The worst place to be is mid-way through a project. It's also the worst time to quit.
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Taking Aim
““...we make it our aim to please him.””
““We make it our aim….” It requires a conscious decision and effort to keep our primary goal constantly in front of us. It means holding ourselves to the highest priority year in and year out; not making our first priority to win souls, or to establish churches, or to have revivals, but seeking only “to be well pleasing to Him.””
Every Tuesday morning we get together for prayer at our church. It's a small group of us at 6 am. We drink coffee and talk for half the time, spend a bunch of time going over areas of prayer, and end up by praying for less time than we should since our hour is usually almost up. We also attempt to incorporate a devotional in there, and recently they've come from the timeless devotional, "My Utmost for His Highest". This morning's was particularly poignant for those of us who have planted a church.
hat is the primary goal of the Christian? Is to to evangelize, proselytize, free the oppressed, feed the hungry, etc? Is it planting churches or holding revivals? Or is it to be pleasing to God?
We American's are quick to point to our accomplishments for God as the chief indicator of our spiritual prowess, but this is not the heart of the good news of Jesus. If it were possible for us to do any good for God, perhaps a savior would not have been necessary. The good news is that even when we find that we can't do any good, even when we find that our good deeds are really just like filthy rags to God, he loves us anyway and gives us perfection because of Jesus. If we are pleasing to God, it is not because of what we have done, but because of what Jesus has done. This was the heart of the Angel's message to the Shepherds: on earth, peace to those on whom he is well pleased. God's pleasure towards us has little to do with us, it has everything to do with Jesus.
Living in that reality–indeed, aiming at it–is the chief goal of the Christian. I must aim to find God's pleasure in Jesus Christ. I must learn to live in the reality of that pleasure, to discover what that pleasure really looks like and really means. And then, from that pleasure, will flow a great love for others beyond what I even knew I could have.
When we disrupt the order and get it backwards, that is, when we focus on our efforts as a means to please God, we not only bring ourselves back under condemnation (by essentially asking God to judge us based on our own merit rather than Christ's) but I also think that we begin to alienate those whom we would aim to reach. I can't help but think that our obsessive focus on evangelism, at the expense of being who God would truly have us be because of his pleasure towards us in Christ, has alienated as many as it has drawn near. I can't help but think we have confused a great number of people who think that it is their own efforts–their concern for social justice, their concern for the poor, or the marginalized–that will bring God's pleasure. Why should they not be confused? When we reverse the order, this is our implicit (and sometimes explicit) message: yes, Jesus is good, but to really have God's pleasure, we must _______________.
This is nothing new. The first century church dealt with their own version of it. Instead of good works, it was religious ceremony or dedication that earned God's pleasure. Paul called those who would fall into that deception "fools", and passionately declared that anyone who would teach that should go so far as to castrate themselves.
We take aim to be pleasing to God. The way we take aim is to focus on the goodness of Jesus, through whom we have the pleasure of God in full. Focus on that, and the rest begins to follow.
Jesus Birth is No More Miraculous than Mine
"I have still less trouble in believing in the miracle of the virgin birth because for me to become a son of God is a human impossibility; this event, this miracle must be repeated in my life if it is to be at all! To be a Christian is not to subscribe to some code of ethics. It is certainly not to subscribe to the law of Moses. It is not to have one's name on a church roll. Is it not to take Jesus as my example and to seek to answer every day the question, What would Jesus do in these circumstances? That is not being a Christian.
Being a Christian is to be a new creation in Christ Jesus. It is to be born again. It is a miracle as great as the virgin birth of our Lord and Savior. If Mary in utter skepticism says, "How can this be?" – that is, the thing is biologically impossible; it can never be – it is equally true that for me, a sinner, to be made a child of God, for me in all my human depravity to have the nature of God Himself imparted to me so that at last, when His work is finished, I shall be holy as He is holy, lovable as He is lovable, beautiful as God is beautiful, is a miracle! Only the omnipotence, the infinite power of God can bring this about. "How shall this thing be?" Gabriel's answer to Mary was, "The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee"; therefore the child to be born shall be called holy, the Son of God."
The House of Christmas, p. 42
H. Harold Kent
So it was published in 1964. A few thoughts.
30 years later, give or take, the WWJD craze took off among Christian youth groups. Is there merit in reminding ourselves what Jesus would do in any given situation? Sure. It's just not the point. If you could do what Jesus could do with any reliability whatsoever you wouldn't have needed Jesus to begin with. We love to focus on what we can do for God; we fail, almost always, to realize that for us to do anything for God is a miracle in and of itself. It requires a complete transformation of our soul, a complete renewal of our old selves. We are made as new. Sinners made holy. It's a miracle, and we didn't do anything to deserve it, earn it, or make it happen.
I read a recent philosophical statement regarding the existence of God and the chief proof of the article was the experience of those who believe. Part of me felt like this was shaky proof; to be sure, our experiences or what we perceive to be true can lead us astray. On the other hand, one's own experience is undeniable; it is irrefutable; this happened, and I know it happened. So it is with the Christian faith. The transformation is so great and so undeniable that we can only say, "this is true. I believe."
Perhaps it's this low view of our own salvation–in essence, that we don't think it required that much to make it happen–that makes us minimize the true nature of the Gospel. I think it's the reason that the Gospel, the good news, doesn't take root as the life-giving message that it truly is. We're still hanging on to the old mentality that tells us that surely there is something we did to deserve whatever has transpired in our lives. Surely, belief was just the next step on the journey. Surely, there must be an explanation, and it must have something to do with me.
There is an explanation, of course, and it's the same one given to Mary. The difference is that Mary knew the thing was impossible, and therefore must have nothing to do with her. "The Holy Spirit will come upon you", was the angels' response. This thing is not of your doing. It's of God's.
That's how you know it's legit.
Psalm 1
"Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers."
Psalm 1:1-3 (ESV)
I was mountain biking through the forest as a teenager when I came across a fork in the road. It was the classic scenario: as I stopped at the fork, I looked down one path, then the other, trying to figure out which way I should go. I had lost my way in the woods. Certainly, one of these paths would lead me to where I needed to go, but which one? If only one was dark and foggy, and the other well lit, as I saw in the movies! But it wasn't. If only I knew where the paths would end!
The Bible presents a similar picture of the two paths, and the Psalmist describes the options in the first Psalm. The first is the path of righteousness; the second is the path of wickedness. Just like my situation in the forest, the two paths are divergent. They will lead to very different destinations. Unlike my situation in the forest, however, the destinations aren't a mystery.
The Psalmist knows full well where the paths will lead. The path of righteousness is God's way, and it will lead to a prosperous life. It leads to a life that is rooted in good soil. The path of wickedness is the opposite of God's way. Rather than being "firmly rooted", the wicked are blown away with the wind. In the end, the wicked path leads to destruction.
The Christian knows these two paths as the "path of Adam" and the "path of Christ". The path of Adam is the path we forge on our own; it is doing things our own way, putting confidence in our own goodness, righteousness, intelligence, or competence to save us. The path of Christ is just the opposite: it's recognizing that our own path will never do, that our own path leads us astray, but Christ has shown us the way! Rather than putting confidence in our own path, we put our confidence in Christ. In Him, we are firmly rooted! (Colossians 2:6-7)