Essentials

The Narcissistic God? Part 5 / 5

#5  Who is narcissistic?

A final test.

What does a scientist, a historian, a plumber, a businessman, a teacher, an educating mom, an accountant, an economist, an attorney, or a custodian in a hospital have to do with fulfilling the great commands of God?

Everything.

The scientist as a scientist AND as a disciplemaker - neither one seen as in contrast or as a struggle to the other - is the complete response to God’s command.

All true believers in Christ must do their work to the glory of God with the appropriate skill to understand what that means in their profession. John the Baptist gave the group of tax collectors and the band of soldiers specific instructions on how each was to demonstrate they understood the complete claims of the Messiah in the activities that shaped their professions.

Could you write down a short list the key issues that shape whether or not you are doing all to the glory of God with skill and understanding in your daily work?  Try it!  It is a great way to start!

Then witnessing and making disciples (followers) of Jesus is an expression of this true spirituality, and not a short-term strategy that plays out in a few generations to be left only to the “pros” to figure out and do.

What may seem too slow in some ways, is not.  First, obedience to God’s commands is never optional.  Secondly, when others no longer see that God is a part of every aspect of a “Christians” life - it merely becomes an “us versus them” moral battle in culture.

So lift up the true and living God, the one by whom grace and truth came into our existence to transform us, in our total being in our total daily existence.

God is not narcissistic - we are -  too easily.

Obeying the Lord to actually do all to the glory of God is to get beyond self-focus and the way for others to see God.

Soli Deo Gloria

Solus Christus

The Narcissistic God? Part 4 / 5

#4   Obedience is Better Than Sacrifice

Is There Such a Thing As a Higher Calling?

Some would say send out the police, the firemen, the bloodhounds to find the lost.  Some would consider that as the priority - or the “higher calling” priority.  WRONG!  Whatever separate and vital action is lifted up as a “higher priority” is a denial of the Great Commands.

The priority is to “obey” the Lord in this far-reaching command to love God with all our mind, affections, and actions - to do all to the glory of God.

We lift him up ever higher in a culture by how we “do all to the glory of God.”  THEN we can go down any street and point people to God and they will be able to see Him because they have seen our good works, in “all things” as he commanded.

Jesus came to seek and to save the lost under the Great Commands to do the will of the Father in all things. Such effort alone is not reductionistically elevated to some special and separate status of the callings of God.

The Great Commission is the directive to the church (gathered) that flows from the Great Commands.  It is not a substitute or somehow a higher order of command.  The last part of the great commission given in Matthew 28 is to focus new believers on “focusing intently” upon (observe is the word, not obey) upon all he has commanded – a directive to the Great Commands as a command of first order.

Some would focus on reaching people by loving God with their affections (heart) and disdain reaching people by loving God with their mind.  Or vice-versa.

We are warned against this half-way obedience.  The Great Command is to love God with ALL your mind, heart and body(strength).   Some will deny this Great Command, as though living a sacrificial life by doing so, to dedicate themselves to one aspect of God’s calling. It is best to remember that to obey is better than sacrificing any of God’s commands.

To do less is similar to the Israelites finding a nice place to live, wanting peace at no cost, and refusing to drive out the offending culture practices around them as they had been commanded.

Can you hear it now?   “Hey look, we have a lot of land, we have nice new houses, the temple is built - lets just focus on making sacrifices and observing the festivals now. “

Half measures - considering not doing ALL to the glory of God is an affront to His glory and He understands the danger to all people when His people want to simply chase down sinners and at the same time refuse to lift him up in all things.

The Narcissistic God? Part 3 / 5

#3   Seeing God in All the Right Places

If you hold that there is an infinite personal God, he serves as the marker to which all can look and find their place in human existence.  Are you lost, have you found your way home?  Are you at home?

So as Christians when we lift up the glory of God we are providing an ever increasingly prominent tower, as it were,  a directional marker for the culture surrounding us.  The less we lift up the glory of God, in everyday life, the less others can see him in their everyday life.

Without Him being lifted up, the darkness settles and few find their way.  The more we lift him up during the day, throughout the day, all day, then the easier it is for people to understand where they are in relationship to God.

We are helping people “see” God everyday.  This helps us to not exchange the purpose of the “church gathered” into the primary and maybe only place they can get some kind of glimpse of God.

Lifting up God beyond our church building box opportunities, no matter how often that may be, is still the best way for more people to recognize who he is. It helps them see Him in the context of daily life and not just church building attendance or activities, as good as they may be.

So-called postmoderns see activities of a “religious” focus as inauthentic, as anyone can easily fit their language and actions to appear good in those contexts.  It is when they can see us living in the bulk of our daily activities, hearing us talk, watching how we handle relationships, seeing our true values, that the Christ - life becomes tangible and authentic.

Postmoderns and mystics need to see how we live life beyond our church building related events or other more or less formal “religious” activities.

Some may ask if this focus on the value of giving glory to God so that others can see him lifted up is somehow seeing such value only as it benefits others and not just for the glory of God alone.

Certainly God doesn’t need humans, as if he lacked anything.  Yet the focus of scripture is about God’s relationship to his creation of humans.

There are significant aspects of God’s being that reach beyond the borders of human understanding, such as the statements about the exchange between the three persons of the Godhead in the work of creation and redemption.  In the same way is the exchange about Job between God and Satan.

While we acknowledge these realities as significant, they do not lessen the value of humans giving glory to God nor the value of such to those who need Him, in personal relationship.

God has instructed us to “do all to the glory of God.”   It is a command too easily ignored.  It is narcissistic of us to be careless or uninformed of this purpose and focus - to do all to the glory of God.”

It is compassionate and beneficial to all, when we do lift Him up in all we do.

The Law of Obedience - Theologically-informed Parenting

From a Parenting Seminar Lynn conducted in 2004

#5  The Law of Obedience to Parents

Children obey your parents, this pleases the Lord. However, it is a law of obedience that cannot be kept perfectly. This very point helps a child to understand their inability to fully obey the law.

This law of obedience to parents is God’s tool of pedagogy – his teaching tool for children.

While there are benefits to obeying parents the greater benefit of this law of obedience is how God uses it to teach a child of their need for Christ.

When I was six years old I determined to be a good girl and not commit any sins. I tried for several days to perfectly obey my mother but I discovered I could not.  It was then that I recognized what it meant that Christ fulfilled the law for me and came to be the Savior.

For our children we do not want to miss the real purpose of the law.  We want them to realize two important lessons.

1) They need a Savior; who fulfilled the law,

2) They need to live by grace not law.

Law keeping is not a measure of spirituality. It is easy to confuse law keeping with true spirituality.  The New Testament book of Galatians is good to read regularly if one has a tendency to see law-keeping or morality as a measure of godliness.

The great command, “To love the Lord your God, with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength” …  is the focus of our parenting.

Doing the right things doesn’t always equate to love.  A man once forgot his wife’s birthday.  Vowing to never let that happen again, he placed a standing order with the florist to deliver a bouquet of flowers every year on his wife’s birthday.

Time went by and the man’s wife was impressed by her darling and thoughtful husband each year.  Then one birthday he came home and she smilingly showed off the beautiful flowers she had received earlier in the day.  Unfortunately he asked, “Who sent those?”

Right form, but without meaning.

We want our children to realize the form (doing right things) is a result of love and truth and not the other way around.

So how then do you help your children grasp this difference?  Start with your own understanding and practice.  A child can tell whether parents love Christ or just are good religious folks.  Lead by example.

Help your child be in awe of God – that is the fear of God.  The wrong kind of fear, the dread of God, is cast out by love.  One can’t love God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength and dread him at the same time.

Realize that your intention is to see your children come to Christ so that the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit becomes their primary teacher and not you. Then the law of obedience, a good thing, yields a child learning to live before God primarily and not just before parents.  And what a joy that is!

The Chattering Messes:

Ever talking never …

What is the contrast to incessant talking?

Occasional thinking?  It seems more like they are partners.

Shutting up?  Someone said it is better to be quiet and thought a fool than to speak up and remove all doubt.  But quiet fools are still just that.

Have you ever met a person who seemed to be a deep well of substance but once you peered in, there was no water?  And then you thought of times you were like that?

Forgive me, but it seems those whom we say have “special needs” are more thoughtful and intentional than the rest of us.  Maybe we need to hang around them more!

Solomon, of the Hebrew Bible, had wisdom but couldn’t control his tongue, saying “I do” several hundred times, to a myriad of women and “I want” to the rest of them.

Someone said, “I have a Sienfeldian pastor.”  Lots of interesting chatter but largely about nothing.

A word fittingly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.  Does it not seem that what is served in our conversation is more like applesauce in those little plastic cups?

Healthy and properly presented food has been replaced by fast food in a gaudy happy box. Quality words, thoughtful words, substantive words have been too easily replaced by trendy words, thoughtless words, and lightweight chatter.

Confess it.

Does the daily volume of our conversation and its content reveal anything about being increasingly transformed into the image of Christ?

He who can bridle the tongue, to control it, to train it to pay attention, is an unusual person.

If you followed me around for a few days (and I didn’t know it) listening to my words, and you had to describe me in terms of a magazine, what would it be?

People - its about me and my activity and my friends - see, see, see.

Reader’s Digest - lots of short stories but no spirituality

Rolling Stone - trendy, hip, avant garde gone dull in the head

Christianity Today - keeping up with the spiritual movers and shakers (Joneses)

Sports Illustrated - UT, UK, the Big Orange, the Burnt Orange, the Big Ten, Next Season

This Old House - Makeovers with no Make-up

Some good, some bad. Either way, a distraction more than a substance.

Some of us want “farm liv’n” and country talk, and others a “penthouse view” with talk of the town.  Both the same, yet seemingly different, even disdained by the other - but the desire of both is the “good life.” What chatter accompanies the life of such!

So what?

It is not the topic alone that is the problem - it is its purpose, its influence, its direction, its transforming perspective, its living to the glory of God as an intention and not an incidental.  Substantive, robust, adventuresome mission with purpose, and its expression in my words, that is where I want to be!

Keep the thinned down applesauce and don’t give me the plastic cups either.

I want my words to be like the apples of gold in settings of silver, the picture of my conversation, seasoned with a little salt.  Crunchy Sweetness Defined!

The Lost Art of Theologically-Informed Parenting

Lynn Hatcher McGary -  Master Teacher

#4  The Lost Art of Theologically-Informed Parenting

From a Parenting Seminar Lynn presented in 2004

PART 1:

Today I will give two stories from the childhood life of our son, John, to illustrate how to parent according to theological understanding of behaviors in children.

Parenting with biblical understanding has become a lost art.  This is clear from the breakdown of the family among those who are or claim to be Christians.  Especially disturbing is that this breakdown is now common among church leadership families.

Two reactions have occurred to fuel this breakdown.

Moral laxness in parenting is one reaction to moral decline in the general culture.

Moralism is the “corrective” reaction by many well-meaning Christians to moral laxness.

Both are spiritually dangerous.

One creates rampant and destructive hedonism or a materialistic pursuit of happiness.

The other one creates an austere stoicism or a well-disguised and smug form of self-righteousness..

[Both of these extremes are discussed when Jesus told “The Story of Two Sons” – often labeled “The Prodigal Son.”  Unfortunately, the moralist, the good son, was in fact, the smug self-righteous son – the very sad reality the story was pointing out to the Pharisees.]

So what is a parent to do?

Rediscover the theological basis for parenting!

First, rediscover the meaning of humans being made in the image of God. Evolutionary thinking has slipped in among Christians in both categories discussed above.  Children are seen in the false dichotomy of either acting based on nature or nurture.

Lax parents will often say, “Well boys will be boys.”  That is, their (sinful) nature “makes” them do bad things and there is little you can do about it – they just have to grow out of it.  So pray for them.”   This is the Nature response.

Moralist parents will often say, “If you spank them enough and demand obedience at all times and instantly, or if you give them a completely protected environment, then you will shape them to do the right things.”  This is the Nurture response.

Both of these are expressions of the same false theology or humanistic philosophy: Children (passive actors on some stage of existence) are acted upon by outside forces (the fate of nature or parents) and that determines who and what they will be.  These are simply twin forms of determinism – a very subtle form of evolutionary thinking in Christian sub-culture.

I want to explore only one aspect of how children express being made in God’s image for this part of the discussion.  Later we will explore several other ways in which children are made in God’s image and what that means in parenting.

For those who are getting anxious about how to correct behaviors that need correcting – be patient and disciplined yourself!  You must first focus on guiding the right behaviors before reacting to correct wrong behaviors.

God did it that way with Adam in the Genesis story.  Directions:  Name the animals, have children, have dominion, care for the garden, eat the food provided and follow one prohibition.

Humans made in the image of God have a God-given command and desire to have dominion over their environment.

Children are no less image-bearers of God than adults.

John was about two years old.  One evening I heard him screaming in anger in the kitchen.  I quickly stepped into the kitchen to see what was happening.  There he was pulling on a kitchen cabinet drawer handle and screaming out in frustration.  Why?

He had been going along the cabinet drawers and pulling them out a little ways and then pushing them closed again.

He was learning patterns of physical realities and control – having dominion over his environment – a good thing.

However, the drawer handle he was pulling on while screaming was not a drawer but the false front on the sink cabinet.  It looked like all the other drawer fronts and due to thoughtless design it had a regular handle on it too.  His frustration was over the patterned expectation he had experienced with the other drawers.  He was frustrated with both the “drawer” not opening and his inability to get it to open.

My reaction was not to tell him to quit pulling or to quit yelling. It was hard for him to grasp the idea at first but with a little time and patience I was able to show him the problem. Together we discovered how each drawer handle had more than just a front, but also a drawer.  Then we got down under the sink cabinet and looked to see that there was no drawer to this front and handle.

By repeating this action and showing him the difference again, he was able to understand the difference and never again did he react this way.  He understood well enough this one time to never pull on the sink front handle again when he played at opening and closing drawers.

One other time, in an oft recounted story in that same kitchen, I came into the kitchen to find John, still only two years old, sitting on top of the refrigerator! He was just sitting there looking around and down at me!  It was obvious that he was happy and contented.

I recognized that this was his act of having dominion over his environment.  Similar to why anyone climbs a mountain or drives along the Skyline Drive in Virginia – the views!

Instead of scolding him because of the real danger in this activity, I complimented him on climbing up to see better.  He reached out for me to take him down. Instead I showed him and guided him on how to turn around, dangle his feet back over the refrigerator and climb down the same way he got up!   He learned how to climb down.

Not in every case will this be possible but a parent should look and think before missing the teachable moments.

I talked about how he could fall off and hurt himself.   Interestingly, as far as we ever knew he never tried that climb again.

Be careful not to squelch your child’s God-given desire to have dominion over his environment. It is true a child will test a parent’s dominion over them, but be wise to recognize the difference between abject disobedience and learning the idea of the limits of their own dominion, which dominion you are properly and continually reinforcing as an expression of their personhood, made in the image of God.

NEXT SATURDAY: Part 2

Recognize the theologically informed purposes of the “law of obedience,” in the family.