Keep Moving Forward

I write to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of His name. I write to you, fathers, because you have known Him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I write to you dear children, because you have known the Father. I write to you fathers, because you have known Him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God lives in you, and you have overcome the evil one." 1 John 2:12-14

The USA Today Ad Meter ranked the Betty White Snickers commercial as #1 out of 60 or more Super Bowl commercials. As one of the Ad Meter panelists said, "Betty White is iconic". By this statement we refer to the definition of 'icon' as "an important and enduring symbol". Yes, Betty White is certainly that.

I confess that seeing Betty White in that commercial not only made me laugh, but also made me think of all the places I have seen her on television through the years. It made me realize, once more, that I am getting older and that causes me to stop and reflect.

The question we must ask is this: In spending all this time here on earth have we grown at all? We often hear the expression regarding men, "Oh he is just a big kid!" There is truth in that for most of us, but have we matured along the way? In this most fascinating passage of Scripture we quickly find that John deals with three classes of people. There are many thoughts as to what he meant, but the one thing we can be sure of is that he was writing to different levels of maturity.

As a 'child' we know that our sins are forgiven. As a young 'man' ('woman') we know that we can overcome the world. And as a 'father' ('mother') we know that deep knowledge of God is the greatest joy. These are levels of maturity not actual ages. John is letting us know that there is expected growth in the Christian life. One cannot just rest on the knowledge that Christ died for our sins. We must keep moving forward. We must beat back the evil one and we must come to the place where knowing God is more important than anything this crazy world has to offer, including a Super Bowl trophy.

I have always been challenged by John's use of the word 'know' because it means more than simply head knowledge. John uses that word frequently in this letter and in his Gospel. The word means to know something by experience! That is so convicting to me. There is no knowing of God without doing something, without taking action, without disciplines.

A while back I bought a prayer guide called, 'The Liturgy of the Hours'. I had heard of it for some time but never really knew much about it. I knew that many of the 'high church' denominations such as the Lutherans, Episcopalians, Anglicans, and Orthodox use it, but it was unfamiliar in my world. I noticed as I sat down to read it that it was based on the Jewish times of prayer for each day; there were morning, noon, afternoon, evening, and nightly prayers. I soon realized that my level of discipline was not going to allow me to start by doing all of it initially, so I started with two and then quickly moved on to three.

It was the discipline of that prayer guide that I needed. I needed help. I needed to be able to hold on to something in prayer. I needed to be able to see where I had been. Yes, I needed the discipline but there was something else calling to me. It was the knowledge that I needed to move forward in the area of prayer in my own life. Jesus is my Savior and I know that by walking in the Spirit, I can defeat the devil and the world as John wrote; but I sensed the need to get better acquainted with the Father.

A.W. Tozer (yes, he is one of my favorite 20th century people) grabbed my attention with these words on spiritual growth:

"How tragic that we in this dark day have had our seeking done for us by our teachers. Everything is made to center upon the initial act of 'accepting' Christ (a term, incidentally, which is not found in the Bible) and we are not expected thereafter to crave any further revelation of God to our souls. We have been snared in the coils of spurious logic which insists that if we have found Him we need to no more seek Him. The experiential heart-theology of a grand army of fragrant saints is rejected in favor of a smug interpretation of Scripture which would certainly have sounded strange to an Augustine, a Rutherford or a Brainard."

To follow up these words of Tozer, let's see what St. Augustine wrote concerning growth and maturity some 1400 years earlier than Tozer's writings:

"If you are pleased with what you are, you have stopped already. If you say, 'It is enough', you are lost. Keep on walking, moving forward, trying for the goal. Don't try to stop on the way, or to go back, or to deviate from it."

The Apostle John, along with these two giants, reminds us that just as we mature in age, we must continue to mature in Christ. We must move from childhood through adolescence to become grown men and women who know God experientially. We cannot stand still or we will begin to slide backwards. As John Henry Newman wrote in the 1800's: "Growth is the only evidence of life".

Your hair may be turning grayer and the wrinkles are more pronounced, but are you growing more comfortable with the reality that to know God is more important than anything else this side of eternity?

Moving ahead,

Dan

Copyright 2010 Eternity Minded Ministries

Living in the Light

"Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded him." I John 2:9-11

There is an old saying that goes, "There is nothing new under the sun". This certainly hold true when it comes to religious wars. We often think of the religious wars in terms of the Crusades or the atrocities of the post-Reformation era, where Protestants and Catholics alike killed each other for the sake of truth. Even Martin Luther said it was legitimate to kill a heretic. Today, I am thinking in micro terms, not in terms of the macro wars of the 12th century crusaders.

From Pentecost to the present, every church (micro) has its religious wars. I have been blessed to have been in churches in over forty countries and have seen the power of love and the power of war. The war can be between groups or individuals within the church or it can be between the clergy and the laity. Destruction is always the outcome. However, the greatest destruction is what comes to the name of the Lord.

John uses the word 'brother' in reference to those who are in the community of Christ. It is true that Christ's love in us can be a powerful draw to the unconverted, as we saw in our last writing. Yet, the lack of that very same love can have devastating consequences within the church. Hatred (let's call it what it really is) in the church is a mystery to me. I don't mean that I am above it; I just mean that it's the one thing that Jesus commanded we do and we just don't do it. Jesus was very clear that we are to "Love one another" and yet we do not do it very well.

This is not just a problem here in the United States where committee meetings in the church often go south. I have seen people in churches in far away countries screaming at each other, hitting each other, and causing incredible pain. I have seen pastors of different denominations sit across the table from each without even a word of greeting or eye contact. How can this be? How can there be hatred in the church in every decade, every year, since the time of Christ?

I am sorry that I don't have a complete answer to those questions. I do know that there are issues in my life that are destructive to the very core of this love that John writes about. I realize that I have had misconceptions that make it easy to attack instead of to love.

First, I have come to realize that people will never make me happy. How many times have we thought about the people at work, the people at church, or even the people in our family as those who make our lives unpleasant? So, we make a change to a new church or a new job and soon find ourselves back in the same place again. As Henri Nouwen wrote, "The stronger our expectation that another human being will fulfill our deepest desires, the greater the pain is when we are confronted with the limitations of human relationships." Once we are disappointed in people we begin to attack.

Second, I have come to realize that love is more than just warm feelings or compatibility. Love is a choice. More than what I feel, it is what I do. I cannot dictate how those around me will act, but I can dictate my response. As rocks were being thrown at the head of Stephen and were killing him, I don't think he felt warm fuzzies for those hurling the rocks. But he did choose to love them and asked the Lord to forgive those who were about to steal his very life.

As one spiritual writer put it, "Some people become bitter as they grow old. Others grow old joyfully. That does not mean that the life of those who become bitter was harder than the life of those who became joyful. It means that different choices were made, inner choices, choices of the heart." In this same way, one chooses to love. I have a long way to go, but I think I am catching on.

The third thing I have discovered is that I cannot love others until I love myself. Our world tells us that we are loved based on what we do, what we have, and what we accomplish. I am what the world says I am. If I do not match up to the standards of the world then I am unhappy because I feel unloved. Yes, appearance, performance, and status rule our lives unless we embrace God's value system. God has chosen me (and you) to be His child. He knows I am not perfect, and yet He knows that I am trying to be because I want to be like His Son. I don't earn His love, pay for His love, or beg for His love. I have it all.

Martin Luther King, Jr. put it so well in one of his sermons:

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it."

So the question that John raised is this: Are we walking in the light today, or are we walking in darkness? Today's actions will tell us the answer to that question.

Blessings to you,

Dan Owens

Copyright 2010 Eternity Minded Ministries