The Gospel of Expectations

Try an experiment. Run your car completely out of gas - absolutely empty tank. Then yell at your car to "Go!" Kick it if it doesn't suddenly start going. Criticize it for not going, for misbehaving, for not acting like a car. Create a snarky meme for your car's uncarlike behavior and post it on Facebook. Complain that there are too many cars out there that don't go. "Back in my day, cars knew how to go!" Keep your kids away from this car, lest they get any ideas about becoming lazy. Blame the government, print a cleverly insulting t-shirt that makes you feel superior to the car, and tell the car that if it can get itself up and take itself to a gas station and pay for the gas itself, then it will all be OK.

So, how did that work out for you? It's ridiculous! It's kind of like Pharaoh forcing the Hebrew slaves to make brick without providing them with straw.

Now self-examine ... do you do the same thing with unbelievers by expecting them to live like believers, even though they don't have the power of the Holy Spirit within them? Do you expect "saved behavior" from unsaved people? Do you criticize the unsaved for living unsaved, for not acting like a Christ-follower? Do you keep your kids away, blame the system, post insults, or wear t-shirts that make you feel superior? Do you tell the unsaved to get themselves up and come to your church and fill themselves up, and then it will all be OK? It's just as ridiculous as yelling at a car without gas for not going anywhere!

Don't be surprised that unsaved people act unsaved. Don't be shocked, bewildered, overwhelmed, or disappointed. Don't judge ... no matter what. Of course unsaved people live like unsaved people. The only people who deserve criticism are the saved people who lived as if they are unsaved. It is Jesus who transforms us and the Holy Spirit who changes how we live, not us. Therefore, to criticize an unsaved person for living like an unsaved person is to tell them that the Gospel is about cleaning up your own act. That brings as much hope as telling a car to fill itself up or telling slaves to make bricks without straw.

Don't lie about the Gospel by wagging your finger at the unsaved. Don't in any way suggest Jesus came so that they could fix their own lives and live like Christ without new birth or the indwelling Holy Spirit. Don't criticize the prostitute or the drug addict for not having enough character to remain pure and clean. Save your criticism for those Jesus criticized - the finger-wagging hypocrites. The sinner's sin is still sin ... it's no less sin, and it's fair to call it "sin." But that's what sinners do, so don't act so surprised or offended.

And now we have freedom! Once we shed ourselves from the Gospel of Fix-yourselves-up, now it is safe to listen to and love people before they live like Jesus. We have the Gospel of Jesus-transforms-us.

By the way, we don't fully live like Jesus, either.

An Experiment in Prayer

I have heard dozens of teachings on "the Lord's Prayer" (also called "the Model Prayer") found in Matthew 6:6-13. This is in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, in a sequence of statements in which Jesus says "you have heard" some teaching from the Old Testament or the Pharisees, "but I say to you" something even more demanding for righteousness. In this particular paragraph, He's teaching about prayer. He then tells them to pray "this way," and begins the familiar prayer, "Our Father in heaven, may your name be honored..." Or perhaps your more familiar with a different translation, "Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed by Thy name..."

In these dozens of teachings, I heard very careful (and accurate) analyses of each phrase and how we ought to pray that way, because Jesus said, "Pray this way." I value all the teaching I've received on this.

But I want to add a different angle to the mix, not to replace the good teaching, but to supplement it. Given that Jesus is continually discipling His followers to form them into people who resemble Him well, we can assume He is doing this formation as He teaches us to pray. So, in this model prayer, He's not only telling us how to approach God in prayer, but He's also trying to form us into a particular kind of people. Through praying, He wants us to be changed. He gives us prayer not only as a way to dialog with God, but also as a means to be discipled into Christlikeness.

So, let's look at the Model Prayer in terms of what Jesus wants us to become, and then look at how it might affect praying for something specific. For our purposes, I choose a troubled relationship to pray about as an example.

Fearing (Our Father in heaven, may your name be honored,)

God wants us to be fearing, to be people who fear, honor, and respect God with a sense of awe. This opening to the prayer is not instruction on how to "butter up" God for your requests, but to be a particular kind of person, approaching Him in prayer with a particular attitude and self-awareness.

In the example of praying about a strained relationship, I might pray, "Father, may the way I approach this relationship bring you honor. May our friendship be worthy of Your awesome and mighty name. Make me to be a person who brings honor to You with my friendships." This is a very different prayer than, "Lord, change this person" or "Father, help me to be more tolerant of this jerk."

Missional (may your kingdom come,)

God wants us to be missional, to have His Kingdom be our life goal, our every aspiration. He wants us to carry out the Great Commission of making disciples of all nations. He wants us to use our time, talents, and treasures for the good of His Kingdom, to live here and now based on the Kingdom's values, and to bring tangible elements of the Kingdom to those around us - for His Kingdom to manifest in part now and then to come in full later.

Therefore, I might pray, "Lord, my relationship right now is not running according to the character of your Kingdom. May your Kingdom come into this relationship, and may the two of us collaborate to advance Your Kingdom. May our relationship now be just like it will be when Your Kingdom has fully arrived." This is more immediate than praying that the end of time would come soon so that the Kingdom would be fully established, and then I don't have to suffer this person's annoying behavior any longer!

Submissive (may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.)

God wants us to be submissive, to surrender our will to His. Jesus did this beautifully in the Garden of Gethsemane just before He was crucified by praying, "Not my will, but Yours be done."

I could pray, "Lord, I'm not really submissive to you right now in my relationship with so-and-so. Regardless of this person's problems, I'm not really pulling for your will in this - I want mine. Change me to be eager for Your will in this relationship. I surrender ... I want to be a fully surrendered person, even in this." Wow - this one hurts when praying about a relationship!

Dependent (Give us today our daily bread,)

God wants us to be dependent, which is brilliantly captured with the idea of daily bread - the stuff I need to get through just one day. And then the next day, I'll depend on God some more. This is the kind of person God wants us to be.

So, my prayer changes. "Father, I have been relying on myself and on my fleshly strength, and worse, I have been pursuing what my selfishness wants in this relationship. You want me to rely on You for this relationship, for You to give me the love, the patience, and the attitude. I need You for this relationship to be healthy. Help me to love well. I depend on You for this relationship. Let me walk dependently in all my relationships."

Free (and forgive us our debts, as we ourselves have forgiven our debtors.)

God wants us to be free - free from our sins ("debts") through forgiveness, but also free from the sins against us (by our "debtors") through forgiving them. Only through forgiveness that we first receive and then grant can we be truly free people.

Then I should pray, "Lord, the relationship between You and me is based on forgiveness. In this case, it's all You forgiving me. My relationship with this other person will only be to Your pleasure through the same forgiveness. But in this case, that's each of us forgiving the other. Help me to be changed by Your forgiveness, to grant forgiveness freely to the other, and even to receive the forgiveness that the other offers me. Help me to be a forgiving kind of friend always."

Holy (And do not lead us into temptation,)

God wants us to be holy, to avoid sin and to escape the temptations to enter into sin. His forgiveness makes us holy through the blood of Christ, but holy living on a daily basis as our practice requires us to change our practices, too. In the Model Prayer, Jesus instructs us to pray for God to help us be holy.

So, I would pray, "Father, in this relationship, I have impure, hurtful, judgmental, and sometimes hateful thoughts. Lead me away from that, not just to have a better relationship, but because of who You want me to be in this relationship - a person who lives according to holiness, even in my friendships."

Rescued (but deliver us from the evil one.)
Finally, God wants us to be rescued (which is what deliver means in this verse). In other words, He wants us to live knowing that He rescued us from ourselves, and so we are a perpetually rescued people, in God's blessings only because of his mercy to rescue us. It's the blood of Jesus that rescued us, so every breath we take was purchased by the rescuing blood. We have an enemy who opposes us because we follow Christ - we have been rescued from him, but also need daily rescue from his continued attacks. We live perpetually with a rescued identity, which should keep us humble.

Therefore, my prayer might be, "Lord, I need rescue in this relationship. Satan wants to have us at each others' throats, and frankly, I've been pretty accommodating. I need rescue from my anger and my desire to 'even the score' with this person. But I have been rescued by Christ, and I also need rescue in this moment. Help me to always live out all my relationships as a rescued one."

# # #

This is not radically different from other teachings we've received, and I would be worried if it was. It is, rather, a different entry point into the same model prayer - to focus the ideas of this prayer onto who God wants me to be, to see the characteristics Jesus is developing in us by praying as He prayed and turning those characteristics into the heart of prayer.

So, I'm conducting a little experiment for a while. Not forever. I'm not saying that this is the way for me to pray for the rest of my life. But I'm going to experiment until the experiment runs dry by intentionally praying along these lines. Already I've seen some barriers broken in my prayer life and in my daily life, simply because I'm praying in a different way. I'm eager to see how the experiment goes.

For this experiment, I've printed out the following list just to remind me. You might print this out and stick it in your Bible and guide your prayers through this for a while. Experiment some yourself.

God wants us to be:

Fearing (Our Father in heaven, may your name be honored,)
Missional (may your kingdom come,)
Submissive (may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.)
Dependent (Give us today our daily bread,)
Free (and forgive us our debts, as we ourselves have forgiven our debtors.)
Holy (And do not lead us into temptation,)
Rescued (but deliver us from the evil one.)

It's a Coverup!

I apologize upfront for a somewhat morbid illustration, but please indulge me because I think it makes the point well.

Imagine your child comes to you and has wounds on his or her face. There was an accident on a bicycle and then a fall into a rock. As a result, some chipped teeth, a black eye, a cut on the cheek flowing blood, and some swelling. So you, being the good parent that you are, apply makeup with expert care to cover up the wounds. In fact, you do an amazingly good job of it - hardly anyone will notice.

Ridiculous? Of course it is. No good parent would do this. A good parent would take the child to the right doctors to get wounds treated, teeth repaired, and so on. No amount of makeup, regardless of how good, will make the child well. And your concern as a parent is your child's wellness. If the child asked you to do nothing more than apply makeup, you would still go to the doctor because of your commitment to that wellness - you want the child's health to be transformed.

When we go to our heavenly Father with our wounds, our hurts, our sin, our addictions, our anger, our unforgiveness, our jealousy, and our judgmentalism, do we ask Him to just apply makeup so that hardly anyone will notice? Do we ask Him for every kind of "fix" except transformation? Do we ask Him to take away the bad consequences, to take away the bad emotions, and even to take away the bad behavior without asking Him to heal us and transform us?

In Christ, we have been transformed. But also in Christ, we still need to be transformed. There is still an abundance of ways we need to be healed and changed. Our attitudes still need to be transformed, our thoughts still need to be transformed, our words still need to be transformed, our money management still needs to be transformed, our prayer life, our family life, our work habits, our ethics and morals, every corner of life - all of it still needs to be completed in our transformation.

Then why do we ask God to just apply a little more makeup?

In the Old Testament, they had the "Day of Atonement" (Lev 16), called "Yom Kippur" in Hebrew. "Kippur" means "to cover," and was also the name of the lid to the ark of the covenant - the "cover." That's what the OT sacrifice did - it covered sins, but it didn't transform souls. That's what makeup does. And that sometimes what we ask God to do.

Jesus came and offered to transform us. To heal us. Not to cover it all up, but to take it all on Himself and then transform us.

When you come to the Lord in prayer about your brokenness, your sin, your need for healing, pay attention to what you say. Listen to yourself. If you are stopping short of asking to be truly transformed, go deeper in prayer. Keep going deeper until the guttural cry of your heart is, "Father, covering this up is not enough! Not this time! I need to be transformed!"

We would never just slap makeup on our children's serious wounds. May we be so insistent with our own souls.

Watching My Not-Dadd

A lot of you know that my father has been in the hospital and then in residential physical rehab for more than a week. I have appreciated the well-wishes, prayers, and questions on Dadd's behalf. Yup ... "Dadd." We call him "Dadd" and my mother "Momm." It comes from the way he insists on spelling his nickname, "Budd."

His anesthesia is taking a long time to leave his system, while he is also being given some strong pain meds. The combination of the two means that he has not been able to be himself cognitively. It looked like him, but it wasn't him - not the man we know. The foreign substances in his system caused him to manifest in a completely different way than the man who insists on two d's in his nickname.

While he has been in this state, I could have chosen to treat him according to how he manifest himself to be. Or, I could treat him according to who I know him to be - I could just be patient and wait for him to "show up" again.

His body, like his mind, has had it's struggles. As we age, we just don't bounce back from major surgery as quickly. So, I also watched Dadd struggle physically. But my Dadd's body is not my Dadd. When his body is weak or broken, that doesn't mean he is weak or broken as a person. When his fingers aren't as nimble as normal, that doesn't mean he's less of a person. These are just how his body manifests itself under the circumstances.

I could choose to treat him according to how his body is doing, so that when his body betrays him, I treat him as less of a person. Or I can choose to treat him as who I know him to be. I could just be patient and wait for his body to heal (but even then, I know that age hounds each of our bodies).

In any given week, I see several people say and do things that are not according to who I know them to be. They are bright, decent people with high moral standards, but manifested themselves in ways that were not rational, good, right, clear, or moral. No one is always good and kind, but we can also tell when someone's behavior is worse than their character, when they are not being themselves.

I could choose to treat them according to their behavior as if that's who they are. Or I can treat them according to who they really are - imperfect but decent people. I can be patient to wait for them to "show up."

We are fallen. Because of our refusal to completely be and do as God desires, we are fallen. We have fallen minds, fallen bodies, and even fallen situations. Fallenness affects our behavior, thoughts, and words - how we manifest ourselves. We are still responsible for our actions, but our fallenness means that we can't even behave as good as our fallen selves are, let alone perfection. Just like my Dadd's mind and body during his recovery.

I believe that only in Christ will we ever be transformed into our full capacities as human beings, but I also think many would agree that we all have sinned and fall short of the full capacity of man, not to mention short of the glory of God. Even our best behavior is fallen, and our best behavior is rare.

I can choose to treat people only by how they manifest themselves. Certainly, we do respond to people according to how they are presently behaving - liars should not be trusted, thieves should be jailed, and gossips should be quieted. But I can choose to limit myself to treating them according to only how they manifest. Or I can choose to treat people according to their full capacity ... even though they never reach it. I can treat people more according to who God can make them to be. How I treat them is my choice to make.

I chose not to treat my Dadd according to his hampered capacities (although I did have to accommodate them), but for who I know him to be. I chose the path of patience. I want to consistently choose the same for others.