Spiritual Growth Archives — Page 3 of 4

Overcoming the World: Part 4–Keep in Step

Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original. Galatians 5:25-26 (MSG)

The Christian walk is not concerned with how good we feel about ourselves for being Christians. While we don’t need to do things for God to get His attention, we do still have a part to play. Even a simple game of follow the leader requires effort.

Grace is the free gift of God, but it did not come cheaply. If we had no role to play in working out our own salvation, then what would be the point of getting saved in the first place?

The work that God does within us by the power of the Holy Spirit ought to be evident externally. We have been changed from within so that we may bring change to the world without. So what does that look like?

More spiritual fruit, less religious nuts. . .

In Part 3, we began by listing the nine “fruits” of the Holy Spirit, that is to say, the characteristics that are produced by Him in us, which are the evidence of His existence in our lives.

Love. As we have discussed previously, love is an action word, not an emotion. Love involves sacrifice, or always putting the needs of others before your own.
Joy. Like love, joy is more substantial than just a feeling of superficial happiness. It is a powerful force that is God’s response to our praise and thanksgiving. This strength renews and refuels us, giving us the proper attitude to carry on with whatever comes our way next.
Peace. Peace is more than just an absence of discord. It involves trusting that God is strong enough to bring us through whatever trials await us, no matter how dire they may seem.
Patience. I KNOW this one’s coming from the Lord, because it sure didn’t originate with me! This is the supernatural ability to stay chilled and let things roll off your back. In many people, this is the first fruit of the Spirit that others notice in a new believer. Short fuses get a lot longer.
Kindness. Kindness is love in motion. This is the act of lifting up another who needs it. Before the Spirit’s work in your life, there were people you might not have even noticed. Afterward, though, you might find yourself helping these folks out without giving it a second thought.
Goodness. I’ve always wondered why this one was listed after “kindness,” because goodness is the attitude from which kindness flows. To be able to do good for others, we have to first have the mindset of doing good for good’s sake.
Faithfulness. A person under the influence of the Spirit will live a life of integrity. He will say what he means, mean what he says, finish what he starts, and always, ALWAYS keep his word. Lack of faithfulness is one of the quickest ways to spot a fake Christian. Someone who is timid, wishy-washy, unreliable or just plain dishonest is not living by the Spirit. It doesn’t matter how long he or she has been going to church.
Gentleness. Along with patience, this is another very obvious sign that God is working in someone’s life. If a person has a history of anger issues (as I have), and you see that person holding his tongue, not raising his voice, being less competitive, etc., it’s a good bet that person didn’t learn those techniques from a self-help book.
Self-Control. Along with gentleness, people under the control of the Spirit are able to keep themselves together. They can hold themselves back, and keep themselves from going to pieces in stressful situations. Again, when you see someone with a reactive nature not taking the bait and going for the throat anymore when someone tries to start an argument, you know that something’s up that didn’t start with that person.

I can not stress enough that this is not intended to be a to-do list for you to check off.

The goal here is not to get these things done. It’s to keep in step with the Holy Spirit by letting His influence in our lives rule our conduct. If our goal is to live lives of strong moral character and integrity, then the characteristics in the list above will shine through naturally, sometimes without our even being aware of them.

Other people will notice, however, just as they notice when we claim to be filled with the Spirit, but fail to display these characteristics.

Again, the characteristics are not the goal. The character is.

(For more on living this out, come back for Part 5—As Far as it Depends on You)

Overcoming the World: Part 3–Living by the Spirit

But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! Galatians 5:22-23 (NLT)

I am a very task-oriented person. I am all about the to-do lists. It gives me joy when I check something off. It stresses me out when I get to the end of the day, and there’s still 12 more things on my list.

Because of this, I have a tendency to turn almost every facet of my life into a mental to-do list. Everything feels like a competition or a performance to me. I will emerge either as a winner or a loser.

Most of life really isn’t supposed to be that way, though. I am learning that it’s actually OK to simply live life as it comes and appreciate moments as they’re happening. I am learning that it’s more important to start each day with gratitude than finish it with a gold medal.

So why is it that we keep wanting to go back to the things that we know didn’t work before? Are we just addicted to futility? Or is this just part of the natural state of being human?

I think the problem lies in our tendency to define ourselves by what we do or fail to do. If I win, then I am a winner, but if I lose, then I am a loser. Nobody wants to be a loser though, so we do everything we can to win at life. And if we find we can not win, then we start doing things that are truly ridiculous.

“Winners” and “Losers”

Some people try to downplay life’s natural consequences by attempting to eliminate the concept of winning and losing, a concept that I call the “participation trophy” mentality. You’re a winner just for showing up! And if you didn’t even show up, we’ll try to find an excuse for you, so that you won’t lose. After all, you deserve to win!

Then there are the “glory days” people (I tend to fall into this category). These are the people who used to be the best at something. But then they went somewhere else where there were other people that were better. Or maybe they just got old and weren’t as good as they used to be. If a person like this is focused on the winning, and he isn’t winning anymore, bitterness takes over in a hurry.

A person in this kind of a rut can’t let go of the past, can’t be happy for anyone else who wins in the present, and is bleak about the future that he sees for himself filled with nothing but losing. Because if you lose, then you’re a loser. But you can’t be a loser, because you used to win. But now other people are winning, and keeping you from the victory that is rightfully yours. So if you can’t beat them, then you have to tear them down, so that you can be on top again.

Both of these misguided worldviews lead to the same error—trying to put everybody else on earth at the same level so that we can feel good about ourselves, either by having no distinction of greatness, or by declaring ourselves great by attrition. Both of these philosophies fail, because they both stand on the foundation of defining our worth by what we do, rather than who we are.

God gave us a better way to live.

In the Bible, Paul calls it “living by the Spirit.” This is a churchy way of saying “getting out of your own way and letting God do His work through you.” Living by the Spirit isn’t about checking things off of a religious checklist. It is more about being aware of God’s influence in our lives, and allowing ourselves to be led away from our own plans and deeper into His.

Notice in the verse at the beginning that it is the Holy Spirit that produces the fruit in our lives, not us. We don’t overcome the world by accomplishing all nine of those things on our own. Rather, when we yield to God’s leading in our lives, these fruits are the natural result of the change that He works within us.

(So what does that look like? Come back for Part 4—Keep in Step.)

Overcoming the World: Part 2–Calling for Backup

I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 15:13 NLT)

Everyone has up days and down days. Christians are no exception. When we are in a desert faith-wise, as I have been for a while, it is so important to have people around us that can build us back up. Also, we should remember the example that these people set for us, so that when we’re back on the mountaintop, we can lift somebody else up who needs it.

Unfortunately, the tendency in these dry seasons of the soul (especially for a cave-dwelling introvert like me) is to pull away from people. We get used to our misery, and it seems that we would rather prolong it than to have someone tell us what we need to hear.

The problem with that is that when we pull away from people, we pull even further away from God than we were already feeling. That’s when the old bad habits start rearing their ugly heads again. One of my biggest fears since accepting Christ is that someone is going to encounter me during one of these bad times and associate what they see in me with Christianity in general. What if I’m standing at the throne at the End of Days giving an account of my life, and I find out that someone missed out on the Kingdom because of something I said or did that turned him or her away?

But fears like this can actually accelerate the downward spiral. We might figure, “If I avoid people entirely, then I won’t run the risk of blowing my witness and staining the name of Jesus.” So we pull even further away, not just from society, but even from the hand that feeds us.

Girl sitting alone on bed, apparently isolated in her apartment — COVID has made a bad situation much worse with people isolating that don’t even want to.

Another manifestation of getting into a spiritual funk like this is that we stop reading the Bible. Everything we need to adjust our attitudes is right there, and the Holy Spirit is only too willing to illuminate the verses that we need to hear, but again, we are too comfortable in our misery to put forth the effort of opening a book. I am so grateful to have a wife that will put scriptures in front of me when I am not going to them myself.

Do you have someone in your life that cares enough about you to give you a lift like this whether you want it or not? If you don’t, then find one. The best place that I have found for this type of community is in a small group (sometimes called “life groups” or “cell groups”) in a church. If you are not familiar with this concept, it’s a group usually of 8-15 people that meet regularly to go deeper together in their faith than they would get by only going to church on Sunday morning.

What we need to remember is that we were set apart from the world to be WITH God and His people, not to be hermits in a cabin in the mountains (not that there’s anything wrong with mountains!).

As I mentioned in Part 1, a normal life involves difficulties. For a Christian, those difficulties include enduring people who mock the Name of Jesus. Sometimes it seems that life would be easier if we didn’t have to put up with that, but we have to remember that this life is not all there is. The next one is a lot longer.

God’s joy and peace are there for the having. You just have to want it. But sometimes, you need somebody to remind you that you want it. So don’t ever be afraid to call for backup.

(For the next step, please join us for Part 3–Living
by the Spirit)

Overcoming the World: Part 1–Peace

I have told you these things, that in me you may have peace. In the world you have oppression; but cheer up! I have overcome the world. John 16:33 (WEB)

Ever have a day where it seems like the world is just coming down on you and everything seems hopeless? Ever have about five months in a row like that? I did. That’s why you haven’t heard from me in a while.

It isn’t that anything traumatic happened in my life in this stretch of time. I just ran into an extended dry spell where my faith wasn’t keeping up with my circumstances. Election years in general do that to me, and this has been the worst one ever. (AUTHOR’S NOTE–this was written in 2016. Had I but known…)

In times like these, we Truthseekers need to get a grip on ourselves (and each other) and simply remember just Who it is that’s really running the show, whether or not we are aware of it.

God’s goal is never to confound us, but to bring us peace. Another way to word that would be “confidence.” He wants us to rest assured that He is not only bigger than whatever comes our way, but that our circumstances are all a part of his plan.

There are so many ways that we can learn from adversity. Sometimes it’s a course correction if we are going a way that we should not be. Sometimes it’s to find out that we are really stronger than we thought we were. But sometimes it’s the opposite of that. Sometimes God allows us to walk through difficult seasons as a means to get us to STOP relying on our own strength and to rely on His instead.

That sounds like the right thing to say from a spiritual standpoint, but it sure doesn’t feel that way when you’re going through it, does it? I really admire people who hold unswervingly to their faith when going through things like extended illnesses or financial hardships. I am one who wants things fixed, and fixed NOW, so I can get on with my life. Trials and tribulations are an obstacle to my plans.

If you think this way, as I often do, that’s the indicator that you’re getting off track. Because if you’re most concerned about your own plans, then you’re not in submission to God. He knows what’s best for us, and more importantly, He knows what’s coming next.

Maybe it’s just part of being American, but I can get so bent out of shape over my first-world inconveniences. I can count the major trials I have had in my life on one hand. They are significant, but they are not a daily occurrence. We get so spoiled in this country that we forget all too easily that troubles are a normal part of a normal life.

The world can be frustrating. The people in it can be REALLY frustrating. However, it is pointless to allow ourselves to be mastered by our frustration. There will be things in this world that we can not conquer, but Jesus has already conquered everything that ultimately matters.

For some practical tips on overcoming, come back for Part 2–Calling for Backup.)

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The Kids Aren’t All Right: Part 3–Love is a Verb

This is My commandment, that you love and unselfishly seek the best for one another, just as I have loved you. No one has greater love [nor stronger commitment] than to lay down his own life for his friends. (John 15:12-13 AMP)

Our kids’ generation is not immune from the error of past generations trying to pass love off as a feeling. Love is an action word. It is the act of sacrificing yourself for the benefit of others.

It seems the first thing to go when a child loses his or her innocence is the ability to love. Not the ability to feel, but the impulse to give sacrificially without thinking about it. I believe this is because kids in our culture are so habituated in getting that it never occurs to them to give.

Remember, a child’s “reality” is limited by his or her perception, just as an adult’s is. But the less life experience you have, the narrower your perception. Children don’t instinctively know the difference between perception and reality, so it isn’t ever going to occur to them to test their worldview.

Where this becomes problematic is if they think the world revolves around them, they will assume that to be true until they find out otherwise.

Another stumbling block for kids once they reach their adolescent years is their growing self-reliance. Growing up is inevitable, and becoming more independent is generally a good thing as one gets older. However, because kids don’t know what they don’t know, it is very easy for them to get in over their heads when trying to do something themselves.

Because they have not yet mastered their pride, it is also not routine for most adolescents to ask for help, even when life overwhelms them. Sometimes, it seems they gravitate more toward the drama of being in a mess than actually solving their problem.

I think this is why it is frequently so difficult for older kids to show love. 1 John 4:19 reminds us that we love because God loved us first. However, unless you know that, you can’t act on it. To live out a life of love effectively, you must allow yourself to be controlled by the Spirit of love.

Now when was the last time you met a teenager who wanted to be controlled by anybody? They are just reaching the stage of life when they can finally do things for themselves. Now we’re telling them NOT to think of themselves, but others? No wonder they get confused. Which cranks up the drama even more. Which throws them right back into the cycle of attention-seeking about their confusion rather than helping them move forward with solutions.

Because God is love, if you are showing love, people see God through you. The sooner we teach our kids how to look outside themselves, the easier it will be for us to help them shape their worldview into a view that actually has some WORLD in it.

(More lessons for the future generation ahead in Part 4: Integrity)

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Fishers of Men: Part 2–Track Record

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the celebration. When the wine ran out, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They don’t have any wine.”

Jesus replied, “Woman, what does that have to do with me? My time hasn’t come yet.”

His mother told the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Nearby were six stone water jars used for the Jewish cleansing ritual, each able to hold about twenty or thirty gallons.

Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water,” and they filled them to the brim.Then he told them, “Now draw some from them and take it to the headwaiter,” and they did. The headwaiter tasted the water that had become wine. He didn’t know where it came from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew.

The headwaiter called the groom and said, “Everyone serves the good wine first. They bring out the second-rate wine only when the guests are drinking freely. You kept the good wine until now.” This was the first miraculous sign that Jesus did in Cana of Galilee. He revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him. (John 2:1-11 CEB)

Jesus hasn’t even had a chance to start teaching or building into these guys who are following Him. His disciples have only just met Him and have literally not had time to do anything but get to this wedding, perhaps chatting a bit on the way. They really didn’t have any way of knowing for sure at this point what they were getting into.

But then, Jesus reveals His glory to His new disciples by changing the water into wine. From that point on, the fishermen were themselves hooked.

Now go back to the passage at the beginning of Part 1, where Simon (now called Peter) and Andrew drop their nets to follow Jesus full-time. This event takes place A YEAR after the wedding at Cana.

So Jesus wasn’t just walking along the beach casting hypnotic spells on ignorant and gullible people. First, they knew their scriptures well enough to know that a Messiah was coming. Second, John the Baptist had pointed them directly to Him. Third, they had seen Him perform a miracle firsthand.

So by this time, Jesus had an established track record with these guys.

Luke 5 goes into much more detail than Mark 1 about what Jesus was doing at the lake that day. He wasn’t just walking along; He was teaching people at the water’s edge. Then He gets into Simon’s boat, and has him take it out into the lake a bit, so He is better situated to teach the crowd.

Afterward, He has Simon go out deeper into the lake and let down his nets. This doesn’t make sense to Simon, because they hadn’t caught anything all night. Nevertheless, Jesus already has enough of a track record with Simon that he does it anyway. This is what happens:

They did it and caught so many fish that their nets began ripping apart. Then they signaled for their partners in the other boat to come and help them. The men came, and together they filled the two boats so full that they both began to sink.

When Simon Peter saw this happen, he knelt down in front of Jesus and said, “Lord, don’t come near me! I am a sinner.” Peter and everyone with him were completely surprised at all the fish they had caught. His partners James and John, the sons of Zebedee, were surprised too.

Jesus told Simon, “Don’t be afraid! From now on you will bring in people instead of fish.” The men pulled their boats up on the shore. Then they left everything and went with Jesus. (Luke 5:6-11 CEV)

They left everything. Think about that for a minute. Think of your job, your family, your house, your friends, your community—everything that makes your life what it is. Is there anything, or anyone, that could make you leave all of that behind you?

If you said no, then consider these words of Jesus:

Those who love their father or mother more than they love me are not worthy to be my followers. Those who love their son or daughter more than they love me are not worthy to be my followers. Whoever is not willing to carry the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who try to hold on to their lives will give up true life. Those who give up their lives for me will hold on to true life. (Matthew 10:37-39 NCV)

These fishermen were ready to become man-fishers. They were expectant, they were vigilant, and they were patient. And because of this, we are still talking about them 2,000 years later.

So what about us? Are we ready? Are we willing to drop it all and go fishing? Does Jesus have enough of a track record with us that we would follow Him wherever He would have us go?

If your answer is yes, then it’s time to go fish.

Whatever We Ask: Part 5–Unstable

But if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and he will be given it. But he should ask in faith, not doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed about by the wind.For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord, since he is a man of two minds, unstable in all his ways. (James 1:5-8 NABRE)

Last August, we discussed that doubt could be healthy if you put it to work for you by testing new information in your search for Truth.

Nevertheless, doubt is not always a healthy thing. It is one matter to doubt one person’s interpretation of scripture or another individual’s worldview. It is quite another to doubt God Himself.

God knows what you need. He knows it before you know it. He is not only capable, but also willing to meet your needs. Yet, it is not your need that He responds to when you pray. It is your faith.

Prayer is based on trust. We ask God to meet our needs and hear our petitions because we believe and trust that He will handle the situation. If we didn’t believe that, why pray at all?

But we still do that sometimes, don’t we? Have you ever offered up a prayer because it seemed like the thing to do, but you didn’t really expect that your prayer would be answered?

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Unstable in all our ways…

Jesus’ brother James is not one to mince words, as you can see in the passage above. He explicitly says that someone who doubts when he prays will not get the answer to their prayer that they hope for. The key word there is “hope.”

There are two different kinds of hope. There is expectant hope, where you are welcoming an event in advance that has not yet come to pass, and there is “I don’t know if this is going to work or not, but I sure HOPE it does.”

Again, what is the point of praying if you don’t expect an answer? Do you believe that God is God or don’t you? If we offer up a prayer from a position of worry, then we are literally “of two minds.” One mind is thinking of God answering the prayer, and the other is thinking of a Plan B.

When we do this, what we are really doing is making God the Plan B, because worry and anxiety will always cut in line ahead of whatever else is present.

So clearly, it is a daunting task to hold both kinds of “hope” in your mind at the same time. Just as you cannot serve two masters, you cannot persevere on two different paths in life simultaneously.

So when James says that a person who does this is “unstable in all his ways,” he is not only saying that this person is indecisive, but by extension, that he cannot be trusted.

That sounds inordinately harsh, but think about it. We’re talking about Christians here. If we can’t even make up our minds about relying on the God we claim to serve, then who would ever rely on US to follow through on anything? A person who spends their life in an endless “What If?” loop never gets anything done that needs doing.

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So if that’s what unstable looks like, then what about stable?

Throughout the Bible, the image of a rock is used to denote stability. God Himself is referred to as the Rock on many occasions. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus also uses this image to describe a life lived by faith:

Therefore, everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them will be like a sensible man who built his house on the rock. The rain fell, the rivers rose, and the winds blew and pounded that house. Yet it didn’t collapse, because its foundation was on the rock. (Matthew 7:24-5 HCSB)

Notice the “and” in Jesus’ statement. It’s not enough to hear what He’s saying and answer with a “yeah, but. . .” Stability and security come not from passive hearing, but from active LISTENING and the follow-through that accompanies it.

Now having used the word “security” there, I am reminded of one more issue regarding the answering of prayers. One that is particularly sticky to us here in the USA.

(Come back for the conclusion in Part 6—Prosperity)

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Whatever We Ask: Part 4–(Un)answered Prayers

All prayers are answered. Sometimes the answer is, “No.”—Bono

One of the pitfalls of the Christian life is how easy it is to backslide from “highly favored child of God” to “spoiled brat.”

We have seasons of life where everything seems to be going our way, and we give God the glory for that. But then life throws us a curveball, and the whining starts.

“Why isn’t God answering my prayer? He said He’d give me anything I ask for. Haven’t I been ‘doing it right’?”

The truth is that God does answer prayer, but not always in the way that we expect.

Sometimes we get excited and run up ahead when He needs us to hold back and notice something He wants to show us. Sometimes selfishness creeps in and the “desires of our hearts” become more like the cravings of our appetites. And sometimes, we simply don’t recognize the answer for what it is when it comes.

God is not a vending machine or an ATM. We exist to serve Him, not the other way around. For this reason, the point of prayer isn’t primarily to address our own needs. Jesus explained it this way:

Don’t worry and say, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ The people who don’t know God keep trying to get these things, and your Father in heaven knows you need them. Seek first God’s kingdom and what God wants. Then all your other needs will be met as well. (Matthew 6:31-33 NCV)

Prayer is your Out box. When you put something in your Out box at work, do you pull it back and put it in your In box again? No, you put it in the Out box because you are finished with it.

Whatever it is that you are praying for, God has a plan for it. It may not be the plan you would have scripted for yourself, but think for a minute. Who’s smarter, you or God? Don’t you think it might be possible that Father knows best?

There’s more to it than that though. Logic alone will tell you that God is bigger, more powerful and more able to meet your needs. The question is, “Do you TRUST Him to do that?” Do you believe that He not only knows what’s best for you, but that He WANTS what’s best for you?

How you answer that question will determine how you respond to His answers. If you really believe that God’s way will lead to a better result than anything you could have come up with, then it becomes a lot easier to roll with the changes when they do come.

(But what happens if we don’t? Come back for Part 5—Unstable)

Whatever We Ask: Part 3–The Desires of our Hearts

Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart. (Psalm 37:4 NIV)

This is one of the more misunderstood passages in the Bible. It’s easy to see why. Who doesn’t want to get the desires of his or her heart? Who has ever watched an Aladdin movie without wondering what it would be like to be able to rub a magic lamp and have a genie pop out to grant your wishes?

Unfortunately, many people have looked at that verse above, keyed in on that last part, and subsequently transformed God in their minds to little more than a genie in a lamp.

If you’ll notice though, this verse is a conditional statement. To get the desires of our hearts, we must first “take delight in the Lord.” So maybe we should be focusing more on what that means instead of our own selfish desires?

To “take delight” obviously means, “to enjoy.” But what is it we should be enjoying exactly?

It is the relationship that we have with God as our Father.

In this life, we may have great memories of time spent with our dads. Dad can be our fishing buddy, our baseball coach, our source of worldly wisdom, etc. Many people, of course, have never been able to have a relationship like this with their fathers, but many of those wish that they had.

The relationship with our heavenly Father is different though. He is Abba, but He is also Adonai, which means, “Lord.” As Lord, we serve Him, but as Daddy, we serve Him out of grateful love, not just reverent fear.

When we realize that our service to God is not to avoid punishment but to please our Daddy, then the service itself becomes a joy. God isn’t looking for slaves to command. He wants His kids to look up to Him as if to say, “Did I do a good job, Daddy?”

To be able to hear God answer in the affirmative, we would of course have to have done what He wanted us to do. And to have doing God’s work be a delight instead of a chore, we would first have to WANT what He wants.

Looking at it this way, we begin to see that “the desires of our hearts” have little to do with our desires, but more to do with our hearts.

When we trust Jesus to be the Lord of our lives, He begins a transformation process inside us, gradually conforming us to His image. As we change, our hearts change to become more like His. As we see things more and more from His perspective, we begin to want what He wants—for ourselves, for others and for the world.

Once we get to this place, it is much easier to discern what God’s will is. THEN, when we pray, knowing that our will is in agreement with His, He gives us what we ask for, because it was what He wanted for us in the first place.

And yet, sometimes things STILL don’t go the way we expected. So what does that mean?

(Come back for Part 4—(Un) answered prayers)

DN=: Part 16–Hypocrisy

I find it interesting that the Greek origin of the word “hypocrisy” comes from the theatre. You may know that ancient Greek plays were performed by actors wearing masks. These actors were called hypocrites, not because of any character deficiency, but because they were literally “pretending under a mask.”

This meaning makes sense when you think about people whom you may have considered guilty of hypocrisy. What they are doing is showing the world one face, their “mask,” while pretending to be something they are not. One of these masks is self-righteousness.

Why do you see the splinter in your brother’s eye but not notice the log in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the splinter out of your eye,’ when you have the log in your own eye? You hypocrite! First, take the log out of your own eye; then you will see clearly, so that you can remove the splinter from your brother’s eye! (Matthew 7:3-5 CJB)

Jesus’ warning against hypocrisy from the Sermon on the Mount is one of the most humbling passages in scripture. However, as is so often the case when people use the Bible as a defense mechanism, many of us want to put a period where God put a comma (or in the case of the translation used here, a semicolon).

Notice that Jesus did NOT say, “You hypocrite! First, take the log out of your own eye” PERIOD! There is a “then” after the “first” and a “so that” after the “then.” The purpose of taking the log out of your own eye is to clear your vision. And the purpose of clear vision is to successfully complete the task of helping get the splinter out of your brother’s eye.

Jesus is clear in noting that the fault does not lie with the person giving correction, but with the spirit in which it is given, namely that people with issues of their own ought to address those before pointing out someone else’s.

Nowhere in the passage above does it say that it is OK to have a splinter in your eye. It also does not state that one must be perfect to remove a splinter. After all, no human was ever perfect besides Jesus. And since He is clearly advocating the removal of splinters from eyes by people who are less than perfect, it should be equally clear that imperfect people, under the right conditions, are qualified to remove eye splinters.

IMPERFECTION DN= HYPOCRISY

Have you ever tried to be perfect or maybe felt that you wouldn’t measure up if you were anything less than perfect? It’s stressful, isn’t it?

Many Christians fall into this performance trap. Sometimes we get the impression that in order to be worthy bearers of the name of Christ, we can’t slip up, lest the onlooking world accuse us of hypocrisy.

I would like to do my part in helping break this cycle by saying that it’s actually a good thing for the world to see us fail. It doesn’t seem so at first, when we are enduring the taunting, the ridiculing and the finger pointing, but when the dust settles, we have a unique opportunity.

We have the chance to publicly demonstrate personal responsibility by swallowing our pride and owning our fail as well as the consequences thereof.

In other words, we can take off our masks and show the world what’s underneath.

He turned now to his disciples and warned them, “More than anything else, beware of these Pharisees and the way they pretend to be good when they aren’t. But such hypocrisy cannot be hidden forever. (Luke 12:1b TLB)

The few of you who have stuck with me during the LONG pauses between posts in this series may have wondered what the delay was all about.

I knew that I was going to be closing out my series exposing the hypocrisy of the “=” movement by talking about hypocrisy itself and how those who bring that charge the most strenuously seem to be the guiltiest of it themselves.

Then I looked in the mirror one day and saw the log. So I’ve been spending the past several weeks trying to figure out what to do with this log in my eye.

You see, the thing is, I’m a wanderer. I guess we all are, because we are all susceptible to sin in general and the sin of pride in particular, but I’ve been doing quite a bit of wandering lately. I can totally relate to what Paul was feeling when he wrote this to the Romans:

I don’t understand myself at all, for I really want to do what is right, but I can’t. I do what I don’t want to—what I hate. I know perfectly well that what I am doing is wrong, and my bad conscience proves that I agree with these laws I am breaking. But I can’t help myself because I’m no longer doing it. It is sin inside me that is stronger than I am that makes me do these evil things.

I know I am rotten through and through so far as my old sinful nature is concerned. No matter which way I turn, I can’t make myself do right. I want to but I can’t. When I want to do good, I don’t; and when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway. Now if I am doing what I don’t want to, it is plain where the trouble is: sin still has me in its evil grasp.

It seems to be a fact of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love to do God’s will so far as my new nature is concerned; but there is something else deep within me, in my lower nature, that is at war with my mind and wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. In my mind, I want to be God’s willing servant, but instead I find myself still enslaved to sin.

So you see how it is: my new life tells me to do right, but the old nature that is still inside me loves to sin. Oh, what a terrible predicament I’m in! Who will free me from my slavery to this deadly lower nature? (Romans 7:15-25 TLB)

I think at some level I just knew that I wouldn’t be able to finish this without dislodging my log.

But then I considered the question that ends the passage above. Who will free me from my slavery to this deadly lower nature? Well, duh. Jesus already did. I’m still working on my wood-vision, but at least I’m aware of it. The fact that I want the log out of my eye is the evidence that it is possible. Especially when I consider the alternative:

If anyone sins deliberately by rejecting the Savior after knowing the truth of forgiveness, this sin is not covered by Christ’s death; there is no way to get rid of it. There will be nothing to look forward to but the terrible punishment of God’s awful anger, which will consume all his enemies. (Hebrews 10:26-27 TLB)

The unfortunate fact that I am prone to wander from the Truth does not make the Truth any less true. Therefore, it is not hypocrisy for an imperfect messenger to deliver a perfect message to someone that would benefit from it.

For this reason, I will press on, and continue doing what I have been called to do.

Because falling down DN= falling away.