Thoughts on Life

Over the last year or so I’ve been realising how everything in life is related to our relationships, whether we realise it or not. All of our interactions are either constructive or destructive for our relating. That’s why life is so difficult. I thought of saying during a sermon once that life is easy until you have to relate to someone!

It is for this reason that doing our best to get our relationships to work is the most important thing we can do with our lives. Now, getting our relationships to work doesn’t necessarily mean they will be easier, but it does mean we will be more at peace. There is not much we can control in our relationships, but we can control the way we come across, with the help of God’s Spirit within us and with the help of others who love us enough to speak lovingly into our lives.

What we can’t control is how others relate to us. We can try to manipulate our relationships to get people to be nice to us or like us, but when we do this we will always know, deep down, a sense of distance from those people. That distance will be because we are actually trying to use them to make ourselves feel better. Whenever we are doing this we are not loving, and whenever we are not loving, we are not living as God intended and therefore not joyful.

Probably no one has brought this across better in my thinking than Larry Crabb, director of New Way Ministries. Crabb has written numerous books over the years, but the two that have impacted me the most are Understanding People and Inside Out. The first was given to me by a friend in 1987. When he gave it to me I remember feeling offended because it came across like he was giving it to me because I didn’t understand people. So it was like, “Here, maybe this will help.” I felt like my friend thought I had no clue about relating to people when my greatest desire in life was to be Christ-like and my friends were not serious enough about it. I thought he was being arrogant. I may or may not have been right.

Finding Inside Out was a different story. There are very very few times in my life where I can say with confidence that I thought God specifically led me to something. In fact, as I write, I cannot remember any other occasion apart from when I found this book in Keswick Christian bookstore in the centre of Melbourne in late 1988. Flicking through it in the bookstore that day, I experienced the sense that this book was written just for me and that the only way I could describe how I found it was and is that God led me to it.

Over the years I have read both books a number of times, mainly going back to certain sections rather than re-reading from cover to cover. Inside Out in particular spoke directly to everything I was going through in the way I was relating and the way I wanted to relate at the time, and it still does today. One of my greatest desires in life has been to find a group of people to relate to, be committed to and grow with in the way that this book suggests. I am convinced it can bring about the genuine change every human being desires in their heart of hearts. For many years now I have been part of something approaching a group like that and it has been life-changing.

Since Crabb wrote Inside Out, many Christians have benefited from putting its principles into practice. They have found genuine change and life in Christ - the abundant life that Jesus promises.

The more we grow in relating as Christ does, the more fully human we become. It was St Irenaeus who said that the glory of God is a human being fully alive. The more alive we become, the like Christ we become. The Jesus we see in the Gospels is the most fully human person who has ever lived. He lived the perfect human life. He was the embodiment of God’s design for humanity, and we give glory to God and know the most intimate joy with the God of love the more like Christ we become.

When we look at the way Jesus relates to everyone, it is always with love. Sometimes it is gentle love and sometimes it is extremely tough love. But it is always infinite love, always done with the greater good of the other in mind. It is done with what Tim Keller calls the freedom of self-forgetfulness.

This way of relating is also what changes the world. It is not just something for our inner lives with no other effect than giving us the joy of living. It’s inevitable effect is that gives itself away for others. That is the very nature of love. It cannot be kept unless it is given away. “It leaves you baby if you don’t care for it.”

Relationship changes everything, for good or for ill. If it changes things for ill then it is not really relationship; it is the opposite: the lessening of humanity. Following is how one person describes how relationship changes the world:

“If we, as followers of Christ, are to fulfill His established law then we ought to carry each other’s burdens. If I were to help an elderly woman carry her groceries from her car into her home, the first thing I would need to do is get close to her. If I truly wanted to help her I would have to go to her. I wouldn’t merely stand on her lawn and instruct her from afar on the proper technique for lifting her heavy bags from the vehicle, or chastise her for trying to carry too much or too little, and then stand by hoping she fared well enough to make it safely into her home. No! I would rush to her side, make sure she was sturdy and stable, then pick up and carry groceries on her behalf. Why? Because I am strong, capable, and have been given the ability to do so.”
- Rachel Britz - (http://www.relevantmagazine.com/current/op-ed/worthy-burden-compassion)

I’ve shared at different times about the insanity of how rushed we are in December each year in the lead-up to Christmas. It’s sadly ironic that the time of Advent - which covers most of December - is designed to be a time of reflection when we have turned it into the most stressful time of the year.

Having time to sit and reflect is good for our emotional and mental health, as well as our spiritual health. We are more rounded, whole people when we spend time doing these things. And we are invariably happier as well. The fact in Australia is though that, as a nation, we spent $8 billion on Christmas and $14 billion on post-Christmas sales.

The Boxing Day sales used to be about stores getting rid of excess stock; that’s why they were on sale. Now what the major stores do is actually get more stock in to sell, and they can afford to have them on sale because they know that demand will be at its peak. And in recent years post-Christmas online sales have been increasing as people try to find bargains online by shopping on Christmas Day. To use a cliche, nothing is sacred anymore. But cliches are cliches because they’re true. We even have to shop on Christmas Day now.

Back in the late ’80s, the Jubilee Centre released their ‘Keep Sunday Special’ campaign as a way to remind society about how good it is for us all to have a day of rest. A campaign like that is timeless and is more important now than it was then.

Through all this madness we hear the words of Jesus whispering, maybe yelling, down through the centuries, “Life does not consist in the abundance of possessions,” and “What will it profit you if you gain the whole world but lose your very self?.” This is exactly what we’re seeing. It’s worth mentioning again that Brene Brown, a social researcher in the US, says we are the most depressed, obese, medicated and addicted culture in history. It’s also worth repeating that American psychologist Martin Seligman has research showing that the rate of depression in the affluent world has risen tenfold since the Second World War. This is at exactly the same time as we have never been richer in terms of material and financial wealth.

“Come to me all you who are weary and heavy-laden and I will give you rest” says Jesus again. As we move further into the second decade of the 21st century, the good news of Jesus is more relevant than ever. The world needs saving, and Christmas is a celebration of the great news that we have been given a Saviour.

Christmas was never meant to be stressful. It is instead the best news ever. God coming to earth on the great rescue mission, identifying with us in our brokenness, and all while we are still in our madness. “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” May this truth refresh us as we get into the post-Christmas season.

There is something uniquely special about grown men being vulnerable with each other in a group. I am fortunate to be in a group where this is not an uncommon occurrence. When you see a man who, if you only saw his physical appearance would probably intimidate you, start to be so honest about his brokenness and about how much he appreciates being in a place where it’s OK to be broken, it touches something deep within you.

It’s one of those almost indescribable moments when you are reminded of what really matters, of what is really important in life. It touches something deeper, something that the superficialities of our life never can. It is a moment when you realise that love is in the house, and it isn’t the warm fuzzy feeling that is probably best described as being ‘nice.’ The word that probably best describes what I am talking about is ‘real.’ It is men being real men.

I can imagine that this is what it would have been like being around Jesus. He always touched something deeper. He opened himself up to people, and people in turn opened themselves up to Him. Jesus can never be accused of being a nice young man who made you feel warm and fuzzy inside.

People like that didn’t get themselves crucified by the Romans. No, Jesus was a real man. The people who followed Him had their deepest needs satisfied; they found rivers of living water welling up within them. Hardened, sea-worn fishermen, along with unscrupulous businessmen, were transformed into the most caring and courageous of men.

At His crucifixion it was a tough, trained-to-kill Roman soldier who was moved to confess that, in effect, this man was the way men are supposed to be. Jesus’ manhood is also shown in so many other ways. His respect for women, His courage in taking on the sin and pain of others, and His being unafraid to express His emotions in the appropriate way.

I wonder if there is a sense that men have it easier in relating to Jesus than women do. For men, Jesus is the ultimate man to emulate. When we talk about being Christlike, we can look to Jesus and follow His example. He is our role model as men.

When we allow the Spirit of God to touch us deeply, when we pull away the masks that our culture says we should put up, and just be, warts and all, in front of our friends, it is then that we grow into the likeness of Christ and become godly men. There a only a few men I have met in my life who I could truly call godly. They are men who draw me to Christ, to be more like Him. They are men who have something that I want. They show me that real men are good men; that real men are vulnerable; and that real men cry when they need to. God make me into a man like that.

I had a read of Tom Wright’s John for Everyone this morning. I looked at John 3:1-13 which is the passage about being born again. As I read it and Wright’s explanation of it, the truth of what the good news really is dawned on me again. We don’t need to be born again so we will get into heaven when we die. Jesus didn’t come down from heaven to show us how we can get there with Him. The good news is that, ultimately, heaven is coming here, and that has already started in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus coming down from heaven was the beginning of heaven coming here, the beginning of the new creation, of the new heavens and the new earth.

This passage has been among the most loved of Christians – particularly evangelical Christians – for years, and rightly so. John 3:3 is one of the verses you learn when you learn the ‘four spiritual laws’ (something else which gives a twisted understanding of the Gospel).

I firmly believe in the need to be born again. After all, Jesus did say it, so we can’t just dismiss it. But we need to understand what Jesus really meant, and in what context He was saying it when He had His famous conversation with Nicodemus. Like everything when we read Scripture, we need to look at this passage in context. The whole context of Scripture is that it is a story, the story of God’s salvation plan, yes, but more than that, God’s redemption plan for, not just humanity, but for the whole of the created order. Jesus said “Behold I make all things new.” (Revelation 21:5, emphasis mine). And so it is in that sense that when Jesus talks about the need to be born again, He is talking about our need to be born of the Spirit of God to be able to do the works of God. This is what transformation is all about.

As well as all this, Wright makes the wonderful point about how Jesus is the ladder between us and God, about He bridges the gap for us. When I learnt the four spiritual laws, we were always shown how, because we were sinners (Romans 3:23 – all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God) and can therefore not save ourselves (read: get into heaven by our own efforts) - Jesus died for our sins in our place so that we can now be saved because of Him (read: we can now get to heaven because of what Jesus has done). But listen to what Wright says about this, about the real, Biblical reason that Jesus is the ladder between us and God:

“he (Jesus) is now the ladder which joins the two dimensions of God’s world, the heavenly and the earthly. If we want to understand not only the heavenly world, but the way in which God is now joining heaven and earth together, we must listen to him, and walk with him on the road he is now to take.”

This is the reason that Jesus is the ladder between us and God. As Wright says elsewhere in John for Everyone, it’s like Jesus is saying, “if you follow me you will see what is like when heaven and earth are open to each other”. Jesus did indeed die for our sins, but not so we could get a ticket to a heaven in the sky. It was so we could indeed be saved, but saved in the sense of being part of the new creation with Him. Our hearts will be transformed, we are no longer condemned, and we are free to live for and with Jesus and His followers to help make the whole created order right again. This includes our hearts, our attitudes, our whole inner being, society, the environment, our finances, our economics, our legal system, everything. As Eden Parris sings, Jesus has come “to banish the night and to make all things right, to colour the earth with his song.”

The Gospel is bigger than we ever thought. Jesus always has something new to show us. It is anything but a dull, boring life. The life of following Jesus is the life of the ages; it is what eternal life really is.

In the U2 song, Peace on Earth, Bono sings of his frustration about our constant talk of peace without it ever really happening. Peace, peace when there is no peace is the cry of the prophet he is echoing. All around we see power corrupting and people in power getting their way at the expense of those with no power. Over and over again it happens.

I have no trust in political and economic systems. Ultimately I trust more in Jesus, whose power did not corrupt and through whom our desires for power are redeemed. John Smith asked a question many years ago which is a challenge for everyone who claims to be a serious follower of Jesus. The question is this: who are your friends and who are your enemies? The point he was making is that, when you look at the life of Jesus, His friends were overwhelmingly the powerless, the marginalised and the oppressed. And His enemies were overwhelmingly the rich, the powerful and the oppressors.

If our friends and enemies are the same type of people who Jesus had as friends and enemies, then chances are that we are following Him and can claim the name ‘Christian’. If our friends are the rich and powerful, and our enemies are the poor and powerless, then it is pretty much certain that you are not following Jesus and cannot legitimately call yourself a Christian. Harsh words, but I defy anyone to tell me that what I am saying is not Biblical.

Another question that John Smith has asked is along similar lines. It is a study of Jesus’ encounters with the powerful and the powerless, and whether they were positive or negative encounters. Not surprisingly with Jesus, His encounters with the poor and powerless were overwhelmingly positive, while His encounters with the rich and powerful were overwhelmingly negative. Jesus was constantly in trouble with the authorities, and at the same time, the common people heard Him gladly (Mark 12: 37).

Until the day Jesus returns there will be injustice and abuse of power in this world. Humanity is too sick to change itself on its own. Martin Luther King Jr knew this. On the day that President Kennedy was gunned down in Dallas, King told his wife that the same would happen to him one day, because society is too sick to know any better. Tragically, this great prophet of the 20th century was right, cut down himself only five years later, one more person who stood up for the powerless being silenced in the ultimate manner.

I feel a deep sadness and frustration when I see the powerful abuse their power at the expense of the powerless. A clearly guilty white collar worker gets off because he can afford the best lawyers; executives give themselves huge bonuses while they decry any request for a pay rise by those lower down as dangerous for the economy, and politicians share the perks of office while their constituents struggle each day to make ends meet.

Who can we believe in any more? Who is trustworthy? And here is where I point the finger at myself. Am I trustworthy? Do I abuse my power to get what I want at the expense of those who don’t have the resources that I do?

It is at the times when I hear of power being abused that my faith in Jesus is strengthened. He is the only one who is ultimately trustworthy; He walked His talk, He lived out the courage of His convictions, and when abused Himself, He continued to show the way of love. In Him is our trust ultimately not misplaced. In Him is our only salvation.

I just watched an amazing video of a portrait of Jesus being put together by a wonderful artist. As I was watching, I realised how fascinated I still am by Jesus. After about 25 years of being a believer, He still challenges me, still draws me, still encourages me to strive on to be better than I am.

There is something amazing about this man who lived, died and, I believe, was physically raised 2,000 years ago. People of all persuasions have had their lives turned upside down, been given hope, been infused with meaning, and been turned around from self-destruction to self-giving love by the man from Nazareth. Kings and rulers, and slaves and peasants alike have been utterly transformed by Him.

If you think of some of the things that make Jesus so fascinating, they are at once paradoxical yet at the same time make sense in Him. Things like the fact that He makes the most outrageous, extraordinary claims of Himself, yet not once does He come across as arrogant or self-opinionated. Or how about the fact that He actually intensifies the moral norms of his culture (”you have heard that it was said…but I say to you…”), and yet the most despised of ’sinners’ in that same culture are drawn to Him like metal to a magnet?

Jesus makes the most pressing claims on our lives, yet at the same time gives us grace upon grace - undeserved love. He demands total commitment yet never demands anything He doesn’t do himself. He tells us to love our enemies, and does it Himself. He tells us to walk the extra mile, and He walks it himself. He tells us to take up our cross and follow, and He takes it up himself, even unto death on the most brutal, completely humiliating implement known in those times: a Roman cross.

This is a man like no other. The most intelligent minds in the world, such as former head of the Human Genome Project, Francis Collins, to the child who sits in wonder at the fact of Jesus’ love, come away transfixed, never the same again. Two thousand years later, Jesus appeals to to great minds and little children alike. And throughout those 2,000 years, thousands have been transformed in a way they cannot explain but for the presence of a love outside of themselves. As Bono said once when it was suggested to him that this Jesus stuff is a bit outrageous: the alternative is that thousands of people throughout history have had their lives turned upside down by a madman - now that’s outrageous!

I read a bit of the Bible every day. I have read about Jesus for years; I have written about Him and I daily try to live my life as He did, but still I find myself drawn to Him, still I find myself wanting to be like Him, still I want to learn more from Him, and more than ever I am convinced that only in Him lies the life and hope that we all strive for.

As I ponder, I can only echo the famous words of Dr James Allan Francis, written almost a century ago, of this One Solitary Life:

He was born in an obscure village
The child of a peasant woman
He grew up in another obscure village
Where he worked in a carpenter shop
Until he was thirty
He never wrote a book
He never held an office
He never went to college
He never visited a big city
He never travelled more than two hundred miles
From the place where he was born
He did none of the things
Usually associated with greatness
He had no credentials but himself
He was only thirty three
His friends ran away
One of them denied him
He was turned over to his enemies
And went through the mockery of a trial
He was nailed to a cross between two thieves
While dying, his executioners gambled for his clothing
The only property he had on earth
When he was dead
He was laid in a borrowed grave
Through the pity of a friend
Nineteen centuries have come and gone
And today Jesus is the central figure of the human race
And the leader of mankind’s progress
All the armies that have ever marched
All the navies that have ever sailed
All the parliaments that have ever sat
All the kings that ever reigned put together
Have not affected the life of mankind on earth
As powerfully as that one solitary life

To paraphrase Paul Simon, I remain, of Jesus, still fascinated after all these years.

‘Fill your lives with love and bravery and you will lead a life uncommon’ - ‘Life Uncommon’ – Jewel

The life Jesus lived was a life uncommon. In fact it was so uncommon that no-one has been able to lead a life like it before or since. It is a life which gives us the ultimate guide on how to live in a Godly manner. And now we have the Spirit to give us power - the power to do what is right. That is why Jesus said that when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth (John 16: 13). When we live this life, a life lived in total devotion and commitment to Jesus, we too live a life uncommon.

Romans 12: 2 says to not be conformed to the pattern of the world but to be transformed by the renewing of your minds. It is a life lived against the grain, a life of swimming against the tide of popular opinion and cultural norms.

Martin Luther King talked about this when he spoke of living the life of a transformed nonconformist in his magnificent Strength to Love. Most of us don’t live this life, preferring instead to live a life of maximum comfort. As we think of people like King, Gandhi and JFK - the latter having told his countrymen 50 years ago this week to ask not what their country could do for them but what they could do for their country - we remember that such people inspire us, but how many of us would actually go as far as to take that life seriously and actually live it?

When Jesus talked about coming to give us abundant life (John 10: 10), He was not referring to simply enjoying the life we live here and now (although life certainly is to be enjoyed). He was talking about living a life of following Him, which starts by denying ourselves and taking up our cross. The life uncommon that we then lead, the counter-cultural life, the life of swimming against the tide, is the only life worth living.

I love people like Richard Rohr who are so warm and Christlike, and who just say it as it is. I am tired of the way Christians have gone along with the sanitised “sweet baby Jesus, no crying he makes” version of Christmas that we have been fed. The reality is far from that. Let Richard Rohr explain it better than I ever could:

“Jesus identified his own message with what he called the coming of the ‘reign of God’ or the ‘kingdom of God’, whereas we have often settled for the sweet coming of a baby who asked little of us in terms of surrender, encounter, mutuality or any studying of the Scriptures or the actual teaching of Jesus.

“This is what you are invited to this Advent. But be forewarned: the Word of God confronts, converts, and consoles us - in that order. The suffering, injustice and devastation on this planet are too great now to settle for any infantile gospel or any infantile Jesus. Actually, that has always been true.”