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

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.

The interesting thing about faith is that it is one of the areas in Christianity that we know that we cannot manifest or control. So when you are not “growing” at the rate that you think you should be, you cannot increase how much faith you have in God.

The realization that I came to today was all the other aspects that I try to control I shouldn’t. I should relinquish control and find comfort in my Savior’s control. Honestly though I’m not sure what that looks like, how that plays out. What does it look like to relinquish the controls in your life? What does it look like to rely on God for everything?

I am a Christian. Sure I don’t wear the t shirts, have the bumper stickers, hand out traks, or tote a Bible under my arm all the time. I mean come on its a brown leather Bible and I normally wear black, you cant do brown and black leather everyone knows that. Oh no I drink beer, smoke every once in a while, and even say words that my parents said were bad.

Here’s the conundrum. I strive as a Christian to not fall into the mold of a stereotypical christian, but in doing so I loose the resemblances that people associate with Christianity. I have been struggling lately with understanding how to show my faith without falling into the mold and it is harder then I thought. I have come down to the only thing that can set me apart from others is my overwhelming love and care for people, that I feel the Bible calls us to. That scares me though that’s a really big investment. Are there some way to work around this that I’m not aware to show my Christianity (maybe with a little less investment)(and oh yeah stay cool)?

I know I talk about food a lot, but I find it to be a great way to talk about things that are needed in life that we misuse. I could talk about sex, work, or money but those are much more touchy and private subjects in some Christian circles. So, I talk about food. Even when I’m not talking about food, I usually talk about food.

So I wanted to talk about getting what you want even when it isn’t what you need. Indulging in things that are unhealthy and/or hurt us. For this food example we will use Fast Food. If you want to apply it to sex you can pull from porn (or lusting after anything else you shouldn’t be). For work and money, you can pull from finding your status in how well your doing or what you own.

I love fast food. The low cost, the sodium content, the horrible quality meat with a little extra fat. You can mock me on this if you want to but I have a feeling most people are the same. Otherwise McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Burger King, and Wendy’s would have found it harder to make it through the last couple of years. All that is to say I love it and indulge in it even though I know its bad for me. So why do I do it? Do I value the rich flavor over the health aspects? Is there a part of me that wants to believe that in smaller amounts somehow this food is actually good for me (or maybe in small amounts it really isn’t bad)?

My problem with the idea of say “hey in small amounts it really isn’t bad” is that there are better things out there. There is a better way to meet my need for food (sex, status). And even though I see the world really isn’t happy (or joyful), I still buy into what they are selling as far as what will make me happy, what will make me satisfied, what will make me who I want to be.

For father’s day, my wife bought me the book Crazy Love by Francis Chan.  I am not though with it yet, but wow is it a convicting book.  He is in essence critiquing the American church and our “American” approach to Christianity.  I just got through reading the chapter entitled “Profile of the Lukewarm.”  He begins the chapter by retelling the parable of the sower (in which the seed lands on path, the rocks, the thorns or the good soil.)   When I hear that passage, I of course know that I am the good soil.  Don’t we all?  Chan points out that we shouldn’t assume that we are the good soil.  He writes:

“I think that most American churchgoers are the soil that chokes the seed because of all the thorns.  Thorns are anything that distracts us from God.  When we want God and a bunch of other stuff, then that means we have thorns in our soil.  A relationship with God simply cannot grow when money, sins, activities, favorite sports teams, addictions or commitments are piled on top of it. … I will say it again: Do not assume you are good soil.”

He then goes on to list a lot of ways in which lukewarm people live.  What I like best is that in the book, he follows each with a passage of scripture, not just a citation, but an actual passage.  I found a place that has a .pdf of the full list (with just the citations)  here: http://www.dublinvcc.org/Portals/0/Crazy%20Love.pdf

Probably the most convicting one of the list was this:

“Lukewarm people do not live by faith; their lives are structured so they never have to.  They don’t have to trust God if something unexpected happens—they have their savings account.  They don’t need God to help them—they have their retirement plan in place.  They don’t genuinely seek out what life God would have them live—they have life figured and mapped out.  They don’t depend on God on a daily basis—their refrigerators are full and, for the most part, they are in good health.  The truth is, their lives wouldn’t look much different if they suddenly stopped believing in God.”

This is followed by Luke 12:16-21, the parable of the man who tore down his barns to store more of his goods, only to have his life demanded of him that very night.

When we look at this list, read the scripture and really examine ourselves, which of us can say that we burn for Christ?  Who of us is salt and light for our Lord?  Are we truly answering the call to love the Lord our God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind?  I measure myself against what I am called to do by Christ and I find myself falling short.  Not because of a lack of trying but a lack of love and obedience.  Personally, I know that I hold too much back.  Like so many other lukewarm people I want to make Jesus a part of my life instead giving Him all of my life.  I have heard more than one preacher say that it is ok to have nice things.  I think we need to reevaluate and learn that it is ok to have enough and no more.  We need to accept the love of our Father and give all of our lives to Him and not just part.  If we hold back from Him, then we are told that any of our righteousness is as filthy rags.  I pray that I can be transformed by the love of Christ into the kind of servant that He desires.

This kinda branches off one of my last post. I find it interesting how easily I can justify all of my sin. Give me a month and I could justify almost anything. It’s amazing how I justify sin by comparing it to someone elses or just watering it or myself down with little lies or half truths about it or my condition.

I have noticed that although I discount smaller sins, Satan uses those to small stepping stones to make the step to the larger sins smaller. It scares me sometimes when I realize how good Satan is at tripping me up.

Acts 8:9-24 (New King James Version)
⁹ But there was a certain man called Simon, who previously practiced sorcery in the city and astonished the people of Samaria, claiming that he was someone great, ¹⁰ to whom they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, “This man is the great power of God.” ¹¹ And they heeded him because he had astonished them with his sorceries for a long time. ¹² But when they believed Philip as he preached the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, both men and women were baptized. ¹³ Then Simon himself also believed; and when he was baptized he continued with Philip, and was amazed, seeing the miracles and signs which were done.

¹⁴ Now when the apostles who were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them, ¹⁵ who, when they had come down, prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. ¹⁶ For as yet He had fallen upon none of them. They had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. ¹⁷ Then they laid hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.
¹⁸ And when Simon saw that through the laying on of the apostles’ hands the Holy Spirit was given, he offered them money, ¹⁹ saying, “Give me this power also, that anyone on whom I lay hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”
²⁰ But Peter said to him, “Your money perish with you, because you thought that the gift of God could be purchased with money! ²¹ You have neither part nor portion in this matter, for your heart is not right in the sight of God. ²² Repent therefore of this your wickedness, and pray God if perhaps the thought of your heart may be forgiven you. ²³ For I see that you are poisoned by bitterness and bound by iniquity.”
²⁴ Then Simon answered and said, “Pray to the Lord for me, that none of the things which you have spoken may come upon me.”

The story of Simon the magician is one that fascinates me.  It is one of the biblical stories that I think many of us just want to gloss over without delving into and looking at both the details and the ambiguity that it contains.  It is easy enough just to kind of paint Simon as a two-dimensional character who was greedy and only wanted to profit from the power of God.  Like so many Biblical characters, we look at Simon and judge his actions harshly.  “Of course he was evil,” we say “he tried to buy his way into having the power to pass on the Holy Spirit.”  Why would that matter to us?  It isn’t as though someone today is going to be foolish enough to think that they can buy their way into Christianity.

I think that there are a couple of questions that the bible doesn’t answer for us.  Wasn’t Simon a believer?  It says that he believed.  It doesn’t say that he saw what Philip was doing and wanted in on the racket.  It says he believed and was baptized.  He began to follow Philip and was amazed at what he saw.

Also, in the story, it isn’t until he sees that the Holy Spirit is passed thought the laying on of hands that he offers money to be given the power.  He had followed Philip and seen him heal the sick, cast out demons and perform other miracles and the bible doesn’t say that he tried to gain Philip’s power.  But there was something about passing on the power of the Holy Spirit that made Simon want the ability that the Apostles had.

Peter rebukes Simon on two counts. The first is for thinking that he could obtain a gift of God through money.  The second is for the “intent of your heart.”  Peter tells Simon that his heart isn’t right before God.

The story ends with Simon making a rather odd plea for forgiveness, but doesn’t tell us what happened next.  He doesn’t seem to be immediately struck down and doesn’t go on to become important enough to be mentioned again.  The only things we “know” about Simon after this episode are legends and accounts given in writings at least one hundred years later.

Personally, I think the problem with Simon was that he had never gone from belief to faith.  When he met Peter and John, he was still thinking in terms of the world.  He had the outward appearance of a follower of Christ, but his heart wasn’t quite there yet.  I think he succumbed to a temptation.  Church tradition holds that Simon only followed Philip to gain power.  But if that was the case, what lesson could we learn from this?

In my view, Simon believed and probably really thought he was doing what was right.  But he was depending on Philip’s faith.  He was following Philip and not the Lord.  Peter saw this.  His rebuke isn’t to get away from him.  He didn’t call Simon evil.  He tells Simon to repent, to ask forgiveness and to seek the grace of the Lord.

The story of Simon is a warning to us.   If Simon wasn’t a bad guy, then he was a misguided one.  And who among us can’t occasionally be misguided?   How often can we convince ourselves that we can obtain God’s gift through our tithes, our morals, our witness or our works?  We need to know that a simple belief isn’t enough to turn our hearts to the Lord.  We must move beyond a belief to actually following the will of our Savior or we will all be in the bond of iniquity.

I found myself correcting someone the other day who said that Satan was stupid. His depictions in cartoons and movies may make him look foolish but he is the father of lies. And he trips up even the wisest men. The reason I point that out is because lately I feel beaten. I realize that the title says differently but I wrote it to mean that I perceive certain sins in my life as “unbeatable”. I think it’s because I have failed so much in certain areas for such a long time I just don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel (but maybe that’s because I am facing the wrong way). I’m not going to say what it is I am struggling with at the moment. You can insert food, complacency, over working, pride, self-image, greed, porn or lust, gossip, hatred, anger or whatever it is that you just can’t seem to shake here. I think I am right to say that I can’t beat these things.

Only Christ in me can overtake these hurdles and strongholds I have built to protect and obscure my insecurities. There’s the rub. While logically I am beginning to understand the premise of faith more and more, the more I understand it the less I see I have. Sorry this is kind of a rant, but I am tired and need rest. Maybe one day I will rest in and believe in the amazing power of my risen King.

Recently I watched a video of a news cast covering a nudist church and they justified their ways by saying that Jesus was naked at some of the most important points in his life, his birth, death and resurrection (and no I’m not providing a link to it). While I really don’t care about this or discussing it because I think its stupid, it did get me thinking about Jesus. The guy was amazingly selfless. Perfectly selfless even. Thinking back through how Jesus the God Man lived his life with the power to do whatever he wanted, he never used his power for his own good. He didn’t pinch his fingers and watch as the questioning pharisees choked to death (Darth Vader reference for the visual here). He didn’t disappear when those looking for him found him. He didn’t teleport from city to city, I mean come on I get tired of driving for a couple of hours, Jesus walked everywhere.

I guess my point is that I use probably 90-99% of all of my resources (time, energy, intellect, power) to do things for and help myself, but the God of all the universe doesn’t. Where’s my focus? Is this something you struggle with? How can we get our focus off of ourselves?

Recently I heard a sermon from Exodus 36-39, in which God gives Moses specific instructions on how to build the temple, because it was the place where God would reside. It was ornate and only the best was put into it.

That got me thinking about myself. Our bodies are now that temple. Christ resides in us. Do I allow only the best to be used in it. Do I guard what I take in with my eyes and ears and mouth? Do I care for it and maintain it like it is the temple of God or do I just use it for my own means and satisfaction?