Reflections on Behavior

A truth I have been reminded of this week in my reading (Robinson): Integrity, graciousness, humility, hospitality, generosity, love, mercy, sacrifice, purity, discipleship are behaviors, not ideas.
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The one commandment given the most often in the Old and New Testaments--in my opinion--is the instruction to care for the needy and poor, to help the widow and orphan, to treat the alien--the immigrant--the same way you would want to be treated, to take up offerings for poorer churches in need, to give of your "extra" to help those in need, to "lay down your life for a brother" by meeting their physical need, to ensure fair wages for the laborer--it's expressed in a variety of ways. And to ignore these instructions comes with dangerous consequences--spiritual elitism, spiritual apathy, immorality in the church, and eventually God's judgment--on God's people. Indifference to sin among God's people, by the way, is highly contagious. Yes, our number one priority is to give people the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but the second priority of the early church was to give to the poor. Not one or the other--both. Meet spiritual needs with spiritual "stuff." Meet physical needs with physical "stuff."

"The first commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength--with all your being. And the second is similar: to love your neighbor as yourself. That sums up the biblical message from beginning to end."

Could it be that the immorality in the culture today and the increasing antagonism toward the Gospel of God's love demonstrated through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross is because we have a church that loves in word but not deed? Could it be that we have a loveless church?

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There isn't anyone God is more able, willing, and dare I say "excited" to use to further the kingdom, then the disciple who has failed and humbly admitted that the one person responsible for his failure was himself.

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We spend a lot of time debating moral issues when we should, I believe, be spending our time defending the only reliable source for morality--the Word given us by the immutable God. I can think of nothing more frightening on a societal basis than a system of right and wrong based on consensus.

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As I reminded the seniors at graduation, the Christian life is either being in a storm or a storm is coming. And the most critical time in our walk is between the storms. It is then that I need to be saturating myself with the truths that God is bringing to my attention through His Word and the teaching of others. Is it not strange, but edifying, to realize that in those times when I think that "nothing is going on in my life," that actually, the most important thing is going on. He is teaching me the truths I need to be living in the "drudgery" of every day--because a storm is coming. Being "wise" does not make us storm-proof, but storm-ready. And wisdom is not head knowledge but experiential knowledge that can only be learned through obedience to what I know in my head.