Where ‘Self-Help’ Comes From

H. Jackson Brown has suggested 21 ways by which we can achieve success in our lives. I’m going to take issue with my own use of the word ‘we’ here, but I’m also going to take a brief look at the Biblical foundation for every one of these principles over the next little while. And, I’m going to be rather vocal about the frightening roads these ways of thinking can lead you down, and why these steps need to be carefully tested and approved in application. You can find the suggestions here. And I’m not going to spend 21 posts on these things alone, but rather, I’m going to alternate between these and some insights I’ve been having over the past few dry weeks.

First, my complaint about the use of ‘we’ is that it can be taken to imply that we are the only operative parties in acting towards the fulfillment of these parts of our lives. This is patently not true, and so I preface my remarks on Brown’s suggestions with this: It’s not in ourselves that we can find the fulfillment of these things – please, make no mistake, they are valuable points to consider and they do truly offer beneficial suggestions- but in Jesus Christ, His teachings and His life. And it is by looking towards Him that we are given a proper perspective on their value.

I also want to make it clear that the tile of this post is itself a comment on what I’m trying to say. ‘Self-help’ is impossible. It’s not within our abilities to save or to sanctify ourselves, though we have every possibility of damning ourselves to Hell if we try. Neither is it possible to fulfill the righteousness within which these things fall. Biblically, Christ lived a fully righteous life and that life is what provides redemption for our own unrighteousness in arrogance and pride. So I’m going to say it plainly. I believe that ’self-help’ is arrogance beyond belief. We cannot make ourselves ‘good people’ any more than we can pull the moon out of the sky. We can’t remedy the darkness in ourselves by ourselves.

I’m not going to go into the first of the suggestions for success tonight, but I will put it up for you to think about:

1. Marry the right person. This one decision will determine 90% of your happiness or misery.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Bearing Witness II

As I said last time, we are, every minute of every day, teaching someone something. Not necessarily in words or concepts, but certainly in character. So living in the freedom of Christ takes on a whole new weight of meaning. So does just living in Christ. If we thought about this as much as we think about, say, for example, how others are mistreating us, I’m sure we’d be unable to act on anything. Thank the Lord, then, that we don’t think about it…and then pray for His grace on the fact that we don’t think about it.

This is an important point of being authentic. What does it say about Jesus when we sin in judging, for example, or mean-spirited argument? We know what He says about it from Matthew7:1-5, to name one example:

“‘Judge not, that you be not judged. for with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother ‘let mew take the speck out of your eye’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.’”

These verses are so often taken out of context, however, and are used to condone liberal thinking.  I’m of the mind that they are, in context, a guidebook on being wary of presuming a higher standard than anyone else, which contradicts Romans 3:19-26:

“Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.  For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.  But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it – the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.  For there is no distinction:  for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.  this was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.  It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

All have sinned, and no-one is of higher value in the eyes of God than His Son, whose righteousness is our propitiation.  We are not to presume a higher standing, or act in ways that might bring glory to ourselves.  This includes comments like “I don’t think you’re giving people what they need”…as if to presume that we know any better.  I’ve been feeling very convicted on this particular point of late, for a number of reasons.

My intent in this post, then, is simple.  To get my thoughts out on a particular point of living in Christ.  I’ve got one more, I think, about bearing witness, and then who knows.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer

Holy Discontent

Holy discontent is a phrase that seems to come freighted with all sorts of associations. Let me skip right to what I mean when I say it. I am talking about a form of outrage which directs one into the path of holiness and trust, rather than into sin. If we have the mind of Christ, then our outrage likewise should be as the heart of Christ was outraged. In the perversion of the temple court, he was outraged, seeing it turned into a den of thieves. (See Matthew 21:12-17, Mark 11:15-19, and Luke 19:45-48) Regardless, when Jesus gets outraged, he goes ballistic. He overturns tables, drives the moneychangers and usurers out with a scourge, and cries out in vicious anger at the way His Father’s house is being treated.

Now, we face the same points of outrage in our society, in a number of different circumstances. I am outraged at the impoverished hearts and minds that see the perversion, the pissed-on rug of holy days and Sabbath days as normal, and even as acceptable. I am outraged at the depravity of society that would allow some very dark places of the heart and mind to exist, and I am outraged, too, at myself for seeking them out on occasion. But that, as I’ve already mentioned, must be lifted up in heart-sabbath, given up to the Lord that we might glorify Him more fully through praise, through prayer and through spiritual discussion. The very point, as I’ve said, of holy discontent is not a restlessness to do something contrary to the Lord’s will; it is rather to examine our lives daily through the knowledge of the power of Christ and His ability to do anything He wants. We are to look at our hearts, I believe, and see them as desperately sick, but saved by grace for the glory of Christ Jesus. That is to be our discontent. That we are far to easily enthralled with the world and its hollow and empty pursuits, and

that we are comfortable in them.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Sufficiency V – Grace

At long last, a return to the Sufficiency Series, this time with the upward-looking aspects of the sufficiency of Christ and his teaching in a post-modern world. I’ll begin tonight with a quote from 2 Corinthians 12:7-11, familiar to all who have looked at themselves and seen the truth of the weakness of the flesh.

“So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations [God gave me], a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me ‘my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. for the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

So let’s think about sufficient grace for minute. This point of Scripture is going to be foundational as we move ahead with the examination of sufficiency, because it addresses the very things I’ve been talking abut thus far.

First, ‘my grace is sufficient’: That is, all other things are insufficient in weakness but His grace, to look at it conversely.

Second, ‘for you’: Spoken directly to Paul, but by extension to the ‘you’ who reads the text, in the curious symbiotic relationship between a reader and the text, between the word and the audience.

Third, ‘for my power’: Inextricably related to grace is power; my grace is sufficient…for my power…’. God glorifies Himself in giving grace and in claiming His sovereign power over human frailty

Fourth, “is made perfect in weakness.”: Further to three, God actually reflects His very nature as outlined by Scriptures in making Himself perfect in weakness and dependency. Lest heresy should come from my keys, let me make that clear. God Himself is sufficient in grace, demonstrated through perfection in His power and our weakness. There’s a lot to be drawn out of that tiny phrase, and since this post is meant as an overview and beginning of examination in sufficiency, let me leave it there for the time being and switch to talking solely about grace.

So what is grace?

I may have mentioned a definition of it before, but regardless, it bears repeating. Grace is, in my opinion, the extreme form of mercy that allows God, in His absolute power, holiness, goodness and glory to see His Son’s righteousness in place of our own sinfulness if we profess Christianity and believe it in our hearts. I say absolute because by rights, we should not exist as worshipers of Christ in the state of sin we are born to, and by rights, we do not warrant the sacrifice of Christ despite any illusions of righteousness we may possess. But in perfection also lies grace, for perfection as we should define it is the consummation, the apex, the completely highest point of all that is good, taking good to be love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control.

In other words…grace is the cleansing of profanity in thought, deed and action from the soul and the body.

And Christ’s sacrifice expresses this perfectly.

More next time.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Exile

Any community that exists has, as an integral part, those who live on its fringes, excluded from assembly. The pariah (outcast) is as much a part of a community as is the chief, the elder, the head. The Other – a literary term – exists within the same realm as the group, the ones who are ‘the same’. It is recognition of this fact that has been misplaced somewhere along the way, as the institution of the church has evolved. I want to bring it out of the shadows here, as I can.

We, as a community of believers, seem to have lost the knowledge of the truth of our sinfulness and damnation outside of Christ. We seem to have lost the understanding that we are ALL outside of righteousness by our very nature, and that we as Christians can make only one claim that sets us apart from our worldly friends and families…that we can call Jesus’ righteousness our own in Him. It is this central point, however, that opens the doors of grace amidst the ‘outsiders’ we know.

I’ve titled this post ‘Exile’ because I want to make it perfectly clear that this setting apart of our lives, this re-direction of our beings, leaves no room for compromise – especially the compromise of false righteousness. As the Israelites were forced into a land not their own, and as we have been removed from the culture that we are born into, exile is what we face. And we forget, though we must remember, that those who live in the world are, like us, shut away from their true home, whether or not they recognize it.

So what am I trying to say?

First, that the church is often guilty of not recognizing the sinfulness of its own, depending instead on the qualities of a nature defined as ‘good’ because the rules are being kept. Second, that the very people who are disillusioned with the church are, more often than we might like to admit, those who have a more acute grasp of their own evil hearts and sinful natures than we who can claim saving faith do. Third, and perhaps most importantly, that despite our categorizing and rules-laying, despite our ‘righteousness’, we are more like those we’re trying to reach than we want to see. We’re all exiles together, you see, so we have at least one thing in common: displacement. And we all have only one recourse – return. That’s what Christ accomplishes…He opens all the borders, unlocks the gates and tolls, and calls to each and every wanderer “Come home, ye who wander in the dark places. Come home, and be ye welcome in My name.”

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Resolutions II

I’ve just downloaded a copy of Jonathan Edwards’ Resolutions…great stuff. You may remember I mentioned some in a previous post. What I might do is include one here and there as the year moves on, because just about every one of them is a fundamental point for the man of integrity. That’s just to let you know what’s happening when you occasionally see a post devoted to, for example, the ability or inability to live with “Resolved, never to lose one moment of time; but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can”. This will not show up in this post, but you never know. It’s a pretty powerful one to live by. And the man wrote many of these in his nineteenth or twentieth year! That, my readers, is freaking amazing stuff if you ask me!

I’ve been thinking about the whole topic of resolutions, actually, and the binding conditions of life that they should be when we make them. We put so little stock in living lives worthy of the price of their purchase – Christ’s atoning sacrifice. Our resolutions do not bind us to improvement any more, because we justify breaking them by saying that they’re made to be broken. Faugh! What circular logic we practice in our attempts to justify our own wrongheartedness. Likewise, in disavowing that there exists the ability and the empowerment to live our lives bound in resolution and strengthened in assurance.

Resolved, then, as a good friend once wrote me: To pray as if it all depended on Christ and to live as if it all depended on us.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Providers – Fathers and Sons II

Jehovah-Jireh – The Lord Will Provide. What more can we ask for?

As I look back on 1 Chronicles, the reality of the passage seems to be tarnishing slightly. By reality, I mean the sense that the Scriptures really are speaking the word of the Lord to me. To you who read this as Christians, you must have had this type of experience…when the Lord just spoke right to you through His word, hitting deep emotional centres and bringing joy, conviction, or clarity out in great measures. When you receive such a blessing, you note the lack of it all the more acutely when you get away from it for a time. This is tangential to what I want to talk about…but not really.

See, the Lord himself is called by the name Jehovah-Jireh, ‘The Lord Will Provide’, and provision is the gift of the Scriptures to the heart and to the soul. That’s something important. God the Heavenly Father is a great provider of gifts to His children, such as edification and splendour in His word. Look no further than James 1:16-17 for the basis of support for this: “Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”

In the same way, David amassed materials for the temple so that the word of the Lord concerning Solomon would be fulfilled materially. One central point of a father’s blessing to his son, then, is to provide some material means by which the purposes of the Lord in the life of his son are to be fulfilled. This is not to say that the purposes of the Lord depend on the work that we accomplish towards them, but rather that the deposit we have been given regarding the purposes of the Lord – spiritual giftings, connections, desires, circumstances, and upbringing – is essential to remember in the work our Father has for us, and is meant as a provision for His plan.

It is not simply in the province of the fathers that we find this working itself out. Part of the Lord’s contract with David was that He would give Solomon rest, for the sake of David’s work to glorify His name. Solomon was expected to use this providence and add to it, and as David’s son, he was to fulfill the desire of his father’s heart in ways that David could not.

To be a man of God, then, is to honour your father’s sacrifices by multiplying his provision through them, doing great things as the Lord has spoken concerning you. Should the Lord see fit to bless a family with sons, it is part of the father’s responsibility to ensure a legacy for the Lord’s work, to provide something upon which to build.

Next time, Warrior.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Builders – Fathers and Sons I

I’ll be on the topic of fathers and sons for the next little while, springing from an encounter with 1 Chronicles 22 : 6-16. There are many facets of one relationship between a father and a son that come to light from this passage, but, as in all Scripture, there’s so much more when the Lord speaks through it. So I’m going to spend the next little while looking at what it means to be a son, what we are shown about being a father through Scripture, and a few more examinations of what we can really mean when we call God ‘Father’ I’ll also be interjecting comments on what it means to be a man of God from my point of view. Keep always in mind the greatest Father-Son team in Scripture: Jesus Christ, who is God the Son, and God the Father.

1 Chronicles 22 tells the story of David charging Solomon to build the temple, and the complete text is found in Representatives Series VIII, my last post. I’m going to spend a few days drawing some of the implications of that passage out, and then I’ll move on to a wider look from there. This time: Builders.

Men are fixers and builders. They accomplish tasks, take on projects, and work at things obsessively. It is an essential quality in their lives, because men must be responsible for building and maintaining their family as spiritual and, ideally, physical heads of the household.

How crucial it is, then, that David gives Solomon this task!

Fundamentally, Solomon is entrusted with a great responsibility to the Lord and to his father, who has laid up for him materials to accomplish this work. The crucial part is that Solomon must add to what David has already done. David directs him to add to the materials stored up, working for himself and learning how to accomplish things as he needs to. This is one of the most important parts of what it means to be, simply, a man.

So where have we lost touch with this? We look at men in sitcoms, proudly slovenly as they are, and we look at ourselves…

And we mimic them.

Thankfully, the new icon of manhood, Jack Bauer, is making his appearance on the screens of millions, and the men are coming back to themselves. I can’t say as I’ve seen 24, but I know many who have. And here we have a father, a fighter, a solver. Jack’s the guy who guys need to be.

But then, more importantly, so is Christ. A builder himself – his trade was carpentry – he worked at this for many years before he started his ministry. And who did he have to train him, to look up to when he was young…Joseph, his earthly father, chosen by God and lauded as ‘A righteous man’ in Matthew’s gospel among others. Master of his craft and well-respected, Joseph laid up in Jesus the materials to which he would add when he himself was nailed to the wood of a cross, rather than nailing wood himself. Here’s a meditation for you:

How many crosses might Jesus have made, connecting himself to the fates of so many others?

Next time : Providers

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Authority

John 19:10-11
“So Pilate said to [Jesus], ‘you will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?’ Jesus answered him, ‘you would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin’”.

I want to return to my courtroom for a minute, look more closely at that point about the travesty of truth.

Inherently, the analogy points to a frightening fact. Authority is only so powerful as those who give it power. And when power resides in the self, authority becomes self-regulated, and even more intolerably, autonomous. We walk around with our heads so swollen with pride, so inescapably unregulated, that the idea of Christ as the king of our lives is unbearable.

No wonder He came to serve. To obey, even unto death, His Father. To be a model for righteousness, one must accept the reality of right and wrong points of living, and not flinch in taking a stand despite the real and terrible risk of unholy righteousness, that is, self-righteousness.

To be self-righteous is to live in a terrible sinfulness…I speak from experience. It is not Christ. It is not anything godly in our lives at all, because only God can claim pure self-righteousness, completely independent of the fallen human nature. Only He offers all points of authority.

It is not a bad thing. It is, I repeat, not a bad thing to have authority in one’s life. But the disease of this post-Christian culture is that it seeks to take all authority unto itself. Again – it’s my life to live, so they say.

John 16:12-15
“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he swill not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I say to you that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

Authority. Think on it.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.