How many times has a friend or family member of yours been affected by sexual sin – their own or their spouses’? How many times have you felt really uncomfortable, knowing you should say something, but not knowing what to say? With the current rates of pornography usage and extra-marital sex close to 100% of people could think of at least one occurrence of those situations in the last year.
As a church, we cannot pretend this issue does not exist, choose to remain ignorant on these subjects, or hide behind the excuse that these are private matters. Consider this warning given by Martin Luther:
“If you preach the gospel in all aspects with the exception of the issues that deal specifically with your time, you are not preaching the gospel at all.” Martin Luther as quoted by Tim Chester in Closing the Window (p. 10).
It is for this reason that the Summit counseling ministry is presenting two EQUIP seminars in February. These are free seminars. We hope that many people in our church and community will benefit from learning how the Gospel speaks to these epidemic struggles. Please invite anyone you believe would benefit from this material.
False Love: Overcoming Sexual Sin from Lust to Adultery
February 12, 2012 // 5:00 to 8:00 pm
The Summit Church; Brier Creek South Venue
2415 Presidential Drive, Suite 107; Durham, NC 27703
Free – No RSVP Needed
Lust is not a gender specific issue. Lust is not something “some people” struggle with. Lust is not a “phase we go through.” Lust is not a problem that getting married will solve. Lust may never go beyond your imagination, but still create a persistent dissatisfaction with your current relationships or marriage.
Or, lust may be life dominating. Lust may cause you to put your health, your spouse’s health, your job, or your reputation in jeopardy. Lust may lead you to lie and create a double life in ways that you would have never thought you would.
Regardless of your type or depth of struggle with lust or whether your are single or married the “False Love: Overcoming Sexual Sin from Lust to Adultery” seminar is designed to help you walk away from these fantasy-based relationships (yes, even adultery is a fiction and porn is a relationship) and move towards the pure, true love for others than God ordained.
True Betrayal: Overcoming the Betrayal of Your Spouse’s Sexual Sin
February 19, 2012 // 5:00 to 8:00 pm
The Summit Church; Brier Creek South Venue
2415 Presidential Drive, Suite 107; Durham, NC 27703
Free – No RSVP Needed
There is no way to prepare for the news that your spouse has been looking at pornography, is having an emotional affair, or is/has committing adultery. Yet even without being able to prepare, you are still forced to respond when the news hits.
Numbness, anger, despair, fear, jealousy, regret, denial, revenge, embarrassment, shame, questions of whether I ever really know the truth, lack of trust, loss of respect, and feelings of loss of permanence are all common responses. But how do you respond to those responses? How do you “move forward”? What is “forward” anyway?
The “True Betrayal: Overcoming the Betrayal of Your Spouse’s Sexual Sin” seminar is intended to guide you through the emotional, mental, and relational dilemmas of your spouse’s sexual sin. It helps you answer the practical informational questions (i.e., What do I need to know? What should I expect from my spouse? Why is the “why” question so plaguing and hurtful?), and it walks you through the emotional pain that no answers to any questions will alleviate.
Posted 2 weeks, 3 days ago at 12:22 pm. 4 comments
A Counselor Reflects on Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
“The devil loves ‘curing’ a small fault by giving you a great one (p. 127).” Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
It is easy to think that moving away from a problem is the same as moving towards something better. But this is the lie behind most of life’s devastating sins. No one runs face first into addiction. They run looking over their shoulder at a lesser problem and into the arms of addiction. Bankruptcy is what happens when you solve every problem (focal point) with your debt (blind spot).
It is easy to think that everyone who sympathizes with your problem is your friend. But this false assumption is the foundation for every scam. A drug dealer needing to make a sale will listen to your problems in order to pitch his “solution.” Sexual predators specialize in listening to hurting kids on social media to serve as an inroad to their trust.
This does not mean that all sympathy is dangerous or that progress is always a mirage. It does mean that our ability to change for the better is hampered when we focus exclusively on our struggle. When we focus on our struggle, even if we are disgusted by it, we get the false notion that different is the same as better.
When you focus on how dumb you are everyone else becomes smart. When you focus on how weak you are everyone else becomes strong. The problem is when you try to apply “their” wisdom, there is a strong probability it will fail and when you try to rely on “their” strength, it will let you down. By focusing upon faults we never gain an appreciation for what is truly wise, strong, and good.
Not only does Satan love to cure small faults with big ones (goal), he seals the deal by getting us lost in our faults (method). This is an ingenious way to blind those who can see. If Satan can get us to look for the wrong thing with great intensity, then we will miss, ignore, or reject the right thing even when we look right at it.
What do I mean? If Satan can get us so focused on our faults that we fail to look at Christ, then we are functionally blind to the wisdom, cure, strength, and hope we need. When we focus on our faults we feel dirty when we look at Christ instead of realizing He will cleanse us. When we focus on our faults we feel stupid when we look at Christ instead of realizing He offers wisdom.
It is by focusing us on our faults that Satan blinds our seeing eyes to true hope and, thereby, makes “greater faults” seem like the only “solution” available. Each time we apply Satan’s solutions we feel more stupid (retrospect proves we can see) and are more prone to use the next “desperate measure.” We feel more dirty and less apt to approach anything clean or pure.
So what do we do? We stop and look to Christ. We gaze at life itself. We marvel at life lived as God intended. We begin to live towards something instead of just away from our faults. We repent of our faults and accept that hope can only be received, not earned.
When this is done, greater faults and false compassion lose their appeal. Our vision is restored. While we may still fall many times, we fall forward towards Christ. We realize we repent instead of making “double or nothing” deals with life. We take sin more seriously but less frantically so that we resist Satan’s offer to exchange small faults with great ones.
Posted 2 weeks, 5 days ago at 2:08 pm. Add a comment
A Counselor Reflects on Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
“[Pride] is purely spiritual: consequently it is far more subtle and deadly. For the same reason, Pride can often be used to beat down the simpler vices. Teachers, in fact, often appeal to a boy’s Pride, or, as they call it, his self-respect, to make him behave decently: many a man has overcome cowardice, or lust, or ill-temper, by learning to think that they are beneath his dignity—that is, by Pride. The devil laughs. He is perfectly content to see you becoming chaste and brave and self-controlled provided, all the time, he is setting up in you the Dictatorship of Pride. (p. 125).” Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
I think this quote boils down to trying to understand with what’s so wrong with thinking that sin is “beneath me”? If someone is “pro-pride,” they probably aren’t reading this reflection. Few people have a problem with acknowledging that Satan would love to see us lay down a less destruction sin for a more destructive one.
So the point that makes this quote uncomfortable is that Lewis depicts it as Satan’s ultimate setup to get me to view sin as “beneath me.” I find myself internally torn on this one. My gut doesn’t automatically go where Lewis goes, but I agree with the point he’s making. I have given myself the “you’re better than that” pep talk to avoid sin.
As I wrestle with Lewis’ warning about pride, I realize there is a better pep talk to give (and receive). It is the “that is not who you are” talk. The first pep talk was focused on rank and status – better than. The latter is based on identity.
The difference, as I think Lewis would affirm, is that Jesus did not come to make much of me (rank and status) but to reside in me and adopt me (change my identity and name). When I get this I realize sin is not “beneath me” it is “outside of me.” I was born “in sin” and now I am “in Christ.”
The reason that sin is resisted has less to do with my dignity and everything to do with His. If I begin to think about my dignity, Satan has half the battle won. I am comparing sin to me. Sin does not appear nearly as sinful when I compare it with my nature.
The more I marvel at my nature, the dingier my nature becomes and the less I am looking to Christ as my righteousness. Disdain for every sin that is not actively relying upon Christ is the epitome of being a Pharisee—loving the laws that make me look good, because they make me look good and give me status.
If I were to summarize Lewis’s point and application, it would be: If Satan cannot get us to love self by sinning, then he is content to get us to love self by feeling superior to sin. God calls us to find life by denying self and, thereby, experiencing the freedom God intended.
An example might be helpful. Lewis says we can overcome cowardice by pride and this would be a bad thing. The problem would be that you would have to convince yourself you are “above” what you fear. If you fear rejection, then “it wouldn’t matter what people say.” This has the strong potential of giving us deaf ears to important messages of critique.
However, if what people say matters but does not define who I am, then I can be steadfast without the deafening influence of pride. I could face my fear as real, learning from my fear and the words of critique, without having to condemn myself or those who raise questions. That is the freedom of humility.
Posted 3 weeks, 5 days ago at 11:29 am. Add a comment
Can I admit that I have never really “gotten” the Lord’s Supper the way I think I should? I see the picture of the Gospel, but the experience itself, never seemed to move me, encourage me, or sustain me the way it should. I have wrestled with it for a while; praying that God would help me get out of this practice more of what He put into it. The reflection below has helped me and I pray it will help you.
A Picture of Sin
When training for being stranded at sea military personnel are told repeatedly, “Do not drink the water.” If you are stranded at sea in the beating sun and thirsty, the sound of lapping water and the feel of wetness on your skin has to be tempting.
But if you drink the water, it provides initial relief followed by a more intense, salt-induced thirst. This leads to more salt water consumption. As you drink, the sodium level in your body increases making for a quicker and more painful death experience.
Often we come to sin seeking some relief from legitimate suffering. We get sinfully angry to try to correct a way we have really been wronged. We look at pornography to escape from a truly stressful day. We cheat financially because we are struggling to provide for our family. Yet in every case after the initial relief, sin intensifies the shame and isolation process that makes for a more intense experience of spiritual death.
A Counterfeit Lord’s Supper
With this picture in mind, let me offer a heretical liturgy. Take a glass of water and give it a strong dose of salt. Get a bag of salt and vinegar potato chips. These will be the “elements” of your counterfeit Lord’s Supper (when sin is your Master; John 8:34). On your cup of salt water tape a piece of paper with the names of the sins you retreat to for “relief.”
As you “take the cup,” say to yourself, “This is the cup of my sin. ‘Take and drink because I care for you and want to make your life better. I give you myself,’ sin says to me.” Drink the salt water.
As you “take the bread,” say to yourself, “This is my body available to you. ‘Take and eat. Lose yourself in me and I will protect you,’ sin says to me.” Eat the chips.
Try to sit for 30 minutes and “enjoy” what sin provides. If it becomes difficult (i.e., thirsty), return to “the table of sin” as many times as you like in this half hour. Experience all that sin has to offer. As you do so, look at the words on the cup and be reminded of whose care you are receiving.
The Real Lord’s Supper
After 30 minutes have another private ceremony. This time have a cup of grape juice and a loaf of bread. On the cup of grape juice tape a piece of paper with the words, “Jesus. Gospel. Grace.” Read Matthew 26:26-29 and I Corinthians 11:23-26.
As you take the cup, remind yourself of Jesus’ words, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
As you take the bread, remind yourself again of Jesus’ words, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
Know that you are invited to come and partake of Christ as often as you need to find the protection and sustenance you previously sought in sin. Know that the invitation is always open and His cup never runs dry. Be comforted.
As you taste the sweetness of the juice with no thirst-provoking after-effects, reflect on the superiority of Christ to anything sin offers and read John 4:1-15. As you experience the nourishment of the bread, reflect again on the superiority of Christ and read John 6:22-59.
Join the Conversation
- How did seeing sin’s alternative meal change the way you approached what is offered at the Lord’s Supper?
- How did going through the alternative meal change the way you thought about future temptations to the same sins?
- How did this exercise help you see and run to the availability of Christ during the times you normally would have sought a counterfeit comfort?
Posted 1 month, 1 week ago at 2:38 pm. Add a comment
I have periodic nightmares of various kinds. They can involve pirates and adventures gone awry at sea or losing a member of my family. I am not sure what causes them. My television viewing is largely restricted to sports, news, cooking shows, cartoons (for the kids, of course), or shows with talking animals (I’m a sucker for Narnia and Aflac commercials).
Recently I had one where I was being chased by a serial killer. It was eerily like the stupid movies I’ve seen commercials for. I was running and running through this old house to get away. After much effort (my wife says I didn’t wake her up), I was out of the house. Then I went back in the house to use the restroom.
The real me was screaming at the dream me, “Don’t be stupid!” But dream me didn’t listen. As I walk through the house (no longer running or fearful) looking for the restroom, from out of nowhere a butcher knife takes a hack at me. I spent the rest of the dream keeping the blade away from my neck.
When I woke up strangling my pillow, my heart was racing and I had time to think. I don’t have the spiritual gift of dream interpretation, but as I thought of how foolish it was to walk back into the house, I had a thought – that is how foolish it is for me to sin in private.
Any time we sin and fail to confess to those that God would use to point us back in the right direction (Heb 3:12-13), we are like dream me walking back into the house with the mass murderer (1 Pet. 5:8). It was a picture that resonated with me. Rarely had I viewed sin in that fashion.
If I were advising dream me, I would have said, “Run like the dickens (in my dreams the main character usually has a strong country accent) to the first phone that you can find with the line not cut and call 9-1-1.” Why would I treat sin any differently?
Is it macho pride because I want to show that I can handle it?
Is it twisted insecurity that values my reputation more than my life?
Is it immaturity that believes sin is “no big deal”?
Is it brute pleasure that enjoys the thrill?
What reason would I have accepted from dream me? Answer: none. There would be no reason that would justify wandering through a house with a mass murderer lurking to look for a rest room.
The next time that you struggle with sin and are hesitant to reach out to a Christian friend for accountability and encouragement, remember this post and don’t become “my dream come true.”
Posted 1 month, 1 week ago at 1:52 pm. Add a comment
This post was originally posted the Biblical Counseling Coalition blog “Grace & Truth.” It is a part of their current two week series on how local churches interface their small group and counseling ministries.
Where do small groups and counseling intersect at The Summit Church (www.summitrdu.com)? We are exploring the possibilities of this question with great intentionality, creativity, and passion. At The Summit we divide our ministries into “teams” and counseling is on the small group team, so we want them to intersect frequently, dynamically, practically, and organically.
In fact, we consider one of the most important roles of the Pastor of Counseling to be equipping small group leaders and members to effectively care for one another in the body of Christ. We will unpack how we are striving to accomplish this objective below.
Structuring to Match the Strategy
Before going further on the interaction between small groups and counseling, it should be noted that small groups are the hub of ministry at The Summit Church. By that we mean we strategically organize our church so that people flow into one main place, a small group, where they are then mobilized to go out and do ministry. The small group becomes the hub where we care for one another and together minister to our surrounding community. This is the strategy we’ve chosen for creating a clear “next step” for the marginally connected to move into active participation in the life of the church.
Putting such an emphasis on small groups puts an equally significant weight on how we structure for the development, support, and equipping of these groups. Central to the competency of a small group leader is his or her ability to lovingly guide others through the ebbs and flows of life on the foundation of the Scriptures. In that sense, the bulk of our counseling happens in these groups (we call such care “one-anothering” care for reasons explained below). Thus small groups become care communities and so merging the small groups and counseling staff teams is nothing more than a reflection of what is happening in the congregation.
The blending of these ministries has mainstreamed the influence of our counseling team and brought their expertise into the living rooms of The Summit Church. We are grateful to God for this and believe the greatest results are yet to come.
The rest of this post will discuss the relationship between small groups and counseling with the acknowledgement that our small groups intersect with many other ministries of the church.
What Does It Look Like?
Our attempt to make this connection begins with defining four levels of one-on-one ministry of the Word within our church: counseling, shepherding, mentoring, and one-anothering. These progress from the most formal interaction with a highly trained individual to the most informal “doing life together relationships.”
Our desire is that all four levels of care contain the same gospel-centered, change-happens-in-community DNA with varying degrees of expertise, confidentiality, and availability. The counseling ministry seeks to reinforce and unpack this DNA at all four levels through our seminar ministry.
We offer seminars on various subjects. Each seminar is made available in brief video segments and comes with a manual for group study or personal mentoring. The last two have been “Overcoming Anger” and “Taking the Journey of Grief with Hope.” These seminars are designed for several purposes.
- One-Anothering – To train our small group leaders to care for their members.
- One-Anothering – To become a curriculum that small groups can study together.
- One Anothering – To provide tools for small groups to care for one another.
- Mentoring – To launch short-term, mentor-level, lay-led support groups (we call them Freedom Groups) that transition graduates into our small group ministry.
- Shepherding – To provide our pastors with quality, subject-based resources that allow them to shepherd individuals with greater confidence and naturally funnels the counseling case into the small group ministry of the church.
- Counseling – [This phase is currently in development.] To provide a structured material for our graduate counseling interns from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary to gain experience and provide additional face-to-face counseling hours for our church and community.
From that overview, it should be obvious that everything the counseling ministry does is designed to equip our small group leaders and create a path for counselees (even if they begin with a mentor, shepherd, or counselor) to become active members of a small group. Without small groups our counseling ministry would have to try to replace the church through a therapeutic relationship or release people back into the isolation that allowed their struggle to fester to a life-dominating level. With small groups our counseling ministry can help people through a given life crisis and direct them to a community that fosters healthy relationships and a godly purpose.
Equipping the saints
By embedding the counseling ministry on the small group’s team and channeling the resources we develop towards small group life, we are developing an atmosphere of equipped leaders who understand the resources within their church to help with someone’s struggle when it is more than they feel prepared to handle.
As usual, the overview is much neater than the reality. We are still learning a great deal about how to coordinate these various pieces. Our current collaborative effort between small groups and counseling has developed in the last year (more precisely 10 months). But we are excited about initial fruit we are seeing and the confidence we see growing in our people to care for one another and to use counseling to reach their community (which because of the design puts these unchurched friends on a direct course to small group involvement).
Posted 2 months, 3 weeks ago at 12:22 pm. Add a comment
This post is meant to offer guidance to common “What now?” questions that could emerge from Pastor J.D.’s sermon on I Peter 1:13-21 preached at The Summit Church Saturday/Sunday October 29-30, 2011.
One of the primary meanings of the word holiness is “set apart.” But I think I have had a bad mental picture of what it means to be “set apart” for some time. My instinct was to think of what happened to the baseball with which a pitcher got the final out of a no-hitter.
That baseball would then be marked, set on a shelf, loved, shown to a few special friends, but would never again touch a leather glove in a live game. It ceased being a baseball and became a decoration. No baseball-related purpose remained in the “life” of that baseball.
I think we can create a similar image of what it means to be holy as Christians. We are marked (sealed with the Holy Spirit; Eph. 4:30), set apart, loved by God, talk about holiness with a few also-holy friends, but serve very little salt and light functions in a real world marked by darkness and decay.
If we think of holiness this way, then it would have a very awkward synonym – “useless ornament.” But in I Peter 1:13-21, where holiness is referenced four times in eight verses, there is no trace of this kind of passivity. Rather in verse 14 Peter says, “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance.”
In this verse holiness is marked by activity, and worldliness is marked by passivity or mindlessness. First, Peter refers to his readers as “obedient children.” This means that holiness does something (obey) in response to life-defining relationship (child of God). With this in mind, holiness carries the connotation of being “set apart” in an orphanage because you have been adopted, and your life will be marked by a new name with all the opportunities afforded by that name, rather than it does with being a random baseball that was randomly selected for one pitch and then never functionally useful again.
Second, Peter portrays worldliness with passive language – sitting in the value-desire press of the influences around you, following them without thinking; like a goose flying south for the winter. With worldliness there is much less intentionality or passion (here used in the sense of pursuing or fulfilling something of unique value). It is the epitome of the herd effect.
So what should we do in response to this more accurate active, missional view of holiness? I will offer three responses that I believe are appropriate to being “set apart.”
Worship: We should celebrate like adopted children preparing to see their new home and meet their new extended family. It is an awesome privilege to be “set apart” that should cause our hearts to sing (whether our voices have the skill to bless others when they join in or not). God has done a great and gracious thing when He set us apart and we should respond daily like children on Christmas morning opening the gift of new mercies every morning.
Take On a New Identity: I remember one conversation with my father after a knuckle-headed action of my youth. His instruction to me was not a set of steps on how to avoid being knuckle-headed. He simply said, “Hambrick men don’t act that way.” I wish that statement were more true. “Hambrick men don’t have immunity to knuckle-headedness, but the principle of allowing your identity drive your activity was solid. Holiness is an identity before it is an activity. So, be who you are… in Christ!
Live as Exiled Ambassadors: This is the active component of holiness. We were “set apart” in a hostile world to be a part of God’s redemptive mission (this is the theme of I Peter as a whole). With all the tension implied in the phrase, we were both rescued from and left in the world. We were left in the world to be a continuation of the rescue mission that God began in us. When we value our freedom (by way of self-protection or personal convenience) more than the freedom of those around us (by living as local missionaries) we no longer bear the image of our adopted Father (Matt 22:37-40; 2 Pet. 3:9).
Let us be “Christ men” and “Christ women” (that is what being a “Christian” first meant; Acts 11:26) and recognize that our lives were set apart for the agents of His grace, not ornaments of His grace.
Posted 3 months, 1 week ago at 11:17 am. Add a comment
The subject of homosexuality, gay identity, and same sex attraction are increasingly important counseling subjects as evangelicals engage the cultural conversations of our day. If someone does not chose to be attracted to the same sex, can they chose not to be attracted? What influence does an absent or distant father have upon one’s sexual identity? What influence does being sexually abused or experiencing premature sexualization have upon sexual identity?
Sam Williams addresses these questions and many more with grace, truth, and the insight of an experienced counselor in his faculty lecture at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary delivered October 20, 2011.
Sam Williams – A Christian Psychology of and Response to Homosexuality from Southeastern Seminary on Vimeo.
Posted 3 months, 1 week ago at 11:21 am. Add a comment
A Counselor Reflects on Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
“Very often what God first helps us towards is not the virtue itself but just this power of always trying again. For however important chastity (or courage, or truthfulness, or any other virtue) may be, this process trains us in habits of the soul which are more important still. It cures our illusions about ourselves and teaches us to depend on God. We learn, on the one hand, that we cannot trust ourselves even in our best moments, and, on the other, that we need not despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven (p. 98).” Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
The first half of this quote alone would be moralism. C.S. Lewis is on the brink of saying that God’s message to struggling people is, “Try harder! Don’t give up! Can’t never could! Keep falling forward! Get knocked down six times, get up seven!” During the first sentence God started to sound like my sports coaches.
The second half of this quote alone would be permissiveness. C.S. Lewis almost makes God sound like a grandmother talking to her grandchildren, “No matter what you do I’ll love you. It’s alright, child, just know I know you didn’t mean to. We all do things we’re not proud of, but let’s just not think about that right now.”
Both halves together represent the power and freedom of the Gospel and hinge on the phrases “we cannot trust ourselves even in our best moments” and “we need not despair even in our worst.”
It is in our best moments that we creep towards moralism (the belief that Jesus came to teach us how to be good and the Bible is where we find the best recipe for being good). This is the equivalent of saying that God came to earth to die in our place so that we would no longer need God once we “understood and applied” what Jesus said before He died.
When we reinterpret the desire and emotional freedom God places within us to continue after we fail as our own “trying harder,” we have called His gift our accomplishment. We become like the 3 year old child who gives a gift to his parent and says, “Look what I bought for you with my money.” The parent may appreciate the gift, but the child totally doesn’t get it.
The child may feel a sense of genuine sacrifice that is real and praiseworthy, but the money was not something he “earned.” When we act on God’s grace drawing us towards His character and our freedom, we may genuinely strive with an effort against our sin that is real and commended by God, but it is with His strength that we strive.
It is in our worst moments that we retreat to permissiveness. We want God to “understand” that “we are only human” and that “everyone makes mistakes.” We conceptualize God as excusing our sin (a much more arbitrary and scary response, in the long run) rather than forgiving it (a consistent disposition that gives long-term confidence).
It is forgiveness that forces us to acknowledge the full weight of the sin to which we have fallen and gives us the grace-based confidence to get up each time. It is forgiveness that ultimately allows us to take our eyes off of ourselves (measuring our best and worst moments) so that we can fix our eyes on the One of such love and excellence that we are compelled forward whether we fall to or hurdle a given temptation to sin. We become like a child running to his parent after a long absence. Falling or running is irrelevant to reaching whose image we bear and voice we know (John 10:1-18).
Posted 5 months ago at 12:49 pm. Add a comment
What is the difference between the personality (i.e., disposition, temperament, natural drives, unique innate pleasures, instinctive responses to relationships or conflict, etc…) that God gives every person at birth and the fruit of the Spirit which begins to express
itself in the life of a believer only after conversion?
Before we try to answer that question, let us first acknowledge that God is the author of both personality and the fruit of the Spirit. One is not carnal and the other sacred. One is not random and the other intentional.
We begin to understand the difference when we see God’s passion for unity in the midst of diversity. In Revelation 5:9 and 7:9 we see very diverse people gathered for a completely unified purpose—praising God.
There is no universal Christian personality. There is a universal Christian character portrait (the fruit of the Spirit). God does not have a preference for extroverts over introverts; nether does God like thinking people more than feeling people. God longs to see His character (i.e., image) reflected in the full breadth of human personality.
This is one of the implications of Genesis 2:15 we often miss. It was not good for man to be alone, because the purpose of man was to reflect the image of God in a unique way and no individual could accomplish this. Marriage was as much to humble the individual
human as it was to solve loneliness. We can only image God (our purpose and the only ultimately satisfying pursuit) in community.
With that said, we still ask, “What’s the difference?” I believe we can now say that personalities are imbalanced, but the fruit of the Spirit is necessarily balanced. Personalities are a portrait of the qualities we have in greater or lesser amounts. It is their uniqueness that makes them interesting, beautiful, and hard to understand.
The fruit (singular) of the Spirit is balanced. The fruit of the Spirit is not a virtue on a grocery list; as if we could pick up some and leave others. It is grammatically and inherently contradictory to say that we are stronger in some fruit of the Spirit than others. When we say this we are evaluating personality not the fruit of the Spirit.
The fruit of the Spirit is the mark of how much God’s character has taken root and found expression in our personality. For this reason we can accurately say our weakest point in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control is the indicator of the fruit of God’s Spirit in our lives.
If we take this as a demoralizing guilt bomb, we have missed the point completely. It means we were trying to get moral bonus credits for our personality (which was also a gift from God and over which we got no vote).
The fruit of the Spirit does not call us to do more good stuff (works) in or to be a different kind (personality) of person, but to surrender more (gospel response) of who we are (personality) to God. It is as we are won by God’s character (love, joy, peace, etc…) that we imitate it ourselves and rejoice when we see glimpses of it in other believers. As this takes root, guilt gives way to worship, and effort is motivated by something that makes it feel increasingly less like work.
Posted 5 months, 1 week ago at 12:58 pm. Add a comment
