to conclusions. We all fumble with words at times. Let's give others the benefit of the doubt and learn to ask clarifying questions.

Responsibility to Communicate Grace Clearly

Grace is glorious. Grace is powerfully motivational. The adversary is real and actively seeking to confuse and obfuscate the message of perfect love. We Christians need to take our responsibility as God's ambassadors of reconciliation seriously and learn to express the nuances of grace for the benefit of our hearers. They can't hear our thoughts, but only our words. Communication of grace is a spiritual battle unlike a chemistry lecture. In realizing this, I plan to be alert to seek to always preface my explanations of grace with some form of the following words to reduce potential conflict and the slide into leniency.

Grace always declares that sin matters uncompromisingly to God, that He has a zero tolerance for sin, that only perfect love counts with Him, and therefore total freedom from the pressure of merit is the only good way to have a relationship with God. This freedom was provided by the finished work of Christ.

WHO IS YOUR SIN MANAGER?

God has a zero tolerance for sin. Every nuance of every violation of perfect love is seen by Him. If He turns a blind eye to it and has no reaction against it then He is not good. What is His reaction? "He passed over all sin to demonstrate His righteousness at the cross." (Romans 3:25f) This applies to Goliath, who mocked God and was killed by David, and to the people of Israel who died by snake bite for complaining against God. This verse reveals that the physical judgments on these people didn't really show how serious God was about sin. And this applies to all your sins and to all the sins of all those who mistreat you.

From the positive side we can say that God is perfect love and thus loves perfectly. He also requires continuous perfect love of all people, because that is what is good. How do you think I am doing? How are you doing? How are those who rub you the wrong way doing? We try to manager our own and each other's sins by the pressure of correction, criticism, reminders of failure, threats of various kinds, expressed displeasure, and more. Isn't improvement what we long to see? What does God desire to see? Perfect love.

I suggest that seeking to be my own sin manager results in self-righteousness, hypocrisy, and judgmentalism. And do you really appreciate me acting like I am your sin manager? If not, then why do you seek to be the sin manager for others? The way of freedom is not to pretend to not notice sin, but rather to point self and all others to what what God sees: perfect love required and offered as a gift in Christ. Wouldn't it be a relief when you fail, to have a friend to remind you of what Christ did for you on the cross? Then you could freely admit failure without a sense of condemnation.

I also suggest that the first step in helping others deal honestly with their failures is to admit that what we really want is for them to stop bothering us. A good second step might be a prayer of thankfulness that Jesus at the cross managed all sin and that it is a done deal for that person. Then the third step will naturally follow: to gladly point the other person to the finished work of Christ and the standard of perfect love. It might surprise us how quickly others will admit failure and the need to change in light of gazing upon their identity in perfect love.

LET'S TALK HONESTLY ABOUT THE LAW

The Law is Good

The law is good. It is very important to make clear that the moral law written on the conscience is good, and that the culturally specific application given by God to Israel--The Law of Moses--is also good. Jesus declared that all the laws and the prophets hang on one central point: "In everything, therefore, treat people the same way as you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets." -Matthew 7:12 Do you agree that it is good to treat others as you would like to be treated?

 

Every Point of the Law is Good

In the above verse Jesus declares that the principle of the Golden Rule applies in absolutely every situation. Do you agree that there is no exception to this rule? This means that God and your conscience have zero tolerance for you ever holding a grudge, ever being impatience with a careless driver, ever being irritated with a fellow Christian who rubs you the wrong way, ever being frustrated with your spouse, children, or parents, and certainly ever thinking about getting revenge. Zero tolerance for sin is good. What is your tolerance level for sin? 
 

The wholeness of the Law is Good

When you think of the law of God, the commands of Jesus, or the voice of your conscience, how do you interpret that information? Do you start with the individual points that you perceive and then slowly expand the scope of your evaluation, or do you see life as a whole and evaluate each point that you notice in light of the whole? In Deuteronomy 4 God told the Israelites that they were not to add to or take away from the commands of God, but were to keep them all. Shortly after in the same speech Moses told the people, "It will be our righteousness if we are careful to observe ALL this commandment before the Lord, just as He commanded us."-Deut. 6:25 We also read in Jesus most famous sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, "Be ye therefore perfect just as your heavenly father is perfect." -Matthew 5:48 And we read the same thing in James, "He who keeps the whole law and breaks one point, is guilty of all." -James 2:10.

As mentioned above, The Bible says that God has written the moral law on the conscience of all people (Romans 1:19). Do you think that is true? If that is true and if that knowledge is accessible, then we should be able to discuss and evaluate together what is good. Does that intuitive understanding include the principle that goodness requires perfect obedience? In witnessing to students at USU I have many times shown them a card containing the following question and asked for their response.

True or false....

It is good to love your neighbor 99.99% of the time

AND

to abuse your neighbor 0.01% of the time

Students identifying themselves as atheists are generally lightning quick to answer that the statement is false because it is never good to abuse one's neighbor. They often have an edge in their voice that I suspect is a criticism of the hypocrisy they observe in the religious crowd. It is not uncommon for the traditionally religious students to squirm under the pressure of the question, because they don't want to admit that they are not good. It seems clear to me after hundreds of conversations with non-Christians that it is intuitively obvious in the human conscience that it is never good to do wrong and that goodness is a seamless whole.

It is Never Good to Dishonor the Wholeness of the Law or Any Point of It

Are you persuaded that God always wants the law to be honored in every point and in its wholeness? Do you think that God desires us to think that way, too? Do you think that God desires us to ever suppress the beauty of the wholeness of the law? I suggest that this is the key to unlocking spiritual blindness and to growing in personal and spiritual maturity. "The Lord is well-pleased for His righteousness sake; He will exalt the law and make it honorable."-Isaiah 42:21 The honor of the God's law is God's delight. Is it yours? Do you agree that God always sees every individual thought and action of every person in such a way that the honor the wholeness of the law is in view to Him? Do you think that it is good for us to neglect the honor of the wholeness of the law when we evaluate its individual points? It is possible to view individual points of the law, but in doing so there is great temptation to forget the law's wholeness. 

 

It is Never Good to Leave Goodness Undone

Several years ago I had a conversation with Alex, who said he was Jewish, an atheist, and a philosophy student from Florida. I asked him what he would do if he were walking to class along a small river and noticed a small child floundering in the water and about to drown. He said that he was a lifeguard and champion swimmer and would evaluate the situation quickly and jump in and save the child. I suggested that such would be a good action and that I and the child's parents would honor him. I then suggested to him that this day was going to be unusual for him in that as he continued on to class he would every few minutes notice another child floundering in that small river and about to drown. What would he do? He said that each time he would quickly evaluate and jump in and save the child. I asked him to imagine what would happen if when he got to the tenth child he decided not to save the child--not that he was tired or late for class, but simply didn't want to help that child. He said that such would not be good. I then asked what his friends would do when they found out that he had saved the lives of 9 children that day. Would they honor him as a good person? He was disgusted and said that if his friends knew that he intentionally hadn't helped the tenth child they would be angry and criticize him. He added that even if he had saved 99 children and intentionally let one drown, he couldn't be a good person. Do you agree with Alex? Life is full of good actions that your conscience calls you to do. Your conscience calls you to leave none of them undone. You and I have left many good deeds undone as well as doing much wrong that our conscience warned us against. Let's stop pretending that partial goodness counts with God.

 

You Are Not the Judge

How do you respond when you see a fellow Christian fail? How do you respond when that person hurts you? First, is it good for you to sit in the place of judgment for that person? Second, is it good for you to ignore or minimize or pretend away that failure of another Christian? None of these is good and so your only good option is to trust or honor God as the judge. God always maximizes sin and judges by perfect love and commands all people to do the same. Do you hear that call or do you minimize sin and take judgment into your own hands? 

 

Prosecution or Defense: Which team Are You On?

Do you hear the voice of God and your conscience calling you to honor perfect love as the only good way to see life? Since you are not the judge, you simply act for the defense or the prosecution in every situation you find yourself. As a Christian you are part of the defense team lead by Jesus. Satan leads the prosecution and points the finger of condemnation. In the moment that you notice someone fail or hurt you, how do you respond? Do you notice the violator from God's view of perfect love where the only hope is the death of Christ? Or do you dishonor the law and see hope in human performance? When you do the former you gladly receive all the bad treatment others give you because you are seeing Christ and the glory of sin-bearing love. Perfect love excludes all condemnation and gladly bears all things thinking of the blessing of the other. When you do the latter, you stumble over righteousness, get offended, fight back, and speak words of condemnation. You have played into the hands of the Accuser and are speaking and acting like you are on his team. We all have been tricked at times by the voice of the Accuser. Let's be honest and learn to discern these two voices that we might be effective peacemakers.

Let's make it practical. When someone hurts you which voice do you hear? The Accuser cries out, "Look at what he did to you!" The voice of the Spirit cries out, "Look at what Christ did for him and you!" How you respond to mistreatment reveals which voice you are heeding. Of course the mistreatment may be painful. Of course the person shouldn't have hurt you. But the call is for that person to be perfect not just to avoid that one action of mistreatment of you.  As a Christian you are not trapped in your circumstances; you have life above this world and thus have the freedom to see your life from above, from heaven. Christ has lifted you up, blessed you royally, freed you from all condemnation, and made you his royal peacemaker.  Your identity is as a member of the defense. Practice remembering that and watch what happens. 

Conclusion: Resist Dishonesty About Law

It is easy to be dishonest about your conscience and God's law and goodness. The Adversary always calls you to make God's law and love manageable, to lull you to sleep about perfect love.  It takes much practice to hear the voice of perfect love in the heat of the moment. But hearing the voice of perfect love is the only honest way. Let's not pretend that there is no spiritual battle. James calls saints to submit to God and resist the devil, and that then the devil would flee. I suggest that submitting to God is simply to honor, see, hear, and perceive perfect love in the moment. When you do the devil will have no room to work in your heart and life. Thank God often for His perfect love and for making perfect love the only good way to live and judge. Speak perfect love to yourself and to others. As you do this you may find yourself becoming more sensitive to the spiritual battle that rages all around us.

Perfect love or manageable tasks: the one you hear is the one you will speak.

HUMILITY: Is It Good? Do You Want It?

"Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, 
bearing with one another in love."

-Ephesians 4:2 NIV

True or false:
1) It is good to be humble.
2) It is good for you to be humble.
3) You want to be humble.
4) God wants you to be humble more that you want it yourself.
5) You want to learn humility alone and don't want God to send you helpers.
6) Number 5 is good.
7) God gives you family, friends, critics, and circumstances to reveal your need for humility.
8) It is good to realize your need to grow in humility.
9) You need to grow in humility but don't want to see your need for more humility.
10) It is good to have an initial response of thankfulness toward God and those God sends your way to help you learn this lesson.
11) Your typical initial reaction to criticism, reminders and trials is glad thankfulness.
12) You want number 11 to be true for you.
13) You are really glad that God's favor frees you from the pressure to have to be perfectly humble.

Here are two applications:
1-Admission. "If anyone would like to acquire humility, I can, I think tell him the first step.The first step is to realize that one is proud. And a biggish step, too. At least, nothing whatever can be done before it. If you think that you are not conceited, it means that you are very conceited indeed."
-CS Lewis, Mere Christianity, p 128

2-Prayer. "Dear Father in heaven, thank you freeing me from all condemnation by your favor in your son's death in my place, and calling me to see that all my weaknesses are the place where your strength is made perfect. Thank you that humility is good, but I admit that I am too weak and prideful to learn it by myself. Thank you that all my critics and trials are blessings from your hand of grace to help me see your goodness more clearly. Please send to me all the critics you think I need and on the schedule that you think best. Thank you that you will always be tender with me. In Jesus' name. Amen."