The Fallacy of Self-Sufficiency

There is a subtle theological issue that plagues many Christians.  The issue is that some believe that God desires for us to handle our sin or that God desires for us to make ourselves more godly through praying more, studying better, and giving more generously.  The lie at the heart of this stream of Christianity is this: God wants you to handle your affairs and He'll help you fill in the gaps.  Another way to say this would be something like this: if you try harder you'll be a better Christian.  Again, another way to say this would be to say: God is most pleased with me when I am taking care of my business best.  For fear that I'm not expressing this well enough I will say it even again: what God wants most from me is my best effort.

Each of these is a variation of the same theme and each is an articulation of the same subtle lie. Girding this theology is the unspoken thought that Jesus saved us so that we could finally be self-sufficient enough to take care of the rest of our lives.  The little bits of sin that linger after salvation, well, they'll be taken care of through grit and strength of character or because we are so committed to disciplined morality in our lives.  The thought, often un-expressed, is that Jesus did what I couldn't with sin so that I would be able to do what I could in ridding the rest of my life through my own strength of will.

I'll call this The Fallacy of Self-Sufficiency. In this form of Christianity, the highest form of godliness is self-control, togetherness, composure, and internal fortitude of character.  Sin is thought to be something needing to be managed personally.  The valuation of a person's Christian experience is based upon whether the individual can articulate the right doctrines and project a life that is composed and generally sin-free (quack like a duck, waddle like a duck, then must be a duck).  Externally the Christian who lives under the fallacy of self-sufficiency will project an aura of togetherness, strength, knowledge, and ability.  But internally they will continually feel weak, embittered, and anemic as the limits of their sufficiency are continually brought to their senses in the accusations of the Enemy; sin will remain un-repented, and the greater traits of love will escape them.

I want to say this directly: this is a lie.

God wants a people who are whole-heartedly dependent upon Him for every single breath, every single thought, and every single action.  He wants a people that are so recklessly devoted to Him that they would be destroyed unless He shows up.  It is not about trying harder; it's about trusting Him more with the most hidden parts of ourselves, the grimy bits we never let anyone in to see.  God wants us to so rely upon Him for our strength and our salvation to the utmost, that if He is not who He claims to be then we are, as Paul asserts, deserving of the most pity.  (There is so much more to say but I will save that for another day)

It is not about becoming more self-sufficient in Christ.  It is about becoming more God-dependent in Christ.  Let us always keep this before us as we strive to live lives that bring Him the highest praise!

Utter Dependence

Scripture makes a great case for utter dependence.  In fact, it would not be an overstatement to say that man only seems to get into trouble when they are not utterly obedient upon God (think Adam, Eve, et al).  Therefore it seems that a brief definition of what this utter dependence looks like is a useful and relevant endeavor.

Utter dependence means praying with the first breath of the morning and the last breath at night.  It means that we will think of everything that we do as an act of obedience and faithfulness.  It means that every good thing that comes our way will be thought of as a blessing for our good.  It means that every difficult thing that comes will be thought of as a blessing for our good.  It means that we will seek out ways to love our neighbors throughout the day.  It means that we will seek out the Lord to direct our every step.  It means that we will go the extra mile for every person we can and it means that we will exhaust ourselves for their good.  It means that we will abandon ourselves upon the Word of God.  And it means that we will love, truly love.

This is just a snapshot of utter dependence.  Let it become our heart's song and our life's goal.

Turning to God in times of Weariness

How far would you have to be pushed for you to be pushed too far?  Or, how many times would you have to be patient before you ran out?  Or, at what point would you finally throw your hands up and look a person into the eyes and say: "Enough! You've gone too far and I cannot help you any more!"

Sometimes it can be a healthy thought experiment to consider these things in lieu of God and all His gracious majesty.  I recently thought of such things during a particularly challenging day.  Work had been crazy and unstable.  The drive home was backed-up with rush hour traffic.  My night's plans were thrown off by life's improvisations.  And by the end of the night, I was both exhausted and irritable.

As I was lying in lying in my bed, trying to decompress from the erratic jar of my day, when the Holy Spirit spoke into my heart and my head.  To be honest, the voice was comforting but unwelcome at first, because when He spoke, I was slammed deeper into my mattress with conviction and awe.

We, every human being that has ever lived, behaves like a tired, upset, moody, crazy toddler to our Heavenly Father.  Yet He, in His infinite grace, never runs out of patience, never gives up, and cannot be pushed beyond His limits because He has none.  When the Holy Spirit spoke this to me, I was astonished at how easily I found myself bogged down by my limited patience and the meager issues that seem so big.  Truly, sometimes a healthy dose of godly perspective is all a person needs to turn back to God and receive some much needed peace.

Dancing in the Rainstorms of Life

Robert had never even been out of the country when he took his new position in Tokyo, Japan.  He was a product of southwestern America, where rain is scare and the sun is hot and clear.  Because of the obvious cultural distance and because he didn't want to be alone, Robert found a local man about the same age, Akiko Saitou, to be his roommate.

All was going well until the first earthquake and rain.  Japan is, essentially, a volcanic island that has never fully stabilized.  And, to a foreigner, this can be quite disconcerting, particularly when most of the locals view earthquakes and storms with a certain sense of apathetic reverence.  However, when the first real tsunami-like rains hit, Robert was dumbfounded.

In fact, Robert spent that first rainy season learning how to duck under canopies with ninja-like speed.  He thought that he was starting to fit in except that Akiko would always point and laugh at the ridiculousness exhibited by his wimpy, American roommate.  This sort of display happened every time the rains came with their tempestuous force, so that by the end of the season Robert had determined to find out why the Japanese were so calm during such torrential downpours.

Finally, on one such rainfall, after Akiko's usual chortles at Robert's unusual fear of rain storms, Robert went to Akiko and asked him, "Why is everyone here so calm when the sky is falling?  How can you be so cavalier when the rain is pounding like this?"  Akiko smiled at his roommate and, with a laugh, said in his decent but broken English, "My friend, you can spend all your life trying to dodge  and hide from the rain.  Or, you can simply learn to dance in it like the rest of us!"

Storms of this life are continuously stirring and pouring over our shoulders, filling our eyes with water and our hands with puddles.  A storm is anything in life that can break us down and damage us with its constant pommeling.  The trick is, as shared by Akiko above, to stop wasting so much energy fearing the rain and come to the place when you can dance in it.

The essence of this is sincere devotion and faith in God.  If we, when under stressful duress, will simply trust that God is who He is.  Needless to say, this is a daily if not momentarily exercise in faithfulness.  This will equip us with the lenses of God and His holiness that can make the most difficult of life's decisions seem as whim and frivolity compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ.  Let us then take this mind among us to depend on God so as to dance in the rainstorms of life!

Godly Dimples like Golf Balls

An aeronautical engineer once remarked that a perfectly smooth golf ball would not fly further than 130 or 150 yards.  Over a century ago, golf balls were made by stuffing a small leather sack with as many feathers as could fill a top hat.  The feathers were stuffed into the leather pouches boiling hot and as the feathers cooled they expanded while the leather tightened, created a hard, dense ball.  After some time, golfers began to notice that the balls were nearly useless at first, as they would fly erratically off the tee.  However, once the balls had become dented and imperfect, it was discovered that they flew more controllably and predictably.

The golfers got wise and begin to "age" their golf balls before use in order to make them fly better.  The trend continued and modern golf balls are manufactured with between 250-450 dimples.  The dimples drastically improve the aerodynamics of the balls and make their flight paths predictable and useful for the game of golf.  It seems odd to think that it is in fact the perceived "blemishes" and "distortions" on the balls that makes them purposeful at all.

Humans are like golf balls designed by the heavenly ball designer.  He has put certain dimples and, what we would call, imperfections into our design but only to increase our flight paths.  Each of these is for His purposes and, ultimately, our good.  If we could recognize that God desires to use us for a specific purpose and that He has designed us in such a way fitting that purpose, then we will take joy in who we are, knowing that God has made us a certain way for His reasons.

The psalmist writes in Psalm 139 that, "You (God) formed my inner parts, You knit me together in my mother's womb," and "I am fearfully and wonderfully made.  Wonderful are Your works and my soul knows them well."  If we remember this reality when scrutinizing ourselves or critiquing our exteriors, we will be able to breath and to thank God that He has created us in His perfect way.  Let us then cling to God, pressing into Him so as to receive His revelation as to what purpose He has created us for!

Overcoming the Holy Language Barrier

In preparations for my freshman year of college, like everyone else, I was required to take a number of placement exams to ensure that I was placed in the proper courses.  One such exam was for language and because I had completed two years of German in high school, German was the exam I choose to take. Due to the fact that the material was fresh in my memory and that reading a language is far easier than speaking or hearing it, I tested quite well.  More accurately, I tested well beyond my ability and was placed in a course accordingly above my head.

The first day of class, actually my first college class, I confidently strode into my advanced-level German course to a shock.  The professor greeted me in German, handed me the syllabus, and motioned for an open desk.  For the next ninety-five minutes, the professor spoke exclusively in German, going through the syllabus that was written in German, and explaining the first assignment due next class period in German.  Needless to say, my confidence was not bruised but shattered as I sheepishly snuck out of the door and straight the the Registrar's office after class to drop the course and, hopefully, to never be in that situation again.

Although I had met the entrance requisites for the class, because I lacked the necessary capacity to receive the different language, I was wholly unable to understand little if anything of what was said by the professor.  Because of my deficiency, communication was nullified and the barrier was so distracting that any potential for understanding also voided.

Unbelief and sin resigns all of humanity in a state much like I was in my German course: unable to understand or comprehend the voice of God because of our deficient inability to hear His Spirit due to the effects of sin.  Though God constantly speaks to us, we are left unable to hear Him.  This what Paul indicates, that the things of God are as a foreign language to the fleshly man, and He is not able to understand them and His frustration at this barrier will cause derision and disdain for the things of God (1 Cor. 2:14).

Towards the end of Jesus' life accounted in the Gospel of John, there is an episode that expresses this (John 12:28-43): a voice from heaven came down and spoke but the crowd present was not sure if it was thunder or the voice of an angel; they couldn't understand.  In the next set of verses John indicates that these people cannot see the things of the Lord because they are blind to Him.  

Only the regenerate heart can discern and understand the things of God.  Only the repentant person is able to hear God's voice with clarity and comprehension.  This should compel us to bend our knees in faith to the Lord, knowing that only when we seek Him in humility will we be able to receive and comprehend His voice.  Let us then turn to HIm in repentance and faith so as to hear and to understand God!

A Study of Blessing

A young man was sitting in a whicker chair alongside of a lake on a particularly sunny, summer afternoon.  He breathed in the air in satisfaction.  The coolness of the breeze that swept across the water was steady and satisfying, making this would-be hot day feel pleasant comfortable.  The lake glistened with pristine hues of shimmer across the lake's surface.  He sat in his chair, trying his best to take in the profound splendor of the day.  After a while, the young man becomes too overwhelmed with a sense of fulness, much like a glass that is overflowing might feel and he tilts his head back, lifts out his hands, and cries out, "Thank You, Lord, for this beautiful day!  Lord, You have blessed me with so much and all I can say is: thank You!"

In this hustle-bustle world, moments of sincere praise can be rare to come by, or seem too manufactured to trust.  However, to be sure, God has blessed us; we are blessed.  Truly, humanity is blessed beyond reason with a love and joy that is eternal and ever-full.  Unfortunately, being blessed is something we associate with material or with circumstance, as in: "God bless you," or "God blessed me with you," or "that was such a blessing."  And, although each of these statements is reasonable and farfrom insignificant, they do miss the mark in regards to blessing.

Blessing, in its truest sense, is dependent upon the One who blesses, He being God and God alone.  It is from God that all blessings flow.  That being said, the reception of blessing has, sadly, become mistaken.  Often times, we consider blessing to be a temporal felicity or a serendipitous occurence.  Howevever, each one of these fails to hit the nail on the head of true blessing.

Psalm 1:1-3 lays out true blessing.  In it, the writer indicates that delighting in the Law of the Lord, meditating on His precepts is true blessing. In a trues sense, knowing the Lord is blessing.  It is our relationship with God, restored through the broken body adn shed blood of Christ, that is blessing in its ultimate form.  In reference to temporal blessings, it would then be more accurate to say that they are the external effects of blessing, which is relationship with the Holy Lord.  In a sense, true blessing is the person of Christ in which all other temporal "blessings" are but a shadow of, as in, He is the raincloud and the others are but the droplets.

If we, then, take seriously this orthodoxy, our response to the temporal blessings should always be to praise the Blessing, which is Christ who has reconciled us to God. Eph 1:3-14 has Paul praising the Lord for giving every spiritual blessing under heaven, defined in terms of election, predestination, and faith.  All of these are the blessings of right relationship with the Lord, the ultimate blessing. 

Similarly, James 1:17 has James defining, in no abmiguous terms, that "Every good and perfect gift is from above," which is a clear indication that blessings are sourced from and in God.  This should, then, cause sincere praise of the Lord for every blessing for it is He Himself who is blessing in its perfect form.  Let us then take time to praise the Lord who blesses for all of His blessings that He lavishly bestows!

Education's Kingdom Purpose

In 1925, John Scopes, a high school science teacher, was held on trial for teaching evolution.  It was a national spectacle as the whole country witnessed a trial not focused on the laws of Tennessee, but rather the center stage was set for a vociferous debate between evolution and creationism.  And while Scopes was convicted, the trial having been won by the creationists, the war has been decisively won by evolutionists.  In truth, this battle had been fought and continually won for several decades before Scopes' historic trial as the modernists made headways at the academies and universities, and Christians continually retreated into fundamentalist anti-intellectualism.

Fast-forward to today when more of the population than ever is educated beyond high school and yet we live in a society that is wholly morally bankrupt.  The fear of the anti-intellectual fundamentalists was based on protecting the believing community from "giving in" to the pride and idolatry of modernism.  And while we fight a similar battle today, our enemy is of a different slightly different kind.  We fight against the pride, conceit, self-exaltation, and self-reliance that is espoused by the pursuit of education.

Because education instills a sense of personal confidence and self-reliance, an entire generation of educated peoples have come to feel that they have no need of God and no reason to depend on Him.  Needless to say, this is beyond disappointing, it is thoroughly sad.  In truth, what has occurred is a widespread misconception of the value and usefulness of education.  Education and the pursuit thereof are neither a substitute for reliance on God, nor an outlet for rampant self-exaltation.

Instead, education is meant to serve His purposes.  We become educated and we pursue education for the purposes of growing in our usefulness in His will.  The goal of education, from a Christian perspective, is to equip us to best serve the Lord and His will in our lives.  We should thus not fear formal education and the growth of intellectualism.  Instead, we should be on guard against pride instilled by the educational institution.  Additionally, higher education is not to ever be favored over sincere reliance on the Lord, but is to compliment our faith by equipping us for service in the Kingdom.  Let us praise God at all times and remember Him in all thankfulness!

Making Decisions in Light of the Lord

Decision making is a necessary part of life.  One can scarcely go a single day without having to make significant if not life-altering decisions.  Because choices abound and overwhelm, having a system in place for making godly and wise decisions is of great importance.  Luckily, we are not without guidance in this regard as the Bible offers clear teaching to help us.

At the onset, the pertinent word in reference to decision making is dependence.  For our decision making to be godly, we must depend on God.  Decision making dependence happens before the decisions are made when we are sorting through possibilities and choices.  At this point, the pre-decision stage, we need to rely on the Lord to help us to discern the way that we should go.

The Lord, speaking through the prophet Jeremiah, has this to say, "Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls (Jer. 6:16)."  The Lord says more, speaking through the prophet Haggai, "Give careful thought to your ways (Hag. 1:5)."  God wants us to be prudent and wise when facing decisions.  Evenmore, He helps us out by the indwelling of His Holy Spirit, who acts as our Counselor (John 14:16-17).

Because the Holy Spirit is to be our inner source of compulsion when facing choices, there is a devotional element to decision making.  In essence, our dependence on God at the front end of decision making comes down to relying on the Holy Spirit to guide our way and the faith that He will protect and keep us before and after our decisions have been made.

In the end, it is God who establishes our paths and keeps the sure (Pro. 16:9), which should cause us to trust in Him and commit to Him to secure our way (Pro. 3:5-6; Psa. 37:5).  The biblical account is unified and clear in this regard: before we make decisions we should depend on God for guidance and clarity to make wise and godly decisions while after we make decisions we should be faithful in depending upon the Lord to keep, straighten, and secure our paths.  Let us then seek the Lord for direction and depend on Him in faith to establish and secure every step we take!

The Judgement of Christ

Nobody ever wants to talk about judgement.  The whole concept makes people uncomfortable and fearful, rightly so.  But it cannot be simply ignored because of our fraught for judgement, to come at the end of the age, is a real future that will come for all of creation.  Judgement, plainly, is that moment at the end of history when God will finally and conclusively mete out His divine justice, holding every person accountable for choices made.

The common evangelical misconception is that believers will not face judgement.  To be frank, this is dangerous thinking and blatantly un-Scriptural (Matt. 13:39, 49, 25:32; Rom. 14:10; 2 Cor. 5:10).  The harsh truth is that in the end at Jesus' second coming, the Parousia,  everyone will be held accountable for his/her deeds.  This holds true for Christians as much as it does for non-Christians.  There are two points to be made in this regard:

First off, Christians need not fear judgement for we have an advocate who is seated at the right hand of the throne of God and intercedes on our behalf (Rom. 8:27; Heb. 7:25; 1 John 2:1).  This is a comforting reality.  It is true that Christ Jesus, because of His propitiative work on the cross, has become our true intercessor, having taken in His flesh the judgement due all mankind because of sin.

Thus the judgement every sinner deserves has been paid in full, that at the end of the age when the Father looks upon us in His holiness, Christ will He see standing in our place.  In this sense, judgement for Christians depend on Christ's salvific work and we will be judged righteous not because of any righteousness we have within ourselves, but because of Christ's imputed righteousness by faith.

The secondary sense of judgement is solely a Christian ordeal, and will not befall non-Christians.  Christians will be held accountable for how we live, for whether we persevere in faithfulness and to the measure with which we remain steadfast and secure in our faith through suffering and trial will we be judged (2 Cor. 5:10).  This should not be overlooked: we will be judged for how well and how thoroughly we've received and transferred the gift(s) that God has given us through His Son.

We should take this charge with the sobriety and seriousness that it deserves, acknowledging that how we live our post-conversion lives matter and will be weighed for its worth.  In this sense of judgement, Christians depend on Christ's sanctifying work to compel us to remain steadfast to will and to do for His glory.  Ultimately, God is good and worthy to be praised.  This holds true especially in His final and conclusive hour, when all creation will be brought to their knees before His glory.  Therefore, let us praise Him for His awesome and perfect judgement, and that we will be judged perfectly.  Let us also take heart that we will either be judged as ourselves or as Christ living within us.  Let us pursue the latter!

Put Your Self to Death

Putting your self to death is a significant and challenging doctrine of Christianity.  Paul speaks of it most directly, particularly in his epistles to the Romans, Galatians, and Colossians (Rom. 8:13; Gal. 2:19-20; Col. 3).  The difficulty with this concept is due to the intensely metaphoric language as well as the personal accountability the doctrine places on believers.

At the onset, parameters of dying to self should be laid out to guide this discourse.  The death of self can be reduced to the intentional separation from our fleshly self, in which we previously lived, for the expressed purpose of drawing closer to our renewed and reconciled spiritual self in Christ.  This should be the framework that guides our understanding of dying to self.

There are two basic parts of ourselves that we are putting to death.  The first part of self to be put to death is our previous self.  When we become Christians, through confession and belief in Jesus, we put to death our previous self in repentance and faith in order to turn to God.  This is so fundamental to the Christian life that if we have not taken this first step of putting our selves to death we should seriously examine the state of our salvation.  This part of the self that we put to death includes every previous bit and iota that had previously filled and dominated our life.

The second part of our self that needs to be put to death is our future self.  When we give ourselves to Christ, we are to place our plans, our dreams, and our desires into His hands.  This can be a very challenging proposition, particularly in a society that so values goal orientation but it is so utterly necessary for us to grow to be the people that God desires us to be.  We need to place everything in His sovereign, loving, and omnipotent hands, knowing that He is the God of all creation and the Lord of our lives.

Once we have accepted the reality and necessity of putting our old self to death, then we will be prepared to take the next steps of growth: putting on our new self.  Paul speaks of this concept very directly in Colossians 3, indicating that we are taking off our old, fleshly self and putting it to death and putting on the new self.  The new self is found and defined only in Christ.  It is in Christ, by Christ, through Christ, and for Christ that the new self is all about.  A correct term for the new self is "God-obsessed."  After we die to self and are risen anew to the Spirit, we should strive to live God-obsessed in every manner, word, and deed.  Let us then press forward to put our selves to death to be made new in Him!

Wisdom as a Matter of Reliance

There's an old adage,"When the going gets tough, the tough get going."  Many people subscribe to this method of manifest destiny and individualism when faced with the challenges of a life that can be unsure.  The pull-up-your-bootstraps tachnique for handling the difficulties of this life, though, is upon a presuppositional fallacy, namely that humans can handle life on their own.

Needless to say, if we break down this fallacy, it quickly dissolves to a more foundational flaw in thinking.  The foundational flaw is a misunderstanding of the character of God coupled with a misunderstanding of the nature between man and God.  God, as the infinite and omnipotent Creator, is the supreme source of all truth and knowledge.  Clearly, inside of this scope is the knowledge of life, known as wisdom.

Wisdom generally refers to the knowledge of living, how to live right.  In any situation that challenges us, whether emotionally, physically, relationally, or whatever, there is a right way to handle it, a correct method to overcome the situaton.  Wisdom then, defined, is the attainment of the correct and right way to live life, which is particularly relevant when life hits us.

The Bible equates the beginning of wisdom with the fear of the Lord (Psa. 111:10; Pro. 1:7; 9:10).  This fear is two-fold: reverance for who He is and dread at His power.  Often we understand the fear of the Lord in the former with a neglect for the latter but they are, in fact, infinitely inseparable and interelated.  The dread of the Lord arises out of recognizing who He is, His character and nature.  If we are to make the right decisions, then we have to base our decisions on this fear of the Lord, on wisdom.

Additionally, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, not its end.  The end of wisdom, though, arises from the beginning.  The fear of the Lord is a cause.  When we fear the Lord, that fear will motivate us to do one of two things: either we will run away from Him in terror, or we will run towards Him in love and reliance.  Wisdom's end is found in the latter.

Wisdom, then, is the actualization of belief.  When we believe and rely on the Lord, then wisdom is truly wise.  Dependence and reliance on the Lord is wisdom acting on the lives of the wise.  The wise are wise becuase of their utter dependence on the Lord.  If we are to become a people of wisdom, then we must rely on the Lord.  This must be operationalized in our lives, particularly when life throws curve balls.  How well we swing at those errant pitches has nothing to do with our ability, it is only based on the measure of our dependence on the Lord.  Thus, the old adage revised: "when the going gets tough, the wise turn to God."

For further reading: Isa. 59:1; Jer. 29:11-13; Psa. 28:1; 55:1; 145:18; see also the Book of Proverbs, particularly ch. 1-31.