Radical thinking

Can't sleep. The Holy Spirit has got a hold of me tonight. He is keeping me awake and filling my head with ideas that will rock my world. I mean that in a good way. Here are some of the things He has been bringing up...over and over again.

Television is a waste of time...and money. Well, not all TV, but the vast majority. I found a plan on the internet for a fractal TV antenna that I can make for about $5 (that is, if I don't already have enough stuff in my shop to do it for free). I could eliminate the $82 a month I pay for satellite service. That is nearly $1,000 a year I could spend on feeding the poor or providing heat for a widow.

Our church recently did a book study of "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan. Many of our body were moved by this book to reconsider how we spend our time and money. As I lay awake in my bed this morning, I was thinking of how I might spend my resources differently. Here are a few of the thoughts that came to my mind:

1. Use my skills with tools to provide a free handyman service for people in my church (and possibly in the community at large).
   
2. Put together a group of men from the church who would be available to do the same thing. At a church where my wife and I were once members, there was a men's Bible study group that called themselves the "Wild Men of God." I like that. It reminds me of John the Baptist, who lived in the wilderness and wore camel hair clothing and ate locusts and wild honey. Maybe we could call our group "Crazy Men of God."
   
3. Scale down the landscape plans I have for my own home, in order to save money that I can spend on helping others.
4. Sell a car and spend the money I would have spent on gas and oil and upkeep, not to mention what I could get for the car, on helping the poor.
5. Start buying a bag of groceries a week to give to the food bank. Maybe even volunteer at the food bank.
   

Lest you think I have booked some kind of guilt trip and would do these things to curry God's favor, let me assure you that I know there is absolutely nothing that I can do to put God in my debt. "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9) But whenever I hear these verses quoted I think it a shame that verse 10 is so seldom tacked on: "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them."

The modern church in America has retreated inside the sanctuary, where we feel safe from "the world" and from Satan. Nothing could be further from the truth. Satan is a spirit being; mere walls of brick and mortar will not keep him at bay. What does Scripture say? "Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of God and He will lift you up." (James 4:7-10)

How do we resist the devil? It's right there in the next sentence: "Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you." Have you ever seen a vampire movie, where the hero is repelling the vampires by carrying a cross? Well, I am not sure the devil (d evil) cares about a physical cross. He is a spirit. But Jesus said, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me." (Luke 9:23, emphasis added) It appears that our Lord wants us to draw near to Him, but there is a price: "deny himself...take up his cross...daily...and follow Me."

Denying self is a thoroughly un-American thing to do in the 21st century. We deny ourselves nothing. We spend more each day on soda pop than half the people in the world have to subsist on. And what do we have to show for it? We are overweight, physically sick, morally bankrupt, emotionally drained. Consider the following:

1. "An estimated 26.2 percent of Americans ages 18 and older — about one in four adults — suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year."*
   
2. "In 2009, only Colorado and the District of Columbia had a prevalence of obesity less than 20%." (Most states have a rate of 25-30%)
   
3. "Estimates for the year 2006 are that 81,100,000 people in the United States have one or more forms of cardiovascular disease (CVD)."***
   
4. "The United States has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world."****

If NOT denying ourselves leads to these kinds of statistics, perhaps denying ourselves would have a positive effect.

The cross was, perhaps, the most grisly form of execution ever devised by the depraved mind of man. It was designed not only to kill, but also to torture and humiliate its victims. What does Jesus mean when he invites a man to "take up his cross?" I suppose He means ultimate denial of self: humility, sacrifice and complete disregard for self. In Matthew 22, quoting from the Pentateuch, He told his disciples: "'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' ³⁸ This is the first and great commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’" (vv.37-39)

Notice where "yourself" appears in this passage. Self is dead last, after God and your neighbor. Do you think Jesus was kidding around? Perhaps, He meant to get a big laugh by making this statement. I don't think so. He said, "The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works." (John 14:10) Denying self is the only way to draw near to God. Just as you cannot serve God and mammon (Matthew 6:24), so I cannot serve God and Tom. "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other."

Finally, Jesus gives us the frequency with which we are to deny ourselves: it is "daily." We cannot draw near to God on Sunday morning and every other Wednesday at Bible study and expect to keep the devil at bay. "[T]he devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour." (1 Peter 5:8) The text doesn't say he only does this on Sunday mornings and alternate Wednesdays.

"Cleanse your hands, you sinners." That is, desist from doing that which is displeasing to God. "[A]nd purify your hearts, you double-minded." Jesus told us, "blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God." Being wishy-washy about taking up our cross is not going to cut it. Jesus said, "He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad." (Matthew 12:30) "Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to gloom." I do lament and mourn and weep, when I think how much God has done for me, and how little I have done out of gratitude in return. "Humble yourselves in the sight of God, and He will lift you up." No more bootstraps, please.

In this spiritual war, we have a formidable enemy. And yet he is already defeated. We fight not FOR victory, but FROM victory. Resist the devil AND HE WILL FLEE FROM YOU! You have the power of the Holy Spirit living in your body, which is His temple. Satan wants nothing to do with that. But we must draw near to God as outlined above. The wonderful thing is He has promised that, when we do, He will draw near to us. A mighty fortress is our God! "I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it." (Matthew 16:18) Take that, Satan!

*http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications the-numbers-count-mental-disorders-in-america/index.shtml#Intro
**http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html
***http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4478
****http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States