Go, I Dare You!

In Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s book, The Cost of Discipleship, he writes of the Catholic Church’s attempt to preserve the rigors of Christianity through monasticism.  The practice of monasticism though, set two standards for the church, the maximum a person could achieve (the monks) and the minimum (the laity).  In speaking of Luther, he went on to imply that for Luther, the rigors of monasticism were not enough.  He writes, ”Luther had to leave the cloister and go back in the world, not because the world in itself was good and holy, but because even the cloister was only part of the world.”

Furthermore, Bonhoeffer writes, “The only way to follow Jesus was by living in the world.  Hitherto the Christian life had been the achievement of a few choice spirits under the exceptionally favorable conditions of monasticism; now it is a duty laid on every Christian living in the world.”

You have to wonder, how closely some of our Christian lives are to monasticism.  We live in a “Christian” world because we surround ourselves with Christians only.  We go to church, send our kids to Christian school, and only hang out with our Christian friends.  Like Luther, it’s time to leave our cloisters and go back into the world – not to live like to world or look like the world, but to follow Jesus as he takes us there.  The call to go back in the world is likely to cost us everything we have and everything we are — not because we give it up as a monk would do, but because we yield it ALL for his purposes.  This is the call for every disciple, every follower, for every one who confesses Christ as Lord.  We are the light of the world and whether we use a basket or a spotlight, we should not hide our light.

This world needs what I have…what you have.

When we shine brightly or live our faith out loud, it not only attracts those non-believers who seek God, but also encourages active believers.  This type of life strengthens the bonds between the believers, building a camaraderie that leads to a life that shines even brighter — proving that close relationships with other believers can draw us closer to God.

These precious friendships suffer attack, from both the busyness of our world and from our true enemy.  Battle against the busyness that keeps us from these types of friends begins by recognizing them as vital and not optional.  Spiritual friendships draw us closer to God, unite us in spiritual causes, and provide a support structure that can withstand tragedy — as such they become weapons for spiritual offense and part of our protection against spiritual attack.  Battle against our true enemy means being vigilant against the types of behaviors that can split friendships, such as gossip, misunderstandings, unforgiveness, and jealousy.

To recap — shining brightly helps us, our spiritual friends, unbelievers who seek God, and most importantly, bring glory to God.  We shine bright, not with our own willpower, but by spending time with God.  Willpower alone results in that revolting fake plastic shallow Christian image that repels God-seekers.  Willpower alone results in self-righteousness.  Spending time with God results in life transformation and an overflowing of light that emanates from God.  It results in Christ’s righteousness.

God directs us to shine for a purpose beyond our own desire to be remembered.  He directs us to shine brightly for a few reasons, first and foremost because this is his plan for reaching the world.  Our compassion, our works, and our impact reflects the goodness of God’s heart.

Like the shining city on a hill, we attract true light-seekers… truth-seekers… God-seekers.  We aren’t attractive when we portray the plastic, practiced image of shallow Christianity that resembles something akin to Stepford Wives, but when we demonstrate the genuine transformation of our lives, a demonstration that is inexplicable outside the hand of God.  Doctrine is important and as God’s ambassadors in a foreign land, we should be able to defend the beliefs of our faith, but it isn’t the study or explanation of doctrine that causes us to shine.  Just like Moses whose face shone after being in close proximity to God while on the mountain,  it’s the daily walk with God and the daily meditation on his word that causes us to shine.

Spending time with God causes us to overflow with his light.  When that happens we can’t help but shine brightly.

“Better to burn out than fade away.”  This miserable quote seems to make the most of our short lives.  It’s the type of quote that can inspire us to use our life for a good cause or, as in the case of Kurt Cobain, cut it short.  The quote stems from an either-or-perspective, like we have to choose between burning brightly for a short time or burning dimly for a long time.  But we do have another option.  We can burn brightly for a long time.

Jesus tells us that we are the light of the world and encourages us to shine brightly for the whole world to see.  The light we shine doesn’t bring glory to us, but to our Heavenly Father.  And it is good that it does so.  If it were to add to our own egos, our own glory, it would not be enough.  We find only temporary satisfaction from the approval of others.  We get it once and it’s like a drug we become dependent on, always needing more and more approval – soon like a junkie, we need approval just to feel normal.  Instead, our good deeds, shining like bright lights in a dark world bring glory to God.

As we get older our lights become even brighter.  God fuels our light, our power, and our fuel.  We don’t need to settle for a burn out or fade away trade-off.  We can burn brightly now and burn more brightly later.

World events testify to its brokenness.  Inequities, disasters, and injustices abound.  Though God created a good world, sin perverted its goodness.

This broken world cries out to its Creator and in response he has sent his warriors.  He has dared us to penetrate the darkness with his light.  The world’s brokenness moves God’s warriors. It moves them to action.  It also moves their emotions.  Somehow the warrior must process the sights and sounds of the world’s pain.  Warriors see the worst of sin’s toll on the world and they must reconcile what they see with what they believe.

There are two responses for the warrior:  he sees the world’s pain and he clings to God and he catches glimpses of God’s beauty and majesty and worships God.

God provides strength for warriors day by day to endure all they see.  Though they question, even though they doubt, they do so with a reverent respect for God and with an assurance that he has all things under his sovereign control.  His warrior faith gets him through difficult times.  God may allow the warrior’s heart to break for a cause – when the warrior sees human trafficking, world-wide poverty, the innocent suffering with diseases, and children starving – his heart will break.  In this way his heart reflects the heart of God.  The heart of the warrior breaks with the heart of God.

And yet, in this same broken world, warriors catch magnificent glimpses of the majesty of God’s workmanship – stars flung across the sky, the colorful striations of a desert canyon, misty green forests, the colorful and mysterious life in the sea, or the enchanting beauty of the sunset.  In the moment he sees some glorious beauty, his response is praise and worship.  This beauty is available to all and is not dependent on a person’s station in life.

Warriors have a deep connection to their God.  Whether beauty or pain, the warriors response is turned God-ward.

Discipline is a tricky practice.  It begins as a thing that is done to us, morphs into something we do to ourselves, then finally we are responsible to discipline others.  All for the hope of becoming… becoming thinner, more self-controlled, more skilled, or stronger.  Discipline is the path to transformation.  And it isn’t easy.

Great warriors never settle; great warriors improve.  Unsatisfied with their present state, they push forward toward a better vision of themselves…to a God vision of themselves.

God leaves a trail throughout history of calling things that are not as though they are.  He promised a nation to a barren, elderly couple.  He promised a great future to a imprisoned slave.  He referred to a fearful man as a “mighty warrior.”  He changed the name of a wishy-washy man to mean a rock.  He sent word that a virgin would conceive a son.  What has he promised you?

If you are a believer – if you are pressing in to know him better – he promises victory over death, love that defeats fear, peace in the midst of storm, joy unspeakable, and you have the privilege of carrying his Spirit in your fragile body!  That’s astounding!

It comes through discipline.  Focus on him – put aside the petty distractions and lean in to him.  Rely on his strength, his purpose, and his wisdom to get you to the destination.  There’s no power in the disciplines – they are merely the methods (like fasting and prayer) we use to draw us closer to God.  The power is in God.

God’s power and discipline transform you into the person he created you to be.  The world may have seen a barren elderly couple, but in Abraham and Sarah, God saw the entire nation of Israel and through them all the nations on earth are blessed.  The world may have forgotten Joseph, but God elevated him from an imprisoned slave to second in command of the greatest nation on the planet (at the time).   Looking at Gideon, the world might have assumed that he would always stay a fearful guy – the smallest of the small ones – but God transformed him into a mighty warrior.  Peter may have flip-flopped from being willing to die for Christ to denying him within the space of a few hours, but God changed him into a rock of a man who later willingly died for his Savior.  And Mary, a virgin, did conceive and brought forth a baby whose obedient death on a cross would satisfy the debt of all sin.

So, God by his very word created the world and all that is in the universe in just six days.  All this from nothing!  But by far the greater miracle is when a washed-up failure hands over the broken pieces of his life.  God takes that life – a life that may seem worthless to most but is rare and valuable to him – and he transforms it.  God takes the ashes of our burned out lives and transforms them into a beauty.

The warrior’s armor is enough to protect him from enemy attacks.  Humble warriors carefully use their armor, recognizing their complete dependence on God.  However, you give a warrior a few victories and because he’s human, clay, flesh and bone, his heart is lifted in pride.  Pride, arrogance, and carelessness make a warrior vulnerable.  The warrior disregards the use of God’s armor and leaves himself open to attack.

If the warrior is careful to walk the narrow path, to lean into God’s strength, there’s really very little fear of injury from external attack.  Now let’s clarify–just because he’s not likely to be injured doesn’t mean God has an easy chair and slippers for him.  The warrior is still engaged in battle, so the conditions aren’t necessarily comfortable, but his spirit is safe from attack.

Most warriors aren’t like that warrior.  Most of them are like the first.  They celebrate a few victories and then they allow themselves to go soft.  They trade vigilance for convenience, discipline for television, a balanced diet for fast food, time with God for sleep, and the armor of God for soft clothing.

Then it happens–first one wound, sometimes followed by a few more.  The warrior wonders, “What happened God?  Where did this hurt, bitterness, and anguish come from?  What happened to my peace and joy?”  He dropped God’s armor.

Examining the wound brings very little resolution.  Looking it over and picking the scab only result in magnifying his wound and his pain.  A warrior’s first aid is much simpler than real first aid.  Small kids in Sunday School get this answer at an early age.  These kids learn early that if they’re not sure of the right answer, they can just say, “Jesus,” and most of the time they’ve answered the question correctly.  Jesus is the only medicine warriors need in their spiritual first aid kit.  Focusing on their wound results in the focus being on the warrior and on his hurt.  But focusing on Jesus and moving towards him magnifies Jesus.  The warrior’s relationship to him brings healing and restoration.

Some warrior wounds also require the restoration of a relationship, like the marriage between a warrior and his warrior princess.  In these cases, God will provide direction and strength, from His Word, from prayer, or perhaps from a trusted advisor.  In other cases, the relationship or dependence should be severed, like when a warrior has sought the approval  or developed a close quarters relationship with a non-believer.  A warrior must be careful that his relationships with non-believers doesn’t put him in a vulnerable spot.  He should still seek out these relationships, that’s the point of battle — to rescue their souls.

God’s armor is available, ready for the warrior to pick up again.  There are victories in his future.  The scars he picked up in the battlefield bring valuable wisdom that is rarely learned in a classroom.  In the end, he is better off than before his hurt.

Warriors facing insurmountable odds often refer to themselves as David facing Goliath.  That picture of a small, young man facing a behemoth resonates with anyone who’s rooted for an underdog.  To be honest, I find myself drawn more to Gideon than David.  David was a small, young man with God-sized confidence, a confidence that doesn’t come naturally, a confidence that not many warriors truly know.   I don’t always feel that kind of confidence in the midst of battle, in the midst of moral decay, or in the midst of financial turbulence.  Most likely, David’s God-sized confidence developed from experiences we know little about – his encounters with a lion and a bear.  If David had doubts that were conquered with the destruction of the lion and the bear, we don’t really know.  We see him coming on the scene as just a scrawny, young teenager with a big heart and bigger courage.

Gideon lived long before David.  Who knows, but Gideon’s story may have even inspired young David.  Gideon was this crazy, victorious warrior that led a very small army successfully against a very large army – but he didn’t start this way.

The book of Judges tells the story of Gideon, but it begins by describing the scene around him.  Gideon lived in Israel years after Joshua led the Israelites to possess the land.  This should have been an amazing time of incredible blessing.  But the people of Israel began to live wickedly, rejecting their own God and worshipping idols instead.  For this reason, God sent the Midianites to oppress them.  In their oppression they cried out to God, suddenly remembering him again.

In our first glimpse of Gideon, he is crouching in a winepress threshing wheat in a place of hiding.  This picture does little to inspire confidence in his bravery or courage.  And yet the Angel of the Lord greets him by saying, Mighty warrior, God is with you!

His story follows with four different miracles God provides to grow his confidence and trust in God.

1. His sacrifice erupts in flames when the angel of the Lord touches it with his staff.
2. He leaves a fleece which is soaked in the morning but on dry ground.
3. He leaves a fleece which is dry in the morning, but on wet ground.
4. He overhears a man telling of a dream that depicts Gideon as victorious.

It wasn’t until the fourth miracle that we can see Gideon’s confidence soar.  His own strength buckles under the pressure several times.  God told him to tear down idolatrous alters and he does so in the middle of the night, so no one can see him.  When the townspeople tried to kill him for it, his dad speaks on his behalf.  This leaves you wondering if Gideon isn’t hiding in his room, afraid of the crowd.  Judges 6:34 says the Spirit of the Lord came on him and he sent a call to arms throughout Israelite tribes.  But it was after this event that he began to doubt God’s call on his life – when he asked God for the sign of the wet and then the dry fleece.

I understand Gideon.  I get his doubting and his uncertainty.  Like Gideon I want to ask God, did you really mean me?  I feel like the smallest of the small ones.  This work you called me to is too great for me.  But God dares us all to participate in this war.  Some cope by trying to pretend there is no war, but the enemy is stealing from us.  The enemy hurts children, families, and marriages.  He steals our peace, our joy, and our freedom.  Difficult as it might be to believe, God wants to use you in this ultimately victorious battle.  Just like Gideon, he’s called you to be his might warrior!

Like Gideon, many of us are sleeping, unaware of our call and our potential.  But the Lord is gently and persuasively waking us to his passion for the lost and the hurting.  Like Gideon who fought his battle with a message and a torch, we also carry the message and the light.  Regardless of the size of our enemy, we can take these words spoken by God to Gideon as our own, “Go with the strength you have and rescue Israel from the Midianites.  I am sending you,” and “I will be with you.  And you will destroy the Midianites as if you were fighting against one man.”

Through God, we can accomplish the work he sets before us.  We can set aptives free, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and provide hope for the hopeless.  Go with the strength you have.  God is sending you.  God will be with you.

God dares us to go, but the strength we need to accomplish his work comes from him.  We pour out what he gives us, but then we come back to him to get replenished.  We learn this secret from the greatest warrior of all, King of the angel armies, Jesus. 

Jesus frequently went to solitary places to commune with his Father.  And in several places we distinguish a pattern of Jesus retreating and then advancing.  He retreats to pray and then advances to choose his disciples.  He retreats to pray and then feeds the 5000.  He retreats to pray and then walks on water.  Jesus, the Son of God, felt need to retreat, to withdraw himself from the people who needed him, in order to refresh himself.  Are we so invincible we don’t need to regularly commune with the source of our strength? 

He dares us to go, and yet he invites us to come.  Go!  Do great things for God, but before you go and between your advances, rest and find your strength in him.  Imagine what great things he could pour into your life so you can have just what your neighbor, your brother, your spouse, and your child needs!

We waste our time and energy when we fight non-strategic battles. It’s even possible to destroy our own lifelines when we engage in foolish quarreling with those who sustain us—our spouses, our friends, our co-laborers in Christ. One way to avoid descending into pointless battles is to bear in mind just who our enemy is. And we have two.

Though many people see evil as nebulous force, according to Dr. Gilbert Bilezikian, Professor of Biblical Studies at Wheaton College, “the Scripture presents the reality of evil as intentional, organized, and personal.” He continues by saying, “where ever God is active…there is also the… reality of infiltration by evil at the very never center of human organization…” He goes on to describe that this enemy attacks human organizations such as marriages, families and governments. The Bible clearly describes our enemy and gives him several names—Satan, the evil one, the devil, and Lucifer. Though he disguises himself as an angel of light (1 Corinthians 11:14), his agenda is to steal, kill, and destroy.

Like a well-placed secret agent mole, the other enemy we fight is within; it is our own sinful selves. Scripture says our heart is deceitful and wicked. Our sinful selves hunger after evil. The influences we find in the world feed this hunger and are identified in advertisements everywhere, because these desires act in self-interest. They appeal to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Again, the advertisements aren’t our enemy, the world isn’t our enemy – it’s the influence our own sinful self allows—and the blame for allowing these influences to sway us lay in our own hearts.

We approach each of these enemies differently. Satan is not to be attacked directly. Jesus has already defeated him by his death and resurrection. Now Satan is going down, like the Titanic he is doomed. And he’s taking with him all those he can. Imagine if you would, that his Satan and his minions are on a sinking cruise ship like the Titanic, telling people about the enjoyable entertainments on board. Our job is to direct people to the life boats—toward their salvation. It’s always amazed me that so many of Titanic’s lifeboats were not used top capacity. But so many Believers act like that today, secure in the knowledge of their own salvation, they have no desire to share their saving knowledge with others. Can we truly consider ourselves Christ’s disciples if we don’t love people enough to tell them the good news? God loved the world…where is our love?

Though we don’t attack Satan directly, he will attack us. Our goal here is to stand firm, to withstand his attacks. Ephesians 6 tells us exactly how to do this, by describing the armor of God that protects us. He tells us to
1. Stand our ground
2. Put on the whole armor, including
a. Belt of truth
b. Body armor of righteousness (his righteousness)
c. Shoes of peace of the Good News
d. Shield of faith (to put out Satan’s hail of fiery darts)
e. Helmet of salvation and
f. Sword of the Spirit (Word of God) and
3. Pray.

You’ll notice that all the pieces of the armor were defensive except for the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. This is the same weapon wielded by Christ during his temptation by Satan in the wilderness. Three times Satan assaulted him with temptation and three times Christ responded by quoting Scripture. James 4:7 says that we are humble ourselves to God, and to resist the devil and he’ll flee from us. This is our strategy with the devil. We humble ourselves to our Commander. Then we fight the enemy by standing firm, protecting ourselves, praying, and resisting him.

Fighting our other enemy, our sinful selves, is also done mostly by God. He transforms our hearts. As we draw closer to him, we see that our desire for sinful things diminishes. This isn’t our doing – it is God’s doing. Our part in this fight is to be humble. Submit ourselves to our brothers and sisters in Christ. Submit ourselves to our spouse. Submit ourselves to spiritual leadership. And most important, submit ourselves to God’s influence in our lives.

We make a mistake when we think of people as enemies. People are capable of terrible evil. Some parents abuse their own children and even infants. Pushers profit by wrecking the lives and potential of users. Pimps buy and sell men and women, even small boys and girls. Adulterers destroy marriages and families. Terrorist kill the innocent for airtime. While humans are capable of committing these great crimes, they are mere puppets of our insidious enemy. These puppets, these pawns, have been deceived and held hostage by our true enemy, Satan. He and his demons are the true enemies and all those held hostage, whether the abused or the abuser, are the ones we ought to risk our lives to save. Jesus came to seek and save lost souls and we are to continue his work in our lives.

We especially do ourselves harm when we fight with our spouse. In fact, we are doing exactly what our true enemy wants. Our marriages connect us in partnership to do God’s work. The more time and energy we dedicate to bickering, the less we have for God’s purposes. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t confront our spouses, our friends, our brothers and sisters in Christ when we see something in their life that needs change. We should do that – but in love and in humility. When we fight more strategic battles, we’ll see a harvest as we save hostages from our true enemy—and we just might strengthen our marriages and friendships in the process.