Loving God in a Low Information Culture

So I turned my mind to understand, to investigate and to search out wisdom and the scheme of things and to understand the stupidity of wickedness and the madness of folly~ Ecclesiastes 7:25

After much deliberation and careful consideration I have come to the conclusion that we live in strange times. There are at least a million examples I could give to make my case, but in effort to save your sanity I will share only a few: our political leaders spend more time on news shows talking about each other than in meetings talking to each other (and yet we still pay them). Actors (people who pretend for a living) who have little or no education and who are often lacking in real-world experience are schooling us all how on to think about the most complex issues of our day (and people are listening).

 Many behaviors that have been considered sins and bad choices for millennia are now called diseases; the same industry that celebrates violence in movies and on television decries violence by the military. Children can be overheard telling their parents what to do and buy in public places and music—considered by many to be the universal language—has now become so shocking and provocative that it has warning labels on it for parents.

  All that is pretty strange, but I think that one of the strangest realities of our time is that we live in an information age where the average person has more access to knowledge and information than at any other time in history and yet many people know very little about what is going on in the world around them. We have become a low-information culture; which has created low information consumers, parents and voters. I came across some shocking statistics that go a long way in proving my point this past week.

According to Pew Research Center ninety-three percent of Americans can identify Arnold Schwarzenegger, but only sixty-one percent can identify Barak Obama. Eighty percent of Americans can identify the symbol for Twitter but less than half can name the current Secretary of State; only fifteen percent knew who Harry Reid was, and most shocking to me: only sixty-six percent of Americans could successfully identify their state’s governor.  

Cultural ignorance gets even more shocking when you look at biblical knowledge. According to Barna Research, seventy-five percent of Americans believe that the Bible is the word of God or inspired by God and yet according to Gallup less than half of all Americans knew that Genesis was the first book of the Bible and one fourth could not explain why Easter is celebrated.

I find these statistics particularly depressing because I believe that Christians are called to redeem all levels of culture and these statistics make me think we have fallen down on the job. After spending some time grieving over the cultural ignorance I searched out Scripture and came across a verse that got me thinking. It’s Matthew 22:37:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with your mind~

What does it mean to love God with your mind? It is an easy thing to explain how to love God with your heart and strength but when it comes to loving God with our minds explanations get a little trickier.

 As I began to consider the meaning of this verse I found that I had a lot of questions: Does loving God with our minds mean we memorize a lot of Scripture? Or get a Masters in Divinity? Is loving God with our minds limited to spiritual matters or is there more to it than just knowing the Bible?  What about people who do not have access to higher education? Can they adequately love God with their minds? Are intellectually gifted people at an advantage when it comes to loving God with our minds?

 I won’t lie and tell you I have it all figured out but I do have some thoughts to share on the subject. I believe that loving God with your mind is less about education level than mind-set. A highly educated genius can be a fool on a spiritual and common sense level and a person of below average intelligence can have the mind of Christ (1^st Corinthians 1:18-20). Having the mind of Christ gives us access to wisdom and understanding that an intellectually gifted person who does not know Christ will be lacking.

As I prayerfully pondered all my questions concerning this subject God impressed three truths on my heart that I want to share with you:

1.    If we are going to love God with our minds we must have the right motivations for pursuing knowledge.

Paul warns believers in 1^st Corinthians 8:1 that knowledge can “puff up” a person. In other words: knowledge, if pursued with the wrong motives, can turn you into a jerk. I do not believe that Paul’s statement is a condemnation of the pursuit of knowledge; it is simply a warning that knowledge for the sake of knowledge is a wrong motive.  Pursuing knowledge with the hope that it makes you the smartest guy in the room or so that you can have a bunch of letters after your name is probably sinful and at the very least its self-absorbed. But that doesn’t mean you should remain willfully ignorant either. Knowledge that builds up rather than puffing up always has an endgame in mind; it is pursued for a purpose, to build up the body of Christ or to benefit society in some way. The pursuit of knowledge can either be an exercise in egotism or a truly noble enterprise; it all depends on your motivation.

2.    Loving God with your mind is about doing the best you can with what you have been given.

Loving God with your mind is about learning as much as you can and growing into the best, most informed person you can be. I believe that Christians should know a lot about a few things: like the Bible, politics and current events and a little about a lot of things like art, music, sports, and even popular culture. Having a broad base of knowledge enables us to converse with those outside of our churches and empowers us to engage people in meaningful conversations about life, faith and the direction of our culture. These types of conversations may sow the seeds of spiritual and cultural renewal.

3.    Loving God with our minds means renewing our minds on a regular basis.

The moral confusion that permeates our generation requires that Christians participate in popular culture cautiously, step back frequently and go to great lengths to develop a biblical worldview. Having a biblical worldview means that we learn to see life and the world from God’s perspective. A biblical world-view is developed through constant exposure to biblical truth, through corporate worship and fellowship, as well as personal and group Bible study. If we are going to renew our minds, we must limit contact with cultural toxins, pursue he development of discernment and spend time with wise people.

 Learning to love God with our minds might be the first step towards redeeming our culture. I believe that loving God with one’s mind is about more than simply knowing and loving Jesus (although it starts there). It involves knowing stuff about the world and the people in the world and learning to sort through the information we come across with a spirit of discernment and a heart of wisdom. In our information age discernment is critical because more than a few have shipwrecked their faith because they bought into slick-sounding worldly wisdom.

Loving God with our minds is about more than simply acquiring knowledge because although God is the author of truth, He is also the lover of our souls who stepped into our world with the purpose of engaging us in relationship. Loving God with our minds is about loving what He loves. Loving God with our minds means engaging people on issues, wisely and lovingly challenging the lies they have bought into, never forgetting that we too once lived in darkness.  

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will~ Romans 12:2

Love Contends...

For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline~ 2^nd Timothy 1:7

 February is the love month. Traditionally Americans celebrate their affection for one another with candy, flowers and stuffed animals. Because it’s February and everywhere I go I see reminders of this tradition, I have been tuned into thoughts of love.  The other day I came across a verse that captured my imagination because this ordinary verse tells us a great deal about God’s perspective on love. The passage is Colossians 2:1:

I want you to know how hard I am contending for you and for those at Laodicea, and for all who have not met me personally.

It was one little word that grabbed my attention, it’s not a word that we normally associate with love or even with Christianity: contending. The word grabbed me because of its definition; it means to struggle, to fight with or to strive for. Some of the more colorful synonyms for contending are: scrap, brawl and scuffle.

The discovery of this word sent me on a biblical wild-goose chase. I learned that Scripture uses several similar words for contend. The words can be translated wrestle, fight, struggle, and resist. According to Scripture we can fight, in prayer (Colossians 4:12, Romans 15:30), for the spiritual well-being of others (Colossians 1:29), against Spiritual forces (Ephesians 6:12, 2^nd Corinthians 10:4), against sin (Hebrews 12:4), through persecution (Philippians 1:30), and for truth (Jude 1:3).

As I grasped the different uses for contend, I was smacked with conviction: I recognized how often I fight but for the wrong things, and in the wrong way. I fight with the cell phone company over a small overcharge, the homeowners association over the number of trees I can have in my yard, my kids over the sorry state of their rooms and with God over almost everything, and yet there are things that really matter that I don’t always fight for.

Today I want to share with you some things that are worth fighting for along with some practical ways that we can fight in a way that honors God and does not make us look like a bunch of jerks. We can fight for…

Those who have not yet met Jesus~

There is a world out there dying in their sin and we all agree that reaching people is important; but I think that we struggle with the how. Many are SO lost that it is hard to know where to start. We struggle to find a point of reference to start a conversation about anything, let alone spiritual things. It all starts with prayer: pray that God will put people in your path and then pray that you will know what to say to them when they come along. When they come along (and they will) engage them, ask them questions, find out how they got to where they are without judging them, and look for ways to bless them.  When the opportunity presents itself share your story and the hope that you have because of Jesus Christ (1^st Peter 3:15). If they don’t respond in faith immediately, don’t give up; one of the biggest grievances non-Christians have with Christians is that they feel like Christians only want to be friends with them if they accept Jesus.

We can also contend for…

The wandering~

We all know someone who used to go to Church or Bible study, someone who has wandered away from the faith and is doing their own thing. Why not give one of those people a call this week and find out how they are doing? Take them to lunch or coffee and rekindle a relationship with them. They are probably hoping that someone will care enough to call.

The next generation~

If you have a kid or a grandkid or know a kid—any kid—I urge you to fight for them. The generation of kids that we see today has not always had healthy adults in their corner and they desperately need some. Young people today are struggling to figure life out and are sorely lacking role models and sometimes even practical knowledge. If we are going to fight for future generations it starts with living our faith out in a way that is open and authentic. We fight for them by being real with them, admitting that we blow it sometimes and by continually growing ourselves. We contend for future generations by getting involved in their lives, building genuine relationships with them, teaching them truth and practical skills using Deuteronomy 6:1-7 as a guide.  We contend for future generations by praying for them, and with them, guiding them, loving them and, most of all by not giving up on them.

And finally, we can fight for…

Truth~

This is an area that requires some wisdom and finesse. Fighting for truth can be tricky in a culture that has openly rejected truth. I believe that contending for truth begins on a personal level. It starts with asking ourselves a series of hard questions:

Am I seeking to understand truth by studying the Bible with people who know more than I do?

I am I living out the truth that I do know to the very best of my ability?

I am I the same person in private that I am in public?

Am I kind to people?  

Am I honest about my personal failures and shortcomings?

Do the people closest to me believe I am doing all of the above?

The next step is to look at our Churches; we have to ask ourselves:

Are we teaching the truth, even hard truth?

Are we holding people who profess Christ to a standard of truth?

Are we firm but loving in our presentation of truth?

I believe that one of the reasons people are not embracing truth is because we’ve expected unbelievers to live up to the standards that God set for believers without always living up to those standards ourselves. When Christians live what they profess the world is exposed to the reality that truth works; it makes a difference in the outcome of our lives. When they see that, they listen when we speak. It is vital that when we get a chance to speak we make the most of those opportunities because truth is contended for in both words and actions.

~

The love that the Bible talks about is tender but it also has toughness to it. It is patient and kind but it also hangs in there; it doesn’t give up on people. Biblical love does more than express feeling for a person, biblical love contends. It is so broad that it will fight for those who are close, those whom we have never met (as in Paul’s case with the Colossian Christians) and so narrow that it will go after a single soul who is wandering  (Luke 15:3-7)

Biblical love fights for the things that really matter. It fights for the truth; it fights for the forgotten, for the lost and for the wandering. I was challenged this past week to take a good hard look at who and what I have been fighting for, to seek out people that the rest of the world has forgotten and show them a love that is willing to fight for them.

No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us~ 1^st John 4:12

It's Good to Feel Bad and Other Truths we are in Danger of Losing

For these commands are a lamp, this teaching is a light, and the corrections of discipline are the way to life~ Proverbs 6:23

A while back I did something that I hate to do. I hate it so much that I haven’t done it since. I voluntarily went through a box in my garage. I subjected myself to the torment because organizing the garage is one of my husband’s ongoing passions. It’s not one of mine but according to 1^st Corinthians 13 love is not all about me so I made the effort.

 The boxes in our garage are like weird time capsules; they’re full of random stuff I care enough about to keep but not enough to use ever again. In this particular box I found an old colander (random), some books I will never read again, but refuse to part with, clothes that belonged to my kids when they were little (they were cute but had a definite 90’s vibe) and an old Bible.

I am easily distracted from a task and so the Bible turned into a big rabbit trail. I looked at notes I had made in the margins, wondered what had possessed me to underline certain verses and got nostalgic over some very cute scribbles my children had made in the book of Second Timothy.

Tucked in the back were some notes from a sermon I heard nearly two decades ago. The sermon was from a series called “The Attributes of God” and the message was titled “The Holiness of God”. The message’s thrust was on the importance of remembering that God is not just a God of love. He is also a God of justice and because of His moral purity and just nature there has to be a penalty paid for sin. It was meaty stuff.

I didn’t think much about it at the time but for some reason I remembered those notes the other day and it got me thinking. I have not heard a message like that in a very long time. I decided to take an informal poll and I asked my kids, my husband, and a good friend when was the last time they heard a sermon about holiness or the justice of God.

The results were interesting: my kids remembered me doing a series about holiness in the high school Sunday school class, but had never heard anything like that from the pulpit; my husband remembered hearing that sort of thing when he was a teenager and young adult; and my friend who has been a believer for well over three decades has never heard a sermon on either subject and neither has her husband.

Obviously, this poll was not exhaustive research on the subject of modern sermon topics, but I think it does reveal a leaning we have in the Church today to avoid subjects that make people uncomfortable. Outside of the Church (and in some segments of the church) the whole concept of morality has been turned upside down.  Countless “experts” are teaching that biblical virtues including goodness, respect for life, chastity, temperance, fidelity, self-control, and honesty are outdated, unnecessary and in some cases repressive and evil.

I believe that we are at a crossroads. In many respects our culture is declining rapidly, and the church is failing to address the decline in a meaningful way, but I am an optimist. We are here and God is on his throne and there is hope for the future. Today I want to share a few truths I fear we are in danger of forgetting. If these truths continue to be ignored it will be to our own peril and the peril of those in our culture who desperately need to know Jesus. A few of those truths are:

Feeling bad about bad behavior is a good thing~ Jeremiah 3:25, 2^nd Corinthians 7:9-11

At some point in the recent past, feeling bad about bad behavior went hopelessly out of fashion. It’s a bummer because guilt and shame are beneficial to the human condition. Guilt and shame are often the only things that prevent us from repeating self-destructive and hurtful behavior. No one wants anybody to feel bad about anything anymore—even stuff that the Bible clearly defines as shameful (i.e. adultery, stealing, slander, cruelty, fornication etc.). I get that there are Christians who feel “inappropriate” shame over sins that are forgiven or over things that are not really sinful. Unfortunately, most in our culture do not struggle with inappropriate shame.

Shaming people is not okay; that is the responsibility of the Holy Spirit, but it is the job of the church to hold up a standard of holiness within our own ranks. Sadly, there are many who attend weekly church services who don’t realize that they are doing things they should feel bad about. This sorry state has come about because no one wants to make anyone FEEL bad.  When someone does feel regret or guilt we rush in to make them feel better about themselves, often circumventing the work of the Holy Spirit in the process. 

Second Corinthians 7: 9-11 makes it clear that feeling sorrow or shame over sin is a healthy and essential aspect of the repentance process. God forgives and forgets; and it is critical that we show mercy and kindness to the repentant. That said, it is the uncomfortable memory of the sensation of shame that keeps us from repeating destructive behavior. If we prevent people from feeling the sensation that is meant to protect them, we are simply dooming them to a never-ending cycle of sin.

Truly mature Christians voluntarily limit their freedom for the benefit of the body~ Galatians 5:13, 2^nd Peter 2:19

I know many Christians who have bought into the “rights” lie of our culture. The rights lie says that since all things are permissible I can do whatever I please even if the practice of my “rights” leads someone else in the wrong direction. Scripture teaches that just because you can do something it doesn’t mean you should (1^st Corinthians 10:23). We have to consider other people when we exercise our freedoms. We are a part of a community of faith and less mature believers are taking their cues from us.  If the Apostle Paul was willing to embrace vegetarianism if it would benefit weaker believers (1^st Corinthians 8), maybe we could consider curbing our freedoms to help other believers along. We must use wisdom, not rights, as the standard for our decision-making.   For the record: I deliberately did not name any particular behaviors.  If you feel guilty about something, stop doing it! J

The grace of God is about more than a free a pass on questionable behavior~

The grace of God is an interesting and multidimensional subject; we are forgiven by the grace of God (Ephesians 1:7), we are saved by the grace of God (Ephesians 2:8), we gain access to God because of grace (Romans 5:1-2).  Grace is something we can miss (Hebrews 12:15). It can be on us and in us (Luke 2:40, 1^st Corinthians 15:10). The grace of God empowers us to do things we are not capable of in the natural (Acts 4:33, Acts 6:8, 2^nd Corinthians 12:9) and grace, if properly applied teaches us to say “no” to ungodliness and worldly passions  (Titus 2:11-12).

  So when exactly did grace become nothing more than a cover for bad behavior? We have coined a new catchphrase in the Church: “we have to give them grace.” It means that we must overlook any sinful behavior that we observe or risk being labeled “judgmental”. Correction and exhorting people to better conduct is completely unacceptable in many circles.  The grace that saves us, empowers us, and teaches us to say no to sin is something that Jesus paid a heavy price for; we cheapen it when it becomes nothing more than a free pass for bad behavior.

~

Today I heard some disturbing statistics: Church membership has plateaued in the United States. Even with the rise of mega-churches all we are doing is shuffling members between buildings. To make matters worse, the Church is losing seventy percent of its young people when they graduate high school, only half of them return. If these trends continue it will not be long before membership begins to decline among all denominations.

I love the Church, I believe with all of my being that it is the instrument that God created and appointed to bring the gospel to a lost and dying world. The Church is made up of people and so it stands to reason that if the Church is struggling it is because the people are struggling.

 I believe we are struggling as people because we’ve been doing the same old stuff for way too long. Perhaps its time to do something different, its time for us to see how much we can do instead of how much we can get away with.  Its time to dust off some hard teachings and start living them with passion and conviction; Perhaps, then the unbelieving world will take notice and our Churches will grow again.

 We pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God~ Colossians 1:10

Getting into the Groove of Discernment

 My child, don’t lose sight of common sense and discernment. Hang on to them~ Proverbs 3:21 NLT

 As newlyweds, my husband and I were broke. Really broke, as in hot dog and rice casserole twice a week broke; so when our car with the automatic transmission breathed its last breath and went to be with Jesus (or wherever good cars go when they die), we took the car we could afford, which happened to have a manual transmission. I had to learn to drive it, so, after many tears, several arguments and at least one threat of divorce, my long-suffering husband managed to teach me to drive a stick shift. He is a saint.

As our family grew, we needed a larger vehicle so we eventually traded our little car in on a used minivan with an automatic transmission. To my surprise, I missed the old transmission at first—but it didn’t take me long to readjust. 

A while back, a friend called me in a panic and asked me if I knew how to drive a stick. Her husband was out of town and she needed someone to help her transport a vehicle with a manual transmission. I was happy to help—until I got behind the wheel and realized that it had been so long since I used a manual transmission that I had forgotten how.

After much prayer, a few shaky starts, and a frantic call to my husband I got it going and made a rather embarrassing, herky-jerky trip to the mechanic. He watched me pull in and told my friend that she should have found someone who had experience driving a manual transmission to help her transport the car. It was mortifying.

That experience got me thinking about how easy it is to neglect a skill. When we stop doing almost anything for any period of time it’s a challenge to get back into the groove and remember the finer points of the skill-set. It is not just our driving skills that can get rusty.  Hebrews 5:13-14 tells us that when we neglect truth our spiritual maturity is stunted and we lose the skill of discernment.

According to Scripture, discernment is the ability to tell right from wrong and good from evil (1^st Kings 3:9). Discernment is closely related to wisdom (Proverbs 14:33) and according to Psalm 119:125 discernment is an important skill if we are going to understand and teach God’s decrees.

Our world is becoming more and more difficult to navigate morally and ethically. It was not long ago when even the non-religious in our culture agreed that divorce was wrong, theft was a sin and cheaters should be punished.

We live in a different world now. According to Gallup 67% of Americans believe divorce is morally acceptable, nearly half of students believe that there is nothing wrong with cheating and according to the FBI Financial Crimes Report white-collar theft has skyrocketed in recent years.

Few would argue that the moral climate in America has changed dramatically in recent years. Behaviors that were once considered absolutely unacceptable are now publically celebrated.

Even within the Church we see fewer decisions and choices being made on the basis of sound biblical teaching and more decisions being made on the basis of emotion and public opinion. We have forgotten how to think biblically so we think emotionally. Some have become like the country described in Deuteronomy 32:28—they are without sense, without discernment.

Our world is becoming increasingly more complex and amoral, making the ability to discern right from wrong more important than its ever been.

Anyone can become more discerning but it takes a commitment to cultivating a biblical world-view, to learning to think like God thinks. We develop discernment by…

Carefully guarding what goes into our minds~ Philippians 4:8, Psalm 101:1-2

We are bombarded by messages coming at us continuously through radio, television, music, books, movies and the Internet; all of this information shapes our understanding of the world, often without our being cognizant of the shaping that’s going on. We end up thinking like the information we consume. If we consume People Magazine, The Rachel Maddow Show, Fifty Shades of Gray and Two and a Half Men we may well become silly, banal, crude, and purposeless: a reflection of that material.  Pay attention to what you read, watch and listen to; if what you are consuming does not line up with what the Bible teaches put it down or shut it off. 

Surrounding ourselves with wise people~ Proverbs 13:20

I counseled a woman who went off the rails spiritually speaking a few years ago. She nearly destroyed her marriage, kids, and career with a bunch of really foolish choices that included among other things substance abuse and an affair. She’s back on track but the fallout from those choices is still affecting her life today. I asked her how she got off track in the first place and she said that it all started with a friend she met at work. This friend took her drinking; the drinking led to recreational drug use; the drugs led to a guy and all of that culminated in near-disaster. We become like the people we spend time with. 1^st Corinthians 15:33 “Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.” This advice does not just apply to teenagers; it works for everybody regardless of age.

Living lives of holiness~ 2^nd Corinthians 7:1, Romans 12:2, 2^nd Corinthians 5:17  

There is nothing ethereal about living a life of holiness. Holiness is the process of shedding behaviors and attitudes that the Bible tells us are unacceptable, and embracing behaviors and attitudes that God deems good. As we let go of worldly thinking and actions our spiritual senses are sharpened and we become more tuned into the way that God sees the world. As a result we become more able to discern right from wrong and good from evil.

 By really thinking about the consequences of worldly philosophies and value systems ~ Colossians 2:8

Many of the ideas and philosophies in our culture sound good but if you really think them through all the way they don’t work all that well. For example, many in our culture have bought into a hedonistic, epicurean philosophy that teaches that pleasure is the highest value for a human being. In reality many things that begin as pleasurable experiences (heroin use) end in catastrophe. If we are going to embrace discernment we must learn to look past the sound bytes and easy answers and really think about the consequences of belief systems.

The results of forgetting how to think biblically can be tragic. We see those consequences playing themselves out in every corner of our culture. Government, corporations, families, churches and communities are all being affected by the cultural loss of a biblical worldview. Our world desperately needs a revival of wisdom, prudence and discernment and it all begins with individual Christians making the commitment to think like a Christian.        

And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God~ Philippians 1:9-11