Heart, Mind, Strength and Spirit

Of course following the Way is far harder than just saying “forgive and have mercy”.  As CS Lewis wrote, “everyone thinks forgiveness is a wonderful idea, until they have something to forgive.”  That is why there are two parts to the Greatest Commandment: love God and love your neighbor, because we need help to love one another.  See the divorce rate, even among Christians, the number of family members who no longer speak to one another, people who leave one church for another, hoping people will be “better” there.  (They won’t be.)  

We long for something to be True, to always be right and reliable.  Christianity is that.  God created the Universe, the Earth, and Life.  He made and created Mankind and formed Adam from the dust.  Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Moses, Joshua, Deborah, Ruth, Rahab, David, Solomon, Bathsheba, Daniel and the rest.  Many heroes of the faith, almost all shown with their frailties.

And at the right time, God became incarnate and was born as an infant in 1 BC, in a little town called Bethlehem.  He was baptized at age thirty and began his ministry. He showed us how to forgive, have mercy and even love our enemies.  Then he humbled himself to die on a cross so that we could have our sins forgiven.  He was raised to life so that we might join him in eternity.  

I hope you know these things to be True.  This is Part One of what our Faith and Reason Conference this October is about: the history and science that shows the Bible is True.  

The question is, how do we follow Jesus?  How do we live it out?  That is “part two” of the three part Truth, and it may be the most difficult.  Many people focus on his last commandment, in Matthew 28, “make disciples of all nations”.  While that is important, it cannot be more important than the Greatest Commandment.  If Jesus is “the Way, the Truth and the Life” and “No one comes to the Father but by” him, can we also be strong enough to meet each person where they are, and yet, encourage each other to draw closer to God?  

In practice, in our deepest relationships, this is where living out our faith gets the most challenging.  Not long ago, my wife and I sat down to watch a TV show (after a long day for me) and as we were sitting down, she got a phone call.  I remember well sitting there for several minutes getting angrier and angrier, waiting for her to get off the phone.  And then I remembered to pray for patience.  And it occurred to me the person she was talking to was a recent widow and just needed someone to talk to.  And suddenly, my perspective changed 180-degrees.  This may be a silly example, but I am convinced that that prayer was answered.  

I still struggle with this.  I get tired, short-tempered.  How do you respond when someone is short with you?  If it’s a stranger?  Family member?  Friend?  How do you respond if someone calls you out on your behavior?  Defensive? Passive-aggressive?  Do you promise to change and do better?  Do you actually change and try to do better?  

To sum up, there is this strange combination of Truths that we can absolutely count on.  His Laws are good and if we love Him, we should keep his Commandments (John 14:15, 21, 15:10).  But we can count on his mercy and forgiveness.  However, we must not be so sure of his mercy and forgiveness that we exercise our freedom by failing to repent (turn toward Him).  And while we cannot achieve any of this by our own efforts, but only through the power of the Holy Spirit, we must love with “all our hearts, minds, strength and spirit”.  Simple, right?

The beauty of being a Follower is who we are following, getting to know Him better and better, and under and through it all, knowing that, however well or poorly I did today, tomorrow is another day and a chance to do better, with His help.