Living By Faith

"The righteous will live by faith." says Habakkuk 2:4

and Romans 1:17

and Galatians 3:11

and Hebrews 10:38.

God used a short comment in Sunday's sermon from Steve Mozingo, one of our church's beloved teaching elders, to spark a whole train of thought for me.  The whole message was good (you can find Steve's sermons on sermonaudio.com), but it was one particular comment that ignited an especially revolutionary idea for me.

Faith is no spectator sport

The text was Acts 11, and speaking of verses 19-24, Steve commented that this record—of how these Christians were preaching, how God’s hand was with them, how considerable numbers were brought to the Lord—was not preserved just so we could say, “Now, that’s a really great story.”  We need to understand that we are meant to be participants in this, too.  “Get in the game!” he said.  

And that is the part I can't stop thinking about.  The more I thought about it, the more I realized that we tend to think, as we read the Biblical record, “Wow, that was really amazing how those people obeyed and trusted God.  And, wow, how God worked in their  situation!”  But then, too much of the time, even though we wouldn’t actually articulate it, we live as though we think, “ . . . but that wouldn’t happen in my world, and it would never happen to me.”

This could be you

When we read about the people in the Hebrews 11 hall of faith, do we actually dare to think that God might use us like He used them?  I don’t mean in a prideful kind of way, but in a way that sees God for as big as He really is—and in a way that realizes that those "heroes" of the faith were just as ordinary as we are.  That’s the point James makes about Elijah in James 5:17, “Elijah was a man with a nature like ours . . .”  There was nothing extraordinary about those people; the God they chose to trust was the extraordinary one.

Have you ever even dared to think that God might use you to be the means of deliverance for people, as he used Moses?  Have you ever thought that, like Abel (Hebrews 11:4), your faith might still speak to inspire others years and years and years after you’re gone?  Have you ever dared to think that your obedience and faith might be catalogued with those in Hebrews 11?  Why should it not be?  The record of their faith wasn’t put there to set them apart or on a pedestal, but instead to give us an example of what is possible if we are willing to remember that He is coming, and to not shrink back, but to lay aside encumbrances and sin—and then RUN with our eyes on Jesus—believing God!  (Hebrews 10:36-39 and 12:1-3)  The call of Hebrews 12 is not that we should bow in awe before those who've gone before us, but that we join them in faith in their God, who is also our God! 

To dare to think these things is not to be prideful, but is a recognition that this life and our impact isn’t about us or our abilities.  It’s only about who God is!  We simply trust Him, obey, and be willing to be used by Him.

We were made for this

The life of faith is what we were made for.  God never meant for us to read the accounts of those who lived lives of faith simply for our entertainment.  We aren’t meant only to be observers of other people's faith.  Right in the midst of the list of faith-filled examples is a riveting statement that applies to every one of us.  

"And without faith it is impossible to please Him,

and he who comes to God must believe that is He,

and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.”

Hebrews 11:6

If we can't picture ourselves with those in the Hebrews 11 hall of faith, if a vibrant life of faith seems an unattainable impossibility, could it be that we don’t know our God well enough?

Oh, I want to know and trust Him more!

Extending Hospitality

 “Let us consider

how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds . . .”

Hebrews 10:24

The idea of hospitality being love for strangers has generated some interesting—and at times convicting—thoughts and discussion in our home lately.   Love for strangers can be practiced anywhere we are.

Hospitality is what the checkout lady should be getting from us.  Hospitality is what our fellow bus-riders should experience around us.  Folks who think very differently from us should still sense love from us.  How about hospitality toward our waitress, or even toward fellow travelers on the roadways?

If we are called to show love to strangers, is there anyone anywhere about which we could say, “Well, it doesn’t matter how I treat him, because I’ll never see him again anyway.”?

As our family was considering these things together, someone brought up a person that we don’t personally know, but whose actions we do not approve.  Somebody else joked that maybe he isn’t a such a stranger to us, because we know enough about that person to know that he is more like an enemy.  Then we remembered that not only are we called to love fellow Christians (whom we may know well) deeply from the heart, and practice hospitality (love for strangers) toward people we don’t know well, but we are called to love our enemies, too.  And that leaves no one outside the reach of the love our Lord asks us to extend.

Lately, I have been struck by the incredible love and concern that the apostle Paul expressed in his letter to the Christians at Colossae.  “For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you . . .”  (Colossians 1:9).  Some of those he was writing to—and praying for—he had never even met; they were people he’d only heard about.

“For I want you to know how great a struggle I have on your behalf, and for those who are at Laodicea, and for all those who have not personally seen my face, that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, and attaining to all the wealth that comes from a full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is Christ Himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”  Colossians 2:1-3

Our prayers may never be the same again, as we express love for strangers by praying for people we haven’t met.  Even a simple trip to the store may never be the same again either.

Recently, I had the privilege of staying in a Bed and Breakfast in Illinois whose motto is “Arrive as guests; leave as friends.”  That indeed is an accurate description of my experience there.  My hostess knew how to go beyond the scrumptious food and cozy accommodations she offered, to express genuine love and care for her guests; she understood what hospitality really is.

Most people have some idea of how to be nice to their friends.  But God's people are called to go beyond that.  For the sake of the Lord’s reputation, let’s be the radical people, the people who are marveled at, who would dare to treat strangers as friends.

Our family would love to hear, by way of comments, any avenues of practicing love for strangers that you may think of.  We can spur one another on toward love and good deeds in Jesus’ name and for His sake.

If you missed the previous post on hospitality, you can find it by clicking here.

True Hospitality

"Let love be without hypocrisy.

. . .Be devoted to one another in brotherly love;

give preference to one another in honor

. . . practicing hospitality."

See Romans 12:9-13.

Hospitality—just what does that mean?  Most of us think of hospitality as hosting our friends in our home—serving a scrumptious meal for dear friends presented on a lovely table or providing clean and cozy accommodations for good friends from out of town.  But, actually, having our friends over for dinner isn’t hospitality at all.

The real meaning of the New Testament Greek word in Romans 12:13, which is translated as "hospitality," is actually love for strangers.

Love for strangers.  That’s right.  People we don’t know well. Certainly there’s nothing wrong about hosting friends in our homes.  In fact, it’s a wonderful thing to do, but we can’t legitimately call it Romans 12 hospitality.

Why?  Because hospitality is literally love for strangers.  How could we have missed this for so long?

This concept of hospitality is absolutely revolutionary.  You don’t even technically need to be in your own home to practice hospitality.  An attitude of love toward people you don’t know well can be pursued anywhere.  Granted, you can certainly demonstrate that love by inviting someone to your home, but true hospitality will also manifest in the way we treat someone outside our established circle of friends in any and every setting imaginable.

This changes everything!  Pursuing and practicing real hospitality means cliques are banned.  Inside jokes are entirely inappropriate behavior.  Hospitality means nobody within our reach ever feels like an outsider.  Nobody within our reach feels left out or like a fifth wheel.  Nobody in our presence should ever wish they could melt into the floor because their existence isn’t even acknowledged.

Hospitality leaves absolutely no room for self-centered behavior.  Hospitality means we will be others focused.  We will not be content to keep to our comfortable circle of old friends if there is a newcomer near.  We will get out of our selfish little comfort zones to reach out to draw in someone new.  And if after a conversation with someone, you realize you learned nothing about the other person, guess what?  That was inhospitable, too.  If you did all the talking, you displayed a great love of self, but no love for a stranger.

If we’re going to practice hospitality, there’s no getting by with an excuse of a reserved nature or shyness, either.   Refusing to talk to someone new is simply being inhospitable.

This real, Biblical hospitality is a challenging calling.  This is going to change everything.  It will stretch us.  We can never be comfortable with life as it is in our own little circle ever again.  But God never calls us to something He can’t or won’t empower.  The real obstacle to the practice of true hospitality is our focus on self.  Paul reminds us, in Philippians 2, of the ultimate stranger-love Jesus showed to us when He gave up His rights as God to come to earth to save us.  And he urges us to have the same attitude.

“Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit,

but with humility of mind

let each of you regard one another as more important than himself;

do not merely look out for your own personal interests,

but also for the interests of others.” 

Philippians 2:3-4

The nature of real hospitality creates an almost paradoxical phenomenon.  As we practice hospitality to strangers, pretty soon those strangers aren’t strangers anymore.  Of course, we can still spend time with them and host them now as our friends, but our eyes must be looking ever outward, and our hearts must be constantly reaching farther—to the ones at the fringes of and beyond our normal circles—if we are to continue to pursue true hospitality.

Truly, the practice of real, Biblical hospitality has nothing to do with how we treat our friends.  Instead it has everything to do with lovingly turning strangers into friends.  It’s about how we meet and treat strangers whether they come to us or we go to them.  And in fact, if we are really going to love strangers, we will go to them, both literally physically and in the way our hearts are turned toward them.  

Let us be the kind of people who make others feel welcomed, loved, appreciated, and valued whether we have known them for a year, an hour, a lifetime, or for only a minute!

May we be the kind of people who make others feel that they have come home the very moment they enter our presence.

P.S. Can you just imagine what the pursuit of real hospitality would mean for the spread of the gospel?!

So What? Part Three: Spent and Expended

I've noticed something.  When I'm struggling hard to accomplish something, there's a part of me that really longs for the job to be easier.  I tend to push back and fight against something that seems so very hard--that is, until someone tells me it's normal for it to be that exhausting, to have to work so hard at it.  And then, it's as if a great deal of the weight is somehow lifted, though it really is just as heavy as it ever was.  Somehow, just knowing it's okay to pour everything I have into something makes it easier to do.

Our culture tends to encourage us to look for the easiest way around, or out of, any challenge.  You know, "You deserve a break."  Yet we know in our hearts that anything truly worth doing will take a tremendous investment.

Why is mothering so exhausting?  Why does discipling our children require so much effort?  Why does compassion have to require so much of us?

There's something about being spent for somebody else's welfare that brings a satisfaction unequal to any other.  And it's not just somebody off the street saying so.  Our dear Savior was willing to take the most costly route to our rescue.  "You were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold. . . but with precious blood, . . .the blood of Christ."  (I Peter 1:18-19)

Yes, my heart says, but He was God; He had the strength to do it. . .

But then I look further into the testimonies of the saints, and I see what God did through an ordinary man who visited Thessalonica.  "We proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children.  Having thus a fond affection for you, we were well-pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives because you had become very dear to us."  (I Thessalonians 2:7-8)

And when he was worried that they might have fallen prey to temptation, the good news of their faith and love was his comfort, as he says, "Now we really live, if you stand firm in the Lord."  (I Thessalonians 3:8)  He didn't have adequate words to thank God enough for the joy he experienced on their account, they whom he described as his glory, hope, joy and crown of exultation.  Really living, for him, was all about their success.

This life poured out on behalf of others was no drudgery, but he rejoiced to do it.  "Even if I am being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with you all."   And he called others to join in this life of being spent for others.  "And you, too, I urge you, rejoice in the same way and share your joy with me."  (Philippians 2:17-18)

This man, who sang in prison and who called others to rejoice, in letters he wrote from prison, found his joy in being poured out for others.  "I will most gladly spend and be expended for your souls. . ." (II Corinthians 12:15)  Wow!

As did his Lord before him.

". . . Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you may not grow weary and lose heart."  (Hebrews 12:2-3)

We start with opening our eyes, and then our hearts, to the needs around us.  Then, and only then, is the overwhelming and paradoxical joy of being spent and expended for someone else even a possibility.

If we never knew hunger or thirst, we'd never know the joy of having it satisfied.  If we were never cold, we'd never know the comfort of warmth.  If we never were sad, we'd never understand the soaring heights of joy.  And if we never let ourselves be expended for someone else's need, we'd never know the incomparable joy of being a part of meeting that need as the hands and feet of Jesus.

So I've stopped asking why it has to be hard.  I've stopped fighting against being poured out.  I'm resting in the truths I've found in His Word.  It's okay, even right, to spend and be expended for somebody else's soul.  It's what we were made for.

But that's not all.  It gets way better than that!

Even more refreshing to my soul is this:  No matter how much we are poured out, we can't ever be run dry.  Why?  Because it isn't our strength, our love, or our anything, after all.  It's His.

His life is indestructible.  (Hebrews 7:16)

His compassions are new every morning.  (Lamentations 3:23)

His lovingkindness is everlasting.  (Psalm 118:1)

He never becomes weary or tired.  (Isaiah 40:28)

As we are spent, He fills us up.  When we are weak, His power is strong in us.  (See II Corinthians 12:7-10)  There's no exhausting our supply, because His inexhaustible supply is what He pours right through us!  "Give, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, they will pour into your lap.  For by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you in return."  (Luke 6:38)

It's not up to us to drum all this up.  It is the Lord who will cause us to increase and abound--as in "to be alive with, abundant, and overflow"--in love.  (See I Thessalonians 3:12)

Oh, let's not hold back from seeing, feeling or giving! And then--let's look forward to not being able to hold back the joy!

"I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know. . . what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. . . . Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever.  Amen."  (Ephesians 1:18-19; 3:20-21)

So What? Part Two: Emotionally Entangled

I've tried to wrap my mind around it every which way, but I can't come up with a way to have compassion without emotional entanglement.  Compassion literally means to 'suffer with' someone.  If you take emotion out of it, you can't feel anything with anyone at all.  It just can't be done.

Things would be so much easier if compassion were only an option, just a preference for those naturally bent that way--but it's not.  "So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion. . ." (Colossians 3:12)  Compassion is to be our way of life, not optional equipment.

The second half of compassion is the desire to do something to alleviate the suffering you first feel with someone, but most of us rarely go that far.  It only stands to reason that the second half should follow naturally if we truly suffered with someone, so I'm beginning to wonder if the reason we often don't express the second part of compassion is that we haven't let ourselves do the first half.  We don't want to know, and we don't allow ourselves to be informed, so we won't make that emotional connection.  Maybe we're afraid to cry.  Maybe we're afraid of what it will cost us.

But the question really is, "What will my lack of emotional entanglement cost someone else?"

If, like Galatians 2:20 says, we no longer live, but Christ lives in us, then the compassionate heart of Jesus should be clearly evident in us.  Jesus wept with Lazarus' sisters and wept over Jerusalem, and He was moved with compassion to heal sick people (Matthew 14:14), to give sight to blind men (Matthew 20:34), to touch and cleanse a leper (Mark 1:41), to teach distressed and dispirited people (Matthew 9:36, Mark 6:34), to feed hungry people so they wouldn't faint on the way home (Matthew 15:32), and to resurrect a widow's son and give him back to his mama (Luke 7:12-15).  He let Himself feel with the people and be moved to act on their behalf.

I see in the example of Jesus that He means for us to get emotionally entangled; it's right to feel things so deeply that it moves us to tears and to action.  When questioned by the religious elite over His time spent with the needy and despised, He said, ". . . Go and learn what this means:  'I DESIRE COMPASSION, AND NOT SACRIFICE,' .  . ." (Matthew 9:13)

Breaking the cycle of apathy begins with opening our eyes, and it continues with opening our hearts.

Oh, Lord, let our hearts be broken over the things that break Your heart.

Please, Lord, make us feel what You feel, weep over what makes You weep, and move us to make a difference in Your name.

So What? Part One

"I used to think that cowardice was the worst

of human vices.

I've changed my mind; it's apathy!"

--Megan Carpenter

I think she's right.

The immediate context of her pronouncement was our conversation about orphans, but we had been wondering out loud together why, in general, so few people will actually do anything about situations that clearly need attention.

I think there is a cycle of reasons.  First, we avoid being confronted with needs.  If we do manage to be confronted with a need, we refuse to look into the faces of the need, so as to not get emotionally attached.  However, if, in spite of our best attempts to remain unentangled, we are stirred to do something, we pacify our urge to get involved by choosing the easiest and generally least costly way, so we can feel we've made a difference with relatively little inconvenience to ourselves.  Once we've convinced ourselves we've done our part, we return to our busy, self centered lives where we leave no room for further intrusion upon our priorities. Unfortunately, the cycle repeats itself again and again, whether the need is an orphan, the unborn, broken lives who don't know Jesus, or the sorry state of affairs in our nation.

Honestly, if we claim to follow Jesus, then this cycle is the greatest tragedy ever played out on the world's stage.  Tragedy:  a play dealing with tragic events and having an unhappy ending, especially one concerning the downfall of the main character (can we see ourselves or the church here?).  In contrast, I find a totally different picture of Jesus in Matthew 9:35, "And Jesus was going about all the cities and the villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness."  No avoidance of needs here.

Matthew 9:36, "And seeing the multitudes, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and downcast (harassed and helpless, says the NIV) like sheep without a shepherd."  Jesus was willing to look into their faces, and into their hearts, and let himself get emotionally entangled with them.  Compassion:  feeling and understanding someone else's suffering, combined with the desire to do something to alleviate it.

Jesus refused to choose the least costly way.  Philippians 2 says, "...although He [Jesus] existed in the form of God, He did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. . .He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."  "Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends," He explained in John 15:13.  And, for our souls, He was willing to be spent in the most costly way, "Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done."  (Luke 22:42)

As His followers, we are called to more--more than contentedly enjoying ourselves while oblivious to needs all around us.  Jesus said the workers are few.  Paul said of Timothy, "I have no one else of kindred spirit who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare.  For they all seek after their own interests, not those of Christ Jesus." (Philippians 2:20-21)  What an indictment!

So what are we going to DO about it?  Breaking the cycle begins with opening our eyes.  It's time to not look the other way; it's time to get on, not off, that newsletter list that places needs before our eyes; it's time to take the time out of our busy schedules to find out what's going on outside the safe walls of our homes.

Will you seek with me to see like Jesus sees?

Please, Lord, direct our eyes to see what You want us to see.