Growing in your walk with Christ

We usually see what we’re looking for.

Try this exercise, for example. Pause a few seconds and look around the room and see how much blue you see.

I’m usually surprised by how much there is of whatever color I’m looking for.

That principle actually works for many things.

Some people never find Jesus Christ, but it isn’t because he can’t be found, or that he’s hiding, or that he hasn’t left enough clues about himself.

It’s often because they’re just not looking.

One particular phrase about Joseph jumps out at me when I read Mark’s paragraph about him. See if you notice it.

And when evening had come, since it was the day of Preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God, took courage and went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Pilate was surprised to hear that he should have already died. And summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he was already dead. And when he learned from the centurion that he was dead, he granted the corpse to Joseph. And Joseph bought a linen shroud, and taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud and laid him in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock. And he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where he was laid (Mark 15:42-47).

He was looking for the kingdom.

That statement could’ve been made about many of Joseph’s contemporaries, but not in the way Mark uses it here. Thousands of people were looking for the kingdom of God, but they were looking for a preconceived notion of what that kingdom would look like.

Joseph had a different heart.

I think he wanted to see the kingdom as it was, not how he wanted it to be.

And so he found it.

One thing about him makes this even more amazing. He was a “respected member of the council,” and that means that he was part of the Sanhedrin, the same council that wanted Jesus dead.

But he pushed back against the prevailing spirit of his culture and saw God in a way that few did.

Why?

Because he was looking.

God shows himself to looking people.

Are you one of those people?

If you look for anger and hatred and violence, you’ll see it . . . there’s plenty of it.

If you look for selfishness and pride and egotism, you’ll see it . . . it’s everywhere.

But if you look for the kingdom, you’ll certainly see it.

You’ll see it in the love and kindness of kingdom citizens.

You’ll see it in the selflessness and outward focus of the King’s children.

You’ll see it in the obedience and commitment that have always characterized hearts where Jesus reigns.

What are you looking for?

Whatever it is, you’ll probably find it.

Everyone knows who Peter was. He walked on water (not for long), spoke his mind (too often), and tried to take off another guy’s head with his sword (he missed).

There’s also Paul, probably the most prominent and influential Christian ever.

And the Bible has quite a few other household names, like Abraham, Moses, and David.

I wonder how many sermons have been preached on these men over the years?

But when’s the last time you heard a sermon about Mary Magdalene? Or Mary the mother of James the younger? Or Salome?

Yet God has done most of his work over the years through people like them.

Mark inserts this little tidbit into his narrative of the Lord’s crucifixion:

There were also women looking on from a distance, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. When he was in Galilee, they followed him and ministered to him, and there were also many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem (Mark 15:40-41).

While Jesus was dying, several people were conspicuously absent.

The apostle John was there, but where were Peter and James?

Where were the rest of the apostles?

We don’t know for sure, but they were probably huddled up somewhere hoping they weren’t found and arrested in the excitement surrounding Jesus’ execution.

But these women were somewhere near the cross, more courageous at this point than their male counterparts.

And notice also what Mark says about what they had done for Jesus: “they followed him and ministered to him, and there were also many other women . . .”

It seems that Mark wants us to know that it wasn’t just the prominent names working with Christ.

It was the unknowns, the ones who were willing to work in the shadows to do what needed to be done.

They supported him financially. They also probably prepared food and made clothes and tended to a thousand other needs of a traveling group of missionaries.

In other words, they did the stuff behind the scenes that doesn’t make splashes but without it the public ministry doesn’t get done.

That describes a lot of you.

You’ll do things today that’ll never be recorded in a history book, and no one in the church will know.

You’ll change your baby’s diaper and sing her a song about Jesus.

You’ll send a note to a discouraged believer.

You’ll buy a gift card for a struggling family.

You’ll do what needs to be done to promote Jesus in the hearts of the people around you.

I think that’s what Mark had in mind when he told us about these women.

God mostly works through people whose names the world will never know.

But he remembers, and he’s recording every deed and every name.

Thank you for doing what nobody knows you do.

And be thankful.

Those words came from Paul a long time ago, but they’re just as relevant now as they were then.

Sometimes I obey that command quite easily. Some days I get overwhelmed with how good God’s been to me and how he just keeps on blessing.

On those days smiles and prayers and worship come easily. God is good, and life is good.

Then there are other days, and they come more often than they should.

On those days I focus more on the negatives than I do the positives. I grumble and complain and wallow in the woe-is-me mire. Intellectually I know God is still good, but I don’t feel it. I don’t live it.

Do you have those days?

Do you ever get used to God’s goodness?

Maybe it’s part of the human condition, the struggle to do more than mumble a Thank-you-for-all-these-many-blessings kind of prayer.

It’s a fight to live in gratitude, and not just visit there on special occasions.

In your devotional time today, take a few minutes to be thankful.

Make a list of all God’s done for you. Be specific, and thank him for everything on that list.

Take it with you and pull it out when you have a minute or two today, and thank him again.

Be intentional about not whining or grumbling or buying into the negativism of the world around you.

Decide today—don’t worry about tomorrow yet—decide today that your heart will focus on all the good and all the blessings and all the hope.

And be thankful, Paul says.

Today, for one whole day, let’s try it.

It’s hard to define love.

Sometimes we use it to describe how much we like something—I love ice cream—but that’s inadequate.

And then sometimes we use it to describe a feeling—I love my wife because of how she makes me feel—but again that’s too shallow.

What about this?

Love is when we act in someone’s best interest even when it’s difficult for us, or maybe even painful.

We see that idea in these verses:

“But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

“In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10).

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son . . .” (John 3:16).

It wasn’t a strong like that led Jesus to the cross, and it certainly didn’t make him feel good.

He did it because we needed it.

He did it because he loved us.

That’s what we should think about when we read verses like this one: “And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony” (Colossians 3:14).

Paul’s writing to Christians, and he’s just encouraged us to forgive and be patient with one another. He’s told us to be kind and compassionate and longsuffering.

But how? What’s the key?

Because of feelings?

Here’s an important point: God never asks us to do something because of how it makes us feel.

We treat people right because we choose to love them.

You’ll deal with someone today who won’t deserve your kindness or forgiveness. It might be your neighbor or coworker, or even your kid or your spouse.

It might be someone at church.

But if I understand the biblical idea of love right, God wants you to love that person today.

And love doesn’t even think about what people deserve.

It’s what we do because of what he did.

It’s a good thing God is patient with us.

We fall down, kick ourselves, get back up, and promise this time we’ll do better. Next time we’ll be stronger.

And then we do it again.

I wonder if that ever frustrates God?

Even so, he keeps on forgiving, keeps on blessing, keeps on bearing with us.

And he asks us to do the same with others.

Remember the story of the king who had a servant who owed him 10,000 talents?

A talent, by the way, was how much a worker would earn in about 20 years, so 10,000 talents was the equivalent of how much you could earn in about 200,000 years.

In other words, this servant will never pay it back.

Ever.

He’s in debt for the rest of his life.

So the king did the unthinkable. He canceled the debt. Wiped it away. Acted as if it’d never existed.

It’s hard to imagine how excited this servant must’ve been. He’d gotten his life back.

When Jesus tells this story, he focuses more on what this once-indebted-but-now-forgiven servant did with someone who owed him about a hundred days’ pay.

A hundred days versus 200,000 years.

He’s just been forgiven of an incredibly huge debt, so what will he do with a debt that’s miniscule in comparison?

He does the unthinkable.

He chokes the guy, then throws him in prison until he pays him back.

The Lord’s point is clear.

We’ve been forgiven of an unpayable debt, so we’ve got to extend that same kind of patience toward others.

Do you struggle to forgive?

Today, right now, are you holding a grudge?

Are you impatient with the weaknesses of the people around you? Your spouse, your kids, your co-workers, your employees?

Paul says one of the marks of spirituality is patience: “bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive” (Colossians 3:13).

The story the Lord told doesn’t have a happy ending.

The king found out what his servant had done, so he threw him in prison “until he should pay all his debt” (Matthew 18:34).

In other words, the guy would serve a few thousand consecutive life sentences.

God’s patience forgives our sins and bears with our weaknesses.

He’s serious about it when he says we need to do the same.

I suppose that most of us think we’re humble, at least mostly humble.

And if we’re ever proud, it’s a good kind of pride, the innocent kind, like being proud of your kids or rejoicing over some kind of success.

All that makes humility somewhat elusive, because most of us think we’ve really got all of it we need.

It’s easy to notice when other people need it, though. I can think of quite a few people who could stand a big dose of humility, can’t you?

But me?

Not so much.

Humility is one of those attributes that goes against the grain of things that matter to us.

Many of us have joined Lee Greenwood in belting out the lyrics to “I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free. . . .”

But there’s nothing wrong with patriotic pride.

And I’ve said a time or two, “I’m proud of my kids.”

But there’s nothing wrong with parental pride.

And maybe we’ve boasted a little about our accomplishments at work or school.

But there’s nothing wrong with a little personal pride.

Right?

The problem is that pride deceives.

It lies to the one who harbors it. It points out the faults in others but blinds us to our own.

And that makes it difficult to recognize.

In contrast, humility is always outward-focused.

It elevates others, putting them on the pedestal and ourselves in the shadows.

It doesn’t advance its own agenda; it’s never self-serving.

The root word for humility means to lie low, pointing to a submissive bodily posture.

But of course it doesn’t necessarily mean that we bow physically. Instead, it points to a condition of the heart.

It’s an internal posture that says, “It’s not all about me. I don’t have to have my way. Let me serve you.”

Paul wrote that God’s children are to put on humility as one of the beautiful garments of Christ-likeness (Colossians 3:12).

And really, we see it most clearly at Calvary. Jesus “emptied himself” and took on the “form of a servant.” When he came to earth he “humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:7-8).

The tough thing about humility is that we never fully get there. We’ll be working on it the rest of our lives.

But humility is like the other Christian graces, I suppose.

The more time we spend reflecting on what Jesus did at the cross, the closer we’ll get to modeling the essence of who he is.

Kindness is tough.

Not always, of course.

Sometimes it comes easily, like when your marriage is good and the stress is low and you have warm, fuzzy feelings about your spouse.

And sometimes it’s easy to be kind to your kids . . . when they’re behaving and smiling and happy and everything just feels right.

And the sweet little lady at church—who could be mean to her?

But maybe those situations aren’t the best ones to gauge how kind we are.

To paraphrase the Lord, “Even unbelievers are kind when it’s easy, aren’t they?”

Perhaps we should look at it more closely.

Paul wrote that it’s one of the most important marks of being a Christian: “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, . . .” (Colossians 3:12).

As with most things, the biblical notion of kindness is deep and nuanced. It’s much more than merely being nice to people you like.

It goes beyond what we do when we feel happy and relaxed and pleasant.

God’s kindness is treating people well when you don’t feel like it.

It’s putting your spouse’s needs before your own when he’s not acting like he should.

It’s responding to your children patiently when they’re misbehaving.

Beyond that, it’s treating people well when they don’t deserve it, folks who don’t like you, people you don’t like.

The irritable boss, the incompetent store clerk, the socially maladjusted neighbor.

How do we treat them?

It’s one thing to smile at people who are smiling at you.

It’s quite another to send a smile in return for a scowl.

As you reflect on kindness today, God will present you with some opportunities to practice.

You’ll probably have some of those made-for-kindness moments, opportunities to serve people it’s easy to serve.

And then you’ll meet that other guy, the grumpy, mean-spirited, get-out-of-my-way kind of guy.

What then?

Once God grabs us, he wants us all.

He’s not satisfied with just our heads, our intellect, though he wants that.

He wants our wills, but more than that.

He’s concerned about our walk—what we do—but again, he doesn’t stop there.

He wants our hearts, our emotions, our feelings.

In fact, Paul writes that one of the first signs that Jesus has truly become our Lord is when our hearts become his:

“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, . . .” (Colossians 3:12).

He’s just written that Christians have to get rid of those old attitudes and practices—sexual immorality, anger, dishonesty, obscene speech.

But it’s not enough for our Christianity to be defined by what we don’t do. Too often we’re known more by what we’re against than what we’re for.

So Paul counterbalances his discussion on getting rid of sin by emphasizing what needs to replace those bad habits.

And first on his list is compassionate hearts.

Because the Lord now rules our lives, his heart becomes ours as our hearts become his.

The “Father of mercies and God of all comfort” sympathizes with us in our weakness, so we extend that compassion to the people around us.

What this means practically is that we care about people, and we’re especially sympathetic when they’re hurting.

It means our Christianity is often seen more clearly in the hospital than it is in the sanctuary.

Some weeks you’ll do more Christ-following at the funeral home on Thursday than you’ll do at the church building on a dozen Sundays.

An uncompassionate Christian is an oxymoron. It just doesn’t work.

God really does want all of us, including our hearts.

Especially our hearts.

God picked us.

It’s a wonderful thought to be chosen by God, isn’t it?

But it introduces quite a few questions.

Why was I born into a home where I would be taught about Jesus from the cradle, while a baby down the street was born to a family that cared nothing for things of God?

It certainly wasn’t because I deserved it, or that the other child didn’t.

So why?

Did God arbitrarily choose me and reject the other baby?

People have wrestled with God’s election for thousands of years. Many of us believe—for good reasons, I think—that God never takes away human free will, that each of us can choose to accept or reject his call.

We also believe that God has chosen the church to be saved; he adds everyone who accepts his call to his family, the church, and one day he’ll return to save it.

This idea of election certainly permeates the Bible. Here’s how Paul begins one section of a letter: “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, . . . (Colossians 3:12).

“God’s chosen ones,” he calls us.

Other translations put it differently: “the elect of God” (NKJV), “those who have been chosen of God” (NASB), “God’s chosen people” (TNIV), “God has chosen you” (NCV), “he . . . chose you for his own” (GNB), and “Since God chose you” (NLT).

I’m not sure that we know all of the implications of God’s picking us, but one thing is clear.

It’s an incredible blessing.

God has chosen us to be in his family. We’re his “holy” people, his “beloved” children.

We don’t deserve it, and we’ll never earn it.

It comes to us because of who he is and what he’s like.

But it’s important to remember that Paul calls us “God’s chosen ones” in the context of how we ought to live: “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, . . .”

In other words, “because God chose you, you ought to live your life according to his will.”

I think that’s where our focus should be.

Maybe I shouldn’t dwell on why he blessed me in ways he didn’t the child down the street.

Maybe we shouldn’t think so much about why he chooses the way he does . . . why he opens doors for some and not for others.

Maybe we ought to focus more on the so that than we do the why or how.

He chose us so that we will live for him.

He picked us so that we would reflect his character.

He elected us so that we would obey him.

Chosen by God. Picked to be in his family.

What a humbling position. What an awesome blessing.

God’s family has a beautiful blend of people in it.

We like different music, pursue different hobbies, and wear different clothes.

We come from various backgrounds, and none of us dress the same, talk the same, or act the same.

But we’re children of the same Father, and we call the same Savior “Lord.”

It’s exciting to see how God is bringing people together in his church.

He’s always done it, but sometimes folks have struggled with it.

Paul reminded a group of Christians who might’ve been thinking too much of superficial distinctions:

Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all (Colossians 3:11).

He wanted them to remember that in the church it’s not about ethnicity (Greek and Jew), religious heritage (circumcised and uncircumcised), culture (barbarian or Scythian), or social status (slave or free).

And that might be a good reminder for us as well, because one of the things that makes the body strong is how God takes us all—regardless of differences—and puts us in one family.

We may be black, white, or Latino.

Maybe we grew up in a Christian home, or something far from it.

We’re products of different cultures that shaped us socially and behaviorally.

And we come from various places on the economic spectrum.

But we’re one in Christ.

We share the greatest commonality there is . . . we’re sinners saved by Christ’s blood, and we’re trying to live to his glory.

Heaven won’t be segregated, and as we grow in Christ the artificial differences that have separated so many people here become less and less important to us.

We start to think of people not according to race or social status.

We call each other brother or sister because we’re family.

And that relationship trumps everything else.