Influences

“…so stand fast in the Lord, beloved” Philippians 4:1b

As a commentary to this passage William Barclay once wrote, “Only with Jesus Christ can we resist the seductions of temptation and the weakness of cowardice.” He goes on to make the point that the word Paul uses for stand fast is a word noted for battle, when the soldiers stand unflinchingly as the opposition charges directly at them. That’s a great word picture.

I often think about standing firm in different situations and how emotions and the people standing near can make us stand strong or fall easily. When I’m with one friend it’s easy to talk about the Lord and feel so connected. But, with another friend, it’s easy to get a little carried away and talk about things (people) that are less than building to the Kingdom. Isn’t life interesting? Our mood, our self-worth, our friends so influence our every moment. They not only influence our moments, they change our emotions, our attitudes and eventually our viewpoints.

That’s not always a bad thing but it’s almost always a universal truth. We are who we spend time with.

Having never experienced life before the fall I can only imagine exactly how God created us. Were we designed strong, unflinching, needing nothing and no one? No. Even in Adam’s perfect state, even with lots of creature naming to consume his time, Adam needed a companion, someone like him. Adam needed someone to walk life with, not help him garden, not to do anything for him necessarily, just to be with him (admittedly the doing can often show how much you love the being).  But even the then-perfect human, Eve, fell for the Evil One’s trick and thus Adam listened and acted as well. Even two perfect people fell when someone didn’t act in their best interest so what hope is there for us?

I often underestimate the difficulty of the battle. We’re inclined to think we can do it on our own. I don’t cheat; I don’t steal; I don’t do any of the “real” lies. I covet occasionally and am jealous- but I’m only human, what do you want from me? But that’s a big Catch 22- the blame game. It’s not my fault, it is my fault, it’s someone else’s fault….on and on. 

The big picture is not what separated us from God. It's not your lifelong measure of good or bad. It's not a scale of deeds or your morality. It was one sin. One act barred us from eternity with the Lord. One willing person to be complicit with evil instead of the Lord's command.

Paul writes stand fast in the Lord, beloved not from the barred side but from the side already experiencing eternity. He writes fully human, fully on earth but fully absorbed in the knowledge and faith of being God's beloved, so much so that he desperately wants the receivers of this letter to experience it too. They're not supposed to be normal and he's reminding them to stand fast BECAUSE they are God's beloved, because they are in the Lord. And because they are in the Lord, they will never have to stand alone.

And it makes me wonder, are we standing with our friends, our family, our acquaintances and allowing their habits and viewpoints to invade our lives or are we stand[ing] fast in the Lord? Are we standing with Him, and He with us, and letting that relationship direct our lives or are we unknowingly letting culture attach? Relationship is so undoubtedly critical to our livelihood, and many a blessing emerges from many of them. But what of the others and what of the broken ones we've not gotten around to working on? And most importantly, what of the ones where we need to throw aside momentary pleasures and stand firm in the Lord? 

Christian and Cultural Beliefs

As I drove in to work today I listened to a song on the radio that struck me, as many often do. It was based on 1 Corinthians 13:2-3, “And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

If I’m being honest (and I likely shouldn’t be as forthright as I sometimes am), I have a hard time with verses like this. As I listened to the song, and as I’ve listened countless times to speakers, I’m initially taken back by statements like this before I fully connect that it’s taken directly from scripture. Once I draw the connection my mind flips over from doubt to passive acceptance, since after all, it’s the infallible Word of God so I have no right to question it.

And while the Word is infallible, I have every right to look into it and examine it against my life. If these two verses and the like were plucked out of scripture and I took the rest of the Bible, I should still draw the same conclusion. But I doubt I would.  Verses like these make me realize just how intimately the Lord knows me. He knew I needed to be told directly. He knew I wouldn’t get it from the likely hundreds of indirect ways he says it in the rest of Scripture.  He left nothing out but describes here great human power and ability, far exceeding mine, so I am left without any excuse but to believe I am and I gain NOTHING apart from loving people. That’s hard to swallow.

But looking at this made me even more aware of how my cultural christianity has invaded my God-like Christianity. My cultural side says, “Do what you can; we’re just human. Fight the fight but you need to give yourself a break and cut lose every once in a while. Jesus’ first miracle He turned water to wine, He knows how to have a good time. Give what you can to the church but don’t worry about it. Go to church when you can make it and smile at strangers. Try to repent if you do something really bad and don’t do things that would hurt other people…” My cultural christianity has no problem with really expensive lifestyles or drinking a little too much. It has no problem if I don’t actually talk about Jesus, ever, to anyone, since I am being nice and everyone in the South knows about Jesus anyway.

This is not a talk about how terrible all of the above is, even if I paint it in a negative light. I am just a person, trying to draw back the shade that is often cast by our culture onto our Christianity. It can be such a subtle difference that we don’t always recognize it. We could have grown up in it and never experienced pure belief and thereby have no authentic measure. I will spend a lifetime sifting my humanity, my culture, my familial values, my feelings and emotions to separate the wheat and the chaff. I may not ever come to the end.

One thing I do know- I have a Book accessible to me at any time that wants to be my guide. It wants to shine bright light on my life so that when any shadow comes upon it I can more distinctly separate it out.  And when I am taken aback by something like this passage before realizing it’s scripture, I pray to realize how thankful I should be that the Lord is not done working out my faith. He’s not done refining my belief system and my life so that I may be his vessel.  He’s not done teaching me that all the power in the world amounts to nothing if we do not love. And regardless of how my culture or history fights that statement, it’s true- plain and simple.

Human Ability

This past week I went through with a group the often-heard, very quotable and applicable passage of Jesus walking on water and Peter’s doubt. It’s a very vivid picture of walking calmly when faith is full contrasted to faith wavering and subsequently plunging into the waves. It’s a great passage of scripture. But as we talked through it someone brought up a rather intriguing point to me.

The statement was made that Jesus was able to walk on water because of His God-nature and that humans in themselves cannot walk on water. The point was well-made; Jesus was able to sustain Peter, allowing him the courage and ability to jump out of the boat. Could Peter have walked on water otherwise? Likely not. Could you walk on water at any given time? Likely not. Has anyone, besides this instance with Jesus present, ever seen someone walk on water? Doubtful.

But is it possible?

My humanity says no way. I could take the most faith-filled person I know and they would sink because in what context would we need in this day for someone to walk on the water?

But is it possible?

I’ve been reading scripture throughout my life and come on the thought many times that so much of our world exists in parallels or contradictions to the Holy Scriptures. So much of our humanity is much the same way. While I deeply wish I was like Christ and could be 100% one nature, much like He was 100% God, if I’m deeply honest I’m usually about 70/30 human to Christian (and it fluctuates but I’ll let you decide which percentage is in which camp…).  While His grace completely covers me, my humanity and the evil that subsequently follows, seeps through my God-likeness and too often reveals itself.

But I’ve been thinking about walking on water and whether someone in our modern world actually could do it, without the physical presence of the Lord. That may be a bizarre thought to dwell on and it most certainly is not a salvation issue to ponder, but it is possible?

Here’s what I know. Jesus himself said in John 14:12, "I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father.”  Or this passage in Luke 17:6, “The Lord answered, "If you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, 'May you be uprooted and thrown into the sea,' and it would obey you.” Or the similar one in Matthew 17:20, “You don't have enough faith," Jesus told them. "I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it would move. Nothing would be impossible."

I very likely will never see someone walk on water. I may never see a paralytic be instantly healed by a touch or see the dead walk again. I have a hard time with public healings and exorcism. I have an even harder time with living in the Spirit. But what I do know is that there is scriptural validity not only to each of these practices but also proof that they’ve worked. Maybe not backing for the specific ways we may practice them, but the passages above say without mincing words that we, who are not even 1% God, can do even greater things that Jesus who was 100%. I’m not planning to run over to my neighborhood pool anytime soon, but if He says I can move mountains, it’s time I start having the faith to discover what my life’s mountains look like.