Month: November 2016

Copyright 2016 by Shea Oakley

All rights reserved

“No doctrine…. seems to me so spectral, so unreal as the one that I have just successfully defended in a public debate. For a moment, you see, it has seemed to rest on oneself: as a result when you go away from the debate, it seems no stronger than that weak pillar. That is why we apologists take our lives in our hands and can be saved only by falling back continually from the web of our own arguments, as from our intellectual counters, into the reality–from Christian apologetics into Christ Himself.”

-C.S. Lewis

It is easier to defend Christianity than to embody it. It is easier to defend the principles and doctrines of Christianity than to live them out in the Spirit by which they were meant to be lived. As a believer who finds himself trying to do both these things, I have personally come to better understand recently what Lewis is saying here. I would add to his thesis that a prideful anger can also be manifest in “Defending the Faith,” which makes the most eloquent argument do more harm than good to both the one giving it and the one hearing it.

After 26 years as a hopefully earnest follower of Christ, I find my mental faculties undiminished in my efforts to communicate the truth of what I believe. In fact, logically enough, I may be more intellectually “proficient” as an apologist for my faith now than at any other time that came before. Usually an observant Biblical Christian does gain more “head-knowledge” as the years go by. Unfortunately, what may not be simultaneously gained is a deeper practical devotion to God which manifests itself in the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Many of these fruits have eluded me, even a quarter century after my conversion, and I find the most concerning reality to be the fact that having any of them depends on what is really the most important “fruit.” The one in question is a deep personal knowledge of and love for God rooted in true dependence on His Holy Spirit.

This lack of felt closeness to the One I call my Lord has been a concern throughout my Christian life. I will not go deeply into the reasons I think the problem exists for me. I suspect that many of you who are reading this can relate to the problem yourselves, and you may already be quite familiar with some of those reasons. They range from grappling with the many distractions of the age we live in to unconquered indulgence in various sins to fears about what might actually happen if I truly did die to myself in order to live for Christ.

But for the purposes of this essay what I would prefer to specifically focus on is the effect this condition can have on my outward witness. Believers are called to “tell the truth in love.” This is virtually impossible to accomplish if we are not living deeply and experientially in the love of God. We may tell someone why to believe in Jesus with great eloquence and impeccable argument, but if they do not simultaneously sense that we truly love them as a human being made in the image of God, as a precious individual for whom our Lord died, then we are doing them no good!

To the degree I am not communicating love to the person I am telling about Christ, my witness is compromised, often fatally I suspect. I have found, to my shame, that I sometimes find myself witnessing in an angry way, and that the anger is often the result of my own sinful pride. I can be defensive because of my concern over being rejected. I can be sharp with someone because of my own frustration at not being able to “make them see” the truth of the Gospel. In both cases the “witness” becomes more about me than about loving someone into the Kingdom of God.

The answer to my problem circles back to Lewis’s quote. I tend to believe that most of our challenges in truly going deeper into the Christian life are, as he implies, simply a matter of relying on ourselves rather than the One who created and redeemed us. Anger, pride, defensiveness: all these are symptoms of relying on my fallen human nature, my “flesh,” rather than relying moment by moment on the presence and power of Christ in my life.

I still am not sure how to be that reliant and therein lay my challenge. I need to decrease and He needs to increase. Until that happens to a far greater extent than it has in my life thus far I will not be able to help others to the degree I both need and want to help them. Perhaps the most important thing I can do is simply to seek God to a greater degree than I have in the past, though that is always easier to propose than to actually do.

Fortunately, as Jesus Himself said, “with God all things are possible.”

Copyright by Shea Oakley

All rights reserved

“Service” is a dirty word for some of us. We hear it and immediately react in a negative way. This is most often for two reasons.

The first is because in our past people about whom we cared and/or upon whom we were dependent granted us love that was, to whatever degree, conditional. They would love us fully only if we did something that benefited them in some way. This is the very definition of conditional love. Receiving it is contingent on us, not on the other person. Many of us have been victims of this love that really is not love at all and its result is a sense that we have to earn the love we need through serving others.

The second reason has nothing to do with being a victim. It is a function of our own inherent inclination to make self-centered decisions. The degree to which our nature is fallen is perhaps best manifested by this tendency. We are selfish. The one we most want to serve is the one looking back at us in the mirror. Even as Christians the idea of service is often either not present or it is present but tainted by the underlying desire to serve for our own gain.

These two motivations are always present to some degree in our hearts. Both must be overcome if we hope to be freed from a caricature of servant-mindedness in order to embrace the kind of good and true servant-mindedness embodied by Jesus Christ.

The Son of God was and is the true Servant. He also helps others for two reasons, but for two very different ones. Jesus serves us because He knows and loves His Father and is known and loved by His Father. Both these loves are perfect, and thus real and unconditional. Jesus is one with the Father and the Father is the only being in the universe whose love is inexhaustible. He does not need us to love Him. Unlike human beings He is self-sufficient in every way and therefore He does not love us to gain something from us like those in our past. He also is not self-centered as we are. He is other-centered by divine nature.

Jesus has been described as “a Man for others”. This is because, being one with the Father, He perfectly reflects His Father’s heart. Our Lord loves us because he genuinely has our best interests in heart. He is overflowing with infinite love and He desires to serve us because it brings Him joy to bless the only creation He has made in His own image. There is no ulterior, self-centered motive. God is not capable of deceit and He is not needful of anything we could possibly give Him. This completely eliminates ulterior and self-centered motives. He loves and serves us only because He wants to.

So then how do we, as biblical Christians, come to serve like God does? We can only do so by choosing to identify ourselves with the One who embodies Him in human form and to whom we now belong. As we choose to draw near to Jesus and sit, like Mary, at His feet. We will begin to reflect His nature. Then we will naturally act according to this new nature. Now, when we metaphorically look in the mirror, we will begin to see not our old self but the image of Christ. Part of this transformation will include the dawning of a new desire to serve others, a desire that is based on a real love for people and a humble and sincere desire to seek their good, the same motivation that moves the One we are emulating by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Then the word “service” will take on a new and blessed meaning, one which we will truly desire to embrace and live out.

Copyright  by Shea Oakley

All rights reserved

God sometimes gives us what we pray for at a different time and in a different way than we asked. This may be because His plan for our lives is bigger than we can imagine and the request is right in spirit but wrong in detail.

With the exceptions of purely selfish or vindictive petitions the child of God can expect that his or her prayer will be answered and often in the affirmative. God is not generally in the habit of forever denying His own that for which they ask. If what they want is a good thing requested in the right spirit, with authentic faith that he can and will grant it to them, then they can live expecting a positive answer. What Christians should not expect is that they will necessarily get the thing they desire in the time and way that seems right to them. In fact, more often than not, the prayer will not be answered in the manner anticipated.

Most of us have heard stories about such unexpected answers. One of the more common tales is that of the person who has sought after God for a mate, thought they had been led to the love of their lives, and then watched the potential relationship crash and burn. After much grieving, possibly accompanied by a period of anger with God that He doesn’t deserve, the person finally comes to accept what has happened and moves on. Shortly thereafter they meet someone even better for them and eventually marry that person. Their prayer was answered, but not when, or with whom, they expected. This story could apply to many other circumstances including asking for a new job, a new place to live, even a call to life ministry. In each case the petitioner might not get what they want when they want it but they will get what God knows is best for them when He knows its best for them to get it. Answered prayer not answered in the way we expect it to be is part of the normal Christian life.

God’s overall plan for our lives is seldom what we expect. He has a wonderful way of taking us in directions we could never have imagined and fulfilling us in a far deeper way than we thought possible. Ask a seasoned Christian whether they have ended up with the kind of life that they expected at the time of their conversion and I would venture to say that very few, if any, would answer yes. We have a tendency to dream small dreams. We also have a tendency to expect that our human perspective on what the future might hold is synchronized with God’s greater plan for us. It seldom is. Our Lord often takes us in directions we never would have expected. This is because he knows us better than we think we know ourselves and also because He knows what we are capable of as we allow the Holy Spirit to take possession of our lives. A Spirit-led life is a life of sometimes astonishing twists and turns. It is an abundant life and one that is potentially full of adventures we would once never had seen ourselves taking part in. The truly committed Christian will encounter many “divine surprises” along the way. At the end such a person will look back with great satisfaction on a life that has reached its potential.

There is perhaps nothing greater than that for us except, of course, the expectation of being with our Lord once such a life here reaches its end.