Monthly Archives: March 2015

Holding sin close

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A pastor at a Promise Keeper’s convention shared how we should hate sin but in reality we tend to hold some sins close to ourselves, thinking they aren’t so bad: things like gossip, selfishness, over indulgence, apathy, anger, mindlessness. The problem is that all sin creates a wedge between us and our loving God. Romans 8:38 says nothing can separate us from the love of God. But anything that we put before God, that separates us from our personal relationship with God is sin.

 

Decades ago, traveling carnivals would sometimes give out tiny ‘pet’ alligators as prizes. They were all the rage. They’d get put into household terrariums and played with, held close, and admired. But of course, over time they outgrew their safe confines and became quite unmanageable.

 

Sin is like that. We convince ourselves that something that is wrong is right and that what is bad is not TOO bad…compared to others. Then there’s our addictions. We all know we should stay away from the harmful ones, but what about the addictions we crave that seem actually good for us? After all, we’re reminded that our bodies are God’s temple. It makes sense that we should take care of our body, eat healthy, and exercise. Nothing in scripture would deny that. But what happens when we become so obsessed with this temporary physical body that we lose sight of everything else?

 

I saw a recent advertisement for a hoodie with the inscription “Working out is my drug. Don’t judge me.”  Another might read, “The gym is my temple.” The fact is, we can become pretty ‘religious’ about our addictions – even more than our spiritual life. We hold them close to us. Of course we should eat well, exercise, and be good stewards of the body God gave us. But when our world revolves around every bite we eat, every calorie we burn, every mile we run faster, or every wrinkle that appears on our face life becomes distorted. What should be good and right is twisted into something that takes us away from God’s real call on our lives – to love Him with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength…and to love our neighbor.

 

Maybe you aren’t obsessed with exercise, beauty, or diet. But we all have something we hold close to us and protect, even though it serves only to alienate and hurt us, not help us. It could be fearful thinking or a sarcastic, cynical attitude. That addictive thing we hold close is called sin and it separates us from an intimate fellowship with a loving God who wants so much more…not just FROM us but FOR us. Drop the sin you hold close and pick up the heart of God. Keep it close to yours wherever you go today.

 

 

Heart surgery

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Jesus used an extreme metaphor to show how important living a holy life is:

“If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.” – Matthew 5:29-30

 

Recently, a Chinese teenager known as “Little Wang” took this advice literally and cut off his hand when he thought he couldn’t control his internet addiction. Is that the approach Jesus really meant for fighting pervasive sin?

 

In the context of his message, Jesus was speaking about the physical act of adultery. But he ups the ante by saying that “anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Vs 27-28)
The Pharisees would have considered the lust of the eyes as a minor sin and the physical act of adultery as a major sin. But Jesus says sin is sin and its source is the heart.

 

James tells us that we are “tempted and dragged away by (our) own evil desires…that battle within us.” Our friendship with the world makes us enemies of God, an “adulterous people.” The lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life that come from the world establish themselves in the heart and flow through the eye and the hand. We could pluck out both eyes and cut off both hands, but it would not stop our heart from sinning.

 

What are we to do? Martin Luther said, “You cannot keep birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair.” Temptation is not a sin, but providing a place for it to rest in our heart is.

 

I wonder how much sin starts with a simple curiosity. A tempting internet link begging our click doesn’t have to be particularly ‘naughty’ to be sin. The temptation to waste our lives viewing every cute video, reading every tidbit of news, catching up with the latest sports scores or the latest diet and exercise tips (the list goes on) all create temptations that can lead our hearts away from God. ‘Cutting off’ our eyes and hands from curious temptations keeps our hearts from being compromised.

 

In Hannah Hurnard’s classic allegory, Hinds Feet in High Places, the heart of the main character Much Afraid had become entangled with all sorts of irrational fears and corrupted thinking. The master had to surgically rip away what was strangling the lifeline of her heart. What we need today is not to pluck out our eyes and cut off our hands. What we need is heart surgery.

 

Give me a pure heart, O Lord, a heart that looks only to you.

 

 

Kicking against the goads

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Do you ever use expressions and then wonder what they really mean? For example, we use the phrase “to goad” someone, meaning to annoy or provoke them into doing something they are hesitant to do. In Acts 26:14, Paul recounts his conversion experience on the road to Damascus, quoting Jesus saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.”

 

In His book, God’s Goads, Chuck Swindoll explains: “‘to kick against the goads’ was a common expression…which rose from the practice of farmers goading their oxen in the fields.” He goes on to explain that goads were thin and sharp-pointed branches uses to prompt an oxen to move. The stubborn beast would sometimes ‘kick against the goads’ but it would result only in more ‘goading’ and more pain. So with time, the ox would learn to NOT kick against the goad and instead cooperate with its master.

 

Apparently, Paul’s conversion was not simply a sudden event but rather a resisting of God’s prompting over some time. As a religious pharisee he would have recognized the prophecies Jesus recalled from the Old Testament. Perhaps the words and actions of Jesus goaded him even as he resisted and ‘kicked against the goads’, persecuting Jesus’ followers.

 

We are like that, aren’t we? We know there is something needing to be done now yet we procrastinate. We know what is good for us but often pursue what brings us harm. We know that our happiness comes from renewing our minds yet continue to fill our minds with so much trash. We know our neighbor is sick, but we stay away. We know what is ultimately important in life yet chase after the trivial. We can’t resist a Facebook video that says, “You can’t believe what happens next!” but easily resist the urge to find out ‘what happens next’ when we draw close to God and respond cooperatively with his Word!

 

Like Saul, we kick against the goads, resisting God’s prompting us to focus on what ultimately is best for us and brings real fulfillment to our lives. The more we resist, the more the truth will goad us.

 

“Once you’ve seriously encountered Jesus, as Saul did, there’s no escaping Him. His words and works follow you deep within your conscience. That’s why I encourage people who are intensifying their efforts to resist the Gospels’ claims to study the life of Christ—to examine carefully His captivating words. Most people who sincerely pursue them can’t leave Him without at least reevaluating their lives.” (Swindoll)

 

God is not a cruel master, needlessly bringing pain to our lives to taunt and manipulate us into following his will. Rather, God is a loving father who never ever gives up on his beloved children. He continually and lovingly prompts us to come to him.

 

Are you kicking at the goads of his truth and finding disappointment, regret, sorrow, and grief? Walking cooperatively with God makes for a better journey.

 

 

He who began a good work in you

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Have you ever wondered if God is ignoring your prayers, if your dreams and hopes will never be realized? If you will be able to stand firm in faith? If no matter how hard you try, there will be no reward for your efforts? It’s part and parcel of walking by faith and not by sight, isn’t it? We don’t always get to see what is happening behind the scenes. What does God say about our sense of doubt?

 

“He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it.” Philippians 1:6

 

What a great verse of hope! But does that mean whatever task we undertake will be successful? Or that everything we seek to do ‘in the name of the Lord’ will be completed? Let’s look at the context of the verse.

 

Paul is writing a letter of encouragement to the faithful body of believers at Philippi. He tells them he thanks God for them and always prays for them with joy knowing they are faithfully living and advancing the gospel. They seem to be wholeheartedly doing ‘their part.’ But his confidence is not just that they will be successful but rather that GOD who first began a work of ‘good news’ in their hearts ‘from the first day until now’ ‘will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus’.

 

We sometimes act as if everything is up to us. Indeed, it is our job to faithfully respond to God’s call on our lives. But if we had the capacity to carry our good works on to our completion, then why did Jesus send his holy spirit? The good work in our lives did not even spring out of our own altruistic minds. It was begun by God. And it is God who will bring that good work to completion.

 

What good work is that? Is it our happiness and comfort? Is it the results of earthly ambitions, even those ‘committed to the Lord’? Paul was wearing prison chains as he wrote to them. That doesn’t sound like the successful completion of a plan. Yet he saw that even those punishing aspects of his life served to advance the gospel because they gave him opportunity to trust God and give testimony to his truth and grace.

 

Every problem is an opportunity to trust God.

 

Paul trusted God would be faithful to make their “love abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight.” He trusted God would give them discernment to know not only what was good, but what was BEST, that their lives would be “filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus – to the glory of God.” If you had just this carried to completion in your life, would that be enough?

 

This famous verse is not just about us. In fact, it is primarily about God, his goodness, and his persevering good work in us. Take heart. He who began a good work in you will not allow any circumstance to keep it from his completion.

 

 

Beyond desperation to hope

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“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation, and go to the grave with the song still in them.”
– Henry David Thoreau, Walden

 

What does it mean to you to live a life of quiet desperation? Some think it is absurd to cling to faith, that it is only an illusion, and that there is no meaning in living. Others maintain that the real futility is in living a life without meaning, of choosing despair over hope, of making sure that your song is boldly sung each day and not kept within you.

 

Samantha (Sam) Crawford, the character in the movie Unconditional, lived a great life full of excitement and happiness. But when her circumstances take a tragic twist, she comes to a dead-end and loses her faith and her passion for living. The song in her heart died. About to give up, she encounters two children who lead her to a reunion with her long-lost childhood friend, Joe. Despite his crippling kidney disease ‘Papa Joe’ as the children call him, lives for a higher purpose. Joe had encountered his own share of grief, enduring a prison sentence brought on by his own poor choice. But Joe chose to respond to his redemption by bringing redemption to others. He reaches out to the children in the low-income neighborhood where he lives, teaching and encouraging them. Inspired by Joe Bradford’s true story, Unconditional speaks to how the power of God’s redemptive love for us is magnified when it is shared unconditionally with others.

 

Real life doesn’t always present such stark contrasts. Truthfully, we often live somewhere in between. We say we live by faith but we persistently walk by sight. I wonder how often others might observe our actions and ambitions and conclude that we live with a ‘quiet desperation’, clinging to everything that doesn’t satisfy while the song of true joy is kept hidden within us.

 

How we respond to tragic twists in our circumstances is determined by how we choose to respond to God’s redemptive love poured into our own lives…today.  Don’t live a life of quiet desperation. Let the song of his unconditional love flow from your heart today. Whatever choices have marked your life up until now, today is a new day. Choose well.

 

“Live. Breathe. Find a way to believe. Never give up on hope. Life’s not a dead-end if it takes you somewhere you need to go. Talk to God and find his love. It’s the most powerful thing on earth. There is enough love to go around. All you need to do is share it.” (Excerpts from Unconditional)

 

Having a bad day?

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Are you having a bad day?
A terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day?

 

Someone recently commented on Facebook that they were ‘fed up’. One of their ‘friends’ replied, “Mondays are like that.”  We do get fed up, don’t we? What makes you sometimes ‘fed up’? Sometimes I get ‘fed up’ when I constantly forget things or make mistakes I have to correct.  Oh, I could probably make a long list and so could you. But let’s not, okay? Let’s hit the fast forward button to whatever situation bugs us today and see beyond it to another reality:

 

Are your kids complaining driving you crazy? It won’t be long before there is complete silence in the house and you’ll long for their presence.

 

Don’t like what you have to eat? Millions would love to have anything to feed their family!

 

Do your legs hurt? There is someone out there who would love to have legs! (I was convicted of this once as I was whining to myself about my thrombosis and came upon a man stumbling down the sidewalk with one leg and a crutch.)

 

Depressed about your retirement savings? Many people in the world have to work their entire life with little hope of rest.

 

You know, my mom used to say things like this. Probably yours did too. But it turns out mom was right! Of course, there are sometimes much more serious problems that make for a bad day or continuously bad years!

But regardless of the depth of our pain and sorrows we all have to ‘choose this day’ how we’re going to get through it. We can either curse the darkness or light a candle. One such light for not letting bad days defeat you is to find a reason to be thankful. You might be having a bad day, but at least you are having a day! Believe it or not, some would love to have your day. It might not be the day you wanted it to be, but it is your day to live. How this was confirmed in my journey through leukemia. You probably have seen people persist through severe pain and grief because they chose thankfulness and hope over resentment and despair.

 

The way we live out our bad days will either steal our joy and crush our spirit or it will strengthen us and encourage us with a reminder of what is good. It will either drive us to despair or help us to hope. And the way we live out our bad days affects others too. Grumpiness and thankfulness are both contagious. Don’t let your circumstances make it a bad day. Talk to God about it and choose a thankful alternative.

 

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” – Philippians 4:6