God: Slot Machine Mentality
Provide or Reside
Most of us want God to superficially work things out for us. This is a slot machine mentality. Calling on God to provide, while calling on God to reside, is much closer to the heart of God. If we want God to reside within us then certain things have to go.
It isn't about keeping rules and following a list of commands. If you study the Ten Commandments and the law, you will discover their purpose is to tutor, mentor, guide. They are not an end in themselves. It is not that we are to become an apprentice to the law, making keeping the law our badge of accomplishment. Don't we have enough of that inside and outside the church?
The law points us to Jesus, just as the Bible does, but neither the law nor the Bible is God. The world does not need another apprentice, but the world desperately needs disciples of Christ.
We walk around with large, ugly beams in our eyes. Picture that! We prefer to discuss and condemn the splinters we see in the eyes of our neighbors, and that is probably the largest beam there is. Isn't that ironic?
If we have sincerely asked God into our hearts, not only to bring us through the current crisis, but to reside within us always, then won't the Holy Spirit convict us of the things that need to go? Do we really need someone telling us what we should or shouldn't do? Worse, should we be telling someone else what they should or shouldn't do?
Maybe my theology is screwed up, but it seems to me it is better to err on the side of mercy, then the side of justice. Maybe I continue to read Jude incorrectly. Part of Jude talks about how Satan accused Moses of murder and wanted the murderer's body. The arch angel Michael appealed to God. He did NOT take matters into his own hands and he surely could have. I think this is very important. Remember, Michael was talking to the king of scum bags.
You may ask how this relates to you and me. Let's say we are face to face with someone doing something utterly repulsive that we know is something God detests. Does God expect us to run them through as Phinehas did? (Num 25) Is it up to us to rebuke them? Do we dare do what the arch angel Michael would NOT do to the father of liars, adulterers and murderers?
On the Enneagram I am a "1." My Spiritual Director has cautioned me that I am too confrontational. It is part of my nature to tell someone when I think they are doing something wrong, but Scripture tells me to be cautious. I do not want to forget the beam in my own eye or the fact that God loves that person.
I am not trying to water down the Word of God. God is holy and just. We see the impact of sin on own life, our children, friends and others, but who of us would come between a bear and its cub? Are we forgetting that person was made in the image of God? The worst of the worst was created by God, just as you and I were. Certainly if the person is ignorant that what they are doing is sin, than God expects our witness to reflect God's nature, God's nature, not our own. Be very careful! The Holy Spirit will instruct us how to move forward in mercy and grace, but neither mercy nor grace carries a club or wears a stupid t-shirt condeming someone else.
Would we not do better to love our neighbor as our self, rather than doing what Michael would NOT do? Surely God will judge, but aren't there enough elder brothers in this world?
From the Ten Commandments to Mat 5:28 we are all like Isaiah in Isa 6:5. All of us are undone. All of us have sinned. Can we expect mercy if we do not extend mercy? When we ask God to reside in us, the Holy Spirit will convict us of things we need to change in our self, NOT our neighbor.
When we listen and obey the Holy Spirit we will reflect Gal 5:22-26. Does that not far exceed the requests of a slot machine God? Is it either-or? Is it both-and? God wants to provide, but God also wants to reside. We would do well to extend the invitation. Don't worry, God will move those things out that are contrary to God's nature, but remember, often it is not the thing, but our attitude toward the thing that God contends with.