Part 6: The Uniqueness of Christ - Other Considerations (2)

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One of the most visceral responses to the exclusivity of Christ is often the question about "other people" - what do we do, how do we think about people know don't know Christ, and especially those who have never heard about Jesus?  Since this is quite a thorny issue, we will address this through several posts.  Today, we will focus on the idea of people choosing to reject the call of Christ.

One of the primary ways we are differentiated from other creatures on our planet is through our ability to choose.  We do not condemn tiger for eating a deer by saying, "He could have made a better choice."  We understand that in the natural order of things, it is not choice as much as instinct that drives an animal to do what it does.  But humans have the ability to choose, to look at options and to even choose one that may be less beneficial because of a greater, moral issue(choosing not to steal even though it might be a financial benefit to the individual).  So to choose is part of the human experience. 

God gives us the ability to choose how we will interact with Him.  C.S. Lewis once wrote that there are only two types of people in the world - those who say to God "Your will be done" and those to whom God says "Fair enough - if you choose to reject me - your will be done".  And to have it be different would be a violation of the ability to be human, to choose, and ultimately, to love.  Love can not be forced, it must be a choice, so to have God force anyone to be a follower of Christ is, by necessity, a contradiction in terms since God desires us to choose love Him (with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength - Luke 10:27).  Thus, we conclude that we can't and God chooses not to force people to follow Him.

The interesting concept here is that oftentimes, people find God guilty for not allowing them into Heaven when they have actively chosen to reject Him.  It is as if we want both worlds - we want to be totally free to choose whatever we choose but at the same time we want God to force us to choose what is best for us.

In Luke 13:34 we read the description of God's heart for His people Israel, and we can easily conclude He feels the same way about us.  Jesus says that He called the people to Himself, but they would not have it.  The rejection of Christ is less often about not knowing and more often about the grandest issue of sin: our desire to be self-saviors.  People reject Christ because they don't want anyone in their lives who can or will hold them to such a high standard.  Thus, when people reject Christ, they most often do it as an active choice to reject Him and His leadership of their lives.

Next, we will address the question of people who never heard the Gospel.

- tC 

Part 6: The Uniqueness of Christ - Other Considerations

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Of course, the arguments for the uniqueness of Christ could go on and on.  One can easily begin to delve into the topic of biblical accuracy, historical documentation of Christ's life, and so on.  But I wanted (over the next few posts) to add a few more facts that I find both convincing and captivating.  Today, we will consider the nature of the Christ's sacrifice.

In John 15:13 Jesus tells His disciples that there is no greater love that a friend can show than to lay down his life for another.  This makes intuitive sense to most of us.  If I were about to be shot and a friend stepped in front of me and took the bullet and then died, I would certainly feel that there is no other action that could have shown me greater love.  I would feel indebted to this person and I would assume that for many of us, that would be marked as the watershed moment in our lives.

Following this logic, if Christ did die for my sins, I should feel a deep sense of awe and thankfulness.  But we must compound this fact with the biblical truth that Christ is God (Phil. 2).  So we re-phrase the sacrifice and note that God the Son gave up His life for me.  Next, we consider that He was perfect, completely sinless.  We have now arrived at the fact that God the Son, while completely perfect and innocent, died for my sins.  While we could add on many additional facts, lets us lastly add on that Christ died a brutal and shameful death through crucifixion.

Christ, God the Son, was completely innocent and completely perfect, and yet He died a brutal and shameful death for me.

It seems quite rational that if this is the case, then to say that there are many ways to God demeans the awesomeness of Christ and the Cross.  To do so essentially says, "While His sacrifice is great, He could have just not done such a thing, because I can work hard at being righteous and pious and, on my own, work my way to God and Heaven."

If the Cross is true, then the sacrifice made there was unimaginable.  It stands alone as the grandest act of love ever expressed.  We should be cautious before we say that such an act was merely one way to be spiritual and to receive salvation.

Tomorrow, we will consider the challenge of the many who choose to reject Christ and what their fate might be.

-tC

Part 5: The Uniqueness of Christ in His Atonement

In Christ we find the One who understands 2 of the most vital aspects of our humanity - our need for acceptance and the issue of our sin.  That deep longing of the human heart to be accepted, to be fully known and to still be accepted - Christ offers this to us.  At the same time, we see His accurate assessment of the plague within our soul: sin.  We see that He is able to identify in us the ability to do, feel, and think so much that is simply wrong.  Christ not only identifies the symptoms of the sin, but He also identifies that unless something within us is transformed by Him, we cannot escape ourselves, and the plague of sin will eventually bring for both physical and spiritual death.

Today, we consider how Christ deals with these issues, and to do this we look to the Cross.  Historically, the cross represents disgrace and shame.  John Stott's book The Cross of Christ is a classic treatment of this topic, and he notes that when early Christians identified a cross as the central symbol of the Christian faith, they were mocked by the surrounding culture.  How could a symbol of humiliation and suffering be the way to draw in new converts?  The mistake they made, however, was that the idea of the Christian faith was not about growing a religion - it was and is about the transformation of the soul.

The simple fact that in Christ, the Son of God - equal with God (Phil. 2) - came to live and die for the sins of humanity makes the Christian faith completely unique when contrasted to the religions of the world.  No other religion offers such a radical idea of redemption, let alone the need for such a radical redemption.  The Cross alone is unique.  Supplement that with the fact that the very Son of God died upon that Cross and we see that the Christian faith approaches the whole notion of what it means to be spiritual in a completely singular way.

First, the Cross shows us that God will not capitulate.  He does not look at our disease of sin and simply turn a blind eye.  He cannot do this, for it would impinge on His very character (for He is completely just).  The example often used to describe this need for justice is a simple one, but the truth rings through.  A man is convicted of a crime.  He stands before the judge and says, "Judge, you are a good man, a kind man, a fair man.  Because of this I think you should let me off with no punishment."  The judge looks at the man and says, "You are right about at least one thing - I am a good man, and because I am good, I cannot let your crimes go unpunished."  This makes sense to us in an earthly way, doesn't it?  If people committed criminal acts, we would likely not look highly upon a judge who let every person off without any punishment.  And so in the Cross, we see the justice of God.

Secondly, we see in the Cross the deep love of God.  Romans 5 reads "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."  God was not fooled into sending Jesus to the Cross.  He did not think that people were righteous and therefore conclude that they deserved the sacrifice of His Son.  In fact, we read again and again in the Scriptures that God realized we were sinners, alienated from Him, at enmity with God - and yet He still offered us the longing of our hearts: acceptance, forgiveness, and understanding.  In the Cross we find the full expression of God's love for humanity.

Consider that in other world religions God is distant, or in some religions there is no God and all that we see is deemed an illusion,  or in other religions we are never sure if we've done enough good or if we have been made right.  The Cross stands in stark contrast to the other religious systems of the world because God showed that He remains faithful to His character while at the same time offering humanity all that it needs to live as He intended.  Upon the Cross, Christ dealt with our need for acceptance and He dealt with our sin.

-tC

Part 4: The Uniqueness of Christ and His Assessment of Humanity - Sin

As we ended our post yesterday, we closed with a passage from Hebrews 4 where we read that Christ can empathize with our humanity because He too experienced that humanity.  The other key portion of verse 15 is our topic for today.  The verse closes by stating, "...yet He did not sin."  An understanding of humanity's sin is the other key element that shows the uniqueness of Christ and His assessment of humanity.

Sin is an antiquated word to many people.  It can be viewed as overly-pious, an attempt to spiritualize everything.  And yet it seems that we cannot escape the usefulness of this word.  Sin is often described as transgression, wrongdoing, making a mistake.  But these terms fail to address to egregious nature of sin.  One can make a mistake (stating that 2+2 = 5 is a mistake) and yet not sin.  It is true that sin is a transgression of God's higher moral law, but it is also more than this.  Biblically, sin is not just an action (sins of commission) or a failure of action (sins of omission).  Sin is a state, often helpfully described as a disease that has infected humanity.  Sin is not just "doing wrong" - sin is the soul-level infection that causes us to do that wrong.

It seems to me that the very word sin brings about in people's minds a grander sense of malfeasance than just "messing up", and thus we are careful to use it, most often simply avoiding it.  It is perhaps the most contentious concept used to describe humanity, but also one that is the most clear to see.  For this reason we cannot eliminate it from our vocabulary.  Just as we find times to use the word 'evil' instead of 'doing wrong' (the tragedy of 9/11 being such a situation - the word 'evil' was used to describe the heart of those who carried out those heinous acts), we find that sin describes a wrong-doing or a state more effectively than other words in our vocabulary.

Christ understood the nature of humanity, both the grandness and its failure.  In His interaction with a Jewish leader named Nicodemus, He stated that to enter the Kingdom of God, one must not merely do good works, but one had to be born-again - given a new internal compass that would guide us toward the good (John 3). As He spoke with the Pharisees in Matthew 23, He warned against the idea of looking righteous on the outside while still be plagued by sin within.  In Matthew 7, Jesus tells His listeners that good fruit (actions) come from a good tree (source), and that if the internal reality of a tree has been corrupted, it cannot bear good fruit.  Over and over in the Gospels, Jesus describes the need of human beings as not a set of more specific rules to follow, but instead He describes the need for a heart-transformation.  And He speaks this way because He saw the power of sin in people's lives.

This aspect of Christianity is not one of the more popular propositions.  But if we are to consider Christ, we have to consider how He described humanity - as both grand and fallen, as in need of acceptance, but also in need to forgiveness and transformation in the soul.  Christ alone, when contrasted with other world religions, give this pin-point precise analysis of the human state, an analysis that aligns with what we have seen in others and what we have experienced in our own lives as well.  He does not write-off sin as an illusion, nor does He say it is deal with by simply working harder at being more.  The serious disease of sin could only be rectified at the atonement on The Cross.    

Tomorrow, we will address the uniqueness of Christ's atonement, a place where we find the collision of His understanding of our need for acceptance, our deep sin nature, and the justice of God.

-tC

Part 3: The Uniqueness of Christ and His Assessment of Humanity

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We've thus far considered the fact that ultimately all world religions are exclusive, and we've also considered a couple of ways we could wrestle with the claims of Christ.  If Christ is the only way, we must see the reasons why this is the case.  What is so unique about Jesus?  Today, we will begin to consider His uniqueness as we examine His understanding and assessment of the human state.

It's been said that human beings are a chimera.  If you are familiar with the mythological creature, you'll know that this beast has the heads and body parts of a various animals.  The concept being communicated is that we are multi-faceted, that there are many realities that play together into what it means to be human.  One of these is the longing to be understood.  This reality may shape us more than any other piece of the human equation.  When we are young, we seek out friends who will let us spend time with them and play with them.  If we are unable to find these kinds of friends, we feel isolated and such childhood traumas have impacted the adult life of many people in significant ways.  When we move on into the teenage years, one of the most anxiety-causing experiences we can have is to be isolated.  Authors Andy Stanley and Stuart Hall once wrote that teenagers don't choose their friends - their friends choose them.  The longing to fit in, the longing to be accepted defines adolescence.  Whether that group is considered cool or not is often of little consequence as long as the person finds a place where he or she can feel accepted - nerd, jock, popular, goth - what matters is that some group says "yes" to a young person.  It is no coincidence that many of the tragic school violence massacres were committed by people who felt alone or shunned.  The most well-known case is probably Columbine High School where the killers Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, just prior to killing 12 students and 1 teacher, expressed their desire for retribution for all the wrongs committed against them by "others", by the groups into which they were not given entrance.  While yes, this is a dramatic example, the point remains - young people desire to be understood and accepted.

That desire does not change when we become adults.  Consider the number of adults who spend hours in bars and on-line in discussion with others.  Why?  Because we desire to be known and accepted.  Think about why we shy away in conversations when it comes to sharing about finances or income.  I am firmly convinced that a majority of our awkwardness around the topic of money is because we connect money to our worth. Tell someone how little you make and you risk them not accepting you because you are not up to par for their standards.  While I doubt many would share this so boldly or so directly, I believe it is a motivating factor for our unease with the topic of money - we don't want to find out that we are not worthy of acceptance.  We can also consider some of the reasons for divorce.  People often married with the thought that at last they would be understood by at least this one person.  But after years of miscommunication and feeling like a spouse does not understand, the most viable option often seems to be to end the relationship and to look for another relationship where one can be truly understood.  Far on the other end of life, anecdotal evidence has shown the immediate negative impact that losing a spouse has on the elderly.  It is as if a husband who has spent decades with his wife begins to physically and psychologically shut down as soon as she dies - having been known and understood for so long, having shared companionship and acceptance, it is as if the soul begins to wither at the thought of that being lost.  We long to be understood and accepted.

In the person of Christ, we find unconditional love in a way that humans cannot experience from one another.  Almost all love on earth is conditional.  As a new father, I can understand if someone might argue that a parent's love for a child is unconditional, but in the vast majority of cases, there is a breaking point for love, a point where one thinks, "I will not give love or acceptance anymore unless...".  And in the day-to-day experience of life, we so often give love to others with the expectation of receiving love in return. We rarely interact with someone who accepts us with TRULY no strings attached. 

But in Christ, we find this.  A classic passage about this is found in John 4 where Jesus interacts with a woman at a well.  This woman (we discover as we read the story and as we understand the historical context of the situation) has been isolated from her fellow townspeople.  She is drawing water in the heat of the day, most likely because she desires to avoid the jeers and glares of the other women who draw their water in the morning and the evening.  We read that she has had many lovers, and that even the one who she now has is not her husband but the next man in long line of broken relationships.  On top of all this, she is a Samaritan, a people-group that is seen as half-breeds, as being below the Jewish people. 

But when Jesus arrives on the scene, He offers her dignity and acceptance.  While it would have been considered unacceptable for Him to drink from the jar of this woman (and even more so since he was a rabbi), He asks her for a drink.  When she tries to avoid His tender questioning, He gently moves her toward the truth.  But He never says to her, "You must do X to truly interact with God".  His subtle challenge to her is that she acknowledge her broken state and allow God to heal her.  Christ knows that she lives in a world (as we do today) where people are quick to judge and isolate one another, and so He speaks to her with both kindness and conviction.  He offers her true life through Him.  He knows that all humans want to be understood, and through their interaction, she sees that this prophet truly understands her.

And lest we think that it is too much speculation to think she feels accepted, we read that her reaction is as follows in John 4:28-29 - "Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”  Imagine what must have been stirred in her soul to go to the people who also knew everything she did (and did not look kindly on it) and to tell them to come and see this man who might be the Messiah.  Only someone who had experienced a radical form of acceptance would speak to her neighbors with seemingly no care whether they accepted her or not.  She had experienced, perhaps for the first time, acceptance from The One who made her.

Christ stands out in His unique ability and desire to accept those with whom He chose to interact.  I find no other world religion that offers this acceptance and understanding in the one who claims to be God.  Gods of power, of destruction, of mercy - yes.  But the very nature of Christ is to accept and to understand.  Hebrews 4:14-16 reads, "Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need."
Christ alone has the ability to understand and accept us and our humanity because He Himself experienced it.
-tC

Part 2: The Exclusivity of Chirst and Methods for Consideration

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Many years ago, I was struck by the thought that the Christian faith offered me something that I did not find in other world religions.  In John 14, Jesus spoke of Himself as not a guide to the truth or an aspect of the truth, but as the Truth.  I was struck by this because I felt, as a young philosopher, that one of my greatest commitments had to be to the truth regardless of where it led me, and I was pleased to see that Christ did not only allow for me to ask questions, but He offered Himself as the ultimate solution to the quest for truth.  I am not offering the nicety of "Jesus is the answer to all the questions" - this is a simplification of our struggles with what it means to be human.  What He does offer, however, is that those who seek out truth will eventually find themselves considering and looking at the person of Christ.

That being said, let's consider two approaches to dealing with this question of the exclusive claims of Christ.  The first approach is probably the most obvious which is to look at the reasons why Christ had to be the only way of redemption, why Christ alone stands out in great contrast to other world religions or world religious leaders.  This method is helpful for some people - it is very much taking the claims of exclusivity head-on. 

The other approach is to leave this question behind for a while and to consider the rest of the Christian faith and the life of Christ.  By this I don't mean to ignore the issue, but to see what other evidence we may find in Christ that He is worthy of our allegiance.  To give a non-religious example: let's say that my wife has known me for 10 years and that she believes I am trustworthy.  One day, I say something to her that seems outlandish, too far from reason to possibly be true.  Yes, she could investigate my outlandish claim, but another method would be for her to consider all that she knows about me, all that she has experienced with me, all that she has seen in my life - and to let that be the basis as we move forward with my radical claim.  You see, when we work from the unknown to the known, I believe the workload is more significant.  When we work from the known toward the unknown, we have a building assurance with each step toward the unknown.  To reconnect us to the topic of Christ - if we find Him worthy, beautiful, true, and trustworthy in many other areas of His life and teaching, then it becomes easier to handle the challenging teachings (also known as "the hard sayings of Christ"). 

Tomorrow, we will begin with an investigation via the fist method - looking at the exclusive claims of Christ head-on.  Once we've done so for a handful of posts, we will consider what other factors in the life of Christ make Him worthy of our faith.

-tC

Part 1: The Exclusivity of Christ and The Exclusivity of Religions

 

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One of the challenges that if often leveled at the Christian faith is that many Christians claim that Jesus is the only way to Heaven, or the only way to have a relationship with God in Heaven.  There is something inside of us that reacts when we heard such a claim - we want to say, "That's not fair.  How can there be just one way to God?"  It is a legitimate question, and I believe that the question itself arises from a desire to allow the most people to have a relationship with God.  Part of the thinking process might be described as, "If so many people follow some religious system other than Christianity, and if Christianity is the only way to God, then there are billions of people misled about this vital issue."  Indeed, it can overwhelm the mind - the implications are massive.

But there are two issues that are often overlooked.  First, we must understand that truth, by definition, is exclusive.  While we can say in conversation, "Well, that's true for you, but not for me", we don't actually mean exactly that.  What we usually mean is, "Well, that's your opinion and I won't really argue with you because it seems to work for you, but I have a different way of making it work for me."  This is very different than dealing with the issue of truth.  Truth is exclusive - that is not a religious statement, it is a logical and philosophical one.  When we try to say that there are many truths, what we are often saying is that there are many opinions on things or that there are other assertions/factors that allow for us to nuance the statement.  Here's an example:

Tim claims to be 6 feet 2 inches tall. 
A friend says, "That's not true, he's just over 2 meters tall."
The comment from the friend has added a new factor into the discussion - we are now using a different measurement system.  This, however, does not negate the fact that Tim is still 6 foot 2.  Sometime people use the analogy of an elephant and say that one man is touching the tail, one the trunk, and so on.  But this doesn't change the fact that ultimately, it is an elephant that they are touching.  If A is true, then non-A cannot be true as well.  Again a simple example: If I were to say that I live in New Hampshire to my friend, and then a moment later to that same friend I say I live in Utah, he would not think, "This makes complete sense."  He would realize that there must be some other factor he hasn't considered (am I talking about a summer home for example), or he would conclude that I am not making sense.

Connecting this to the topic of religion - all world religions claim exclusivity at some point.  We might like to think that they all are the same thing deep, down inside, but this is simply not true. On the surface, it may seem that all religions are rooted in love and compassion, but as we probe a little, we can see that there are very different definitions of what love and compassion are.  For example, Heaven in the Christian faith is different than in Buddhism where there is no Heaven. God in the Christian faith is the Triune God - the Trinity.  In Islam, the Trinity is non-existent.  All religions claim to be "the way" at some point.  Some followers may deny this or avoid it, but at the core, all religions (to some degree) claim "we have the way to God/eternal life/spiritual meaning."

Thus we conclude that the exclusive claims of Christ are not so much radical as they are rational, for all religions claim something of the sort.  One can dismiss all religions as false, but one cannot logically claim that all religions are true.  When Jesus says in John 14 the He is The Way, The Truth, and The Life - we can disagree, but we should not do so because it's an irrational claim - it is very rational.

There are many reasons we could discuss as to why the Christian faith is often pegged as THE religion that claims exclusivity, but with a little investigation, it is clear that all religions do the same.

Tomorrow, we will talk about 2 approaches to the exclusive claims of Christ.

-tC

The Exclusivity of Christ - Introduction

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We live in a world that is both becoming more globalized by the moment, and yet it is also a world that is highly divided.  A handful of years ago, author and social researcher Andy Wolfe wrote a book entitled One Nation After All.  In it, he concludes that (based on his research) Americans are more similar than we are different.  While this was true a decade or so ago, my position would be that traumatic events of 9/11 changed that.  Interestingly, I just heard an interview tonight with a congressman who had been in office for over 20 years, and he commented that when he first started serving (just after the Watergate scandal), there was more unity and cordiality than there is now.  It's true in Congress, it's true in the U.S. overall, and it's true in the world.  While the world becomes smaller each day, there is a clear sense that many people groups are at odds with others.  Certainly, the culture wars of years past may be true, but now we find many researchers noting that there is a clash between East and West, between North America and China, or between Islam and Christianity. 

So what are we to do with this?  In a world that is already filled with strife and conflict, division and enmity, can't we just all agree that religions are all an attempt to climb the mountain to God, even if the path is different? 

If only it were so easy.  Over the next few weeks, we will look at some of the challenges we face when considering the exclusive claims of the Christian faith (and other faiths for that matter).  As we do so, my hope is that we work to create more light than heat.  The test of all discussion and presentation is two-fold: the truth of the claims that are made, and the honesty in the hearts of those considering them.  May we have both.

-tC 

The Language of Success

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As a sociology major in both undergraduate and graduate school, I have always been fascinated with human-to-human interaction.  I had a communications professor who told me that once she wandered around the Cornell University campus and when people asked her how she was, she would reply, “I’m dead” – just to see who would respond.  Most people said, “That’s nice.  Well, see you around.”  Along those same lines, I’ve always been intrigued by how we begin conversations with people we’ve never met before.  Isn’t it interesting that when we meet someone new, we almost always begin the conversation by asking “What do you do?”  We want to know what a person does because we somehow think that knowing the occupation a person holds will tell us about who that person is. 

But pause to think about it – how many of us have held jobs that just touch the surface of describing who we truly are?  When I worked in Pennsylvania in student affairs at Penn College, saying that I was ‘a residence life coordinator’ would tell you very little about what I valued, how I spent my time, or who God was to me.  And for many people, a job is just a way to pay the bills, so to attempt to define those people by knowing what they do from 9-to-5 would be almost completely missing the mark.

Where do we find our worth and identity?  Certainly many them in the friends they have, in the jobs they hold, in the grades they score, or in the social circles where they might be found.  Let me be direct here in stating that the language of success is rather limited in the Bible.  It’s not that it doesn’t exist, but much more prevalent are the languages of faithfulness and relationship.  People who are described in the Bible as having achieved much are often described in terms of how well they loved God or how true they were to His calling on their lives.  You’ll also read a lot of language related to ‘son-ship’ – the idea that we are defined by our relationship to our Heavenly Father.  We are called children, chosen, beloved, and the list goes on.  For a great list of who we are in Christ, just hop on Google and type in “who I am in Christ”, and you’ll find a list of the verses that tell us about our relationship to God.

The reason we must grasp the centrality of identity is that self-esteem defined by anything other than Christ will eventually fail us.  We will live from experience-to-experience, standing on the edge of the cliff of failure, wondering if one day we might fall off and be seen as not good enough.  If you are a Christian, you are called to work hard and live well for Christ’s glory, but not to do so in order to be loved by Him – He already loves us without end.

What might it look like if you were so grounded in your identity in Christ that all the other things in life for which so many strive became worthwhile but not worth-giving?  A life that has found self-esteem and identity in Christ is one filled with “peace that passes all understanding” (Phil. 4). 

Always On Time

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In the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 3, we read the story of John the Baptist arriving on the scene to proclaim the Good News of the coming Messiah.  John is the fore runner, the one to come before Christ and to prepare the people for the King who is soon to arrive.

In response to John’s call to repentance, we see the crowd, the tax collectors, and the soldiers all inquire, “What should we do?”  Interestingly, in response to the tax collectors, John says, “Don’t collect any more than you are required to.”  During this time period, the tax collectors egregiously overcharged those being taxed and they for took a huge portion of what they collected and kept it for themselves.  John’s call to them was this – be people of integrity.  Take what is due to the government, keep the appropriate portion that is your legitimate salary, and do not take any more.  In essence, John was saying, “Be a person of integrity.”

I find this passage very intriguing.  We see that this chapter starts with a proclamation of the coming King Jesus.  The new Kingdom is being ushered in and John is giving insight to those who are around him as to how to live in the new Kingdom, insight into what the values of the new Kingdom are.  One of these is clearly integrity – being a man or woman who keeps his or her word and does what is correct.  Oftentimes, I think it’s easy to think of  “The Kingdom of God” and living in light of this Kingdom as focused on the spiritual disciplines and evangelism – reading our Bibles, praying, going to church, sharing our faith.  While all of these are aspects of the Kingdom, there are more subtle aspect that we might overlook.  One of these Kingdom values is integrity.

Integrity is doing what you say you will do.  Integrity is being true to who you are called to be.  In my experience, we as Christians tend to be late.  Meetings start late, people arrive to meetings late, people arrive late to pick someone up, and the list goes on.  While we are called to live as gracious people, we are also called to live as people of integrity.  What would it look like if Christians were the ones who were always on time?  What would it look like if Christians were known to always keep their word, even when it was hard to do?  I realize that “life happens” and that at times, we just can’t be where we planned to be due to an unexpected change in plans or a sickness in the family.  But in the day to day existence, what if Christians were to live as people of outstanding integrity, even in this one area of being on time?   What would that mean?

It would mean that a piece of the Kingdom of God was in our midst.

Food for thought - Caedmon's Call Sings "This World"

There's tarnish on the golden rule 

And I wanna jump from this ship of fools 

Show me a place where hope is young 

And a people who aren't afraid to love 

This world has nothing for me and this world has everything 

All that I could want and nothing that I need 

This world is making me drunk on the spirits of fear. 

So when he says who will go, I am nowhere near. 

And the least of these look like criminals to me 

So I leave Christ on the street 

This world has held my hand and has led me into intolerance 

But now I'm waking up, but now I'm breaking up 

But now I'm making up for lost time

Discerning Direction - Faith

(Dan - FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

Over the last few days, we've looked at the concept of finding God's will for our lives.  Needless to say, a topic of this enormity cannot be covered in just a few posts during a week or do.  A few good resources for this topic are Dallas Willard's Hearing God and Henry Blackaby's Experiencing God.  Both have their strengths, but taken together they will offer a primmer of this vast subject.

As we close, I'd like to offer one thought.  While this was addressed earlier on, I believe it is the most appropriate topic on which to close this series of posts.  Faith - do you really trust in God?  When I was a campus minister I recall speaking to a student who was expressing frustration over his fellow students and their laissez-faire attitude toward ministry on-campus.  "If God wants to do something, He'll do it" was their chorus.  I told this student, "There is certainly truth in that statement, but as we look over the history of the Christian church, it is interesting to note that those who have had the greatest impact worked the hardest."  We cannot sit on the sidelines and then wonder why God is not speaking.  The author of Hebrews reminds us that God rewards those who seek Him with all that they have (Hebrews 11).  So yes, we must work at discerning God's will.

But in the end, if we have put forth an effort of which we can be proud, the issue of God's will for our lives comes back to faith in God - that He is who He says He is.  We are reminded in Matthew 7 how reasonable it is to assume that an earthly father would provide for his child.  If that is true, Jesus asks us how much more filled with unconditional love is God our Father?  And if this is true, we can have the faith that He will lead us if we seek after Him.  It may take time and it may all come to pass in a different way than we hoped or expected, but He is good and He will lead us.

At the core of this whole question is our relationship with God.  If we aim to please Him, to love Him, and to be loved by Him, then we can believe the Lord's Prayer that indeed His Kingdom will come and His will will be done on earth.

-tC

Discerning Direction - Prayer

(Graur Razvan ionut - FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

(Again, please see Henry Blackaby's book Experiencing God for the original collection of the 4 ways God often communicates His will to us). 

Prayer serves at least two main functions when we are working on discerning God's will in our lives.  These functions are to focus us on God and to hear God's Spirit speaking to us.
We will consider both of these in this post.

Prayer can be described as a conversation with God.  Interesting to describe it that way, perhaps, because many feel like prayer is more about humans speaking than it is about God answering.  However, before we even address the topic of how God speaks in prayer, we should note a few things.

Prayer implies need and awareness of God's ability to meet that need.  Praying to God is an acknowledgment that we cannot do it all on our own.  When we ask anyone for help, we are stating that we need assistance.  So it is with prayer.  Asking God for direction in life is stating (as a sub-text) "Because God, I can't find out Your will on my own and I don't really want to live just by my will."  So prayer shows we realize our need.  Additionally, prayer focuses us on God.  When we become so consumed with where God wants to lead us or what God wants us to do, we can lose the focus that at least in part the joy is found in the following of Christ.  Prayer reminds us of our need for God and it centers us on knowing and enjoying Him.  The Aaronic prayer found in Numbers 6 reads, "The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make His face shine on you and be gracious to you; the LORD turn His face toward you and give you peace" (Number 6:24-26).  This blessing is not about God's will, but instead about the blessing of being with and experiencing God.  Thus, prayer is a healthy exercise in all seasons, but especially when we are seeking out God's will in our lives - it keeps us looking to Him and not to our challenges or questions.

Secondly, God can speak to us in prayer.  As noted in the earlier posts, we must always test all things against the Scriptures, so when we pray and we feel that God may be speaking to us, we should immediately compare what we are "hearing" with His Word.  But how does God speak to us in prayer?  In the vast majority of cases it is not in an audible voice.  Instead He often communicates to us in prayer by bringing ideas, Scriptures, or other things to mind.  Elijah spoke about this as the "still small voice" (1 Kings 19).  When you are praying, be sensitive to those quiet whisperings in your soul - that may be God's Spirit speaking to you.  Perhaps it's a word or phrase, perhaps it is a Scripture that God wants to use to communicate to you.  Either way, God can communicate with us in prayer.

When we listen for the promptings of God the Holy Spirit in prayer, tested against the Scriptures, and then combined with direction and insight from people, and added to situations into which God has led us, we have a powerful formula for seeking and finding God's will.

Tomorrow we will close out this series of posts about discerning God's will.

-tC    

Discerning Direction - People

(Salvatore Vuono - FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

(Again, please see Henry Blackaby's book Experiencing God for the original collection of the 4 ways God often communicates His will to us). 

As we look at the many ways God can use to reveal His will to us, people must be added to that list.  While God's Word is the most certain, people can also be directed by God (often unbeknown to them) to speak His truth and direction into our lives.  This can be true of both Christian and non-Christians.  Let's look at this a bit more.

As mentioned in an earlier post, there are no coincidences in life, and thus we must be aware of how God might be speaking to us through the people in our lives.  An example of this comes from a friend of mine who was questioning his call to ministry.  As he wrestled with his own frailties and apprehension about the things to which God might be calling him, God used a variety of people to speak into his life and encourage him to stay the course.  First it was a pastor he knew, then a friend, and then a mentor - all in one day.  All of them affirmed his gifts and the pastor told him that he believed there was a calling God had on his life.  While these might just be passing comments, to have them come when they did amd from whom they came - it might just be a sign that our caring and personal God has communicated with us.

These kinds of situations don't just occur for those called into full-time vocational ministry - they can be the experience of anyone.  Of course, we must listen to what people are saying to us and then process it through the grid of God's Word.  No matter how many people might tell one to steal, God's Word is the ultimate trump card and thus, we must affirm that the words from people fall in line with God's Word.

Scripturally, there are many passages that speak to the way God uses His people (followers of Christ) to speak His word to others.  When Jesus sends out His disciples (Luke 10), He is sending them to speak God's words, to be God's messengers for Him.  Later on in the New Testament, we read in 2 Corinthians 5:20 that we are sent "as God's ambassadors, as if God were making His appeal through us."  And Peter tells us that when we speak, we should do so as if we were speaking the very words of God (1 Peter 4:11).  Certainly, that doesn't mean that every word spoken from a Christian to a fellow Christian is God's will, but if we are interacting with people who love and are committed to Christ, we can be sure that God may just be using them to communicate His will to us.

When it comes to God speaking through someone who is not a follower of Christ, it can certainly also happen.  In Romans 1 we read that God speaks through Creation, and if so, we can be sure that He can speak through someone who is not just His creation, but someone who is made in His image (Genesis 1:26).  The key when listening for God's direction through others is to remember that all people are fallen and that we must always approach what is said to us by first considering it in light of God's Word and secondly, with a prayerful heart (the topic of tomorrow's post).

In summary, God can use other people in your life to speak His will to you.  In concert with His Word and circumstances, we might begin to see a clearer picture of what it is God is sharing with us and where He is leading us.

-tC

Discerning Direction - Situations and Circumstances

(Renjith Krishnan - FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

(Again, please see Henry Blackaby's book Experiencing God for the original collection of the 4 ways God often communicates His will to us). 

If we can confirm that the direction we believe God may be leading us is in line with God's Word, we can next look to situations and circumstances to continue to discern how God is directing our steps.  It's been said that there are no coincidences, and philosophically and logically, I believe that to be true.  The question of causation always has to come back to a First Cause.  Consider the concept of all that occurred to create the universe in which we now live, often known as the Big Bang Theory.  We can look forward from the Big Bang and posit that there are always actions that cause reactions - the leaf falls because the wind blew, the wind blew because of a storm, the storm came to be because of the way the weather systems formed, and so forth and so on.  But going all the way back, we need a First Cause, the uncaused cause of all other things.  In the Christian faith, this is God. 

Now if we can see God as the ultimate cause/first cause, and we can agree that the Scripture describes Him as a personal God, it makes sense that situations in our lives are likely caused or influenced by God.  An example might help here.  Let's say that money is tight and I am wondering if I should pay a bill that has arrived in the mail.  If I look into the Word of God, we see that God affirms the idea of not being in debt (Romans 13) and being true to one's word (Matthew 5:37).  So we can begin by knowing that yes, God wants us to pay our bills.  Next, we go to church on Sunday and hear a sermon about following through on commitments.  Coincidence - possibly, but we note it down that another situation has seemed to affirm the idea of paying this bill.  Next, we get a note from a friend and in it we find a $100 bill.  The note says, "I know things have been tight - hope this will help".  Could it be that God wants me to go out and get a new pair of shoes with thing money?  Not likely.  And then let's say that we get a call from the company to whom we owe the money and they say, "We had an accounting mistake and you don't owe us $150, you only owe us $100."

Given - this is a pretty clear scenario from God about what we should do, but please don't miss the point.  God uses situations and circumstances to direct us into His will.  He directs people to us that will speak a message into our lives.  He places opportunities in front of us that are oftentimes hard to miss.    But we must go back to our earlier portion of this discussion and test our own hearts - when the Word confirms and situations seem to be pointing toward God's will, do we have the will/faith to move forward into whatever God has for us?

A cautionary note: do not practice 'voodoo theology' (a phrase from Chuck Swindoll) and think that everything is a sign from God.  For example - I'm wondering if I should take a flight to Hawaii for a vacation that I cannot afford, but I wake up at 7:47 a.m. and take it as a sign that I should get on a 747 plane and go.  This is a dangerous way to live our lives.  What if we randomly opened the Bible to see God's will for our lives and our eyes fell on the passage that said, "Judas hung himself"?  We close our Bibles, certain that this isn't God's will, so we flip it open again and read, "And they all rejoiced..."  Clearly, we don't want to turn God's will into hocus-pocus.  My recommendation is to wait on circumstances and see if God uses multiple situations to confirm how He might be speaking to you.  No, we cannot wait forever, but we also should not rush ahead because of one blip in the radar.  God will often use other people to confirm His will in your life (our topic for the next post).

God uses situations and circumstances to share His will with us.  If we are grounded in His Word to confirm God's broader will, He will sometimes use these non-random occurrences to show us what our next step might be.  Psalm 139 tells us that He knew us before we were born, that He formed us in our mother's womb.  If that's true, it makes sense that He certainly would take the time to put us in places where He speaks His will to us through situations and circumstances.

- tC

Discerning Direction - God's Word and Will

 

 (Arvind Balaraman - FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

(Please see Henry Blackaby's book Experiencing God for the original collection of the 4 ways God often communicates His will to us). 

In discerning God's will for an area of one's life, there are many subjective arenas to consider. Did I correctly hear God in that still small voice?  Was the occurrence today God trying to speak to me?  The list of gray areas may be many, but there is a foundation, a grid through which we should view the uncertain or unclear ways in which God is trying to communicate to us.  That grid is the Word of God, The Bible.

In a situation where we are unclear, it is always best to start with what we know.  If I were to receive a phone call from my wife that our daughter is sick, I would begin the process of discussion by framing what we know and what we don't know.  "Is she sleeping a lot?  Is she breathing?  Is she coughing?"  As I gained information and eliminated the more serious maladies, I would start to hone in on what our next step might be - I might conclude that a visit to the emergency room is not necessary and that we can wait until tomorrow to see the pediatrician.  We start with what we know, we gain what insights on what we can be sure of and thus we begin to build a framework from which we can move forward.

So it is with the Bible.  Though there can be uncertainty in discerning God's will, what we can stand on is the certainty of God's Word.  (The objective strength of the Bible can verified by many researchers, theologians, and historians, so we will leave that area of discussion for other and another day.  If you are interested, you can view the video at the bottom of this post).  The revealed will of God is multi-faceted but all of the Bible describes this will.  Does God want me to be sexually pure?   Thessalonians 4:3 reads, "It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality."  Does God want me to help people come to follow Jesus and His ways?  Matthew 28:18-20 reads, "Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." 

If we are unsure of God's will for our life, we can find His revealed will explained to us in The Bible.  It's also interesting to note two things here.  First, I'd note that much of God's will for His people is less concerned with the "what" they do and much more focused around the "who" that they are (and are becoming, which is to look like Christ [Galatians 4:19]).  Secondly, it's interesting to see how much of God's will for us is actually explained in His Word.  More times than not, God has spoken (whether directly or indirectly) about the issue on which we are seeking direction.

God's will is best understood in God's Word. 

- tC

Discerning Direction - God's Character

I believe that at the core of the "will of God" question is character - the character of God.  While there are many aspects to discerning His will, at the core of the issue is the question who is God?  What is He like?  What is His nature and more specifically, what is His nature toward me, His child? 

When we are in a season of wrestling through the next steps of life, we can begin to look at God as a judge, as a dictator, or as a begrudging Father who is waiting for us to make a mistake and miss the mark.  But this is not the character of God as described in holy writ.  Over and over again we read in the Old Testament that "the LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love" (Psalm 103:8)  Think to the very opening pages of the Bible.  Even after The Fall, God shows compassion.  In a fallen state if Adam and Eve had partaken of the tree that offered eternal life, it follows that they could have existed in a fallen state eternally.  Thus, their expulsion from the Garden was an act of love.  Even after they are found guilty of breaking God's only command, He gives them clothing to cover their nakedness (probably at the cost of the life of an animal).  From the beginning to the end of the Bible, God is kind and gracious.

If we are unsure of the "what" when it comes to the future, perhaps we need to focus on the "who" instead.  If we can trust in Him, we can be sure that when the time is right, He will lead us in His ways. 

Years ago, I was in a Ph.D. program in sociology.  At the same time, I began to feel a calling into full-time vocational ministry.  I struggled for many hours with what God's will was for me.  Was I to continue as an academic and impact the university-setting for Christ?  Was I to leave a Ph.D. program where I was experiencing great success to become a full-time campus minister?  It was truly a season (short as it was) of agony.  But relief came when I finally arrived at a place where this is what I said to God:

God, I don't know where You want me to go.  You know that as best as I can tell in my own heart, I am seeking You with all that I have.  I am going to walk forward doing the best that I can and if You need to redirect me, please do.  I will go where You call me, just make it clear.

And that was it.  There is great freedom in knowing that God is not out cause His children to fail.  In John 15 we read that when we bear fruit, it is to the glory of God (John 15:8).  If that is true, He will put us in the place where we can most bless Him, bless others, and glorify His name.  If we can trust in His character, we can walk forward in faith that we are not walking alone.

- tC

Discerning Direction - The Wills of God

When we consider the will of God, there are often two main concepts theologians like to address: the permissive and the efficacious will of God.  Simply put, there are a variety of ways to think about the will of God and these two offer us a framework as we move forward in our discussion.

The Permissive Will of God
This aspect of God's will (as is implied by the language) has to do with what God will permit.  To some degree, we see this most clearly in the world when people make bad or evil choices.  God does not desire people to sin nor does He cause them to do so (James 1:13), but He does permit them to do so (more on this in the future when we address the necessity of freedom in order that true love exists).  God's permissive will can be sub-divided into two categories - the things He permits with which He is pleased (positive), and the things He permits with which He is displeased (negative).  Dallas Willard in his book Hearing God talks about the positive permissive will of God with an example of a father and son.  A son comes home from school and asks, "Dad, what should I do during play time this afternoon?"  The father's desire is that the son would play, enjoy himself, and get some exercise, but since he doesn't have a specific activity in mind, he tells his son to play whatever sport he wants - all the father wants is for the son to do something that fulfills his aforementioned requirements. This can be seen as the Positive Permissive Will.  Sometimes, God desires something broadly from us, but allow us the freedom to choose.  Augustine lived this out with his axiom "Love God and do as you please."  If we are in walk-step with God's heart, He sometimes gives us the freedom to choose what we do.  As long as it falls within His moral bounds and what we already know of His well, we have freedom to choose through which doorway we walk.

Negative Permissive Will is just the opposite.  God will allow bad decisions to be made, bad things to happen and though He doesn't desire it, He allows it.  This is an entirely separate topic, so we will leave this for now and return to it at a future time.

The Efficacious Will of God
This will of God is best described as the will of God that will happen.  When we read in Scripture that Jesus will return, we can be sure this will happen - God will engage the needed variables so this happens.   Some offer the question - if Moses refused to go, what would God have done?  The question brings in many variables, but at the core we can stand on this truth: if God desires something to happen, it will come to pass.
The Resurrection of Christ - this was going to undoubtedly happen.

What can we glean from these wills of God?  At least a few things.  First, sometimes when we are feeling the tension over wanting God's perfect will, we have to realize He might be offering us freedom within His framework (giving us choice within His bounds).  Secondly, we can be sure that the plans God has for us will come to pass.  If God efficaciously desires for us to become something, travel somewhere, or to live out a certain calling - it will happen.  In both of these, we can take comfort and find peace.  These are rooted in His character (our topic for the next post).

-tC

Discerning Direction - Honest Frustration

 

When we are in the waiting process for God's direction, we can easily become frustrated.  While we might be inclined to try and squelch that emotion, the truth is God already knows that we are feeling it.  I can recall one evening when I had a speaking engagement at my church and as I prayed before I said (among other things), "God, please let me do well so I don't look..." and then I stopped.  I restarted that line and said, "God, use this night to be a blessing to others and..." and then I stopped, again.  I laughed at myself.  Part of my desire was to not bomb that evening, and yet I stopped from expressing that out loud because I knew it didn't sound very pious.  But I had to laugh - I stopped as if God didn't already know what was in my heart and mind.  The end result - I prayed for both good night for the attendees and for me as well.  I can't help but think God laughed at my attempt to keep my true feelings from Him.

In the waiting process, if frustration arises, we have to own it and speak to God about it.  The nature of the triune God is personal.  Before He created anything at all, God (Father, Son, Spirit) was in communion with Himself.  When contrasted with several other world religions, the Christian faith follows a God who is personal by His very essence and thus allows us to be that same way since we were created in His image (Genesis 1:26 - "our image" - The Trinity in Creation).

So express the frustration, just don't become ruled by it.  Paul charges Timothy to be "clear-minded (2 Timotyhy 4:5), and thus we can experience the emotion of frustration, we just can't let it take us over.  In the same vein, be aware that the frustration that comes from waiting on God's revelation of your next steps should be channeled into speaking to Him about it in prayer.  Consider Lamentations 3:55-57:

Lamentations 3:55-57

55 I called on your name, LORD,

from the depths of the pit.

56 You heard my plea: “Do not close your ears

to my cry for relief.”

57 You came near when I called you,

and you said, “Do not fear.”

As you can see, the author is willing to be honest with God, and it appears without much concern for shrouding what's happening in his heart.  We can share in an authentic way, in an honest way, and yet still be respectful.  The personal and holy nature of God may be approached in the same way that Jesus approached Him - "Holy Father" (John 17).   

- tC

Discerning Direction - Willing to Wait

Once we are in the place of truly desiring direction from God (see last post), the next step is to consider what our internal time-line might look like.  Whether we admit it or not, most of us have a sense of what it is we really want in our future.  We may not have all the details, but we usually know where we'd like to be and what we think things should look like.  But this is where we have to pause and, again, take that internal audit. 

The logic that flows might be organized in this way:
1.  God is good and wants to give good gifts to His people (Jeremiah 29:11, Romans 8:28)      
2.  God is omniscient and therefore knows all that will occur (Psalm 147:4,5)
3.  Thus if He wants good for us, is able to work all situations for our good and His glory, AND He knows all (and so isn't surprised by anything), He is worthy of our trust.

But this is where the rub comes.  Referring to Paul's writing in Romans 12 it has been said that the problem with a living sacrifice is that it always seems to crawl off the altar.  We are often willing to follow Him, as long as it doesn't hurt too much or take too long.  The reason we must check our motives again is because God's time-line is rarely ours.  One of my favorite passages in the entire Bible is found in Genesis 41:1.  We read that "Two years later, Pharaoh had a dream..." and then the passage goes on.  Looking back a few chapters, we see that Joseph has already faced physical pain and imprisonment, and now we read that he's still in jail for at least another two years.  We can quickly skim over those words as we rush forward to hear about the positive aspects of this story, but pause and reflect that it took Joseph at least two years before things truly began to turn around.  I can imagine that during those long nights in the prison, Joseph had to have questions for God (more on this tomorrow). 

But the point is this: the will of God, the purpose He has for us - it often takes time to bring it to pass, and only if we trust Him and His character will be able to wait on Him.  God used 40 years in the wilderness to refine and test the nation of Israel and see what they truly had in their souls.  Walking in the will of God often means patience and perseverance.

As we seek the will of God, we must begin with introspection and ask: do I truly desire His counsel and direction, and am I willing to wait for His plan to be revealed while trusting Him in the meantime?  Two audits down, more to come.

- tC

Discerning Direction - Truly Seeking?

(This post begins a series around the question of discerning direction in life).

For most of us, there has come a moment when we ask, "Where am I going?" or "God, what do You want me to do with my life?"  If we are truly asking God for direction, I find that we must begin with an internal audit.

First, we have to ask ourselves if we are truly desiring the answer.  There are many occurrences in the Scriptures when people asked Jesus questions without any real desire for His response.  Perhaps most well known is when, during the mockery of a trial, Pilate asks Jesus, "What is truth?"  The next line reads, "...and then he went out."  (John 18).  Pilate had no real desire to even give Jesus time to consider the question, which is highly ironic in light of the fact that in John 14, Jesus self-describes as "The Truth". 

When it comes to our pursuit of direction in life, do we really want an answer, or is a half-hearted, 'heaven-ward tossed' prayer enough to make us think, "Well, I tried, and no one answered, so I guess I'll just figure it out on my own"?  If we are truly interested in possibly hearing from our Creator and Designer what it is He has for us, we have to first be willing to truly seek.  Hebrews 11 challenges us to consider if we really believe that God rewards those who earnestly seek after Him (Deuteronomy 4:29).

Before we even begin to look for an answer about God's will in/for our lives, we have to truly be willing to seek the response and the One who offers it.  Without the true desire for a response, we waste our time and mislead ourselves.  But if we are truly seeking, we, in time, will find.

Tomorrow, we will discuss the notion of waiting on direction from God.

- tC