I Confess... Ultimately, I Believe It’s An Issue of Spiritual Health

Once again, this nation is forced to deal with a very real evil in its midst.  Once again, horrific violence seems to be playing out on an almost constant loop as media and social media outlets are inundated with images and pontifications and opinions about the unbridled hatred unleashed upon 2 communities within 24 hours.  Once again, we are left with a choice as to how we proceed as Americans, and as humans being.  And yes, once again, people who claim Christ as their savior are left with the onerous task of trying to live by the example of that same savior in the face of circumstances and oppositions that feel overwhelming bleak.

Debates are raging as to whether the perpetrators are racist, or mentally ill.  People are divided over whether more gun control laws are needed, or more enforcement of those laws are needed. And it isn’t just strangers fueling the growing fires we’re watching.  Lifelong friends and acquaintances are in virtual shouting matches via FB, Twitter, Snapchat and all the other outlets that they share.  Language that is foul and angry… cusses and curses and epithets… memes and pictures that seek to express or incite even more raw emotion… This has become our steady diet.  We are gorging ourselves on it.  We aren’t forced to swallow it.  But we often do it simply because it’s there.  And it’s killing us all.

I Confess That I'm Still Working On My Penmanship

How do we teach people to live out their faith?

  
When my children were very small, they would come home from daycare with papers that had letters to trace, and pictures of something that started with the corresponding letters on them.  Amanda and I would help them to trace the letters and then color the pictures.  For the first few times with each letter, we would actually take their little hands in ours to do it.  I remember wrapping my adult sized hand around Taylor’s little one and helping her move the crayon over those dotted lines several times.  We would move our hands together until she learned to make the movement on her own.  Maybe it was an excuse to hold hands with her, and then a little later with Nick, for just a little longer, but it was the best way to help them develop the skill when they were starting out.  Eventually, we would make letters on the paper and encourage them to mimic what we had just written.  And we would explain why.   If they didn’t shape their letters in a certain way, what was formed would be unrecognizable.  Once they had the basics, it was up to them to practice and become better.  And they did.  Well kind of… I can read their handwriting MOST of the time LOL.  (And don’t get me started on Shae!  But we didn’t get her until later though, so I’m not totally responsible for her handwriting.)

  

Teaching people how to live a life of faith is like that in many ways.  When we’re new, more mature followers must take our hands and guide us to living by demonstrating actions that become habits.  Then when we get a little “older” in our faith, begin will mimic what we see them doing.  Likewise, our ability to explain why becomes more and more important.  If we do things simply because “we’ve always done it this way,” then we will never grow and become better at living lives of faith.  What we form will be unrecognizable because it isn’t really a faith.  It’s simply a motion.  And finally, people have to come to a faith of their own, a belief in Christ that is theirs personally, before they can move beyond simply mimicking movements to a practice that helps them grow in Christ.

I Confess... We Need Transformation, Not Decoration

Acts 17: 23 (NKJV) - “for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you:”

 

What’s happening in our culture is proof that a vague theology, and an appeasing message of a god we can relate to, has failed to offer real answers to complex human difficulties.

 

The evil represented by the Klan, or Neo-Nazis, or Nazis, or white nationalists, (of whom some CLAIM to be Christian) is born of an attempt to bend God to look like them rather than the other way around. Some in that movement point to scripture and say, “It’s in the Bible!” A god that doesn’t offend them, is a god that believes like they do. Consequently, deception, and modification, and twisting of God’s revelation to their own vile purposes ensures that the Lord of Glory will remain an unknown God to this world.

 

Likewise, twisting Jesus into some sort of social justice poster-boy presents an incomplete picture of a Messiah who came in the flesh, and died to redeem the world, not just make it better. Justice is a PRODUCT (see also, result, outcome, consequence, effect) of a relationship with God through Christ... NOT the other way around!