Study of Judas: follower of God’s law

We’ve come to our final article analyzing Judas’ life in our Lukewarm Church series, where we’ll turn our attention to Peter starting next week.

Our final week, we’ll discuss how we follow God’s law with a loveless heart. 

It goes without saying that Judas learned and followed God throughout his ministry and perhaps before. Beyond that, he answered Jesus’ call and followed Him into His ministry. We don’t know what sort of life he left behind, but he did make a self-sacrificial life-change.

A repeated theme throughout this series uncovers how while someone may appear, talk and act like a Christian, they may not be one. They can have loads of Christian attributes but it doesn’t spring out of a love and fear of God. After all, some of the most brilliant, kind and thoughtful people I know don’t claim Christianity at all.

In today’s climate, Christians have rightly been accused of hypocrisy and legalism. Many times people avoid Christians because of their judgment and self-righteousness.

Once, I was looking up what it was like to live in a new town I was to move to. On a Reddit thread, I read someone say that ‘you’d be okay so long as you stay away from the Christians, everyone else was nice’.

My stomach sank. But I knew they were right.

Law without love in the modern church

Collectively, the church has difficulty with loving God. Most have split into three directions. 

1. Those infatuated with God’s laws and wrapped their identity in being associated with morally good.

2. Those who have lost sight of God’s goodness, distracted by either their woes or joys of the world and become apathetic towards God.

3. The third tier of people either fall in the first or second group, but they don’t love God. Blind in their religion, their genuine motives are hidden - and many times, even to themselves.

This love anemic condition the modern church is suffering from is damaging to all parties. To the ones who are struggling in their faith, they are missing out on the glorious gifts of being a child of God. They have all the power and righteousness available at their fingertips, but still have difficulty seeing that God is more worthy of their attention.

They circle the first pathway steps of Christianity, unaware of the depths of the glorious truths to be had in a matured relationship with God down a long, rich path forward.

Every school year, my mom made me take piano lessons. Throughout the year, I’d practice every day, completing my lessons. But I really had no desire to learn and get better.

Sure, I liked the idea of it. But not enough to actually put in the work and dedication. Year after year, I did the same lessons over and over. And year after year, I kept playing at the same level.

Did I know how to play piano? Yes, but only the bare bone basics. Looking back, I wished I had put in the work to improve so that I could reap the benefits of a fine-tuned skill of a beautiful, foundational instrument. I could have grown from the simple, basic chords that I continually re-learned and progressed into playing complex, intricately composed songs.

Similarly, our relationship to God has the potential to beautifully flourish and grow. But we’ll keep hanging around the basics, the fundamentals of Christianity unless we actually pursue knowing God. Sacrificing your time to build a deeper relationship with Jesus is the best investment you’ll ever make, far greater than any instrument.

As Christians, we should feel the weighted responsibility for representing God and His church to the rest of the world. We not only fail God when we misrepresent Him, we fail ourselves in our own personal relationship with Him. And we certainly fail those around us. And yet we actively participate in the individualistic society we live in today and choose comfort instead.

Maybe we like the idea of being known as someone who is godly, or we’ve been laissez-faire in our pursuit of knowing God. Perhaps we don’t know Him at all. We’ve burdened ourselves with our own standards instead of finding freedom in letting God lift them off our shoulders and realize grace instead. 

When we buy into our hypocrisy or absent-minded faith, we spend our dollars feeding into the false religion conglomerate that is not only stealing from joy in your relationship with God but from others knowing who He really is. 

What we cultivate

Galatians describes what someone who has the Holy Spirit would look like:

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” - Galatians 5:22-23

Notice that none of the things on the list are actions but rather heart characteristics. Attributes we can only attain through Jesus. In fact, the fruit in this passage is singular because it is personified through Jesus Christ as the best example of what it means to live out a Christian life. Fruit is the character built through a changed heart, it doesn’t start with works it ends with them. Otherwise, everyone who does any act of kindness must be a Christian. 

When you obey God without love you simply won’t grow. You may be doing good things and even making impacts on other people. But your relationship with God will remain the same, distant and maybe non-existent. Organic growth is gradual and comes through a continual, faithful trust in God. As in any other earthly relationship, growing in the depth of that relationship takes time, experiences and many times hardship.

But as in a garden, when we obediently tear out the weeds (sin) that snuff the life out of our small plants (growth in God), three things will happen:

1. It will be more difficult for weeds to grow back in. Not indefinitely. They will always find a way back in to rear their head and burst through the ground again. But as you rack through the ground and make way for something else to grow, you create an environment that is more difficult for weeds to burst through.

   When you dedicate your time to studying God’s Word, even memorizing scriptures and daily conversational prayer, it’s far more difficult for either your flesh or the devil to provide an opportunity for temptation.

2. It’s easier to spot new weeds that pop up. When you’ve cleared out the weeds and toiled the soil, you’ll have a clear vision for anything that isn’t of God. When your garden is littered with weeds, it’s harder to identify things that are not of God and easy to confuse it with the other good fruits amongst the foliage.

   They mix together and begin to be distinguished. If it’s clear, you’ll have full visibility into the weeds that spring up and can either take action on it or not.

3. It will make it easier for you to cultivate the fruits of the spirit when you’ve spent time cultivating your soil. What you choose to cultivate will produce fruit. If you are choosing the fruit of the Spirit, you will grow. As seasons change, your fruit may take longer or shorter to flourish. But when you obey God and are faithful in the small things, He will bless you in harvest time.

But why does God require us to obey Him? Isn’t that demanding or cruel of Him to force people to do what He tells us, even if it doesn’t make sense to us? It would be cruel if it weren’t that God knows that apart from Him you will continue your path to death. Your only path to fullness of life is through Him. When we are disobeying God, we cannot abide with Him. Our sin obstructs our view of God.

God doesn’t ever force His way into your top priority, you have to choose Him. 

If He is the only thing in our life that will give us joy, satisfaction and true life, why wouldn’t He want that for us? To get His fullness, He asks obedience of us. Because in our obedience to Him, it’s our actions that will refine us to become more like Him.

Study of Judas: serving God

Serving God is an act of worship. It’s our response to His love that He first gave us. But as we see in Judas, while he appeared very sacrificially devoted to Jesus, He was not the object of his affection.

Continuing our Lukewarm Church series, we’ll see how serving God doesn’t mean you love Him. 

If we attempt to serve God or others from an earthly love, we end up making it about ourselves. There’s a conditional and transactional component to it. Our heart is motivated to gain some type of benefit that we will ultimately be pleased with.

When we please God, we don’t always feel good about it. And sometimes God asks us to do difficult things that we may never see the benefit of or receive any gain on earth for. If our motivation for doing this is to please and glorify God, then whether or not we receive anything out of it won’t matter. Afterall, if the object of our devotion to Him is to give Him glory, then we will be satisfied with just that. We’ve done what we set out to do: please God.

Before we go further, let’s break down what it means to serve. So often we give of ourselves in one way or another and never stop to reflect on what our motivations are. When you serve, you’re a part of something else which gives something for someone to accomplish something. Let’s break it down.

What are you a part of?

As a Christian, ‘what you’re a part of’ is God’s kingdom. And His mission for Christians, as His servants, is to bring the gospel to every nation. Jesus came down to earth not only to bring about the gift of Salvation, but to start a chain reaction. And that chain reaction starts with Him. As God loves Jesus, He wanted us to join in on that love.

God didn’t intend for us to live a comfortable life to merely revel in our confidence of assurance in one day being whole in Heaven, but to let that revelation ignite a fire in our hearts that can’t help but extend to others. 

What are you giving?

As Jesus, we give of ourselves. And since it’s organic, serving isn’t something you do separate from your life, it’s embedded into it.

God calls each of us to a unique calling and ministry. He made me the youngest of four with two wonderful parents. He gave me my amazing husband, Sunny and his wonderful family that I’m now a part of. He also uses negative experiences in my life too. Hardships I’ve experienced, relationships I’ve learned from, internal wars I’ve battled, all uniquely made me who I am today. 

The point is, my life is different than anyone else's. Which means I have a distinct way in which I can be used by God. What we have to give will be different for everyone. But in whatever God does call us into, we respond to His loving grace by being faithfully obedient in that.

Who are you serving?

God tells us specifically who we are to serve: our neighbor. Our neighbor is anyone who is in our sphere of influence in our life. 

The people I pass by at the grocery store are in my sphere of influence. I’m not living in Switzerland, on my way to eat the most deliciously fresh cheese. Although that sounds pretty amazing. I’m going to my local grocery in Seattle, WA for fresh fish instead. God put me right where I am, next to the people around me for a reason. 

It may mean loving people who may be unlovable in some way or who have hurt us. We may be uncomfortable or have to give something up that we really wanted. 

Important distinction is that God doesn’t ask you to get walked over, that doesn’t glorify Him at all. And the church has many times greatly abused the meaning of being the ‘hands and feet of Jesus’ in the name of enabling abusive behavior. I could go on, but that is a much longer topic than this blog can manage. 

What do you accomplish?

What you accomplish depends on who you’re doing it for. If you’re doing this for God, you serve out of worship to God, giving Him all the glory. We accomplish what God would have us accomplish. 

This is so much bigger than us. We often live in an obstructed view of life, not able to think outside of ourselves and our own experience. What we are a part of as Christians, is God’s mission to reconcile those to Himself. And we get to be a part of that. 

Self-glorifying service

When you serve others out of your own personal desire, while you may be doing it in the name of God, you won’t really be doing it for Him and your true intentions will eventually reveal itself. 

If you’re doing it for yourself, you usually expect something in return. Their appreciation, a return service, perhaps in equal value, respect, validation or approval.

You may have good intentions along with selfish ones, but they are either for God or not. A way that your true intentions seep out is how you treat others. When you think you’re owed something you’re not doing it out of a love for God. In our self-glorifying service we’ve tainted a good thing from God to an evil and selfish thing. 

Joys of serving

Of course Jesus is the greatest example of being a servant. On the night of His betrayal during the Last Supper, He washes the disciples feet. Though He knew He would be betrayed and abandoned by each of them the very next day, He served them.

This washing of feet symbolized how no one else had the power to cleanse away their sins. And as He stooped down to do what one of the lowest slaves would do, He loved them. He didn’t love them because of anything they did, each would later prove their loyalty through abandoning Him. 

He loved them when it wasn’t convenient for Him - which is an understatement. He was in mental anguish in preparation for the torture He knew He was facing the next day. And yet, He humbly served them despite what He was going through and despite how they would treat Him afterwards.

John 13:14, “ Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet.” 

Now as Christians, we are called to do the same. I encourage you to reflect on the motivations of what you do. Does your love come with strings attached to it? 

Study of Judas: conviction of sin

In the modern church, we tend to demonize Judas to the point where he’s completely unrelatable. And yet, if we don’t do anything with our convictions, we are just like him. 

Continuing our Lukewarm Church series, starting with the breakdown of Judas’ character as an unbeliever, we’ll cover how he felt the conviction of his sin.

Both Judas and Peter betrayed Jesus, but their response to the guilt of their sin revealed how they truly viewed God.

And their distinct views of God informed how they viewed themselves and what they did next. While both felt the weight of their sin, Judas let it crush him while Peter let Jesus lift it off through the freedom of God’s saving grace. 

What we do with our conviction

After Judas betrayed Jesus, he certainly felt convicted. He knew what he had done was deplorable. His response was to throw away the meaningless coins he reserved for his betrayal and end his life. He was driven so mad with remorse for what he had done that he couldn’t stand to live any longer.

When you feel convicted, ask yourself why you feel bad. Did you grieve God or did you grieve yourself? Whom have you offended more?

If we’ve downgraded God in our lives to the point that we feel moral superiority, our sin only slaps our ego we’ve built up. And grieving God will be secondary at best. 

When our egos are offended, we may turn to self-pity. The longer we wallow, the easier it is to convince ourselves that we’re bearing the cross of humility.

This can lead to self-loathing and a completely isolated, self-absorbed life. Judas’ life demonstrates exactly where that lie can take us. 

Or maybe, we’ve deadened our spiritual convictions to the point where we feel no remorse at all. Conviction of our sin comes from the Holy Spirit, which leads to repentance and not guilt and shame. But if we’ve built our convictions based on our own moral compass and in comparison to those around us, it’s not convictions at all. Rather our own moral standards we’ve set for ourselves. 

When this happens, it affects our view of God. 

How sin affects our view of God

Whether we down-play our sin, excuse it, or shrink in horror of it, if our response is not repentance then our view of God is skewed. We may feel remorse for sin’s consequences but we don’t feel the primary consequence: the barrier it creates between us and God. 

That's why He hates it so much, He longs for a flourishing relationship with you. 

When we do nothing with our convictions, we’re essentially saying that we know more than God and we’re okay with the level of sin in our life, despite what He has to say about it. We put ourselves ahead of God.  

As long as you put yourself ahead of God, it’s impossible to repent. You can’t repent of a sin you don’t think you’re committing. You’ll either be stuck paying penance until your ego is satisfied or you’ll become more and more comfortable with the sin you’ve left unattended to. 

If sin is left all to itself, it will grow and spread. And it obstructs our view of God. We may start to feel that God is distant. Blinded by the sin blocking our view of God, we’ll be unable to recognize that God never moved at all. We just chose something over Him. 

It’s important to note that God feeling distant isn’t always the result of unrepentant sin. While it can lead to that, sometimes God is teaching us to rest in His goodness in His quiet shadows. 

Sin inhibits our worship of God. But as humans, we all worship something. So, what are we worshipping?  

Our sin-response reveals who we worship

Judas’ foundation was set on something other than God and when he was faced with his inadequacies, his guilt crippled him.

When the waves come crashing down on our houses built of man-made straw, we’ll be swept underneath the water. When things go wrong in our life, whether sin or a difficult time, what we’ve been holding onto all this time will become apparent. The idols you’ve been worshipping will always fail you.

And like Judas, we’ll cast away our coins we used to treasure because they’ll do us no good anymore. 

All the time he invested in Jesus’ ministry and years of toiling alongside Jesus, all for nothing. While serving Jesus, he loved other things greater than Him.

Judas' response revealed that he didn’t really trust in Jesus or really love Him. Coming to utter despair, he chose death for himself, making the state of his soul blatantly apparent. Although less apparent, many in the modern church today do exactly as Judas.

They feel safe and protected under the umbrella of Christianity. And the longer they stay, the more difficult to distinguish within themselves and for others around them. Even the disciples didn’t recognize Judas wasn’t a Christian after doing ministry with him for years. 

When we choose repentance

Timothy Keller speaks on conviction, “Remorse brings you to hate yourself and repentance brings you to hate your sin”. 

When we remain in our remorse or conviction we remain in our sin. Convicted, we continue our lives, unchanged. But if we let repentance lead us to the cross of Christ, His love will draw you in as your shame melts away. You see sin for what it is, something which pulls you away from a relationship with God. 

I have been blameless before him and have kept myself from sin. - Psalm 18:23 

As a Christian, the best news is that we don’t have to remain in the shame of our sin. Christ’s blood shed on the cross to pay for our debt. And we can live in the freedom of Christ in the righteousness He gives us, not from ourselves.

And like the psalmist, it should bring your heart overwhelming joy and gratitude to the Lord for His forgiveness and pure humility that He actually had in humanity that overcomes our own sinfulness. 

My friend, are you still sitting in shame of your sin? Let the beauty of salvation transform your heart and live in freedom of His grace. 

Study of Judas: acknowledging God

We don’t hear a lot about Judas, and never read a first-hand account from him. But we know that the experience of being one of Jesus’ disciples wasn’t always rainbows, fame and butterflies. It was often difficult and grueling.

And yet, despite not really loving God, he stayed. We know he was charged with managing the money and frequently skimmed from the top in secret. Did he stay for fame or the money? 

Not to imply that he only served Jesus for those goals. Rather, his love of material gains became his idol. He loved something more than Jesus and he had other heart motivations to serve Him. Underneath the surface of his servitude, something else was pulling his heart-strings. Something else was more important than God to him. 

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We’re in the second week of our new Lukewarm Church series. Today, we’ll see how Judas acknowledged Jesus as God, just not over his life.

With more knowledge about Jesus and time spent with Him than most Christians have today, there was a disconnect with what he cognitively knew and what he wholeheartedly believed.

He reveled in Jesus’ power. He marveled at His teachings. He received Jesus’ love. At the very least, he knew who Jesus was.

But when those same crowds eventually turned on Him, so did Judas. In fact, it’s possible that his love of money and man’s approval intertwined together as what ultimately led him to betray Jesus. He had a choice: choose his idols or choose Jesus.

And he chose 30 silver pieces.

One could wonder why he made this choice. From an outside perspective, it appeared rash and shortsighted in comparison to his 3-year-long investment into Jesus’ ministry. 

But, isn’t that what we do when we choose idols above God?

As Judas, some in the lukewarm church acknowledge God’s existence but are unwilling to be fully committed to Him. They know of God, but they don’t know His heart. 

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’ - Matthew 7:21-23

Like Jesus preached in Matthew, many will call after Him ‘Lord, Lord’. He knew of them too. But He never had a relationship with them.

Lukewarmers have knowledge of His existence; however, the life change of being fully devoted to Him requires too many sacrifices to their deserved way of life. While they appear to worship God at church, they go home and worship comfort, approval of others or success. Or anything that is more important to them than God. 

The reality is, the Christian life requires sacrificial devotions to God that are often mundane, boring, uncomfortable and unattractive. Cherry picking the parts of the Christian life that seem doable, they will only give up the parts of their life to God that feel comfortable and safe. It’s easier to leave all of the unpleasant tasks of a Christian and save it for the “super Christian people”.

Only giving parts of yourself to God isn’t enough, He requires you to give Him your whole life. 

Does that make you uncomfortable to hear? It has for me too.

God transforms our whole life and not part of it because He knows He’s the only One who can satisfy you. He created you to be loved by Him, to be fully satisfied by Him. He made you to glorify Him. When we seek other things to our satisfaction, it will always come up short. We’ll always be grasping for more, feeling hungry but never satiated. He wants to give you more. He wants to give you Himself. 

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. - John 10:10

It’s this abundant life that God is offering you in exchange for the temporal joys we often chose. Captured by the beautiful gifts God gives us, we look to them to give us our full satisfaction. And this can happen very, very subtly.

We can be doing all the Christianly things and yet be living a spiritually complacent life.  

Stagnant spiritual life

We may believe that we’ve done enough to get by. That we’re “Christian enough”. We repent enough. We tithe enough. We’re kind enough. We go to church enough. We read the Bible enough. We love others enough. 

Just because you aren’t moving forward in your spiritual life doesn’t mean you go nowhere. We’re all moving somewhere in life - either towards God or away from Him. Living apathetically affects you in many ways:

• How you view God. You’ve minimized God to the point where He’s not a God worth sacrificing much for. You’re not moved by the gift of Salvation given by Jesus dying for your sins. His sacrifice isn’t life changing enough for you. It doesn’t compel you to live differently.

  It can also bring about boredom in your relationship with God. You don’t understand when people talk about delighting in the Lord. You may be too disinterested enough to not even try to find out.

  If you’re honest with yourself, you might not care all that much about knowing who God is at all. “Why bother?” you may think. You’ll be up in Heaven and figure out more details later. You have life to live now.

• How you work. You don’t go to work to glorify God. You may have heard of the phrase “glorify God in everything” and understand the sentiment. But on Monday morning, you’re back on the grind and switch to auto-pilot. Unmoved by God. He doesn’t change your decision making, your thoughts, dreams and plans.

• How you value other things. You look to other things to give you satisfaction in life because God doesn’t bring you satisfaction. You’re confident that you can get along well enough by following what you feel is best to do.

• Blinds you to the affects of your complacency. The danger of complacency is that it can hide behind the lie that consistency in your spiritual life is enough. Which can lead to glazing over your Bible reading and mindlessly reciting prayer language. And slowly, knowing God becomes checking off a to-do list. 

  Worst of all, it deadens you. You may feel convicted of your sin but then you don’t care to change your life and do anything about it. Judas very likely believed he was a Christian, but his complacent walk led him to never identify what was keeping Him from a truly joyful relationship with God. 

Is there something keeping you from enjoying God? I would argue that there is nothing else more important than figuring out what that might be. 

Complacency hides in the corners of the church, masked behind faithful church goers. It looks and feels familiar. While it quietly creeps into your life, it gradually muffels God and cuts you off from your life-source.

Although unaware, it will slowly deplete you. God so deeply desires to give you life in Him. To wake you up and have you seek Him above all else. Because only He can satisfy what our hearts long for. 

Have you become too comfortable? I encourage you to reflect on ways in which complacency has stolen your joy.

Study of Judas: being near to God

Peter and Judas were two of Jesus’ disciples during His ministry on earth. Both followed Him through fame and persecution. But we know how this story ends, Judas betrayed Jesus. But so did Peter - by denying Him three times.

Judas loved the idea of God, but He didn’t really love Him. When the right opportunity arose, He chose a bribe over the life of Jesus. Guilt-ridden, he ended his life afterwards. Peter, on the other hand, had a much different ending to his story. His betrayal led him to godly repentance and he lived the rest of His life telling people about Jesus. 

What made their walks so different? While Judas appeared to be a devoted Christian, his heart was far away from God. Similarly, there are many today who would walk, talk and act like a Christian, but in reality don’t know or love God at all.

Judas gave us a perfect example of the life of one in the lukewarm church. Lukewarm, being those who appear as Christians and often believe themselves to be, but lack a relationship with Him. They love His stuff, His church, His love, His people. But they don’t love Him. 

Through the Lukewarm Church blog series, I’ll analyze the differences between the life of Peter and Judas and what their respective betrayals revealed about their true love for God.

A little on how this 10-part blog series will work: 

• 1st half: Aspects of the life Judas which we typically associate with a Christian

• 2nd half: Christian qualities embodied through the life of Peter

Beginning with the first aspect of Judas’ life: how close to God he was and yet his heart was far away.

If you grew up in the South like me, just about everyone “goes to church”. There are many things that draw people into the idea of God and going to church.

Loving the idea of God

On the surface, Judas seemed more devoted to Christ than many Christians today. He left his profession, his family, his friends, all to pursue a life of ministry with Jesus.

His commitment to Christ seemed so evident that his own peers were perplexed when Jesus told the disciples one of them would betray Him (Luke 22:21-23). No one suspected Judas, he seemed as dedicated and virtuous as the rest.

Eleven of Jesus’ closest friends couldn’t recognize someone who wasn’t actually a Christian. 

Which begs the question, why was Judas in ministry with Jesus? Most likely, he believed that he loved Him. Liking the idea of God, but only up to a certain point.

Many of us are drawn into church and the idea of God, but we can’t get behind all of Him. We are aligned with 30%, 50% or even 95% of God, but we keep control over the rest. 

Why? Our perception of God is limited to our own pre-fixed ideas of what it means to be a “good God”. And the moment God doesn’t fit within those guidelines we’ve created, we’re disinterested. 

Even though many in the church can’t get behind everything about God, they remain in church. One reason that keeps them active in the church is the appeal of being a part of a community. 

Enjoying the comforts of Christian community 

Jesus was very likeable in those days. He performed many miracles and attracted crowds by the thousands. To be one of Jesus’ closest friends must have been invigorating and a high honor initially.

The moment Judas was chosen by Jesus to be His disciple was likely a beautiful feeling. “This powerful man chose me to have a front-seat view of His life and ministry?” he must have thought. 

You can be around those who love God, without truly knowing Him yourself. Even Judas couldn't have been more close-knit to the best community.  

The modern church has changed tremendously and reasons for entering and staying have grown some nuances. In a cultural setting where there’s little to no social drawbacks or consequences in being labeled a Christian (in Western society), it’s often considered an attractive trait or symbolic of possessing some sort of moral goodness.

Depending on where you live, it may be more comfortable to be associated with the church than not to be. 

Apart from appearances, there’s also a sense of security being near people you’re familiar with, perhaps grown up with or grown close to over time. It feels safe to find a consistent fellowship with other people who think, act and maybe even look like you.

There’s a safety in numbers and even more comforting when your world is confined to only this Christian circle, a safe bubble away from the worries and woes of the “world”.

Many choose God based on the association with the church, not God Himself. When the church inevitably fails them in some way, they may fail the church. Or at least have serious doubts and concerns which they may or may not ever confront. 

This usually happens when the church or God doesn’t measure up to the moral standard of goodness.

Wanting to be good without wanting God

We all want to be good. No doubt Judas could feel the difference in how Jesus loved others. Perhaps he desired to be like Him.

If we desire God’s goodness but not Himself, we fool ourselves into thinking we’re becoming more like Him. If we wish to fly a plane in the air, we can’t simply sit in the plane and will it to go. It needs power, to be filled with gas to make it lift off. Similarly, our imitations of Christ will be sedentary until we understand the God who owns these traits. Otherwise, we’ll end up hurting ourselves and others. 

Apart from God, our minds will - to the best of our ability - conjure up what it means to be “good”. But our knowledge only goes so far. Not far at all, actually. We’re thinking through our human lens, which only has visibility to a very small, zoomed in piece of the frame. God’s view sees everything. He has knowledge of everything. So when we try to make sense of His traits, we won’t be able to accurately do it with our small scope.

We must know Him first for Him to slowly expand our view.

But when we separate His goodness from His character, we put ourselves in the driver's seat. We believe that we get to decide what His traits are. The Potter’s clay screams from the table to her Creator, “you’re doing it wrong!”

As with Judas and many of the Jews in that day, when you decide who God is and don’t allow Him to define Himself, you’ve put yourself in a dangerous place. You’ve created your own god. Which the Bible describes as an idol. 

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So, why are you going to church? Why do you believe you have a relationship with God? 

Many who consider themselves to be a Christian haven’t asked themselves this question with much sincerity. As Judas invested years of his life to Jesus’ ministry, maybe you’ve invested more. Or maybe you’ve invested the bare minimum.

In any case, what motivates you to do so? Is it out of a love for God?

Proverbs study: 31

The final chapter of Proverbs encapsulates the pursuit of wisdom put into practice, envisioned through a woman.

I couldn’t help myself to take a stab at this infamous chapter. I think it limits the richness and significance to only see it as a go-to for what a godly wife looks like. Rather, a description of a godly woman. 

Why a woman and not a man, you say? Good question, I’m not sure. But, it’s beautifully significant as in those days, women weren’t highly valued and rarely acknowledged. This is one of many ways that God uses the Bible to highlight the marginalized in those times.  

I spotted a few themes in what Proverbs has to say about a wise woman: 

1. She’s discerning

2. She’s disciplined 

3. She’s known for her kindness

Before you dive straight into this list, take a deep breath. If you’re a perfectionist or feel overwhelmed with life as it is, this list isn’t meant to haunt you like a grouchy to-do list. 

Remember, the Proverbs 31 woman is a fictional character in the Bible meant to visualize what your life would look like living a perfectly wise life. Straight out the gate, we know we aren’t perfectly wise. Otherwise, we’d be God. Which of course, we’re not. 

Breathe, and please \proceed.

A wise woman is discerning 

She considers a field and buys it; from her earnings she plants a vineyard. (verse 16)

She takes time, she doesn’t rush through her decisions. She invests wisely and plans with intention in how it will be used. In other words, she’s discerning with her resources. She spends her time investing in building up her family, helping the poor and speaking wisely. Both earthly and eternal investments. 

We all have resources: our time, money, possessions. Do we consider how we are investing our resources for ourselves or for God? And she doesn’t spend all her resources on everything and everyone. God doesn’t ask us to be a million places, all at once.

We often conflate a godly woman with a very busy woman. As women, we easily stretch ourselves thin with never ending demands that we and society put on us. We are pulled in a million different directions all the time.

We may be tempted to think that if we’re juggling 24 balls that we’re somehow more successful or godly. But God knows we are limited, He will never give you too much for you to handle. 

Notice how she takes care of her immediate family first (verse 15), then she cares for other people (verse 20). A wise woman assesses her resources carefully and discerns how to best utilize them.

A wise woman is disciplined in all areas of life

She wakes up early (verse 15)

She works out (verse 17)

She works hard for her family (verse 24)

She’s not lazy (verse 27)

Proverbs 31 woman knows how to manage her time. In our westernized society, we have more distractions nagging for our attention than ever before. Turning down comforts and entertainment has become a whole discipline within itself. 

This may mean you need to re-prioritize how you spend your time. According to a recent study conducted by Harmony Healthcare IT, Americans spend a staggering average of 5 hours and 16 minutes a day on their phones. I think it’s safe to say that most of us could be more disciplined with how we use social media and our phones in general. 

Like our phones, many things distract us from other disciplines in our life. I took time off social media recently. I was 100% more productive and that discipline spilled itself into other areas of my life. When I reduced the distractions around me, my time was more focused and I got a lot more efficient. 

Everyone operates differently and has their own unique life and circumstances. So discipline for you may look different than discipline for your neighbor.

But frankly? Discipline is a rarely appreciated trait that is overshadowed by our indulgent society. 

In an effort to better manage your time, you may need to step down from leading a small group at church. Or, you may need a fitness membership because you can’t bring yourself to complete an at-home class. Maybe you’re reading too many books. Or you aren’t fitting in enough time with God every day. The point is, it’s different for everyone. 

A wise woman is known for her kindness

She opens her mouth in wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. (verse 26)

This verse doesn’t just refer to the wise woman as being a nice person. Because if we read through Proverbs and try to pick out characteristics and mimic them, we’ll be constantly chasing our tails. Instead, we have to pursue what Proverbs is all about: wisdom. And the only source for wisdom is from God. 

Our words reflect what’s going on in our heart. And when the wise woman speaks, she’s revealing her wisdom-centered heart. Wisdom is so ingrained in her, she speaks what she knows. And she knows wisdom well. 

She doesn’t shove truth in your face or speak rashly or proudly. She speaks with kindness. By the way, that word is translated in Hebrew as ‘checed’ or ‘hesed’, or another word for God’s covenantal love. Out of wisdom pours out love.

That same word is used in Proverbs 3:3: Do not let kindness and truth leave you. Those two go hand and hand. Like God’s wisdom and His love. The wiser you become, the closer you get to His deep, loving kindness. His hesed love. 

***

For me, I can tend to be a perfectionist. I’m tempted to read through lists like this and think, “okay, I’ll work on being kind or disciplined”. But I can’t seek God’s traits to become like Him, I’ll just want the traits themselves. I’ll never be those good things until it’s Him who I desire the most.

In order to be wise, we have to know God, the author of wisdom. And the more we know Him, the more we will naturally take on His kind, loving, gentle traits. 

Proverbs study: working wisely

He who gathers in summer is a son who acts wisely, but he who sleeps in harvest is a son who acts shamefully. - Proverbs 10:5

What we do now on earth impacts our eternity - including our work. In our career, in our home management, in our child rearing and in our ministry, all of this work matters.

Our time on earth is an investment. What we sow (or put our time, money or sweat into) will reap dividends for us in eternity (Galatians 6:7). 

I grew up hearing a lot about Heaven, to the point where sometimes it felt like it didn’t matter what we did on earth. It was going to be “gone soon anyway”. This type of unhealthy mentality stunts our critically important growth while here on earth.

God made us stewards of His grace (1 Peter 4:10), time and money. If we sit and make no change to how we live our lives than our unbelieving neighbor, we will have quietly tucked away the greatest gift ever given. Which hinders our growth as well as disables us from being a tool used in the growth of others. 

I’ll say it louder for those in the back, what we do here on earth matters. Critically.

Why we work

Why do we do what we do every day? To make money, of course. 

Work means something different for each of us. Some of you may be owners of a business, manager of a team, a nurse, a parent, a teacher, a student, or a million different professions. Regardless of what you do, God asks us to glorify Him in it (1 Corinthians 10:31). 

But our work stretches further than that. As Christians, we’re working for God’s kingdom. Now, some of us may be half-way doing this, or slacking completely. But if you’re a Christian, you’re also employed by God.

We very often, myself included, don’t look at it like this. We slip into living our daily lives, just getting by. Jumping from one thing to the next like we’re on a never-ending obstacle course.

Because that’s what life can feel like sometimes, right? We forget who we are as God’s son or daughter and assign ourselves our own identity and end up working for ourselves. Self-employed.

So, we start to separate out our work or day-jobs with our work as a child of God. 

Now, there’s a time and place for everything. God probably isn’t wanting you to preach a sermon to your coworkers every day. 

But our identity should remain the same no matter if we’re working at home or working at work - or relaxing on the beach for that matter. That means that as we seek God and His wisdom and become more like Him, those characteristics will carry into everything we do. 

What keeps us from doing this? So many things. But I’ll cover one: what we desire.

What we desire

All day long he is craving, while the righteous gives and does not hold back. - Proverbs 21:26

It’s okay and good to desire good things. God created us to desire the good things around us. Our desires drive what we work towards. But when we let those good things become ultimate things for us - or things we value greater than God - they move our goal-post.

You may have really good, God-given desires. Like being a mom or dad. But we have to consider where this desire stems from. You have to ask yourself why you want to be a good parent. Is it because your identity is rooted in God and you want to follow His wisdom of being a good parent and loving your children the way He loves His?

Or maybe your desire to be a good parent has become an idol (something you treasure/love more than God). And you want to be a good parent so you feel like you’re successful in life, are a good person or you enjoy being loved or revered by others. Or, insert here anything other than out of a love for God.

The problem when we start to work or do anything that doesn’t stem from our love for God is that we tarnish it. 

Because when we start out of a love for God, we are fully fulfilled by His love. So we don’t turn to other things to give us any fulfillment.

And as Proverbs 21:26 says, “all day long he is craving”. All day long, you’ll keep searching for more. You won’t be satisfied with just one promotion, you’ll need more recognition, more money and more affirmation for what you do. You’ll be constantly dissatisfied with yourself as a parent because you are aware of your imperfections and inevitable failings (as in all other humans).

Why? Because you are working for your own validation rather than seeking it fully from God first.

After all, being a child of the literal God of the universe who happens to love us more than we can even fathom should give us a child-like giddiness. It’s when we reflect on who God is and therefore who we are as His son or daughter that we don’t look to our work on earth to give us fulfillment.

Proverbs study: Who are your friends?

Proverbs has insight into how you choose your friends. King Solomon argues that who you surround yourself with matters a lot.

Proverbs 1:15 says, “My son, do not walk in the way with them. Keep your feet from their path.” This text is referring to sinners (verse 10) or those who aren’t Christians. Of course, we’re all sinners; until and unless we let God make us righteous and holy through His righteousness and holiness.

Now, this in no way means you shouldn’t have friends who aren’t Christians. The Bible is filled with proving otherwise. How else are we supposed to be the hands of feet of Jesus toward unbelievers? Jesus continually surrounded Himself around unbelievers while on earth.

Rather, what Proverbs is warning against is a close relationship with those not walking with God that draws you into their path of life. Notice that the text says to not “walk with them”. This means you aren’t following what they’re following after, you’re still following God.

Jesus was the most radical person ever to be on earth. He didn’t conform to His friends who didn’t love God, He remained radical. Romans 12:2 tells us to be in the world but not conformed to it. Meaning, we love people around us but don’t let our identity in Christ change.

You’re either walking towards God or away from Him in another life path. There is no inbetween. 

Discerning your close-knit relationships

How does this look in practice? I don’t believe this is black and white. It’s dependent on the person and their walk with God. This is where discernment and seeking God’s wisdom comes in.

Reflect where you’re at with God right now - whether you’re struggling in your faith, a new Christian or a long-standing Christian battling the basics of who God is and what it means to be a Christian. You may be in a stage where you’re more easily influenced. Perhaps, taking a step back from friends you once lived a life apart from God is the healthy move for you. 

This is where you would need to discern whether or not someone is drawing you closer or further away from God. Maybe boundaries need to be placed in order to have a healthier relationship.

This does not preclude those who are more spiritually “mature”. They can be susceptible to being influenced by people and things other than God easily as well. Anyone can be. And to believe you’re immune from this, would put you in a great disadvantage. 

In very extreme and many times rare instances, you may need to cut ties with someone. I say this with great caution, as I believe our current climate is trigger-happy when it comes to cutting people out. This doesn’t leave room for grace or growth in someone’s life. But there are times when this may apply.

Ask God for wisdom and seek counsel from healthy, godly people in your life if you think this may apply to you. This is what makes living life closely with a Godly, healthy community so important. Those who are more spiritually mature can speak into your life and help you with that discernment.

So take inventory of who your friends are. Do you have a close knit community of Christian friends who can lovingly speak into your life? Are any of your closest friends Christians? If you don’t, prayerfully consider prioritizing a close, godly community. 

Virtual friends

One thing I’ll add here is the influence of friends or acquaintances on social media. While we may not be friends with everyone we follow on social media, we can sometimes feel that way. We’re able to get a front-row seat into other people’s lives through the rise of vlogger influencers. Which can be a wonderful thing. Or, it could be slowly influencing your life to care less about what God cares about and more about temporal joys of this world.

I know, I am very well aware of how antiquated I sound. But life is really important. It matters what you do with it. Every little moment adds up collectively to this life we live. Are we investing in the salvation God gave us? Or are we distracted by other beautiful, small joys of this life? Our friends, whether in life or virtual, can be deeply instrumental into how much or little we care about God. 

Who is influencing you in your life right now? 

Proverbs study: the words we say

Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit. - Proverbs 18:21

Have you ever been deeply impacted by what someone else said to you? I think everyone would answer ‘yes’ to that. 

Our words are the most powerful thing about us. What we say can bring someone down or build them up. The Proverbs emphasizes the significance of our words in light of living a wise, godly life. 

I am very familiar with this. I love to talk and my passions come through my words and body language. Which can be wonderful and horrible at the same time.

When I let my passion slip into anger, I start to lose control over what I’m saying and how I’m saying it. My anger is controlling me instead of me controlling my anger. Oof. That’s when I remember just how sinful I am and there truly is no good in me. In my natural self, I can be very mean sometimes. 

Recently, I lost my patience. And it happened so quickly. I was tired, irritated and had been traveling all day. And just like that, I forgot who I was. The love and grace that was extended to me by God so freely and so undeservingly flew out of my brain. I was just someone who wanted something, right then and there. The world needed to cater to my needs right away.

Selfish, right? Very. And you guessed it, I hurt someone I loved while doing so. 

What we choose to say reflects what’s going on in our heart. It mirrors how we think of God, ourselves and others. Like what happened to me, my view of myself was completely distorted. I shrunk God and elevated myself, shrinking those around me as well.

Now, hold on. Does this mean that the righteous (those who follow after God) are the only ones who can “speak life” (Proverbs 18:21)  into someone? As if to say that those who don’t believe in God won’t have anything good to say? Of course not. 

What Proverbs is alluding to is that our words can either bring someone towards God or away from Him. Notice the verse differentiates that “death and life” are held in the tongue. Death = path facing away from God. And life = path facing towards God. 

Slow to speak

There is one who speaks rashly like the thrusts of a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing. - Proverbs 12:18

Our words are critically important. And yet we’re so prone to spilling out what we have to say without stopping to think about what we’re saying.

The moment I let my self-proclaimed passion leave humility in the backseat of the car and hit the gas-pedal on my own truth, I will steam-roll over others. So busy talking, I’m unable to see my increasing speed and am aware of others around me who are or will be impacted by my words. And this is where people can get hurt. And on this side of Heaven, sometimes irrevocably. 

Slow to anger

He who is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who is quick-tempered exalts folly. - Proverbs 14:29 

When we take time to thoughtfully reflect our words, this allows us to slow down our anger response as well. Notice, the text doesn’t say we shouldn’t get angry. There are numerous examples of righteous-anger in the Bible, including Jesus Himself (Matthew 21:12 to name one).

The key word here is slow. When we don’t let the blood rush to our brain too quickly and instead take a deep breath then we have time to consider what is going on. We have time to consult God, asking for Him to give you discernment and wisdom as to how to respond. And depending on the situation, we may have time to seek counsel from others wiser than us (Proverbs 12:15). 

And maybe, if we use this space to reflect on the grace that’s been extended towards us, our hearts may change from anger to patience. 

There is still a place for anger. When we align our heart with God, we align with the injustices that hurt His heart. But when we fly off on our own, without holding onto God’s wisdom, we turn a just-fight into a self-serving one. Leaving people hurt, including ourselves. And usually justice is left in the dust since we’ve turned it to be about ourselves. 

Arrogant or humble?

The fear of the Lord is the instruction for wisdom, and before honor comes humility. - Proverbs 15:33

When we seek God and pursue His wisdom, we are denying our own wisdom. We’re denying our own perceived ideas of what is right. We’re denying ourselves. We can only do this if we humbly fear God first and foremost in our life. 

If we don’t do this, we’ll fall into the thinking that we know better than God. And maybe better than most others as well. 

We all want to be the person who can take credit for something great. It feels good to be looked at and revered for your talent. Which is what makes it so difficult to live a life as an arrow pointing to God’s goodness and not your own. 

So we use and abuse our words, twisting them to make ourselves feel better. Not pointing to God at all. 

***

Words can be very powerful and used in incredible ways that glorify God. How do our words impact others? And what does that say about the state of our own heart towards God?

Proverbs study: reasons for reproof

For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching is light; and reproofs for discipline are the way of life. - Proverbs 6:23

The concept of reproof or discipline is speckled all throughout the Proverbs.

The Hebrew word, ‘towkechah’, which translates to ‘reproof’, is mentioned 23 times in Proverbs. It means to correct or rebuke, specifically within the pursuit of wisdom and righteousness. Then there’s the word discipline, or ‘musar’ in Hebrew. This word is used 51 times in Proverbs. It refers to restraint or heeding to instruction or teaching. There are many other Hebrew words for similar words for correcting, reproving and disciplining.

Notice that none of these definitions mean to punish. While reproof feels critical, negative and harsh, godly reproof is intended to reign you back onto the path of life. And away from what would destroy you, a life towards sin and death.

We have to remind ourselves of this truth because being “drug” back into living for God while we’re happily, comfortably living for ourselves is hard and painful. But with godly reproof, we’re pushed towards God, who means good for us. Even if we don’t feel it at that moment. 

Sadly, this term has been widely abused and misused amongst the church. If a rebuke doesn’t bring us back to God’s feet in loving grace, it’s not godly reproof at all but something else entirely. 

In Proverbs 6:23 we see both those Hebrew words again to describe both reproof and discipline as the “way to life”. Meaning, we aren’t talking about your average correction. It’s ultimate wisdom, the wisdom of God. That leads you to life in Himself. That is to say, this is life and death importance-level correction. 

Then Proverbs 10:17, “He is on the path of life who heeds instruction, but he who ignores reproof goes astray.” We see this a lot in Proverbs, the option to take one of two paths. One towards life in God and the others toward foolishness and death. Foolishness being the opposition of wisdom.

Wisdom teaches us that when we accept godly discipline we not only find the source of all life, but we avoid the path towards foolishness and away from God.  

I’ll end with Proverbs 1:25, “And you neglected all my counsel, and did not want my reproof;”. We see the Hebrew word ‘azab’ again. Meaning, we are actively ignoring what is freely offered to us at every corner. Wisdom isn’t hiding (Proverbs 1:20). It’s not as though we just haven’t quite found it yet, we are ignoring what is in front of us if we reject wisdom.

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What is blocking your vision from seeing God’s wisdom? Is it your own “wisdom”? Is it that the walk God calls you to is too difficult and uncomfortable, so instead you stay in our comfort zone?

Everyone has a choice. Will we accept and even love God’s loving discipline and grow in our knowledge of Him? Or will we reject it and continue living our lives how we feel is best being “right in our own eyes” (Proverbs 12:15)? The choice is yours.

Proverbs study: who is a fool?

The Proverbs describes a fool as someone who lives a life contrary to or in denial of God. I know - it’s easy to assume that the use of this title belittles a whole group of people. This is why it’s important to dig into the historical context for how it was used.

This is another great example of how so much in the Bible gets misconstrued. It makes sense, right? Even one generation from the next has difficulty understanding how the other behaves, talks and thinks. Things change really quickly over even one generation of time. You can imagine a 1,500-year gap would require a much deeper dive into understanding the history, culture and context of the time it was written. 

Today, we use this word to refer to people who are dumb or lacking foresight. It’s used as an insult. 

Psalm 1:22b says, “And scoffers delight themselves in scoffing and fools hate knowledge? The word ‘fools’ here is translated in Hebrew as ‘kesil’, which means someone who lacks wisdom. 

Solomon certainly is not using this verbiage as a demeaning insult, rather He uses it to describe someone who doesn’t know God. We know from this study so far that to know God is to know wisdom, therefore to not know God is the opposite of wisdom: foolishness.

Remember, Solomon is passing along insight to his sons on how to navigate through life avoiding foolishness and instead pursuing godly wisdom. He categorizes a few different ways people walk into folly when they turn away from God that gets them into trouble. We’ll go through just a few: the perverse, simple and scoffer.

Perverse or Twisted

The foolishness of man ruins his way, and his heart rages against the Lord. - Proverbs 19:3

The word “ruin” means to twist or pervert, or ‘seleph’ in Hebrew. In fact, “perverted” is mentioned many times in Proverbs. Upon closer look, their Hebrew meanings aren’t all the same. There’s several different Hebrew words used for it, but they all refer to someone who has turned away from wisdom.

Both ‘seleph’ and ‘iqqesh’, have a similar meaning: to distort or twist. Meaning, taking truth and bending it to fit their own desire. Other similar translations stem from this idea of distortion, how it affects our desires (avah), deceit (kizev) and general moral corruption (rish-ah). 

As Christians, we are tempted to twist God’s truth to fit our own wishes. We live in foolish things instead of the righteousness that God breathes in us. We do this because we’ve forgotten who God is and start to assume His role when we pause our pursuit of His wisdom (Proverbs 4:5).

The Proverbs describe how this perverse or twisted spiritual state only leads us further away from God and deeper entangled into foolishness. Making what is right and wrong difficult to distinguish. 

Don’t be fooled. Bended truth ceases to be true at all. And is worse than being outright false, it’s deceptively cloaked in a trusting exterior. 

This takes shape when the people who seem to have God all figured out have twisted His character and created their own false and poisoned fruit. And although more hidden than those who are more outwardly living a life apart from God, they will deceive themselves into a relationship with Him. Most of the time, this isn’t intentional. They’ve lost their way, clinging to the assurance they’re sure they have. 

To be honest with you, this person is one big motivator for why I write. My heart aches to show them the beauty they’re missing in who God is. My heart also aches for those they’ve influenced to leave God because of their loud, false and sometimes hypocritical religion. 

I digress. 

Simple-Minded (post: Proverbs 1:32 and draw comparison between Psalm 19:7)

How long, O naive ones, will you love being simple-minded? - Proverbs 1:22a

Solomon is saying that those who don’t listen to God’s wisdom are lovers of simplicity. Both the words ‘naive’ and ‘simple-minded’ are the same word in Hebrew: ‘pthiy’. Which describes someone who is easily persuaded and lacking discernment or foresight. 

Isn’t it so much simpler to not listen to God? Isn’t it so much nicer to enjoy our lives without thinking about having to live it for someone else that makes us do hard and uncomfortable things?

It’s so much easier to simply ignore it. To be at peace with our own apathy. When we choose this, we’re merely coasting in the world without a care to think through what life means and why we’re in it.

We’re content to “live and let be”. Never rocking the boat. 

You may live a life that looks like you’re following God but deep down, this is your mindset. You’ll listen to God so long as He doesn’t make you think about or do anything too difficult. So you may end up floating from group to group, or place of ideas that suits your own level of comfortability. But this complacent mindset has a shelf life that can only go on for so long without dying those uncomfortable truths.

Later on in chapter 1 verse 32, “the waywardness of the naive shall kill them, and the complacency of fools shall destroy them.” God cannot be ignored. If you chose to ignore His wisdom, you will one day have to come to terms with those decisions. 

Scoffer 

A scoffer does not love one who reproves him, he will not go to the wise. - Proverbs 15:12

‘Luts’ is the Hebrew word for ‘scoffing’. It refers to someone who ridicules or mocks God.It often refers to an arrogant or boastful claim against godly wisdom. It’s used only 27 times in the Bible, 18 of which comes from Proverbs alone.

Ah, yes those who scoff God. There’s many very obvious people and groups of people you may instantly think of. Less apparent, are those who boldly claim Jesus’ love while directly disregarding His wisdom. They’ve made God about themselves. 

So damaging to both parties, the scoffer and those impacted by them. The moment we make God about ourselves, we miss Him entirely. And we start to believe that we had something to do with our righteousness as a Christian. 

We learn from Proverbs that a scoffer isn’t teachable. Their arrogance has made them completely blind to wisdom coming anywhere other than themselves. They may listen to wisdom, but they won’t regard it. Scoffers hate reproof. In fact, Solomon advises we not even engage with the scoffer in Proverbs 9:8.

***

Will you choose to ‘love simplicity’ or ‘scoff’ at the truth? If you choose to swim into the depths of the knowledge of God, fasten up. It will truly be the most rewarding pursuit of your life.

We have to reflect within ourselves to see if we say we’re open to godly wisdom or maybe we’re completely shut off to it completely. We’ll talk more on the value of reproof next week - stay tuned. 

Proverbs study: righteous vs. wicked

Let’s be honest, Proverbs can be sort of brutal sometimes. The author, Solomon, says it how it is and doesn’t sugar-coat anything. This makes it sometimes hard to read and incredibly easy to misunderstand. And frankly, it’s hard to read and understand it sometimes. It can seem very harsh and critical.

Many if not most verses have a flow and symmetry to them where there’s often black and white comparisons. One common one being the comparison between the righteous and the wicked.

The uncomfortable truth about the gospel is there are some very hard-to-hear, black and white truths that simply cannot be avoided. In our society, that’s not attractive in the least. 

Many people who would call themselves Christians would want a softer version so as to make it more palpable to themselves and others. Proverbs pounds over and over in various different ways the importance of either following a life towards God and life or you’re not. When it describes the “righteous”, Solomon’s describing Christians. Not that they themselves are righteous, but have taken on the righteousness of God. Apart from God, there is no good in us. 

This may sound radical and offensive. But if you start to believe that there is good in you then you start to believe that being a Christian had something to do with you and that God wasn’t quite “god” or “good” enough. And when we start being the judge of God Himself, we are in a very dangerous place.

The problem with self-righteousness 

This doesn’t mean those who aren’t Christians are horrible people. It’s the total opposite. Everyone, I’ll say again, everyone is precious in God’s sight. He treasures and values everyone more than we could fathom, Christian or not. He deeply desires a relationship with every single person on this earth. And the moment we start to think that as Christians we are “more righteous” then we simply don’t get and maybe aren’t a Christian at all.

Sadly, I believe this idea has seeped into the DNA of the modern church today and uprooted in great destruction. Certainly to those outside the church but inside the church as well. This isn’t God. This is a self-righteous version of God that we’ve created in our hearts that is blinding us from who God is and hurting those who don’t know Him.

I’ve talked to so many people who can get onboard with God, just not His people and the church. This is a problem. A deep one. And one we need to deeply consider our part in enabling it within the church.

The problem with complacency 

I get it, I grew up with people who are leaving the church in droves due to destructive, pharisaical ideologies and even false-gospels. But you can’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. 

When you swing the other direction it’s easy to be very tolerant of sin and become complacent in your walk with God. You’re either living for you, or for God. There is no in-between, you are either walking in a life towards God or not.

This isn’t to say that you’re living a completely perfect walk with God, we all know that’s impossible. But we can’t believe the lie that we can have a “little bit of Jesus”, an amount of Jesus that we’re comfortable with in our life.

Hope of the righteous vs. expectation of the wicked

But why does God ask us to do this? It’s because He knows that this radical love for Him to transform your entire life, not just part of it, is necessary to have a relationship with Him. And He designed you to have that relationship, it’s what your heart has always been longing for. What will give you hope and lasting joy. He doesn’t ask us to do something that He didn’t think was the absolute best for us.

Proverbs 11:28 says, “He who trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will flourish like the green leaf.” When we trust in anything other than God, we will eventually fall. But what will give us life is choosing to trust Him instead. To trust in His righteousness, not our own. 

Proverbs 10:28 describes the difference between the righteous and wicked, “The hope of the righteous is gladness, but the expectation of the wicked perishes.” The word “hope” in Hebrew is tocheleth, which means to wait expectantly. I speak on hope in this blog here if you want to learn more. There is present salvation and eternal future that we can hope in as Christians. That hope isn’t dependent on any of our goodness, which means we can’t ever do anything to make it go away. It’s dependent on God’s righteousness.

But the hope of the wicked (those who aren’t pursuing God), doesn’t end in that assurance. It doesn’t end in a life with God, but apart from Him. And since God is the source of all love, truth and holiness, that is a very dark place. Interestingly, the word “expectation” here is another word for hope, the Hebrew translation is tiqvah. The meanings of both Hebrew words tocheleth and tiqvah are extremely similar. They both refer to not wishful thinking but a confident assurance that something will happen. Historically, it was used in a covenantal sense. 

What does this mean? We all hope for something. We all put our trust in some type of assurance, no matter our view of God.

Our choice in life

The point is, we all have a choice in how we live our lives and are accountable for the path we decide to go on. No matter who you are or where you come from, the choice to seek wisdom is all yours.

Our lives don’t go aimlessly in no particular direction, we are all tugged along by some ultimate love in our life. If it’s God, our love for Him will draw us towards Him. If it’s anything other than God, we’ll be dragged along by them with their empty promises. This leads us away from God. 

This Proverbs study is a mere dusting of the magnitude of the treasure of His wisdom. So, explore it for yourself. Dig into historical contexts for verses you’re questioning, ask other people who are wiser than you to help you in your journey. And above all else, prayerfully approach your quest for truth. Because as we’ve learned, “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7).

Proverbs study: acquiring wisdom

In last week’s blog, we covered what it looks like to seek wisdom. But what happens when you find it? What are we supposed to do with it? 

Proverbs 4:5-7 speaks about this as acquiring wisdom, “Acquire wisdom! Acquire understanding! Do not forget nor turn away from the words of my mouth. Do not forsake her, and she will guard you; love her, and she will watch over you. The beginning of wisdom is: acquire wisdom; and with all your acquiring, get understanding.”

Defining ‘acquire’

The word ‘acquire’ doesn’t simply mean to attain something. It refers to a specific acquisition of a possession or property that has value. In the times when this was written, property was considered a monument of wealth, indicating prosperity and social status.

The word basically means owning a valuable asset. Think of the last time you bought something that was valuable. Did you invest in insurance for it, or protect it in any way? Likely, you did.

When we attain a valuable asset, we invest in them. We protect them and expect a return on them based on their value. It may be monetary, personal enjoyment or something else. Either way, you expect something in return. 

Proverbs 2:1 describes it another way, “My son, if you will receive my words and treasure my commandments within you.” We treasure this asset. 

When you treasure something, you love it. You protect it. You make sure nothing compromises it. When you receive wisdom, then you will “discern the fear of the Lord and discover the knowledge of God” (Proverbs 2:5).

Fear and knowledge of God go together. If you fear Him, you revere Him and therefore know and understand His character of being both good and all powerful. And the more you know God the more you grow in His knowledge. 

When this happens, just get ready.

Suddenly, your view of everything else will change. The world will start to infiltrate with color in our previous black and white vision. God’s wisdom brings life and light into all else.

I’ve talked a lot about how we can’t just seek the idea of God, or our version of who we think He should be. But rather we need to seek Himself based on who He says He is. So with this knowledge of Him we are better able to see what His characteristics are based on how He defines Himself (Proverbs 2:9). 

Forsaking vs. ignoring wisdom

Proverbs 4:5-7 outlines for us to not forsake or ignore wisdom. 

The word forsake is ‘azab’ in Hebrew; it means to abandon, leave or reject. Someone will see wisdom, but won’t want any part of it. This can either be a physical abandonment, such as leaving God and the church altogether. Or it could be an emotional one, where you are mentally checked out. Your priorities in life have already shifted, and for whatever reason, knowing God is an idea to you that you’ve abandoned.

Whereas the word ignore is ‘shaqah’ in Hebrew means turn away or neglect. You stop paying attention to wisdom, your focus is elsewhere. If you neglect your pursuit of wisdom, you’ll easily let it be forgotten in your life. Absent from your life, it will be replaced with something else. This one I think is trickier since you’re not outright denying it, you’re just silently letting wisdom drift into the background. You haven’t necessarily rejected the idea of God, but you aren’t actively pursuing Him either. You live your life moderately as a Christian, going to church when you can, but you don’t pursue a relationship or knowledge of Him. 

Neglecting wisdom can also take a different shape, where it appears that you’re pursuing wisdom but you aren’t. You’re pursuing your version of who God is and you’re ignoring His actual character. You’ve made your own gospel. This could hurt many people along the way. Particularly if you’re loudly proclaiming Christianity while spinning up your own version, misusing and even abusing the gospel. In this example, you’ve made it about yourself and not God. 

Wisdom is accessible

In the first chapter of Proverbs, it visualizes wisdom as a woman calling in the streets. At every corner, she shouts. Wisdom is accessible, we just don’t try or want to try to look for her. It’s easier to abandon wisdom altogether for a more comfortable option where we feel more in control. 

We may feel as though God’s wisdom is hidden, but far from it. Godly wisdom warns us at every corner of the street (Proverbs 1:20). 

What ways do we think we’re pursuing knowing God, but instead pursue our own idea of Him? When we do this, we neglect or ignore wisdom altogether.

Proverbs study: seeking knowledge

We all want to have wisdom, but how do we tangibly seek it? Since God is the author of wisdom, to know Him is to know wisdom. If we seek wisdom apart from Him, we’ll find something else entirely. The Proverbs describe anything other than Godly wisdom as foolishness or evil. Solomon packs an insane amount of gold nuggets into Proverbs to help seek wisdom:

• Fear God first and foremost

• Value knowing Him above all

• Don’t pursue evil

Let’s break it down one by one. 

Fear God first and foremost

It all starts with fearing God. Knowing and fearing Him go hand in hand. Proverbs 1:7 says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.” 

For some, when you hear “fear God”, it elicits a negative feeling. Before you run off, there’s two types of fears: 1) terror or 2) reverent or awe sense. If you believe God to be a powerful God but not a loving God, you’ll likely have a fear of Him in the terror sense. You probably won’t want to get to know Him - or His wisdom for that matter.

It’s only when we’re able to know God for who He is, both all-loving and all-powerful God, that we are able to fear Him in the awe sense. He pursued us first. When we love Him back, we are returning His first call to us. We did nothing to be worthy of His love. All the wooing moves were on Him. 

And since God is the Creator of everything, He is also the Creator of knowledge and wisdom. And the deeper our relationship grows with Him, the greater we’ll subsequently grow in His wisdom. 

Fearing Him means you fear Him above anything else in your life. He can’t be second place. Think about it, every human fears one thing the most in their life. And it drives everything in our lives. It impacts how we view ourselves, others and how we interact with the world.

If we fear money, success or the opinion of others - to name a few - more than God, then we won’t be fearing Him. We’ll just be appreciating Him from the side with our façade view of Him. 

Then you will walk in your way securely and your foot will not stumble. When you lie down, you will not be afraid; when you lie down, your sleep will be sweet. Do not be afraid of sudden fear nor of the onslaught of the wicked when it comes; for the Lord will be your confidence and will keep your foot from being caught. - Proverbs 3:23-26

I have a whole blog where I talk on what the fear of God means (linked here) if you want to dive deeper into this subject. 

Value knowing Him above all

We don’t always prioritize God above everything in our lives, even if we fear Him. We’re often tugged away looking at other things that we find value in. We find value in other very good things, like being a great parent or friend, making a difference in the world or excelling at our career. But the moment we start to value it more than God, our fears shift along with it towards those other things. As Christians, God has to be more important to us than anything else in our life. 

This is, of course, easier said than done. 

Proverbs put it like this in 3:13-15: “How blessed is the man who finds wisdom and the man who gains understanding. For her profit is better than the profit of silver and her gain better than fine gold. She is more precious than jewels; and nothing you desire compares with her.” 

In the times when this was written, gold and precious jewels were equated with great wealth and a sign of success in life. It was the equivalent to having a great life, perfect job, family and community. That’s what we all want in life, right? We want a comfortable life where we can be happy and successful in whatever way that means to each of us.

This is what the Proverbs is getting at. We need to value knowing God greater than our other (often good) desires. That’s a hard pill to swallow. And if we’re really honest with ourselves, I’m not sure how many of us could honestly say that we desire knowing God more than anything else.

God doesn’t ask us to be the most important thing in our life in order to punish us or make us turn down a better life. God knows that He is what your soul is designed to love, where you’ll receive true satisfaction and contentment. He designed you to love Him, so of course He wants you to love Him. He wants the very best for you, so why wouldn’t He want you to choose the best option? Anything else aside from Him doesn’t compare to the riches of His glory, “nothing you desire compares with her (wisdom)” (Proverbs 3:15). 

Verse 16 goes on to say, “Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor.” Riches and honor don’t refer to earthly riches but eternal ones. Our time on earth is spent investing in heavenly riches only found in God, to be one day called to beautiful fruition and produce unfathomable dividends. Nothing to compare to any good, temperamental joys this world could muster.

Don’t pursue evil

We’ll draw this point out in other blogs, but the Proverbs is brim-filled with verses warning against the pursuit of evil. To name a few:

Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and turn away from evil. - Proverbs 3:7

Do not turn to the right nor to the left; turn your foot from evil. - Proverbs 4:27

A wise man is cautious and turns away from evil, but a fool is arrogant and careless. - Proverbs 14:16 

The translation for “turn away” in all three verses uses the same Hebrew word: sur. Which means to turn away, turn from or leave. It’s traditionally used in the context of leaving a path of life. These verses are calling us to physically turn away from evil and to walk away from it. 

In order to pursue wisdom, we can’t also pursue evil - that is, anything apart from God. We deceive ourselves if we believe that we can both seek a life for ourselves and a life for God. You either choose God or you don’t there is no in-between. 

What ways do we find ourselves living a double-life, one for ourselves and one for God? If you truly want to seek Him, He wants all of you. Not part of you. I would encourage you to reflect on what areas you’re afraid to give Him.

Proverbs study: why seek wisdom?

Where does wisdom come from? How is it associated with knowing God? And how is it supposed to affect my everyday life? We’re going to unpack each of those questions through this new study where we’ll scour the Proverbs. 

First, we’ll set the scene for how this book came to be. Proverbs was written by King Solomon. He reverently and humbly pleaded to God for wisdom so that he could properly rule the people in his kingdom (2 Chronicles 1:10). And God answered. In fact, He rewarded Solomon with the most wisdom He’s ever given to any person. Ever. Solomon was the wisest person to live and who will ever live here on earth. Talk about an answer to prayers!

That didn’t mean Solomon never made mistakes. He ended up making quite a lot of them actually. So, he wrote a letter to his sons and the next generations so that they could learn from his mistakes. He wanted to impart the wisdom that God had given him.

This is why the Proverbs is so complicated sometimes. It goes over our heads. And we misconstrue it a lot. But there are a lot of things that we can learn from it. It’s a treasure trove of nuggets for how to tangibly live a Christian life. How to be like God, how to be wise. 

Truth in kindness

Since wisdom comes from an all-loving God, it’s nothing like our wisdom on earth. When we think of someone who is super knowledgeable, we don’t usually think of them as being kind people. Not to say that they couldn’t be, but that they aren’t often associated together. Not so with Godly wisdom.

Proverbs 3 says not to forget wisdom and then in verse 3, “do not let kindness and truth leave you”. Both kindness and truth are used together to describe wisdom. This would only make sense if you were talking about wisdom coming from an all-loving God. If God was simply a powerful force alone, there would be no mention of kindness. This chapter continually reminds the reader to “never leave” wisdom and to be constantly seeking it.

Why? Because it’s so easy to want to live our own lives, do what we want and not consider God at all. It’s nice to consider His gifts and answered prayers, but when it comes to seeking Him for counsel in our life, it’s far more difficult.

Acknowledge God

Because in order to seek God’s wisdom, we must reconcile that we need Him and that there is no wisdom in us apart from Him. Easier said than done, right? 

That’s incredibly humbling and definitely not our automatic response. Proverbs 3:5 says to “lean not on your own understanding” but rather trust in the Lord.

Not only that but to, “acknowledge Him in all your ways” (verse 6). All your ways. Not some of your ways that you’re willing to give up control over. This verse is saying that you need to acknowledge God for who He is, an all-loving, all-good, all-powerful King and Creator over all of existence. That of course includes your life.

This acknowledgment means that you live your life reflecting that truth. Acknowledging means you’re recognizing someone for who they are. You’re recognizing God for who He says He is. And if you recognize Him for who He is, that means you’re His creation.

It’s easy to miss the basics. We brush through, “yeah, I know who God is”. Okay, but do you? Do you really live your life acknowledging who He is? Do you see Him as He says He is? Do you see Him as good and live your life thanking and glorifying Him for what He’s done for you? Does this drive you to want to get to know Him more and prioritize it accordingly in your day-to-day life? When life falls apart, do you run to Him first? Do you fall at His feet and give Him your worries while also acknowledging that He is still good, even in this? Or does He come later, when you’ve “calmed down” and you’re ready to face Him again feeling angry or maybe ashamed? 

Now, listen. It’s not that seeking other people’s comfort and advice is a bad thing. But as a Christian, God should be our fall-back. The one we go to for our truest, most vulnerable emotions. Because He’s the safest person to handle absolutely everything.

Your family and community is crucial too, but they can’t be your primary support. Otherwise, in our human imperfections, they will fail you eventually. And if you’re relying on them primarily, it will sink you. As much as they want to love us perfectly, they don’t have the capacity to. Only God can. 

So we seek and acknowledge God first for everything in our life. And we see that we have no good apart from Him. It’s only then that we are able to extend that same loving and kind grace to others around us. No matter if they’re deserving of it or not. Because we know that we certainly weren’t.

And if we’re seeking God, we’re seeking His wisdom. More on that next week.

The one thing that matters

We live in a world where everything matters and yet nothing seems to. Everything around us points us to their version of the most important thing. ‘Always prioritize this, while always doing that, but never forget this other thing’. As a Christian, all this noise is blurred into the background. All that really matters for us is who God is.

In fact, we can boil down the meaning of the gospel to a simple truth: God is good and and just. Believing this truth is the real, honest struggle with being a Christian. But it’s this core belief that centralizes our relationship with God.

When we don’t believe God is good, things start falling apart internally. We can’t worship a God who we don’t think is good, so we either stop pretending and drift from God completely or we “go through the motions” and never confront our feelings. But we’re hard-wired to worship. And no one worships nothing at all. When we don’t worship God, we just find something else to direct our worship and admiration towards.

When this happens, we prioritize God less in our life. Why should we learn about or devote too much time towards a God who isn’t good? We may out of habit or obligation read our Bible and check it off our list. But we don’t feel moved by Him. Why should we, when we don’t think He’s good?

It goes without saying that this will eventually compromise our love for Him too. Since we love Him based on our definition of what “good” means, it’s transactional for us. If He doesn’t fill the requirements we’ve set for Him, our love stops all transactions. And if we get to this point, our primary love of God no longer shapes how we love others.

You see, loving God doesn’t mean you only love God and nothing or no one else. On the contrary, our love for God supplies us with love for others. But in order to love others, we have to find love within us from somewhere. And if that place doesn’t come from God, it won’t last. In fact, anyone else you try to source your love from will continually fail you. No one will be able to measure up to your standard of goodness, not even yourself. 

What if you did trust that God was good? The only way you could truly do this is by entrusting Him with defining what “good”, “just”, “holy” and all His other qualities mean. 

God’s goodness isn’t compromised when He does something we don’t understand. 

Sound crazy to believe in a God we can’t fully understand? I know, I get it. But what would sound even crazier is worshipping a God with the same level of knowledge and discernment as you. There wouldn’t be much more of Him to figure out. 

This is where rubber meets the road with anyone contemplating whether or not they really want to be a Christian or just do “Christianly things”. This is why no matter how eloquent the Gospel is presented to you, it wouldn’t make sense to you without the Holy Spirit. There’s nothing I nor anyone else could say that would make you satisfied with understanding God’s character. It takes the Holy Spirit to allow you to know and love God. 

“So”, you say, “why isn’t He showing me right now?” I would ask you, how do you know He’s not and you’re just not looking for Him? I’m not sure of your unique life position right now and it would be silly of me to presume anything. But I do know that God is always faithful. He is always pursuing you. Whether or not you see Him is up to you. I don’t know what may be holding you back, if anything at all. But we’ve got to slide across the table the thing we’re too scared to lose and seek God for who He says He is. And only then will we be able to see Him across the table, there all along. 

Your definition of good doesn’t determine God’s holiness. Just like your lack of seeking God doesn’t change the fact that He’s never stopped pursuing you. 

So, the simplicity of the gospel is really that simple. It starts with God. And our view of Him transforms our identity and therefore how we live our lives and treat others. While simple, it’s far from easy to live out. It’s why community is critical, to encourage and challenge us when it gets hard. It’s why going to God daily needs to be our life-line. Because our struggle on earth is very real and legitimate. There’s things we all fight on a daily basis that are sometimes excruciatingly difficult.

But God never changes. He is always there for us. As we get up and fall down again, He waits, longingly to be gracious towards us. I’ll end with one of my favorite verses, Isaiah 30:18:

Therefore the Lord longs to be gracious to you, and therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you. For the Lord is a God of justice; how blessed are all those who long for Him.

What does hope really mean?

The phrase “Love, hope & joy” decorates many homes, particularly in the South. But these rich characteristics are lost when diminished to only loosely described concepts. Those in the modern day church frequently slap it into conversation in an end-all-be-all comfort to “just have hope in God”.

And usually it’s left just at that. It leaves everyone involved wondering what that hope really means and how it’s supposed to be life-changing. Because if we’re honest with ourselves, many of us would say we hope in God. But I’m not sure how many of us actually think about what those words really mean.

In day-to-day life, we use the word ‘hope’ in a wishful way. “I hope to win the game” or “Hopefully it doesn’t come to that”. We have a desire but we aren’t certain in it, and definitely not confident. In fact, we’ll use the word as a sort of safety net. We may say, “I hope I can call you later” so that if we don’t remember to call that person we’ve covered ourselves with the intention but not promise to follow through. This is interestingly indicative of our increasingly non-committal society in America. 

Biblical hope is different from what the word has morphed into today. And we miss the true meaning of hope when we apply how we use it today. 

In 1 Peter 1:13, Peter describes Biblical hope: “Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

The word “hope” here in Hebrew is elpis (ἐλπίς)”. It means to confide in the assurance of God expectantly. When we hope in God, we are expecting Him to be good because He’s promised it. And no matter what circumstance you find yourself in, God can be trusted and confided in and be your refuge for your future as well as your present.

Instead of the non-committal use of the word today, Biblical hope is something we entrust our whole life in. And hope is active. When you expectantly wait, you’re preparing for it.

A few years ago, Sunny and I got married. The wedding planning process was a lot. When I was engaged, I had a clear goal ahead of me. Something to prepare for. I knew what I wanted to get done, so I made millions of lists, parsing things down to monthly, weekly and daily goals. Before I was engaged, I certainly had dreams and thoughts of what my wedding would one day look like. But, I wasn’t actively planning it.

There is a shift in our mindset when we know for sure something is going to happen. Oh, that ‘blessed’ wedding countdown. When we can anticipate that in 8 months, 25 days, 13 hours and 21 minutes, it’s game time.

When you’re a Christian, you’re essentially engaged to be married. You aren’t blissfully dreaming of when you’ll “one day get married”. You’re planning a wedding. Living your life in preparation for that final day you’ll be fully united with God, your Groom. So, you prioritize your days coming up to the wedding in getting yourself ready for it. And like a bride wouldn’t put off ordering the caterer, booking the venue or purchasing her dress, so we need to be goal-oriented in our relationship with God. We aren’t here on earth for no reason. 

The Bible has a much better example than mine in Matthew 25:1-15, the parable of the 10 virgins. All waiting for their groom. They didn’t know when he would come. Five were prepared, they hoped expectantly. The other five were not prepared. So when the groom was ready, only the five who were prepared went with him.

Do we live our life as if we’re not engaged, and think of being with God as merely a blissful idea and probability? Or do we live our lives like an organized bride, planning in expectant hope for her wedding day?

There’s so much more that can be said on what it means to wait expectantly for God’s goodness, but that will have to come on another day, in another blog.  

The fruit we bear

No matter who you or what you believe in, we are all growing into something. Every day, we make choices in our life that impact what we ultimately grow into. From a Christian perspective, we grow into what God has planted within us from the very beginning, our identity in Him as His sons and daughters. Or, we can let that seed wither and grow something else in our garden. The choice is ours. 

And anything we grow outside of what God intended won’t really give us what we want. It won’t last. If it’s sweet, it will eventually turn sour. If it’s vibrant, it will quickly fade. 

Let’s say you’re a Gardener. And you’re responsible for what grows in your garden. Every garden has basic needs to flourish - plenty of water, access to sunlight and lots of weeding. Under this thoughtful care, the seed will grow tall and strong in its thriving environment.

But let’s say you do the opposite: you completely ignore it. The ground will get infiltrated with rocks and other objects, sucking away all the soil-enriching nutrients. The garden will be left to the wills of its own environment, so weeds thickly spring up in its place.

Instead of grabbing a pair of tough gloves and carefully removing all the weeds, you still water your garden. But now, what’s the problem? While your seed may be getting that water, you’ll also be watering the weeds. And while barely noticeable at first, they will slowly overtake your seedling.

In either scenario, you’ve neglected the weeds. 

Taking this out of the analogy, if you want to grow as a Christian, you must remove the weeds from your life before they overtake your life. If we aren’t vigilant, our life will veer further and further from God. 

It’s incredibly easy to live an apathetic life and to lose your focus on God. In our Christian life, there’s no drifting or coasting. If we start to coast or go on auto-pilot, our own desires will take over. Because we simply don’t automatically choose God. You may still do things like go to church, have Christian friends and read the Bible every once in a while. But if God isn’t your focus, you’ll do those things out of obligation and not out of love for Him. 

If you’re honest with yourself, are you compelled by His character? Or has He become quite bland to you or even unattractive? You may have been avoiding to ask yourself those deep, hard questions of coming to grips with your relationship with God. But if you never confront them, you’ll grow anyway. You’ll just grow away from God. And your church-going, Bible reading, ad-hoc prayers will be nothing more to you than following a habitual norm you’ve set for yourself.

So your garden will grow other things. And you may not even notice that the seed God gave you has already been smothered by the weeds coiled around it. You’re busy tending to other things. 

Or perhaps you aren’t apathetic at all. Maybe you love the idea of God in your life. Your life looks very similar to that of a Christian, but you lack a real genuine love for God. In your garden, you may have gone to the store and purchased other seeds that looked like the one God gave you and planted them instead. You believe that your version of God and the gospel is better than God Himself.

So, you do all the Christianly things, but very different fruit bursts through your soil. You may have convinced yourself that your knowledge of God is better than others, so you look down on them. Judge them even. You serve God at church, in your home and at work. But you do it so you feel better about yourself, not out of a genuine desire to love and please God.

You are so content in your spiritual status that you are blinded to the garden you are tending. But you water away, growing stronger and stronger in your spiritually empty garden. 

Regardless of the garden we grow, we are always watering something. And what we water gives it growth in our lives. And eventually, the fruit we bear grows up.

What are you watering in your garden?

Waiting on God’s goodness

I wait for the Lord, my soul does wait, and in His word do I hope. - Psalm 130:5

For from days of old they have not heard or perceived by ear, nor has the eye seen a God besides You, who acts in behalf of the one who waits for Him. - Isaiah 64:4

Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him; do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who carries out wicked schemes. - Psalm 37:7

I wait for the Lord, my soul does wait, and in His word do I hope. - Psalm 130:5

I could list many more verses. Needless to say, the Bible is peppered with reminders to wait on the Lord. But what are we waiting for exactly? 

We wait for the Lord to be who He says He is, we’re waiting for Him to be good. Now of course, He is good to begin with. It’s not as if we’re waiting for Him to fulfill His character. His character is intact regardless if we see or acknowledge it.

When we wait for God to be good, we’re waiting to see His goodness. To have a first-hand account of it. 

Okay, if God is already good and we just have to see His goodness, why do we have to wait? And why is it so hard? I’ll start by saying that we live in a fallen world, run by sin. We’re wrapped in many things while here on earth. Instead of seeing our life as a vessel for God’s love, an extension to be used by Him for His purpose, we get roped into living a very individualistic life (particularly in the United States). And we get wrapped up in the good things God gave us here on earth. Work, family, hobbies, health, etc. All good things. But they often get shifted in importance. 

I’m slowly building to my point, I hope you stay with me.

It all goes back to our primary loves. If we love God primarily, He will be our primary source of love, joy and contentment. Out of the strength we receive from Him, we build our life, family, work. Since our love isn’t sourced from within ourselves or the things around us, when those things go up or down, our strength remains steady in God’s never-changing love. 

The more we attune our hearts to His, the more we see His goodness. The more centered God is in our life, the more we will wait and see God’s goodness. 

We need to be still to see His goodness. We have to stop ourselves for a moment. Think of when you tell someone to be still, either your child, dog or rowdy coworker (jk?). Why do you tell them to be still? Because they are usually missing something, distracted by something else going around them. You want them to settle down and pay attention to what you need them to see. That’s what God is doing with us. He is basically saying, “I am already here. I am already good. You just need to slow down and see it.” But in order to see it, we must remove the distractions around us. 

What are those distractions? Usually, it’s us. Our own expectations. You see, we already have an idea of what “good” means. Good means, a specific raise, a specific outcome you’re wanting to have in a relationship with your partner, family member or friend. It means getting a baby. Getting married to that person. Moving to that home. Being happy.

We already have preconceived ideas of what it means for God to be good. So, when we are “waiting for God”, we aren’t waiting for Him to be good in the definition He creates. We are waiting for God to be good in the way we define it.

And think about it. From a human perspective, “good” is subjective. ‘Good’ to a Hitler is very different from Mother Teresa's definition. And on a more relatable comparison, a good job to you may be a job from hell to someone else. A good time to have a baby may be someone else’ worst nightmare.

Who are we to say what is good when the Creator who made us defined it Himself? And since He is God, we can’t fully understand Him. Which is what makes waiting so hard. We wait in anguish most times. But we put our hope in the One who will never change. 

As children, we believed that candy was always a good idea. From our little perspective, this was a non-negotiable fact. But from our parent(s) perspective, they knew better. They saw the long-term, global perspective. That good food would be good for your body and too much bad food is bad for your body. On a much, much larger scale, God has that global, eternal perspective that we cannot understand right now. 

So we wait for Him, even if we don’t understand what He is doing. If we wait for other things than God to be good, they will always drain us. We can be fully confident that God will give us exactly what is good. What is good for His kingdom, what is perfectly good for you from an eternal perspective, not an earthly one.

Yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary. - Isaiah 40:31

Where do you find your identity?

Your very identity starts with God. I know, that’s not a very attractive thing to say. We like our identities to be about our unique selves. But we can’t begin to know ourselves truly without knowing who created us. 

Your view of God may fit into one of the following categories:

1. God is not fully good and loving but He is all powerful

2. God is fully good and loving but He is not all powerful

3. God is fully good and loving and all powerful

Each of these perspectives informs how you identify yourself. I’ll explain, starting out with the viewpoint for #1.

• God is not fully good and loving but He is all powerful

  If you view God as an all-powerful being but not fully good and loving, He may seem more of a dictator to you. And most likely, you won’t believe Him to be someone you can or would want to have a relationship with. And, why would you? You may respect His authority but you won’t have any desire to further investigate His character. If you see Him as devoid of love, all that power must be very scary. 

  So, you’ll live your life fearing God in a terror sense. You may even follow Him and even identify as a Christian, but out of a sense of obligation in order to be on good terms with Him. Anytime you hear how He is supposed to be good, you never understand. From your perspective, He doesn’t seem very loving or good at all. 
  

  You live in a world where you know God rules over everything, you’ve given up that control to Him (albeit begrudgingly). But you and all His creation individually manage the moral standards for life. It wouldn’t seem right to you for a loveless God to have that role. 
  

  How does this affect your identity? Since you assign yourself the moral standards of what is good and bad, your identity shrinks or expands based on those measures. Your identity remains intact so long as you believe you are “good enough” according to the definition you’ve settled with consciously or subconsciously. And conversely, if you fail those standards, your life and identity begin to crumble beneath you.  

• God is fully good and loving but He is not all powerful

  If you view Him as a loving God but lacking in power and authority, He may not seem like a God at all to you. Probably more like a genie in the sky who gives out good gifts every now and then. Therefore, you don’t fear Him at all, either in the terror or reverent sense (see Understanding the fear of God blog). Therefore, you shift your fear to something or someone else.

  You may have a relationship with God and feel good about the comfort of His loving words in scriptures. But when push comes to shove, you don’t see Him as really being in control. You feel you know what is better for you, if not the world around you. Your relationship with God becomes more of a helpful assistance to your already steered ship. And the relationship here tends to be transactional and not really loving at all. 
  

  This will then leave you feeling stressed and worried when you’re unable to control your life. You’ll feel perplexed because you may feel as though you depend on God, but in practice you hold tightly to everything in your life. The last thing you want to do is give away that control. So your identity roots itself in how well you control your life. You believe that as long as you follow what you believe is the right thing to do, life should go well for you. But when it doesn’t, you’re a wreck.

• God is fully good and loving and all powerful

  If you view God as His full character, as fully loving and good as well as all powerful, you view Him as your Father.

  Side note, I know parent relationships can be very painful to discuss. If viewing God as a father is difficult for you, please read how I describe the relationship and less of the title itself. I hope this helps.

  This parental relationship looks completely different than the two scenarios described above. It changes everything when God is all powerful and all loving, with an active desire to have a relationship. Now your relationship with Him isn’t transactional. It doesn’t depend on your level of goodness or control, it’s an unconditional one dependent on God. Unconditional love can only come from God who is the only fully good and loving one in the relationship.

  This also means you’ll have a fear of God in the refereeing sense. Your love for Him will come out of the love that He first gave you -  the you’re responding to. 

  If your identity is wrapped up in this type of relationship, it isn’t dependent on anything you do at all. It’s not an identity we’ve conjured up ourselves, it’s defined by God. And given to us, freely. There is no leaving that identity, nothing can ever take it away from us. As a Christian, that is an identity that we can rest in with all peace and assurance. Because as God never changes, His Words always stand. And He will always be our King as well as our Father. No matter what we do.

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“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” - Romans 8:38-39

In each of these examples, you find your identity in someone or something. Just because you believe in God, doesn’t mean you automatically find your identity in Him. Your view of Him directly correlates to how you view yourself. 

Where is your identity settled in?