But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.  Gal 5:22-23

On Tuesday’s discussion, right out of the gate, Doug made some comments about self-control.  Thanks Doug, for pushing this forward.  I have been pondering, jotting down some thoughts and praying about the fruits of the Spirit as listed in Galatians.  I was going to get a series together before I started posting, and then they might come along quicker.  I am so easily sidetracked it seems.  But Doug got me thinking again and I decided to start with the last in the list of fruit since he brought it up and I feel strongly about it also.

All of the fruit are things that should be naturally growing in and out of us as we grow in our relationship with Christ.  They are the visible attributes of truly walking the Christ centered walk.  We are first saved and then as we grow in sanctification these nine things listed as fruit should start to become apparent in our lives.

Self control is listed last but I don’t believe it is any less or more than the others with the exception of possibly love.  But if I stay in reverse order then love will be last.  Self control is a good starting point because it is needed so very much in the church today.  And it needs to be properly understood.

We live in a time and a place, if you are in America, where we are lost in our self-centeredness and materialistic view of life.  The war between the flesh and the spirit is raging in all of us to some degree.  It is so easy to look at everything we do with the attitude of ‘what’s in it for me.’  This is diametrically opposed to the servant attitude we should have.  It is why the world looks at us and sees no difference between us and them.

A well known speaker or preacher that demands a $10,000.00 ‘offering’ or they can’t come, a Christian writer who lifts one catchy scripture out of context and sets up a whole new revelatory way of making our lives richer to sell a million copies of a book, a perpetually smiling preacher telling us how great we all have it in the Kingdom of God while we live on less per year than he spends on his dental hygienics; is this self control?  Is this fruit of the spirit?  I believe I would file it under self-centered greed.

The above examples show people that really aren’t even trying to have their spirits win the war against the flesh.  But there are also those that try too hard in another wrong way.  These we sometimes call legalists, fundamentalists, extreme conservatives.  They try to find ways to make the Law of God, as listed in the Old Testament, or their own made up rules about many mundane parts of life, the methods of achieving and displaying self-control.

You may know a few of these people.  They look at things like tattoos, jewelry, makeup, and the length of both men and women’s hair, as ways of establishing or determining self-control.  There are many other things like alcohol consumption, smoking, dancing, card playing and others that make the list also.  And to many of these people these are not only self control issues, they are salvific issues.  A tattoo will send you to hell.

Then there are monks and other religious orders that simply take a person out of the world.  This is also an attempt at self-control or a method of mastering ourselves.  I even know of some people that declare that their own ‘personal convictions’ demand they do or don’t do certain things like watching TV or going to movies but that it is still okay for the rest of us.  How gracious on their part.  But do they have anymore self-control than I or are they just putting limits on their selves that keep them from actually growing this fruit called self-control.

God may not be honored in a lot of the things we do but we are living in a fallen world, occupied territory as it were, in a battle for our very lives.  Jesus set us free from the Law because He fulfilled the Law.  We are free in Christ but we must live in holiness, which is being separated from the world for service to Christ.  All while an angry enemy roars all around us.

A tattoo is not going to stop that service but self control will dictate that we set some limits.  Some jewelry or makeup will not send us screaming into hell because we had no self-control but the ability to know when we are making clowns of ourselves will display it to the world.  On and on I could go but I don’t want to lose you.

The very ones who practice all these things and many more and say “look at me, I have self-control”, are only living a life of rules and regulations that show no one but themselves any hint of self control.  True self-control is finding that line that separates self-centeredness from service-centeredness; and staying on the side of service.

We have to realize we do have to set limits.  But I believe those limits will be dictated to a certain degree on our place of service, our area of ministry.  A person might have just the right amount of tattoos, piercings,  or long hair to reach a group of lost bikers or youth.

Jesus ate and drank wine with miserable lowlife sinners and did not get drunk or sin in any way they did.  But He had a mission to go to them and tell them the good news.  We have that same mission so how are those that never associate with anyone but those of like-legalistic-mind, accomplishing their mission.

Jesus called a man to be a disciple named Matthew and he was a tax collector.  Jesus also called a man named Simon who was a Zealot.  As far as the Jews were concerned Matthew was an extreme, unpatriotic traitor and Simon was an extreme, patriotic loyalist.  They should have killed each other but instead they loved each other and became servants to Christ and to us all.

That is mastering one’s self.  That is self-control.

Love you all

Tags: Christ, Church, Conservative, consumption, Enemy, Fruit of the Spirit, galatians, Hell, Lie, Love, relationship, Self, self centeredness, Servant, spirit

“But I am an American. I am a Christian. I have a duty to God and Country.”

This is the statement that started the conversation for last Tuesday.  I did not give much background information, just posited a statement that was made on another site.  I also said that it bothered me but not how or why.  Then I gave all of you the opportunity to respond and you gave some excellent thoughts about the whole issue of duty.

Duty, as stated by one of the commentator’s, has a definition that anyone can look up in the dictionary.  I did it and most do.  When we do this we see that out of all the listings it boils down to basically two different things can be meant by the word.

It can mean a duty is something that you have to do or should do because of your job or some role that has been assigned to you.  While in the army of this nation it was my duty to fight because of the job I took and the role I was given, not to mention the oath that I took.  But it is also the duty of the janitor to sweep and mop floors.  It is his duty, in this sense of the word, because it is his job.  We tend to reserve the word duty, in this definition, for people that are a little higher profile than the janitor, but we shouldn’t.

Now the second sense, or definition of the word, is that duty is something we ought to do.  Morally, legally, or spiritually I really ought or owe something to someone.

Read the last statement again and maybe you can “foreknow” or “foresee” what bothered me about the statement.

If duty, as the statement is implying, is something I owe, then it has to be to someone or some group of someone’s.  In my view, the statement we started with has a couple of things wrong with it.  First the implication is there that being an American and being a Christian are somehow equal and can be true.  Before some of you get mad at me, I know we are Americans.  But only in the sense that we live on a certain piece of dirt not in a sense of true identity.  As people, Americans are not anything special.  I am a Christian because the One who made that certain piece of dirt, and even made us out of some of it,   chose to adopt me into His family thereby guaranteeing my eternal citizenship in the Kingdom of God. (Christianity)  And we are special people.

As one of you stated “my allegiance is also to the Lamb” and therefore cannot be to the USA.  This is a recent change in me, by the way.  I can live here, work here, raise a family here, and even fight to protect what I have here, but it is still so very temporary.  And I do not owe anything to America.

“Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.”

This was a moving statement, provoking a sense of duty, possibly at a time when it was needed.  But it is still a load of hogwash.  (What is hogwash?)  I believe you get what I mean.

A nation, especially this supposedly great nation, is supposed to be set up to serve and represent the people in it.  Do I need to capitalize people here?  This would be a time when I could go along with the sense of owing a nation, if it was meant to owe a group of people.  But the United States is not a servant of the people anymore and according to JFK we shouldn’t even expect it to be.  This nation stopped being about people a long time ago and instead is a machine grinding out one new group of self interested parties after another.

I owe it nothing.  This country never made me, it never cared for me, and it never saved me.  This country is an it.  It is a place to live.  It is a piece of dirt.  I am paying monthly for my little piece of dirt so what else do I owe.  The ones I am buying my dirt from bought it from someone before them, who bought it from someone before them,… who stole it from someone before them, who took it from someone before them,… who parked themselves on it and claimed it as their own before them, while the One who truly owns it all just has to be laughing at our ideas about possessions.

I do not believe we owe or have a duty, as implied in the statement starting all of this, to any nation.  I am conservative in most of my values but getting more liberal in my affections every day.  I believe this is what becoming Christ like is all about.  I owe nothing to any entity but do owe all to God and also to you.

So many conservatives lashed out at every compassionate attempt at a solution to the illegal immigrant issue.  (Which has been waylaid again)  There have always been objections, and I think rightly, to any plan that lets someone come and be a citizen here if they are not willing to learn the language and forsake their allegiance to the country they are leaving.  But Christian Americans are hypocritical in this sense.  We just don’t want to forsake our allegiance to America for the Kingdom.

That seems to be because some of us have mistakenly believed America is the Kingdom of God here on earth.  But we have fellow citizens all over the world.  Some are even being blown up by American Christians right now.  America never was a Christian nation and it never will be, unless God annexes it into the New Jerusalem.  It was a nation founded on Judeo Christian values and that is that.  Freedom of religion was a guaranteed right, from the start, no matter how many of the founders were Christians themselves.  They seemed to understand what we sometimes don’t and that is, that this Kingdom we are supposed to be a part of is not a Kingdom advanced by the sword, but instead experiences growth only through loving service to PEOPLE themselves, not to a nation or any piece of dirt.

I am an American by definition based on where I live, but I am a child of the King, a citizen of The Kingdom of God, and an Ambassador for Christ and His Kingdom while he leaves me here on this piece of dirt called America.

To answer my own questions; I don’t like the statement and believe it to be false as stated, I have a duty to the God that saved me and He really only expects that as a loving duty and not coerced, and I don’t owe this nation a thing.  It owes me the protection and service that it was set up for and even that I have to pay for.  So that even proves that in one sense of the word, America has a duty to me.  It is its job.

Love you all

Tags: allegiance, America, Christian Americans, Christians, Compassion, Conservative, God, god and country, Jerusalem, Kingdom, Liberal, Love, Self, Servant, USA, Work

I do not really want to write a lot of political commentary on this blog.  But a thought came to mind that I just have to get out of me. 

The liberal Democrat will let you know in many wonderful words and beautiful sentiments how much they care for everyone.  And at the same time, if they are in politics or entertainment, they simply do not conceal their attitudes of superiority and arrogance. 

The conservative Republican, on the other hand, does not usually portray any concern for the common man.  But their actions sometimes do show they care a little bit.  But they are much better at hiding their condescending thoughts about us.

The thing that seems obvious about both sides is simply that they care mostly only about themselves and will say anything to promote what they care the most about.  I am talking about those on both sides that are in the limelight.  The prominent, important people in our world.

But my real question is, are we any better?

 Rom 3:10  … “THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE;

Evidently not

Love you all

Tags: Character, Conservative, Government, Identity, Leadership, Liberal, Politics, Republicans, Self, Vote