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.

Discerning God's Will

One thing that's been frustrating to me lately is the number of conversations I've had with people… a great number of people… about how they are figuring out what God wants for their lives. It's been good because it has forced me to think more deeply about how we are to figure out what God wants for our lives. When we look at Scripture, the answer is pretty varied. First, here's the frustrating way people try to discern God's will.

People ask God to create situation A or B in their lives and figure out what God wants based upon what is brought up. If A comes up, then it must not be something God wants, but if B comes up, then it is the will of God. We'll entitle this situation-based determining. It's a way of figuring out what God wants that makes things indubitably clear. People then know exactly what God wants without having to hear his voice clearly or… arguably, let their emotions get in the way. There is some Scriptural precedent with situation-based determining. The two primary examples that come to mind are Gideon with the fleece, who laid it out on the ground at night and told God to leave it dry and the ground damp, then leave the fleece wet and the ground dry and in that way knew for sure that God was the one leading him into battle. The other is the disciples after the ascension of Jesus who cast lots to decide who God wanted to be the replacement for the 12th disciple and it fell to Matthias.

But this way of figuring out what God wants is potentially very destructive. I've watched it destroy people. A couple of factors contribute to the problem. One is that it forces people to put all their eggs in one basket. Whether something is God's will comes down to a single situation and if that situation occurs just right, then the person determines that it is God's will and lives as if that is true - confident because it is so clear. But the problem is that if they are wrong, then they have a ton of confidence that something is God's will when it is not. They become confident that their own sin is what God wants. That's messy. People choose this way of determining because it is easy then to see what God wants… or at least, to think one sees what God wants. People believe that if they ask God to show them their will this way that He just will. That's a lie. God does not act in accordance with our will, but in accordance with his. When people use situations to determine God's will, they frequently live their lives as a product of the circumstances around them, life circumstances determine actions. It prevents obedience to Jesus because they are assuming their circumstances show them what God wants instead of letting God show them what he wants. Sometimes we aren't supposed to go through open doors. Sometimes closed doors are there so we can use the power of God to break them down and walk through.

The spiritual precedents noted previously are easily dealt with. Gideon already heard from God before he asked God to prove Himself. Presumably the apostles were led to determine God's will before the casting of lots. More importantly for both is that lots and fleece are inanimate objects. They aren't people. Situation-based determining almost always involves people. People ask God to make certain people to act in a certain way, and then from that determine his will. The problem is that people have free will. What if the people choose to act in a way that is different than what God wants? What if God allows people the freedom to act how they choose to and the situations come up not because God wants them, but because people acted in such a way as to cause them? God doesn't mess with free will, but doesn't seem to have a problem with manipulating moisture on the ground and with fleece nor ordaining the way that lots fall. When we ask God to create situations, we are often asking Him to manipulate free will and force people to act in a certain way. That's an illegitimate request. It won't be honored.

I believe that the best way to figure out God's will is not as clear cut, but can be clear and is much safer than situation-based determining. We are to listen and hear from God directly. Circumstances of life are not something that we should use to decide what God wants. We are to use our relationship with God to determine what God wants. We are called to be conversational with the saving Lord of our lives. I think God wants us to know him so intimately, his voice so deeply that we hear what He wants. I think that situation-based determining, despite the nicety of its simplicity, is unhelpful, misleading, destructive, and unintentionally arrogant and sinful.

What's Scripture tell us about this? Jesus, talking about himself metaphorically says, "…. My sheep know my voice." If we are of Christ, then when He calls, as a shepherd calls His sheep, we will know his voice, able to distinguish it from all the other voices that are calling in our lives. We are able to distinguish His voice that we may follow the direction of the voice and arrive where God is already. It's not some strange testing of God or making a nonconsensual deal with Him about how we're going to evaluate just what He wants. As we cultivate this relationship and walk closely to the shepherd, His voice grows more loud and more clear.

Romans 12:2 tells us that in order to test and approve what God's amazing will is for our lives, we must first be transformed by the renewing of our mind. It does not say we should tell God to coerce situation A or B, but that as we are perfected and transformed his will is more easily determined by us. Conformation to the world looks like determining what we should do based upon what happens around us. Transformation looks like living in God's will regardless of life circumstances. One step is to become more like Christ in mind and then be given the capacity to test whether or not something is God's will.

In our beautiful new testament stories of believers in Jesus Christ, we find many people being directly guided by God. Joseph was guided on his next move by dreams in which the angel of the Lord appeared to Him and told him which direction to go. Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. God spoke to Cornelius in a dream about how he was to respond to Paul. God came to Paul and told him directly what to do. The Spirit simply wouldn't let Paul and his friends enter Bithynia. Paul was compelled by God to enter Jerusalem and warned by the Spirit that things would be difficult wherever he went and preached the news of Jesus. It beautiful, clear, specific, and deeply relational.

As we consider and think about how some of the great followers of YHWH in the OT heard from God what their next move should be, what we don't see is them telling God to do A if that's what is His Will, but not to do B. At least not with people. Angels of the Lord were sent down to Abraham multiple times. God told him specifically what to do through dreams. Moses was spoken to through a burning bush and then communed in the very presence of YHWH himself. Isaac physically wrestled with God. Prophets had clear visions. David had those prophecies. Noah had specific directions. These people did not discern God's will by fabricating rules about situations. They did not participate in situation-based determining, but listened to God and heard His voice. God speaks. God knows how to speak to us in ways that are clear and specific. God longs to speak to us directly, that we may have two way communication with Him - that we may have a real relationship with Him. We don’t have to concoct terms for discerning God's will. Just listen patiently, pursue our question's answer, and live by what we already know to be true. If we trust God to guide us, God will guide clearly, as clearly as a pillar of fire at night.

When He, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. - Jesus in John 16:13-14.