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Personal Growth

Exposed by Isolation

Sandra

The stress of isolation.  Living in close proximity.  Extended time with the same people for days and weeks on end.  Being separated from support systems.  All of these things have the effect of revealing microscopic fractures in the self and in our relationships.  Like a building that seems to be structurally sound until an earthquake hits, the problems that were there all along don’t become evident until the building faces sustained rigorous shaking.  A marriage may have seemed stable and healthy but the added pressure of unpredictable finances and sharing close quarters may reveal disagreements, fears, and unhealthy dependencies that have been dormant, hidden, or purposely ignored.  For me, isolation has revealed relational insecurities that I thought I had addressed and conquered.  I find myself thinking that no one wants to hear anything I have to say, or that people think negative things about me, or that people don’t want me around.  The lack of in-person contact exposed the depth of the problem, and I became aware that there is more work to do.  I need to turn to God for help in taking captive all of the speculative thoughts that are not anchored in truth.  Stressful times reveal the continued need to check whether my dependency lies with Christ or in the opinions of others.

It is not a bad thing to depend on others.  In fact, we were created to be interdependent.  We are meant to operate as a body; many individual parts of one complete whole.  The support of others is a gift but will never completely fill us.  Also, our ability to provide support for others must always come from a source outside of ourselves.  The ultimate source of strength is always Christ.  He is the Living Water, the only source of our strength, identity, emotional and physical security, acceptance, courage, and hope.

Stress and difficulties can reveal that our security is in other things.  We may depend on things like financial security, affirmation of others, meaningful work, or the use of our abilities and talents.  These things are not bad, but the problem is making anything other than Christ the source of ultimate satisfaction.  When we turn to something other than God as the ultimate source of meeting our needs, we eventually experience pain and disappointment because there is no other source capable of meeting our deepest needs in a real and substantive way.  Quarantine is the perfect opportunity to address issues that have been ignored.  When our cracks are revealed we have two choices, we can either address the issues, or we can ignore them and allow the cracks to turn into gaping fissures and watch the whole building collapse.  We can use this opportunity to become proactive in seeking help and pursuing growth and healing.

Cracks shouldn’t come as a surprise. Cracks will always be present; they come with being human.  Dealing with new cracks is the ongoing condition of humanity which is why we need to be dependent on Christ rather than ourselves.  Only God can heal the cracks, and after those cracks are healed, be ready for the next set of cracks.  It’s an ongoing lifelong dependent relationship.

Blogs, Personal Growth

We Don’t Have to Know All the Words (Part II)

Sandra

Here are the last three points.

  1. We must teach our children that their acceptance is not based on being good

In the same way that our children’s worth does not come from the things they achieve, children do not become acceptable because of their good behavior.

The most powerful way to teach your children that their value is not based on what they do, is to express your love and acceptance of them when they are bad. When we withhold love and acceptance from children when they misbehave, we are teaching them a works based righteousness.  If our children think that if they sin, we will be disappointed in who they are, then they are not learning the gospel.

If the gospel is true, then we don’t lose God’s acceptance.  Jesus is the propitiation for our sin.  A payment that satisfies.  If the payment is satisfied, then God cannot be dissatisfied in us.  God is able to accept us, not because we are good, but because our debt of guilt has been fully paid, once and for all.  So when we are afraid that He will not accept us because we have done something wrong, we are negating and minimizing what he has done for us.  Rom. 8:1 says “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”  Rom. 8:39 says that there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. There is nothing that we can do, that will cause God to not want us anymore.  If we are dissatisfied in our children when they sin, we give them a picture that the enemy would want.

Satan wants our kids to believe that if they don’t get good grades, and stay away from the bad stuff, and don’t perform, then you’re not proud of them.  And he wants them to believe that they can get good grades, never sin, and perform perfectly and that it is possible to earn their own value and attain their own righteousness. This is works based righteousness, and it’s the best strategy to keep children from becoming dependent upon God (Act like Men-Joby Martin).  Children need to know they are accepted by God, and they can’t earn it.

  1. We must face our own continued sin and need for Jesus

The worst lie that we can teach our children, is that Christians no longer sin. Teach your children that you are in need of Jesus every day, just like they are.  Adults are not beyond sin.  Recognize that and live that, and you will inspire your children to live in dependency on God!!

If we want our children to have an accurate picture of who God is and who they are, then we have to know the truth and live out the truth in our own inner lives.  The truth is that we as Christians still sin, we are not perfect, we struggle every single day with pride, judging others, looking down on others, comparing, competing, controlling, manipulating, misleading.  We can sometimes deceive ourselves into thinking that we are “good” because we live a moral life, and we try really hard to follow all of God’s commands, and we don’t do any of the big sins.  But even as Christians, sin is in our hearts, and we still need the healing grace of the gospel every-single-day.

God’s grace is not just an absence of condemnation, it is His unmerited favor, God is for us, not against us.  He desires good for us not evil.  Grace reverses the law.   The law says we have to do it, but grace is God saying “I will help you do it”.  Grace allows us to face our sinful hearts, and as we are received with acceptance and we are forgiven, our hearts are transformed into people who are less and less drawn toward sin, and more and more drawn toward Christlikeness.

When God reveals our sin, we can either respond with systems of self-justification to ease our conscience, or by admitting it, confessing to God and others, and receiving God’s grace and mercy.  When we self-justify, we teach our children to hide sin, explain it away, deny its existence, or blame others.  When we as parents, practice authenticity and vulnerability by confessing our sins, we model to our children the gospel, and how the power of the gospel works out in everyday life.

We need to ask for our children’s forgiveness when we have wronged them.  When we say “I was prideful, I’m sorry I said that, will you forgive me?”, we live out the gospel.

We need to allow them to see us confess our sin to our spouses, and allow them witness the grace and healing that comes through living out the gospel.  Our families should function as redemptive communities, where we regularly confess sin, repent, ask for forgiveness, and experience fully restored relationships.

Authenticity is the practice of being honest about who we are before God and others, and is the lack of posturing and pretending.  This is who we want to be, and who we want to teach our children to be.

We need to work very hard to not perpetuate the delusion to our children that they can achieve perfection.  We are not good; they are not good.  That’s why we need Jesus.  We need to live in truthfulness and humility.  We don’t have to live a life of posturing and pretending, denying our sin, and fearing our failures.  We need to receive God’s love every day for our sense of worth, and we need to confess, repent, and receive God’s grace every single day.   We need to live in dependence on God.

James 5:16 says, “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.”  Confession should be a regular part of our lives, if we don’t think we have regular sin to confess, we are experiencing self-deception, and we’re not looking deep enough at our motives and thoughts.

  1. We must provide a redemptive gospel community for our children.

When our children sin, we must not distance ourselves as if we can’t relate.  We need to identify with them.  We are sinners too.  Sin is a human condition.  It is a problem that’s a part of our very nature.  There is no sin that our children will ever commit that we are not capable of as well.  As we admit that we are alike, we convey our need and excitement for the gospel, because it is our only hope as well.

We don’t respond to sin with “How could you?”  As if it’s such a shock that a Christian would sin, or so out of the ordinary.  We are humbly aware of our own sin.  We understand their inner struggle, because we have been there and we would be there, apart from the amazing grace of God.  If we want to reflect the love and grace of God, then our children need to know that there is nothing that they can do to cause us to lose our love for them.

Both Galatians 6:1 and 2 Tim. 2:25-26 paint a picture of the one in sin, as being caught in a trap and in need of rescue, and both verses mention that this rescue must be done gently.

Home and church should be a space where it is safe for our children to be vulnerable and acknowledge failure.  A space where we respond with calmness and grace, and the promise to walk with them through their struggles, rather than judging and condemning them.

We must not have a “life as a final exam relationship” with our children, where they are constantly evaluated and critiqued, where there is no room for making mistakes and being human. The belief that we must be perfect to be acceptable, drives us into denial of our sin, and keeps us from ever experiencing the grace of the gospel and transformation of our hearts.  God does not expect us to “know all the words”, he does not expect us to get everything right, he does not expect perfection, he accepts us based on the work of Christ.  God’s unconditional acceptance makes it safe to admit our sin, face it, confess it, repent of it, and grow from it.

Home and church can be a gospel community where we live out the themes of grace, forgiveness, deliverance of sin, reconciliation, new life, and hope. When we extend the grace of Christ that we have received, to our children, we train them to live honestly and in the open and fully dependent upon God.

Personal Growth

We Don’t Have to Know All of the Words

Sandra

I work as a Para-educator teaching children to read, and we do something called a reading record where we listen to a child read a few pages of a book, and we mark all of the words that they miss.  I have a second grader who I have worked with for two years, whose name is Calvin.  He is a cute little blond boy with a round face and crooked teeth.

So one day I was doing a reading record on Calvin and he mispronounced the name Jose’.   He said “Josie.”  So I marked it wrong.  Calvin stopped and asked “Why did you mark that wrong?”  So I told him, “In Spanish the J is pronounce like an H.”   Calvin answered, “I don’t want to speak Spanish, I want to speak English and I read it the right way in English!”  He started crying.  He took off his little glasses and was trying to wipe away all of his tears. “Calvin, why are you crying, it’s OK to miss a few words, nothing is going to happen because of this test.  You don’t have to be perfect.” I told him.   He said “But I want to be perfect.”   I said “But Calvin no one is perfect, that’s impossible.  Do you know that adults don’t know all the words?  Did you know that when I’m reading, I come to words that I don’t know, and I have to learn new words?”  His eyes got big, and he said, “Adults don’t know all the words?” and I said “No, No one ever learns all the words, we are always still learning, no one is perfect.”  He sniffed, wiped his eyes, put his little glasses back on, and started reading again.

Somehow, at some point, Calvin came to believe the lie, that in order for him to be acceptable or “enough”, he had to know all the words.  For him to have value, for him to be “good enough”, he had to get everything right.  And we as Christians, can unconsciously believe this same lie, that in order for us to be acceptable, valuable, or “enough”, we have to get it all right.  We have to measure up.  We know cognitively, that we are “saved by grace”, but we often live as if God is happy with us when we get things right, and disappointed in us when we don’t get it right.  We live as if perfection is possible, and that if we could only achieve it, we would be acceptable.

In the following blog I want to offer just a couple of suggestions that might be helpful as you take on the task of leading children into a daily dependent walk with God.  I will post the first 3 points today and the last 3 points some other time.

  1. We need to do our own inner work.

The main thing that you bring to the children that you lead, is the person that you are becoming.  The person that you are, is what will be reproduced.  I’m sure you’ve heard it said, “more is caught than taught”.  So it’s important that we do our own heart work.  We can’t give children something that we don’t have ourselves.  We need to know that our value comes from God’s unconditional love for us, not from the things that we do, or from the things that we have, or from what others think of us.  Our value is a gift from God, it can’t be earned, and it can’t be taken away.  We are at all times loved and accepted by God.  When we are secure in Christ, our hearts are full, and we have a storehouse of resources to pour into the hearts of those around us.

  1. We must find our own value in God

A fullness and security in Christ begins with knowing our identity in Christ. What I mean by that, is that our value comes from God’s unconditional love for us, not from the things that we do, not from the things that we have, and not from what others think of us.  Our value is a gift from God, it can’t be earned, and it can’t be taken away.  We are at all times loved and accepted by God.  We are never more or less valuable than anyone else, so there is no need for comparison.  We are always “enough” in Christ, we don’t have to earn it or prove it, it’s just a fact.  We don’t need any other dependencies to fill us.  God meets our need for love.  He meets our need for acceptance, He meets our need for security, safety, significance.  He is the source of Life, and he completely fills us to over flowing, so that we can give out of our fullness.

So we need to ask ourselves “what am I looking to for my sense of worth, or my sense of being “enough”.  And then we need to do the hard work of transferring all of our dependencies to Christ.  We may look to relationships to meet our need for love, we may look to money and possessions for a sense of safety and security, we may look to our talents, success, career, positions, intelligence, or competence for our sense of value, or feeling like we are “enough.”  We need to recognize these things and transfer our dependency to God, and allow Him to meet all of our needs, and to be the Source of Life that he is meant to be for us.

Your kids will grow if they see you growing and transforming.  As you grow in security in Christ you will naturally become less judgmental, you will become offended less often, you will not be as easily angered, you will be able to apologize, and your children will be drawn to that.

The reason that we are easily offended is because we are insecure, and we need people to believe certain good things about us to feel like we are “enough,” and when they don’t it really hurts.  But when that need is met in Christ, we know we are enough regardless of what others think, and we free others to have their own thoughts and opinions.

When we get angry it is more often than not, about our self-concept, rather than what someone actually did to us.

Sometimes when we are insecure, we bolster our security by comparing ourselves to other people (my beliefs are better than theirs, I’m more talented than they are, I’m not as bad as they are).  Children learn by watching us.  If they see comparison, judgment, pride, and insecurity in our lives, they pick up on it.

Children are watching how we take correction and failure. They are learning from us about judgment and comparison, pride and insecurity.  And we are teaching them where to find their value.  As you grow in your understanding of who you are in Christ, He will transform your character into his likeness, and children will catch that from you.

  1. We must teach children that their value is in God

We need to be careful what we are leading our children to believe about their identity.

Sometimes, we can accidentally teach our children, that their worth is found in their achievements.  We praise our kids for good report cards and for performing well in sports.  What we praise, teaches them what makes them valuable.  Ask yourself if you celebrate who your kids are, or what they have accomplished.  As Joby Martin puts it, we are un-gospeling our children when we lead them to believe that their worth is found in their achievements.

We need to gospel our children by calling out their God given identity in Christ.  We need to encourage them with the worth that is bestowed upon them as humans made in the image of God, not from the things they have done.  We need to be very careful not to invite our children onto the treadmill of performance.  We need to frequently remind our children, that their dignity and value are gifts that cannot be lost by a lack of talent, success or praise.

Personal Growth

Rogue Motivations

Sandra

Have you ever had an experience where someone accused you of having poor motives when you felt sure that your motives were good?  You were positive that you did not intentionally determine to do anything with poor motives.  Did you ever realize later that they were right?

In an episode of Project Runway All Stars, a designer named Helen was asked to tell the judges about a dress that she had designed.  She said “I was more concerned with creating an actual textile.”   “I didn’t want to take the crafty route and just glue everything on to a muslin base.”  “There’s no way that purple or orange is going into this looking like a clown dress.”  “I felt like it would be a cop out to hot glue to muslin.”  (Camera pans to dresses on right and left that are orange and purple and have stuff glued to them).  One of the other designers whispers, ”Shaaaade.”  When they all go to the back room, no one moves to make room for Helen on the couch.  Someone says to Helen “You undermined everybody else to make yourself look better.”  Helen looks shocked and hurt.  She asks, “Why would I say anything rude about any of you people?”  Her emotion grows, she stands up and shouts almost in tears, “Like, why would I do that!?”  She walks away and then says in tears, “I respect all of you guys, the last thing I would want to do is offend anybody.”

It seems obvious by watching her reactions that she really didn’t think that her motives were to throw others under the bus; she really hadn’t intentionally set out to hurt or offend anyone.  But it is also very clear that she did make others look bad to make herself look good, and we all saw it.  So the question is how could she have done something so obviously devious and yet kind of not known that she was doing it.

I think it is because we don’t know our own motives (1 Cor. 4:4-5).  There are lies that we believe that we are not even aware of.  These beliefs shape our motives.  We act on them subconsciously and don’t even notice that we are doing it.  Our character is a mixture of good and bad and it can show itself without our purposeful decision to act.

Helen did say all of those things with wrong motives just like they said she did, but she didn’t consciously determine to hurt and discredit people; she wasn’t fully aware of her own motives.  Most likely, if she is at all introspective, she recognized that she did do something that was shady.  And ideally, even though she didn’t consciously intend to hurt anyone, she can take responsibility for the fact that she did hurt them.  And hopefully she was humble enough to apologize.

It really hurts to be accused of poor motives.  And it damages our pride to accept responsibility for things that we didn’t fully mean to do.  We need to have an accurate view of what it means to be human to be able to navigate tricky situations like this.  We need to understand that we are a mixture of good and bad; never only one or the other.  We are in a battle with evil and it deceives us with lies.  But we don’t have to be perfect to be acceptable to God.  We are at all times acceptable and “enough” even if we are not “good”.  This security in Christ frees us to be humble enough to recognize our faults and ask for forgiveness from others.  An ego that is secure in Christ has nothing to lose by admitting our faults.

The best thing we can do when someone points out that we hurt them is to acknowledge that we don’t know our own motivations and that sometimes we do things that we didn’t even know we were doing, and admit that we did hurt them, and take responsibility for the damage and apologize for the pain that we caused.

Another application of this is to go easy on others when they hurt us.  People do things and say things that hurt us, but they don’t necessarily do things to hurt us on purpose.  Allow people the freedom to be human.  Don’t villainize people for one mistake.  Seek reconciliation and growth rather, than retribution.

The goal of the Christian life is Christ-likeness; the transformation of our souls. We can’t solve our character issues by focusing on our behavior.  We have to look deeper and uncover the heart.  We have mixed motives and multiple motives for everything we do.  If we are going to uncover our unconscious belief system, it will require purposeful and honest introspection.  The transformation of our hearts will result in reflecting the character of the God who created us.

 

 

Blogs, Relationships

He’s Not as Strong as You Thought

Sandra

Deep, intimate, meaningful connections only happen when two people are able to let their guards down and be completely vulnerable and real with each other. They must feel the freedom to be honest about who they really are and all of their true thoughts and feelings.

What is it that keeps us from having deep and intimate relationships?  I think the best answer is: Self-protection.  Why do we need to protect ourselves?  Because we are not sure that it is safe to be ourselves.  Why do we need to believe that others think well of us and love us to expose our true self?  Because we are afraid that someone will conclude that we are not “enough.”  We are insecure and we believe it might actually be true.  We need to know that we are safe and loved before we can be willing to let our guard down.  It is not safe if others are constantly pointing out our faults or judging us for our mistakes.

A woman may think her husband is confident and secure, and so she points out whenever he is wrong or makes a mistake, but he is not strong and secure.  He lives with self-doubt every day.  And he will never be safe enough to take off his mask and be vulnerable, if she doesn’t find grace and compassion.  Every human soul is fragile and must be treated with gentleness and respect.

I noticed a pattern in our marriage.  Whenever I would bring up something that my husband could work on, he would defend himself and try to convince me that he was much better than I believed he was.  I concluded that his behavior meant that he thought he was perfect and never did anything wrong.  So I would redouble my efforts at pointing out all the ways that he falls short, to prove to him that he was not perfect.  Of course my behavior would invite him to continue to deny any wrongdoing because it seemed that I was making him out to be way worse than he actually was.

Then one day I had the opportunity in a counseling session to witness the mask coming down, and what was revealed was shocking.  He didn’t think he was perfect, or even good.  He had an inner critic inside his head that was constantly condemning him for imperfection.  He lived with chronic self-contempt.  On the inside he was not strong and self-assured, he was actually filled with insecurity.

I had mistaken insecurity for pride.  I don’t know if I was the first to make it unsafe for him to be vulnerable with his insecurities or he was the first to invite me to convince him of his human imperfections by his defensiveness, but either way once I understood that he had insecurities just like me, it changed everything.  I realized that I had become a very unsafe place for him, I had joined in with his inner critic against him, rather than joining him in his journey toward the truth of his security in Christ.

I starting having grace for my husband when I saw his walls come down and he admitted to having fears and insecurities, and that he wasn’t perfect.  That’s when I was able to stop defending myself against him and the lie that he thought he was better than me.  I began to have compassion for his inner critic.  I started to see that I was just as sinful as he was.  All the things that he did that I didn’t like, I did too.  I wouldn’t admit this before or see it before because I was too busy self-protecting because he was so self-protective towards me.

There is not a person in this world that is not wrestling with insecurities on the inside.  Even people who appear overly confident have insecurities.  Pride is a cover-up for insecurity.  We are all trying to seem like we are secure on the outside, but it is only a mask.  We all wrestle with thoughts that we are not “enough.”  We fear that others will look down on us.  What we are really afraid of, is that their judgment might be right and that we might actually not be “enough.”  So we self-protect.  We put on a mask and project a version of ourselves that we think will be acceptable to others so that they will think that we are “enough” and then we can believe that we are enough.

When someone says something that makes us feel bad about ourselves, we become angry and want to fight it because we believe that it is not true.  But at the exact same time we all believe deep down on the inside that it might be true, and that’s why it hurts so much.  We fear that if it is true, then we are not “enough.”  The pain comes from what we believe inside, not from the words spoken by others.  We are deeply insecure.

We believe “I am not worthless!!” And at the same time we believe, “I might be worthless.”  We are dependent on the thoughts of others to validate our self-worth.  We give others WAY too much power.   We need to take it back and give all of the power of determining our worth, to God.  When we realize that people’s thoughts about us don’t determine our worth, we are more free to be vulnerable with others and have authentic relationships because we are no longer dependent on them for our self-worth.

If we want deep and intimate relationships, we need to take off the masks and stop self-protecting.  We have to both reveal our fears and insecurities, and make it safe for others to do the same.  This means having constant grace and compassion for the failings of others.  People need to know that that they are safe and loved regardless of their behavior before they can venture to put their masks down and be their authentic selves.

When you experience being loved by someone who knows all of your insecurities, deepest fears, and inner thoughts and motivations, then you have experienced true intimacy.  Intimacy is to know each other fully, and to experience full acceptance of each other, completely unmasked.  When we cover and hide our insecurities, we perpetuate the hiding in others.

We can begin a new cycle.  Our vulnerability, grace, and lack of judgment can give others the freedom to be their real authentic selves.  We can find true intimacy.

 

Blogs

The New Kingdom is Backwards

Sandra

Jesus teaches principles in the Bible that are the opposite of the principles of the world that we live in.  These principles teach us the way that the Kingdom of God will function.  They show us a way to live that brings Life rather than suffering and pain.  We were created to live according to these principles.  As followers of the King, we can begin living according to these radically backwards principles right now.

Here are six of Jesus’ backward Kingdom principles.

The first principle is: Honor Others Above Yourself (Rom. 12:9-10 Jn. 15:12-13, Phil. 2:3-4).  Honoring others above ourselves means to put others’ needs and desires ahead of our own.  Instead of sacrificing others interests to make ourselves happy, we sacrifice our interests to make others happy.   Jesus demonstrated this kind of other-centered love by giving up his life for us.  We were made for self-giving, other directed love.  When we are self-centered we are less of ourselves.  We are not who we were created to be.  God knows that the only way that we, who have been created in His image, can have true joy, is if we center our entire lives around others, instead of ourselves.  However, I think that this is only possible if we are getting our needs met in God.  We all have needs for love and acceptance, but we were created to get our needs met in God and then to give ourselves sacrificially to others.  And I believe that loving others selflessly from the abundance that we have from God, absolutely does give us true joy and happiness.

The second principle is: Put Our Security in God Rather Than Money (Matt. 6:19–34; Luke 12:29-34; 1 Tim. 6:6-10 and 17-19; Heb. 13:5). Jesus instructs us not to worry about food, or our bodies, or clothes. He also instructs us not to love money or try to get rich, but to just be content with what we have.  The Bible says that the reason we can have contentment is that God is with us and he will not leave us.  The truth is that money will not care for and protect us.  Money provides false security, but God provides true security.  The Bible not only teaches us to be content with what we have, but also to be generous and willing to share with those in need.

The third principle is: Love Your Enemies Rather than Repaying Evil for Evil (1 Pet. 3:9; Rom. 12:17-20; Matt. 5:38-44; James 4:11-12: Matt. 7:1-5; Luke 6:37-42; Rom. 2: 1-4; John 8:7).  Jesus instructs us to bless those who insult you, turn the other cheek, and pray for those who persecute you.  We are taught not to judge others because we are just as guilty; and judgement is not our role.   This is extremely backwards according to our culture.  Our culture believes that we are entitled to retribution for offenses.  But, we were not created to judge and punish one another.  God is the only one who has the authority to judge.  Laying down our entitlement to judge and punish others actually leads to deeper and healthier relationships.

 

The fourth the principle is: Lose Your Life to Find It (Matt. 10:37-39; Matt. 16:25; Jn. 12:25).  This principle teaches that we must give up our dependence upon anything other than God, for our significance, safety, love, acceptance and purpose.  The examples that Jesus gives are family and relationships.  But there are many things that we depend on besides God.  Some examples are success, money, love and approval of people, appearance, intelligence, competence, etc. We must transfer our dependence from other things to God, to be able experience the true Life that God offers.  God is the Life Source that we were created to depend on.  All other life sources lead to chronic insecurity, comparison, and disappointment.

The fifth principle is: Serve Others Rather than Be Served.  Use your power and authority for the benefit of others (Matt 20:24-28; John 13:12-17; 1 Peter 5:2-3; Eph. 5:22-29). Jesus teaches us not to “Lord it over” people.  “Lord it over” means to act arrogantly, as if you are better or more important than others and to use your power to domineer over others.  Jesus taught that those in authority should use their power to serve others, not to serve themselves.  Jesus exemplified this by washing the disciple’s feet, a dirty job that those in authority don’t normally do.  Jesus always treated all people with respect and dignity, no matter what their station in life.  This is a very backward way of thinking.  In our culture, once someone gains power, they believe that because they have earned it, they deserve to use their power to make things go their way and protect themselves from scrutiny and accountability.  They believe that if those under them want things to go their way, they will have to earn it as well.  But God has given us the resources of power and authority for the purpose of bringing life to everyone and everything around us, not for our own glory.  We were created for giving to and serving others, not for centering around our selves.

And the sixth backwards principle is: Look Out for the Weak Rather than Yourself.  (James 1:27; Isa. 1:17; Matt. 25:37-40) The Bible teaches that Kingdom people look after orphans and widows, feed the hungry, clothe the poor, care for the sick, and visit those in prison.  All humans have value and dignity and we are all one people.  We are created to be a community of people, not simply individuals.  Those of us who have strength and means must look out for the weak and poor.  When we deny others we deny our own humanity.

Blogs

Physical Future?

Sandra

I used to believe that the next life would be a purely spiritual existence.  I thought that when I died, I would go to heaven and have a spiritual body and live in a spiritual world, and that death was an escape from all that was physical and corrupt.  I saw our bodies and world as only temporary.  As I have studied the Bible more, I have come to realize that the next life will actually be a restoration of heaven, earth, our bodies, and relationships as they were originally created to be (Isa. 65:17-19; 2 Peter 3:10-13; Heb. 11:16; 13:14; Rev. 3:12; Rev. 21:1-22:5).  The new earth is described in the book of Revelation as a physical place with rivers, and trees that yield crops of fruit, and cities, and streets (Rev. 22:1-2).  This is very similar to the Garden of Eden described in Genesis (Gen. 1:29; 2:9-10).

God’s Kingdom was vandalized and nothing in this world is working according to the way it was designed to work.  But God promised to one day redeem things back to the way they were supposed to be.  He promised to send a Savior who would restore the Kingdom and bring back peace, justice, and righteousness (Isa. 9:6-7).

The Gospel is the announcement that God is now fulfilling the promise He made to restore everything back to the way that it was created to be.   With the Birth of Christ, the Kingdom of God arrived!  Jesus came into the world to make all things right.  The Kingdom of God has come into the world, and we can be a part of it.  Anyone who chooses to follow Jesus as their Lord and Savior becomes part of the new Kingdom.  We do this by turning to Jesus alone as our Source of Life.  We become children of God, and we join Him in restoring all of creation back to what it was originally intended to be.

The fact that the future Kingdom will be physical, has serious implications in the way I live my life today.  I used to think “Why recycle, we can’t save the planet, its going to burn anyway?”  Yes, it is going to burn, but if the future Kingdom is physical, that means that the physical world has value.  Same for our bodies, we might think, “I’m  going to die anyway so why take care of my body?”  But if we will have physical bodies in the future, then our bodies have value and physical life is valuable.

The physical world and our physical bodies matter.  Following God is not just about our spiritual lives. Part of joining God in restoring the world, is to recognize the dignity of all human beings made in the image of God, restore justice to the oppressed and marginalized, care for the diseased and dying, provide community for the isolated and lonely, cultivate the natural creation through science, art, and gardening, and share spiritual joy with those alienated from God.  This is how we live out the Good News of the future Kingdom.  This is the beginning of the Kingdom now.

In the book The Road to Missional, Michael Frost said,

“If mission is the alerting of people to the reign of God through Christ, our mandate is to do whatever is required in the circumstances to both demonstrate and announce that kingship.  We feed the hungry because in the world to come there will be no such thing as starvation.  We share Christ because in the world to come there will be no such thing as unbelief.  Both are the fashioning of foretastes of that world to come, none more or less valid or important than the other.” (Michael Frost, The Road to Missional, quoted in Dwell p.79)

“Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them.  They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.  He will wipe every tear from their eyes.  There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Rev. 21:3-4).

 

Blogs

Why a Ceremony?

Sandra

We were standing in the hallway as Ivy, the wedding coordinator, was lining us all up in the correct order to take our part in the wedding ceremony.  In that moment it occured to me, “this almost feels like we are playing parts in a play.” Is all of the ceremony of a wedding necessary? Why do we go through all of the effort to act out all of the parts of a structured and formal wedding ceremony?  I think ceremony is incredibly valuable because it reveals the meaning of the truths that it represents. Symbols and rituals are things that point us to the intersection of Heaven and Earth, the place where spiritual meets physical (Rom. 8). Ceremony brings focus and attention to things that are deep and significant.  Ceremony causes us to personally experience those deep meanings and truth. Without the ceremony of a wedding, we would never witness the radiance of a bride as she enters the room in a beautiful dress on the biggest day of her life, and we would never witness the tender emotions of an awestruck groom overwhelmed with love and joy at the sight of her.  We would never know what that feels like.

God meant for a wedding ceremony to be a picture of the day that we see Him face to face and live with Him forever and ever.  Every time we act out a wedding ceremony it is a beautiful reminder of that reunion day.  When we see the bride, in all of her radiant beauty, we experience what God experiences when he looks at us.  When we see the groom’s reaction to the Bride, we feel with him and experience how we are seen through God’s eyes.   When we witness the covenants that the bride and groom make, we are reminded of the covenant that God has made with us.  Yes, ceremony is necessary! What a beautiful reminder of God’s love for us!

 

Theology

Motive Matters

Sandra

As I prepared to become a parent, I thought a great deal about my parenting philosophy.  I thought about all of the different methods of discipline and the purpose of discipline.  I thought about what outcomes I wanted to achieve through discipline. And I thought about what kind of motivations I wanted my children to have for doing the things they do.

I realized that I wanted more than just specific outward behavior.  I decided that my goal was not going to be to control my children’s outward behavior.  I decided that I would not motivate my children through guilt, manipulation, or fear. While these motivations may result in short term behavior management, they do not result in long term convictions of the heart.  I came to the conclusion that what I wanted for my children was for them to develop their own personal lifelong commitments to love, truth, and the value of other human beings. I wanted them to be motivated from the heart by the desire to cultivate life in all situations.  And I wanted them to understand that God’s way brings life and that God is the source of Life.

Here are Some quick examples of the different types of motivations.  Let’s take stealing. You could motivate your child not to steal by telling them that they could go to jail, you would punish them, you would be angry, they would embarrass your family, and it would make them a bad person.  These motivate through guilt, fear, and shame. Or you could teach your child that every person has dignity, value, and worth and that when we take something from someone we are not honoring the dignity of a human being. Also, if we as parents treat the child with dignity and respect throughout her life, then she experiences being valued and respected.  She learns her value and therefore recognizes the value in others. Her motivation to not steal is to honor the dignity of others rather than fear of punishment or shame.

Take drug abuse as another example.  You could motivate your children through guilt and fear, or you could explain to them the destruction that drugs bring to our body, mind, and to our relationships and families.

When children understand and believe at a heart-level the truth of something, they don’t need any outside force to make them do the right thing.  But if they don’t internalize and believe something at the heart-level, they will only continue to do the right thing as long as the external consequences are threatening enough.

Over the years as I have thought about these concepts in respect to my children, it has given me insight into the different ways that we can be motivated to follow God.  Many people are motivated to follow God out of fear.  They are afraid of going to hell, or they are afraid of God being mad, or disappointed, or leaving them.  Many times this is exactly what other well-meaning Christians encourage them to feel.  They may also be afraid that other Christians will judge them or look down on them.

But my question is what does God want us to be motivated by?  Why does God want us to follow Him? Why does he want us to behave a certain way?  Is it because he just wants complete control over us for His benefit? If so, maybe He does motivate through anger, guilt, and shame.  But maybe He wants us to follow Him because we were made to be in relationship with Him.  Maybe He knows that being in a relationship with Him and receiving His love, grace and acceptance is the fuel that we were made to run on as humans.  Maybe He made us and knows how we were designed, and what ways of living will bring death and what ways will bring life. Maybe He is actually motivated by love, and maybe He wants us to be motivated by that love.  John 3:16 says that because God loved the world so much, he sent Jesus to die on our behalf to save us, Romans 5:8 says that God demonstrated his love for us by dying for us, Ephesians 2:4-5 says that because of His great love for us, God made us alive in Christ even when we were dead in transgression, Titus 3:4-5 says that when the kindness and love of God appeared he saved us, and 1 John 4:9-10 says, “this is how God showed his love: He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him.”

As I read the Bible, what I see is a God who is motivated by His love for us.  I don’t see a God who is motivated by selfishness or anger. And I believe that God expresses His love for us throughout the Bible because that is how He wants us to be motivated.  God wants us to understand that He loves us and knows that we were made to be dependent on Him for Life. He knows how we are designed and the ways of living that bring life rather than death.  He wants us to flourish and he wants to show us how.  As we decide to enter into a reconciled relationship with Him, He wants us to do it because we see His goodness and the truth that he reveals about ourselves and about life.  He doesn’t want us to pray a prayer and try to be good because we are afraid of punishment.  Consequences are mentioned in the Bible but I don’t think that they are meant to be a scare tactic or threat. I think God simply wants us to know the reality of the consequence of our actions.  I think many people take those portions of scripture and make them the focus of the gospel.  When we overemphasize consequences, we make that the main motivation, and that is too shallow of a vision of the Life to which God is calling us.

As I think about how I parented my children, I wanted them to do and understand certain things because I loved them so much.  I wanted them to understand that the things that I taught them bring life and not death. I did discipline and I did give consequences for their poor choices but it was always motivated by love, never by anger.  Discipline was an aspect of my training but not the focus.  I used discipline very sparingly.  It was always to help them to learn what is true, loving, and life-giving.  I had no intention of controlling them for my benefit.  I taught them for their own benefit.  If we can learn to parent in a benevolent way, how much more must God be a benevolent Father?

Maybe it is easy to understand that God loves us and forgives us of our past when we are first saved, but many Christians struggle with understanding that God still has the same love and acceptance for us when we sin even after we are saved.  They switch from being motivated by love and truth to living in fear of rejection and condemnation for their behavior.  But God’s love does not change based on our behavior.  We can be secure in God’s love and acceptance; we don’t have to live in fear.   God’s love for us is based on grace and mercy not on works.  There is nothing that will cause us to lose our place as God’s child.  God invites us to Life.  He shows us a picture of who we really are and how things were meant to be.  When we let Him, He transforms our hearts.  A different way of living naturally flows out of a changed heart.  A changed heart doesn’t need to be motivated by fear.  Fear motivates us to use will power to change our outward behavior, but heart transformation is a change of all of our most deeply held beliefs and values on the inside.

If you are thinking, “but what will cause us to be ‘good’ if we have nothing to fear,” maybe you haven’t experienced how life-giving God’s love is, and how living according to God’s design brings life and flourishing.  When you understand these things in the depth of your heart, it is a whole different motivation.

 

Theology

Why do we Struggle to Flourish?

Sandra

The first step in overcoming an obstacle is identifying the nature of the obstacle.  I used to believe that even though I was a Christian, there was an internal war going on between my old nature and my new nature.  I believed that there were two parts of me, one part of me that wanted to follow God and another part of me that did not. I believed that this was the source of the battle.  But the Bible teaches that our old self was crucified and that we are no longer slaves to sin (Rom. 6:6, Gal. 2:20), we are new creations (2 Cor. 5:17), and that we have a new self (Eph. 4:24 and Col. 3:10).  If we as Christians are no longer slaves to sin and we are made new, then what exactly is the nature of that continued “battle” or ”struggle with sin” that many people describe as a regular part of their Christian life? How can we properly interpret our experiences in light of the biblical teaching concerning sin?

Adam and Eve: before and after deception

Adam and Eve lived in perfect relationship with God and dependence upon Him. They trusted Him to lead them, and to give them what they needed, and to rightly judge all things.  They had a human nature with a free will. They were free to choose sin but they did not have an inborn inclination toward sin. Sin is anything that is a corruption of the way that we were designed by God to function.  Adam and Eve trusted God to tell them what was good and life-giving, and believed and obeyed Him. They were dependent upon Him for Life, and life was good (Gen. 1-2).

But even though Adam and Eve did not have a sin nature, they did have the ability to be deceived, and when they believed the lies that they were told by the serpent, they became deceived and everything changed (Gen. 3:13).  When they were deceived into believing that they could find Life outside of a relationship with God, they experienced a type of death. This death was not physical death, but spiritual death, which is the separation from the Life source that God was to them.

They experienced a corruption in their nature. They received the knowledge of good and evil and with it the task and propensity of judging between good and evil for themselves. This led to death because they were not designed for this role (Gen. 3:7,10-11, 22).  They were never meant to judge themselves or each other. They were not made with the capacity to judge accurately, and they were never meant to write the rules about how life was to be lived. They were designed to be dependent upon God and His good and just direction, provision, and leadership.

Sin Nature

Everyone born after Adam and Eve inherited a sin nature (Rom. 5:12).  A sin nature is an inclination to rely on oneself for life and defining good and evil, rather than living in dependence on God.  Their sin nature ruled them. They were not able to recognize their need for God as a necessary part of their flourishing as human beings (1 Cor. 2:14, 2 Cor. 4:4, Rom. 6:20; 8:7).  Living apart from God led to death. They could not see the slavery and the death that it was bringing (Rom 6:20, 7:5, 8:6-8). Death manifested in their relationships and their view of themselves.  But most of all death manifested in the empty ache that results from having needs that only God can meet but not having them met by Him. They cut themselves off from the source of Life and Truth. They ceased to function according to their created design. They experienced guilt, shame, anxiety, doubt, worry and fear.

Rescued!

But, God sent His Son to rescue us (John 3:16, 1 Jn. 4:9:10).  Our belief in, and acceptance of Jesus’ death on the cross, rescued us from our slavery to sin (Rom. 10:9-10).  We are now free to follow the Spirit of God (Rom. 8:12-13). We are no longer blind, we are no longer deceived, and we are no longer dead (Luke 4:18; John 9:25; Rom. 6:9-10; Titus 3:3-5).  We are no longer under judgement; and shame no longer has any place in our lives (Rom. 8:1; 10:11).

Salvation is a rescue from deception!  Our eyes are opened to our broken, sinful, ruined state and our need for constant dependence upon God (John 3:21).  We recognize our need for God’s love, grace and acceptance as the source of our identity and security. We recognize our inability to return ourselves back to our original design without God’s transforming power.  As Christians we don’t become “good,” we see the truth that we are not and never will be on our own. We are still full of sin because we still have lies buried deep within us that drive us to live in ways that do not bring Life.  These lies need to be uncovered with God’s transforming power. This process of sanctification will take the rest of our life.

Finally the answer to the Question: What is the nature of our struggle with sin?

When we accept the gift of salvation we are restored to our true nature, one that is dependant upon God as the source of Life.  But just like Adam and Eve, we are susceptible to deception. Satan continues his pattern of deceiving humans with lies concerning how we as humans are to relate to our Creator God, but we are aware of Satan’s schemes now, and we don’t have to believe him.  We have the ability to sin but that doesn’t necessitate a sin nature. So, I think a better description of my continued struggle is not a struggle with my sin nature, but with the lies that I believe. We are in a spiritual battle. Satan’s weapons are lies.  The Bible calls him the father of lies (John. 8:44; James 4:7). First Peter 5:8-9 says, “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him.” And we are told in Ephesians 6:11 to “Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.”   As we defeat lies, we fight evil and begin to thrive in life.

One of the major tasks of spiritual growth is to allow the Holy Spirit to reveal the lies that I believe and replace them with truth (Jn. 8:32, 2 Pet. 1:19, Jn. 17:17, Rom. 12:2, Eph. 4:17-21).  God doesn’t just change us into fully flourishing human beings overnight. He is not interested in outward behavior. God wants to transform our hearts through the long process of uncovering lies and revealing truth.  This is an enormous and complicated undertaking. I have been collecting lies since the day I was born. The web of lies that I believe are all tangled up together, and each lie leads to the next. It is difficult to discern where one lie ends and the next lie begins.  And some of the lies are buried under the lie that I don’t believe them. This army of lies that I believe are the reason that as a Christian I continue to struggle with sin. This is the part of my salvation that I have to work out (Phil. 2:12-13). As I allow God to show me the lies that I believe, together we weed them out one by one.  This will be an ongoing process of growth throughout my entire life.

It was belief in a lie that brought sin into the human race.  It was belief in Jesus that freed the human race from judgment and slavery to sin.  And it is our beliefs that continue to lead us to either death or life. See Romans 5:17, “For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!” When Adam and Eve were deceived by the serpent they embraced a whole litany of untruths concerning the character of God, how we are to relate to Him, and our own identity.  

The list below is a small sample of the lies that Adam and Eve believed, and we too are deceived into believing:

I can be God of my own life

I don’t need any outside Source, I can be independent of The Source

I can trust myself more than God

I am a more reliable source of truth than God is

Life can be found in sources other than God, I can gain life apart from God

God might hold back things from me that are good

God might not have my best interests in mind, He might not be good

I need to experience things for myself before I know that God can be trusted

I can get knowledge and wisdom apart from The Source

I can judge good and evil

Lies that we believe about God:

God only loves me when we I am good

God is angry at me when I am bad

God leaves me when I am bad

God does not accept me when I am bad

God rewards good behavior with good circumstances

Lies that we believe about ourselves:

I am bad

I must earn my worthiness

My actions determine my worth

I am unlovable

Lies we believe about relationships:

I do not need relationships

I am the judge of others

Other people can fill my need for love

Lies about life:

If I am good at things, then I have value

If I accomplish things for God than I am acceptable

If I am good than I can earn favor in God’s eyes

If I am successful than I am valuable and worthy