Manly Passage of the Day: Luke 8:15-18

I used to think the parable of the sower was only for people studying the bible to become Christians. Now I believe it applies mostly to people who have been Christians for awhile.

Luke is a gospel with many more discipleship undertones than the other three gospels. All of them have the same general purpose of knowing God through Christ. Luke is specifically concerned with historical account and getting the context of the message to bring about obedience to the faith. We can conclude that from the introduction to Theopolis. Consequently, the teaching sections call us to the commitment and lordship of Jesus Christ.

The parable of the sower is unique in how Jesus explains every part of the parable. It is a how to example for interpreting parables, as well as a must not miss meaning. The message is hidden from those who persist in disobedience, darkness, and deceit (Luke 8:9-10). Although this process, seekers coming to understanding and the others not, will ultimately glorify God. It is obviously not God’s ideal will that we be anything but the good soil. He has left some freedom to the seeker and perseverance is a must in getting there.

Taking the passage as a whole verses isolating its parts, we see it goes much deeper than when you’re a young Christian. At the same time, a young Christian must not miss the message by thinking it only applies to older disciples. Both those who have been in the faith for years and or days need to listen to the lesson Jesus so eagerly wants us to understand.

The good soil is the obvious goal, so we must focus in on what Jesus is describing. He says it is the person who endures to the point of fruit bearing. The previous soil, the thorny one, is where the disciple stops short of mature fruit. As someone who grew up in apple orchard country, I know the difference between mature and immature fruit. Picking the fruit at the right time is a delicate and experienced process. It seems like a simple enough illustration though, how we need to endure to the point of fruitfulness. This takes a deeper understanding of fruitfulness because many are stuck thinking it is merely evangelism. I know I have spent many years caught up too much in that type to the detriment of the other. Evangelism is a type of external fruit, but I don’t see that type of fruit in this passage. I see the character, more internal fruits here.

Some fruit comes when we’re young and fired-up, while others only come through being old and fired-up. This passage actually argues against focusing on the immediate fruits and calls our focus toward a long-term orientation of fruit. I’m not saying to ignore evangelism or other great qualities of the younger fired-up disciples (and those really should be great qualities of the older fired-up disciples just as much). Anyone can see Jesus’ emphasis on long-term building here. So the things we do should not lead to burn-out because our aim is set on the long term not short-term results. Many have used the saying, “Christianity is not a sprint but a marathon.” That statement has to do with our focus and expectations. The song, “My Hope is Built,” comes to mind on this point because time will reveal where our hope is built and whether we really are going to be the good soil.

Many get discouraged after the initial euphoric feelings of becoming a Christian have worn off. They get going in their life and things get tough. Their eyes finally see that true love takes sacrifice and self-denial, which was a lot easier when relying upon the excitement of all the new things that came with becoming a Christian, coming into the church and a relationship with God, and the two don’t always get prioritized properly either.

I don’t think most people understand this passage properly until they go through the whole progression and think to themselves, “this Christianity stuff is hard.” Self-denial that occurs with endurance starts to don on them. They realize there is a difference between the thought as a person becoming a Christian and someone who has been around, seen some things, and the pressures of life intersect with where their faith is at.

One must go through the third soil to deeply appreciate the experience of the fourth. We can skip it and be a happy go lucky type who carries themselves like all is easy-breezy. We know that isn’t real either because mature fruit only comes through perseverance. It is a great illustration because we can think between the young and mature fruit difference. The young fruit would do well to be surrendered and ready for the process that God will use to bring them into mature fruit.

I say that because in my pride I have seen how I have fought against God’s process and I can feel stuck in the trap of the third soil. Specifically, I have not pleased God when I have shrinked back from relying on Him through the challenges of life. I have been grinding away at my responsibilities and the process has revealed my lack of faith. The revealing comes when I am unspiritual in responses to the challenges. I live knowing there will be many troubles. I just don’t like mine sometimes. If I got to choose them then they wouldn’t be challenges though. I know how I respond to challenges is where life intersects with faith. I see that I need to recommit to God and embrace His process by coming to Him with zeal and love that comes from my whole heart. I know perseverance will take all my heart.

Manly Passage of the Day: Hebrews 12:4

“⁴ In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.”

I think the whole chapter of Hebrews 12 is pretty manly and worth reading to see this verse powerfully in its context.  Today a brother leading the communion message caused me to think of another lesson that is in this verse.  He was sharing Matthew 11:28-30, and how Jesus went through death so that we could experience a relationship with God.  All that we enjoy being able to walk with God and opening our heart to God through all our challenges,  is only possible because of what Jesus went through.  This made me think about the way I approach struggling against sin.

Think of how Jesus braved the cross.  Jesus’ endurance sticks out drastically.  We look at his toughness with admiration.  What man doesn’t admire courage and the ability to push through trails?!  Jesus went through some of the most tremendous pain and suffering, through a brutal onslaught of evil, and through one of the most cruel and inhumane forms of corporal punishment known to mankind.  If we don’t already have imagery of what that looked like, we can watch The Passion of the Christ movie.  Why did He do this?  So that we could experience freedom from sin and have a relationship with God.  The believer in God connects mind, heart, soul, and strength with the fact of Jesus’ passion.  Then it naturally follows, surely I owe Him everything, especially a more God-reliant response to temptations.

I look back at myself and see that I have been so wimpy and I have relied on myself instead of looking to the example of Jesus.  I need to carry the death of Christ in my body so I can live (2Corinthians 4:10).  It is time to man-up in the face of opposition!  Jesus deserves more from me.  For we were bought at a price!  My life must answer this question well: how valuable was that blood, sweat, and tears of Jesus my Lord?

I am reminded that I have felt deep conviction about holy and god-reliant living.  Now is the time to get it back full measure!  The battle gets more intense, not less intense as life goes on.  I am now married over 6 years and have a 2-year-old daughter.  Those are two souls I influence every day.   This makes the principle you reap what you sow all the more clear.  Time wasted on sin is more costly now than it ever was.  Sure I know I will need God’s grace abundantly in every way.  I also know His grace teaches very important lessons.  The costliness of sin and the urgency to repent is one of those valuable lesson it teaches.

There is no time like today and no hour more urgent to connect with Jesus’ endurance and let His example be my fuel to run the race He marked out for me with endurance!

Manly Passage of the Day: Hebrews 13:20-21

We can so easily find ourselves reading quickly through passages like this, all the while missing the power that comes through understanding God’s word. This passage teaches us that God opens the grave and frees those held captive by death. The blood of Jesus is the vehicle by which we escape!

Manly Passage of the Day: Romans 7:1-6

Romans 7:1-6 tells of the new way of the Spirit.  That first means we are freed from serving the old way of the law.  We can appreciate the architecture and history of people’s beliefs.  However, that does not change us and call us to worship God.  The same people who appreciate these may also criticize religion for not relating to them.  Oftentimes it isn’t real, like a statue or something old.  Hopefully the point is clear that we don’t have to know the Jewish legal system to relate to the “old way” mentioned here in Romans 7:1-6.

Paul uses a legal argument to make the point that the crucified body of the Messiah puts to death the power of sin.  Like a woman under the law of marriage.  We don’t need to study marriage law to understand that women have not had equal rights with men.  That is a recent phenomenon.  However, that is not the point of the passage.  We all know the dead husband means the marriage contract is dead.  In the same way, Jesus’ death is our death to the marriage we made through our sin.  His death allows us a way out of the relationship (2Corinthians 5:14-15).

The passage says, “we serve in the new way of the Spirit.”  Instead of serving to please ourselves or our sin, we are freed to serve God.  Whether we serve God or serve sin, there is a master we will serve.  We can escape the slavery to sin, but we must see that we cannot escape the fact that we will serve a master.  That is an important point for many reasons.  The main reason is having deep conviction in our allegiance and obedience to Christ as Master. Furthermore, the new way of the Spirit is not old and stale or religiousness, but the awaking of our true self.  It is like the movie Matrix, where we chose the pill that frees us from the Matrix.  Unless we die to sin through Jesus’ death, we cannot truly live.  We might think we’re hip but we’re following the old ways, not the new ways.

Manly Passage of the Day: Numbers 25

I will not quote all of Numbers 25.  Please read the whole passage or at least read the quoted part below if you are familiar with this passage.

¹⁰ The LORD spoke to Moses, ¹¹ “Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, has turned back My wrath from the Israelites because he was zealous among them with My zeal, so that I did not destroy the Israelites in My zeal.  - Numbers 25:10-11 HCSB

I want to get into Phinehas’ zeal, but it is important to first talk about God’s anger.  I believe it is healthy to have a right view of God.  Since the bible reveals God’s unchangeable nature (Numbers 23:19-20; 1Samuel 15:29; Job 23:13; Psalm 33:11; Hebrews 6:17-19; 13:8), we must learn about God’s anger.

For many reasons, 1Corinthians 10 is a great New Testament parallel.  It says we have the Old Testament as an education and warning.  God does not want an uninformed people.  This means being informed about God’s attitude toward idolatry, which is why vs.14-15 reads, ”¹⁴ Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry. ¹⁵ I am speaking as to wise people.”

So we learn God’s anger is aroused when we do not take seriously our covenant with Him.  In fact, God is ticked off when we are half-hearted and uncommitted with Him.  Why?  That is when we start devoting ourselves more to other things!  Israel’s error seems pretty obvious and despicable.  However, we must pause and notice their sin was progressive.  They started to flirt with the foreign women, became immoral with them, then went with them to their ceremonies, and finally aligned themselves with their prominent idol.  They became one of them.  I doubt they even realized they were abandoning God because one of them had the audacity to bring one of their princesses to the Israelite camp for a good time.

This progressive tendency lies in all of us (James 1:13-15).  It’s not our aim to know exactly when idolatry has occurred.  We don’t set up and test the lines.  Rather we should flee if we find ourselves serving idols, but we must see that point is way too far in the progression.  Satan wants to blur the lines, get into our rationale and call us to make compromises.  We must see the issue clearly.  The battle lines are the level of our commitment to God.

We know God is an all or nothing God because Jesus did not mince words in His call to follow Him (Luke 14:26-33).  As a leader in the corporate sector I understand expectations and accountability.  We make our expectations clear and we talk about them every day.  We hold all employees accountable with progressive discipline when standards are not followed.  We know who we work for, what we do, and why we do it that way.  The only difference with God is that He deserves so much more commitment because of how committed He is to us.

We also learn God holds the leaders more responsible (vs.4).  That doesn’t mean others were not responsible (vs.5).  God did not excuse anyone just because they were not officially a “leader.”  Only that there were people who mislead others, and their influence was especially upsetting to God.  That is why it took someone to exemplify the zeal of the LORD to turn away His wrath!

Who will be the modern-day Phinehas?  That man of God is the manliest, and most like the Ideal Man.

Manly Passage of the Day: Colossians 3:9-10

“Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his practices and have put on the new man, who is being renewed in the knowledge according to the image of his Creator.”

This passage is manly because it gets at the heart of the gospel. A childhood father-figure once asked me, “what is the purpose of the whole bible?” At the time I new little about the bible. Honestly, I pretended to know more than did, as prideful people often do. After about ten years of study and reading through the bible several times, God’s biblical picture is more clear. At the same time, I am convinced I have just begun. I see God’s intent of renewing the man of Christ in us.

The old man is the fallen man. Of course the fallen man represents all of us, male or female, who have sinned. Since all have sinned (Romans 3:23), we all can relate to the old man. Obviously, this old/new dichotomy happens through biblical repentance. The very description “putting off the old man with his practices” means transformation of the mind, body, spirit/soul because practices encompasses all that goes from the inside out. Just like Jesus said, “what comes out of a man makes him unclean” (Mark 7), we have to begin from within to have real change. But as we allow God to deal with our old man at the root or heart, we can see a tangled mess of confusion come unwound and straighten out into the new man. There is a point of renewing away from where there was once a state of dying.

The new man in this passage is Christ in His fullness. If it wasn’t obvious, we know that specifically from the context set by Colossians 1:15. That means Jesus, in all His perfection, renews us in the new man. Our faith is centered on the forward thinking picture of Jesus and being completely united with Him. As a very manly man (my dad) once said, “We are put into Christ and Christ is in us. The more that we get into Christ the more He comes into us and the more that He comes into us the more we get into Him. It is this circle of life that matures us and makes us full grown in Christ.”

Jesus starts us on an entirely different track. It is also implied we are dealing with the affects of our old man. A few illustrations will help this point. Picture an amputee that has to wake up to the reality that his limb is no longer with him. The lost limb is there in his mind and he experiences a continual shock coming to grips with his loss. We are similarly affected by losing our old man. He is gone but we can find ourselves in an old man, out of body experience.  Therefore, to “put off the old man” means we come to our senses and realize we have been permanently seperated from our old man. Another illustration is the affect some earthly fathers have on their children. In this sense people often speak of their old man with disdain. You can be a victim of your spiritual old man in the same vein, whereas Jesus renews us in the new man.

How are we renewed? This passage says we are renewed in the knowledge according with the image of our Creator. That sounds really deep, but it can be broken down into simple terms, while at the same time not watering down a mature perspective. I don’t want to oversimplify God’s mystery, but this knowledge is not found by hitting the books. We should not make the mistake warned about in Ecclisiastes (12:12) and committed by the teachers of the law, where we think we are saved by what we know. It was also the mistake of the Gnostics, which is the primary occasion Paul wrote to the church in Colosse. This schismatic group would infiltrate the church subtly from within by presenting the attractive idea that you just needed the right knowledge. In other words, you could separate head and heart and your righteous practice did not matter as much. That is why this passage mentions “practices of the old man” to strongly imply practices of the new man (who we are in Christ) do matter a great deal. The word “knowledge,” as used here, has more to do with a relationship than mental exercise. That is why Jesus says, “away from me…I never knew you” to those who think they are saved by human effort (Matt. 7). The knowledge that renews is God’s perfection and faith in what He is doing in us. We walk in the new man with the attitude, “I want to know Christ!”

The Mystery of Christ in Us

Let’s start the study by reading Colossians 1:15-29. This passage is too rich in meaning to adequately interpret within a short article. However it does connect remarkably on the topic of manliness. It is manly (not saying it is not womanly) in how Christ in us is God’s mystery revealed (vs.26-27). God’s desire is explicitly expressed here: God wanted to make known among the Gentiles the glorious wealth of this mystery. God had a plan for how He was going to do that. Here we see Paul’s tenacity for God’s plan. Since the mystery is revealed through “Christ in us,” not simply the textbook version of Jesus, Paul labored, striving with God’s strength to present everyone mature in Christ. We see Paul making the connection between Jesus as Lord and Christ in us.

First we must see Christ as the image of God. As Colossians 1:15 and subsequent verses show, the greatness of Christ is beyond words. That does not mean we should not use God’s word through our language to gain insight. We must, and it will still leave plenty of room to ponder His depth in heaven. Let’s start this point by reading 2Corinthians 4:1-6:

 ¹ Therefore, since we have this ministry because we were shown mercy, we do not give up. ² Instead, we have renounced shameful secret things, not walking in deceit or distorting God’s message, but commending ourselves to every person’s conscience in God’s sight by an open display of the truth. ³ But if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. ⁴ In their case, the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. ⁵For we are not proclaiming ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your slaves because of Jesus. ⁶ For God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ.

If we read it in context, this passage also highlights both points I am focusing on in this article–Jesus as the image and Christ in us. 2Corinthians 3:18, which I’ll get into below, is the verse that ties these points together. It says we behold Jesus with unveiled faces and are transformed into the same image, where that image becomes our identity and all the more magnifies the glory of Christ. This reminds me of where it says, “He is the radiance of His glory, the exact expression of His nature, and He sustains all things by His powerful word” (Hebrews 1:3). God’s plan is to radiate His glory exponentially through each disciple.

In order to see the significance further, we see verse 4 indicating the spiritual war (Ephesians 6:12), and how we’re kept from seeing Jesus. We should not take for granted the spiritual phenomenon and how significant it is to see Jesus as Lord! God’s adversary has blinded unbelievers from seeing the glory of Christ. God even allows this because turning to Jesus is the only way to remove the veil over our understanding (2Corinthians 3:16). That is primarily why Colossians 1:15 is a very significant statement: “He is the image of the invisible God.” Jesus said, “The one who has My commands and keeps them is the one who loves Me. And the one who loves Me will be loved by My Father. I also will love him and will reveal Myself to him” (John 14:21).

Coming to this realization is important to faith, to our worship, which is ultimately seeing (or coming to light of) the glory of Christ. Of course these are not exclusive, but this realization changes our faith because that is where your faith that “Jesus is Lord” begins. It changes your worship in the sense that Jesus takes dominance of all things in your life—He is your life and His life is living through you. Lastly, seeing the glory of the Lord is the difference between a religious person (ie Pharisee) and a disciple. The religious people of Jesus’ day did not take Him seriously.  Even His disciples had a hard time; until the veil was removed through the Spirit.  At that moment, be it conversion or restoration, the believer’s whole being amplifies the reality that Jesus is Lord! That is the moment when the glory of the Lord appears and shines through each believer. The glory of Christ cannot be underestimated, which is why we cannot miss the awesome Jesus, who is the image of the invisible God, the mystery He longs to reveal to us!

Secondly, the mystery kept hidden for ages and made known through the saints is Christ living in us. I am absolutely convinced we where we have taught Jesus’ Lordship we have lacked teaching the conviction the second point. How many disciples today would associate “Christ in us” as a very significant part of the gospel? It should be the milk as well as the solid food. I know the New Testament does not lack this teaching.  Aside from the passages already indicated, here are some key passages along these lines:

Romans 8:29 For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren

1Corinthians 11:7  A man, in fact, should not cover his head, because he is God’s image and glory, but woman is man’s glory.

1Corinthians 15:49 And just as we have borne the image of the man made of dust, we will also bear the image of the heavenly man.

2Corinthians 3:18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.

Colossians 3:10 and have put on the new self. You are being renewed in knowledge according to the image of your Creator.

John 14:23 Jesus answered, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word. My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.”

In conclusion, according to His powerful word both points are to be taken together. They are like two opposite sides of the same coin. The first point, Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God is so important to come to the faith. So much could be said here, bringing about another discussion. Since Jesus is awesome, the perfect image of God, we stand in awe and exalt Him with all our being with every second of every day. The second point, this image being a radiant image and Jesus Christ living in us, is the continuation of our faith. It is equally important to God and must immediately follow the first point. If we fail to do so we leave the gospel message incomplete. It is not humble to shy away from emphasizing this point. I know this teaching is not lacking in God’s word but I will admit it needs to grow deeper roots in my heart, to the point where I no longer live but Christ lives in me!

Manly Passage of the Day: Jeremiah 23:6

“In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called: The LORD our Righteousness.” — Jeremiah 23:6 NIV

This passage says something significant about the Ideal Man, Jesus. It is something we must picture to understand. Paul talked about being clothed with Christ at baptism (Galatians 3:27). Colossians, chapter 3, also gives us great detail of this picture. Through God’s process of salvation we take off unrighteousness, as we would take off our filthy, contaminated clothes. I was thinking I just put new clothes over old clothes, thinking I am stuck in sinfulness until this earthly life is over. That God just chooses to see Jesus on me instead of seeing my sin, which is underneath. While I still believe the part about God choosing to see Jesus, God actually tells us there is a literal sin removal going on. So God removes our sins on the cross and He has given us the power to completely disassosiate ourselves with sin.

Jesus Is Our Righteousness is also very good news! I am finding it another level of maturity to be absolutely convinced I have no righteousness in myself.  It is easy to start the Christian life a prideful young man. Then you go through trials and get humbled out and hopefully come to the realization there is no righteousness outside of Christ and on my own merit. I think it is easy to look at myself in snapshots. I want to see the best moments, and discard the worst. We can do that when going through our pictures. It is easy to delete bad ones digitally. Sure I have righteous snapshots, but God takes things as a whole (like a roll of film). That is why even my righteousness is unrighteousness in the context of my whole life. The longer you walk with the Lord, the more apparent that becomes.

At the same time, I believe it is another level of maturity the “mature” not always personifies. Do disciples really get more humble as they get older? Some definately do, and all the faithful will. Those whose hearts grow cold unfortunately do not. I am not God, the Spirit, or the Word, so I do not judge hearts, but I get the sense that many can easily get stuck in the Pharisee’s righteousness or self-righteousness. We can be certain that is a trap the enemy will work to lure us into. Of course it wouldn’t be a problem if the person was self-aware enough to see it, but the spirit of pride remains. Perhaps equally as bad, others can sense it but they don’t have enough love and alarm to help them take the specks (or plank) out. Perhaps those who generally correct people tend to have the same problem, while humble people tend to be less likely to confront people? I’m not entirely sure of these observations because I tend to be on the prideful side myself. I’m mainly getting at the realization that Jesus Is Our Righteousness is a conviction God expects to sink down deep and change us entirely. His grace allows for our immaturity up to a point, but our righteousness must surpass that of the Pharisees.

Only one kind of righteousness does that: The LORD Our Righteousness! I know this article could go further into this very important aspect of the gospel message. It is a remarkable thing about the Messiah to become righteousness for us. When God sees us He sees Christ because Jesus covers us. That awesome thought inspires a different kind of life! He is our life (Colossians 3:4)! That is what is so manly about this passage. He is our righteousness and He is our life! I no longer live but Christ lives in me (Galatians 2:20)!

What if the devil gave a toast to his graduates?

I just finished reading C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters. It is amazing how Screwtape’s Toast at the end is prophetic of our country right now. Written within one year of his death in 1963, it is one of the last things Lewis wrote. If we’ll allow ourselves to think critically as we read it, we especially gain insight from where we stand today.

The speaker, Screwtape, is a very respected and experienced devil. The scene of the toast is at the Tempter’s Training College graduation in Hell. What would the devil say to his pupils before sending them out? Lewis describes his purpose in the preface, but if you didn’t read that you’d think the purpose is to get us to think about Satan’s agenda. That is also another way of wording what Lewis says in his preface to this piece.

The toast allegorically outlines two parts to the devil’s purpose. His first purpose is the quantity of lost souls. The strategy changes with the times for how to get as many as possible. The toast clearly indicates this purpose is much less significant since there is an overwhelming surplus of lost souls. It follows logically the second purpose is on the quality of lost souls. That is something I haven’t thought as much about. The third even less, but follows just as logically, the quantity of quality lost souls verses the quantity of trash. “Trash” is in a sense subjective to the devil’s tastes. Scewtape, the experienced devil, doesn’t have as much a taste for the lukewarm Casserole of Adulterers as the one leading the march to extinguish liberty. Here is a quote from the devil that perhaps says it better,

“The great sinners seem easier to catch. But then they are incalculable. After you have played them for seventy years, the Enemy may snatch them from your claws in the seventy-first. They are capable of real repentance. They are conscious of real guilt. They are, if things take a wrong turn, as ready to defy the social pressures around them for the Enemy’s sake as they were to defy them for ours. It is in some ways more troublesome to track and swat an evasive wasp than to shoot, at close range, a wild elephant. But the elephant is more troublesome if you miss.”

After getting the picture of his purpose from the opening parts of the toast, I jotted down those parts and asked the question: what is ultimate corruptibility and how to get humans there most effectively? As Lewis states in the preface, this piece focuses in on the American education and our eroding concept of democracy. After reading it we must ask ourselves, do I agree with Lewis’ portrayal of how American democracy has developed?

There are so many quotes and prophetic statements in this piece. Let me list two here, but you’ll need to read them in context to do them justice. These are statements that I believe have come true in America. They express tactics for destroying humanity by appealing to our values.

“Hidden in the heart of this striving for Liberty there was also a deep hatred of personal freedom.”

In a lot of ways we have come to the point where we generally accept having a sort of controlled liberty. Perhaps you can think more about all the ways we’re free so long as the government gives us the freedom.

“Democracy is a word with which you must lead them by the nose. The good work which our philosophical experts have already done in the corruption of human language makes it unnecessary to warn you that they should never be allowed to give this word a clear and definable meaning. They won’t. It will never occur to them that democracy is properly the name of a political system, even a system of voting, and that this has only the most remote and tenuous connection with what you are trying to sell them…You are to use the word purely as an incantation; if you like, purely for its selling power. It is a name they venerate. And of course it is connected with an ideal that men should be equally treated. You then make a stealthy transition in their minds from this political ideal to a factual belief that all men are equal…The feeling I mean is of course that which prompts a man to say I’m as good as you.”

The Thought I’ll Change Someday

Discouragement has great power.  A specific kind of discouragement comes when we feel stuck in our failures.  It starts when we blow it in some area of our life.  I have felt discouragement in many areas.  Examples are marriage, family, relationships, professionally, or in some leadership role.  Who doesn’t feel failure at some point in their life?  The kind of discouragement I’m talking about isn’t the one immediately felt with the failure.  That one is too common.  Rather, it comes when we feel stuck and constantly reminded of the failure.  That is a much more potent and chronic form of discouragement.  It hits us over and over again.  Any reminder of the failure is like the wound initially felt being ripped open.  Unless we do something the pain hurts worse with time.

I had a realization as I recently felt this kind of discouragement.  First, without sharing too much personal detail let me indicate the process of how I got there.  Failures come with consequences.  If not literally, the consequences feel like a demotion.  We can even feel this in relationships.  Simply stated, we lose respect.  We get emotionally disoriented as though the standing of our position has changed.  In marriage, men often call this the “dog house” feeling.  That feeling is prolonged when forgiveness is not allowed to do its work.  There may be apologies, but the relationship stays in a state of limbo because there is not a point of refreshment, reconciliation, and moving forward.  The person doesn’t undergo what the bible calls repentance. Consequently the individual feels prolonged discouragement.

Although I’ve felt this in leadership roles, it happens most in relationships.  We confess, apologize, but forgiveness is not allowed to finish its work.  There is a “change someday” sort of feeling when the demotion still lingers.  It’s kind of like we feel we have to prove something before we’re reinstated.  Well there is a big problem with that.  God doesn’t treat us that way!  The offended has a hard time with the fact that God doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve.  At the same time, the offender is having an even harder time with their guilt and discouragement.  It is hard to reciprocate, whereas it comes more natural to treat people as their sins deserve.  It’s easier to treat ourselves as our sins deserve too.  We instinctively want to put people and keep people in their place, especially ourselves.  It gives us a weird satisfaction.  I’m certain we need to go through a humbling process.  However, I’m even more certain we can trust God will make sure that happens.  He does that job perfectly!  The thought that people need to earn our respect is the opposite of what Jesus taught about forgiveness (Lk. 17:4).

If we’re Christians, then we are reconcilers to God.  That means we’re not caught up in our self image to the point where we miss helping others get the restoration of God.  God’s work in Christ is His greatest work.  This below passage is so explicit.

¹⁶ So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. ¹⁷ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! ¹⁸ All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: ¹⁹ that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. ²⁰ We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. ²¹God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. – 2Corinthians 5 HCSB

1. In Christ we are no longer worldly in our view of people—including ourselves.  The “prove it” and the “someday I’ll change” mindsets are worldly.  There is a pretty significant statement: In Christ, the new creation has come…not counting people’s sins against them!
2. God wants to get rid of the old and have the new.  God does not want us to be stuck in discouragement.  God wants to make things new and exciting.
3. God is reconciling people to Himself…making His appeal through people.  God is working through and in people.  That means God chooses to use people as His means and it means people need to get themselves out of the way and let God shine through.  Think: how does this concept go beyond the idea of imitating God?