god of Me

This week I did something I had been putting off.

I have traveled to Liberia a few times on mission trips and have a friend in Liberia named Wilfred. We call each other once in a while. About a month ago, he called me and told me that his community had been quarantined due to the ebola virus. They were not supposed to leave the house except to get food or water.

Anyway, I felt God convict me to send him some money.

And then I thought of the things that keeping that money could bring me. It could buy me some video games. A trip to a waterpark for my family. It could be buy me some meals out to eat. It could buy me this, and it could buy me that.

Because it was all about me.

Yet God kept telling me that He wanted me to do something for Wilfred. And I delayed. And delayed. God tried to convict me about how much I spend on cat food compared to someone I consider a friend in Liberia who lives in desperate need of some money. I wasn’t buying it. I wanted to use that money on myself (or my cat).

But then I had to start writing a message for a Gods At War series at church. In that series, We talked about the god of pleasure and asked where do we go for comfort? We watched a video with the woman dealing with the god of love and asked where do we go for completion. We talked about the god of money and asked where do we go for security. The god of power and who has control of our lives. Finally, we are on the god of me. This really is the god behind all the other false gods we have talked about. The god of me. Who do we worship? Ourselves? Or God?

As I worked through these thoughts preparing for this message, I couldn’t possibly write, asking you to no longer worship yourselves, when I was wanting to disobey God and worship myself and keep the money that I felt prompted to give to my friend . So I wired my friend the money that God laid on my heart to send.

But this struggle I was going through - this struggle to worship ourselves -- is nothing new to humanity. Paul, in his letter to Timothy, had this to say.

But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.  For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,  heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good,  treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,  having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. 2 Timothy 3:1-5 (ESV) 

That's quite a list. Paul's warning was just as relevant in his time as it is today. People will become lovers of pleasure, proud, and lovers of money. But the big, first one encapsulates them all -- they will be lovers of self.

We have this innate desire to worship something, and we all too often direct it toward ourselves.

Unfortunately, churches often conform to the pressures of society and morph the gospel into self-worship. Instead of churches being places that call us toward radical discipleship, encouraging us to consume differently, encouraging us to love the unlovable, encouraging us to strive for holiness, our churches dangerously teeter to becoming bastions of the self-help, motivational culture that America is inundated with. We go to church to feel good, rather than be encouraged to sacrifice. We like the warm fuzzies of worship rather than encountering God and being transformed during worship. And as soon as church fails to do what we want it to do, we're out. I think someone once said, "Ask not what you can do for your church, ask what your church can do for you."

It’s sad that our most popular Christian celebrity in America has transitioned from being Billy Graham, an evanglelist - someone focused on reaching the lost, to James Dobson in the 80s, a self-help psychologist, then on to Joel Osteen, a motivational guru.

I want our celebrities to be Mother Teresa, Shane Claiborne, or, even Billy Graham again. All the people that model sacrificing their own lives to living out this radical life of Jesus in our world. Maybe even better, I want our celebrities to be the unknown heroes in the local churches who are serving their church family and their communities day in and day out without any stories being written about them or any attention being given to them. These unsung yet essential heroes are made when people like you and me decide that we are going to follow Jesus rather than our own selfish desires. When we realize that following Him and being part of a church isn't about me; instead, it's about God. 

The world tries to steer us back to it being about me, and it infiltrates church teaching too. We want to hear that the gospel is about us, but this is not the gospel that Jesus taught.

In the 1500s, John of the Cross wrote,

    "Endeavor to be inclined always:
    not to the easiest, but to the most difficult;
    not to the most delightful, but to the most distasteful;
    not to the most gratifying, but to the less pleasant;
    not to what means rest for you, but to hard work;
    not to the most, but to the least;
    not to the highest and most precious,
    but to the lowest and most despised;
    not to wanting something, but to wanting nothing."
    —John of the Cross

Prior to writing this, John was working on reforming the church. Unlike the Protestant reformers, John was working on changing the church from the inside. This was known as the Counter-Reformation. Yet the reform attempts didn't always bode well for the reformers, especially for those pushing change away from institutional bureaucracy to genuine spirituality. John of the Cross spent nine months imprisoned for his reform efforts. He wasn't released though; he escaped. Yet he didn't remain silent. He went right back to attempting to implement the needed reforms. In the face of opposition and suffering, he continued pursuing Jesus and His kingdom.

Like John of the Cross, when we realize that following Jesus isn't about us and our individual happiness, we are willing to suffer for the cause of Jesus. It's the god of me versus the God who came as Jesus.

Paul touches on this in his instructions to Timothy, which we began reading earlier. Paul, while writing his second letter to Timothy, was facing dark times. He was in prison in Rome and appears to have lost hope for his earthly prospects. And, as we will read, he knows his time is short; he believes he is going to die. (And he was right. Tradition holds that he was beheaded during the reign of Nero.) But at this point he was being deserted by many of the people he converted (2 Timothy 1:15) because who wants to associate with one who the State is going to execute. At his first defense, nobody even stood by his side to support him (2 Timothy 4:16). It's from that place of loneliness, of seeing his candle burning down and being abandoned, he wrote this:

You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness,  my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra—which persecutions I endured; yet from them all the Lord rescued me.  Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,  while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.  [new slide]  But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it  and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.  All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,  that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:10-17 (ESV)

Following Jesus isn’t about me. It’s not about me getting what I want. It's about giving up everything for what God wants. Jesus modeled that in giving up his life through dying on the cross. Paul modeled that through giving up his life through being a martyr. That's what we have in this passage--Paul reminded his protégé to stay strong even in the face of persecution. We have the faithful throughout history who have done likewise. Yet we somehow think that following Jesus means that everything will get better and there will be no suffering in it for us.

It may be unpopular, but things may not get better. Many of you know this all too well. Someone you love dearly may have or suffered through Alzheimers. It's not going to get better on this side of the grave. Or maybe you or someone you love is suffering through a debilitating disease. It's not going to get better on this side of the grave. I don't know all of your stories, but I know that in a group like this some of you have experienced tragedy all too much. Things don't always get better. Sometimes they get worse. Tragically worse. But, it's true, it may get better, but I don't think we're implying when we say "It will get better" that we may have to die to receive the better.

Yet we want the better. And we want it now. This is the message of the god of me. This is the gospel of America. We think we deserve the better, especially if we're trying to be faithful to Jesus.

The idea that "things will always get better" just shows how inundated we are with concepts like the health and wealth false gospel in Christian circles. But the truth is that it may not get better. The situation you are currently struggling with may not get better. You may be sick, and it may lead to death. You may work hard and not prosper. But even if things don't get better, even if we don't get wealthy, we still serve a worthy King. A king who is worthy to serve whether or not things get better for us individually.

We don't worship God because of the presents; we worship Him because He is worthy. And when things are going well, we celebrate. We know things won't always be this great, but that doesn't mean we should ruin the good moments by worrying about their end. Celebrate the moment of beauty if that is what you are experiencing. Celebrate it without worrying about tomorrow.

And for those of you who aren't living in a moment of celebration, remember that He is there with you. He offers a supernatural comfort and peace where there should be no comfort and peace. He knows suffering intimately. The crazy, yet true, Christian belief is that something beautiful can come out of our suffering. Even in our darkest valley, God is still worthy of our worship.

Being a Christian and following Jesus, isn't about things getting better for us. That may happen. It often does. That seems to be the normal experience. I've seen crazy, unexplainable blessings come to people who start giving and are blessed in return. Who start serving, praying, and being part of a church family. I have never seen anyone give their life over to Jesus and not experience a sense of purpose and a better life in the here and now. God does bless radical faithfulness. But we serve a savior who was executed, along with most of the apostles who followed Him. Being a Christian is really about humbling ourselves and serving others--being Jesus' hands and feet in this world because His hands and feet were nailed to a cross for us. It's about being Jesus to everyone around us. It's about following the example that Jesus set and living that life for others. That little baby born in a manger in Bethlehem was going to face a lot of pain, discouragement, obstinate people, and death in His days here on earth. Who are we to think we deserve differently? Our suffering, when we ditch the god of self, is where we can join our Savior.

Research shows that the happiest aren’t those with most toys or those who are served. Those who are happiest are those who are willing to give up their possessions and time to take care of others. We were created to love others.  (http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/02/10/happiness.possessions/index.html & http://www.dreammanifesto.com/longest-running-study-shows-helping-others-makes-us-happy.html)

And, most importantly, we have the example of Jesus. He gave up his life for us. Setting the example that the will of God often breaks into this world through suffering.

The god of me says that we shouldn't suffer. That false god is to be avoided at all cost. This false god says that when we suffer, we are out of step with the will of God. But we know that the false gods of this world do not deliver. I want to show a clip that will reiterate that point.

I can't embed this video, so go and watch this Tom Brady video at CBS News.

If the false gods of this world could deliver, Tom Brady would have the answer. Money. Fame. Pleasure. Supermodels. Victories. Being the best in the world at what he does. He has had it all in the world’s eyes.

Yet the current rings don’t satisfy. The next one will be the best. Eventually, the next one will never come. And he will still have that hole in his life that needs an answer.

I wish that all of you could totally have the pleasures that you desire. I wish that you could attain the pinnacle of everything that false gods can deliver like Tom Brady has experienced. For on that side of attaining all that the earthly pleasures you desire -- when you have all the wealth, fame, and security that the world can provide -- you would be sitting there with Tom Brady and say “I don’t have the answer.” Because those things, although good and useful in their proper place, can never satisfy.

Now, I haven’t been given the opportunity to sit down with Tom Brady  and have a conversation with him about this. Maybe he will run across this. I doubt it. But if I could bend his ear, I would share with him that Jesus is the answer. It may seem overly simplistic, yet I know it's true. I know that because when I was lost and pursuing the ways of this world, my life was hollow. I was empty. But then I encountered a group of Christians who were living differently than the world around them. They weren’t living for themselves. They were living for Jesus. And through their example, I gave my life over to Jesus and became satisfied. Where I was blind, I could now see. Where I was empty, I was full. Where I was lost, I was found.

So I can't sit down with Tom Brady and tell him that Jesus is the answer, but I can share that with you because you have taken time out to read this article and get this far. Jesus is the answer.  He said so Himself.

Jesus said,

“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. John 14:1 (ESV)

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6 (ESV)

"And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." John 17:3 (ESV) 

It’s decision time. All these false gods of the world are competing for your attention. Including the false god of yourself. And Jesus is here whispering amidst the chaos, “Follow me.” Not just for your benefit. Not just so you can get to heaven. But because he has a better plan for your life. You can be part of his plan for this world, of making right the wrongs, bringing hope to the hopeless, bringing justice to the suffering. You can be part of His kingdom and His family.

The Law Is Obsolete - Give Me A New Law

We have a tendency to want law.

To begin, we're going to read through some of the laws of the Old Testament.

When a woman has a discharge, and the discharge in her body is blood, she shall be in her menstrual impurity for seven days, and whoever touches her shall be unclean until the evening.  And everything on which she lies during her menstrual impurity shall be unclean. Everything also on which she sits shall be unclean. And whoever touches her bed shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water and be unclean until the evening. And whoever touches anything on which she sits shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water and be unclean until the evening. Whether it is the bed or anything on which she sits, when he touches it he shall be unclean until the evening. And if any man lies with her and her menstrual impurity comes upon him, he shall be unclean seven days, and every bed on which he lies shall be unclean. (Leviticus 15:19-24 ESV).

 In reading  the Old Testament laws, we encounter  a lot of strange laws. Often, we, as Christians, like to ignore that the Old Testament has these weird and crazy laws. But you know what? Atheists don't ignore them. Nonbelievers don't ignore them. Typically, when you are talking with them about Christianity, these ridiculous laws from the Old Testament are things that come up.

So how do we handle these laws in the Old Testament?

Let's read a few more.

Six days work shall be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on it shall be put to death. (Exodus 35:2 ESV).

 Anyone do some work on Saturday?

I actually put together a bunk bed on Saturday. Should I be put to death? I went out to eat. Should the hostess, waitress, and cooks be put to death?

Absolutely not. We don't follow the law any more. If we did, we would be putting a lot of people to death.

For no one who has a blemish shall draw near, a man blind or lame, or one who has a mutilated face or a limb too long, or a man who has an injured foot or an injured hand, or a hunchback or a dwarf or a man with a defect in his sight or an itching disease or scabs or crushed testicles. (Leviticus 21:18-20 ESV).

 None of those people are allowed in the assembly the Lord. If we still followed this principle, we would exclude people with those issues from coming to church. But we don't do that.  

The Old Testament has a lot of crazy laws. How do we deal with them? What do we do with the law?

The Seventh Day Adventists still believe that we should hold to the law. You will notice that they still honor the Sabbath.

Some Christians still believe that we should celebrate the Old Testament festivals. I see some benefit in doing that. I spent one year at our church celebrating each one, yet Christians don't have to honor the ordinances of the law.

The most popular method, that we are more likely guilty of, is that we pick and choose which laws we want to keep and which laws we want to ignore. We disregard those laws we think are silly. We keep those laws we like. Who wants to be the crushed testicle or menstrual checker when people come to church anyway? Nobody wants to do those things, so we ignore it. But this is really a totally dishonest way to deal with the law. What is the process for picking and choosing anyway?

Our arbitrary method doesn't really make any sense. We accept the laws we like and reject the ones that seem a little weird. When we pick and choose laws, we get to decide what is important and what isn't. This isn't the way we should go about it.

In all this talk about the law, I want us to understand that the law was very important. With that said, we can go to the New Testament for guidance on how to handle the law.

So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. (Galatians 3:24-26 ESV).

 The law was our guardian until Christ came.

If you were living in the world before the Hebrews were brought out of Egypt and Moses was given the law, you would recognize that it was a vicious world. Maybe no more vicious than some of the places in our world today. Places that would benefit from the law just like the Hebrews benefitted from the law.

When you encounter a teaching like "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth," it helps to understand the world that teaching was given to. God gave them that teaching to prevent people from chopping off someone's head for stealing something. It was limiting retaliation and would stop the process of escalating violence. The maximum punishment for a crime could not be greater than the crime.

The law played a great role until Christ came. It was important. It kept humanity in check. It was intended to shape the people into being the people God wanted them to be, but it didn't always work. The people didn't follow the law the way God intended.

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota,  not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:17-20 ESV).

Jesus is teaching that the law is ending. But it's ending with its intended completion. Not abruptly or prematurely. The "all is accomplished" in Jesus.

The Scribes and Pharisees were people really good at following the law. They would seek to complete the letter of the law while ignoring the spirit of the law. That isn't just something unique to their times; we see it a lot in our society. Take bankers for instance. Not our local bankers building our main streets and financing our homes. I'm talking the stories we see in the news. Many of those big bankers will follow the letter of the law, yet they will find a way to avoid the intended purpose of the law.

This is why we have so many lawyers. Our society is filled with people who will follow the letter of the law while ignoring the purpose of the law. We need lawyers because laws need to be interpreted. People can find ways to wiggle around the letter of the law. And the unfortunate truth is that law can never stop abuse. We could write laws for nearly everything, yet some corrupt person would find a way to follow that law while avoiding the intended purpose of the law. In that case we just write a new law, and another corrupt person would come along and find a way to skirt that law.

We write law after law to create a just society, but we cannot prevent evil people from circumventing the law. Evil people will abuse the law while good people will honor the spirit of the law.

This is what we see with the Pharisess and the Scribes. They would follow the letter of the law. For example, the law told them to honor their parents, but they claim that they have fulfilled that law without honoring their parents because the honor due to their parents has been given to God. (Matthew 15:1-9).  There are always ways for people with corrupted hearts to avoid following the laws they don't want to follow. The Pharisees and Scribes found legal ways around all the things that God intended for them to do.

We're not really all that different.

That's the problem with laws. If we think Christianity is a group of laws that we have to follow, then we will figure out ways to legally get around those laws. We will fulfill the law to the minimum to enable ourselves to do whatever we want to do with the rest of our lives.

Christianity is not a bunch of laws. Jesus came to fulfill the law and bring the law to its intended ending. He came to bring something better.

In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. (Hebrews 8:13 ESV).

According to the writer of Hebrews, the old law is obsolete. But the zeitgeist of modern Christendom makes us feel uncomfortable saying exactly this. The writer of Hebrews is stating that we don't have to follow the law any more. Repeating this Scripture in the wrong circles will get you strange looks. I once had someone get very stern and irate with me over stating this very thing. There is something in our Christian culture in America that makes us not want to be freed from the law. Due to this, we are uncomfortable saying exactly what Scripture says. The law is obsolete. We are no longer under it.

One of my little daughters who is just learning to write wrote me a little note and handed it to me. It read, "I love mom and daddy." Love is the opposite of law. We wouldn't need laws in our society if everyone loved each other. Nearly every law is there to prevent people from behaving in ways that are not loving to each other.  

We no longer have the law. And if we are looking at it purely at what we are now obligated to do, we have it worse in a way. We now have the Holy Spirit guiding our life. In some morphed albeit true sense, this means that we have more laws to follow.

The Holy Spirit knows what you should be doing this afternoon, and He is going to prompt you. You need to do that prompting. The Holy Spirit knows what you should say to encourage your friend, and He is going to prompt you. You need to follow through on that. The Holy Spirit knows what you should tell your spouse, and He is going to prompt you. We must ask ourselves, "Are we willing to listen?" "Are we willing to follow?"

There is a guy in our church who was given a to-do list by his wife. And his wife posted on Facebook, "Made honey-do list for my hubby today to accomplish after his dentist appointment this morning. And he did everything on the list and more."

To-do lists are good. The husband in my church excelled with the to-do list from his wife. He jokingly said that he did it because he just wanted to eat.

Like the husbands joke, we often want to follow the law to just get the benefits that the law brings. The Pharisees followed the law because they wanted to be God's people. We sometimes follow the law to prevent ourselves from going to hell. We want benefits. And because we are just looking for benefits, we miss out on the blessing of actually being God's children.

God wants us to be more than just people who follow the law. He wants us to be in a relationship with Him. We would do well to remember that at all times.

I can't give you a list of things to do to please God like the woman in my church gave to her husband. Isn't this a great message? You've spent all this time reading to get to this point, and now I am telling you that I am not going to tell you what to do. I can't give you a list of do's and don'ts.

Many denominations make handbooks with lists of do's and don'ts. But there is always another thing that could be added to their books because we are unable make a conclusive and authoritative list of do's and don'ts. If that is what God wanted, He would have given us a handbook Himself.

With that said, I will give you a list of things that could help you improve your relationship with God. But don't make them laws. If you make them laws to be completed, you will miss the point. A list makes it easy to go through, accomplish the task, check off the list, and act like we are right with God. God doesn't want you to do a list; He wants your life.

A lot of the times, in order to please the people in the church who want to be minimal Christians, the church compromises and gives list. Instead of the people in church giving God their whole lives, churches are filled with people just doing the minimum it takes to appear Christian. But the harsh truth is that if we aren't giving God our whole life, then we really aren't Christians.

I was listening to a sermon where the preacher was talking about the kingdom of God. He was stating that the kingdom of God is this for you, and this for someone else, and this for the next someone else. You will get healing. You will get better. You will be able to cope with life. Generally, these things are true, but we flirt with a dangerous line we turn the gospel into just a benefit for us to receive.

The gospel can only bring its benefits when you truly surrender your life to Jesus. It's not a benefit if you just want benefits. It is a benefit when you truly surrender.

It's like when you love your wife. If you bring home flowers for some manipulative reason and she found it out, the flowers wouldn't count. But if you brought flowers home just to show her that you love her - not for any ulterior motives whatsoever, then they have their worth.

It's the same thing with God, except He knows our heart and can't be deceived. If we do what the law teaches and don't give Him our heart, it doesn't work. We may want the blessings of being God's children, but if we don't give Him our heart, then those blessing will not come.

Being right with God is not about checking off a list. So with that big disclaimer, here is the list I mentioned a little bit ago.

First, read your Bible daily. Reading the Bible helps you get in tune with what God wants for your life. The Bible is the inspired word of God. We encounter God through reading His inspired words. We must be careful though. We shouldn't go to the Bible to just get a list of things to do. Instead we should go to the Bible to learn about who God is and encounter Him. When we learn about who God is and combine that with listening to the Holy Spirit in our life, we will be the people God wants us to be. All too often, we just don't get into the Bible. Or we study the Bible to make it say what we want it to say rather than allow it to transform who we are.

Second, pray daily. Actually, we need to go beyond just praying daily and begin to learn to live a life of praying constantly. It's easier said than done. It's having a conversation with God. Not just us talking, but us listening. It's living in His presence. It's building a relationship with the Creator of the universe who for some mysterious reason loves us. Being a Christian isn't about following some laws; it's about being God's follower and, in many ways, His friend.

Third, do what you feel prompted to do. Actually live out the life God is leading you to. Especially the crazy things. God is leading you do things. I guarantee that. The more you listen to God, the more you hear His voice, the more you will be led to do the things God wants you to do. All too often, we just ignore what God wants us to.

I had a great high school baseball coach. He would take time to correct me when I would be doing something wrong. He would see my mistakes and take me aside to tell me how to improve. I would be pitching and do something wrong, so he would tell me what to change. One of those times that he pulled me aside he said, "You know, I spend a lot of time correcting you, Regan, because I believe that you can be better. I don't spend time correcting [and he pointed at a teammate] because he's not going to be better." God spends a lot of time prompting us. But if we aren't listening, it will be as if He isn't prompting us. We will not become any better. The less we listen to the promptings we hear, the more we shut off the pathways to hearing Him.

It's like a person who has had a stroke. They have to work on rewiring everything so that they can once again do all the things that they previously did. They have to develop different neural pathways to laboriously do the things that once came easily to them. Sometimes we are like that with God. We have hardened ourselves to His promptings so much that we no longer hear His voice. He doesn't give up on us though. He will continually try to get past the hardness of our hearts. He is always willing to guide us, but it is up to us to listen to God and be the people that He wants us to be.

Fourth, sacrificially love others. I have found that best way to get to know God is to be His hands and feet in loving others. Take going on a mission trip. When we go on a mission trip and spend a whole week focused on loving others, God honors that. He interacts with us in great ways. But that experience of God doesn't need to be relegated to the mission field; we should be living our lives like that daily. Turn your regular life into a mission field.

Fifth, get plugged into real relationships with others in the church. The one thing that can happen when we get together that can't happen when we are on our own is encouragement. That should be a key element of the gathering together. When I preach a sermon, the point of my preaching is to encourage people to be who God wants us to be. When I write an article like this one, the purpose is to encourage you, the reader, to be who God wants you to be.

As a teacher, I want to encourage people to be all that God destined them to be. It is up to you to live the life that God wants you to live. No amount of listening to teaching will do that. You have to be the one learning to listen to His voice, and then act on it. God is going to tell you what He wants you to do with your life. God is going to tell me what He wants to do with my life. Typically, he isn't going to tell me what He wants you to do with your life. My role as a pastor is to encourage you to listen to God and be who God wants you to be with your life.

No church will be a healthy church unless the people in the church are focused on listening to the Holy Spirit and doing what the Spirit wants them to do with their lives. A church will not receive the blessing that God wants to give it unless that church is trying to be who God wants them to be. Likewise, a person will not receive the blessing that God wants to give them unless that person is trying to be who God wants them to be.

But let's be honest, sometimes the encouragement of church leaders or brothers and sisters in Jesus must take the form of correction. This isn't always fun. Sometimes, we may be going off on the wrong path and need guidance.

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.(2 Timothy 3:16-17 ESV).

As a teacher, when I deliver Scripture, it should be accomplishing some of these four things. Being part of a church helps us to stay grounded and remain encouraged. But we must remember that the biggest component to being who God wants us to be is listening to the Holy Spirit guide and prompt us in our daily lives.

These five tips are just some practices that I have found useful in being who God wants me to be. I hope that you will find them useful in being who God wants you to be.

Your relationship with God is what matters.

There is a story from a guy named Parker Palmer as told by Dr. Marcus Borg.

It's a story about a three-year-old girl who was the only child in her family. But now her mom is pregnant, and this three-year-old girl is very excited about having a baby in the house. The day comes where the mother-to-be delivered, and the mom and dad go off to the hospital. A couple of days later come home with a new baby brother. And the little girl is just delighted.

But after they've been home for a couple of hours, the little girl tells her parents that she wants to be with the baby in the baby's room, alone, with the door shut. She's absolutely insistent about the door being shut. It kind of gives her folks the willies, you know? They know she's a good little girl, but they've heard about sibling rivalry and all of this.

Then they remember that they've recently installed an intercom system [think of an old-style monitor if you don't know what an intercom system is] in preparation for the arrival of the new baby, and they realize that they can let their little girl do this, and if they hear the slightest weird thing happening, they can be in there in a flash.

So they let their little girl go into the room. They close the door behind her. They race to the listening post. They hear her footsteps move across the room. They imagine her now standing over the baby's crib, and then they hear her say to her two-day-old baby brother, "Tell me about God. I've almost forgotten."

The idea is that we have all come from God. The story implies that the young three-year-old could remember being in God's presence, but that feeling was dwindling. The question we are all faced with is whether we are going to continue to grow closer to God throughout our lives or are we going to drift away. The choice is ours, and we can develop the practices of growth or the practices of drift in our life by what we invest our time in. The way we grow closer is to learn to listen to the Spirit and act upon who He is guiding us to be.

Christian culture will continue to try and convince us that the way to do that is through following laws. It's wrong. Laws are not going to get you closer to God. You could be the most moral person around, yet you could be just as far away from God as the most immoral person you know. God wants you to be close to Him. He wants you to be in a relationship with Him. He wants you to be His. There are no laws that if we followed would bring that about. It only comes through a willing heart, a willingness to listen, a willingness to let that Spirit lead you, a willingness to act on His promptings, and a willingness to be different when God wants you to be different. That's what God wants in our lives.

May we grow closer to God through our lives. May we not stray into an unhealthy dependence upon laws. May we learn to listen to Him every day of our life.

The law has been fulfilled. The law has been made obsolete. The Holy Spirit has been given to us in its place. May we learn to listen to Him.

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Some Bible passages for further reading.

 And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?”  Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.  And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’  The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:28-31 (ESV)

 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.  By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:34-35 (ESV)

 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.  You are my friends if you do what I command you. John 15:12-14 (ESV)

 For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. Romans 13:9-10 (ESV)

 And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.  Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us. 1 John 3:23-24 (ESV)

 And now I ask you, dear lady—not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but the one we have had from the beginning—that we love one another.  And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it. 2 John 1:5-6 (ESV)

 If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. James 2:8 (ESV)