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Love Is Kind, Not Nice
God is love. God is kind, not nice. He would much rather offend us with tough truth now, so that we walk in the light, than see us destroyed in our delusion.
When Jesus speaks words that cut to our heart, He is usually speaking on a different level than the level at which we are hearing. We try to interpret His words based on what we see and know. He is speaking based on what He sees and knows.
Consider the rich young ruler who asked Jesus how he might be complete in righteousness. He was obeying the commandments of God, but he must have felt distance between his heart and Christ’s. Why else would he ask such a question? Scripture tells us that “looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him,” but His answer was devastating! “‘One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me,’” He said (Mk. 10:21).
Immediately we think, “Jesus, really? Why? Isn’t this guy keeping all the commandments? Your answer is so extreme!” We argue, trying to interpret His words based on what we see and know.
But Jesus is speaking based on what He sees and knows. Luke recounted that “at these words he was saddened, and he went away grieving, for he was one who owned much property” (Mk. 10:22). Jesus knew the young man’s heart was entwined with love for possessions, and that desire for material gain had such sway over his soul that he was deceived.
What Jesus may ask you or me to leave behind may be different. But Jesus never asks us to give something up without offering something better in exchange. He invited this young man to gain possessions which would never be destroyed!
So we have a choice: we can argue with Him based on what we see and know, or, we can humble ourselves and ask Him to tell us what He sees and knows.
We’ve all argued. It’s a very natural, human response. The prophets did it. We do it. The Lord is familiar with our struggle to comprehend His way of thinking. He listens as we spout off arguments. Then He waits to see if we will listen. Will we be quiet, and ask Him to tell us what He sees and knows? Will we let Him define the terms, reveal our motives, break in with light?
I see myself in my four-year-old daughter. She displays the struggles of my own soul in vivid color. She strains to understand why certain rules or disciplines are in place. To her way of thinking, the world would be a lot better place if I as her mother would just leave off. But I see some things she doesn’t see. Likewise, I struggle to grasp God’s goodness in His disciplines. When I struggle, I have not grasped the severity of my sin and where it would take me if He left me to grow in it.
Jesus triumphantly rejoices over budding virtues in my heart as though they were mature plants. He also points out the seedlings of wickedness in my heart in a tone I’d only expect if He were looking at evil when it is full-grown! It’s not that He’s not patient. He is—so much more patient than any of us—but He sees what is in our hearts, and He knows where those things will take us. “Nothing crooked” comes from His mouth (Prov. 8:8). He does not exaggerate to make a point. Neither does He minimize truth to lessen its sting. The Bible teaches that “faithful are the wounds of a friend” (Prov. 27:6). God is our true friend.
As I learn to listen to Him, I echo the prayer of the psalmist: “Let the righteous smite me in kindness and reprove me; it is oil upon the head; do not let my head refuse it” (Ps. 141:5). I will count such wounds as favor, Lord, not rejection. For You discipline those You love (Prov. 3:12; NIV).
All Scripture references, unless otherwise noted, are in the NASB.
Do You Partner with Your Intercessor or Your Accuser?
The human mind is one of God’s amazing creations. It never stops, even when we sleep. God designed our minds to help us be in continual dialogue with Him, but this does not happen automatically. Unless we tell our thoughts where to go, they will slide down into darkness as easily as eggs roll off the counter onto the floor!
Our thoughts are not neutral. Scripture teaches us we have both an Intercessor (Heb. 7:25) and an Accuser (Rev. 12:10). Our thoughts either partner with the intercession of Jesus or with the accusations of Satan.
Recently Paul’s prayer for the church at Rome has revived in my heart: “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 15:13).
The God of hope! Seeing the end from the beginning, He “gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did” (Rom. 4:17). He is the One who looked at childless Abraham and called him “a father of many nations” (Gen. 17:5). Appearing to Gideon, the man who had a complex about being the least, He called him a “mighty man of valor” (Judg. 6:12). He described David as “a man after His own heart” (1 Sam. 13:14), although David had some serious issues which caused him to stumble badly. He affirmed Peter’s willing spirit when his flesh was still weak (Mt. 26:40). He called Paul forth as a love-stricken apostle while he was yet a murderer of the saints.
What does He see when He looks at you? You would likely be surprised by what He’d say. My guess is that you might sometimes—even often—look at yourself with more of the Accuser’s eye than the Intercessor’s. Do you speak dark words over yourself? Are your thoughts about yourself dark?
Do you know He has great hope when He looks at you? When He looks at you in the midst of your struggles, He sees through them to the glory He is producing in you because of them. He sees the gold while it is yet covered in muck, being refined in the fire. He knows the greatness and beauty of the vessel while it is yet a mass of clay. There is a smile in the Potter’s eye as He works!
Or do you think somehow He has hope in His eyes for everyone but you? Not so! He sees where you have come from, the challenges you are facing, and where you are going. He calls forth the little seeds of promise in you long before they are mature.
I love to grow garden plants from seed. I start them indoors before spring arrives because it takes so much time for them to grow. If I want to get three tomato plants, I plant at least twenty seeds because they don’t all make it. So when I see some little sprouts poking their tiny heads through the soil, I’m excited! As I water them every day, I can’t help but sing over them and speak to them, because I am glad they grew some more. Within a month, they are two inches tall; and while they are far from being fruitful vines, I rejoice over them. When I look at a little seedling, I see a full-grown tomato plant. If I, being human, can feel so much pleasure in the process of a seed’s growth, how much more pleasure must our Father in heaven feel over the growth of His children?
When we see ourselves as the God of hope sees us, it becomes a lot easier to also see others as the God of hope sees them. You can’t give what you haven’t received.
Receive God’s perspective of you, and you will be able to give God’s perspective of others.
As a start, just tell Him each day, “I want to see what You see and feel what You feel when You look at me.” You might think it sounds selfish, but it’s essential. It’s about agreeing with God. And pray this concerning others.
I find that when I get cranky I can often trace it back to some agreement with the Accuser in my thoughts. It usually starts with believing an accusation concerning my own heart and the Lord. I think He’s annoyed with me, tired of loving me. Then I feel sure others feel the same way about me. Before long, I feel annoyed with others, tired of being patient.
Sound familiar?
The cure for such a funk is quite simple. We break agreement with the lies. Then we fill our minds with the truth of who God is and what He sees. He’s the God of hope, and He sees the fruit coming forth from our struggle, if we yield to Him in it.
And we pray Romans 15:13 every time our thoughts start sliding downward.
Turning Thoughts into Prayer
1 Thessalonians 5:17 says: “Rejoice always; pray without ceasing…”
And how do we do that! First, how do we rejoice always without denying the reality of our struggling emotions? And secondly, how do we pray without ceasing?
Now, we know that God is not excited about the mere vocabulary of praise if it doesn’t flow from the heart (Mt. 15:8-9). Rejoice always cannot mean “Just speak happy words in all circumstances,” for He values what’s going on in the heart more than what’s coming from the lips.
And we know God doesn’t wish that we’d speak only with Him, for we are to edify others with our speech—exhort, teach, encourage, prophesy.
Paul seems to be getting at something deeper. It’s as though he is saying that there is a posture of joy in God that is related to a position of on-going dialogue with Him. Paul expounds on this idea in Philippians 4:6. “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” (emphases mine).
Through an attitude of gratitude, we turn our cares into prayer.
We pour out our hearts before Him—every hurt, all worries, each struggle! And as we do so, we call to mind who God is and what He does. We perceive and process our struggles in light of His nature, His promises, and His faithfulness.
This is exactly what we find in the Psalms: utter honesty with God and radical trust in Him, so often viewed by moderns as mutually exclusive, are repeatedly brought together to give us the inner portrait of a saint’s soul. One who pretends he has no struggle is no saint, he is simply in denial! But, ah, one who admits struggle, yet sees it as grounds for God’s glory to be seen—there is one who is like Abraham and Moses and David.
So, we take our thoughts and turn them into prayer. And we take God’s thoughts, revealed in His Word, and turn them into prayer. We do not hide our struggles; we speak the words of God into them. Every thought of temptation, be it toward open immorality or some hidden darkness of heart (envy, anger, etc.), can be turned into dialogue with the Lord. We share. We ask Him questions. We listen. We repeat what He says.
We cherish who He is and what He says above all else. His promises are the words we live by. This posture of joy in Him equips us to live in a position of on-going dialogue with Him, a position that is much of how we walk in and with the Spirit, resisting the cravings of darkness that tug at us. We talk with Him! We commune—share thoughts. Our thoughts, His thoughts. And, in time, our thoughts become more like His. Our thoughts become captive to the knowledge of God, and they line up.
There’s a promise that Paul links with such prayer (notice how verse 7 follows verse 6!): “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:7). Peace is related to our attitude of gratitude that turns cares into prayer.
No matter what storm may be raging around you, or what disappointments may be crashing down upon you, if your life has become an on-going dialogue with the Lord, peace is your portion in Christ. It doesn’t mean you won’t struggle. It doesn’t mean that temptations won’t fly at you or stir within you. But peace will guard you in the onslaught of dark thoughts that would seek to take hold inside you.
The enemy will not find a foothold in you, because you will turn those thoughts into prayer.
Even if there already exists within you some old fortress of the enemy’s making—a stronghold whose roots stem from some past trauma or sin—it will not stay forever, because the new Guard will take over. Turning His thoughts and yours into dialogue with Him will eventually lead you to launch a victorious attack in the name of Christ against that old fortress.
Walking with Christ is a journey. He’s very patient with us. He doesn’t expect us to be perfected immediately. Possessing the land He has been promised (I speak figuratively, of our whole selves, for we are His inheritance as much as He is ours) is a process involving many battles—uprooting old kingdoms and establishing His. He is eager yet steadfast; He leads at just the pace we need for maximum growth.
One thing is for sure: we will not go very far with Him, if we don’t talk to Him along the way—turning our thoughts and His into prayer. And so we “rejoice always; pray without ceasing” (1 Thes. 5:17).
Room for God
Recently, I was with someone who had just moved to Kansas City to become part of the house of prayer. Our dialogue took me back to my early days here, when God wooed me into a wilderness. Oh, the blessedly painful days when He removed “other lovers” from me, as He said He would do for Israel in Hosea 2. It was there that I learned to hear His voice—the lover of my soul.
When people move here, they often think they are coming to a spiritual oasis—and in many ways, they are—but at some point along the way they encounter a wilderness. In God’s leading, the wilderness is an invitation to an oasis, a promised land. But when you’re the pilgrim, it’s hard to see that the way to an oasis is through the wilderness. Our capacity to appreciate water is caused by thirst, but who of us recognizes thirst as a gift when we’re in the throes of it? It’s hard to even talk about your heart when you’re in a spiritual wilderness. Friends might misdiagnose it as depression. What’s really going on is detox—and it leads to life.
I think we in America are so full of other comforts that there is almost no room to enjoy God. Sure, we read His Word; we attend church services; we pray. But do we have daily pleasure in Him? Have we ceased long enough from other entertainments—so often useless medications for our hurting souls—to feel the emptiness in ourselves and run to Him? Only in a place of emptiness can we know the pleasure of being filled by Him. But do I “make room” for such encounter? Dare I face the empty spaces in my soul by abstaining from cheap fillers—even for a little bit?
I was inspired by the conversation with my young friend. I needed to be reminded of that space in my soul that I so readily fill with other pleasures, even if they are legitimate—not sinful—pleasures, until there is little space left to hunger and thirst for encounter with God. I live on with less experience of Him, and then wonder why I am not craving Him as much.
The question, then, is how to make room for enjoying God. How do we cultivate hunger for Him? There are specific answers to that question according to each individual’s relationship with God, but this truth applies to all: we must allow our hearts to hunger. There must be regular times when we do not run to our earthly comforts in an attempt to fill an eternal ache. These times must be regular enough to make blows against the idol that every human harbors within—the great “I”—the idea of the self succeeding in its own strength and through its own sustenance. Fasting is for humbling (Ps. 35:13).
We must learn to feel the deep longing and permit ourselves to feel our barrenness, because God loves to respond to spiritual hunger (Ps. 42:7). Perhaps we fast from food for one meal or for one day per week. We can fast from coffee and chocolate or “comfort foods” for half of each week. Perhaps we go without TV or movies for a while. Or, at first, it might be as simple as carving out time each day—even if it’s only for fifteen minutes—when we sit before God, lift our hearts to Him, and let Him love us there in our emptiness.
We should beware that there is a type of fasting that boosts our pride, rather than deflating it: performance fasting. If I fast for man’s recognition or to earn God’s approval, as did the Pharisees, it is fruitless, if not harmful. But fasting unto God is different; it is productive! We do not earn anything by fasting before God. It simply (and powerfully) positions us to receive more from God. It makes more room in us. True, it may appear that fasting causes God to move, but religious acts have never moved Him. Rather, it is the humble heart that moves Him. He draws near to and acts on behalf of the humble! Since true fasting humbles the soul, God moves in response!
God answers the humble. He fills the hungry (Mt. 5:6). Now, don’t expect God’s answer to your hunger to always be what you’d like (immediate satisfaction). The heart doesn’t grow in love or humility very much through instant gratification, when it always gets what it wants right when it wants it! But do believe in surprising moments of grace—perhaps a wave of longing for God, a new understanding of a verse in the Word, the will to forgive someone who has wronged you, the breaking of bondage, or any kind of empowering from the Lord.
There’s no greater pleasure than feeling God in my inner man. Those little moments of receiving something from Him are worth hours of hunger. So worth it. Over weeks, months, and years, these grace-deposits become part of our walk with the Lord, shaping our interior more than we can see. And so we develop hearts in which there is more and more room for God, until He is our all in all, our everything.
The next time Christ comes to the earth, He won’t be pushed aside into a stable, despite the “no room in the inn” nature of the world. He will have a Bride who has made herself ready. He’ll come to those who have room in their hearts. And they will reign with Him forever.
Healing by Confession
I am discovering a powerful secret to living with a free, healthy heart: the confession of sin to another trustworthy believer. “Telling on myself” is not easy. It’s humbling. It crushes the hard shell of pride that I like to hide behind. But I am learning that through confession, God gives a healing balm for the soul by pouring His love and light into its chamber of dark secrets.
It’s different than confessing sin to God. When we confess our sins to God and turn from those sins, 1 John 1:9 promises that we are forgiven. God removes the death punishment we deserved when we confess our sins to Him. But we all know it’s possible to be forgiven yet continue to struggle intensely against going back to the same sin. James 5:16 shows profound insight into how the soul is actually healed: “Confess your sins to one another . . . that you may be healed.” How do we walk out the forgiveness that Christ gives us so that we are made whole in a functional way? We need to confess our sins to another trusted believer.
Perhaps the biggest hindrance to confessing our sins to one another is shame. Shame is like a dreadful grip around the neck that paralyzes us from reaching out to take hold of the healing that could be ours. Poisoned imaginations usually accompany shame. What will they think of me? Will I be rejected or held at a distance? Will they ever trust me again? Such thoughts keep us stuck in a prison of dark secrecy that feeds the urge for fast relief . . . so we sin more.
Confession to a brother or sister breaks the reproductive power of the secrecy of our sins. Secrecy fuels the fires of temptation and of sinful acts. As long as no one knows, we are empowered to continue. Confession to a brother is like pouring water—life-giving water—on that hellish fire.
I’ve lived in such enflamed prisons of the soul. But the healing I’ve experienced as I’ve faced shame and walked out into the light is worth it—very worth it!
In Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer says this:
Why is it that it is often easier to confess our sins to God than to a brother? God is holy and sinless. He is a just judge of evil and the enemy of all disobedience. But a brother is sinful as we are . . . We must ask ourselves if we have not often been deceiving ourselves . . . confessing our sins to ourselves and also granting ourselves absolution? Self-forgiveness can never lead to a breach with sin; this can be accomplished only by the judging and pardoning Word of God itself . . . [Confession of sin to] our brother breaks the circle of self-deception. A man who confesses his sins in the presence of a brother knows he is no longer alone with himself; he experiences the presence of God in the reality of the other person . . . Since the sin must come to light some time, it is better that it happens today between me and my brother, rather than on the last day in the piercing light of the final judgment. It is a mercy that we can confess our sins to a brother. Such grace spares us the terrors of the last judgment (p. 115–16).
When I bring my sin into the light, I begin to see the cross of Christ as essential to my life. No man can have complete, heart-felt gratitude for the cross unless he sees the depths of the wickedness of his own heart. Thus, “anyone who has once been horrified by the dreadfulness of his own sin that nailed Jesus to the cross will no longer be horrified by even the rankest sins of a brother. Looking at the cross of Jesus, he knows the human heart” (Life Together, p. 118).
Bonhoeffer calls this posture of heart “living beneath the cross”:
Only the brother under the cross can hear confession. It is not experience of life but experience of the cross that makes one a worthy hearer of confessions. The most experienced psychologist or observer of human nature knows infinitely less of the human heart than the simplest Christian who lives beneath the cross of Christ . . . It is not lack of psychological knowledge but lack of love for the crucified Jesus Christ that makes us so poor and inefficient in brotherly confession (p. 118–19).
When we confess our sins to a brother or sister who lives under the cross, we experience part of what it means to be a priesthood of believers. We pronounce forgiveness to each other, proclaim that our sins are sent into the cross, and we glory in the sufficiency of Christ’s atonement. Here we touch the joy of true friendship with others and with God (1 Jn. 1:7)
Oh, the joy of friendship when our only boast is Christ crucified! In the age to come, we will look upon each other with such smiling, open hearts. We will all know we have nothing to boast in except the cross, and the sweet aroma of grateful love will be the fragrance that fills the company of the saints. Forever.
Why not start living like this now?
Our Place of Authority
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ . . . In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ . . . in [whom] we have redemption through his blood . . . (Eph. 1:3–7, NIV)
Wouldn’t you think the Bible would say, “God will someday bless us with every spiritual blessing” once we reach a certain level of spiritual maturity or once we have resurrected bodies? But God says He has already given us every spiritual blessing in Christ. “He has blessed us.” It is past tense. Believe it. This verse is as true for the one who was born again in Christ two days ago as it is for the one who has been walking faithfully with the Lord for fifty years.
In Ephesians 1:3–14, Paul describes our spiritual inheritance in God. Before He made the world, the Father saw us and chose us in Christ. We were loved and desired as sons and daughters before He hung the stars in place. Christ paid for us to stand faultless before the Father when He poured out His lifeblood for us. Upon believing this, we received the Holy Spirit—God living on the inside, think of it—who continually bears witness to the day when we will be glorified in God’s presence as coheirs with Christ.
“And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:6, NIV). I don’t claim to know the fullness of what it means to be blessed “in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ” (Eph. 1:3), but I am quite sure of this: it’s a lot more than we currently realize and live out! It’s as though we’ve been given a billion dollars, but we’re living on ten cents a day. We tend to approach God as beggars, while He sees us as beloved kings (Rev. 1:5–6)! We often live in a mindset that God will someday exercise His authority to heal or deliver us, when we could walk in His authority today! Both are certainly true—the kingdom of God is now (in part) and not yet (in fullness)—but I think we’d be surprised at how much He’s waiting for us take the authority He has given us.
Although I don’t believe we can necessarily “name and claim” the fullness of the effects of God’s kingdom now (for example, we are not immune from suffering, disease, or death until the resurrection), we should always be reaching! We should be always seeking and praying for it to be “on earth as it is in heaven” (Mt. 6:10, NIV). Do we always pray for healing? Good, but there’s more. God yearns for us to arise in partnership with Him.
I like the gospels’ account of Jesus multiplying food for a hungry multitude (Mt. 14:13–21; Mk. 6:30–44; Lk. 9:10–17). The disciples told Jesus to send the thousands away to go find something to eat. He replied, “You give them something to eat.” It’s humorous because He fully knew their faith wasn’t there yet. He put their calling right before them nonetheless, as if to say, “You’re not called to just watch me do all the miracles; I actually want you to do them with me!” Similarly, He didn’t say, “You shall ask me to move the mountain, and I will do it,” but, “You can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move” (Mt. 17:20, NIV). And, “In my name they will drive out demons” (Mk. 16:17, NIV), not “They will ask me to cast out demons.” Of course, asking is part of the partnership between Jesus and His people (Mt. 7:7), but it’s not the only part. Sometimes He waits for us to act upon His Word and take the authority He has given us.
So, I have been “practicing” taking that authority because I believe that authority over darkness doesn’t grow out of nowhere. Admittedly, it feels a little awkward at first. Sometimes, for example, when I verbally take authority over sickness in my child’s body and command the body to be healed in Jesus’ name, I feel as though I’m a little bird trying to bark at a dog. But such an inward image just reveals my little faith. A more accurate picture might be of a little bird that has a mighty lion standing behind it, and when the bird speaks in the lion’s name, the lion’s roar puts that scrawny canine to flight! The more I step out, the more my faith grows. God is patient, and, frankly, I think He’s just excited when we start trying to walk in His authority—like the joy my husband and I felt when our babies first started to walk. We saw their courage! They fell a lot as they stepped out on muscles that had hardly been used. But they kept getting up and stepping out, and we celebrated them all along the way. It takes time, and regular use, to build muscles. God knows this. He is rejoicing over us as we grow.
A word of warning: walking in power is no license for sin. And it doesn’t replace intimacy with God. Spiritual authority is supposed to flow out of relationship with God; it is not a thing given to exalt its bearer but to equip him to serve and go low for others’ sake. It’s possible to spend your life doing works that add up to nothing when you stand before Christ, because they didn’t flow from relationship with Him (1 Cor. 3:11–15). It’s even possible for someone to perform miracles in Jesus’ name but be so spiritually hollow on the inside that Christ will say, “I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness” (Mt. 7:21–23, NKJV). But this will not happen if our focus is walking with God.
As for me, I am not letting another year of my life go by without learning more about Ephesians 1:3 and “every spiritual blessing in Christ.” I want to walk in His authority, not just so that my comfort level increases, but so that He finds in me a heart that believes His words and impacts others with His presence. May He find us as ones who believe what He said: “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father” (Jn. 14:12, NKJV).
Oh, may the eyes of our hearts be enlightened to know what is the greatness of His power towards us who believe (Eph. 1:18–19)!
Fulfilling Your Desire for Greatness
I’m convinced that everyone possesses a God-given longing for greatness. As believers, we may think this longing is from some dark place in our souls, or from the Devil. Perhaps we have tried repeatedly to repent of it. But when two disciples asked Jesus for a position of greatness in His Father’s kingdom, He didn’t rebuke them for their desire. He did shock them with how to fulfill it. “Whoever wishes to be great…must be the servant” (Mt. 20:26-28). Our longing for greatness is not wicked, but our self-exalting attempts to satisfy it are!
How do we gain power on the inside to walk the path of greatness that Jesus sets before us? Where do we get the motivation to serve without resentment, without regard for recognition?
Here’s what we find in other scriptures: When we know our dearness to God and His promise to one day openly reward every choice for humility and servanthood in Him, we are empowered to go low and serve. Jesus washed His disciples’ feet, fully aware of His own greatness (Jn. 13:3). Reclining at the table, He knew that He had power over all things; how one day all would bow before Him; how He would soon ascend to sit at the right hand of the Father. And it was with this knowledge that He rose from the table and went to the lowest place. Without resentment, He bowed down to wash the dirtiest part of the very ones who were about to abandon Him—even deny Him—in His darkest hour.
In Colossians 3:1-14, Paul reveals the same movement of the heart. I would amplify it like this:
You’ve been raised and seated with Christ on the most powerful throne in the entire universe. Fill your thoughts with this. You’re going to be glorified with Christ when He appears. The Father will openly reward every hidden act of love. In the twinkling of an eye, your body will be changed to display the measure of glory you cultivated during your earthly life. So put an end to the cravings of your old nature: sexual immorality, greed, and grasping after worldly things to satisfy your eternal longings. Completely turn your back upon anger, slander, and unclean speech. For, remember, you have taken off your old self, and have put on your new self, which is growing in glory as we grow in Christ. Therefore, as ones appointed for greatness, who are set apart for God and deeply loved by Him, clothe yourselves with tenderness and humility… and above all, put on love.
Paul told the Corinthians that they were acting like “mere men” by their envious factions (1 Cor. 3:1-3). His implication is that if they knew their greatness, they wouldn’t have to squabble anymore over who belonged to whom. A thief wouldn’t need to steal anymore if he knew he were already rich with inheritance.
So, why do we grasp for men’s approval when the King of the ages is lovingly watching us? Why do we care if our good deeds go unnoticed by people when we have a Father who sees in secret and is committed to rewarding us? Oh, when I know it deep in my heart, I will gladly serve (in prayer and in deed) those who might never know or thank me.
Now, God doesn’t tell us that we have to feel kind and humble. He says to put on kindness and humility. And as we make the choice to cultivate our natures to be like His, He’ll meet us; and He’ll change our emotions in time.
Lest we romanticize greatness so much that we fail to cultivate it, let us say it again: greatness is forged by choices for love and righteousness, whether we feel virtuous in the moment or not.
In Matthew 5:19, Jesus said that the one who follows His teachings —namely the teaching He was giving in the Sermon on the Mount—and teaches others to do the same will be great in the kingdom of heaven. When we are faithful to be a servant to the Word, regardless of the persecution or disapproval it brings from others, we are at once serving God and others. We have become the servant of all.
Father, I set my heart again today to put on Christ’s character. And if, in the moment, I don’t feel His character within me, that’s OK. I’m going to put it on anyway. Thank You that You will transform my emotions in the process, and You will one day openly reward each choice for love and holiness.
A New Look at Our Looks
“Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Sam. 16:7). Mankind tends to put considerable emphasis on outward appearance. Many children grow up believing their worth is defined by how they look. Adults are tempted to make divers assumptions about others based on physical attractiveness. We think we know how fun, how smart, or how wealthy people are by what our eyes see. How misleading is our human evaluation! Through it we have not recognized the Lord of glory.
Jesus Christ, the Everlasting God, took on flesh and accepted an unattractive frame. Can you believe it? It almost sounds like heresy to say the God-man was unattractive. But Isaiah says it clearly: “He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him” (Isa. 53:2, emphasis mine). He had no special appearance that we should love Him on this basis.
People are ever grasping after a more stunning physical show—in our day there are all sorts of surgeries to change undesirable traits—and here is the Christ, the One most worthy of a stunning image, and He chose a plain one. He who is destined to be the Desire of All Nations was born in an animal stable. He is more awesome than all the sons of men, yet He came to us with a physical appearance that did not attract people. When He reigns from Jerusalem, all peoples of the earth will stream there to learn from Him; but when He first came, He was despised and rejected.
One day, Christ will be the most sought-after and desirable Man in all heaven and earth. How we will crave His presence. We will love to hear Him speak and laugh and sing. Oh, the glory of His person! We will be so drawn to Him. For all the ages to come, we will be fascinated by His beauty! His joy, humility, wisdom, tenderness, and power will ignite yearning for Him again and again. But back to His first coming—He did not choose a stunning frame to attract crowds. He wanted His influence to come from the inside out.
When Christ came into the world, he said: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me . . . ‘I have come to do your will, O God’” (Heb. 10:5–7, emphasis mine). It may be more accurate to say that the Father chose a simple frame for Jesus, and Jesus accepted it. He fully entered into the physical weakness of human experience (Phil. 2:6–8). He knows what it’s like to cultivate grateful love with what we’ve been given, to receive the invitation to grow in inward glory. We struggle against bitterness over what the Father hasn’t granted; He rejoiced in what the Father gave Him (Ps. 40:8; 16:5–6).
The Lord is calling us to repent of internalizing man’s fallen definitions of worth. He wants us to agree with Him that His creation of us is good. He planned us with great thoughtfulness (Ps. 139). He designed how all aspects of our person—appearance, personality, gift mix, and more—would blend together. And He loves how He made us. Oh, we should not hate what He so deeply loves!
I think the deceiver assigns demons to linger at mirrors, waiting to breathe foul lies upon us when we awaken in the morning and prepare for the day. He sows thoughts of rejection of the “raw material” God has given us to work with, which leads to comparison, envy, and self-hatred. All the while, our heavenly Father would tell us there is stunning uniqueness in what we see as ordinary. Even through our lowly traits, He is inviting us to grow in glory on the inside—“the incorruptible beauty” of a yielded heart “which is precious in the sight of God” (1 Pet. 3:4). God wants us to renew our minds according to what He thinks about us, rather than being conformed to the world’s evaluation of worth (Rom. 12:1–2).
What would happen if we took a minute to confess—to say out loud—Psalm 139:13–14 before we got out of bed to look in that mirror? Perhaps it would transform the way we see ourselves and others. Perhaps a new culture (one of life and joy!) would be created within us that is more powerful than the culture of despair outside of us. Perhaps it would transform us day by day.
O Lord, give us a new look at how You have made us.
“For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well” (Ps. 139:13–14).
God’s Definition of Success
What is God’s definition of success for His people in this life? How does He define greatness? It’s simple, but it upsets our worldly paradigm. “Whoever wishes to be great . . . must be the servant . . . just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and give His life a ransom for many” (Mt. 20:26–28, emphasis added).
God’s definition of success is that we be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ—that our nature be increasingly changed to be like His (Rom. 8:29). There’s a purpose in the mind of the Potter; there is joy in the heart of our Maker as He fashions our hearts like the clay. Will we let Him mold and bend us? Or will we stiffen and harden under the pressures He allows? Do we recognize the invitation that lies in every moment of suffering and in every blessing? To be conformed. Or is our goal merely momentary satisfaction?
I believe the primary thing God has in mind when He works to conform us into Christ’s image is meekness. Love. Humility. These are all essentially the same quality—the willingness to go low; to use my strength to serve rather than to enslave; to entrust my soul to the Father rather than grasp for its so-called rights. Jesus possesses many attributes, but the heart qualities He attributed to Himself are meekness and lowliness. “For I am meek and lowly of heart” (Mt. 11:29).
In 1 Corinthians 3:11–15, Paul gives a stunning picture of what will happen when believers stand before Christ:
“Now if any man builds upon the foundation [of Christ Jesus] with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it, because it is to be revealed with fire; and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work. If any man’s work which he has built upon it remains, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as through fire” (emphasis added).
All of our life’s investments—our attitudes, actions, words, choices—will be revealed as worthless or valuable. We do not carry possessions into the next age. But we do carry reward into it—or the lack thereof.
What endures into the age to come? Is it not a humble love (1 Cor. 13)? You could say that at the end of our lives the question will be: did you learn to love? Not, how big was your ministry? Or, how many people did you please? Now, there is nothing insubstantial about this word that sums up all the Law and the Prophets. Love is all-consuming and demands flesh and blood expression to its claims. Just as Christ’s love for His Father and for us led to His poured-out life, so will love lead us.
On the one hand, this is weighty, because we spend so much energy building a glittering image, while God works in us to produce a lowly heart. On the other hand, I find it incredibly freeing. You mean everything counts with You, God? What amazing news. Doing dishes counts. Serving someone who has no ability to return the favor counts. Honoring my spouse’s desires when I want to do my own thing counts. Fasting a meal in secret counts. Praying for someone who has wounded me counts. Choosing righteousness when I am tempted with sin counts. If it lines up with God’s Word and it’s done in love, it counts as success in God. We have a Father who sees in secret, who will one day openly reward us (Mt. 6:1–18).
This truth can transform each day. Music in the mundane—each moment can be a love-song unto God. Especially when no one is looking. Yes, I would dare to say that the sweetest sounds of this song come forth when no accolades of man accompany them. O Father, give us revelation of Your definition of success. Let it become ours.
