Zealous for Peace

The effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust forever. (Isaiah 32.17)

Yesterday our church gloried in the promise of peace. Our guest preacher, Rev. Dr. Edward Campbell—a highly regarded Bible translator and seminarian whose title belies his salt-of-the-earth pragmatism—said something that stuck with me. As we read Scripture, he said, we should remember it’s the story of people figuring out how the world is supposed to work. Thus, the tension that binds together 66 books written across centuries is manifest in a contest of wills: human will and its wantonness versus God’s will and all that God desires for, and from, us. Consequently, we’ve invented an alternate reality to accommodate weaknesses that, as Scripture persistently reminds us, bear no reflection of God’s vision. Nowhere is this discrepancy more magnified than in human proclivity to make war. The Bible, particularly the Old Testament, is rife with war zeal. Repeatedly, we watch Israel engage in military conflicts that lay ruin to its country and other nations. The extreme losses are plain to see. And while it’s true that God sometimes—though not always—intervenes on Israel’s behalf, no stretch of scriptural interpretation can be made to translate God’s role in human combat as a divine sanction of war. When God steps into military conflicts, miracles occur that restore peace. Peaceful cohabitation is how the world is supposed to work.  It is God’s will. Why can’t we figure that out?

I submit we have figured it out. What we’ve not yet resolved are the international, cross-cultural, and political conflicts that cause war. Proverbs 14.31-34 diagnoses our failure when it says: “Those who oppress the poor insult their Maker, but those who are kind to the needy honor God. The wicked are overthrown by their evildoing, but the righteous find a refuge in their integrity. Wisdom is at home in the mind of one who has understanding, but it is not known in the heart of fools. Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.” (Emphasis added.) When we set our hearts to prove our superiority over other nations—when we advance policies and actions that promote poverty, violence, and suffering, whether abroad or at home—we forsake God’s call to righteousness. We will not live in peace. As we’ve recently experienced in a recession largely brought on by reckless war-making, the costs of militaristic bravado are enormous. Conflicts wrought of aggression inevitably exact a huge toll on the aggressors. And the prices aren’t just paid out of pocket: they’re deducted in human lives, bodies, minds, and emotions. War is not God’s will. Why can’t we figure that out?

Isaiah 32.17 says, “The effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust forever.” We are not so naïve to expect global righteousness and its peaceful effects will prevail in our present world. Yet, as Christians, we must also ponder how we can expend our resources to promote righteousness. That we need adequate defenses against malevolent powers is a given. The question is whether we permit our leaders to pursue unrighteous policies of aggression—to foster nationalistic, military bravado that is quick to pull triggers and create undue poverty, suffering, and loss of life. We must be zealous for peace at all costs, as the price of warfare is more than we can bear. We are regularly confronted with the harrowing realities of warfare, yet we cling to the myth that war can ever be just. Military aggression is the way of the world. But it’s not how God intended it to be. It’s time we figured that out.

Open

Today we sit with Psalm 139.23:

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts.

After reviling wickedness that engulfs him, the psalmist does something very few of us have the courage to do at the end of our rants and pity parties. He opens himself to God. It’s as if he catches himself and confesses, “My heart is no purer, my thoughts no nobler, than those who vex me.” And we must come to grips with this reality. At our best, we’re no better than those we decry. We open our hearts and minds to God, inviting our Creator to look into us, to know us, to test us. Asking God to come in and take a look at us—the real us—insists we take responsibility for unhealthiness we hide. Should we expect God to abide our nonsense? When we open ourselves to our Maker, we bring ourselves to two realizations: we have it in us to be as sinful as any hater and it’s time we did something about that. Search us, O God. Know our hearts. Test us. Know our thoughts.

Drawing the Line

Today we contemplate Psalm 139.21-22:

Do I not hate those who hate You, O LORD? And do I not loathe those who rise up against You? I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies.

And now the psalmist steers us into very tricky—yet very familiar—territory. His honesty confronts us with similar emotions we often wrestle with regarding evildoers and the unrighteous. Hate is a word that all followers of Christ hate, as we are commanded to love without condition. So we question the validity of the hatred the psalmist expresses here. We need to do a little digging to ascertain exactly what he means. Here, he couples two words: hate and loathe. He uses “hate” to indicate he detests the attitudes of those who disregard God’s ways, while his loathing confesses grief summoned by their behaviors. He draws a clean line between his adversaries and their actions, reserving his hatred for what they do, while resisting every urge to hate them for who they are. “I hate them with perfect hatred,” he says, confining his hatred within the boundaries of despicable sorrows they cause. His is a tightly controlled anguish akin to Christ’s prayer on the cross: “Forgive them for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23.34) Drawing the line between hateful actions and those who commit them is never easy; the boundaries are seldom clear. Yet we must make that distinction if we are to love our neighbors without reservation while also despising ungodliness we encounter. Remember: acceptance is not to be mistaken for indulgence, nor should tolerance be misconstrued as permission. And in the end, as Jesus showed us, our disgust with unrighteousness should trigger a spirit of compassion and forgiveness no matter what.

Wonder Words

We continue to sit with Psalm 139.14:

I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works.

“I’m wonderfully made,” the psalmist rejoices, using a word that singularizes him from everyone else. And we join him in our confidence and marvel that we are all distinctive creations. God shapes and guides each of us to live out God’s will in particular ways, to serve God and others as only we can. Thus we exult in our differences, rather than disparage them or doubt their worthiness. “Wonderful are Your works,” the psalmist declares, employing a second “wonder” word that denotes our inability to grasp the vastness of God’s creative power—as well as our reluctance to believe God’s ways and thoughts surpass our own. (“Such knowledge is too wonderful me; it is so high that I cannot attain it,” the poet admits in verse 6.) So we come to God without pretense, just as we are, willing to abstain from conformity to manmade patterns and expectations, knowing full well that God transcends pattern-based creation. Unyielding trust in our Maker instills two core truths in our hearts: not one of us is ever alone, and no two of us is ever alike.

Crazy

When His family heard it, they went out to restrain Him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of His mind.” (Mark 3.21)

Psychology

We’re often more frustrated by what the gospels don’t tell us than trying to decipher the mysteries they set before us. As modern readers, we expect them to filter Jesus’s life through a psychological lens: focus first on His thoughts and feelings, then show us how they play out in His behavior and accomplishments. But the writers come at biography from the opposite angle. They concentrate on Jesus’s words and deeds as evidence of His ideas and emotions. So little is said about His inner workings that Mark 3:20-35 (Sunday’s Gospel) catches us off-guard. The passage is one of very few to consider the psychology behind Jesus’s actions. Even then, it’s not about what He thinks. It describes what others think of Him—their suspicions about what makes Him tick. And their conclusions aren’t flattering. Those closest to Him (His family) believe rumors that He’s gone crazy. Those most threatened by Him (theologians) believe He’s possessed. Not flattering.

The strangest aspect of this episode is that Mark doesn’t go into detail about what brings it on. He gets Jesus up and running right away: no preface (like John) stating his views of Jesus, no detailed account of Jesus’s birth and lineage like we find in Matthew and Luke. In Mark, John the Baptist declares, “Prepare the way of the Lord” and—boom!—there Jesus is, fully grown and ready to get started. Mark dashes off a few high points: the baptism, wilderness temptation, assemblage of the disciples, and a few exorcisms and healings, a couple of which upset the religious establishment for occurring on the Sabbath. But we don't find much insight as to what's going on in Jesus's head, or why people think He's insane.

Jesus Makes Sense

The crowds around Jesus keep growing. By the time we reach the third chapter, verse 20 says they’re so large that Jesus and His followers can’t even find a quiet place to eat. Up to this point, Jesus doesn’t say very much in Mark. So what follows comes out of the blue: “When His family heard it, they went out to restrain Him, for people were saying, ‘He has gone out of His mind.’ And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, ‘He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons He casts out demons.’” (v21-22) In a time when the countryside runs riot with healers and exorcists, we wonder what makes people say Jesus is crazy. Why would they flock to Him if they truly thought He’d lost His mind? What causes His family’s concern—to the point that they would rush to pull Him away from His work? Do they believe He’s crazy, too? Why would learned religionists theorize that He’s doing the devil’s work by relieving people of vexing spirits? None of this makes sense until Jesus opens His mouth. Then we get it. People think Jesus is crazy and/or possessed because He makes sense. The surest way to sound nuts during nutty times is to speak soundly, sensibly, and assuredly to the situation. Which Jesus does.

What Mark and the other writers don’t tell us (as it need not be told to their intended readers) is that Jesus has come to people stranded in an upside-down world. The land God gave them has been stolen—again. While they await their King, they live under Caesar’s thumb. Their synagogues ring with psalms of God’s goodness and provision. Yet the soundtrack of their lives is replete with dirges of sorrow and hunger. Corruption, injustice, and poverty have warped their minds. Despair has dislodged hope. They substitute religiosity for faithfulness. Nothing is as it seems or what it should be. Deceit masquerades as honesty; virtue is met with suspicion. If we didn’t live in similar times, it would be difficult to conceive how jaded and unhealthy Jesus’s world is. Since He is Truth and Life, however, He speaks truth and life. So, of course, people think He’s crazy, as His words and actions don’t conform to their daily reality.

We get a taste of just how twisted things have got when the scribes—the most learned leaders of their day—assume that freeing people of diabolical influences proves Jesus is possessed. How crazy is that? Yet it makes sense to them until Jesus dismantles their logic. “How can Satan cast out Satan?” He asks. “If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.” (v23-24) He cautions against attributing His work to “an unclean spirit,” saying such a sin is unforgiveable. That’s when His mother and brothers show up and insist that He stop talking and leave with them. In this topsy-turvy culture, the family unit is the only stable institution. Rumors that Jesus has gone mad are shaming His family. Their demand must be honored. Yet instead of submitting to His kinfolk’s crazy fears and insufficient grasp of Who He is, Jesus redefines family. He looks around at those nearest Him, who find eternal truth at the heart of His puzzling statements and demeanor. “Here are My mother and brothers! Whoever does the will of God is My brother and sister and mother,” He declares. (v34-35)

Believe the Good News

So where are we in this story? Well, that depends on what shapes our psyches. If we allow this crazy, mixed-up world of ours to control how we perceive others and ourselves—if we surrender to its oppressive ideologies and suspicions—then we belong with the backward crowd: amateur critics, learned fools, and fearful family members. But if we set our hearts on being like Christ—if we refuse to yield to uninformed opinions, religious nonsense, and loved ones’ pressure to conform—we will speak truth and life to those who long for hope and healing. We will see the world not as it is, but as it should be. We will heed the first words of Jesus that Mark records: “The time has come. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1.15)

In Romans 12.2 we read: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Do we know that people say we’re crazy to believe God loves us, regardless where we come from and who we are? Of course we do. Are we aware that many religious folks attribute our pursuit of faithfulness to satanic delusions? Sure we are. Do we have friends and family who put more credence in what others tell them about us than what we know to be true? It’s highly likely. In this Gospel, Jesus serves as living proof that conformity to the world’s upside-down ways is not His way. Succumbing to group pressure, cynicism, and fearful mindsets won't lead to transformation. The kingdom of God is near. Leave the crazy nonsense behind. Believe the good news.

The truth of Christ sounds crazy to a crazy, mixed-up world.

Postscript: “All That I’m Allowed”

This song is new to me. I recently heard it in a supermarket and stopped in my tracks. I can’t quite articulate how it connects with this post, but somehow—for me, at least—it does. Perhaps it’s because Elton John also gives witness to the power of speaking truth and life to an upside-down world. “I always hoped that I’d do better, that I’d come out on top for once,” the song says, adding, "The barriers get in the way, but I see hope in every cloud." And when we forego conformity to nonsensical opinions and fears, that’s what happens. We come out on top.

May we all be thankful for all that we’re allowed.

Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/06/10/crazy/

What is True

Those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God. (John 3.21)

Darkness

Before I got to college, I had to sneak off to the movies. Our church’s by-laws strictly prohibited film-going. (Which gives you an idea how clubby its faith approach was. What kind of church has by-laws?) This, of course, made movies the greatest thing since sliced bread, and I saw everything the studios released. I often had to lie, “borrow” loose change from my mom’s purse, and cajole friends and neighbors to (unknowingly) help me dishonor my parents’ wishes. But the lure of a fairly benign off-limits activity blinded me to the fact that I was breaking God’s laws to defy an idiotic human rule.

While spending the summer with our grandmother, my brother and I convinced her to drop us off at the local cinema, where Young Frankenstein was playing. She made us promise not to tell anyone. “I don’t see anything wrong with it,” she said. “But the church teaches against it and people will pitch a fit if they find out I took you.” On the way home, she didn’t say much as we told her how funny the film was. When we walked into the house we realized why. Her twin sister, Pearl, had dropped by to see us and, on learning where we were, took it on herself to set us straight. “You boys ought to be ashamed—and you, too,” she said to our grandmother. “If Jesus had come while you were in the theater, you’d be bound for Hell.” Really?

I challenged her: “Where does the Bible say, ‘Thou shalt not go to the movies’?” Without a second’s pause, she fired off John 3.19 from the King James Bible: “Men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil.” So sitting in the dark theater was the problem, not defying our parents’ teaching or being exposed to unhealthy material on the screen. Grandmother jumped in. “Pearl, that doesn’t even make sense.” Wanting so much to have the last word, I added, “Mom and Dad took us to Mammoth Cave last year. It was really dark. Was that a sin?” Aunt Pearl shot back, “The truth is the truth and you can’t change it. I’d fear God if I were you!” To put a final nail in my spiritual coffin, she whipped out 2 Thessalonians 2.11-12: “And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” Ergo, I was delusional to think it was okay to enjoy a silly comedy in the dark—and, worse than that, none other than God fed my delusion!

Living Truthfully Now

As absurd as this exchange was, I remain grateful for it to this day. Even at 14, I knew that God was too big to succumb to such small-mindedness. I knew the real truth of God and gravitated toward it, not allowing petty dogma and ignorance to sway my confidence in that God. I kept going to movies—in fact, I grew increasingly bolder about breaking the rules—because Aunt Pearl’s reproach, despite her sincere and loving intentions, convinced me I had nothing to fear. She taught me how easily being afraid of God causes us to cobble together a lot of loose scriptures to rationalize irrational fears. Looking at her anti-movie “evidence” in context (John 3.14-21; Sunday’s Gospel), it’s indubitable that Jesus teaches us not to be afraid of God. In fact, Aunt Pearl’s “be afraid, be very afraid” citation turns up no less than three verses after Jesus’s immortal promise of God’s boundless, perfect love: “For God so loved the world that God gave God’s only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life.” (v16)

This is the Good News of the Gospel: believe God’s promise of love and life. And regardless how many times we’ve heard or quoted John 3.16, it’s beholden on us to comprehend what Jesus is saying, as His message is just as radical and earthshaking today as when He first spoke it to Nicodemus, the curious Pharisee who wanted to know what Jesus is all about. For starters, Jesus isn’t talking about Heaven or Hell. In fact, life after death doesn’t enter His conversation. He’s talking about living truthfully now and how trusting God’s promise of love brings about new life.

In the Looking

Rather soon, Jesus realizes Nicodemus is stuck on the erroneous idea that God’s love and acceptance must be earned before they can be trusted. It’s a misbegotten, Old Testament idea that has perpetually set Israel at odds with God—and Jesus wants Nicodemus to know that He’s come to uproot this rickety notion once and for all. So He takes Nicodemus back to Numbers 21.4-9 (Sunday’s Old Testament text, recently explored in the post, Snakebit), where God pledges to heal anyone stricken with snakebite if they simply look at a bronze serpent suspended on a pole. They don’t have to prove anything. God doesn’t even ask them to apologize for the grumbling that brought on the venomous scourge. They just have to look up from wherever they are and they’ll be cured. In the looking they’ll express their faith in God’s promise of healing and new life. “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life,” Jesus explains in verses 14-15, going on in verse 16 to redefine the terms of God’s promise so that it includes everyone in the world. “God didn’t send the Son into the world to condemn it,” He stresses in verse 17, “but in order that the world might be saved through Him.” Jesus tells Nicodemus (and us) that God’s lavish love and new life aren’t rewards for righteous behavior. They’re promises we access by simple trust and belief.

So why doesn’t everybody in the world claim these promises as offered? Jesus answers this question with shocking candor. Many recoil from faith’s full light because they’ve grown to love the dark life, He says. They’re like cave dwellers; their adaptation to fearful darkness blinds them to God’s bright promises. It hurts their spiritual eyes to envision a world where God raises a life-giving, life-changing Christ Who welcomes and heals all who look to God in faith. They’ve developed finely tuned skills—many passed down over generations—that keep their radar on high alert. Anything that feels dangerous to them must be wrong for everyone else. As a result of feeling their way through darkness, they create evil that seeks to prevent those they love or fear from living in the light. In faith terms, they fabricate elaborate screens to block God’s light and condemn those who believe God’s promises. “But those who do what is true come to the light,” Jesus says in verse 21, “so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

Living as God Lives

God promises us eternal life—a new life that we live in God, as God lives, a life that cannot be comprehended because it has neither a beginning nor end. It is a life as limitless and enduring as God’s love, whose vastness reaches out to everyone who ever lived. What is true is that God loves us eternally. God loves us now. God has always loved us, and will never stop loving us. God’s love is perfect, which 1 John 4.16-19 stresses: “We have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as God is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because God first loved us.” (Emphasis added.)

The unconditional, unconventionally fearless love and life Jesus promises in John 3.16 is ours for the taking—and the living. When we forsake dark doctrines and ideologies to live truthfully as believers in God’s eternal love, we come to the light so it may be clearly seen that our deeds have been done in God. Basically, this is just a fancy way of saying, “Let God love you for who you are, where you are right now.” As dangerously radical as some may think that is, it’s why Jesus came.

Confidence in God’s promises of love and life opens the door to live truthfully in the light.

Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/03/17/what-is-true/.

Out with Purpose

When they found Him, they said to Him, “Everyone is searching for You.” He answered, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.” (Mark 1.37-38)

Celebrity

Some of us can remember when celebrity automatically inferred achievement. Celebrated people accomplished something worth celebrating and we regarded those who enjoyed fame without earning it as anomalies. They served no real purpose, and as a rule—which holds true even now—they tended to overstay their welcome. Lacking a substantial legacy, they were forgot before they were gone. With media now tasked to feed our bizarre, postmodern obsession with non-notables, anyone who surrenders personal privacy and pride to a camera crew can be famous. We’ve created a new brand of fame that severs the vital link between celebrity and celebration.

This is of little consequence going forward. Whether we’re onboard or not, the famous-for-being-famous ship has sailed. Yet its costs are felt in reduced appreciation for celebrated figures of the past. Prior to now, people set out with purpose and became celebrated in the process. If anything, fame was a burden, not a prize, and it challenged those it favored to harness its power for greater good. As we see in Sunday’s Gospel, Mark 1.29-39, celebrity increased one’s responsibility to wear it lightly and use it wisely.

Fame-Faithfulness

The Gospels operate on the pre-modern supposition that Jesus’s fame indicates substance of character—so much so that they don’t even bother with explaining how the provincial carpenter’s Son comes to grips with His destiny. Luke alone gives us a glimpse of Jesus as a boy, suggesting He may have known as early as 12 that He’d been born to save the world. Other than that, however, the Gospels’ unfortunate disinterest in the “lost years” from 12 to 30 encourages us to imagine He’s an overnight sensation—an assumption the writers would no doubt find laughable. Ancient life isn’t conducive to sudden fame. Word doesn’t spread quickly enough to support publicity campaigns or faddish followings. Daily existence is too arduous and time-consuming to chase after up-and-coming stars. In first-century Palestine, one achieves celebrity by embracing a heightened sense of purpose and applying oneself to realize it. In other words, purpose breeds performance. Or, as the proverb goes, “the proof is in the pudding.” Any time the Gospels mention Jesus’s fame, they expect us to connect it with His life’s purpose and His ability to act on it.

The fame-faithfulness connection is particularly crucial to Mark, which presents Jesus as a Prophet of unimpeachable integrity Whom God endows with divinity at His baptism. This is why Mark isn’t concerned with Jesus’s birth and youth; in Mark's eyes, the real story begins when Jesus is “adopted” as God’s Son at 30. Thus, once he records Jesus’s baptism, Mark rushes to demonstrate He’s a prophet unlike any other—as seen in last Sunday’s Gospel, where Jesus’s teaching and cure of a possessed man astonish synagogue worshipers—while this weekend’s Gospel enlarges on the fame theme. In essence, Mark cites Jesus’s celebrity as de facto verification of His divine claim. Jesus’s purpose breeds performance that, in turn, puts proof in the pudding.

The Message is the Miracle

As Mark tells it, no sooner does Jesus leave the synagogue than He learns that Simon Peter’s mother-in-law has taken ill. He heals her and word of the miracle spreads so rapidly that the entire town crowds around Simon’s door by sundown, bringing its sick and disturbed to Jesus. He spends the evening curing many of various physical and emotional diseases. The next morning, before sunrise, Jesus finds a solitary place to pray. When the disciples discover He’s missing, they hunt Him down and tell Him, “Everybody’s looking for You.” Apparently time didn’t permit Him to heal everyone and many have returned. Our stereotype of the infinitely caring Christ hits a snag with Jesus’s reply, however. Instead of agreeing to meet those He didn’t heal the previous night, Jesus tells the disciples it’s time to move on. “Let’s go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also,” He says. “For that is what I came out to do.” (Mark 1.38) For Jesus, the message matters more than the miracles.

Reaching people with the Good News of God’s love is His life’s purpose. The miracles merely make Him famous; in what must be record time, He’s celebrated for His ability to perform supernatural acts. But being a famous miracle worker is only useful to Jesus inasmuch as it expands His reach. It opens doors for Him. Verse 39 informs us, “He went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.” Today, we might say reports of miracles cause the Jesus phenomenon to go viral. Yet celebrity and recognition that come from such rampant attention are only a means to deliver life-changing truth to multitudes. Because Jesus’s words overflow with healing and freedom, the message is the real miracle. No one who hears and believes it is ever the same.

By All Means

Central to following Christ is our faith that God creates each of us as unique reflections of the divine nature, to fulfill specific purposes. The traits, passions, and vision we possess have been placed in us to work miracles. While our capacity for good works admittedly falls short of Jesus’s scope and standards, we are all famous for amazing talents and abilities. Some of us are known as peacemakers. Some have gifts of wisdom and kindness. Some are driven by selfless compassion for those without light and hope, others by courageous desires to restore righteousness where injustice prevails. The list of attributes we're given goes on and on. But once we accept the uniqueness of our making and its purpose, we can make miracles happen wherever we go. We don’t really care about fame or celebrity. Instead, we recognize that the reputation God blesses us to acquire opens new doors to deliver Christ’s life-changing, utterly miraculous message of unconditional love.

“This is what I came out to do,” Jesus says. Coming out with purpose is what we do as His followers. It really doesn’t matter how we’re perceived. In 1 Corinthians 9, Paul essentially describes his approach to fulfilling God’s purpose as a chameleon-like endeavor. “While I’m free to act and think on my own,” he writes, “I place myself in service to others so that I might reach them. To Jews, I am a Jew. To those who don’t abide by the Law, I have no use for it. To the weak I become weak.” He sums this up in verses 22 and 23: “I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings.”

We’ve been given everything we need to live lives of purpose. What’s asked of us is setting aside short-term gratification and questions of adequacy so that we can apply and master our gifts for greater good. Proclaiming Good News and working miracles can be exhausting and challenging. Yet we do it, because that’s what we do—not for fame, but for the sake of the Gospel, which advances on works we’re known for. So what makes you famous in your world? What talents and proclivities are at your disposal to further Christ’s message? Whatever you’ve been given to fulfill God’s purpose, by all means, use it. Be who God created you to be and when necessary become what others need you to be so that you can pass along the life-changing Word and share in its blessings.

All Wise and Loving Creator, envelop us with a heightened sense of purpose. Embolden us with self-honesty to celebrate our unique traits and talents. And empower us with the will and wisdom to use our miracle-making gifts for Your kingdom’s benefit. Amen.

God endows each of us with gifts that make us famous in our worlds. But fame is merely a medium, not a reward, for realizing God’s purpose in our lives.

Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/02/05/out-with-purpose/