It has been an incredibly long time since I have made use of this blog. I would like to get into it again and a question just posed to me as part of an ethics class I'm taking has given me such an opportunity. I am not a Wesleyan and I hope the title of this post has not lead anyone to assume that I feel I have attained such a complete victory. Far from it, in fact my thoughts arise out of struggle and defeat. Well, this is what I am working on in my own personal life. Below I'll share the question I was asked and my response.
What do you think is the most important thing in your life that helps you live what you believe? What is it in your life that you believe will help you buck the worldly trends?
Well, I am very thankful for this last question, for the answer is something that I have been working on, especially over the last year. I owe a large debt to John Piper in this regard. Even now my wife and I are using material of his for our devotions together and we are dealing with this issue.
The most important thing that helps me to live what I believe and helps me buck worldly trends is love for God. It is my struggle and desire to love God more. I have been disappointed with my lack of love for God. As I struggle against sin I have found that I will only realize victory when I desire God more than anything else, more than anything that the world offers and tempts me with. I believe that the root of sin, the cause of my every stumble, is a lack of love for God. I have chosen something else over God, I have loved something else as I should only have loved Him. When I desire to glorify Him, to have fellowship with my heavenly Father more than I desire anything else, then I will experience victory over sin.
While the concept is simple, I must admit that the practice is not. I mean, I love God and I want live a life that glorifies Him, but I still fall short, I still sin, I still chose the world. I do not want to give the impression that it is a losing battle. Certainly by grace I am making progress in personal sanctification, but it is not as much progress as I should like. I experience temptations that I think should no longer entice me, but they do. So what is there to do?
The love for God that I desire is a gift of God’s grace. I cannot work it up on my own. But this is not to say that there is nothing I can do. The practice of the spiritual disciplines will produce the desired effect. I believe Scripture reading and prayer in particular are the God ordained means for producing in the human heart a love for Him that over comes the world. And so this is my task as I seek to become a man of dignity, a man above reproach, that God would be pleased to use as a pastor/teacher to build up His people.
I would like to share a single verse parable that the Lord has used to show me my need of greater love for Him. Matthew 13:44, "The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid again; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field." May our heavenly Father place in our hearts such a joy, may we value Him above all else, and may we "count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:8).
How would you answer the question?
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8 comments:
A couple quick thoughts: Honesty; If something is beautiful, do not lie and say it is not, view it with appreciation as of part of Gods creation, not with lust. Intimacy and proper appreciation can replace coveting and lust. WWJD?--- Let me be candid for a minute... Jesus no doubt ran into a hot babe or two in His life, I would assume that He must have said to Himself, "Wow, now that's a beautiful creation", no lust, no sin, just an honest appreciation. I believe we have the same choice as we interact with the world and its temptations, chose to listen to your consciance as the the Holy Spirit speaks to it.
Okay, There is some advise for dealing with lust. Thank you for that. Now I'm asking in more general terms, how to overcome sin. What about when someone cuts you off on the road and you are angry, how do you avoid responding badly? Or how do you keep ambition from robbing you of contentment? Etc.
Back to the issue of lust for a second. It seems to me that we don't have a problem recognizing beauty or appreciating it, but how do you keep from going over the line, whether it be a beautiful woman, or car, or anything else that your neighbor has better than you?
As a professional driver, going almost 2000 mi a week, those situations are more than familiar. 9 times out of 10 I will reflexively curse, then immediately sigh, then remember I'm a sinner also. After I ask God to forgive me, I try harder next time to simply just sigh and ask God to work in my life as well as the other persons. I do OK with that IF I have had enough sleep.... how do you keep ambition from robbing you of contentment? Etc. well, exercising long suffering, patient prayer over time always reveals a more accurate perspective of situations... pray with a very open mindset. As far as preventing lust and coveting, I feel is a matter of being transformed by the renewing of our minds over time. Before the reaction was lust or coveting, as we mature in our walk are reactions become more in line with Christ-likeness. How? Personal training, "Run the race as if to get the prize", walking wont get us too far... RUN! Probably the most powerful weapon against coveting is true Thankfulness. If we can truly abide in thankfulness, covetousness is road pizza.
The original question was, "What do you think is the most important thing in your life that helps you live what you believe? What is it in your life that you believe will help you buck the worldly trends?"
I think the answer to that question and all the other situations that have been raised is the same; to love God supremely.
Love God and desire fellowhip with Him more than the fleeting pleasures of sin concerning lust. If you love God more than your rights you won't have to get back at that bad driver. And if you love God more that your owm prestige, you will be more concerned about glorifying Him than your own personal advancement.
What do you think about this magic bullet answer to all these questions?
I agree 100% with you. The hard part is that when a lust or anger situation occours, those physical and emotional bulldozers, have atendancy to run over the still small voice of God speaking to our conscience. A partial definition of "Loveing God", would be to ALLOW by CHOICE that small voice to stop the bulldozers. But for that to happen we must be running the race as if to get the prise, we can not just say boo hoo God help me... we have to very activly be obidiant to His ways.
I think your magic bullet answer answers the "what" we have to do, and mine here attempts to show how.
Hmm... I actually think that you are talking about the "what," what we have to do in different situations, and the "how are we going to do the right thing" is what I'm talking about, by loving God supremely. When we love God more than anything else it is the biggest bulldozer, unmoved by the lesser desires and affections.
To basicly agree, and to state my final answer I would say: To love God supremely, is to be obediant to Him, making the right choices in all situations. The more we train ourselves to do this, then the more mature we become, yet not by our own power, but by being yoked together with the Holy Spirit. (not sure if that exact picture is in the Bible?)
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