Cheer Up! God’s love and grace is a whole lot greater than you think it is!

Last week's news "Cheer up! You're a whole lot worse than you think you are! is only good news if there is a greater truth that comes after it. And there is! God's love as revealed in the sacrifice of Jesus is the truth that turns the world on its ear.

This truth transforms the fact that I'm not very good into really good news. If I'm not good and can't get myself to be good, then I need help. If I need help something's wrong with me and I'm sick. If I'm sick I need a doctor. Jesus came to be a doctor for the sick, he came for me, to be my doctor, and I want so badly to be his patient. He says that I am his patient and that is the best news I can get.

So, Cheer Up! You're a whole lot worse than you think you are! Cheer Up! God's love and grace is a whole lot greater than you think it is! Learn how to live loved!

Learning to Live Loved,

Deon

Cheer up! You’re a whole lot worse than you think you are!

We live in a culture consumed with psychology. From the commercials that draw you to want more to the self-esteem movement to our quest for self-actualization we see what we don't have and want it. I'm ok, you're ok, right? We read "love your neighbor as yourself" and interpret it as "my first priority is to love myself." The Christian community buys this line hook, line and sinker, and put it in songs and books.

The Bible seems to take it for granted that we already love ourselves (Isaiah 53, Romans 3). The truth is that we do. Even when we have bad self-images we still love ourselves. We have pain and we want to feel better. We may find some really destructive ways to feel better but it is still self-love. The truth is that we are ultimately selfish and self-centered. We don't want to believe this, we want to think that we are basically good with a tendency to do bad things now and then (mostly because of our mothers or our circumstances not because of us).

Have you stopped to think about your first, split-second, gut response when someone irritates you or makes your life more difficult than you think it should be. If you're like me you see that your first inclination is to bite, snap, punish and basically hurt them back. That's what I'm like, and in my experience that's what you're like too. Where do you think all our conflicts come from? In our marriages, in our families, in our churches, in our communities, in our state, country, and world; we don't love each other well, we are looking out for our own, and that is the root of conflict.

You may think this is bad news but it's not. It's actually good news. Cheer up! You're a whole lot worse than you think you are! We'll talk about the good news next week.

Learning to Live Loved,

Deon

 

When God Turned the World Upside Down

Discipleship doesn't start with obedience. Last week I talked about this and said that discipleship starts with love. The truth is that discipleship starts with love, God's love, not ours. The trouble with people is that we can't love until we've been loved. We see that in children who grow up in abusive homes, in people who have been betrayed and mistreated. These things make it so hard to live well and love.

Healing comes as we are loved by others, but especially when we come to an awareness of the fact that God is truly fond of us, that he likes his children. We have a very difficult time getting this. We constantly go back to our actions and our "deserving" (or not deserving) to be loved. This is where Jesus comes in and upsets the apple cart. The people who were behaving well, following the rules, reading/memorizing scripture, observing the Sabbath, tithing, and going to church were raked over the coals. Those of us who grew up in the church like to distance ourselves from these people saying they were callous and mean and that we're not like them. The trouble is we are much like them.

And then at the same time he hung around drunks and prostitutes and was their friend. He was very accepting and open in his relationships with them. If I had grown up in that time I think this would have really bothered me. I would have thought, "Hey, God gave me the commandments and he wanted me to follow them, that's what I'm doing, what's so wrong with that?" Jesus replies by saying that I missed the point. To worship him is not about my goodness it's about his goodness. It's actually about my badness and his goodness. There's a saying that says, "Cheer up, you're a whole lot worse than you think you are! Cheer up, God's love is a whole lot greater than you think it is!"

Obedience is not obedience if it doesn't come from love, first his love to us and then our love in return. If you are "obedient" for any reason other than a loving response to a living, breathing, active relationship with a God who loves me beyond measure (and is quite fond of me) it is not obedience. There is no wiggle room in this.

We want things to be more controllable—if I obey then I will be blessed. If this is my motivation it would be better if I went out and sinned openly in a manner consistent with the reality in my heart. At least I would have a clearer picture of where I stood and my need for a savior.

Learning to Live Loved,

Deon

Discipleship doesn’t start with obedience. If it did, Isaiah would not have had to chew out the Israelites in Isaiah 1. They were doing all the things that God had told them to do, they had obedience, but they were missing something. Same with the Pharisees. If it was only about obedience they would have been commended for their actions, they were obeying the letter of the law.

Jesus said the outside of the Pharisees' cups were clean but the inside of their cups were filthy (Matt. 23:26). At another point Jesus says that out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks (Matt. 12:34).

Jesus appears to be saying that there is an inner life (a heart actively responding in relationship with him) that preceeds the outer life (obedience). Without the inner life being cared for your obedience is, well, . . . not obedience.

I often get caught up in appearances. I want people to like me, to accept me and I will try to be like them to be accepted. This is really dangerous in a church. Many of us grew up in the church and we can fake it real well, we can do all the right stuff and say all the right words and no one would ever know that our inside is dead.

This is doubly bad for our witness to the world around us. People walk through the doors of our churches searching for something and what they see is a bunch of people who say the right words and do the right things (without us being realistic about our brokenness) and they think that their life is such a mess that they could never get to where (they think) we are. So they go out the back door and continue searching in other places and in other people to find that for which their soul longs.

It all starts with Love. If it doesn't start with Love you might as well hang it up. "If you love me, you will obey what I command." John 14:15. We can't turn this statement around and say that if we obey that means we love. Love produces obedience, obedience does not produce love.

Want to love Christ more than you do now? If you said yes, congratulations, you're on the road of discipleship.

Learning to Live Loved,

Deon

Going to church may be hazardous to your health

Did you know that going to church can take you farther from God? It’s happened before. The Bible even has examples of it.

When you go to church on Sunday morning because that is what you’ve always done, that’s how you were raised or “that’s how to get God to bless you,” attending church may take you farther from God.

In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis writes “When a young man who has been going to church in a routine way honestly realizes that he does not believe in Christianity and stops going—provided he does it for honesty’s sake and not just to annoy his parents—the Spirit of Christ is probably nearer to him then than it ever was before.”

My point is that discipleship doesn’t primarily have to do with behavior. So, where do we start as we seek to follow after Christ?

We’ll talk about it next week.

Learning to Live Loved,

Deon