You can’t love God without loving your neighbor

Something that sets Christianity apart, especially in the historical context where it emerged, is its insistence that our relationship with God is not just acted out by religious ritual, but that it’s actually acted out by how we live in relation to the people around us. The inadequacy of ritual sacrifice as a proof for our love of God was made apparent in the Old Testament, as well as the new.

Isaiah 1:11-17 (HCSB) shows us God’s heart on the matter:

“’What are all your sacrifices to Me?’
asks the Lord.
‘I have had enough of burnt offerings and rams
and the fat of well-fed cattle;
I have no desire for the blood of bulls,
lambs, or male goats.
When you come to appear before Me,
who requires this from you—
this trampling of My courts?
Stop bringing useless offerings.
Your incense is detestable to Me.
New Moons and Sabbaths,
and the calling of solemn assemblies—
I cannot stand iniquity with a festival.
I hate your New Moons and prescribed festivals.
They have become a burden to Me;
I am tired of putting up with them.
When you lift up your hands in prayer,
I will refuse to look at you;
even if you offer countless prayers,
I will not listen.
Your hands are covered with blood.

‘Wash yourselves. Cleanse yourselves.
Remove your evil deeds from My sight.
Stop doing evil.
Learn to do what is good.
Seek justice.
Correct the oppressor.
Defend the rights of the fatherless.
Plead the widow’s cause.'”

What’s interesting is that God has apparently grown tired of the religious rites that He actually prescribed. The Sabbath, for instance, is part of the 10 Commandments, the Mosaic Law that God gave on Mount Sinai. Why would He grow tired of something He actually put in place?

In Matthew 22: 37-40, Jesus tells us that the greatest commandment is to love God with all that we are – our heart, and soul, and that the second is like it: love our neighbors as ourselves. He says that all the law and the teaching of the prophets stand on these two things.

So, why would God grow tired of the rituals that He actually put in place? Maybe it’s because the rituals became devoid of their meaning. They grew to become neither an act of love for God nor an act of love for neighbor. They became religious necessity, self-righteous affirmation, a sort of magic to try to manipulate God, even a means by which the religious elite could dominate those they were supposed to be caring for.

God’s response is to tell His people that all the religious actions, the prayers, the sacrifices, they’re all garbage if we’re ignoring justice and oppression, if we’re ignoring the widow and the orphan. God is not just looking for empty ritual “worship.” If it is worship to love our neighbor, then it is blasphemy to say we love God and to ignore the needs of our neighbor. 1 John 4:20 (HCSB) says, “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For the person who does not love his brother he has seen cannot love the God he has not seen.'”

God actually is interested in religious actions or “rituals,” even in modernity. He is interested in church attendance, He is interested in prayer, He is interested in worship. But He is not interested in those things if they are separated from caring for people. Jesus didn’t say, “Love God with your heart and soul, and love your neighbor if you have time.” The two go together. Love God and love your neighbor. And if you aren’t loving your neighbor, are you really loving God?

It’s a tough question. But it’s one we have to ask as Christians. “How am I loving the people around me?” A mentor once challenged me with the question, “If you received everything you ever prayed for, how many people besides you would be impacted?” That’s a great question to ask yourself!

How can you build relationships with people? Whose needs can you meet? It could be as simple as getting a group of people together for games on a weekly basis, or maybe to read through a good book together. It could be joining a small group at church, or maybe even leading one. It could be volunteering at church or at a local shelter or food bank or some other organization. Loving and serving people can take all kinds of different forms, but regardless of what it looks like, it’s an essential part of Christianity. The goal isn’t just checking the box that says, “I interacted with people,” but it’s intentionally building relationships with people, loving them the way God loves them, and pulling them into the kind of Heaven-on-Earth God really wants them to experience — a world where they are cared for, where they are heard instead of just talked at, where they genuinely know that they are loved by their friends and by their God.

Our interaction with the people around us, with the world around us, is not separate from our faith. It is an indicator of our faith. If all that we take part in only promotes ourselves, we don’t worship God, we worship ourselves. I don’t say this as some paragon of faith, as the epitome of loving one’s neighbor. I say this because it’s a challenge I’m confronting in my own life, and one I think every Christian should confront. And I hope that as I intentionally move toward living a life defined by loving the people around me, I can bring some others along with me.

Self-Control

Last week, I had the opportunity to work at a church camp for high schoolers. One of my close friends is the youth pastor of one of the youth groups that was present, and on the last night of camp he asked me to come to the cabin with his boys and hang out. It turned out that this was a set up! He actually brought me in then told the boys to ask me any question about anything they learned at camp, questions about faith in general, questions about God, etc. He wanted them to get to ask somebody from a different background than him, who would still give good, faith-based answers. I enjoy that type of thing, so I went along with it.

One of the guys asked me a question that I think is one of those life-long questions a Christian has to deal with, so I thought it would be fun to talk about it here. I’m paraphrasing a little bit, but the question was basically, “What do you do when something happens and you want to react a certain way, but you know you should react a different way?” His example was that he is a basketball player, and in basketball (especially inner-city basketball with young men – he’s from Cleveland) there’s a lot of disrespectful trash talk that happens. How do you respond when you don’t want to let somebody disrespect you, and you may even want to fight, but you know that’s not what you’re supposed to do?

His example was specific, but I think the question can be generalized. What do you do when any given situation invites a certain reaction, maybe even a reaction that would be acceptable and understandable to onlookers, a reaction that would feel good to you, but you know that a different reaction would be more pleasing to God?

It’s a great question. If you really think about it, you probably run into some kind of situation like this almost daily!

My response was something like this: Make the intentional choice to do the Christ-like thing.

Galatians 5:22-23 lists self-control among the characteristics that show the fruit of the Spirit of God living in you. Sometimes we can let ourselves think that because we love God, and because He wants us to live a certain way in the world, that some supernatural force will somehow take away any desire to act outside of what God wants. That’s not quite how it works.

God doesn’t take away our natural urge to get angry, to want to retaliate, to act in a self-promoting way, or to act pridefully. It’s not up to God to take away our emotional instability and our tendency toward prideful conduct, it’s up to us to submit to His standard. It isn’t easy. Paul compares it to athletic training (1 Corinthians 9:25-27). An athlete becomes proficient by training continuously and repeatedly. It isn’t any different for us as Christians.

In order for us to live the way God wants us to live, it’s going to take continuous effort. When the situations arise in our lives where we have the option to respond in a Christ-like manner or in a manner less pleasing to God, we will have to intentionally choose to respond like Christ just like the athlete intentionally chooses to repeatedly perform the same exercise or drill to master a skill. And for us to build self-control, for us to really be disciplined and be able to consistently respond in a Christ-like manner to the situations that confront us in life, it will take intentional choice after intentional choice after intentional choice.

The fact that self-control is a fruit of the Spirit does not mean that the Spirit somehow miraculously deposits self-control in us and we go from absolute mess one day to the epitome of Christ-likeness the next. It does mean that as we ask God to lead us and become sensitive to that leading, as we use the wisdom He gives us, and through our repeated decisions to respond how Christ would respond in a given situation, we will begin to see self-control manifest in our lives. And the by-product of that self-control will be that in each of those instances where we respond like Christ, we will have brought a glimpse of Heaven in where it didn’t exist before.

A Choice: Making the world more like Heaven

Have you ever been having a really bad day – maybe work is stressing you out or you just lost a loved one or perhaps you just forgot to grab your cup of coffee on the way out the door – and then somebody seems to go out of their way to make it even worse? It could be a random person in line at Starbucks who bumps into you, spills your coffee, then looks at you like you are inconveniencing them. It could be a person in traffic who saw the “Lane Closing” signs for the last 3 miles but decided to wait until the last possible second to merge, cutting you off and forcing you off onto the shoulder, effectively causing heart palpitations and a near anxiety attack. It could be a rude customer berating you for not breaking a company policy for them. Or, it could be something less trivial, something much worse. Maybe a friend betrayed your trust. Maybe your partner told you things just aren’t working out. Maybe your drug-addicted family member snuck into your purse and stole cash you worked hard for in order to fund their destructive habit.

Life can be full of these moments. If we’re honest, most of us have some kind of interaction every single day that can leave us feeling like the world is out to get us, like people don’t care about us. Most days confront us with multiple opportunities to feel worthless.

Here’s what’s more interesting. If you look back through that list at the top, you’ll probably realize you’ve been on both sides of those situations. You’ve been the victim at times, but you’ve also been the perpetrator at times. Sometimes its you who are the rude customer. Sometimes it’s you who are the inconsiderate driver. You may not have left your partner, but you’ve surely had days where you haven’t treated them quite right. Maybe you’ve even had your days in the past where you’ve done less than admirable things to support bad habits in your life. We’ve all found ourselves on the giving end and on the receiving end somewhere along the spectrum of malevolence.

Why is that interesting?

That is interesting because it confronts us with the reality that we don’t live in a self-centered vacuum. All of life’s events don’t center around us. In our minds they do, because they’re our minds. But every interaction we have ripples outwardly to the people around us. When you stop to think about how moments that probably meant nothing to the other person actually made your day worse, you start to realize how much your seemingly innocuous little moments may actually be impacting the people around you as well – for better or worse.

Going a bit further, it’s interesting because it presents us with the reality that every single day, in every single interaction, we have the opportunity to make somebody else’s life look a little more like Heaven or a little more like Hell. We can bring peace into situations that may look bleak, and we can share joy with those who are excited about life. We can exhibit patience and self-control when the more natural response may be much more volatile. We can show good will toward people around us when the inclination may be doubt. We can choose to be loving. Or, we can choose something else. We can bring discord and sorrow. We can let irritation and impatience get the best of us, lashing out to those around us because of the turmoil going on inside of us. We can belittle people and treat them mockingly. We can choose to be self-centered, which, if you didn’t know, is the opposite of love.

We live in a world that is filled with brokenness. To see this, you probably don’t need to go any further than your own family, maybe your own household. In our interactions with the world around us, we should be focused on healing that brokenness, not adding to it. Many of the people we scuttle past in our comings and goings have some kind of Hell pressing in on their lives. You know it’s true because you probably do too. If you don’t now, you have before. We have the opportunity to introduce a little piece of Heaven into their day. Maybe it’s just a smile, maybe it’s just holding back and letting that person merge, maybe it’s just a good old, Midwestern, “Ope! Sorry about that!” instead of a scowl when you bump into somebody in Starbucks. Maybe it’s taking a few extra minutes to have a chat with the person you met in line. Maybe it’s praying with them. Maybe it’s talking through why you believe the way you do instead of dogmatically asserting that the person you’re talking to (or talking at) should believe that way too.

Making somebody’s life look a little more like Heaven can look all kinds of different ways. To make it somewhat practical, look at any interaction you have and apply the litmus test of Galatians 5:22-23 (I use the HCSB version here) to it. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law.” Did the interaction exhibit any of those characteristics? Or, maybe it’s easier to recognize if the interaction exhibited the opposite of any of those characteristics. Either way, that will help you see to which end you shifted their day – toward Heaven, or not.

We have more power than we realize in moments that seem completely unpowerful. The line at the store, the time-killing conversation, driving in traffic. We also have the ability to turn some of those moments into bigger moments – inviting the co-worker out to coffee, for instance, turns a water-cooler chat into something more. And in each of these instances we have the opportunity to leverage the moment for good or for ill in that person’s life. Let’s look for ways to leverage the moment for the good.

Love Your Enemies

I’m going to be honest for a moment and disclose a little secret about myself: I have a tendency to allow myself to be drawn into debates, especially on social media.

Okay, if you know me well, maybe this isn’t much of a secret.

When I see somebody say something that I fundamentally disagree with, or even that I don’t disagree with but I think the way it was said was wrong or the reason the person chose for supporting it was terrible, I have a hard time holding myself back from engaging with that person! I’ve gotten better over time, but I’m still drawn to it!

Because of this proclivity to confrontation and debate, I’ve encountered a wide range of people and a wide range of reactions. Some people are inclined to enter into a well thought out exchange of ideas. Others just say, “You’re full of ****,” and move on with their day (their words, not mine).

What I’ve noticed more recently, however, is that less and less people are willing to actually dialogue, and more and more people instantly ostracize others based on their difference in ideology. They immediately see the other side as an enemy. And they see the enemy as somebody to be silenced, to be made a fool of, or (in more extreme cases) to be eradicated. (Yes – I’ve seen actual statements made about wiping people out because of their views on certain political issues. Pretty awesome, right?)

This volatility has challenged me to take inventory of how I’m engaging with people when I enter into dialogue with them. But it’s also made a certain excerpt from scripture pop into my head on multiple occasions:

“You have heard that it was said, Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. For He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward will you have? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing out of the ordinary? Don’t even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:43-48 HCSB)

Now, let me be clear — I don’t think this scripture was originally talking about social media quarrels as persecution. I do, however, think it had sociological, political, and nationality differences in mind. Ancient Jewish culture was a very exclusive culture. That’s why anybody outside of that culture automatically bares the title “Gentile.” This scripture challenges it’s hearers to view outsiders, those people who are not considered their neighbors, those people who have different views, different nationalities, and different ideologies as people they are still required to love. Jesus didn’t just challenge the Jews to tolerate them. He didn’t say, “Let them be around, but shame them a little bit for their ignorance.” He said to love them. He said to pray for those who persecute you.

Wow. Where does that fit in our current culture? Just about everything right now is viewed through the lens of persecutor and persecuted. God says to pray for those who persecute you. It turns out that this ancient text is just as relevant and counter-cultural today as it was 2000 years ago. Interesting.

I want to throw a disclaimer out that I don’t think this means we should admit persecution. I don’t think it means that we should shy away from public debate (although, I do question whether or not Facebook debates ever actually do anything – something I have to yell at myself for, often!). I do think that some social ideas are wrong, and that some are right, and that conversation around those ideas are the way to bring resolution and clarification and hopefully progress. But the only way those conversations work is if there is a mutual respect and an admission that you are talking with another person who genuinely believes what they’re talking about and thinks it’s the best way to move forward. Even if you think the person across the table (or the computer screen) from you is completely delusional and has no idea how the world really works, there’s no excuse to dehumanize them and treat them with contempt. It may not be worth having a conversation with them, but that doesn’t mean they’re not worth your love or worth being treated as a human being.

If you are a Christian, here’s what this means: You are called by God to love people, whether they believe like you or not. You are called to love Christians and atheists and Muslims and agnostics and Satanists and everything in between. You are called to love capitalists and socialists and fascists and anarchists. You are called to love heterosexuals and homosexuals and transsexuals. You are called to love pro-lifers and pro-choicers.  You don’t have to agree with them. You don’t have to buy in to their arguments or their social ideals. But you do have to recognize that they are beloved children of God, and the redeeming work of Christ on the cross is just as much for them as it is for you.

I can tell you from experience that it isn’t always (or even generally) worth engaging in conversation with some of the people who have different beliefs than you. But it is absolutely necessary to recognize their worth in the eyes of God, to pray for them, and treat them with love.

 

A Starbucks Conversation: Good News, Or Not?

The other day, as I sat at Starbucks, a guy across from me saw a girl in line that he worked with. They began talking, as people do, and pretty soon I started hearing some scripture being referenced. Starbucks is like the Christian bar, so that didn’t really surprise me and I didn’t really tune in to the conversation. But soon enough, I heard the guy’s voice elevate slightly, his tone get a slightly more intense, and the girl wasn’t saying anything. His intensity got my attention.

What I heard was him asking what she would do if she stood face to face with the God of the universe today. If she were being judged before a God who demands perfection, she would not be found perfect. “Your mouth would be shut,” he told her, “and you would be standing before God, under his wrath.” He mentioned multiple times that she may not make it to work today, she may not make it home, she could die any second and come face to face with a wrathful God. Then he asked if she would repent and accept righteousness in Jesus so that the wrath of God may be appeased.

She was very uncomfortable. She tried to get out of the conversation, to which he replied, “You just waited for your drink, now just wait a few more minutes while I share this with you. You never know if we’ll even make it to work today, so I want to share it now.”

At the end of the conversation, clearly perturbed, the girl said, “You just wasted minutes of my life,” and she walked away.

I think I’m still processing the conversation. I’m processing how he presented what is supposed to be Good News. I’m processing how dejected she felt afterwards. There’s a lot to process just in those two things.

The truth is, when I take apart everything the guy said, there is nothing technically wrong. What he shared is theologically correct. It’s orthodox Christianity. It’s scriptural truth. We are fallen creatures, deserving of the wrath of God, separated from Him by our sin. It is by Christ’s sacrifice on the cross that the penalty for our sin is paid and that we have right standing with God. We don’t know when we will die. Accidents happen all the time. And when we come to judgment, if we are not found in Christ, we have no hope for satisfying the perfect standard of God. If we are not found in Christ, we don’t have His atoning sacrifice to pardon us from the just punishment for our sin.

The Good News is that Jesus made such provision. The Good News is that He took the punishment we deserved so that we could come before God in right standing, rather than marred by our sin.

There’s nothing technically wrong with any of his statements. Honestly, I think his boldness is admirable. So why do I feel like the conversation was not a good one? Probably, in part, because the girl left feeling dejected – a feeling notably absent when sinners encountered Jesus. Also probably because the girl tried to get away, stayed against her will, and her role in the conversation was relegated to the silent listener. None of that feels good. My eight year old daughter doesn’t enjoy being held against her will and talked down to; adults don’t like it either. But, I’m jumping ahead.

Why did she feel dejected when she left the conversation? Well, to be honest, it could be because people don’t like to come face to face with the truth that they aren’t the supreme being in the universe. Autonomy is the philosophy of the West. “Live your truth” is the creed. When you’ve been strolling along in a world where you are the center, where your desires are the desires that matter, and the only offensive things are the things that offend you, it’s a little jarring to hear that maybe you’re actually subject to somebody or something else. To hear that there is a standard, an objective standard, that you will be held to whether you agree with it or not, and that you will certainly be found guilty of missing that standard, is a pretty tough pill to swallow. Add to it that the judge of that standard is an invisible guy in the sky, and to a modern Westerner it’s not just offensive, it’s absurd. No wonder she said the conversation was a waste of her time.

However, I don’t think her inability to break out of the autonomy of the West was the only issue at hand here. The thing that seemed noticeably absent in the conversation was her. Not only was she silent through most of it, not really given the place to speak aside from responding to, “Have you ever sinned? Have you ever told a lie?” but her thoughts, her questions, and her life situations were all absent from the conversation.

When Jesus interacted with people, He acknowledged the person. He spoke to their current life situation. He wasn’t just interested in them getting to Heaven. He didn’t just speak to them about when they stood before God in judgment. He was interested in the here and now. He didn’t say things like, “This world doesn’t matter. Eternity matters,” which was another thing the guy from Starbucks said, which I completely disagree with. Instead, Jesus acknowledged the adultery of the woman at the well and then revealed to her that He was the messiah; Jesus forgave the sins of the paralyzed man and then told him to get up and walk home; Jesus was amazed at the faith of a Gentile centurion and healed his servant; Jesus sought out the woman with the issue of blood who was an outcast and had committed a punishable act by coming in among the crowd while she was unclean, and he healed her. Jesus didn’t tell them about the wrath of God they were under, He acknowledged the Hell they were already in, He healed it, and He invited them to live in that kind of Heaven forever.

The Starbucks conversation was absent of any relevance to the girl’s life outside of the fact that she was destined for eternal punishment. There was nothing acknowledging the Hell she may be going through right now, nothing acknowledging how God wanted to change that for her and for all those around her, nothing acknowledging that God knew anything about her situation at all aside from that she wasn’t worthy to be near Him. Is that the Good News? Is that what Jesus modeled to us? I’m not so sure.

Was the conversation fruitful? I hope so. I hope that the truth of our fallen nature and the truth that Jesus paid the penalty for that somehow hits home for the girl. But I also think there was a big part of the conversation missing. When God made the world, He said it was good. Everything bad – the suffering, the pain, the poverty, the Hell that people live every day – is a result of people making the choice to serve themselves over making the choice to serve each other and serve God. God’s goal is to restore creation back to that goodness. His goal isn’t to condemn people to Hell. The reason Jesus came wasn’t just to get us into Heaven, it was to demonstrate how God wanted to interact with the world, to show what it looks like when a person lives how God wants them to live, to make earth look more like Heaven. Yes, Jesus paid the penalty we deserve for not living that way. He also demonstrated that God wants our lives and the lives of every single person around us to change. Salvation isn’t just about Heaven, it’s about redeeming all of creation and allowing God to use us to make it look like the Heaven he created it to be.

I wonder how the girl at Starbucks would have walked away if she had known that.

Am I Good Enough?

Have you ever looked at yourself and thought, “I should be better than this”?

I have. And, to be honest, I’m often right.

We know ourselves really well. We know where we fall short. We know when we are too busy to do the things that really matter, but then we look back at the day (or week, or month) and see how much time we actually spent doing things less important. We could have been playing with our kids, but we were clocking in from home to check e-mails or plan tomorrow’s meeting. We could have been reading something to grow ourselves, but we binge-watched Netflix instead. We could have had quiet time and rest, but instead we scrolled relentlessly through Facebook and Instagram every five minutes.

We know when we’ve handled situations wrong. We know when we’ve lost our cool with people where we should have been patient. We know when we let our loved ones down, even if we didn’t mean to. We know when we’re falling behind in our goals, even if everybody else thinks we’re doing amazing (even if we really are!). We know when we’ve made moral failures and we know the pain we’ve caused.

So, with all that inside knowledge of where we’re falling short, we can tend to be pretty unhappy with ourselves. And if we aren’t even pleased with ourselves, it can be pretty easy to wonder how God could be pleased with us.

If I’m not even good enough for myself, how could I ever be good enough for God?

Ephesians 2:4-5,8-9 says, “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love that He had for us, made us alive with the Messiah even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by Grace! For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift — not from works, so that no one can boast.”

I love this because it teaches us two things.

First, it teaches that God loves us in the midst of our mistakes. The verse says that he made us alive even though we were dead in trespasses. That means that even though we were falling short, which brings darkness, chaos, drama, less-than-the-best — death — into our lives, He still loved us. If you are Christian, you believe that giving place to these death-bringing things in our lives actually alienates us from God, and they are actions punishable by God. While we deserved punishment, God instead gave us pardon. He did so in Christ. And He did so because of His love for us.

Second, the passage teaches that our question should not be, “Am I good enough?” but should be, “Is Christ good enough?” And the answer is, “Yes.” If it is by grace, as a result of God’s own love, not from any action that we’ve done that God has removed us from death and brought us to life, then any amount of failure, shortcoming, missing the mark, or death that we may find ourselves in does not disqualify us from His love. Our actions may deserve punishment, but Christ took that punishment on Himself so that we don’t have to pay the penalty ourselves. When we question whether or not God’s love is still there for us, we’re actually asking if Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is powerful enough to pay the penalty for us; we are actually trying to earn something that was only given as a gift, unable to be earned.

I believe we should be reflective. We should look at our lives and recognize where we fall short, and we should absolutely do our best to remedy those failures. We should strive to do our best with every opportunity, we should strive for moral excellence, we should strive to bring life and not death to the people around us. We should strive to please God. But I also believe we have to remember that we don’t earn God’s love. He loves us because He is Love. He created us to walk with us. When we decided we would rather live our own way, and when we make this same decision multiple times a day through little decisions and actions that are less than loving, less than generous, less than our best, He still initiated love by sending Christ to bring us out of that death and into life.

We have to know that we can do better, and we have an obligation to strive to do so. But we also have to know that God’s love for us is not based on the question, “Am I good enough?” It is only based on the question, “Is Christ good enough?” And the answer to that question, thankfully, is a resounding, “Yes!”

Goodness, Wisdom, and Love

Did you know that every color we see finds its source in the same place? Each individual color is a result of white light — the light we get from the sun, which contains the entire light spectrum — hitting an object and some specific wavelength of the light spectrum bouncing off. Every different color has its source in the same white light.

All around us, all the time, we get glimpses of goodness. Wisdom is found in all sorts of unlikely places. Love is found in all different types of people. What if all these glimpses of goodness, these inklings of wisdom, these actions of love are all just some wavelength of the goodness of God bouncing off the world He created?  If there really were a God who created the world, who was the author of all good things, wouldn’t that goodness be evident all throughout the world? Wouldn’t his wisdom be seen, at least in part, throughout multiple different belief systems, social groups, and civilizations? If God is the author of goodness, the author of wisdom, the author of love, then when we see goodness, wisdom, and love, we ought to recognize that we are seeing something that is godly.

We tend to dismiss the good things in a person because of the things we see that don’t line up. As Christians, we tend to dismiss things that come out of the mouths of people who aren’t Christians. If they don’t hold as their highest value what we hold as our highest value, can we really take what they say seriously? I would like to propose, however, that if an atheist speaks about loving your neighbor (they may word it differently: Coexist; BLM; loveislove; etc), they are still bringing the light of God into the world, whether they want to or not, whether they would agree or not. The way they do it may be like white light reflecting off another surface. We may see Blue when, as Christians, we would like to see the full White light of God, but the Blue still has its source in the White, and the Blue is still better than darkness.

This isn’t an argument to accept all things as Christian or as godly. There will always be things that non-Christian culture will say is wisdom and is love but goes against scripture. Scripture is our guide. Let me be very clear about that. However, I do want to recognize that if the world is God’s, and if He created humanity in His image, then His fingerprint will be all over the place and on all kinds of humans. He made a big, wide world with all kinds of people, and His goodness and love can be found in every nook and cranny. If we can’t accept the truth that we are called to love our neighbors regardless of their nationality, regardless of their religion, regardless of whether or not it is safe, even though the Bible specifically calls us to* because that truth was heard from the mouth (or tweet, or Facebook post) of somebody who aligns themselves on the opposite end of the political spectrum from us, we are ignoring God’s truth. If we can’t hear truth, if we can’t accept wisdom, if we can’t love unless it comes packaged in a way that is comfortable to us, we are allowing darkness, not light, to reign in the world.

Every different instance of goodness, wisdom, and love has its source in the same author of goodness, wisdom, and love. As Christians, we should take the responsibility to make sure that we don’t mistake the part for the whole, but we should also take the responsibility to make sure we don’t dismiss the part as nothing at all. Not only will this help us to see God at work in so many new ways around us, but will also help us get out of the way and let Him go on, unhindered, bringing his goodness and wisdom and love into a broken world.

 

 

* Tim Keller’s “The Prodigal Prophet” is a great break down of the book of Jonah, which deals with this topic. Also, in the parable of the Good Samaritan, part of what makes the story so challenging to its listeners is that the Samaritan acts in a way that opens himself up to much potential harm in order to help somebody he should, according to the cultural norm, be at complete odds with. (As an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases)

Should I Be Perfect?

If you identify as a Christian, you have probably heard at some point or other that you should model your life after Jesus. Whether you heard it in some kind of sermon, whether you heard the always-lovely “you may be the only Jesus somebody ever gets to see!” quip, or maybe you’ve just seen your fair share of “WWJD” bracelets, the point has been made that your life should reflect Christ. You are, after all, called a Christian.

But wait.

Isn’t Jesus perfect?

Am I supposed to be perfect? Are you supposed to be PERFECT?

Actually, oddly, it seems the answer may be yes.

Matthew 5:48 says, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

There it is: Be Perfect.

The original Greek word translated “perfect” in Matthew 5:48 – teleioi – doesn’t pull any punches. It literally means something reaching its end, finished, complete, lacking nothing, perfect. That’s hard to swallow. I know I’m not perfect. Far from it. And try as I might, I don’t know if I’ll ever get there.

But there’s another verse that brings me some comfort here. Psalm 103:14 says, “For He knows what we are made of, remembering that we are dust.” God knows our nature. He knows the weakness of the human condition. He remembers that we are dust – powerless, easily sifted, only made alive by the power of His Spirit, by the life of His breath.

It is God’s intention as we journey in this faith walk with Him that we grow toward the perfection He has in mind for us, but it doesn’t catch him off guard when we fall, when we fail, and when we miss the mark. He did, after all, send Christ for us. If he expected us to close the gap on our own, He wouldn’t have provided a perfect sacrifice on the cross for us.

Paul said this, and I think it’s something to take to heart: “Not that I have already reached the goal or am already fully mature, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus. Brothers, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:12-13)

We may not have attained perfection. We may not have reached the goal. But we should make every effort to get there, knowing that we can trust God and rest in his grace and mercy along the way, but also knowing that it is His call on our lives to continue moving forward.

Heaven On Earth

I usually try to have a really articulate thought put together before posting, but I’m honestly not quite there with this thought yet. However, it’s been something on my mind for a while and I just want to get it out there. Hopefully some of you track along with me.

I first had a conversation with a friend about this around a year ago. My initial statement was something like, “I don’t think God is that interested with us going to heaven.” Looking back, I can see why the statement was met with a little bit of confusion. That’s kind of a loaded statement, and without any further clarity it can seem kind of weird. Although it may come off a bit dramatic, and I’m sure there’s a better way to say it, I think I still stand by it. So, I better clarify.

When I say, “I don’t think God is that interested with us going to heaven,” what I really mean is that I don’t think God is as interested in getting us there as He is with bringing there here.

The incarnation is the picture of God bringing Heaven to Earth. Jesus depicted God’s desire to bring hope and healing to humanity here and now, not just there and later. When Jesus taught the disciples to pray, He even said, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10).

Jesus also teaches to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:30-31). What does that mean? He tells us that too. In Matthew 25, Jesus says that when we see somebody hungry and feed them, or when we see somebody thirsty and give them something to drink, or when we take in a stranger, or we clothe the naked, or we take care of the sick, or we visit the prisoner, it is in those moments that we are loving our neighbor. He goes so far as to say that when we do those things for the people around us, we are actually doing them for Him!

Loving your neighbor means making earth look a little more like heaven for them. There is no hunger in heaven. There is no thirst. There is no stranger, because we are all brothers and sisters in Christ. Nobody is lacking the things they need for protection. Nobody is sick. There is no prisoner. When we see these things on earth, these are part of our fallen reality, and they are exactly what Christ came to remedy. When we encounter these things, we are meant to do whatever is in our power to bring the reality of heaven to that situation.

What would the world look like if when we had food, we shared it, and when we had none, somebody else shared it with us? What would it look like if we were not afraid of the person we didn’t know, and when we were the outsider, we were met with welcome and accommodation? What would it look like if we took care of the sick when we were well, and the well took care of us when we were sick? What would it look like if we recognized that the prisoner is still a person, worthy of love and hope because they too were made in the image of Christ? What kind of world would it be if the prostitute and the addict, the abusive and the insecure, those in high places and those in low places all come in contact with Love and were changed?

Some people are living in Hell on Earth Right now. But if they encountered this, imagine the change!

When I say that God isn’t that interested in us getting to Heaven, what I mean is that God sent Jesus to show us Heaven on Earth. When we were saved, we were then called to bring Heaven on Earth to the people around us. I’m talking about the reality that God has us right here, right now, where we are, with the people around us. He has us here for a reason. He has me here for a reason. If I’m too busy trying to get there, maybe I’ll neglect what He has for me to do right here.

I look forward to sitting in the presence of God, where every tear has been wiped away, where death and mourning and pain are gone (Revelation 21:4). But until then, I want to live my life on earth in a way that the people around me see the reality of God and want to live in that reality.

help my unbelief

Last week I sat and had coffee with a person who told me she was grateful just to be able to be honest with me and not feel like she was being judged or damned for her thoughts and feelings.

I had another conversation with a person who struggles with the idea that her questions and the fact that she doesn’t understand some things when we talk about God somehow changes her standing with God. Does He really accept her? Does she really have faith?

It’s incredible to me that somehow “faith” has come to mean “absence of questions and doubt.” We have people going through life, facing circumstances we couldn’t even imagine. They’re trying to make sense of the world they live in and the God they hear about – a God which, incidentally, can look a lot of different ways depending on the person describing Him. When something doesn’t seem to line up to somebody, their questions are often met with hostility, belittlement, or even scoffing. Instead of understanding and dialogue, or a probing into the nature or cause of their questions, or even an honest, “I’m not sure how to answer that” (which, by the way, I think we’d do very well sometimes to answer with “I don’t know” instead of trying to answer a question we’ve never thought about before), their questions are met with an awkward look, a “why would you ask such a thing?” or worse yet, an answer given in a manner like an adult explaining something really simple to a young child. You almost expect them to give a little pat on the head at the end.

When you’re given a math problem in school, you have to show your work. You have to show on paper how you processed the information and came to your conclusion. For some reason, when somebody tries to do this with their faith, they’re discouraged.

Maybe you’re in this boat. Maybe you’ve heard about a good God who heals, but you’re dealing with a sickness you can’t seem to shake, and you want to know why. Maybe you grew up hearing that God created the world in seven twenty-four hour days and if you believe anything else, you don’t believe in God, but you’ve also seen and read and studied modern cosmology which says the world has been here for millions of years, and you’re just not sure where that puts you. Maybe you’ve heard about a Jesus who says to love your neighbor as yourself and not to judge, but every person you’ve ever encountered who bares the title “Christian” has hated you and judged you because you’re gay, or you have tattoos, or you listen to Nirvana, and the clear disconnect there just boggles your mind. Maybe you’ve grown up believing in a reductionistic, purely material world, but you sense that there’s got to be more going on, there’s got to be a reason for all of this.

No matter what the question is, no matter where your skepticism lies, I’d like to tell you something:Your questions are important. Your skepticism is valuable. Your doubt may very well be divine.

Doubt is our way of saying, “The things around me don’t line up the way I thought they would, and I’d really like to understand why.” And guess what, there’s something really admirable about that. Sometimes we lean too heavily on certainty. Certainty is safe. It’s predictable. Doubt, however, shakes things up. It questions the status quo. It wonders why.

I also believe that when we take the time, and step out with courage, and ask the questions that really exist in our hearts, we can come out on the other side with a more robust understanding of whatever it is we’re asking about. We think skepticism is a weakness. In reality, it can lead to strength.

When I’m talking to people with doubts, there are a few things I always like to tell them after I’ve let them know that there are plenty of people in the boat with them, and that they should absolutely ask the questions they’re asking. I’d like to share them with you.

First, doubt your doubts as much as you doubt everything else. Questioning is important. However, sometimes we can get so caught up in the question and the possible threat it poses to our current understanding of things that we don’t process the fact that our question can be just as fallible as anything else. It can be founded on a false understanding, it can be biased by our upbringing or experiences, it can be based off of an emotional reaction to a Facebook video that’s designed just to make people react. I don’t mean to belittle your doubts, but I do mean you should weigh them with the same measure you’re weighing everything else. They’re fallible too.

Second, do some studying. Look into the topic at hand. When somebody asks me a specific question, I generally give them a place to start reading in the Bible, because when it comes to Christianity, theology, and the character of God, we should start in scripture. Then, I usually give some book suggestions. If you have a real question, putting real time into the answer is how to handle it. Quick answers aren’t usually going to be satisfying for long. Diving into the issue, tearing it apart, and seeing what people have to say who have been studying longer and who have devoted their lives to the topic at hand can help you come out on the other side with a lot more understanding. Not to mention, it will probably affirm to you that there’s a lot more to the issue, hence a lot more reason for your questions, than you initially thought.

Finally, I ‘d like to share a specific Bible verse that has helped me in times of my own doubt and searching. There’s this story in the Bible where a father brings his child to the disciples to be healed. The disciples fail to heal him, so the father brings the child to Jesus and says, “… if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.”

Let’s pick up here in Mark 9:23-24 (HCSB): “Jesus said to him, ‘If you can? Everything is possible to the one who believes.’ Immediately the father of the boy cried out, ‘I do believe! Help my unbelief.’”

I think a lot of us resemble this father. We’re coming to God with doubts, with questions, hoping for healing, but unsure exactly what to expect. There’s something in us that believes maybe there’s an answer, otherwise we wouldn’t be asking the question, but when it boils down to it, what we’re saying is, “Help my unbelief!”

What I love about the story in the Bible is that Jesus’ response is to heal the child. And I believe His response to us is the same. We may come with questions, with doubts, with insecurities, with skepticism. But if we are honestly searching, I believe we will honestly receive help for our unbelief.

There is a place for your questions in your relationship with God. Let’s be honest, He knows what’s going on in our heads and in our hearts anyways, right? So when we open up with the doubts, we’re not taking Him off guard. We’re all on a journey of faith. Where you are now is not where you were five years ago, and in five years you’ll likely be in a very different place than you are today. If that isn’t the case, I’d be more worried about that than anything else. Embrace the journey. Ask the questions. God is big enough to handle it.

If there’s one thing I would add to the few points above, it would be an encouragement to go on the journey with somebody. Don’t go alone. Find some people who have been where you are and have found their way through. Find some people who are living now how you hope to live someday, and then ask them questions. Let them speak into your life. Find people of faith who have gone through hardship and ask them how they did it. That will speak to your questions more than anything else. But whatever you do, don’t be ashamed of wanting to learn more and grow closer to God.