Vertical

I was talking with a friend a while back, and she was talking about how she couldn't stand herself because of her apathetic attitude towards her unsaved friends. She felt that she never really cared enough to do anything to point them to Christ; that she didn't really care that they were going to end up in hell without intervention.

I struggled with this idea, I've been there too. And I started to wonder why it bothers us that our friends are going to hell. Obviously it is because we love them.

A few of my friends have hoodies and t-shirts that say Love God. Love People. I always thought of that as a Christian clothing line or a cool slogan or whatever. But one day I realized that it's not just a cool little saying, it's a law. Kind of like the Transitive Property in math: if a=b and b=c, then a=c. If we don't love God, we can't really love people to the extent that could.

The cross is the perfect metaphor; Love God (the vertical part of the cross), Love People (the horizontal part of the cross).

But this creates a dilemma. If my friend (and many many other Christians) really love God, how can she not have enough love for the people around her to shatter her apathetic state? Why does she not care enough to intervene and save them? It does not make sense.

If you struggle with this, let me ask you a question; do you daily spend time with God?

And I don't mean do you read your bible so you can check it off of your to-do list.

I remember when I seriously decided to develop a genuine relationship with God. I put my bible in my lap and before I dared open it I said God, "I love You and I respect You, but I don't want to just read this and only obtain knowledge about You. I want to know You. And I'll be honest," (I think God loves it when we're so genuinely honest with Him that we think we might be sinning), "I know that You made this Bible for everyone to have a solid foundation about You, but if it's not going to cause me to get close to you, I don't wanna read it."

At the time it almost felt rebellious, sinful even, to have told that to God. Looking back now, I realize my heart was wiser than my head. And God honored that. And I started growing close to Him.

Not only did I finally kill my laziness and decide I would spend time with Him, I genuinely wanted to know Him. I so meant it that before I even started spending time with Him the best way I knew how, I made sure there was no checklist. That relationship was my top priority.

Back to our dilemma.

Our answer is found in one of Jesus' teachings:

"Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in you name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'"

(Matthew 7:22-23, emphasis added)

How weird, they prophesied, drove out demons, and performed miracles; yet they didn't know Christ. And they're evildoers? I can't remember the last time I've done any of those things...oh wait, I haven't. And they didn't make it? How? What could they possibly be lacking?

"I never knew you."

Oh.

Right. Our God is a relational God. He doesn't really need us to prophesy, cast out spirits, or do any miracles. He never had to die for that, He always had that power. But He did die so that we can know Him.

If those people from that passage missed out on eternal Life because of not genuinely knowing God, and God is not about us trying desperately to survive this life, but living it to the full; what else are we missing out on besides heaven?

Back to the cross metaphor. One thing about the cross that is important to understand; without the vertical part of it (really knowing God) the whole thing falls and clatters to the ground. Without the vertical part, there is nothing in the ground to keep it standing. Maybe a better way to say Love God. Love People. is Know God. Love People. That's why my friend couldn't really love her friends enough to intervene and save them from hell. Did she love them? Well, yes...to a certain extent. But if she would really Love God, (Know God) then she would love them more than her mind could comprehend. And her apathetic state would shatter and she would not just be a moral person saying, "Jesus is Life." She would really live life to the fullest and walk in the power of God and minister to her friends every chance she got.

That's the key, strengthening our vertical part of the cross. If we truly do that, the horizontal will follow.

(It's important to note that intervening for our friends just is not effective, or maybe even possible, without really knowing God).

So what is going on when a Christian is not really close to God, but they still feel horrible for not intervening for their friends?

It's a guilt trip.

We, like those from that passage in Matthew, genuinely believe in God and heaven and hell, but we are not close enough to God to shatter that apathetic state that comes over us.

So it's a wrestling match between guilt and apathy.

Neither of which can win, and either one winning is not so much a good thing.

We know and believe enough Truth to feel guilty for not Loving and doing the right thing, but at the same time we are not close enough to God to overcome (or better yet, kill) apathy. So we get stuck in the cross roads; one day feeling a bit more guilty than apathetic and wondering what's wrong with us, the next feeling more apathetic than guilty and sadly blowing off opportunities to save others.

And when we get caught in these crossroads, without knowing that the answer is spending time really knowing Christ, and end up believing that there is something intrinsically evil or fundamentally wrong with us; I believe the enemy grins.

And, another thought, if those people from that passage missed out on heaven because of simply not being close to God, and my friend and many others (including me) have experienced such confusion and difficulty because we were not close to God; think of all of the other traps and problems that are out there that are directly linked to not being genuinely close to God.

That may or may not lead to hell in the next life (I'm not sure), but I do know that it will definitely bring hell for this life.

Forgiveness

Me and a couple guys were talking late one night. I brought up one of my favorite shows, Dexter. This started a whole new topic about serial killers. We were swapping our favorite serial killer stories with each other when all of a sudden one of the guys, we'll call him john, said something that really caught my attention.

He said something like, "You know, if some guy came in and killed my family like that, screw all that forgiveness crap. I would tie him up and kill him slowly."

I was immediately torn, I'm not sure john is really a Christian or not so I wanted to be careful about how I responded. I mean, the serial killer we were talking about broke into a random guy's home, tied him, his wive and his daughter up, the serial killer then made the father/husband watch him rape and kill both of the girls. How do you respond to john's comment without going against the Bible's teaching about forgiveness, but at the same time be relatable and practical? I wanted to say forgiveness was right, but at the same time I wasn't really sure if I would even stop john from killing the guy who did it.

I was reading Rob Bell's book Velvet Elvis and a similar story came up. It was about a girl who had been raped. She went to a pastor and told him what happened, and guess what he said...Forgiveness is the answer. He told the girl not to tell the police.

So she didn't. The rapist went on to rape several other girls before he was caught. And now she feels guilty for not going to the police.

If someone were to kill your family like that, and you lost all anger and bitterness "before the sun went down" crazy conspirators would make up stories about how you actually planned for your family to be killed, and professional psychologists would question your sanity.

We're just not built to operate like that.

God didn't build us to operate like that.

It seems people everywhere are fusing the words forgiving and forgetting.

When I say, "I appreciate the Boy Scouts so much because of the pride they take in what they do." We feel good about the Boy Scouts, it even promotes them.

When I say, "Wow, that guy over there is full of himself." what am I actually saying? That he has pride. And I don't mean it in a good way.

Do you see what just happened? I used the exact same word to create two complete opposite meanings.

And that's the problem here. Of course we should forgive. Of course she should have reported the man who raped her. Of course that serial killer (real or not) deserves punishment.

As a Christian, one of the most important things we need to do is be careful not to bear false witness.

In 1st Corinthians 8 Paul addresses an interesting issue.

This Christian church is in the city of Corinth, which was filled with Paganism. The only place to eat meat in Corinth was by going to a Pagan temple (which was pretty much a restaurant) and eating it there.

The Christians in this church didn't want to worship the idols at the temple or even look like they might even believe in the idols, but they were just people and they wanted some meat. So they asked Paul what he thought. Paul pretty much agrees with them, that if they want to eat it they can. But at the end of the chapter he says if you eating sacrificial meat at a Pagan temple will cause a "weaker Christian" (someone that may misjudge what you are doing as sinful), then don't do it. Chapter 8 finishes with verse 13, which says, "Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother or sister to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause them to fall."

We must be careful about how we communicate what our ideas are.

To mix the two words forgive and forget is a horribly misleading idea that pushes people away from Christ.

When we look back through the Word we find that the words forgiving and forgetting were not always fused together.

Hebrews 10:30, "For we know him who said, "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," and again, "The Lord will judge his people."

After the Midanites committed violent acts against the Israelites, God said to Moses in Numbers 31:2, "Take vengeance on the Midanites for the Israelites. After that, you will be gathered to your people."

I don't think God ever wanted the definitions of forgiving and forgetting to ever be in the same word.

I believe that there is a spiritual war waging, and I think evil spirits grin when they see people pushed away by things like this.

This is why we have to be careful about bearing false witness.

I wish I could have explained this to john. I wish the girl could have explained it to that pastor. I wish I could have explained this to every person who saw Christianity as unrelatable, unpractical, or just plain ridiculous.