Following Christ Pt 3 (Conclusion)

Following Christ Pt. 3
For the One Who Has Ears to Hear


When I initially started writing this 3 part treatise back in 2016 I was in a very different place than I am now. Little did I know that in the providence of God I would have the opportunity to fail in the worst ways and see myself for who I really and truly am. But here I am, broken and simple, listening and open for the first time to really hear what the Spirit of God has to say. And the one resounding word that I hear, the one overwhelming reality that I have been confronted with time and time again is this. I do not really trust God if I do not do what He says. I can sing all of the worship songs from the most sincere heart that I want to. I can proclaim the gospel until I am blue in the face. I can work hard to study theology even to the point of teaching it. I can read my bible every day and pray every day. I can work hard to love others. But If i do not do what He says I do not really trust Him.

Jesus went even further. He said if I do not do what He says, I do not really love Him. Ouch. Let that sink in for a minute. I am. And it hurts. but in a good way though. I am not condemning myself, here. I am seeing things as they are. Jesus said the one who has ears to hear, let them hear. I am choosing to reckon with what He said. He said listen and do what I say. And if I am honest I have not done that...for over 20 years. I have done half of what He said, most of what He said and at times some of what He said but never what He said. I have studied theology, led worship, proclaimed the gospel and all in disobedience to His word, to His voice. He said, "My sheep hear my voice" and I did. He said, "and they follow me". I did not. Not really. Not exactly where He told me to. Not when He told me to or how He told me to. And I got hurt. And my family got hurt. Because I chose to step out of the will of God. Now don't misunderstand me. I did not step out of His authority or sovereignty. I did not go where His will is powerless. I did not in anyway jeopardize or thwart His purposes. To believe such a thing would reveal a need to know Him more intimately. No.

The Creator of the universe very sovereignly and very expertly stepped aside so I could strike out on my own in my newfound theological superiority and make decisions like a grown up. And by doing so He let me bump and crash and bruise myself and everyone around me as I thrashed violently like a mad man against His will for my life (not unlike Paul I might add). He let me waste countless hours on worthless entertainment. He let me fail miserably to follow through on my marital vows. He watched quietly as I moved further and further into Sodom and Gomorrah (Like Lot) and farther and farther away from the ones who loved me and invested in me as a young believer. He never took His eye off of my wandering heart. Every betrayal every angry word on full display in His view. He did nothing to stop me. He only nudged me ever so slightly and only when I absolutely needed it. Even now I marvel at His fatherly prowess. He certainly knew what He was doing.

The years piled on and with them my betrayals, my wanderings and my disobedience, until at long last I came to my inevitable end. It was on that fateful day in that crucial moment that I was finally forced to stop and look in the mirror. It was not a mirror of glass that I stared back into that day but a heart of love. A Father's love. His Love. And it broke me. The reflection that I saw in that moment looking into that holy mirror shattered my ego and set me in a completely different direction than I ever intended to go. The love I felt in that moment changed me. And I have never been the same since. It might be an exaggeration to say that I felt like I got saved all over again. But that is really how I felt. I felt like a new person. And when the dust settled and the tears stopped flowing and I was left standing in front of that mirror, the one thought that echoed through the chambers of my mind was "How did I get so far away? How did I end up so lost in my own shadow? What led me to this point of despair and exasperation?"

I did not receive an answer right away. But slowly and surely through the many difficulties and trials I was experiencing I began to hear the answer to my question loudly and clearly. And just like that I finally understood. I finally understand. I can honestly say with full assurance that I started drifting away from Jesus the moment that I stopped following the leading of the Holy Spirit. I stopped listening to the still small voice of God. Worse, I stopped believing that He does speak. I relegated His voice to the account of His works and speech in the Bible. Little compromise by little compromise I began to trade His supernatural leading in my inner man for the intellect I had sharpened with study. And without realizing it I became the very type of religious person that Jesus once stood against and defied. I became a tight fisted hard hearted pharisee that wholeheartedly believed He not only walked with God, but that also that no one could possibly know God or walk with Him in the way that I did, because I knew something they did not. And just like that I became something I came to despise. And all because I chose to stop listening to His voice.

Now let me stop before we go any farther and say this. The Holy Spirit does not speak to the people of God in the same way all of the time. Nor does He speak to me in the same way that He speaks to you. He chooses to speak to His children as He wills when He wills according to His wisdom and grace. For some the Holy Spirit speaks through the remembrance of specific scriptures. For many it is a still small voice. For others it is a gentle but definitive leading. Whatever the method that He chooses to use or has created us to receive, He does speak. And He speaks today. He does not fail to speak nor does He fail to lead. We do. We fail to listen. We fail to obey, to follow, to surrender to His leading. But this is the essence of prayer. It is to speak and be heard. It is to hear and to pour out our heart. It is communication. And it is vital to any healthy relationship. Our relationship with God is certainly no exception.

And this brings me back full circle to the purpose of this final meditation on following Christ and what God by the Holy Spirit has essentially revealed to me over the past 5 months in this season of repentance. We cannot follow Jesus if we do not have ears to hear. And we will not hear Him with those ears if we do not have any intention of following His instructions. I did not. For years I did not have any intention of obeying His commands. I convinced myself that I did though. And I thought I convinced other believers that I did as well. But I am pretty sure now that they saw right through me. How could they not? Either way it was not pretty I am sure. A man who thinks he knows the Living God but who only lives for himself is a sight to behold let me tell you. I know.

So why am I writing this? Im going to tell you. Or rather I will let Jesus say tell you and then  James and just for kicks maybe we will look at what Paul wrote as well. First, Jesus because He is the  Master after all. Jesus said,

"But everyone who hears these sayings of mine and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house and it fell. And great was its fall."

Ouch. Boy have I been there. Knowledge without action is a fancy mansion on the shoreline to be sure. But lets see what James has to say.

"For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away and immediately forgets what kind of man he was." Man I hear that.

And finally just for good measure, the apostle Paul, concluding his epic treatise in Romans 1-11 on the work of God in redemption writes,"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service."

I don't know if it is plain to you at this point or not so I will spell it out. We cannot walk with God and not hear His voice. And we cannot hear His voice or follow His leading or even obey Him if we have not resolved to do what He says. You see the words of God are always a call to action. In fact the great mystery of the universe is the fact that He works His will out in the actions of men. The truly pious man might think that he must sit and wait for God to speak and work. But the reality is proven in scripture and our day to day lives that we must live what we believe. We must do what He says. We must go when He says go and where He says go. We must follow His leading at all times. If we do not we are only deceiving ourselves and setting ourselves up for failure. I did that. And Lord willing, I am done doing that.

I agreed with the reality of the gospel, but I did not proclaim it to the lost. I sang songs to Jesus about His faithfulness but failed to let Him provide for my family when He said He would. I studied the scriptures but denied Jesus with my lifestyle. I agreed with the scriptures that state mankind was made in His image and then allowed my covetous heart to exploit them for my gain. I said that I loved His word but refused to do what it teaches. In my wisdom I became a fool. In my worldliness I became a wanderer. Now you might be saying to yourself come on Chris aren't we saved by grace? Jesus promised to keep me in His fold no matter what. Everyone else is doing it. It''s only.... or I only.... once and while. Really? Well, it was the same for me too. But the world is not content for long with distracting us. It wants to own us body and soul. It cannot help itself. It is driven with the same drive of its master. And little by little the little disobediences will always draw our heart away from the One who made us and saved us for Himself.

We were not created to live for ourselves. Our life is about more than us. We were not created merely to be comfortable. We were created to be in fellowship with the Creator. We were created to enjoy Him above all else, to derive our sense of purpose our identity and our pleasure from Him. Everything else is in the service of that truth. When we choose to ignore the leading of His Spirit, or disobey His commands, we are actually giving our heart to another. There is no middle ground on this planet in this space and time. We are either cultivating our relationship with God, moving into closer and closer fellowship with Him or we are moving away from Him. We may think that we do not need Him as much as others. But that is not really the point. It is not about what we think or what we feel. It is about what He wants. It is about what He says. Where He leads. We were created for Him.

So we must all reckon with this reality. Do we really hear the voice of God? Are we familiar with His leading? Do we know Him intimately as a person? Or is He just a religious figure? Do we believe that He is knowable or do we feel safer just reading about Him? Are we convinced that the bible is only a redemptive account or a catalog of useful philosophical and religious information? Or do we believe that the God witnessed in those pages is really alive today? Are you content to go about as you have or do you feel in your soul as I did, that something is not right, that something is missing? You know you are His but you feel a million miles from Him. I want to encourage you that you are not alone. And if He can speak and break through the fortress of my heart, yours is just as accessible.

I want to leave you with this final thought. If you take nothing from what I have written please hear this. Our God is not moved by our unbelief. He will wait until we are on our death bed, until the moment that we have chosen to reach out to Him. He loves us with a love that is confident and bold. A love that is patient and wise. He loves us with a never ending never deterred settled conviction that we cannot alter with our choices. We cannot change the mind of God. We cannot sin ourselves out of his grace once it has been lavished on us. We cannot run so far that He will not chase us back home. Once He has set His glorious tender heart upon a person it is only a matter of time before they crumble in His gentle arms. Be encouraged to know that this everlasting Father, this Prince of Peace will get His heart's desire one way or another. And friend the mystery of all mysteries, the unfathomable reality, the breathtaking truth is that the desire of this infinite sovereign God is the person who believes in Him no matter how far they have wandered from Him. That person is His child. And like a great and gracious dad that child is always welcome in His arms. Even if that child is like me and has squandered the majority of his or her life wandering in the wasteland away from Him, that child is always welcome in His arms.
Hallelujah.

Following Christ Part 2

Following Christ Part 2:

Forgiveness & The Cross of Christ

As I continue to grapple with the relentless grace of God in Christ, I am constantly confronted with this one fact: I do not fully understand the necessity of resting in the finished work of Jesus Christ like I think I do. And I would argue that much of the mainstream contemporary American Christian Church is in the same place. Oh sure we preach the gospel and we try to serve because of it. We even strive our best to love one another in the way that God in Christ has loved us through it. The problem is more times than not, we try to do it in our own strength. We strive. We fight. We argue. We labor intensely. But we usually do most of it out of guilt or a sense of obligation, in the power of our own strength & ability. And when we are tired or worn out from the strain of it all, we stand on our soapbox and exhort others to do the same. But is that really what Jesus meant when He said "Deny yourself pick up your cross and follow me"?

And if that's the case, why did He say His "Yoke is easy and [His] burden light", because that is anything but. Personally I don't think that's what what He meant at all. And I don't think the problem is as much in what Jesus said or even what He meant by it as much as how we interpret it and choose to act upon it. It has more to do with the way we understand it than it does with what He has actually declared through it and requires of us because of it. And I think much of our time is spent thinking about how we can better communicate it or live it out when it should be spent saturating ourselves with it, so we can actually understand it first & walk it out in our own lives. And I would argue that it is for that reason that Paul often repeatedly & exhaustively revisited the gospel in most of his letters before he even began the work of exhorting his readers to "do" something about it. 

I would even go so far as to say that he did not exhort his readers to "do" as much as how to respond to it. Or you might say it this way. Paul encouraged his readers to live in a manner that was consistent with the profession of their faith. Instead of simply telling them what to do or how to act (as a Pharisee might do) he often encouraged his readers to remember what had already been done for them on their behalf in the gospel first (Eph. 1:3-14 for example). And then, having established that fact he would continue by reminding them what a response to such a glorious work of redemption actually looks like in reality (for example Eph. 4-6). 

Let me explain, because there is a huge difference between the two: the exhortation to do & the encouragement to respond. For Paul the distinction is clear and I imagine he wrestled with it constantly himself, as a former Pharisee. Doing vs being. Grateful service vs sacrificial obligation. RECEIVING redemption in the gospel vs GIVING to God out of fear or responsibility. The distinction was no doubt very important to Paul and he seemed to make it a point to say so. Paul seemed to understand that even circumcision was a gift, unearned and indicative of a deeper revelation (Rom. 2:28-29). He understood that the temple was only instituted as a temporary means to God and not the end in and of itself (I.e. Eph. 2:19-22/1 Cor. 3:16-17). He understood that the glorious revelation of the scriptures is NOT what we must do to satisfy the demands of the Holy God, but rather what that Holy God has already done to satisfy His own Holy demand and affect & cultivate a lasting redemption on behalf of every person who puts their trust in Him, for their eternal benefit to the praise and glory of His name. 

And this brings me to part two of this little series on following Christ. What does it actually mean to "pick up our cross" in the light of this revelation? What does it mean to live out the reality of the gospel before others? I believe the answer is actually quite simple, but oh so difficult to put into practice. It means in short to lay down our own life for the benefit of others at the cost of our selves, both as individuals & as a corporate body of believers as we are led by the Holy Spirit. But how do we do that in practice? How do we sacrifice our own life for the benefit of others in a way that is consistent with the teachings of Christ? Isn't that doing? Isn't that works righteousness? How can we live under the burden of such a difficult task without losing our way? How in the world is that restful or "easy" like Jesus said? All valid questions, I assure you. 

But the answer to us again in scripture is not what we might expect it to be. Scripture tells us that we don't, not actually, at least not in our own strength. We do it by FAITH in the power of the Holy Spirit and HIS ability to work in and through us (often in spite of us). But what does that actually look like? To start, faith is always practical. It requires ACTION. As we extend our will in the direction of tangible sacrifice, in our ordinary mundane lives, for the benefit of others (even those who frustrate us at times), we find that we are actually walking by faith in the power of the Holy Spirit, in the way that the Bible instructs us to. The problem is more often than not we don't see it this way. We romanticize it and imagine a more mystical experience. So we miss out on the very practical ordinary leading of the Holy Spirit in our every day lives. 

But carrying our cross in Christ is essential to our development as believers, essential to the proclamation of the gospel in the world around us. And it is for that reason that we should neither take it lightly nor try to do it on our own, in the power of our own strength or ability. Carrying our cross requires an ongoing rugged faith in God for His work on our behalf. It requires an intentional, determined dependence on the Holy Spirit in ACTION. In order to do it in the right way or even at all, we must first be moved by the One who did it for us, who works in us even now by His Holy Spirit. 

And this brings us back again to our own need for the gospel. We can only carry our own cross for others as we are reminded again of the cross our Savior carried for us. As we saturate our hearts and minds in the reality of HIS sacrifice for us in the gospel, our prayer, (if we are in Christ) will become, "Lord do this in me. Give me the opportunity to share the love I have so freely received in You to the praise and glory of Your name." And our response will be to act in accordance with the opportunity He has provided for us to walk in according to His will. And this again is what it means to WALK by faith according to the leading of the Holy Spirit. This is the practical moment by moment response that Paul has prescribed for us in his epistles. This is the faith our fathers walked in before us. It is always radical; always counterintuitive to our old Adamic nature; always counterintuitive to the culture around us and always worth it in the end. 

So, I submit to you again that the first work of every believer is not to labor in our own strength to the glory of God but to reacquaint ourselves with the grace we have received in Christ first, then believe on it, rest in it and finally live out the reality of it in the power of the One who did it for us as we depend upon it in practice in our every day life. The gracious person is the person who has received grace. The one who loves much has been loved much. They understand the need for that love because they have received it their self. Only when we have genuinely accepted the reality of God's grace to us in Christ can we extend it to others and so spread the love of God around us in the way we are called to. Only when we have refreshed our own hearts with the gospel first and relied upon it again ourselves will we be willing to follow God's leading in it by reflecting it to others through our own natural sacrificial love for them. 

The problem with much of the American church today is that we have forgotten what we have received in Christ and so do not give what we do not have. It's not that we have lost it per say or don't actually have it to begin with. It's just that we have forgotten that we do and other people need it as well. It is our earthly bend to do so. So doing for God becomes more important to us than what He's already done. Serving others in ministry becomes more important than our own need to be served in Christ first. Having our feet washed in the gospel, being ministered to by the Holy Spirit in our own inner being takes a back seat. And we grow cold and bitter, hardened, self centered and calloused to the outside world. We lose sight of heaven and earth becomes more appealing. And the Gospel the church was built upon becomes a common thing. But this is not what it means to walk by faith. It is the opposite of walking by faith. It is the opposite of being led by the Holy Spirit. 

And this is no one's fault but ours. It is NOT because of God. It is not because of the irrelevance of His word or the absence of His Spirit. 

It is because we have forgotten our identity in Christ, forgotten who we really are and what we really need. We have forgotten where we came from; we have forgotten where we are going. And if we are honest we will admit it is far easier to rely upon ourselves or what we think we know of scripture than it is to follow the One we cannot see with our own two eyes, in practice. 

And the world sees this and wants nothing to do with it because they are also cold & self serving. They also look to earthly things to fulfill them and try to labor for good causes. They also want to have a purpose for their existence and try in vain to make one for their self. They see very little difference between those who profess to know the God of the bible and those who don't so it matters very little to them whether they change or not. But this is not Christianity. This is not what Christ came to give. And if we are honest that is exactly what so many of us have given to them: a contradictory profession of faith. And the line between the world & Christ is blurred, excuses abound for why the church won't live according to its profession of faith, for why they won't love in the way they have been loved. And the world just watches in disbelief, disgusted by the hypocrisy of what they see, conviced it is acceptable to live the way they do, which brings me to my final point. 

The most apparent evidence of the grace of God in our lives, the most mundane and unexpected, healthy human response to the gospel of Jesus Christ in in practice, is an ongoing unconditional forgiveness towards others in spite of their faults & their wrongdoings against us. Living in a state of perpetual willingness to release others of their personal emotional psychological & physical debts toward us is the best way to live out our profession of faith, the most obvious and difficult way to follow God's leading in our own lives. It is the most tangible expression of our faith in a world focused only on itself. They may not listen at first to the proclamation of the gospel but they can hardly deny the willingness to suffer on their behalf. They may not show up to our church at first, but the practice of laying down our life for them will eventually nag at them. Suffering accusation without slander, not responding in anger to the mistreatment, not reacting to the thoughtlessness of other drivers will stand out. Loving when we have been mistreated will be remembered. 

And it is for that reason that we must saturate our hearts & minds with and rely upon the gospel of Jesus Christ ourselves. Remembering the debt that God in Christ has paid for us is the best way to release others of their debts toward us. As we remember & accept again our own need for forgiveness in Christ we will become the agents of forgiveness toward others and so reflect Him in the way we were created to. The people who wronged us will become the means of growing in grace and the places we hurt the most will become the means of our own deep inner healing by the Holy Spirit. The love of God will be spread to others in the most mundane & practical way and the world will be brought into confrontation with its own need for God. 

And this doesn't happen overnight. It is always a process, a long and painful process of sanctification. But it is glorious to behold as God works it in us, as He shines the light of His forgiveness again & extends it to others through us. But it must begin with us. We must choose to return again to the cross of Christ afresh and remember who we are in Him, how badly we need Him first and the fact that we are not alone in our need. Everybody needs Him. Every single person needs the gospel of Jesus Christ, saved and unsaved alike. There is no exception. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified FREELY by His grace (Rom. 3:23). All of us crave freedom (Gal. 5:1). And this is where it begins. This is where the healing of broken homes begins. This is where faith is renewed in the God who saves. This is where the church grows & flourishes. This is where relationships are restored, where a nation of narcissists begin to see what real love actually looks like. This is where real change begins. 

So it is not in vain that Christ says "Pick up your cross and follow Me." For it is in His work on our behalf that our response can be "Lord help me to lay down my own life for those around me." It is in His work on our behalf that our own for others can take its root and grow. It is in the gospel of Jesus Christ that real change can become a reality. This is what I have learned and continue to grow in over the past few months in my own sanctification. And oh how I fail repeatedly! But I am learning I must daily, moment by moment, return again & cleave to the cross of Christ if I am ever to move forward. If I am ever to heal, if I am ever to be the reflection of God's grace to my family that I long to be I must persevere in my own dependence upon the gospel. I must remember & RECEIVE His work on my behalf, first, if I am to REST in the redemption HE has provided for me and reflect it to others. I must be served by Him if I am ever to stoop down and serve His people. I must be restored if I am ever to offer real & lasting restoration to a dying world. The work of reconciliation begins with my own heart. The proclamation of the gospel starts with my own dependence upon it. 

So the question now, is, will I do? Will we do it? Will we walk in the calling He has prepared for us as His body? Will we follow in our Master's footsteps (Jn 12:24-26) as He leads us or succumb to the mindset of our culture and the bend of our earthly heart? Will we let Him wash our feet and send us out as the recipients & instruments of His un surpassing grace or work in our own strength. Wisdom cries out. Let us heed her voice. 

Following Christ Part 1

Part 1:

The Cancer of Self and The Chemo of Christ

"And he said to ALL, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. Luke 9:23

It has taken 18 years of walking with God, my parents' divorce, the near death of my wife & temporary homelessness to drill into my head this simple fact: I am my own worst enemy. It is not my mother's fault or my father's fault that I am what I am. It is not because of any external circumstance or decision others have made or anything else that has made me what I am, but me. I am the product of a broken world, the son of two broken people, living on borrowed time in an age of despair and hopelessness. And yet in spite of this, I am still responsible for the decisions that I make and the people that I hurt along the way because it is my brokenness not theirs which shapes the way I think and live and must be redeemed. If I am to ever to move forward in this life or grow in the grace that God has provided me I must learn to see this and face the repercussions of it in faith that God alone will redeem what I cannot do and work through what I cannot change.

Still, I cannot treat the Grace of God as a cheap or common thing just because I need it. I cannot assume the cross of Christ is an excuse to live for myself or put off sanctification because I can. I must reckon with my own sinfulness and brokenness if I am to grow up. I must reckon with my own selfishness and pride if I am to be a man. It must not be allowed to thrive in any capacity if I am to live in freedom. It must not be excused or ignored just because I am forgiven. I cannot blame another person for its reality. I cannot hide behind the fig leaf of my own making because it scares me to know what I am. I cannot hide my soul from the human race forever because I crave comfort. I cannot wallow in sin because it is easy. After all that is what is killing me. 

Now what is sin but anything that is contrary to the original design of our Good Creator for His creation? What is sinfulness but the unfolding manifestation of death as it works its way in our hearts and minds to bring us closer to the grave, to prepare us for the untimely inevitable demise of our physical bodies? What is selfishness but the unhealthy preoccupation with our own vanity and self worth? And what can any of us possibly do about it? Is this not the great dilemma of the human race? is this not the drama of our time? Has it not been the demise of many a great nation? Is it not the cancer of our age? So it is not surprising to me then that the Great Physician Himself standing on the soil of His now cursed creation looked upon the human race in its un-reparable brokenness and answered the question: "If you would come after Me, you MUST deny yourself."

How else could a person infected with the disease of self ever hope to lay down their own life of their own volition for another human being unless they had first denied the greedy selfish impulses of their own corrupt heart? How else could they truly be free from the slave master of their own covetous heart unless they had first learned to not heed it? And this is the problem I am faced with right now in the great state of Washington sitting alone in my truck before work. How can I ever hope to walk in freedom or reflect the Son of Liberty if I refuse to stop living for myself? How can I ever hope to love my wife or my children, my co workers or my neighbors the way they need to be loved if I only think of myself? How can I ever hope to truly be free of myself when I love myself so much more than anything else? And here in lies the problem I am faced with this morning. 

I love myself more than I love anything else in this world. I love me more than I love my peers more than I love my wife my children or my God. And that's the uncomfortable truth I must reckon with if I believe the gospel. If I say that I believe in the God of the Bible, the Father who willingly gave up His Son, the Son who joyfully laid down His life for the brethren or the Spirit that freely works in those who believe in His name then I must submit my whole life to the teaching of His word and be willing to be conformed in every area of my life to the One who loved me and gave Himself for me, the One who is called Love. But what does that even mean? Where do I even begin?

In our transition from California to Washington my wife and I got much more than we bargained for. We had to live in a hotel, rely on the kindness of those we barely know and confront deep rooted hurts we were both unprepared to deal with which her cancer both exposed and created. One of the most uncomfortable truths I personally had to deal with is the way I medicate myself with various escapes, for example entertainment and movies. A movie for me is an escape, pure and simple. It is like having a great novel explained to you in pictures. I delight in the detail the artistry and the entertainment of it. I won't lie. I think I first started using movies in this way to escape the brokenness of my parents' turbulent marriage when I was a child. But be that as it may I have carried that pattern into every relationship including our marriage. Now a movie is not destructive in itself (another topic for another time). It can be used in constructive ways to be sure. But for me I chose to use it in a destructive way and it had a very destructive effect on our marriage to say the least. 

You see in trying to escape from the increasing pressures of my life I unintentionally distanced myself from my wife and kids. The harder life became the more frequently I sought to escape. And Netflix became my drug of choice. When I wasn't looking for a movie to watch (generally a 30 min activity) I was watching movies back to back (often late into the night). But here is my point. In order to deny your self you must be confronted with yourself. You must be willing to see yourself for who you really are. What you really do. How you really live, the standard of how you really love, listen to and interact with others. In a word you must be confronted with reality. And the only way to do that is to live in community. And this is counter intuitive to our culture. For how can we ever hope to be real with ourselves if we only ever distance ourselves from each other and avoid community? 

Now the problem as I see it is twofold. First we love ourselves more than anything else. And second we live in a culture obsessed with the love of self. Not only is it obsessed with the love of self but it has built for itself a comfortable little niche where it can appear to be thoughtful of others and interact with others while preserving the narcissistic delight of focusing on numero uno. 

Enter social media. Now social media is not evil in itself. It can be a wonderful tool to connect with long lost friends peers and even relatives. But that's not how the majority of us use it. Is it? We post endless selfies of unnecessary moments, catalog the life of our children in public to project a particular persona. We lust after and compete with the accomplishments and possessions of others. We substitute real fellowship with digital post it notes that are more often than not misunderstood by those we send them to. We debate like professors without degrees, ridicule like philosophers who haven't studied. We stand on electronic soap boxes and condemn the latest political social or economic ills with the gusto of a prophet. We do everything (most the time) except connect with the ones we love in a way that is tangible and beneficial and uncomfortable and necessary (the way it's supposed to be). And that my friend is a real problem. Because it is counterintuitive to the gospel, counterintuitive to real friendship or real life for that matter. And it is in my own estimation the number one reason we do not deny ourselves. 

There are just too many ways in this day and age to love ourselves, promote ourselves, dwell on ourselves or dissect ourselves, in a word glorify ourselves. Why bother doing anything else? But that is why the words of Christ strike at me this morning, break my heart and bring me into the dust. I am guilty of all of this and so much more. I have played the harlot. I love my self too much to let me go or any other activity which feeds my ego. And that is a problem. No. It is a cancer, a disease of the soul. And I wonder, can I endure the spiritual chemo? Because the only way anything is ever going to change in my life is if I choose to endure it. 

But what is the spiritual chemo for such a devastating disease as this cancer? What hope do I have to deny myself in a culture obsessed with itself? I know the answer. And You wouldn't believe me if I told you because it has been so misrepresented, so abused by the masses and neglected by the ones who were charged to preserve it. And it is right in front of our faces. You see the only cure on the planet for the tyrannical disease of self, the only hope we have to deny ourselves is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I don't mean the watered down version either. I mean the person and works of Jesus Christ in human history as they have been applied and are continually applied to us daily by the Holy Spirit according to the word of God. 

Without that sacred work of Jesus Christ on our behalf there is no gospel. There is no church. Without the sacrifice of Jesus Christ there is no deliverance from sin and self. And the church that fails to see this, understand and walk in it will not reflect the One who redeemed them, even though they identify with Him. The church that professes to represent Christ but fails to reflect Him in their every day life will only ever appear to the world as a light bulb that does not glow: in other words a walking contradiction. And that is exactly why our culture is the way it is today. Too many of us who profess to know the living God reflect too little of the reality of His Spirit. Too many of us who spend their time evangelizing on street corners, teaching bible studies, leading worship or traveling to other countries to proclaim the gospel reflect too little of its saving work in our own lives. In the most mundane professions of employment, at the local coffee shop or in traffic where it is most apparent to the watching world, we reflect too little of the sacrificial loving character of our God. He is a stranger to them because He is a stranger to us. What the world sees instead is only a self serving & hypocritical people who refuse to be transparent who know very little of honesty and humility.

And that is a tragedy, which brings me to the crux of this little treatise. That is, in order to truly deal with the cancer of our own self centeredness, to deny our self in the way it has been prescribed, we must first make someone other than our self the preoccupation of our heart and mind. If denying our self becomes the preoccupation of our mind we are still only thinking of ourselves. If we spend our time serving other people in order to be selfless we have still missed the mark because we are still only serving our own interests albeit in a more deceptive way. We are still only serving our self. And in this way we are like the disciple Peter. In order to deny ourself in the way that Jesus implies, we must first fix our eyes on our Maker and receive again from HIM the good works that He has done on our behalf. We must receive the reality afresh that we can do nothing apart from Him to sanctify ourselves. We can do nothing to make up for what's been done on our behalf. We cannot make up for the cross. We cannot become selfless on our own. We must receive and be washed by the selflessness of God in Christ and be convicted and set free from the demands of our flesh to be and to do in our own strength. 

Only when we have received the gospel of Jesus Christ again and all that He has done for us in it in practice can we genuinely respond to Him with loving gratitude for His amazing grace and rest in its perfection. That gratitude we feel for his goodness toward us always translates into kindness toward others when it is sincere. And it is for that reason that the apostle Paul typically began his letters with the indicative (what God has done) before he moved into the imperative (what we should do). He knew the indicative would always confront his reader with their own inadequacy and bring them back to the saving knowledge of the excellency of Christ in which he personally rested. But the grace of God in the gospel of Jesus Christ is foreign to our broken sinful sensibilities. Without the intervention of the Holy Spirit I submit to you we would only resist Him at will. In fact we do. That is why so many today reject the cross of Christ. the death of self is poison to the mind of the flesh. And it is for that reason that I liken it to chemo therapy.

You see anyone who's ever gone through cancer (my precious wife for example) knows that chemo therapy is the absolute worst experience. It is foreign to the human body, this pure and unadulterated poison which is injected into the human body by force which is why the most common reaction to it is to throw up. A person must take mind altering drugs in order to trick the mind into not rejecting it so vehemently. And I submit to you that the same is true of the Gospel of Jesus Christ for the human heart. That is why so many reject it out of the gate. The cross of Christ is poison to the flesh. it is death to the death in all of us. That is why it works so hard to reject it, to alter it if necessary even ignore it, change the nature or purpose of it anything but ever accept it. Once a person has accepted the radical poison of the gospel it can only do one thing: burn away the death inside of all of us that is killing us and restore us to our originally intended spiritual health as the redeemed of God. 

And this brings me back to our family and the inevitable conclusion. I did not know two years ago that the cancer inside my wife's body would serve to bring me into confrontation with my own inner sickness. I had no idea that the cancer in her would reveal the cancer in me, that her recovery would initiate a much needed chemo therapy in my soul. I did not know how devastating my selfishness was to my family or my friends until I was backed into a corner with nowhere to go. I had no idea how desperately I needed the Gospel until I came face to face with my own internal nakedness. I had no idea how deeply God loves me until I was confronted with my own inability to love. I had no idea how broken I am until I was called upon to lay down my life and found I couldn't. I had no idea how valuable that truth was until I started discussing it with others.  

So here I am convinced there is no one who cannot profit from this truth because we are all alike sold under sin from birth, addicted to our self even as believers, so easily enslaved to the tyranny of our own corrupted hearts as human beings. Believer or not we all need to hear this truth because it is vital to our soul. That is why the call to deny our selves rings true even today. Because the human race is nothing else if not consistent. We were in need of Christ then. We are in need of Him now. It is for this reason that He was given, for this reason He laid down His own life. The question is will we heed the voice of His wisdom? Will we answer the call to accept His freedom? Will we embrace the life He has provided for us in Christ or live like slaves without chains? What is the point of identifying with the Son of God if we refuse to rely upon His work or reflect His love? 

How can the world be expected to believe in a Savior they see no evidence of in those who are called by His name? How can they be expected to accept the reality of a love His people do not reflect? How long before we heed the call to "come out and be separate" from a culture obsessed with itself? How long before we walk in the liberty the Son of God spilled His blood to secure for His people?
Food for thought.