Spectacular Fail Or Abiding Life?

"Why do you call me, 'Lord, Lord' and do not do what I say?" - Jesus (Luke 6:46)

A few days ago I suggested to a friend of mine that should consider the words of Jesus regarding love for enemies before he continued to express his hatred for Muslim people.

Not only did my friend not take that advice very well, he quickly accused me of being a "self-righteous Pharisee" and said that Jesus "opposed" being a Pharisee.  Before I could respond he un-friended me and ended the conversation.

I could write a blog about how wrong my friend was in this case. I could go on and on about the irony of his using Jesus' distaste for Pharisees to justify an opposition to the practice of urging a fellow Christian to obey the words of Jesus, when what Jesus commanded was that we teach one another to obey all that he commanded. But I won't.

Instead, I'd like to talk about how I have failed to obey Jesus, even as I call him my "Lord."

It's too easy to react to the failures of others, isn't it? Peter was quick to point to the Apostle John and ask Jesus, "What about him?" when Jesus had just told Peter to follow him and feed his sheep.

And Jesus response to Peter is the same to you and to me: "What is it to you? Follow me!"

So, I have to examine my own heart first and when I do I realize that lately there have been several times when I have called Jesus "Lord, Lord" even though I was not doing what He said to do.

I have failed to love my neighbor as I love myself.
I've failed to risk my pride in order to serve someone else.
I've held back my money from those who asked for help because of my own selfishness.
I've joined in the gossip talk at work rather than walk away, or offer a positive perspective about the person being roasted.

That's just for starters.

Jesus sincerely wants us to follow Him. He absolutely expects us to put his words into practice. That's why, right after he spoke those words about calling him "Lord, Lord" he went on to tell this parable:

"For I will show you what the one who comes to Me and listens to My words, and puts them into practice is like: He is like a man building a house, who dug and went down deep and laid a foundation upon the rock; and when a flood arose, the torrent broke against that house and could not shake or move it, because it had been securely built or founded on a rock.
 
"But he who merely hears and does not practice doing My words is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation, against which the torrent burst, and immediately it collapsed and fell, and the breaking and ruin of that house was great." (Luke 6:47-49)

So, Jesus isn't vague about this. He warns us that our lives depend upon putting his words into practice. His words are life. But they are not simply words to be believed, or accepted as true. No. Jesus demands that those who follow him sincerely put his words into practice, daily.

I love when Jesus washes the disciples' feet on the night he is betrayed, and afterwards he sits back down and says:
"Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them." (John 13:17)

Knowing the truth isn't the same as doing it. Being a Christian isn't only about what you believe, it's actually more about what you do with the things you say you believe.

In other words, it's just as much about Orthopraxy (what you do), as it is about Orthodoxy (what you believe).

When another person fails so spectacularly at following Jesus, and runs hard in the opposite direction to avoid even discussing the possibility of putting Jesus' words into practice, it should not make us feel superior.

Far from it.

It should knock us to our knees. Not only to pray for our brothers and sisters who are building their lives on the sand, but to take a good, hard look into the mirror and honestly evaluate our own unwillingness to put the words of our Lord into practice.

We will only give an account of ourselves before the Lord for everything we have done or said in this life. What has been said in the darkness will come into the light. Every idle word will be proclaimed from the rooftops.

That is why I'm confessing my own failures and exposing my own areas of weakness, here and now.

I'm asking Jesus to come and live and breathe in me anew, and to empower me with His Spirit to love as He loves, give as He gives, serve as He serves, and live as He lives.

Like Paul, I forget the past and press on to the high calling of Christ. My hope is not in my own strength, but in His.

My confidence lies only in this: "When I am weak, then I am strong", for my own weakness "is the power of Christ at work in me." (2 Cor. 12:9-10)

Without Him, I can do nothing. But if He abides in me, and if I abide in Him, together we will bear much fruit.

What the world needs now are more Christians who are serious about taking the words of Jesus and putting them into practice.

Let the abiding begin.

-kg

MY SECRET IDENTITY

I’ve come to realize that I have an ongoing conflict within myself. Part of me wrestles with pride and self-love while another part of me wallows in self-loathing. So, my pendulum swings between these two extremes. Either I feel an inflated sense of self, or I beat myself up for not being a better person.

If I’m prideful then I hate myself for being so full of myself. If I feel sorry for myself then I hate the fact that I have given in to these feelings of self-doubt.

Then the cycle repeats.

Self-love or self-doubt. Bravado or pity. Pride or condemnation. Those are my choices. I either compensate for my feelings of inadequacy by telling myself I’m better than I really am, or I beat myself up for being too self-absorbed. Where do I find the balance? How do I change this inner struggle? How do I rewrite the script that continually plays in my head over and over again?

I recently began reading a book about self-image. Specifically, about how our identity is wrapped up in Christ. Not all of it was great. In fact, a lot of it really didn’t click at all for me. But what God did show me was significant and important.

Identity has always been a fascination of mine. It’s why I love the books I love. It’s why I love the movies I love. If I listed them for you now you’d see what I mean. The point is that the question I’ve been asking all this time is, “Who am I?” and deep down, deeper than I’ve known until now, the other question I’ve been asking is, “Who is God?”

Frankly, answering the question, “Who is God?” is easier for me to answer than “Who am I?”, as crazy as that sounds. I’ve never doubted God. Not in the sense that I’ve doubted His existence. Truthfully. I can remember being a little boy and talking to God, thinking about Him, reasoning out how He could have created everything without needing to be created Himself, praying to Him for help, promising Him that I would be a preacher if He would put my parents back together again. All of these things took place years before I formally went forward and surrendered my life to Him. I have always felt Him near me. So finding out who God was and is has never been that much of a struggle for me.

But finding out who I am? That’s another story. In fact, I think it’s difficult for most of us. We can tell people our name, and our address, and where we’re from, and what our hobbies are, and who we love, but none of us can accurately answer the question, “Who are you?” Because my name, and my address, and my hobbies, and my job, and my associations do not define me. They are all things that exist outside of me, they are not me.

What I learned from reading this book was this very simple truth: “To know myself I have to know God, and to know God I have to know myself.” In other words, my identity is revealed in Christ when Christ is revealed in me. Jesus put it this way:

“If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matt. 16:24-26)

Denying myself is part of finding myself revealed in Christ. It’s more than simply saying “no” to my sinful desires. It’s also about giving up on defining myself. In other words, I am not who I pretend to be. I am not who you think I am. I am not who others tell me I am. I am only who Jesus reveals me to be.

So, letting go of my ideas about who I should be and embracing the person that God made me to be allows the veil to be removed from my eyes. Losing my life allows me to find my true self hidden in Christ, where I have been all along.

At the same time, I have to fully embrace the person that God has made me to be. For a long time now I’ve been hiding from my true self.  I have a teaching gift yet I often sit quietly in the background and let others talk. Yet, God made me to be a teacher. That’s part of my identity. To deny that is to deny my true self.

All of this takes me back to when I was five years old, laying on my bunk bed in the dark, whispering to God from my heart of simplicity. The more I shared my heart with God, the more God revealed His heart to me. It takes me back to sitting in my closet and pouring out my soul to God as a teenager. This is a relationship. The more I know God, the more He allows me to know my true self.

Over time I think I’ve forgotten how to let God love me like that. I’ve become so used to pretending to be the person I think I’m supposed to be that I’ve been hiding my true self from Him. I’ve been rolling over in the darkness when He calls my name. I’ve been going through the motions instead of coming before Him just as I am; simply trusting that He will love me because of who He is.

The beautiful truth is, He just wants me to know Him. He really wants to show me who I am, too. The more I open my heart to Him, the more I know Him, and the more He reveals myself to me.

One of my favorite promises in scripture is found in Revelation 2:17 where Jesus promises that one day He will give each of us a white stone, and on that stone is written a new name. It is a unique name that Jesus has already picked out for each of us individually. He tells us that no one will know that name except the two of us. It’s a special secret name that reveals our true identity through His eyes.

I can’t wait for Jesus to drop that white stone into my open hand. I can’t wait to turn it over and to read that secret name etched there by His own hand.

I am only who I am when He whispers that name to me.

-kg