The Selfless Man of God

Posted on by brettyamaji

We, as men of God, are to be selfless, or in another word, unselfish.  But what does that mean?  Does that mean that we have to give up on all our dreams or give all our money over to God, or the poor, or to those who are in need?  Are we do expend all our time and energy on endeavors that enrich and uplift other people?  Well, the short answer is no, but you must keep reading to get the full answer.  So, what does God’s Word say about all these things?  Take a look at Luke 6:35:

35 But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

As we can see, this is our Lord Jesus telling us not just to love our family and friends but our enemies.  We are to love those that hate us.  Just pause here and really consider what that means.  Think about what it means to love your family and friends and what you get in return for loving them, and being a loving member in their lives.  Now love someone that hates you, love someone that will not reciprocate, love someone that wants nothing to do with you.  That is what we are commanded to do.  That is preciously what our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ did while we were yet sinners (Romans 5:8) and while we were enemies and hostile to Him (Romans 8:7)

To be generous is relatively easy.  Even to do good deeds is a remarkably easy task when we have the means and motivation. Even when we do not have the means or motivation, it is it is easy to do good deeds for those that we love, and those that we agree and get along with.  But that is not what we are commanded to do.  We are commanded to love those that do not love us.  We are to give to them and lend to them with the expectation of nothing in return.  Give without even expecting a simple thank you in return.

Let me back up for one moment to look a little deeper at the word love.  We may overlook and sometimes undervalue this 4 letter word.  We kiss the wife good-bye in the morning and say, “I love you”, or tell the kids that we “love you” before we send them off to bed.  It is a simple word packed full of meaning.  But it is also a word that has to be lived out.  There has to be action behind that word to give it meaning.  In 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 we can see what Scripture says about love

4 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails. 

The truest love is explained here, that is agape love.  Agape love is usually the love that is expressed by God to His creation and upon His creatures.  So how do we know that this is the truest and purest form of love? Again, let’s search the Scriptures. First John 4:8 says, “God is Love.”  But what does that mean for us?  The word love is translated from different Greek words, and that is how we get our different biblical love types.  In this case, the word love is translated from the word agapos, which means that God is the very source of this love.

So, what does it mean to have agape love?  It means that you choose to love them.  It is a deliberate action demonstrated toward and for the highest good of someone else.  God did this by sending His own son Jesus Christ to die in the place of penitent sinners.  To say that you love someone that is a world away from you, that might not like you is a ‘nice’ gesture, but that is all it is, a simple gesture.  Agape love is demonstrated in the other person’s life, you know, your enemy’s life.  If you want to follow His command and be a selfless man of God, you must demonstrate a self-sacrificing love to someone that does not so easily or readily reciprocate your love. Or in other words, someone that demonstrates any love other than agape.

Getting back to our starting verses in Luke, we can see that God Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men.  The thing about the Scripture is that there are so many things that are clearly delineated into a right and wrong, good and evil, light and dark, and moral and immoral.  God is kind to those that are ungrateful to Him and are, at heart, enemies of God.  Yet He so loved us with agape love that He sent His son to take our punishment for the sins, the moral failures of His standards that we all committed.

God the Father is demonstrating how He is being selfless to those who are His enemies.  He chose long ago, before the foundation of the world, that He would redeem sinners.  The choosing of Abraham long ago is both the actual selection of a real people nation – Israel – and a foretaste of the calling of Christians.  It is the deliverance of Israel from bondage under Egypt to the deliverance of sinners from under the bondage of sin. Now some might say that they did not need this deliverance and that they are not enemies of God, because He either does not exist, or they have not offended Him.  But here is the thing, as I just stated in the previous paragraph.  There are rights and wrongs and there are friends and enemies of God.  Better said, there are those who are of the household of God and then there are those who are His enemies.  God emptied Himself. He was selfless so that He could make His enemies His family and we are commanded to demonstrate that kind of love.

It is easier said than done, which is why we must do it in His Spirit and in His strength.  For if we do anything on our own it will fizzle and fade, and if we could keep it up, it would ultimately be done for the wrong reasons.  Even without us realizing it, we can do things with selfish motivations and self-glorification and for what we can get back.  We can love like this because He first loved us (1 John 4:10).  We can be selfless because we, who are in Christ, have the mind and the heart of Christ.  We must have a heart that aches for those who hate and revile Christians.

God our Father has always been and is still this very day merciful to us.  Those of us who seek to be men of God are to emulate that same characteristic through agape love.  Now, demonstrating love does not mean accepting and tolerating all things that are going on in the world.  That is not love.  To be tolerant of all things is actually the opposite of loving.  It is a demonstration of selfishness, showing/revealing that we do not really care enough to be concerned about others and their eternal destination or how they get along in their day to day lives.

This selfless love is a big deal.  It is referenced many times throughout Scripture and it transcends so many of the issues within the contexts of Scripture, covering every issue that we encounter today.  Here is the bottom line: for us to demonstrate, or more precisely to have selfless love, we must have that type of love for God and for our neighbors.  We cannot love one another and especially not our enemies without a right and proper love for our God.  The Good Samaritan story demonstrates just who our neighbors are.  We must have both a right love for God, by loving Him with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength, and the second, is like it that we will love our neighbor as ourselves.  Luke 10:25-37 is where we can find this interaction and story.

25 And a lawyer stood up and put Him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 And He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?” 27 And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” 28 And He said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.” 29 But wishing to justify himself, he said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

30 Jesus replied and said, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, and they stripped him and beat him, and went away leaving him half dead. 31 And by chance a priest was going down on that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32 Likewise a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, who was on a journey, came upon him; and when he saw him, he felt compassion, 34 and came to him and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them; and he put him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 On the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I return I will repay you.’ 36 Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers’ hands?” 37 And he said, “The one who showed mercy toward him.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do the same.”

You must understand the tension that exists here between a Jew and a Samaritan.  There were racial, ethical, religious, and cultural tensions and differences and hatred that divided these two peoples.  We could very easily say that the Jews and the Samaritans were enemies.  Then Jesus basically tells the people and the lawyer that asked the question – someone who was very knowledgeable about the Mosaic law – that these are the ones they are to love unconditionally.  Unconditionally love those with whom we might have racial, ethical, religious, cultural, political or any other differences.  That is exceedingly hard to do if we do it without God.  With God all things are possible, even loving someone that despises you.

To unconditionally love an enemy is to look beyond the differences and despite what separates us love them anyway.  It does not mean to ignore or disregard what might be sinful issues, but to deal with them appropriately, which is a difficult thing to do.  Dealing with sin in someone’s life is a most difficult task, but it is a selfless task.  We live in a time of great sin, but that is no different than any other time in human history.  Addressing sin in our own lives is a constant battle that we will never win without the assistance of the Holy Spirit and help from the fellowship of believers.  When we have men of God who are actively fighting against their own sinful tenancies than we will have more Christian men who are selfless. I will echo our Lord Christ Jesus’ words when He exhorted the Lawyer and the crowd to go and do the same as the Samaritan.

Why Do We Celebrate Easter?

Posted on by brettyamaji

As the title suggests I am writing about Easter.  Is it wrong for a man of God to allow his family, or in a broader sense, any Evangelical Christians to celebrate Easter?  If you have read, that you might have already answered that question, but we cannot give a clear answer to that until we have a clear understanding of the context.  You see, the name Easter, like so many words in the modern English language, are loaded with multiple means.

So where did the name Easter come from?  The history is not as strong as some would like and I am by no means highly educated in this matter, but I wanted to give some insight into some possible historical lineage.  The Saxons of Northern Europe worshipped a goddess of the east called Eastre or Eostre.  She was referred to the goddess of spring with her symbol being the hare which happens to be the symbol of fertility.  However, there is very little, if any, physical evidence that there was truly a group of humans that ‘worshipped’ a goddess called Eastre.  There are several other examples that I can give, but they are the same.

It appears that the Easter celebration that Christians celebrate, which is the rising of Jesus Christ from the dead, has been taken over by the secular world.  Could it be that simple, that quick, and that easy?  In the last 100 years, do more Americans look forward to an imaginary man-sized rabbit hopping into their houses to seal their hard-boiled eggs (or hollow plastic eggs) and hide them outside, rather than the rising of a Jesus Christ?  The secular world says we cannot tell our children about Jesus Christ because that has not been proven true. It might negatively impact how they see the world.  But we actively promote the Easter Bunny on TV and in stores and in our schools, and sadly in some churches.

That last one is really a sad one.  The church should truly be counter cultural and should not allow something like that to creep into it.  Should a church have an Easter Egg Hunt? Some will outrightly say no, others will say yes, and I will say with caution: it depends.  Definitely no bunnies, but if you want invite the kids of the neighborhood and share the gospel in a friendly and inviting environment, sure.  But the gospel message must be the focal point, not the eggs, or candy, or the fun.  It is the message of the gospel.  Jesus did not rise from the dead so that we might worship a bunny and enjoy chocolate on this particular Sunday.  He defeated death so that we would no longer be slaves of sin.  And no bunny, chocolate, or egg will ever give hope of defeating the death that waits for those who are still under sin.

So why do we celebrate Easter?  Let me rephrase that.  Why do we celebrate Resurrection Sunday?  Because it is the day that Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior defeated death.  He declared to all that death no longer had power over Him and those that would be found in Him.  If Jesus had not been raised from the dead, well, He still would be dead, showing that He was not God, and as Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 15:14-19:

14 If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, your faith also is in vain. 15 Moreover, we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then not even Christ has been raised; 17 and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. 18 Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If we have hoped in Christ only in this life, we are of all people most to be pitied.

But Paul does not stop there.  He continues on with the good news with verses 20-22, especially at the end of verse 22:

20 But the fact is, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. 21 For since by a man death came, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. 

I started with a question and I want to get back to it.  Is it wrong to celebrate with the hiding of eggs?  While I would say no it is not and Scripture does not say that it is forbidden.  How does it seem to you?  Is it too close to the secular celebration of Easter and the hoppy man-sized bunny?  Then I will suggest to you what was recently suggested to me – hide lambs with Scripture verses inside.  Your children will find the treasure of the wisdom of God instead of the foolishness of men and all to His glory.  Resurrection Sunday is coming – He has risen! He has risen indeed.

The Teachable Man of God

Posted on by brettyamaji

It is a difficult thing in our culture to have a teachable spirit.  We have an innate belief that we are smart and intelligent and are generally put off when told that we are wrong about something.  This is not having a teachable spirit.  I am, of course, not speaking of learning skills like accounting or plumbing or nursing, but am speaking specifically about those things that we believe.  Although we do want to be teachable in whatever profession or hobby that we might have and enjoy.

A belief is something we hold true based on information that is not entirely conclusive to all.  To believe in something is the same as saying we have faith in that thing being true.  But it also requires a presupposition.  We must have a preconceived notion that what we will eventually come to believe in is true.  To illustrate this, let’s assume that humanity is basically good, that at the core we have a good heart or a good character.  Overall, our good deeds or even just our good intentions will outweigh our mistakes, our misdeeds, and all of those mean-spirited thoughts.

There are several beliefs that someone who believes this way must bring to the table. Their belief is built on 2 major assumptions, the first being that we must know what good is.  We have a standard of what good is and what good is not, that which is evil. The second assumption is that we know (without measuring and tracking) all the deeds, intentions, and thoughts (good and evil) that have been done throughout the world in all situations and in all history.  This is an impossibility as no one can truly understand the intentions of the heart of another person, let alone all people that have ever lived.

In order to counter this belief, we must look to something other than ourselves to judge what is good and what is evil.  Otherwise, we run the risk of good and evil being abstract.  To the Biblically sound Christian, that standard is the living God and what He has declared in His Word.  He is the very definition of good.  Jesus says so in Matthew 19:17 when he responds to the man asking what he must do to inherit eternal life, “And He said to him, ‘Why are you asking Me about what is good? There is only One who is good; but if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.’”

I will use a rough illustration to try to explain this.  Instead of using a tape measure to measure something, we use our own feet.  For me and my size 9 ½ shoes, the distance between two points might be the distance of 4 heel to toe feet. However, for someone who has size 14 shoes, their measurement of 4 heel to toe feet will actually be different.  The measurement is only accurate if we are both using the same scale, such as a standard tape measure. 

To be teachable, one must be willing to have their beliefs challenged.  As Biblical evidence is given to a belief or as counter to a belief, one must be willing to submit to the authority of the teaching that Scripture is.  To belief that mankind is basically good would fly in the face of the plain teaching of Scripture.  Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?”  If the heart is deceitful and sick and that is the center, the source of all that man is, how can he be good?  If a piece of fruit is rotten in its middle how “good” is it in its entirety?  Sure, there are “good” parts, but the whole is contaminated.

Another example that is prevalent today is that women can pastor and lead churches.  Let me start this illustration first by declaring what proponents and opponents of this argument say and what Scripture declares as well.  Men and women are of equal value, but here is where the difference begins – Scripture declares distinctive roles between men and women.  God created them male and female, the male first as the head and the female from male to be his equal and his helpmate.  Woman is not made to be a subject under the rule and authority of the man.  With distinctive roles, we have different responsibilities.  I am not saying that the role of women is to be responsible for the domestic care; men are equally capable.

The basic premise of the belief that women are able to pastor and lead churches is based on humanistic belief structures, not Biblical mandates.  It is based on human value systems and not sound Biblical principles. Scripture again gives ample evidence that they are not to be pastors in the church.  First Timothy 2:12 says “But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.”  This does not mean that women are not to speak or that they could not teach or lead a women’s study, or teach a Sunday School children’s class.  What this is speaking to is the fact that a woman is not to have teaching authority over a congregation.  A pastor’s responsibility goes far beyond preaching duties.  They include counselling, modeling, and living a Biblically sound life.  There will be further discussion on this topic later, but I wanted to use this here as an illustration.

It is not easy to have someone come along side and tell us that we might be in error in our thinking.  That stings our pride, but just as Proverbs tells us in 12:1, “Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.”  If we truly love knowledge, then we must welcome the challenges to our thinking.  We serve a living, gracious God who has provided to us all that we need for life and godliness, and one of those things is His Word.  Second Timothy 3:16 says, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.”  We can and must allow the Word to teach us, to correct our wrong thinking, and we must use the pure unaltered Word of God.  Not allowing the darkened reasoning of the world to filter the Word of God.

The greatest example is the creation account in Genesis.  Did God really say that He created all things in 6 literal 24-hour days or is this an allegorical tale or poetic picture?  The deception is that we look at modern science theory and interject that into the creation account.  By doing this, we are, of course, using worldly views to filter Scripture.  But if we stand on the fact that Scripture is inspired by God, who is infallible and immutable, does not lie, and understands who and what we are, it demands that we read and understand the creation account the way it is written.

We must have a high view of Scripture from the onset, that God has inspired it and that it is sufficient for all life, even today, and that it is without error.  With regard to any belief system there will be some foundational presupposition.  Now, what does this mean outside of Biblical Christianity?  With regards to the belief system of evolution, that is being declared fact.  The theory of evolution has no eye witnesses and cannot be repeated; it is not observable.  Proponents of evolution do not belief that they hold a presupposition, but in fact they must.  Since they have no account during all those years of evolution, they must assume certain things.  They look at the fossil record and extrapolate out what must have occurred millions and billions of years ago. 

Most scientists, and really most people who believe in the Theory of Evolution, will not even entertain the idea of belief in the Bible.  This is because things that are spiritual cannot be tested by science, but on the flipside, there are things in the Biblical account that can be tested.  The historicity can be measured up with what we know through non-biblical historians.  However, most of these validations are not considered trustworthy because the accounts are recorded in the Bible and are spiritually based.  I will counter that argument by stating the fact that non-spiritually based writings from the same time periods are seen as creditable, which demonstrates a clear presupposition.

Biblical Christians believe that Scripture is true in every regard and that each word – Old and New Testaments – are true and accurate and there is no error and that God the Holy Spirit was at work in the men who physically wrote the 66 books of the Bible.  On the flip side to that belief is the belief that there is no such thing as God and everything can be explained by science.

To be teachable is to allow others to instruct us, to be able to have our thinking challenged with a humble spirit as we are not all-knowing creatures and can have incorrect thoughts and beliefs regarding some things.  Now let me say this.  Because someone might try and challenge our beliefs, we must be able to defend what we believe is truth.  How do we challenge one’s beliefs and how do we defend our beliefs?  It must always be done based on Scripture.

Again, 2 Timothy 3:16 tells us that Scripture will teach us and it will reprove and correct.  Our beliefs, and therefore how we reprove and teach one another, cannot be based solely on feelings of truthfulness or even on life experiences.  It must go beyond and above these things, although they can add to the applicability of Scripture.  The danger of relying on life experiences and emotions is that they can be skewed and lead to a misinterpretation of Scripture.

I leave you with one final illustration of this.  One major counter argument against Christianity or the authority and sufficiency of Scripture is the supposed ill-treatment of women.  But if we search the Scriptures, we can find a plethora of women who are powerful and influential. Quite truthfully, women are honored in Scripture.  How can I say all of this? Read through the Bible and see how many women are dignified through the pages: Esther, Ruth, Mary (Jesus’ mother), the Samaritan woman, and Lydia. 

You may not recall who Lydia is, but I will say that she was financially well off as she was a trader in purple fabric and traveled all over the region.  We may not think much of it, but during that time period, it would not be easy for a woman to lead such a successful business life.  She did these things, not her husband, which suggests that she was not married.  While Paul and his travelling companions where in Corinth, she supported them for an extended period of time.  Meaning Lydia opened her home and provided for all the needs of these men until they left.

Allow the Word of God to instruct you and to change you where needed.  Scripture is sufficient for every area of our lives and for all instances, circumstances, and scenarios that we come across.  We must have a spirit that is willing to be taught and to even unlearn what may be incorrect.  This, of course, takes humility.  Earthly wisdom can cause us to puff ourselves up and become prideful.  We must be wary of this and remain humble, knowing that wisdom is from the Lord.

Come to know and love Scripture.  Seek its truth when you are challenging someone else’s views or beliefs, but also seek it when you are being challenged. See if what they say is true and that you are indeed in error.  This is Proverbs 27:17, “Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.”  We are to sharpen one another, by teaching one another and having our wrong thoughts corrected so that we can grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:18).  I will leave you with this question, are you teachable?