BIPOLAR CHRISTIANITY

Isaiah 12:1-14:32; 2 Corinthians 13:1-13; Psalm 57:1-11; Proverbs 23:9-11

“In that day you will sing: ‘I will praise you, O Lord! You were angry with me, but not any more. Now you comfort me. See, God has come to save me. I will trust in him and not be afraid. The Lord God is my strength and my song; he has given me victory.’ With joy you will drink deeply from the fountain of salvation!”

“…As the Scriptures say, ‘The facts of every case must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ …Examine yourselves to see if your faith is genuine. Test yourselves. Surely you know that Jesus Christ is among you; if not, you have failed the test of genuine faith. … We pray that you will become mature…. Be joyful. Grow to maturity. Encourage each other. Live in harmony and peace. Then the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet each other with Christian love.”

“I will thank you, Lord, among all the people.  I will sing your praises among the nations.
 For your unfailing love is as high as the heavens. Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.”

“Don’t waste your breath on fools, for they will despise the wisest advice.”

Bipolar disorder is a wicked disease. Those who have it routinely cycle through phases of hyperactive, manic highs to depressive lows grounding on near bedrock. Many who suffer are misdiagnosed and truly do not know what is wrong with them. There is little that is any more emotionally stressful than the irrationality of the mood swings with which these unfortunate victims must contend. I pray that God will inspire and quicken the minds of the scientists racing to help identify and treat this illness. No one should have to suffer such instability.

Unfortunately, too many Christians live like they suffer from a bipolar disease of the spirit. One moment, fresh from the mountaintop, they are awash in emotional ecstasy, and the next they are down in the dumps. They willingly substitute subjective feelings for honest assessments of their spiritual condition, and when their emotional tanks run dry, they get angry with God and/or the Church for what they see as abandonment. Unlike bipolar disorder, which has a true genetic chemical imbalance as its source, bipolar Christianity has a much simpler cause. Me. That is to say, self. I can honestly say I have never met a “bipolar Christian” whose fundamental problem was not self-centeredness. Been there, done that, myself. Inadvertently or not, at some point, all of us displace the Holy Spirit as the controlling motivator of our lives. We run on self-generated adrenalin, convincing ourselves that busyness equates to importance, until our manic lifestyle drains all emotional and physical energy. Most of us sufferers then compound the problem by trying to cover up our lack of spiritual resources. We lie and tell ourselves and others we have everything under control. Meanwhile, life presses in from all sides, threatening to collapse the tenuous hold we have on our self-confidence, ultimately causing stress and even greater depression. So, we go on more retreats, we read more spiritual books, and we throw ourselves more intensely into what we think is worship, desperate to manufacture yet another spiritual high. But with each such cycle, the highs become lower and the valleys deeper. What a yucky way to live! Christ has in mind something much better, but we have to begin by being honest with ourselves.

Paul is right: we need to honestly test ourselves to see if our faith is genuine. But we should not just take our own word, of feelings, for it. Our spiritual condition is the one thing we should NOT take on faith. It needs, demands, to be specifically examined on a periodic basis, and not just by ourselves, but by trusted, wise others. There is no such thing as spiritual inertia; we are either truly growing, or we are being drained, and we usually need friends to help us see the difference. In matters of the soul, there is just no such thing as status quo. We need to hold ourselves spiritually accountable to multiple friends who love us enough to tell us when we are substituting form for substance in our walk with Christ. All the cosmetics in the world will never cover up spiritual emptiness, and none of our good deeds or obvious Christian piety will sustain us if the Holy Spirit is not motivating us from the inside out.

Genuine, heartfelt praise is a good and wonderful thing. We are always and everywhere to give thanks to God and praise His name. But there will be times when we just don’t feel like it. In these moments, manufactured praise turns bitter and leaves us cold. We may even end up feeling worse, or wanting to punch or curse the Lord. If we are going to honestly praise Him anyway – as Scripture calls us to do – then that praise will necessarily have to come from somewhere beyond our own personal resources. Stated another way, there will be times for all of us when, if we are really going to follow Christ, the motivation will have to come from the Spirit, because we will either just flat not want to, or won’t have the personal strength to stay the course. Before the need arises, we do well to take stock of our spiritual condition in the company of friends. We need to be prepared at all times for the worst, even as we always hope for the best. As far as I know, the only real cure for bipolar Christianity is a healthy, habitual reliance on the Holy Spirit, rather than our own performance and perseverance. Ultimately, only the Spirit can make Christ real.

WHY

Isaiah 10:1-11:16; 2 Corinthians 12:11-21; Psalm 56:1-13; Proverbs 23:6-8

“A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him—the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD - and he will delight in the fear of the LORD. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist. The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.”

“I don’t want what you have; I want you.”

“When I am afraid, I will trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can mortal man do to me?”

“Do not eat the food of a stingy man, do not crave his delicacies; for he is the kind of man who is always thinking about the cost.”

I am so thankful God did not consider cost a barrier to our salvation. He certainly could have. In His position, I would have. Honestly, I’m just not inclined to willingly sacrifice my son for any bunch of “sinners.” (The irony, of course, is being sinful ourselves, neither my son nor I can save anyone, including ourselves. Without Christ, we would all be headed to the same eternal destination.) Most “sinners” do not even see the need for, much less appreciate, others’ sacrifice. Going further, those who refuse to accept Christ as Lord and Savior usually could not care less about their “eternal condition.” Many just figure they don’t have one and so, have no need of Jesus or the Holy Spirit. But the Son died for them anyway. Despite all my study and teaching, there are still times I wonder why.

Why begins with the fact that disbelieving in the power of sin may make it easier to adopt a selfish or devil-may-care attitude toward life, but that attitude does not of itself validate the disbelief. What is, is. Our opinions on the matter change nothing. We sin, we die, we are lost without Jesus. God wants to change that. And a price had to be paid for it to happen. The fact that we may not suffer immediate consequences for our wrongdoings does not make them right or acceptable, either. It only hints of a grace far beyond our understanding. Such unmerited tolerance (“prevenient grace” for those interested in theological terms) is only a small, pale reflection of the grace the Father extends to those willing to be come His adopted sons and daughters. But it is what love does, even in the face of rejection.

Therein lies the real bedrock. God did not count the cost of sending His Son to die for a mostly ungrateful world because He is the essence of limitless love, and limitless love can afford any sacrifice. Moreover, love regards any sacrifice that brings hope to the hopeless as a worthy investment. I would have wanted a much higher, guaranteed return than God got. But I’m extremely glad He does not follow generally accepted accounting techniques and practices. The ledgers will never balance. We can never out give God. We can never out love God. The message of the Cross is we do not have to. We only have to follow Him.

Christ does not judge the way we judge. He does not judge performance. He does not even judge how or how much we love. His judgment, in essence, is based on how well we accept love. All the rest really stems from that one thing. Christ does not, and does not need to, condemn. We condemn ourselves when we reject Christ’s love. It is never a matter of getting Him to love us. That truly is a given. It is a matter of our ability and willingness (two very different things!) to open ourselves up to the idea that we need love, and then to the fact that we are loved, regardless of how we feel about us.

A book I’m reading, One Month to Live, presents a very basic and worthwhile truth. Our problem is not that we do not love God enough. Our problem is that we do not understand how radically and outrageously God loves us. If we truly got that, much in our lives would change. We’d be less grabby, and more generous. We’d be more understanding, and less bitter. But above all, we’d be more hopeful. We’d look forward to more, even as we invested more of ourselves into living out the present passionately and fully.

More than anything else in this world, Love wants to convey hope in a world where hope is in notably short supply. Hope is what Jesus’ ministry was all about, and hope is what the Holy Spirit lives in us to accomplish. We get so lost in the specifics, the how-tos. It’s tough not to fret about the future. But it is singularly counterproductive, especially when we allow the worry to distract us from the reality of the hope Christ provides. 

A GOD-LEVEL PERSPECTIVE

Isaiah 8:1-9:21; 2 Corinthians 12:1-10; Psalm 55:1-25; Proverbs 23:4-5

“Nevertheless, that time of darkness and despair will not go on forever. …There will be a time in the future when Galilee of the Gentiles, which lies along the road that runs between the Jordan and the sea, will be filled with glory…. For a child is born to us, a son is given to us. The government will rest on his shoulders. And he will be called: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. His government and its peace will never end. He will rule with fairness and justice from the throne of his ancestor David for all eternity. The passionate commitment of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies will make this happen!”

“I don’t want anyone to give me credit beyond what they can see in my life or hear in my message, even though I have received such wonderful revelations from God. So to keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud. Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, ‘My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.’ So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

“Give your burdens to the Lord, and he will take care of you. He will not permit the godly to slip and fall.”

If there is one consistent thing about this life, it is that things inevitably change. That, actually, is a very good thing. We can know with certainty, for example, that this current time of trial will not last indefinitely. Darkness will once more turn to dawn. In the interim, of course, there may still be a few more bumps in the road. But that is no reason to give up hope in the future. The Fat Lady has not sung, and the Lord has yet to play His final Ace. Our inability to see or predict the future does not mean there is not one. Indeed, we have little choice but to keep moving toward it. We can decide how we feel about it, though. We can live in perpetual fear of the unknown and timidly set our sights on mere survival. Or, we can choose to boldly move ahead, continuing to risk the adventures of life with Jesus and regarding any temporary setbacks – for a Christian, by definition, all setbacks are temporary – as learning experiences by which the Holy Spirit converts defeat into victory. The choice is ours. However, I would submit that one is deadly dull, literally, and only one holds the key to the fulfilled life God purposed for us from the beginning. That makes the decision a no-brainer.

Brothers and sisters, like Paul, afflicted as we each may be, we still have plenty to be grateful for. Another day has dawned. We are here to see and experience it. We have even been empowered to make it better, should we choose to do so. And there is always, ultimately, grace to fall back on. We will never fall so far that we fall out of the grip of the Creator’s unmerited forgiveness, restoration and strength as long as we continue to affirmatively claim them through prayer, confession and renewed obedience. So, let’s get about the business of living in grace rather than in defeat. We need to adopt a God-level perspective on our problems so that we do not confine ourselves to the view from the ground. That street-level perspective is always limited to the things we can see with our eyes, but our eyes can deceive us. If seeing is believing, we can easily come to believe we have no real future because our perspective just does not allow for it, or contemplate it. We remain blinded to what’s just past the horizon of our vision, and what remains is not necessarily the best view.

Ultimately, this day comes down to one major decision, as does every day. We can choose to walk with Christ and see the potential and possibilities of life through His unbounded, God-level perspective, or we can reject Him and His ways and become mired down in a life bounded by the horizons of our street level perspective. No matter what we may do to try to deny it, change is an integral part of life. How we respond to it can make the difference in whether we are blessed or depressed by the results.

FIGHTING THE BRIDLE

Isaiah 6:1-7:25; 2 Corinthians 11:16-33; Psalm 54:1-7; Proverbs 23:1-3

“You will listen and listen, but never understand. You will look and look, but never see.”

“If I must boast, I would rather boast about the things that show how weak I am.”

“Come with great power, O God, and rescue me! Defend me with your might. Listen to my prayer, O God. Pay attention to my plea. …But God is my helper. The Lord keeps me alive!”

Smarter people than me have noticed that God seldom thinks or acts like we would, or like we expect. It is His very unpredictability, and the fact that He is not accountable to us, than makes Him God. He is sovereign. We are not. It’s not a fair fight. Nevertheless, most of us spend most of our lives tussling with the Lord for the right to control our own destinies. We fight His bridle, never understanding it is really just a sign of our Master’s love.

The trouble with fighting the bridle is, when we decide to act independently of the Holy Spirit, we necessarily act without His power and guidance as well. We run off course. We get lost. We cannot find our own way home. Of course, most of us immediately respond by blaming God for abandoning us in our hour of need. The reality is usually far different. We do not want to believe our actions separate us from Christ. We may not even intend to throw off the bridle. But like wild mustangs, we are seduced by our freedom to run wild. We want to chart our own course, run our own race. We just want God to train us the way we think we need to be trained (often meaning “not at all”). Yet that is the one thing our Creator is most unlikely to do. He is our groom. He insists on His care being accepted on its own terms – in His own way and His own time – or not at all. Simply, we either decide to let Him be Lord, or we give up the right to claim Him as Savior. We give Him the reigns, or we have no claim to His corral, or the safety and security of it.

It is this truth, probably more than any other, that stands as a major stumbling block between us and Christ. Yet, if we would have the Spirit save us, we first have to let Him be God. That means, among other things, that He calls the shots and their timing. We don’t. We no more get to dictate to our Father how to answer the crises in our lives than we get to tell Him who lives and who dies. But that, unfortunately, does not keep us from trying, or from exhausting ourselves in the process.

Our incessant attempts to throw the bridle are plain trespasses on our Father’s sovereignty. We should not be surprised when He reigns us in. He is not like us, and when we try to buck Him, our thirst for independence becomes our worst enemy. Worse, when we demand He come at us in a particular way or at a particular time or do a particular thing, we are essentially asking God to quit being God and instead accept the bridle (i.e., limitations) we want to place on Him (usually, so we can assume the reigns of control over our own lives).

The horse does not tell its groom how to care for it. Neither should we be telling the Spirit how to manage the affairs of His Creation, including us. Still, the first temptation mankind ever faced remains the greatest and toughest to resist: “You can be just like God, knowing everything, good and evil.” The difficulty with taking God’s place and assuming sovereignty over our own lives is simply that we are ill-equipped to handle it. We are certainly prideful enough to attempt to do so, but the end result always culminates in failure and frustration. As the stallion can never be its own groom, so we just aren’t cut out to be God.

We should be very glad the Lord is not like us. He is way better and greater and smarter and wiser. We ought to give thanks that He, like the groom, knows more about what His charges need than we know about ourselves. We also should understand that, when we try to buck Him, truly, we engage in a fool’s errand.

I have no problem accepting Jesus Christ as my Savior. It is when He asserts His right to be Lord over my life that we most often come to blows, and I have to fight my natural tendency to turn away. Like a wild mustang, my soul is not inclined to allow anyone else to tame it or care for it. The wild mustang lifestyle looks pretty darn good to anyone who feels trapped in or bound to a life they neither asked for nor wanted. As we gallop through life, it is extremely difficult to appreciate having a spiritual bridle between our teeth to break us of our independence. But God desperately wants to keep us from hurting ourselves. His only desire is to turn us away from trouble and toward Him. We fight the bridle because we do not understand that it is actually the first step toward complete security and eternal safety. We don’t always understand what God is doing in our lives. We waste an awful lot of time, though, when we fight that which is, in fact, in our very best interest.

FINISH STRONG

Isaiah 3:1-5:30; 2 Corinthians 11:1-15; Psalm 53:1-6; Proverbs 22:28-29

“You have heard the case; you be the judges. What more could I have done for my vineyard that I have not already done? When I expected sweet grapes, why did my vineyard give me bitter grapes?”

“These people are false apostles. They are deceitful workers who disguise themselves as apostles of Christ. But I am not surprised! Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no wonder that his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. In the end they will get the punishment their wicked deeds deserve.

“Only fools say in their hearts, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, and their actions are evil; not one of them does good! God looks down from heaven on the entire human race; he looks to see if anyone is truly wise, if anyone seeks God.”

When was the last time anybody read a story about someone doing the right thing because they followed Christ? Aside from the odd ballplayer giving credit to Jesus after a particularly fine play or game, I cannot remember the last time I saw a good deed outside the church that anyone associated with the Lord. Don’t misunderstand; I’ve seen any number of stories about good people doing good things. But the Son never enters the picture.  It seems the only time one hears of Christians is when one who claims to follow Jesus comes up short in the commitment department in the face of temptation. A cynic could fairly conclude that people outside the church are kinder and more ethical that those inside it, and that’s very sad.

Just this week, our newspapers have been full of unsavory details concerning the alleged sexual improprieties of a local community leader. This 43 year old man has been arrested on charges of having illicit relations with a 14 year old girl. Fortunately, the media has not mentioned his church or religion or if he even is a believer. Oh, but once upon a time, he lived a very different life. Ten or so years ago, this same man was very closely involved with our church’s drama ministry. I was privileged to serve as director of a play in which he was cast as, ironically, Peter. At that time, he was one of those young people who gave old goats like myself hope for the future. He was kind, creative, generous and thoughtful as a person could be. He became an integral part of our ministry and went on to do other shows, even as I moved on to other things. We eventually lost touch, as people do, and I had not thought about him in years, until last night, when I read about his alleged crimes. Jesus wept. I was stunned and disappointed.

Folks, we – certainly, I – let one get away. It looks like a brother headed for the Kingdom took a wrong turn somewhere and had no one to help him find his way back. Maybe he ended up rejecting the things he’d learned with us. Maybe life just caused those things to atrophy and fall away from the man and politician he eventually became. In any event, while I have no idea if he is truly guilty or not, just the claims involved give rise to two important points.

First, if we are to truly disciple others, we need to bring them all the way home. I never challenged this young man about his position with Jesus. We talked a lot about being inspired and following the Spirit, but no one to my knowledge ever put him on the spot. If we care enough about people to bring them to Christ, we owe it to God, them and ourselves to close the deal. It’s not enough to leave them on the front porch and hope they will walk through the door. We have to bring them all the way inside. We do everyone a disservice when we do not actually put the question to those we minister to. Finish strong. Discipleship is not done until the new disciple is absolutely secure in Christ, and discipling seekers of his own. Bringing someone into contact with Christian ministry and not asking them where they are with the Lord is no better than quitting a marathon half a mile from the finish. All our good intentions count for nothing.

As important, though, Christians need to get serious about living as re-presentations of Christ. We need to take more responsibility for our actions and understand others will see them in the light of our claim of faith.  It’s no good to claim to follow Jesus yet live like we know nothing of Him. If our lives do not lead to the Lord, there’s really little reason to bother to claim we follow any religion at all.

Jesus was painfully clear. He will never be our Savior until we allow Him to become our Lord. We are only His friends if we do as he commands. He expects us to finish strong, as disciples and as His children. Christianity is not a get out of jail free card. Nor does it give one license to live as he or she pleases. Stay the course. Push through the distractions and temptations. There will be a final judgment. We will be held accountable. And we better start taking seriously that Jesus will disown us in the next life if we disown Him in this one. 

ACCEPTING HIM AS HE COMES

Isaiah 1:1-2:22; 2 Corinthians 10:1-18; Psalm 52:1-9; Proverbs 22:26-27

“’Come now, let’s settle this,’ says the Lord. ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, I will make them as white as wool.
 If you will only obey me, you will have plenty to eat. But if you turn away and refuse to listen, you will be devoured by the sword of your enemies. I, the Lord, have spoken!”

“The trouble with you is that you make your decisions on the basis of appearances…. But we will not boast of authority we do not have…. As the Scriptures say, ‘If you want to boast, boast only about the Lord.’ When people commend themselves, it doesn’t count for much. The important thing is for the Lord to commend them.”

“I will always trust in God’s unfailing love. I will praise you forever, O God, for what you have done. I will trust in your good name in the presence of your faithful people.”

Isn’t it strange how the Lord sometimes has to convince us of our own worth, and frequently of our own forgiveness? We can do the actual math: one Life for all. The power of sin and death was defeated at the Cross. One perfect sacrifice paid the price for all our imperfections. It might be illogical, but at least we can connect the dots. However,  when it comes to actually accepting the results for ourselves, still, things just don’t always add up.

I remember when I first accepted Christ…, and I remember a few months later. At that time, I began seriously despairing of ever becoming the man God made me to be. The problem was, although I now had assurance of eternal salvation, I did not feel one bit better as a person. I was still overwhelmed by my shortcomings. I had not discovered any discernable spiritual gifts. Nor had I suddenly sprouted wings or donned a halo. I was just the same old guy, trying to put one foot in front of the other as I slogged my way through life. My insecurities still had to be dealt with. The Rapture did not happen. There was no spiritual bailout. I very clearly recall wondering what the big deal was about this “personal relationship” with Christ if He wasn’t actually going to improve my situation. Many of my friends gave up entirely on the Holy Spirit at that point, because they had nothing to show for it. After the emotional high of their first experience of Christ, the fact that life returned pretty much to the same old, same old left them disillusioned and, in some cases, even angry. I more or less stuck with Jesus, but as time passed, I became less and less sure of exactly what that meant in practical terms. Being a “nice” or “good” guy still came with the same rules, regulations and expectations. It did not seem God brought anything new to the table. I did not feel one bit better. And as I watched my “fallen away” friends, it began to look a whole lot easier to live their careless and irresponsible way. Like cats, they always landed on their feet, and there did not appear to be any serious consequences of their turning away from Jesus.  I began to seriously wonder why I was bothering with Christ.

God really does work in mysterious ways, though, for another, better question suddenly popped into my mind: why would Christ bother with me? At my conversion, I’d kinda taken His love motivation for granted, but then I started to seriously consider it. Did He love me? Why? I didn’t feel very lovable. What did He see that I didn’t? A fuse was lit. To figure out if the Lord really loved me, I had to know if the Holy Spirit was truly living and working His will in me, or if I had just deceived myself with an attractive fantasy. I went back to the well, so to speak, figuring if it had worked the first time, it might work again. I once more challenged the Spirit, but this time, I dared Him to make Himself affirmatively known to me. The response was immediate. “I have been and will continue to be with you, Tom. But you have not known what to look for. If you want to see and feel Me, you need to put your expectations on My altar as an offering of your will, and you have to begin seeking Me as I choose to come to you. Until now, you’ve had that order reversed. You must agree to let me be God before you can know the depth of my love as God.”

I should have figured that out on my own. We have to love and accept people for who they are before love can ever become mutual. Why wouldn’t that also apply to the Lord? Our Creator is fundamentally sovereign, or he is not God at all. If He responds to our challenges, it is only because we finally open ourselves up to the way He wanted to come to us in the first place. God does not take orders, and He seldom appears or makes His Presence known in the way we expect or desire. That does not mean He’s not there, nor does it mean we have somehow failed in the area of forgiveness. It just means our Father will always remain a bit of a mystery, and that His ways are not and never will be our ways, no matter how much effort we put into trying to become spiritually oriented.

The Lord has spoken. Our sins are forgiven. He is and will be with us always, even to the end of the age. We will have trouble, but He has overcome the world. He has gone to prepare a place for us. His Spirit will guide us. Period. How we feel about any of this is irrelevant to its reality. It only prevents our experience of it when we doubt. I found my answer when, instead of worrying about the truth of all this, I just started living as if it were true. What I learned is that experience verifies reality. In other words, Christians cannot ever know the power they have just based on how they feel or what they think. Only when we take the leap of faith to live as if these truths are real do we begin to understand just how concrete they really are.