2002-01-01
Good Morning Dear Ones,
Yesterday, the Lord directed me to write to you about the thin line that exists between righteousness and self-righteousness beginning with defining them and looking at Scriptures which deal with them from God’s perspective. Today, He directs me to write about the challenges in our personal relations with others in our modern day lives that this thin line brings. Beginning with an important and very specific directive our Lord gives us in RO 14 makes sense. RO 14: 7-8, 13, “None of us lives for himself only, none of us dies for himself only. If we live it is for the Lord that we live, and if we die, it is for the Lord that we die. So whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.” “So then, let us stop judging one another. Instead, you should decide never to do anything that would make your brother stumble or fall into sin.”
I can think of two examples of situations where mature and committed believers in Christ are faced with some pretty frustrating circumstances. The first one is when one partner in a marriage is significantly farther along in his/her walk with the Lord than the other one. The other example is when you and your spouse are living “in Christ,” but other members of your family do not share your faith and in some cases, reject it altogether. These situations are fertile with opportunities for the believers to become self-righteous without even realizing it is happening. This goes to the heart of the conflict discussed by Paul in RO 7 between the fleshly outer being and the spiritual inner being. [see RO 7: 14-25]. If you are anything like I am, you know that you have something wonderful in living with the Trinity as a directing partner in your life. Naturally, you want those who don’t have this faith that you care about to share in the blessings it brings. There is nothing wrong with wanting others to advance in their spiritual maturity or even to come to faith from having none. The problem often lies in what we do about it. We laughed at Dana Carvey’s character “Church Lady,” because “she” pokes fun at the zealously religious self-righteous people in your life. But self-righteousness is no laughing matter when a person is on the receiving end of well meaning friends or relatives who trod over his/her emotions or question his/her or lack thereof about God. While it sounds trite, imagine what it would be like if you stood in the other person’s shoes. Can you remember back to the time when you were struggling with your own decision to come to faith and efforts to establish the lifestyle of living “in Christ?” There are folks that would like to think that they can talk you into living this way or talk you into faith. Believe me, there was a time when I was one of them! Some of you have heard me tell this story before, so I was ask you to bear with me. Repeating it is valuable for the lesson I learned.
As a Jew, I experienced true spiritual excitement when it became obvious to me through my study of the Scriptures that there are real and critically important connections between the OT and the NT. I began to see that Jesus Christ is all over the OT even through His name isn’t mentioned. This was particularly true when I read Psalms 2 [The Chosen King] and Isaiah 53 [The Suffering Servant]. I hope you will read both these chapters. Here are a couple of teasers, so you can see what I mean. PS 2: 7-8, “ ‘I will announce, ‘ says the king, ‘what the Lord has declared. He said to me: ‘You are my Son; today I have become Your Father. Ask, and I will give You all the nations; the whole earth will be Yours.’ “ IS 53: 6, “All of us were like sheep that were lost, each of us going his own way. But the Lord made the punishment fall on Him, the punishment all of us deserved.” I wrote voluminous notes, preparing my presentation which was first to be rehearsed with Peter and then was to be the “final convincer” for my traditional Jewish family who were “laboring in unbelief.” Wow! How spiritually “effective” I was going to be! After hearing my presentation, my very faithful, humble and patient husband put up his hand and said, “stop!” That was hardly the reaction I expected. He went on to point out to me that convincing my family to come to faith in Jesus Christ was not the job of Lynn Johnson. It was the job of the Holy Spirit! It would be done on God’s time and in God’s way, if it was to be done at all! My arrogant, self-righteousness was exposed for me to see. Because Peter did it with God’s direction and kindness, a family crisis of monumental proportions was averted.
This story is in no way a message never to share the Gospel with others. Of course, there are times to do that and appropriate ways to do that. Those ways begin with understanding where those who hear you are in their spiritual lives-understanding their culture. That is why it is important that if you are going to share your faith with someone of another faith, you also need to know what their beliefs are. Paul understood this beautifully. He was dealing with former pagans, former traditional Jews, Judaizers, and Antinomians in the group that were exposed to his teaching. The latter two groups were detractors. With God’s direction, Paul constructed his teachings in Romans to answer the objections of these groups. That’s what made him so effective in convincing so many people to come to faith. He was sensitive to the needs of those who heard him. I think it helped that he wasn’t related to them too. That erased the emotional issues that often make it difficult for one to deal with his/her own family members. Even Christ had to deal with that issue, when it is revealed that He was rejected at Nazareth in MT 13: 53-58.
When there is a gap between the maturity of two marriage partners, the situation is equally sticky. The more mature one is called upon to be patient (something this writer finds tough to do). There are two effective strategies that apply here that will allow the more spiritually mature partner to deal with this situation. The first is never make your partner feel diminished by your behavior and exchanges about faith with him/her. The second is pray often for your partner, believing in the power prayer has. In other words, let the Holy Spirit direct, believe that Christ is the Good Shepherd Who knows His sheep, and know that a Sovereign God wants as many people as possible to come to faith and has the power to make it happen. Let go and let God! If this is a problem that you have in your life, know that you are not alone. You have the Trinity on your side, and you have believing friends with whom you can share your frustrations. God organized us into a Body of Christ, so that we can encourage and aid each other in our faith and in edifying that Body. One way we do this is to care about each other and help each other through the frustrations of our lives. When Christ invited us in MT 11: 28-30 to shift our burdens on to His shoulders, He knew this was how He was equipping us to deal with the frustrations of our lives.
PRAYER: O Lord, we come to You in humility and thank You for the direction provided us by the Holy Spirit, the Scriptures, our church community, and prayer. Help us to learn from our circumstances. Guide us in how to be good examples of how to live “in Christ.” We praise You for teaching us the value of never doing anything to diminish the faith of another person. Thank You for providing friends who share our faith and who want to encourage and help us to deal with the frustrations of our lives. Most of all, thank You for sacrificing Your Son on the cross, so that salvation is available. In His name, amen.
Peter and I send you our love and prayers today and always.
In the Grip of His Grace,
Lynn