Details

Published: 08 October 2015

Several years ago I went on a “wilderness trip” in Canada.  I learned a lot.  I have forgotten some but I have remembered this, “If you ask the wrong question, the answer probably won’t really help.”  Wow.  Just wow.  I remember thinking about the hundreds of wrong questions I have asked.  Truthfully, it was a bit discouraging.  From that week until now I have tried (though I have often failed) to ask better questions.  Sometimes I just ask other people what questions I should be asking.  I not only don’t know the answers, I don’t even know the questions!  We have been studying love and there are a lot of wrong questions in this arena.  For example, “How can I get _____ to love me?”—Wrong question.  “How can I love _____ when he/she is so rude to me?”—Wrong question.  The better question is, “How can I become a loving person?”  As Dallas Willard so wisely wrote in 2007, “Love as Paul and the New Testament presents it, is not an action—not even action with special intention—but a source of action.  It is a condition out of which actions of a certain type emerge.”  That is not only good philosophy and psychology—that is Biblical reality!  We can only fake it for so long.  Jesus put it this way, “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.”  Our actions reveal our inner life.  Our disposition or our character is the well-spring of our actions.  If the source is bad, the result is bad.  The only person who can actually love an enemy is a person whose inner disposition has become loving.  Of course most of us would like God to simply zap us into this “state of love” but He will not do this.  What He will do is help us clean up the inside so that His disposition can actually become ours!  This is going to take some work, time, effort, discipline and severe mercy.  It is notable that we are told to “pursue love” at least three times in the New Testament.  The passages that admonish us to “put off” and “put on” are in the context of love.  Of course the Sermon on the Mount is a profound source of insight into these matters and if we were to take Jesus seriously we would be making some progress in this matter of love.  The Great Commandment is intimidating.  Loving other people is complicated.  Becoming a person of love sounds antiquated.  But this is what we were made for.  Imagine how wonderful it would be to actually and naturally love people as Jesus did.  This is not a dream.  This is possible.  Lord willing, this week and next we’ll talk about how to get on with it.  Let’s do this!

Details

Published: 02 October 2015

I hear that line fairly often.  By the time people come to me with their problems they have passed “simple.”  If it was simple, they wouldn’t be seeking help.  Part of the reason that problems become complicated is because we are complicated.  “Complicated” is a funny word, it means, “made up of parts intricately involved; hard to untangle, solve, analyze…”  (Webster).  That describes the human beings I know quite well.  The physical body alone is complex but at least we can distinguish the parts from one another.  But we are more than body, we are spirit and the non-physical parts of us are very hard to distinguish from one another.  Theologians make grand attempts to separate soul, spirit, conscience, heart, will, mind etc but at the end of the day they have to admit “it is not as neat and tidy a manner as some would prefer.”  One of my favorite authors wrote, “We must understand the soul if we are to care for it, after all, we cannot care for what we do not understand.”  At first glance that makes sense but the more I think about it, the more I struggle with the statement.  Biblically speaking I think of Paul who wrote, “I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me.”  I believe Paul means he doesn’t always understand himself.  Reading Romans 7, I know he understood where this complexity came from but nevertheless, he knew there was only One who really knew and understood him.  Pragmatically, I care for things quite often that I do not understand.  For example, I do not understand internal combustion engines.  The good news is, I know people who do!  The same is true for my complicated inner life.  I can’t figure myself out but I know Someone who knows me better than I know myself.  He knows the divisions of “joint and marrow” and “soul and spirit.”  There is so much talk of the “self” these days.  People are into self-promotion, self-actualization, self-awareness and self-assertion.  The saints of old used to speak of living, “Coram Deo.”  It is a Latin phrase that means “before or in the presence of God.”  The truth is, the self is complicated.  The only safe way to live in this universe is “in the presence of God.”  He knows us.  (Refresh your memory in Psalm 139).  The Lord is at hand.  We can do our best to understand ourselves and the Bible is the best textbook on the human condition.  But, the One who made us knows us best and we really need to simply place ourselves “before Him.”  To me, this is why it makes so much sense to learn God’s ways and love His word.  The hymn-writer put it this way…”Trust and obey, for there’s no other way, to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.”  That may over-simplify a complex issue but for the past several thousand years the saints who have obeyed God and left the outcomes to Him have found a measure of serenity that most in this world would envy.  You are complicated.  Life is hard.  Jesus is the expert on what life is about and how to live.  Love Him.  Obey Him.  Trust Him.  Thank Him.  The Kingdom is His.  All the Power is His.  All the Glory belongs to Him.  Let’s like it that way.