Does This Sound Right?

The following is a copy of the Thomas Question email devotional. You can subscribe to the email edition from our website and you can also tune into our podcast.

I try to serve people in unusual ways wherever I go. It’s part of an attempt to “be the missing part” which is what I think Christians were meant to be. For example, whenever I see someone else’s baby smile at me, I try not to smile back. I want to be one of the few people willing to help them realize at their tender stage of life that they are not the center of the universe. The sooner they realize that, the better for all of us. It’s just one small way I try to help.

As another example, I try not to simply “beep” the horn when a driver has had a lapse of judgment or awareness in some way. Instead, I try to “help” them know for sure they’d made an error and be firmly resolved to “do better” in the future. A “beep” simply does not suffice. So I following them closely for a period of time with my horn applied in one long, blaring message which says “I want to help you be a better driver!” It’s just one of the many ways we can all help serve each other. Was that you I “helped” on the expressway this morning? I hope so.

Obviously this kind of thinking is more than a little “cracked”. But it’s not far off from some of the ways we attempt to self justify our strange or indulgent behavior. Pastors who were meant to be “lead-foot washers” end up surrounded by perks and exclusivity. “In order to be lead foot-washer,” they think to themselves, “I should be accorded some special privileges to get this most important job done.” That’s more than just a little ironic.

Another example has become a famously familiar phrase: “Just because I have to love you, doesn’t mean I have to like you.” The problem is, if we’re all truly open and honest, those two things include each other.

Given enough time, most of us can think of some truly imaginative ways to validate almost any habit or impulse. “It’s just the way I was made” is probably in the lead position. But when you read the words of Jesus (the red ones in your New Testament), it doesn’t take long before you get this sense that He knew this about us. In John 2:23 it says of Jesus that, “When He was in Jerusalem for the Passover festival, may believed in His name because they saw the signs that he was doing.” But then it says this in verse 24, “But Jesus on his part would not entrust Himself to them because He knew the heart of man…”

We are our own worst enemy, and the darker side of our human nature can take on the shape of whatever it’s poured it into. We can do the right thing for wrong reasons, the wrong thing for right reasons and then we can layer these things one upon another until we no longer know which is which. All of us are subject to our own “sweet talk”, and no one can “check the math” on your deepest thinking and self justification. Only you can “hold your feet” to the “fire” of change. Have you checked your deepest motives lately? Have you asked yourself tough questions? The adventure of change is worth it. Become a different person from the inside out and you may be surprised at how your possibilities are multiplied.

We’re in the midst of a series right now that grapples with these and other issues by asking the question, “What is true beauty?” So what is true beauty? What is worth wanting, chasing, building, having, protecting and desiring? What are the distractions that set a heart free? What are the urges we won’t have to fight – because they drag us closer to freedom and not further from it. If you missed last Sunday, you can visit our website for the new series intro or tune into the podcast.

Cheers,

Chris

LAST SUNDAY
True beauty, fighting fire with fire, the desires we don’t need to fight and the relationship between change and beauty.

THIS SUNDAY
Special guest Rick Hiebert – church planter, communicator, pastor, leader, motorcycle owner.

FROM THE NOT SO DISTANT PAST
From our series “Church Exposed”, remember: Christianity is meant to be activated, not simply thought about; it is best confirmed or disproved by acting on it, and the trigger for all this is kindness to God and kindness to others. We are attempting to be a church that’s pulled that trigger.

AN ANCIENT ART
You could think of each Sunday service as a 75 minute reprieve from your practice of Christianity. Then, at the end of each service, we get the chance to take up this ancient art all over again starting in the lobby. I hope to see you there.