Setbacks Nag; Success Whispers!

Transformation is a buzzword in our world today.  We are enchanted with it.  We see everything around us morphing.  Life requires change.  If you are not changing, you are dying. 

For those following Christ, this is welcomed and widely encouraged.   Romans 12:1-2 calls for “the renewing of the mind.”  Paul in Ephesians 4:22 told us to change our clothes—“put off the old and put on the new.”  “Put to death whatever belongs to your earthly nature.” Col. 3:5.  But in Galatians 3:3 he reminds us this is a work of the Spirit—not human effort.  “After beginning with the Spirit are you now trying to attain your goal (of spiritual maturity) by human effort?”  Going back to rules, disciplines, and following the law (or even the Ten Commandments) does not lead to freedom, rather it continues to provoke the flesh.

So, if transformation is important, how does transformation happen?  What is the means in which the Spirit does this? 

The way the Spirit transforms us is through our eyes and ears.  To our eyes he says, “Fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of your faith.”   To our ears, he whispers in a “still small voice” calling us away from the bad to pursue the good.  This is the way transformation occurs.   And there is a bonus, our hearts do not condemn us when we look forward.  By looking at Christ, we don’t look backwards—to our setbacks and sins.  It is that obvious.

Ever had the experience of sinning?  Sure.  What did it do to you?  Did it make you want to sin more?  Sin is like that.  How do we overcome sin, temptation and the flesh?  We don’t look back.  We look forward.  Setbacks scream at us; righteousness whispers “look ahead.”  Sin nags; success in the Christian life speaks softly—‘this is the way, walk in it.”

If you haven’t noticed, one sinful experience has the effect of outweighing one positive act of righteousness.  A gallon of bad stuff weighs more than a gallon of good stuff.

Here is my theory about transformation.  You can do all the spiritual disciplines you want (it may not hurt) but if you want to live like a noble son or daughter of the most High God, then you have to keep looking ahead and not focus on what happened behind you. 

One sin has the power to defeat one positive act of righteousness.  In fact, one sin defeats two positive acts of righteousness.  It may take three positives to offset one negative. 

If you focus on your sin or setback, it paralyzes you.  Your soul is like a boat with a hole in it.  The bad gushes in and the good jumps ship.  Look at the good before the bad sinks you.  Plug holes. 

Here are a few words of wisdom.  Think more about the good.  Live with the good in front of you.  Thank more.  Live more.  Love more.  Cheer more.  Do good.  Don’t be defeated by the bad.  Eliminate the negative.  Throw out the bad and the good comes back. 

Focus on the goal.  You are falling behind if you don’t.  The good will whisper you to your goal.  Learn from your setbacks.  Freedom energizes, setbacks drain.

The pursuit of righteousness is fueled by acts of righteousness, not looking at our sins.  Pursue what is good.  Proverbs 21:21 “He who pursues righteousness and love finds life, prosperity and honor.”   1 Tim. 6:22 “But you man of God, flee from this (the bad in life) and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love and goodness.” Pursuing the good mean stop focusing on our setbacks and shortcomings.  These latter things only trap us in our past.  Listen to whispers!

Focusing on the goal,

Jim

Every. Single. Day.

Can I be completely honest with you?

Yes?  Thanks.  Here goes...

I'm tired. Tired of the struggles of this life.  Primarily the one I fight with myself.  It's been a rough couple months internally.  I've been fighting the desires of my flesh, those needy selfish pointless things that result in nothing good.

I get angry with myself, and it just spirals and becomes a vicious circle.  Sound familiar to anyone?  I catch myself getting grumpier and more irritable.  Quickly I become very self-centered and avoid any challenge to that concept.  I stew.  And I close my ears.

And I don't listen for God to speak to me.  To remind me of things I know in my heart.

Then, like yesterday, there will be a break in the internal storm, and the light will shine through.  And humble me to my knees.  That break can take many forms.  A word from a friend, a song, a view of the mountains...and I hear what God has been constantly saying through the whole bit of self chaos.

"Get over yourself.  Love your God with all your heart.  And your neighbor.  Every.  Single.  Day."

Anyone else?  You get so caught up in daily life, yourself, your family, and you loose sight of God.  But he wants us to put him first every day.  Not Sunday.  Not Wednesday night, or when ever your group meets.  Not when you feel like it, not when you want to.

Every.  Single.  Day.

This is not me making things up.  This is straight from the mouth of Jesus.  Look up Luke 9.

Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?

 This is something I'm saying as much to myself as I am anyone else.  Being a follower of Jesus, a student, a disciple of his, means to deny yourself daily.  This isn't meant to be some directive to punish yourself or anything like that.  It is, simply put, shifting the focus of your life from yourself to Jesus.

Easier said than done.  Trust me I know.  But this is me, and M28, encouraging you to do just that.  There is no secret.  No formula on how to do this.  All I can suggest is what has worked for me in the past, and what I'm implementing moving forward.  Spend time with Jesus.  Pray.  Read the Word.  Meditate on the scriptures.  Or find what draws you to him.

Another thing is do follow the commands he gave us.  Three huge ones are:
        1)  Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and all your mind and with all your strength.
        2)  Love your neighbor as yourself.
        3)  Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

That pretty much takes care of everyone on the planet.  The last two are fairly easy to figure out.  But how do you show love to God?  I know I reference this scripture often on this blog, but it seems that important to be repeated.  Matthew 25:

‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

and

The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’

 This isn't stuff you need credentials for.  You don't even need a high school diploma for this stuff.  Feed the hungry.  Give drink to the thirsty.  Welcome strangers.  Clothe those without.  Care for the sick.  Visit those in prison.  There are people in need all around you.  Maybe on your block or in your apartment building.  Maybe it will take a bit of a drive.  But they are there.  Waiting.  Waiting for you.  Waiting for Jesus.

Every.  Single.  Day.

I say all these things because I need to hear them.  And because I want to challenge and encourage you as well.  You don't need dynamite or a backhoe to move mountains and tear down walls.  Try a smile.  Patience.  Kindness.  Put others before yourself.  Family.  Friends.  Strangers.  See what happens.

Do it today.  Do it now.

grace, peace & hope
-Jesse

No More

One of my favorite stories about Jesus is the one where those meddlesome scribes and Pharisees bring him the woman caught in adultery.  Found in John 8:1-11.

Jesus is in Jerusalem, teaching in different places.  Everyone is going to listen to him.  The Pharisees and their ilk were upset with this.  Right before this story takes place, they had sent guards to bring him in.  The guards were so blown away by what Jesus said that they couldn't do it.  It almost feels like a, "These aren't the droids you're looking for," type moment.

Then one of their own a guy named Nicodemus points out that their custom is to hear out people before judging them.  The others start insulting him by saying, "Are you from Galilee too?!"  I kinda get the feeling that Nazareth and the Galilean area was kinda like the "Jersey Shore" of Israel in the day.  I mean even Nathanael (one of the disciples) says, "Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?"

But I'm getting of topic.  Sticking to form, the Pharisees try to trip Jesus up in some theological-legalistic trap.  While Jesus is teaching in the temple they bring a woman "caught" in adultery before him.  I'm not an expert in the law, but the fact that they bring her into the temple like that seems kinda fishy...but I digress.

They flaunt the Law at Jesus.  "Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women (those caught in adultery.) So what do you say?"  I can almost hear them being sarcastic with that last bit.  You've got to love what Jesus does next.  He bends down and starts writing in the ground.  When he seemingly didn't hear them, they just keep barking about it.  Eventually he stands up and say, "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her."  And he goes back to his writing in the ground.

The movie The Passion of the Christ portrays this very simply and with out the dialogue.  At this point of the story it shows the Pharisees dropping stones and walking away.  In the extreme foreground you see Jesus' sandaled foot as his thumb traces across the ground in slo-mo.  Then we see the woman's trembling hand reach out toward him.  It's very moving and powerful.

John's gospel wraps it up like this.  After Jesus goes back to writing in the sand the second time, the Pharisees all begin to leave, starting with the older ones.  Soon "Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him."  I don't know why, but I like that she is standing.  I get the feeling she might have been a little proud or haughty, and was not weeping and trembling on the ground.  But that is just me.  Jesus says to her, "Woman, where are they?  Has no one condemned you?"  She replies, "No one, Lord."  See right there, she knew something was different about him.  If she didn't when she came in, she did then.  The Pharisees called him "teacher," she calls him "Lord."

The best part of this story happens now.  I kind of get the feeling that she is still standing looking at Jesus, who is still writing on the ground.  He says to her, making eye contact for the first time, "Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more."

Sin no more.

Not, "When you sin ask for forgiveness," or "Try your best, when you mess up come and see me."  No he says; go and sin no more.  I don't condemn you.  Go.  Stop it.

It is an incredible gift.  It is the same gift he gave to each and every single one of us.  We just have to choose to accept it.  And get this, it's not a gift that he take back from us anytime we sin after that.  It's not a game.  For most of my life I played that game.  It wasn't until recently that I realized I was playing by myself.  Jesus wasn't passing my forgiveness back and forth like a game of catch.

Go, and from now on don't sin anymore.  Stop it.  He took away the sins of the world.  So let them be taken away.  Stop grabbing them again and again.

Just go, and from now on sin no more.  He believes in us.  He believes in you!

Sin.  No.  More.

grace, peace + hope
-Jesse

The Forgiveness Paradigm

Once again I come to you with an introduction from movies.

Imagine with me if you will...

You are the father.  A young man has just moved into the town.  You knew his father before he was killed and you are certain the son will be the same type of trouble.  Especially when he asks to see your daughter.  You refuse him at first.  Later you warm to him a little and tell him that if he can stay out of trouble he can see your daughter.

He seems to do just that.

Then one day your daughter was executed in the village square.  Your world crumbles.  Rage and anger sweep over you at the person or people who brought your daughter to that end.  Soon you learn that she had married this man in secret.  And for some reason they had attacked soldiers in the village.  You want vengeance.  You want blood.  His blood.

The next morning at your daughter's burial you see the young man.  He approaches the grave and weeps.  Then he stands before you and kneels.  You are ready to strike him.  To pour your anger and rage into hurting him.  Your hand reaches out.

You hesitate.

Your trembling hand convulses as it lingers above his head and you feel the anger and rage, but you open your fist.  and gently place your hand on his head.

You forgive him.

The anger and rage slip away.  The pain and loss remain.  Your tears come.  But the forgiveness washes away the rest.

This is taken from Braveheart.  The movie doesn't play out exactly like this because the perspective of the father is not the focus of the movie.  However the scene with him putting his hand on the young man, William Wallace (played by Mel Gibson,) is a scene that has stuck in my mind as an overlooked scene of forgiveness since I first saw the movie in 1995.

Now, how does any of that relate to biblical forgiveness and discipleship.  Stay with me a little longer and you will see.

Forgive.  To cancel or remit.  To pardon.  To cease feeling resentment.  Absolve.

Did Jesus ever mention forgiveness?  How about the time a paralytic man is lowered before him from the roof, Jesus tells the man, "Take heart son; your sins are forgiven."  Or when the woman who anoints his head with oil?  In fact there are many times that Jesus talks about forgiveness.

Another time is when he is teaching his disciples how to pray.  He says, "And forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors."  He tells us to forgive not once but continually in Matthew 18:22.

So I think it's fair to say that Jesus thought forgiveness was important.  Something his disciples should know, understand, and practice.  So if Jesus taught it to his disciples, then we to should be using this concept.

All this comes before his death and resurrection.  Forgiveness was part of the total plan.  To absolve us from our sins.  To teach us forgiveness so we might show forgiveness to others.  Like the father in Braveheart.  He had every justifiable human reason to want to seek blood from Wallace.  But he did not.  He forgave him.  In a similar way, God has every reason and right to judge us.  But he offered forgiveness to all of us.

As his disciples we must put the practice of forgiveness into our lives.  From minor insults to big issues.  It doesn't matter what was done to us.  Jesus wants us to forgive.  If we are his light in the world, and we don't forgive...what light can others see?

Forgiveness is hard.  Because we must give more to someone who has in a sense already taken from us.  But remember, Jesus already provided a way to forgive all sins and wrongs.  When we forgive, we allow a little bit more of Jesus into our hearts, and his light shines a little brighter to those we forgive.

So if you have need of forgiveness from someone, seek it out.  If someone seeks forgiveness from you, give it.  Jesus forgave.  He forgave all.  As his disciples we should also forgive.

Until next time,

Grace, Peace & Hope

-Jersey