The holier the Christian the lower their rank

 Matthew 11:11

 11Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

The statement may seem counter-intuitive, but really underpins just how important humility is to a walk of faith.

Matthew 11:11 can be interpreted in a couple of ways, but here is another.

John the Baptist was set up to play a specific role around the time of Jesus, one in particular being the Baptism of Jesus. Here was a man humbling himself before God’s will and allowing God to work through him as much as possible. As such, there was no other among those born of women who was a greater prophet.

Think about our walk with God and where the glory is supposed to go when good is worked according to God’s will. Of course, the glory goes to God. The idea is that falling in line with God’s will is not something of ourselves as much as it is of God, so that’s where the credit goes. As we allow God’s love to grow more in our hearts and actions, the more our will and imperfection is pushed out of the equation, and it is replaced by something greater.

However, the more that one gives the glory solely to God for the good, the greater the emphasis is on our responsibility for the bad. The higher one goes, and the more that God fills their spirit, the less excuse one has for ’sin’. That one ’sins’ at all given such a holy relationship magnifies the ’sin.’ Even the smallest of ’sins’ is weighty in relative degree if one flaunts an intimacy with God. If these sins are passed off as small in comparison to others at all this would show a lack of care towards the sin one has in their life.

Couple these ideas with the parables of the prodigal son, the lost sheep, and the vineyard workers. Note the value placed upon those who turn to virtue later than others. Those who are more closely tied to the flock have their reward for the security therein. The relative rank spiritually is ‘lower’ in terms of the effort put forth on their behalf. Being closer to the flock or already in the father’s service shouldn’t require so much effort anyone if one is living by God’s will anyway. 

To see yourself in this way and still enthusiastically turn yourself towards God’s will is a great act of humility. Taking security close to the flock and letting God’s will replace your own should be reward in and of itself. While it dampens any claim to rank and amplifies the sin we still do not work beyond, you still have the joy of witnessing.

Look at John the Baptist, it surely took nothing away from the joy in his spirit to be considered the least in heaven. Perhaps it behooves more Christians to work harder in order to be considered one of the least in heaven too.

If we are looking to serve God’s will, give the glory to God, and remove ourselves from pride, surely this is the goal?

Love is the best sin weed eater

Sin is a stubborn weed that plants roots in our heart that we never quite get rid of. Rebuke is the weed eater that skims along the surface, and where successful lops the top off the weed and keeps the ground looking tidy for appearances sake. However, it leaves the root intact, and the ground above still spare with plenty of reserves below and fertile room above to grow back.

Love is the seed that God and others plant in our hearts, and we in others. Love takes over the ground that sin would claim and makes it its own. It is a slow and steady lifelong bloom, but if tended to correctly (this seed is so amazing it feeds off itself to beget more of itself) pushes sin from the ground it claims as a matter of course. As we grow in the attending of our own hearts, with a mind to how that helps us attend others, the beauty of this bloom, the diversity of form, colour, and nourishment it brings to the soil, gives us a focus for what the rest of the garden should look like.

Those who are parents or work life long spans with people at various levels of dependency know that sometimes, for the sake of order, and to clear the ground to plant love, rebuke is needed. This is the purview for people who tend the hearts of others long enough to know the cycles of seasons and the best time to plant seeds through a journey of empathy and fellowship and/or parenthood.

But for we who pass each other on the corridors of life, who connect only briefly and often superficially over the Internet or other mediums, surely love is always the seed we plant if we care about sin. If we focus on sin through rebuke we give power to it, and do so without knowing the root of the weed in the other person’s heart. It provides nothing to tear the top off of sin if the person walks away the next moment. 

Love is the seed that plants itself in ignorance of the sin. Its purity ensures its supremacy, the beauty being that what seeds we may sow in another may not bloom until many years later, but still starve the weed of life as love  hungers for righteousness. Love is the seed you can cast another person’s way, and even if they depart from you, they carry it with them.

So which would you choose, the machine that hungers for weeds? Or the seed that hungers for righteousness? Which do you think produces better results in the long run?

Jesus relates better to us than vice versa

Sometimes it is tempting to rest on a rationale of Godly perspective when we insist people listen to us despite an apparent failure of logic in our spiritual conjecture. This approach tends to come in the form of a get on my level, or get on God’s level, if you hope to understand what I’m saying perspective. In some worse cases it is used to look down on people who fashion more ‘worldy’ rationales for how they practice their faith.

Consider Jesus’ example though. One of his greatest legacies as a teacher was parable. He didn’t insist that people get on his level of understanding. In many cases, he got down to their level and gave them the understanding of Godly principles through examples they lived and understood in their daily lives. Living in a world of false prophets and knowing there were more to come, Jesus sought to show how the principles of faith were easy to grasp and easily accessible no matter how humble ones education or grasp of concepts might be.

The question of sabbath observance was reduced to an issue of saving livestock. The kingdom of heaven with the question of worthiness was reduced to an issue of wages for labourers. Many were the times that Jesus looked into peoples’ lives and hearts for the answers to their questions, rather than draw from his vast Godly perspective.

Jesus understood that making the simple values of love with its compassion, humility, and forgiveness as accessible as possible was true wisdom. Rather than insisting that people trust his Godly wisdom without understanding for themselves, he reverse engineered his wisdom so that people could firmly grasp the wisdom in the context of their daily lives. All the better to protect the people from false prophets who can fool with complexity.

We live in a world already filled with those whose lack of education towards independent thought leads to violent fundamentalism. These people follow their leaders because they trust implicitly the words of their leaders regardless of whether those words make sense. Sometimes the problem is these people haven’t been encouraged to try to make sense of wisdom themselves in the first place.

Perhaps look at it this way, from Jesus again. Sometimes walking with wisdom in this world has to come from this world if we are to better understand God. “The second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” For how else are we to understand how to love God and accept God’s love of us if we do not learn to love and accept love from others?

We need new parables to articulate these positions for new generations who relate to the world from a different perspective. Rather than insist they see it our way, shouldn’t we perhaps call on the Holy Spirit to provide them with the perspective to see the wisdom their way?

Surely it behooves us as Jesus exhorted to at least knock on that door.

Rebuke is for nought if it forgets peace

See: Romans 14

We Christians are part of a larger body of Christ. As with all complex organisms with different working parts and extremities that are very different in purpose we cannot expect each of us to function in the same roles in the same ways.

Our observance of Christian practice is surely part of this principle. In ancient times when a person took more of a risk with their health in eating certain foods, it profaned God to subject the body to something so impure that it could cause death. Time progressed with cooking methods and nutritional understanding, to the point where someone like Paul could free himself from the restrictions that bound others in this regard.

However, he was still able to acknowledge that not all could walk in this way. Some people have a personal standard where indulging in certain acts or consuming certain substances constitutes an offense to God.

Paul articulated a balance that was necessary between two conflicting schools of thought. Those with the freedom weren’t to flout it in the eyes who were bound with a view to drawing a person towards a personal standard of iniquity. In other words, one is not to hold alcohol before the lips of one who abstains and say “Just one sip.” When we place ourselves in their frame of faith and look to profane that, we profane their relationship with God.

In addition, it is not wise for those who are bound to go after those with freedom. Stepping between a person’s God received freedom disrupts the joy they have in their walk, which similarly profanes their relationship with god.

We can still share our perspectives with each other, but for the sake of mutual edification, and not at the expense of peace. In the end, letting a person’s choices stay between them and God is the wisest course, with neither side thinking it fit to look down on the other for how they are free or how they are bound.

With Jesus in the background asking us not to judge each other, surely we err on the better side of caution by heeding this message rather than one of rebuke for the sake of peace. All the better to ensure that our arm as the body of Christ isn’t at war with its foot, or at war with the bodies of other faiths.

Cries for religious conformity mock our diversity

We are many peoples on this planet. While we are united in our humanity there is much about us to distinguish one from another as individuals, right down to the most uncannily alike twins. A combination of genetics and the passage of time with experience mold not just the image we present superficially to the world but also the spirit that infuses life around us.

Why, when God has created this diversity not only in our genetics but also in our possible experiences in the world, is there an insistence on a uniformity in our relationship with God? People argue not just across lines of faith but also between denominations. It seems that even praying to the same God isn’t enough for people, the prayer, worship, and behaviour has to conform to some preset norm.

Even discounting our diversity, look at what the bible shows us. The leading lights of faith are all so different. They had their own ways of expressing their love of God, their own ways of practising their faith, their own ways of acknowledging and working, or not working on, their weaknesses. Why would we insist on a conformity of faith from others?

It also goes against the idea of a strong body of Christ ready to serve in a variety of ways. Sometimes God needs a Moses when a Gideon won’t do. Sometimes a situation calls for a Samuel more than a David. As the world continues to grow along with the challenges we face, surely there is a need for new leaders that do not fit the mold of anyone in the bible save Jesus.

Furthermore, when God is such an infinite being of love, surely the greater the spectrum of perspective the stronger our fellowship. We all look on God with different eyes and can see facets of the infinite in ways those around us do not. Allowing for a free sharing of these ideas gives much fuel for further prayer and personal growth that isn’t possible if we’re all reading from the same book with the same interpretation.

Part of God’s joy in our individual relationships must come from their uniqueness. If God wanted a homogeneous faith relationship the creation process could have stopped at the first person.

So why do we take away from the integrity of the individuality that God created? Especially when the practical result is the suppression of anothers individual faith in favour of our own individual perspective?