Follow

“Come, follow me,” Jesus said…

Matthew 4:19 NIV

Are You A Follower?

The mushroom is an interesting plant.  It does not require sunshine; it can be found in dark corners under logs or tucked away beneath a shroud of leaves.  Mushrooms provide for the forest a critical function.  They fasten themselves to dead logs and gradually break them down, thus clearing the forest floor of stockpiling old wood.  Because the mushroom is a fungus, it sends out tiny spores that are too small to be seen by the naked eye.  These spores flit about upon the wind, having been found as high as thirty-five thousand feet, soaring about in the jet stream with commercial airliners.  When a spore lands upon some dead piece of plant material, it starts to grow, taking out of either a log or a fallen pile of leaves the nutrients it needs to thrive.  As we well know, although mushrooms are tasty on pizza and in spaghetti sauce, the wrong types of mushrooms when eaten can kill you.  Suppose you have a friend who is an expert on mushrooms and warns you not to eat a particular mushroom growing in your back yard.  You had plans for that mushroom and had hoped to add it to your salad.  How would you respond to her admonition?  Are you the sort to be offended by the directive to not eat the mushroom or would you be grateful for the correction?

The other day I was in a church service when a college student gave her thoughts about what her church should do to stay relevant in an ever changing society.  She shared her concern that if young adults are going to be a part of churches, they want be free of judgment and condemnation.  Of course I can’t think of too many of us who want to be criticized for our behavior; we all like to get a pat on the back and be affirmed.  Yet, should the church metaphorically chop out the rules and commands in the Bible that many find incomprehensible or even reprehensible to keep everyone happy?  What are we to do with all the “thou shalt nots” and “thou shalts” found in the Bible?  Is God too restrictive for our generation or those who follow?

The student, during her presentation on what the church must do to stay relevant and inviting, made as the centerpiece of her talk the contention that her church must be all about love.  Without love being exhibited she argued, young people will not want to be a part of the worship services or Bible studies.  Who could argue with her!  What sorts of people want to join a church that is hateful and mean spirited?  Yet here is where we must careful.  Is it “loving” to ignore the commands of God or never speak of them?  Should we pretend as if the commands of God don’t exist to get those outside the church to “buy into” Christianity and believe the Church is comprised of loving people?

The Bible insists that God is love.  God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. (1 John 4:16 NIV)  Rightfully, we emphasize our own behavior in this equation.  Because God is love, we too must live in love.  But let us turn this around for just a moment.  God is love.  That is the insistence.  God is love.  Continually God is love.  In every circumstance and interaction, God is love.  With every determination God makes God is love.  This reaches into every single aspect of God…what we know of Him and what we don’t.  God is love.  His motivation is pulled out of love, His relationships all come out of love, each word that comes from Him is determined by love.  Consider this carefully.  The verb in the statement is one of continuous being.  In every single way and at every moment in time, God is love.  It is not that God is loving which of course is important but not the critical point.  It is that God is love in every way…not just in what He does but also in how He thinks, what He believes, the way He makes decisions and what He commands.  God is love and that filters down to what He insists His people do.  Even the commands of God are love.

Let us go back to the discussion of mushrooms.  If you know that the person who tells you that you must not eat a certain mushroom ever is filed with love and only says what He does to you because love directs Him to do so and not just any love but perfect love, then the way you think about the command to not eat a certain mushroom must be evaluated with that in mind.  Suppose that the person who told you not to eat that one mushroom also knows all the ramifications of eating the mushroom and all the particular outcomes of eating the mushroom and out of love has given you the command.  What do you make of what you have been told?  Is it restrictive?  Is it limiting?  Is it hard to accept?  It might be.  But the way we view the command must fit the character and the knowledge of the one issuing the command.  Should you be embarrassed to tell your children not to eat the certain mushroom that is growing in your backyard?  Should you keep the warning to yourself because you are afraid of what others will think about you if you tell them not to eat the mushroom growing in your backyard?  What if everyone in the world insists that eating that mushroom in your backyard is the best thing for you and that only fools would demand the mushroom remain off limits?  Does the command become less loving or unnecessarily restrictive simply because six billion people don’t like it?

Admittedly we must decide if we are to believe the Bible is true or not but if you do, then you cannot throw out the commands of God as something mean and reprehensible if they came from God and He is in every way love.  The commands too are love because He issued them and they are for our good because He tells us that we are to obey them and it is His love that forms and shapes every command of His.  Jesus began His public ministry by issuing a simple invitation.  “Come follow me.”  Many chose not to follow Christ just as it is today.  They did not trust Him.  They did not think He loved them.  They were afraid He would not take care of them.  But some did follow Christ.  It may not have been easy for them to go with Him.  They might not have all received support from family members and friends when they made the decision.  Some may have been despised for following Christ.  Eventually though, each one discovered that Christ is love.  They kept on following Him even when it got rough.  Even when it was frightening and they did not know where Jesus was taking them they kept following.

You cannot follow Jesus and disregard what He says to do.  It is like a Himalayan guide taking her group to the left and one of the members going right instead.  At that point the climber is no longer following.  In John 21 is the account of Jesus talking privately with John and Peter during the period of the resurrection meetings.  Christ told Peter of the painful trials he could expect and the horrible death he would suffer as an apostle but did not mention any troubles that John would face.  Peter asked Jesus what he thought was a reasonable question. "Lord, what about him?" (John 21:21 NIV)  “What about John?”  Our Lord’s reply closed the discussion.  Jesus answered, "If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me." (John 21:22 NIV)  If you are to follow Jesus, then He is in charge of what you do and how you do it.  You can decide to not follow Jesus and He will let you go on your way.  If you are going to follow Him though, then he makes the decisions for you.

At least forty times in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, the Lord tells us to follow His commands.  The idea that it doesn’t matter what we do as long as we just love God is ludicrous.  Jesus Himself made it clear that there is no love for God without doing what He says to do.  Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.  He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.  (John 14:23-24 NIV)    If we do not obey God, we run the risk of not having Him make His home in us.  This does not mean we are not saved or that we will be condemned for our sins.  It does mean that there is no intimacy with God if we disobey Him, no closeness.  Jesus asked, "Why do you call me, 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I say?”  (Luke 6:46 NIV)

Six times in the Gospel of Matthew alone, Jesus said to different ones, “Follow me!”  Some did, many didn’t.  Plenty believed He was the Messiah, countless others knew He was sent by God to be a prophet and teacher.  Only a few though decided to follow Jesus.  In Mark 10 is the fascinating account of a fellow who was a great success story.  He came to Jesus though in tremendous need, falling on his knees before Christ, wanting to know how he could inherit eternal life.  Jesus never answered the question though.  Instead He peeled back the layers of religious garb that were strangling his faith.  "Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good — except God alone.”  (Mark 10: 18 NIV) Jesus put matters in this passionate Jew’s hands.  He had to decide then and there what to make of Jesus.  Was He good?  Then He was God.  If He wasn’t, then there was no point in continuing the discussion.  Jesus pushed harder. “You know the commandments: 'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.'" (Mark 10: 19)  Was this man going to obey the commandments or walk away from following God?  He replied quite firmly, "Teacher," he declared, "all these I have kept since I was a boy."  (Mark 10: 20) Now remember this most important fact about God.  He is love.  Everything He does comes out of love.  God never acts without love driving every part of it.  Jesus looked at him and loved him. "One thing you lack," he said. "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." (Mark 10:21 NIV)

Some may say that this was a cruel and mean spirited response to this spiritually thirsty soul.  Why tell Him to sell all he had and give it to the poor?  Why push the envelope like that and make the man give up so much to prove his loyalty to God?  Not everyone is willing to follow Jesus and many will turn away.  We cannot say with any real certainty why Jesus told this one man to get rid of his wealth but we can be sure He did so to bless the man and make his life much better.  Some do fine with wealth but most do not.  Some can handle success and fame but the vast majority of us cannot.  If in love our Lord told Him to give his wealth away, then we can be certain Christ was not testing him like a school boy in a class.  Nor was Jesus giving this eager young disciple an initiation rite to see if He was fit to come follow Him.  Notice the psychological reaction of the man when he stumbled over his wealth.  At this the man's face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth. (Mark 10:22 NIV)

Shouldn’t he have gone away with tremendous happiness because he had great wealth?  When we don’t believe God loves us beyond measure and knows perfectly what is best for us, we walk away from His commands with sadness.  God has a command for you and to follow Him, you must obey it.  It might be Sunday worship.  It could be tithing.  It might be sexual purity or forgiveness or kindness.  The command before you could be some sort of ministry or service or sacrifice.  It might be some habit that you need to quit.  Whatever God is telling you to do, remember that Christ loves you perfectly and His way with you is just what you need to have the best of lives, one that will fill your heart with joy forever.  

Facts

There is a point at which we know something about God is true and it percolates there in our heart.  It is not a matter of being convinced; we just realize it is so.  As we begin to think about it, we lose our certainty and come to a different conclusion.  In the Spiritual realm this is called "unbelief".  As Jesus opened the Scriptures during His first sermon, there was widespread happiness in what our Savior was saying.  All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. (Luke 4:22 NIV)  But then they began to think about the ramifications of what they had decided.   "Isn't this Joseph's son?" they asked. (NIV)  Collectively the group began to talk themselves out of what they knew was true.  How could God be speaking to them through Joseph's son?  What good can come of His teaching?  We do this a thousand different ways when it comes to faith, giving to the poor, forgiveness, complaining, gratitude, anger.  We know it is God dealing with us and then we talk ourselves out of it.  Our cunning gets the best of us and like the people of Nazareth who decided it made sense to just chuck Christ off the cliff, we turn aside from what our Lord has shown us and pretend we never saw it.  What did Jesus' neighbors and relatives lose by convincing themselves their hearts were wrong about Jesus?  Healing?  Peace and Joy?  Comfort in times of trouble?  Insight into the decisions they had to make?  It is impossible to estimate the damage they brought to themselves by turning away from Him!  We must rethink our relationship with God and how the Holy Spirit is dealing with us.  Do we believe God is right when He tells us how to live or are we a bit concerned that He is out of touch with the "real world"?  Have we got that adventurous spirit of Peter; willing to go out upon the real water before us and trust God to guide us through whatever comes our way or are we afraid to rely on Him?  Facing facts does not mean we talk ourselves out of what God says to us in Scripture or in our heart.  The opposite is actually the case.  Satan got Adam and Eve to "face the facts" and it turned out they wound up turning away from the "true facts".  Not all facts are the same.   Be careful when the lawyer in your head puts on trial what God has already declared in your heart.

All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this.  They got up, drove him (Jesus) out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him down the cliff.    Luke 4:28-29 NIV

You and Clyde

Evil is not the Bonnie and Clydes and Joseph Stalins of any age.  They are aberrations from the common stock.  Evil is the gaze shifted off of Christ and onto something else that seems just as noble and worthy.  It is the Christmas present that makes the want rise above the Will, the fresh start that really isn't a fresh start but just the same oblivious disregard for the Holy Spirit prompts, it is the safe way out when the open door of God stands before you.  Adam and Eve didn't move far from God, they just turned their head slightly and looked past Him to Satan.  Fix your eyes upon Christ and let the peripheries remain the peripheries.  You cannot go astray with your mind determined that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life. 

The Wandering Reality

The moment you begin to question the reality of your experience with God, question the presence of the Holy Spirit, return to your root.  The Cross of Jesus Christ happened at a specific moment in history among an actual crowd of people just as reliable as you.  No one ever questioned the crucifixion of Christ and the empty tomb was never doubted.  Return to the physical moment when Jesus Christ died for You and let that spot in time steel your resolve to follow Him anywhere.  The Cross is the power of your faith in God and it is your anchor that keeps the stormy day from swamping you.  Let the Cross of Jesus Christ be the source of your strength and hope.  Ponder it rather than your doubts.

The Success Myth Visited

One of the most ubiquitous myths circulating through the Christian community is the success doctrine.  Many of the most popular Christian speakers are perpetuating it and we are quickly approaching a point of no return regarding it.  What seems so credible, that God wants every Christian rich or successful or free of life-long encumbrances is in fact not just a shaky proposition, it is antithetical to the normal Christian experience. 

What makes this doctrine most disturbing however is that it promotes what scripture seems to scream “avoid!”  If it is true that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God, then why would so many believers make such a concerted effort to make a go of being that rich man?  Is it possible that success is not a goal at all for us; that it is in fact our most dreaded outcome?  Consider the arguably three most successful men in scripture: Solomon, David and Noah.  All three of them fell apart at the end.  Noah, who literally had the entire world to rule as his own is known at the pinnacle of his success as a drunk who despised his indolent son.  Is that what we want?  Solomon became at best a polytheist and at worst a debauched agnostic once he attained his world-wide renown as the most brilliant man in the world and wealthiest of his time.  Could that be our goal?  David, the greatest of all Israel’s kings and mighty conqueror of nations at his zenith could not control his lust long enough to prevent the ruin of not just one but two families.  Is that the success we seek?

Is the success gospel a gospel at all if it pushes us away from godliness and true dependence on God?  The successful people mentioned in the New Testament are either despised for their arrogance and pride or revered for what they gave away.  Zacchaeus, Barnabas and the women who supported Jesus’ ministry were all wealthy but are honored for their release of their riches rather than for their attainment of them.  The Rich Young ruler was not lauded for his success; he was pitied for his unwillingness to be rid of what he had.  King Herod was despised for priding himself in the acclaim he won and in fact suffered miserably in the end because of it.  Success is not an end and often not even a means within the economy of heaven.  If God keeps us from it, we are blessed; if He gives it to us, we are only as good as our willingness to part with it for Christ’s sake.  Nothing ruins as terribly as wealth; nothing purifies as completely as poverty.  Above all though is the love of God and the hunger after righteousness for then you will be filled.  Even wine has its limits.  Once you are drunk, where do you go from there?  It is the same with success.

Questions

A pauper once asked a blind man what he wanted most and he answered, "I want to be poor.  What do you want most?"  The pauper replied, "I want to see."  Which of the two came closest to the Kingdom?  If the blind man could see, would he be as happy as the pauper who lost his eyes?  Who hears better, the deaf or the lonely?  What makes the wicked sinner a better man than the bitter saint?  Can you walk with the righteous if you are on the wrong path?  Are the days ahead more like what what we leave behind or what is at this moment?

A woman sat beside a well waiting for a drink while another milked her cow and filled her cup.  Who made the right choice?  Two farmers sowed seed but only one harvested.  Who lived the better life?  A dollar falls at your feet.  Should you take it?  Is it better to build sand castles or fortresses?  Can you see if you don't know what you are trying to find?

If the pull of the Spirit tugs at your heart, would you know it?  If lion lies down with the lamb, who would you lie beside?  Is grace the end of the matter for you or would you wait for something more?

"The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit."

Across The Hedge Part 1

1 Corinthians 3: 1-7 GJW
And I brothers, I was not able to speak to you as spiritual ones but as in the flesh, as to babies in Christ. 2 Milk, I gave you to drink, not solid food because you couldn’t handle it and even now you aren’t able to handle it. 3. For still you are fleshly ones for whereas there is in you boiling jealousy and contentiousness; are you not ruled by fleshly desires and walk just like men? 4. For when a certain one of you might say, “I myself am of Paul” but another, “I am with Apollos”, are you not just like men? 5. For what is Apollos? What is Paul? They are servants through whom you believed and only as each one of you were given by the Lord. 6 I myself planted, Apollos watered but the Lord was making the growth happen. 7 Consequently, neither the one planting nor the one watering is of any consequence but only the one causing the growth, God.


In our local paper the other day was a front page story about a set of neighbors who live in a peaceful little cul-de-sac, neighbors who have been friends for years. Their property is separated by a hedge one of them planted long ago as a decorative upgrade. They have watched each other’s kids reach adulthood, gone to one another’s parties and looked after one another’s homes during vacations. One of the neighbors recently put up a yard sign calling for a “no” vote on proposition 8. His neighbors in turn put next to the hedge in their yard a sign calling for a “yes” vote on proposition 8. Last week while his neighbors were gone, the one with the “no” sign went over and cut down the part of the hedge on his neighbor’s side and forced them to move their “yes” sign from where it had been placed against the hedge.

Now what could engender such rage and frustration that a friendship lasting two decades could be ruined by dueling lawn signs? The Apostle Paul would say it is just people being people. He uses a term that that is often found in his letters to describe the part of us that just won’t do what God wants, the flesh. Some refer to the flesh as our “sin nature”, others call it our “anti-Christ personality”. We all have it. The flesh is what pushes us away from God’s character and avoids anything that smacks of real holiness. Now it is not just Non-Christians who can be ruled by their anti-God personality, Christian people also are left leaning here. Paul calls us babies when we let our flesh take the lead in how we act and live.

Paul said that many of the Christians in Corinth were acting like babies because they were forming alliances and choosing sides. Some were for Apollos, others for Paul. The points of contention were irrelevant. It did not matter why they were disagreeing, the fact that they were clearly marked them as babies. Paul uses two terms to describe the approach these Christians had to their faith. The first is “sarksinoi” and simply means that they were flesh people; in other words, the tendency to think and live outside God was part of their character. But Paul takes his diagnosis a bit further by insisting that the Christians in Corinth were “Sarksika”; they were dominated by their flesh instincts. The anti-God personality was the operating system making these Christians who they were.
This created quite a problem for Paul as he tried to lead them. He was unable to speak to them through the Spirit of God. Now how does this sort of communication work? A person dominated by the Holy Spirit can talk of anything the Spirit directs and it is made clear to the person both in how they think but how they begin to act by means of the Holy Spirit. Coercion, guilt tripping and begging are not needed to bring about the needed change. The Spirit gets the message across and coordinates the new direction. Without the Spirit of God, there is almost no Godliness, little Christian love and peacefulness and not much interest in pursuing hard after Jesus. The fruit of the Spirit described in Galatians 5: love, joy peace patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control are anything but actualized…important maybe and desired but not rooted and grounded in the person.

Don't Forget...


"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. Matthew 7:13-14

Humility

Micah 6:8 NIV
He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

Humility is a slippery fish. Almost no one really has it or if they do, they don’t think it’s there. A teen recently told me that if you think you are humble, the very thinking it means you aren’t. That is the clichéd thought on humility but is it true? Humility is a reverenced trait in Christian circles…not so much because everyone wants to have it but more because it has the halo feel about it, the ancient icon sense to it. Moses, the greatest of the Old Testament heroes was described as more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth. (Numbers 12:3 NIV) Jesus said of Himself that He was gentle and humble in heart. (Matthew 11:29 NIV) Whether it is the Apostle Paul (Be completely humble Ephesians 4:2 NIV), James the brother of Jesus (Humble yourselves before the Lord James 4:10 NIV), or the Apostle Peter (be compassionate and humble. 1 Peter 3:8 NIV) the New Testament declares humility a virtue of the highest order. But who of us is really like that? Who can say he or she is “humble”?

Humility is commonly expressed in several ways. In Asian culture, particularly in Korea bowing is a sign of respect, the deeper the bow, the more humble the personage. Humility is preserved within Catholic and Orthodox traditions by the kneeling bench. We do the same sort of thing in Evangelical churches when we bow our heads in prayer. In American culture we show a certain form of humility when we let pushy drivers merge in front of us. A common way to express humility is to deny a compliment its place. “Oh my drawing really isn’t that good!” “I got a lucky hit.” “I just threw some things together. It wasn’t really much effort.”

But do any of these humility forms necessarily indicate one is being humble? Can you bow before an elder and be vain, kneel in prayer and lack respect for God, let someone cut in front of you and despise the person driving, downplay what you have done but burst with pride at your work? Let’s take a quick glance at three examples of how humble behaviors can actually be nothing of the sort.

Genesis 32 illustrates the first corrupted form of humility. Jacob, who nearly thirty years before had duped his brother out of first his birthright as older brother and then his father’s blessing had lived those three decades as a prisoner of his brother’s wrath. He had narrowly escaped Esau’s deadly plot to revenge his lost honor and inheritance but now, with his own father-in-law a mortal enemy, Jacob had to make his way back into his brother’s good graces or have nowhere to live. When Esau got word that Jacob was returning, (Jacob had in fact sent emissaries in advance to test out his brother’s feelings about him) he came to meet Jacob with an army of 400 fighting men. Jacob was spent. All he could do was face the music and so as the two parties approached one another, Jacob and his wives and children and handful of servants and Esau with his band of 400 armed warriors, Jacob worked his way to the front of the line. The outmanned Jacob bowed down to the ground seven times as Esau came near. Now was this humility or fear fueling each of the bows? It could easily be deemed humility but the truth is that Jacob really did not want to have nothing to do with his brother. He rejected every one of Esau’s overtures at fellowship and as far as we can tell, never met up with him again. Is it humility if you bow before someone you don’t like?

We pick on King Saul often but perhaps for good reason. When Samuel the prophet declared him the first king of Israel Saul complained that he was from the lowliest of the twelve tribes of Israel and a member of the least respected of the clans. When it was time for Samuel to introduce him as the new king to the entire collected nation he was found hiding behind the piles of baggage. Now was this humility or just a crushed ego destroyed by social stigma? Was he responding out of his healthy understanding of how difficult it would be to serve as king or did he just despise himself because his friends and neighbors had made fun of him when he was young? Is it humility when we decide we are ugly or stupid or untalented or is it a wound refusing to heal?

Humility is often just ambition gilded. When David became established as king, he wanted to do something for his friend Jonathon’s survivors and was informed a son, Mephibosheth still lived. Mephibosheth had been crippled as a child and David called him to his palace and after interviewing him, made Mephibosheth an honorary part of his family and the land that had belonged to Saul was restored to Mephibosheth as rightful heir. What is more, the servant of Saul’s, who had been living a free man all these years, was now made, along with his entire family, a servant of Mephibosheth. Talk about a change of fortune, not only for Mephibosheth but also for Ziba, the servant. Several years later, David was running for his life because his own son Absalom had gathered a vast army and was approaching Jerusalem with the intent of wrenching the kingdom from his father. Just as David and his allies made it out of town, he was approached by Ziba with a string of donkeys loaded down with raison cakes, figs and wine. “Where”, David asked, “is your master’s grandson?” Whether he was lying or not, we don’t know but Ziba told David that Mephibosheth had stayed home because he was in hopes that Absalom was coming with his army to make Mephibosheth king. Now why Mephibosheth would possibly think that could be and why David would accept this, we cannot know but David did believe Ziba and freed Ziba of his servanthood to Mephibosheth and gave all his former master’s land to him. Ziba’s response? “I humbly bow. May I find favor in your eyes, my lord the king.” Can we call that humility? Bowing to a king to win his favor and gain his gifts?

If humility is not an attempt to gain favor, not the result of insecurities and not a response to fear, then what is it? There are three key components to humility. If one or more are missing, we do not have humility but rather some warped anomaly. Just as the Orcs in the Lord of the Rings were corrupted forms of elves, so too, lacking any one of these foundational components of humility makes it something quite different. The first part of humility is the recognition that without God we are nothing. A collection of molecules stuffed together in a solid mass is not life, certainly not human. God’s parting words to Adam following the latter’s sin describes well our true condition. “…for dust you are and to dust you will return." (Genesis 3:19 NIV) We have ideas, and creativity and strength and will not because we earned it; we have these because God breathes life into us and makes every part of us living. We are exciting and fun and creative and full of action due to God keeping it going in us and for no other reason than that.

Humility is built on the fundamental premise that I am first and foremost, sinner. I live against the laws of the universe and have nothing to offer a soul but wrongheadedness and abuse of the gifts given me. I am a violator of the basic morals that make life good and I do the wrong thing again and again. Humility recognizes, as Paul the Apostle did, that I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. (Rom 7:18-19 NIV) It is not humility to despise myself because I fail at things or am ignored or rejected by others. It is humility though to know that I make judgments about things as a sinner, take stock of my life and the people around me as a sinner, do acts of charity as a sinner and make plans as a sinner. When I correct my children, it is as a sinner; when I preach a sermon, I do so as a sinner and when I am angry over the way my meal has been cooked, my anger is cooked in sin. Without that sense that I am a first-rate sinner, I cannot be humble…not even a bit.

Humility rests also on the reality that I am so loved by God, Jesus died for me. My ugly profile, my clumsy hands, my inability to remember names, my boring little stories and my bad breath cannot be my first or even my third point about me. I am the beloved work of art a God who desperately loves me made. If I hang my head because I do not yet believe Jesus loves me, that is one thing. But if I hang my head because I do not think Jane or Jeffery love me, that is altogether another thing. I can wander away from Jane and Jeffery and find love because God made me beloved and only a fool would despise me. There are millions like me beloved of God who know it and are made to love me too. There is not a shortage of people to love me. There is a shortage of me who know how loved I am. Humility is based on God’s infatuation with me; his last dying breath breathed for me. I cannot be humble if I do not know the taste of God’s love in me.

So what is humility? How do I do it? Humility starts with a desperate faith in Jesus for salvation; salvation for our post death life but also salvation for our life now. My confidence in the Cross to save each part of me…my career, my family, my finances, my thoughts, my friendships is the most crucial choice we make each and every day. Either God does not exist and we live as a complete pagan or He is and we make it our most important task the complete reliance on Jesus to manage and fill every part of us.

In the movie, The Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Lucy the youngest of the children brought back to Narnia to help rescue the Narnians has a hint that she has glimpsed Aslan the great lion (who symbolically represents Jesus Christ) but isn’t so sure it was him and can’t get the others to go with her to follow where he is leading. In the end the kids don’t believe her and it turns out disastrously for them. Finally, when Lucy does come face to face with mighty Aslan, she wants reassurance that earlier it was indeed him pointing the way to a safer and more direct way of saving the Narnians. Yes, he tells her, it was him. She then asks how many lives might have been saved if they had taken his directive. Oh, my child, she is told, you cannot go back and discover that for it is already done. But then he makes the sword thrust into Lucy’s heart. You, my child, even if no one else had gone with you, could have followed and it would have made all the difference.

The better part of humility is not the bowing of one’s head or the lowering of one’s dreams or the giving in to every poor soul who thinks he should boss you around. The better part of humility is following Jesus whether anyone goes with you or not. Last night, my boys were with me and two unbelieving friends who have been taught nothing in their home of following God or giving in to his will. We had bought some burgers and fries and were sitting in my car in the back side of the parking lot. I asked (told) one of my boys to lead us in prayer. At that moment was a great quandary. Not for me but immediately for my son. Do I speak out or mumble a complaint. Do I argue that I can’t or don’t feel like it or have nothing to say? Do I pray? In humility, my son bowed his head, opened his mouth and before his friends, thanked God for our food. Humility is not a way of thinking; it is and always has been the micro submissions we make to the God who through us is changing our world.

The Life We Know And The Life We Don't

Psalm 25:21 NIV
May integrity and uprightness protect me, because my hope is in you.

Recently the wild child Lindsey Lohan was in the news because she was named in a lawsuit alleging she stole a fur coat from a friend whose party she was attending. Now, the most important question for us is not whether she did it or not but whether that same sort of absurdity is in us too. Of course it makes no sense whatsoever for this multi-millionaire actress to go about stealing coats. But is she alone in her fractured state? Is she the only one of us who does things that don’t make any sense, who say things we can’t believe we said, who act nothing like we are? The other day I was driving along and someone cut in front of me. This little housewife when she made her lane change easily could have slid behind my car but must have decided in some dark part of her soul that it was crucial she take from me my lead. Angered by the idiocy of her act, I did an equally absurd thing. I swiftly changed lanes and made my move to get back my spot on the road. Of course I immediately got trapped behind a slow moving truck and was forced, if I were to make my left turn, to cut in front of the woman immediately behind the person I was trying to conquer. This infuriated the woman I cut off, and after I slipped into the left turning lane, she, as she passed by me cocked her head back to give me the evil stare down. The idiot I sought was now the idiot I was.

There are several Lindsey Lohans in scripture that acted absurdly. In the Old Testament is the barely remembered servant of the prophet Elisha. Gehazi was Elisha’s right hand man and the witness of spectacular miracles. But it was one of those miracles that was his undoing. When the Aramean, Naaman came to Elisha begging for a cure from his leprosy, Elisha gave the general a perplexing prescription. “Go” he told the foreigner, “and dip your whole body into the Jordan River seven times and your flesh will be restored.” Naaman thought Elisha was clueless and at first refused to do what he was told, despising the soupy Jordan. But when Naaman’s servants advised him to give it a try, he trooped down to the Jordan, dunked himself seven times and to his amazement came up out of the water totally healed. Stunned and eternally grateful to the prophet, Naaman and his retinue returned immediately to thank Elijah for what he had done Gehazi the servant stood by in shocked silence as his master Elijah turned down Naaman’s offer of a million dollars in gold and silver as a gift for the healing.

Faithful servants don’t often betray their masters but Gehazi could not stare down all that gold and silver without making a go of it. Surreptitiously Gehazi slipped out and chased down Naaman.and lied to him that his master Elisha changed his mind and actually did want some of the silver and two changes of clothes. Naaman immediately obliged and Gehazi rushed home with his cache. Finally returning to Elisha with his treasures safely hidden away, Gehazi was shocked to learn that Elisha already knew about his covert trip to Naaman, knew about the story he made up to get the silver and clothes from him and knew he had his loot hidden away at home. Gehazi’s punishment was swift and heavy handed. The leprosy Naaman had just escaped fell upon Gehazi. Could Lindsay Lohan top that?

A second Lindsay Lohan is actually a pair of them…the infamous Ananias and Sapphira. We know their story all too well. When many of the early Christians were selling off property and giving the proceeds to the Church, one of the couples in the group thought they would join in the extravagance. No one told them they had to give anything; there were no rules about sacrifice and generosity in the Church. But Ananias and Sapphira decided they also would sell a field and give the proceeds to the church. The catch though, was that they wanted everybody to think they had given all their profits when in fact some of the earnings they were keeping for themselves. Again, there was no rule that said they couldn’t do this, keep part, but why did they lie about it. It was a disastrous Lindsey Lohan moment. God immediately struck each of them dead when they lied to Peter about their charity.

A third Lindsey Lohan is the Apostle Peter himself. When the Christian community made its thrust into the non Jewish world and started winning Gentile converts to Christ, the Jewish Christians were thrown into a tizzy. What kind of expectations should be placed on these Gentile believers? Should they have to keep the Jewish Law too? Would they need to eat only Kosher? What about the Sabbath and circumcision and Feast days and morality? What were the requirements for good Christian living if you weren’t raised Jew? Finally it was settled that only four Jewish restrictions would remain. No eating meat of strangled animals, no drinking blood, no feasting on food offered to idols and no sexual immorality. That was it. The sum total of Jewish requirements Gentiles had to keep to remain good Christians. Peter though still had friends who thought this wasn’t enough. Gentile believers really had to be Jews if they were to be accepted. On the other hand, he had good Christian friends who were Gentiles that thought the entire Jewish legalism thing was rubbish. When Peter was with them he was fine with the freedom of Christian faith. But then Christian Jewish legalists came to town and Peter slithered away from his Gentile friends because he was afraid of what his Jewish friends thought of them. A Lindsey Lohan moment!

What is the point of connection between these three incidents? Each time someone did something ridiculous that was completely out of character and totally unnecessary. Gehazi needed neither the silver nor the clothes, Ananias and Sapphira didn’t even have to sell their field if they didn’t want to do so and Peter had no reason to be afraid of the opinions of his Jewish brothers. Integrity is not just moral character; it is defined as wholeness, as unity, as the state of being complete. The Greek word most often translated integrity in the New Testament is “alethia”; it describes the condition of truth, or trueness within. It is what the Pharisees, who were trying to trick Jesus into condemning Caesar’s taxation, had to say of Him…Jesus was a man of “alethia” or trueness. Integrity is more than simply doing the right thing; it is true character spilling out into common activities.

Integrity is a frequent theme in the Old Testament, often found in the Psalms and Proverbs. The word most frequently used to express integrity is the Hebrew term “Tome”. It describes completeness, fullness, simplicity and innocence. Tome is a state of maturity that develops into a lifestyle of innocence brought on by a whole-hearted walk with God. David spoke of integrity as a source of protection, a sort of castle where he could find safety. May integrity and uprightness protect me, because my hope is in you. Psalm 25:21 NIV Integrity is etched in God. You cannot divorce the two from one another. A person without God is a tangle of turmoil, of competing values and concerns. The one housed in God, living within Him has wholeness, purpose, direction. Proverbs 10:9 expresses this perfectly. The man of integrity walks securely, but he who takes crooked paths will be found out. Literally, the one walking within integrity walks peacefully and confidently but the one taking crooked paths is made known..or uncovered.

Integrity is not what you do, it is who you are. It is a state within rather than a set of actions without. And yet, one is never a person of integrity without the straight paths being taken. Now the mistake many make in trying to lay out a plan for taking up integrity is setting a list of rules or standards that plant you in a moral Christian box. Integrity is not cheating on your wife, not stealing from the 7/11, working hard and earning your salary, avoiding gossip, living up to your promises, paying your taxes and setting high standards of what you watch and read. Integrity for most is a do list that if you are reasonably successful gives you permission to rip anyone else who isn’t your moral equivalent. It is the Christian equivalent of the Hindu caste system.

Now lest you think I am implying that integrity means a sort of free-wheeling whatever goes Gnostic moralism, that is not so. Integrity is a change in me that is unmistakable and discernable.
But it isn’t me making me. It is God reshaping my life into His image. Let me share a scriptural example. When Solomon insisted that we aren’t to go around righting all the wrongs done us, he wasn’t just talking about personal revenge. He was describing a revolutionary way of life that lives by faith. Do not say, "I'll pay you back for this wrong!" Wait for the LORD, and he will deliver you. (Proverbs 20:22 NIV) The Lord is insisting that whatever you need to be secure will be done by Him to you….The key to this is that God does not promise to bomb blast your enemies, your problems, your messed up work plans. He will instead rescue, or better, save you. Take matters in your own hands and you might quite well blow up your enemies and everyone who aggravates you but there will be no deliverance, no “saving”.

There is one more scripture that defines integrity. All a man's ways seem right to him, but the LORD weighs the heart. (Proverbs 21:2 NIV) This may be one of the most disconcerting verses in scripture. It insists that every road we take is a straight one to us…we see nothing crooked in our ways. But God knows what it really is in us. We can be and often are terribly misdirected, thinking we have gotten it right…what we’ve said, how we have reacted, what we decided, but we have veered horribly off course. Imagine taking a trip to Hawaii in your million dollar boat and winding up in French Guyana or Manteca. Worse yet, being there and not knowing you aren’t even close to Hawaii. That is what each of us do day after day, year after year with our integrity because we don’t know our heart nor the real force behind our actions. Without the heart being straight, the integrity of the journey is crooked and will land us nowhere and anywhere both at once.

How do I stop being a Lindsey Lohan, having rational, logical explanations for nonsensical behaviors? My heart must be shaped by God. Proverbs 19: 1 is a bit of a twisted, unbalanced verse if you don’t get what integrity is. A literal translation is, “Better a poor man of integrity than a dullard of twisted speech.” The contrast would seem to be the poor man and a rich man or a wise man and a fool but what we find is that neither is true. The opposite of a fool is one made poor. Not every poor man lacks money but every poor man lacks. This is the fundamental rule behind integrity. Integrity is built by me being made empty and letting God fill me. Why is it so crucial that I don’t try to fix those who frustrate me, settle matters with those who harm me and square off all the difficulties I face and avoid them. It is because when God makes me poor, whether it’s through what others do to me or through circumstances that make life hard, I am developing integrity. Integrity is God, percolating within me and giving me a rebuilt heart and will.

There are four commands that seem completely unreasonable to the crooked man. They are: do not divorce, do not fight back , do not hold grudges and do not judge. All four are a direct assault on self-will and the crooked heart. All four require I give up my right to do as I wish and require I trust God to make right my messy life. There is a fifth hub though within integrity. A heart can not ever be made whole unless it stops complaining about what God brings.

There is a fascinating little vignette in Job 2 that is unfortunately most remembered because Job’s wife encouraged him to curse God and die. Yet the most important part of the entire two part dialogue is her question to him, “Are you still holding on to your integrity?” Job’s response is most enlightening if we too want to have whole lives, if we want our inner heart to be free of Lindsey Lohan urges. He asks pointedly, “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” Here is the key to integrity. The Hebrew word receive is rooted in the idea of being led by. The gist of this is that integrity flourishes within us when we let God lead us with the good things, the pleasant things and we also let Him lead us with hat we deem evil, ugly, unpleasant, sometimes even unbearable things of life. Integrity is built in us when we refuse to jump off the train God has made us His passenger. How do we do this? We don’t rip those we find frustrating, we don’t leave those who make our lives hard and we don’t make pain the worst of our enemies. The question before us is the same as Job’s question for his wife. Shall I be led only by God if it led is pleasant and not when it pains me? The straight path turns crooked when one is abandoned for the sake of the other. It is both the good and the bad that God brings my way, that keep my road straight and sure.

Moving The Center

Take the most insignificant detail of your life. A pebble on the ground before you….a glance into the mirror…a forgotten conversation with a co-worker…the Swanson’s frozen dinner last Monday…the toothpaste you picked up from Walgreen’s on the way home from the dentist. Why did you decide these moments were insignificant? Was it the little attention you paid them, the lack of relevance to anything else you did, the low impact they had on your retirement plans? How come the stock market crash in 1929 led to so many suicides and my four month old daughter spitting up on my shirt went unnoticed and forgotten in both my inner world and the universe at large? What strange magical electrode in your brain sparks and sets off a chime warning “this is important” or more legitimately, what triggers the dump mode, sending so much of experience into the recycle bin of your soul?

If we could be brutally honest just for a moment, most of life is terribly boring. No one cares that you had a tuna fish sandwich for lunch and the TV show you watch tonight with such rapt attention will be completely forgotten next week…or tomorrow. You go to work and you go home and next week you go to work and go home and for forty years you go to work and go home and then you make a major shift, you eat your lunch at home and go to Wall-mart in the afternoon. Six billion of us will live and die and five Billion, nine Hundred and ninety nine million, nine hundred and ninety eight thousand will never know it happened. Or maybe more...

What if you never lived? Would it cause a ripple in the tide or a shift in the alignment of the continents? Of course not! And by your living, does the star Alpha Centauri burn any brighter or democracy shine any more in America? No…So does it really matter what you do or don’t do? Now that is a completely different question. I recently posted on my blog a short discussion on how universal the tendency is to see everything almost exclusively from one’s own perspective. Of course that can be a bad if you are self-centered and ugly about your lack of interest in others but it is the way we are. We cannot really get into anyone else’s head any more than they can get into ours. We live, even with so many all around us, isolated. The most important journey any of us make in life is the one outside our minds, outside our wants and dreams and hopes…it is the journey away from ourselves.

There is a quite strange passage in the Old Testament that took me years to get a handle for understanding. Honestly, most times I read it I came away flummoxed by God’s hardness, His strident harshness. Every criticism leveled against God by unbelievers seems illustrated in this account. God is just mean, He makes big things out of little things, He is all about rules and takes the fun out of life. I think most people who don’t believe in God aren’t so impressed by the evidence He doesn’t exist, it is just they don’t like what they see of God and close their eyes to His presence, creating a network of proofs to do away with the God they don’t want. This incident I am talking about in 1 Samuel is the very sort of thing atheists and agnostics and anti Christians point to as reasons for not believing. If God is God, why would He be like this? Why so stubbornly hard and unbending?

The account is found in 1 Samuel 13. Saul had recently been appointed king over all Israel by Samuel, the prophet of God. Samuel’s authority came from his position as spokesman for the Lord and all the people respected his clear sense of God’s guidance nationally. Israel was formed, not as a democracy, not as a monarchy, not as a socialist state but rather as a people governed by God and every time they strayed from that mooring, the entire country fell into chaos and pain. But now, for the first time, a king was being appointed to lead the people and it was a bittersweet moment. Saul, as the new king had lots of promise. He had a talent for leading large numbers of people. He was tall, good looking and bright. His ability to raise up an army and instill confidence in a vision was becoming clear. The future looked bright for Israel with Saul at the helm.

But if Israel was to be a nation that followed God as ultimate King, then the most crucial skill set Saul had to have was making God king of his own heart. The first great test of this came with the invasion of Israel by the vast army of the Philistines. Saul had been told by the prophet Samuel that God absolutely did not want Saul to just do things on his own. He was to go down to Gilgal and wait seven days until Samuel returned and then Samuel would make a set of burnt offerings and a fellowship offering for all the men and after that, God’s instructions would be handed to Saul.

What follows is most perplexing but not surprising given our understanding of human nature. Saul’s son Jonathon, a courageous and reckless spirit, got the Philistines stirred up by attacking one of their outposts. Saul had already conscripted an army of three thousand men but when the Philistines arrived with their army “as numerous as the sand on the seashore”, Saul faced his first true crisis as king. Wanting to be faithful, Saul waited the seven days for Samuel but when the morning of the seventh day arrived with no Samuel in sight, Saul took matters into his own hands. All week, his men had been deserting. The Philistines, without ever firing off an arrow or swinging a sword were, by just camping nearby, decimating Saul’s fledgling army. As the early morning sun broke across the sky, Saul called for a heifer to be brought him and roasted it on the camp fire as an offering to God. But just as he was finishing, Samuel arrived. Samuel, spying the roasting calf on the skewer asked the king, “What are you doing?”

Listen carefully to Saul’s response. "When I saw that the men were scattering, and that you did not come at the set time, and that the Philistines were assembling at Micmash, I thought, 'Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the LORD's favor.' So I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering." (1 Sam 13:11-12 NIV) As he worked through the crisis he faced, Saul took into account two factors: how others were responding and his own take on things: I saw that the men were scattering and that you did not come….so I felt compelled.

Everything we do, say or think is worked through one of three filters. They are self, others or God. Some would protest that there is a fourth filter through which we live and that is circumstance. What about broken legs and financial windfalls, car wrecks and promotions? Don’t they determine our actions and how we think about things? No situation we face stands alone. Every circumstance is filtered through ourselves, others or God and it is the filter that dominates which determines how we respond. A classic example of this is Paul’s famous assertion in 2 Corinthians 12: 10. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. The circumstance hasn’t determined Paul’s response nor his mental state. Why do some when faced with bankruptcy commit suicide while others seem almost refreshed by the crisis? Of course we realize that it wasn’t what happened that made them act like they did. It was the filter through which they translated it all.

Let’s return to King Saul. Saul used two filters, the response of his men and his own intuition to decide he had to offer up the burnt sacrifice before Samuel got to camp. God had told Saul that he must, no questions asked wait until Samuel arrived before any sacrifices were to be offered. When Saul didn’t, he was chastised and punished for his disobedience. “You acted foolishly”, Samuel cried. "You have not kept the command the LORD your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time. But now your kingdom will not endure; the LORD has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him leader of his people, because you have not kept the LORD's command." (1 Sam 13:13-14 NIV) Now why do you suppose God punished Saul so severely for such a minor indiscretion? It is all a matter of perspective!

As long as Saul governed with himself at the center, he could never get things right for the people he led. He could not know what they really needed, never understand how to help them, how to lead them, how to set their lives right. His fatal flaw and the one we too possess is that Saul could not enter a single person’s heart, could not ever really know what they thought and how they could be helped. Being isolated, Saul was of no real use to anyone in his kingdom. Every decision he made impacted everyone else in Israel as well as the nations surrounding but his ability to get it right for them was corrupted by his sin. Selfishness combined with a lack of insight into each person he was affecting killed Saul’s value as king. He could never govern well as long as his decisions were based either on what he thought or what he saw in others.

See The Figure on the Left... Self At The Center

See The Figure in the Middle... Others At The Center


Here is the second part of Saul’s painful difficulty. Even if Saul somehow became an expert student of men, made the people the filter governing his behavior, he would be unable to govern himself. Just the extra attention the women of Jerusalem paid David made him jealous and crippled his ability to make wise decisions. He thought he understood what he should do because of what he noticed about David and the response of the people to his kingship but he was completely wrong. Not only that, Saul was surrounded by advisors who were unable to correct him when he began to struggle with his insecurities. Sinners failing to look to God guiding sinners failing to look to God are a bad combination. We either don’t know what to make of others and their actions or we don’t really know who we are nor what we could be.

If you were to nail down the theme of the Bible in one concise sentence, it would be this. All men are sinners and everyone needs a Savior. Everything we do or try to do is corrupted by our sin and it makes us completely scattered and our lives meaningless wanderings. Unable to break free of our lives because we cannot really get outside our own heads, we fail to make good on the promise we had when we first sprung into life. We don’t help others rightly because we can’t and we don’t do much for ourselves either because we too often get that wrong too. We are like a polluted lake with no outlet. Sin corrupts more and more of us the longer we go and it makes a mess of our relationships too. Without a Savior, I live lost.

Saul was not bad because he offered a sacrifice. Saul was bad because he did it without God. While my family was watching one of the episodes from the first season of the TV show Lost, we were stunned by how the story unfolded. The show is about a group of survivors whose plane crashed on an island somewhere in the South Pacific. I am not really certain if the title is more about the state of where the passengers are located or the condition of their lives. As we get to know them one by one, the broken strands of their past reveal just how lost they have been. One of these characters, Charlie is an ex-drug addict who on the island has been freed of his drug cravings. In this episode, Charlie is broken by the capture of his pregnant friend Claire and haunted by the thought that he didn’t do enough to help her escape. He is worried sick that Claire has either been killed or is being tortured by her captors and he has become psychologically wrecked. Rose, who has lost her husband in the crash but is certain he somehow is still alive somewhere on the island comes to Charlie and breaks through to him. She tells Charlie that no one thinks it is his fault Claire was captured and he must stop thinking he is the only one hurting on the island. Tough medicine! But then comes the best part. As Charlie sits beside Rose, weeping uncontrollably, he begs Rose to help him Her response floored me. She tells him that he needs help bigger than her. Immediately a cross comes into focus on the screen.

See the figure on the Right... God At the Center


There is only one filter through which life ever comes into focus. It is through the life of Jesus…through God. What we cannot know, what is best for every person we influence God does. As we pray and look to Him for help, He shifts our actions and corrects our sin corrupted motives. I may not understand why my boss yelled at me but this does happen as I turn to Jesus. I respond to him with God behind what I do. My actions become, through God’s guidance, the very hand of God. In the miracle of Christian faith…in a sense, I become God for him. Not only that, I see myself more clearly too. Saul could not face the women cheering David because he thought that made him smaller. No one can make us small and insignificant because our value is never what others make of it. We are what God sees of us…and that is too big for us to comprehend.

Can we say this more clearly? Your life and mine is a wreck as long as we hold a perspective of any sort other than what God makes it. We can live all our days and in the end nothing will matter but this. Do we have a Savior? Have we followed Him? What passes for good intentions and honest effort to get it right is the fatal flaw of the sinner trapped by his own contained heart. We cannot get it right either for ourselves or others as long as all we do not filter our lives through Jesus. I was visiting with a friend and he was talking about David and God’s description of him as a “man after my own heart”. What made this murderer and adulterer and collector of wives and failing father such a person that God was pleased with him? If you read his life story, you discover that constantly he was calling on God to guide him. The only times he didn’t, David found himself in terrible trouble.

Judas was not such a great sinner because he betrayed Jesus. The truth is we all have done that. He was such a great sinner because when he realized he was, he did not turn to the Savior. When all he would do is filter his life through himself or what others thought of him, he was left with only insane alternatives because nothing is sane that is not done through Jesus. Why is lying so bad, sexual immorality so bad, cheating so bad or selfishness so bad? It is because they leave Jesus out of the picture and that is the basis of an insane life.

What happens when we find God at the center and it is through Him we meet ourselves and others? Look no further than Zacchaeus. Lonely. Selfish. Despised. He took one look at Jesus and decided to pay everyone back that he had overcharged for their taxes four times what he had taken. He gave half of his fortune to the poor. Then he had lunch with Jesus. That sounds to me like how it is when Jesus becomes the center. We love our friends and enemies. We forget about our past sins. We live.