THE QUEST FOR HOLINESS, INSTALLMENT THREE: INTEGRITY

Perhaps another important ingredient to true holiness could be found in the pursuit of integrity.

Integrity is being consistent, being a person of my word, letting my “yes” be “yes” and my “no” be “no.” James says that anything less is of the devil, Jesus said that being a person of integrity in this way means that I don’t need to swear in order for someone to take me seriously. Paul said that a worldly way of making plans is to say “yes” and “no” at the same time. Anything less than this is called hypocrisy, and is not dealt with sympathetically by the Bible or the early church leaders.

I say “pursuit of integrity” because I’m not sure that anyone ever truly achieves that kind of consistent integrity.

I have many times made a commitment to do something I didn’t actually feel led to do, simply because I wanted to be liked by the person who was asking something of me. I said “yes” with my mouth while my heart was saying “no.” I was a manfearer and fell into a trap.

Worse yet, I have committed to doing something, but haven’t followed through on my promise (which is what my “yes” should always be). I swore to my own hurt, and then changed. According to the psalmist, I will not stand on the hill of the Lord or abide in His dwelling place because of my inconsistency.

Integrity is also saying difficult things to someone’s face, and not behind his or her back. Too often, it is the other way around. An enemy multiplies kisses, but the wounds of a friend can be trusted. I fear that almost every church and business and friendship, and even extended families, function this way. We don’t think of any of this as a lack of integrity, in danger of condemning our souls to hell for eternity.

So, why is it so common to lack integrity? Why did Solomon say that he could only find one righteous man in a thousand, but not even one righteous woman? Because he had only seen maybe one man of integrity in his life. I submit that perhaps that man was Jonathan, who pledged himself in friendship to Solomon’s father, David. He had been true. On the other hand, Solomon had a thousand wives, and he had not seen any of them with the loyalty of his father’s lifelong friend.

“LORD, let me be a man of my word, a man for all seasons. Let me be someone that people and You can bank on. This is my sincere goal. Guide me to it by Your Spirit of Holiness, who will guide me in all truth. Amen.”
-ker

THE QUEST FOR HOLINESS, INSTALLMENT TWO: SELF-CONTROL.

What does it mean to be holy? And what is the path for getting there? As I further reflect on the matter, I realize that a major key could be found in the concept of self-control.

I discovered the word sophroneo (in Greek) and did a word study on it as a young man. It is the word used to describe the Gadarene demoniac who had had a legion of demons cast out of him by Jesus. He was sitting, fully clothed and in his right mind, or self-controlled. It is also the word used for what Paul told Titus to teach older men, older women, younger women and young men in Titus chapter 2. In fact, self-controlled is the ONLY thing that Titus was to encourage the young men to be.

What does it mean to be self-controlled? On a practical level, it means to be soberminded, to be morally straight, to hold one's temper, to avoid wildness, to be focused and disciplined. Practically speaking, it means to say "no" to your flesh and to those natural desires that you know lead to self-destructive or wrong behavior.

But on a deeper and even more practical level, to be self-controlled means something beyond myself. I might say that being self-controlled means to be Spirit-controlled. I don't just say "no" to my flesh, but I focus on saying "yes" to the Spirit. And the Holy Spirit (the spirit of holiness) will, without exception, lead me to make holy choices by a simple "yes" to His promptings.

If I only focus on saying "no" to myself, I quickly wind up in legalism and restrictions. If I focus on saying "yes" to Him, I walk in freedom and yet am set apart for the things of God. After all, I am not my own. I belong to Him. I live for Him. I die for Him. I give to Him. I serve Him only.

"LORD, I choose self-control to lead me to a holy life. I will deny myself, and I will say 'yes' to Your Spirit. I choose to walk in the Spirit, to be led by the Spirit, to be filled with the Spirit. And when He speaks, my answer will be 'Amen.'"
-ker

THE QUEST FOR HOLINESS, INSTALLMENT ONE: LOVE

What does it mean to be holy? On a practical level, talking about living a holy life seems to lead immediately to legalism. We talk about what to stay away from, what not to do. But Michael Wilson read from a book last Sunday, and it has led me to see that perhaps the primary key to holiness is love.

When I love myself, I choose what is good for myself, rather than what is destructive. When I love God, I choose what honors Him and brings Him glory. When I love my neighbor, I choose to do what is best for him or her. So walking in love leads to walking in holiness. Maybe they are synonymous. But then love is synonymous with anything good, I suppose.

What is deceitful in my simple love formula is that, though I love myself a great deal, I often do actions that are self-destructive and immature. I eat poorly, live an out-of-balance schedule, and don't discipline myself. I often trade long-term effectiveness for short-term pleasure, and it's not because I don't love myself, but because I am not making wise choices.

Most of the time, however, the love formula is perfect. So if I keep my eyes on pursuing love, I will find myself living a life of holiness, because all of my choices will be made with purity of motives.

"LORD, I choose to love You will all of my heart, with all of my soul, with all of my mind, and with all of my strength. And I choose to love my neighbor as I love myself. Let me honor You by the way I walk in love, and I will be set apart for Your purposes. In the holy name of Jesus I ask it. Amen."
-ker

WHERE DOES ANGER COME FROM?

For the second time in just two days, I have heard my voice yelling at my son Anthony. I am shocked that such strong feelings overwhelm me from time to time, and even more so that I should have two attacks of screaming in such close order.

I like to think that any time I get angry, it is with righteous indignation. Acts of evil and rebellion, injustice and cruelty, these are the things that should make me angry because I see the world through God's eyes. Jesus cleared the temple; I yell at my son, right? No, I'm ashamed to say that my fits are due to seeing actions through my eyes only.

Anthony has the heart of an adult, but the maturity of a little boy. He wants so badly to be responsible, and, sure enough, he is so badly responsible. He wants to help with his little brothers, but he makes wrong choices, treats them roughly, does not follow through. Sometimes he acts like, well, a little kid. Oh, yeah, he is one. A hundred-pound gentle giant in the making. And rather than seeing his good heart and helping him learn how to channel those good intentions, I exhibit the very thing I never want to see in him.

When I want him to be a grown-up helper and he instead behaves like a little boy, it makes me angry. I'm angry at Anthony, I suppose. Impatient at his impatience. Maybe I'm angry at God. I don't know.

James asked this question about the source of anger. He said it comes from wanting something for selfish reasons. For my own selfish ends, I want my home to be a place of maturity and peace. Ironically, when it is not, I have made it worse. So much for getting my own way.

"LORD, let me want what You want, rather than insisting on my own timetable. Let me show Anthony the same patience and consistent love that You have shown me. I have felt Your conviction before, but it is always gentle and loving, affirming and compassionate. Forgive me once again through Jesus, and let me be the father that Antho-Bud needs and deserves, while there is still hope. Amen."
-ker

GET UP AND GO

This morning we read from Acts 8, and for various reasons that I will explain some little details jumped out at me. Here are the words: Walk over . . . He got up and went . . . on his way . . . had gone to Jerusalem . . . on his way home . . . Go to that chariot and stay near it . . . as they traveled . . . went down into the water . . . came up out of the water . . . went on his way . . . traveled about.

Jesus told his disciples "Go." The angel told Peter and John, "Go, stand and tell." God told Abraham, "Go to the place I will show you." He sent Elijah on a long journey before He said something important to him in a still, small voice. Jesus left heaven to come to earth. Maybe it is not coincidence that the Gospel begins with "Go." So does "God." Okay, maybe not. But maybe His calling often begins with a hearty "Go."

So the Spirit is whispering to me my own, very personal, "Go." In my case, it is to leave my office, to get some exercise, and to be more active. Maybe God is telling Daniel and me to "Go" on a roadtrip to experience something that will shape us both for a lifetime.

The truth is, I have been so tired lately. My get up and go has gotten up and gone. Neither Ellen nor I have slept for eight straight hours more than once or twice a year in the past two years, and we are both constantly exhausted. So my tendency is to want to be sedentary, passive and inactive during the day. Let them come to me. Let someone else initiate an idea, or stand up to get that diaper, or initiate a needed conversation, or volunteer to help that neighbor, or run down to that other place to pick up something.

So, I am sitting in Panera Bread instead of my office, doing a blog by wireless internet for the first time, experiencing life outside the office. And I am running some errands to prepare for the roadtrip rather than sitting and making a list. And maybe tomorrow morning, Ellen and I will start taking some walks at the beginning of the day. And maybe I will be a little less reluctant to stand up or to leave the house or the office in order to be out in public.

You know, where the people are.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE HOLY?

Our elders are entering a season of wrestling with a major topic on behalf of the church. Maybe the center of the topic is the practical definition of holiness. God is holy; what does that mean? He tells us to be holy as He is holy; what does that look like?

In the "good ol' days," conservative evangelicals knew what holiness looked like. Good boys and girls didn't do certain things, and the list was pretty much universally understood: don't smoke or drink, don't cuss or steal, no sex outside of marriage, be sure to go to church and tithe, that sort of thing. Furthermore, don't do anything that LOOKS bad, like playing cards, going to movies or going to bars. (Sometimes the Scripture, "Avoid every appearance of evil" was mistranslated for this principle.)

Using these legalistic standards, we could tell you what sin was, and consequently could feel pretty comfortable with our holiness. Holiness was avoiding anything on the Top Ten Sins list. In fact, those who did the best at appearing to keep away from the Top Ten would be elevated to positions of leadership, such as deacon and elder, where they could help watch over the flock to be sure no one else backslid into a sinful lifestyle. It was all pretty tidy.

Of course, Jesus often upset our comfortable system by talking about hating our brother or lusting after women. But those kinds of things were so hard to measure that we mostly ignored them. After all, how could you tell if someone lusted? But you could tell if someone was divorced, so that became the practical standard.

We all know what happened to our idyllic system of measurable holiness. It fell prey to the skeptical scrutiny of postmodernism. We discovered that many of the people who seemed pure on the outside were really full of pride, selfishness, greed and lust, while others who did not fit the old system were really quite balanced and healthy in their spiritual lives. And none of us was pure, after all.

So now we stand at a crossroad. If we can't measure holiness by the old standards, how do we know whether we are being holy?

I think that most postmoderns today focus so much on running away from the old legalistic measurements of holy living that they no longer consider the command to be holy. We so much emphasize grace and mercy that we have almost completely ignored the call to be godly. We no longer use the "s" word (sin) or the "r" word (repent), because those only alienate people and block them from hearing the Good News. Resultantly, the individual conscience has become the ultimate, and maybe the only, measurement of right and wrong. Freedom without holiness is idolatry, and grace without zeal is antichrist, just as faith without works is dead.

Where do we go from here? The elders are hoping to schedule a retreat late this summer to wrestle with this subject together, seeking the Lord and fasting and studying so that we can help to shepherd our flock.

"LORD, we want to please you as a people. We want to want what You want, and we want to hate what You hate. Give us Your eyes and Your heart, and lead us in paths of righteousness for Your name's sake. We ask this of You, Father God, in the name of Your Son through the will shown to us by Your Spirit. Amen."

WORSHIP IS LOVE

Here is the essence of what I shared in the assembly yesterday morning:

In a very real sense, it is fair to say that worship is nothing more or less than loving God and being loved by God. Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to love God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength. And John 3:16 says that God so loved the world. We love God and God loved us. John tells us that we love because God first loved us. So worship is the give and take of love.

In fact, the traditional wording of the wedding ceremony includes the words, "With all that I am and all that I have I worship thee." More recently we say, "I honor you." The early English word for worship meant to ascribe worth or honor, and the love and commitment between a husband and wife is truly worship.

Now, every word picture has its limitations, but we are described as the bride of Christ in the New Testament. The Song of Songs (Song of Solomon) provides an intimate, pasisonate description of love between a bride and groom. Many through the years have considered the book to be a metaphorical description of Christ and the church.

Now, two warnings before we proceed:

First, sexual or romantic love is not necessarily the highest love. That's often what we think of between husband and wife. But remember what Jesus said was the highest love? Greater love has no man than this: that he lay down his life for a friend. So the highest expression of love is self-sacrifice, not romance.

Second, I just noticed that WE are the Bride of Christ, not ME. I am a part of that body, but I am not the whole. Our expressions of intimacy are strangely collective expressions, for each of us is part of the whole, the Bride that Jesus loved and gave Himself up for.

BASEBALL 101: A LESSON IN LEADERSHIP

This is the first installment of spiritual insights and life lessons generated from baseball. We'll see where the whole thing ends up in a few weeks!

Paul Daugherty from the Cincinnati Enquirer prompted these thoughts with a column on being a major league manager. There are some lessons in leadership that I have been mulling over since reading his column.

PD says: "Some managers win the respect of their players. They demand a few essentials: hustle and brains, basically. Play hard and smart. Those are the managers who keep their jobs. Others do not have the respect of their players. They ask for hard and smart. Without respect, they don't always get it. What they get is fired."

St. Louis manager Tony La Russa put it this way: "Your first responsibility is getting effort from your club. Play nine hard innings. You hire a manager to provide leadership, not be a caretaker. If you don't set forth a philosophy of how your team is going to play - and back it up whenever your team doesn't play that way - you're leaving a void. Sooner or later, someone will fill it."

What the column says that you need two things in order to win respect from major league players: "The Reds need someone who can get up in their faces and flash a World Series ring at the same time. One without the other presents a credibility gap that can't be bridged."

Kent Mercker said this about Bobby Cox: "One set of rules. It's fear, in a good way. It's respect. I've seen (Cox) pull superstars out of games for not running hard to first base."

La Russa again: "You have to come in and say, 'This is how we're going to play, this is how we're going to conduct ourselves. We have a plan. Every day, we follow it.' Do that, follow through, and players believe you know what you're talking about."

Managers all want the same two things: play smart and play hard. But they don't all get it. Those who get smart and hard from their players have two things: a ring and an attitude. That's the column in a nutshell.

What does this have to do with me? If I want an effective music program at school, or an effective worship team at church, I need two things: a credibility and character (I'm replacing Daugherty's words here). I must model what I want in students by being an example in my own worship leading and musicianship, and I must consistently call for the musicians I work with to be the best that they can be. What that says to me is to set up my musicians to succeed, with the materials and advance notice that they need and the communication that they deserve. Have consistent standards, keep good records, and call students higher.

Then, I don't need to fret over the quality of musicians, because eventually I will get quality drawn to the team that produces great stuff.

DEPENDENCE DAY

We have only one holiday in America that is most commonly known only by its date. Almost exclusively I find myself calling it The Fourth of July rather than Independence Day. Even when the Monday falls on something other than the fourth, the holiday is still referred to as The Fourth Weekend.

I am glad that for the most part we still call most holidays by their names: Mother's Day, Memorial Day, Thanksgiving Day, National Day of Prayer, and (dare I say it) Christmas and Easter (or Winter and Spring Break). The names help to remind us of what it is we are to Remember, or to whom and for what we are Thankful. But I wonder if we have forgotten the meaning of Independence Day, as we have forgotten the name?

Any advanced civilization is highly interdependent. My family, for example, does not grow a single bite of our own food, do not supply our own heat or power, and are not self-sufficient by any means. As a nation, too, we are extremely dependent on the Middle East for oil, on the Far East for cheap labor, and on technology for, well, everything.

Our dependence on technology is, let it be known, our greatest strength and also our Achilles' heel as a nation. If an enemy were to devise a way to remove all of our digital equipment in a single moment, we would be crippled. All computers would no longer work (no more daily blog!), including those in our vehicles, at our power plants and water works, in our telephones, ATM machines and every other means of transferring money, and in virtually every store and gizmo made in the last twenty years. In fact, our army is well outnumbered by several others. Our only advantage over other military forces is our technology, which is supported by our strong economy.

Do you think that an enemy would dare to attack our technology, our military and our economy if it were in their power to do so? Of course they would. It would be better than flying planes into the World Trade Center, and far more symbolic. Perhaps most symbolic of all would be to do this nefarious act on the day in which we celebrate our self-claimed independence. Perhaps this year? Perhaps as late as next year?

What will our city be like with no electricity, no water, and no TV or radio communication? We would instantly discover just how Dependent we are. Maybe we are not so Independent, after all.

Am I ready? I cannot get ready in a physical sense. Not living where I do. But am I ready for the chaos and the panic and the violence of my culture when the day arrives? Will I prove my faith by my reaction to my hardship? Will I find hope beyond this life?

"LORD, today I declare my absolute Dependence upon You. I remember that I am but dust, and that You alone are my Maker and Sustainer. Yeah, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me. Amen."
-ker