The Costly Bad Attitude

Last November, I attended a conference in Nashville, Preparing Communities of Refuge, sponsored by CRI. I packed my cutest clothes and far more "stuff" than I needed and headed to Tennessee. 

The information packet they sent mentioned a "new" facility. When I read "new", I expected a building in pristine condition. Something a little like a Holiday Inn. I did not expect an old hospital in the process of being sold for demolition. 

My first hint that things were not as I expected was the non-functional elevator. I usually take the stairs, but not when I'm hauling a suitcase, a backpack, a sleeping bag, pillow, purse and a bag of snacks. 

When I look at the picture of mattresses on the floor now, they don't seem so unusual, but at the time, they shocked me. Four to a room. I would be in a room with three women I'd never met? 

The bathroom left me dumfounded. We had a shower that worked and a toilet that didn't. The commode was wrapped in black plastic and secured with duct tape, the words "Out of order! Do not use!" printed in block letters on the tape. In addition to whatever the black plastic hid, there was a leak. A plastic box was taped to the side of the toilet to catch the water that dripped from the faulty fixture. They weren't planning to repair this?

It was raining outside when I arrived. It was raining in the dining room, too. Large plastic boxes were positioned to catch the water from two leaks in the roof. I was shocked. 

I immediately assumed I knew why the building was in such poor repair. These people must be terrible stewards of what God has given.

My assumptions nearly drove me out the door. I considered leaving, and almost did. God had brought me to this? It seemed unthinkable.

My critical, judgmental attitude nearly cost me one of the most life-changing blessings I've ever had.

The next day I learned that the ministry was a guest in the building. The conditions were "rough" because no repairs were being done in anticipation of demolition. The ministry wasn't being a poor steward of resources. They were embracing an opportunity God had given. 

Nothing was as I assumed.

As I think back on that day and the critical judgmental attitude that nearly robbed me of an experience I will never forget, I wonder what that same attitude has cost me in the past. 

What have false assumptions and inaccurate judgments cost me? How often have I walked away from a blessing in disguise because I didn't like the packaging?

Not every gift comes wrapped in a shiny paper and a sparkly bow. Some gifts from God come with leaky toilets, dripping roofs, non-functional heating systems. 

When difficult situations cause us to see our heart as God sees it, they are nothing short of gifts from above.

It was twenty degrees in Nashville that week. It wasn't much warmer inside than out, and I carried my sleeping bag around like a spare jacket, wrapped myself in it when we sat down. It was cold. Very cold. I look back at that time now, though, and remember the cold and the army green sleeping bag with fondness. 

They were gifts from God because He used them to show me my heart and change me to be more like Him. 

Are there difficulties or unpleasant circumstances in your life? How is God using them to make you more Christlike? What is He showing you, teaching you through those circumstances?

Instead of jumping to conclusions or running for cover, let's ask God to reveal His will and His ways through the difficulties He sends our way.

If we allow Him to transform us, those difficulties can become some of the most precious memories of our lives.

"'I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans for welfare and not for calamity, to give you a future and a hope.'" Jeremiah 29:11 nasb
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#disciple #badattitude

The difference between leaven and love

Under these circumstances, after so many thousands of people had gathered together that they were stepping on one another, He began saying to His disciples first of all, "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. But there is nothing covered up that will not be revealed, and hidden that will not be known. (Luke 12:1-2 NASB)

"So many thousands". It was a huge crowd, because people were drawn to Jesus. He loved everyone and He was kind to everyone. He was blunt with Pharisees and He spoke truth to them (which they didn't like) but He still ate with them and was much nicer to them than I would have been, because Jesus loved Pharisees, just like He loved everyone else. 

Jesus was a friend to Pharisees, but he was also a friend to sinners. When He met people like me, who had done terrible things, He was a friend to them. He loved them right where they were, just like they were. Before they could imagine it, they had let Him change them from the inside out. After a while, the outside began to match the inside, where God had been working all along.

The Pharisees had already excluded them. The woman at the well was just one of the many people the Pharisees had excluded. You remember her. She had so much sexual sin that women didn't want to draw water from the well at the same time she did. She had been married so many times that no one wanted to talk to her, lest people think they were like her. She had been searching for a love that could never be found in serial husbands. 

She wanted a love that only God could give, but the church people had excluded her. After they excluded her and had treated her like pond scum, they lost their right to tell her about God's love. Then, there was no one to share the grace of God with her so she carried on, living a life of sin and grief and loss. Without hope.

One day, Jesus met her at the well, while she was still living with a man to whom she wasn't married, and He offered her a new way, a new love. Go and sin no more, He told her. She jumped at the chance for change and she told everyone, including the people who had been mean to her. How about that? The sinner they hated was trying to introduce them to Jesus. 

Yes, indeed. That's what grace can do. When we least expect it, God can turn the worst sinner into the bravest saint, because of His love, because of His mercy and grace.

When Jesus was talking with His disciples, surrounded by a crowd of thousands (every one of them a sinner) He told those men to "beware of the leaven of the Pharisees". One of the things that upset Jesus was how the Pharisees treated people like the woman at the well. They knew the law. They knew about mercy and grace in theory, but for some crazy reason, they believed grace and mercy extended to them and stopped. In their minds, grace and mercy was not for people like the woman at the well. It was not for tax collectors, people with sexual sin, murderers, thieves...

Jesus said to beware of that kind of attitude. It's hypocrisy and He will have none of it.

It wasn't a Pharisee that wrote the first of the gospels. It was a hopeless, excluded tax collector who encountered the mercy and grace of God while he was still a tax collector. He was radically changed. The next thing he knew, he was using his stylus to write truth instead of tally money.

It wasn't a Pharisee whose act of extravagant love has been told wherever the gospel is shared. It was a woman who had been forgiven of a mountain of sin. She loved much because she understood that she had been forgiven much. She was radically changed and, for the rest of her life, she lavished her love on Jesus instead of wasting it in sin.

We need to remember what Jesus said. Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. Judgmental, critical spirits are contagious and they can spread through the body of Christ like wildfire. That wildfire of hate and condemnation can spread and devour and destroy, but it will never bring people to Jesus. It will never pour out the balm of forgiveness. It will never wash people in the river of life.

When I'm tempted to point a finger and condemn someone for their sin and their lifestyle, I don't have to look any further than myself to see how foolish that would be. 

Nearly three decades ago, three women decided to pray for the worst person they knew, just so they could see what God would do. It didn't take long before God poured out his mercy and grace on me, and I jumped at the chance for the lavish love of Christ. Over the years, He's cleansed me and changed me. I'm not perfect, but I'm not the same. 

There's a difference between leaven and love. All those years ago, three women poured out prayer for me, not judgment, not criticism, not condemnation. Could they see the sin in my life? Of course they did. They saw it, and they took what they saw to their Heavenly Father. They chose mercy and grace and it made a life-changing difference. 

We have opportunities to choose leaven or to choose love every single day. We can push people away from Christ or draw them to the cross by the choices we may. 

Let's choose love. 

We love because He first loved us.

1 John 4:19 NASB

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Our Father, forgive my pride. Change my leaven to love. Help me draw people to you by the grace and mercy I extend, just as You have extended grace and mercy to me. In the name of Jesus, Amen.

Grumbling from the Outside

The Pharisees and their scribes began grumbling at His disciples, saying, "Why do you eat and drink with the tax collectors and sinners?" (Luke 5:30 NASB)

The scribes and Pharisees were unhappy about being excluded, but the second part of the sticking point for them was the people who were included. They couldn't believe the sorry lot of sinners who were welcomed to the table! That party was full of the biggest sinners in town! Even worse, they were having fun, and Jesus was right in the middle of the fun!

Scripture gave specific instructions about certain nations with whom they should not associate. About other Israelites, this is what it says:

"'You shall do no injustice in judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor nor defer to the great, but you are to judge your neighbor fairly. 'You shall not hate your fellow countryman in your heart; you may surely reprove your neighbor, but shall not incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord." (Leviticus 19:15, 17, 18 NASB)

Oops! The scribes and Pharisees hated their fellow countrymen and they did not love the "sinners" at Matthew's party, even though those sinners were there specifically to meet Jesus. It turns out that the scribes and Pharisees were just another bunch of sinners. Pride. What a problem pride makes when we indulge in it. Because they thought they were better than Matthew's guests, they had sinned in their pride and their judgmental spirit, but they had also missed the party with Jesus. 

That's an awful consequence of a bad attitude, isn't it? It's easy, in our concern for friends and loved ones, to think their particular brand of sin is much worse than ours, but is it? It's one thing to reprove the sin, but it's another thing entirely to disdain the sinner, especially one who has "come to the party to meet Jesus". The Law says, "Love your neighbor as yourself" and that's where we should start. 

Pray that we will love our neighbors as ourselves and that our love for Christ and others will be obvious, attractive, and welcoming to our loved ones.