Clear your minds
The heart that is ‘deceitful above all things’ rarely lets us enjoy our moments. It’s always reminding us what we don’t have, what we do poorly, that we aren’t as respected as some other person, what tasks we’ve left undone. The list goes on.
This situation is compounded by our feelings. Happy circumstances tend to promote (but do not guarantee) happy thoughts. But if we’re anxious, we obsess and inflate our often imagined woes. Whether feeling or thinking, our moments are quite an unreliable continuum: babble mixed with vanity and a dose of self-pity, not to mention thoughts completely inappropriate for polite conversation.
Scripture asserts strongly that what we think about will dictate every aspect of our lives. Simply put: “Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things…” (Rom 8:5 NLT).
None of this is in accordance with the high calling we’ve received. The expectation of scripture is that we think and feel differently from those governed by the flesh. So here’s the question: How do you usually feel and what do you spend most of your time thinking about? And, does the summary above reflect your existence? Are your thoughts and feelings a basket case?
Mark Twain said this: “We all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking”. Precisely the point. We tend to exist in the matrix of confused emotions rather than clear thinking, and confuse this with measured reflection. Think about this translation of a passage in James: “Clean up your lives, you sinners, and clear your minds…” (James 4:8 NAS).
Here’s another dimension to our thoughts and feelings: We can get better at managing our thoughts and feelings, and getting better would do nothing but serve our interests, but we tolerate our weakness because that’s what we’re used to. This is our brutal reality. We know there is better, but our natural resistance to change and attraction to mediocrity limits us. I’ll never forget this quote by CS Lewis:
“We are half-hearted creatures… when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea… We are far too easily pleased.”
Whatever else, we all have to agree, living presently in the glory and appreciation of the things around us and the high calling we’ve received is not likely our normal state of being. Being frenetic, distracted, emotionally fragile (guilt! shame!) and self-indulgent more likely defines our existence.
This is the dilemma: Scripture insists we think and feel differently from those around us, but just how do we go about that? Delightfully, scripture insists that this is both possible and necessary for us to improve the quality of our discipleship.
God wants us to be free
A perfect summary I wish I learned decades ago is this: God wants us to be free. This is a perfect distillate of scripture’s message of emancipation. In fact, it would be hard to find a better summary of how our faith should impact us.
There’s a reason scripture uses slavery as a metaphor. Our adherence to the thinking of the flesh, though we know that it is not our best interests, is a brutal truth. It is true enslavement. We are kept against our will; slaves to the feeble thinking. And, most of the time we forget that we are slaves.
Slavery
Paul writes at length of the Jewish inclination to slide back into the slavery of the law: “…how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements?” (Gal 4:9). It was hard for new Jewish converts to shift their psyches to something that they and their forefathers would otherwise have scorned: The idea that faith, alone, is the divine criteria.
It is near impossible to which to make the ideological shift to freedom. It’s in Jewish (read: human) DNA to be legalistic: religion is what everyone else can see you doing. Such futile thinking. In fact Peter refers to it as the “…worthless ways inherited from your forefathers” (zPet 1:18). And even more cuttingly, Jesus says “They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules” (Matt 15:9). And, let’s keep in mind, Jewish culture is a deeply religious culture. That is, being deeply religious is not a guarantee of sound divine principles.
Imagine inserting the words ‘vain’, ‘futile’ or ‘worthless’ into a conversation you are having with a colleague or friend about their work or religious principles. Think of the reaction those words would garner. That gives us an idea of the abrupt language scripture is deploying.
Knowing that scripture uses Israel as a foil with which to see ourselves, it is no surprise that our own faith can be just as futile. Think of all the hours we spend in classes, Sunday school and meetings. Hundreds of hours each year. If from all that time we are awash in human thinking – distraction, pride, comparativeness, shame and discontent – we, just as futilely, miss the point.
It is a perfect comparison: Some deeply religious Jews had converted to Jesus’s teachings but were still enslaved by the law. Even more caustically, some able Bible students, often deeply religious, can be enslaved by a similar cycle of vanity: pride, anxiety and the reverence of men’s opinions.
This is a travesty. We are to be free! And that means in our thinking. Our God is a God of our minds. If our thinking is self-indulgent God is not there. “I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind…” (Jer 17:10)
The proof
Here’s the resounding proof that God wants us to be free. All of the principles and commandments we are to live by do nothing but make our lives better. Given this, it is bizarre how opposed the flesh is to divine guidance. Fleshly thinking has it that it’s our ‘obligation’ to serve. But every principle of scripture makes us more like saints. Honestly speaking, what else is there? Does anyone actually want to be greedy, fear-laden, distracted, bitter, petty, or entitled? It is not an obligation to serve. It is a privilege.
Hopefully we all get to the place where we loathe our flesh and are humbled by the divine direction scripture gives us. Then we come to a wonderful realization: Of course! All the ‘obligations’ of scripture are deep-seated sources of freedom:
- The purpose of each teaching is to make our lives better.
- The purpose of eliminating pride is so that we live without feeding our own egos and can focus on honoring the creator in the here and now.
- The whole point of us being forgiving is so that we are free of the bitterness which is caused by holding a grudge. We are to be loving as that promotes the relationships that give our lives meaning.
- We are to study and reverence scripture because the more we can recall the principles, the more fulfilled we are in this life. It doesn’t matter what teaching of Christ we think of, it serves our own interests; our freedom.
I walk at liberty
The principle that God wants us to be free is a pointed scriptural teaching. There is one passage of scripture that cements this for me: “I will walk at liberty: for I seek thy precepts” (Psa 119:45). This verse says much. It is telling us that if we are putting first the things of the kingdom of God, then we are free. It is telling us that we are free because we are actively trying to live by God’s laws, not our own. It is telling us we can, right now, be free.
We needn’t fear (read: reverence) what others think, or whether we are regarded highly by those around us, or if our appearance or occupation is meeting society’s approval. I keep coming back to trying to appease others because our flesh is so focused on this, while scripture insists on the opposite. There are a dozen passages that echo this one: “Why do you esteem mere men…and so forget the LORD…?” (Isa 51:12,13).
We know what to do!
The second part of the above verse in the Psalm is the best part: “for I seek thy precepts”. It’s telling us we know how to act. We have no end of direction as to the people we ought to be: gentle, patient, sober, content, and deeply careful that we aren’t being deceived by the flesh. This consciousness, that we are called to manifest God’s character, and are told how to, is the greatest gift of our lives. Literally, scripture is ‘a light unto our paths’.
It is preposterous that we tolerate the chronic doubt, guilt and distraction that we do. Intellectually we know better. We can actually do the things expected: reverence, discipline, gratitude and dedication. If we are active in the ecclesia and honestly trying to manifest God’s character in every part of our lives, there is little that is wanting from us.
Here’s where the trouble starts: our flesh has trouble acknowledging that we are doing as we ought. So, if we are about the master’s work, we must learn to call it and let go of the perennial doubt and shame that normally hinders us and be thankful for the direction, even divine success, we have been given in this life.
Here’s the point: scripture is full of direction as to the person we ought not to be. So, if we aren’t the bitter, thoughtless, reactionary fool of scripture, and are the self-regulated, deliberate servant of Christ, then what would we possibly have to be unsure of?
The expectations of scripture are neither unclear nor unattainable. We can be excellent spouses. We can be good parents. We can be diligent workers. We can be worthy examples in our communities. We can be respectful ecclesial members. We can be devoted to the high calling in our youth. We can live free of fear, distraction, self-loathing and shame. The list, happily, goes on.
For I seek thy precepts
I repeat: Living presently in the glory and appreciation of the things around us and the high calling we’ve received is not likely our normal state of being. But it is the expectation! It is a relief that our problem is the norm. Most of us are not in control of our thoughts and feelings. This is a fundamental problem of our existence. We are actually enslaved, and are naturally attracted to our own enslavement. It’s like we suffer from the Stockholm syndrome.
Remember, the ‘deceitful’ heart rarely lets us enjoy our moments, even if we have nothing to be concerned about! We often think of our ‘obligation’ to serve. This is part of our enslavement. Scripture is not an onerous, demanding message. It is a source of daily salvation. The point here is that all of God’s laws invariably serve us. And, we can get better at living principled lives!
The expectation of scripture is that we think and feel differently than those governed by the flesh. Scripture does not ask us to do anything we cannot do. We can ‘walk at liberty’ with confidence knowing ‘we seek (his) precepts’. And, these precepts are not a forever-evolving mystery: we know how to act. If we’re doing wrong, knowingly, then, of course, we are not free. If we are doing the things of life, in the reverence and gratitude that comes from scripture, we have it all.
All the more reason to meditate on this passage: “It was for freedom that Christ set us free; keep standing firm and do not be subject again to the yoke of slavery” (Gal 5:1).
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One