Hurt With Purpose

“In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked Him. ‘He saved others,’ they said, ‘but He can’t save Himself! He’s the King of Israel! Let Him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in Him. He trusts in God. Let God rescue Him now if He wants Him, for He said, ‘I am the Son of God.’”

-Matthew 27:41-43

I was in line getting my dinner for the day when she blasted me with the question. As her lips made the indication of words about to spill out, I could already tell where this conversation was headed. She mentioned how horrible the Colorado shootings were. In my head, I thought, “I don’t want to demean the tragedy of what happened to small talk.”

The striking thing about this that was brought to my mind was how people deal with pain. Some people are numb to it in such a capacity that it only becomes small talk for them. Some people, when they hear of stuff like this happen in our country, force down the reticent cries of humanity, and let surface this seemingly apathetic manner towards the tragedy. What I have seen is that most people question. I have seen people flood Twitter and Facebook with questions of why God would do this, a question their aching soul has longed for a solution to.

The main question thrown around is this: “If God is so loving, why would He do this?”

My goal with this post is not to answer this question, but to provide reason to suggest that this question is not the question to be asking in order to deal with pain.

People place a condition upon God saying, “If God is so loving, why would He do this?” My question with this is why don’t the same people who ask that question place that condition upon man? Saying, “If man is so good or better off without God, why do they do this?” Because deep down, lodged in the deepest depth of our being, is the universal belief that we are not perfect, that we are not fine without God, that there is Something bigger than us.

By placing a condition upon God, we find our self falling victim to the same thing the chief priests did to Jesus in the verses above. They acted as if they knew God, but little did they know, God had a plan that would only be fulfilled through the pain and suffering of His Son.

I’m not pretending like I know what God had in mind with this shooting. But I know what to do in response. Instead of questioning, I pray that life can emerge out of this death, just like it did for Jesus Christ. Instead of questioning, I have the hope to move forward, knowing that someday, all the evil of the world will be forever redeemed.

You see, I only see the dealing of this pain going two ways: run from it and leave it to be forever questioned in our being, or face it with the reality that God is an all powerful God who has a purpose through pain. When pain tears away at the spirit of man, it either leaves the foundation of a thriving hope or nothing at all.

That is why I propose that we should not be a people who run from the question of pain of suffering, but instead hurt with purpose. The purpose that pain only makes us stronger by revealing our living hope in an Almighty God. In a workout, every muscles of your body only gains definition when you struggle through the pain. But there is no way to move forward through the pain without hope propelling you. The crux of my character, what I stand for, is only defined through pain because it is through pain my hope is most revealed.

For the unbeliever reading this, I pray that you can find the hope needed to answer the question of pain. And for the believer, I pray that events such as these may not cause you to stumble in your faith, but rather cause you to be modeled more like Christ. Because Christ had hope in His suffering on the cross, and that is what caused Him to endure it and move forward in order to bring us life.

Don’t run from pain. Be modeled by it.

Hurt with a purpose.

For The Love of God

“The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.”

-1 Timothy 1:5

His expression revealed that he was dumbfounded by what I thought was elementary. So here we were, me and a new friend, both confused because we approached each other from different grounds, different viewpoints. We were discussing our current relationships: me and my beautiful girlfriend, and him and the girl he was pursuing. It surprised me that he was shocked by the intentionality that I set in place for my relationship. But as he began to share his current predicament in his pursuit of a certain lady, it became clear to me that the reason we differed so much in terms of the way we approach our relationship is because we both have two very different definitions of love.

Now that I think about it, society itself struggles for a more solid definition of love. Too many times do I hear people vowing that they’ll give everything up for their partner and how that is love, but then two weeks later they give up their partner instead of everything. And then people mask over that with this vague statement saying, “Things change,” or, “You never know what is going to happen.” Then I hear a lot of people who adopt the definition of love stated in 1 Corinthians 13. But then I guess the reading of the Word doesn’t change them because they become impatient, unkind, and unloving. We live in a culture that is starving for a more concrete definition to love.

Yet because I have experienced the transforming power of the Gospel, I feel that I have a concrete definition of love that is present in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. I believe the primary reason me and my friend differed on our views of love are because I love God. Loving someone by loving God is such a distinct love that it contrasts the world’s definition of love. It is a love characterized by intentionality and foundation.

Speaking on intentionality: Jesus was intentional with His love. He didn’t come and say, “I love them but I don’t know if I’ll die for them. We’ll see how it goes. Things change. You never know what is going to happen.” No! The intentionality of His love saved our lives!

Now speaking upon foundation: the foundation I talk about is present in the verse above. Because He died for us, He made His love complete in us by giving us the foundation of loving out of a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith.

For the pure heart, is your heart inclined towards the good of your partner? And when I say good, I mean the good established through Scripture, not what is socially acceptable or your definition of good.

For the good conscience, are you keeping your relationship guilt free? Because true love doesn’t carry the burden of a guilty conscience. We get this idea from what Jesus did for us on the cross. Because check this out: Jesus died for our burden of sin. We were guilty but because He came and offered grace, by His grace, we can have a clear conscience. We can repent and not deal with that burden of sin! It is out of a clear conscience that we follow Him and love Him by obeying His commandments. That is why is 1 John 4:19 it says, “We love because He first loved us.” Because He loved us, He gave us the grace needed to clear our conscience, not so that we can mess up more, but so we can build a relationship that is modeled out of His love for us. So that we can truly love with a clear conscience. Jesus has forever cleared our conscience, but that calls for not putting our self in a position where we are to feel guilty again. If we truly love because He loved us first, our love should affirm His love by having a guilt free conscience.

And for the sincere faith, are you loving your partner by loving God? For if Jesus Christ is love, then you must know that true love if you want to truly love your partner. You must have faith in the one who makes faith possible. In order to truly love you must love that which is True.

So here is the kicker: without true love from God, one cannot attain this love with foundation. For what is someone to keep their heart pure for? What is someone to have a good conscience against? And what is someone to have faith in, if not God?

Here is the main question I want to challenge you with: Do you love differently because you love God?

We should affirm the love of God by showing that we have a love with intentionality and foundation. The foundation is this: that our love is formed upon a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith. And this true love is not possible without first loving God and following in His ways.

Imagine if our culture loved each other out of the clear and distinct definition of love given to us in the Gospel. Imagine if we were a people who were for the love of God. As people of God, we must love differently. Our love should affirm and point to God’s love. 

The Ideal Manhood

“If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all.” –Isaiah 7:9

One of the greatest fears I have in life is that way down the future, one of my kids will wake up in the morning, look out the window, and see nothing. They’ll look at the sky and see nothing but a big blue expanse. And when the sun sets in that sky, they’ll see nothing but a fiery blend of warm colors. The grass will be nothing more than green and the stars will be nothing more than science to them. You see, I want my kids to wake up in the morning and go to bed at night confident in who they are and what they believe.

I say this now as I’m sitting in a coffee shop on my birthday because I can see numerous times in my life where I have woken up not sure about what I stand for. I would simply just get up and go do. I would go to school or work a nine to five as if it were to speaking meaning and essence into my life. Yet ripping at my heart was a conviction that to be a man meant not to just do, but to have my actions filtered out of my beliefs. This conviction was only birthed out of a holistic understanding of the picture of men painted within Scripture.

Too many times have I seen man not given purpose, so they work out of their muscles and their ability rather than their belief. Yet in Scripture I see manhood defined not in what they do, but rather what they stand for. Their life is not given meaning in their muscles, money, or cars, but in their inner workings from which their convictions arise.

There is an evident contrast I see from the men of Scripture and the modern day man that exists today. Today I see man (not all men) going through life not sure of what they stand for. Falling on their hard shell of an exterior are titles meant to give them some sort of definition in being a man. Give them some sort of shape rather than being a formless nothing. But sadly, they are deemed the perverts, the adulterers, the cheaters, the jocks, the prideful, and the villain. There are some men who are deemed honorable and noble, but if you take a magnifying glass to their life you see that this sense of chivalry has no backbone, no spine from which it forms its foundation. Man is given no shape, no definition in themselves.

But as I reflect on my birthday, I praise God that being a man of the Lord makes complete sense. It is the ideal manhood where someone could look upon the man and know not only what they stand for but also why they believe what they believe. It is in this manhood I see that actions are filtered through convictions and not the other way around. It is in this manhood that I can wake up in the morning and go to bed at night, knowing who I am and what I stand for.

It only took me 21 years to figure out what it truly means to be a man. It is not wholly dependent on age or ability. It is dependent on the very thing that speaks a satisfying essence into my being. Praise be to God and the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ that I am given a meaning. Praise be to God that I can look upon these past 21 years of life and not simply believe them to be an act of providence arising out of my own ability, but rather an orchestration of different instruments leading me to sing the praise of my Maker.

The Error of Separation

5 Jonah had gone out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. 6 Then the Lord God provided a leafy plant and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the plant. 7 But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the plant so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, “It would be better for me to die than to live.”

9 But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?”

“It is,” he said. “And I’m so angry I wish I were dead.”

10 But the Lord said, “You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. 11 And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?”

-Jonah 4:5-11

Many of us have heard the story of Jonah, whether it be through the Old Testament book or the Veggie Tales movie. If you haven’t the story is simple: Jonah was told to go preach repentance to the Assyrian city of Nineveh, he disobeys, tries to flee, gets swallowed by a big fish, prays and gets spit out on the shore, goes and preaches, and then sits on a hill to watch God not bring calamity upon the city. But here are three errors Jonah made that we can apply to our society and how to interact with culture.

1. Jonah separated himself. In Jonah 4:5 we see that Jonah goes and separates himself from people and culture in order to watch the Lord bring judgment upon Nineveh, which didn’t happen. To add to things, he built for himself a shelter there. How does this apply to ourselves? Do you ever notice that there are people in society who elevate themselves and then justify themselves with arguments that people could easily poke holes into? This is similar to Jonah building a shelter. He separated himself from society and then built a shelter in order to make his separation feel better. But notice in verse 6 that God provides a plant to ease his discomfort. Though Jonah built a shelter, he was still uncomfortable. But sometimes, God leads us to a place where he affirms and comforts us in our separation. This might include people in our lives who are supporting us. Does that mean that God approves of our separation? No because we see the plant die. By God’s authority we see that the plant dies, and once the plant dies, Jonah is once again vulnerable to the heat. In our separation, in our elevation of ourselves, we will get heat. There might be times where God supports us in circumstances of our separation, but remember that God is for His own glory, and in that, He will also expose us to the heat if that’s what it takes for Him to receive the glory.

2. Jonah expected something that was contradictory to God’s nature. In Jonah’s separation, he was left alone to form his own thoughts about God. This is one of the many dangers of not involving yourself in community and the Word. By separating yourself, you become subject to your own perceptions, when we as believers should form our convictions against what the Word says, and then apply what we believe through experience and community. You are not subject to any of that through separation. Involve yourself in community and God’s word and find out more of God’s nature.

3. Jonah had no personal investment in the people of Nineveh. When the vine disappeared, Jonah was angry because he was only concerned about what the vine provided for him in the moment. Jonah did not grieve because he was not personally invested in the vine itself. Now this related with his relationship with Nineveh. He wasn’t personally invested in Nineveh. He only justified himself and his sins by passing judgment on the people. He wasn’t invested in Nineveh because he would have rejoiced in the compassion of the Lord. There is a great danger to this. We cannot believe that the Word of God applies to us in one way and then to another in another way.  We cannot separate ourselves to this degree.

Overall point: Do not separate yourself from culture, but rather engage it. As believers, we are distinct, but this distinction does not call us to elevate ourselves and pass judgment on people like some believers I see in the media. It calls us to go out into the world, preach the Gospel, and represent the change that the Gospel is suppose to bring about in our life. By drawing our self out of the world, we bear no fruit, and it is the branch that has no fruit that is more apt for the fire.

We see with Jonah that it is a lot more work to elevate yourself because then you have to justify yourself, come up with things for yourself, and have no outlet for you to pour out. Remember, Jonah would have had a much better time if he chose to stay within Nineveh and rejoice in the repentance of the people. But instead he chose to separate himself. As Christians, we need to be relational people in order to learn of God’s true nature and apply what He wants of us in this world. 

The Flesh Is Willing, But The Spirit Is Weak

“The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

-John 1:14

“That’s ridiculous!” was the cry of the crowd.

“That man should respect boundaries. I have no problem with religion, but when someone tries to talk to me about it is when I get annoyed. Stop trying to shove it down my throat,” said one highly opinionated and cynical gentleman.

But then, like a sudden calm before the storm, an eerie silence swept over the room. With shifty eyes the friends shot glances at one another. Yet while they were exchanging looks, not one of them dared to glance my direction. They were fully aware of the elephant in the room- that I was a Christian. It would probably be too much of your dismay that I did not respond to the conversation. It was not right at the moment for me to sling my convictions around like stones defending against an attack. I was outnumbered by people feeding off each other with their shared negativity.

But half of me sought to figure out where they got this notion that Christians are out there trying to shove religion down their throats with force. From where did this hostility arise? It wasn’t a hard question to answer. Flip on the news and you see headlines about Christians’ judgmental antics, but rarely do you see anything about their love. I can just envision the newscaster yelling to our face, “And in other news, those crazy Christians are at it again saying that God desires that we need to kill all the gays, fornicators, adulterers, and dirty politicians!” What? Since when did Jesus say that?

The problem is that with Christianity there is always this question of how we are to interact with the world. It is right to say that we, as disciples of Jesus, are set apart from the world, but where do we go from that? Often the only Christians that get publicized are those that take this question to the extreme and give their own conception of the ideal standard and place that over the world. But the true disciple realizes that the standard is not to be found in the self, but in Christ. As disciples we are conforming to His likeness (Romans 8:29), and that is what we should strive for.

Here is my interpretation of how to interact with the world:

We are not to lift ourselves higher than we are to look down on the world. We are not to forsake our convictions by tolerating everything. We are to strive for Christ who exists as the perfect balance between flesh and Spirit.

In John 1:14 it says that The Word became flesh. Jesus Christ, in all His perfection, bound himself within flesh, yet was still God. He stood for us as the new standard to a depraved and desolate world, the perfect balance between flesh and Spirit. The verse above says He was full of grace and truth. Being full of grace and truth is synonymous with the balance between flesh and Spirit because Jesus needed grace to redeem the flesh on one side and then on the opposite side needed the truth of the Spirit to speak direction and vision to a lost people.

How do we apply this? Well you often get perversions of the Gospel and false teachings from distortions of grace and truth. For instance, ministries that preach that we need to be concerned about all this political and social activism has an overemphasis of spirit leading them to believe that they have the truth of God when in reality, through their perversion, they are preaching their own truth. With this truth, there is no grace for anyone on the outside. But then on the opposite side of the spectrum we see ministries saying that everything is permissible, much like the church in Corinth. They tolerate anything and everything, but without any guiding truth from the Spirit, their church merely becomes a social club that gives them an excuse to gather once a week to gossip, slander, etc. etc. The extremes are the ones that get publicized to my friends mentioned above.

Yet we find Christ in the middle, with the fullness of grace in one hand and the fullness of truth in the other. Being the perfect balance between flesh and Spirit, He gave us the standard with which we are to approach the world.

But then comes the question on the side of grace: how tolerant are we to be before we become too tolerant or too intolerant? Where is the balance? Just consider this: Christianity is NOT a tolerant religion. It is an intolerant religion in the sense that its values do not function in the operations of this world. If Christianity were a “tolerant” religion, there would be no impetus to preach the Gospel. The Gospel would merely become pillows in a coffin meant to comfort a decaying corpse. It would affirm all the actions of the world. But the fact that the Gospel inspires change shows that it is not tolerant to the state of this world. So the answer to the question is this: everything that affirms Jesus Christ as the truth. Jesus Christ didn’t say, “I am the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE”  (John 14:6) for nothing. He said this with the desire that we filter our life, our goals, our values, and our direction in this world through THE TRUTH of Him. Anything that affirms the truth is true, and anything that doesn’t is simply false.

But then this leads us to the other question, on the side of truth: How are we to bear this truth before we become very dogmatic and hostile with it? Think about it like this: the truth is like dangerous material in a chemical plant. You handle it with caution, discernment, and gentleness for it is very powerful. If you go throwing it around, it ceases to become truth and just blows up in your face. Look to how Jesus handled the truth. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said this, “The love of Christ for the sinner is in itself the condemnation of sin and expression of His extreme hatred of sin.” Jesus handled the truth with love and care, not forsaking it by hurling it around to obliterate the people. Think about it like this: if someone throws a stone at you, you’re naturally going to want to throw it back. That’s what happens when you force truth upon people. But when you treasure and love the truth it is like passing precious pearls. The receiving party does not dare retaliate in a hostile manner, but rather, feels humbled accepting your treasure. That’s how Jesus handled the truth.

You see what I did with the questions of grace and truth? There is a relationship between the two. Grace is only formed upon finding the truth and the truth is only conveyed through grace. They cannot exist in the right manner outside of each other. They exist, to us, perfectly bound together in the figure of Jesus Christ.

Never find yourself in a position where you misrepresent or pervert Christianity through a willing flesh and weak spirit. That where most miscomprehensions come from: people who desire their own ambitions outside of the truth of the Spirit conveyed through His Holy Word. They will with the flesh and their own weak spirit. But we know that is not how things are to be. Flesh and spirit were meant to be perfectly married together when we, fleshly humans, commit ourselves to the True Spirit, Jesus Christ. 

The Duplicity of Dust Pt. II: Biblical Examples

In the last post, we discussed how God is an all-encompassing purpose that envelops our duplicitous, sinful nature that drags us back and forth on this never-ending chase of our own self-perceived good. Our duplicity of good and bad is conquered through Christ who gives us the direction of where to go by establishing good, and then integrating us with a purpose that integrates our desires in a perfect manner to be fulfilled with him. If you need a refresher, check out the post The Duplicity of Dust.

This post is to offer Biblical examples of this duplicity at work. Why? Because I believe Scripture to be the most life-changing, inspirational, and critical piece of literature in the fact that it is not purely literature meant to entertain parts of the mind, but it is God-breathed meant to impact our mind and heart for the sake of Christ.

So my first example is in Matthew 19:16-22 with the story of the rich young man. The first thing to notice is when the man asks Jesus what good thing he must do to inherit eternal life, Jesus answers by establishing what good is. He says only God is good. And in that, by establishing good, He offers direction. The man now knows what is good, so He won’t follow His own interpretation of what good is. Next, the man notices that there is something more to the Commandments. In verse 20, he says that he has kept all the Commandments that Jesus has commanded but he still lacks. This correlates with what I said in my last post about how the Commandments merely makes us conscious of sin. In this case, it is making the rich young man conscious that he is lacking. He seeks a solution, which is only available in Christ. In verse 21, Jesus says to sell all his possessions. He says this not because He is saying this is what it takes for all of us to inherit eternal life, but rather because Jesus notices that the rich young man is married to his possessions. In order for him to adopt a new identity as a child of God, he has to be divorced from His stuff. And the result: the rich young man turns his back on his own good. He could not overcome his duplicity because he could not confront who he truly was before a holy and righteous God. The identity of a rich young man was far to better for him to pass up than being a child of God. Because being a child of God meant to look at his identity as a rich young man and say to it that it holds no significance in the grand scheme of things. But the man chose not to believe this truth, and as a result, he will forever be haunted by his duplicity.

In the last post we talked about how the 10 Commandments exposed the people for who they were. They were in need. We see that definitely applied in this story with the rich young man. Only when we confront our true nature of being in need can we follow the solution to that need. And it is in following that solution that we are offered the direction and purpose that conquers our duplicity.

But what about the times before the 10 Commandments? Do we still see people in need and struggling with a duplicitous nature? The answer is yes, and I will use some examples to explain.

In Genesis 27, Jacob confronts his father, Isaac, pretending to be his brother, Esau. He did this in order to obtain the birthright in a deceitful manner, the birthright that belonged to Esau. In verse 18, Isaac asks who is it that approaches him for he is an old man who is losing his senses. Isaac says he is Esau. Out of deceit and trickery, he gains the birthright and takes off with it, haunted by the torment and fear that his brother would exact revenge on him. All he wanted was to be blessed by his father. But now a couple chapters later in chapter 32, Jacob is looking for another man, which turns out to be his Heavenly Father, to bless him. In verse 27, the man, who is God, asks what his name is. Now, why would God ask what his name is? Doesn’t He already know? Of course. God is concerned with how Jacob will answer. And Jacob answers rightly, with his own name. And right after that Jacob is given a new identity. It is the new identity of Israel which blesses generations long after him.

You see what happened here? Jacob was only blessed when he owned up to who he really was: the lying, deceiving man of Jacob. And after that, he receives the blessing he so desperately sought. He then became someone different. He was given a new identity which goes far beyond him. Does this sound familiar? To me, it sounds like coming into faith with Jesus. When we come to Jesus, we confront who we really are: sinful, broken, and in need of saving. Then we are given a new identity with Him, now being a child of God. It is the latter identity that changes the world and generations after.

But now, let me pull another example to show how the world responds to this new identity.

In Genesis 41:41-52, Pharaoh gives authority to Joseph. But Egyptians are not too keen of Hebrews. In order for Joseph to assume power over the Egyptians, he is given An Egyptian name and an Egyptian wife. Basically, the world gives him a new identity. But later in verses 51-52, Joseph gives his children Hebrew names, which suggests that he honored his identity given to him in God. Now later in Genesis 42-45, Joseph continues to be duplicitous. The brothers who gave him up for slavery now came to Egypt in want of food from Joseph. But Joseph, undertaking his Egyptian identity, asserts power over his brothers and torments them. It is only when Joseph makes himself known to them for who he truly is, is there reconciliation and peace. It is then that he and others outside of himself receive the blessing of God.

The world will try to counter our original identity in God by stacking on ever-changing identities for us to conform to. But those identities, offering no true purpose, further confuse us by throwing a variety of desires out there for us to follow. But then comes the call of Jesus. Jesus, giving us a true direction and purpose, reintroduces us to our identity of being a child of God, and it is only then do we truly bless ourselves and others. By conforming to the identity the world gives us, we just further aggravate the problem. But by conforming to our original identity do we find ourselves in peace and reconciliation. Yet the important thing to remember is that this only happens when we confront who we really are before a Holy and Righteous God. We conquer our duplicity by fishing through the lies we have constructed to be our identities, and then bringing that before the cross.

Though we might be a duplicitous people, bringing led astray by every so desire, we were created for a singular purpose from a singular origin. It is only through seeing how our identity has strayed so far from that singular origin that we can be brought through to the singular salvation that conquers our duplicitous nature.

"The integrity of the upright guides them,

but the unfaithful are destroyed by their

duplicity."

-Proverbs 11:3

The Duplicity of Dust

Continuing on dust, if you look closely at dust roaming the air, you can notice that dust hairs never travel in any singular direction. You can hold your hand up to try and catch a piece, but once you make the move to snatch at one, you find it being very elusive to your hand. Even if you hold your hand still, the dust wanders, sometimes towards your hand or sometimes away from it. The dust is able to turn from its own good- the hand- and left to be wandering the air.

James 1: 6-8 says, “But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.”

We have a duplicitous nature, constantly led by a variety of desires dipped in good and evil motives. We struggle back and forth on this spectrum of good and evil. Back and forth between the two we go, and that is what makes us duplicitous.

Now, speaking in a religious context, the only way we can really know how to distinguish good and evil is because of the absolute morality of the 10 Commandments coming down. In Scripture, we see God send down a code of morality for the Israelites in the desert and then for years after, the Jews regard this as the Law. Usually, in our culture, we see people try to poke holes at the 10 Commandments, saying that it is virtually impossible to be a set of morality because it cannot be fulfilled. A good number of people use this as an argument for why Christianity is “faulty”, but usually when they do this, they take Jesus out of the picture. Jesus says He has come to fulfill the law. And then we see this concept put into understanding in Romans 7 where Paul basically says that the law only makes us conscious of sin, but it is up to the Spirit working in us to redeem our sinful nature. The absolute morality of the 10 Commandments has come down and placed a dividing line on the spectrum between good and evil. But we as a people just became conscious of what good and evil was then. We still struggled being dragged back and forth between the two.

So Jesus came and offered us a way to repent. Now the Greek word for repentance is metanoia, and it basically means after thought or to change one’s mind and as a result change one’s behavior. In Romans 7, Paul points at this change of mind behavior saying that it makes us conscious of sin. In verse 25 it says, “So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.” By having our mind repent and conform to what God deems as good and bad, we become integrated with direction. From there we want to move towards the good. But outside of God, our own mind becomes the judge of what is good and bad, with no conformity to any sort of foundation other than what society thinks. And even then, society itself struggles with what is good and bad. You see the battleground of this displayed all the time in politics. With God we are integrated with direction because we know what the good is, and by grace we pursue it instead of moving back and forth on the spectrum because we are pursuing our own self-perceived good.

Mary Wollstonecraft, a British writer, philosopher, and advocate for women’s rights in the 18^th century said this quote: “No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistake it for happiness, the good he seeks.” I find some truth in this. We are always pursuing our own good, but in doing so, we keep moving the dividing line between good and evil up and down the spectrum to conform to our own 10 Commandments. We always want to see ourselves in the best possible light, so why not conform to our own law which says we are always pursuing good? Basically the duality between these two positions (a mind conformed to our own law and a mind conformed to God’s law) is this: a purpose for ourselves to seek our own good vs. a purpose for God’s glory, which ultimately works for our good.

Proverbs 19:21 says, “Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.”

Notice the plural “plans” verses the singular “purpose.” Ravi Zecharias, a Christian evangelical apologist, says this: “What we need is for our diversity of desires to be unified with purpose.” We have different desires for what is good and we are dragged back and forth because of them. But these desires aren’t really unified under a true purpose. Our purpose is for our good, but our desires go every which way trying to pursue this purpose while the Lord defines for us in the Scripture what is good and gives us a true purpose, one which we can pursue with a singular direction. And this true purpose is given to us in Christ Jesus. Jesus pierces through our duplicity and calls us into a good life with Him.

Outside of Him there really is no purpose that can perfectly integrate all of our desires that are dragging us back and forth.

For instance, if we make ideals our purpose (ex: Purpose of life is love) outside of God, there is no way we can carry out these expressions to the fullest without violating another ideal. If we love too much we end up infringing on someone’s freedom by smothering him or her. Another example of if we love too much, we might end up not working within the parameters of justice.

But with the cross we see it perfectly integrate love, justice, liberty, etc. Out of perfect love, Christ died for us, setting us free from sin and paying the debt owed because of it.

Some make their purpose to be that there is no God. But this isn’t right because it further confuses the desires of men. This is because you have a number of paths you can take. One path is to substitute yourself as God, being your own flawed meaning to the universe. Another way you could go is to propose that life has no meaning, burdening yourself with the hopelessness of a purposeless existence. Or you could make people your salvation. There are too many ways to go if we adopt no God as our purpose!

A true purpose is that which we can pursue with a singular direction. A singular direction is the only way our desires can be perfectly unified, and a purpose should be able to encompass all of our desires. Otherwise it is not a fulfilling purpose. The example of this that is most alive in my life is this: when we have a multiplicity of desires and we can’t fit them under the umbrella of what this world has to offer, then my purpose is not the world but the Kingdom.

With God, we are integrated with a definite direction and purpose. It is as if God wants us to stand before Him as a being who is whole and not torn in every direction while pursuing his own good.

“Teach me your way, O Lord,

and I will walk in your truth;

give me an undivided heart,

that I may fear your name.”

-Psalm 86:11

In the next post, I want to offer Biblical examples of the duplicitous nature of man and how it is overcome through God.