An Otherly Will

What if the Spirit speaks to us not directly in the moment, but has already spoken to us by the transformation of our life?

What if the decisions we have to make day-to-day and the controversies we have to establish an opinion on are not led by a "Guide by our Side" who is whispering instruction, but from a teacher who has already given us the algorithm to solve every practical equation we will come across in our life. The Bible never specifically mentions abortion or pacifism, so how can we establish a biblically-grounded opinion about these things?

When we have experienced a life transformed by the Spirit, the need comes to act out the principles of Christlike-ness in modern issues. The Holy Spirit speaks through our transformation. By overhauling our old life, He gives us instruction on how to live today.  

We do not act in a way that pleases God so that we will be transformed or live up to the standard of transformation, but because we have already been transformed.

There is a triple cooperation between the Holy Spirit, God’s revealed will (Scripture), and our cognitive functioning, where all work together to guide our reasoning by the established pattern of a Christlike life. I think today in our individualistic culture, we are so concerned in nailing down the specific will for our life that we remove the focus from God’s eternal revealed will in scripture. We put the siding up before the walls!

Practice humility. Take care of yourself physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Get on your knees and pray. Study Scripture not for the sake of answering questions but for the sake of finding God. Love people. Serve in your community. Protect the weak.

When we are pursuing all of this – a life fully devoted in every aspect – will we fully be led by the Spirit. The work of obeying God creates in us the cognitive habit of instinctually pointing our opinions, thoughts, and actions in the direction of God. When we fail to do what God has already asked, we spend our time grabbing for things in the dark, wondering why it’s so hard for us to see what he wants us to do; God’s revealed Will sets the foundation and structure of thinking to find the specific Will for us. You see, when we try to push all of the work of forming opinions on controversial or complicated issues off onto the Holy Spirit, without putting much effort into actually trying to pursue the life the Holy Spirit is pointing towards, our opinions become pseudo-spiritual, led not by Not-God, who is usually a murky substitute, wearing the nametag of God but being only that person’s guised will.

This is a complicated idea – so complicated, only a story can really accomplish portraying it.

There once was a man named Self.

Every day, Self was fed three square meals a day (plus snacks!) by his friend, Other. Other did not charge Self anything for this meal, but only asked that Self cleaned up the house day-by-day, to make it easier for Other to come in and get around. Other had a helper, Conscience, who would help Self clean up the house (but he was never the starter for this work; he always waited for Self to start cleaning up before he would get around to cleaning up.) For a long time, Self maintained the house well, Conscience helped him, and Other came in and served him whenever he needed something to eat. The three of them lived in harmony – Other would give Self the perfect meal every time, because he was able to move around the house to get all the necessary ingredients to make the meal.

But eventually, Self began to get tired of cleaning. “Surely skipping a few days of cleaning won’t be a big deal.” He said.

And indeed, it wasn’t – Other continued to come, and Self continued to be fed. A thought began to form in Self’s mind: “Cleaning up my house isn’t really the important thing here – the important thing is that I love Other and he loves me! I don’t need to keep cleaning up my house. He’ll keep coming and serving me nonetheless…”

And indeed, he did. Other continued to come to the house every day and make his way carefully through the growing mess of the house, cooking up many different dishes, and serving them to Self faithfully. But every day, he would point out the different things that Self needed to address in order to make his job easier. Conscience was seen around the house less and less, but Self didn’t seem to notice - he continued to simply sit around the house, waiting for the next meal and convincing himself that it wasn’t really necessary – Other was just trying to be hard-to-get. He’d cave in the end.

But the longer Self went without doing what Other had asked him to do, the harder it got for Other to even get in to his house! He tried not to damage anything, but Self was making it very hard to do so! Trash was everywhere, mixed in with the important items! Other sometimes had to push things out of the way just to get into the kitchen (every once in a while, things would break, and Self would get mad at Other for not being careful enough).

Finally, the day came when Other could not even open the door to get into the house – Self had passively barricaded him out by not doing the simple thing Other had asked him to do – live in the house in a way that invited Other in. Other pounded on the door, but there was so much stuff, good and bad, between him and Self that Self couldn’t hear him anymore.

Hours went by, and Self got hungry.

Days went by, and Self was starving.

A week went by, and Self was crying out for food; but he still did not address the mess that his house was in.

Finally, in the hour that Self felt sure he would die, a rich aroma reached his nostrils.

Sweet, almost sickening, the smell of a rich dinner was coming from his kitchen! Other had finally broken through and was cooking him dinner! Oh, Self was proud of himself – he just knew that Other wouldn’t leave him alone! How silly was he for thinking that Other could possibly be so mean as to leave him on his own! He knew that Self depended on him for food – he said he would always be there to give him a meal – and Other was a man of his word!

But in his excitement of finally getting food, Self failed to wonder why this Other asked for the lights to remain off, or why he wouldn’t let Self get too close to him. 

In fact, so excited was he to see Other’s face, and so long had it been since he saw it, that he failed to notice the strap around the head and the polished plastic of the face of the Other.

This was not true Other, but a masked Conscience! He looked like Other to Self, and he sounded like Other to Self, and his food tasted just as sweet as Other’s, and Self didn’t have to clean up his house for him to come in – so he must be Other!   

Self sat down to eat his dinner, confident in the fact that he had been righteous all along to suffer through a week without food before Other gave in. Conscience smiled behind his mask, knowing that he had truly found his reign now. Other waited at the door, just waiting for Self to invite him back in.

I do hope you understood the meaning of this story. Of course it’s not wholly theologically accurate, and of course it’s a little clumsy, but I really do hope that I have shown what I mean when I say that a life lived in a transformed way acts as the conduit for the workings of God, and his will in your life.

If you are waiting for the Holy Spirit to tell you something or answer those questions you have about what you should do or where you should go, perhaps you might do well to go out and live your life as God has already told you in Scripture.

And maybe, just maybe, those questions you have for God will be answered along the way…

--Malachi

    לא נזבנו רוח-אתה;לא נשכחנו דברי-אתה  

Love, Regardless

With all of this hoopla about homosexuality, I figured I might as well put out my socially deviant opinion on the matter. I personally believe that if our government and society continues corkscrewing ethically, morally, and doctrinally,  this country will be torn apart either from within or without within the next 25 years.

I think that the most discouraging thing for me to see or hear is news about another pastor or another church supporting doctrine that is clearly unbiblical. Specifically, I'm troubled with the idolization and legitimization of homosexuality in today's culture. The sociological, psychological, and biological ramifications of this practice set the foundation for an unsustainable society.

Now, I could talk all day about how homosexuality is detrimental to the public or to its propagators or to their loved ones, but really, there is a bigger issue at hand in this.

No matter how terrible a practice it may be, or how great the consequences are, I must still love these people like any other human. They have been created just as much in the image of God as I have been, and I must acknowledge that, giving them the honor and love that comes in the package of being made with the imago Dei. They have the same Breath as I have; their life comes from the same Source; God created them, just as he created me. And so, I must love them.

Within this homosexuality controversy, I see a looming catastrophe in danger of befalling us. I see the possibility of Christians taking a noble stand against the issue of homosexuality and standing up for their beliefs and doing everything they can to preserve biblical standards, and in the process losing a lot of souls as collateral damage. Now, I'm not saying that we should up and allow homosexual marriages in all the churches, for it's clearly against the intent of God for creation, but I am saying that we need to oppose homosexuality in such a way that we don't mow over the souls of the people practicing it.

We are called to stand for the truth, but we are also called to love, and love everyone. What I'm praying for in this issue is that Christians don't lose sight of the most important thing: that our first order of business to others as Christians is to bring Christ into their lives, acting as veritable mirrors of him. I am not praying that homosexuality will be legally forced into Christianity, nor am I praying that Christianity forces homosexuals away. I am praying that we as Christians stand up for what the Bible says, while wholly loving those who are walking outside of its truth. We need to stop seeing homosexual people as a nuisance or a detestable thing, for in the end, we must love because he first loved us. What else are we to do as Christians?

"Love may forgive all infirmities and love still in spite of them: but Love cannot cease to will their removal." 
-- C.S. Lewis

   

The Heart of the Matter: It's a Matter of the Heart

I just got back from a trip to Washington, D.C. during Spring Break. While we were there, we visited a church that only ran around 80 people in attendance. The worship music was put on by fellow members of the congregation ranging from kids to elderly adults. The music wasn't that great, and the service flow was pretty blocky, but there was something there in that church that made those things unimportant. There was something that banished the reservation that accompanies many believers. Even my fellow students were getting into the worship more than usual. The people of that church were really dedicated to their worship. They sang, they worshiped. It wasn't a concert; it wasn't a show; it was an offering of praise to God, and they produced it from their hearts. It was a matter of the heart.

 It was odd to me. Normally when I hear so-called "amateur" music, it turns me off to the message they are trying to communicate, but this was different. I don't think they were concerned with playing the music correctly as they were concerned with praising God. I think they knew that they were in an environment that ought to be able to see past the off-beats and bad pitches to look at the heart of the matter - that they were offering everything they had to God in order to praise him. It was a matter of the heart.

I think there is a considerable lack of this in churches today. A lack of unreserved praise. A lack of fearlessness. A lack of boldness for the gospel. I think a lot of the time, Jesus is quietly removed from the minds of people and replaced with the beauty of the music and the prose of the sermon and the comfortableness of the service. I think many churches get so concerned with making their congregation happy and content that Christ is pushed out and no one notices. People are happily convicted of their sin once a week in service, and go on to live in sin the other 6 days of the week. I've caught myself singing worship songs on autopilot, not really saying the words, and just singing out of habit. Worship isn't about the words, though. It's a matter of the heart.  

A life in Christ was never meant to be solely Pharisaical. There needs to be something deeper than the outward signs of faith. A while ago, I was working with my family in our yard clearing out some tree branches. I remember working on a branch of one of the trees that hangs over our driveway. From the outside, it looked pretty healthy, but when I cut into it, I found a big colony of ants thriving on the rotten inside of the branch. Sadly, I think this picture defines a lot of Christians today. They put all their effort into appearing acceptable, but they are rotting from the inside out. Whether because of apathy, lukewarmness, or hopelessness, a lot of our fellow Christ-followers are secretly unhealthy. Their actions are roses, but their hearts are the thorns. It's a matter of the heart.

I think many of us need to take a good hard look at the way we're living life and really consider which parts of our lives we are willing to surrender to God, because a lot of us have been living our whole lives keeping a few percentage points "off-limits" to God. There is wholeness, beauty, and love offered in the promise of the New Covenant - but in order for us to reap these promises of God, we need to sow faith in Christ into our lives. It is a matter of our hearts. 

The Sanctity of Life

I'm surprised how many Christians I have met who are in support of the legalization of abortion. Some even provide a biblical argument for the killing of these unborn babies. This goes past all my defenses and strikes me right in the heart. How can a Christian possibly support this murder of children? It may be legal, and you may have every right under American law to kill the child inside of your body, but where can I possibly find support in scripture for this doctrine of abortion? The instances of killing children in the Old Testament are called "abominations" (תֹעֲבוֹת in the Hebrew). These kinds of things throughout the Bible are detestable to God, and forever banned from the life of a christian. Just like homosexuality, the killing of children is detestable and forbidden before God. To do תֹעֲבוֹת before God is to do something that goes completely against the nature of God and is wholly abominable. It kills me to see that our society is now taking steps in order to legalize תֹעֲבוֹת and to give its citizens the right to do these things. I honestly don't know how much longer this country can last if it continues in the direction it's going. 

We can get all wrapped up in defending our rights as Americans to do this, and to protect the mother and support her rights as a free woman, but there's a problem with getting all worked up about our rights: When we surrendered our lives to Christ and were baptized into his spirit, we surrendered all of our rights and replaced them with Christ's commands. It doesn't matter if we "have the right" to kill our children; God commanded us not to, so we cannot! Why is this so hard to make clear to people today? We are so concerned with "being our own person" that we completely leave God behind! I may may have the judicial right to sue a man after he hits me with his car, but 1 Corinthians 6  speaks specifically against the usage of rights for lawsuits - therefore, I cannot rightfully sue this man even though he may deserve it and even though I may legally able to do so. It doesn't matter what my rights are - Christ vanquished those rights and replaced them with his commands. 

When I became a Christian, everything in my old life was refitted with Christ, and I now have to judge everything as to whether it is acceptable in God's covenant. When I look at scripture, there is nothing that supports the killing of children in or out of the womb; I find only scripture supporting the sanctity of human life and the beautiful craftsmanship of God within it. Who am I to counteract this working? As in marriage, I cannot undo what God has joined together. If God has created a child, I cannot undo this. That would be an abomination. 

Can we just try to actually practice some humility before God, and accept the fact that we don't have any rights before Him? We are sinners - willful betrayers of God - we don't have any leverage on Him, and we cannot claim any sort of claim to any right. God's grace to us is a gift - not a right. We have absolutely zero reasons for God to forgive us and allow us into His Kingdom. Let's stop arguing for what we deserve and actually work to obey God's commands.   

Graceful Silence

Mini-soapbox time!

Christians, can we try being graceful and gentle with those people who go against our grain, instead of labeling them "idiots" and reigning over our own little ethical hierarchy?

I just don't think the belief that we're right should be standing in opposition to our call to truth and relationships. It's hard to bring people in to our truth when all they see is how low you place them and how high you are.

I believe that grace, truth, and gentleness should characterize the life of every Christ follower, in every aspect. From our waking to our sleeping - from our rising to our lying down. Every word we say, every person we affect needs to be impacted by the Christ-likeness within us.

We can argue it out with the fact that even Jesus got angry when people were working against the truth, or that Jesus was not always "graceful" or "gentle", but it comes down to the fact that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and we are not, though some need much convincing of this sometimes. We are not God, and we don't have all the authority to throw harsh terms and harsher judgments around. God is the avenger - we need to continue on and impact the world.

I think sometimes we need to forget how vehemently we believe our ethics and accept people for who they are, even if they believe things contrary to what we believe and even if we know that we won't teach them the truth. We can't give up, we can't treat them any differently, because we are Christians, and we are all sinners.

Just because we know the truth doesn't mean we are any higher or any better than anyone else. We need to get over ourselves and move on to Christ. I think a lot of people are deferred from Christianity because some of us are so set in their beliefs and so passionate about defending them that we actually hinder the progress of the faith. If I can't speak with grace, it might be better for me to learn to be okay with not speaking out so much...

Silent Conversations

The character that defines me and the person that I have become over the years is a direct result of time spent alone with God. Silence and Solitude are the two heavy hitters in my spiritual disciplines for the molding of my person. I've listened to well-put-together sermons and gone to many fantastic conventions and sat through many Sunday Schools and Wednesday Nights, and those have aided me in my pursuit of God, but the times which really alter my soul and my being are the times where I stop trying to actively learn new things about God and let Him speak new things into me. Sadly, sometimes I get so worked up in the joy of increasing my knowledge of God that I forget all about stopping for a moment and listening to Him. 

I am a product of long drives and even longer walks - of minutes and hours alone in the stillness, waiting for God. As foolish as it may sound, the memories of those times are some of the most joyful memories I have, for it is in those times that God speaks into my troubles, my anxiousness, and my fear and calms it; it is in those times that God highlights my successes and my victories. I generally take more intimate encouragement from my quiet times with God than I do with my loud times with friends. My friends speak to my ears and my mind, but God speaks to my heart and my soul; God gets to take a shortcut and split me right down the middle and pick apart my innermost being. When I sit and am quiet before God, He reaches beyond my defenses and gets right to the issue at hand. He convicts, challenges, and encourages without taking any unneeded steps to get there. My community is a great supporter in my Christian walk, but there is nothing better or more necessary for a Christian than an intimate, two-way relationship with God.

What I'm trying to say is this: Even though you've got ten thousand things to do today and twenty thousand to do tomorrow, how much more important are they than your relationship with God? Next time you're driving alone, would you maybe think of flipping off the radio and just listening? When you find you have an extra half hour on your hands, would it be better spent on Facebook or listening to God? I'm not condemning anyone for not spending all their time quiet before God, obviously, but I do know that quiet time is something that I struggle to maintain. I really would encourage everyone who reads this to try and schedule just 10 minutes a day to isolate yourself and spend the time just listening. I know I've been amazed with how far I've come and what I've become through my quiet time with God.

A Ticking Clock

My time on this earth is not promised. I am favored to even be alive on the earth at this moment, and every second that passes by is a second in which we are all allowed to exist. God's grace is silently apparent to all who recognize this wonderful act, for as long as God continues to let his broken creation press on in their pursuit of him, more and more people are drawn to the truth of God and his unfathomable mercy and love.

So where am I going with this? Well, here's the thought that I'm thinking right now (though it's really late, and I'm probably just going off on an exhaustion-induced rant):

This life that I'm living, and this flesh that I exist in has never been insured against a sudden end or termination. I am living a life that can, at any moment, be snuffed out and go from exciting to extinct. I think a lot of people don't realize this, or prefer to conveniently look over it. I wonder how much differently people would act, speak, and think if they knew for a fact that they only had two hours to live. I wonder if they would have a different conversation with their friend in the car if they knew they were both going to die in a head-on collision in 30 seconds. I wonder if the husband would refrain from yelling at his wife if he knew she would die of a heart attack in 15 minutes. I wonder if parents would try to enjoy their kids more and kids would act a little better if they knew that their other family members were close to dying. Have you ever noticed that terminally ill patients seem to be treated so nicely by everyone they come into contact with? This makes me wonder one more thing.

Would I act differently as a Christ follower if I knew I was going to die in 24 hours?

Well, of course I would! I would go out and proclaim Christ on the streets! I would go and repair some broken relationships, forge some new ones, plant some seeds, and pull some weeds. I would try to set everything in order that I have for so long been putting off. I would pursue the attainment of harmony in my life before I passed.

So, then, I have to wonder something else: Why am I not living like that right now? After all, I've established that my time is not guaranteed, and my minutes' number is not known to anyone but God. I could die in my bed as I'm writing this post; I could die in 5 minutes; I could die in 5 decades; either way, one thing is certain: I will die. I have a very, very short time to live my life here on this earth, and I am beginning to get sick and tired of myself when I push things off or procrastinate. Honestly, I don't have time to procrastinate; We don't have time to procrastinate. I cannot afford to use my time for myself. My time belongs to God, and God is all about people. And if God is all about people, then that means that I, as a Christian, as a physical mirror of God, must be all about people as well. I must put aside all selfishness and proclaim the Gospel to those in need of it. I need to get down in the mud with people and speak Christ to them. I need to get out of my comfy bed and sleep on hard concrete floors if that's what it will take to bring someone to Christ.

My nervousness, embarrassment, shame, and awkwardness really don't mean anything, because I am not my own, I am Christ's. Everything I am - everything I do, say, think, and pray - needs to be dedicated to God and his purpose. I have a short 80- years to complete the task he has given me, and I'll need every second to do so. I honestly look at the decades I may have and I wonder how in the world I will be able to do all of what I am called to do. But I place my faith in Christ and in his unfailing grace. If he takes me today, he is good. If he takes me in 90 years, he is just as good. The lord takes us when he wills, but we do as much as we can before our end.