“Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions’…and you forgave the guilt of my sin.” (Psa. 32:5)
Guilt is one of Satan’s engineered marvels to keep people away from God. All of us are sometimes tempted with not accepting God’s grace due to some bad habit or unmentionable sin that distances us from him. Yet imagine the satisfaction Satan gets when the offense is one with which we struggle. Like a fly in a spider’s web, we gradually tire from the strain to be free and, guilt-ridden, our adversary watches with delight.
Repeated sin is a burden to the soul. All of us know the hardship of falling to temptation, lamenting in guilt, and praying that we’ll never do it again, only to realize that the issue is a real scab in the heart that we simply cannot let heal. It is spiritually crushing to realize that sin controls a part of one’s life; and how to remedy it is sometimes equally troublesome to determine. That despair is real and it often becomes malignant.
Don’t Love Me as I Am
Hear these words carefully: True penitence before God is acceptable, but self-deprecation plays into the hands of Satan and entangles us further in his weave. Very often we make ourselves both the offender and the enforcer of God’s commands. It is the human tendency for self-flagellation, to hatefully criticize ourselves. Surprisingly, it arises from an insidiously proud heart that exploits the very character of God.
We berate and loathe ourselves. We scale the heights of fury and plunge the depths of remorse. Ultimately, we shake our fists at God and ask, “How can you love me like this, in all my wretchedness?” I’ve done it. We prefer his judgment instead of his mercy, which interrupts our scorning. And in our pitiful despair we try, with one last stab, for control. But when our emotions finally settle, we sense that the God who is ever drawn to us yet beckons.
Forever Loved by God
What we cannot accept in our guilty minds is a spiritual reality regardless of our embargoes. It is this: Sin can never push us outside of God’s grace. We are the ones who eliminate God’s mercy as the sufficient remedy for our weaknesses. Yet the Father wants us to see that we cannot lose his love. What matters is not how gross our sin but how great the love that heals and restores—if we would only go for help.
God wants to teach us to tie the laces that keep us falling. This means that in times of repeated sin, we trip and stumble our way to Godrather than away from him. He is who we need. Our resolution must be that if a sin should be one that we cannot shake, we must drag it to the place where the mercy to help can make us free.
When you’re lucky enough to get downtime in your day, sometimes your body betrays you for sleep. And not unlike the ebb and flow of water, body and brain may play a game of chase, one on the run and the other at the gate. Your head nods, your arms slip, your eyes close—until you catch yourself…and jerk, and nod, and jerk and nod, and chuckle, hoping no one was watching.
What we never consider is how our muscles support our bodies until the paralysis that comes with sleep overtakes the impulse to stay upright. I imagine it as a stately tree bending in the wind without apparent support. We are hardly ever aware that we actively hold ourselves
So it is with prayer. We may not know how it works; we just know it does, especially when some force—or maybe our own vices—tries to overcome it. By prayer we stand and have stood for so long. Prayer holds the world and our lives in posture: prayers for us and by us and those we pray involuntarily and those reaching heaven from some distant place on earth, unknown. Prayer is always near, powerful as muscles and as undetectable. Glory to God, for he hears.
“Moses Breaking the Tablets of the Law” by Rembrandt (1659), PD, Wikimedia
The Word of God is unique. It was written throughout many generations and in different cultures. Although shaped by these cultures, it stands apart from culture itself to express divine truth. In the same way, God’s truth should always be speaking to the culture and the people of the culture, influencing them and not vice versa.
It is seriously important that preaching today becomes increasingly biblical—and I hope this sounds as curious as it is strange to say; but indeed more biblical, or given earnestly to teaching the text, simply because a reversal is occurring and leading to the tainting of God’s truth.
A quick observance here: When preaching is less than biblical, it may be contaminated by a number of non-essentials, such as the preacher’s opinions and talking points, new renditions of scripture, intellectualism, and hype, among others. But there is one that has done a marvelous job creeping into the American pulpit. It is the danger of the self-help gospel.
A Dream on the Throne
Self-help is achievement by means of self-reliance through methods (sometimes psychological) or systems. The possible achievements are many and various, as are the methods. Self-help is also easy and of varying worth: Anyone can be an expert and write a book and pique the interest of one’s inferiority. The number of self-help books available for purchase online today is plethora. We seem to be a nation of people with many small reasons not to like themselves.
Now the self-help gospel I’ve too often witnessed in many pulpits, in-person and on television, goes something like this: “Don’t let your dreams die” “God can make your dreams come true” “Dream a dream that only God can make happen.” Dream! Dream! Dream! What is this? I’m not certain how we have missed the goal of Christ and taking up our cross and replaced that with our destiny and dreams, but it is gross error and the Spirit of God is calling us back to our senses.
I fear that the church in America has confused spiritual faith and optimism with capitalism and the American Dream that both emphasize personal achievement and worth and to which nothing is seemingly impossible. But these may stand in direct opposition to the principles of the Word of God that constantly instruct us to lose ourselves and empty out rather than laying up earthly treasure, whether natural or emotional.
Paul and the End of a Dream
Christ and his purpose for our lives is the final word for Christians. What we will surely learn is that sometimes God’s “dream” for us, or his purpose, is not always the path we would so readily choose, although it will be the one that brings us greatest joy and spiritual achievement. We should recall that the Lord sent Ananias to convert Saul of Tarsus with the words, “I will show him how much he must suffer for my name” (Acts 9:16), something the former persecutor himself might have quickly fled if it had been told to him. Yet today we count Paul among the greatest of Christians who ever lived and his joy in Christ was undeniable.
I use the apostle Paul as a good example of this matter. In Philippians 3:4-14, Paul speaks of the achievements of his own life regarding his religious zeal. He starts by saying, “Yet if anyone ever had reason to hope that he could save himself, it would be I. If others could be saved by what they are, certainly I could!” (v. 4, LB).
He further elaborates how he was properly initiated as a Jewish baby into a pureblooded home. He emphasizes that he was blameless in his adherence to law and custom and zealous, going as far as persecuting the young church. His crowning achievement was being a Pharisee, part of the group of strictest adherents to Jewish law and policy. We also know from Acts 22:3 that he was taught by the renowned doctor of Jewish law, Gamaliel.
Saul, based on his accomplishments, had before him a life of honor and wealth considering the high official posts to which he could have risen. There are no indications that he led anything less than a discreet moral life. As a young man—and probably an ambitious one—he had a good life ahead of him, and the scandalous Jesus religion was one thing that could bring it all crashing down around him.
Then he says, “But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ” (v. 7). Here is a man who explains his life lived by the rules and at the pinnacle of the ladder of success that any religious Jew of his day would have envied; and, for our understanding, here is a man who possessed the “dream” and, in significant ways, as best a dream as could be had in Israel before his conversion to Christ. Paul is informing us that he considered his life well-ordered and pleasing to God.
In his next breath, however, he explains that, in retrospect, all he possessed miserably failed in comparison to the effect Christ produced in him. “Whatever were gains to me”—all that was to his advantage, all he could embrace, all that made his heart happy and fat, all that stroked his ego—these things, in the light of Christ, became rubbish or refuse. In fact, the connotation is of animal innards that were to be discarded.
Paul continues: “Now I have given up everything else—I have found it to be the only way to really know Christ and to experience the mighty power that brought him back to life again, and to find out what it means to suffer and to die with him” (v. 10, LB). Paul would have had to choose Christ and, therefore, walk away from the life of distinction within his grasp. So, if dispossession is part of the road to transforming relationship with Christ, how have we formed a message of dream, destiny, and more?
First Things First
I do not mean to say that we may not seek to attend college and make a good living ourselves. It doesn’t mean that we cannot have ambition and desire to be the best at what we do. I’m not saying that the desire to be wealthy is necessarily wrong. We should be exemplary persons and exemplary Christian persons. How much more God can use us for the kingdom as accomplished individuals.
But if these things in any way replace a consuming passion for God and to serve him in everything we do, as well as a quick response to let it all go should he prompt us to do so, we may be living contrary to his will. The least that could be said is that our lives do not find full satisfaction in God.
“I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God is calling us up to heaven because of what Christ Jesus did for us” (v. 14, LB). Such a reward has nothing to do with my ambition or merits and everything to do with identifying with his suffering and winning the crown of life. My dreams don’t matter and are best kept as servants in the relationship I share with God. In fact, we chance to make them idols if our hearts do not fully embrace Christ.
Gaining Proper Perspective
Moreover, if a man who had every advantage both before and after turning to Jesus can regard all his righteousness as filthiness relative to his spiritual knowledge, our need for newer and bigger advantages for God to bless and be shown as his favor upon us is counterintuitive. It is amazing that we can bend the scriptures to be so superficial about what we can expect from God.
This is not God’s favor to us; it is our self-aggrandizement in God’s name. Jesus is enough. God’s purpose is enough. The glory of God is enough. But we haven’t sat in his presence long enough to get the revelation—and an explosive revelation it is. This is a life unto death joyfully strode. We give all for a loving and great Savior. We take on his cross and follow where he leads, not where we wish to go. Will we like Saul need to be thrown from our beasts to get the picture?
This dream is not gospel preaching but calling on God to bless our striving and sometimes vanity. If we’re going to be driven in our careers and life aspirations, fine. Let us be that to the glory of God and serve God with all we possess. But let us not preach its pursuit and advantage as the necessary will of God and definitely not the Word of God because it is not and would not be in the way we Americans think of it, lest it produces in even third world countries as richly as it might here in the ‘land of opportunity’; and we cannot see that happening as easily.
So until it does such preaching is a travesty of the pulpit and disregard for the true Word of God.
I attended a Christian college that emphasized togetherness, so dorm life was not unlike having family around. In addition to the RA, each wing on campus had a chaplain and community outreach coordinator, along with a brother- or sister-wing to share the college experience. It worked well and made for good friendships and strong morale.
I served as a chaplain in my junior year. It wasn’t the best experience because I was a total mismatch for the wing; perhaps it is more accurately stated that many of the guys didn’t really have Jesus on their minds! But if it was paying my dues in any way, then that something better came the following year when I was promoted to be a spiritual life dorm director.
Bursting with Love
As the dorm director I worked with the men’s campus chaplain and supervised six wing chaplains of my own. I had great guys. I bore a vision of an internally strong and personally rewarding experience and not our going through the motions of doing what campus chaplains did devoid of real meaning.
I spent the first three weeks casting my vision and building camaraderie, and by the midterm I knew my group was a pot of gold. They were quality people and leaders that I deeply respected, and I really wanted them to know how much I appreciated them.
Each week we had Dorm Group, a time when we met just for peer review and any type of devotion or fun I chose. This particular week I had to get out of my system how much love I felt for these men. I was so grateful to God for their gifts and how they contributed to the group. So I decided that I would tell them face-to-face during Dorm Group, each man individually before the group; however, I also knew that I would be overcome with emotion.
Well I was one giant teardrop! But I made sure that I left it all on the table and that they knew I didn’t see my place only as the scholarship role it was. They were very gracious.
Go Ahead…Do It
Expended but relieved, I cut the meeting short and everyone left out quickly, yet they still wanted to hang out. They all decided to head down to one of the chaplain’s rooms and told me to come along. I really just wanted to sober myself up and maybe head down later, but some pined for me to come, so I did.
When we had all sat down, the host pulled back a curtain where there was a surprise party all set for me! I was stunned. They had been planning their feelings toward me that week just as I had done for them. In fact, they thought I was on to them by the way they abruptly left the room, but I had never detected a thing.
Our meeting continued in that room as one-by-one they let me know how much they appreciated me as their leader. The entire night was deeply moving. They told me later what I already knew, that it could’ve only been God knitting our hearts together like that.
Isn’t God cool? I encourage you to unburden your heart of all the love and admiration you’ve wanted to share with someone but felt too ashamed to do so, or you diminished the act. Do it. Write a letter. Whisper it during the car ride. Say it in the silence at dinner. Promise yourself. You can never guess how repercussive the kindness may become.
Joyful are they who keep a humble opinion of themselves, for the treasures of the life of faith belong to them. Joyful are they who grieve for their sins, for they shall have lasting spiritual comfort. Joyful are they who with patience endure injury, for they shall receive abundantly in this life. Joyful are they […]
I have discovered that I am never more aware of God’s presence than when I am experiencing hardship. I recall certain times of pain in my life—events, circumstances, and even sin—and remember the foremost thing in my mind always being God: What is God up to? There were times when I bristled at the mention of God and prayer and considered giving up on faith. But the secret of my heart, that only God could see, was that I thrashed for him like a drowning man needing air.
We all have heard or read the poem “Footprints in the Sand.” It has become a classic spiritual reflection on the Lord’s aid to us. But I have now come to frown upon the writing. Before you refuse to read more, hear me out. I get the writer’s intended message, but I am not sure it is correct, according to God’s Word, about his nearness and assistance. Let me explain.
The poem is an allegory and relates a dream the narrator has of walking along the beach and seeing scenes of his or her life flashing across the sky. The focal point is footprints in the sand, one set belonging to the Lord and the other to the narrator. This person notices that at life’s most painful times, the Lord seems to have disappeared, for there were only one set of footprints during those times. This prompts the narrator to question the Lord’s faithfulness. The Lord replies that during the times the one set of footprints were seen, that was when he was carrying the speaker.
There is no one who lives the Christian life that will not get his or her share of trial and proving. Also, no one should think that the Lord has not ordained these times. Remember God’s words to Ananias in Acts 9:15-16 concerning Paul, then Saul of Tarsus? “Go! This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.” Hardship comes with the package.
“Footprints” is very true in its expression of human feeling, something I understand fully. I know what it is to be overwhelmed by difficulty and inner turmoil. I know what it feels like to drown emotionally. I know what it feels like to be at my wits end and wanting to die. I know what it feels like to think that all, including God, have abandoned me. My problem with the poem is not that it accurately details the experience of divine absence. Psalm 10:1 plainly asks, “Why, Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” What a strange concept that God can be known, or silhouetted, by his apparent absence. Moreover, we should not overlook the fact that God may indeed withdraw the sense of his presence for the proving of our faith. And here is where my problem with the poem surfaces. It never achieves a biblical portrait of the suffering saint.
The promise of God throughout scripture is his presence: I will never leave you. In fact, we may consider his wonderful and abiding presence the primary benefit in our relationship with him. Even when Israel sinned to their heart’s desire, God punished them but never deserted them because they were his own. We also are God’s possession and whether we have the sense of his presence or not, it gives us no place to question his faithfulness to us. Contrarily, it requires complete faith to be sure of his promise, especially in tough circumstances.
Let me explain this from an account with Jeremiah the prophet. Jeremiah 15:15-21 details a profound rebuke from the Lord to Jeremiah for his impatience. Jeremiah has been persecuted by the leaders of his community for his preaching and, once again, has become impatient with God’s slowness to vindicate him. He lashes out at God and even refers to him as being possibly deceptive and unreliable in his manners (v. 18). God stops Jeremiah and rebukes him with stern words.
Jeremiah felt it his right to God’s vindication because of what he was doing for God, namely, being his prophet. God debunks Jeremiah’s notion by telling him that his vocation doesn’t guarantee him less suffering. Jeremiah was not doing God a favor because he and his ministry belonged to God. The real issue in Jeremiah’s impatience, God says (v. 19), is his suspicion of God’s faithfulness. In Chapter 14, Jeremiah had just pleaded for God’s mercy, reminding the Lord of his covenant with his people. Now the Lord applies the theme to Jeremiah personally to express that he would never break covenant with him as he told him at his call (Jer. 1).
Even deeper was God’s implication that he didn’t necessarily need Jeremiah’s service, but he had obligated himself to Jeremiah; if he obligated himself to need Jeremiah, he would be completely faithful to the prophet despite any suffering he might experience. God tells the prophet that his attitude and words were so revolting that they spiritually ejected him from his prophetic office and that he needed to divorce his human passions from his divine assignment. His passions were a frustration and hindrance to his mission. God uses the image of a precious metal being separated from its dross to represent the purifying Jeremiah needed in his heart; such would restore to him the prophetic mantle.
This very same scenario is present in “Footprints”—“Why have you not been here? Why did you leave?” But God promised that he would never leave or forsake us (Deut. 31:6). Jesus said that he was with us always, even to the end of the age (Matt. 28:20). God reassures, “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (Isa. 41:10). Our first duty is to trust what he says; what he says right clearly is that not only is he near, but he draws closer to us in our trials.
I cannot agree with the poem for its main point: the one set of footprints that indicate God carrying us. The spiritually mature Christian relies on God and adheres to his words, and God expects that of us. He has endowed us chiefly with his Word and his Holy Spirit, and through these we are made equipped to weather the storms that may cloud our lives. This means that we can bear up under pressure. We can stand and fight. We can walk and progress. God is not taken by surprise at our circumstances, and he promises to never allow anything in our lives that is too great for us to handle. Thus, if we find ourselves in it, God saw it first and knows that we have available to us everything necessary to walk through it and come out better persons on the other side (2 Pet. 1:3). He will draw close to us—that’s his promise—but there is no reason for our needing to be carried as though we were too weak or in jeopardy.
Sure, God carries us in the sense that he strengthens and comforts us. The miracle of grace relies upon his full provision for our total existence and well-being—“…apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Yet the result of that grace is our spiritual vitality and enablement. “[Not in your own strength] for it is God Who is all the while effectually at work in you—energizing and creating in you the power and desire—both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight” (Ph. 2:13, AMP).
This grace is even more wonderful because God promises his presence to us even when we err. Israel sinned to the point of drawing God’s indignation, but he never left them. God’s dealing with them throughout the Old Testament is a marvelous and loving example that, although our sin will bring punishment, the Lord faithfully walks with us through the consequences.
It is unfortunate for many Christians who miss the richness of God’s purpose with hardship. These are ever trying to throw the yoke from their shoulders or view it as a scheme of Satan when God has very well appointed such times in their lives for proving and perfecting. They surely miss a deep experience with God and perhaps some deeper aspect of his person that only comes with the intimacy born out of shared pain. One thing is certain though: Our ease is not God’s primary purpose with us. Frothy teaching will always align us more with self-help practices and cultural comfort than biblical teaching. Instead, God wants our whole hearts and resistance to the soul will give him the results he seeks.
So it doesn’t matter what the state of my life is. I can know without doubt that God is near and even closer when I face trouble. Although I may not see him, he sees me; although I may not feel him, he feels my pain. My confidence is his purpose for me in the situation. My hope is the refinement the fire brings. My relief is that the burden won’t crush me. God told Jeremiah, essentially, “I am not like you. Your affections with others will change, but mine won’t—and they won’t change regarding you. I am faithful.”
“But Zion said, ‘The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me.’ Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.” (Isa. 49:14-16)
Novelist Anne Rice explains that she has lived as a Christian for 12 years and publicly so for four of those years. But on July 28, 2010, in three Facebook entries, she “quit” Christianity—“In the name of Christ…Amen.” Her I Refuse entry laments her broad assessment of the Christian religion that she can simply no longer be part of. Some have said that Christianity draws fire from her due to treatment she has witnessed in the life of her gay son.
I think I know where she’s coming from. She is upset that much of the love and moral uprightness that she cherishes about Christ in the New Testament is either not evident or altogether spurned by those who claim to know him, as she deems it, in their views on science and philosophy and their position on socio-political issues.
She’s right to bring rebuke to a Christian community that may be blinded by its own righteousness. History such as the Crusades and the Inquisition all the way to modern-day radical, Christianized ideology should teach us as much about ultra-conservative idealism.
The Historical View
Allow me now to respond to this issue by stepping back and taking a comprehensive view. One of the greatest tasks of the Church Fathers was their fight against heresy, particularly about Christ, finalizing the canon (the Bible), and explaining the doctrines and teachings of the faith. Their work helped convert a Christian sect into a more developed religion by systematizing its thought and showing those who attacked it that Christianity was philosophically viable and apologetically defensible.
Their work continues to (and will always) help answer the moral and ethical issues that crowd out generations in countless cultural circumstances, which is an amazing thing to ponder. Yet culture is the one thing that makes the issues and questions so difficult to answer in strictly Christian terms—that is, to answer them in a way that coherently and thoroughly responds to an ever-evolving culture and honors and esteems God’s holiness at the same time.
In light of the solid groundwork that has been laid and an almost tangible picture of God’s holiness gathered from the Hebrew scriptures and New Testament writings, Christians still do not always fare well at interpreting God’s heart and character, if only by showing too one-sidedly a God of love or one who loves justice a little too much.
So with Ms. Rice I agree that Christians should be present at the forefront of these issues, especially after 2,000 years of developed thought, standing firm in their convictions, yet open to dialogue and not castigating, close-minded, or stranded of thoughtfully deep analysis.
All Other Ground…Sinking Sand
Still, I take issue with her “I quit” proclamation, the old organized religion is full of trouble argument. Anne says that she is not quitting Christ (a good thing), but she is quitting his Church because she can no longer be part of a “quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group.” If by these adjectives she means what I have already attempted to say, then I understand, although I find her reasoning faulty.
She must understand—and why don’t people?—that the true Church of God will always oppose sin, plain and simple. The church will always struggle within itself with the questions of society and come up with responses not to please but to say, This is how best we see God answering this. That will always be a clear and firm ‘No’ to any (new) social immorality and what has already been shunned by scripture. Religion with changing convictions is not worth keeping.
Why do people lose their faith in God when they see ministers fall and Christian institutions being less than reputable? Peter walked on the water with Jesus until he took his eyes off Christ. This is what happens when our faith isn’t grounded in the person of Christ despite the imperfections of his Church.
I believe Anne Rice loves Christ and loves what his Church represents and is existentially, not only in America, but also around the world. As usual, however, error often comes with an overcorrection to abuse. Is she now siding with culture against the church she loves? (Yes, you hear me correctly. You cannot love Christ and think yourself divorced from his Church. To be so is to be at odds with your faith and maybe even outside of it.
There is no way to read the scriptures and not find Christ represented as the “head of the body” [Eph. 1:22-23] and the groom of “the bride” [Rev. 21:2-6].) And why is it that people think Christ would be any more lenient against sin than his Church has been in holding the guard? Surely there would be no Church—it would have died in the first century. Ms. Rice cannot jump ship because Christ is aboard the ship and all else is chaos.
Stay in the Fight!
This reminds me of desert monasticism that arose in early Christian history. Many fled into the deserts to flee persecution and to live out their Christian faith distanced from the immorality that abounded in the cities. It led to spiritual revival and some of the saintliest personages and literature in all Christian history.
Yet that approach to living the Christian life is not one to be quickly emulated. Christians have to live in this world just like anyone else, and we will have to deal with very un-Christian institutions and situations. Jesus’s high priestly prayer to his Father says it all: “I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one” (John 17:14-15).
We should count Christ’s prayer a promise of safety to us in our lives and evangelical mission since we trust that his Father heard him. We will get it right some of the time and not so right at other times. Still, we will press on in Jesus’s name and for his honor. But we are not to get fed up amongst ourselves despite inconsistent faith and differing viewpoints and abandon it all. Peter expresses this sentiment when he remembers the glory of Christ’s transfiguration (2 Peter 1:12-19).
There is also no place for Me-and-Jesus spirituality. In Christ there is no looking back to sin or looking away for isolation. Anne Rice should not flee any error she notices but rather engage it with a call to repentance.
I think this is the higher message to be dealt with, as opposed to other social issues she may actually be supporting. Christians should see Ms. Rice’s situation for what it is: a rebuke where we may be insensitive and less than Christ-like in our attitudes to some. But she need not now lead the army of devils that hate the Church and all religion but work to open dialogue and to transform.
“Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.”~Pascal
CC BY-NC, SalFalko, Flickr
One Saturday morning I listened to the public radio quiz show “Whad’Ya Know?” while driving with my family to a nearby town. The whimsical show is hosted by Michael Feldman and features a trivia game with both audience and caller participants. One of the questions in the game this particular morning was “Who turns up the electric shock dial the highest—readers of the Bible or Time Magazine?” Since I am both of these, I knew the answer immediately: the Bible thumpers.
I knew it because I have watched myself evolve from a staunchly conservative individual with high objectives of character and moral living—my Bible leanings—to a slightly more liberal thinker who, still with his strong convictions, can now be conversant with various ideas and those who may accept no religion. So why is it that the people with the most conviction or who are the most unexposed often the most unmerciful and resistant to change? I offer a suggestion.
Perhaps a belief is to be possessed or espoused, not vice versa, lest believers (in anything) risk being driven by their beliefs and so become fanatics. People who sacrifice themselves to their convictions often become instruments of those ideas to beat others into subjection. By turning their beliefs into abject rules their own lifestyle is bound by adherence and that causes people to be legalistic toward others. It is difficult to acquaint those who are diametric and cheerless for need to always convert.
We all know someone who leans a little too far left or right. For instance, some people love money and are only motivated to gain as much as they can get; others cannot enjoy their money for the need to save it all. If you’re not running after money or hoarding every penny you can find, then you probably deserve the poverty coming your way. I watched a news story once of a woman so careful about her home energy expenditures that she turned off the heat each night in the deep of winter. Such is the case of conviction become obsession and compulsion.
When Barack Obama became President, I spoke with a black gentleman who was glad to see a black family in the White House. Yet he was so opposed to the new leader’s politic that he couldn’t relish what the moment represents in American history. It underscores a point to me: any notion, whether of faith or sport or politics or propriety or family—anything is subject to extremes, and this is the negation of true enjoyment.
What does God think about our work? The apostle Paul offers a clue in Ephesians 6:5-9.
First, he admonishes us to obey our supervisors respectfully, underscoring God’s order of authority. We know that not all leaders are good ones. Paul understood this and it is evident in his writing. But his point is that God is honored by our obedience to and respect for the position. When we serve our managers, we please God our ultimate authority. It is not far-fetched to believe that our service to God in this manner is one way he makes an end of bad authority.
Second, Paul advises us to be sincere in our work. He also adds that we should work hard even when we’re not being watched, which can be hard when the work is monotonous or disliked. Working as unto God is no protection from boring, unnerving work. Work can also be personally burdensome when there are other important things needing to be handled. But should we shirk our responsibilities when we get tired or upset? Is it fine to leave our work behind for others to do? Are we to work less because others are loafing? This is when sincerity matters.
Third, Paul tells us to work enthusiastically. There is no better work accomplished than that done joyfully, creatively, and with excellence. Even if the job is doing one thing a thousand times a day, it is the attitude that counts. We should strive for the best thousand of any other worker! We can work on behalf of all the people who will buy the product. We can work with gratefulness that we have a job and money to provide for ourselves and our families. We can work because we truly love it, the workplace and our coworkers. Work this way, Paul says, because the true reward for good work ultimately comes from God and is in God.
(Stop and think: how did Jesus do his work? What did he like and hate about it? Was he ever subject to a bad boss? Was he satisfied with his pay?)
This is how we do our work “as to the Lord” (Col. 3:23, KJV). Paul has presented us with a clear picture of the spiritual life reminding us that faith pervades every area of daily living, even our rote responsibilities. Acting as our Lord did, we become agents of redemption and transform the secular and mundane into sacrament, and all becomes an offering to God.
A 'Mike' for Christ 