Author: mhowellw

Be the Disciple You Were Called to Be

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It has been a week since the Charlie Kirk assassination and reports are coming out that there has been a resurgence of interest in reading the Bible, praying to God, and in church attendance. In an age of rapid news cycles and highly divisive politics, the death of Charlie Kirk continues to resonate with many people. During this critical time, Christians must ensure they represent their faith and the Lord Jesus Christ well by being prepared to answer any questions a seeker or a person returning to church after many years of absence may have. But we must do so with gentleness and respect. Follow the instructions of Titus 3:2, which says we ought “to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people.”

It may feel counterintuitive in a time of anger, grief, confusion, or suffering to respond like this, but Christ taught us that it is the unconditional nature of our love for each other that distinguishes us as Christians. (John 13:35) The apostle Peter helps us understand how to respond to those whom we deem as our enemies, saying, “Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing.” (1 Pet. 3:9)

There may be new people in your church you never expected to see. There may be relatives or friends showing interest in reading the Bible for the first time in their lives. There may even be people at work who ask you to pray for them Regardless of the person, or your preconceptions, “walk in wisdom toward outsiders and let our speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” (Col. 4:5-6)

We are not trying to persuade anyone to adopt a particular political viewpoint. Nor are we trying to help them see the evil that lies behind their own political party. Our job is to win men and women for the kingdom of God, not to win an argument. This is why Jesus says that we are to: 1) Go – in other words, do not wait for someone to approach you. If you see someone new at your church, or if you meet someone who has questions about Christianity, the Bible, prayer, etc., recognize this encounter for what it is: God inviting you to join Him in the work that He is doing around you.  Go. And join God in where He is leading you. 2) Make disciples – This means to take the time to get to know the person. They should be your friend, not your project. This is not about counting how many people you can get to pray the Sinner’s Prayer. This is about developing a relationship with the seekers, answering their questions, and using the way that you love them to lead them into an unconditional loving relationship with Christ.  3) Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit – As part of your discipling, have those who confess with their mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in their heart that God raised Him from the dead (Rom. 10:9) to make a public profession of faith through the symbolic act of baptism. This demonstrates not only whose they are, but is also a tangible expression of what Christ has done in their life as He buried them with Christ and raised them to walk in newness of life, cleansing them of all their unrighteousness. Finally, 4) Teach them to observe all that Christ has commanded us – This means that your role as their discipler is not over. You have a lot of work ahead of you. Be prepared to be challenged. Be willing to have the late-night talks. But most of all, stay diligent in the word and learn to handle it correctly (2 Tim. 2:15) so that you are not ashamed. Discipline your body and keep it under control, so that after teaching them about Christ, you will not be disqualified. (1 Cor. 9:27) And supplement your faith with virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, and love so that you will be protected from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Pet. 1:5-8). Like parenting, discipling someone is a long-term commitment, not a short-term endeavor.

People seeking God in crisis should not be a cultural phenomenon that we objectively observe from a distance. You are not a scientist collecting data. You are a disciple of Christ who is commanded to “walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.” (Eph. 4:1) Engage! Make disciples, not talking points. And win the person (not the argument) for the kingdom and glory of God. As the apostle Paul says, “Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.”

Now, go!  Be the disciple you were called to be.

Unconditional Love in a Selfish World

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“Genuine love is always self-forgetfulness in the true sense of the word. But if we are to have it, our old man must die with all his virtues and qualities, and this can only be done where the disciple forgets self and clings solely to Christ.” — Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship.

I understand this quote in the context of love of God, but when I view it through the lens of love of others it sheds new light on a familiar topic. It shows me that as I love my wife, my kids, my mother, or anyone else, I cannot rely on any qualities and virtues that are not founded in Christ. Any teaching of the world regarding love must be abandoned because the world’s version of love is primarily self-love. It may disguise itself as selflessness or sacrificial but its true nature is revealed when one’s heart or mind amends the act with a private “so that….”

So that…you may view me better.

So that…you may treat me nicer.

So that…you may respect me more.

So that… you may meet my needs in return.

So that…you won’t leave me, hurt me, abuse me, or abandon me. So that you will love me, honor me, and make me #1 in your life.

“So that” love isn’t really about me loving you at all. Instead, it is about self-protection and self-exaltation.

In contrast, loving unconditionally also means loving without expectation. It is loving without compensation or reward. Loving unconditionally is loving in a pure, undefiled manner. It is not a “so that” love. It is a “because” love. A love that takes its cue from the nature of love and not from the potential effects of being loving.

Because love acts selflessly, I act selfless.

Because love is sacrificial, I sacrifice.

Because love serves, I serve.

Because love is patient, kind, forgiving, humble, gentle, good-humored, and benevolent, I respond in the same way.

Loving unconditionally reflects the nature of love without boundaries. But it never reflects that nature for the benefit of self. In so doing it creates an opportunity to have the recipient of your love return it to you in like manner…but it loves regardless if this love is reciprocated or not.

In other words, God loved us without stipulation, expectation, or compensation. Christ would have still gone to the cross, and died for our sins, even if none of mankind had accepted his free gift of grace, because love could not be love in any other way. As the scripture says, “In this is love…that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (1 Jn. 4:10) But man did receive this grace, and consequently we learned what love was FROM God and learned how to love BECAUSE of God. Thus, we read: “We love because he first loved us.” (1 Jn. 4:19)

Hope Without Shame

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“Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

Romans 5:2-5

Some people equate hope with wishing, and as everyone knows, sometimes wishes come true and sometimes they don’t. This makes hope seem like a tenuous thing to hold onto. A fragile thread that could snap between our fingers and plunge us into embarrassment and shame for being so foolish.

But what if hope was something different? What if our hope was a guarantee of what was going to come? Then, our hope would not be an anxiety-riddled wish. It would be an exciting anticipation of future events. It would still be hope, but we would be bouncing on our toes and peering around the people in front of us to see the incredible event that was about to occur. It would be a hope built on conclusive truths. An inevitability. A certainty. An undeniable conclusion. And this type of hope would transform our lives because instead of crossing our fingers, we would run with open arms and embrace the fulfilled promises in joy.

Even in the interim, as we endure suffering and develop character, waiting for this final day to come, we are not foolish, embarrassed, or ashamed, for we have a guarantee from God’s Spirit, poured into our hearts, that God’s love will not fail. God has a plan and an overarching purpose to one day remove the pain and suffering from this earth and give us an untarnished place to live. A place where we can explore without the threat of death. A place where we can learn and work and play without illness debilitating us, without selfishness impeding us, and without shame and fear restraining us.

It will be a place of continual joy because this finite, eternal person will finally have unending days to be all that God desires for him to be. It will be a place specifically and perfectly designed by God for us. And when this plan is fulfilled, we will not languish in disappointment, having built up a fantasy that exceeds reality. Nor will we release a sigh of relief, as if we barely escaped a horrendous fate. Instead, we will dance! We will exult! We will stand dumbstruck in the presence of a fulfilled promise that is immeasurably more than all we could ask or imagine (Eph. 3:20).

It will be our eternal joy to sit on the grass and enjoy God’s friendship as well as explore the infinite breadth of His creativity and goodness spread across new and ever-expanding galaxies. In this place, we will relish the daily experience of life without any sin, death, or suffering. That’s why we call it Heaven. That’s why we look towards the future, instead of only at today. For we are “looking forward to a city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.” (Heb. 11:10) “Then my soul will rejoice in the Lord, exulting in his salvation.” (Ps. 35:9) This is our confident, inevitable, undeniable hope.

What You Are (Probably) Forgetting to Say in Your Prayers

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Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” 39 And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”

Matthew 26:38-39

“Not as I will, but as you will.” Without this additional phrase, there would only be pride and selfishness in Christ’s prayer. Instead, there is humility and submission.

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The Loving Vengeance of God

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For the Lord has a day of vengeance,

a year of recompense for the cause of Zion

Isaiah 34:8 (ESV)

God says “Vengeance is mine!” (Deut. 32:35) This means that the only one who is allowed to be vengeful is God Himself. It is His right and His only. And if He wills to exercise it, He does so in holy, moral justice (meaning He is not immoral to do so, nor is He unholy nor does He violate His character of love when He acts in vengeance). Therefore, applying our earthly condemnation of vengeance as immoral does not apply to God.

But why? Why is God’s vengeance still in the realm of love while man’s is not? Because, unlike man’s vengeance, God’s is not done out of self-gratification or vindictiveness, nor does it proceed out of a sense of injury or indignation. God’s vengeance comes out of or proceeds from, justice. In other words, God’s vengeance is about establishing an equilibrium where wrongs have been made right and aims to return humanity to a state of peace (or shalom). This equilibrium may come in the form of either punishing the oppressors or vindicating the oppressed.

Man, however, confuses this loving act of vengeance with his own acts of revenge, which are emotionally driven behaviors that seek to exact punishment for a wrongdoing out of anger or malice. It may feel like equilibrium has been achieved when we make someone hurt as bad as we have been hurt, but it does not have an eye on restoring peace between each other or between ourselves and God. But since man equates God’s vengeance with revenge, and since he knows that revenge is only interested in purposefully inflicting pain (which is evil), he concludes God’s vengeance is evil.

But it is not. It is lovingly just.

The consequences of God exercising His vengeance may cause pain, but this is to be expected when justice engages and overwhelmingly conquers evil. Evil will not go down without a fight. It will not be satisfied with relinquishing any power or position it has acquired in any mind, heart, soul, community, country, business, or endeavor. There will, therefore, be a war between what is right and what is evil. And in order for justice to prevail and good to be established in its rightful place, evil must be altogether eradicated. Not one stone can be left unturned. And because evil is manifested in the choices, beliefs, and actions of men and women and cultures, the cost for victory sometimes comes with the price of life itself. This was true in the Old Testament when God commanded Joshua to wipe out the Canaanites, and this was true at the cross, when Jesus, who knew no sin, became sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21), and in so doing, showed Himself as both just and the justifier of those who have faith in Him (Rom. 3:26). Both were acts of love for His people. Just as leaving a child unprotected is neglectful and evil, so, too, leaving sinful people to their own devices to resist evil and to do good is both unjust and unloving. But removing the dangers that lure them away from safety and providing the conditions that allow for them to continually stay out of harm’s way and learn to continuously practice good is altogether just and loving.

God is interested in and personally works to make His children perfect. Vengeance is necessary so that the war against evil within one’s own self ends only in the complete destruction of evil. Not just its surrender. When understood in this way, it makes sense for God to say, “Vengeance is mine.” Only He can and should do the work of restoring shalom within us. And only He can and should do the work of restoring justice, or shalom, outside of us. Vengeance belongs only to Him.

Reflecting God Well

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“As my hand has reached to the kingdoms of the idols,
whose carved images were greater than those of Jerusalem and Samaria,
shall I not do to Jerusalem and her idols
as I have done to Samaria and her images?”

When the Lord has finished all his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, he will punish the speech of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the boastful look in his eyes.

Isaiah 10:10-12 (ESV)

Unbelievers have always existed. Instead of believing in gods, they believe in man. Instead of humility before the will and power of a transcendent being, they are boastful and arrogant about what they can do in their own strength. They see nothing from a supernatural perspective. Only naturalism exists for them. They see no future beyond what their mind or hand can achieve. And no hope beyond what their heart can dream. Reality is limited to only what they can sense, and the only power they know that can protect them from suffering is the accumulation of wealth and the conquering of/ruling over others.

Nothing has changed much since Isaiah wrote this 2500+ years ago.

But man still is not God (despite Satans’s misconstrued promise). Though he ignores the Lord, he cannot erase Him. He can attribute the work of God to something or someone else; he can pretend he is like God in power and sovereignty or wisdom, but he cannot eliminate God. Nor can man surpass Him. Man can only imitate (or reflect) Him.

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What Do You Proclaim?

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For Jerusalem has stumbled,

and Judah has fallen,

because their speech and their deeds are against the Lord,

defying his glorious presence.

For the look on their faces bears witness against them;

they proclaim their sin like Sodom;

they do not hide it.

Woe to them! For they have brought evil on themselves.

Isaiah 3:8-9

It could not be clearer. God’s people fall because their speech and deeds are against the Lord.

As Christians, we are taught that we are grafted in among the natural branches so that we might share in the nourishing root of God (Romans 11:17) and we are to be set apart so that others may accurately see God making His appeal through us (2 Cor. 5:20). This means (partially) that morality is not about self-control, self-image, or self-improvement. It is about using our speech and deeds to continually align with and “proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” (1 Pet. 2:9)

But people do not only proclaim the goodness of God.

People also proclaim their sins. They do not hide it.

And in doing so they bring judgment and wrath upon themselves. They have no shame for their words or deeds because they have told themselves that they have done no wrong. They are proud of their choices and say in their heart (and with their mouth) “There is no God!” This makes them a law unto themselves. Any attempt to tell them they are wrong is an affront to them for it challenges both their love of individualism and autonomy and exposes their unconscious desire to be their god.

They proclaim their sin because all gods desire to receive worship. All gods desire praise for their holiness and perfection. And all gods want others to know their ways and follow them. Sinners, therefore, are not only proud but also shameless. In their eyes, they do not need to change. There is no Moral Authority to whom they must yield. They are the ones to whom the knee must be bowed. They are the ones who must receive approval. They are the ones whose actions must be tolerated. They are the ones who must be loved. And they are the ones who act without moral impunity because they have defined Right and Wrong to conveniently fit their words and deeds.

But woe to them! The result of their choices is a perverse, depraved, twisted, unrecognizable, and dysfunctional version of what God designed them to be. And unless redeemed, unless they are made whole and made new by God Himself through the work of Jesus Christ, the consequences of their choices will continue to contort their lives in turbulence and turmoil, making it impossible for them to unravel this Gordian knot of a soul.

They do not realize that although they make themselves out to be gods they have unknowingly yielded themselves to the cosmic powers over this present darkness and the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. (Eph. 6:12) They have chosen which side of the war to fight for and when God shows Himself victorious, they will suffer the fate of the fallen and the defeated. Cast into outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, where the worm does not die and the fire is never quenched (Matt. 13:41-42; Mark 9:48)

Examine your words and deeds. Who do they exalt? Whose glory do they defy?

“For by your words you will be justified and by your words you will be condemned.” (Matt. 12:37) And “‘As you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”  (Matt. 25:45-46)

All Hallow’s Eve and the Front-Line Christian

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On October 31, 1517, a young monk approached the church in Wittenberg, Germany, and hung a document on the wooden door entitled “Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences.” It was intended as an invitation to an academic discussion that he was organizing, but the two core beliefs of the Bible being the sole religious authority (not the Pope) and that salvation can only be attained by faith, not by deeds, set off the firestorm that is now known as The Protestant Reformation.

With this simple act, Martin Luther reminds us every All Hallow’s Eve that there really is no such thing as a “back row” Christian.

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What are You Bringing Forth?

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“You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. 35 The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. 36 I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, 37 for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

Matthew 12:34-37 (ESV)

Jesus asks how an evil person can speak good. The question is, of course, rhetorical for the answer is that he cannot. James 3:12 emphasizes this same point stating that what one is in his nature always correlates to what one is in his behavior. Fig trees, for instance, cannot bear olives nor can a salt pond produce fresh water. Similarly, an evil person cannot bring forth (or produce) good, for it would go against who he is in his nature. This does not mean that an evil man cannot do moral acts. To say such a thing would not only be naive, for every man makes choices that branch off the tree of his heart, but would also be foolish. But Jesus is not concerning Himself with the branches on the tree but with the fruit that dangles from them. Anyone can choose to be kind to their neighbor on occasion. But occasional watering or fertilizing of the heart does not change the nature of the heart itself. The evil person stores up evil in his heart and produces evil fruit, which is continuously displayed through his dispositions, habits, beliefs, and behaviors, regardless of the behavioral modification that he may do.

The terrifying thing about Jesus’ analogy is that fruit is never meant for the tree. It is produced for the consumption of others. “No man is an island,” said Donne, and of this, he could not be more right. We are social creatures by nature and the fruit we produce in our lives is presumably given to others for their betterment. But when what we produce is evil and our family and friends have glutted themselves on it, the more our fruit becomes a part of the sap in their tree. In this way, evil replicates itself until a cancerous orchard of pain, perversion, suffering, affliction, and death has infected all who take a bite. That is why the warning that Jesus gives us about storing up evil is not about us becoming evil. We have already accomplished that by ingesting evil continually. It is about how we bring forth evil into the world.

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No Weapon Forged Against You

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A heritage is an inheritance, a gift given to the sons and daughters from the parents, something passed on from generation to generation. What is the heritage of God’s servants? 1) No weapon formed against you shall prosper and 2) you shall refute every tongue that rises against you in judgment.

Think about this. Satan is called “the accuser.” And He continually battles against God and His servants (Eph. 6:10-20). But here we have the promise that Satan’s weapons will not prosper against us nor will his accusations succeed. Here, in a nutshell, is the Gospel of Christ.

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