Author: Kraig

Posted on

Stop Being Fearful; Start Being Joyful

In college I had a professor that summarized the message of Christmas as “Stop being fearful; start being joyful.”[1]Thanks Dr. Doug McLachlan! This is from Luke 2 where the angel tells the shepherds not to fear, and he also brings them good tidings of great joy for all people (2:10). I’ve remembered this Christmas summary ever since then.  

In the midst of the busyness of this season, it’s hard to find time to consider Christ, isn’t it? Probably most of us have thought at one time or another that this time of year is so busy that we almost dread it. We’ve taken this special time of the year when we could consider Christ and we’ve made it so busy, so crazy, so frantic, that we don’t consider Him.

And it doesn’t help that our world has some suggestions for the message of Christmas.

  1. It’s a commercialized, trivialized story we see on TV specials or read in Instagram posts.
  2. It’s the story of every Christmas movie at this time of year—families overcoming their differences and getting together for a special day.
  3. It’s a time when we celebrate a fat man in a red suit who sneaks down chimneys at night. 😉
  4. It’s a time when we try to have warm feelings towards our fellow man.

But I think my professor summarized it far better than any message the world gives us.

Stop Being Fearful

Clearly the shepherds are being told not to be afraid of the angel standing before them and the brightness of the glory of the Lord (2:9). They’ve never seen anything like this. Fear would be a natural response in these circumstances. However, it’s an unnecessary response.

Maybe fear is the natural response to your circumstances. You’re uncertain about the future. Life in 2021 hasn’t gone as you expected it to go. But like the Shepherds on the night Christ was born, your fear is unnecessary.

Because of that babe in the manger, you and I don’t have to fear. Why? Why is fear the wrong response to your circumstances? For the same reasons that joy is the right response to Christ’s birth.

Your biggest need was not financial. Your biggest need was not relational. Your biggest need was not emotional. Your biggest need was not health. Your biggest need was your estrangement from God because of your sin. And the birth of Jesus took care of that (Luke 2:10-11). Jesus came so that He could die as the perfect sacrifice for our sin. The Bible tells us that all people are sinners and that their sin separates them from God.

Romans 3:23, 6:23 (ESV) for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.... For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

But because Jesus was born, lived, died for your sin, and rose again, you can have peace with God.

Colossians 2:13–14 (ESV) And you, who were dead in your trespasses [separated from God] and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us [you couldn’t keep God’s law.] with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. [You were guilty, but God nailed your sins to the cross.]

Peace is a great quality to have. It’s a good state to be in. It only comes through Jesus Christ. In fact, you and I can have peace in the midst of swirling circumstances.

Like the angel commanded the shepherds, you can stop being fearful because Jesus came to take care of your sin.

There is so much to fear in this world. Because of Jesus, I don’t have to fear financial collapse, war, environmental ruin, terrorism, aging, health issues, the future, viruses, or even my own death. I can stop being fearful.

Start Being Joyful

Our world is not very joyful. Oh we could find some people at a bar or someplace today having a good time, and I’m sure they would say that they are joyful. But biblical joy doesn’t come from outside circumstances (Jam 1:2).

One of the greatest American humorists ever to live was Mark Twain. In his day, he really made people laugh. However, in his personal life he was plagued with depression and sorrow. When his daughter Jean died, Twain reportedly said to a friend, “I’ve never greatly envied anyone but the dead. I always envy the dead”

Jesus said, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:11, ESV). Paul tells us that “the fruit of the Spirit is… joy (Gal. 5:22, ESV). God wants to develop inside you a joy that flows out as a result of your relationship with Him.

Joy is a divine gift of God to believers. First Peter 1:8 says, “Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory” (ESV).

Just like we are commanded not to fear, we are also commanded to be joyful. Philippians 4:4 says, “Rejoice in the Lord always. again I will say, rejoice” (ESV).

It’s been 2000 years, but I still believe you can stop being fearful and start being joyful because of the incarnation of Christ. That baby in the manger is the answer to our fears and the source of our joys.

Merry Christmas!

References

References
↑1 Thanks Dr. Doug McLachlan!
Posted on

3 Encouraging Metaphors of Belongingness

We like to be included, don’t we? In the ’80s there was sitcom called Cheers about a Boston Pub and the characters that regularly came or worked there. Do you remember the song? One line was “You want to go where everybody knows your name.” It was a place you belonged. Granted, a bar is really a terrible place to find this sense of belongingness, but that was their pitch.

Have you ever put something together and had extra bolts? Everything works but you have extra pieces. Have you ever felt like that extra piece? Maybe in some groups you feel like an extra bolt. You don’t think you belong. When I don’t feel like I belong, it’s God’s grace that makes me think of others and not just myself—to stay and please Christ by loving others. It’s hard to feel like an extra part. We shouldn’t give in to that feeling at church because we really do belong.

Our kids are going to be home for Christmas—we’ll see all of them even though we will only be all together for one day. This is a big deal because we have one child in each of the four time zones of the lower 48 states which makes it difficult to get together often. God has been gracious to us, and our family loves being with each other. If your family is close, you have a good start to understanding the three metaphors of belongingness or the three metaphors of inclusion that the Apostle Paul uses to describe the church in Eph 2. They really are remarkable.

You Are Citizens in Christ’s Kingdom (2:19a)

Ephesians 2:19 (ESV) So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God,

Paul is using the metaphor of national identity. Specifically here it’s being part of Christ’s kingdom, but it’s a national identity. Our political battles about illegal immigration give us some insight into how Paul is describing us. We’re aware that we have people in our nation that don’t have the full rights of citizenship. Because they’re very concerned about being deported, they are susceptible to being oppressed. They don’t want to draw any attention to themselves, so they won’t contact the police. They feel they don’t quite belong.

In a previous ministry we knew a Canadian woman married to an American man, and she told us that she was always exceptionally careful to follow all traffic laws. In my naivete I didn’t think she could be tossed out of the U.S., but she said she could, and for any reason whatsoever. And this could happen even though she was married with children.

Paul is telling us that we’re no longer illegal immigrants in someone else’s nation. We belong. We’re full members of Christ’s kingdom, not second-rate citizens. There aren’t two classes of residents in Christ’s kingdom: Jews and Gentiles. No, out of the two Christ made one new humanity (2:15).

To use the language of the text, we are fellow citizens—a word only used here in the New Testament. You’re not homeless anymore. You’re not stateless anymore. You belong to Christ’s kingdom. Now you are fellow citizens (Phil 3:20) with people of every race and tongue—saints who have trusted God. You belong. You have an identity in Christ’s kingdom.

You Are Members of God’s Household (2:19b)

Ephesians 2:19b (ESV) So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, …and members of the household of God,

Family is a great metaphor because it speaks of intimacy. It’s possible to be a citizen of a nation and be alone. Yes you have security; you don’t get kicked out of a nation. You’re always a citizen and that brings rights and privileges that cannot be abridged. But it doesn’t bring closeness necessarily. It doesn’t bring intimacy. For that we have the metaphor of God’s household—His family.

Being part of a family means knowing you always belong.

When my kids were younger we celebrated many birthday parties at our house. One particular time we were planning it with the child and one of her siblings wondered if he were invited to the birthday party too. The answer was “Of course. You’re part of the family.” Family members don’t need an invitation; of course they can come to the party.

When you go on vacation, you don’t have to tell each kid individually that they are invited on the family vacation. Family doesn’t have to invite immediate family members to Christmas either. They know they are welcome.

That’s the picture of God’s household. You belong. You’re part of the family. Family in the best sense of that word is a good word to describe the relationships that we have with each other and with God in the church.

This is a metaphor that doesn’t really work if we’re talking about the universal church. A local church can be a family in all the wonderful senses of that metaphor.

You Are the Structure of Christ’s Growing Temple (2:20-22)

Ephesians 2:20–22 (ESV) built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

It’s still a metaphor for the church, but it uses a growing temple as the picture. A temple where the apostles and prophets are the foundation. And the passage goes on to say that Jesus is the Cornerstone—a real person, not His teaching. And saints are the structure—again real people, not our teaching.

What does it mean that Jesus is the Cornerstone of this growing temple? We don’t get the importance of this picture with our modern building methods. Nowadays with an important building, the cornerstone is laid at the building dedication, when construction is completed. It’s normally inscribed with the date, but it’s not really important to the construction of the building. It signifies the end of construction.

However, in the first century and before, the cornerstone was the very first stone laid. It wasn’t haphazard. It took time to lay the cornerstone because every other stone in the foundation and superstructure was measured by the cornerstone. The position of all the other stones was determined by the Cornerstone. All other stones adjust themselves to the Cornerstone.

The Apostles and prophets and the saints mentioned above all adjust themselves to Christ. Christ gives the church its direction.

We have a structure that fits together but also grows. It’s like a building in that it fits together and is built, but it’s like a plant in that it actually grows. It’s not a static building. And every Christian is part of the structure of this building (cf. 1 Peter 2:5).

Verse 21 tells us that in Christ the entire structure becomes a holy temple “in the Lord”—in Christ. Our union with Christ makes us part of this temple.

The unity and growth of the church are joined in these verses and Jesus is the secret of both. And the growth here is not individual growth; it’s corporate. This metaphor reminds us why we need the church. We cannot grow without it.

You belong; you have an identity. You are a citizen of Christ’s kingdom. You are a member of God’s family. You are part of Christ’s growing temple. All of these metaphors should find their best definition in your local church. That’s where a sense of belongingness is most felt.

I hope you are there on Sunday. I will be.

Posted on

A Better Illustration of Spiritual Blindness

Every pastor, every biblical counselor has talked to a counselee that really couldn’t see his sin very accurately. You’ve patiently showed him how he’s hurting his marriage, how he’s not fulfilling his biblical role, how he’s not loving his wife as Christ loves the church, and he’s not seen it. He refuses your counsel. He doesn’t own his sin. He rejects blame. It’s difficult to communicate the biblical concept of spiritual blindness—that we don’t see our sin very clearly. Sin deceives us to its existence (Heb 3:12-13), and we want to be deceived about it.

In this life we will never have 20/20 vision about our own sin. The Laodicean church shows us that.

Revelation 3:17 (ESV) For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.

Did the Laodicean church think that everything was okay while in fact, everything was radically wrong? Did they really believe that things were A-Ok when they were really wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked? Yes they did. So do you. And so do I (Cf. Mt 7:3-5).

So what illustration can a biblical counselor use to communicate our tendency to be spiritually blind? Most use physical blindness which works, but has limitations. One, a physically blind person knows they are physically blind; a spiritually blind person often does not know they are spiritually blind. Two, physical blindness as an illustration is all or nothing, but there can be degrees of spiritual blindness.

Protanopia or deuteranopia are types of color blindness. With protanopia you cannot see the color red (1% of men) and with deuteranopia you cannot see the color green (5% of men). Most commonly a colorblind person struggles to differentiate between reds and greens. What is life like for the colorblind? They go through life without seeing all the colors we see. Most times it doesn’t affect them—at least in ways they are aware. They look at their child’s crayon drawing, and they don’t know what they’re missing. They notice the cut and shape of a new dress on their teen daughter, but they don’t know that the colors are fantastic.

We had a student in our church who didn’t know he was colorblind until he took his vision test for his driver’s license. You need to be able to distinguish between reds and greens if you’re going to have a license—stoplights demand it! His family enjoyed camping and in looking back, it made sense that he wasn’t ever impressed with the sunsets while sitting around a campfire. His life worked fine—as far as he could tell—while being colorblind.

YouTube videos of colorblind people seeing colors for the first time are somewhat common now.[1] http://enchroma.com/ A company called EnChroma worked with Valspar Paints to develop glasses that allow colorblind people to see colors. It’s amazing. In one I saw a guy look at a sunset and say, “So is that what you guys see every day?” He’d never understood the glory of a sunset.

Colorblindness is a better analogy to our spiritual lives than total blindness. Think about what it means to be colorblind. You can function fine. You might know that you’re colorblind, but you really don’t know what that means. You don’t know what you’re missing because you’ve never seen it. You look at a flower garden and you can see the different shapes and some differences in hues, but you have no idea that you’re missing the eye-popping colors in the garden. You’re missing something that is obvious to everyone around you. That’s spiritual blindness. You and I can function in life, and because we can, we don’t notice our blindness to our true condition. We go through life ignorant of the depths and extent of our sin. We cannot see it.

Sin is blinding. By nature it fools us, and when we’ve sinned for a long time in the same way, we become less and less able to see it in all its ugliness. I’ve rarely, maybe never, talked to a person whose tongue was destroying his family who thought his problem was as severe as it really was. That’s the human condition. Sin is blinding.

Colorblindness is a better illustration of spiritual blindness than actual blindness. It illustrates the blindness-to-our-blindness characteristic of spiritual blindness. It illustrates that we can function with our spiritual blindness. We’re not incapable of making our way through life. And that fact keeps us from seeing our sin very well.[2]The picture at the top is a test for colorblindness.

References

References
↑1 http://enchroma.com/
↑2 The picture at the top is a test for colorblindness.
Posted on

Massaging the Message: Believing the Gospel Needs Our Help

Have you ever been to a tent revival? When I was a child our church joined with other city churches to hold a tent revival for a week. Maybe it surprises you, but some churches were still holding tent meetings in the late ‘70s. They actually set up a tent in the parking lot of Lambeau Field where the Packers played, which for residents of Green Bay was about the best location ever. Since it was a tent, we got to use the bathrooms inside the stadium which I thought was really cool. An elderly evangelist and his college team came in to conduct the nightly services, and he led come-forward invitations at the end of each service. This means that when he finished preaching the gospel, the audience would sing several verses of a Christian song (a favorite was Just As I Am) and people were invited to come to the front and get saved. Lots of people have trusted Christ that way.

I found out later that the evangelist had some directions for the churches to make the invitations more effective. Each church was supposed to assign certain people to come forward on each line of the first few verses of the invitation song. So as the audience starts singing, a few adults were supposed to leave their chairs and come forward. Then some more on the second line, and more on the third, and so on. They weren’t coming forward to talk to those that might be genuinely repentant and need some help understanding the gospel. No, they were essentially pretending that they were genuinely convicted by the Spirit. It was supposed to make it easier for an unbeliever to make the decision to come forward and talk to the evangelist and be directed to someone that could help them walk through the gospel.

I don’t know what you think about that. The deceit bothers me—pretending to be moved by the Spirit when you are not. I think it’s a gimmick. I think it’s manipulative. And I don’t think it’s how Paul presented the gospel.

And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. (1 Cor 2:1-5, ESV)

Paul didn’t shape his message to appeal to the Corinthian culture. He didn’t try to manipulate his audience into trusting Christ. In fact, he was doing it all wrong. He didn’t come to Corinth and share the Gospel in any ways that took away the shame of the message, the unimpressiveness of the called, or the foolishness of his own presentation.

This should be encouraging. Paul didn’t do anything “right” and yet the Gospel took root in people’s lives, and a church was planted in Corinth. The success of the Gospel doesn’t depend upon you and your cleverness.

Sometimes we think that if we only had the exact right word at the right time, our neighbor, friend, or family member would trust Christ. Not so. Everything was against the Gospel in Corinth and God still planted His church. Paul didn’t have a great delivery—nobody was coming to hear his amazing oratory—and people still trusted Christ. Paul didn’t have a powerful personality—nobody was impressed by his charisma—and people still trusted Christ.

We share the Gospel and trust God for the results. We do have to share the Gospel, but the success of it doesn’t depend upon your words or your personality. Both Paul’s delivery and his message weren’t persuasive by the world’s standards. That’s encouraging. Frankly, if the success of my witness depends upon me, I will feel a lot of pressure. I know I’m an inadequate witness, and I will get discouraged from even sharing the gospel. But I just need to be faithful in sharing. God will do the work.

From the world’s perspective they had a terrible message, embarrassing converts, and a poor salesman in Paul. Yet, the gospel changed lives. The Spirit’s power is the only explanation.

If God can use Paul’s feeble presentation to save some in Corinth, he can use your awkward presentation with your neighbor. So trust God and take courage. You and I can do this. By God’s grace we can share the crucified Christ, and by the Spirit’s power we can see some trust Christ.  

Posted on

3 Cautions with Personality Tests

A while ago I was playing a game called 9 Books with our family and a family friend. It’s one of those parlor games where you need to know the trick to get it, and once you get it, you can never play it again. In this game we put books in a 3×3 pattern on a table and one person left. The rest of us picked a book and then the absent person was called back. Our family friend pointed to book after book and when she pointed to the one we picked as a group, he called it out. The trick was to figure out how he knows, and I must not be good at it because I was probably the last person to figure it out. In my case I had a lot of guesses, but when I finally guessed correctly, it was an aha moment.

Tim LaHaye’s Spirit Controlled Temperament was like that for my family (and many other evangelicals) when I was growing up. I was taught the four temperaments—choleric, phlegmatic, sanguine, and melancholic—and we took the test to figure out which one we were. It seemed to explain each of us. (For the record I was a choleric-sanguine mix.)

Those two incidents are analogous to me for how people tend to feel when they get the results back from a personality test. It seems insightful; there is an aha moment. When I find out I’m Cool Blue (Insights Discovery), it seems to give me information that I didn’t have before.

And personality tests are big business. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is the most commercially successful personality test; it’s used more than two million times a year. But there are others–close to 2000 personality tests on the market today.[1]Louis Menand, “What Personality Tests Really Deliver,” September 3, 2018, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/09/10/what-personality-tests-really-deliver However, it’s questionable to me if they really are helpful for sanctification. Like parlor games I think they can be fun and interesting, but I question whether they actually lead to greater growth. Apparently some outside the church wonder similar things, even calling them the astrology of the office.[2]Emma Goldberg, The New York Times, “Personality Tests Are the Astrology of the Office,” September 17, 2019, … Continue reading One author said, “Personality testing is an industry the way astrology or dream analysis is an industry: slippery, often underground, hard to monitor or measure.”[3]Annie Murphy Paul, National Public Radio, “Personality Tests Are Popular, But Do They Capture The Real You?,” June 25, 2016, … Continue reading I’m sure some are more scientific and others less so (I’m looking at all you otters in the 4 Animals Personality Test), but I wonder if any are truly helpful for the biblical counselor. They’re interesting. They’re probably fun. But are they actually insightful? Can they really help me change?

Some people invest them with almost biblical importance. Here are three cautions I have about personality tests.

Caution: We Might Confuse Personality with Spirituality

So you’ve taken a personality test and the results say you are a patient person. That’s great! God gives some people a greater measure of patience in his common grace to us. But don’t confuse the results of a personality test with the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:23-23). Those are virtues that are the result of the Holy Spirit’s sanctifying work in our lives. They are by definition, unnatural. So be careful not to take the results of a secular personality test as evidence of spiritual growth. They’re not the same. God’s work in us is something that can only be explained by the Spirit, not by personality.

Caution: We Might Believe that Personality Is Fixed

Even though some have found evidence that variables in taking the test can affect your results (i.e., you can get different results with some tests depending on when you take it), overall we are tempted to think like the world that our personalities are fixed. So we get our results back and believe we cannot change. But where your personality is not Christlike, it has to change. It can change. The Great Commission and the 2nd Great Command aren’t just for extroverts. Us introverts have to share the gospel and love our neighbor. A personality test result is not an excuse for avoiding your neighbor too. Even introverts can be progressively sanctified resulting in loving others better. Personality tests are based on the assumption that personality cannot change. That’s not a biblical assumption.  

Caution: We Might Believe they Are Explanatory Rather than Descriptive

This is my primary concern. I can regard them as tools of self-discovery that explain me. I think they tell me why I do something rather than what I do, and the personality test makers promote them this way. They sell them as describing why we think and behave like we do. There are two potential ways I can misuse this assumption.  

  • Accusingly: “You do that because you’re an otter!”
  • Excusingly: “I cannot really help it. It’s what Cool Blues do.”

But Scripture doesn’t let us accept such poor explanations for our behavior and thinking. Instead it teaches us that all sin comes from the heart (Mt 7:15-20; 12:33-35; 15:10-20; Mk 7:14-23; Lk 6:43-45). It’s the bad fruit of a bad tree. It’s good news then that Jesus changes hearts. A personality test might describe the characteristic ways that I handle conflict or whether I prefer people or tasks, but it can never explain why I do what I do. The Bible is rich with motivation theory. Why let the insights of unbelievers explain you?

Like parlor games, personality tests are probably mostly harmless—with the above cautions in mind. Just don’t expect your personality test to say something about you that is more important than what Scripture already says about you. Be careful making life decisions off of a personality test. Don’t live based off the “insight” you received.

Are there any cautions you might add? Any pushback you might give?

References

References
↑1 Louis Menand, “What Personality Tests Really Deliver,” September 3, 2018, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/09/10/what-personality-tests-really-deliver
↑2 Emma Goldberg, The New York Times, “Personality Tests Are the Astrology of the Office,” September 17, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/17/style/personality-tests-office.html?.?mc=aud_dev&ad-keywords=auddevgate&gclid=Cj0KCQjwt-6LBhDlARIsAIPRQcKIMy3FHWkex5pioSrHoedPIYPm4wDTUeOyl8Pw-shMfjvQBhuM1GkaAl_QEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds
↑3 Annie Murphy Paul, National Public Radio, “Personality Tests Are Popular, But Do They Capture The Real You?,” June 25, 2016, https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/06/25/483108905/personality-tests-are-popular-but-do-they-capture-the-real-you