What God Wants

One of the most overlooked concepts among American Christians today is an understanding of what God wants with man. We have built up a long list of presuppositions about what God wants: good action, faithful church attendance, evangelism, heartfelt worship services, a clean lifestyle, good business practices, and solid families.

While most of these things are very good, they miss what God really wants from us and in many cases we have raised these as the goal instead of that which truly pleases God. We feel like we have pleased God if we raise a good family or regularly attend church or hand out tracts or feel emotionally blessed after a worship service. We tend to think that if our life is full of these things we are giving God what He wants. Some even believe that if we could cause all or most of America to do this then America would please God.

Sometimes the false god-pleaser’s we believe in are not even Scriptural. We become so committed to our way of pleasing God that we can only accept as a brother or sister those who are doing the same thing. We reject associating with fellow believers because they allow a different kind of women’s head covering or mode of baptism or dress different. This reveals a lack of understanding of what God wants from man.

As I continue to read Scripture, one theme comes up throughout its sixty-six books. God wants the heart of man to be turned toward Him. The sin of Adam and Eve was that they had turned their hearts toward their own desires. The sin of the children of Israel was that they continued to turn their hearts from God. Over and over God’s laments, expressed through the prophets and judges, begin by mourning the fact that the people had turned their hearts away from God to their own desires. In many cases it is only after stating this that the passage goes on to say how the people are sinning now that their hearts have turned away.

Psalms 51:16-17 (You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.) and I Samuel 15:22 (And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.) along with many other passage in Scripture point to the fact that what God wants is a person who is fully surrendered to Him. It is not about actions or looks or words, it is about have one’s heart turned toward God. Jesus pronouncement of the Greatest Commandment references this as well. All God really wants from us is complete, uninterrupted love for Him and brokenness before Him. After we have died to ourselves and become alive to Christ, as Paul puts it, we will then begin to do certain things that flow out of our desire to be like Christ. We will not do things to please Him or to earn our way or because they are so important, but we will do them because doing them is what Christ did. We worry not about being right or doing right, but about loving and copying Jesus Christ.

How does this play out in life. If we understand this, we will stop having so many Americans who claim that they are fine because they believe in God or because they go to church. It will be more universally understood that being a Christian is about first and formost, being dead to self. It will allow us to have a place of common ground with those who believe or act differently than us. They are committed to being alive to Christ, just like us. Suddenly those little matters of dress and baptism and worship style are less important because what really matters is pointing one’s heart in God’s direction, not wearing the same kind of suit.

Taleban Fighter’s Boat Sinks

BBC breaking news reported that a boat on an Afghan river sank, killing 60 people including Taleban fighters.

What is your gut reaction when you read that? Do you inwardly cheer?

What is your gut reaction when you hear of American soldiers dying in Iraq? Are you disappointed because of the American losses?

The American soldiers are fighting to preserve their god: America and what they consider to be a basic human right, freedom. The Taleban fighters are fighting for their god: Islam and the pious command to destroy heretics. As a members of the Kingdom of God, can we be consistent in cheering when Taleban fighters die? Are we not cheering because we have become idolaters? We have set up our way of life, our personal security, and our nation as our gods.

The Kingdom of God needs to cry every time death visits anyone, particularly those who have a God other than the King who conquered by surrendering all His own rights and dying.

What the Western Media Didn’t Bother Reporting

http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/60428.html

The Goal of Paul’s Preaching: An example for today’s church leaders

In 1 Tim. 1 Paul reminds Timothy of some assignments that he gave before he left. A part of this was that Timothy was to keep some of the men of Ephesus from striking off into a variety of strange teachings which were, if not harmful, then at least not beneficial to the Kingdom of God. Paul says that instead of teaching these worthless inquiries and secret ideas, the purpose of his own and these men’s instruction should be “love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.” (NASB v. 5)

The goal of preaching should be to:

1) engender love from pure hearts

2) develop good consciences

3) encourage sincere faith

The Unity of the Body and the Couple

Reach out and grasp something. Consider all the body parts that participate in this very simple action. Your eyes read the command. Your brain processed it and sent a signal to a variety of muscles. They began to move your bones with the eyes and brain providing guidance and commands. The nerves carried messages and the circulatory system provided nourishment. Now consider the involvement of body parts in carrying something up the stairs or playing basketball. Your body must function in a very unified and cooperative way.

The Church was described by Christ and the apostles as a body. We as the church are to be as unified and cooperative as a human body.

As I have now been married for a few weeks, I am learning more and more to appreciate the incredible oneness and unity that comes out of the marriage relationship. The marriage relationship becomes an underlying factor in every other aspect of life. The love and support and service and joy that flows from the reality of such a relationship is delightful and unlike anything else. Everything else except maybe the Churches relationship with Christ.

We as the Church are to be united and cooperating like a body. This body is to have relationship with Christ, to experience the joy and unity of purpose and love and emotional connection and continuous awareness the relationship. I cannot describe well the connection I feel now that I am married, but I can tell you that it has caused me to consider more carefully what Christ means when He calls the Church, of which I am a member, the bride of Christ. What does it mean for my relationship with Christ if I am a marriage partner with Him.

Worship….

I used to think that worship was getting into some specific emotional frame of mind in which I mentally lifted my hands and imagined Jesus as a great and mighty King sitting on a throne. Now, worship may be accompanied by an emotional frame of mind, lifting up of hands, and imagination, but that is not its essence. Neither is worship something that just happens to us or that we can simply conjure up with special music.

Worship, as discussed here, is a verb. It is an action. Webster’s says, “1. To honor or reverence as a divine being or supernatural power
2. to regard with great or extravagant respect, honor, or devotion.” It gives as a synonym the word “revere”.

When we honor or reverence someone, we put them ahead of us. Gentlemen are to honor ladies by letting them go through the door first. We honor by going behind. In New Testament, Paulian lingo, we describe it as dying to ourselves.

Worship is the act of dying to ourself. It is giving Christ honor and reverence ahead of us.

This was very freeing for me. Instead of worrying if I was going to get this emotion of worship and trying to work myself into a worshipful mood, I am now able to relax. Worship is not something that happens. It is not out there floating and some days I breath it and some I don’t. Worship is a constant action of my dying to myself and living to Christ. In a specific worship time, I don’t have to try to get a mood. I use it as a time to again declare my death and Christ’s resurrection my heart. I can sing the songs and pray the prayers as a verbal indication of my choice. If I do not feel an emotional surge, that is fine. I have made a choice of free will to surrender my will to Christ and this, this is worship.

World in Focus

For those of us here in Lancaster, and even for Amish in other states, the shootings at the southern Lancaster Amish school have rattled our consciousness. It was a terrible tragedy that promises continued nightmares for children and continued pain for those who have lost. It is not good and it should not have happened. But, today in Sunday school, an older man for whom I have great respect made a comment. He said, (this is from memory and somewhat paraphrased) “This is not to say that what happened was a terrible thing. It was. But as Christians we need to remember what is happening in Africa and other places around the world. In North Korea hundreds of children have recently starved to death. In Africa untold numbers die every day because of starvation. These shootings are terrible tragedies, but we must remember that these tragedies are happening a hundred or a thousand fold every day. Many children are starving and dying daily.” And, I add, doing so without ever having heard the name of Jesus. Many are suffering from an entire life without proper nutrition. They have lived through war, genocide, drought, and parental death. There are tragedies happening every day that we as Americans with grocery stores and full fridges and the coming holiday feasts and chocolate and a car with a CD player often forget.

From the Inside Out or the Outside In

A struggle among conservative Mennonites today is whether to legislate good actions and intend for it to become what people want to do, or to put up with some diversity and below-standard actions with the intent of helping the person change the desires of their heart so that the outside actions will change. This is a major controversy which has been near the heart of many church splits and been the cause of many disdainful glances and L.D.N.’s (Look Down Nose).

One side tries to cause right living. They feel there is no excuse for doing what is wrong. They feel that the person should first and foremost be committed to submitting to the church and God and that if they are, they will submit and eventually learn to appreciate what they are now being required to do. They tend to have a large set of standards for the church which they hope will create unity and a clear presentation of what it means to be an obedient follower of Christ.

The other side feels that requiring good actions does not truly change people’s hearts and that it will probably make a bunch of hypocrites who are doing right only because of social pressure. They prefer to put those things which are wrong, but are done by the person without guilt, under the grace of God and work to call that person to change through a change of heart. They tend to have fewer rules and seek to cause their members to do right by accountability and dialogue.

So, which is right? Which is more like what Christ intends for his church? I have decided to which side I lean. I have tried here to present a balanced view of both. I believe that I see the purposes and desires of both. I appreciate to a greater or lesser degree both sides. If you feel that your side has been misrepresented, please let me know so that my understanding may be broadened. If you do not respond with any corrections, I will assume that my overview is correct according to all my readers. : )

Personal Nonresistance=Death to Self

Anabaptists frequently talk about nonresistance and how that is to influence our interaction with our democratic society. We consider how we are to be impacting society and how to use change the world, not by force and coercion, but by love. We talk about the war in Iraq and abortion and the poor and other very relevant and important areas and try to decide how we as members of the Kingdom of God are to respond, how we are to bring our weapon of love into the fray.

I have recently been considering a more personal and more painful aspect of nonresistance, me and my relationships with people. How do I come across to them? Am I filled with love? Do they experience a complete lack of selfish resistance from me? When I share my beliefs, do they see them not as me pushing my agenda, but the Word of God lovingly communicated through me? Does my nonresistance extend into my personal life? Am I completely dead to myself and my pride so that I feel no compulsion or need to defend myself?

Kingdom Greatness

“Now he (Christ) knew that his hour was drawing near, and insisted on washing the others’ feet, showing them once more that every act of true humility is a sort of grace whereby the soul grows as the will, or ego, diminishes. Whosoever would be great in this world,…, is small; and whoever, through his sense of God’s greatness, realises his own smallness, becomes spiritually great.” Malcolm Muggeridge from Jesus Rediscovered

So foolish to this world, so like our Lord’s backward Kingdom. We get very content with the cliches, but if you really stop and think about it, the whole greatness equals smallness thing is almost funny, yet its true.