Monthly Archives: December 2013

ME IS A HARD HABIT TO BREAK

23 Monday Dec 2013

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I know our focus on self is nothing new.  It’s human nature.  As Solomon reminds us in Ecclesiastes “There is nothing new under the sun.”  Since Cain killed Abel, man’s priority has been himself.  The degree of self-absorption in the world is a cycle – it peaks, and then subsides.  Each generation feels more justified in elevating self and the consequences of decisions made during the peak times are disastrous – the value of human life declines , violence increases, God is put on trial, morality becomes relative, selfish desires overtake morality as a basis for personal and political decisions, and individuals emphasize their rights without acknowledging responsibilities.  As self-absorbed as we are today, I often wonder what life will look like for my grandchildren.    

Luke 9:23-24 -“If anyone wants to become my follower, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”

In my 20’s I told myself that I wasn’t going to waste my life being unhappy.  I read somewhere that if I was unhappy, my spouse and children could not possibly be happy as they would suffer the effects of my misery.  That sounded logical and I bought it hook, line and sinker.  If something in my life wasn’t going the way I thought it should, I changed it or got rid of it.  The few times I did stop to think about how my lifestyle was affecting others, I was convinced I was saving them from having to live with an unhappy me.  The thought that this way of living was me-centered never crossed my mind.  I was afraid of getting old and having regrets.  Living a life centered on me became such a habit that much of the time I wasn’t even aware that’s what I was doing. 

As I struggled with confidence and trying to fit into the world, I bought into the idea that it was a self-esteem issue, my locus of control was out of whack, as I learned in a college class.  The gist of this theory is that in order to enjoy life we must believe that we have the ability to control the events in our lives.  My boss once said to me, “Stop walking into a room wondering what everybody thinks about you.  Walk in and ask yourself what you think about them.”  He was getting closer to the right answer, but still missed the mark.  Even the solutions to my “me problem” left me focusing on myself!    

Despite being assured that putting myself first in life was a sure path to a happy life, at fifty years old I had nothing but regrets.  I was no closer to feeling comfortable in the world than I had been in my 20’s and 30’s.  We justify putting ourselves first in so many ways – we have a “right”, we expect life to be fair, the world tells us to put ourselves first.  We live in a self-centered society that approves of all of this.  We’re told to build our self-esteem, achieve self-actualization or self-realization.  We’re encouraged to find ourselves and never get so involved with others that we “lose our identity.”  It doesn’t work; we only end up getting buried deeper in ourselves. 

Philippians 2:3 – “Instead of being motivated by selfish ambition or vanity, each of you should, in humility, be moved to treat one another as more important than yourself.”

Then I committed my life to Christ.  I thought my “me problem” was solved.  After all, I was living for Jesus now.  But it crept into my Christian life.  I went to church waiting for people to come to me.  I quit going when I wasn’t getting what I needed.  I waited for people in the church to help me without asking.  I expected my church to provide the things I needed.  I hesitated to make friends because I dwelt on my past life and used it as an excuse to keep people at arm’s length.  My husband didn’t attend church so I felt lonely and sorry for myself.  It was all about me and the problems I was encountering as a new Christian. I wasn’t focusing on Jesus – I was still focused on myself.  I had moments when I was aware of what I was doing and I would tell my daughter “Me is a hard habit to break.”  Finally, it sunk in.  God began making me aware of how many times I thought about my Christian walk in terms of “me, my, I.” 

Romans 7:15 – “For I don’t understand what I am doing. For I do not do what I want – instead, I do what I hate.”

I began to look for the part of God’s truth that would put me on the right path once and for all.  Each time I thought I had found it, I failed again and each time found it harder to forgive myself for not being able to master this problem.  I began to think that my “me habit” was unconquerable.

Then I ran across Steven Cole’s Bible Study “Following Self or Jesus” at Bible.Org (Lesson #43).  He assures us that “dying to self is a daily task.”  I found comfort in that.  It gave me a different battle plan.  Rather than looking for one single answer that would rid me of the problem, I had to begin to look at it as a daily battle with the potential that each day’s struggle may demand a different answer.  But the answer will always be found in God’s truth.  When my emotions or desires tell me to act in a way that’s opposite of God’s commands, I must choose God’s way.  And I can only do that by being silent and remembering God’s Words.  In order to do that, I must be familiar with them.  Reading my Bible every day is the key.  Praying for strength and wisdom is the other tool I use.  While Steven Cole reminds us it’s a daily struggle, I suggest it is a struggle in each situation we deal with.

Read Steven Cole’s words on the role of self-esteem in Christian life (Following Self or Jesus? Lesson #43):   Thirty years ago, the teaching that Christians should love themselves and have proper self-esteem was virtually unheard of in evangelical circles.   …, for many years I taught that we need “proper” self-esteem. But then I came to see that the entire teaching is opposed to and condemned by Scripture. And I have grown increasingly concerned that because of the pervasiveness of this false teaching, there are many who think that they’re following Jesus, when actually they are only following self. They have been taught that the Christian faith and even Christian ministry are the avenues toward self-fulfillment. They’ve been told that Jesus will help you learn to love yourself, when in fact Jesus taught nothing of the kind. 

Taking up your cross is not something you accomplish in an emotional moment of spiritual ecstasy or dedication. You never arrive on a spiritual mountaintop where you can sigh with relief, “I’m finally there! No more death to self!” Nor are there any shortcuts or quick fixes to this painful process. The need for dying to self is never finished in this life; it must be a daily thing.  …When selfish thoughts (“I have my rights! I don’t have to take this!”) crowd your mind, you nail them to the cross by praying, “Lord Jesus, You gave up all Your rights, took on the form of a servant and became obedient to death on the cross for me. Help me to display that same attitude right now” (Phil. 2:5-8).

If, like me a few years ago, you have been taken in by the self-esteem teaching, I encourage you to re-evaluate it in light of all Scripture, especially, Luke 9:23. You won’t find a single verse telling you to build your self-esteem or to love yourself more.

Love Christ, put Him first.  Listen to what you’re saying to yourself in each situation.  When you hear any reference to yourself, consciously make yourself focus on Jesus.  It’s an ongoing struggle because our sin nature still resides in us, but you can build the habit of re-focusing on Jesus and doing things His way.  You’ll find your value only in Him.  He counted you worthy to die on the cross for. 

Romans 5:7, 8 – “ (For rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person perhaps someone might possibly dare to die.)But God demonstrates his own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

UNEQUALLY YOLKED

15 Sunday Dec 2013

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I’ve heard the Bible referred to as an Owner’s Manual for humans – the “manufacturer” provides us with operating instructions that we should follow to insure we perform at optimum level. There are many things that God sets out for us in the Bible on how we are to live, some are things we should not do, others are things we should do.  Most people view these directions from God as arbitrary rules He gives that take all the fun out of life or take away our freedom to make our own choices. But our “manufacturer,” our Creator, is love in its purest sense so we can know that all of His directions will make our lives as good as they can possibly be when we obey them.

 We can see how many of God’s directions are in our best interests: do not murder, do not bear false witness, do not commit adultery, and help the poor are principles that obviously make our lives better.  Then there are things that God tells us to do or abstain from where the benefits aren’t so obvious: turn the other cheek, be humble, sexual purity.  These things are either opposite of how the world tells us to live or we don’t agree personally with them – perhaps both.

I was not a committed follower of Jesus until I was fifty years old, and by that time there were many things in my life that ran counter to His commandments.  The things I didn’t understand as beneficial I simply ignored or decided they didn’t apply to me.  Prior to December, 2009, God was just a religion for me – a choice I made about what I was going to believe in.  It wasn’t necessary for people in my life to share that belief.  I was divorced and I didn’t choose the men in my life based on their religion or lack of one. My beliefs didn’t impact my life in any real way.  I didn’t make choices based on them and I didn’t view the world through that lens.    

2 Corinthians 6:14-18 – “14 Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?  What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God;…”

All of that changed when I committed my life to Jesus.  He became more than merely a religious choice.  I understood who He was, what He did for me and why I needed Him.  I wanted to live my life for Him and be obedient to the way He directs us to live in every area of my life.  As my faith and trust in Him increased, I began to change the things in my life that weren’t in line with His direction. 

At the time I had been living with my boyfriend of eleven years.  I knew exactly what God desired for me to do in that situation.  But, there was another issue – my boyfriend was not a believer.  I knew the Bible said something about being unequally yolked but I struggled to understand how obeying this principle would be of any great benefit to my life.  After eleven years together, I still cared deeply about him.  Our relationship wasn’t perfect but I had never felt so secure and loved in my entire life.  I spent the next year going back and forth as to what I should do.  If I decided that I should not marry an unbeliever, then I would be on my own and my financial situation was a mess.  My children and grandchildren loved him and I didn’t want to put them through another broken relationship – I had done that to them too many times in my life.  With every ounce of human pride I possessed, I decided that I would forego this direction from God and prove Him wrong!  I dismissed God’s word that being unequally yolked was something to avoid and told myself I would be able to live a full Christian life with an unbelieving husband.  I was also very confident I would make a believer out of him.  We were married in March, 2011.    

Colossians 2:20 – “Therefore, … you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world,”

At first, there were few problems.  Changes in my life came slowly and I didn’t fully understand my conversion experience.  I walked in my Christian life most of the time, but reverted back to our worldly ways in order to spend time with my husband.  But, as time went on, I became convicted about most of the things we had enjoyed doing together and couldn’t participate in them anymore.  The more I learned about Jesus the more I wanted to talk about Him.  My husband couldn’t understand this and asked that I not bring it up with his family.  He would walk away annoyed when I started discussing Jesus when we were with friends.  I began attending church more regularly, listening to Christian music and popular evangelists but I couldn’t talk with him about the things I learned or the emotions I experienced.  We disagreed about insignificant things that made up our daily routine like television shows or radio programs because I saw how the subject matter offends God.  Discussions about world events were being seen in two totally different perspectives and we stopped discussing them because we could find no common ground about their implications or their root causes.  As my passion for Jesus grew so did the distance between my husband and me.    

1 Corinthians 3:19 – “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.”

I came to understood that, while my husband is still “of this world” I no longer am.  He is a kind, generous, loving man but his priority is worldly things and securing our earthly future. One day he said to me “I believe in God.  I just don’t want to worship Him like you do.” He doesn’t understand that God must be our first priority nor how all of the things we have are blessings from God, believing instead they are a result of his hard work.  I have no fear of something happening that would take away everything we have – I know God will take care of me.  He has no such comfort.  I want God to be the center of our relationship and our home, but he doesn’t understand the need for that.  He understands the basics of Jesus, but can’t understand why we need Him.  Until recently, he didn’t believe there is a part of us that will live forever.  Now that he understands we have an eternal soul, he believes he is a good enough person to gain admission into heaven, although he’s not fully convinced of its reality.  His confidence is in the things of this world and I know how undependable and temporary these things are.  Because of his worldly focus I cannot devote our resources – time, money, space, material possessions – as fully to God as I know we should. 

1 Peter 3:1 – “Wives, likewise, be submissive to your own husbands, that even if some do not obey the word, they, without a word, may be won by the conduct of their wives,”

I know the ramifications of denying Jesus and my concern for my husband’s eternal soul weighs heavy on me.  At first I spent a lot of time preaching and chastising him for his unbelief. I displayed an arrogance about how I was right and he was wrong. When I tried to tell him the things I was learning, there was no love in my voice.  I was angry and prideful and scared for him.  I came home from church feeling lonely and sorry for myself and would barely speak to him.  All I could focus on was how wrong he was.  I believed if I just kept talking that someday I would say exactly the thing that would turn him into a believer.  Then I read 1 Peter 3:1 and God drew my mind to the words “without a word, may be won by the conduct of their wives.”  It was time to draw up a new game plan!

I gave control of this situation over to God a few months ago.  My role in saving my husband is to show God’s love in every situation – I make it my goal each day.  After coming home from work or church, I let him know I am happy to see him and kiss him before doing anything else.  When I feel annoyed at a comment he makes or offended at a television show he’s watching, I don’t preach at him anymore.  I give him my attention when I can or find something else to occupy my time, but make sure to comment only if I can be positive.  If I can’t come up with something positive, I just smile – we both know where my thoughts are without me having to say a word.  And I see it paying off. I am beginning to see a softening in him, an understanding of the importance of Jesus in my life and a willingness to read some of the material I have “laying around!” From time to time I tell him about something I’ve read or done and he listens more closely, takes more of an interest.  I never go against God’s commandments for my life and my husband has come to respect this new life I have.  I know I am blessed that we don’t fight about it and he doesn’t insist I “change back.”  My biggest challenge is being patient and let God work in this.  Some days I find the process fascinating, other days frustrating. 

1 Corinthians 7:12-14 – “To the rest I say (I, not the Lord) that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.”

My husband is the only one in this relationship that has the prerogative to leave.  As a believer, that is not an option for me.  I pray every day that my husband will come to a full knowledge of Jesus.  My struggle until then is to remain strong, be patient and remain obedient so God can use me in His plan to save my husband.  My experience is also a warning to those who don’t understand the impact living life with an unbeliever can have on our Christian walk.  Everything becomes complicated and you can’t give God full control over your marriage or your home because your spouse isn’t a participant.  I know God has forgiven me for my disobedience and every day I must manage the consequences of my choice God’s way.   I find strength in Paul’s words to Timothy: 

1 Timothy 2:3,4 – “ For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior,  who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

MY ETERNAL HOME IS……EARTH?!

08 Sunday Dec 2013

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Until recently I believed that after we die, we go to heaven where there will be no sickness, tears, sorrow or pain.  I could look forward to having angel wings, playing a harp, and looking down on loved ones for eternity.  The streets there would be paved with gold and there would be pearly gates. It was all rather surreal and, while I desired to go there, it seemed like something more akin to a fairy tale than a real place.  When I finally understood the reality of God, these notions of heaven didn’t fit with what I had learned about Him and His plans for us.  Surreal and magical is not the mode in which I had learned God operates.

“…the world in which Adam and Eve lived would have been the perfect temperature, the perfect humidity, without pests or diseases, and without anything that would detract from their enjoyment of knowing God in a perfect, undiluted way.  Surely, this is what is meant by the word ‘paradise’.” What Was Life Like In the Garden of Eden Before Sin?  by Robert Driskell on August 7, 2012

When God created humans He put them in the Garden of Eden where He planned for them to live forever.  If the Garden was to be a place of eternity, it would have had to have been a perfect place designed to meet all our needs.  It would have included all the extras God gives us to demonstrate how much He loves us.  In my mind, a place like the Garden of Eden would be a wonderful place to spend eternity and more desirable and realistic than a heaven with streets paved of gold.     

 Revelation 21:4 – “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

Life here is short.  We’re given 70 or 80 years max then we’re taken to another place to live forever.  While this world certainly is challenging and full of undesirable things, there are moments when we can sense what God actually had in mind:  the beauty of nature; loving people; comfort, joy and peace; intimacy with God.  When I turned my life over to Christ, I was more aware of His goodness and as my life settled into the calm, peaceful existence God wanted for me, I began to see one of the ways He shows His love is in the variety of things He gave us to enjoy.  I’m sure streets of gold are beautiful, but can they compare with the beauty of lush, green acres of grass?  How will cities of gold compare to the breathtaking view of budding trees and flowers in springtime? Why did God go to such pains to create so many beautiful flowers here, why so many different shades of green? I came to believe that these creations could not possibly have been meant to be temporal – these amazing things were more suited for God’s original eternal plan.

I read a book where someone expressed concern that they will be bored in heaven.  They could not fathom how an existence where all we do is praise God could be fulfilling or sitting on a cloud and playing a harp would be an ideal existence.  I had never thought about being bored in heaven, but after reading that, I began to think about those times in life when I had accomplished something or did something for someone that brought such joy.  The amazing feeling of love I get from knowing Jesus is sometimes so overwhelming that I can’t even express the emotions I experience. These feelings are also God’s gift to us.  Although they would need to be fine-tuned so we are doing them in a way that is not self-serving, realizing our potential, serving others, and loving God are great sources of fulfillment, peace and joy. I added them to my list of things I hoped heaven would include.

2 Corinthians 12:2-4 – “I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows— was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell.”

As I learned about God’s nature and how He works in the world, I began to realize the things I believed about heaven probably weren’t accurate.  As my theories eroded, I still knew it to be a real place and I yearned to know the truth about it.  I thought I had found my answer when books about people who had visited heaven and returned to earth came to my attention – I could know about heaven by reading their experiences. But these accounts only added to my confusion.  Their stories were even more surreal than the beliefs I had held.  If these people had actually gone to a real place, their stories should match.  If three people go to Hawaii, I should find things in their stories that match.  I found little, if anything, similar in the stories I took the time to read.  Each person’s experience included such amazing things that another person who had actually gone to the same place would surely have told us about them.  I can’t imagine that Colton Burpo’s rainbow-colored horse is a fact of heaven that Don Piper simply forgot to mention!  I’m sure these people had some kind of experience, but I do not believe it was a visit to the actual “place” of heaven. Furthermore, the apostle Paul is quite clear about John’s visit to heaven and the fact that he was not permitted to talk about the things he had seen and heard; as Hank Hanegraaff puts it in his book AfterLife: “Paul did not so much as countenance writing a 67th book of the Bible titled 90 Minutes in Heaven.” The apostles John and Paul knew better than to talk about a visit to heaven and would not pronounce a definitive conclusion about the experience – they wrote what God directed them to write and focused on taking the Gospel to unbelievers.  Finally, since no new revelations are to be forthcoming following those given by Jesus’s eyewitnesses, we can safely dismiss the claims made by any visitors to heaven or hell.

Mark 4:39-41 – “Then He arose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace, be still!” And the wind ceased and there was a great calm.  But He said to them, “Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?”And they feared exceedingly, and said to one another, “Who can this be, that even the wind and the sea obey Him!””

I love reading about Jesus turning water into wine, healing sick people and raising people from the dead.  As a child, I equated His miracles with magic, much like Mary Poppins was able to do!  Even as an adult, my understanding about them was more along the lines of magic.  God can do anything He wants to do.  Then I heard a Christian teacher talking about how Jesus’s miracles were used to display His power over nature: water fermenting, bodies healing, filling fishing nets with fish, calming storms, and walking on water.  Processes that take months or years, Jesus was able to bring to completion in seconds.  Forces of nature were altered with His words.  I had never thought of miracles in this way.  Jesus didn’t perform “magic.”  He exercised His power over our physical world, operating in His world as only He is able to do.  Somehow that realization made God more of a reality. While I still understood that His miracles were supernatural, understanding that they are a demonstration of His power over the things He created moved them from “magic” to a more understandable and believable phenomenon.

Hank Hanegraaff in his book AfterLife:  “…the imagery of Revelation is not intended to tell us what heaven looks like but rather is intended to tell us what heaven is like.”

I wanted an explanation about our life after death that was on the level of what I had learned about Jesus’s miracles.  As my confusion and curiosity increased, God brought messengers and messages to my attention with a new level of understanding from the Holy Spirit.  As I learned more about Biblical interpretation I learned about the imagery, metaphors and other figures of speech used to communicate ideas and aspects which we would not otherwise understand.  Interposing these literary tools on Bible passages about our life after death brought me to the understanding I sought. 

 2 Corinthians 5:8 – “We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord”

When we die, our soul separates from our physical body and we are present with God.  Immediately upon death, we will know God as a reality and, for those who rejected Him the experience of hell (separation from God) begins as they understand God’s great love and exactly what it is they have rejected.  Those who have died experience God apart from their physical bodies.  This phase of life after death is referred to as relational, rather than locational, as you could not find a map of all the existing universes and stick a pin in the spot where heaven is.  This doesn’t make it any less real.  It is merely a supernatural way of existence until the final phase of life after death begins.  We will exist spiritually until Jesus returns to this world.   

Isaiah 65:17 – “See,I will create new heavens and a new earth”

Isaiah 66:22 – “As the new heavens and the new earth that I make will endure before me,” declares the Lord,….”

Revelation 21:1,2 – “Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.”

When Jesus returns, the final phase of life after death begins (Hank Hanegraaff refers to it as “life after life-after-life).  At this time, all people who have died will be resurrected and their souls will be returned to a physical body.  Including those still living at the time of Jesus’s return, all people will receive eternal, perfect bodies like that Jesus had when He was resurrected – no longer subject to decay and deterioration.  Jesus will also bring a new earth – a newly-created earth that, like our new bodies, will not decay or rot, where God will live among us.  Christ’s sincere, committed followers will live in this new, perfect, eternal world going about a life much like we know now, but totally free from sin:  no greed, no murder, no lust, no covetousness, no lies.  God will reign and we will live for eternity just as He planned in the beginning, in a new Garden of Eden where sin is no longer a possibility.  It is not an eternal home of clouds, angel wings and harps, but a world much like what we experience now, free from the things that bring us sorrow and despair.  There will be things that will be different in the eternal world, but it will resemble this world more so than a place where magical creatures embody the images that have been used to describe the experience.

Although we can accurately say we will go to heaven after we die, we will spend eternity on a “new earth.”  And, to me, that matches up perfectly with God’s working in the world thus far and the promises He has given us.  It is in keeping with the reality of who God is and His original plan for us.

Genesis 1:26, 27 – “Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness,so they may ruleover the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth,and over all the creatures that moveon the earth.” God created humankindin his own image, in the image of God he created them,male and female he created them.”