Category: Spiritual

The Priority of Christian Nationalism

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Christian Nationalism seems to be getting a lot of attention these days. Obviously, there are many non-Christians who don’t think much of the idea. But not all Christians agree with it either, and question whether it’s even Biblical. Of course, it may partly depend on what one thinks it means.

In my understanding, one way to think of Christian Nationalism is that it seeks to establish a national framework of laws and behaviors that promote personal and societal flourishing through the adoption of Christian values and behaviors, possibly reflecting what some people believe to be the original vision of the nation’s founders.

Thus, it can be thought of as a sort of legalism – religious values and ideas are encoded into laws that constrain people’s behavior. However, this isn’t necessarily the sort of legalism that asserts that correct behavior is necessary for salvation rather than a result of it. It merely tries to establish a flourishing society through the change of people’s behavior without there necessarily having been a change of heart.

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Remembering Resurrection

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For many Christians today, it seems that the world is getting darker all the time. Not just in statistics like dropping church attendance, but in the growing secularism of many of our systems, the growing acceptance of immoral behavior in our leaders, the growing wealth disparity and other signs of a greed-dominated culture, and so on. In many cases, people still describe themselves as spiritual even when they stop associating with any specific religion, so the need is there, it just isn’t being met by Christianity.

Of course, there are many theories, books, and pundits that try to explain these observations, for most part focusing on the social, psychological, and sometimes even spiritual, trends of the last century or so. However, I’ve also noticed, really highlighted by the Covid pandemic, how different many of our beliefs and practices are from the early church.

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White Garments in Laodicea

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Evangelism is important, but the church’s efforts today seem not to be working. This is not a problem with the world, but with the church. If there is an element of ineffectiveness in the church today, perhaps we can gain insight by looking at the letter to the Laodiceans.

The letter to the Laodiceans is the only one of the seven letters that has no commendation. They are described as being lukewarm, a contrast to two nearby cities that provided water. At their sources, one was cold and refreshing while the other was hot mineral water that was useful for healing. By the time the waters made it to Laodicea, however, they were lukewarm and ineffective for their original purposes.

Thus, the Laodiceans could be said to have been ineffective in their service to the Lord.

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A Model for Congregational Discipleship

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As disciples of Jesus, Christians should be growing into His likeness. This means we should become more and more like Him, and it seems this should include all of His attributes, behaviors., and so on. We often study the Scriptures to find these attributes, and different people have produced different models of Jesus’ activities.

However, in addition to the many detailed accounts of them, the gospels include many statements that summarize Jesus’ activities. These tend to repeat the same three things over and over, so perhaps they represent a way to think of His actions in a way that we could grow into.

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Freeing the Slaves

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The Lord’s Prayer starts with a focus on God and His purposes. After acknowledging His holiness, the first request is for His kingdom to come and His will to be done. These days, it sometimes seems that things are actually getting darker and we yearn to know how the light can be brought forth more clearly.

Of course, the best starting point for such questions is to look at Jesus. When starting His ministry, He began by presenting a picture of what it looked like to be bringing the kingdom.

And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
 because he has anointed me
 to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
 and recovering of sight to the blind,
  to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Luke 4:17-19 (ESV)

One of the things that strikes me about this passage is how it seems to point to a fundamental shift, more than just some people being provided for, liberated, healed, and set free. It seems to be about the end of the very forces that cause such suffering. He seems to be declaring the end of slavery, not just the freedom of some slaves. This would truly be an example of the kingdom coming and God’s will being done, wouldn’t it?

And in fact we have seen this happen in history. When wealthy Romans became Christians, they started providing money to establish hospitals, instead of public works projects with their names on them. This provided healing for many more people than had been available before.

A similar story exists for the establishment of organized education, allowing people to become much more able to improve their position in life. And again, when slaveholders had their eyes opened to their own involvement in the evils of slavery, that institution ended.

Note that slavery ended when the slaveholders became freed – freed from the level of greed that blinded them to the evil that they were perpetuating. So in a sense, freeing and bringing sight to the slaveholders is what really freed the slaves because that ended slavery as an institution, and that had much greater impact than even the precious task of freeing individual slaves.

There are still many places that need to be transformed in ways that go beyond mere human effort. We can do many good deeds on our own, but bringing the kingdom involves more than a lot of good deeds. We need the Spirit’s help to bring transformation of the sort described above.

Part of working in the Spirit is to see beyond the physical to spiritual realities, like Jesus did when eating with the “tax collectors and sinners” in Matthew’s house.

And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” Matthew 9:10-13 (ESV)

Like Matthew, most of the people there would have been comfortable, maybe even wealthy and influential. Jesus, however, didn’t see them as rich and comfortable, but sick and in need of a physician. Focusing on the unseen, He didn’t regard them according to the flesh.

This is a view that is often absent from Christian ministry. It’s common to quote Jesus’ comment about the rich as part of the rich young ruler episode, in which the focus is on what’s possible with human ability, and shake our heads at the hard-heartedness of such people. But it’s far less common to acknowledge the Spirit’s fruit among the rich in Acts 2 or among powerful Christians throughout history.

As a result of our focus on human ability and what’s physically seen, our actions focus on what we can do physically, allowing us to feel good for stepping out and doing good. We may talk about wanting to do more, perhaps feeling chagrined that we’re never doing enough, but we still readily accept the acclaim from the world for what we do. Jesus was also highly regarded for the things He was doing and the compassion He showed people, but He was also reviled when He was with those who didn’t need such help.

Do we feel uncomfortable with reaching out to those who don’t need our physical touch? Perhaps they just need prayer and eyes opened to God working in their lives or a word of clarity about Jesus. Is it that we’re afraid of being reviled like Jesus that we don’t deliberately pursue such opportunities?

As disciples, we are supposed to grow into greater and greater likeness of Jesus, our master. However, it’s all too easy to focus on those aspects of Jesus’ walk that we like and that agree with our theology. Who is being made in whose image as we slip into the all too comfortable place of freeing slaves while ignoring slavery?

The fact is that Jesus reached out to everyone around Him with both physical and spiritual ministry. Some individuals do the same today, yet it is common for local bodies of Christ, congregations of diverse individuals, to focus only on one area such as physical ministry. It’s as if the important thing is for the body to reflect the pastor’s interests rather than Jesus’ character.

In a sense, we’re still following the way of the rich young ruler, seeking whatever can be done with human power, rather than following the leaders in Acts and the early church in seeking what can be done by the Spirit. Of course we need to reach out to the poor, sick, and oppressed and be willing to sacrifice of ourselves to demonstrate God’s love to them. But why stop there when Jesus didn’t?

Instead, we need to recover the belief, seen throughout history, that the Spirit can work through all people regardless of their station in life, and go into the places of power to open eyes and free slaves. For when that happens we may see slavery ended instead of just freed individuals, diseases eradicated instead of just some people being cured, hunger ended instead of just some people being fed.

This is when the world will change and the kingdom will come.

Proper Motives

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Jesus often taught the importance of having correct motives, the need for our hearts to be correct and not just our actions. This reinforced the Old Testament prophets who taught that even sacrificing in the temple wasn’t good if one’s heart wasn’t right. The ancient Israelites found this out when, despite their proper sacrifices, God was not blessing them because of unfaithful hearts.

All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirit (motives). Proverbs 16:2 (ESV)

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 (ESV)

For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ. 2 Corinthians 2:17 (ESV)

In these verses, we see how important it is to always check our motives, and this is no less true when speaking of Christ. It may be that God will honor words spoken to proclaim Him for the benefit of the unbelievers who hear, but if we want to truly walk in the benefits of obedience ourselves, then we need to check our own hearts.

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Prayer for Wisdom

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In any venture, but especially spiritual ones, we need to be equipped by God. Our talents, skills, strength, and thinking all need to be enabled and guided by Him. In fact, our ability to think well underlies much of what we do, which is perhaps why wisdom literature is a specific portion of the Bible in both the Old and New Testaments.

But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. James 3:17-18

James gave us a description of wisdom from above – Godly wisdom. It is very different from many earthly descriptions that describe wisdom as the ability to know how to get things done, for example. James’ description is more about the character of wisdom, and note how that character includes characteristics of the Holy Spirit.

When he describes the results of this wisdom, it is less about accomplishing goals than producing righteousness and peace.

Wisdom is important for us to live successfully in the world, but the success we should be concerned with is the realization of God’s will, not our own.

Because this description applies to all of life it must apply to evangelism. For example, Stephen is described as speaking with wisdom in Acts 6:10. Thus, we should seek Godly wisdom in our own efforts to speak about Jesus.

Heavenly Father, as You give us Your Spirit to speak of Jesus, I ask to also be given Your wisdom that my words would lead people to Jesus in righteousness and peace.

Praying for Open Doors

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The early disciples recognized the importance of evangelism, and prayed for boldness and effective speech, but these things are useless unless there are opportunities to use them. Paul understood this, and also recognized that we need God’s help to create the opportunities.

At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison – Colossians 4:3

The Spirit works in our lives in many ways and we might ask for Him to open doors in various contexts – relationships, work, health, and so on. However, evangelism is one specific place in which we definitely need God to work ahead of us. Not only do we need circumstances arranged, but there is a need for the Spirit to prepare hearts ahead of time to hear the gospel.

This isn’t to say that we don’t have a role to play, but rather that we need to start by inviting God into the effort. Or perhaps we really need to recognize that we are joining God in His work of bringing the kingdom to Earth.

For those of us who are hesitant about sharing the gospel, it may be easy to forget this step if we unconsciously hope that opportunities don’t appear. This may happen if we’re worried or uncomfortable, which is why we need God’s heart to move us and boldness to act. Note that Paul’s request is for an open door for “us” – he rarely worked alone, and partnering with other believers is a way to strengthen ourselves.

Nevertheless, even with supportive co-workers, holy motivation, and a will to act, we still need doors opened for us.

Heavenly Father, we ask that You create opportunities for the gospel to be shared with people who have open hearts.

Asking God to Reveal Himself to Unbelievers

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We need boldness to go and proclaim the gospel in a dark world, but we also need to remember that God will work to bring people to Himself as we obey Him. We need Him to reveal Himself to people through our words and deeds, through His actions in the world, in their spirits, and so on.

When the believers gathered in Acts 4 to ask for boldness to speak the word in the midst of ongoing threats, they also asked God to continue revealing Himself.

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Prayer to Have a Servant’s Heart for Sharing Christ

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In order to reach others with the gospel, we need to communicate in ways that they understand. This may sound obvious, but it’s easy to stick to familiar patterns. Communicating well means conforming ourselves in some manner to what they need, rather than what we want or think. Doing this requires a heart that’s willing to be flexible.

For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings. 1 Corinthians 9:19-23

Paul was passionate about sharing Jesus, even saying at one point “woe to me if I do not preach the gospel”. This drive led him to do whatever it takes, to the point of becoming a servant to this work such that he changed to become whatever was needed to reach others.

We may or may not need to change ourselves radically to share Christ, but we do need to be open to whatever the Spirit requires of us. Thus, whether or not we really need to change in some way, we do need to have a humble and open heart to the Spirit’s leading.

In other words, one of the most important things we need, and an important starting point, is a servant’s heart.

Heavenly Father, I humble myself before You and ask You to mold me according to Your will to share Jesus with those around me. Give me a servant’s heart to become whatever they need.