Two Steps to the Slippery Slope

It was spring.  It was the time of year that kings go to war.  But King David didn’t go.  He remained behind in the comfort of his “palace”.  In so doing he took the first step toward the proverbial slippery slope.

That first step is choosing not to be where you ought to be. David ought to be with his troops fighting the Ammonites.  Instead he chose the leisure of his home.

Then “it happened”, that is how the ESV phrases what took place next (see v. 2).  If David had been where he should have been then he wouldn’t have been walking on his roof top at the end of the day.  And he wouldn’t have been some place from which he spotted a beautiful women bathing.  Welcome to step two: being where you ought not to be.  David arrived at the slippery slope and his look slid into lust, adultery and eventually murder.  He fell hard and his failure had profound implications on his family.

Pretty simple and pretty scary.  Guys when we choose not to be where we ought and then choose to be some place where we ought not to be we are pushing the gate open to the slippery slope.

¹²So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! ¹³No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it. (1Co 10:12-13 NIV)

The secret to keeping promises

A scene in the movie Fireproof called for a kiss between husband and wife.  The husband, played by actor Kirk Cameron (Growing Pains) had no qualms, as long as the wife he was to kiss was his real-life wife.  Cameron’s convictions prevailed and Chelsea Noble, his wife of 17 years, stood in for the on-screen wife for the tender moment.  Years earlier, the actor had made a promise to his wife not to kiss any woman but her.  He has demonstrated that he is a man of his word.

Few of us are or will be actors, but all of us I believe desire to be men of our word.  We would like to be known as men whom can be counted on to honour their promises and commitments.  Unfortunately many of us know from experience that our resolve to be promise keepers can flounder and even fail.  Hurry, distractions, pressures, and passions can knock us off course, leaving us with good intentions but bad follow-through.

What can be done?  Do we plunge into the New Year with a guilt-fueled list of resolutions, written in bold to impress or at least to fool?  No.  We have ridden that horse before and it is no more alive this year than last.

Author Ken Drury gives us an idea.  He writes, “About a dozen years ago I discovered a group of busy Christian executives who were weary of breaking promises to God and their families…These men discovered a little known secret of commitment keeping — accountability. It is a most powerful secret to rescue you from the cycle of promises-broken, promises- renewed. “

Every week I meet with a group of men.  We read a devotional, discuss it and pray for one another.  It is the praying where accountability begins to show up.  If you are asking other guys to support you in prayer about something then there is a good chance one of them is going to ask how things worked out.  This helps me stay real in my prayer requests; I don’t share something that my heart isn’t ready to be committed to.

There are numerous accountability structures.  What have you experienced and what benefit has it been to you?

Mercy you, mercy me

Mercy very much can denote an attitude of compassion that reaches out to people who are suffering and hurting.  Blind men followed Jesus and cried out for mercy.  He healed them.  A Canaanite woman sought mercy for her demonized daughter and Jesus delivered her.  Likewise a father pleaded for mercy for his troubled son, and Jesus restored him.

Mercy can also carry a narrower meaning akin to forgiving someone.  We see that meaning in the parable Jesus tells about the servant whom was forgiven a large debt by his master, but then refused to forgive the small debt he was owed by another servant.  The master in the parable says these words to the unforgiving servant,

Mt 18:32 …‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33 And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’

The Message in translating this beatitude does a good job in capturing the scope of this word.  It reads,

Mt 5:7a “You’re blessed when you care…”

The blessing associated with being merciful is that one will receive mercy.  God will bless them by extending to them mercy.  God will bless them by being compassionate to them and granting them forgiveness.

It is not that by showing mercy to others I cause God to show mercy to me.  Rather my showing mercy to others is the occasion that demonstrates that I have received mercy from God.  Or as the Message puts it,

Mt 5:7b “At the moment of being ‘care-ful,’ you find yourselves cared for.”

Recent economic news may have us tightening our belts, but mercy is something we can still afford to give this Christmas.  In fact I don’t think we can afford not to give it.

Full meal deal according to Jesus

The other day my wife and I were in downtown Toronto. We did a fair bit of walking, visiting old haunts from when we used to study and work downtown. By the evening meal we had developed a healthy appetite. The food tasted exceptional. When we were done our hunger had been sated, we were full to satisfaction.

Jesus makes use of that common experience when he says,

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. (Mt 5:6)

The kingdom appetite that Jesus is promoting runs counter to society’s drives of power, prestige, possessions and passion. Jesus is advocating that a disciple hunger and thirst for righteousness. That is, that we would have a desire for right living. This isn’t right living as we or others might define it, but rather right living as God would define it.

We hunger and thirst to be in right relationship with God, to be cleansed of our sins and to be in close fellowship with him.  We hunger and thirst to be in right relationship with others, to conduct ourselves in our dealings with others in a way that pleases God.  Our desire is for God’s will to be done in community, for justice and goodness to prevail.

Back to our dinner in Toronto, the next morning I was hungry again. That is how it goes; being satisfied by a meal only lasts a season.  For now that is also the way it is with our pursuit of righteousness. Our private or communal encounters with a righteous God satisfy for a season.  We need to allow those encounters to encourage us to again and again hunger and thirst for righteousness.

There will come the day, at the end of time, when what remains is righteousness. At that time our satisfaction will be complete and unending.

Weight vs. wait

Do you know of someone whose primary modus operandi is “Looking out for number one”?  They assert themselves, they twist the truth, they withhold information, they do whatever they feel is necessary to protect their self interests.

Jesus calls us to something radically different than that.  This is what he said to his first followers,

Mt 5:5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

Someone who is meek does not throw his weight around to protect or promote his cause.  Rather there is a humble and gentle attitude that has been born out of confession and contrition.  The meek have come to understand that they are sinners whose future wellbeing is dependent on God’s grace not on human conniving and striving. That understanding leads to patience in dealing with others and confidence that God will come through.

The Psalmist captures it well in Ps 37:

8 Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath!
Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.
9 For the evildoers shall be cut off,
but those who wait for the LORD shall inherit the land.

The promised blessing associated with the meek is inheriting the earth.  This is not so much a physical tract of land, but rather a promise of provision and security.  A disciple will receive installments on this inheritance here and now as God, who knows what he needs, provides for him.  The fulfillment of this will come when believers inhabit the new heaven and the new earth.

Crying over the wrong things in life

Besides peeling onions, the price of gas and your favourite sports team losing in the playoffs, does anything bring tears to your eyes?

Sin should.  That is the point Jesus is making when he says,

Mt 5:4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

The kind of mourning that he is talking about is fundamentally a sorrowing over sin.  It is what the Psalmist speaks about when he writes:

Ps 119:136 “My eyes shed streams of tears,
because people do not keep your law”

It means moving beyond confessing that we are sinners and that we can’t fix our sin, to feeling sincere remorse and sorrow because that is our state. And not just our personal state, but the state of others and the state of our world.

This one caught my attention. I need to grow here. My heart is not broken over sin the way it should. That came home to me recently as I followed the story of seven year old girl that died while in the care of her guardian. My emotional response to the details of that story were shock, anger and disgust, but mourning over sin and the sinfulness that gave rise to this tragedy was not a response of mine. When it comes to my own sin again my response is muted. Too often I just feel regret or frustration, but I do not mourn as I ought.

In the day of Jesus, the nation of Israel was awaiting one who would come and deliver them from the bondage of sin, who would bring comfort to those that mourn (see Isa 61:1-3).  Simeon, who blessed the infant Jesus in the temple court, recognized that Jesus was that one, the consolation of Israel (Lk 2:25).  Paul in his letter to the Corinthians speaks of how believers will through Christ share abundantly in comfort.

That is the promised blessing for those who mourn, that we will know God’s comfort in the midst of the affliction that we face in this fallen world corrupted and polluted by sin.

How poor are you?

Poverty is not something many of us (any of us?!) strive for.  But when it comes to character issues poverty takes on a new meaning.

Jesus teaches,”Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Mt 5:3)

Being “poor in spirit” means that one recognizes their spiritual bankruptcy before God. They recognize that entrance into God’s kingdom is not earned.

Luke’s Gospel records a parable told by Jesus in which he contrasts two men addressing God in the temple area. The first was a religious type, full of himself and his good deeds. He prayed thanking God that he wasn’t a sinner like other men.

The second was a tax collector, who clearly recognized that before God he had come up short. He wouldn’t even look God-ward, but instead brokenly prayed, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” Jesus concludes the parable by declaring that it was the second man that returned home in right relationship with God.

This tax collector is a picture of one who is poor in spirit, humbly acknowledging his sin and his debt and his dependency on God’s mercy to save him. The one who is poor in spirit is blessed by God and will know the reign and rule of God in his life, delivering him from the power of sin.

What do you think, are the guys you know apt to confess that when it comes to their spiritual lives they don’t measure up?

Seven things men struggle with

Are you compelled to read on? Maybe you are a bit like me, you don’t really want someone to point out the things you struggle with, particularly if it seems like they are just adding to the list you are already keeping. But wait, I could have easily (and maybe more wisely) entitled this post “Seven things men can overcome”.John, one of the twelve who followed Jesus wrote these words,

I write to you, young men,
because you are strong,
and the word of God abides in you,
and you have overcome the evil one. (1Jn 2:14b ESV)

As men of the Way we have overcome the evil one. Not on our own, but because the word of God dwells in us. This is what John heard Jesus himself say,

31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (Jn 8:31-32 ESV).

We no longer need to be enslaved by the sins that seem to so easily entangle men. And what are those things? Read on.

• Addictions
• Anger
• Arrogance
• Arrears (i.e., caught in a debt trap)
• Anarchy (i.e., rejection of authority)
• Absenteeism (i.e., being checked out physically or emotionally from the family)
• Abdication (i.e., abandoning our responsibility of servant leadership)

Do you see yourself in any of this? If you say no, you might want to check out this link.