Spiritual Teamwork

Welcome back!  This week we’re talking about being a disciple which is the basis for this podcast so I probably should have done this podcast earlier, but I didn’t, so let’s get started. 

I view discipleship in two ways.  Personal discipleship or being a disciple of Jesus and discipling others or group discipleship.  Being a disciple is us imitating Mary in John 14?  We are sitting at the feet of Jesus and we are learning what it means to love him and let him be part of our lives.  Group discipleship is when we are learning with others in what Gregg Ogden calls a micro group of no more than four people. Our example for the group style is Peter, James, and John again with Jesus.  Jesus set these guys apart and they in turn lead the others.  

Being a Disciple

Superficiality is the curse of our age. The doctrine of instant satisfaction is a primary spiritual problem. The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people.

Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline (Affiliate Link)

That was written by Richard Foster in 1978. I read that paragraph for the first time 20 years ago when I was leading a monthly men’s book study. That paragraph started me down a road of fumbling and stumbling, fits and starts, and everything in between. I wanted to be a deep person. I can honestly say I have yet to become a deep person, but I have become a changed person.  

Being a Disciple Takes Time

Personal Discipleship is the choice we make as Christians to grow in our relationship with God.  Let’s face it, we can’t love God with all our heart, soul, and mind if we’re not spending time getting to know him. When we meet someone we like and want to get to know, we will go to any length to know them better. I have friends I make time to be with, every month because I want to know them deeper, not just as acquaintances.  

In Luke 10 we read the story of Mary and Martha.  Mary chose to sit at Jesus’ feet and hear his teaching.  Martha chose to prepare the food and exhibit hospitality to their guests. I don’t think Martha was any less a follower of Christ than Mary. Mary made a very specific choice to devote herself to be as close to Christ as she could and learn directly from him at that moment. We see this happen again when Jesus returns to their home after he raises Lazarus from the dead. John 12 says that Mary anointed his feet with oil and dried them with her hair as Martha again serves the meal. Martha is not doing anything wrong, Mary is CHOOSING the better according to Jesus.

I get it. Someone has to serve the meals. Someone has to go to work every day and make enough money to support a family. Nothing is wrong with working and making money. I think the reason I have to qualify this so hard is that we have lost all sense of what being a disciple really is. Giving up a little of our free time each day to just sit and share life with God through the Holy Spirit isn’t asking a lot. I think it is what I am about to say next that people find hard to hear.

Being a Disciple Takes Self-Denial

In a 2011 article titled, Self-Described Christians Dominate America but Wrestle with Four Aspects of Spiritual Depth the Barna Group stated this

... most churches encourage people to engage in an increasing amount of religious activity, asking them to pour themselves into efforts related to the “core six” spiritual dimensions: worship, evangelism, discipleship, stewardship, service, and community. While growth in those areas is important, Barna expressed two related concerns. The first was that people often fail to realize that the end game of spiritual development is godly character,

This week is the second part of The Law of love.  This week we’re going to be talking about loving others and with what’s going on around the country and the emotions we’re starting to deal with, loving others is one of the farthest things from some people's minds.  So let’s see how we as Christians are supposed to respond to those around us.  

' Jesus answered: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. The second most important commandment is like this one. And it is, “Love others as much as you love yourself.” All the Law of Moses and the Books of the Prophets are based on these two commandments. This is the first and most important commandment. '

Here’s the deal. The world wants us separated. I say the world but what I mean is Satan, the enemy, the deceiver, whatever you want to call him. I use the term “The World” because the world is what Jesus says we don’t belong to (John 15:19) and if we focus on it we lose sight of Him (Matthew 13:22).   The world, through the media, politicians, and other leaders separates us. First by race, and it chops us up into little pieces; Black, White, Asian, Latino, Native Ameican, European American, African American.  Then it separates us by income; high, middle, and low.  Next comes region; north, south, northeast, midwest, California, Florida.  Then by sexual orientation Gay, Straight, LGBTQ, Lesbian, Asexual. Then by religion; Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Eastern Orthodox, Baptist, Sikh, Buddhist, Bahai,  Fundamentalist, Social Gospel.  Finally by political party Republican or Democrat but mainly conservative or liberal, because everyone has to be one or the other in order to separate us.  

Every time we are separated from the people around us, we lose a little bit of ourselves.  Because of the walls we put up between us and the people we live near, most Christians are more willing to go serve in another country than they are to serve the people in their neighborhood. Separation creates fear, and where there is fear, there is no love.  Paul says in Philippians 4,

'Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. '

How are we doing with that Peace that passes all understanding?  If we are going to love our neighbors as ourselves, we can’t live in fear.  One of the old cliches is that fear stands for False Evidence Appearing Real.  We fear what we don’t know or don’t understand.  The only way to get over our fear is to let God in to change us, and for us to move out into the world around us.  

Where do we start?

Prayer

The first place is to start by letting God love us so we can love ourselves, then love others.  I talked about this last week so if you haven’t heard that episode you may want to listen to it too.  

Anything that does not begin with prayer is probably not going to bear much fruit.  We have to be willing to let God lead us and change us in order to get to an attitude of love. Each of the four groups I give below should be prayed over regularly in order to let God work. We can’t make ourselves do anything. The harder we try to be something the farther away from it we get. We can’t just will ourselves to love, we have to let God love through us.  

Love Other Christians

1st John 4 directly addresses this, 

'Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another,

Learning to love yourself can be hard, but we can love ourselves because God loved us first.  I need this just as much as anyone else and I hope you find it helpful.

So what is the Law of Love?

You probably know it better as the Great Commandment found in Matthew 22, Mark 12, and Luke 10 but originally found in the Book of Deuteronomy

' Jesus answered: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. The second most important commandment is like this one. And it is, “Love others as much as you love yourself.” All the Law of Moses and the Books of the Prophets are based on these two commandments. This is the first and most important commandment. '

I use this verse a lot because, as I said in the beginning, I am trying to learn this myself. But, I want to take a different view at first because I think one of the most important parts is the, “Love your neighbor as YOURSELF.”  I bet I’ve heard 20 sermons on this verse and only one I can remember on loving ourselves.  That is mainly because most Christians don’t believe it.  They come up with some self-deprecating quasi humble, “I’m not worthy” and that’s not what the bible says. Yes, we are supposed to have a proper sense of self but, the implication is obvious, if we don’t love ourselves we can’t love our neighbor.

As Christians, we want to talk about ourselves like we’re dirt or worms or worm-dirt or worse but that is not how God sees us.  And while we are sinners, God made us and he made us a little lower than Himself (Psalm 8:5)

' You made us a little lower than you yourself, and you have crowned us with glory and honor. ' (CEV)

It's Okay To Love Yourself

God didn’t create you not to love yourself.  We get those feelings of inadequacy from years of telling ourselves we’re bad (Which is what I did) or other people telling us we’re bad.  When you are Chrismated into the Orthodox Church you get a new name.  Just like Saul who became Paul after his conversion. I took the name of St. Moses the Black because he was the badest dude I could find.  But deep down, I also knew that if God could heal a thief and scoundrel like Abba Moses, he could heal me. This was born of my low self-esteem.

The Book That Helped Me See

In his book, Healing for Damaged Emotions, (Affiliate Link) David Seamands gives four things that low self-esteem can cause.

Low self-esteem paralyzes your potential - He says God grieves over this and very few people overcome this haunting self-doubt. It seems to settle in like a great fog.  He references the story of the talents in Matthew 25 and how the servant with one talent was paralyzed with fear and feelings of inadequacy so bad he couldn’t decide what to do, so he just buried it.  

Low self-esteem destroys your dreams - In the prophecy of Joel 2:28 he says, ' Then afterward I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams.' Seamands says the Holy Spirit helps dream the dreams God has for us but our feeling of unworthiness snatch them away.    

Low self-esteem ruins your relationships - Think about your relationship with God. Seamands says that if you feel inferior you will think God must not love or care for you. After all, He made you so he must have made you this way.  This will also lead to our relationships with others. If we don’t like ourselves then we can’t like others.  He says this, “If you have low self-esteem, you ask another human being to do for you what no other person can do--to make you feel adequate and able--when you are already convinced that you are inadequate and unable.” If you don't learn to love yourself,

Last week we talked about Making time for God and how we could set aside more time throughout our day to pray and open ourselves to God. But what happens when God APPEARS to not show up?  When I was doing the Introduction for the podcast I talked about knowing what it’s like to feel like you’re praying in a vault and asking, "Where is God". When you not only fell shut off from God but you’re shut off from the world.  I can say this was the absolute lowest point in my life because I wasn’t praying. I knew God wasn’t listening and I stayed there for a couple of years.

This week we are back in the book Beginning to Pray (Affiliate Link), by Metropolitan Anthony Bloom. In the first chapter, he helps us see why sometimes it appears as though God is not present.

Prayer Is A Relationship

The first thing Metropolitan Anthony reminds us is that prayer first and foremost is a relationship that is deep and can’t be forced. Either on us or on God.

If you have met someone you like and want to establish a relationship with them you make plans to get together, to get to know each other better.  The same is true with God. If we really want a relationship, we will spend time with Him. And, like a relationship with a friend, there will be times we show up both physically and mentally and times we don’t.  We may be there physically, but mentally we are just going through the motions.  If we have to work at connecting to people we can see, how much harder do we think it will be connecting to a God who lives in us, but we can’t see.  

But, just like building a friendship, we don’t give up at the first sign of struggle.  We don’t just expect it to happen, we make time to cultivate and grow the relationship.  However, if we don’t “feel” like we connect with God on a regular basis we may give up on Him in a heartbeat.  Let’s face it, if we are really honest about our relationship with God, He has a lot more to complain about us than we can complain about Him. 

Prayer Is A Moment of Judgement

Metropolitan Anthony says that meeting with God is always a moment of Judgement for us. Not in an eternal sense but a personal sense.  Think about the Israelites when God wanted to show Himself to them,

'When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, they were afraid and trembled and stood at a distance, and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen, but do not let God speak to us, or we will die.” '

God knows everything about us and there may be times when we don’t want Him to show up because of unaddressed sin in our lives that we think we can hide from Him.  We can’t fool God.  He knows us better than we know ourselves. He wants to give us a chance to search ourselves and repent before He shows himself fully to us.  

As an Orthodox Christian, I attend confession with my priest, on a semi-regular basis.  I also have two accountability partners who I can trust and can be open and honest with. 

Unlike most people believe, confession isn’t about punishment, it’s about drawing us back to God.  The priest doesn’t forgive us, God does, but God knows that when we share our burdens they become lighter.  

In the book of James, we read, 'The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up, and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective. '

I know a lot of people both in and out of Orthodoxy who say they don’t need to confess to anyone else,

We can all make time for God if we waste a little less.  Steve uses the book Beginning to Pray by Metropolitan Anthony Bloom for hints at ways to make time for God.

This episode is an introduction to Spiritual Teamwork and the host Steve Crenshaw.

Short introduction trailer for Spiritual Teamwork

This is the first promo spot for the Spiritual Teamwork podcast