The Slow Cure of Anger
May 28, 2010
Paraphrasing parts of Colossians 3:1-17
But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath…put on the new self…after the image of God…compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience (bearing with and forgiving one another… put on love… let Christ’s peace rule in your heart… Be thankful… let the word abide in you and abide in the Word, honoring King Jesus with your life.
Anger has no plans of leaving us alone without putting up a fuss. Without a fight we will never put to death anger or wrath. What then is our strategy for defeating anger in our lives?
We must not settle for a strategy based on lies.
The blame game lie: “He made me angry”. It’s true that people hurt us to the point of anger. However, anger does not come into us from the outside, it comes from inside of us. So we can choose our reactions to hurtful things. In responding to angering events we must be Christ like.
The personality lie: “I’m just hot tempered; deal with it.” It’s true that people are more easily angered than others. However, this reality doesn’t excuse angry and hurtful outbursts toward others, friend or fiend. We remember the words of our Master who showed us another way: “bless those who hurt you…”
The helpless lie. “I can’t help it, my feelings take over.” This strategy, like its blame and personality siblings, is also flawed. We can actually do all things in the strength of Christ, including anger busting things. Our lives are hidden in Christ and we have died to the things of this world. We are to put off these things that beset us. We are more than conquerors. We are to be self-controlled.
Last, there is the culture lie. Our culture today encourages the expression of anger. Punch something, yell at your dog, and tell her how you feel, or take it out on a helpless triple cheeseburger with fries. And supersize it, please! Culture in this case must submit to faith. Jesus’ way trumps culture when there is a conflict between culture and biblical truth and ways of relationship. Put away anger. Pure and simple, but never easy!
All these crutches are excuses or lies we tell ourselves to justify behaviors that allow the flesh to gain mastery over us.
Put away anger and wrath, Paul taught in imitation of our Master Teacher. There is a principle here that must guide us: If we’re commanded undress anger from our person, it’s because we’re Spirit-empowered to achieve the command. This is true not only of anger but all the sins that beset us.
I would like here to introduce a concept that might be helpful in doing the hard work of getting rid of anger. There are certain attitudes and behaviors in the Christian life that are just hard to accomplish by trying, even when we try harder in spite of repeated failure. As much as I want to love my enemies, be humble, or stop being angry when hurt, I discover I am not able to love, be humble, or stop being angry. Trying harder would hardly do. Perhaps another approach may get me closer to godliness and self-control. Perhaps training will do what trying cannot do. Let me explain more.
The putting on of the new self is a process (the slow cure) that the Spirit undertakes (It’s called sanctification, the process of making us holy people) in my life to dress me up with the same mind that was in Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:1-11)”. Paul encourages me in Colossians 3 to “Put on the new self … after the image of God… compassion, kindness, humility”, etc… This process allows kindness, compassion, humility, etc… the antidotes of anger to become permanent residents in me. Through this process, I train to become the kind of person, who automatically responds to anger causing situations with the gentleness and meekness of Christ in me.
This process has a goal: to become conformed to the image of Christ. My goal is not to become more of who I am. God forbid. It is my very self that is in desperate need of becoming new. God transfers his divine nature into me (2 Peter 1:4) to make me like Christ.
Along with the goal the process has three components. First the Spirit is the agent of working on me. No solo work here. Teamwork is a required. The second component is life. The Spirit works through life’s troubles, joys, hurts, and troughs to do his perfecting work in me. Through life events, He turns me into an anger-defeating disciple. The third component is the means of grace. The means of grace enable me to do what I am not able to do in my own strength is called the habits of love. These habits work directly in me to enable me to prevent angry reactions in me
Especially pertinent to overcoming anger automatically, I name solitude and silence. They work in such a way to drive me to surrender whatever anger-responding weapon in my hand or to turn it into a fruit-bearing tool. I’m not sure how this works exactly. It’s a deep work of the Holy Spirit within. I only know, that I am what I am, because of these habits. Being alone with God learning to be silent before him, allowing his presence to wash away my pride, my desire to control others, my tendency for revenge, and my self-justifying actions.
I have learned that in walking with the Master that every life changing action in my life demands the work of God in me and requires my efforts. I am willing to participate in this work of salvation (Philippians 2:12-13). The prize: A closer likeness to Christ that refuses to let anger eat away at my apprenticeship to Jesus.
Anger
April 20, 2010
We come finally to the last deadly sin: Wrath or anger.
Listen to this Jeremiad: This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, said to me: “Take from my hand this cup filled to the brim with my anger, and make all nations to whom I send you drink from it” (Jeremiah 25:15). The “cup of the wine of the wrath of God”, as the Hebrew literally says, is the cup of the righteous anger or judgment of God. God was angry with his people and with the nations in their disobedience. There is a point of no return when the axe of judgment falls upon debauchery. And God’s anger is the driving force.
In a final way, Jesus downed this judgment cup with one crucifying gulp when our judgment was nailed to his cross. But as long as the cosmos remains rebellious against God the residue of the anger of God remains as an instrument of judgment and reconciliation.
So much for God’s anger; what about ours? Since we are made in the image of God, is not anger or wrath part of the human gene pool? So we deduce then that there must be a right anger and a wrong anger since it is inconceivable to call God’s anger wrong.
Right anger serves and protects something good. The world God created is good, and we, the apex of creation, are very good even if we are desperately flawed. Anything that causes this goodness to wane or be destroyed incurs the judging wrath of God. In turn, we who are imitators of God (Ephesians 5:1-2) also make right and wrong anger choices. Righteous anger is God’s way of protecting the good, of purifying the world and our hearts. The wrong or sinful anger promotes the dark side of rebellion.
What is right anger? One time someone attempted to harm one of my children. I became a fiery and irritable 5-foot ball of anger. This kind of anger is right, fair and just. Justice and putting things to rights demands it. When the poor suffer and are taken advantage of, God is angry and we should be too. Not at God, not at ourselves. At a world system we are determined to transform in our anger. When a woman is abused in any way, our anger leads us to sympathize with her. Is justice even possible without right anger? Probably not! Until the kingdom of God comes in a final way and the will of God is done anger is the right response to injustice of any kind. Angry feelings, stemming from these situations, are not sinful. They fit well with Paul’s repetition of an Old Testament teaching to be angry but without committing sin or breaking a commandment of God. Letting the sun go down on this anger does not seem right.
The right kind of wrath is part of the life of the heroes of Scripture. Abraham beats the tar out of Lot’s rival warlords. I assure you he did not enter the war in love. Moses, by God’s voice, encouraged an eye for an eye, and made mincemeat of Egypt. And what to say of all the prophets of Israel, who railed against injustice, abuse of God’s moral law, and life in the fast lane of sin? Just as God’s wrath is positive and active so must our anger be.
Our problem is with the wrong anger, the Cain kind of anger that acts to destroy brother and neighbor (raising Cain we say). Rather than love, hatred digs its ugly claws into the seat of anger. The passage in Genesis 4 tells us that Cain branded his moral compass with the seal of internal anger. He then nursed the internal scar until it broke through his skin in the form of a hateful killing club.
But physical violence is not the only anger we commit. Pride, greed, and envy often lead to backbiting, slighting, or demeaning language against our neighbor. “How many reputations have you killed, O unrestrained anger?”
Then again, angry feelings are not always served piping hot or sported at the tip of the tongue or dangled on the sleeve. Often vengeance is calculated in the frigid temperatures of anger. Stafford (Disordered Loves, 82) quotes this Spanish Proverb: Vengeance is a dish best eaten cold. Vengeful anger injures with a deliberate word (a disposition of character that calls a neighbor a fool, Jesus said), withholding goodness, or ongoing unforgiveness.
And this: Displaced anger. I had to stop the other day when I realized I was beginning to react angrily to a situation. I quizzed my soul: Why are you angry within me? My soul admitted: I am angry at the injustice of a previous situation and because you haven’t let go of it, you’re wearing your anger on your sleeve in this other situation.” Touché! I took a mental shower and returned to my usual self.
Put away your wrong anger? But where? On the cross where Jesus traded hate for love. Those who walk with the master train their souls to respond with love when hate is more natural, when vengeance is pleasurable, and when keeping that angry piece of our minds we’re so willing to part with, right where it belongs: On the lips of prayer.
C.S. Lewis
March 28, 2010
March 28 reading in A Year with C.S Lewis
Title: Point of Contact
We must not hink Prise is something God forbids because he is offended at it, or that Humility is something he demands as due to His own dignity–as if God himself was proud. He is He isn’t in the least worried about His dignity. HTe point is, He wants you to know Him: wants to give you Himself. And He and you are two things of such a kind that if you really get into any kind of touch with Him you will, in fact, be humble–delightedly humble, feeling the infinite relief of having once got rid of all the silly nonsense about your own dignity which has made you restless an unhappy all your life. He is trying to make you humble in order to make this moment possible: trying to take off a lot of silly, fancy-dress in which we have all go ourselves up and are strutting about like the little idiots we are. I wish I had got a bit further with humility myself: If I had, I could probably tell you more about the relief, the comfort, of taking the fancy-dress off–getting rid of the false self, with all its ‘look at me’ and ‘Aren’t I a good boy?’ and all it posing and posturing. To get even near it, even for a moment, is like a drink of cold water to a man in a desert. From Mere Christianity
Losing Lustful Passions
March 24, 2010
Pornography is the most lucrative business on the Internet. The vendors of lust are raking in the dough by the truck full by capitalizing on human brokenness. A close second in popularity on the Internet, not for lucrative purposes, is religion. Ironic? Enigmatic?
Sexuality and spirituality are no strangers. They have been bedfellows (pardon the pun) for a long time. The relationship between the two is entrenched in the Old Testament: Ashtoreth and Baal reigned as king and queen of lustful behavior in pagan religions.
In this article, I will not give techniques to avoid lusting. Techniques may work periodically but unless change happens deep within, techniques lack staying power. What sticks when it comes to dealing with lust? I am convinced that the solution is found in understanding and living a theology of human relationships.
The problem with lust is basically a problem of relationships. It is a problem of using others for the purpose of self-gratification rather than adding value to their lives. We must realize that at the core of lust is a deep disfigurement of life with God in his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.
We need a helpful theology of human relationships that overcomes death by lust. We must no longer take for granted that we know how to love others as we love ourselves, and God with all our being. Without a godly vision of others, it is easy to default to our selfish human natures and mar all we use.
What then does a theology of human relationships include? How does such a theology help us deal with unbridled human sexual passions?
We get our theology of human relationships from the way God relates to his people. God relates to humanity in such a way as to add value and dignity to them. It is never God’s intention to rob us of our dignity or cause us to lose our own dignity in relationships.
First, God relates to us with unbounded love. His love knows no limits. It is not exclusive. It is not bound by a return on investment. His love is sacrificial for the purpose of adding value and dignity to his creation. His love is redeeming and edifying. The deep change that needs to take place in the lustful heart is seeing others (friend or stranger alike) as bearers of the image of God worthy of a love that is pure and holy. There is nothing like unconditional love to elevate our respect and honor of others. This is the love that God gives us. This is the love we must not quench by lust. Lust chips away at the image of God in us and in others. It disfigures as it turns loving beings into objects. It hammers in us the nails of selfishness and self-gratification at the expense of the dignity of others. Loving others who are made in the image of God is the first claw that pulls away at the rusty nails of lust.
Second, God relates to us with grace. He favors us and enables us to do what we cannot do in our own strength. His favor is unearned. His grace is empowering in our weakness. Likewise in learning to put to death the deadly sin of lust, we must treat others (all image bearers) with favor and with enablement. The lustful heart treats others without dignity. It contributes nothing to others. It only has human weakness for ally. In order for transformation to take place, a deep renewing of the mind must take place in confession, brokenness, and repentance, within the confines and with the help of a mature community of believers. Flannery O’Connor said, in the Habit of Being, “all human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and grace is painful.”
Third, God relates to us intimately. A holy intimacy! God has gone out of his way to reveal who he is. He has done so in nature, through chosen leaders, prophets, priests, kings, a people, and finally Jesus and his church. In counseling with others about lusting I have come to understand that there is a deep yearning for intimacy with men and women who are hooked on lust. The search for gratifying human lust is a deceptive mask. It masks a deep hunger and thirst for intimacy with God gone awry. I have seen those afflicted by lust reform their ways and work at reshaping their hearts and minds when they finally realized that they are looking for intimacy with God in the wrong ways and in the wrong places. When a person is hooked on a lustful lifestyle we must look closely at their spiritual lives in order to discover their longing for intimacy with God. And with the discovery rebuild their intimacy with God through a spiritual formation process.
Unconditional love, grace that favors and empowers, and intimacy are the components of a theology of human relationships. This is God’s way of relating to us. It must be the way we relate to others. But this kind of relating is learned when it is taught, and modeled by godly leaders and friends who are willing to invest in others. Those who walk with the Master must not walk the narrow path alone. They must walk with others in holiness and purity learning and teaching the taming of the shrew of lust.
Lust
March 2, 2010
The Slippery Slope of Untamed Passions
Lust is in vogue. Exposure to the sexual avalanche of the media has legalized and legitimized lust for many. Can you buy a car, chew gum, shampoo your hair, and drink a diet Coke, without first having to endure the avalanche of lust? Can you whiten your teeth or Listerine your mouth without anticipating a sexual encounter? Is this how Freud and Darwin would have us be?
The old order: first comes love (pure and noble) then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage. The new order: first comes lust, then comes porn, then comes sex, then comes living together (and oh, marriage is optional either before or after children are born)!
How did we get here? What do we do about it, as the church, the love guardians we are called to be in God’s Kingdom? No, playing ostrich is not a good game plan for concerned followers of the Pure One. Laissez faire or que sera sera attitudes do not honor the prophetic traditions we inherited from our forefathers in the faith from the Old Testament on. Tolerance (usually meaning forced acceptance and inclusion without reserve) of society’s sexual mores should not be a fait accompli in the church.
The church has a mandate from Christ himself to lovingly enfold the worst offenders of lust into the true fold of love in Christ. Did not Jesus himself model for us the power of pure love toward purveyors of lust as we might call the woman caught in adultery? Drop that stone! Eliminating lust was not on top of the agenda for Jesus. That besmirched distinction goes to pride, greed, and hypocrisy, the deadliest of the sins. In Matthew 21:30 we are told that the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before the Pharisees!
What then is lust? Why is it bad? What to do about it?
The people of God then and now have long recognized that misplaced sexual urges wreak havoc in the church and in society.
The sons of the gods (whatever these creature are) of Genesis 6 were full of lust. A woman in my Bible study called them “h…y little angels,” which caused much laughter. The result of their lust was the taking of as many of the daughters of men as they pleased. Unbridled lust! The slippery slope of their untamed passions, of doing what was right in their own eyes, brought the destruction of the world.
A lustful woman then plagued Joseph. She kept pestering him to give in to her lust and to unbridled natural sexual urges until his refusal landed him in jail. But God was with Joseph. Jail is better than lust for the man who is determined to walk with God.
Then comes David. O David, what an enigma you are? You lust, you contrive wicked plans, and you cause cold-blooded death. Yet your legacy of brokenness over your lust, multiplied a thousand times, earns you the tile of a man after God’s own heart! Of course it would have been better all around had you not lingered with your gaze upon the naked bather.
And your son Ammon, what legacy did you leave this chip off the old block? The old old block, Judah! How Judah used his daughter in law, Tamar, when he lusted, so did Ammon, his descendant through David, did to his own sister, also named Tamar, when he lusted for her (Study Genesis 38 and 2 Samuel 13-14). The sins of the fathers have a dogged destructive tenacity to them. Don’t they? But thanks be to God who will deliver by his grace.
Then there is our Pure Lord who saw lust as leading into the garbage heap that is Gehenna (Matthew 5:27-30). An enigmatic passage to be sure! It is better to live maimed from body parts than to burn in hell? These are the only words of Jesus about having a healthy sexuality!
There is a story behind Jesus’ strong warning. Follow along. Israel often lusted after Baal, the pagans’ god of fertility. For a century, the force of Baal grabbed their imagination under the rules of Ahaz and Manasseh, his grandson. They sexualized their worship by sleeping with temple prostitutes. They sacrificed their children as the pagans did by burning their bodies in the trash heaps of Jerusalem, called the Valley of Ben Hinnom, which later was called Gehenna, the word Jesus uses for hell in Matthew 5:30). When Babylon conquered Israel, shed their blood, they threw their bodies in the Valley of Ben Hinnom (the Valley of Slaughter) the same garbage dump where they previously sacrificed their children. They took the king’s child and slaughtered him before his eyes in this hell pit.
So Gehenna for Jesus was the place where bodies burned and waste smoldered when God’s people luge down the slippery slope of lust. This brings clarity to Jesus’ warning about our sexual lives (for background study see 2 kings 16:10-18; 21:4-9; Jeremiah 7:29-33; 19; 32; 2 Kings 23; 2 Chronicles 28; 33).
Jesus warns that there are real consequences to lust. He peels off a scab from Israel’s past to illustrate them. Jesus was saying that when we lust, “we are throwing our whole lives into a valley of burning waste—a place of death and idolatry and rejectedness and smoldering trash” (Jeff Cook in the book Seven).
How many of our comrades in the faith have eaten the poisoned meat of lust rather than starve their sexual urges and drink from their own cisterns? They deserve our mercy. They need our grace for there we might also go lest we bridle our legitimate God-given sexual desires. Those who desire to walk with the Master are diligent in their watchful tenacity for the sin that crouches at the door. Next, some ways of dealing with lust will be explored.
Dealing with Gluttony
March 2, 2010
Recently, I wrote about gluttony, that sin that crouches at the door of our disordered appetite to disrupt our intimacy with God. Gluttony is turning food and drink into idols. When food becomes an obsession, time to alter our relationship with it.
How then do we overcome gluttony?
As with any sin, awareness, confession, and repentance are a start. Then comes the hard work of heart transformation, and adding new habits. My role today is not to play Holy Spirit. I only seek to share what I have found helpful in the struggle against the conspicuous drive to over indulge in good food. A little time alone with God and a little time facing our gluttony will go a long way to get us on track to using food and drink in a God-glorifying way as God intends.
Down to brass tacks. Personally, as one beggar teaching other beggars where to find bread, I have found the following ideas and two behaviors helpful of late.
The idea first: We are embodied selves. By saying this, I am affirming something quite obvious. We know we are body and we know we are soul (spirit, mind). When I scrape the ice off my windshield I experience that activity as a body with a souI. When I’m dreaming I experience my dream as a soul with a body. The deep connection between body and soul is real. The bottom line here for gluttony is that how I relate to food affects my soul, and how I take care of my soul affects my body. If you find this idea hard to swallow for now, never mind. Skip it. But notice how the way we feel affects the way we eat (as in times of grief or tragedy).
The second idea: fasting is primarily a response to a sacred moment that God brings to our attention. A crisis, tragedy, and sin, for example, are apt occasions for us to respond by not eating (It is always so in Scripture that fasting is a response). However, a side benefit of periodic fasting (that is, not the reason why we fast) is the awareness that God can meet our physical needs even in the absence of food. Jesus told his disciples at the well that he has food from above that the disciples knew not of, which sustained him. Gluttony is a sin and fasting is the right response that may awaken us that our disordered attachment to food can be broken.
First Behavioral change: My colleague, David Manner, serendipitously gave me the best advice I have received on overcoming gluttony. We were eating one day at Olive Garden. As usual, I ordered spaghetti with tomato sauce (Is spaghetti not the fruit that is always in season on the tree of life flanking the flowing river in Revelation 22:2?). When my relished pasta graced the place mat in front of me, I noticed a few lonely strings meandering in all directions on the bottom of the shiny porcelain plate. A few drops of tomato sauce barely stained a few of the strings. David must have noticed my dismay at the paucity of the fare. With his quick wit, he sought to alleviate my insulted ego saying: “Maybe they brought you what you need, not what you want, Georges.” Ouch! Of course, it’s not easy to know when David is joking or sparring. No matter! Holy Spirit is not partial to niceties when he needs to get a truth across. Of course, that it came from Mr. Fitness himself was not wasted on me either!
I am taking David’s words to heart. They have become mantra to my eating habits. Eat what you need, not what you want. It seems that I always want to eat more than I should but this episode is a constant reminder in my choices of servings when I eat. Thanks David. You meant it for good and it is doing good.
Second behavioral change: I have found it helpful to minimize the number of times I eat alone. There are times when we have to eat by ourselves. Some of us may live alone. But whenever possible we should eat in company. I have discovered that eating alone dampens my gluttony sensors while heightening the feelings of loneliness. Eating is meant to be a social activity, a grateful experience of the bountiful blessings of God. Eating alone is counterintuitive to human nature. Why even the first sinners ate together! Eating with others like family, friends, and colleagues, has a way of promoting a wholesome relationship to food. When eating with others, the relationship takes the primary focus and the food the secondary.
Our body, just as much as our spirit, are a stewardship to the Lord. We are embodied spirit. Separating the two is a mistake that can easily lead to a gluttonous life style while seemingly maintaining a robust faith. Those who walk with the Master are concerned for the bodies as much as for their souls.
Gluttony
March 2, 2010
I have been writing about the seven deadly thoughts or sins. So far I have written about pride and humility, envy and contentment, and sloth and seeking God with fervor. These are deadly because they tend to destroy our moral fiber. They deaden our sensitivity to love God and love others. They breed forms of behavior that ought not to be found among us as followers of Christ. These sins are indicators of a character and of core beliefs that are disordered. Today, I want to say a few things about gluttony.
One pastor who preached about the deadly sins some time back, wrote to encourage and thank me for addressing them. May I encourage you to do like wise and play the role of the prophet in your circles of influence about these deadly sins that ruin us and make our witness dead on arrival.
Sin is alienation from God or missing the mark of the high standard of God’s holiness. We are also familiar with sin as bad behavior: “We don’t smoke, we don’t chew, and we don’t go with girls that do”. But does gluttony (our sin du jour) and its sisters get enough coverage in our preaching and teaching? Gluttony is an “acceptable or tolerated sin” by many. When any sin crouches at the door of our heart we compromise our witness to the world.
What does the Bible say about gluttony?
Gluttony is no new sin. The ancient wise people of God knew it and warned against it. In Proverbs 23:20-21 they forbid joining in on those who abuse food and drink. They also knew that gluttony might lead to poverty and drowsiness (a laziness that prevents initiative). Keeping the company of gluttons besmirches the family name.
Paul warns Titus and the church he lead about the teachings of the people of Crete in Titus 1:12. He knew that even one of the Cretans’ own prophets accused them of always lying, being evil brutes, and gluttons.
Jesus is wrongly accused of being a glutton and a drunkard. But he was neither. “Wisdom is proved right by her actions” or as Luke has it “by her children” (Matthew 11:19; Luke 7:34). Jesus was full of wisdom and truth. Being accused and being guilty is not the same thing. Eating with tax collectors and sinners does not a glutton make. Contrary to popular belief, then, gluttony is not a good thing, even when we euphemize it with words such as these: he’s a big eater, she has a great appetite, or I love chocolate so much).
What then is gluttony? William Stafford (Disordered Loves) describes gluttony as a reversal of creation, the spoiling and corruption of food and all that goes with it. “Gluttony,” he says, “is eating and drinking that excludes God.” It is a spiritual disease that feeds “on our need for food and drink and for the other necessities of bodily life.” Food enjoyed as a gift from God is good. But our love of food can become inordinate or disordered and thus evil. Evil, says C.S. Lewis, is a good that has is sought in some disordered or wrong ways. Abusing food to assuage our emotions or spiritual hungers is a dead in the water idea.
Few of us will escape the tentacles of this pervasive deadly sin in our lives. Many of us are crying the 10 extra pound blues in January for the indulgences of November and December. I will spare you the parade of numbers that prove we eat and drink too much while others go to bed hungry since we all know them too well. We all know that as a society we gorge ourselves sumptuously while others get crumbs from our tables to fill their shrunken stomachs and bulging abdomens. But just because we can do something for crumbs gleaners does not mean we automatically cease to be gluttonous.
My deepest concern here is that gluttony is a strong contributor to our natural rebellion against God. Our inordinate love of food can easily become an idol and an idol is a false way to get closer to God. We take a God-given mixture of air, sun, water, wheat, flour, yeast, and heat and manufacture bread that we then abuse in gluttony.
Gluttony is a way of fabricating a personal identity based on food. You have heard, no doubt, the old adage: “we are what we eat”. There is truth here. Our children grow up with comfort foods because food shapes their social identity. How and what we eat are tied intricately with who we are. No doubt the amount of food we consume affects the way we look, and feel, and think, and relate. There is also a spiritual aspect to our eating as is evident from the talk of eating at the temple in the Old and New Testaments. Eating forms our identities in ways that are not completely understood yet. Are you a fan of Emeril et al?
For this reason gluttony, says Stafford, “is part of the old conspiracy to fabricate one’s own identity by eating and drinking, to create and sustain oneself by turning the miracle of food and drink into self-creation and self-service, excluding God.” This is sin and it leads to death in every way (physical and spiritual).
Those who walk with the Master refuse to succumb to any sin that moves us away from God. Rather, we want to do all we can to overcome our sin, gluttony included. Next article will deal with overcoming gluttony.
Sloth’s Solutions
March 1, 2010
Sloth’s Solutions
I have been writing a series of articles that have to do with many of the major wrong thought patterns that lead to wrong or evil actions. Historically, the Church called these the seven deadly sins. They are deadly because they tend to destroy our character. These patterns have been given the names of pride, envy, greed, wrath, lust, sloth, and gluttony. In previous articles I dealt with pride and envy and their counterparts humility and contentment. Today I respond with the solution to sloth, which I wrote about in last month’s article. You can access all of these at www.baptistdigest.com/archive/article.
The solution I present to sloth (indifference toward our souls, toward God) is to become the kind of person who routinely hungers and thirsts after righteousness. We live in a world that is broken but has been put on a path of restoration by King Jesus. By hungering and thirsting for personal righteousness we cultivate the life in the kingdom of God among us. Hungering and thirsting after putting the world to rights is a good place to start. But first, here’s what I am not advocating.
I am not advocating here a busy life of doing more activities, or taking on more responsibilities in the church. Busyness will not work to overcome indifference to hungering for God. In fact, busyness is counterproductive. You’ve heard well meaning people state: “I want to burn out, not rust out.” Well now, are burn and rust the only options?
Doing more of the same to overcome sloth is madness when doing too much probably landed us in the lap of sloth in the first place. Do you share the angst in this testimony? “My mind is full and my hands are busy, but my heart is empty and emotionally distant from God. Life moves so fast that God has become a blur.” Perhaps this connects with you? “I have been doing ministry on a virtually empty tank, masking my immaturity and or/inferiority by doing great things for the kingdom of God. I find myself on the west bank of the Jordan unable to cross over to the Promised Land.”
A performance driven life will not get us at wrestling with sloth. A friend and fellow pilgrim on the Way testifies: “My journey with Christ until now has been based on performance. I know that Jesus saved me, and I say all the right things at church, just like everyone else, but I really don’t know Him well. It frustrates me but I keep up with the show.” We worked out a way for him to move from faking it to grace as way of life, of panting for God.
Well, if we would conquer sloth, it won’t be by busyness or performance. We’re not going to conquer sloth by consuming our way into righteousness either. Buy this program, get this book, attend this conference, or speed up your technology. The turbo boost does not sell on Wall Street.
What will work, then? Here I share personal experience that has proven helpful to me in resolving my bouts of indifference to life that is truly life in God.
I make it my daily business to know God. A while back I took the challenge of D.A. Carson seriously when he said: “The greatest need in the church today is for Christians to come to know God.” Not just to know about God, but to experience God in relationship. Practically, I take time to delight or to enthrall my mind with God. “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart”, says the psalmist (37:4). I bring my mind to dwell on the beauty of God in his creation (from nature to babies to a beautiful veggie burger!). I place the object of my love before my mind (Thomas Aquinas). Emily Dickinson got it: “the soul selects her own society, then shuts the door.” Spot on! When God becomes the company we keep, we are in the presence of creation’s creator.
We enthrall our minds with God when we set our minds on things above: from the heaving of the seas to the flight of the bumblebees, from a baby’s first smile to his first step to her first word to his first love. Epictetus says that there is no end to enthralling our minds with God; “Any one thing in the creation is sufficient to demonstrate a providence to a modest and grateful mind.” Do this daily and you will be well on your way to conquering sloth.
I also make it my daily business to overcome sloth by listening to the past. God created and loved a people for his own pleasure (Deuteronomy 7:7-8). He loved us to the point he became one of us, to serve us, to suffer and die for us, to leave the Holy Spirit, to come back again, to restore his world to its original design. There is a life of enthrallment here. Listen to the past and present and future.
Finally, I make it my daily business to reflect on my experience of him and that of others around me. A word that is said in kindness becomes the voice of God. A gesture on my part that strangely warms another’s heart. A nagging problem or doubt lift. Love overwhelms. A disease that kills. A God-message in a song. A bird’s chirp. The world is alive with God.
Sloth can only be overcome by an intentional process of living for God. Those who walk with the Master just do it.
Learning to Run on Empty
March 1, 2010
Learning to Run on Empty
Last month I wrote about pride and asked myself “why am I at times like this?” This month, I want to offer a cure: The Antidote to pride is humility, or poverty of spirit. Other biblical words are also synonymous with humility: meekness, submissiveness, and lowliness. A song in the 70s speaks about running on empty. Empty of a false self is a good way of describing humility. So is this you? Is it becoming you? Is humility the condition of my soul?
Monica Baldwin: “What makes humility so desirable is the marvelous thing it does to us; it creates in us a capacity for the closest possible intimacy with God.”
Declared by Einstein as the greatest scientific mind, Sir Isaac Newton said: “If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.”
“Humility is the foundation of all the other virtues hence, in the soul in which this virtue does not exist there cannot be any other virtue except in mere appearance.”
Saint Augustine
Aspiring to a humble life is worthy of all the effort we can put into it. Ask the world and it will tell you in so many ways the humble get nowhere. Make your mark on the world, step over anyone in your path, and get to the top at all cost. And when you do… Few are they out there in “Egypt Land,” who say: “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Perhaps we shouldn’t expect it when even in “Beulah Land” humility is easily forgotten.
In the church… our mandate is humility. In our life manual our best models and highest instructions are humble people and lowliness. Numbers 12:3 says “Moses was very humble.” Honor, wisdom, grace, fairness, honoring others, greatness, victory, and other attributes worthy of Christ’s kingdom citizens come fast upon the heels of poverty of spirit (peruse these Scriptures and follow references: Proverbs 15:33; Colossians 3:12 1 Peter 5:5; Philippians 2:3; 2 Chronicles 12:6, 30:11; Matthew 18:4; James 4:10; Micah 6:8; Zechariah 9:9). False humility is possible (is it ever; I know it by personal acquaintance, see Colossians 2:23).
The humble in spirit don’t need to worry about the wrong thoughts of others, the morality that others live by. Their main concern is their own attitudes toward God, others, and all living things. Humility comes from seeing ourselves properly that is, truthfully, realistically, honestly, without any guile or pretense. The humble know they have gifts, abilities, strengths, and worth. They also know that all they have can be developed further (Jeff Cook).
The humble minimize or eliminate comparative living. They know and appreciate and praise others’ gifts, abilities be they few or many. They do not compete to outdo others to shine in the eyes of all. They may set as a goal to outdo the whole world in well doing but only to please the Master with whom they walk humbly. They come along side others and throw what eight they have to make them even look better than they by encouraging and edifying them. When others succeed the humble rejoice. When others fail they shed tears of sorrow in sympathy. They offer help.
How do you get it? How do you learn to run on empty? Because it does not come naturally to us, humility is a learned attitude and behavior. Jesus was humble and meek (Matthew 11:19). “I love this about you Jesus. How did you do it? Did you willpower your way into being humble?” “The will has no power, my child.” Did you hole up somewhere until it came to you?” “If you hole up it will certainly not come to you.” “Did you seek humility?” “It would not be humility if you sought it in your own strength.”
“How then?” Jesus answered: “Get a vision of my life, purify your intention and learn the means I used to do life with God. Look at my life carefully. I fasted in humility before the grand will of God. I prayed constantly. I watched to see where my Father was working and worked at the same things and in the same way he works. I took long walks alone into the wilderness as often as possible to be alone and to sort out my motives. I studied the Scriptures to learn from others. I memorized much of them so that the same Holy Spirit who gave them shaped my heart. By them I grew in wisdom. Because of them, I learned to be obedient to the end. I marinated in them day and night, taking them into heart, mind, soul, and body. I served. I worshiped. I sacrificed. I gave my all to all. I ran on empty even of my own rights to run on full (Philippians 2:1-11).” “I see. I will go and do likewise, good and faithful Servant.”
Walking with the Master is the humble way. It is the way of poverty of spirit, the condition of our hearts as we are brought into life in the kingdom of God. Amen. Lord, have mercy.
Why Am I Like That?
March 1, 2010
Why am I at times like this?
I think much more about myself when I should be more mindful of others? I cause pain to those I love. I chicken out when it comes to standing up to those who hurt others. I act stupidly but I blame others. I make a mess in my life by having unhealthy appetites. Why is speaking badly of others so at home on the tip of my tongue? Why is my soul so broken?
Dare I ask it? Why is yours? Neither you nor I are the first to struggle with answers to our experience of pride.
When asked what is wrong with the world, G.K. Chesterton responded with this shortest essay ever written: “I am.” The reason he was so sure of his response is because of a realistic view of his own sin, which is first and foremost a power inhabiting our physical bodies. Long ago, one of the early Christians told us that sin “tends to make that which is cease to be.”
Jeff Cook sees sin as a parasite in need of a host, which we willingly supply. As a power sin cannot exist on its own. Just like the demons in Jesus’ parable, they take up residence in the house of a willing host.
Early in the life of the church all kinds of saints tried to understand the reality of sin and its manifestations. So they created lists of the most essential elements of sin. One author called these elements “wrong thoughts.” Others prefer to see them as challenges to our faith. Another named them deadly sins. History finally settled on naming seven of them: Pride, envy, sloth, greed, lust, wrath, and gluttony. From these spring all other sins we commit. Rape, violent acts, gossip, adultery, and murder come from anger or wrath or envy or lust. Cheating and hording come from greed. You get the idea.
Why do some call these seven sins the deadly sins? Well, cogitate with me for a moment. For example, a person who is totally possessed by pride, or his heart is strongly grasped by it, will be affected at the deepest levels of his being by his arrogance. Pride’s tentacles extend to all aspects of his life. The way he perceives everything (his whole worldview) is tainted and affected by his high view of himself and low view of others.
Do you owns shares in the common stock of pride? Are you a member of the club? Is pride in your life? We all naturally love ourselves; self-love is mandated by our Lord “love your neighbor as yourself.” But when I exaggerate this love of myself or pervert it into contempt for others, I am full of pride. Pride or arrogance is a debilitating, death-thirsty self-inflicted disease, gone on a rampage in us.
If pride is leprosy, I pronounce myself unclean. Who can deliver me from this deadening sin? Thank be to God. He owns the business of grave digging and has a monopoly on bringing the dead back to life from the dark tomb of pride.
The proud think they contribute more than they do. They believe they are more important than they really are. Because their own self blinds them, they are unable to recognize the contributions of others. They believe that if they think highly of others somehow they are thinking less of themselves.
One who knows wrote: “Pride is the cause of the most damaging fall for the soul. It induces the Christian to deny that God is his helper and to consider that he himself is the cause of his own virtues” (Evagrius of Ponticus, 345-399 AD). Another, who struggled with pride for a long time wrote: “pride made the soul desert God, to who it should cling as the source of life, and to imagine itself instead as the source of its own life” (Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 AD).
Jeff Cooke adds: “the more I make my life, my well-being, my enlightenment, and my success primary, the farther I step from reality. Thus the hell-bound do not travel downward; they travel inward, cocooning themselves behind a mass of vanity, personal rights, religiosity, and defensiveness” (The Deadly Sins and the Beatitudes, p. 34).
The elder son in the prodigal son story is the epitomy of this kind of pride. It destroyed his ability to connect with his father, his brother, and even his own soul. Pride is the one sin that makes everyone ill and especially the one who has it.
When you find pride in yourself, or in others, you will also find much private thinking, much time spent alone because of disdain of others, and much lone ranger activity; a tenacious unwillingness to submission to authority of any kind.
Christianity in North America suffers today because millions of individual Christians have decided to go it alone without the church. Believing they are right, they do their own thing without any accountability, any submission to authority, deeming themselves captains of their own souls, masters of their own ships, with the determination to seek their own destinies apart from tradition. Pride moved into their neighborhood, and emerged as a virtue. Jesus and me and a few others and the h… with the rest of you… If an implosion of Christianity were to take place in the West, history will judge pride as the fuse that lit the downward spiral.
The antidote of pride is humility, the subject of the next article. Until next month, think through with Jesus about the damage to your soul that pride is wreaking (read Luke 15:11-32; Luke 16. There are great lessons about pride here). Walk a little with the master immersed in his words in these great texts. Look full into his wonderful face. The things of pride may grow strangely familiar.
Sloth, Not the Animal Kind
November 3, 2009
Sloth, Not the Animal Kind
My goal in this article is to make you aware of what sloth is and help you examine your life in light of it. The next article will bring the antidote to this deadly way of life called sloth.
When God received me into his kingdom through his enabling faith, he blessed me with his grace: his favor, and his enabling power to do what I am not able to do in my own strength. He helped me understand that I had one new life to live and give. I, on my side, determined to make my life count, to focus on what matters. That took some time. Through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, a deep yearning within, and desire to give my life to the things that matter to God, I settled on the pursuit of God’s kingdom and his righteousness.
But the tyranny of the urgent has its ways and its powers. The bearish claws of the affairs of this world create deep ruts in the soul. The “jaws” of sloth grip the heart until death slowly makes life leak out of us. Sloth, Jeff Cook says, “is indifference toward our souls” and the things that matter to God. Sloth is apathy (lack of passion) toward God, his kingdom, and his life. Sloth is laziness toward and neglect of the eternal in favor of the trivial.
Jesus was deeply concerned during his life on earth with sloth. He spoke of it in many of his parables. I mention only three here: the parables of the talents, the banquet, and the sheep and goats. This is a good stopping point. Take time and read those parables: Matthew 25:14-30; Matthew 22:1-14; Matthew 25:31-46.
A talent (an amount worth 20 years of work—half of our working lives) represents the life that God gives us and expects us to invest in knowing Him, and in readying the world for his coming. A slave’s freedom could be bought for a talent. Jesus would make us understand that a talent is the freedom we have to invest in what matters to God. One of the slaves took his life and did nothing with it. His apathy, his sloth, his indifference to his soul, earned him these awful sounding words: “Throw the worthless slave outside, into the darkness.”
Sloth, in Jesus’ eyes, is our failure to maximize our pursuit of God’s kingdom and embedding his righteousness deep into our souls. Apathetic inactivity, and purposeless waiting displeases God. As we wait for his return, we take the life given to us (grace, mercy, joy, love, hope, and faith) and wisely multiply it in God’s kingdom.
The king in the second parable invited many to his son’s wedding banquet. He was stood up. Then the streets were combed and the needy were invited. One deigned come without the proper attire for the wedding celebration. His sloth was evident in his laziness to dress for the wonderful event. The king condemns him with these awful words: “tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness.” He lacked the passion for life (the banquet) that the king has! Sloth is indifference to the life of God, with God, and for God!
The third parable, the one about sheep and goats, describes those who, at the judgment, gave a cup of water, fed the poor, visited the prisoner, and helped the widow, in his name. They represent those who are passionate about the life of the kingdom. The ones “who are cursed, and must depart from him” are the slothful, the ones our Lord did not know. They see brothers and sisters of king Jesus, but like the Priest and the Levi, go on their merry way, the broad way, which leads to destruction.
The servants that invested their lives, the banquet guests who came dressed to celebrate life with God, and the lovers of the poor and the needy, are passionate people who have rejected sloth as a way of life. They have said no to the minimum and yes to the maximum they can do for, with, and in God. They are willing to be maimed for God rather than enter unblemished into insignificance. They have said yes to a passion to love and walk with God and to love and serve others. The others were shown the door.
I for one do not wish to hear the awful words. Not from my Lord. Sloth buries the life our beautiful and good God wants us to invest in his world. He is coming back to renew it, recreate it, to make it habitable for himself eternally. May he find us passionate about Him, his kingdom, and about “putting this world to rights” in his name! Those who walk with the Master would not want it any different!
Fighting Envy
September 17, 2009
Fighting Against Envy
Envy is a vice, a sin, a wrong attitude, thought, and action. The Bible warns against it often. If you want to do more research on envy go to http://net.bible.org/home.php.
The word envy comes from Latin invidere. En comes from “in” meaning against, and VY in envy comes from “videre” meaning to see. So to look at another person’s life, possessions, talents, achievements, gifts, and blessings causing an attitude of against because of them is what envy is about. It is also about turning inward by asking the pitiful “Why not me?” No one wants to live like this since there isn’t even a smidgen of pleasure in this sin. We want to be rid of it.
How then, shall we live free of envy, or at the least live toward an envy-free life? How do we disregard the mirror on the wall in which we desperately want to hear that we are the fairest of them all? If envy has to do with looking against others and pitying ourselves in the process, what practices offer us a fighting chance with this sin that besets us? Peter commands us to get rid of envy (1 Peter 2:1). After all envy was part of the human sentiments that committed the first murder and put Jesus on the cross (see Matt. 27:18; Mark 15:10; John 11:47)
We get rid of envy when we understand and live up to our Identity in Christ. One of the main features of the Christ event (incarnation, life, passion, resurrection, and return) is that we who are in Christ enjoy a new identity. We are new creatures who put away old things and who relish the stamp of Christ on our lives.
How does our Christian help to rid us of envy? Here’s my take. Our perception of personal worth in comparison with other people is a huge factor in envy. The envious focus on the third car garage where our neighbor’s boat is stored. They focus on the talents, on the degrees, on the year-end bonuses, and on the awards their colleagues gets. They ask why not me? Why do they have more worth than I do? It’s a short step to from here to feeling ill will against others. Possessions, affluence, blessing, and talents become the measure of a person’s worth. This is typical in the society we live in. Envy, because of this understanding of self-worth, always crouches at the door ready to incriminate.
What if our identity is not in our work, roles, achievements, or talents? The Christian is cloaked with Christ. The fruit of the Spirit marks his life, not envy or other passions of the flesh (Galatians 5:19-24). Christ in him shapes his identity. If the inner life is not formed in the likeness of Christ, his worth will be determined by his material possessions. In the end these go to the hay and stubble bin.
When the Christian steps out of her identity in Christ to wear another that is based on having and doing, she is trapped in envy’s matrix. When the Christian falsely believes that what she does is less valuable than others, envy is near. When she believes the house next door is better decorated or the kid across the street is smarter and better mannered than hers she is on the slippery slope of envy. This is a dead end. Christ bestows his worth on our families, our activities, and ourselves. This grace enables us to rest in him.
In an amazing tour de force, Paul, following in the footstep of His Master and Ours, equalizes the playing field when he put marginalized people on par with the privileged of society: husbands, fathers, and masters. For example, in Ephesians 5:21-6:9, Paul addresses wives and husbands, children and parents, slaves and masters in a context of mutual submission. The fact that wives, children, and slaves are dignified with an address from Paul and honored for their identity in Christ, radically frees these marginalized people of his day. Worth for Paul is not based on race, gender, or status. There is room for work and achievement but only as a result of the worth that unifies our identity as Christ followers.
The Jew and the Gentile inherit sonship and oneness in Christ. Men and women benefit from following the equal opportunity Leader we obey. The haves and the have-nots are equally needy of love and grace for deliverance. We come to believe that when we abide in Christ, our identities develop from our union with Christ. This unity leads us to prefer others and to love them sacrificially. In this equality of worth in Christ there is freedom from envy. Envy is easy when doing replaces being as the foundation of our identity in Christ.
We also get rid of envy when we practice Contentment. Paul believed that contentment is an attitude worth developing. How to be content? Can Paul tell us? Paul knew times of plenty and times of scarcity. His spiritual economics rested on a reality that is beyond the material. His secret of contentment was a deep appreciation of past faithfulness of God and present experience of grace (Please take the time to deepen your understanding of contentment by meditating on these passages: Hebrews 13:5; 2 Corinthians 12:10; 1 Timothy 6:6,8; Philippians 4:11).
In practicing contentment we intentionally look beyond our mundane existence. We peer into the spiritual reality of the sufficiency of Christ that pervades our life. This practice of peering is best done in times of solitude, self-examination, and fasting. Each of these disciplines contributes a unique vantage point from which we can study our entanglement with envy. Then we can proceed to confession, repentance, reconciliation, and shalom secure in our identity in Christ. Those who walk with the Master are learning that when they experience bounty or scarcity they rejoice in Christ. At times they opt for scarcity of food and friends even when there is plenty of them around in order to appreciate, withdraw, and savor the worth that the grace of Christ bestows on our identity. Envy. Be gone! In Christ I stand content.
On Envy
August 24, 2009
Why Not Me?
Envy made it to the big league of seven sins along with pride, gluttony, anger, sloth, lust, and greed. Its opposite is contentment, the subject of next month’s article. The three words that give envy its impetus are “why not me”.
Is there anyone who doesn’t envy something or someone? I agree with many who croon that envy is the only sin that brings no pleasure at all. As a matter of fact envy is a feeling that is described as sadness, unhappiness, and discontent. What’s fun about that? The other six brothers and sisters of envy afford some pleasure. Envy is the black sheep of the sin family.
So why do we envy? This is worth pondering since inspired men commanded us to get rid of it (1 Peter 2:1; Galatians 5:21).
Envy is born in us when we feel that others have more status, abilities, possessions, gifts, and talents than we do. We feel we deserve what others have. That feeling takes center stage in our thoughts and gives birth to these awful words: “why not me.” Or in the case of a national or corporate envy, why not us?
Nations envy other nations. Israel had a king: God. For reasons I can’t discern they felt a human king is better than a God king! Was Yahweh too demanding on their sinful nature as a people? Did they feel they could get away with more grumbling and posturing with a human king than with the God king? The why not us attitude rooted and sprang up like a weed “we want a king to rule over us like the other nations.”
God laments this request from his people: “They (the people that I rescued from slavery) have rejected me as their king.” And what did their envy of other kingdoms get them? Heavy taxation, wars and more wars, betrayal and intrigue in the palace, children put in front of war chariots, a divided kingdom, another day older and deeper in sin, weaker in morale and morals, subject to attacks, revenge, slavery, and loss of homeland for hundreds of years on end. Their human kings put lusts ahead of the good of the people. And what is the end result of the why not us debacle that crept up on Israel? Exile. A vagabond people! And all the human miseries attached thereunto!
If history is not written from a revisionist posture, I wonder how many wars would be attributed to malicious, nefarious, necrophilia-loving envy.
National envy is likely preceded by personal envy. Here again, the Scripture masterfully gives us the reason hatred and murder came into the world: Envy produced by the why not me attitude. Envy first reared its ugly head in the midst of paradise. Envy when indulged becomes Exile, a sad alienation from others and God.
Cain championed envy in the next generation. He was lackadaisical about his sacrifice to God. His brother, Abel, was dead serious about worshiping God (pun unintended). God called Cain on his envy. It crept up on him. He nursed it. He formed it into a weapon dripping with hate and manipulation, destruction and death as he slew his own flesh and blood. The earth cried out. God stepped in. Another vagabond generation! More exile. We’re still paying for the original why not me? Why does God accept my brother and not me? It never occurred to Envious Cain to emulate the good-hearted Abel.
Today’s advertisement world runs on envy. This industry buys and sells envy. Nothing is sold in America, and now around the world, that is not envy-wrapped. This is not to say that what is advertised is not needful. But why does it need the cloak of envy? From personal care products, to cars, to gum and beer, and you name it, the advertising industry has hit on a cash cow by capitalizing on envy. “What your computer takes 3 seconds to download 10 megabytes? Mine does it in 2.” The three-second guy rushes to the store faster than speedy Gonzales outsmarting his nemesis, Sylvester the cat. “Quick, tell me where the closest Best Buy is, please!”
What about you and me? A friend takes me on a spin in his brand new Lexus. Bells and whistles I’ve never heard of don the dashboard. Silently, envy’s germ gets planted in my heart: Why him and not me? Maybe I should revise my budget and cut out the money I give to the poor. With a little luck in my business I can afford a Lexus too.
The pastor five miles away has to build again. Last year we dropped another 15% percent in attendance at our church. God is good to him but what about me? The next big church conference oughta do it.
A relative retires and now takes several vacations every year. Cuba in the winter, Cancun in the spring, Florence, Italy, in the summer, and a Caribbean cruise is slotted for the fall. Not fair. Why not me?
Never mind the hard work it took these relatives and friends to enjoy the benefits of their labor. What about me?
Those who walk with the Master put away envy. The Holy Spirit is an envy killer. Trust his guidance.
How, in your own life, have you been envious of other people? Can we live free of envy? How are you overcoming the sin that causes so much sadness in us? Next month, we’ll see how.
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