12 December 2015 + Love Dare Day 13

Prayer
      6. Thanking God

Scriptures:

• Philippians 4:6-7

Observations:

I could just stop at this first clause, "do not be anxious about anything," and leave blessed for the day. Struggling with an ingrained habit of sin is painful. You're uprooting everything of how you interact. Sometimes, you have extreme withdrawal and cravings for your sin. Sometimes, you can't even trust your own mind to not wander off into its sin, but must exercise extreme continence, or, control, just to strive towards a purity based off of holiness. That's where I am. I'm on edge, hyper-aware of my sin and the temptations around me (thankfully, it's a weekend, so I can hole up and cut down on the influx of external temptation).

But, let's continue.

"... but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God."

So, instead of being anxious, torn up, in internal turmoil, let us, in a heart of gratitude offer a prayer of supplication to God, letting him know our needs and requests. Just one thing: supplication is a very nice, Christianese word that we all kinda only partially understand. so, here's how Dictionary.com defines "Supplicate"

"verb (used without object), supplicated, supplicating.

1.

to pray humbly; make humble and earnest entreaty or petition.

verb (used with object), supplicated, supplicating.

2.

to pray humbly to; entreat or petition humbly.

3.

to seek or ask for by humble entreaty."

Aside from the lack of the words "transitive" and "intransitive" when describing the properties and usage of the verb, what do we see?

• Supplication involves humility
• Supplication should be in earnest ("resulting from or showing sincere and intense conviction")
• Supplication involves prayer, petition ("A formal request appealing to authority with respect to a specific cause"), and entreaty ("An earnest or humble request")

So, in every situation, instead of being anxious, let us turn and pray with an attitude of humility, sincerity, and intense conviction, pleading with God that he would meet our request to provide our needs and equip us to combat our sin, simultaneously showing gratitude for what he has done and is doing.

Or, in a nutshell, we need to recognise God with a greater sense of awe and majesty, and not our confidant/best buddy, whom we can flippantly talk to, then go on our merry way. We are making a petition of the almighty, holy God to meet our needs.

"And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

In our times of trial and anxiety, when we're neck deep in temptation and struggle, why do we take the time to come to God and bother such a busy and worthy personage? Well, for starters, because Jesus said we could and made it possible, but mainly because Jesus also said "Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest." (Matt 11:28), following that statement with "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gently and lowly [i.e. humble] in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." (Matt 11:29)

What Paul is writing in Philippians, that God will grant us peace and will guard our hearts and minds, echoes what Christ himself said a mere handful of years earlier.

Application:

I just need to rest in Christ. I need to come, relax, and let him take the reins and stresses present in my life. I need to give myself over to his strength and restoration. I need his peace.

Prayer:

(In private)

~ ~ ~

The Love Dare

Day 13: Love Fights Fair

"Like it or not, conflict in marriage is simply inevitable.  When you tied the knot as bride and groom, you joined not only your hopes and dreams but also your hurts, fears, imperfections, and emotional baggage. ... Pretty soon your mate started to slip off your lofty pedestal, and you off of theirs.  The forced closeness of marriage began stripping away your public facades, exposing your private problems and secret habits."

Marriage has this God-blessed way of holding a mirror to your face and showing you your flaws through your spouse. In four months of marriage, I have felt God use my wife to sanctify me more than at any other time in my life. It hurts, but it's healing.

The text today speaks of establishing rules of engagement for how we go through conflict with our spouses, setting up "We" rules and "Me" rules - "We" being rules made together governing the terms of engagement overall, such as, "We will not argue in public.", and "Me" being rules made within oneself governing one's own actions and behaviour in conflict, such as, "I will not raise my voice in anger."

This'll be a good thing to sit down and talk with my wife over.

11 December 2015 + Love Dare Day 12

Prayer
      5. Worshipping God

Scriptures:

• Philippians 3:3

Observations:

In leading up to this passage, Paul is warning us to stay on guard for our opponents, those who do evil and wish our downfall. Why?

• We are the circumcision
• We worship by the spirit of God
• We glory in Christ
• We put no confidence in our flesh

What is the significance of each of these? 

We are the circumcision. We are the new covenant made through Christ's blood. We are no longer slaves to our sin, helpless to resist evil.

We worship by the spirit of God. We are not unequipped. We have the spirit of God in us that enables us to worship God. Also, in connection, we have the strength imparted by his Spirit to, in worship, resist evil.

We glory in Christ. Our joy is not found in the sins and evils of this world, but we recognise that our joy, true joy, is found in Christ and, hopefully, we seek Christ's joy over fleshly desires, the latter being shown empty, false joy.

We put no confidence in our flesh. This is a bit stickier. Taken at face value, I would take it to mean we have no confidence in our ability to overcome sin. In context though, as Paul shows his pedigree, I realise it is more about our inability to obtain salvation for ourselves. The two concepts are similar and connected. Regardless, though, the key point is that we rely on God, not ourselves. We even note that, later on in Philippians 3, Paul counts all this as nothing, a detriment, even, because the worth of knowing Christ so far surpasses anything he could ever do.

Application:

Man, If there's one thing I'm learning regarding overcoming sin, especially habitual, ingrained sin, it's the importance of Christ as the agent of change, as the person we should be relying on. 

Three weeks into going toe-to-toe with my deepest, most ingrained sins, I cannot stress this enough. I can't do this alone. I need Christ. I'm reminded of St. Patrick's prayer:

"Christ be with me, Christ within meChrist behind me, Christ before meChrist beside me, Christ to win meChrist to comfort me and restore me.Christ beneath me, Christ above meChrist in quiet, Christ in dangerChrist in hearts of all that love meChrist in mouth of friend or stranger."

Fighting sin is tough. The harder you fight, the harder it fights back. The more you seek to cling to Christ, the more it tries to isolate and separate you.

It's painful, too. Very often, you're facing a lot of shame or guilt, but the worst pain is seeing your loved ones being hurt as you war with sin and seek to build trust through transparency. No person should ever have to endure their spouse's problems, but it's true. One of the biggest lies of sin is that it affects only you.

~ ~ ~

The Love Dare

Day 12: Love Lets the Other Win

They're talking here about sacrificing our stubbornness with willingness. 

"It’s an attitude and spirit of cooperation that should permeate our conversations.  It’s like a palm tree by the ocean that endures the greatest winds because it knows how to gracefully bend."

Ouch. I like to think I'm flexible, but, in truth, I'm rather recalcitrant, being flexible, truly, only when all the options are ones I'm in favour of, preferably ones I've suggested.

"As God, He had every right to refuse becoming a man but yielded and did – because He was willing.  He had the right to be served by all mankind but came to serve us instead.  He had the right to live in peace and safety but willingly laid down His life for our sins.  He was even willing to endure the grueling torture of the cross.  He loved, cooperated, and was willing to do His Father’s will instead of His own."

Putting myself to death continually is the winning option. With that, I also need to sacrifice my pride, which causes me to be defensive, and be moulded instead to Christ's image.

"The wise and loving thing to do is to start approaching your disagreements with a willingness to not always insist on your own way."

Prayer:

Done in private 

10 December 2015 + Love Dare Day 11

Prayer
      5. Worship God

Scriptures:

• John 4:23-24

Observations:

What does it mean to worship in spirit and truth? 

Well, in my last note, I talked about spiritual worship as aligning myself with God and sacrificing myself to his will and purpose.

Worshipping in truth, I am convinced and convicted, is about coming to God in honesty. What that means to me, and what I was convicted of, is that if we are coming to God and we have matters of sin, conflict, hurt that are lingering over us, then we need to confess those and take care of those matters first, before continuing in worship. Christ himself said something similar in Matt 5:

"23 So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift." Matt 5:23-24

Application:

Well, I kinda already did this. I had something weighing on my heart from a discussion with my wife earlier, knowing it was something that needed being said, so I finally mustered up the courage to at least send her a message, which ended up being a long message on where I am and what's troubling me with regards to where I am in my process of recovery from sin.

~ ~ ~

The Love Dare

Day 11: Love Cherishes

The authors open up with a comparison of two men: one with a severely broken, old car and the other with a severely broken hand, asking which man's attitude towards fixing vs scrapping should we embody in our relationships with our spouses.

"When you mistreat your mate, you are mistreating yourself.  Think about it.  Your lives are now interwoven together.  Your spouse cannot experience joy or pain, blessing or cursing, without it also affecting you."

"It’s time to let love change your thinking.  It’s time for you to realize that your spouse is as much a part of you as your hand, your eye, or your heart.  She, too, needs to be loved and cherished. "

These two statements stand out to me, in part because I still have the bad habit of viewing the two of us (my wife and I) as separate individuals, though I am learning daily how what affects one affects the other, particularly what affects me affects her.

"Just as you treasure your eyes, hands, and feet, you should treasure your spouse as a priceless gift."

 There's the rub. I treat my wife as a roommate, a longtime friend, even a girlfriend, but I don't truly treat her as Wife. (Yes, that's a capital "W"). This is probably one of the largest areas I need to grow in.

The challenge, then, is to do something that shows my wife I cherish her, which is funny, because that's one of the things we were talking about the other day that I've been failing to make her feel - cherished.

Now to do something genuine that doesn't fall flat because I didn't consider all the angles.

8 December 2015 + Love Dare Day 10

Prayer
      4. Offering Yourself

Scriptures:

• 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

Observations:

 

The passage above is at the end of a passage on sexual immorality. Sexual sin is a complicated one. Any sin is against God, but Paul makes a distinction that sexual sin is against one's own body as well.

How does he arrive at this position? Firstly, he takes the comments of entitlement and "need" towards sex and flips them on their heads, culminating in this statement: "The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord and the Lord for the body." (v13b). He then follows that up with the idea that our bodies are members, or parts, of Christ, that when two come together in intimacy, they are made as one, and that he who is joined to the Lord is one in spirit with him . He even asks the absurd question of whether we should take that which belongs to and is part of God and make it part of a prostitute, in this particular case. 

So, we see the sinning against God, how do we sin against our own body as well? Our bodies are described as temples of the Holy Spirit. That is, from a very Jewish understanding, the Holy Spirit dwells within each of us who are Christians. I think it would be fairly understandable if I were to say that, for the peoples of the time, for whom temples were very sacred spaces, desecration of a temple would be, in a sense, sinning against the temple. Now, how is a temple desecrated? By performing in it something forbidden, unholy, or against the god in question. So, if our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit and sexual immorality, in its intimacy, is like giving over something which is God's in union with something contrary to it, or even joining God to the object of immorality, would that not qualify to be considered a desecration?

Maybe this idea of desecration is a little watered down, now that we don't need to come to God through a specific person at a specific place. We Christians, especially we rational, unfettered, Western Christians, tend to downplay the spiritual, even within our own churches. We rightly realise that the church building is nothing inherently special, but we seem to forget in context that it is intended to be a sacred space. In antiquity, a temple would have been where the god in question often resided or manifested him-/herself.  So, let's keep that in mind.

Our society today is so enthusiastic to drag everything good and holy down that I doubt even asking whether one would commit adultery or make/view pornography within St Peter's Basilica or some other such celebrated cathedral would have the intended effect.

Cue Paul's final words on the subject: "You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God with your body." (v20)

Application:

For me, the application is continuing on setting myself along the course of intimacy with God, realising my sin and how that affects me and my relationship with God. This was just providing a rational breakdown of some consequences of my sin.

~ ~ ~

The Love Dare

Day 10: Love Is Unconditional

7 December 2015 + Love Dare Day 9

Prayer
      4. Offering Yourself

Scriptures:

• Romans 12:1-2

Observations:

So, in this passage, we have an overlap from the topic of being transformed, but the idea behind it in this study is slightly different. Whereas last week, the whole point was to encourage me to seek change from the inside, today, the point is to offer myself to God.

Paul actually calls the act of offering oneself to God as our spiritual act of worship. He also calls it a living sacrifice and, I think, this latter part is why it is the former.

What is worship? worship is the offering of deference and honour to one who deserves it. We can give worship with our mouths by what we say to someone and how we speak of them. We can worship with our thoughts in a very similar manner, after all, the thoughts preclude the speech. We can worship with our actions by following in the footsteps of an individual or by following their commands. We can worship with our spirit by aligning our hearts, wills, and intentions with someone.

As thought is to speech - the underlying basis, so the spirit is to action, except it runs even deeper. Spirit gives genuineness to our action. It changes lip service to service. It changes empty promises to promises. Why? because we actually mean what we say or do.

So, in offering our souls as living sacrifices, we are relinquishing our motivations and reasonings, acknowledging God's greatness and godhood, and making God's motivations our motivations. In essence, we are saying, "Because you are God, I will relinquish my right and be made in your image." We attune our souls to God, seeking to be of one accord with him, not merely just doing the good actions externally that, genuinely, should arise from within.

That's a scary thing, obliteration of the self, but again, I challenge myself here. Who is greater, me or God? Who is perfect, me or God? In seeking to preserve myself, I am choosing to preserve my sinfulness. In offering myself to God, in seeking transformation, I am choosing righteousness.

Application:

I think it's pretty self-explanatory. I need to turn myself over completely to God.

~ ~ ~

The Love Dare

Day 9: Love Makes Good Impressions

6 December 2015 + Love Dare Day 8

Prayer
      3. Seeking Intimacy with God

Scripture:

• Philippians 3:10-14

Observations:

I'm gonna backtrack to verse 8 to start.

Paul starts off saying that, because of his relationship with Christ, everything else is of no or negative value to him. He has suffered the loss of many such things in exchange for gaining Christ, being found in Christ and receiving the righteousness that comes through faith in Christ from God.

That's verses 8-9.

In verses ten and eleven, we see why Paul holds to such an ideal:

• That he may know Christ and the power of his resurrection
• That he may share his sufferings, ultimately dying for Christ
• That he may receive the resurrection from the dead

From 12 to 14, Paul is then clarifying his above statement and sharing his perspective

• He recognises that he has not obtained this [the above two passages]
• He recognises that he is not perfect
• He presses forward, though, to claim the above because he is found in Christ - Christ has claimed him
• He considers everything given by God as not belonging to him, but given to him.
• He then offers his perspective and his attitude:
• Pressing on towards the ultimate goal of Christ, for the prize that waits beyond

In breaking the passage down as such, though, I think we miss a lot of the overarching, contextual clues.

This passage is talking about coming to know Christ in greater intimacy, knowing his suffering and sharing in his death and resurrection. This is our goal which Paul says he presses on towards.

Application:

This one is both plain and not.

We have three elements modeled for us as believers. First, we are shown that intimacy with God doesn't come from our religious actions and obeisances. Instead, it comes from seeking God first, in faith. Second, we see that this righteousness from God enables us to grow in intimacy with God, seeing the weight of his sacrifice and seeking to become increasingly like him. Third, we are told to make this righteousness our own, not merely assuming we have, pushing forward in life and struggles with God as our focus and end goal

It's easy to say all this and leave it at that. As someone seeking to overcome sin, I can vouch that many times, we grow tired. We get fatigued. We get discouraged. We lose focus of God in the midst of the battle, focusing solely on the sin we're fighting  and find ourselves frustrated or burnt out.

~ ~ ~

The Love Dare

Day 8: Love Is Not Jealous

Well, this is more about envy than jealousy.

Envy is wanting what someone else has

Jealousy is not wanting others to have what you have

"Because love is not selfish and puts other first, it refuses to let jealousy in.  It leads you to celebrate the successes of your spouse rather than resenting them."

This isn't a major struggle for me, but it's still something that could be worked on, becoming more genuine in my praise and celebration of my wife's successes.