Month: February 2014

by Shea Oakley. All rights reserved.

Someone once spoke of courage as being “resistance to fear, mastery of fear. Not the absence of fear”. For the Christian lacking courage and desiring it as a character trait these are words to live by. Many people wrongly equate bravery with fearlessness. Actually a total lack of concern about being in a dangerous situation is often more indicative of the proverbial fool. Someone who has no fear will soon find something to be truly fearful about! It is also a truism that there is no merit in performing a seemingly courageous deed if the individual doing it is not giving it a second thought. No, true courage means being afraid to do something but doing it anyway because it is the right thing to do.

To be cowardly is to allow our fears, whatever they might be, to control our lives. An existence lived avoiding danger is the most dangerous life of all. It most definitely is not a life that will please God. True courage is part and parcel to authentic faith. Our redemption begins with the decision to accept Christ as Lord despite the ridicule and, in some parts of the World the potential physical peril, which might result from our commitment. From that point on believers can expect many situations to arise through the years that will contain some element of risk. Under such circumstances we need to acknowledge our fears, yes, but at the same time defy them if we truly believe that the thing we must do is part of God’s perfect will for our lives.

The good news is that Christians can draw their courage from two places outside themselves. The first and greatest help for the timid person who is called to do something fearful is the Spirit of Christ Himself. As we abide in Him much strength is imparted to us including the strength necessary to be courageous. Through God’s presence with and in us we can do things which would have been impossible when we were natural men and woman.

The second place of help is in the encouragement of our brethren. Many a person has been persuaded to do what must be done by receiving the steadfast love and confidence that a friend can impart. Fear is isolating. Fear is never stronger than when we feel alone. It is in strong relationships, both with the Lord and with His people, that the “Much Afraid” can find the courage they need to become the peaceful warriors that the Lord desires them to be. The good things that come through  trials can then be released into our spirits. Right defiance of fear is ultimately a pathway to greater character, and all the blessings that come with it.

Copyright by Shea Oakley
All rights reserved

What does it really mean to be wholly devoted to God? Beyond that, what can be done by any believer to get to the place of living for Christ and Christ alone?

The term “sold-out to Jesus” is an evangelical cliché that nonetheless conveys the ultimate essence of the authentic Christian life. To be “sold-out” is to have put aside anything and everything that might hinder the believer from knowing and serving Christ to the utmost. Those who have done this live the most meaningful, joyful lives possible because Jesus has truly become their Lord in the deepest sense conceivable this side of Heaven. They have come to love and want Him above all else. The world has become “strangely dim” to such individuals in a way it has yet to become for Christians who continue to waver in focus between Jesus and the things of Earth. Somewhere along the line in these people’s spiritual journey they have fallen in love with the Lord in a way that, unfortunately, most of us have not. They are willing to die to themselves and live for God alone because they have come to love Him more than life itself. Their love is real and pure. Their hearts are no longer divided, only devoted.

If you ask most believers to tell you how many people they know who fall into this category they will likely tell you either none or perhaps a few. The answer would likely be different if the question was “how many serious Christians do you know?” Most of us like to consider ourselves serious about our faith. But when someone asks us if we are “sold-out” fewer of us will immediately and confidently proclaim that we are. This is because many of us are not. Beyond that Christians who do claim to be at this point in their walk immediately arouse our suspicions. We often think them spiritually conceited. Perhaps this is true in some cases but it is frustration with our own level of faith, and envy for what they have, that often colors what we think of such individuals. It is easier to write off someone as proud than to grapple with one’s own divided heart.

The better approach to encountering such totally committed children of God might be to ask them how they got to the point of Jesus Christ truly becoming everything to them. What was the “tipping point” after which God became the only One that mattered to them in everything they do and everything they are?

Most likely this will be something hard to put into words. When we fall in love with another person there is no formulaic answer to the question why. Pascal told us “the heart has reasons that reason knows nothing of”. How do you fall in love with someone? Some would say that if you have to ask than you have never been in love.

But there is one good piece of advice. In our quest to love God with an undivided heart we must realize that to truly know Him is to truly love Him. No one becomes our lover in the most real sense until we have come to know the person and that can only happen if we spend much time together. In the world of romance love at first sight usually turns out to be shallow infatuation at first sight. A brief glimpse of the loveliness of the Lord is not enough to cause to us to give it all away to be with and of Him. We must seek Him consistently over time to get to that place. How do we do that? We read God’s Word, we talk to our Lord and meditate on Him and what we have come to know about Him (while asking to know Him more deeply) and we spend time with the people who bear His name. All these things are disciplines that can help us to come to know and love Jesus Christ in increasing measure. Then we begin to sincerely desire Him in a new way. At some point we viscerally realize that He is precious to us above all other things. It is then that the Lover of our souls becomes truly known by us. All that is left is to joyfully give ourselves to the God we now know loves us perfectly and without end. In such knowledge are both the desire and the ability to become wholly His. We become “sold-out” because His love, received in a moment but known over time, has purchased us.

Copyright by Shea Oakley
All rights reserved

Intensely enjoying something does not necessarily make it an idol.

If the ability to experience a particular pleasure is God-given, and the way and time it is enjoyed is God-approved, then it is safe to say that a Christian’s enjoyment of it is God-ordained. Unfortunately, throughout the two-millennia history of the church there have always been a number of baleful voices calling for the demonization of any delight but that which comes from the direct worship of God (in fact, today, some would attack even that most supreme of pleasures, labeling it all “emotionalism.”) Is it overstepping to suggest that many of these voices come from people who cannot or will not allow themselves to enjoy the good gifts God gives us in this life and who envy other’s ability to enjoy them?

We are often told by such individuals that Christianity is a religion of self-denial. This is certainly true in the sense that we are called to die to our selfish old nature. It is also true that we are called to be self-controlled, not chasing every opportunity for gratification that the world we now live in offers us. What it does not mean is that we are to deny ourselves pleasurable experiences for the mere reason that they are pleasurable. Such an extreme rejection of all such experiences has a name, Asceticism, and as the apostle Paul tells us, its practice does nothing to restrain sinful sensuality. In fact such Asceticism can easily lead to that particularly satanic sin, spiritual pride. Some Ascetics have found it quite enjoyable to declare their superiority over anyone who is not an Ascetic!

In 1 Timothy 6:17 Paul tells us that it is God “… who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.” The people in some of our churches who attack “enjoyment” as some kind of synonym for sin would do well to meditate on this verse before they declare the simple experience of innocent pleasures in life to be tantamount to Hedonism. God made his finest creation with the ability to feel delight. This should be no surprise as we are made in the image of a God who Himself takes pleasure in all the good things He has created.

There is such a thing as an inordinate love for pleasure, even pleasure that God does not call inherently sinful. This is where the specter of idolatry does rear its head. Some years ago I heard a radio pastor give a sermon on what he called “the lust for bliss.” What he referred to is the fallen human desire to avoid pain and maximize good feelings at any cost. When we make the enjoyment of anything more important in our lives than loving and obeying our Lord we make for ourselves an idol. It is no doubt wise to examine our hearts on a regular basis to make sure we have not let some pleasure crowd out and replace our devotion to Jesus Christ. It should also go without saying that any activity that is specifically prohibited in the Scripture is never right to enjoy.

With these caveats, many of us still need to allow ourselves to experience more of what God has made for us to enjoy on this side of Heaven. Whether it is riding a beautiful horse or listening to a good piece of music, a swim in the ocean or reading exquisitely written literature we, as children of the Creator of all good things, have the privilege to enjoy, even intensely enjoy, those things in the right way. Once God Himself is first in our hearts He bids us to live an abundant life that embraces the legitimate pleasures He has made for us to enjoy.

Copyright by Shea Oakley

All rights reserved

Maybe accomplishing all our spiritual goals successfully isn’t as important as continuing to trust God when we fail to accomplish them. Performance based spirituality is rife in the American church. Too many of us have taken the hard driving, Type-A perfectionism of the surrounding culture and baptized it. Exhortation to “excellence” is heard every Sunday from pulpits across the land and it has become all too easy for Christians to feel like they are never doing enough, well enough. Sometimes it appears as if we Evangelicals have decided to exalt Martha over Mary, rather than the other way around.

We will all fail repeatedly. Every saint in the pages of scripture failed at something in their lives and usually more than once. What counted was the fact that they did not give up and walk away from their Lord in the midst of that failure. When we fail our best option is to pick ourselves up, brush ourselves off, and pray for the strength to do better next time. Perseverance is precious in the divine economy and more important than an unbroken string of successes. Trusting God in our failures is vital to spiritual growth and this is something that all of us to some degree need to grasp if we are to progress in our sanctification.

Some will say that such an acceptance of ongoing failure in the Christian life is a form of permissiveness, even a manifestation of the sin of sloth. This is only true for the person whose heart is far from God to begin with. The sincere lover of God is not looking for excuses to shirk the responsibility to do what God would have them do. It is akin to the parable of the talents. The problem with the wicked servant was not that he did a lousy job with the gifts his master gave him; the problem was that he hated that master calling him “a hard man”. In fearfully burying the talent in the ground rather than at least putting it in the bank so it might, at minimum, earn interest this man showed that he held contempt for his master’s character. This was his greatest sin, not necessarily the failure to vastly multiply his talent’s value.

We do both ourselves and others a disservice when we mercilessly carp on our or their failures. Failure is part and parcel of the fallen human condition. This is true both before and after conversion. If it weren’t there would be no provision in the New Testament for the confession and forgiveness of sins committed by believers, which there clearly is. Perfection will come only when we someday stand face to face with Jesus Christ and become fully like Him.

Because of this promise of eventual perfection we can continue to put our faith in God for ultimate victory when we fall short in any endeavor. With that in mind it is vital that modern American Christians who have bought into the relentless perfectionism of our society and hung a cross around it cut themselves some slack. Constantly excoriating ourselves for failures God fully expects us to experience is a form of ungodly self-condemnation. It might even be perceived as pride, a “goddish” attempt to see ourselves as more than the fallible, finite human beings that we remain, even after we have come to faith.

Jesus never fails it is true but, for now, His followers will…and that is ok.