Killing Community

I'm frustrated with organizations and others who spend so much time tearing down others rather than just focusing on what they can be doing to make things better.

Your family. Your town. Your church. Your school. Every organization you know can become fragmented and lose steam from an individual unleashing malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander (see 1 Peter 2:1). And it’s contagious. Once one starts behaving inappropriately others just join in creating a downward spiral that leads to destruction and death rather than life and freedom.

Malice. The thought of wishing ill on someone. A secret desire that the opposition will fail. Doesn’t seem all that bad, does it? But it’s the start. Once we allow ourselves to root for evil in the life of another, we have allowed evil to enter into our lives.

Deceit. Being fake with the intention of tricking. At its worst, it is like the lure in a trap when hunting. It offers food for the prey, and then traps them. You see this in debates a lot. We are not to be that way. We are to be truthful and frank bringing peace and joy. We are to say what we mean and mean what we say while leaving the debating tricks to those who want to win debates rather than build a better tomorrow.

Hypocrisy. The acting of a theater performer. Instead of changing to be who God wants them to be, a hypocrite is like a chameleon. They change depending on the crowd they are currently in with the hope, sometimes unrecognized, to manipulate others into giving them what they want. At their worst, they will be your friend to your face and attack you behind your back.

Envy. Similar to malice except that an envious person doesn’t want the other person to be blessed. Instead of desiring the best for those around them, an envious person demands to have the best. Envy will always try to creep in and tell you that you deserve more than others, especially those who have wronged you. You can tell when you have truly forgiven someone for a wrong they have done to you when you are rooting for them to be blessed rather than frustrated at their blessings.

Slander. The sin of the small town. Back-biting and speaking negatively about others behind their back. It is the snake that slithers in and squeezes out all unity and life.

These are common sins that destroy relationships rather than draw people together. They dismantle rather than assemble. They burn bridges rather than build them. Tomorrow can be better than today in our family, town, church, and every other group we are part of if we remove from ourselves all malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander.

Is it any wonder that America is in the state it is? Our political scene is inundated with one attack after another. Instead, let us offer up an alternative. Not just in the political arena – although that is welcomed – but in our daily lives. Let us long for truth and spirituality that will spur us toward living the life God has called us to live. Let us look at what we can do to improve the life of those around us rather than obsessing over attacking others. We are called to be people of worship. Self-sacrifice, like Jesus modeled and Paul taught, is one of greatest acts of worship.

The world will never be changed by those who are obsessed about tearing others down. It will only be changed by those who deny themselves, invest in others, and build something better. That’s true in our families. That’s true in our towns. That’s true in our churches. Let us build a better tomorrow. I know of a good foundation.

The Christian Stooge

For too long, Christians have been naive when it comes to politics. We have allowed politicians to manipulate us into giving them our vote when they say the right things on the issues we care about. But when it comes to actually doing anything about the issues that we vote for, they have failed to bring their pontifications to reality. Politicians are good for that. It's time for Christians to stop playing the funny man in the stooge's act.

It looks like it is happening again.

Recently, Eric Sapp wrote an article entitled Rick Perry's Church Giving Hypocrisy.

Here's a great excerpt:

What we should be saying is that it doesn't matter whether the Church could do a better job caring for the poor or not because the Church isn't doing it. We wouldn't need Section 8 housing if we had enough Habitat homes. We wouldn't need food stamps or school lunches if we had enough soup kitchens. The way to ensure better care for the poor than government can provide is not to hobble government programs but for the Church to make those programs unnecessary. The problem is not that government is doing too much but that the Church is doing too little.

He goes on to share that Rick Perry didn't even give a hundred dollars to the church the year that he made a million. Here is an article, Perry has not overburdened the collection plate, that goes in depth about his giving.

Wow. Actions like Perry's are not going to empower the church to step up and fill the hole caused by the disappearance of the government programs that many Christians, including Perry, are clamoring for. The moral thing for Christians and the church to do would be to actually provide the programs on a scale that the government would no longer need to do them. Until we step up and put our money and lives where our rhetoric is, we have no place, if we claim to be Christians, to ask for the government to stop the programs many poor people need. If we were already taking care of their needs, then we could be justified in asking the government to stop taking care of them.

If we think that the church can do it better than the state, then let's start doing it!

The Church is not a Collection of Perfect People, The Church is a Gathering of Seeking Sinners

After Jesus told the Samaritan woman the secrets of her life, she asked him a theological question she was hung up on.  Like the Samaritan woman, we need to not be afraid to ask the questions that frustrate us or make us have doubts.  Christians need to be people who are willing to talk about the tough questions of faith, but too often we avoid those topics and ignore those who want to talk about them.  People who get frustrated and do not want to have an honest discussion over an issue are typically people who have not thought the issue through and are standing on sandy ground.

We need to be people who don’t look down on people when they are struggling with religious issues.  It is only through struggling that we will find the truth.  Too often in the past, the church has been a place where you have to pretend to be perfect and pretend to believe all of the right answers.  That just should not be.  Church should be a place where broken sinners gather together to encourage one another to love their neighbors and help each other along in their struggles and doubts.

The church is often labeled a bunch of hypocrites.  The only way to stop being labeled that is to acknowledge that we are a collection of fallen sinners who are trying to follow Jesus to the best of our ability through the strength he provides.  We are hypocrites when we try to appear perfect, so let us be transparent about our sinfulness.  We are Christians saved by grace when who are trying to following Jesus to the best of our ability.  Unfortunately, we frequently fail. 

Let us throw off the tendency to put on our superChristian disguise, the one where we have all of the right answers and present a façade of perfection.  That’s dangerous.  Let’s not ignore the problems in our faith.  We need to hit them head on and wrestle openly with them.  Let’s not lie to ourselves about the problems in your life.  If we do, these unaddressed problems will slowly sneak up on us until we are worship with faithless motions while living a powerless faith.  We need to go to God with our spiritual dilemmas, whether it is for divine guidance or revelation.  That’s part of seeking.  All too often we are willing to accept a paper Jesus, one we have constructed, rather than the real Jesus who will challenge our thoughts and actions.  He does not always fit perfect in our nice, religious box, but he does bring freedom. 

A Thief, A Cute Princess Ring, and Our Trivialization of Jesus

Aria has a cute, princess toy ring that she loves. It's in a little box that she carries around. She carries it more than she wears it, but that's okay. She loves it.

The bad thing for Aria is that Eli realizes that she loves it. He has this tendency to take it away from her to get a rise out of her. On Wednesday, he was trying to take it away by squeezing her arm. He must figure that if he squeezed hard enough, she will drop it. Aria started crying and yelled, "Bad Eli." Eli, while still squeezing her arm and attempting to get the ring declared, "Aria, 'bad' is a mean word." He was right; we teach them not to call anyone "bad." But his actions were much worse than than Aria's words. Eli knows what is right, but he refused to do it while still keeping the moral high ground of teaching what is right. Although that is behavior that needs correction, it is pretty typical of a five year old.

It is very unbecoming of an adult. To teach the truth while not living it is not an action that God looks favorably on.

"Practice and observe whatever they [the Scribes and Pharisees] tell you— but not what they do. For they preach, but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger" Matt 23:3-4 (ESV).

In 2006, Al Gore, at one of his three houses, a twenty room house with eight baths, consumed twenty times the amount of energy that an average American consumes.

In a 2007 interview between ABC news and the Tennessee Center for Policy Research's President, the center stated, "If this were any other person with $30,000-a-year in utility bills, I wouldn't care. But he tells other people how to live and he's not following his own rules."

He jets around the world teaching us to take steps to curb our energy consumption and our carbon footprint. That's great. But like the Scribes and Pharisees, do as Al Gore teaches, not as he does.

Like Al Gore has done with his stance on environmentalism, we have this tendency to just want to intellectualize our faith and not allow it to change our lives. We lie to ourselves and say, "If we think the right thoughts, if we believe the right doctrine, if we have participated in the right religious rituals, then our life is right." That just is not the case. If our thoughts do not transform who we are at the core of our being, then we turn being imitators of Jesus into a sham of Bible Trivial Pursuit. It might be a fun game for some, but it will be empty of any fruit that God wants to bless those around us with.

Francis Schaeffer wrote:

“Ideas are the stock of the thought-world, and from the ideas burst forth all the external things—painting, music, building, the love and the hating of men in practice, and equally the results of loving God or rebellion against God in the external world….The preaching of the gospel is ideas, flaming ideas brought to men, as God has revealed them to us in Scripture. It is not a contentless experience internally received, but it is contentful ideas internally acted upon that make the difference. So when we state our doctrines, they must be ideas and not just phrases. We cannot use doctrines as though they were mechanical pieces to a puzzle. True doctrine is an idea revealed by God in the Bible and an idea that fits properly into the external world as it is, and as God made it, and to man as he is as God made him, and can be fed back through man’s body into his thought-world and there acted upon. The battle for man is centrally in the world of thought.”

In simpler words, "Thoughts, without corresponding actions, are worthless although they are usually necessary to produce those proper actions."

Let's not just say the right words; let's live the life God wants us to live.