What does being a Christian mean? Yes, there's the easy answer of following Christ. I guess I was thinking about this because I was thinking about someone whose idea of being a Christian is going to church. So they haven't gone to church in a while, and their idea of "being a better Christian" is that they need to go to church more often.
I contend that once you become a Christian, you're a Christian even if you never went to church. And if you think that just going to church more and listening more about God each week makes you a Christian...you're missing the story, and there is so much more you can have.
1. Being a Christian means extending any relationship you have with God after your death
Being a Christian is NOT about "saving your soul" or having eternal life. Really. Regardless of what the crazy people on the street corner yell at you.
The question is this: do you have a relationship with God already? Or do you tend to rely on yourself? Is God a friend and presence in your life, or are you like, "I'm good. I can handle this." and maybe God's in the background? The idea of eternal life is not about life like we imagine it - not living, breathing, doing fun things...that's all a part of it, but not all of it. The idea is, that relationship with God that we have now is going to continue past when we're dead. So if we want more of God in our lives, feel joy spending time with Him, there's no reason to think death will stop that. Similarly, if we're good on our own, without God, that will continue after death as well. That's what hell is - the absence of all the (good things that are) God.
So your trajectory after death continues what your mindset is in life. If you like spending time with God in life, it continues after death only moreso, which we call eternal life. So you don't become a Christian to get eternal life; that relationship with God is life, which continues after death if you want it to.
2. Being a Christian is about accepting that Jesus died for your [insert name here] sin
I grew up in church, and somehow I never got this. I got that Jesus died for the world's sins, and the world has had some pretty bad people. So at any given time there are some pretty bad people living - even if Hitler is already dead, there are murderers, and rapists, and extortioners, and the like. So I thought Jesus died to reconcile the body of people living on Earth to God, which included a bunch of bad people, and then that those who followed him would go to heaven. I was taught that we all made mistakes, which are sin, but surely my mistakes couldn't be that bad...could they? Heck, I never murdered anyone!
The point I had to realize is that even if I were the only person on Earth, it would necessitate Jesus dying on the cross to reconcile my sin. I cannot reconcile it myself, as every time I've wronged another person, I've also wronged God. A lot of times we have this conception of what "good" means, and we hold Jesus (and others, like Buddha) on a pedestal as shining examples of good morals. If only people listened to them! the wisdom goes. Or, another meme going around the internet is that all the moral teachers are saying the same thing. (*Exception: Jesus was the only one who claimed to be God). So, you have to figure if there's a God, he/she would be this shining example all the time. And so if that's the standard, there is no way anyone can meet it all the time. Ever.
Jedi Council
Thursday, April 28, 2016
God's Will for our Lives
The Message:
It's ok to surrender our true selves, the part that makes me me, the part I don't want to give up and I hope will live on after I die, to God - because He is the one that created that good part of me, who wanted me to have it. It's sharing with someone who can understand it, who in fact has it in even more abundance than you do.
If yo surrender this most valuable possession, your true self - everything else is easy to surrender, and it will change all output areas of your life - relationships, emotional, social, etc.
Also, you can't just be holy when you want to - it's easy to do something when you want to do it.
The Long Story:
Devotional about God's will that my church is doing, and my responses to it.
I had some realizations, so I'll skip to those.
Identify 2 people in your daily life you want to know more about their spiritual walk - love this! Because that's what it's about. Not converting people, but people at any stage - whether they're a Christian or not - connecting with them on their spiritual walk. Finding out where they're coming from, and where they're at.
Surrendering to God's Will
Christ says if we want to follow him, we have to deny ourselves, take up our cross (an instrument of torture and death), and follow him. That we have to lose our lives (die) to save our lives.
And another hard statement: God's will for your life is that you would place your own will, agenda, and schedule firmly in second place behind His.
Thinking about dying - what does that mean without physical death? Had the realization that we have an idea of this kernel of ourselves, our true selves inside. Most of the time when we surrender, we say Ok, I'll serve you with my actions, or give my actions over to you. But if you go against that true self, what I consider to be the real me, I'm not ok with that and will fight you. Me: it's more than my personality, though that is unique.
And so with dying, though we physically lose our lives, since in this case we don't, it must be that barrier that our true selves comes to. That's why that 2nd statement is so hard. It means submitting that true self of mine to God. Which can feel like extinguishing it...except I realized that God made it. The good stuff I like about me, you're not really losing that if you realize you're sharing it with someone else - in fact the very being that put them there in the first place. Who wanted you to be like that. Who has even more goodness to offer.
So it's easy to give it up if you give it up to your creator - the ones who put them there in the first place, who surely will give it back or make it even more powerful and better.
"God's will is not that you should worry about what you think should happen, instead that you would radically obey as you follow him. You won't always know where you are going. You won't always know where you are." - love this.
The next question - about asking yourself whether you're willing to surrender everything including your money to God - then becomes easy.
Holiness
-I realized that it's easy to be holy when I want to be holy, but not so easy during the other times. Times when I'm in the midst of an argument and the other person says the lowball jab, or low on sleep and just trying to survive, or someone just screwed me over and expects me to take it lying down. And if holiness is defined as being like God, then I have to count the times where I'm writing or having a great time rocking out or doing something fun...and someone needs me. Can I just ignore them? God says to value our relationships. Times when someone I don't really want to talk to wants to be my shadow for the night, or texts/calls me every day or several times a day. Human superglue. So, during those times, it's not easy. And it's not that I have to be available every minute or not have boundaries - even Jesus withdrew at times for solitude, praying, etc.
It's easy to forgive ourselves. We make excuses for ourselves all the time, which psychology shows us we don't do for others - i.e., if the other person said a mean thing, they're a mean person, but if I said a mean thing, I'm short on sleep so they'll understand. In other words, we attribute others' actions to inward attributes, but our own to external factors.
So with being holy, I generally think of myself as a holy, good person...except for the times I'm not, which it's tempting to discount and say "those are the rare times". Really? I mean, really?? Self, do you think you're even holy 90% of the time? You're probably about as holy as the average - maybe a little higher because I do place high value on being good, probably higher than average, and I am drawn to spiritual things. But you're probably waaay underestimating the amount of time you're not (that whole self-bias thing again).
What areas of your life do you show no visible fruit of Christ being present? - NO NO NO!!! This makes it totally works based, as if I'll just identify an area of my life that's lacking and try to fix it. No no no!! First of all, that's me doing it. The focus on myself, instead of on God. Second, how often do our fixes last anyway? If we try to fix an area, say diet and exercise, we resolve to do it, do it for a couple days, then it slowly fades away again. You cannot fix an area in isolation, because that area is manifesting your inner beliefs.
No, the lasting solution comes from holiness. If you are a Christian, you are holy because Christ lives in you, and when you've truly internalized that, it will seep into all areas of your life. So if you identify even one area where you could be more Christlike, or particularly one area that badly needs work, it means you need to focus on your own internal holiness.
Suffering
We all want a stable, comfortable, life, right?
It's ok to surrender our true selves, the part that makes me me, the part I don't want to give up and I hope will live on after I die, to God - because He is the one that created that good part of me, who wanted me to have it. It's sharing with someone who can understand it, who in fact has it in even more abundance than you do.
If yo surrender this most valuable possession, your true self - everything else is easy to surrender, and it will change all output areas of your life - relationships, emotional, social, etc.
Also, you can't just be holy when you want to - it's easy to do something when you want to do it.
The Long Story:
Devotional about God's will that my church is doing, and my responses to it.
I had some realizations, so I'll skip to those.
Identify 2 people in your daily life you want to know more about their spiritual walk - love this! Because that's what it's about. Not converting people, but people at any stage - whether they're a Christian or not - connecting with them on their spiritual walk. Finding out where they're coming from, and where they're at.
Surrendering to God's Will
Christ says if we want to follow him, we have to deny ourselves, take up our cross (an instrument of torture and death), and follow him. That we have to lose our lives (die) to save our lives.
And another hard statement: God's will for your life is that you would place your own will, agenda, and schedule firmly in second place behind His.
Thinking about dying - what does that mean without physical death? Had the realization that we have an idea of this kernel of ourselves, our true selves inside. Most of the time when we surrender, we say Ok, I'll serve you with my actions, or give my actions over to you. But if you go against that true self, what I consider to be the real me, I'm not ok with that and will fight you. Me: it's more than my personality, though that is unique.
And so with dying, though we physically lose our lives, since in this case we don't, it must be that barrier that our true selves comes to. That's why that 2nd statement is so hard. It means submitting that true self of mine to God. Which can feel like extinguishing it...except I realized that God made it. The good stuff I like about me, you're not really losing that if you realize you're sharing it with someone else - in fact the very being that put them there in the first place. Who wanted you to be like that. Who has even more goodness to offer.
So it's easy to give it up if you give it up to your creator - the ones who put them there in the first place, who surely will give it back or make it even more powerful and better.
"God's will is not that you should worry about what you think should happen, instead that you would radically obey as you follow him. You won't always know where you are going. You won't always know where you are." - love this.
The next question - about asking yourself whether you're willing to surrender everything including your money to God - then becomes easy.
Holiness
-I realized that it's easy to be holy when I want to be holy, but not so easy during the other times. Times when I'm in the midst of an argument and the other person says the lowball jab, or low on sleep and just trying to survive, or someone just screwed me over and expects me to take it lying down. And if holiness is defined as being like God, then I have to count the times where I'm writing or having a great time rocking out or doing something fun...and someone needs me. Can I just ignore them? God says to value our relationships. Times when someone I don't really want to talk to wants to be my shadow for the night, or texts/calls me every day or several times a day. Human superglue. So, during those times, it's not easy. And it's not that I have to be available every minute or not have boundaries - even Jesus withdrew at times for solitude, praying, etc.
It's easy to forgive ourselves. We make excuses for ourselves all the time, which psychology shows us we don't do for others - i.e., if the other person said a mean thing, they're a mean person, but if I said a mean thing, I'm short on sleep so they'll understand. In other words, we attribute others' actions to inward attributes, but our own to external factors.
So with being holy, I generally think of myself as a holy, good person...except for the times I'm not, which it's tempting to discount and say "those are the rare times". Really? I mean, really?? Self, do you think you're even holy 90% of the time? You're probably about as holy as the average - maybe a little higher because I do place high value on being good, probably higher than average, and I am drawn to spiritual things. But you're probably waaay underestimating the amount of time you're not (that whole self-bias thing again).
What areas of your life do you show no visible fruit of Christ being present? - NO NO NO!!! This makes it totally works based, as if I'll just identify an area of my life that's lacking and try to fix it. No no no!! First of all, that's me doing it. The focus on myself, instead of on God. Second, how often do our fixes last anyway? If we try to fix an area, say diet and exercise, we resolve to do it, do it for a couple days, then it slowly fades away again. You cannot fix an area in isolation, because that area is manifesting your inner beliefs.
No, the lasting solution comes from holiness. If you are a Christian, you are holy because Christ lives in you, and when you've truly internalized that, it will seep into all areas of your life. So if you identify even one area where you could be more Christlike, or particularly one area that badly needs work, it means you need to focus on your own internal holiness.
Suffering
We all want a stable, comfortable, life, right?
- Financially secure - I have this today, but not necessarily for the future. I'd feel much more comfortable knowing my kids wouldn't have to worry about money, especially having enough money for future developmental activities like soccer and dance. Let's say we had plenty of money to have that well covered, where I wouldn't have to worry.
- Dependable vehicle - if I had the above, wouldn't have to worry because we could afford a new one if our car broke down at all, or afford any fixes.
- Live in a stable environment with no emotional turmoil - YES. I do want this. Not even thinking of abuse, just even disagreements, or not getting the emotional response you want. Not having to worry about any of that. Sounds wonderful.
- Work a job with no stress or challenges - now I'm thinking this list sounds boring. Is it possible to have everything happy all the time and not get bored or feel like there's more to life? I'm thinking of a relationship with one of my friends who keeps things interesting. She's always popping up with new interesting questions and ideas, and we haven't had friction, so maybe? Although her new ideas are usually a result of stress in her own life - injury, finances, the stress of not having her house the way she wants it. So maybe not.
The idea was, don't pursue these things over pursuing God.
Suffering: an important question to ask - how can I learn more about God through this hardship? I think about my marriage, the hardest part of my life recently. I can learn more about being gentle, and patience - characteristics God certainly has.
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
Let Go, Luke
Spiritual Attack of the Would-Be Faithful
I never believed in the idea of spiritual attack until a few years ago.
After all, I'm a scientist. I believe God works through the observable world and we call those rules and workings "science".
But a few years ago, I noticed that whenever I'd just recommitted myself to God, or felt like I was growing, a lot of bad stuff would often start happening. Coincidence? Maybe. But even in Star Wars, Qui Gon says "In my experience, there's no such thing as luck."
Yes, randomness happens. Sometimes it happens to align things in a streak that people usually refer to as good luck or bad luck. but let's take a digression for a second to talk about miracles. Let's say God worked a miracle. Scientists, who try to explain things using only the natural world (so you'll never have an explanation of "God did it"), will say "rarely this result happens." So the miracle would get classified as a rare result. In fact, they'd do the statistics and say it happens something like 1/10000 times.
So I count a miracle as not something statistically impossible, but rather statistically improbable, based on the way we've set up the system. When you start combining things that each only happen 1/10000 times...well, it's statistically possible that it could happen by chance, but it becomes more and more improbable.
I mention this because I think I mentioned not too long ago that my spouse and I felt like God was calling us to start a Bible study. For a long time, we couldn't seem to start one in any of the churches we tried - either they already had Bible studies, or there weren't enough people interested in coming. We finally found one that said "yes! we're looking to start up more Bible studies!"...and guess what, they never moved forward on it. We waited for months with no progress. So we eventually left and came to the church we're at now, and joined a large Bible study. They had a lot of Bible studies already and we thought that the calling from God was not meant to happen at this time...but then out of the blue someone in the church asked us if we'd like to start a Bible study! Apparently the large study we were attending needed to split, and without even telling anyone at the church about our desire to start one, they tapped us as leaders. Us, of all people they could have chosen (and there were quite a few other leadership-worthy couples in our group). How cool is that? God was working all along! He was saying, I want you to have this specific group for Bible study. This is where I want you.
So a couple months ago we began. Spouse was worried no one would show up but we have three regular couples besides us.
Anyway, the couple who hosts at their house was taking a long-planned trip to Florida in order to get away and relax for a few days, something they never get to do at home and have not done for a long time. Of course, while they are on this trip, a lot of stuff starts to go wrong with their business here at home. So much for relaxing! Talk about stress - you're not only adding new stuff to stress about, but now they're far away so there's not much they can do about it over the next couple days.
That by itself is not unusual. But the last couple of days, my anxiety (which I had several years ago, and only had an episode a couple months ago) returned. And yesterday, while listening to the rousing soundtracks of movies I loved in my childhood (including Star Wars), instead of feeling joyous, I felt nostalgic and sad...and the feeling didn't go away. Usually if I hear a sad song (which I wasn't even listening to sad music! I was listening to the openings, fight music, etc.), sure I'll be sad but then when I move on to something else, the feeling dissipates.
It didn't, and left me feeling crappy for several hours afterwards. I felt like I was slipping into depression. Very unusual for me.
So the timing of those 2 incidents makes me wonder if our Bible study is under spiritual attack.
Now, here's the learning part.
If you're under attack, it means that the Dark Forces of the world are trying to stop you. Which means you're doing something good, or something good is underway. I've read about this in so many Christian books. It's right before, or during the beginning of explosive growth and amazing works of God that people find bad stuff happening, which we call Spiritual Attack.
So our Bible Study must be about to do something great. Personal growth for its members. New members. Make a profound impact serving the community. I haven't heard from the other two couples, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were under spiritual attack (had bad things out of the blue happen) too.
So, what can you do?
Brace yourselves, because you know it's coming.
Usually in movies, or even in real life, that means to prepare. To clench, reach for your willpower, because you know you'll need every ounce of your strength in the upcoming days.
The only problem is...there's nothing you can do this time, in the real world.
The forces of evil can overcome us...without God. But with God, we're unstoppable. So if we try to get stronger, do it on our own strength, we will fail. Or, we won't be turning to God, which is what I believe God desires by allowing this experience to happen. Instead, we have to do the counter-intuitive thing and let go of the idea of our own strength. In Christianese, they say "lean into God."
What that means is, this is the time to turn to God, not away. Pray. Read the Bible. This is the time to be even more diligent than normal. Realize you can do nothing, but trust that God, who can do everything, is guarding you.
Let the Force (God) Guide You...Because You'll Fail if You Try to Do it on Your Own
This is even seen in Star Wars. At the end of A New Hope, Luke is racing down the Death Star trench in his X-wing. Watching from a 3rd person perspective, we've seen countless people try on their own strength and fail. So Luke's told to do the counterintuitive thing by Obi-Wan - Let Go. "Use the Force, Luke. Let go, Luke."
At first, Luke fights it. It seems so wrong. Let go of trying to control the situation? But I already feel the situation is out of control! How will it not go completely haywire if I give up and stop trying?
The central command doesn't understand this either - "Luke, you've switched off your targeting computer. What's wrong?" In other words, it may also look crazy to others observing.
But we, as viewers, know he has to do this to succeed. Luke must let go in order for the Force to guide him, which is the only way he will destroy the Death Star and save the Rebel Alliance (and not be killed!).
In fact, this is central to every Star Wars movie. Only when the characters let go and let the Force control them can they defeat the evil bad guy. Without it, they fail every time.
Life application:
Like Luke, when you're in the most stressful situations in your life, do the counterintuitive thing and let go. Let go of your self-guided attempts and switch to autopilot when all is failing around you. Let go so that God can control your X-wing and, flooding through you, steer you to safety.
It is the only way you will truly succeed.
If you're under spiritual attack:
I never believed in the idea of spiritual attack until a few years ago.
After all, I'm a scientist. I believe God works through the observable world and we call those rules and workings "science".
But a few years ago, I noticed that whenever I'd just recommitted myself to God, or felt like I was growing, a lot of bad stuff would often start happening. Coincidence? Maybe. But even in Star Wars, Qui Gon says "In my experience, there's no such thing as luck."
Yes, randomness happens. Sometimes it happens to align things in a streak that people usually refer to as good luck or bad luck. but let's take a digression for a second to talk about miracles. Let's say God worked a miracle. Scientists, who try to explain things using only the natural world (so you'll never have an explanation of "God did it"), will say "rarely this result happens." So the miracle would get classified as a rare result. In fact, they'd do the statistics and say it happens something like 1/10000 times.
So I count a miracle as not something statistically impossible, but rather statistically improbable, based on the way we've set up the system. When you start combining things that each only happen 1/10000 times...well, it's statistically possible that it could happen by chance, but it becomes more and more improbable.
I mention this because I think I mentioned not too long ago that my spouse and I felt like God was calling us to start a Bible study. For a long time, we couldn't seem to start one in any of the churches we tried - either they already had Bible studies, or there weren't enough people interested in coming. We finally found one that said "yes! we're looking to start up more Bible studies!"...and guess what, they never moved forward on it. We waited for months with no progress. So we eventually left and came to the church we're at now, and joined a large Bible study. They had a lot of Bible studies already and we thought that the calling from God was not meant to happen at this time...but then out of the blue someone in the church asked us if we'd like to start a Bible study! Apparently the large study we were attending needed to split, and without even telling anyone at the church about our desire to start one, they tapped us as leaders. Us, of all people they could have chosen (and there were quite a few other leadership-worthy couples in our group). How cool is that? God was working all along! He was saying, I want you to have this specific group for Bible study. This is where I want you.
So a couple months ago we began. Spouse was worried no one would show up but we have three regular couples besides us.
Anyway, the couple who hosts at their house was taking a long-planned trip to Florida in order to get away and relax for a few days, something they never get to do at home and have not done for a long time. Of course, while they are on this trip, a lot of stuff starts to go wrong with their business here at home. So much for relaxing! Talk about stress - you're not only adding new stuff to stress about, but now they're far away so there's not much they can do about it over the next couple days.
That by itself is not unusual. But the last couple of days, my anxiety (which I had several years ago, and only had an episode a couple months ago) returned. And yesterday, while listening to the rousing soundtracks of movies I loved in my childhood (including Star Wars), instead of feeling joyous, I felt nostalgic and sad...and the feeling didn't go away. Usually if I hear a sad song (which I wasn't even listening to sad music! I was listening to the openings, fight music, etc.), sure I'll be sad but then when I move on to something else, the feeling dissipates.
It didn't, and left me feeling crappy for several hours afterwards. I felt like I was slipping into depression. Very unusual for me.
So the timing of those 2 incidents makes me wonder if our Bible study is under spiritual attack.
Now, here's the learning part.
If you're under attack, it means that the Dark Forces of the world are trying to stop you. Which means you're doing something good, or something good is underway. I've read about this in so many Christian books. It's right before, or during the beginning of explosive growth and amazing works of God that people find bad stuff happening, which we call Spiritual Attack.
So our Bible Study must be about to do something great. Personal growth for its members. New members. Make a profound impact serving the community. I haven't heard from the other two couples, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were under spiritual attack (had bad things out of the blue happen) too.
So, what can you do?
Brace yourselves, because you know it's coming.
Usually in movies, or even in real life, that means to prepare. To clench, reach for your willpower, because you know you'll need every ounce of your strength in the upcoming days.
The only problem is...there's nothing you can do this time, in the real world.
The forces of evil can overcome us...without God. But with God, we're unstoppable. So if we try to get stronger, do it on our own strength, we will fail. Or, we won't be turning to God, which is what I believe God desires by allowing this experience to happen. Instead, we have to do the counter-intuitive thing and let go of the idea of our own strength. In Christianese, they say "lean into God."
What that means is, this is the time to turn to God, not away. Pray. Read the Bible. This is the time to be even more diligent than normal. Realize you can do nothing, but trust that God, who can do everything, is guarding you.
Let the Force (God) Guide You...Because You'll Fail if You Try to Do it on Your Own
This is even seen in Star Wars. At the end of A New Hope, Luke is racing down the Death Star trench in his X-wing. Watching from a 3rd person perspective, we've seen countless people try on their own strength and fail. So Luke's told to do the counterintuitive thing by Obi-Wan - Let Go. "Use the Force, Luke. Let go, Luke."
At first, Luke fights it. It seems so wrong. Let go of trying to control the situation? But I already feel the situation is out of control! How will it not go completely haywire if I give up and stop trying?
The central command doesn't understand this either - "Luke, you've switched off your targeting computer. What's wrong?" In other words, it may also look crazy to others observing.
But we, as viewers, know he has to do this to succeed. Luke must let go in order for the Force to guide him, which is the only way he will destroy the Death Star and save the Rebel Alliance (and not be killed!).
In fact, this is central to every Star Wars movie. Only when the characters let go and let the Force control them can they defeat the evil bad guy. Without it, they fail every time.
Life application:
Like Luke, when you're in the most stressful situations in your life, do the counterintuitive thing and let go. Let go of your self-guided attempts and switch to autopilot when all is failing around you. Let go so that God can control your X-wing and, flooding through you, steer you to safety.
It is the only way you will truly succeed.
If you're under spiritual attack:
- Brace yourself. You know it's coming. Don't let bad things surprise you, and be determined to hold on to hope.
- Realize it means good things are about to happen/are happening spiritually with you and around you. Hold on to that hope. Something major good is about to happen.
- Realize you can do nothing on your own.
- Let go and trust in God. Give him the controls of your life. Back off.
- During the actual sh*tstorm, lean into God. Pray more. Read the Bible. Attend church or connect more than normal with other believers. This is not the time to slack off. God will bring you through this, but you must maintain your connections to him, especially when the going is hardest.
A Lesson in Humility
How does God speak to you?
I often find that it's through the same message popping up in several places.
I found this as the verse of the day the other day:
So then, my brothers and sisters, because of God's great mercy to us I appeal to you: offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to his service and pleasing to him. This is the true worship that you should offer. Do not conform yourselves to the standards of this world, but let God transform you inwardly by a complete change of your mind. Then you will be able to know the will of God - what is good and is pleasing to him and is perfect.
-Rom 12:1-2
(emphasis mine)
I had just listened to a great sermon on humility (found here), all about Jesus's parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector going up to the temple. The Pharisee says "thank God I'm not like all these other people" and the tax collector is so ashamed he can't even look up to God. I've never said the Pharisee's words, but the pastor pointed out you don't have to say those exactly - if you segregate yourself from people in church by hanging out only with your friends, if you've ever looked at say someone dressed poorly or with tattoos, or say a "street person", or the local outspoken atheist walked into church and you felt uncomfortable and stayed away from them or had the attitude of "what are they doing here?" - you are like the pharisee.
(By the way, I'm not trying to pick on anyone here. They're only examples of types of people that bother some people).
Conversely, the people walking in also may separate themselves due to shame. Jesus has a message to both - I love you all. In fact, many of his parables carry messages to both groups of people - hope for the "bad" in society, and a warning to those too standoffish who consider themselves better than some people.
So, now, which are you more like - the Pharisee or the tax collector?
I find myself, when put that way, more like the Pharisee. I grew up with a strong rule system, and a strong teaching on good vs. evil. And so my tendency is to be comfortable within rules, and be quite uncomfortable with people who break them, and yes, consider myself slightly better for following the rules. Because that's what we're taught as children - following the rules is good. It was always easy, once I learned the rules, to follow them.
Getting back to the Bible passage, which I saw that same evening.
As Christians, we're supposed to be growing to be more like Christ. The New Testament has pretty radical teachings on morality that really explore loving your neighbor in a way we haven't even fully embraced today. But you can't be more like Christ (something we all want) and stubbornly cling to your same mindset as your identity. In other words, if you want a different end product, you have to be willing to change. And just like in a marriage, it's not always you want to change, or even think you need to change.
In other words, the Pharisee's real sin was not his thoughts (we all get uncomfortable sometimes), but his unwillingness to be changed.
So this week, ask yourself - how willing to be changed are you? How open are you to the idea that your whole mindset could be wrong?
One great test is when you hear ideas that are politically polar opposite of yours - do you immediately discount them as wrong or do you consider that they might be right? Do you feel any sort of antipathy or negative judgment about the person holding them? If you do, you are not open minded. Even if you're liberal, the traditionally "open-minded" party.
The flip side is that if you do let yourself become open minded, you can know the will of God. How powerful is that?!! Spouse and I always discus how you can practically know God's will for you.
The first step is willing to be changed.
I often find that it's through the same message popping up in several places.
I found this as the verse of the day the other day:
So then, my brothers and sisters, because of God's great mercy to us I appeal to you: offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to his service and pleasing to him. This is the true worship that you should offer. Do not conform yourselves to the standards of this world, but let God transform you inwardly by a complete change of your mind. Then you will be able to know the will of God - what is good and is pleasing to him and is perfect.
-Rom 12:1-2
(emphasis mine)
I had just listened to a great sermon on humility (found here), all about Jesus's parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector going up to the temple. The Pharisee says "thank God I'm not like all these other people" and the tax collector is so ashamed he can't even look up to God. I've never said the Pharisee's words, but the pastor pointed out you don't have to say those exactly - if you segregate yourself from people in church by hanging out only with your friends, if you've ever looked at say someone dressed poorly or with tattoos, or say a "street person", or the local outspoken atheist walked into church and you felt uncomfortable and stayed away from them or had the attitude of "what are they doing here?" - you are like the pharisee.
(By the way, I'm not trying to pick on anyone here. They're only examples of types of people that bother some people).
Conversely, the people walking in also may separate themselves due to shame. Jesus has a message to both - I love you all. In fact, many of his parables carry messages to both groups of people - hope for the "bad" in society, and a warning to those too standoffish who consider themselves better than some people.
So, now, which are you more like - the Pharisee or the tax collector?
I find myself, when put that way, more like the Pharisee. I grew up with a strong rule system, and a strong teaching on good vs. evil. And so my tendency is to be comfortable within rules, and be quite uncomfortable with people who break them, and yes, consider myself slightly better for following the rules. Because that's what we're taught as children - following the rules is good. It was always easy, once I learned the rules, to follow them.
Getting back to the Bible passage, which I saw that same evening.
As Christians, we're supposed to be growing to be more like Christ. The New Testament has pretty radical teachings on morality that really explore loving your neighbor in a way we haven't even fully embraced today. But you can't be more like Christ (something we all want) and stubbornly cling to your same mindset as your identity. In other words, if you want a different end product, you have to be willing to change. And just like in a marriage, it's not always you want to change, or even think you need to change.
In other words, the Pharisee's real sin was not his thoughts (we all get uncomfortable sometimes), but his unwillingness to be changed.
So this week, ask yourself - how willing to be changed are you? How open are you to the idea that your whole mindset could be wrong?
One great test is when you hear ideas that are politically polar opposite of yours - do you immediately discount them as wrong or do you consider that they might be right? Do you feel any sort of antipathy or negative judgment about the person holding them? If you do, you are not open minded. Even if you're liberal, the traditionally "open-minded" party.
The flip side is that if you do let yourself become open minded, you can know the will of God. How powerful is that?!! Spouse and I always discus how you can practically know God's will for you.
The first step is willing to be changed.
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