Competing Love

We really love competition. We fight to be the best, to be the greatest, to be the most deserved. We ask: who is the best singer, the best bachelor, the best football team?  Who could be the next top model? Who can have the most ridiculous house or car? We have businesses competing with each other to create the next best thing. We even have churches feeling threatened by one another and then competing for the greatest number of followers. With this being such a rich part of our culture these days it is no surprise that we compete for love.

When my daughter was little, after her brothers would get in trouble for something, she would look up at me with a cheesy grin and say, “I wasn’t doing that like the boys were.”  And this type of thing is no different in the grown up, business world. We want to be the best employee or we want to be the greatest boss. We compete over jobs and more disturbingly we compete for attention. Instead of completing a team our tendency is to want to stand out or get ahead. We can even start to think we are better than others and want our boss to think so, too. When we feel threatened by someone else we too are likely to compete for the most followers by trying to get others on our side. And what if someone you thought was on your side starts getting along with the competition? What if they start liking them more than you? What if they become the next best thing? What if it didn’t matter?

What if you knew you were loved the same whether you were doing the right or wrong thing?  What if you knew you were loved the same as an employee whether you were the best at your job or not? What if you knew you were loved the same whether you screwed up the same thing once or seventy times seven? What if you knew you were loved the same yesterday, today and tomorrow? What if you knew that you could not be loved more or less than you are right now? What if you knew that you could not be loved anymore or any less than the person standing right next to you? That competing is a waste of time and energy. That we are all loved not because we deserve it for what we do. That we need not compete for affection or love because Love won us.

How would it look if we all knew we were loved like that? How would it look if we humbly appreciated our co-workers, neighbors, brothers and sisters and looked out for their best interest rather than our own? How would it look if we stopped competing with each other and valued others above ourselves? How would it look if we approached our relationships willing to die to serve; even to the point of sacrifice? How would it look if we all loved like Love won us?

“Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others., “In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!” Phil. 2:1-8

Merging: When Different Roads Meet

Driving can be such an exasperating mission these days. Millions of people running around going from place to place with only themselves in mind. Their own journeys and destinations in front of them. One of the scariest of all driving experiences I have on a daily basis is a section of the freeway where cars are merging onto one freeway and less than ten cars lengths later there is an exit to merge onto a different freeway. Some cars want to stay on the freeway they are on. Some cars need to get over to merge onto that freeway while others want to get off that freeway and exit onto the other freeway. All of this needs to happen at the same time. And no matter what day or time it is, it seems to be a very challenging task.

 

The other day I was once again faced with that point in my drive, and I became frustrated by how it can be so difficult to make that happen every single day. I mean if people would just pay attention and drive with their eyes open it shouldn’t be so hard, right? I often become irritated as people pay no attention to the fact that I am trying to slow down or speed up to make room for them. They tend to complicate it by slowing down and trying to get over into the side of my car or racing up and cutting someone off three cars ahead of me when I had left them plenty of room to join the party.

 

You also get the many who think that if they are already on the freeway then it is the job of the person entering to figure it out for themselves how to get over. Or it is simply their tough luck if they end up having to get off on the wrong freeway. Then I thought about it and realized what it really takes to merge well. It is all of the participating people keeping their eyes up and looking to what is both ahead and behind them so they can successfully merge together without colliding. (Oh, and using a blinker to help communicate what you are intending to do is also helpful.) But by law aren’t those that are on the freeway supposed to get over and make room?

 

Isn’t that where we go wrong as a church? We make such a mess when we merge together as one body. People coming from different places with different paths they have been on; some chosen and some not. But all with stories that have brought them to this place where all these different roads meet and you can either successful merge together or force someone off onto another freeway. Sometimes it is because we are not willing to make room for someone else. Especially someone too “dumb” to figure out how the freeway works. Hmm? (Oh come on! You’ve thought it before, too.)

 

Sometimes it is because we refuse to look back and remember where we came from. At some point we too had to merge on in order to get there. We forget that once upon a time someone let us in. We think that the person who is just entering should be up to speed with the new freeway from the moment they enter. We think, “Man, they drive too slowly.” Or, “Gosh, they just seem to want to run people over and cut across six lanes of traffic. Don’t they know how long I have been here trying to get to the same place?” And suddenly it becomes a competition. We forget that none of us deserve to be there. We didn’t create the freeway and we sure don’t own it.

 

Being the church can be such an exasperating mission these days. So how then do we successfully merge? How then do we expect to be one body that avoids collisions especially when some seem to provoke them? Do we need to look both in front of ourselves and behind? Do we need to keep others in mind? I think it starts with remembering who made two groups into one new humanity. Who destroyed the barrier and the dividing wall of hostility? Who reconciled all to God through the cross? Who is our peace and through who do we all have access? “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.” (2 Cor. 5:18-19)

 

Therefore, we must remember we are ministers of reconciliation. “So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view.” (2 Cor. 5:16)  We get to be a place not of tolerance but of love. We get to make room for our brothers and sisters and not regard them as the world does but be the place where all social distinctions are rendered irrelevant. A place where Asian, Caucasian, Jew, Gentile, rich, poor, gay, straight, male, and female are no longer foreigners and strangers but fellow citizens. Members of His household. “In Him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in Him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His spirit.” (Eph. 2:21-22)

 

So Go! Be ambassadors. Be ministers of reconciliation. Make room and merge well and think of others as Christ thinks of you. While you were once a slave you are now an heir.  A son or daughter of the most high. You have a new identity. Remember at some point you had to merge on in order to get there. Once upon a time someone let you in. So, let us make room and be ONE and, “Make it our goal to please Him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it.” (2 Cor. 5:9) 

    

 

                               

"Community" Abuse - Why you still feel alone in a room full of people

The search for community seems to be a growing trend over this past decade. We see it in things like Twitter and Facebook. Social media sells us a false sense of being connected to other people. I know that I desire to have relationships in my life. If I update my status and someone likes it, it can make me feel like someone cares about me. Maybe they think I‘m funny or simply remember that I am still alive. I can have 1000 Facebook friends, get 100 likes on a picture or share a story that others comment on, but I can still feel alone.

 

I can be married for twenty years and still feel alone. I can be a mother of four and still feel alone. I can go to church and surround myself with people and still feel alone. I can even give Jesus my whole life and still feel alone. So why have I been taught by well-meaning people that the reason I feel alone is because I am looking to others for my fulfillment and that I need to just give it to God and He will make me not feel that way? He alone will satisfy and everything I need is in Christ.

 

While I do believe I have everything I need in Christ alone, I find one gigantic flaw in current messages about loneliness. I can still feel alone with Jesus as my fulfillment. I am not talking about joy or contentment. I am talking about a genuine feeling of disconnectedness; a feeling of being alone even when you are surrounded by a room full of people.

 

Nothing makes me cringe more than the message, “You need to be in community together.” It seems to be a good message at first, but when we start to use it as a quick fix to feeling connected or being known we leave people feeling empty. I have sat and talked with many people who feel alone and have even wrestled with this myself over the last few years. It seems we are often quick to blame the lonely for not trying to get more involved or getting themselves into a small group where they can have “community.”

 

But God doesn’t want us to just "be in community with one another.” Jesus didn’t come to earth, live a sinless but tempted life and die a brutal death for us to sit in a living room together and rehash what the pastor said on Sunday morning. He did all that because of who He is, a loving Father who would do anything to be reconciled to His children and have a relationship with them. But that is not all. He also wants His children to be reconciled one to another. That is why He says if you don’t love your brother you don’t love Him. If we are not willing to forgive our brother or sister, than He will not forgive us. The two cannot be divorced.  It is through this that we can experience true intimacy like Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

 

The problem with teaching that says, “You only need Jesus” is it doesn’t take into consideration that God Himself looked at Adam and said it is “not good” for man to be alone. So was God not there? Was Adam not in relationship with God? Not if you read the text. So, there must be more to the story of being alone than just having Jesus to fulfill us. We are meant to be one with God. When we hear this we think of “me, myself, and God,” but that is not what He had in mind. He had something far greater in mind; all of His people in community with Him through reconciliation.

 

But, too often we want to jump right into to calling something community and it is void of any reconciliation. Have you ever been asked to be in a community group and when you got there you weren’t accepted? Maybe you experienced judgment, pride, or even hatred towards you or others in the group. People might have pretended to get along and exchanged pleasantries but there was no depth. There were no real relationships. There was no intimacy. No one called each other during the week and when someone didn’t show up instead of reaching out to the missing person assumptions were made about them. This is how we can still feel alone when we are desperately in love with Jesus, in a room full of people involved in a “community” group.

 

It is also not about forcing yourself to be in a community group with people who think differently than you. The very definition of community is a group of people who share common values or beliefs. It is so much bigger than just “being in community.” It is about being reconciled so intimately with one another that we are interwoven together ONLY by Him. Just like the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one, we are to be like that. - ONE!

 

This is the community we desire deep inside of us. This is the community we were created to be in. It is not easy especially with those who hurt us or make assumptions about us. However, if we allow Him to show us how to give grace and mercy like we have received, forgive like we were forgiven, and love like we are loved it is possible to enter a life group, community group, small group, home group or church and not feel alone. But it starts with reconciliation; not just to the Father, but to one another.