Hero

Last night I was the hero. There were fifty of us trying to stop this powerful man who was set on stealing whatever he wanted and killing at will. When he hit people they flew for hundreds of feet and could punch clean through walls. He was a supervillain. We, a bunch of everyday people trying to help, surrounded him in an alley. He hit me and the shock wave from my body threw everyone behind me far away. I did not move. I grabbed him and continually slammed him into the wall until he could move no longer. I defeated the supervillain. Everyone praised me and talked about it. I was treated and discussed as a superhero.

But I did not feel like a hero, much less like a superhero. I felt inadequate. I felt that I got lucky. I felt that anyone could have done it. I left the scene with my head down and m heart sinking. I awoke with the same feeling of shame. Even my most incredible successes are never good enough. My failures are much worse.

Often, I feel so free from any sense of shame whatsoever because of what God has done. I still sometimes feel the depth of the sin from my past. So often when I sin now, regardless of what or the extent or the loving reactions of my friends, I can feel all of the shame from all of the sins I can remember, and I'm sure from some that I can't recall. The feeling puts me in place where I feel so worthless, ugly, disgusting that I sin to medicate. I then give even more life to my sinful nature, the very thing in me that is killing me. It's vicious. It's my fault. It brings more shame.

I can't express myself. I wish I could describe where I'm at right now. I don't really know how to. Perhaps I'll try to be more specific. I feel like God has called me to do things that he has not called anyone else to do or equipped anyone else to do - not because I'm superior, but because I'm unique and loved. I feel like I'm hardly doing anything right. I feel like I'm lazy. I feel ashamed. I feel less than everyone else. I feel not okay with being a sinner. I feel moody. I feel like I'm too up and down. I feel broken. I feel like I have darkened my world and the world of those around me. I feel like I don't pray enough. I feel weak. I feel that I cannot overcome. I feel like I'm behind. I feel like a failure. I feel scared. I feel like I hurt too many people. I feel like I will never love people right; worse, I feel that I will never love God right. I want to follow Jesus deeply, for in my inner being I delight in God's law, but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging a war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man am I! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God-through Christ Jesus our Lord!

My Heart: Hardly loving

And I don't know, what to do with a love like that.

And I don't know, how to be a love like that.

- David Crowder Band

It struck me the other day, looking at a story I've seen and heard and learned from a hundred times, just how unlike me Jesus loves. This whole thing refers to Mark 14:12-31. It's the Passover. Jesus is about to die. No, Jesus is about to be brutally tortured and murdered. Jesus is about to be put to death by the people he's been preaching the kingdom of God to. The people he has been healing, feeding, and freeing are about to consent to his death. More than this, the people he has called friends, the people that have walked with, ate with, learned from, and were most intimately loved by and empowered by Jesus, they're about to scatter in his moment of need. His best friends are about to abandon him when Jesus could most use support and comfort of community. One of them is going to deny that they are even friends. Another is responsible for betraying him to those that want him dead.

Jesus knows all this. He knows his friends don't love him as much as he loves them. He knows that they will not stick by him when things become hardest for him. What does he do? He eats with them. He prays with them. He teaches them of his love. He talks with them while reclining in an intimate setting. He sings a hymn with them. He is concerned with their fight with temptation more than their abandonment of him. He loves them deeply, visually, in an intimate, emotional relationship.

I wouldn't do this. I'm too weak to love like this. If I knew my closest friends were going to abandon me when my life got really hard, I would cut off some of our intimacy. I would not pursue a stronger relationship with them. I'd care about them and want the best for them. But their betrayal, denial, and conditional friendship would hurt me too deep to be able to continue deepening and being vulnerable within our relationship. I would find new friends. I would be by myself. I would detach so that I would hurt less. I would not actively love them well. I would not pursue their best through my own relational sharing.

I don't know how to be a love like that. I'm too weak, too self-centered, too needy, too proud, too unhealthy, too sinful. I'm sorry for loving poorly. May you and God forgive me, and may He change me and fill me that His love will always flow through me to others, to you.

Godlike Perfection

You know that Scripture, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."? It's incredibly intense, isn't it? I've always thought so. It doesn't even sound fair. It feels as if it is full of condemnation. How am I to respond to this? "Alright Jesus, I didn't know I should do my best to do everything exactly right before, but now that I know I'll just live perfectly. I'm sure it'll be cake." My interpretation, after rebeginning my life in Christ, was that it really was simply the way God expected us to live and would be happy with nothing less. I've tried and failed and cried over this piece of Scripture, pleading for mercy, full of shame. My interpretation just can't be right I thought. It was killing me, but the words of Christ are life.

What others have taught me about this little piece of Scripture has not been much better. There's the classic interpretation that Jesus is merely using hyperbole. He's merely using exaggeration to say something with more emotional force. Jesus is simply telling us to be perfect as something that we should strive for, but it is obviously not actually obtainable. To me, this seems like a useless interpretation that makes what Jesus said not even really matter. It makes the words almost inapplicable. Everyone already knows that they should be good, that they should do the best they can to be perfect. I think Jesus' words are more full; there is more depth here than an exhortation to try one's best.

I always thought about the verse in isolation from the words surround it, and so did others who talked about it. The key is in the context. Here are the surrounding verses:

You have heard it said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy,' but I tell you: Love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what good is it? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Matthew 5:43-4

Like so many teachings of Jesus, it's all about love. The exhortation to be perfect is not about perfectly following every little rule, but about the inclinations of our hearts. It's about loving in a manner that is previously unknown to humanity. The old way of loving is from God, but it is an approximation to the type of love that we are to live in and by. Jesus here gives us the end goal as to what our love should look like. It should look like God's, perfect. Perfect in what way? Loving enemies and friends. Loving those who are by nature, culture, or actions offensive and counteractive to us, the way that the Father provides for the needs of even the evil. This is the pinnacle of love. That love is the type of perfection we are to aspire to, then live in.

It is harder than it may appear. Would you love someone who always took and never gave? Would you love someone left a sick taste in your mouth by the way they treated others? Would you love someone that raped you? Hurt your family? Killed thousands without remorse? Forced and filmed child pornography? Destroyed your most intimate relationships? Hated you? Loving the unjust and disgustingly evil is hard. Loving those who have done a great injustice to us or a person that we love deeply is even more difficult. These are the people Jesus loves and calls us to love. Even the worst enemies that we can imagine. This is godlike perfection.