Why “Getting Things Done” Isn’t Most Important

It seems that a major theme of the GOP primary race this year is "outsider" vs. "Establishment," with the former being portrayed in a positive light and the latter in a negative one. I get that people are frustrated and/or angry with Congress for "not doing anything" and that many think we should throw out the whole lot and start over. But let's think about this for a second. . .

Yes, there are corrupt Congressmen and Senators, and I'm not trying to defend them. But there are legislators who are men and women of integrity. So just because they're not "getting things done," doesn't mean we should forsake our governmental structure or sell out to an “outsider” who promises to act, act, act.

I recognize that in many cases there is more that our elected officials in Congress could be doing, but I also recognize that legislating is a slow process—because it was intentionally designed that way.

Our form of government (a democratic republic) was created precisely to prevent decisions from being made quickly. Our Founders wisely knew that there needed to be processes in place to ensure that major decisions with profound ramifications for the nation would not be made lightly. That’s part of the reason we have two houses of Congress and three branches of government. They knew checks and balances were necessary to prevent tyranny, and dialogue and debate to avoid blind adherence to unexamined ideas.

So while it can be frustrating when it seems that the people we elected are not doing what we elected them to do, we should examine the causes behind their seeming inaction instead of passing a blanket judgment on all of Congress.

Furthermore, as citizens we need to guard against succumbing to our urge for instant gratification (in any realm of life, but particularly in government) because opening the door for hasty, unilateral decisions at the hands of a powerful executive may give us what we want now, but it doesn’t ensure that what we want will last or that we will get what is best rather than simply what we want. Nor does it ensure that the power used for good today will not be used for evil tomorrow. 

Another reality we must be mindful of is that just because someone has never held elected office before does not mean he or she is not a politician. That is to say, “outsider” is not synonymous with “morally upright” or “immune to corruption.” Many people seem to be supporting an “outsider” candidate with no view to that person’s behavior, attitude, or character, as if being an “outsider” is the golden standard. Additionally, they think an “outsider” can go into Washington and “get stuff done,” but they forget that there are limits to what one person—even the President—can do.

Promises may sound good, but we must recognize the reality of the situation. The next President is still going to have to operate within the form of government we have, which means working with Congress. And that means that a working knowledge of the way Congress has to operate would be helpful.

When looking at it from this perspective, it seems to me that an “Establishment” candidate should not be disregarded simply for being an elected official, but instead should be evaluated based on his behavior, attitude, and character. In fact, such an individual actually might be in a better position to work effectively within our systems of government to achieve a given agenda.

Above all, however, we must beware of letting our fears and frustrations cause us to put faith in a presidential candidate, each of whom is a fallen being like ourselves. There is only one Person who can assuage our fears and turn our frustrated dismay into joyous hope—the God-man Jesus Christ. I pray that if you know Him you will take your concerns for our nation to Him and ask Him for wisdom in carrying out your civic duty at the polls. And if you do not know Him and the hope and joy He brings, I pray that you will not rest until you have met Him for yourself.

For more on how our fear can cause us to blindly place our faith in the wrong places, take a look at this article by Gina Dalfonzo. 

Love and Truth

As followers of Christ, we are to be a people who show love and who proclaim the truth. Many of us are pretty good at doing each of these separately, but when it comes to exhibiting both in tandem we fall woefully short. We either become so focused on contending for doctrine that we forget to be considerate of others or we become so concerned with being loving (which we often wrongly translate to mean “accepting” or “not offending”) that we remain silent when God’s standards have been trampled upon. To do either is to fall off the tightrope strung between two extremes of error. 

Yet the difficulty of maintaining this balanced posture does not excuse us from doing so.

I, for one, have failed miserably in this area in the past and am still wrestling with what it practically looks like to love authentically and to speak the truth concurrently. Perhaps this is why, while reading Romans 12, I was particularly drawn to verses 9 and 10:

 “Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.” Romans 12:9-10 (ESV)

The instruction to “abhor what is evil” and to “hold fast to what is good” is bookended by exhortations to love. This brings to mind 1 Corinthians 13:1-2, which explains that speaking eloquently or accurately means nothing if it is not done out of a heart of love. Clearly, love is crucial.

The verses in Romans, however, do not speak of just any kind of love. The Greek word for love in the phrase “Let love be genuine” is agape, the kind of love exhibited by God toward us. We know that God’s love for us is not contingent upon our merit but upon His character. And being indwelled by the Holy Spirit, we now have the ability to show this unrelenting, unconditional love to others as we have been commanded by Christ to do (Jn. 13:34-35).

Yet the second statement referencing love uses the word philadelphia, which refers to kindness, or as the verse itself expounds, “brotherly affection.” I think it is telling that Paul uses both types of love here. In doing so, he’s basically saying, “Love others in the way God has loved you—oh, and be nice while you’re at it!”

But it is also telling that in the middle of his instructions about love, he pointedly states, “Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.” “Abhor” is the Greek word apostugeo, which, according to Strong’s Concordance, can be defined, “to detest utterly.” That’s some pretty strong language. Similarly, “hold fast” is the word kollas, translated in Strong’s as “cleave” and meaning “to glue” or “to stick.” So we are to utterly detest evil and to be stuck like glue to what is good.    

In all of this, Paul is writing to believers in Rome—to the Church—so his appeal is directed to church life. His “one anothers” refer to fellow believers, and his directions to abhor evil and cling to good are to be carried out not only in individual believers’ lives but within the church community. 

In case you hadn’t noticed, Christians are not immune to deception. We can and do still succumb to evil in a host of different ways. Thus, it is critical that we help one another along in this journey with Jesus, that we hold one another accountable to the teaching of God’s Word, and that we do not abandon each other when failure ensues and things get messy.

Romans 12:9-10 gives us an important blueprint, I believe, for how we are to relate to one another in the church. From these verses we learn that we must begin with genuine agape. We must truly love others with a selfless love that seeks the good of the other person. With this foundation in place, we must speak biblical truth, calling evil and good what they are and “contend[ing] for the true gospel” (Platt and Merida 2014, 21). And in doing this, our manner must be characterized by brotherly affection. In other words, we must always, always, always be kind.

Citation: Platt, David and Tony Merida. Christ-Centered Exposition: Exalting Jesus in Galatians. Nashville: Holman Reference, 2014.

The Importance of the Mind in the Life of a Christian

Several months ago, I listened to Jen Wilkin’s teaching at the Revive ’15 women’s conference and was compelled by her explanation of why we must engage our minds in our walk with Christ and not just our hearts. In making her case, she referred to Mark 12:30, which speaks of loving God with our minds, and to Romans 12:2, which identifies the mind as the place where transformation begins.

I won’t recount all of what she said now (you can watch her message here), but a few statements that stuck out to me were these:

“The path to the renewal of our feelings is through our thinking. Right thinking should inform right feeling. We can’t simply feel to feel differently; we must think to feel differently.”

“The heart cannot love what the mind does not know.”

Since hearing Jen speak, I have been alert to other instances in Scripture that refer to the mind. One such passage is in 1 Corinthians 14. The context is spiritual gifts, particularly prophecy and tongues, but it is telling that in speaking to this topic Paul emphasizes the importance of the mind:

“Therefore, one who speaks in a tongue should pray that he may interpret. For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful. What am I to do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also; I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also.” (vv.13-15, ESV)

He then explains that “if you give thanks with your spirit” (and presumably not with your mind), then others cannot be “built up” (vv. 16-17, ESV). Thus, not only is engaging our intellect crucial to our own spiritual growth, but it is important for the edification of our fellow believers.

Paul continues, once again drawing attention to the mind: “Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature.” (v. 20, ESV)

Clearly, our minds are important. Yet how often do we neglect them in our daily life? How often do we let laziness take over, preferring to be entertained or spoon-fed rather than seeking to engage with Scripture personally and to wrestle with tough questions ourselves?

Feelings in and of themselves will inevitably waver. This is why it is critical that we base our feelings in a strong foundation of truth, or what Jen Wilkin calls “right thinking.” One of the ways we can build this foundation is to thoughtfully interact with the Bible, both by reading it and by studying it.

So instead of being content to be children in our thinking or to live out our relationship with Christ solely in the realm of the heart, let’s remember that God has given us a mind and that He’s given it to us for a reason. Let’s ask questions, cultivate our curiosity, exercise our minds, and watch how a growing knowledge of God through His Word will transform our lives.

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind […].” 

~ Romans 12:2a, ESV

To read the Arabic translation of this post, click here.

لقراءة الترجمة العربية لهذا المنشور إضغط هنا.

Reacting to Change: Selfishness or Sanctification?

Change. 

It is likely one of the most detested words in the English language (unless when used to denote money, that is). Merely mention it, and people will respond with visceral reactions of apprehension, fear, and/or resistance. Understanding why such reactions are so common is not difficult. We are obsessed with comfort, dependent on routine, and enamored of the status quo. We’ve all heard the phrase a thousand times: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” which is just another way of saying don’t go changing things up just for the heck of it.

But what if things really are “broke”?

Is change always a bad thing? Somehow I think we all know deep down that the answer to this question is a resounding “no.”  So why, then, do we so often automatically react negatively to the idea of change? Perhaps it is because change requires adjustment and because we also know deep down that adjustment makes us uncomfortable—and we detest being uncomfortable.

But as Christians, we have not been called to a life of comfort. We were not saved out of our depravity to live lives of ease and pleasure but rather to live in surrender to the One who died for us. We were rescued not for our own sake but for His. He experienced the ultimate discomfort in absorbing the full brunt of the wrath of God, and we have been called to follow Him—which means carrying a cross. Every. Single. Day.

Yet too often we are more concerned with maintaining a high level of comfort than we are with developing a lifestyle of holiness. We would much rather be catered to personally than serve others ourselves. We are more than content to sit back in the comfy recliner of assurance, knowing that we will be going to Heaven one day, and ride out the rest of our earthly lives encountering as little disruption as possible.

But the gospel is not about that.

Jesus didn’t become a human, live 33 years on this depraved earth, suffer the ultimate punishment for doing absolutely nothing wrong, and then rise from the dead just so we wouldn’t have to go to hell. Yes, that’s certainly part of it, but it’s so much more than that! He came to right the wrongs caused by the Fall, to restore man’s relationship to God, to creation, to other humans, and to himself. Jesus did what He did so that we could live a new life now, so that we could share His good news and bring Him glory here. On this earth. In 2015. And 2016. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17, ESV).

Now that’s some major change right there.

And, “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us” (2 Corinthians 5:18-20a, ESV, emphasis added). So basically, we have a job to do. It won’t always be easy, but it’s why we’ve been saved.  

As David Platt writes, “Grace brings about change” (Platt and Merida 2014, 11).

In other words, change is fundamental to the gospel itself. In being brought from death to life, we have experienced the greatest change of all, and that initial change produces continual change as we are daily sanctified, made more like Christ.

So when we encounter change in this life, let’s try to look at it through the lens of sanctification instead of the lens of selfishness. Before getting uptight and upset over minor adjustments or even major alterations, let’s ask the Holy Spirit to examine our hearts and reveal to us when we are being more in love with comfort than with Christ. And meanwhile, may we direct our attention to the broken parts of our own lives and allow Him to bring about the change in us that His death and resurrection has made possible.

Citation: Platt, David and Tony Merida. Christ-Centered Exposition: Exalting Jesus in Galatians. Nashville: Holman Reference, 2014.

The Eternal Wonder of Christmas

Somehow December manages to be the busiest month of the year. As strains of “Silent Night” fill the air, we are everything but silent as we scurry around buying gifts, going to parties, baking all sorts of delectable sweets.

Rather than pondering the lyrics of “It Came upon a Midnight Clear,” we burn the midnight oil until putting two coherent thoughts together becomes a major accomplishment. Then before we know it, it’s New Year’s Eve and Christmas is all but forgotten.

But what if we stopped for a moment to soak in the season? What if we made rest one of the items on our to-do list? What if we slipped away and stilled our soul long enough to think, long enough to ask some questions about the purpose and value of Christmas?

Perhaps we would discover that the story of Christmas is so much bigger than December 25.

In fact, it’s a story—a true story—that continues all the way to Easter and beyond. It’s a story that has the power to change every day of our lives on this earth and our eternal destinies as well—because it’s the story of the God of the universe humbling Himself to be born a man for the express purpose of sacrificing Himself so our relationship with Him could be restored.

If we take a moment to let that truth seep into the depths of our hearts and minds, I daresay we won’t be able to look at Christmas the same way again. No more will “the most wonderful time of the year” be limited to December. Instead, the message of Christmas will cause us to overflow with joy throughout the remaining eleven months of the year. Why? Because the Wonder that was born on Christmas is still alive today and will be forevermore.

As you take time this holiday season to ponder the significance of Christmas, my cousin and I hope you will find this song a helpful point of focus. We pray its rhetorical questions impress upon you the magnitude of the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the Wonder of wonders.

To learn more about "Wonder of Wonders," read the story behind the song here.

Praying for Patience

“Don’t pray for patience!”

Perhaps you have heard someone exclaim this phrase or have even uttered it yourself. If so, you know the drill:

“Don’t pray for patience, or you’ll get stuck in traffic!”

                                “Don’t pray for patience, or God will make you wait.”

                                                                “Pray for patience? Are you sure you want to do that?”

I’ve heard statements like these, frequently uttered with a laugh, as long as I can remember, but it’s only been in the past few years that I have begun to understand how they have affected my own thought process.  As I’ve come to evaluate these warnings, I’ve discovered two ways in which the underlying mindset behind them is profoundly incorrect and downright dangerous.

First, these comments are spoken from the assumption, whether conscious or not, that God is what some have termed a “cosmic killjoy,” that He is all about making our lives as frustrating and difficult as possible. Now while it is true that God never promises us happy lives of constant pleasure and that as followers of Christ we are guaranteed to share in His suffering, it is also true that God does not withhold blessings (sometimes physical, but often spiritual) from His children. At His core He is good, and in His dealings He is good.  

Statements like “Don’t pray for patience, or you’ll get stuck in traffic” or “Don’t pray for help loving people, or God will send you a bunch of jerks,” imply that God will necessarily respond to your request for something good by forcing you to go through something hard or frustrating. Such an assumption became dangerous in my own life because it began to seep into other facets of my mindset to the point that I became hesitant to pray about certain things for fear of God’s taking them away or somehow bringing difficulty to my life through them.

—until one day the absurdity of this hesitancy hit me like a ton of bricks.

What an injustice to God’s Name to deny His wisdom in allowing what He chooses to allow. What a gross misrepresentation of His character to assume that He will always reward prayer with hardship!

And then I thought, but so what if He does?

Knowing that God is all-good and all-wise and that, because I am His child, He has my best interests at heart, then even if He does allow hardship and pain in my life in order to grow and refine me, would such hardship and pain not be worth it? Would it not be better to suffer hardship in the process of becoming more like Christ than it would be to live a life of perfect ease outside of the will of God?

This is not to say that suffering is enjoyable or that the Christian life is totally devoid of happiness and pleasure—quite the contrary!—but merely to highlight the way in which we as Christians should view hardship. We should not be afraid of its coming, because we have a Father who will never leave us nor forsake us, who will strengthen us and sustain us. And we certainly should not let a fear of potential suffering keep us from communing with our Father in prayer!

Advising someone against praying for patience, then, (or for kindness or self-control) not only can lead to a wrong view of God but also can hinder communication with Him.

The second (and perhaps more obvious) problem with saying “Don’t pray for patience” is that doing so is encouraging someone not to pray for a virtue that is clearly biblical to possess. Patience is an element of the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22); it is something that believers are exhorted to “put on” (Col. 3:12); and it is the goal of Paul’s prayer for strength for the Colossians (Col. 1:11).

If patience is evidence of our being filled with God’s Spirit, then why on earth would we want to avoid asking for it? Why would we quench the Spirit’s work in our lives by balking at the idea of being taught patience? After all, it’s not like we aren’t already in a position of waiting for things. Would it not be ultimately for our good to pray for help learning to be patient as we wait, to pray for the Holy Spirit to fill us to the point where patience becomes characteristic of our being? I daresay it would be.

So next time you think twice about praying for patience, ask yourself which would be better: to live a frustrating life of impatient waiting or to be empowered to exhibit patience while you wait.  

Reasonableness and the Refugee Crisis

My newsfeed is bursting at the seams with posts about the refugee crisis. Christians and non-Christians, Democrats and Republicans are adamantly expressing their support for one side of the debate or the other—should we take Syrian refugees or should we not?

What has struck me about many of the comments (on both sides) is that they treat the issue as if it is black-and-white, largely ignoring the complexity of the situation.

Any of you who know my background in studying history know that I’m all about avoiding oversimplification, and the comments on this issue reek of it.  So my plea with all of you today is that, whatever your position is, you evaluate it and the other side with reasonableness, recognizing that this very well could be a “both/and” not an “either/or” issue.

For example, Christians who are emphasizing our responsibility to be compassionate are not incorrect; we are to show compassion to others. However, some of those same Christians are assuming—without seeking to understand the reasons and thought-processes behind the objection—that if anyone objects to accepting Syrian refugees they are necessarily being uncompassionate and untrue to the gospel.

Similarly, Christians who think we should delay accepting Syrian refugees accuse those who want to allow them in of being foolish and naïve.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, this should not be! We, of all people, should be good thinkers and good listeners! Remember the exhortation the Holy Spirit gave us through the apostle Paul: “Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand;” (Philip. 4:5).

While you are trying to contend for the gospel, do not become a stumbling block through your unreasonableness and/or pride. Because the truth is, it’s possible to be compassionate and wise at the same time. What we need to focus on, then, is how to do just that.