The Spirit of the Age

My boys used to have a football video game complete with “trash talk” – competitive taunts the players hurled at each other as they butted helmets or stiff-armed opponents: “That’s MY turf!”… “You goin’ DOWN, man!”…

I don’t suppose you or I have ever talked that way to people in our path… but sometimes our attitude on the inside isn’t much better. Did you catch it Sunday? “The spirit of the age is the advancement of self – concentrating on my personal happiness and on meeting my needs.” That spirit, though, is dead wrong: it sends us running for the opposite end zone, directly away from happiness.

C&MA founder A.B. Simpson, who was a keen observer of both God and men, said “Many of our griefs and heartbreaks spring from the purest selfishness, wounded pride, ambition, self-love, or the loss of something which we should not have called our own. The death of self blots out a universe of wretchedness and brings a heaven of joy.”

Simpson developed these thoughts in a curious little booklet titled “31 KINGS or Victory over Self” (available at rarechrisianbooks.com). The title is taken from the number of rulers Joshua and the children of Israel had to defeat in order to possess Canaanland west of the Jordan. Simpson lists 31 self-sins (the Self Dynasty) that must be overcome - some obvious, like self-glorifying and self-importance; others more subtle, such as self-consciousness and selfish sorrow.

They all fit right in with the spirit of the age… the spirit that promises so much but delivers so little, the spirit we are not to be conformed to, but transformed from: “[Christ] died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them and was raised again” (2 Cor. 5:15 NIV).

So are we transformed? When we believers say we have “given our life to Christ”… have we? Individualism and independence are so ingrained in us that it is hard to truly give up our life and our right to our own way, to literally trade the rest of our days and dreams for Someone else’s agenda.

But if we just keep saying yes to Him and allowing His Spirit to claim all our territory, spiritual transformation will eventually bring us to this: everything we were and ever would be on our own is dead, gone, a thing of the past. The final whistle has been blown; that game is over. The life we now live is Christ’s life through us …

…until on a heavenly turf our life is returned to us – full, perfect, and unending.

God-in-a-Minute

It sounds like a convenience food, doesn’t it? Like something you can pick up at the supermarket in aisle 17, next to the minute rice and the instant mashed potatoes. This past Sunday, I appreciated Pastor Keith’s emphasis on spending time with God. While there’s a place for fast food and a place for brief devotionals and short prayers, we need to understand something:

When we pick up the box of instant potatoes, we’ve decided that the nearly half-hour required to make homemade mashed potatoes can be better spent elsewhere. And when we opt for the short form of communication with God, we’ve again said that the time is better spent elsewhere.

Both decisions could be the right ones, under certain circumstances. But we could take a timely object lesson from the Mayflower pilgrims. That autumn feast in 1621 was long on preparation, from lessons in planting to prayers in waiting to celebration in harvest. It seems safe to say that at that first feast, NOTHING was instant. No Thanksgiving-in-a-bag. No meal-in-a-minute. So it’s appropriate that the meal you’ll eat this Thursday won’t showcase quick-order burgers and fries either.

Like the Thanksgiving feast we’ll enjoy this week, God Himself has prepared a spiritual banquet, and spared no time and expense in doing it. He calls us every day to a table loaded with promises and blessings. He sits at the head of the table, waiting for us to join Him… but too often He watches us race past the table, grabbing a leg-of-promise to carry off into our busy day. What’s that He’s saying as we rush past our empty chair?

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt. Open wide your mouth and I will fill it… If you would but listen to me, you would be fed with the finest of wheat; with honey from the rock I would satisfy you” (from Ps. 81:10-16 NIV).

This week, let’s enjoy a feast for the soul as well as for the stomach. Let’s sit down with God in prayer and worship and fellowship, go for that stuffed-to-the-gills feeling of utter contentment in the spirit as well as the stomach... and accept His invitation to keep coming back to the table every day!

The Nearest Exit

“God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it” (1 Cor. 10:13 NIV, emphasis added).

As I sat in the sanctuary Sunday and heard these words, my eyes were drawn to the EXIT sign above the platform doors. I thought about how every tempting situation has one of those EXIT signs somewhere – a way of escape. (How hard it is to remember that in the time of temptation!)

And I couldn’t help but recall, too, the story made popular many years ago by Wendell “Wendy” Bagwell, a Christian singer and comedian, southern-style.

It seems he was once the guest of a congregation which, after the concert, proceeded to bring out a half-dozen rattlesnakes to handle as evidence of their faith. Apparently in their maneuvers with the serpents, they blocked the entrance door of the church. Wendy was more than a little nervous at that point, and asked someone nearby where the back door was. “They don’t have a back door,” he was told.

To which he replied, “Where do you reckon they want one?”

We're in Wendy's shoes more often than we realize. The Bible calls Satan a serpent. A tempter. Temptation is a sort of being "shut up in a room with him," a situation that sometimes becomes more drawn-out and dangerous than necessary. Maybe we're not nervous enough to have the sense to leave, or we feel that we haven’t conquered temptation unless we can be near it without succumbing, so we “keep the liquor in the house.” We sidle up to the snake.

Part of the battle is knowing when to run. We don't flee when when Satan comes to attack our faith or hinder our progress or hamper our witness or bury us under a landslide of discouragement or fear. That's the time to stand firm (James 4:7 – notice that Satan is the one who will be doing the fleeing!). But in the time of temptation, there’s no need to stick around and court disaster. God has given us a will and a pair of feet –

We don’t even have to create our own back door.

Sizing Up Sin

"He who has been forgiven much loves much” (Luke 7:47).

I’ve been thinking about this line from Sunday’s sermon, about what it means for me. Of course I came to Christ as a sinner - but not a particularly remarkable one, as we think of sinners. I did not come as a serial killer or a Mafia member or a former Nazi prison guard, and I’d never contemplated becoming a suicide bomber. I’m guessing you might not fall into any of those categories, either. Does that mean we can’t love Jesus as much as those who have been forgiven for grandiose crimes?

I see that Jesus spoke those words to Simon the Pharisee, at whose home he was dining. Simon had objected when a sinful woman anointed Jesus feet, but Jesus rebuked him:

“You didn’t give me water for my feet, but she has washed them with her tears. You didn’t anoint my head but she anointed my feet with costly perfume. She has been forgiven much, and she loves much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.”

I don’t know if Simon got the message that day. But maybe the light began to dawn, some months later, when a cross stood against a darkened sky and Jesus groaned, “Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing,” and a nearby centurion breathed in awe, “Surely this was the Son of God.”

Because it’s Jesus’ death that puts sin into proportion, isn’t it? At the foot of the cross, I see that no matter how little – or much – wrong I have done, Jesus had to die. Just my being born made it necessary for Him to die, because my innate, inherited sinful nature needed atoned for, before I ever told a lie or threw a tantrum or kicked the cat. Simon’s did, too. If he was forgiven little, it wasn’t because of the size of his sin, but because he hadn’t asked for forgiveness.

I think that one good way to experience God’s grace at the gut-level is to just sit down at the foot of the cross awhile. To take the time to consider what it cost Jesus and where I would be without His self-sacrifice. To realize that my sin was evil enough to bring the Lord of Glory to earth, sharp enough to pierce and scar Him, heavy enough to make Him gasp, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Big enough to make me love Him much, for He has forgiven me so much.

Modus Operandi

Have you ever taken umbrage?

Umbrage??

No, I’m not asking whether you ever stole something from the produce department at Wegman’s (although it does sound like something brought in from the garden). Or whether you cheated on a table game or slipped some foreign coins into your pocket… To take umbrage means to take offense to something. To become resentful, hurt, angered by someone’s words or by what they did – or didn’t – do.

“Umbrage” comes from the Latin umbra – a shade, shadow. It gives us our word “umbrella” – a shade from the sun. Umbrage, however, is a darker kind of shade, a shadow that blocks the light of joy and freedom and communion with people and with God.

You’ve seen umbrage in the resentful glower of a child who has been reprimanded. You’ve heard it in the cold silence of a friend. You’ve tasted it in your caustic response to a perceived insult… A shadow that can be seen and heard and tasted is a powerful thing, isn’t it?

Pastor Mearl Bradley, a wise and godly man, once commented on his pro-active approach to umbrage: “I have made a vow to the Lord – I refuse to be offended.” Regardless of what somebody said or did, he had determined that umbrage was not an option for him.

Pastor Mearl wasn’t naïve enough to believe that he could humanly meet every offense with a gracious spirit. But he believed that he could make a decision. He could establish a modus operandi, a pre-determined method of operating. And he could do it before the wrong was done and the pain had pierced and the hurt had risen… before he ended up sitting in the dark, shaded by resentment, struggling with his response.

I don’t mean to downplay the challenges of such a vow, and he didn’t, either. It can only be kept by the grace of God, and sometimes only after long struggle and dogged perseverance. But maybe if Mearl’s formal vow is more than we feel able to commit to, we might consider this prayer:

“Lord, by Your grace, no matter what You allow to come my way, I intend to forgive. I do not intend to replay the offense, nor give it any of my time and energy, but instead refer it to You and continue walking in step with the Spirit.

“I cannot do this, but I can choose it – and trust You to make me able to do it by Your grace. When I struggle, may Calvary be my example. And when I fail, rescue me from the shadow and bring me into Your light again, in the strong name of Jesus.

“Amen.”

Praying Man

I heard a new southern gospel song this week. The tune of Ronnie Hinson’s “Praying Man” was catchy, the beat was lively, but it was this line that really got my attention:

“Never throw a hungry lion in a den with a praying man.”

We know what happens when you throw a praying man in a den with hungry lions! In Daniel 6:22, the prophet Daniel reported (after a night in close quarters with the king of beasts): “My God sent His angel, and he shut the mouths of the lions. They have not hurt me, because I was found innocent in his sight!”

But if you stand back and look at the whole story, the real lions were the jealous governors who roared and prowled and plotted to devour the despised Daniel. The real den was Rock to which Daniel had fled through prayer. And when Daniel was finally “lifted from the den, no wound was found on him, because he had trusted in his God.” But “the men who had falsely accused Daniel were brought in and thrown into the lion’s den…and before they reached the floor of the den, the lions overpowered them and crushed all their bones” (vv.23-24). So much for the enemies of God.

The stories of the Bible are told as examples to us. And the lesson I learn from Daniel’s deliverance is this: Satan still goes about as an envious governor, blind with jealousy, a prowling lion looking for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8)…yet I don’t have to cower in fear. No, I don’t mean to downplay our spiritual enemy. I am no match for Satan and his forces. You, too, are unbelievably defenseless, incredibly vulnerable – but Jesus has invited, “Abide in me.” Jesus offers to be our den of safety.

The enemy may intimidate, the situation might go from bad to worse, the hands of others who wish they could help may be tied, the night might be long and dark and unsettling… but ultimately, the enemy can’t survive on God’s turf, nor devour the godly man or woman who, through Jesus’ name, calls and counts on Him.

Satan just can’t survive in the den of a praying man.

In Whose Shoes?

Pittsburgh Steelers fans are hardcore. I knew that, but I really realized it after my son moved to Pittsburgh. People would come into the Lowe’s store where he worked, sporting permanent tattoos of a favorite Steelers player. Jamie noticed the #7 emblazoned on the arm of one diehard fan. “What will you do if Roethlisberger gets traded?” Jamie asked curiously. I guess it would then become a piece of memorabilia.

More recently, into the Firestone at which Jamie now works rolled a unique car... half of it was painted gold, and the other half was painted black. On one side was painted the word “Steelers,” on the other, “Pirates,” and on the roof, “Penguins.” The interior sported black and gold seatcovers and floormats. Somebody’s passion for Pittsburgh sports had surely become a moving landmark around the city, and created somewhat of an identity for its owner.

People get their identities from other areas besides sports. We find our identities in actors and actresses, music idols, the wealthy, the successful, the famous, the beautiful. We watch their movies, buy their CD’s, wear their T-shirts, read their books, support their causes, defend their lifestyles and excesses, and too often adopt their viewpoints. What’s with this hunger we have to live in somebody else’s shoes?

I think it’s because we know, instinctively, that ours don’t make big enough footprints. But it takes awhile to realize that nobody else’s does, either. The only person really worth identifying with, in the end, is Jesus Christ.

The apostle Paul discovered this, and wrote, “I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus, for whose sake I have lost all things...I want to know Christ, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death...” In fact, Paul went so far as to say that, “For to me, to live is Christ.”

Now that’s identifying – and with someone who won’t ever have a losing season or be traded to another franchise. Someone Who won’t let us down, set a bad example, disappoint, embarrass, or reject His “fans.” In fact, He invites us to follow Him. To be like Him.

And the curious thing is, we are never more uniquely ourselves than when we identify with the right Person.