Traditions are good, but...

What defiles a man? Some would say it is one specific act, while others would say it is an accumulation of actions, all of which would be labeled as 'not very good'. Jesus was very specific - it is what in the heart that defiles a man. The actions are just a byproduct of what the heart desires or craves.

So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?” He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: “‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’ You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.” (Mark 7:5-8)

There will always be those who think tradition must be upheld. It doesn't matter that it has become meaningless and 'mindlessly' performed. It just needs to be upheld. What sense does that make? Traditions are good, but when they become meaningless and are nothing more than 'performance', they really aren't worth pursuing, are they?

What is worse are those 'religious traditions' we 'follow', but we have no real understanding as to 'why' we are following them or what they are supposed to accomplish in our lives. This is why Jesus focuses so much on relationship with him. Relationship might involve some tradition - after all, Jesus taught his disciples to pray and to remember him through the 'tradition' of communion. The 'tradition' is not the focus, but rather the one who is the focus of that 'purposeful activity'.

Remember this - Jesus is always after the heart. His desire is a change of heart for each of us. Not so much that we forget all human traditions, but that we consider the 'value' or 'worth' of them based on what they accomplish. The tradition of gathering together on a certain holiday might bring those together who are miles apart, allowing a renewal of relationship, up close and personal. The tradition of going to church on Sunday just because it is what you have always done might not be such a good one because it lacks the closeness of relationship Jesus desires. Just sayin!

Curtains anyone?

Dear brothers and sisters, if another believer is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path. And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself. Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ. If you think you are too important to help someone, you are only fooling yourself. You are not that important. (Galatians 6:1-3)

Would you help a friend clean their house after they had surgery? Most likely. Would you prepare a meal for someone after they just brought their newborn baby home from the hospital? Sure. Would you sit by a friend who was deeply saddened after the loss of a loved one? Absolutely. Would you be open to hearing about your friend's greatest struggle? That one may be a little harder to answer, because when you say you are willing to do it, you open yourself up to being a little vulnerable yourself. How can we become vulnerable when someone else is sharing their pain or struggle? It happens when we let our guard down just enough to get a little bit 'real' with the other person. To 'get real' with them, we must 'get real' with ourselves first. Too many people go through life 'covering up' what they feel is 'uncomely' or 'uncomfortable' and 'messy' in their lives. In turn, there is very little opportunity for us to help each other walk out our issues together. Why? People who are not willing to be vulnerable just continue in their own struggles and mess, making it hard for them to actually be of any help to others with similar issues.

When was the last time you were willing to share your 'mess' with another? If you find you have a hard time actually recalling a time, you most likely have been living behind a curtain most of your life. You find it hard to open up, thinking others will judge you because of your failures, quirks, or misgivings. You talk a good talk, but your walk isn't really all that genuine. God's words to us today are quite clear - we need to gently and humble 'get into each other's lives'. Why? To help both of us get on and stay on the right path! Share the burdens you bear - easier said than done. When we are surrounded by godly people who love Jesus first in their lives, we find this gets easier. Why? They aren't judgmental like the world might be. They might even share how they have similar experiences that they have walked through, aren't all that perfect themselves, and how deeply they need to be connected with others in order to walk out this 'salvation experience'. We don't ever grow alone - we need connection. Who's your most 'vulnerable' connection? Chances are that connection didn't happen by mistake. It was divinely arranged by a loving and caring God who knew you'd need each other to walk things out in this life here on earth. 

We probably crave connection more than we know. I went years without a close friend, living a very lonely life. When I finally made some connections with others who seemed to be walking through similar struggles, I realized I was not in this alone. I knew I could learn from them, and they came to count on learning from me. The 'curtain' had to go, though. We could not hide if we were to heal. Healing always requires an 'uncovering' of the nastiness and then a careful washing away of all that 'mess' that doesn't belong there any longer. Just sayin!

Stop pretending

Quit your worship charades. I can’t stand your trivial religious games: Monthly conferences, weekly Sabbaths, special meetings— meetings, meetings, meetings—I can’t stand one more! Meetings for this, meetings for that. I hate them! You’ve worn me out! I’m sick of your religion, religion, religion, while you go right on sinning. When you put on your next prayer-performance, I’ll be looking the other way. No matter how long or loud or often you pray, I’ll not be listening. And do you know why? Because you’ve been tearing people to pieces, and your hands are bloody. Go home and wash up. Clean up your act. Sweep your lives clean of your evil doings so I don’t have to look at them any longer. Say no to wrong. Learn to do good. Work for justice. Help the down-and-out. Stand up for the homeless. Go to bat for the defenseless. (Isaiah 1:16-17)

Charades is a game in which you have to act out titles to songs, movies, or events. The team has to guess what you are trying to act out in a limited amount of time. If you are successful in your "acting", your team is able to guess the thing you portray. If not, the other team has a chance to "steal" the points by answering themselves. Charades is a fun game, but when we begin to live life like it was a game of charades, we are simply giving a "pretense" of living one way, while we are really acting another. As kids, we'd "pretend" to be soldiers, parents, cops, and even robbers. We'd act out our imagination's creation. It was a fun time as kids, but when our imagination is what guides us into adulthood, we can find we are living by "pretense" rather than much substance. The problem with this is that without substance, we really don't have much of a foundation upon which to build a reliable and trustworthy life.

God is a holy God and as such, he cannot allow sin to remain "unchecked" - it must be dealt with. We have our own "free-will", so we are "free" to choose to live obediently to the will of God, or we can choose our own direction in life. The choice is ours - God will not override our choices. Whenever we choose to live by our own directives, we run into this issue of compromise and eventually drift into sinful deeds. Those deeds require God's judgment - for sin must be judged. This is the truth proclaimed throughout scripture - hence, Christ had to come as the perfect sacrifice for our sin - his blood shed on our behalf brought an acceptable "covering" for our sin. Where there is a sin nature, there will be sin's activity. God's plan is for us to submit our will to his, lessening the desire to pursue this sinful activity.

This sin nature and desire to do our own thing in life is revealed in some of the "charades" we engage in. If you look closely at this passage, there is this "laundry list" of "activities", "actions", and "aspirations" we attempt, but which fall short of accomplishing what the blood of Jesus accomplishes. All our conferences, religious meetings, church attendance, and the like are nice, but they don't accomplish our salvation - they don't cover our sin and they don't change our sin nature. They are "religious pursuits" - activities designed to make us "think" we are moving in the right direction, but they are simply a "pretense" of the real deal! God's response to the religious pursuits is to remind us of how far short we are still falling of living right! He responds, "You still are tearing people to pieces..." In other words, saying one thing, but doing another. Church attendance alone doesn't make people "good" - it makes them "religious"!

We need a life-change to occur, and this happens through recognition of our need. It is time for us to recognize our "hands are dirty". We need to "clean up our act", but we are powerless to do it alone. We need to "say no" to wrong in our lives and begin to pursue the things God declares to be profitable. We pursue all manner of things in this life we view as "profitable", but in the end the actual "return" on those things is quite minimal. The call - repentance. Come to a place of recognizing "our best" is not good enough. Lay down the "pretense" of religion and come into a place of practicing the things God says are important in life. But...don't do it in a vacuum. We need Jesus in the right place in our lives, or all these actions of "good" are simply just hollow actions. Too many times we get focused on the actions of "doing good" and forget that we need to have "good" at the center of our being FIRST. The only way to have "good" in the center of our being is to welcome Christ into that place. When we do this, we find our actions take on new meaning - they aren't religious pursuits, but extensions of his grace and love through us. Anything less is just a charade! Pretense is not what God desires - he wants connection. We have no chance of getting this "right" until we make that connection. Just sayin!

Knock, Knock...what's in there?

By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us—set us right with him, make us fit for him—we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus. And that’s not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God’s grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise. (Romans 5:1-2)

God wants to do so much for us. We are to enter into what he is doing in and through our lives. Back in the day, we didn't lock doors when we left our homes - now we secure them with multiple locks and security screen doors. There are also doors within us, too. The doors we keep securely "latched" in our lives so as to keep others out, limiting our "exposure" to others. These doors act to keep others out and to keep our "messy lives" under wraps! God's plan is to have those doors opened to him - not so he can criticize our "mess" of a life, but so he can help us clear out the space and allow it to be put in right order.

His door is open wide to those who will take the first step toward him, admit their need for his grace in their lives, and then allow him to gain access to the doors of our heart and mind. He will set in order what we have been working hard to keep under wraps! He does this by putting us into a position of "right-standing" with him - not through our own efforts, but through the efforts of Jesus Christ. All of us were created with a "space" into which God's Spirit "fits" - fill it with anything else and it will never "fit right". It is like trying to put a square peg into a round hole - it could be done, but it sure doesn't fit right and takes a whole lot of altering to get it to fit!

We have "secured doors" in our lives because we think these areas are beyond fixing. God wants to assure us that if we open up, we will discover he has already provided whatever we need that will help us to set right what is behind those sealed doors of our lives. This should be good news for those of us with a whole lot of junk behind those doors! It isn't until we open the door that we discover what Christ has available to us. We know he has "good stuff" for his kids, but we don't come to appreciate what that "good stuff" is until we see how it begins to help us with the "cleaning up" of our messiness.

Open doors not only allow access, but they allow a way of escape. Things we have bottled up so tightly in our hearts and minds are finally free to find a way of escape once we open the door to Jesus' grace. We must open up if we are to recognize the path of escape. It isn't that we escape the hurt that has been bottled up behind those closed doors, but we finally realize a means by which the hurt may be removed so it no longer causes us hurt and it cannot be used to hurt others. Sealing away life's hurts and disappointments may be a means of dealing with stuff we find too difficult to handle, but it is not God's plan for us. Opening to him is the means by which grace enters and hurt leaves. Opening the door actually creates the egress for the anger and bitterness of past hurt. Once the places of concealment are emptied, they are open to be filled again - only this time, they are filled with grace, love, compassion, forgiveness, and peace.

So, we all have doors. The only one with access to open those locks and bolts is the one who secured them in the first place - and that would be us. All Jesus asks is for us to open the door. He does the rest. In opening the door, we might feel a little vulnerable, but grace doesn't mistreat our vulnerability. Instead, it embraces it and loves us through the discomfort of being open and real with him. Just sayin!

Made Perfect

If we claim that we’re free of sin, we’re only fooling ourselves. A claim like that is errant nonsense. On the other hand, if we admit our sins—make a clean breast of them—he won’t let us down; he’ll be true to himself. He’ll forgive our sins and purge us of all wrongdoing. If we claim that we’ve never sinned, we out-and-out contradict God—make a liar out of him. A claim like that only shows off our ignorance of God. (1 John 1:8-10)

Have you ever told yourself something only to find out in the end you were really just fooling yourself and absolutely nobody else? Until we actually look in the mirror, we don't see what is likely right in front of us all the time. Even when we look into the mirror, we may not see exactly what we thought was there - because the mirror is clouded over with some film, steamy and distorting the image of what we see. Even if you try to wipe the steam away a little, the image you may see is still a little distorted by the remaining particles of water gathered on the mirror. In actuality, the "image" never changes, the reflection is just a little different than it was before. If we claim to be free of sin, we are actually not seeing an accurate reflection of our true self. We are just fooling ourselves (in fact, no one else is fooled - just us). Scripture calls this claim errant nonsense. Errant - deviating from the regular course. We usually call this deviation "straying". Nonsense - conduct or action that is senseless or absurd. In other words, God likens denying we are "sinless" as straying from what makes sense and could actually be considered a little absurd.

On the other hand, if we admit our sin - we have an advocate to help us see our sin in the right perspective, but more importantly, we have the advocate to BRING us into right perspective. There is no one more capable of bringing things into right perspective than Christ himself. He does more than wipe the steam from the mirror, he also removes the sleep from our eyes. He awakens us from our slumber - our inattentiveness. By so doing, he brings us face to face with the "true us" - but as he sees us, not as we see ourselves. It is one thing to finally see ourselves as we are - it is quite another to be brought into the right light. What seems obvious actually helps build an awareness of the obscure - but only if we are willing to see as we are seen. Too many times, people tell me they are good and don't need a Savior. The truth is no one is good enough to not need a Savior. Those who admit they need a Savior often don't accept the finished work of the cross as the true "reflection" of who and what they are today. They tell themselves the reflection they see is something other than what Christ sees.

Here's the cold, hard truth - Christ sees us differently that we most often see ourselves. He sees our sinfulness. He sees our shortcomings. He sees the moments of our straying. In all this he sees something we often don't - himself! Looking again at what John presents here, he says when we ask Jesus to "clean our mirrors", he does a thorough job so the reflection seen is one which bears only his image - not the image of our former life or some faulty image we see through a haze. He sees the new - we focus on the old. He clears away the gathered "steam" - we strain to see past it. What happens when we don't see an accurate reflection of ourselves? We second-guess our ability and this affects our availability. When we don't see ourselves as "matching" the image Christ sees, we don't feel worthy to be used by him. We don't feel the purpose we fulfill is really all that worthwhile. We even begin to question if we really will ever change. Reality check here, folks! You are a new creation in Christ Jesus - as such, you have already been transformed and as you continue to go through the process of seeing your actions align with your new image, he is right there alongside, still seeing you exactly as he has made you - perfect in every way. God will be true to himself by making perfect what he declares to be perfect. He keeps the image of our perfection before him - maybe we'd do well to begin to focus on this reflection instead of the one we've been considering for so long! Just sayin!