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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.)

DN=: Part 14–Equal Opportunity

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal . . .

(Declaration of Independence)

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

(George Orwell—Animal Farm)

“Equal opportunity” is another way of saying that everyone has the same chance to succeed or fail.

However, instead of designating an equal chance at success or failure, “equal opportunity” has become synonymous in our culture with entitlement. Success is now assumed, and if a person does not succeed, well then that person has been denied “equal opportunity.”

But if equal opportunity in the true sense means the same as fair play and justice, then it would make sense that everyone already HAS equal opportunity. If justice is universal, then so is opportunity.

Oh, but wait a minute. Justice also means getting what we deserve. So we have equal opportunity to make our own choices, but we also have equal responsibility to own the consequences of those choices. Sometimes, those consequences are not favorable.

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY DN= EQUAL RESULTS

So it should be plain by now that the “=”movement is not really about equal opportunity at all. What the “=” community is really after is a life and a world that is free from consequences.

The irony is that if the “=” community actually got what it wanted, then it would be UN-equal, since having freedom from consequences would set it apart from the justice that everyone else would receive from making the wrong choice.

“=” DN= EQUAL

Let me pause for a moment here, because I know a lot of you are wondering: “Why does he keep saying ‘the “=” community,’ when he’s obviously talking about the LGBT community?”

The answer is that gay marriage isn’t the real issue here. Sure, the media and our politicians would like to make it the issue, but in the big picture, it all comes back to a problem that plagues everyone, gay or straight—self-righteousness.

Paul makes it clear in his letter to the Romans that homosexuality is not the disease, but merely one of many symptoms:

What happened was this: People knew God perfectly well, but when they didn’t treat him like God, refusing to worship him, they trivialized themselves into silliness and confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction left in their lives. They pretended to know it all, but were illiterate regarding life.

Worse followed. Refusing to know God, they soon didn’t know how to be human either—women didn’t know how to be women, men didn’t know how to be men. Sexually confused, they abused and defiled one another, women with women, men with men—all lust, no love. And then they paid for it, oh, how they paid for it—emptied of God and love, godless and loveless wretches.

Since they didn’t bother to acknowledge God, God quit bothering them and let them run loose. And then all hell broke loose: rampant evil, grabbing and grasping, vicious backstabbing. They made life hell on earth with their envy, wanton killing, bickering, and cheating. Look at them: mean-spirited, venomous, fork-tongued God-bashers. Bullies, swaggerers, insufferable windbags! They keep inventing new ways of wrecking lives. They ditch their parents when they get in the way. Stupid, slimy, cruel, cold-blooded. And it’s not as if they don’t know better. They know perfectly well they’re spitting in God’s face. And they don’t care—worse, they hand out prizes to those who do the worst things best! (Romans 1:21-22, 26-32 The Message)

Now that sounds awfully harsh, particularly in the Message paraphrase, but can you deny the reality of that in 21^st-century America?

One of the saddest things that I have yet seen is when churches water down or discard this message. It is not a church’s job to provide a safe space for sinners of any kind to come together and “be who they are.” A church’s function is to bring people together to find out who they are in Christ.

Faith in Christ Jesus is what makes each of you equal with each other, whether you are a Jew or a Greek, a slave or a free person, a man or a woman. (Galatians 3:28 CEV)

That’s right. The Truth is that we all have an equal opportunity to be equal in Christ. We have always had it and always will.

Sounds simple enough, but ah, there’s that pride thing getting in the way again. The problem with this simple solution is that it involves surrendering your will, and it is not in our nature to want to do that.

So what is left then for those whose pride prevents them from humbling themselves before God and admitting their failure?

They find someone else to attack.

Christians.

Since there is no Truth or common sense in their argument, based as it is upon their own self-righteousness, then the only avenue left to them is to tear down Truthseekers in order to maintain their perception of superiority.

And since PC code words are their forte, they have come up with the ultimate man-made nonsense word.

(And for that, you’ll have to come back for Part 15)

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DN=: Part 12–Civil Liberties

“I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but I will not be mastered by anything. (1 Corinthians 6:12 NIV)

I’m free to choose who I see any old time

I’m free to bring who I choose any old time

Love me hold me love me hold me

I’m free any old time to get what I want

“I’m Free” Mick Jagger/Keith Richards

One of the main functions of a father is to establish and enforce boundaries for his children. The intent of setting these boundaries is to protect his children, because he knows more than they do.

There is no condemnation in this, only a sense of love and protection. The child picks up on this, and remains content within the security of the boundary.

Now if an earthly father can manage to set healthy boundaries in love, how much more effective and useful are our heavenly Father’s boundaries! Would it not stand to reason that an omniscient God, who knows every possible outcome of every possible choice we could make, would know what’s good for us and what isn’t?

The most obvious example of this is the 10 Commandments. A lot of people are put off by them because of the “Thou shalt not” tone that most of them have. So why would a loving Father God put such restrictions on the freedom of His children?

One word—consequences.

LIBERTY DN= FREEDOM FROM CONSEQUENCES

Some consequences of violating God’s boundaries are obvious. Take for example “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” If you break that commandment, the most obvious and immediate consequence is generally the breakup of a marriage.

Long-term and indirect consequences are difficult to predict, however. We can’t know for certain how young children will be affected by the divorce—how they will cope with the sense of loss, how they will develop socially as they grow, what baggage they might carry into their future relationships and marriages.

God sees every potential negative consequence, and wants to protect us from them. Nevertheless, our nature instinctively reacts to any kind of boundary as a restriction on our freedom. Christian or not, nobody likes being told what to do, or to have their “freedom of choice” taken away.

But when you stop to think about it, this is a ridiculous notion. NOBODY can take away your freedom of choice, not even God. He’s the one who gave it to you in the first place.

Boundaries

God doesn’t set boundaries to take away our choice. He places them there to assist us in making the right choice, because he knows which choices will have good consequences and which will have bad consequences.

However, somewhere along the line our culture developed a callous disregard for sin, or crossing God’s boundary lines, and its consequences. Our culture has been brainwashed to believe that God’s boundaries, as set forth in the Bible, are out of date and out of touch with progress.

Since the Bible is God’s Word, and therefore our most definitive written source of Truth, this Truth gets dismissed along with the Bible. Inside this moral vacuum, people get the idea that they can create their own truth—a moving target that is relative to whatever suits their whims at any given moment—and anything contrary to that amorphous worldview then becomes a violation of their civil liberties.

Only here’s the problem. Since Truth is universal, and it’s found in the same place where God’s “restrictive” boundaries are, then it would follow that the consequences of crossing those boundaries are also universal.

The consequence of mentally turning sin into civil liberties is that to do so, the concept of civil responsibility is totally abandoned. You can’t be “free to do what you want any old time” and be your brother’s keeper at the same time.

Fortunately, God has a way of evening things out.

(To find out how, come back for Part 13–Fair Play)