True Confession: I Want Your Glory

“I am the Lord; that is my name! I will not yield my glory to another
 or my praise to idols.” – Isaiah 42:8 NIV

This morning I went for a walk for exercise and while listening to a song from Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir (one of my favorites by the way), I got a revelation that was rather disturbing to me.  I know the gospel is supposed to be disturbing, at least if you allow it to get in you.  But I was extremely uncomfortable with this one in particular because it was something that I already knew intellectually, but I realized in this moment that it had not really penetrated my heart.  The song was called “Helpless” and it’s about the fact that we can’t do anything without Jesus.  I have said this in the past and thought that I meant it.  But today I wasn’t so sure I meant it.  And to make matters worse, if I’m really honest, I don’t even know how to mean it.  Because I don’t want to be helpless, and yet, Scripture tells us that helpless is the place to be if you really want God, because helpless is the truth. 

            But what is also true is that my perception of what it means to be helpless is not something I aspire to.  I take pride in my ability to be capable and independent.  As a matter of fact, that is when I feel most equipped to help others, when I feel like I am adequate because of my own strength and ability.  But in God’s eyes, that means nothing because any strength and ability I have comes from Him.  I have nothing on my own.  I am truly helpless.  But I don’t want to be.  And therein lies the rub.  Therein lies the sin.   Because my heart’s desire is to do the things that I purpose in my heart in order to receive the glory that belongs to God alone.  And I’m afraid that I just might spend my life trying to fight a losing battle:  to steal God’s glory. 

            It’s pretty subtle how it creeps in.  Maybe it’s a twinge of pride when you see someone doing something you feel you can do better.  Or maybe it’s fishing for a compliment on something you did.  Or maybe it is the anger you feel when someone overlooks your contribution to something.  Maybe you just can’t stand not being good at something. Or maybe you are like me and feel like you didn’t do much work for something, so you should never speak about it too often because God is the one who did this amazing thing in your life, but all you can say is, God did it, not me.  So you downplay it.  That’s if you mention it at all. 

            Someone asked me how I was feeling recently and I said bored.  Then they began to rattle off an entire list of things that I did just in the last four months and asked how in the world I could be bored.  And I realized in that moment that I felt bored because I didn’t plan any of it.  So I didn’t feel like I did anything.  So I was bored because my planning and seeking after goals makes me feel accomplished.  It makes me feel like I am doing something in this life.  It makes me feel like I would deserve the praise for what I do.  It gives me grounds to give advice to others who might want to do what I do.  Afterall, it’s pretty boring to tell somebody to seek and trust God more.  That’s a short conversation.  It’s better if I can give you a series of tasks to complete in order to get the results you want.  And then, of course, you can let God co-sign. But you will get the glory for it in the end.  Which might be what you want.

            But truthfully, when God directs my life, I can get a little bored.  Not because I’m not doing stuff, but because God is allowing me to come face-to-face with the condition of my heart.  I want His glory.  I want people to see me instead of Him.  And so I become a hater when God takes over and my plans go by the wayside.  And I don’t point to Him in a truthful way, but in a false humility that is masked in remaining quiet about what God is doing.  And in our attention-seeking-personality-driven society, it feels contrary to admit that this is even a problem.  Everybody wants a name that means something.  Your credit record is about the power of our name financially.  We have website addresses that are our names.  We talk constantly about branding ourselves.  But our true brand is nothingness.  At least without God.  With God, we are amazing! But as a person who confesses Jesus Christ as my Lord, I have to recognize that my life is not my own.  Even when I want it to be. 

            There is a time to feel a sense of pride about an accomplishment.  I certainly don’t think God robs us of those opportunities in life.  I’m not talking about those moments. I’m talking about something deeper.  Something that lies within us and manifests when we least expect it.  Something that is easily masked by religious activity and good deeds.  Something that can eat away at us spiritually and we not even know it.  And this is why I had to confess it.  Because I want to be intimate with God.  And I need to be made aware of those things that keep me from getting closer to Him, even though those things will never keep Him from me.  This is a hindrance from my end of this relationship.  And I don’t want it to be there anymore now that I’m aware of it.  And God already knew it was there.  And that’s comforting.  Because He loves me anyway.  It doesn’t stop God from loving me, or from choosing me, or from using me.  And Him bringing this to my attention is not so that I can now create a list of ways to try harder and do better.  It is simply to confess and let God change my heart.  So, I now invite God into these moments in my life where this might be an issue and ask Him to have mercy on me and show me a new way to handle it.  Maybe then I won’t feel so bored when God is a work because I will be able to join in with Him with a new attitude instead of being a hater because I didn’t come up with the plan.  At least I hope. 

That You May Propser

“Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers.” – 3 John1:2 KJV

If you and I are friends and we were corresponding via email today, I may open my email to you with some type of greeting that speaks about my hope for things going well in your life.  Maybe I'll say, "Hope all is well with you!".  Or maybe, "I pray that things are well for you and the family." Or maybe, "Peace and blessings to you!", or something to that effect.  In either case, it is simply my greeting to you, my friend, communicating my hope for things going well in your life at that moment.  If, because of my position in the church, you take that as a pronouncement of divine blessing and justification for you to pursue the accumulation of wealth, then you may be taking my greeting a little too far.  But, hey, maybe that's what you needed to hear.  And that was just the encouragement you needed to go after what you want in this life.  More power to you.  

Greeting his friend, Gaius,  is what the Apostle John was doing in his 3rd letter in the Bible when he penned the scripture above.  It was a standard ancient greeting that was actually a prayer that all in the person's life would be well.  Today, so many prosperity gospel preachers take this scripture and preach a sermon about how this scripture justifies the believer's pursuit of health and wealth. Somehow, "I pray all is well with you" became "God wants us to be healthy and rich!"  How did that happen?   

I don't know where that started.  But I pray for it to end.  This upcoming week, I will be participating a a conference on this very issue in the church worldwide.  Christian leaders from around the globe who have taken a public position on the issue of prosperity theology in some form, will be gathering in Sao Paulo, Brazil to discuss this very topic.  We will be talking about the prosperity gospel movement and its' implications on the churchs' teaching on work, injustice, poverty, suffering and other areas.  I was invited to attend because of an article I wrote for PRISM Magazine a few months ago entitled, "The Bankrupt Theology of the Prosperity Gospel.":

http://issuu.com/prismmagazine/docs/prism-winter-2014/43

I must admit, I have no idea what to expect from this trip, which makes me a little nervous.  Will it be a bunch of church leaders from around the world shouting at one another, some in favor of this particular theology, others against it?  Will be be a big sing-a-long with us all holding hands and talking about how much we love Jesus?  Will we all be converted to prosperity preachers at the end?  God only knows. I'm having a hard time still believing that I got invited, let alone having something to contribute to this important conversation.  

In preparing for this trip, I had to reflect on what I actually believe about God and prosperity.  Where do my beliefs come from? Do I think that God wants everybody to be rich?  No, I don't.  Do I think God wants everybody to be the picture of health?  No, I don't.  At least not on earth.  I believe that these things are true in the afterlife, but down here, there are some things we need to wrestle with as we progress towards the return of Jesus.  I know that theologically, those are loaded statements.  And I probably won't do any of them true justice in a short blog post.  But seriously, if we think that God wants EVERYBODY who believes in Him to be rich, why weren't the apostles?  Are we more beloved than they?  If everyone was supposed to be the picture of perfect health, what do we do with passages of scripture like John 9:1-3?

"As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.

Or 2 Corinthians 12:7-9?

"Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given 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.

We always want a reason for things when life seems unfair.  Oftentimes, because we want to know how to prevent pain and suffering from happening to us. It is so much easier to deal with stuff when we believe that we can come up with a formula to prevent it or replicate it.  If I give 10% of my money to church; go to church every Sunday; pray twice a day; tell somebody about Jesus; stay away from smoking, drinking, fornication, lying, stealing, and any other "sin" I can think of, God will give me the good life I want without pain and suffering.  That is often preached as the formula for "abundant life".  That is, if you have enough faith.  Because there are a lot of people who follow this formula, and something happens that was supposed to be avoided and they are told that they must not have enough faith.  Maybe they just don't believe enough.  And this is the problem I have with the prosperity gospel.  It creates formulas for obtaining things from God, which, to me, goes against the gospel of grace.  How can we preach Jesus and the prosperity gospel at the same time?   Jesus talked about how much those who follow him would suffer and have to sacrifice, yet would find life in the middle of those things.  It may or may not be material. The prosperity gospel asks people to sacrifice financially in order to obtain material blessings from God.  It says that the demonstration of God "favoring you" is material wealth.  There are so many things wrong with that, to me, that I couldn't even begin to address it here.  

But I am traveling to learn, as well as to share.  There will be those among us who believe in this particular theology and preach it.  Maybe they can give me some insight into how they can with a clear conscience, look people in the eye and tell them that God is going to give them money or heal their disease, without hearing that from God.  And then require that the people give them money in order to make it come true.  Does anybody else have a problem with that?  Am I flying solo on this?  Well, I'm about to find out.  I am a first hand witness to what God can do through a person's financial life.  I also know what God can do in a person's health.  But I know that it is God's prerogative to choose who God will and will not heal or make rich.  There do exist some healthy, rich atheists in this world.  Did they sacrifice to God to make that happen?  Probably not. There are also some faithful, sickly, impoverished people as well.  Is God not with them? 

So what do we do with this?  I guess I'm about to find out. I would like to be both firm and open. I'll be sure to write a post-trip reflection and give you an update.  And if the prosperity preachers convert me, please send a PayPal offering to me at shaylear@gmail.com.  I'm sure you'll be blessed! :-) 

 

Inside Information

"Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them." - Matthew 5:1

It's been a full week of my attempt to practice being less busy for Lent.  Some days are good.  Some days not so much.  But I am aware.  And that awareness is helping me to see better.  I feel more empowered regarding my time.  I realized that I don't have to function on other people's schedule.  I know that might sound like a no brainer to some but for whatever reason, I had been functioning more on other people's schedule.  Something powerful happens when you have a chance to get away from the crowd and focus on Jesus a little more.  You see things differently.  He gets to teach you things. No matter how long you have been walking with him, Jesus can always show you something new.  But it may not happen in the crowd.

I know that there are lots of churches and ministries that thrive on crowds.  Megachurches with thousands of members; ministers with millions of followers and TV evangelists with millions of "partners".  But to me, there is something special about that personal time with Jesus that I just don't get in the crowd.  Maybe it has more to do with the introverted part of my personality (I'm about 55/45 extrovert to introvert).  For the extroverts of the world they may find joy and revelation in the crowd.  I invite strong extroverts to tell me if that's true.  But even the strong extroverts I know still like their "special time" alone with Jesus. 

Being a follower of Jesus, you will be called away at times to just be with him.  Away from the noise and demands of the crowd and just alone with Jesus.  I love in Scripture when it tells us that Jesus saw crowds and went away.  It's like the complete opposite of what we think is the way to "do ministry" today.  People want a big crowd.  Lots of followers.  But making disciples rarely happens in a crowd.  It's hard to get those special impartations in a crowd.  Following this first passage in the 5th chapter of Matthew is Jesus' famous Beatitude sermon.  That sermon was not given to the crowd. We might take that for granted now since the bible is so widely published.  But that wasn't for the masses.  It was for those who came away with him.  They got some really important inside information about how to handle life. 

I know that the time I spend with God alone in precious to me.  And staying busy with stuff gets me away from that time and then I miss it.  But if we are truly following Jesus, we have to move away from the crowd when he does. In that time comes the insight you will need to get you through whatever you are facing now and in the future. So whatever you gave up for Lent, or even if you didn't participate, take some time away to learn more about God.  You won't regret it.  You need it. 

The One About Lent

"Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry." - Luke 4:1-2

Today is March 5, 2014.  Apart from being the birthday of the woman who gave birth to me (Happy Birthday Mommy), this year it is the start of Lent.  It's that time of year when people all over the world vow to stop smoking, drinking, eating sweets, cursing, or whatever else people give up to honor the season leading up to the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus.  For the past two years, I haven't given up anything for Lent.  I hadn't felt compelled to do it.  And maybe that makes me a bad Christian.  But I realized that the "stuff" that I was giving up for 40 days was stuff that I probably shouldn't be doing anyway.  But for 40 days a year, I give it up and then on day 41, I'm right back at it again.  So I didn't want to keep doing that. That's not the actual purpose of this season.  Do you know the meaning of the season of Lent, for real?

Lent is part of the Christian calendar.  Throughout the year, there are certain seasons that (some) Christians observe to have a spiritual focus.  I like the Christian calendar, and I started linking my devotions to it last year.  It can force you to read passages of scripture that normally get overlooked. It can bring some discipline to your devotional life.  It can help you connect with God and the bigger purpose of what it means to follow Christ.  It's been helpful to me.  The seasons are:  Advent (early December-December 24th), Christmas (12 Days from December 25th-January 5th, which is where we get the 12 days of Christmas song from), Epiphany (January 6th-Ash Wednesday), Lent (40 days until the start of Passion Week), Eastertide (50 days from Easter Sunday to Pentecost), Pentecost (goes until the start of Advent again).  Lent represents the 40 days in the wilderness Jesus spent prior to the start of his ministry. We sacrifice something because he did. As his followers, Christians are (supposedly) seeking to relate to God intimately, like Christ did. And the Holy Spirit was the one who led Jesus into the wilderness. 

So this Lenten season,. I am asking myself, where is the Holy Spirit leading me?  And when I go to the place that I am being led, what will I be hungry for when the time is done?  In my normal lent sacrifice, I would give up something and hunger for it at the end of the 40 days.  Giving up sweets?  On day 41, I'm having a chocolate chip cookie.  Giving up alcohol?  Hand me a martini on day 41.  So I end up still hungering for the same thing I gave up.  No transformation. No change.  Nothing is really different.  Maybe I shed a few pounds, but they'll probably be back.  So how do we practice Lent for real?  Like sacrifice something that you won't actually hunger for again, so that you draw closer to God, who is what we are really hungry for.  That doesn't happen by simply saying no to something.  You have to say yes to something else.  Like time with God.  For every craving you get for the thing you sacrifice, maybe you have a scripture that you meditate on or a prayer you utter in those moments to remind yourself of your true hunger: intimacy with God.  I think my sacrifice this year is my busy schedule.  I've been led to many opportunities and chances to further my career and do many good things.  But in turn, my time with God has diminished.  That's not ok. So, I'm going to try to give up being busy this year for Lent.  Let' see if I'll hunger for a busy schedule again after it's done.  So if I say not to an invitation, don't take it personal.  I'm trying something new for Lent.