HIM-ility

This morning during our weekly staff meeting, I felt challenged once again by the journey of learning about humility, and what it means to LIVE in humility. Bad news is that it is not pleasant for the "I, me & myself"-centred mentality that I have found myself in, in recent months, to admit to the things I have made myself guilty of. The good news however is that I do not have to try and make the necessary changes by myself...

I awoke this morning with a song called "Like an avalanche" by Hillsong United playing in my mind and heart. Whilst listening to the song on my phone and getting ready for work this morning, I was yet again overcome by the mere thought of the extent of God's love and grace towards me - a broken, sinful human being. Trying to fathom just how much the sacrifice of Jesus accomplished for me - for all mankind - has proven to be both fruitful and fruitless. What often remains when I consider it however is its enormity. And a fresh realisation of utter humility which Jesus showed by His TOTAL obedience to the Father...because of His relationship with and love for the Father.

Helping me along on this great and challenging journey of humility, motive and attitude adjustments, was another email that I received from the early-Friday-morning-meeting people. I once again felt to share it with you, so it is included below. It feels like an awful lot for me to process properly and to convey effectively using the blog-medium. But I hope that you will take courage in the fact that we are human, God is GOD and His love & grace really DOES cover us. It does not mean that we do not have to deal with our own stinky attitudes or admit to still missing the mark after having been a believer for what we consider to be "such a long time". As with anything God however, it is the attitude and motive in our HEART that determines the amount of true growth and maturity that occurs in our journey with Him.

Merold Westphal cites a case study of a misbehaving young daughter of very
strict parents. Bizarrely, (i) she was quite deliberate in making sure she
would get caught out and (ii) punishment didn't change her one bit. Did
she have some kind of disorder? No. It turns out she was simply "buying"
permission to misbehave by accepting the punishment that came with it. In
essence, she was saying "it's OK for me to do this - I can pay". She paid
the price, and thus owed nothing. This, according to people like Freud, it
how many people use religion; they don't want to change their lives, they
want psychological self-justification. I go to church and drop an offering,
I do penance, I placate God.

Tim Keller contrasts 2 very different ways of being sorry. He calls these
"religious" repentance and "gospel" repentance. Religious repentance is
when we try to keep the powers that be (God, the ancestors, the karmic
forces, ...) well-disposed towards us so that they will continue to bless
us. Here, we are sorry for our sin only because of its possible
consequences. Perhaps we can convince God (and ourselves) that we are so
truly miserable and regretful that we deserve to be forgiven.

Gospel repentance, in contrast, is not self-centred but God-centred. Here,
we are sorry for the sin itself. We do not need to make ourselves suffer
to merit God's forgiveness; instead we receive the forgiveness earned by
Christ - because the penalty has already been suffered by Christ himself.
Whereas religious repentance is traumatic (because it's hard to admit I
have failed if I have set my hope in my moral goodness), gospel repentance
is primarily liberating (I know I am loved & accepted). This, says Keller,
creates a thoroughly new dynamic for personal growth. We become more aware
of how "precious, electrifying and amazing" God's grace is, and we become
more able to drop our denials and self-defenses. [1]

[1] The Merold Westphal is recounted in the podcast "Losing My Religion -
Why Christians Should Drop Their Religion" by Tim Keller, available for
free on the iTunes store. The 2 ways to repent are abridged & paraphrased
in "gospel in life" (study guide by Tim Keller), p28-29.

G.O.D.

This morning I simply feel the words of Job 42:1-6 resonating in my heart. I had a look at a couple of different translations, and Eugene Peterson's "The Message" relates the core of it all so awesomely.

After all the hardship and tough shizzle that Job had endured, he finally came to this realisation:

I’m convinced: You can do anything and everything.
Nothing and no one can upset your plans.
You asked, "Who is this muddying the water,
ignorantly confusing the issue, second-guessing my purposes?"
I admit it. I was the one. I babbled on about things far beyond me,
made small talk about wonders way over my head.
You told me, "Listen, and let me do the talking.
Let me ask the questions. You give the answers."
I admit I once lived by rumors of you;
now I have it all firsthand—from my own eyes and ears!
I’m sorry—forgive me. I’ll never do that again, I promise!
I’ll never again live on crusts of hearsay, crumbs of rumor.
- Job 42:1-6 (MSG)

My hope today is that we come to the full realisation of the fact that God is good...that God is faithful...that God is our provider...that God is our strength...that God is our hope...that God holds every aspect of our lives in the palm of His hand...that God is GOD.

Be-leave

Whenever we encounter the terms "faith" or "believe" in the New Testament, they are generally translated from the original Greek word “pistis”. (Leitch n.d.). This is the noun form of the word, "pistis", which is usually translated as "faith", whereas the verb form, “pisteuo”, is generally translated as "believe". (Leitch n.d.).
The Oxford Paperback Dictionary and Thesaurus defines the word as to “accept (that) something is true or someone is telling the truth”. (Hawker and Waite 2007, 77). Further research revealed its meaning to include “a confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proofs”. (Bethany House 2004, 34). Some texts also allude to the word as being related to the old English word, “geleafa”, which essentially translated into ‘holding dear’. (Harper 2001-2013).

Consideration of the text which we find in the Gospel of John since commencing this subject for my current studies, has reminded me of a song which my parents listened to often as I was growing up. It was by an artist called Don Francisco, and the song was called “Closer to Jesus”. The lyrics allude to the woman with the issue of blood (Mark 5:25-34), and the man with unbelief whose son Jesus delivered from a demon (Mark 9:14-29). Scripture is littered with examples of people showing exemplary faith in God. But these two instances stand out for me because of the simplicity of their nature.

The woman with the issue of blood simply knew that Jesus was capable of healing her, even though she was unable to come face to face with Him:

(27) When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, (28) because she thought,
“If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.”
(Mark 5:27-28, NIV).

The man with unbelief had the boldness to admit to Jesus that he believed, but that his faith was lacking. The response from Jesus was the personification of God’s words to Paul, which Paul recorded in 2 Corinthians 12:9 (NIV) –

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you,
for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

The boldness and courage which the man demonstrated in his confession of unbelief served as the very catalyst for the glorification of God in the matter of his son being delivered from the demon by Jesus.

Neither of these individuals needed lengthy sermons or physical evidence of who Jesus was before they approached Him. They were in a desperate situation and immediately believed who Jesus was, and trusted Him to irrevocably change their circumstances.
In contrast, the mercy and patience of Jesus is evident in the Gospel of John as He continuously reveals Himself to unbelieving people in order that they may believe. However, it is also telling of the Father’s relentless love for and pursuit of all that He has made, and illustrates the lengths which He will go to for us to believe and be reconciled with Him through Christ.

I would like to suggest that God not only loves us, but that He believes in us in the context of the old English understanding of the word – “to hold dear”. (Harper 2001-2013). The overwhelming thought of God holding us dear and loving us to the extent that He was willing to sacrifice His own Son so that we may be reconciled with Him, is something that may cause us to overlook the utter significance and simplicity of just who He really is and what the sacrifice of Jesus meant for all mankind. If we pause our lives for a moment to consider this – and choose to accept it as His unconditional gift to each one of us – then we may well come to a deeper understanding of how dear He holds us. May the simplicity in its magnitude stir in us a deeper desire to truly, without reserve and unequivocally LEAVE ourselves and our concepts of who God is and wants to be to us behind...and simply: BELIEVE.

Motive

This morning I came around to reading an email that I received last week already. It contained some dates and information on some early Friday morning discussion meetings at a local coffee shop. But what struck me was the opening section before all the dates and the regular hoo-ha.

The past week or two I have been quite aware of the reason that we do even the most mundane things - the motive, the drive behind it. Regardless of whether it's a spiritual discipline like fasting or agreeing to do something for someone at the office, motive is something that we cannot get away from, whether we acknowledge it or not. But the illustration presented below much better explains it.

One of the best illustrations of the difference between Religion and the
Gospel comes from Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) :

Once upon a time there was a gardener who grew an enormous carrot. He took
it to his king and said, "My lord, this is the greatest carrot I've ever
grown or ever will grow; therefore, I want to present it to you as a token
of my love and respect for you." The king was touched and discerned the
man's heart, so as he turned to go, the king said, "Wait! You are clearly a
good steward of the earth. I own a plot of land right next to yours. I want
to give it to you freely as a gift, so you can garden it all." The gardener
was amazed and delighted and went home rejoicing.

There was a nobleman at the king's court who overheard all this, and he
said, "My! If that is what you get for a carrot, what if you gave the king
something better?" The next day the nobleman came before the king, and he
was leading a handsome black stallion. He bowed low and said, "My lord, I
breed horses, and this is the greatest horse I've ever bred or ever will;
therefore, I want to present it to you as a token of my love and respect
for you." But the king discerned his heart and said, "Thank you," and took
the horse and simply dismissed him. The nobleman was perplexed, so the king
said, "Let me explain. That gardener was giving me the carrot, but you were
giving yourself the horse."

Pseudo Phileo

I am perplexed. Which part of, "Switch off your cameras", does the media not understand? This morning's hi profile court proceedings are not isolated in this matter. However it sure does a splendid job at highlighting simple and blatant disregard for authority. In my opinion there should be legal action against journalists / photographers who purposely disregard instructions to the contrary.

#FirstThingsFirst
In my opinion, the events that played out in the early hours of Thursday morning are merely a physical manifestation of the emotional and spiritual murder that each one of us commits – in some way, shape or form – on a daily basis. We are not nearly aware of the damage which we cause through the judgement that we pass onto others every day, not to mention the pseudo-wisdoms we utter so loosely – particularly where celebrities and well-known people are concerned. Does anyone read the You magazine, Heat, Grazia…the gossip columns of a newspaper? Then we have all been there. The heart with which we come to these magazines a lot of times is one of finding pleasure in the mishap and mayhem which can sometimes be a celebrity lifestyle.
But I digress. It is my opinion that we will only ever be able to make an informed comment about the events in question if or when we are found in such a scenario ourselves. May none of us ever be confronted with such circumstances. But may we exercise the humility needed daily to remove the short-comings in our own lives before commenting on anything that has happened in anyone else’s life – regardless of whether the person is found there by their own accord.

#EqualityForAll?
Please allow me to return now to the matter I started out with. If stones are going to be cast about someone breaking the law by taking another person's life, then the law should be equally applicable to media who make themselves guilty of what is nothing less but contempt of court...surely? I am constantly amazed at how we are able to justify our actions when we are in breach of a law or rule set out in any given context. I am as guilty of this as anyone, and will be the first to admit it – albeit after the fact, more often than not. However I am ceaselessly flummoxed at the ease with which we (current company included, yet again) wave a finger at someone who has overstepped a boundary set by law or rules in any context. Who is actually at fault here? For what reason do we derive so much joy in the misery of another? It shouldn’t matter whether it was through a premeditated transgression or not. It shouldn’t matter whether a person deserves to be treated well or not. I have seen and experienced first-hand the transformational power that lies in treating someone exactly the way which (I may decide) they don’t deserve to be treated. When I have been on the receiving end of such a scenario, it was clear in my heart and mind that I did not want to be treated the way that I deserved to be treated…even if I had the maturity to own up to my mistake.

#ConsiderThis
In light of the aforementioned, I believe that this court case can do much for making us aware of the sad state that we are in as a human race and as a society at large. It is striking how much of human character comes to the fore in such instances. The challenge lies in whether we treat it as something to learn and grow from, to see it as an opportunity to look past someone's resume ("from hero to an assumed zero"). Another challenge lies in our ability to principally live out the Phileo - the Brotherly Love and Ubuntu, phrases that everyone loves referring to and throwing around rather cheaply, it would seem. This in turn begs another question: How much of what we say to one another each day do we really mean? But that is an entirely different blog post

However, apart from this, I would like to suggest that there is much that can be learned and improved upon in terms of the way in which news in South Africa (and beyond) is handled. Could this be an opportunity for us to make positive changes in this regard? Could this serve as a catalyst for an honest and no-holds-barred audit of the state of society at large? In my opinion the true question here is: Is there any possibility that this court case could help us conduct that same audit of the state of our own character, hearts and convictions? In all honesty…at the moment my head is telling me that there is no chance of that happening, or for any improvement to come from this. However, my heart is saying something quite to the contrary. Being a person that has experienced true Hope, I believe in the possibility of change… beyond a shadow of a doubt.