Keeping the list?

Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant—dog dung. I’ve dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by him. I didn’t want some petty, inferior brand of righteousness that comes from keeping a list of rules when I could get the robust kind that comes from trusting Christ—God’s righteousness. (Philippians 3:8-9)

When someone embraces beliefs, they begin to 'embody' those beliefs. All their life seems to rotate around their beliefs. If we believe in the right stuff, what we 'embody' begins to affect others in a positive manner but embody the wrong stuff and the impact upon others can be quite negative. Beliefs matter, but we must take notice that there are a variety of beliefs laid out for us in scripture - some are worthy of our embrace, while we are clearly cautions to avoid others.

Early on in Old Testament writings, we observe warnings to not 'intertwine' ourselves with cultures or beliefs that elevate any other God than the One True God. All those idols and superstitious beliefs of the day were to be avoided. As we come along in scripture, we will note Israel embracing them (becoming intertwined in their culture and beliefs) actually made the people's hearts grow 'cold' toward God. The more they accepted the beliefs of the pagan lands, the colder their hearts grew toward God.

We will note that there were even examples of how we could choose the right 'religion' but miss the mark as it pertains to relationship with God. Embracing practices, such as recited prayers, following certain rules on certain days of the week, avoiding certain practices on others, all could be considered 'religious practices', but those who followed the 'rule' without the relationship had not really embraced what God hoped they would. They had all the 'right' practices, but no heart desire to actually 'know' God.

God is more than pleased when we settle into his embrace and forsake all those other beliefs that we held onto for one reason or another. He opens our hearts to his embrace of grace and then he begins the important work of setting in order our hearts, minds, and emotions. In turn, the rules become less and less significant, while the time we spend at his feet rises to the place of significance once held by those beliefs that brought us no real satisfaction or peace. We could 'keep the list', but isn't it better to choose the robust life that comes from really entering into a trusting relationship with Christ? Just askin...

Oh, talk less, walk more?

Cultivate your own relationship with God, but don't impose it on others. You're fortunate if your behavior and your belief are coherent. But if you're not sure, if you notice that you are acting in ways inconsistent with what you believe—some days trying to impose your opinions on others, other days just trying to please them—then you know that you're out of line. If the way you live isn't consistent with what you believe, then it's wrong. (Romans 14:22-23 MSG)

Most days I am just happy to end the day feeling like my behavior came reasonably close to my beliefs! I set out with lofty goals, but over the course of the day, I veer a little (and sometimes a lot) from how I hoped to act, wished to respond, or chose to think about a matter. In the end, I find myself evaluating my actions, seeing those which just did not match my beliefs, and then find myself in dialogue with God (once again) seeking his grace and forgiveness. Now, carry that a step further and you will understand why I am not going to try to 'impose' my beliefs on anyone - they need to see a better example some days of what I believe! To 'impose' the beliefs I have on anyone without congruence between what I say and what I do is kind of hypocritical, isn't it?

I kind of doubt if I am in this situation alone. We are admonished to spend some time focusing on our own relationship with God, not the 'other guy's relationship'. Why? As we take our eyes off of what we think OTHERS have done wrong and let them rest squarely on how well we are doing living out our own beliefs each day, we often find we are falling short of our beliefs - the focus is on the right person in this case. Instead of focusing on those issues of "congruence" in others, we are asked to look at our own. Not the most popular message, huh? Not the most comfortable one either. The benefits of keeping "right focus" in our lives are really what God had in mind as he admonishes us here.

Keep the focus on God and no one else (or nothing else). There is much to be said about "cultivating" relationship with God, but here are only a few benefits of "cultivation" which come from the perspective of farming land. It keeps down the growth of weeds! I used to pick the weeds for some elderly ladies in a neighborhood where I used to live. I would arrive in the morning, looking up at hillsides of long natural grasses and dandelions springing up through the ice-plant and rocks that acted as the erosion barrier on the hillside behind their homes. By midday, when I'd take in lunch, I'd sit and admire the half-day's accomplishment of half a hillside plucked free of weeds. What a pretty sight it was. 

Jesus taught a parable about the wheat and the tares (weeds). Over the course of time, when the weeds were not plucked up, they overtook the wheat and stunted the growth of the good stuff. The same thing happens in us. Keeping the right focus actually loosens the soil so things can actually soak in within us - so they stick, so to speak. God knows we need a little "loosening up" of the soil of our hearts. Things just don't soak in very well when we are so hard-hearted. The soil that is cultivated allows the entry of the seed. The work of breaking up the soil is important to its receptivity of the seed. As I plucked up the weeds, the soil was being loosened around the ice-plant vines. They were now free to spread and fill in. They were what provided protection from the erosion of the late summer rains which could otherwise bring a devastating mudslide to these hillsides. The same holds true with our hearts.

We need to keep the focus on being consistent in your own behavior, not on the inconsistencies in another's. It is the concept Jesus taught about trying to focus on the splinter in the other guy's eye when we have a log in our own. We try so hard to take the focus off us, but it is hard to "look around" the log, isn't it? When there is a consistency between behavior and belief, we find the splinter becomes less significant in the other guy's eye - maybe because it is taking all our attention to just allow God to deal with the log we are carrying around in our own! Nothing speaks more clearly about God's grace than another seeing God's action in our lives to change the things in us which are inconsistent with our proclaimed beliefs. Actions do indeed speak louder than any words!

Model what we believe - a nice 'concept', but is it achievable? Much more is impacted by what we model than in what we say. This is the toughest lesson to learn, though. When we have mastered this one, we talk less and walk more - our beliefs are shared in our actions, not in our words alone! Just some ideas for developing "congruence" today. The starting point is in the cultivating of the "right stuff". Once the cultivating is underway, the other stuff begins to fall into place. Just sayin!

Labels Aren't Reliable

Don't judge wine by its label,
   or its bouquet, or its full-bodied flavor.
Judge it rather by the hangover it leaves you with—
   the splitting headache, the queasy stomach.

(Proverbs 23:31-32)

I am not a connoisseur of wine, so I know very little about what makes a good bottle of wine.  You could show me one bottle right after another, and I would probably do what anyone who knows wine would cringe at - I'd pick it by the pretty label or the nice bottle!  The one who consumes the product in the bottle is the one who knows it best!  

This passage speaks a lot more to me, though.  I think we do a whole lot of "label" reading, even a little look inside, then come to the conclusion that whatever we are examining looks good.  It isn't until we have consumed it fully (or it has consumed us) that we understand just how lousy the thing was!  We are left with a really bad taste from the experience of "consuming" what it was we were judging by nothing more than a label or pretty facade!

I am a "label reader" - I confess it!  I look at the outside of the box of cereal, the outside of the can of tomatoes, the outside of the non-dairy creamer.  Sometimes, okay, quite often, I have been very disappointed by what "appeared" to look good on the outside, but once I got into it, I was faced with something entirely different from what it appeared to be on the label.

I think that is the meaning of our passage today - we often think it is okay to entertain certain ideas, simply because they were labeled "Christian".  For example, we might believe that old adage, "God only helps those who help themselves."  In truth, if you were to look at the origin of that saying, you would find it comes from one of Aesop's Fables!  It actually reads, "The gods help them that help themselves."  Did you catch that?  The "gods" - not God!  The phrase was coined by Benjamin Franklin later in his writings "Poor Richards Almanac".  What most don't know about Mr. Franklin was that he was a firm believer in the idea that if man could not help himself, then man was hopeless.

Here's what the Bible says about helping ourselves:

Those who trust in themselves are fools, but those who walk in wisdom are kept safe. (Proverbs 28:26)

Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who draws strength from mere flesh
   and whose heart turns away from the LORD.  That person will be like a bush in the wastelands; they will not see prosperity when it comes. They will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives.

(Jeremiah 17:5-6)

So, the adage doesn't hold up under investigation!  Those that actually find that they spend their efforts on what they can accomplish find themselves labeled a completely different way than they might have imagined - fools!  To draw our strength from what we can accomplish is a foolish thing.  We are not able to do all things!  Only God is able to do that!

We need to be wise about the "labels" we believe.  We cannot simply accept them as "fact" because someone we admire wears the label.  We must become wise to the "influence" that the "label" makes in our lives.  Just as wine may produce a "buzz" and leave us feeling pretty poorly the next day, believing a wrong belief can mess us up!  Don't become consumers until you become wise to what the Word of God teaches about what the "label" really affords!