What Motivates You To Do What You Do?

I'm here at home tonight.

My wife Jenny is out - she has a hair appointment.
That makes sense for her.  For me, not something I need...ever.

But as I sit here and fold laundry for the family, I am listening to a message from Dr. David Platt.  He is speaking on video from a conference in 2013 and his title is "Why The Great Commission Is Great" (click HERE to listen to the the actual message).

The Great Commission comes to us in Matthew 28:18-20 where we read this:

"And Jesus came to them and said, 'All authority in Heaven and on earth has been given to Me.  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."

Platt is making the case for why we need to bring the Gospel message to the ends of the earth.
This got me thinking about a passage in 2 Corinthians 5 where Paul says these words:

"Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others. But what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience. 12 We are not commending ourselves to you again but giving you cause to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance and not about what is in the heart. 13 For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. 14 For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died."

   
Note the words Paul uses here.  In verse 11 he says we persuade others.
In verse 14 he notes that the love of Christ controls us.  Some translations use the word 'compels' - the love of Christ compels us.

And so let me ask you a question:
What is your motivation in life?  What controls you?   

Some will answer that motivations are complex, and that motivations are often mixed.
That's fair -life can be complicated.

But I want to give an image here of something Paul seems quite clear on.  His motivation - which leads him to work on persuading others - is the love of Christ.
The love of Christ leads him to try to persuade others.  Naturally the question arises: persuade them into what?  Persuade them to believe what?

The answer is to believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

We live in a confused world.
On one level, the message we constantly hear the chorus that we are not to ever - at any time, nor for any reason - try to change a person's perspective, opinion, or approach to life.  This is a cardinal sin in our day.  Interestingly though, the entire narrative we see in American politics and media is that one side is completely in the right and the other side is completely wrong.
One message is don't ever change people, the other message is you must change people.

Paul would agree with the latter - we must work to change the perspectives of people.

But Paul's motivation - rather than being identity politics (an identity that will always fail to fulfill)
is love.  Love motivated Paul to travel to distant lands and to suffer at the hands of the people with whom he wanted to share the Gospel (see a list of Paul's sufferings HERE).

And so I ask again:
What is your motivation in life?  What controls you? 

While we have examined just one image of Christ and the Gospel and the love of God as the motivating factor for Paul, this is the theme of the evangelistic and missional drive of the church.

The love of Christ controls us and sends us to share that message with others.

Has that love captivated you?  If it has, praise God for the clarity He has given you.
If that love has not yet controlled and compelled you, pray that your heart would be blown open to see the love Christ has shown for you, and in turn the loving message of the Gospel that He wants you to share with the world.

- tC

The Gospel Isn't Good News...

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When you ask someone what 'the Gospel' is, some will tell you that it's a book in the Bible - maybe Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.  But while these are 'the Gospels', the Gospel is the good news (literally it means that - "good news") that Jesus Christ has died for sinner to offer us a way to restore our relationship with God in Heaven.

But here's the catch.
The Gospel isn't good news...unless there is bad news first.

If you came to me and gave me a handful of malaria pills and said, "You can thank me later", I probably wouldn't take them nor would I thank you.  I don't have any need for malaria pills.  I am not headed to a place in the world where malaria is a danger, and I don't live in a state in the U.S. where malaria is dangerous.

But if I was headed to a country in South America where malaria was a real danger, suddenly your gift takes on new meaning.

And so it it with the Gospel.

The Gospel - the Good News of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection for the forgiveness of sins - is not good news to a person who has no sin or who doesn't believe in sin in the first place.  So giving the Gospel to a person who sees no need for it will yield little response - maybe a "Thanks...I guess...".

Sin is necessary for the Gospel to be helpful, beautiful, and rescuing.  But the notion of sin is often alien to us today.  The idea that there is a holy and perfect God who has been offended by not just 'some people' but who has been offended BY ME AND BY YOU - that is something many people just don't believe.

This presses back to many questions but one falls on the desk and pulpit of the preacher.  Do people see a need for the Gospel in your preaching?  If they think they are doing quite well and just need a tweak here-and-there, that is exactly what they will look for in your preaching.  But if the full-counsel of God is communicated this will not be the case.  The full counsel of God will communicate not just stories of the Good Shepherd, but of the one who will return looking like this:

11 Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. 12 His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. 13 He is clothed in a robe dipped in[d] blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. 14 And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. 15 From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. 16 On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.
Revelation 19:11-16

   

The Gospel isn't good news if there is no such thing as sin or no such thing as a righteous and holy judge.

But the Gospel is good news for the world, because sin is real and if we are willing to be semi-objective we know that to be true.

The Gospel is good news indeed because sin is indeed real.

- tC

How Do I Know If I Am A Christian?

(Photo from Stuart Miles - FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

Over the last few blog posts, I've been offering ideas that challenge the notion of what being a Christian looks like.  Again, my point is not to say that these things (such as going to church, serving the poor, reading your Bible) are anti-Christian, so much as to note that a person can do these things and still not truly be a Christian.  See my last post (20 Things That Don't Make You A Christian) by clicking HERE.

Today, we're going to give some thoughts on how to assess if a person truly is a Christian.  It's worth noting a few things as I start.

1. These ideas are best used when applied to our own lives first and foremost.  In Matthew 7:1-5, Jesus challenges His hearers to consider their own issues and lives before they start looking outward.
The following ideas should first be applied to ourselves.

2. Some might then argue, "Who am I to judge if someone else is a Christian?  Isn't that something only God can truly know?" Yes, in the end of it all, the spiritual state of a person can really only be known by that individual and by God, and so we proceed with caution and humility.  I would be very hesitant to speak too boldly to a person and say, "I know for a fact you are not a Christian."  I would much more likely say, "I love you enough to say I have some questions about where you are with God" or something along those lines.

However, Paul makes a bold and necessary statement in his writing to the church at Corinth when in 1 Corinthians 5:12 he says that is their job to judge those inside the church (click HERE to see the chapter).  Judging the behavior of those inside the church assumes that Paul has a sense of who is truly a part of the Body of Christ and who is not.  Paul goes on to say that God will judge those outside of the Body, but that believers are called to judge, correct, and help fellow believers in a different way than they do non-believers.

3.  In Galatians 5, Paul tells us that in the end the only thing that matters is faith expressing itself in love.  In 1 Corinthians 13, we read that without love, our actions amount to nothing.  So in all of this assessment of who might or might not be a Christian, the core has to be love.  And if it is done well, asking these kinds of questions is THE most loving thing a person can ever do.  What more loving action can a person take toward another but to help challenge, clarify, and give assurance that yes - in fact - a person does have a saving relationship with Jesus Christ?  In the end that is all that will truly matter.

Here are a few ways to help determine if you are or if another is truly a Christian.

1. A heart of repentance

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So what does that mean?  Well, when Jesus started His ministry, it began with this word, "Repent...".
(See Matthew 4:17).  John the Baptist - the fore-runner to Jesus - preached this same word and in much the same way (See Matthew 3:1-2).  The word repent is often interpreted as 'feeling bad about the bad things you've done'.  But this is not repentance.  Repentance is a turning-away-from.  Repentance is often described as turning the other way or turning 180-degrees in the opposite direction.

Fundamental to the Christian life is repentance.  It is not just feeling bad about having done some bad things, but instead is a heart's desire that is followed by action - however broken and frail - to change.  This kind of change is empowered by God (see Philippians 2:12-13) but don't miss that a person who is truly converted to Christ, truly born-again will show a heart of repentance.  Ezekiel 36 says that part of this new life in God is a new heart, a heart of flesh, a heart that desires to follow God's law.  And thus we logically conclude if a person has this new heart and falls short in following God's direction, he or she will be broken-hearted about it.  A heart of repentance is shown in a desire to do right and a soul-level distress when we fall short in this.

This doesn't mean a constant beating-up-of-one's-self, but in a world that too often wants to say, "Don't worry - it's ok", repentance says, "It is not ok, and so accepting God's grace and working with it, I move foward."  A heart of repentance - as it grows - hates sin more and more, and it despises what sin is and does to humans.

2. Affection for Jesus

When you get the Gospel, the Gospel gets you.

When I grasp my need for Christ as Savior, Lord, and as the One who will empower me daily through the Holy Spirit, my heart swells with gratitude and love for Him.  If I have no sense of affection for Jesus, it's hard to imagine that I am a Christian.   On a human level we understand this, don't we?  If a person gave his life for me in an act of heroism, but then my response was a luke-warm, "Oh, that's nice", wouldn't we say, "Man, I don't think that person really gets what was done for him!"  And so how much more on a cosmic level should this be true?

This is why you may hear preachers say that if a person just 'prayed the prayer' to get out of going to Hell and to get into Heaven, that person may not be truly converted.  Consider Hebrews 12 - that Jesus endured the Cross because of the joy set before Him, and that joy was rooted in a redeeming love that would save us.  When we get this, our affection for Jesus naturally grows.

I use the term affections purposefully because the word love today is so often misused.  Love can tend to be seen as an emotional response, and while affections do involve the emotions, I use this term to mean so much more.  The affections are deep, soul-felt realities, truths that we know deep inside (what Paul would say we [in Greek] 'epi-gnosco', we know it at a guttural-level).  This is why Paul prays this prayer for the church in Ephesus (click HERE for the chapter):

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family
in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches
of His glory He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit
in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell
in your hearts through faith - that you, being rooted and grounded
in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints
what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to
know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may
be filled with all the fullness of God.         

      
His prayer here is about knowing God more deeply, even knowing (in a soul-level way) the love of Christ that is humanly beyond knowing fully.   If this doesn't resonate with us at all, we might find it worthwhile to examine our understanding of what the Gospel is and what it means to us.

3. The testimony of the Holy Spirit that we are children of God.

Romans 8:16 states is simply this way: "The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God."  I used to work with woman years ago serving together with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship in New England.  Her mother once told a group of us that when her daughter was young she would sometimes say that she knew something deep inside by saying, "Mom, I know it with my know-er."  Cute, but also perhaps theologically accurate.  For those who are born again (John 3) and who have the Holy Spirit (Acts 2), we have One who bears testimony within us that indeed we are children of God, adopted through the work of Christ on the Cross.

So how does one 'test' this?  Well, in accordance with the 2 other ideas shared above, the testimony of the Spirit should be a confirmation.  Is it possible to think that the Spirit is confirming your 'child of God' status when in fact you are not yet born again?  Certainly.  But if we combine all three of these tests, we are more likely to come to an accurate assessment of our spiritual state.  But don't miss that there is a mysterious kind of 'knowing with your know'er', or perhaps more accurately 'knowing with The Knower' that speaks to our spirit a confirmation of our status.  I encourage people to use this as a question for ourselves and for others - "Do I sense God's affirmation that I am redeemed and born again?" and "Do you sense God's affirmation that you are redeemed and born again?").

I close with this.
There will be wolves among the sheep.
There will be those who are misled into thinking they are born again when they are not.
But using these three tests can move us toward much greater assurance that we are indeed adopted children of God.

- tC

Will What You Do Last?

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We live in a world that is always looking for the next best thing.

We live in a world where there always is the next best thing.

Haven't most of us spent time on the internet and then, thinking it was ten or fifteen minutes later, found out we had blown over an hour of time just surfing with no real purpose?  Social media makes its living based of that kind of behavior.

We can be easily caught up in things that don't really matter and that won't really last.  And while there are portions of our days that are filled with what we might call mundane tasks (filling the gas tank, paying the bills, doing laundry), the question I want to pose tonight is about how much of what we do actually has the potential to have an eternal impact?

Investing in the lives of people has an eternal impact.
Loving and knowing God has an eternal impact.
Sharing the Gospel with people has an eternal impact.
The study and application of God's Word has an eternal impact.
Loving the unlovely has an eternal impact.

Pause and reflect here.
One day we will all step from this life into the next and what will we bring with us?
Spoiler alert: Facebook, Twitter, and photos of what we had for dinner won't be there.
May we make investments today in things that will last forever.

- tC

Caitlyn/Bruce Jenner: Don't Miss The Point With This One

If you've seen the interview with Diane Sawyer from a few months back, you have some background on the situation surrounding the individual now formerly known as Bruce Jenner.  If you haven't been in the loop, let me quickly summarize what's been happening.

Bruce Jenner was a world-renown athlete who won the Olympic decathlon, thus claiming the title "Greatest Athlete on the Planet."  Despite the public attention given to him as the 'ultimate male specimen', Jenner has shared that for most of his life he has felt like he has the soul of a woman.  And thus he is now "she" - Caitlyn Jenner.  Various surgeries, procedures, and hormone therapies have been part of Caitlyn's regimen to become what you see in the photo above.  Bruce Jenner is now gone, and Caitlyn Jenner has replaced him with a new her.

There seem to be infinite angles from which a person could discuss this entire situation (if we can use that term 'situation' - I'm at a loss to some degree of how to properly describe Jenner's transformation).  Inevitably for a Christian, the issue of sexuality comes up - what is God's design, what does it mean to be male or to be female.  The topics of self-expression and self-determination are worth considering as well.  One might also want to discuss a shift in the culture that often affirms (at the lower end) and praises (at the upper end) these kinds of changes (Jenner is poised to receive the Arthur Ashe Courage Award, an award given to athletes for showing "strength in the face of adversity, courage in the face of peril, and willingness to stand up for their beliefs no matter what the cost." (Click HERE for more information on the Arthur Ashe Award).

(Bruce Jenner - photo credit: Fox News)

All these topics are likely to come up in conversations around the world, around the table, around the water cooler, and even in the local church buildings and small groups.  And while the issues of sexuality, the culture, and other topics are part of it, we can't miss the key issue.

The issue is identity.  Jenner's desire to be true to him/herself is rooted in the idea that we as humans get to choose who we are and how we express ourselves.  While this is a more obvious example of self-defining, we all fall (more than we'd probably like to admit) into the trap of wanting to express ourselves on our own terms.  Jenner's fundamental flaw is all too common: thinking that if I get to define who I am and then I get to live out of that identity, then I will finally be happy.  But the reality is we don't get to choose our identity.  We are a creature, we are created, and thus our Creator has all authority to give us our identity and to tell us who we are to be.

Don't lose me here - I'm not focusing on the idea of gender identity, because while I am fully male, being 'male' is not my primary identity.  My primary identity is that of a child of God, redeemed by the Blood of Christ.  I am first and foremost a child of God, forgiven, free, loved, adopted, chosen, passionately pursued, and so much more.  But it is THAT identity that shapes all my other identities.  It is only in light of being re-born in Christ, I live my life as a male, as a husband, as a father, as a pastor, as  a friend, as a mentor - as everything.  Christ defines me and then shapes how I live out my life.

I want to be clear here.  I do not want to minimize the internal struggle that Jenner has gone through.
I also don't want to minimize the many people who may feel many of  the same struggles.  What I do want to do is point to the fact that this freedom Jenner feels is not a lasting freedom.  The Son must set us free to be who we were designed to be, and at the core of all humanity we are designed to be in relationship with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Pray for Jenner.  Pray that true freedom and identity is found in Christ.  Christ alone can satisfy.

- tC

Looking For Love In All The Wrong Places

Love in its truest sense needs at least two parties to be involved.  And while there are many advantages to technology, let's not kid ourselves and think that Skyping or using Facetime is the same as a discussion - face-to-face - over coffee or a meal or while sitting in a park.  Watch, learn, and live differently.



- tC

In the end, love

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A handful of years ago I watched a round-table discussion between 3 well-known Christian leaders - Mark Driscoll, Joshua Harris, and Francis Chan. In the process of the discussion, Driscoll asked Chan a question based around the topic of money.  He asked if he (Chan) thought that poverty was innately connected to holiness. Chan had given away all the proceeds from his NewYork Times best-seller Crazy Love.

I will never forget Francis Chan's response.

"The core issue has to be love."

He's right, biblically. This is confirmed all throughout the Bible but let me give just a few examines.

1. Deuteronomy 6:4-9. This is a call to the chosen people of Israel on how to live. The basis - hear what is being said, know God, and love Him.

2. John 3:16. This is it. God has no need for us but chose to interact with us, and His interactions with us are rooted in love.

3. 1 Corinthians 13. While this entire chapter is about love, consider how Paul ends this passage. He tells us that 3 things remain - faith, hope, and love - but then he ends by declaring that the greatest of these is love.

4. Galatians 5:6b. This one is not nearly as well-known as the others but once again Paul makes a very strong statement about love, not as merely the greatest thing, but as the only thing that matters in the end.

It's not a particularly hard case to make that love is the ultimate point of The Bible, the Christian faith, and life, but now we've addressed it directly from the Scriptures.

Over the next few posts we will discuss what love truly is and by contrast, what it is not. If love is the ultimate calling for humanity, it serves us well to know what it is and how to do it.

-tC

Not Emotion, Not Cognition, but Affections

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(Photo by Luigi Diamanti - FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

Let's flip around the perspective from our last blog post.  In the last post we talked about how God loves us even though He has no need for us, and how this love is the deepest and truest form of love because it is not about manipulation or an exchange based on insecurity.

What about our love toward God?  How should we love God?  You will hear people talk about 'head' vs. 'heart' knowledge.  This language, however helpful, should be used cautiously because people often think of the head as the center of thinking and the heart as the center of emotion.  In the biblical language, the heart was not the emotional center as much as "the center for both physical and emotional-intellectual-moral activities" (see Baker's Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology).  The Hebrew word for heart speaks actually less to the 'heart' and more to 'the guts' - that part inside you that is the center of who you are and where you will find your deepest convictions.

So we are, ultimately, to love God out of this - our heart, our guts, our center.  The implications are many. While obedience for obedience sake does get us to do the right things, we should be clear that when we obey just to obey, we are missing out on the fact that God's goodness and grace toward us should be the motivating factor.  If my wife Jenny is being loved by me, from time-to-time, even when I don't feel loving, most people would say, "That's life and part of being married", and I would agree.  But if my love for her is based solely or mostly on obedience to our marriage vows, no one would say that yes, that is deep and meaningful love.

And so it is with God.  We should be moving toward a place where our deepest heart-soul desire is to love God and we should be finding that we are operating out of a felt and experienced love for Him.  When you ask me why I read the Bible, I should be able to say, "Because in it I find love and guidance and ultimately, I find God, and this brings me the deepest sense of joy."  Jonathan Edwards dealt with this concept many years ago when he spoke about religious affections.

So I close by asking - what are the affections of your heart toward God?  May we find our love for Him growing and thus find ourselves operating out of how His love impacts us deep within.

- tC