Month: May 2015

Insulated Western Christianity is waking from the dreamworld that being a Christian is normal or safe. More and more, true Christianity is becoming what it was as the beginning: foolish and dangerous. “We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles” (1 Cor. 1:23).
–John Piper

I hope that you are struggling with God regarding how to live foolishly and dangerously for Him – holding loosely to the things of this world while holding so very tightly onto Him.

Too often we find that we have chosen the opposite – a continued hope and prayer for our safety and blessings and comfort over our radical obedience, no matter the cost, to the Great Commission. I am so glad that so many before us were willing to live dangerously for their belief in Christ. And I pray that God will continue to help me see how to live in radical obedience to His Word, not focused on myself and my insignificant kingdom that will end when I die, but rather that I focus solely on building us His eternal Kingdom.

…in the flesh I keep the law of sin, obeying sensuality rather than reason. Therefore, the desire to do good is present in me, but how to accomplish it, I know not how. I often propose many good things, but because the grace to help my weakness is lacking, I recoil and give up at the slightest resistance. Thus it is that I know the way of perfection and see clearly enough how I ought to act, but because I am pressed down by the weight of my own corruption I do not rise to more perfect things.

How extremely necessary to me, O Lord, Your grace is to begin any good deed, to carry it on and bring it to completion! For without grace I can do nothing, but with its strength I can do all things in You. …Let Your grace, therefore, go before me and follow me, O Lord, and make me always intent upon good works, through Jesus Christ, Your Son.
–Thomas à Kempis

Scripture is clear – we are to obey the authorities. Yes, the human authorities, even if they are not Christian leaders. Until the authorities have given us a command that goes against God’s will, we are to obey them perfectly.

From Paul in Romans: Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.

From Peter: Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, or to governors sent by him…. For such is the will of God….

And yet, too often, we continually refuse to obey the laws of the land. We decide that they shouldn’t apply to us. We decide that they are too restrictive. We prefer to see just how much we can get away with – whether on the road with the speed limit (or for me – trouble with wanting to turn every stop sign into a yield sign, so that I can do a rolling stop when no one else is around), or with trying to get away with a few dollars of tax evasion by not being completely honest about cash money received or about what I own or where I live. There are so many ways that we can provide ourselves with “justification” for our disobedience, but very seldom does it have to do with the reason being that we were asked to do something against God.

The Christian freeman will speak thus: I will fast, I will pray, I will do this or that, which is commanded me by men, not as having any need of these things for justification or salvation, but that I may thus comply with the will of…a community or…a magistrate, or of my neighbor as an example to him; for this cause I will do and suffer all things, just as Christ did and suffered much more for me, though He needed not at all to do so on His own account…. And although tyrants may do me violence or wrong in requiring obedience to these things, yet it will not hurt me to do them, so long as they are not done against God.
–Martin Luther

May we each search our hearts to see where we are not being obedient to God by being obedient to our laws and authorities – not for legalism’s sake – but rather as Martin Luther indicates – to be an example to others.

Our immortality symbols (our possessions, our accomplishments, or even our children’s accomplishments) are not about the actual item, but about the glory that each thing bestows upon us…. In our society we have the problem of listening to the voice of self which tells you that you should live for yourself. The voice of self-love is even more powerful than the voice of the serpent. Pride and image-management are key self-love aspects of our American living. Though we use image-management to try to trick people to thinking we have the perfect life – the imperfect life is the only life that anyone lives, and when we accept that fact – we are on the right step to more depth with God.
–David Goetz

…and the right step toward better & healthier relationships with others.

There are two parts to accepting the fact that the imperfect life is the only life that anyone lives. The first is to stop hiding behind the false facade that we create to try to trick others into thinking we have the perfect life. We know our life isn’t perfect, but we want others to think it is. We want them to be envious of us, because we thnk that will make us feel better in some way. But it is an empty victory when we “cheat” or “lie” to gain a victory.

The second is to realize that everyone else’s life is imperfect too. Facebook, social media, and other similar tools can become our own personal marketing machines, and they lead us into comparison, competition, and ultimately to envy and covet what we see in other people’s lives. To find contentment in life, we must realize that all of our lives are similar – each one of us are an imperfect person married to another imperfect person and we are raising imperfect children in an imperfect world. We work with imperfect co-workers and live near imperfect neighbors. But all of this is ok, if we will accept the truth, take down the masks, and start living the imperfect life together, allowing God – the only Perfect One – to hold us all together loving one another in our imperfectness.

So today, realize the truth that the imperfect life is the only life that anyone lives. Take off your own mask, tear down the false walls, and start being real with other people. And strive to be content in your relationship with God – focusing on the intrinsic value you have in being a child of the Giver, rather than focusing more on the value you think you will get from your possessions and accomplishments.

God wants to remind us:
…What I have given, I can take away and restore when it pleases Me. What I give remains Mine, and thus when I take it away I take nothing that is yours, for every good gift and every perfect gift is Mine.
–Thomas à Kempis

God is the giver of gifts. We are the stewards. Too often we forget our roles and therefore we get fussy when something that he has given is taken away from us. But we must also remember that God is a great Father who dearly loves His children, and that perhaps He might take the item away because we have become too dependent upon it instead of upon Him.

As a good Father, He knows our every need, and He knows that our greatest need is Himself. If anything in our lives gets put into a position above Him, it is beneficial for us that He take it away, even if it is a good gift. Once we get our lives reoriented to Him, He has the power to restore the same good gift or perhaps an even better one. Let us trust Him with the giving of gifts knowing that He desires us to have an abundant life in Him. And let us strive to be good stewards, never elevating the gifts above the Giver!