godliness – Page 6 – Watch. Stand. Pray.

155 – Perfection Is a Direction, not the Minimum

I attended college at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. It has many problems as does every institution. Thankfully, it’s not a “church”, it’s just an organization with the founding mission to “create gapmen” who intellectually and academically “stand in the gap” between over-educated preachers and the laity that just wants to understand God’s Word.

Moody teaches Bible, they don’t obey it perfectly since no one can. But, the world needs more people who know the Bible. In the end Moody, with all its problems, makes the world a better place by producing students who know God’s word inside and out. It helps. I would never ax that help just because it’s not finished arriving at perfection.

I won’t excuse injustice and I occasionally chase down wrongdoing with a fierce wrath, if so provoked. But, I’m glad Moody is there, injecting a world with people who actually know what God’s Word actually is and says. Part of the message of the Bible is imperfection. We are imperfect. If someone has a problem, saying so only proves that the person exists. Of course, if you have a solution to the problem, that’s another story. But, “Lay down, cry, and die,” is not a solution, it’s a sentencing.

So, when you address problems and people addressing problems, pay attention to whether a “complaint” is acting like a proposed solution or if it is an attempt to deliver a cease and desist order. Where we are concerned with the core topic of the fact that sin will always exist in every one of us in this lifetime, the only thing that needs to cease and desist is the expectation that people be perfect in order to exist.

Sunday morning “Churchianity” is one of the best—if not the very best—at expecting perfection, but only achieving pretended perfection, which is nothing more than pretension. Once a religious institution of a religion that teaches “imperfect pursuit of perfection” pretends to be perfect, it’s time for it to cease and desist.

Only God is perfect. The most godly people can do is pursue perfection. Requiring perfection in order to pursue perfection just doesn’t make sense. Being imperfect, we need reminding.

159 – Why God is Good to Let Bad Things Happen

“If God is good, why does He let bad things happen?” This is the age old question called “the problem of evil”, more specifically said, “If God is all powerful and good, then why does evil exist? Something must give.” The cheating, easy, faulty answer is that “God is all powerful, but not all knowing” and other lazy solutions that diminish God. The better and shorter answer is not that God is “less” than we think of Him, but God is more than we think of Him. God is not “good”; God is “Holy”, ultra-good, and thus remains ultra-good without evil harming Him or His ultra-good plans.

Dealing with this question is essential to understanding the Biblical-Christian worldview. Part of the Biblical-Christian worldview and “the problem of evil” both relate to “redemption”, that moral rules are not sticks to beat others with in the public square; moral rules guide us to happiness and when we stray away from those good, helpful morals, we come back to them in love and friendship. That concept of “the good path”—stay on the path, return if you wander off—is the essence of Biblical-Christianity and the reason God is good because He allows bad things to happen.

God is the God of Means—He works through others. Jesus did miracles giving the fishermen many fish, but the fishermen still had to let down their nets as Jesus told them. Jesus fed 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish—but the people had to pass the food around. Peter walked on water, but he first had to step out of the boat. God does miracles that we can’t, but He always—always, every time, no exception—does His work in a way that we have some ownership, responsibility, and participation in the results.

Sometimes life is hard because winning is tiring work. Other times jealous people are cruel. But, in everything, we have some ownership—of the bad so we can learn something and the good so we aren’t immoral to enjoy the results. That is good and that requires letting bad things happen. So, God doesn’t put an end to evil because ending evil is our responsibility.

163 – Fame Is Normal

When you do a good job at something, it will eventually make you famous. You may only be “famous” among colleagues, your name never appearing in public for decades, if ever.

It happens every now and again, somewhere in the world of media, gossip, and periodical literature. Someone says, “You know that guy we always call to do that one part of our design projects because only he gets it right?”—and everyone in the room or reading that column knows the guy—instant publicity. Next, he’s the name for all the talk shows and columnists to interview, being offered book deals from five publishing houses. But, he was already famous for his work. What happened in the public “bragosphere” was merely his fame turning into publicity.

The guy at the gas station, the gal running the cash register, the shoe repair guy downtown, the piano player at the weddings and parties, the school band director and football coach—all of them are already household names for one reason: They do good work.

If your work is worth its salt, you will certainly become famous in some way. Count on it. Plan for it. Grow in your personal, inward, ethical, moral character so the spotlight doesn’t melt you—because the spotlight always turns on unannounced.

Don’t shy away from the spotlight either. Never say, “I won’t do that because I don’t want to become famous.” Of course, don’t seek fame, but don’t evade it either. Let the searchlight of fame roam where it will; you just do a good job and let the problem of fame tend to itself.

Trying to miss a moving target is almost as hard as trying to hit one. In some ways, you are already more famous than you know. Your friends talk about you, just as you talk about them. Rather than measuring, avoiding, seeking, or otherwise even caring at all about “celebrity status”, just be yourself and do the best job you can. Your good example can inspire people without you knowing it for eons. You’re going to make mistakes. What makes a good role model is not the absence of human error, but demonstration of good character.

Proverbs 22:29

169 – Two Great Commands: Sequence, not Hierarchy

The Pharisees condescendingly asked Jesus which command was the greatest. Jesus silenced them in an already silenced crowd by saying that there were two: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and strength; and the second one like it, love your neighbor as yourself. This, Jesus explained, summarized the entire Old Testament from Moses’s writings through the last of the prophets.

The religious teachers who thought to make Jesus look foolish with their academia didn’t know how to respond because they didn’t understand the Scriptures enough to see them for what they were. They missed the whole point and couldn’t the forest for the trees. Samuel told Saul that God wanted obedience more than ritual sacrifice. The Psalmist and Hosea taught the same thing: Old Testament Law is for our benefit; God does not delight in the rules themselves. God wants us to live and prosper. But, it all begins with loving Him the most and consequentially loving His Image, our fellow Man.

The command to love God is not greater than the second, it is “the first and great” command, “the second” is to love our neighbor—not more than ourselves, but just as we love ourselves at the same time. The sequence is the essence and the secret to both: One cannot love God actually without consequentially loving people; one cannot love people without loving God first.

In much the same way, no one can feel love from other people without first feeling loved by God. Spending time with God—thinking about His love for you, your love for Him, your love of being loved by Him—is not time wasted. If you remain there forever then you never were actually there. Time spend loving God, with neither distractions nor actions, will boil up love inside the heart. We can’t love without loving God and we can’t love God and not love.

Lack of love throughout the world continues when second things aren’t second. The Great Commandment, to love God, was first. If you make Jesus’s First Great Commandment your first commandment to follow throughout your life, other needs and pursuits will line up as they get in line behind.

Psalm 51:16, 1 Samuel 15:22, Hosea 6:6, Matthew 22:29-40

175 – Hypocritical Hypocrisy

The hypocrite is the one who accuses someone of being a hypocrite for trying after a fall. In the Bible-centered moral worldview, everyone is a sinner, everyone has fallen, and everyone needs redemption. The message therein is one of hope: Knockdown is not knockout—game over, down for the count—just because someone messes up. It’s not true about you nor anyone else.

Jesus’s message is that we each have a future, no matter how much we mess up. The one who see a future, seeks forgiveness, seeks to forgive, gets up keeps going, and doesn’t lay down to die just because of the past—that person grasps the point of the Bible.

How then can Bible-believers claim that anyone is a hypocrite for pressing forward and encouraging others with hope?

Too often, the unspoken rule of “Churchianity” is presumed, permanent, prerequisite perfection. But, we don’t reach perfection in this life. Cannibalization of proven mistake-makers proves whether a Sunday morning religion prays to a false god, not the God of the Bible.

Silas Sheffer said, “If I was going to have a view as controversial as ‘Earthly Perfection’ I would have kept it to myself.”

I myself don’t claim to be any kind of moral authority. I know that I’m not perfect, but I want to be. So, we have a litmus test that divides the morally upright from the posers: Is a moral value something one keeps perfectly or something one strives for, knowing that one can never measure up? Bible-based morals don’t tell us to pretend to have arrived, but to continue on until we have. Nothing will get in the way of your journey in Jesus as much as judging others—either for their mistakes or judging others for judging others.

The only true hypocrite is the one who truly thinks he is not. The accusation of “hypocrisy” is an old tactic of the “Churchianity” leader who protects his own position by maintaining a group think mob mentality, publicly lynching anyone who errs. It is also a tactic of non-Christians in public forums who loudly reject Jesus, accusing Christians merely because Christians are their enemies. These are the biggest hypocrites of all.

Titus 3:3-10

178 – Know Love

Knowing love is central to everything social—relationships, teamwork, family, romance, leadership, neighbors, classmates, the work place, the school playground, government, consulting, client relations, sales. Everything that involves people succeeds where love abounds and fails where love is absent.

When there are hardships or frustrations in dealing with people, love is somewhere absent. Being “able” to receive love can be difficult and it causes people to be unloving. Usually, rude, disrespectful, angry, inconsiderate people have a love issue—firstly that they don’t know how to receive love from others.

Being “unlovable” isn’t about other people struggling to love a person; it’s about one’s own inability to receive love from others. Loving the unlovable is a challenge because unlovable people put up barriers and deterrent to keep other people away. They act inhospitable and unwelcoming specifically and intentionally so that other people will not want to be kind to them. Kindness is a risk and, for whatever reason, they don’t want people to love them. They hunger for love, but they have decided somewhere that no love can ever be real or that so-called “love” is a bait for the coming switch.

Loving the unlovable means one must learn to love more. You may think that you love others, but your level of understanding love will not be proven with people who are easy to love, but with people who resist your love. This is a problem all around and whichever side you find yourself on today, there remains only one way through for everyone—learn to love more.

If you want to love others, you must first know how to receive love. If you struggle to love anyone else, that directly shows your struggle to receive love from others. The first place to receive love is from God because He never stops loving us. He rarely gives us what we want, but He loves us enough to give us what we need every time. Love can be firm and tough at times.

Growing in love is a daily, constant choice. You will not become a more loving person if you take a day off from loving others. Like Bible and prayer, love also grows daily.

179 – God Is not Entitled to Receive Our Love

Love is never entitled. Love must always be earned, won over. The moment anyone thinks oneself entitled to love, that person will become lax, negligent, unloving, and, consequentially, unlovable. God is not like this. God is perfectly lovable because, though always available, His love is perfectly optional.

God is a gentleman. He will never go where He is unwelcome. As a gentleman, He knows how to take a hint.

The young woman still learning to love will do things that repel other people. But, not understanding how repulsive her actions are, can’t figure out why people keep running from her. Eventually, she thinks the world is against her when, actually, she has not prepared herself to be a loving person whom people want to love in return. Just the same, a young man may annoy others or fail to carry his own weight, so his peers reject him, yet he will never figure out why until someone explains to him how to earn friendship.

To earn friends, first be a friend; to be a friend, do a good job of whatever you are doing. God understands these things perfectly. So, when we do small, little things that repel wisdom, life, strength, and the choice to be happy, He won’t darken our door with things we don’t want. Immorality uninvites the God who created morality for our benefit. He won’t force life on us if we don’t want to walk the path that leads to that life.

Just the same, with guidance of the Holy Spirit, heightened joy from His presence, spirit-driven insight into our circumstances—God will not share these things with us unless we want it.

God leaves many standing offers on the table. It is our choice what we will accept from Him. Some people only want His forgiveness without the result of living wisely. So, forgiveness is all we will have as we enter into the next life with nothing else. Some people want to obey his moral code, but not grow in love and self-controlled joy. Many “Christians” reject miracles or spiritual encounters. Whatever our limits are on God’s love, He respects our boundaries and will never impose Himself beyond them.