DISCIPLESHIP: IS IT A MATTER OF BEING AND NOT DOING?

Christians have very different ideas about how to grow spiritually and become more Christ-like. Understandably, many of us have found the process discouraging. Changing ourselves from sinners into saints is admittedly a daunting process.

Consequently, many Christians are gravitating towards passivity as opposed to actively trying to act like Jesus. The late Christian philosopher, Dallas Willard, had written in favor of passivity at the expense of proactivity:

·       Jesus never expected us simply to turn the other cheek, go the second mile, bless those who persecute us, give unto them that ask, and so forth.  These responses, generally and rightly understood to be characteristic of Christlikeness, were put forth by him as illustrative of what might be expected of a new kind of person – one who intelligently and steadfastly seeks, above all else, to live within the rule of God and be possessed by the kind of righteousness that God himself has, as Matthew 6:33 portrays.  Instead, Jesus did invite people to follow him into that sort of life from which behavior such as loving one’s enemies will seem like the only sensible and happy thing to do.  For a person living that life, the hard thing to do would be to hate the enemy, to turn the supplicant away, or to curse the curser…  True Christlikeness, true companionship with Christ, comes at the point where it is hard not to respond as he would. (Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives, 7-8)

Although we are transformed from the inside out by the Spirit, in many ways, Jesus did command us to act like Him:

·       “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:43-48; ESV)

Of course, we will not be perfect in this world – far from it. However, we must not tire of following our Lord, but must press on:

·       And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. (Galatians 6:9)

The life we are called to is a proactive life:

·       Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. (Hebrews 12:12-14)

Yes, holiness/sanctification is a fruit of the Spirit and the way we should be, as Willard suggests, but it is also something we must pursue and the way we should act. If we refuse to act this way, we prove that we do not love our Lord:

·       Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.  Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me. (John 14:23-24)

What Willard had written is illogical. He suggests that we should somehow follow Jesus without obeying His commands. To repeat Willards words:

·       Instead, Jesus did invite people to follow him into that sort of life from which behavior such as loving one’s enemies will seem like the only sensible and happy thing to do.

Instead, Willard suggests that we obey Jesus but only passively, as it comes naturally out of us. Somehow obedience is supposed to just happen. While, there is some truth in this – even our obedience is the fruit of the Spirit (1 Cor. 15:10) – this does not eliminate our efforts:

·       Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified. (1 Corinthians 9:24-27)

In contrast, Willard has written:

·       True Christlikeness, true companionship with Christ, comes at the point where it is hard not to respond as he would.

While there is no greater joy than in following my Lord, it still can be a struggle. It was for Paul:

·       Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:12-14)

Paul was not teaching that there is anything uncertain about our heavenly inheritance, but rather that the true believer will receive it through effort. Not that the effort saves us, but rather effort is something that accompanies truth faith and repentance.

However, admittedly, the struggle is often discouraging and even guilt-producing. Does this mean that we have taken a wrong turn somewhere and that be need to step back and just be and believe?

No at all! Instead, we need the struggle. One man, seeing a butterfly trying to escape from its cocoon, assisted this incredible creature in his escape only to see it subsequently die. He later learned that the butterfly needs this struggle in order to survive.

How does this apply to us? We too need the struggle. How so? The disappointments humble us, stripping away our self-confidence, leading us to brokenness and repentance. And when we humble ourselves before God and turn to His Word for our only encouragement, He begins to give us a deeper illumination of grace.

What happens? We are reassured that we are forgiven and cleansed (1 John 1:9) and that it is no longer about us and our spiritual successes but about Christ and His success and righteousness.

This is utterly freeing (John 8:31-32), and it brings us to a deeper place of gratefulness for a God who loves us, who are completely undeserving.

However, this deepened understanding and appreciation of our Lord does not come through passivity but activity.

“I’M SPIRITUAL; I’M NOT RELIGIOUS”

These words serve as the mantra of today’s seekers. It is their “declaration of independence” from organized or established religions. It also represents the expectation of finding spirituality within oneself and not through the preaching or teaching based on an ancient book or tradition.

What then is spirituality? Whatever you want to call it! And nobody can judge you for it as long as you are willing to forgo judgment of others’ spirituality, as long as it is not organized. However, this form of spirituality is also coming out of the seminary.

In his most recent book, The Future of Faith, liberal professor emeritus of the Harvard Divinity School, Harvey Cox, celebrates the shift in Christianity away from fundamentalism and its emphasis on doctrine to “spirituality” and social activism. He favors a doctrine-less faith – a faith we experience and perform, not something we believe. (You might ask, “What beliefs enable us to understand our experience and direct our social activism? This vacuum will be inescapably filled by the beliefs of society.)

Cox suggests that the Biblical revelation is entirely unnecessary. He asserts that one can be a “practicing Christian, but not necessarily a believing one.” This makes the teachings of the Bible irrelevant, and Christianity merely becomes a matter of good deeds, and “salvation” becomes a matter of personal attainment. In describing his liberation from his Baptist roots, he explains:

·       We have been misled for many centuries by the theologians who taught that “faith” consisted in dutifully believing the articles listed in one of the countless creeds they have spun out. (18)

However, Cox’ prime targets are the Biblical teachings themselves, which, according to Cox, are irrelevant:

·       I also became friends with several students who seemed to me to exemplify the Christian life better than some of the taut fundamentalists, although they were not particularly concerned with being doctrinally correct. (16)

For Cox, this constitutes a slam-dunk. But what does it mean to “exemplify the Christian life?” For Jesus, we first have to be set free (John 8:31-32) from the lie before we could step into the light of God:

·       “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.” (John 3:19-21)

Evil can come in many forms. Perhaps its most dangerous form is self-righteousness, which poses as virtue, even godliness. Therefore, Jesus had warned that the most vicious forms of persecution would come from those who were convinced that they were spiritual:

·       “They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me.” (John 16:2-3)

How can this be? Don’t think for a moment that this was because they were following religion instead of spirituality and God instead of their own inner promptings. About them, Jesus warned that their religion was just a show and that they didn’t even believe the Law of Moses (John 5:44-47). Instead, their religion, spirituality, and social activism were all about themselves so that they could look good in the eyes of the world.

Spiritual pride is a life-controlling, self-righteous, and blinding force. It tells us that we are right even in the face of all the evidence to the contrary:

·       Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the heart. (Proverbs 21:2; 16:2)

Can finding spirituality within ourselves heal us of such blindness? Instead, our normal tendency is to see the things that we want to see. We believe those things that will make us feel good about ourselves.

The evidence for this is overwhelming. We want to be flattered and surround ourselves with “yes” men, people who will make us feel good about ourselves and not those who will tell us what we need to hear.

Consequently, when the psychotherapist advertises her services, she doesn’t say, “Come to me and learn the truth about yourself.” Instead, she says, “Come to me to reduce your unwanted symptomology.”

Of course, many will object to this characterization, but why? We want to believe that we are really seeking after truth, even though this postmodern culture has rejected the existence of objective spiritual truth. It is offensive to us to think that we are motivated to think pleasant, “spiritual” thoughts about ourselves at the expense of truth thoughts.

Is my assessment valid? Yes! It is even largely affirmed by the psychotherapeutic community.

In Positive Illusions, Psychologist Shelley E. Taylor argues that “normalcy” involves layer upon layer of self-delusion. Nevertheless, she argues that these delusions are necessary and positive:

·       People are positively biased in their assessments of themselves and of their ability to control what goes on around them, as well as in their views of the future. The widespread existence of these biases and the ease with which they can be documented suggests that they are normal.

·       Normal people exaggerate how competent and well liked they are. Depressed people do not. Normal people remember their past behavior with a rosy glow. Depressed people are more even-handed…On virtually every point on which normal people show enhanced self-regard, illusions of control, and unrealistic visions of the future, depressed people fail to show the same biases. (214)

If the “normal” are more self-deluded than the “abnormal,” what should be the therapeutic goal? What represents a therapeutic success story? Learning to see ourselves as we truly are? Not according to Martin L. Gross:

·       “The ideal patient must be suggestible. He should be able to easily absorb dogma and ideas of the most abstract, even outlandish dimension. He should be philosophically adaptable and able to ape the therapist’s value system and biases. The more he agrees with the therapist, the better his chances of being helped. This conditioning process is at the core of all faith healing, magic and religion. Psychologist David Rosenberg checked out the connection between improvement and value-conditioning in psychotherapy. He found that those rated as ‘improved’ had changed their moral values in sex, aggression and authority in the direction of the therapist’s own prejudices. Those who had been rated ‘unimproved’ had tended to hold out.” (The Psychological Society, 48)

We do not gravitate towards truth but to comfort. What does this suggest about finding one’s own spirituality? These findings do not bode well for this pursuit.

Instead, the Bible insists that we must first be changed from Above. But how? By the Spirit working through the Word of God – the very object that many have claimed to be irrelevant!

Jesus repeatedly pointed to the relevance of the Word of God in His final pre-cross teaching and prayer (John 14-17):

It is through Scripture that we love God and enjoy His presence:

·       Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me. (John 14:23-24; 15:6-14)

How are we transformed? Again, by the Spirit applying Scripture to our hearts and minds:

·       Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. (John 15:3)

When Jesus was praying to the Father, He expressed the same truth:

·       Sanctify [cleanse] them in the truth; your word is truth. (John 17:17)

Jesus understood that the truth of Scripture transforms. We cannot perform spiritual surgery on ourselves. This surgery must be performed by God Himself through the truth. Nor can we lift ourselves off the ground. Someone else must do this for us.

This sounds strange to modern/postmodern ears, which tend to regard experiences as transformative, not truths. However, right before this, Jesus had prayed:

·       “But now I am coming to you [Father], and these things I speak [Scripture] in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word…”(John 17:13-14)

How can truths or teachings produce joy? As a Zen Buddhist, late psychiatrist and writer, M. Scott Peck, wrote the esteemed best-seller The Road Less Traveled. Fifteen years later, he wrote Further Along the Road Less Traveled to bring us up to date with his spiritual pilgrimage. During these years, Peck observed that his Christian patients were improving. Peck concluded:

·       The quickest way for you to change your attitude toward pain is to accept the fact that everything that happens to us has been designed for our spiritual growth.

·       Now what better news can there be than we cannot lose, we are bound to win? We are guaranteed winners once we realize that everything that happens to us has been designed to teach us what we need to know on our journey.

Peck found that believing these truths proved transformational. Consequently, Peck gave up meditation on his changing inner states in favor of meditation on Scripture.

How do we grow in love? According to Jesus, the Word plays a central role:

·       I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them." (John 17:26; NIV)

How can Jesus’ teachings produce love? When we come to know how beloved and protected we are, we too will love. We will be largely freed from the tyranny of having to seek the approval of others. Freed from their opinions and confident of God’s opinion of us, we no longer have to resent those who do not give us what we want and need. We are freed up enough to begin to look to the needs of others.

However, this is a process:

·       So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you WILL KNOW the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31-32)

However, this is a painful and humbling process of stripping away the layers of self-righteousness and self-deception, and few are willing to bare it.

Real self-examination (spirituality) is so painful that few can tolerate it. I couldn’t, even after the counsel of five highly-recommended psychologists. Instead, we blanket ourselves with “positive illusions” in favor of true but negative and depressing self-knowledge. We run from the light and anyone who will focus the light upon us and into the comfort of darkness and delusion. However, we run to people who will stroke our self-esteem.

What “positive illusions” do we feed to ourselves? Well, I convinced myself that I was better than others in all regards. Although, deep down, I knew better, I nevertheless believed that I could handle anything. However, this was a drug that required increasingly greater doses to get the high. Meanwhile, my delusions were removing me from reality and from meaningful relationships. When we refuse to see ourselves, we also have blinded ourselves to reality and to others.

How did the truth set me free? It taught me that there was something better than my false spirituality – a Savior who loves, forgives, and gave His life for me. Only with the assurance of His love could I endure His penetrating light.

DEALING WITH DEEPLY ENTRENCHED SINS

We are afflicted with deeply entrenched sin. While some of our sins have ceased to plague us, others remain untamed, as Scripture warns:

• For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. (Galatians 5:17)

How then do we gain victory over our sins? Some would say that, since God understands that we will continue to struggle against sin in this life, we can simply accept their presence. After all, we don’t want to be legalists or to walk around dismayed about our moral failings. They therefore erroneously argue that we have to reject sin consciousness.

However appealing this message might sound, it is not biblical. Jesus taught that we have to endeavor to be like God:

• Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:48)

Peter agreed that the perfect Christ had to be our role model:

• As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy." (1 Peter 1:14-16)

In fact, Holy living is never optional:

• Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. (Hebrews 12:14)

The Bible never gives us an excuse to sin. Even if we have a perfect moral track record, we still do not have the right to sin (Ezekiel 33:12).

Yet, we continue to sin! What then? We don’t give up! Not according to Paul:

• Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:12-14)

But how do we press on in the midst of repeated failures to overcome sin, especially the internal ones? By knowing that pressing on is what is expected of us! Also by knowing that:

• If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives. (1 John 1:9-10)

We cannot expect to become be sinless in this life. Anyone who claims this is a “liar.” Sinlessness will only become a reality when Christ returns for us:

• Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:2)

Why does our Savior abandon us to this often discouraging struggle against sin? Because we need it! An immediate victory over sin would not serve us well. Why not? We do not do well spiritually when everything is going well for us. The pagan King Nebuchadnezzar had been very proud of his accomplishments. However, God was merciful to him and struck him down with insanity for seven years. After these seven years, his mind was restored and his pride had been crushed. He therefore confessed:

• Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven, because everything he does is right and all his ways are just. And those who walk in pride he is able to humble. (Daniel 4:37)

Job was the most spiritual man in the entire earth, yet he too had become proud, as the prophetic Elihu revealed:

• "But you [Job] have said in my hearing-- I heard the very words-- 'I am pure and without sin; I am clean and free from guilt. Yet God has found fault with me; he considers me his enemy.’” (Job 33:8-10)

Elihu explained that, because of Job’s spiritual pride, God, in love, had to humble him:

• "But I tell you, in this you are not right, for God is greater than man. Why do you complain to him that he answers none of man's words? For God does speak… to turn man from wrongdoing and keep him from pride, to preserve his soul from the pit, his life from perishing by the sword… His soul draws near to the pit, and his life to the messengers of death. Yet if there is an angel on his side as a mediator, one out of a thousand, to tell a man what is right for him… then his flesh is renewed like a child's; it is restored as in the days of his youth. He prays to God and finds favor with him, he sees God's face and shouts for joy; he is restored by God to his righteous state. Then he comes to men and says, 'I sinned, and perverted what was right, but I did not get what I deserved. He redeemed my soul from going down to the pit, and I will live to enjoy the light.'” (Job 33:12-28)

For his own good, even Job needed to be humbled. We too need to be humbled in order to receive the blessings of God. Paul also had to learn this same lesson:

• To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.  But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:7-10)

There is nothing that can humble us like our repeated moral failures. These teach us compassion and gratefulness for our Lord’s grace. Otherwise, we tend to trust in ourselves instead. Paul also had to learn this lesson:

• We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. (2 Corinthians 1:8-9)

We too need to learn this lesson, but this is a lesson we can only learn in our struggle against sin.

WHAT DOES CHRISTIAN GROWTH/SPIRITUALITY LOOK LIKE?

 We mistakenly think that growth is primarily about mastery over sin. We try harder, develop spiritual discipline and habits, and we apply every effort to uproot sin as the gardener pulls out weeds.

However, if we look at mastery over sin in these terms, we will fall into discouragement and despair. Rod Rosenbladt, a Lutheran theologian admits:

• "I fear that things have gotten worse in me rather than better. I have horribly abused all of God's good gifts to me. I was so optimistic in the beginning... That the Holy Spirit now dwelling within me would aid me in following Christ... I have re-dedicated myself to Christ more times than I can count. But it seems to stay the same, or even get worse, no matter what I do. Whatever the outer limits of Christ's are, I have certainly crossed them. I have utterly, continuously, and with planning aforethought blown it all. I guess I was never a Christian in the first place, because if I had been, I would have made some progress."

Perhaps Rosenbladt and most of us had been looking for fruit in the wrong place. Perhaps the way up to Christian maturity is the way down. Perhaps our broken limbs must first be re-broken and reset before they can heal properly. In this respect, McDavid, Richardson, and Zahl write:

• "The first fruit of grace is humility: not a lessening of sin so much as a deeper awareness of sin's continuing presence... Sins like lust and greed and stinginess are not fixed by habit-forming and effort... The Law must continue to convict us of our utter unrighteousness, and the Gospel must continue to save us." (Law & Gospel, 69)

Trying to obey the law humbles us, as it should. It shows us that we aren't as spiritual and deserving as we'd like to think (Romans 3:19-20). However, as we learn that we cannot adore ourselves, we learn to adore our Savior, who loves us despite our sins.

This was the lesson of a deeply sinful woman who boldly entered a home, where she didn't belong, to adoringly wash Jesus' feet. About her sacrificial behavior, Jesus explained:

• “Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.” (Luke 7:47)

We too need to learn about our unworthiness and the depths to which we have been forgiven so we can adore our Savior as we ought.

When I was first saved, I believed that God saved me because I was worthy of His mercy, certainly more worthy than others. Consequently, I was not as grateful as I should have been and, therefore, didn't enjoy His mercy as I now do. He therefore broke me so that He could heal me.

This lesson requires time and our many moral failures, which our attempts to follow the law make painfully obvious.

The Apostle Paul also had to learn this lesson, the painful way. Pride is the greatest enemy of humility and of receiving anything good from God. While pride is full of self and not receptive to the things of God, humility is empty and cries out to be filled.

Had not God chastened Paul with a satanic affliction to keep him from spiritual pride - perhaps the worst kind - Paul would have become puffed-up because of his knowledge and understanding. Through his failures and afflictions, he learned essential lessons:

• “For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?” (Romans 7:22-24)

Only an understanding of his wretchedness and inability (2 Cor. 3:5) would prepare him to experience the glory of God:

• “Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:8-10)

Paul had to learn that it is all about God and not about his strengths and spiritual successes. And we too need to learn to delight in our weaknesses.

God's grace comes in unsuspected packages. It is disguised in failures and even in self- despair. If we look for evidence of His grace in the wrong places, we will not see it and become discouraged.

Elijah had been discouraged. Following "his" great triumph over the prophets of Baal, he ran away panicked at the threats of a woman. He must have regarded himself as the greatest spiritual flop. 

He needed a lift and probably expected to find it in an awesome display of his God's power, but God manifested Himself to Elijah in an unexpected and probably unwanted way:

• The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. (1 Kings 19:11-13)

Perhaps we too are looking for God in all the wrong places. Instead, growth must begin in brokenness and not in strength and conquest.