Sunday, October 15, 2006

Is it really importance that matters?

Have you ever wondered why it is that the world values what it values? And I do mean the world. Why diamonds? Why perils? Why gold and silver? If it's because they're shiny, we need to figure out more criteria. Is it because they are rare? This has been the most common response. But as I consider what I value and what I should value, I'm drawn back to considering how Jesus redirects our attention away from these rare temporary things to something that is eternal.

I met with one of my students on Friday. We got together and chatted about life at a restaurant in downtown St. Paul. During the course of our two hour conversation, we eventually got to talking about what we value. Most people measure a "good day" or a "bad day" by whether or not they were "productive". Think about those conversations. "How was your day?" You might ask a friend. "It was great!" "Oh really? What made it a 'great!' day?" You quip back. "Well, I got so much done today. I cleaned my house, went to the store, helped my friend move, did some home work, read a book I wanted to read, and went over to a friend's house to watch a movie, after which we went to a restaurant that is open 24 hours and just hung out." She may proudly list off. This all sounds good doesn't it? But what then, do we do, think, and feel when we have a day that is non-productive, in the sense of getting very little accomplished? We then remark, "I had a bad day today."

When we become keenly aware that we no longer want this system for measuring our days is when we have multiple "bad days". In other words, when we have multiple days in which we are largely unproductive. What I discovered during the three weeks following the conclusion of my sophomore year of college is that I too was measuring my life by how productive I was in a day, but this was not a good thing. I had about three straight weeks of being unproductive. I had waited until the end of the year to begin looking for a job and I spent three weeks doing so, only to discover that it was going to be much harder than I had anticipated. My logic was that due to the diaspora of college students leaving Manhattan (Kansas that is:) for the summer, certainly there would be vacant jobs. This ended up not being the case. Thus I spent day after day for three straight weeks looking for a job only to discover that they were not available. Thus, once five o'clock rolled around and I could apply at no more jobs, I was on my own. There was no one for me to hang out with because all of my friends had left for the summer. I was left to read. And read I did. I think I read eight books in those three weeks that I was there.

Maybe you are not like me. Maybe you do not love to read books, but instead fill your day with all of the latest reality TV shows, or watching your favorite movies. But no matter how much you love those things, if you do not have people to interact with, eventually, those simply will not do it for you. I discovered that my love for learning and reading books became less and less when I was no longer reading them to learn but simply to fill the chasm of time that existed between me and sleep, just so I could start the process all over again. Can any one relate with this?

The beginning of that summer illuminated for me rather clearly how pervasive this method of measuring a "good day" had become in my life. Thus, it sent me on a quest to discover what I value, and more importantly, what God values. I figured, whatever God values, as His follower, I should value the same.

In the course of discussing this with the student that I was with, he then told me that how he measured a good day was similar. He had determined that if he had gone deeper with a thought about something, about himself, or with someone else in a relationship, then he had a good day. That was his only measurment. The one thing I heard missing from that was how he came to that value. Thus, I challenged him to try to discover what God values and make that his value. He may discover that the two already line up, and maybe not. Nonetheless, "Seek God's values and not your own." I told him.

Once we discover what we value, and measure our lives to that, then we can intentionally have good days every day, as long as we live congruently with who we are, especially when who we are is who God has created us to be. Since that summer, I have rarely had a bad day, only good, great, or fantastic. Does this mean that I am productive everyday? Nope, but then again, I'm not interested in measuring a good day by how productive I am, but by how congruently I have lived with what I say I value. I may spend an entire day building relationships, be it with God or with others, or with both, and that would be a great day. I may spend a day where I build relationships, seek Truth, serve, learn, and lift, and that would be a good day. Any combination of those five things would make a great day.

Today I was reading one of the gospels in the NT and in it Jesus was speaking to the Pharisees, as he often was. He was concluding a discussion on wealth from a temporal perspective (i.e. money) and eternal wealth when he said, "You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among men is detestable in God's sight." God seems to always be interested in the condition of our hearts more than other's perspectives of us, our wealth, our popularity, or even our happiness. People can think we are awesome, but God measures our lives not on what the world values but on what He values. He wants desperately for all of us to be in relationship with Him and to live in that reality. But it takes us moving that direction and determining that what God values is more important than what the world values.

How do we determine what we value? How do we determine whether or not our values are God's values? It's really quite simple. How do you spend most of your time, even when you are at work? If we follow the rabbit trail of our time, it will lead us to what we value, and what we value will communicate to us what or who is on the thrown of our hearts. It's simple really ... we make time for what's important to us.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Recovering Identity

Identity. How do we understand that? How do we define that? If we're followers of Christ, then what does that do to our identity? Since I am a follower of Christ, that will inform what I say about identity.

What I have discovered as I have interacted with different people who claim Christ as their Lord is that many people misunderstand identity. It seems that Jesus was far more interested in our character, in our values, and in our identity than in what we do. The underlying assumption is that if we have the right identity, then the actions will follow. Yet, two thousand years later, much of the religion that has now tacked the name of Christ on it has equated following Christ with a set of actions. When we reduce following Christ to mere action, then we have a problem. We simply have created a new religion. In fact, it seems that Christ was almost always redirecting our attention away from action to identity.

The pharisees of Jesus time were interested in action. They specialized in having the right actions for the moment. They got the cart before the horse and forgot that God has always been about the heart. Hence, in Matthew 15, Jesus confronts the pharisees and teachers of the law, telling them that they have it all wrong, that it is not what goes into a man's mouth that makes him unclean but what comes out of it, for that identifies the condition of the heart. He quoted Isaiah who said, "These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me." Jesus was convinced that if the heart could just be transformed, then the rest would follow. God has always been convinced of this. He was never giving laws just so all of Israel would fall in line. The laws were supposed to serve as reminders that they served a holy God, that they were not participants of this world but of the Kingdom to come. They had this strange sense that this life wasn't all there was.

Identity is the source of our action, if we understand correctly. But sadly, what often ends up happening is that we have an incredible understanding of who God is and what he has done, but not who we are as a result of and in relation to that. Therefore, when crisis comes in our lives, when we are at wits end (I'm speaking of followers of Christ) we remember, "Oh yeah, Christians serve, read the bible, have a quiet time, and go to church. I need to start doing those things again and then everything in my life will fall back into place. Then I will stop delving into the sin that is destroying me right now." The sad part is that eventually, we discover that the prayer isn't working, the reading the Word isn't working, and we get to the point that we might even start to doubt our pursuit of Christ altogether. The reason for this is because we can have all of the right actions, but without the right heart, it is like tearing the label off a Pepsi bottle, putting a Dr. Pepper label on it, and then acting like it is now Dr. Pepper. What good is it if we change the look of the outside and the inside is still the same?

There is a movement in Christianity that desperately espouses that even after you become a follower of Christ that your identity is still essentially that of a sinner. What is strange is that the overwhelming understanding for the believer throughout the New Testament (NT) is that he is now a new creation. We often think of this as merely a new model of an old car. But that's not what God has said at all. He has said that you are truly a new creation. Something completely different. Maybe more accurately, someone completely different.

Paul has gone as far as to believe, "You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness." It seems that Paul believed that you were truly righteous and holy now. Not some time in the future, but now. He is consistent in this understanding of identity, especially if we read and understand Romans 6-8 as a whole rather than merely ripping chapter 7:7-21 out of context.

So what's at stake here? First, if we continue to mess up our understanding of who we are, then we will continue to buy into religion as our saving grace rather than Jesus sacrifice for our sins and the transformative power of his Spirit in our lives. When we have the former, then we equate following Christ with a set of beliefs and actions (i.e. going to church, reading the Bible, having daily quiet times, etc.). But Christ was always interested in going deeper than that. He wanted us to know him, to trust in his sacrifice on our behalf, that it is through that action we are now made right before God. Not anything we have ever done, are doing, or will do, but in who we are in Him. This is a subtle difference, but it is a huge difference. One, measures his faith by what he does. Thus, if he has a "good week" of following Christ, it means that he read his bible, prayed, and went to church. The other measures his faith by who he is and how he has grown in that reality. Thus, if he has a "good week" it is because he has rested in the reality that he is not who he was, but that he is transformed into someone knew, dare I say, for the first time, being fully human.

If we continue to define our essential identity as sinners rather than transformed, holy, and righteous followers of Christ, then a few things happen. First, we begin to expect sin. Our own language betrays us, doesn't it? "We're all just sinners saved by the blood of Jesus." Or, "Don't worry about it man, no one's perfect. We're all going to sin." These phrases bring us comfort and allow us to continue on with the status quo, expecting that sin is just a foregone conclusion. Second, we begin to accept sin. We assume that there is a certain level of sin that is acceptable, that is simply unavoidable. So we accept it's presense in our lives, like we accept the presense of the four seasons.

But if we understand that for those who are in Christ they are new creations, holy and blameless now, that sin is not a part of who they are, or at least, shouldn't be, then the following occurs. First, we begin to reject sin. When we choose sin or have the option of it, we reject it, knowing that that simply is not who we are anymore. Second, we begin to be repulsed by sin. When we see our own sinfulness from the past, or we have the option of it in front of us, we are repulsed by even the thought of choosing it, knowing that to choose it would be like trying to breathe water. It's simply not how we are wired.

Therefore, I am firmly convinced that Jesus has always been interested in our heart, character, and identity more than he is our actions. He has always assumed that if we would simply allow ourselves to be transformed on the inside that the outside would follow. Yet, we continue to buy into the adversary's lies that all we really need is more religious practices, doctrines, and theologies, and then we will be where we should be.

Identity. That's what it's about. If we can recover our identity, and be who we were created to be, revolution will happen. Quietly, at first. From the inside out. Reform will occur. Transformation will ignite a movement of believers that no longer simply want to engage the actions of Christianity, but instead, the Identity of Christ in their lives.

How did this happen?

It's true. I finally came to the blogging world. For a long time I have made it my endevor to avoid having any type of blog because I did not want to join the masses. However, then my friend C.J. asked me to be a part of some other blog, so I joined that group and decided it was time. The true openning blog is forthcoming. It will lay the ground work for why this is titled "Recovering Identity". Until then. Hasta luego.

Aaron