Fractured Saints - never beyond mending - a christian blog for the broken ones

In Matthew 19:16-22, there is a great, yet pretty terrifying interaction between Christ and a rich, young man.  In it, the young man asks God what he must do to be saved.  Jesus lists several portions of the law, including ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’  The young ruler boldly says that he has kept these, which Jesus doesn’t challenge (wow!).  Beyond that, Jesus calls the rich young man to sell all his possessions and give to the poor.  And with that the rich young man walked away dejected.

I have been thinking about this a lot the last couple weeks.  I think that materialism is one of the chief challenges to the church in the US.  Given that, I have really been struggling through how I would respond if Jesus showed up at my work today and asked for the same thing from me.  Sadly, I would fail the love your neighbor as yourself test (thanks to God for grace), but I think an honest assessment of how easily I would give up my house, emergency fund and 401k, speaks volumes about how opened handed we are to God.  I think that God put this story in the Bible not to be allegorical or symbolic, but rather to put reality on the concept of how much we have turned over to God.

Sadly, I feel I would act much like the rich young man.  I rest in the grace found in Christ, but I think that those of us who are given much should certainly repent regularly of our / my desire to make earth our home.

I have been thinking of a lot of things lately.  Mostly I have been sitting silently, contemplating the goings on of people around me, and wondering how the different events in the lives of other people may have an influence in my own life.  It has been a personal thought experiment on the butterfly effect on my own life.  How will I act, or react, when the time comes for a decision?  What will be my motivation when I decide?  Will I be given a choice to act or a choice to accept whatever comes?

Then this verse pops into my head.  Romans 12:1 “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”

Then a question or two comes:  What does God want from me now?  How will God get the glory in my life?  Am I willing to surrender everything to Him, to make any sacrifice no matter what is asked of me?

Tough questions to be sure, and not questions I am taking lightly.  I am struggling to lay down my desires, my self, my wants and perceived needs, and trying to let go of it all to allow God to ask of me whatever He will, and I am struggling to cultivate a willingness to accept whatever that may be, and make a purpose driven decision to let God have His will in my life.

In war, when a soldier surrenders, he gives up every right to self-determination after that.  His weapon, his personal effects, what he eats, where he sleeps, even his very life are given over into the hands of whomever he has surrendered to.  Not an easy thought to be sure, but if that person were God, shouldn’t it be easier?  Surrender.  Sacrifice.  Not so easy after all it seems.

I guess the start of it all is the questions themselves.  If I have surrendered to God, then shouldn’t the questions be something more like “What does God want to see done in this and every situation?  How will I act to be sure God gets the glory from this life that now belongs to Him?  How could I possibly say no to whatever sacrifice is called for?”

One of the great things about teaching Sunday School is that it has really forced me to study the bible more.  As I have told my students, the best way to learn something is to have to teach it!  What bothers me is that the more I read of the word of God, the more of a disconnect I see between what is written and what we live.  Now, I have always known that there have always been hypocrites and failures among the church (heck, I just need to look in the mirror if I want to see a hypocrite!)  Many of the the principles that are in the Bible are being twisted, ignored or misapplied.

Look at how the bible tells us to treat one another as Christians.  Paul does a great job throughout the New Testament describing how we should view ourselves as the Body of Christ left on earth to fulfill his work.  A beautiful metaphor, something that is apt, easy to understand and should probably be the guiding principle whenever we have differences of opinion or opposite ways of working.

Romans 12 is just one section that lays out how we are to act towards one another.

If we were filled with the Holy Spirit, wouldn’t we follow what Paul writes:

9 Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. 10 Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. 11Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. 12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. 14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with one another.  Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. 17 Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. 18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” 20 To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Such a great picture of what living the Christian life should be like. How much of the world could be brought to Faith if His followers acted as Paul says?  Look at where his focus is.  It is on love, hospitality, humility, forgiveness and harmony.  When I look around at those in my church, at a lot of the Christians in my area, on the internet and yes, in my own life; I do not see a striving for the qualities that Paul calls for.  And yet I think we all KNOW that we are to life with these priorities. What is stopping us? What are ways in which the Church in America is failing to be the body of Christ?  And what can we do to change it?

The past couple weeks, God has really been showing me how privileged I am and how much of it has so little to do with my performance and so much to do with his immeasurable grace.  It has led me to confession and even a bit of weeping.  Here are the points that hit home -

• The movie Precious –  Wow I only made it through about 20 minutes of this movie.  The movie gives a view into the life of a young, overweight African American teenage girl that is truly horrific.  To describe the depth of despair, her mother let her father rape her so that the teenager could keep giving birth to children so that the mother can get more welfare money.  The fact that I was born to 2 white middle class parents who loved me thoroughly has way more to do with my current life than my hard work.  Mark against my pride of status / success in my life.
• A conversation with a good friend – A friend and I went to a movie a couple weeks ago and conversation veered to kids.  His sister came up in the conversation, and I was sad to hear that her firstborn is still experiencing real problems.  It appears that the young child has bi-polar and is still quite violent and down-right threatening sometimes.  Both my friend’s sister and husband are faithful, smart, excellent parents who are struggling day in, day out with their child.  This really shook me up as well as I act as if my children’s relatively good behavior is largely a result of my “good” parenting.  Another heavy mark against my pride of the “job I have done” in parenting my kids.
• The movie The Road – This was another movie that shouldn’t be watched after a hard day.  Basically it consists of a post-apocalyptic world where there is no food / animals left.  The story is about a man who is just trying to keep him and his son alive on the road.  It is incredibly bleak, but it again it just showed me how much I have come to expect out of life.  Safety, regular food production, clean water.  These things are insignificant until we start to think about what we would do if they were yanked away.  Of course, my sinful heart would think, well that couldn’t happen in America, but I see no place in the Bible where I am promised that.  Huge mark against my pride which lead me to expect all of the things of my life to continue uninterrupted.

All of this has caused me to pray more humbly, to thank God deeply for simple things (air, food, family) and to generally distrust my natural state of evil pride.  I still forget regularly about my need to do these things (chief sin of Israelites who forgot God), but I have been clearly shown my sin.  God, please be merciful to me and help me to further confess and turn from my sin.

7Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. (1 John 4:7-11)

Of all the things I find upsetting about Christians, I guess one of the biggest is our lack of love.  I wonder why it is such a struggle for so many of us to show love to our neighbor.  If God abides in us, then we should be able to reflect His love to others.  It makes sense.   It should be easy, right?

When you think about it, we must be huge jerks.  I mean, we have been given this great gift of eternal life.  We are part of the family of the Creator.  We have a priceless inheritance and yet we squander it daily.  Only a jerk would take such riches and then not give any of it away.

And it isn’t like this is some earth shattering insight.  I am talking about something that should be pretty foundational and basic to our faith.  Really, we have no excuse for not showing love to those who don’t deserve it  (although I have a million of  ‘em.)  When asked what the greatest commandment was, Jesus didn’t hesitate.  He let us know in no uncertain terms that we are to love God AND people.  We don’t have a choice.  Which kinda sucks.  People are not exactly lovable.  Heck, even a lot of Christians aren’t lovable.

So, today I am going to try and NOT throw God’s gift to me back in His face.  I am going to swallow my pride (thanks, JohnB) and let the Spirit work through me to share the love of God that I have been fortunate enough to experience.

Whether you struggle with lust, food, adrenalin, pride or coveting other peoples stuff, you know the addictive power of sin. You also know that if you have struggled with a particular sin in you life that it didn’t start where it is now. For example food, I haven’t always eaten a whole pizza when I went to CiCi’s (please note this is just an example…. I actually normally eat more then that). No I started eating less then a piece many many years ago but that’s the way sinful nature and addiction is. I start small and the more I live in the struggle the more I just accept the little sins. I down play the seriousness of the sin by saying hey its only one piece (I’ve moved on from pizza now), but these little sins hold me captive and keep me in the struggle. They keep my chained up in sin, right where Satan wants me to be and right where Jesus wants me to be set free from.

So I ask, What little sins do you allow to hold you captive? Even if you see no effects from them in your life, what do you allow yourself that you know you shouldn’t? Two of the main things that come to mind in my life is speeding and downloading things illegally. Now that I have said them maybe you can help me figure out how these sins affect my life.

I love being cheap. I love it when people give me gift cards for Christmas. I love finding coupons for either Ruby Tuesday or Olive Garden in the Sunday papers. And I love shopping at Goodwill, and browsing through the local library’s used book section. It’s amazing what kind of stuff you can find for only five bucks!

I do, however, make an exception on some things. For example, when I buy coffee grounds I get the fair trade stuff, even though it costs more than the regular coffee. People often say to me, “You’re paying way too much! You need to get the cheaper stuff.” That’s usually when I get on my spiel about how major corporations exploit humble farmers, and how the middle man takes all the money. I figure if my money is going to help workers feed their families, I don’t mind paying a little extra.

I mention all this because lately I’ve been thinking about what Dietrich Bonhoeffer said about cheap grace verses costly grace. Bonhoeffer described cheap grace as “the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline. Communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.” Costly grace, on the other hand, “confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus, it comes as a word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and the contrite heart. It is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: ‘My yoke is easy and my burden is light.’”

And if I can be perfectly honest, cheap grace is much easier. You don’t have to worry about changing your lifestyle or thinking about other people. You can just walk around with your head held high because you know you’re forgiven, so you’re free to do whatever you want. Unfortunately, that’s not how it works. I mean, yes, salvation is a gift and not something you earn, don’t get me wrong. But as Romans chapter 6 tells us, we are dead to sin and given a new life in Jesus.

For me, it’s easy to fall for cheap grace because I keep thinking that following Jesus will be a huge burden. While it’s not always easy, it’s far from burdensome, because Jesus already did the dirty work: “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

It’s good to be cheap, except when it comes to certain things . . . like grace.

Out of all the top sins in my life, I don’t think pride would have made my top 3 or even 7.  Yet in the six (yea, seven) things God hates, “A proud look” makes the first on His list.  (Proverbs 6: 16-17)  In the New Testament, pride shows up again as one of three on a list as “the pride of life”.  I John 2:16

Ever notice that the Bible also makes some very emphatic and exclusive statements and conclusions about pride?  “Only by pride cometh contention: . . . ” Proverbs 13:10 and “Pride goeth before destruction, . . .” Proverbs 16:18

If God takes the issue of pride so seriously, why don’t I?  The only answer I could come up with: my pride.

As I began to delve into my own research to be able to teach on this topic in Men’s Bible study, a flood of conviction began to overwhelm me.  “Only by pride” do I argue, “Only by pride” do I get offended when someone is critical, “Only by pride” do I criticize others, “Only by pride” do I find fault in others, “Only by pride” do I become dissatisfied with my situation, “Only by pride” do I find myself too busy to read my Bible or pray, and on and on.  I began to see how pride has infiltrated every aspect of my life, every moment of my day, every encounter with another person, every thought that enters my mind, every action or word will be influenced by my pride.  I saw myself unable to function in life without my pride, and I stood totally convicted and judged in my own eyes.  How would God see me?  I shuddered, because I also knew “Pride goeth before destruction.” Proverbs 16:18

Most people inaccurately quote this as pride comes before a fall, but it is a misquote of the words in the entire verse.  God says, quite emphatically, that He hates pride, and we either must lose our pride or face destruction.  I also found destruction comes in so many forms.  Others are killed every day by someone else’s pride.  For example: texting while driving – pride tells us we can do it.  Speeding – we are safer drivers than others aren’t we?  I could write a whole article on just the consequences of pride, but you get the idea.  Relationships are destroyed – by pride.  Churches die and are destroyed – by pride.  Families are torn apart – by pride.  How different would our world be without pride?  Picture that, and maybe you can get a sense of why God hates it so much.

If “Only by pride cometh contention” then the reverse must also be true, so I came up with the corollary that “Only by humility cometh contentment.”  Think of all the things that bother you, then think of how Christ faced them by taking off His God robe long enough to die for you and me.  At the very moment of our own salvation, humility, not pride, ruled our minds and hearts.  On bended knee, vulnerable, we cried out for Him to save us, and He did.

I believe now that no one dies and goes to hell for their sins – for Christ paid for ALL OUR  SINS.  I now believe that a person dies and goes to hell for their PRIDE.  Someone who refuses salvation is someone who has refused to humble them self and acknowledge an Almighty God and His Son Jesus Christ, or maybe they have an issue with recognizing their own sinfulness.  In any case, it is always pride that stands between them and salvation – everything else to effect their salvation is already prepared for them.  Pride tells us we must earn salvation, while humility accepts there is nothing we can do to save ourselves.  God will only judge us for our sin if we hang onto our pride, and I am in the middle of my P-R-I-D-E.  Need a reference for that?

How about the story of Jonah?  The city of Nineveh was condemned for their sins, Jonah goes and warns them then sits on a hill to wait for their impending destruction.  The people humble themselves from the king to the last citizen, and God spares them.  Check it out for yourself how multiple times God backs off His judgment from a person a city or a nation because the person, people, or nation humbled themselves.

The kicker: 2Chronicles 7:14 “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”

Those who know me realize that I am a little bit of a history buff.  So it is no surprise that I have really enjoyed teaching some of the lessons for our Sunday school class lately that concern the history of the books of the bible.   During the study a couple of things really struck me.  The first thing is how little I really understood the timeline of the writing  of the bible.  Before this study I had never really had a clear picture of how long it took to complete the Old Testament or exactly the order and timing of the New Testament book’s appearance.

The second thing that jumped out was the number of times in the New Testament that the authors wrote against false teachers.  Until this study I don’t think I realized how much time was spent talking about guarding against false teaching.   I guess I had never really appreciated how hard it was in the first century to establish an orthodoxy.  It seems that there were a LOT of people running around the churches spreading false doctrine.  I guess it was the nature of the new religion that allowed people to make up what they wanted to believe instead of what was taught by the Apostles.  Many could have taught just by claiming the authority.  There would have been precious little written down that was accepted as scripture in which to base a foundation of common belief.

This is definitely not a problem that we have solved today.  It doesn’t take much to see many of the false prophets and teachers that are still around just by turning on the television.  Many of them are easy to spot because their greed is so apparent or their ideas are just crazy.  But what about the false teachers who aren’t on TV?  The teachers who say things that don’t sound too bad or maybe even good.  The teachers that we want to believe, even though what they say, if we are really honest with ourselves, doesn’t match up with the Spirit or the Word.  I think there is a difference between a false teacher and a teacher who is simply wrong.  It lies in their motivation.

What are we to do when we run across false teaching or false doctrine?   What was the most egregious lie that you have heard taught by someone who claimed to be teaching you Christian values?

James 4:7-10 (English Standard Version)

⁷Submit yourselves therefore to God Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ⁸ Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. ⁹ Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. ¹⁰ Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

This past Sunday, I heard a great sermon on James 4:7-10.  In the sermon, the pastor spoke extensively about drawing near to God, and what that would take given the passage.  The introduction to the sermon was around a Christian in the 1700s who kept a diary over 30ish years where he consistently notes that he tries to get up early in the morning.  Again and again, he resolves to be up early for prayer and time in the word, but it is clear he consistently fails to do so according to his entries.  He is depressed by this and even questions why he continues to resolve to do something that he clearly coming up short on.  All of this was to point to our deep need to admit our weakness, weep / mourn over it and thus be able to more fully experience the grace and exaltation that comes through Christ.

I imagine that I have heard all of this in sermons before, but it struck me at a deep level on Sunday.  The presumptive attitude that allows me to approach God, thinking that I am doing pretty well is probably my chief barrier to a rich relationship with him.  Cleansing hands and purifying hearts is not a experience where I really get to maintain my dignity on my terms.  This scares me to be honest, and while I was convicted, I have had a hard time actually doing it in this week.  So today, I am going to resolve to confess not my lack of spending time with God regularly, but rather the errant attitudes of my heart of complacency, idleness and presumptiveness.  Yikes, that sin list grew fast and ugly.