Exploring the Matrix: Witness, part 1

God put us here to do something with what He gave us.

God rested on the seventh day, not because He needed the rest, but because He deliberately wanted to leave a part of His creation unfinished, so we could help finish it. He endowed us with creativity, understanding, knowledge and wisdom to use in managing and completing His creation.

Before Jesus left, He commanded His disciples to complete His work as well. Matthew 28: 18-20 “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.⁹ Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

To accomplish this and guide us as we work, He promised us the Holy Spirit in Acts 1:8 “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the world.”

The Holy Spirit was sent to enable us to be witnesses.  Bearing witness is the way we complete Jesus’ work on earth.

In its original context, a witness was a person who reported what he or she had seen in a court of law or on legal documents. Being a witness meant that we could verify with our own eyes something that happened. In the New Testament, a witness is someone who can publicly verify the reality of Christ.  Jesus bore witness to His experience with the Father.  The disciples bear witness to their experiences with Jesus. 

We can only be a witness to something we have seen, heard or experienced. If we have not experienced something, we cannot bear witness. All we can do is report hearsay evidence.

Being a witness isn’t the same as being a preacher or an evangelist. Preachers and teachers communicate a body of knowledge that they may or may not have experienced.  A preacher can tell the story of the Exodus in the Old Testament or of Jesus’ resurrection even though they were not there as a witness. A good storyteller can tell them with creativity and imagery that makes the listener feel they were actually there. A storyteller can do this whether or not they believe the story to be true. But a witness tells what he or she has seen and heard.  They can only relate what they know to be true.   

A person of faith will witness to the faith within them, not only by what they say, but by what they are.  To be a witness is to live our faith in public.  We are the living proof of an encounter with God. Bearing witness is not something we do with words alone but it is living as people of faith, expressing the effects of our encounter with God in every place we touch the world around us.

This distinction between witness and teaching is crucial.  If we think of bearing witness merely as the communication of a body of doctrine, then we have already disconnected our faith from our inner essence.  Sharing our faith becomes winning an argument.  It becomes expedient for us to exaggerate, mislead, or even lie about our own spiritual journey if our story is not seem “dramatic” enough to impress.  We see ourselves as God’s salesmen, more concerned about conversions than the truth. We pretend to be happy when we are not, so others will be persuaded to believe like us.  We exaggerate the changes God has made in our lives, excusing it as a “better witness” than the truth.  We manipulate others by seeking friendships with those who can give us political advantage.  This is no witness at all. Those who we hope to impress usually see through this and are turned off by it. 

Our real witness comes more from how we live in our daily lives, not what we preach.  It is how we display in the public arena our inner, faith-shaped nature, in Christ. 

A flower bears witness of the beauty of God;  a thunderstorm bears witness to His power--yet neither says a word to us. They glorify God by who they are, not by what we do.  When what we are and what we have experienced is lived out before the world, then we are witnesses to the transforming power of God.

The virtues of witness—Sincerity, Love, and Service..   

“Sincere” comes from the Latin phrase “sine cere” meaning “without salt.” Merchants who sold marble for carving would often cover up flaws in the stone by rubbing salt over the cracks. The salt was indistinguishable from the marble, so it hid their imperfections. But when xposed to water or a stonemason’s hammer, the cracks would open and the stone was ruined.  A “sincere” stone was a piece where the cracks were revealed and there was no attempt to hide.

In I John,  the apostles begins by saying that “God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all. “

There is no deception in God; no attempt to hide, cover or deceive.  He tells us that we should “walk in the light”---that is walk with no attempt to pretend or deceive, just like God does with us. 

When we walk in sincerity, we live out our faith in the world around us. We do not pretend to agree with things we do not agree with. We do not put a smiles on our faces when we are really hurting. We completely reject the false doctrine of “Fake it till you make it.” 

A sincere person is one who’s head, heart, and actions are one. If they find that their feelings and understanding are out of sync, the seek to change one or the other.  If they are living at a standard that is below what the believe,  they change the way they live.

In Howard Fast’s novel Spartacus, one of the characters seeks to describe what made Spartacus a great leader. He says that unlike all other men he had ever known,  Spartacus was the same, no matter where you saw him. His personality did not have sides to it, but it was a transparent representation of his essence.  This is what John means by “walking in the light,” to have such a personality that nothing is hidden from other, or needs to be. 

When we do this, we are automatic witnesses.  People see God in us, and either react by acceptance or rejection of Him.  Either way, we put the focus on Him. 

We are witnesses to Christ only to the degree we cultivate transparency in all our dealings with others.

Love is the second virtue of witness. We must genuinely love God and love others. 

Love of God, love of self, and love of others are not necessarily separate.  If we love God, and we believe God loves us and others, then our love of others is an extension of our love of God.

Once we have made Christ our ultimate concern we have made the choice to be compassionate. We simply have no choice after that.  It is what Christians do.  Jesus makes this abundantly clear in Matthew 25:21-46.  The gist of His statement is found in this passage 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

Christ identifies with the suffering. For that reason, He claims that serving them is serving Him.

If God loves us and we love God, how can we then hate ourselves? If we love Christ and Christ loved the world, how can we hate it?  For a Christian—or anyone who believes that God is loving—then acts of loves are actually acts of witness and worship. 

In order to develop a greater love of God and others, we must then do it in the context of the larger world.  In helping the poor, sharing the good new of Christ, and speaking out against injustices, we are witnessing to something we ourselves have experienced.  Loving becomes the supreme act of witnessing to God’s love. 

We do not get involved in social concerns and welfare because we want to persuade or because we are trying to prove something, neither are we substituting worldly relief for eternal salvation. We do it because we care—really, genuinely care about the suffering of God.  Christ, whose whole life on earth was one great display of empathy, expects His followers to share His empathy to the world.  That is why He sent us out to heal the sick, feed the poor, cast out demons, and to give help where we can.  It is part of His nature that we do so. 

Service.  Donald Whitney observed “When God calls His elect to Himself, He calls no one to idleness.  When we are born again and our sins forgiven, the blood of Christ cleanses our conscience, according to Hebrews 9: 14, in order for us to ‘serve the living God!’ ‘Serve the LORD with gladness’ (Psalm 100: 2, NASB) is every Christian’s commission.”[1]

Service is an expression of who we are in Christ.   Idleness and laziness is a retreat into self from the world.  It assumes that we have no reason to leave anything behind, or obligation to care.  We may empathize but we do not act, because we fear the hassle it will bring. 

In order to be of service, we must realize that we cannot serve everyone all the time. But we should start by serving those nearest to us first—our family, coworkers, and neighbors.  Jesus defines neighbors as those whom God leads across our path. 

Witness is depends on our submission to Christ, which is why witness and submission must always be kept balance. We cannot just hide in our cloisters all the time, and stay still before the Lord. We must also be willing to get up and represent Him in this world. 

God put us here to do something with what He gave us.

God rested on the seventh day, not because He needed the rest, but because He deliberately wanted to leave a part of His creation unfinished, so we could help finish it. He endowed us with creativity, understanding, knowledge and wisdom to use in managing and completing His creation.

Before Jesus left, He commanded His disciples to complete His work as well. Matthew 28: 18-20 “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.⁹ Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them i^] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

To accomplish this and guide us as we work, He promised us the Holy Spirit in Acts 1:8 “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the world.”

The Holy Spirit was sent to enable us to be witnesses.  Bearing witness is the way we complete Jesus’ work on earth.

In its original context, a witness was a person who reported what he or she had seen in a court of law or on legal documents. Being a witness meant that we could verify with our own eyes something that happened. In the New Testament, a witness is someone who can publicly verify the reality of Christ.  Jesus bore witness to His experience with the Father.  The disciples bear witness to their experiences with Jesus. 

We can only be a witness to something we have seen, heard or experienced. If we have not experienced something, we cannot bear witness. All we can do is report hearsay evidence.

Being a witness isn’t the same as being a preacher or an evangelist. Preachers and teachers communicate a body of knowledge that they may or may not have experienced.  A preacher can tell the story of the Exodus in the Old Testament or of Jesus’ resurrection even though they were not there as a witness. A good storyteller can tell them with creativity and imagery that makes the listener feel they were actually there. A storyteller can do this whether or not they believe the story to be true. But a witness tells what he or she has seen and heard.  They can only relate what they know to be true.   

A person of faith will witness to the faith within them, not only by what they say, but by what they are.  To be a witness is to live our faith in public.  We are the living proof of an encounter with God. Bearing witness is not something we do with words alone but it is living as people of faith, expressing the effects of our encounter with God in every place we touch the world around us.

This distinction between witness and teaching is crucial.  If we think of bearing witness merely as the communication of a body of doctrine, then we have already disconnected our faith from our inner essence.  Sharing our faith becomes winning an argument.  It becomes expedient for us to exaggerate, mislead, or even lie about our own spiritual journey if our story is not seem “dramatic” enough to impress.  We see ourselves as God’s salesmen, more concerned about conversions than the truth. We pretend to be happy when we are not, so others will be persuaded to believe like us.  We exaggerate the changes God has made in our lives, excusing it as a “better witness” than the truth.  We manipulate others by seeking friendships with those who can give us political advantage.  This is no witness at all. Those who we hope to impress usually see through this and are turned off by it. 

Our real witness comes more from how we live in our daily lives, not what we preach.  It is how we display in the public arena our inner, faith-shaped nature, in Christ. 

A flower bears witness of the beauty of God;  a thunderstorm bears witness to His power--yet neither says a word to us. They glorify God by who they are, not by what we do.  When what we are and what we have experienced is lived out before the world, then we are witnesses to the transforming power of God.

The virtues of witness—Sincerity, Love, and Service..   

“Sincere” comes from the Latin phrase “sine cere” meaning “without salt.” Merchants who sold marble for carving would often cover up flaws in the stone by rubbing salt over the cracks. The salt was indistinguishable from the marble, so it hid their imperfections. But when xposed to water or a stonemason’s hammer, the cracks would open and the stone was ruined.  A “sincere” stone was a piece where the cracks were revealed and there was no attempt to hide.

In I John,  the apostles begins by saying that “God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all. “

There is no deception in God; no attempt to hide, cover or deceive.  He tells us that we should “walk in the light”---that is walk with no attempt to pretend or deceive, just like God does with us. 

When we walk in sincerity, we live out our faith in the world around us. We do not pretend to agree with things we do not agree with. We do not put a smiles on our faces when we are really hurting. We completely reject the false doctrine of “Fake it till you make it.” 

A sincere person is one who’s head, heart, and actions are one. If they find that their feelings and understanding are out of sync, the seek to change one or the other.  If they are living at a standard that is below what the believe,  they change the way they live.

In Howard Fast’s novel Spartacus, one of the characters seeks to describe what made Spartacus a great leader. He says that unlike all other men he had ever known,  Spartacus was the same, no matter where you saw him. His personality did not have sides to it, but it was a transparent representation of his essence.  This is what John means by “walking in the light,” to have such a personality that nothing is hidden from other, or needs to be. 

When we do this, we are automatic witnesses.  People see God in us, and either react by acceptance or rejection of Him.  Either way, we put the focus on Him. 

We are witnesses to Christ only to the degree we cultivate transparency in all our dealings with others.

Love is the second virtue of witness. We must genuinely love God and love others. 

Love of God, love of self, and love of others are not necessarily separate.  If we love God, and we believe God loves us and others, then our love of others is an extension of our love of God.

Once we have made Christ our ultimate concern we have made the choice to be compassionate. We simply have no choice after that.  It is what Christians do.  Jesus makes this abundantly clear in Matthew 25:21-46.  The gist of His statement is found in this passage 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

Christ identifies with the suffering. For that reason, He claims that serving them is serving Him.

If God loves us and we love God, how can we then hate ourselves? If we love Christ and Christ loved the world, how can we hate it?  For a Christian—or anyone who believes that God is loving—then acts of loves are actually acts of witness and worship. 

In order to develop a greater love of God and others, we must then do it in the context of the larger world.  In helping the poor, sharing the good new of Christ, and speaking out against injustices, we are witnessing to something we ourselves have experienced.  Loving becomes the supreme act of witnessing to God’s love. 

We do not get involved in social concerns and welfare because we want to persuade or because we are trying to prove something, neither are we substituting worldly relief for eternal salvation. We do it because we care—really, genuinely care about the suffering of God.  Christ, whose whole life on earth was one great display of empathy, expects His followers to share His empathy to the world.  That is why He sent us out to heal the sick, feed the poor, cast out demons, and to give help where we can.  It is part of His nature that we do so. 

Service.  Donald Whitney observed “When God calls His elect to Himself, He calls no one to idleness.  When we are born again and our sins forgiven, the blood of Christ cleanses our conscience, according to Hebrews 9: 14, in order for us to ‘serve the living God!’ ‘Serve the LORD with gladness’ (Psalm 100: 2, NASB) is every Christian’s commission.”[1]

Service is an expression of who we are in Christ.   Idleness and laziness is a retreat into self from the world.  It assumes that we have no reason to leave anything behind, or obligation to care.  We may empathize but we do not act, because we fear the hassle it will bring. 

In order to be of service, we must realize that we cannot serve everyone all the time. But we should start by serving those nearest to us first—our family, coworkers, and neighbors.  Jesus defines neighbors as those whom God leads across our path. 

Witness is depends on our submission to Christ, which is why witness and submission must always be kept balance. We cannot just hide in our cloisters all the time, and stay still before the Lord. We must also be willing to get up and represent Him in this world. 

Let me know what you think.  

How do you show your faith in the world around you? 

Why do you think it is sometimes hard to be a witness for Christ? 

Let me know what you think by leaving a comment below.   Or (even better) share it and subscribe for more of the faith matrix blog.  

 

---

[1] Whitney, Donald S.  (2012-01-05).  Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life with Bonus Content (Pilgrimage Growth Guide) (Kindle Locations 2259-2263).  Navpress.  Kindle Edition.

Exploring the Matrix: The limits of Submission

Submission has its limits.  

We should be careful to not confuse submission to God with knowledge of God.  Authority is only one aspect of a whole relationship to Him.

We are not slaves, but sons and daughters to God, loved by Him for our own sake and through the sacrifice of Christ.  Submission is a gift we give to God freely out of love, not a payment demanded before He will deal with us.   If we submit purely out of fear of retribution, then we are His slaves, not his sons and daughters.  our relationship is tainted by coercion. It is hard to love someone who forces His love upon us by demands of utter obedience. 

Jesus said in John 15: 15 "No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you."  Jesus did not come to enslave us but to empower us.  

Submitting to God does not mean submitting to everyone who claims to speak for God.  Many sects, cults, and movements began because some leader claimed an authority from God they had not received and did not possess, convincing others that questioning their leadership was questioning God.   Christians should be cautious against abusive leaders who demand unquestioned obedience. 
In some churches and ministries followers are told "Touch not God's anointed."  This is a way of saying that everything a leader does is perfect, and should never be questioned.  Christians should be well advised to avoid such groups and to leave them if they are already involved. 

David Johnson And Jeff Van Vonderen gives this definition of spiritual abuse in Their book The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse,  page 20. "Spiritual abuse is the mistreatment of a person who is in need of help support or greater spiritual empowerment,  with the result of weakening undermining or decreasing that person's spiritual empowerment."  Their book is a helpful one for anyone who believes they are in an abusive relationship with a church or church leader.

Money, sex and power have always been abused within organized religion.  The most dangerous of the three is the abuse of power. Most churches and church leaders are loving, God-fearing people who recognize their own fallibility and welcome constructive criticism, but there are a few who want nothing more than to exert power over the lives of others. They may rationalize this desires by believing can make the world better by doing it, but they fail to see is that power abused is mostly what is wrong with the world.    

In Tolkien’s novel The Lord of the Rings, a magic ring symbolizes worldly power.  Anyone in possession of the ring acquires great power, but  is corrupted by its spell.  It cannot be used for good because any good person becomes evil by wielding it.  Tolkien wrote his book after having endured two world wars.  He had seen the effect that power had on those who sought to remake the world by force. 

We must not give to our leaders a ring of power by granting them an authority in our lives they ought not possess. When we do not think or act for ourselves, but expect our leaders to do all the thinking for us, we should not be surprised when they abuse our trust. 

Authority belongs to God.   To insist on other’s submission is to take the place of God.    God is the only person who deserves our unquestioned obedience.  Submission is no excuse for not thinking or doing for ourselves.   

Question for further thought:

What is the difference between being an authority and being authoritarian?  How do you tell true authority from authoritarianism?

Exploring the Matrix: The Disciplines of Submission

In the last posting we looked at the third point on the faith matrix, submission. Submission is the necessary surrendering of ourselves to our central point of faith, which for a Christian is God.  It is the essence of all worship and all moral action.

Submission is necessary in any society.  When the doctor gives us a prescription, it is usually up to us to take it.  When a policeman tells us to stop, we stop.  When we read in a peer reviewed journal that global warming is a fact or that cigarettes cause cancer, we accept this because we have faith in their authority. For us, the argument is ended, and we accept. That is submission. 

For a Christian, God is our final word. If we submit to God, and we believe the the Bible is the Word of God, when whatever the Word of God says is fact to us.  End of story. If the Bible tells us that it is a sin to steal, then we do not steal. If the Bible tells us to love our neighbor, then we love our neighbor.  Submission is the acceptance without proof of a previously accepted authority.

This is not as easy as it sounds. Our struggles with morality attests to this. If everyone who believed that cigarettes were bad for you stopped smoking, the tobacco industry would go out of business.  Both the weight loss and fast food industries are based on the idea that just being told overeating is bad for us won’t stop us from overeating.  Submission is something we must work at daily.

Paul writes in Romans 12: “1 appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”

It is hard to give a dead sacrifice to God, but our bodies are a living sacrifice. That means that no matter how often we give our bodies to God, they still tend to crawl off the altar.  We need to daily submit ourselves to God.  Jesus says in Matthew 16: 24 “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”  Taking up the cross is a daily act of submission, a willingness to sacrifice ourselves over and over to the object of our faith.  This is much more challenging than a single, dramatic conversion experience. It is a habit of submission that challenges us daily.

The way we accomplish daily  submission is thought practicing the disciplines of submission.   These include silence and solitude, fasting, Sabbath, percentage giving, and chastity, along with others.   Let’s talk about these individually.

Solitude and silence.   The first command a dog learns in obedience training is “sit.”  Dog trainers do this because they understand that dogs must first get still to hear and obey their masters.  When a dog is distracted, they cannot hear our voices.  Excessive action blinds us to the voice of God.  An overactive, agitated, or worried mind cannot hear God’s voice. If we are fretting over our circumstances or attempting to multitask our spirituality, we cannot hear God’s voice.  That is why we need to follow Jesus’ example and find places to withdraw and meditate.

I am an overactive person.  Those who know me best have suggested that I may have attention deficit disorder, though it has never been formally diagnosed. I do know that there have been times in my life when anxiety and hyperactivity have gotten the better of me.  In one such time, a counselor asked me to sit still and think of nothing for five minutes. It was the longest five minutes of my life! Silencing my brain for even three minutes was too much for me.  Since then, I have learned the value of meditation and centering prayer, which helps my overactive mind to be still, in order that I might hear God’s voice.

Fasting.  Fasting is fully or partially refraining from something that I regard as necessary to my life or wellbeing.  

Much has been written about fasting is either magical or legalistic. Sometimes people advocate fasting as a means of forcing God’s hand in our favor—a hunger strike against God. Others teach it as a requirement or law. It is neither.  Fasting is a regular spiritual activity aimed at learning self-mastery and submission.

As anyone who has ever gone on a diet can testify, sugary foods and carb-loaded delicacies are addictive. So is caffeine, nicotine, many other substance. When asked to give them up even for a short time, our bodies go into rebellion. 

Fasting gives us a means to gain victory over our addictions. Once our appetites are mastered, the greatest barrier to soul liberation is gone.

Addictions to television, games, texting, and web surfing may be more helpful today as fasting from food. We all are addicted to something. Fasting is the key to self-discovery.  you never know how much you are enslaved to something until you give it up for a time. When we voluntarily deny ourselves food, or any other needful thing, we are choosing instead to trust God. 

Sabbath.  Sabbath is taking on day—one twenty-four hour period—for rest and recreation.  Its origins go back to Genesis 2, where God rested after six days of labor creating the universe. The purpose of God’s rest was not because He was tired, but to allow his creation to grow on its own without His interference.

Our reasons for keeping a Sabbath are much the same. It teaches us that the universe is capable of running without us.  If we think our job cannot run without our constant upkeep,  then we are probably doing them wrong.  Sabbaths give times for the works we do to grow.

Sabbaths also give us time to enjoy God and His works.  Recreation is not idle amusement, but it provides us an opportunity to step back from ordinary things and see how it all relates to God. 

Unlike God, we do get tired. We need to rest.  Constant effort warps our perspective and interferes with our ability to work at peak effectiveness. Without Sabbaths, we work more but get less accomplished. Sabbaths are necessary to effectively keep working. 

Peter Scazzero likens the Sabbath to snow days when we were children. When it snowed so hard that people could not get to work, they stayed home and relaxed, drank hot chocolate, and built snowmen.  Sabbaths are like getting snow days once a week. It refreshes the mind, body, and spirit. 

Percentage giving (tithing).  Tithing is the discipline of submission in money.  Tithing refers to a tenth of our income.  The percentage of giving, however is not as important as the priority. Tithing is giving from the top¸ that is, the first part of our income, not the last. Tithing is the commitment of our first resources to God.  Finances are one of the places where most of us have the greatest struggles making God our ultimate concern.   That is why it is important to make giving to God’s work the highest priority.

Christians talk of trusting God, but they are often the most anxious people on earth.  We worry about money, health, our children—just about everything   Rather than seeing it as lack of trust, we have almost made a sacrament out of caution. Our anxiety over money often prevails over our faith, and we turn off the spigot of generosity through fear of the future. Tithing excludes all that, forcing us to trust God. 

Tithing is not a path to riches, unless We mean the riches of learning how little we need.  It isn’t for gaining worldly wealth through some magical means by “investing” in God’s favor.  Instead, it is a way of breaking free from our money addition. 

Chastity. Chastity is the sexual equivalent of fasting. How could God have created sex as such a pleasurable experience, then restrict it to be used only within the context of marriage?  Because sex is one of the ways we learn submission. Denying ourselves such an obviously pleasurable act causes us to learn mastery over our bodies.

Chastity isn’t just for some people. It is something everyone must deal with.  Unmarried people deny themselves sex until marriage.  Married  people deny themselves sex outside of marriage.  Though most of us will experience It, we all must learn to say “no” at some time, and keep it within a proper order.  

 Many people today claim that chastity is impossible. Sexual desire, they say, cannot be tamed.  We don’t have to look far to see that this isn’t true.  Catholic priests and nuns choose to remain celibate for life, although there are some who break that vow, the majority don’t.  Until recently, most men and women did not have sex before marriage, though there were always many who did. Most men and women stay faithful within marriage, only a minority stray. 

Sexual feelings are not the problem—it is lack of sexual control. Sexual pleasure has become for many an ultimate concern, more important than relationships, vows, or health.  We know that sexual promiscuity is destructive, but we do it anyway. 

Sexual urges have many benefits, but the most neglected benefit is developing submission and self-control. In resisting sex, with all its appeal, we learn to submit to something higher than our appetites. 

Submission is following God. When Jesus gathered His disciples, he first said “follow Me.” He did not discuss what he was going to do with them.  When He ascended into heaven,  he told His disciples to wait in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit came. Then they would get their marching orders. 

As we think about submission, we need ask ourselves some important questions.

Can I sit in solitude and silence, waiting for God to lead me, and not act on impulse?

Is God my only final authority?

Do I trust God even when I do not understand?

Am I willing to say "no" to my appetites and desire, when God asks me to?

Do I practice a life of self-discipline and self-control for God’s sake?

Let me know your thoughts.  I would love to hear from you.  Here are some questions to stimulate discussion.

1.     Which is easier—to submit to God or to submit to earthly authority?

2.     Is humility taught in churches today?  How important is humility to you? 

3.     What is the hardest place to practice submission—in eating, money, sexual habits, or following God’s guidance? 

Exploring the Matrix; Submission, part 1

View the YouTube video on submission here.
Without discipline, we cannot be disciples.

The disciplines of the Christian life include  prayer, Bible study, journaling, meditation, praise, confession, forgiveness, silence, solitude, Sabbath, tithing, simplicity, celebration, and giving thanks .  No one can perform all the spiritual exercises perfectly, any more than anyone can perform every physical exercise perfectly. But we do what we can, expressing in our bodies the worship in our hearts.  

For a discipline to change us, it cannot be something we do only occasionally.  It must become a regular habit.  Habits effectively transform us through our commitment to do them over and over.  Over time, they make us into better, healthier, and more loving people.

The depth of our relationship with God is mostly determined not by how we think about Him or feel about him, but from out willingness to submit to him by developing godly habit, or exercises. These habits have the power to bring us closer to Him in ways that thinking and feeling do not.  By practicing these habits regularly, they become a means of grace. 

A beautiful illustration of this  is found in the 2009 film The Way. Martin Sheen plays a man whose son died while walking the Way of St. James--a five-hundred-mile pilgrimage to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Though the father is not religious, he decides to honor his son by finishing the walk, carrying his son’s ashes as a way of honoring his memory.  Along the way, he meets other dubious pilgrims--a failed writer looking for inspiration, a man trying to lose weight, and a woman recovering from the emotional trauma. To complete the route, they must stop at every altar along the way. At first, these stops seem trivial to most of them.  But as they progress, they get caught up in the sacred rituals and together they begin to encounter God. The act of walking, praying, and worshiping at the sacred sites become a means of grace.

Such a pilgrimage may seem strange to those raised in Protestant traditions. We tend to look at the rituals of live as “vain repetitions,” but for those who have fully entered into the experience of them, they understand the significance.  Our bodies must worship as our minds and hearts worship.  Action often comes before belief.  We learn to say our prayers before we understand their meaning. We go to church before we understand the sermon. The habits of faith can precede our understanding.  These habits remain, when our doubts cloud our minds and depression clouds our hearts. Habits serve as a final reminder to us of God, when all our reason and emotions fail.  They are signposts left in their lives to point us back to faith.

The first inner action faith requires of us is the act of submission. 

The first meaning of the word “worship” is “to bow the knee.” It is an act of surrender in stillness before the presence of God.  When a dog is being trained the first command the animal learns is “Sit.”  Sitting for a dog means coming to a place of stillness, where it awaits orders.  Submission is a place of stillness before God, where we learn to await His orders. 

This is especially hard for those of us who have been raised in the Western values of action and equality. We want to be out doing something.  We hate the idea of sitting still almost as much as we had the idea of submitting to things we cannot understand. We want results and answers, not silence and stillness.  But if we are to follow God, we must learn to listen to His voice, and wait in silence before him.

Submission is yielding our wills to a person, principle, or truth without question, complaint or manipulation. 

Christ submitted to His Father.  Paul submitted not only to God, but to the earthly authorities that God placed over him, including the Roman government and priestly leadership of Israel. He said, “Follow my example, as I follow Christ.”[1]

In order to grow in submission, we must develop the virtues of submission namely respect, obedience, and  humility.

Respect means having a healthy fear.  I do not hate snakes, but I respect their power enough to stay out of their way.  Proverbs reminds us that the “fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” (Proverbs 1:7)   we cannot know God unless we understand His power. Fear of God is a good thing. God has great power for good or for ill. If I come against Him, that power will be against me. But if I am for Him, that power will break anything that tries to stand in His way.  Once I have a healthy fear of Him, I do not have to fear anything else.

Obedience  is the habit of doing what our master wishes.  This habit is never developed just to God, though.  In order to develop a habit of submission we must also learn to submit to those whom God has placed over us. 

St. Benedict wrote that submission to others is a necessity step in learning submission to God.He taught his monks a twelve-fold path to humility:  

1.       “That we have the fear of God before our eyes at all times.”

2.       “That we desire to do God’s will above our own.”   

3.       “That we submit our individual wills to our Superiors in obedience.” 

4.       “That, we accept hard and distasteful duties when commanded with patience and even temper, and not grow weary or give up.”

5.       “That we do not hide from our Superiors our evil thoughts, but humbly confess them.”

6.       “That we be content, even with the meanest and worst of everything.” 

7.       “We not only say but believe that we are among the most unworthy. 

8.       “We do nothing except what we are charged to do.

9.       “We keep silence unless asked to speak.

10.   “We do not engage in frivolous conduct.

11.   “We speak gently--listening, not shouting.

12.   “ We do not draw attention to ourselves by our actions.”  [2]      

 One of the clearest examples of the benefits of obedience in the Bible is in Genesis 22, when God told Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac to Him on Mount Moriah.  God did not rescind this order intil Abraham demonstrate his willingness to carry it out.

Few of us will ever face the kind of test like Abrahams, , but sooner or later, we will all face the blind faith test.  We will be asked to follow, even when it makes no sense.  That is when we discover if our obedience is real or a sham. 

Humility is more than just self-deprecation or self-abasement, but being willing to submit our thoughts, attitudes, feelings and actions to another.   It has nothing to do with the way we think about ourselves, but everything to do with the way we view others.  It is laying aside our lives to another as a living sacrifice to God.  To be humble is to realize that the ultimate judge of all we do and are is God. We do not take the measure of ourselves. God is our ultimate judge.

True submission is rooted in desire.  It is a voluntary act of a free person, not the groveling of a slave.  We take pleasure in the pleasure in surrender. To live without submitting to anyone is not freedom but slavery to self.  The “free” soul is not free at all, but caught between worlds, trying to satisfy spirit and flesh, the world and God.

We learn submission through practicing the inner spiritual disciplines.  These include solitude, Sabbath, fasting, and giving, They have no other purpose than to cause us to obey. 

Who am I? is the central question of self-based spirituality.  Christianity and other God-based forms of faith begin with a different question whose am I?  Who owns us? Who controls us? Who delights us, and we in them?  Submission is the purest form of love, not taking away out individuality but making us willing to lay aside our selfhood for the benefit of another.  It is a purposeful emptying of self so that the will of another may fill us.  This is what God calls upon us to do, when we seek to know His submission.  

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[1] 1 Corinthians 11:1

[2] St.  Benedict (2011-04-30).  The Rule of St.  Benedict (Kindle Locations 428-429).  PlanetMonk Books.  Kindle Edition. 

Exploring the Matrix: The Action Balance

The second balance beam in the Christian walk is the balance of witness and submission. It involves the connection of body and spirit.  (for more about the balance beams, go here.)

God reveals Himself to us through physical acts. He gave us physical signs—the sacrifices of animals in the Old Testament, baptism and communion in the New, promising to reveal himself through physical acts to His creatures. He entered our world by taking on flesh.  When He demonstrated His love bodily in the crucifixion. He healed physical ailments and performed miracles.  Through these means He demonstrated that what we do with our bodies matters to our souls.  Physical actions cause us to come closer to God or push us away from Him.

The church calls physical actions that strengthen our relationship to God the means of grace. These include baptism, the Lord’s Supper, anointing with oil and the laying on of hands. Acts of love--such as visiting the sick, praying for the lost, and helping the needy--are also means of grace.  Fixing a flat tire for a stranded motorist, a kind touch on a grieving shoulder, or a well-timed word of comfort also convey God’s grace to others. Deciding to go to church instead of to the store or the golf course are acts of grace as well.

A disciple duplicates the actions of a master.  A coach runs his team through hours of physical practice. A dancing master does the same for her dancers.  Musicians follow their master, repeating continually the scales, methods, and pieces that made her great.  Martial arts students follow the discipline of their sensei.   In every area of life being a disciple means physical training. Faith is the same; following Jesus means bodily action. 

Willard gives this example.

“Think of certain young people who idolize an outstanding baseball player.   They want nothing better than to pitch or run or hit as well as their idol.   So what do they do?  When they are playing in a baseball game, they all try to behave exactly as their favorite baseball player does.   .    .  The buy the same shoes he wears, the same glove he uses, the same bat.

“Will they succeed in performing like the star, though? .  .  .  The star performer himself didn’t achieve his excellence by trying to behave a certain way only during the game.   Instead, he chose an overall life of preparation of mind and body, pouring all his energies into that total preparation, to provide a foundation in the body’s automatic responses and strength for his conscious efforts during a game.”[1]

 “Being the Son of God clearly did not relieve him of the necessity of a life of preparation that was mainly spent out of the public eye.   .  .  The secret of the easy yoke involves living as he lived in the entirety of his life—adopting His overall lifestyle.”[2]

In Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster writes:

“The inner righteousness we seek is not something which can be poured on our hearts.   God has ordained the disciplines of the spiritual life as a means by which we place ourselves where He can bless us.”[3]

All physical acts start in the mind as an inner choice. When the alarm goes off, we choose whether to get up or to turn it off and roll over in bed.  When the clock says noon, we must choose whether or not to eat. It takes mental energy and will to make choices about behavior.  So God has provided us with an inner mechanism that governs our actions and saves us from the burden of making constant decisions.  This mechanism is called habit.  Habits enable us to choose certain behaviors automatically. Once they are formed, we do things without thinking, freeing up our minds for more important functions and for multitasking.  Habits govern most of what we think and do every day. 

A large part of our spiritual lives are governed by habits as well.  Our morning ritual of devotions, our weekly habit of corporate worship, prayer before meals or at bedtime are not something we think about doing—we just do them.  Fasting, giving, forgiving, witnessing,  helping,  and even silence are habits that lead us closer to God.  Responding in anger to sleights,  overeating,  drug or alcohol use, timidity, worry, timidity, and fear are also habitual responses. 

In order to experience the means of grace, we must learn to master our habits,  both positive and negative.  For most of us, this the hardest part of our walk with God.  Can we learn to master the habits that master us?  Can we make our habits work for us instead of against us? 

Christ has a kingdom--it is wherever He rules.  We have a kingdom, too—it is wherever we are the masters of our own souls. Before we can surrender what we have to Christ, we must possess what He has given us.  Before we can make our souls His, we first must make them ours. 

Habits are means of maintaining our faith on a daily basis are the way we keep a continual commitment to God. The early church understood that, and established a regular system of rituals which continually kept them in contact with and in submission to God.  The inner disciplines of prayer, study, and worship, keep us close to God throughout the day.  St. James wrote “faith without works is dead.”[4]  Inward faith without outward behavior quickly disappears.

In the next several articles, we will be discussing how to balance two kinds of habits—those that help us maintain stillness and attention before God, and those that lead to act in the world on God’s behalf.  These two groups of habits we are calling Submission and Witness.

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[1] Dallas Willard The Spirit of the Disciplines, (HarperSanFrancisco) 1988, pp.  3-4. 

[2] ^{Ibid, p.  6.} 

[3] Richard Foster The Celebration of Discipline (Harper One, New York) 1978, p.  7.  

[4] James 2:20

The Limits of Passion

see the video on passion here.

While emotions are good and necessary in our Spiritual walk, emotionalism--the worship of emotions--is a danger for anyone who would seek God.  Emotionalism is not the pursuit of God through passion, but the pursuit of passion through God.  It is an addiction to a feeling. 

There is nothing wrong with letting our emotions loose in the worship of God, but feelings can become overpowering.  When emotions rule, they can be cruel masters. 

In chapel in a school where I teach, a preacher preached a stirring, passionate sermon. The congregation responded emotionally, shouting and lifting their hands.  It was a powerful moment.  Afterwards, I asked my preaching class.  “Did you enjoy chapel?”

They responded with an enthusiastic “Absolutely!” 

“How many of you ever got that kind of response to one of your sermons? Is it a good feeling?”  Many said they had, and that they loved it.

Then I went on.  “What would you do for that feeling? Would you lie to get that feeling? Would you push others aside to get into the chance at that feeling again?  Would you pretend to hear from God, just to get that feeling?”

This time, no hands went up.  But they all said they knew preachers who did.  There are very few things quite so addicting at the attention of others, especially in church.  The feeling of pride and power which comes from being in front of a crowd is just as addictive as cocaine or heroin. Passionate desire is wonderful, but seeking it for its own sake cuts us off from God.

Emotions are not constant. Sometimes they come with great power. Other times, they may to dry up altogether. This does not mean God abandons us. Our relationship with God does not depend upon how we feel today. 

Passions can be divided into three classes:

·       unconscious passions that we do not recognize,

·       ordinate passions that we both recognize and master,

·       and inordinate passions, which master us.  

Unconscious passions are our prejudices and preferences. If we prefer chocolate ice cream over vanilla, a red dress over green one, or rock over jazz, we we may not even know why-we just feel it.  Superficial preferences make little or no difference spiritually--they are simply the byproducts of our upbringing, conditioning and heredity.  They do not cause a problem spiritually unless we mistake our feelings for what discernment from God. If we think that God is for chocolate over vanilla, red over black or one kind of music over another, then we have confused our unconscious feelings for God.

When applied to people, the preferences become prejudices.  We may feel that fat people are lazy, rappers are not real musicians, or tall people make good leaders—without any true rational basis for such assumptions.  We may try to rationalize these feelings, when there is really no rational basis. Our attempts to justify our prejudices are the result of emotional suppression. We may react to someone positively or negatively because of some past experiences with someone similar. If we recognize our prejudices for what they are—echoes of past feelings, we can laugh them off and go on. But if we do not recognize them, they cloud our perception of the truth.

The best way to overcome unconscious feelings is to make them conscious. Acknowledge that we—like everyone else in the world—is prejudice to some degree, due to our previous emotional training.  If we recognize this, we can make allowances for it, like a marksman adjusting for the wind direction when he takes aim. But if we deny our feelings of bias we miss the truth every time.

Ordinate passions are feelings that are recognized but under controlled. Every passion has its proper time and place.  “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.” (Eccl 3:1)    Knowing our feelings and when to express them is essential to wisdom. 

Passions must be expressed sometime.  They cannot be suppressed forever.  Ignoring our feelings is like ignoring a fire alarm.  If we do not pay attention to our feelings, they will consume us. Learning to express our feelings in controlled, non-harmful ways prevents them from exploding into destructive behavior. 

All passions are linked. If we deny our negative feelings such as fear, lust, and anger, we will usually find that our positive feelings—love, joy, and happiness, will become harder to express.  To deny one passion is to deny them all. 

Inordinate passions are the loud, insistent and demanding passions that are out of control-- anger so strong that we strike out in violence, lust so strong that it leads to pornography and adultery, appetites so strong that we cannot stop eating, or fear so strong that we panic and run from a fight. They cannot be ignored or allowed to run wild, any more than we can ignore a mad dog in our yard. They ruin lives and destroy relationships.

Philip St. Romain offers these warning signs of an inordinate passion:

·       When every decision in life centers around it.

·       When the thought of not having it causes us to be anxious and afraid.

·       When our desire for it eclipses all other desires

·       When cannot imagine any circumstance that would completely satisfy our desire.

·       When we compare ourselves with other people’s so-called fulfilled desires.

·       When we lose our passion for everything else. [1]

If we fall victim to inordinate passions, we must confess them to God and to others. Pray for help from God, confess the hurts we have caused, and seek professional help if necessary to learn how to manage our inordinate passions. 

Inordinate passions are serious; but equally serious and dangerous are passions which are not high enough.  We cannot adequately serve God and others unless we feel love or help without feeling empathy. Bridling our emotions is not enough. They are the engines which will power our faith.  

We must say something, too about guidance and passions.  God has spoken to us subjectively through dreams, metaphors, visions and feelings. But we must remember that our capacity to receive God’s guidance through such means has been seriously affected by our own inordinate and unconscious emotions, and by our sinful nature in general.  Do not trust subjective feelings alone, but test them against what God has given us for objective guidance.  Test them through the Word of God and through seeking the guidance of others who are not as emotionally involved as you.  Do not trust temporary feelings to make permanent changes in your life.  Long term changes comes from changing daily habits. Habits will be the subject of our next article.

Have you discovered any unconscious prejudices or inordinate desires in your life? What do you find is the best way of dealing with them when you find them?  Write and let us know. 

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[1] Philip St. Roman A Handbook for Spiritual ho Directees;  a book of Spiritual Exercises, (Kindle Edition)