The Golden Rule

Matthew 7: 12 "So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

I was reading through Matthew 7 the other night and was struck anew by the Golden Rule. I have heard it so much throughout my life that it seems worn out compared to some of the new, provocative things I hear among Christian bloggers and modern affluent preachers. But this time when I read it, I was struck by the phrase at the end--"for this is the law and the prophets." This reflects on the greatest command as well--where all the law and the prophets hang on the foundation of loving God and loving others. This connection made me realize that in some ways, the Golden Rule is a great summary statement of what it means to love others. While we get a very specific definition of love in I Cor. 13, love could be summed up, "treat others the way you want to be treated."

In particular, I've been meditating for some time about Biblical love in conflict. The Golden Rule gives me an interesting perspective to consider. When in conflict, if I want to fulfill the law--loving my neighbor as myself--then a great summary question to ask myself is "how would I want to be treated if I were the other person?" Most of the time in conflict, we are so self-righteous and self-absorbed, the last thing we consider is how we would want to be treated in a similar situation.

Think about the last time you were genuinely wrong about something. (And if you are having a hard time thinking of that time, I hope that sets off a serious red flag in your heart. ) Now think about what led you to recognize your sin. How did Jesus draw you to repentance? Was someone else involved? What about their response was helpful in seeing your sin? What about their response created a stumblingblock to you? From there, we can start to get a picture of what confrontation and restoration looks like when it is governed by the Golden Rule and Greatest Command. And I humbly submit that any confrontation that is not governed by the Golden Rule and Greatest Command is likely motivated by pride and selfishness.

Right now, the 2 people in the world that I confront most often are my small boys. I want to get this right with them.

Father, there are a lot of people in sin in this world, and I am chief among them. Teach me how to minister grace to others that they would see both their sin and the contrasting beauty of Your holiness. May Your grace flow through me that I could draw them to repent and not put a stumblingblock in front of them instead.

Holiness by Grace

I listened to this sermon while working out this week. In my qwest to understand the grace of God toward me and how His grace transforms me, this sermon was very helpful. It's around 30 minutes--each word thoughtfully articulated. Nothing extraneous here. I love that in a sermon! If you need a good word straight from Scripture, I highly recommend this preaching of the Word.

Fighting the Wrong Battles

I noted earlier this week that evangelicals (at least those represented in the blogosphere) tend toward picking the wrong heros and fighting the wrong battles. I will expand a little bit more on the 2nd point here.

What battles should we be fighting as believers in Christ? In my humble opinion, evangelical Christianity is a mess because we don't let Scripture set the priority level for the swords upon which we will die. Scripture says some pretty profound things about what is important. Here are a few verses that strike me as particularly powerful and succinct.

John 13:35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

Matthew 22 36"Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" 37And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38This is the great and first commandment. 39And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets."

1 John 4:20 If anyone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.

1 Pet 4:8 Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

Colossians 3:12-13 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

I am coming to value a new and different fight--one I don't see getting high visibility in the world of the Christian blogger looking for the current controversy of the day. It's the fight for Biblical love and forgiveness as God defines it in His word (with humility and grace as close allies). After all, without love as God defines it, even speaking with gifted words or giving my body to be burned for the poor is meaningless (I Cor. 13:1-2). Furthermore, it's the greatest command according to Jesus. That gives it a priority few other things in Scripture have.

We must fight for the accurate use of the term love in our homes, churches, and even the Christian blogosphere. We must not tolerate when people throw the term about but deny it by violating the objective definition Scripture gives us in I Cor. 13. We must fight for real humility and grace, not sham niceties that are no more than politeness or diplomacy to get ourselves out of a sticky situation.

Most disturbing to me is that we sometimes fight for a nuance of the gospel while tolerating the practical things that Scripture says indicate we don't get the gospel at all. Scripture teaches that when we don't get grace, love, humility, and forgiveness, it reflects that we don't really understand the gospel. That should set off red flags for us all personally.

I recently followed a thread on language at a widely read Christian blog. Paul's words to the Ephesians about language in Ephesians 4 was quoted. There, Paul speaks of language that ministers grace to the hearers--that isn't bitter, angry, slanderous, malicious--but is kind and tenderhearted reflecting to others God's forgiveness of us. However, the main issue on this thread was the s-word and potty humor. Now, I don't use the s-word in personal conversation and other than the occasional inevitable potty humor that arises in a house with a 2 and 3 year old, I don't partake in that much either. But I'm profoundly disturbed that so many seemingly mature Christians would boil down the issue to those points.

My soul-deep burden, weighing on my heart, is that many in the Body of Christ, including Christian leaders heralded in the blogosphere, don't understand that our malicious, sarcastic, angry speech (not our use of the s-word or potty humor) reflects a heart that doesn't understand the gospel. Such a heart doesn't fully grasp God's grace to us, and therefore it is incapable of extending that grace to others.

My prayer today is that we would fight this battle first. If we first get the gospel to ourselves and then humbly and lovingly minister that grace to the next person, I think we would be amazed at the purity of the doctrine that would rise up in our church.

My own confession is that I have a bad attitude against those who have a bad attitude. I don't easily extend grace to those who aren't gracious. And forgiving those who are not particularly forgiving is still more of a goal than a reality for me. God, help me first to understand Your grace TO ME so that I could extend it to others. Second, help me to see that when I am kind to those who are easy to love, it has little to do with grace and the gospel. Help me love those who don't love in return, aren't gracious, and seem unable to forgive. Equip me to minister grace to them, for they are the most in need of understanding it.

Fighting the Wrong Battles, Adopting the Wrong Heros

On returning from vacation in Canada, I am catching up on my bloglines and technorati searches. Once again, I'm amazed, bemused, and discouraged by evangelicals' incredible ability to expend all their resources fighting the wrong battles and defending the wrong heros. Do you have a hero of the faith? Maybe Spurgeon or Luther is your man. Or I could name a list of modern day living guys.

If I were a hero worshipping kind of girl, I'd be loving Tim Keller and CJ Mahaney right now. But it's primarily their teaching that reminds me of the terrible ungospel-like aspects of modern day religious hero worship. CJ Mahaney is all about humility and Tim Keller preaches grace like nobody else I've heard (except the pastors at Grace Seattle). And what you get from both of them is ... well ... humility and grace. Humility says that I have to let go of my rights, and I am a servant of Christ and for Christ to others. Grace says that I am the cheif of sinners and the only response that reflects well on God's forgiveness of me is my forgiveness and forbearance with others. There is no room for hero worship in that.

Our former pastor in SC told a story about meeting a wealthy man in seminary who had given a large portion of land to a mission organization for an airstrip. Our pastor told the man that he was honored to meet a hero of the faith, to which this older man replied, "Son, there is only One Hero of our faith." I tear up to think of that. He was humble, wise, and RIGHT.

God, may Jesus alone be our Hero and the One to which we conform. May His humility be our guide and His grace our defining core value.

John 13:35 "By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

I Cor. 13:4-5 Love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or
rude. It does not insist on its own way;

I'll write more another day on our tendency to focus on the wrong battles. It's such a pet peeve of mine, that I have to first work on my own attitude before I can post anything publicly.

Throwing the Baby out with the Bath Water

We're heading out for a week of vacation. In the meantime, I came across this article that articulates something we do a lot in Christian circles--react so strongly against a particular error that we create a new error in the opposite direction. Balance is a HARD thing. It's only personal humility and the Spirit's illumination that will allow us to see our own errors. I hope this article provokes some thought on the issue.

Cast Your Bread upon the Waters

Ecclesiastes 11
1 Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days. 2 Give a portion to seven, or even to eight, for you know not what disaster may happen on earth. 3 If the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves on the earth,and if a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where the tree falls, there it will lie. 4 He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap.

5 As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.

6 In the morning sow your seed, and at evening withhold not your hand, for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good.

This chapter from Ecclesiastes may or may not resonate with you. For me, it resonates deeply.

Cast your bread on the water. You won’t see the results for a while, but after many days, it will return to you. Give all your portions away, and then give one more portion you didn’t even know you had. The rain will come when it's going to come. The tree is going to fall where it falls. And if you stand around trying to figure out when and where, you’ll never sow your seed or reap the harvest. You cannot figure out My ways no matter how hard you try. So stop over analyzing life. Put your hand to the plow. Sow. I WILL bring harvest—in My time and My ways.

This is a poignant word from God to me. I often feel that I have given all my portions away only to find that I still need to give one more. Many days I catch myself sitting around analyzing the storm clouds in my life to the point that I never sow. And many times I despair because I haven’t yet seen the bread I cast on the water return to me. God’s word to me is to sow my seed in the morning and in the evening as well. I don’t know what will prosper. Maybe one. Maybe another. Or maybe all of it will bear fruit for the kingdom. Regardless—sow my seeds and give away my portions. The bread cast away will find me again after many days.

Mental Battles

I wrote this article for another blog a year or so ago. But I came across it again today and thought it is as true for me as ever. So here it is again.

All my struggles are mental. They may start out as physical issues (like those I encounter with diabetes or sleep deprivation) or relational issues (like tension with a spouse, coworker, or child), but they always end up as mental battles. My success or failure in each circumstance ALWAYS comes down to how I handle it in my head.

My mental battles usually all boil down to fear and fatigue. As a teenager, I was insecure-lacking confidence, anxious, doubting myself. As a single twenty-something, I faced depression-feelings of sadness, guilt, helplessness, and hopelessness-thinking that all hopes for the future hung on getting married and having kids, which I felt powerless to accomplish on my own. As a married thirty-something, I faced depression again-this time after miscarrying and having problems getting pregnant. Once again, I hung my hopes for the future on building a physical family. Of late, I’ve battled insecurity and depression yet again. It doesn’t matter that I have my family, a comfortable home, and a fulfilling ministry at church. I still have mental battles.

This latest round of mental battles has taught me important truths. First and foremost, we CANNOT peg our hopes for overcoming our mental battles on a change in our circumstances.

If only that guy would call me .

If only my husband would do X .

If only I wasn’t so sick .

If only I could lose 10 pounds .

If only they’d offer me a better job .

If only my kids would obey me .

If you rely on circumstantial change to get you out of a mental funk, I’m here to tell you, any mental relief you get will be short-lived. The 2nd thing I’ve learned (and it is tied to the first) is that the answer to fighting mental battles is NOT to work harder to solve your situation or spend more time analyzing your options.

What is the answer? For me, there is ONE THING that helps me mentally. It is to step back and get a view of the big picture-i. e. the character of God and His kingdom purposes for us. God is sovereign, compassionate, and wise. In other words, He’s in control, He loves us, and He knows what He’s doing. When my kids don’t obey me, God still rules over all. When I’m overwhelmed by my inability to do all I need to do, God’s kingdom purposes will still be accomplished. When I’m stressed by conflict with a loved one, God still rules over the hearts of men and His plan to conform us to His image still stands.

God is doing His work. His purposes will be accomplished. But Satan’s lies permeate this world and, often, my mind. So I have to do exactly what Paul told the Corinthians to do in 2 Cor. 10:5.

2 Corinthians 10:5 “We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.”

I love the picture here-I think of it in terms of a rodeo. Picture a big ring with animals of various sizes and strengths haphazardly running around. Then the cowboy walks in with his lasso, ropes an animal, and brings it down. Some are baby calves that are easy to take captive. Others are raging bulls that only come down with fierce, determined strength. By the Spirit’s empowerment, this is my job-lasso in thoughts that don’t jive with God’s Word and make them submit to the truth of Scripture.

The big lie that runs around in my head in various forms is that God isn’t in control, my life is on the verge of going to hell in a hand basket, and if I don’t work fast and take control of everything myself, I’m lost. I must identify that lie and lasso it in. It has to submit to the truth-God is sovereign, He knows what He’s doing, and He is in control of the details of my life. My need isn’t to think fast and do something, but to abide in Him, rest, and wait patiently on Him to work.

What is your big mental battle? Can you identify both the lie and the truth from Scripture that refutes it? If so, please feel free to share it here.