First, thanks, everyone, for the comments on last week's post!
I believe that God is always inviting us to change our thinking and change our direction (repentance). Yes, there is some up front change that is required to see and enter the Kingdom, but I think the changing is meant to be continuous rather than occasional. Just a thought.
Notice that I used the word "inviting." I believe that God's preferred method for bringing folks around to where they face Him is invitation, not confrontation, and certainly is never coercion or manipulation. I also believe that even confrontation by God (His very last resort) contains an invitation (think about it). Romans 2:4 says it well where Paul asks, "Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?" (ESV) (And yes, I know the next verse speaks of storing up wrath, etc., for those whose hearts are hard).
So why is it important to think of God inviting more than confronting? There are probably plenty of reasons, I think, but perhaps one of the most important is rooted in the nature of healthy relationships. Relationships can never be coerced, and love can never be forced. Relationships by their very nature require each and every person in the relationship to enter that relationship by a truly free choice. Furthermore, anything that flows from obligation is not pure love because fulfilling an obligation is still all about "me" (borrowed that thought from Wayne Jacobsen). (On the other hand, there are times when genuine love will cause me to go far beyond any obligation!).
So...if the most relational Being in the Universe is wanting relationship with us, His first and preferred approach will always be invitation. We see this clearly in the life of Jesus, don't we? He saved confrontation for those who had missed all of His manifold invitations. And as I said above, even His confrontation was an invitation.
I believe that it is critically important for us to "get this" as we engage the world around us and present the Good News of God's Kingdom. Much of what I have seen that is called "witnessing" has done just the opposite and in the process has misrepresented the nature of God from the beginning. Is it any wonder then, that we have so many in the church for whom kindness, forbearance and patience are not their preferred mode of operation? Hmmm, I wonder.
It is also critically important that we "get this" in our own walk with God. If the God we are getting to know is inviting, wooing and showering us with kindness, we respond in like manner to Him and reflect that to others. On the other hand, if the god we "serve" is always confronting us, we locked in a behavior-based approach to life in the Kingdom and the resulting sourness spills over on others. We see this a lot, don't we? How can I invite someone into a relationship with God who is love when my first approach is confrontation?
Anyway, I could write a lot more about this, but just throwing out the first thoughts. I trust that the God you meet each day in the morning is smiling and that you can hear Him constantly inviting you into deeper relationship with Him and others.
Tom, one of Abba's little boys
4 comments:
Hi, Tom,
I agree with you! God is always inviting us to repent and to change our ways in to follow and obey Him more completely being sold out to Him in order to truly worship Him in spirit and truth. Yes, if we are dealing with people who are unsaved it should be inviting them, or giving them the invitation to count the cost of following Jesus and after they have truly counted the cost of following Jesus issuing the invitation to repent coming to Him as Savior and Lord (Luke 14: 25-33). Jesus calls us to, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations….teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you… (Matt. 28:19-20). We are called to make disciples and not just people who believe. The invitation we offer should be to count the cost of following Jesus Christ and repent. Yes, the call to unbelievers to repentance is by invitation.
As His disciples He invites us to renew our minds and learn His ways and follow Him. Discipleship requires change, it requires us to deal with sin in our lives and the lives of those in the church as the apostles dealt with sin in almost every letter they wrote. If we were applying the Word of God to our lives and bringing the correction we needed to our lives, families, and churches we would not have the messes we have in our lives, families, and churches! Anyone’s love for the Lord, their spouse, children, family and friends, or the body of Christ if they did not bring correction and discipline when it was needed needs to be examined (Tim. 3:5).
Proverbs 13:24 says, “He who spares his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him promptly.” He who withholds discipline is hateful and becomes as an enemy or a foe to his son. This concept of love should be developed in the believer’s thinking. This is the concept the apostle Paul had when bring correction to the Corinthian believers (1 Cor. 4:21). Of course, this concept of love goes against the grain of the world’s philosophy as well as much of the contemporary Church today.
The apostle Paul constantly calls us to imitate him and his methods and ways of doing things (1 Cor. 4:16; 1 Cor. 11:1; Phil. 4:9; Phil. 3:17; 2 Thess. 3:9). Timothy followed Paul’s example, just as we are called to do following his example and pattern in everything, to imitate him in everything doing things as he did them (2 Tim. 3:10-17). Paul found it necessary to counsel both Timothy and Titus to rebuke or admonish (2 Tim. 4:2; Titus 1:13). Paul even corrected Peter publicly saying, “I withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed.” As ministers in the body of Christ we are to speak the Word of God to one another (Rom. 15:14; Eph. 5:19; Col. 3:16-17). We are called to follow Paul’s example who said in Colossians 1:28, “Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.”
He wrote to the Corinthians telling them in 2 Corinthians 13:2, “…now being absent I write to those who have sinned before, and to all the rest, that if I come again I will not spare”. In 1 Cor. 13:10, “Therefore I write these things being absent, lest being present I should use sharpness, according to the authority which the Lord has given me for edification and not for destruction.” Paul’s confrontation of course is an invitation to repent, just as Jesus gave to church of the Laodiceans in Rev. 3:19, “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent.” His confrontation of our sin and invitation to repent is always in love and for our good.
The Lord’s way of correction is kindness and He generally corrects, instructs, teaches us gently at first, and sometimes with more urgency to stress His point. He may have to even use sharpness to get His point across to us personally. However, having refused to listen and obey His guidance, instruction, teaching, exhortation, or correction, He may stop speaking to us due to our unwillingness to obey or follow His instruction and leading. At this point, He may have to us another person to get the His point across. The person He uses to bring His message across to may be done with gentleness, or sharpness depending on how the Lord stress it to them.
After we have refused to receive the Lord’s personal correction, and have failed to listen to others in the body of Christ, we may be self condemned (Tit. 3:10). Should we continue in our ways and insist on breaking the law the Lord, He may also have to use the authorities that exist within the government. Should we resist His ministers we again bring judgment on ourselves and the minister will execute wrath on the one who practices evil (Rom. 13:2, 4). It pays to listen to God’s gentle correction to us personally and through those He has speak to us before He has to use other means to correct us.
In the Joyce Meyer, “The Everyday Life Bible”, a life point states, “Proverbs 23:12 instructs us to apply our minds to “instruction and correction.” Correction is probably one of the most difficult things for most of us to receive, especially when it comes through another person. Even if we have problems, we do not want others to know we have them. I believe God prefers to correct us privately. However, if we will not accept His correction, or if we do not know how to allow Him to correct us privately, He will correct us publicly, using whatever source of means He needs to use. God’s correction, even if it is uncomfortable to us, is always intended for our good.”
May your love abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment that you may approve the things that are excellent!
His nothing,
Jeff
Hello Tom,
Great thought sparker and point of conviction (in the good way) for sure! Thanks.
The reference to counting the costs and discipleship sparked another thought in me and I tie it as well to the last post. I feel often that this is where we as believers have fallen short in our calling with the unsaved or new believers or any believers for that matter. For when we witness and/or invite, we ourselves sometimes fail to count the cost of (or possible simply underestimate) discipleship. Have we fully taken into consideration the examples from scripture of Jesus and Paul exhorting believers to essentially look at their life and imitate it. If we are not ready or willing to let others in, how can they "look" with any clarity into our lives as examples. And if we ourselves don't model true and open hearted repentance and willingness to be corrected how is this person we have invited to be so inclined as well? Or for that matter, those searching to understand the deeper things of God, that this aspect of repentance my friend is an integral part of that depth! We must keep our hearts inclined to His instruction and correction for as He grows us and shifts our paradigm into His our minds will open up more and more to the understanding of who He is and His love and desires for us which will naturally draw us in for more. But do we realize that our cry for "more Lord" is a open invitation to bring that correction to us at ever more deeper levels, for we know that it is His kindness that leads us to repentance! And in His kindness, as He answers our hearts cry for more He knows He cannot give what we may be unable to receive without first cleaning the house to make room for it.
In Matt. 28:20 and in other scriptures we are called to "teach" yes, but that does not always mean it comes out of our mouths. Words as you well know are only a small portion of our learning intake. Our actions, attitudes, tones and even facial expressions teach more to a person that we may possibly ever wish to expose. Shall we then not count the cost before we set out to invite others? That it is an invitation actually for ourselves first. An invitation to walk the Emmaus road with us, to watch us, as we grow and change before the throne of grace. That as we yield to that correction and ask others for forgiveness and repent openly for what the Lord calls us on or what our friends call us on that the teaching is actually an ongoing life process that grows as we live real life alongside one another.
The correction that has so often impacted me most has been watching a brother or sister cry in repentance for a specific act or even a thought that does not please the Father either to me or in front of me as a witness. In turn I am drawn into the Love and forgiveness I see poured out on that person from the Father as He restores them, it makes me yearn for that purity between me and the Father as well! Have you found that to be true in your lives?
As we minister the love and compassion of the Father during these times, as we extend forgiveness when asked for it, or correct when led by the Spirit to do so, we participate in the very thing that we are needing ourselves. Our example then, should hopefully encourage us into that posture. If the thought of standing before ourselves getting corrected or needing to repent brings any fear, shame or pain we need to fall on our face and repent and ask the Lord for more grace and mercy and His love so that we ourselves can become more like Christ in every area of our lives, to His glory and pleasure.
In Love,
Pam
Thanks, Pam, for your comment! To give an answer to your question, "Have you found that to be true in your lives?"
As for me personally, when I first started my Spirit-Filled walk I hungered and thirsted after righteousness due to the Holy Spirit’s work in me. I guess early in my walk it may have encouraged me a little to have watched someone else seek and pursue the Lord, but for the most part I was the one who was sold out pursuing whole hearted discipleship. Holy Spirit led discipleship cannot be lived out apart from the Spirit it is His work. Nothing we can work up, we just need to surrender to Him, yield and obey by the power of this grace which is His divine influence upon our heart.
Over all it does not matter to me what other’s do whether they walk with God or not, whether they stand or fall. I know that if they are indeed His they will rise again and continue on with Him. I have seen many fall including quite a few pastors with major sin, not the just the sins of the heart and attitude sins we all struggle with from time to time. The bottom line is my personal walk is in no way dependent on them anyone else. I have one desire that I seek and that is to dwell in the presence of God, to seek His face and abiding under the shadow of His wings.
You also stated, “Our actions, attitudes, tones and even facial expressions teach more to a person that we may possibly ever wish to expose.” Yes, they can if we are religious, we can develop a religious sourness, being carnal Christians who are worldly and remain babes in Christ.
I hope you are not talking about being socially and politically correct. Jesus cleansed the temple in righteous angry, many have a hard time understanding this. However, we can be angry and not sin. We can be vexed in spirit over sin. We can have righteous angry and never sin, we can be annoyed, irritated, frustrated, displeased, and upset and never sin. Be real and allow the Holy Spirit to purify our attitudes so our heart is right. Regardless of how others judge our outward appearance, we must remember God looks at the heart!
Grace and peace,
His nothing,
Jeff
Hi, folks.
Just a note here. I am not at all convinced that one can be frustrated, irritated, etc., and accurately reflect the spirit of what I am describing here. If you haven't already done so, be sure to read Wayne Jacobsen's book, He Loves Me, which helps explain how even God's anger is an expression of His love. I have yet to meet a "frustrated, irritated" believer who reflected God's love in the same way that I am convinced that Jesus did. Another book that helps us understand how "body language" communicates our heart is Dallas Willard and Jan Johnson's Renovation of the Heart In Daily Practice.
Your upside down friend,
Tom
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