Friday, July 19, 2013

Do. Love. Walk.



It's time to do, love, and walk...or walk, love, and do. Either way you look at it. *Of course for our systematic, task oriented thinkers, it goes: walk, love, do. I'll explain why.

I've reflected on this elsewhere, but my family is in the process of making this a part of our family's life (more intentionally).

Micah 6:8 is (more and more) becoming a life verse for me. It's a verse that I've used in my devotional life, it is used in our discipleship model, and it is also a text that is addressed in my studies and yearnings for simplicity and the Christian's call to it. It says,
Mankind, He has told you what is good and what it is the Lord requires of you: to act justly, to love mercy , and to walk humbly with your God. 
In Richard Foster's book Freedom of Simplicity, he highlights that compassion and justice combined "call us to simplicity of life." He also points out that the word for mercy (or kindness, or loving kindness) is Hesed, in the Hebrew. This is the same word that God declared Himself to be to Moses in Exodus 34:5-7
And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, 'The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful [rakeem] and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love [(c)hesed] and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love [hesed] for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.'
The word "hesed" is one of those hard to translate words. It does mean mercy or kindness, but it also carries the idea of endurance or faithfulness - a covenantal love. So, it is as if the compassionate God full of mercy and justice requires of us to love this hesed, this covenantal, relational kindness with one another.

So, in that, it means displaying the fruit of the Spirit with one another. I know (and it's unfortunate) that love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control is not something that the world relates to the common conception of "Christian." So many examples of highly conditional love, no joy, protest and arguing to make people agree with us instead of striving to make peace (it's interesting how we often think of peace as the personal state, when Jesus made it a very relational thing - i.e. The Sermon on the Mount), unkindness and in return opposite of goodness, unfaithfulness, abrasiveness (bossy-ness, shortness with one another and everyone else, and being judgmental regarding one another's weaknesses), and lack of self-control (not just in habits, but in the way each other are treated). The point isn't that Christians need to "try" harder. The point is that we're human and we need a savior, and that's what the world needs too. It's the Holy Spirit that makes this possible. The only way for the Body to display (C)hesed with one another is the Holy Spirit, and it's not a one time thing. It is a commitment that requires humility, and knowing the Lord deeply, personally and authentically.

The Triangle 

One of the "life shapes" that we use in our family and in discipleship (developed by 3DM), is the triangle. Up, In, and Out (I intentionally used the oxford coma there). The balance of the Christian life is developing a Micah 6:8 lifestyle of Up (walking humbly with God), In (loving hesed), and Out (acting justly). Our identity comes from our relationship with God, and we grow mature in the Body as we live lives of acting justly.

The more we live a life of first thing (God) first (Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind), and living a life that flows out of that (to your neighbor), not only is life simpler, but it is more meaningful. It doesn't stop at Up, and it doesn't stop at In. Our lives are meant to be a balance. I'm also finding that the deeper you want to go in Out, the deeper you need to go in the others. No man is an island, and the Christian life is three dimensional. If that is our paradigm, it will influence the entire way that we live and engage the world. 

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