Attitude Check

“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.”         

                                                                                    —Philippians 2:5

When our children were young, we attended the Cherry Run Camp meeting each July. Cherry Run is a Christian family and youth camp located near Rimersburg, PA. Thursday was always Mission Marathon day. The campers would get pledges for each point they might score on the all-day Christian Olympics. Campers and their teams would run, jump, play soccer, softball, and a variety of team and individual games. At the end of the day, the scores were tallied and pledges received. All proceeds went to a chosen mission project.

One challenge of having teams compete all day long at a Christian Camp is attitude. The campers are competitive, and campers get tired. The staff devised a plan to correct unchristian attitudes. If anyone showed any type of bad or unsportsman-like attitude, then a fellow team member, opposing team member, official, or coach could yell, “Attitude check!” To that call, everyone would shout, “Praise the Lord!” If the person with the bad attitude did not correct their attitude, others would yell again, “Attitude check.” This might be repeated several times until a Christ-like attitude prevailed.

Many times, we need someone to check our attitudes. The Holy Spirit checks our attitude by gently speaking to us, but we often don’t want our attitude checked. We might feel justified by a critical spirit, a pouting disposition, or a personal pity party. God is always faithful to cause a check in our spirit when we sin or display an unchristian attitude, but the Holy Spirit does not yell louder if we refuse to heed. At times, we need a fellow Christian to call our attention to our bad attitude.

This Lenten season, I am leading our church on a journey examining the serving attitude of Jesus as found in Philippians chapter 2. The passage begins with an attitude check of sorts, “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5). How true. A Christian should have the same attitude that Jesus had, but we are human. Jesus is fully human and fully divine. As we compare ourselves with Jesus, we always come up short.

When considering attitude, I like to recite the Fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5:22-23, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” Fruit of the Spirit is all about attitude. 1 Corinthians 13 reminds us that we can have all the gifts of the Spirit and give ourselves in sacrificial service, but if done with the wrong attitude, it’s worth nothing (13:1-3).

You may be far overdue for an attitude check up. My dentist gives me little reminders when it’s time for a dental checkup. When is the last time you took a spiritual assessment of your attitude? It’s simple to do. Prayerfully read over the Fruit of the Spirit and ask yourself how you have been stacking up compared to Jesus. Better yet, ask your spouse or trusted friend.

Comparing ourselves to Jesus usually leaves us feeling broken and guilty, but conviction of sin is an opportunity to repent and receive God’s grace. The Fruit of the Spirit is the character of Jesus becoming a reality by the Holy Spirit’s presence and activity in our lives. Peter told the crowd on the day of Pentecost, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). After completing an attitude checkup, repent, receive forgiveness, and receive God’s Nature by the Holy Spirit. Attitude Check; Praise the Lord!

Compared to Whom

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”    —Matthew 7:1-2

When my son built his house a few years ago, he financed it with a home equity loan. He already owned the land and did most of the work himself. Actually he built a big garage with a one bedroom apartment attached, a real redneck bachelor pad. Later, when the interest rates dropped, he tried to get a regular mortgage at a lower rate. The bank would not approve the loan because it could not get an appraisal. There were no comps.

“Comps” or comparables refer to what other properties of similar type and size have recently sold for. There were no newly constructed, big garages with attached one bedroom apartments sold recently in the mountains of Somerset County. Isn’t it sad that the world judges each of our houses as they compare with everyone else’s? Talk about keeping up with the Joneses.

Jesus said, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged” (Matthew 7:1). But, we like to be judged by comparing ourselves to others. One reason is that we are blind to our own faults. Jesus criticizes us for seeing the speck of dirt in our brother’s eyes when we have a huge plank in our own eye. It is an easy thing to see the faults in others and miss them in ourselves. So when we think we are comparing ourselves to others, we are not.

Secondly, we can always find someone worse than we are. In a positive way, when someone is trying to cope with a difficult situation in their life, they often say, “There are many others worse off than I am.” Morally, there are always worse sinners.  I used to think I was basically a good person. Upon reflection, I thought so because I was comparing myself to the worst in human nature: bank robbers, murderers, and child molesters.

Only when we begin to compare ourselves with Jesus Christ do we realize how much wrong there is within us. C. S. Lewis wrote of his experience. “For the first time I examined myself with a seriously practical purpose. And there I found what appalled me; a zoo of lusts, a bedlam of ambitions, a nursery of fears, a harem of fondled hatreds. My name was Legion” (Surprised by Joy). The Scripture says, “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God” (Romans 3:10-11). Along side Jesus Christ, we realize all are lost. The bad news of the Gospel is that we have all sinned and the wage for those sins is death (Romans 3:23, 6:23). Compared to holy perfection, we all fall short.

The Good News of the Gospel is that God judges us looking through the Cross of Christ. Romans 6:23 goes on to say, “But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” If we stop comparing ourselves to others and admit we have sinned, then we can turn to God and ask for His forgiveness through Jesus Christ. Jesus has promised, “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out” (John 6:37, NKJV).

Have you been comparing yourself to others? It goes directly against the teachings of Jesus and brings neither lasting joy nor hope of eternal life. Begin today to compare yourself to Jesus Christ. As God reveals your sin and brokenness, call upon the Lord. He will in no way reject you.

No Depth

“Some fell on stony ground … and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up it was scorched.”    —Mark 4:5-6

When we moved to Johnstown in 2005, we left most of our furniture with my son to furnish his new apartment. We planned to buy new once we unpacked and were settled in the parsonage. We shopped and shopped, but it was several months before we filled up the house. I actually enjoyed the blank walls and wide-open rooms.

We shopped at a local store during one of their first Tuesday of the week sales. After many, many, many, (did I say many) visits to the showroom, we finally selected a couch, loveseat, and recliner.

“We’ll take this set.”

“Oh, you can’t have that one. It’s just for display.”

“You have one in the back for us?”

“Oh, no, we don’t keep these on stock. We’ll order them for you. The pieces will be here in a few days, a week at the most.”

Sadly, many Christians in the western world resemble local furniture stores where everything they have spiritually is in the showroom. They have little or no depth of private life with the Lord. Many would describe American Christianity as a mile wide and an inch deep. American Christianity has the money, but Third World Christians have the wealth. Jesus may have been describing many of us as He spoke the Parable of the Sower (or Soils) in Mark 4:5-6, “Some [seed] fell on stony ground, where it did not have much earth; and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up it was scorched, and because it had no root it withered away.”

Jesus pronounced seven woes on the religious elite of His day. In the 6^th woe, He condemned them for displaying their piety for show. “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean” (Matthew 23:27). If we were to honestly describe our religious practices, would Jesus statements on hypocrisy and lack of depth apply to us?

A hypocrite might be defined as a person who displays publicly what she/he does not possess in private. From a store’s point of view, it would be hypocritical to offer to sell in the showroom something you don’t have in the warehouse. But, I’m really not talking about furniture. Jesus said, “Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men, to be seen by them” (Matthew 6:1). Although Jesus earlier said, “You are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14), He goes on to teach that we must practice our spiritual disciplines privately to keep our witness for Christ bright and burning. Jesus spoke about giving, praying, and fasting in private to be rewarded by God rather than publicly to be seen by men (Matthew 6:1, 5, 16).

In order to be the light of the world, we need God’s Holy Spirit within, but we must keep the fire of the Holy Spirit burning brightly through spiritual disciplines. We develop a depth of spiritual life by spending time with Jesus. He waits for us each day to call upon His Name. Why not begin anew this week? Start or end your day with a secret rendezvous with the Lord. 

Perfectly Yielded to God

“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”    —Matthew 5:48

We seldom see perfection in human lives. Some of our heroes who seemed perfect in their fields have fallen from greatness. A gifted pastor succumbs to temptation and brings embarrassment upon himself and the Church. An all-time great college coach is stripped of his records and shamed because he did not do enough to protect young people. Possibly the greatest golfer to ever swing a club trips and falls into mediocrity. The face of world cycling admits to being a fraud and a bully. Where is perfection?

Even in the Bible, some of the most devoted followers of God stumble and fall, some badly. King David, “a man after [God’s] my own heart,” committed grievous sins: adultery, murder, and cover up (Acts 13:22). Peter, the Rock upon which Jesus declared He would build His Church, denies that he even knew the Lord (Matthew 26:74). The only human being in history to be totally and completely yielded to God is the God-man, Jesus Christ. Hebrews 4:15 tells us that Jesus was “tempted in every way, just as we were—yet was without sin.”

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus calls us to “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48). Since the Scriptures record no examples of Christians who were perfect and clearly states that we have all sinned, Jesus’ command to be perfect is either a cruel joke or must mean something other than absolute, perfect performance.

In Methodist history and doctrine, Christian Perfection is understood to mean being perfectly surrendered to God or being made perfect in love. Our will is to do God’s Will in the Holy Spirit’s power. Our desire is to please the Lord in all things. We really do love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and our neighbors as ourselves (Luke 10:27). In our human strength, we may stumble and fall, but like King David, we find forgiveness and restoration as we seek God with our whole heart.

Dwight L. Moody, one of this world’s greatest evangelists, began as a poorly educated, un-ordained shoe salesman who felt the call of God to preach. During this time, Moody heard Henry Varley say, “The world has yet to see what God can do with and for and through and in a man who is fully and wholly consecrated to Him.” As Moody contemplated these words, he concluded that Varley meant any person. They didn’t have to be educated, or brilliant, or anything else. By the Holy Spirit within him, Moody decided to be one of those men (Experiencing God, 47). The Lord mightily used Moody as one of these persons perfectly yielded to God. He became one of the greatest evangelists of modern times preaching revival services across Great Britain and America where tens of thousands came to Christ.

If God can take a little shepherd boy and make him the king of His chosen people and take a poor, uneducated shoe salesman and use him as an evangelist to nations, God can use us. If we will perfectly yield our wills to God and be filled with His Holy Spirit, the world has yet to see what God might do with and for and through and in you and me.

Have you sinned and fallen from grace? Of course, you have. We all have. Confess it to God. Turn from your sin and ask the Lord Jesus to forgive you and fill you with His Holy Spirit. Surrender your will to God and moment by moment, yield your life to the Lord. Let’s see what God will do in and through you.