Love and Honesty

My husband doesn’t want our children to say “Excuse me,” when what they mean is “Get out of my way.” He says it’s dishonest to paint a polite face on a selfish request and would rather that they not pretend to be considerate. I, on the other hand, would rather that they not have a selfish heart that puts themselves first—I would rather that they bring their heart in line with their words, rather than their words in line with their heart. I suppose, in the meantime, it is better that they be honest with themselves about the condition of their hearts. I would sometimes rather not be honest with myself about the condition of their hearts!

The Repulsive Christ

One thing that really strikes me in reading through the gospels with the kids is that Jesus worked hard to put people off. Anytime the crowds are too overwhelmingly supportive, and begin to border on crowning him their king, he says things like "Eat my flesh" and "Hate your mother and Father" and "take up your cross" (which was a humilating and abasing way that only the lowest were executed), "liquidate your wealth and donate it." He makes it *hard* for people to come to him.

We just read the section in Luke where Jesus is telling them to count the cost of being a disciple, and telling them it will cost them everything.

The first thing that hits me in reading these things is how unlike today's church ministries was Christ's ministry. We lower the bar, using immoral TV shows to illustrate points, video games and coffee bars to make people feel at home, slick music videos and all manner of ways to make people comfortable, make church cool, make the message clear and attractive. Jesus made the message hard to understand and offensive--on purpose. He taught in riddles. He told people that unless they were willing to do the hardest things, then don't bother coming. He didn't just give recommendations on how to be successful, but told them to be "Perfect." He also called religious people names like hypocrit and snake, and other things that would certainly be called divisive and critical.

Am I saying that it is wrong to use media and seeker-friendly means to bring people to Christ? Am I saying we should be more like Jesus by being inflamatory and obtuse? No, not really. But I think, as we make those decisions, we do have to ask ourselves why Jesus didn't do everything he could to collect the largest number of followers he could. And perhaps there is something in that motive that we could learn from. God is not a God that does everything possible to pave a road for people to come to him. He made a way, but it is not a highway. He loves us, but he isn't easy.

The other thing that really squeezes my heart is the demand for total allegiance, and unshakeable commitment. There were days when I could make declarations about how fully committed I am and how permanent my faith was. But now, I find my heart weak, and my faith flimsy. I can teach my children how worthy the Lord is and how good our hope is, but that doesn't mean that my own heart never waivers. I get tripped up in looking to the future. I feel full of the grace of God today, when the only death in my life is having to get off the computer and make lunch. But what about when I need more sustenance than that? Can God still raise the dead? What a silly nail-biter I am. I'm glad that God gives me the daily manna I need, and I know from past days of suffering that he gives a double portion of his presence in those times. May I walk fearlessly.

Repentence

What is repentence? If you've been in church for more than ten minutes, you likely know that that repentence is to turn around, to change your thinking. But in what way does our thinking change in repentence? Usually, when we are doing something wrong, we know and think it is wrong and do it anyway. We say in our heart, "Yep, God, this is wrong. Here I go again!" So how does repentence differ than this helpless or rebellious stance?

We need to go back to the nature of our original repentence as our example. When we first came to God, we came to Him because we realized that we couldn't make our life work, that we were broken and needed to be saved. We start walking with God as we believed his word that he would take us, save us, and be with us to live his life through us. It was, at its foundation, a laying down of trust in ourselves and a placing of trust in Him instead.

All repentence is of this same nature. Sin, at its core, is faithlessness: an action that declares our committment to meeting our own needs rather than trusting God to act on our behalf. We are lonely or craving comfort so we turn to sexual sin, rather than stay in the suffering and wait on God. We resent our stingy boss and compensate by helping ourselves to office resources, rather than believe God is taking care of us. We are hurt by our spouse's careless words, and steel our hearts against futher injury, rather than rest in the declared love of God--a position of strength even in vulnerability. If you want to fruitfully repent--to see change that makes it natural to not sin, Believe in the rest God has provided.

We don't have to produce a perfect life. We aren't going to--but the blood of Jesus has that covered. It is no longer our problem to make something of ourselves. We are the subjects of our Maker, and we have entered a covenant of trust and submission to his leading Spirit within us. We remove all human-applied labels: "Successful," "Loser," "Smart," "Slow," "Worthless," "Talented," etc, and we wear only one: "His." As His child, we abandon self-definition. He will make us what he desires as we submit in the moments, and in the end, we will be something beautiful, and entirely of his making. That's repentence.

Repentence is resting in the finished work of Christ, the Spirit's abiding presence, and in the hope of his physical return to set up a perfect kingdom on earth. When we act to meet our own needs for significance, comfort, or whatever, we let go of the much better thing he has offered. If you want to stop sinning, find the point of faith: what is God calling you to believe? Because it is as you embrace what is true and put your feet in the path that follows logically, that you will find youself walking in faith and the resulting righteousness.

What's in it for me?

"If laying your life down for Christ is going to get you something then you are missing the whole point of being a Christian."

I got a comment from someone with this quote. I have to say, if we get nothing for laying down our lives, then we are simply engaging in pointless self destruction, and I don't know why a healthy person would do that. God is not asking us to lay down our lives for nothing. Laying down our lives is the essence of Walking in the Spirit--and it will yield many personal benefits--love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, self-control, etc. God will also reward us eternally for it. He is faithful to reward those who seek him, and his ways are good.

I think that this belief is also falsely pious. You got saved because there was something in it for YOU, not God. What did God get by saving you from destruction? Certainly, we walk in gratitude for what God has done. But God knows we are weak and small. God alone is great. The greatest believer's pile of "something for God" is the tiniest thing, no where near a worthy sacrifice. We are the beficiaries in Christ, not God. It isn't selfish or greedy to say so, it's acknowledgement of our smallness and His Greatness.

We need to understand that God is not on a quest to get blood from a turnip. He offers us the good works to do, gives us the will and power to do them, and also the reason to step into them--not just gratitude, but also temporal and eternal reward for obedience and disclipline for disobedience. It's all His. The glory for it is All His. Why does he give us good works to do? Because it is good for us to participate with Him in what he's doing--a blessing. Does he need us to serve him? No, we serve as a priveledge and blessing--like a poor person allowed to drive a rich person's car to deliver the gift of the rich person to someone in need, and in return the driver gets a million dollars. His goodness is all out of proportion to ours, and there is absolutely more in it for us than Him.

So I do not think that it is out of line to consider that as we lay down our lives, we receive many blessings much greater than what we lay down. That is WHY we lay down our lives, not because God has something to gain from us.

Why Walk by Heart?

I am starting this blog today, because I believe in community and it is too scarce in my life. It was hard to find an available blog name that captured what my content will likely be. But Walk by Heart suits it. My quest is to learn the voice of the Holy Spirit that guided Jesus while he was on earth, and to practice obedience to it. Jesus was not a principled man--he did not walk according to external laws or teachings. He walked in response to the Father, always in step with His heart. Sometimes that meant doing things that violated godly principles: he gave alcohol to drunk people, worked on the Sabbath, was intentionally offensive--telling people to eat his flesh and drink his blood and calling religious people sons of Satan. But the Father who sent him was guiding him carefully between being crowned king and being crucified, and gave him each word and action according to his will.

I coach a LEGO robotics team where the kids must create autonomous robots that perform set missions. Jesus was not like these robots. The Father did not give him a set of instructions and set him off to figure it out the best he could. He kept him on "remote control", where Jesus did not do anything without the Father moving him to do so. When we ask, "What would Jesus do", the answer must always be, "What the Father willed in that moment, for that person." There is no way to live the Christian life except by heart, by the Spirit. We are never to be independently figuring out what is effective or appropriate.

I want to walk by heart like Jesus did.